The Power of God

Open your Bibles, if you would to Romans chapter one. I’m going to preach on The Power of God this morning from Romans 1:16.

Let me ask you a question, “Do you desire to see the power of God?” I think we would all agree, the answer is “yes.” There was a new missionary named Herbert Jackson, he was assigned on the field a car that would not start, without a push, that is. So, after pondering this problem, he devises a plan. And he went to a school near his home, and he got permission, and he asked some of the school children to push the car when he gets in it and starts it. And this allowed the car to start. And so off, he went, he made his rounds and was able to visit many people. And he would leave the car either parked on a hill, or he would leave the car running. And he did this over and over again for a few years. That is until he got sick and he was supposed to come off the field. Well, the next guy came and he describes how to get the car going and how to make it work. And as he's talking, that next man looked under the hood, and said, Dr. Jackson, “I think the problem is right here, there's just this cable that is loose.” So, he plugs in the cable, hops in, and starts the car right up. No pushing needed. For two years, you know, trouble had become routine. A lack of power had become routine, he had become complacent with workarounds. And only a loose connection kept him from putting that power to work.

You know, the power of God is there for us in our lives, it's there for us to see, it's there for us to behold. It's actually there for us to deliver, if we would just make the connections that we see in Scripture – you'll find those in Romans 1:16.

If you need a Bible, you can find a Bible nearby under the seat. A little context on the book of Romans: it was written by the Apostle Paul, the first few verses are just incredible. Describing who he is and the salvation he's going to discuss. He was a slave of Christ Jesus, he was an apostle with a big A. He was set apart for the gospel of God and this was written around AD 57. It was written to Gentiles and to Jews. We see that from Romans 2:17, also Romans 11:13. We see who he's writing to is a mixed group of people.

What you must know about Romans is that it puts on display the significance of the Gospel. Romans 1:1 shows that and Romans 1:16 shows that as well. And we're going to focus on the power of God today, as revealed and delivered in the Gospel. Look in Romans 1:16 with me, as I read out of the ESV, it says, “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.”

So today, we're going to cover salvation, and belief, and a little bit of an overview of this Gospel that is preached in the New Testament, and what we are to do with it. So, first, let us consider this salvation. It is said to be the power of God for everyone who believes. “Salvation” is a general term of deliverance. It means to rescue or to recover. It also means to redeem. In this case it is a deliverance term. It is a spiritual deliverance. It is eventually a physical deliverance. But is a deliverance of something that might surprise you. You see in Romans 1:18 there, it is a deliverance from “the wrath of God.” We think the greatest deliverance salvation provides is from sin, but the penalty of sin is the greater threat. It is the wrath of God. Romans 1:5 and Romans 1:18 shows we are delivered also from sin. We are delivered from sin to God, we see that in Romans 1:6. And this deliverance implies that you and I need something outside of ourselves, to get us to where we need to be. We need this deliverance; we need this help.

You know, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were delivered from the fire. If you think about it there's a lot of parallels there. God did the delivering, not those three men. They had the faith and they believed that God could deliver them. But God did the delivering. They knew that they had no power in and of themselves against the fire, even though they had the faith in God. That faith didn't merit or oblige God to save them from the fire. Yet God did so as an act of his grace. That is a good picture of our own salvation, where we believe in God, we have the faith to receive the grace that he gives, but that doesn't oblige God, to even save us. Salvation is a grace of God. If even our faith, if even our belief, obligates God to do something, then that faith has what is called “a moral merit” in and of itself. That is Catholic theology. Salvation is what God does not what we do. And here you see that it is the power of God unto salvation, not the obligation of God because of something we have done or thought or believed. That is very important to understand.

