Unashamed: The Power of the Gospel // Romans 1:7-16

Little harder to head to the 5PM service. Guys, if you're new, and I met some people in the lobby, each week we've got people who are new, here's something I want you to understand about us, okay? And yes, this is for Multiply Campus and Lexin Campus, but specifically for those at our Winome Campus, we have always had a Sunday night service. When we came here in 2016, we had a Sunday night service at Guller AME Zion Church downtown. And then when we outgrew that space, and we moved to Northwest Boulevard, where our Multiply Campus meets, right now, when we moved there, we didn't get read of our Sunday night services, we just added morning services and we kept our Sunday night. And then when we moved into this building, we still kept our Sunday night. Now, why are we doing this? I mean, most churches are trying to get read of their Sunday night service. I wanna tell you why, okay? Two reasons, because we need it and because we like it, okay? We need it because look, just, okay, I don't want some campus only, but I want you to look around the room right now, okay? Are there any seats? The answer you might say, you know, the cynical person, 'cause I see a seat up there, you know, I see it through seats over here.

Here's how, let me explain the church world to us just for a second. By the way, do you notice the bringing chairs in right now? Okay, look, if a family of five can't find a seat, five minutes into service, we're out of space. There's not, I'm looking, I can see. There's not, I don't even see two seats together right now. So here's guys, we, look, we, people who come for the first time, I don't know if it's a North Carolina thing, they come on Sunday morning. So we're trying to make space for people, okay? That's why we sent you the text. That's why I showed you this video that you probably already saw online. It's because we're trying to move people to, it's the shortest mission trip you will ever take, okay? (audience laughs) And I just wanna encourage you, so here's the, okay, we need it, we need space 'cause we don't have space for a person, we don't have a seat for them. If we don't have a seat for them, we can't disciple them. But we also really like it. Guys, if you wanna, so this is the second time I'm giving this sermon tonight, will be the third time I'm giving this sermon, I usually get a little bit better as the day goes on, okay? So you haven't, you never, if you've never, if you've never kind of said it tonight, you've never heard the best version of the sermon, okay?

So I'd encourage you. Let me ask you guys to consider come with your community group. If you serve, come to Sunday night on a night, you don't serve. And if you don't serve, start serving, but then come to Sunday night on a night show, okay? Look, I wanna tell you guys about that, but I also wanna tell you about our multiply campus. We launched it last week. Can we give them a round of applause? (audience applauds) I love it, guys, 'cause we had over 300 people there, we had new guests, we had people sign up for the weekender, and we are headed to Davey County as quickly as possible. We're praying for open doors and people of peace. And you might be asking, where are we gonna go next? Where's the next best place for us to go? Here's how we think about it. Where we have lots of groups, more than 20 minutes away, we will one day have a campus, okay? But I know what you've been waiting for. You've been waiting to know how much did this generous church two cities give to hold the roof. Look at your neighbor inside, I've been wanting to know. This doesn't get to tell them. You've been wanting to know, you've been wanting to know. Yeah, that's right, you want to know. Yeah, you have, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, okay. Here's the thing, we have a, by the way, we had the highest ever general giving in December as well.

So our church was not only generous to our church, but also hold the road by the way, if you're new, is to help other ministries, churches, all that locally, nationally, globally to help us with our sending, okay? So here's how it works. We have a nine and a half million dollar budget. Kind of the rule of thumb is if you get up here and you give vision and church sees the need and all that, a good goal would be that the church would give 10% of the annual budget in a one time gift. So that would be $950,000, okay? Now last year we brought in a million. So we thought we're probably going to bring in more than a million, but we didn't have a financial goal. We had a participation goal, right? 100% of people who call it two cities, church home. Well guys, I'm encouraged, it's my privilege to share with you that we raised $1,455,850, is 69 cents. (audience applauds) Which brings up an obvious question. Who gave 69 cents to hold the rug? I don't know. Here's anything. I told you we were going to go to Butner, right? Butner is the only federal prison in the state of North Carolina. And I got up here a couple of weeks ago, a month ago, whatever it was, two months ago.

