Romans 1:16: Not being ashamed of the Gospel

Christians are ashamed of the Gospel! This is most evident in the various, faith+ versions of the Gospel we see in Christianity; and the various Christ+ variations as well. Christians are failing to see the wonder of all of what God has made the Gospel to be for us. We fail to see the sufficiency of what God has done in Christ with regards to our predicament that we have felt the need to buoy up the Gospel with the latest ‘thing’ to make it more marketable and successful. The Gospel+Sociology has given rise to the Church Growth Movement, which has employed the insights of sociology in herding people, and employing those strategies in the Church, building God’s kingdom, but not depending on God’s means. The Gospel+Psychology mix has sought to show the world that Christ forgives your sins, and this new cocktail offers wholeness from sin, for the Gospel alone is not sufficient to help the sin-broken people of this world. The Gospel+Signs-and-Wonders approach sees the Gospel as needing some help in getting people into the kingdom, so large miracle campaigns are used to get people saved, because we need to see miracles in order to believe. The Gospel+Politics; the Gospel+Powerful-Personalities; the Gospel+Tongues; the Gospel+Healing; the Gospel+Prosperity; etc. Christians have lost their confidence in the Gospel, unlike Paul in Romans 1:16, ‘For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.’ Why was Paul so confident? That is what we are going to concern ourselves with in this message, we will be looking at the first four things that come before us in v16, continuing with V17 next week. The four things include: The Gospel is Good News; it is the power of God; it brings about salvation; and it is for everyone who believes.