Salvation is also what makes us right with God. We call that “justification.” When you see that term “justification” in Scripture, we are justified by faith as a gift of his grace. That is our position with God now becomes something good, that we are in right standing with God. Sin makes us an offense to God. Salvation makes us right with God. Sin makes us in need of deliverance. Salvation is the deliverance. Sin makes us unworthy of being saved and being delivered, which is why we need the grace of God. There is nothing you can think, do, say, or put into practice that would force God to save you. Romans 3:23-24 says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified,” not by your faith, but are justified, “by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

So, our deliverance, our redemption – being redeemed – comes through Jesus Christ. It is received by our faith. We understand these things, we receive it, and it is receiving this full gift that is unmerited, that is not warranted. We are justified by his grace as a gift, Paul says later in chapter three. So, it is not earned through our belief, or our faith, it is still a gift. You can see that even in Pentecost, when Peter is preaching in Acts 2, around verse 38. And we see that the Holy Spirit is given to those, who repent and believe, as a gift.

So, who is this power of God delivered to? This deliverance that comes, this salvation that we have, who was it delivered to? It is delivered “to everyone who believes.” Now, some people go, “Oh, I can't wait, we’re going to talk through maybe election today or something.” I know some of you are thinking that. And others of you are thinking, “Wow, I just really hope he doesn't talk through that this morning.” But sometimes we get so fixated on our favorite theologies that we go, “Oh, wow, I hope he skips to chapter nine in Romans.” Maybe that's your favorite chapter. Others get so fixated on faith that the last two minutes of the message are just confusing. “It is my faith, I thought that meant he had to save me.”

And so, what I want to encourage and challenge you with this morning is to digest what the Scriptures say, and try and put off the preconceived understandings, even though I know you all love the Word and have studied it deeply. We need to be fixated on what the Scriptures actually say, not on what we want to hear. Salvation is not some problem to solve, that we add these things correctly and come up with the right ending. And so therefore, we get the best gift. It has to remain a gift of God's grace. Otherwise, it is fully a system of works. Which all religions are except true Christianity.

Notice this call is for “everyone.” Romans 1:16, “it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” Right? And I understand the comprehensiveness of Romans, and what it speaks in other places, but unless you hear this, you're going to qualify this with what Paul hasn't even said, yet. “Everyone” here means “everyone.” This is the word “all” in Greek. It's translated “everyone” 84 times in Scripture, it's a pretty firm word. “All” is also translated, the word “all” (the Greek word for it), is translated “all” 835 times in Scripture. So, if you know two or three verses that qualify “all” you have a lot more study to do. Is that fair? 835 times. Here this means, everyone who believes. It's very straightforward.

So, then we must ask the question, does everyone have the opportunity to come to faith? Yes, they have a legitimate opportunity to come to faith. That is what Paul is describing here as he preaches the gospel. And he is going to deep dive into it. And we're just going to barely see what he's talking about here this morning, as we just look at one verse. So, then we ask the next question. And we're just going to go through a series of questions this morning, we ask the question: Who then is saved? Well, what does it say in verse 16? Who is saved? Salvation comes to who? To everyone who believes. That's who it comes to. And if you had your systematic theology going in your mind, and you just put in there the word “to all the elect.” Well, that's not what this verse says. It is to anyone who believes.

So, I think it's important for us to maybe consider a little bit what it means to believe because that has confused a lot of churches. It has confused a lot of people who sit in churches who claim to be Christians and are clearly not Christians. So, if we don't understand what it means to believe than we certainly can't understand what it means to be saved. Because it comes through believing. So, what does it mean to believe? And we must ask the question, “to believe in what?” Notice it doesn't say to those who believe in Jesus, the context is believing in the Gospel, which is about Jesus. Jesus is, according to the first few verses, the Son of God. When you see the word “Christ,” that means he's the Messiah. He is the Promised One, the Anointed One, the one through whom, as we sing, fulfills the promises of God.

He is Lord. I have said many times – and the first year I was here, I said, “If Jesus isn't your Lord, he isn't your Jesus.” And we had people leave the church because they were goats. Not because they were offended. Jesus is Lord. We see that over and over and over again in the Scriptures. Through Jesus alone, we receive the grace to be saved and know God. Simply put, believing is turning from sin and turning to Jesus. It is not just a mental understanding. And you'll see that here, especially in Romans 1:18, where it starts with, “For the wrath of God is revealed…” and then it has this big list. It could have just said to those who don't believe, which would have been synonymous with that list, right? But he goes through just displaying a life that isn't lived for God, those are the people who don't believe. So believing has to end up in some kind of changed life. In context, it has to mean that.

