SPIRIT 40 2022 – WEEK 3
SPIRIT 40 – WEEK 3 MARCH 13-19, 2022
I AM NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL
“I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jews first and also for the Greeks.” (Ro. 1:16).
The Audacious Claims of Christianity
According to the gospel, Jesus came into the world by being begotten in the womb of the Virgin Mary. This He did while continuing to be God and without laying aside any of His divine attributes. He also added to His deity all of human nature, so that He was now truly man, as well as, truly God in one indivisible person forever.
This God-man then offered Himself to God as a sacrifice in the place of all the people of God. He then took their condemnation so that God could remain just and yet be able to declare all those redeemed by Christ, pardoned and righteous in Him. The gospel further claims that Christ rose from the dead on the third day and after forty days ascended to heaven, where He not only has all authority in heaven and on earth, but that He also reigns over His people, builds His church, and fills the earth with the knowledge of His glory. Furthermore, He is returning again one day to make a new heaven and a new earth, and to judge all mankind, and assign to everyone their eternal destiny in heaven with Him, or in hell. This, then, is the audacious claim of the gospel.
That is the gospel that is revealed to the world in the Bible and is believed by every true Christian. It was mocked and scorned and rejected by the world of Paul’s day. To the Greeks it was foolishness. The Jews hated it. They thought it was shameful and false. That the incarnate God could be crucified was an affront and an enormous stumbling block to Israel. When Paul explained it to Festus, the Roman, he disdained it and told the apostle that much learning had made him mad.
Today when we tell people that Jesus walked on water, that a hammerhead floated, and that there is a real hell, they scorn our faith as something with no entitlement in the 21st Century. Aren’t you under pressure to feel ashamed of Christianity? Don’t you feel pressured to serve up a watered-down, modernistic and liberal religion, one which removes the supernatural and the miraculous? You shouldn’t. Why?
It Is The Power Of God Unto Salvation
We believe the gospel. We believe that, “it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe”. That message, understood, explained, trusted, received, and lived out day by day, is divine power and salvation. It was believed by Saul of Tarsus. He was definitely not ashamed of it. It had divinely transformed his life from that of a murderer and made him a new creation. The apostle also knew what the gospel had done for the slave girl from Philippi who was possessed by an evil spirit. And he remembered the transformative power that had changed the life of Lydia, as well as that of the Philippian jailor.
In spite of the cultured Greeks who mocked him as preaching foolishness, and the unbelieving Jews who derided him as preaching a false Christ, he was not ashamed of the gospel, why? He had become convinced that it was this message of omnipotent redeeming grace, that had lifted up men and women, people whose lives were in despairing muddles, and had given to them renewed hope and peace in God.
Today we can testify that through the power of the gospel millions have found a new purpose in life, as well as a hope in death. Like the apostle Paul we have also evidenced the divine transformation in our own lives. We need not bow to the pressure generated by this world system nor should we feel ashamed of the message we bring… “It is the power of God unto salvation”.