And I said, guys, we're going to do it, but it's not going to be easy and it's not going to be cheap. And I said, it's going to cost that least. Bare minimum, just get up and running $150,000. Well, here's what I'm encouraged with. I had a couple in this church call me and say they want to pay $150,000. That's worth clapping for. (audience applauds) You still can, okay? I encourage you. But guys, this is so powerful because the couple that gave this, they said, you know what? We think, we want to give this because we want to see men in prison be set free, and we also want to see our church be changed and transformed as we administer the prisons. Let's pray. Order across all our campuses. We just are grateful and we thank God. We thank you, Lord, for the ability to be generous, the entire gospel centers on the generosity of God toward us. Well, I thank you for every generous gift, the one I just mentioned, but I thank you for the single mom who gave the widow's might. I thank you for families who reorganized and Christmas may be a little different. I thank you for the people who gave so sacrificially, but no one will know except for you. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Grab your journals. This is your passport this is your guide. Last week, I was kind of the compass setting the direction. This will be your map, okay? Now you got your sticker, more stickers to come, okay? Here's the thing. Guys, we're going to be in Romans type 2 swipe 2 scroll to get to Romans 1 verse 7. Here's what we're doing today. We're going to talk about B&D. Are you a deep person or you a shallow person? Ask your spouse afterwards, okay? I don't know. Ask your parents. Ask your friends. Here's the thing. We all want to be deep. You don't want to be a shout. Who wants to be, if I said who wants to be shallow, I don't think I was going to raise your hand. But what does it mean to be deep? Everyone's while you listen to a podcast, you'll say that was deep. Everyone's while you'll be on your Instagram, okay, or whatever, and you'll see some quote and you'll share it or whatever, and you'll go, this is deep. Everyone's while you'll see a movie or a show, and afterwards you go, that was deep. What does deep mean? Deep means it's this affects everything.

That's what deep means. When you hear something that's deep, you're like, that affects my marriage and my family and my finances and my addiction and my habits and my health and my leisure and affects everything. Here's the problem with you and here's the problem with me. We're not very deep people. We don't think very deeply the apostle Paul thought very deeply. This letter is, this letter is a 16 chapter argument that we're going to be unpacking, okay? But when you think deep, hopefully you're going to feel deep. So let me tell you the problem with Romans, okay? Most people who are, here's what's happened with the book of Romans. It's been hijacked by thinkers, not doers. And what I don't want to have happen in this book is for you at the end, you know, it's the end of 2026. So you have a big brain and a little heart or you have a big brain and you have a little hands. The reason that we have the book of Romans is not just so we can think like Paul, but hopefully at the end of this series, hopefully so that we can live like Paul. So here's what I'm going to do. Today I'm going to share with you guys from scripture from Romans 1 verse 7 to Romans 1 verse 17, four ways you can be deeper or go deeper. So if you want to be a different person, you're going to need to be a deeper person. So pick it up with me in verse 7, okay? In verse 7, Paul says this to all those in Rome. Do you see that? I'm just going to start at the first part. He says to all those in Rome, I didn't talk about this last week, okay? I'm going to get to the four ways to be deeper in a second. I didn't really talk a lot about Rome. First of all, notice he doesn't say to the church in Rome. He says to all those in Rome, why? Because most commentators, most scholars think that this was one church in Rome that was spread about through different locations. That sounds like our church. Some of you might be cynical about multi-site. Some of you might think multi-site is a new idea. No, we're just using technology differently. Even in the church of Rome, even right after Jesus dies and arrives from the dead, you have one church in multiple locations meeting around the city of Rome. Rome's a big city, guys. I mean, maybe we don't consider it huge for today. But back then, it was the first city in human history that we've ever recorded was more than 1 million people. It means it was dense. It means it was populated. Here's kind of the first thing I just want us to understand. We'll just talk about this for a minute. We're talking about being centered and centered, right? That's what this whole year's about. What Paul wants to do is he wants to take the center of his faith, the gospel, to the center of culture. And that's the type of church by the grace of God we're trying to build here. We're not going,

just so you know, we're not going to the fringes. I want you to look at your hospital you work for and say, how do I bring the gospel to the center of it? I want you to look at your university. I want you to look at your high school. I want you to look at your bank. I don't know wherever you work, and I want you to, I want you to look at your neighborhood and say, how do I bring it to the center? I remember I'm not trying to be a hero, I'm just telling you a story for my life. I remember I go to Duke University to do ministry. Duke's a big, I just say Duke people get scared. Ooh, it's scary. It's just a big, scary place. And I remember I was talking to some Christians at Duke. They were in the church I was a part of and I said guys, I wanna go to the center of Duke's campus. I said, and I think I'm gonna go to the fraternities, like don't go to the fraternities, or big and scary. And then one kid said, no, no, I hear it. There's one fraternity, it's got like two Christians in it. Maybe they'll be nice to you. I said, I don't wanna go to the fraternity with two Christians in it. I said, I wanna know what is the most influential, most partying, craziest fraternity on campus? And they were like, KA. So I got on the website, I can't even find who the president is. So I'm like, I gotta go to the fraternity house. I gotta show up, which is in the center of campus. I gotta go to this fraternities house. And I gotta knock on the door as a nobody. And I gotta ask for the president

of the biggest fraternity and most popular influential fraternity. God was gracious and he was in my Bible study and we did, but my whole point is what it communicated was such a good time for me and for the students that were in our little student college ministry. It's like guys, we're not playing games here. We're taking the center of our faith to the center of influence. So Paul takes us to the center. Now here's four ways we can be deeper. I'll give you the first one. We need a deeper understanding of God's love for us. Let me read you the verse. Okay, here it is. To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints, grace to you in peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, so as soon as I start talking about the love of God, it's like yawn, yawn, right? Maybe you're like, so I came to Christ in high school, okay? I came out of nominal Catholicism. I start sharing my faith. I remember I go over my friend's house. He's not a believer. His parents aren't believers. They're asking me about why I'm going to church there. They don't understand it. And I start sharing my faith with him and I'll never forget this guy, classic Pittsburgh guy.