So, let me ask you the question, do you know someone who is not saved? The answer as to why they are not saved is because they have not believed not because of some theological predisposition. It is because they do not believe in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, they have not been changed and transformed. Romans 1:20, same chapter a few verses later, says that men “are without excuse.” So, all people everywhere on the planet are without excuse, because Scripture says that God has been clearly revealed in what has been created (Romans 1:19-20).

So, if you ask the question, “Does somebody over in Africa, who has never heard the gospel, are they acquitted of needing to believe in Jesus? Men are without excuse. The Arctic Circle, very few people there, I doubt they're going door knocking there, they would freeze to death. You can see what has been created, you see the stars, you see the planet, you understand the complexity of how you're made, you see the design in creation. You see all these things, and God reveals himself, to draw men to an understanding that there is a Creator. Romans 1:21 gives the reason why they don't believe in that though, “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him…”

Now, these are the people who simply understand a certain amount of knowledge from God, from what is created. Tracking with that? Those people, they knew God. And [Romans 1:21] “they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” There's no such thing as a person on the planet who does not have the opportunity to believe, according to Scripture. So, when it says “you must believe” that is a qualification for everyone that adds belief plus something else. That's not the Gospel. Salvation comes to those who believe.

He goes on to describe those who do not believe and who have foolish hearts and futile thinking, let's make sure we're not in this list here. Romans 1:24 they follow “the lusts of their hearts,” they're okay with that sin. Romans 1:16-27 describes the homosexual and the lesbian relationships that permeate; it's not a new thing, friends, it's been going on for a very long time. Those are the ones who don't believe. If they go to a church that affirms their lifestyle – like the Methodists did a few weeks ago – they need to come out of the Methodism, they need to leave their lifestyle, they need to leave their choice. They need to be renewed, born again. When somebody says, “I was born this way.” You say, “You need to be born again, you need to be changed and transformed by the power of God.” You can say, “I can't do this.” You're right, you can't but God can. That's why salvation is of the power of God.

In Romans 1:29-32, Paul also includes those who covet the world, right? Covet the world, lie, gossip, disobedient to parents, insolent. That's a toughy. You’re like, “What's that mean?” It's those who insult others in an arrogant way. They're just like constantly poking or putting others down. This of course, drives us to our knees, doesn't it? Who has not lied? Who has not been found to gossip at times? What child has not disobeyed their parents? This is more of a way of life, a practice, not a moment in time. But this is an accepted way of life, that I, as a way of life live as a gossip. If you're okay with that you should be afraid of your eternal destiny.

So Paul here, in this long passage, from Romans 1:18-32, makes a clear separation from those who believe and those who do not. Their lives show whether or not they have already been saved. So, Paul's making this argument. These verses are a testimony against what we would call “free grace,” i.e. that you're saved and now because you're saved, and you can't lose your salvation, you're sealed by the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption – because of that, you just go, “Well, I'll sin because I'm saved and nothing can change that.” This is a testimony against living however you want. Paul is saying that those who live this way, according to verse 18, upon them shall come the wrath of God. We must be careful to submit our own heart and our own mind and our own thinking, and our own lives to these verses to see, “Am I saved with true belief, or am I under the wrath of God?”

