Alba 6-13-2021
UNASHAMED
Romans 1:16-17
I remember the decision when I chose to become a Christian. I was nine years old. We didn't have children's church in those days, so I attended church with my parents from the time I was born.
Somehow, the minister's messages began to penetrate my mind and heart at that young age of nine. I felt conviction to step out and confess my faith in Jesus. But just like many others, I held onto the back of the pew in front of me, and did not budge for several Sundays.
Then came the day when I could no longer stand frozen to that pew. I stepped out and confessed my faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God.
Because the baptistry was only filled if they knew there would be a baptism, I was not baptized until the next Sunday. The water was cold, but I felt good.
The next thing, I'm ashamed to admit, is that in the week that followed, a neighbor boy older than me (I don't even remember who it was now) had heard about my decision.
When he asked me about it, I was surprised that people outside of our church would be aware of what I had done. My surprise led me to be less than bold to speak about the best decision I could ever make.
My response was minimal at best and shameful at worst. I had stood before the church congregation and gladly stated my faith, but I could not do it in front of a neighbor boy.
Not a good start for one who just two years later decided to become a minster. Especially when Jesus says in Mark 8:38:
For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” (NKJV)
Why is it that we can express our love and devotion to our Lord Jesus when together with the church, but fail to do so when we are going on with our daily lives?
No matter who we are, if we are Christians, we all have come out of sin to a Savior who is Christ the Lord. That is a reason to be bold in expressing our faith to others who need the same salvation.
The apostle Paul expresses that boldness in Romans 1:16-17. There he says, 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” (NKJV)
Listen to those words, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Now, I am sure that we know what the gospel is. The word gospel means... (wait for it), the Good News!
How would you feel if someone came up to you and said, “Oh, I feel really hesitant to tell you this... I'm so sorry! But you just won a million dollars... sorry!”
Why would anyone be ashamed to tell such good news? So why would anyone, I should say why would we, be ashamed to share what we know to be the best news we have ever heard?
It IS good news, isn't it? I'm afraid we sometimes forget that. It has been good news from the beginning.
Remember what the angel declared when Jesus was born? The angel said, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:10-11 ESV)
Jesus came to set us free from shame. He endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2 NKJV)
In Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were created in perfection and, the Bible says they were naked and unashamed. What this means is they were innocent, they were without sin before God. They were God conscious not self conscious.
God created us to know no shame. But their choices in chapter three change everything. In verse seven we read that they disobeyed God and ate from the tree He had forbidden.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. (Genesis 3:7 NKJV)
They suddenly felt shame for their nakedness. Shame comes into the picture because they are no longer innocent. Sin has made them self conscious instead of God conscious. They hide from God.
They are ashamed and begin to cover up to try to hide what they had done. They lived with the fig leaf. Adam and Eve experienced both shame and guilt. Guilt says, “I've done something wrong.” Shame says, "There's something wrong with me.”
Guilt says, “I've made a mistake.” Shame says, "I am a mistake.” Guilt says , “What I did was not good.” Shame says “I am no good.”
Shame makes you hang your head. Shame causes your face to turn red, and your self worth to plummet.
If you've said the words “I'm ashamed of myself” it's because you've done something you should not have done. Something you've tired to hide has come to light, something you wanted to stay secret has been discovered.
One of the elements of shame is embarrassment. You do something stupid and you want to run and hide. You don’t have to live with a fig leaf. You don’t have to live with shame.
Not because it is OK, whatever it is you have done and doesn’t matter, but because Jesus died for that shame. And our shame was placed on Him.
Jesus didn't have go to the cross. But He so completely identified with us and our need, that He was willing to submit to the world's greatest sign of shame, the cross and suffer its pain for our sake.
In human form the Lord encountered every temptation to sin that we do, but He did not yield to them. Because of this, He can sympathize with us, and be the perfect Lamb of God who died for us.
He didn't have to. He choose to do it. In Matthew 20:28 Jesus speaks of Himself and says, the Son Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Ransom is money you pay a kidnapper for the life of a loved one. Satan took everyone of us captive because of sin and demanded a payment. The wages of sin is death.
We can not pay our own ransom. We are bankrupt. So Jesus paid it for us. God in the flesh allowed His body to be nailed to a cross, allowed His blood to be shed. Jesus paid it all. This is what Paul became convinced of, and preached unashamedly.
Although, he knew about shame. His memory must have flooded his soul with it. Remember how he was holding the cloaks and giving full approval as Stephen was stoned to death.
He literally applauded the misery of another. In Acts 8:3 it tells us that he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.
No wonder he says in I Timothy 1:15, This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. One translation has it: of whom I am the worst.
Yes, he had shame. But now he says “I am not ashamed of the gospel.” I don't know about you, but I can't imagine the Apostle Paul saying he was sorry for speaking the truth. Because, Paul was not ashamed of the gospel!