He says, Kyle, I'm tired of people telling me God loves me. And then he said this, I know God loves me. I thought that's the problem. We're gonna talk about the love of God, okay? So, throughout this year, I'm gonna say things that you're not going to like, okay? But they're gonna arise, I'm gonna show you this. There are things that you don't know, the average American, the average, sadly, American Christian does not think about, does not understand. And when they first hear it, it shocks them, okay? Here's one of the first things. God doesn't love everybody the same. It's funny, like, what? That doesn't even make sense. Because the first thing everybody knows is, well, actually the first verse everybody knows is judged not unless you be judged. That's an American's favorite verse. Take it out of context. The second verse that every American knows is, God is love. Well, listen to this. God loves some people in all ways, and all people in some ways. You could probably spend a year thinking about that. God loves some people in all ways, and all people in some ways. There's actually three types of love of God.

Well, actually, there's five, I just don't have time to get in all of them, okay? I'll give you the three big ones. The first love of God is his common grace love. So I can say God loves everybody. But what I mean by that, I mean, I'm thinking about it. It means that God has a providential care for all of his creation. This is taught clearly all through the scripture, but especially in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus is like, "Hey, the just and the unjust, it reigns on both of them." And then you think about it. You're like, yeah, how could God be so good to people who hate him so much? It's called his providential or his general or his common grace love. But there's a second type of love and it's the love that kind of, it's the end zone verse love. Do you remember this? Not anymore, but there'd always be a guy and he wouldn't be wearing a shirt and he'd be in the NFL end zone, be a background, he'd be holding up. John 3 16. For God so, by the way, we misread that we read it. God so loved the world. No, it means God in this manner.

That's what the word means. This is how God in this manner loved the world, that he gave his only son that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have eternal life. It's God's inviting love. It's his merciful, invitational love that we could say, Jesus Christ loved you and died for you and extends the gospel and whom so ever believes can have eternal life. But there's a third love and it's a unique love God has for his kids. Because until you become a Christian, you're one of God's creatures, but you're not one of God's kids. God has a special love for his church. He loved his church uniquely. In fact, there are, there's actually verses, you can just think about this for a second, All things Romans 8 work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose. So here's the thing, if a non-Christians going through horrible suffering and hardship, I can't on the authority of scripture tell them this is gonna work out for their good. How can you say that to a person who's current destination as hell? And it makes sense, we have this in us as humans. If you're a parent, it's like you love your kids' friends and you love kids that you meet, you may serve in our suit,

you may serve in our kids' ministry, but you're gonna say, you know what? That's right, I actually, I love all kids and I have a special love for my kids. This love for us is what's called efficacious. It means it's a love that changes us. That's why he says that we are loved by God and called to be saints. Now, if you're like me, I'm a retired Catholic, okay, from Pittsburgh. Never thought I was gonna be a pastor, grow up nominal Catholic. I thought saints was a special class of Christian. You normally had to die and then someone had to say you did a miracle afterwards and all this kind of stuff and then you get to be considered a saint. A saint in the Bible is just, it's what God calls us and makes us into when we believe in Christ. Here's the thing, when you realize your love by God, it changes you, you can see this. This works for men and women, but you can usually see this. A woman who never had a boyfriend in her whole life and all of a sudden finds a great guy and he really just loves on her. It changes everything about her, starting with how she views herself. 'Cause you start thinking,

I'm the kind of person somebody loves. Now, here's what you need to know, there are some people who've never been loved their whole life. Their parents didn't love them, I mean, and I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, I don't know any of those people. It's 'cause they're not here. Those people are not, that's why you're like, I've never met anyone like that. They don't meet people. They stay at home. And so he says, we have this love to change us and then look at this. He says, "Grace and peace to you." Now, this is interesting. I find this fascinating, okay? Paul starts every one of his 13 letters with grace and peace. Without exception, there's not an exception. Paul ends all of his 13 letters with grace and peace. No exceptions. So this can't be a coincidence. Someone should write a whole dissertation on this. I don't fully get it. Here's what's interesting about Grace. When Paul mentions Grace, he always mentions it first, but never mentions it alone. I can't remember my own sermons, but if you remember my sermon from last week, okay, I said, well, I just quoted scripture.