So, belief then – as we're considering what it means to believe – is the sense of trusting in Jesus according to the content of the Gospel. Not just trusting in Jesus however we want, and living however we want, and thinking however we want, and doing whatever we want. But it is according to the Gospel. And Paul picks up this thinking in Romans 10:12, that the Gospel is going to save everyone who calls on him and going to make no distinctions there. He says in Romans 10:12-13, “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

So, there's just one way to be saved, that is, through faith in Christ. Here it’s calling “on the name of the Lord.” In other words, I recognize I'm a sinner in need of salvation, I'm a sinner in need of God's grace. And I call on the name of the Lord for help. I need deliverance outside of myself in order to be saved. That's the same all around the planet. So, he's picking up the continuity of belief, the continuity of salvation for everyone around the world, is found here in Romans 10. There's no distinction. One Lord, he's Lord of all. Verse 12, Romans 10:12, “Lord of all.” It's the same word for “all” used in Romans 1:16. “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Same word. What's Paul's point? Belief is the same no matter who you are and no matter where you are. He’s pointing back to belief in the Gospel, according to the Scriptures, according to the Word of God.

You don't have to, as some people do, go find yourself somewhere and go try and find God – as though he were far away. That is not something we need to do. This belief shows itself, as he's saying here, in a transformed life. So real saving faith, real belief, transforms and changes us. It does not just leave us stagnant. I’ve sometimes told the illustration of, you know, what happens to you when you're impacted by Jesus? And we think of him as this nice, you know, maybe you picture him as a fluffy lamb and you just pet him and he comes up next to you and hangs out with you and you like being around him and that's your “Jesus.” Well, Paul, is talking about sending people to eternal hell, the wrath of God. That's what that does. It's poured out on those who don't believe.

So, when you're impacted by the One who creates the world, who has the power to simply speak things into existence, and such a huge range we can't even find out where the edge of the universe is – there are many guesses. But yet there's no impact. No transformation, no change. There's more impact from stubbing your toe than coming into contact with the living God. And that's the Jesus that is preached over and over again. Paul knows no Jesus like that. That Jesus is not the Jesus of the Bible. In Romans 1:4, he starts out calling Jesus “Lord.”

Scripture describes this change – if someone's your Lord, they tell you what to do, you gladly obey out of love. Paul connects this Lord to this phrase that you see in Romans 1:5. This is a phrase that we don't like but this is an important phrase. Through this Jesus, who is Lord, he says, “through whom we have received grace and apostleship.” Paul's talking about himself and the apostles, “to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.”

So, Paul is under this obligation to bring about the obedience of faith. The apostles are under that obligation. It's under the obligation for all who hear it. And then he says in Romans 1:6, “including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.” So, this grace, this redemption, this deliverance, this faith, this belief – it's all connected to the obedience of faith. It produces these things, it's an apple tree with real apples. It's not a barren apple tree that never produces a single apple. There is some visible fruit there, the fruit is the outward sign of what's happened on the inside. You see the apple, that's what tells you this is an apple tree.

So, then the next question that we need to consider is: how does someone believe? How does someone believe? Well, they hear the Gospel, and they accept it. And they live for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Romans chapter 10 goes into this a little bit, Romans 10:14, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” Notice, not just talking about the Bible, but declaring the truth of it. The preaching. Jesus is said to preach to the towns. He went preaching among the people, he went preaching among the Samaritans. He preaches and proclaims, and the Word is what transforms as it is heard.

How are they to hear without someone preaching? You know, in those days, they didn't have copies of the Bible, like you and I do. You probably have 15 copies of the Word around your house, you know, and Bibles, printed books, your phones, you can get all kinds of copies of it everywhere. So, they hear the Word. You can also read the Word. The focus is on the truth of the Gospel reaching our ears, impacting our minds and hearts, to transform and change us. And here I must, I must try and awaken maybe someone who's listening. Because it is the preaching that brings life, because the preaching, the content of the preaching, is the Gospel. It is the power of God. And if the preaching is not the Gospel, if it is not the power of God, then the preaching is anemic. It has no power. But if the preaching does proclaim the truth, then the truth resides in our hearts and transforms and changes us.

In my short life, I have preached hundreds of sermons. I have sat where you sit and listened to hundreds of sermons before I became a preacher. And I have had to consider, why would I yawn through the sermon? I remember hearing my first sermon that was over an hour, and it was painful. It was difficult to sit there and focus and think through this guy, like, what is he doing to us, he is killing us with the Word? But the problem was not the preacher, the problem was my cup was so little. And after he gave me an ounce of the Word, I was already full. And so, I felt like I was drowning in the Word. And I simply needed to enlarge my cup.