Here is a question for all of us to answer, “Would we make this same statement about the gospel?” “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of salvation to everyone who believes.”
I am sure that almost everyone who is a Christian would make that statement. But it is possible to say it with our mouths, yet showing what we believe about the gospel in our actions is a different thing.
We may often say that we are not ashamed of this powerful gospel, but in reality not show it by our actions. If we are not careful, our actions may actually show shame for the Lord and the gospel.
Now, sometimes we can be ashamed of ourselves, but we NEVER have to be ashamed of Jesus. Our Christianity should be summed up in the words of the hymn:
I love to tell the story of unseen things above
Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and his love
And when in scenes of glory I sing a new, new song
Twill’ be the old, old story that I have loved so long
I Corinthians 15:3-4 gives us a summary of that old, old story, that gospel story, that good news. It proclaims, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. (NKJV)
There's the gospel! So we know what the Gospel is. But it is also important to know what it isn’t. It isn’t some vague belief in God.
It isn’t some easy cheap grace where you say a prayer or even “get baptized” so you can live how you want, but still slide into heaven because you did the right thing at “one time.”
And there are those who reduce Christianity to an ethic of love that if followed, leads to heaven on earth and heaven hereafter. The world’s gospel is, “Do your best; hope God grades on the curve and hope you have been good enough to make it to heaven.”
West Garner is a minister who told the following story: “One Sunday evening all us boys got down there in the field to play football. We had chosen teams and were about to start the game when someone asks, who’s got the ball.
We all looked around and no one had brought a ball. They all thought the other one would do it. Let me tell you if there no football, there is no football. Nothing works unless you have a ball...
“You can have all the other stuff, but no ball, and there is no game. You can have all the right equipment. You can have a stadium. You can have a scoreboard. You can have cheerleaders but if don’t have a ball there is no game.
“As Christians it is possible have all the stuff right. Go to the right church, carry the right Bible, say the right words, and wear the right clothes, and still not have the one thing that makes Christianity what it is.
“If you don’t have Christ and the gospel then everything else doesn’t matter.” Our scripture says that the just shall live by faith. But faith in what?
Faith in the fact that Jesus Christ took our sins upon Himself, taking the punishment we deserved. And, in exchange, making us righteous before God. It is a faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord.
And the Good News is this: God has the power, and God has a plan, to save everyone, Jew and Gentile alike. That plan includes the perfect righteous Son giving His life for the unrighteous world.
This is God's answer to racism. Racism is the total opposite of what God has called us to. We have never met a human being that God did not desire to save. God is not a respecter of persons, one above the other.
In our fallen, godless world, we must be vigilant to remember that all people are welcomed into the kingdom of God! If everyone could get hold of this fact, it would solve a lot of problems that we face in our country today.
Sometimes the most unlikely people can hear the truth about God’s love and be drawn to Him. Not everyone will have an obedient faith, but to those who do, eternal life is theirs!
LISTEN – Paul reminds us that the gospel is the power of God, not was. It is the power of God. It was the power of God in the first century, and it is the power of God in the 21st century.
AND it is the power of God with one purpose – to save people, to show them how to get right with God.
In spite of Paul's past, he didn’t live a life in shame. He lived under grace. And that is where we live when we are in Christ.
We can live UNASHAMED!
CONCLUSION:
There is a story of a little girl’s moma that had a big scar on the side of her face. The little girl was very embarrassed of her mother. She never wanted her to come inside the school with her.
She never wanted to go shopping with her because people stared at the scar on her mothers face. At night when the mother would kiss her little girl, she would close her eyes so she wouldn't have to look at the scar.
It began to really bother the mother so she asked her little girl one day as she was laying her down for bed. “Why don't you ever want to go shopping with me?”
The little girl said “Moma I don't want to hurt your feeling but people stare at you and it embarrasses me, and I'm ashamed to go with you anywhere.”
The mother said “I think it about time for me to tell you how I got this scar. One night the fire alarm went off in the house and when I opened my eyes the entire house was on fire. The only thing I could think of was you.
“So I ran to your room and scooped you up our of your baby bed. I was running and as I was running a piece of fire from the house landed on my face. I couldn't get it off because I had you in my arms. So I got you outside of the house and we were both safe, but my face was burned very badly.”
The little girls had tears rolling down her face and she reached up with her little hands and touched the large scar on her mothers face. With her hand on the scar, she told her mother that it was the most beautiful face she had ever seen and she would never again be ashamed of her mom.
One day we are all going to get to Heaven and there will be no scars except on one. Those will be the most beautiful scars we have ever seen in our lives in that moment.
May we not be ashamed of those scars while we are here on this earth.