Paul says he was given grace and apostleship, interesting. So Grace came first, but something else came with it. When the gospel of John says, Jesus Christ shows up and he is full of grace and truth. Do you see this? So, okay, grace is always mentioned first, but never mentioned alone. It's okay, people want peace and they don't want grace. Or they don't understand grace, I should say. You can't have peace if you don't understand grace, because here's why you don't have peace. There's many reasons, I'll try to simplify. If you don't have peace, you're worried about your own sin and failures, right? So many people are worried that something in their past is gonna show up in their future or in their present or in their future. When you go look, the grace of God is going to meet me and make up for all of my stupid, sinful, rebellious, foolish mistakes. And then a lot of people are very, they don't have, you don't have peace because of the futures. Your dad went into an assistant living home and your daughter went off to college and you know, you've got a doctor's appointment about something, something lump you found on your neck and who knows what this year holds for you. And you can't have peace if you don't first have grace, but then here's where I'm gonna, what's the phrase, metal with you?

That's all, I don't know what the phrase is. I'm gonna mess you a little bit. All right, this is it. If you want more peace, you need to give more grace. What's your dining room table like? I'm not saying when you have people over, you know, it's different. Peace is the word shalom, right? It means unity, it means harmony and everybody. I mean, we all want peace. You can be a Christian, not a Christian. You want peace in your home, but you don't get peace unless you give grace. Grace is when you sin, I'm not surprised. I'm not so, should I be surprised with people's, I'm not surprised with people's sin. And when I'm sinning, I should be quick to confess. And when someone sins against me, I should be so quick to forgive. And I should love giving people Because everybody hears a reciprocal creature which is we're always watching all the time how everybody else interacts with us. And if you start being the kind of person who gives grace, you end up being the kind of person who gets grace. So the first thing we have to understand is we have to understand we have to have a deeper understanding I should say of God's love for us. Secondly, we need a deeper love for Christians. Let me show you this. This is verse eight. It says this, "First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith is proclaimed in all the world." All right. How is your attitude of gratitude? You know, instead of gratitude where you tend to be full of grumbling, someone told me years ago, very helpful leadership principle. This works because every parent's a leader. This works in parenting. He said, you know, Moses, the big sin of Israel in the wilderness was grumbling

instead of gratitude. And a leader told me years ago, he said, "The job of any pastor or parent or leader is to do the same two things Moses had to do, which is stop the people from grumbling and keep them moving forward." Do you know how powerful gratitude is? I want you to cultivate gratitude in your life because it is so helpful. It's biblical, but you should, but you know, you don't like doing things just because you should. So let me just tell you, it's really really helpful. Here's what I mean. I think it is almost, I'll say almost, I think it's almost impossible for sin to dwell in a grateful heart. So later today, when you're tempted to look at something you shouldn't look at, or you get on Instagram and you start getting envious and bitter and greedy and whatever, I want you to stop and go, you know what the problem is? The problem is not grateful right now. And you start being grateful for whatever you can be grateful for. You don't need to be like, God, I'm thankful that before the foundation of the world, you're only, it's like, you don't need that. You just seem like, Lord, I'm thankful for my health. I'm thankful to be in a warm house on a cold day. I'm thankful for a church. I'm thankful for the Bible in my language that I can read. You just start cultivating gratefulness. Paul says he thanks God for Christians he's never met. You know, I told you last week, he's never been in a room. What is it? Paul's thankful for people he never met. We can't even be thankful for the people we know. And weirdly, the more we know them, the less thankful we are for them. We take them like super for granted. Well, Paul says, I thank you. And then look what he says. He's going to pray for them. He says this. Verse nine, "For God is my witness whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son that without ceasing, I mention you always in my prayers." Okay. How do you love people more deeply? Okay. This is not a TED talk where I give you like three hacks. It's a biblical talk where I say you pray for them. The closest point between two people is prayer. We miss, well, we don't miss, well, we kind of misquote versus by not knowing, by only knowing half of them. Okay. So you know this verse probably. Jesus said this, love your enemies, which is a, it's hard. Right? No one does it. Well, we're not great. Okay. But it's probably because we don't know the second half of the verse. Let me just finish quoting the verse. Love your enemies and pray for them. So I guess we're supposed to play for Christians and we're supposed to play for enemies. And so we're probably just supposed to pray for everybody, right? And it's going to be very, very hard to continue to be angry at somebody