I have watched many yawn and fall asleep as I proclaim the eternal truth of the Gospel. They endure preaching, but they do not love it. They sit and they fall into a deep coma. As they hear the transforming power of God and claim it is the thing they love most. While they doodle on something or look around. Or, in the last place we were there were windows behind me, and I could tell when there was a squirrel going down the power line, like all the eyes were like this bouncing. And I was like, well, I guess I should join them because I'm the only one not doing this. And we have to catch ourselves. Those are the moments when we see into our hearts, our window is the biggest window we have into the reality of what we truly believe is our hearts – our actions, our thoughts. Do we get invigorated by the Word of God or does it put us into a coma? Sleepy eyes give us away.

You say, “you're a boring preacher.” Well, Scripture says, “you have a dull heart and ears that don't hear.” I may be boring. But the Word of God says, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but have itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from - listening to exciting dynamic speakers? – No! from listening to the truth. Do you want the truth? Is God so dull that we cannot endure one hour of savoring him?

And yet – in those same messages – there are eager, attentive ears. There are people listening and carefully understanding and digesting. They are warmed. You can see them being energized and writing things down and understanding. And you can see their heads nodding, not nodding off, but nodding in agreement. And their eyes have seen the light, and they like the light, they want to go to it. They want to hear it with their ears, and they know that it is the best thing that they have. It is greater than anything out there. They come to drink of the living waters because they know they shall never thirst again. They are always satisfied by the Word of truth. And they come to feast on the banquet of God's grace. They have believed unto new life and the new life is refreshing, it is energizing to them, and they love it. And they don't just love it and then go away and love it again a week later, they love it in their thoughts during the rest of Sunday. They love it in their families throughout the week. They try and get more of it, and they clamor for more time, not filling their time up with everything else. They love these things.

And I ask you, is that the belief that you have? So, God calls us to believe and for his Word to be preached. And this very day, I would beg you to repent of your sins, and turn to Jesus Christ truly, and believe. Ask him to well up within you a new heart. Fooling us and fooling others, many preachers themselves, who wrote many of the hymns we sing, were unsaved for many years as they preached. No one is able to escape that assessment, that we may be fooling other people. But do you know God in this way? That he is the power of God for salvation in your life?

So, then we come to the definition of the Gospel, the good news. The thing that makes one happy, that's what good news is, right? It's like a birthday party and it's your birthday and everybody's bringing you gifts and you're happy. We know what good news is. We look for it. I don't know why we look at the news because that's almost never good news. But there is good news. And we clamor for it, we love it, we long for it. And so, we see that the good news is the message of God's salvation. That's good news.

It's always been this way. This is not just a new thing in Romans. It's been this way in the Gospels. And it's talked about in ways that we don't, we don't normally consider, for instance in Matthew chapter four, it says, “And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom.” In other words, there's a kingdom that some people are in, and then there's another kingdom that other people are in. And he went about preaching the Gospel of a specific Kingdom. That people needed to be delivered and let into. And so, we see throughout Matthew, this is the Gospel of the Kingdom.

And in Mark, we see the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we see the phrase “Gospel of God.” So now we have “The Gospel of the Kingdom, “The Gospel of Jesus,” “The Gospel of God,” and Scripture tries to show us from every facet, what this Gospel really entails. Saved unto what? We are saved into a kingdom, saved to become a child of God. And it's throughout Scripture this way.