if you're continually praying for them. So here's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to build a prayerful church. That's part of our response culture. Now, here's the thing. I, I've told you so I have to, because I went to public high school, I have to keep things very simple, if only for myself. Okay. So here's what we're going to do. We want to pray with people, pray for people, and ask people for prayer. Let's actually start with asking people for prayer. Do you understand if Christianity is going to get real for you and the people in your life, you need to have real prayer requests? I mean, can we, I mean, I don't want to go beyond scripture here, but can we stop praying for traveling mercies? Okay. If someone's flying to North Korea, we're going to pray for them. If they're heading to Yatkinville for dinner, we're not praying for them. I think God's up there. He's bored. He's like, all right, I got him here safely and her here safely. And you thanked at me for getting everyone there safely. Okay. But when you, you stop praying for traveling mercies and Timmy's tummy and Sally's stomach. Okay. We pray, we believe in invisible healing. And you start to say something like this. Hey, there's like three people at work, the Holy Spirit's put on my heart to share with. And I'm honestly scared because we got a weird HR department. And I need some boldness, guys. And would you just pray for wisdom and for boldness and for me to share my faith? Here's what people are going to think. What portal did I just step into? Because everybody else in your group who's been playing church and giving the unspoken prayer requests or something like that, they're going to go, "I don't even know this person. I finally met somebody who's serious about their faith. We need to pray with people. We need to pray for people. We need to ask for prayer. Pray with people. Realize that when you pray with people, it's going to be awkward at first if you've never prayed with them. And you're just men. You're just going to have to lead in this."

You're like, "All right, I've got a 15-year-old salon. If I try to pray with him, he's going to think this is super weird." Yeah, he is. I don't know the other option. It's like, "When was the best time to plan a tree?" 20 years ago or today, it's a party you just go, "I'm sorry." And you just call it out. It's kind of weird. And how about I just pray this time? And what you're going to find is pretty soon it's not going to be that weird anymore. We pray with people. We pray for people. We ask for prayer. Paul actually tells people this is deep. Paul tells people what he's praying for them. I'll show you. All right, look at the next verse. Here's what he says. He says, "Asking that somehow by God's will I may now at last succeed in coming to you." Verse 11, the beginning of it, he says, "For I long to see you." Okay, this is what I'm talking about. Paul loves Christians. He prays for Christians. He wants to be with Christians. Paul wants to be in Christian community. Actually, we'll see in a minute. Paul needs to be in Christian community, okay? So it's hard for me to think the great apostle Paul, the greatest church plan of the church was ever seen and the writer of scripture needed meaningful Christian community, but you don't.

In fact, guys, you know, I mean this in a lovely way, I'm just, I'm tired of trying to motivate some of you to get in Christian community. I'm tired of it. That is my job. So it's like I need to do it anyway, but like I'm tired of sitting in my office and going, I don't know. I've used every, I used the relational insurance illustration already. I use the phrase needy and needed already, like I'm trying to figure out what the issue is with some of you because for me, and I'm not saying I'm the, I am exactly how salvation works in everybody's life. But when I became a Christian, it was so unbelievably obvious to me as well as I had a deep desire in my heart to be a part of Christian community. If you're not a part of a community group here, you're missing out on at least half of what our church has to offer and you're missing out on one of the greatest resources or tools God tends to use in your life to transform you and change it. In fact, Paul, look at Paul says, Paul, those guys, I want to come look here that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you. That is that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. What does Paul mean? I'm bringing, you know, am I bringing, you know, Santa sack of spiritual goods? No. He basically means I want to use my spiritual gifts to strengthen you and I want to be encouraged by you. And if you would go, what are the two purposes of Christian community encouragement and strength or the word that Christians used to use edify? So how do you get equipped for ministry? You get encouraged and you get edified. Okay. So Paul says, we need a deeper understanding of God's love for us, grace, peace, turned into saints, efficacious love, all that.

Secondly, we need a deeper love for Christians. That comes by praying for them and as well as doing everything I can. I've told you so far, you're going to have to, if you're not in a community group, you're going to have to fight for fellowship. You're going to have to contend for community group. You're going to have to go, okay, what groups near us? What night works for us, you know, then you need to go to the group and you're like, all right, these aren't our people. Okay. Great. Find a different group. Paul contended for community. The third is we need a deeper love for the lost. Okay. So these are, these are basic things, but this is what Paul says. Look at verse 13, I do not want you to be unaware brothers that I have often intended to come to you, but thus far have been prevented. Why? In order that I may, if you underline your Bible, underline, reap some, underline the word harvest among you, as well as among the rest of the Gentiles, what does Paul mean harvest? Okay. Let me tell you this. You need to know what season you're in. You'll get really depressed if you don't know what your season you're in, right? Some would say the discovery of the seasons was the discovering of civilization because Because all of a sudden you go, it's winter. I don't need to move. You know, they're seasons, oh, it's winter, I gotta go. No, no, no, after winter comes spring.

And then you know what to do in every season. So harvesting was the end of something, right? You had to plant seeds, then you had to water, I'm oversimplifying here, but then you had to cultivate and pool weeds, right? Probably water some more, and then you can harvest. So what we do with these words, unfortunately the longer you've been in church, we spiritualize these words so much. So we know that Jesus said the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Let me just give, I can just speak to normal people for a second, if there's any normal people in here, okay? Let me just tell you what harvest means, spiritual results. Here's what Paul's saying, is that wrong? The Apostle Paul goes, I'd like to see some spiritual results. I mean, you know, if you don't like that word, you know, you can say fruit, but that's what he's saying. And Paul goes, I'd like to see spiritual results to places in the church and in the culture. So here's what he's saying, you know, and I think it's just a good word at the beginning of the year with Romans, it's like, is your faith visible so other people can see it? Paul goes, guys, you're gonna have the book of Romans, my letter, by the time I get there. You've been Christians for a while, you've got Bible teaching, you live in community,

I'd like to see some results. Can there be a little ROI? On everything that's been invested in you? See, here's the thing, in Romans, we're gonna go as deep as we've ever gone. I'm gonna take this as deep as I can take us. But the truth is like most of you already know enough Bible to change your whole life. I've told you, the biggest hack and counseling is most people already know what they need to do. It's like, you already know Ephesians five for your marriage, you're just not doing it. You already know you're supposed to raise your kids in the fear and admonition of the Lord, you're just not doing it, you know this. And so Paul says, I wanna see a harvest outside or in the church, and then he says, I wanna see a harvest outside the church, I'm on the Gentiles, he goes, I wanna see people come to faith in Christ, which is the best thing for a church, 'cause if a church doesn't have new believers, it gets inward, and it starts talking about it's building all the time. Have you noticed that? The more a church talks about it's building, and all the maintenance on it, and everything that they need to do and everything that used to happen here, and they haven't seen a baptism in 20 years.

The best thing for a church is new believers, 'cause new believers bring the chaos that shakes everything up into church, 'cause they start confessing sin, we're like, oh, you're not supposed to? Actually, you are supposed to. They start inviting their friends to church, I mean, it's good for everybody. Here's the thing, I don't know this for sure, okay? Little privacy, I think potentially in America, we are in harvest time. That's what it feels like when I'm reading last year that we had the largest group of young men come back to the church. I think the average, I don't know as much about the ladies, but I think the average normal dude in our culture is like, this has all gotten too goofy for me. The culture stuff is like, I don't believe in wokism, and secularism is bankrupt, and scientism, the worship of sciences bankrupt, and materialism, and feminism, and consumerism. I've told you before, I just remember that I said this, okay? What is it, January 11th, 2020? So just remember I said this, we're gonna have a bunch of people in their 40s and 50s coming to our church in the next 10 years who have just been lied to their whole life, and they finally realize it's all broken.

And they've been told their career is the most important thing, and they shouldn't get married, all that stuff. And self-expressions, they're already are tired of it, but we're gonna be so tired of it, we're gonna see a great harvest around all of America. And we're not, it's gonna be led by churches that don't say I told you so, but by churches that are willing to meet them with the grace of God. Now Paul says something else, look here, verse 14. Okay, Paul says, here's what I want you to realize. Paul views his responsibility and posture toward non-believers, the exact opposite of you. I'll show you. Verse 14, I'm under obligation, both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish, okay. We don't, if we're honest, we do not view evangelism as an obligation, we view it as a option. It's optional. Like if they ask, I mean, my goodness, if they ask, we'll tell them. And if it's not too awkward, we might bring it up. And if we had a relation for a long time and I don't think it's gonna cost me socially, I might tell them. Paul said, "I'm under obligation."

Here's literally what it means. You can look this up. In the Greek, the word obligation, Paul literally is saying, "I'm a debtor." Now, if there's one thing Americans don't wanna be, especially the more middle class and upper middle class people get. I don't wanna owe anybody anything. It's so American. In fact, what people want is, I'd like everywhere I go, people owe me something. Don't that be nice. Everywhere I show up, someone owes me something. Well, listen, I don't know how to understand Paul, except for Paul saying, "I owe the gospel to non-Christians." Paul goes, "I'm actually, here's..." Think about it this way, this is a little hard to explain, but to try to follow this. There's two ways that you can be in debt, okay? You could loan me a bunch of money that I'm in debt to you. Or let's say your name's Bob, or, you know, or Bob, you could give me a bunch of money for somebody else. And I'm in debt to that person until I give it to him. And that's what Paul's saying. Paul goes, "I have the gospel, and I owe it to every person that I have a relationship with." And Paul would even say, "And I'll build relationships just for this." We could start there.