Mark 1:15 says this, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” It’s repentance, belief, gospel, kingdom of God – it's all together. And so, you all – if you believe, if you've been saved by grace through faith – you are in the kingdom of God. Your very soul is in the kingdom of God, you as a person are in God's kingdom. It will one day be fulfilled and made perfect. We will one day rule and reign with him. We will one day be able to see Jesus, when he sets up his new kingdom. We are told to repent and believe in the good news, the gospel. We are told to give away our lives in Mark 8:35. We are told to, even… now family is “the golden calf” of Christianity. Right? If you put it in its wrong stance, that's the golden calf. So, we are told to even leave family for the sake of the gospel. That is where many people draw the line. Their faith is belief in a gospel except for that. That's a difficult saying. The gospel is to be proclaimed to all nations in Mark 13:10. So it starts out talking about the gospel of Jesus, and it ends with going to all nations. Sounds familiar.

The gospel in Luke is synonymous with the kingdom of God. It's preached in Luke 9:2, Luke 9:6, and the disciples went out preaching this message. In the Gospel of John, we don't find the word “gospel.” Like, “Oh no! Where did it go?” Well, you've heard of John 316. It's there. Right? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever should believe.” Same theme. Same message. “Should not perish.” That's the wrath of God. Right? Out of the kingdom of God.

The book of Acts, when Saul was persecuting the church. Before Saul writes 13 books in the New Testament, he's a murderer. He's not just mean to people. He drags off men, women, and children and committed them to prisons. And as he's watching one of God's people, Stephen, be stoned to death. And Stephen is recounting the history of Israel, as he's getting rocks thrown at his head, talk about a man who knows how to teach the Bible. We see that they go about preaching the Word. Phillip preaches, Peter preaches, John preaches (Acts 8:4). We see that in the book of Acts.

Philip even, in Acts 8:12, “But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news about the kingdom of God” there’s that phrase again, “and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.” So now you see this ordinance of the church – normal, typical, routine. Acts 8:25, they were preaching the gospel in Jerusalem and in Samaria. So, the gospel, remember how it was supposed to go out into all nations – we see that from Acts 1:8 – we see that they were actually doing that.

We don't just talk about the gospel and love the gospel, we put it into practice. That's what Christians do. It's not what Christians consider, it's what we do. It's what we're called to do. It's an act of obedience to let the gospel out and to share it with others. And Paul says, “I'm not ashamed of the gospel.” Why? Because he understands that it is the very power of God.

After Paul gets saved – Saul becomes Paul – after he gets saved, what does he do? It says, he and Barnabas, preached the gospel. And he says, in Acts 13:47, “For so the Lord has commanded us [i.e. Paul and Barnabas], saying, ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’” “That’s a lot of good New Testament verses, right Dave? Got any like that in the Old Testament?” Of course, that's a quote from Isaiah 49, what I just read you: “I've made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.” That was the commission, the chosen people of God – the Israelites – were supposed to fulfill but they rejected it. It's always been God's plan to take the gospel to the whole globe. And we're the plan. Look at the person next to you say, “You're the plan,” right? “Great plan” and smile. I love God's plan. You and I are the plan.

When Paul and Barnabas flee for their lives, when they get far enough away, they go back to preaching the gospel. Circumstances don't change the plan. Right? Your life season doesn't change the plan. Where you are at on your “journey” doesn't change the plan. Right? When you have to build in more “margin” into your schedule, that doesn't change the plan. When you have to “pivot” and make life adjustments, it doesn't change the plan. No matter how we couch the phrase, the purpose, the terminology – like Pastor Nick preached last week – the purpose of the church doesn't change. It's we conform to it, or we're not part of it.

So, we see that in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the book of Acts – the birth of the church, the pattern of the church. You see Paul, you see him going about doing these things. He's not just talking about them. Do we talk about loving the gospel more than we actually love it. Do we talk about wanting to get better at sharing the gospel than actually getting better at it? And, of course, we all need to get better at it. Like prayer and Bible Study, right? It's always there, you're always growing. There's always more to learn about God and more to implement. But I ask you, in wherever you're at, in knowing and understanding the Bible, and believing the Bible, and being saved – whether you've been saved for a month or a week or three years or 30 years. Are you willing, wherever you're at, to say, “Lord God, help me take the next step in the ‘obedience of faith.’”