We owe the gospel to every person we're in a relationship with. And it's hard because most people, look, Paul says this, okay? Here's another thing that we don't like to hear. Most people are not gonna believe. So here's what, this is what they had a friend, he was in sales. And this is what they tell you if you're going to sales. If you're going to sales and you go to one of those, what is it, ADP or whatever, they have all this training for you. Here's what they tell you day one. No better be your second favorite word. Do not get into sales if no is not your second favorite word, 'cause you're gonna be hearing it all the time. In the same way, it's like we're gonna share the gospel with people and most people are not going to believe. Paul says, I'm not in debt that somebody has to believe. I'm in debt that I have to get it out and share it with them. And then I know what you think. You'd think, well, Paul, my goodness, do you must be miserable? Because if I felt like everywhere I went, I had to go share the gospel with every person, it would be such a burden to me. Well, look at Paul says, here's what he says. You're not gonna believe this. So I'm eager, verse 15, to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

Listen, as you say, I'm gonna bring the gospel to the center of the hospital or the center of my neighborhood or the center of my grad school. You have to do it with an eagerness. Here's what that means. You have to bring the gospel to people, not begrudging that guy, you know, God wants me to show this with you. You know, you have to have a smile on your face and a song in your heart. You gotta go, I'm gonna go the most influential, darkest places that I know and I'm gonna do it singing. I'm gonna do it with steel in my spine and a spring in my step and a smile on my face. And if you do that, people will not know what to do with you. 'Cause they're like, I don't know how to handle somebody who's so serious about God's word, but so joyful. Why is Paul eager? Because listen, eagerness is this idea, if I can again talk in common vernacular. It's Paul goes, I have spiritual momentum. Do you know what momentum is? It's funny, we had this guy in college ministry, he wasn't the smartest guy ever. We tried to teach him about momentum. And we said, what's the root word of momentum? And he said, mom. No, try again, moments, okay? Momentum happens when you're winning. So, we all would like it if Wake Forest basketball team

would win like 10 games in a row. If that happened, they wouldn't be emailing you last minute to try to get tickets. You wouldn't be able to get tickets, because by definition, winning creates momentum. And Paul goes, I have seen the gospel win. I have seen it change legacies and lineages and eternal destinies. And so I'm eager to see it, which leads to the last thing. Paul, how do you do it? How do you be so eager? Paul says, there's one other thing. You don't just need a deeper love, understanding of God's love for you or deeper love for Christians or deeper love for loss. You need a deeper conviction of the power of the gospel. I'll show you, this is the theme verse for our year. We'll close with verses 16 and 17. Paul says this, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, Why would Paul say I'm not ashamed of the gospel because we are all tempted to be ashamed of the gospel? It it's interesting. We don't talk about shame a lot. That's more of an Eastern idea Shame, but let me explain it to you think about it this way guilt is personal and private Shame is public So what'll happen is if you've ever got caught doing something you shouldn't be doing someone found something out That wasn't good about you. Here's the interesting thing. You most likely felt guilt about that a long time ago Maybe maybe a lot of guilt maybe you thought about confessing it, but it was all real personal You just knew you did it. You knew it was wrong. Maybe you told God you weren't gonna do anymore and you felt guilt But you can't help it as soon as your friends and family find out it's involuntary you feel shame Shame always has to do with how other people view me

We might I mean a common soft word for it would be we're embarrassed And here here's a honestly are you ashamed of the gospel How would you know I mean no one's gonna raise their hand we all want to say we know we're not ashamed I mean look here. We are a church today. We're not ashamed of the gospel Well, if you're not ashamed of the gospel, then why is it the last thing that most people find out about you? Why does everybody know your kids name and your favorite show and your favorite podcast but Nobody at work knows how important your faith is to you Or why is it that some of you have never put anything on social media about your faith? Is that really an accident because we get to see every meal that you eat And every time your own vacation you certainly take a lot of pictures You put your resolutions up and we see every time you go to the gym or go on a run you let us all know about that What I don't understand is what what I it I'm just let's remove the fig leaf for a second if we can There's some shame And I just want to encourage you we don't need to be ashamed of the gospel We tend to be ashamed of the gospel, you know every generation it's different It's because of at the end of the day you're worried about how other people are going to view you because what you have to tell them And it's hard because when you share the gospel of someone you have to tell them bad news first You have to tell them about a need they can't fix by themselves yet to talk to them about a problem that they can't solve by themselves This is why Paul says in Romans 1 16 that the gospel is the power of God So if you want to know what is the number one reason that we're not that we are ashamed of the gospel It's because we're not personally experiencing its power What is power power literally is the ability to change something So you if you've been in church for a while you probably have heard that Paul uses the word here powered Dunamas maybe you can hear the English word in that dynamite Paul goes this gospel is so powerful. It's like dynamite It's so powerful because it has the ability not to change Legacies and lifestyles and lineage and eternal destinies and it's not just change temporarily. It's lasting change In fact, Paul says here's here's here's the power of the gospel. It's it's the power look here He says for the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes here's what listen the gospel Is the power of God in verbal form?