Are we willing to say, “Alright, it's been five years since I shared the gospel with someone, if ever…” And just because, you know, I'm a preacher doesn't mean, I don't get scared sharing the gospel. I don't like to be uneasy in public any more than you do. And when you're in line at the grocery store, you're like, “Oh look, unbelievers. I guess I could share the gospel. I really don't want to have an awkward conversation right now.” Who doesn't think that way at times? I certainly do. But if you want to learn how to take the next step, it’s just simply, are you willing to be faithful? There's no big 18-week lesson plan you need to go through. If you are saved, then you know how to share with someone else so that they can be saved. If you need resources and tracts, we'll buy as many as you can hand out. If you want books on it, we've got books on it. Simply tell people that they need Jesus, that they need to follow him with their lives, and call them to action.

But looking at Paul's life, he wasn't worthy. You think, “I'm not worthy.” Paul was worse than we are. He calls himself the chief of sinners. And I don't think he's just speaking in hyperbole. I think he believes he was the worst person on the entire planet and he was the chief of sinners. He was the worst of the worst. He was persecuting the Way. Jesus said, “I am the Way.” “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And yet God, out of his gracious mercy, chose Saul to change his life. You say, “I don't know. I'm pretty calloused.” You're not as bad as Saul was. Have you ever considered that? That brings validity to salvation being of God's grace. Paul was an intellectual scholar before salvation. He was trained by Gamaliel. That was a scholarly teacher. He knew the Scriptures, he knew the Old Testament, he knew the writings. He knew what they meant. He just wasn't saved.

So, we can't say, “You know, I'm just not gifted like other people. I don't think God can use me very much. I'm just going to stay over here in my hole and crawl out of it every now and then. And hopefully God will accept me when I get to heaven. Lord, you can't use me I'm damaged goods.” Right? And then you think back over your life. Like, “Ah see, Lord, you remember better than I do how much pain I've caused other people, how bad I am, how many things I've broken, how many people I've hurt, how many times I've rejected you, God.”

Listen, if you have life and breath, and if you are saved, God can use you. No matter who you are. Not just for your children. That's 101, we need to reach the world. Not just the people who are here, right? You guys are like sitting ducks on Sunday for me. You're already here. You're kind of stuck until I run out of wind. Right? That's easy. We need to share the gospel with everybody. Paul did that. In Acts chapter 20 we see Paul talking to the Ephesian elders. He says [Acts 20:24], “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself,” and some of you going, “Yep, I’m right there.” But listen to what he did with it: “if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” Paul was a walking, living, breathing example of God's grace. You and I can at least be that. So, he was not ashamed. He lived it out. Phillip, Peter, John, Stephen lived it out. Jesus lived it out.

You see, we've got to be willing to just connect the cable. Look under the hood, connect the cable. Share the Gospel. Let the lion out of the cage, it will be just fine on its own. Let the gospel out and it will change and transform the world.

Let's pray.

Lord God, we first admit that we are sinful and in need of ongoing forgiveness. We know, Lord God, that you have sent your Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sin. That we might believe in the gospel, and come to know you. And Lord, we beg you to save anyone here who doesn't know you, to save them this morning that they might not leave without demanding to know that they are saved. We beg your grace, Lord.

Father God, we love you and we want to have the courage and the boldness to share the gospel with people. To be enamored by the power of God, to not be ashamed of it, and to share it and to let it out. Lord, help us to open our mouths and share the life transforming power of the good news. With all who will hear, to leave the results up to you. But to follow in the obedience of faith, Lord, to share with others. The same way someone shared with us.

Father, give us that courage. We want to see your glory in life. We want to see your power at work, not only in others, but in our lives as well.

Let's just take a moment right now. And if you don't know Jesus, I would encourage you to call upon his Name that you might be saved. And if you do know him, to ask him to give you the courage to share the gospel with others. Let's just do that right now.

Lord God, we love you. We know you can do all things. And we know this prayer request is something that you want to answer in our lives. Help us live for your glory. In your precious Name, Amen.