I've experienced this before I've experienced it in sitting under gospel preaching and I just feel power I've experienced it in preaching before there are times I I just I can feel the power of God in sharing the gospel message Charles virgin one of my heroes. He was the first mega church pastor ever they were building him his church I can't remember it's just maybe sat 5000 because back then there was no sound amplification and so he went out One day to work on his voice because you know back then you just again no mics And as the story goes this is a true story. He goes out into the worship center. He thinks he's all alone And he just starts quoting scripture He's just working on his voice here in the reverberations and one of the scriptures he says he goes Behold the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world He thought he was alone, but there was a worker in the rafters He would later find out that the worker in the rafters came to faith in christ just hearing and read scripture See in the gospel is the power of god and and it's because what's Verse 17, "For in it the gospel, look, the righteousness of God, not the love of God, not the grace of God, not the truth of God, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the righteous will live by faith." What is revealed is, let me explain the righteousness of God. Well, you can see the root word of righteousness is right. Here's, and Paul's gonna unpack this for his 15 chapters. We'll go deep, deep, deep into it. But let me simplify it. What is the righteousness of God? God is right, and you are wrong. That's the beginning of having a relationship with God. By the way, confession is just agreeing with God. That's what it is. Confession says, "God, you are right, and I am wrong." God, you do what is right, and I do what is wrong. See, here's what happens.

I wanna take a term righteousness, which sounds religious and far up, and I wanna say there's only three options with righteousness. Let me give them to you. First is to be unrighteous. I don't want you to stay unrighteous. You are unrighteous, apart from Christ. But unrighteousness is to look at your sin and not look at your Savior. And see what happens with people is some people, they get into depression and even suicidal ideation because they realize how broken and sinful they are, but they don't ever look at the cross, and they don't ever understand the grace of God, and they don't understand that Jesus can save them. There was a guy in our church. He said, "Guys, I said I was bringing my one to church." But he's not coming anymore. He said, "What happened?" It's a true story. He said, "You're preaching." He told me he's not good for his mental health. I thought, I don't know if my preaching was good for my mental health, but what he meant is, what he literally, what he meant. He said, "He doesn't understand grace, and he doesn't believe Jesus died for us since." And so all he can hear is the negative things he's not doing in the ways he's messed up.

And I'm like, "Yeah, we can't stay unrighteous." The second option, and we'll unpack this in chapter two, is self-righteous. There's only three options. You could be unrighteous. That's really who you are apart from Christ. You could be self-righteous, and man will we hit that, because that's all in the church, and that's all in the culture. And it's a sense of moral superiority that somehow I'm better than other people. And that's bankrupt and doesn't work and is an illusion. The third is gift righteousness, which is, the Bible says it's revealed from faith for faith. In other words, God ends up giving us the very thing he demands from us, his righteousness. That's why it was important for Jesus to live a sinless life. Jesus had to live a sinless life because he had to be our righteousness. God requires two things of you that your sins be punished and your life be righteous. At the cross of Christ, Jesus was our punishment in his life, his sinless life, he was our perfection, and he gives us his righteousness. And he says this, he says, now all of this is from faith for faith. In other words, as we realize this, as we realize all that God has done for us, if we're gonna go and be deeper and live deeper,

we've got to do it by faith. So here's what we're gonna do. I told you, we've organized the whole service to create more space and more margin for you to respond. So just a minute, here's what I'm gonna ask you. I'm gonna ask you, and some of you, this is brand new to you, and that's fine. And I'm never gonna pressure you on, but I didn't invite you to come forward in just a minute or two. Come up here and pray, maybe come up with somebody, you know, and just pray, God, would you make me a deeper person? In some area, and I'm telling you, this is nice I can do this 'cause I was, I was just at the nine o'clock service. The nine o'clock service, I saw some lady come down here and pray, and then I saw another lady who knew her, come around her and bear hug her. And I thought, I don't know what's going on there. I don't know what they're going on through together. I don't know what they're praying about, but they need to go deeper in some area. Some of you need to go deeper in your understanding of the love of God and understanding of the gospel for yourself, and you need to return to your first love to quote Revelation. Others of you just need a love for Christians. There is some Christian or there is some relationship in your life, and you need to forgive 'em, and you need to pray for 'em, and just come up.

Others of you need, there's lost people, there's prodigals, this is gonna be a time to pray, and for many of us, we probably just need to come forward and go, God, help me, I've been ashamed. Make me more like the Apostle Paul who was eager and unashamed of the gospel. Guys, this response time, listen, here's who it's for, it's for Christians who are trying to get things right. We're just normal everyday real Christians who are just going, I wanna get it right. If you'll stand, we're gonna respond. If you stand just for a moment, I'll pray with us, get us started. Lord, I thank you that all across this room and all across our campuses, you're calling us to respond, this is it. You reveal things, and we respond, Lord. And there's so much you're going to reveal, Lord, would you make us deeper people, would you, would some of us even just make some commitments right now? from being a deeper person, from going deeper. What I pray for couples to come up here with a holding hands, just praying for one another Lord. I just pray for a culture of prayer, Lord. We see the Paul prayed with people and Paul prayed for people and Paul asked for prayer. We could think of no better way to end our service and we do it all in Jesus name. Please come forward. (gentle music)

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