"This Is Intense!"

“This Is Intense!”

Text: Romans 1:16-17, “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. [17] For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’”

Focus: The Gospel of Jesus Christ is worthy of pride and intense following. We Christians often take the Gospel too lightly, and we miss the true blessing of living an intense faith in the midst of a dark day.

Function: To encourage believers to know the Lord in a more intense and vigorous way. It is inevitable that all of Christendom would wake itself and live a strong faith relationship in the middle of a dying world.

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PRAYER…

INTRODUCTION:

Since it is that time of the year that people seem to want to strike the fear in themselves with movies…haunted houses…and a myriad of spooky things…

-Things that are more “INTENSE” than what I care to be a part of…

I wanted to focus on something else that I believe is ALL THE MORE INTENSE!...

The WORD OF THE LIVING GOD!

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You know…

Back in my teen years we would use the phase…“It is intense” or “That’s intense”

Quite often, it was used to describe something that was very cool….exciting…awesome…and thrilling!

-You could use the term for a variety of reasons…on a variety of occasions…

-We would describe a movie that way…or a roller coaster…and sometimes even a person.

Many of us see suspensful movies, and we can’t even endure the intensity as we scream…“the bad guy is just around the corner!”…or “don’t go in there!”…or “I know that he isn’t dead, he going to jump up!”

We go to Amusement Parks and ride some of the best roller coasters…and the INTENSITY of the ride keeps bringing us back to loose our stomachs…and lunch…time after time.

EX:

Tell of the ride at Kenneywood in Pitts., PA. The Steel Phantom whose drop was the longest of all rides. Over 250 feet! Straight Down!!!

INTENSE!

We used this term to determine what was an extreme in feeling; it showed, or brought forth, a strong feeling from others.

-Something intense is “full of vigorous activity”…as the dictionary defines…

BUT, hear me this morning…how I see it, is that our faith in Jesus Christ should be intense also!

-Living for God should be extreme, and full of vigorous activity!

-Read the Book of Acts!

-So, we adherents of the FAITH should be showing a strong feeling towards the faith.

-This is what intense is.

I see Romans 1:16-17 as revealing such an INTENSITY…

READ THE TEXT: “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. [17] For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’”

PROUDLY…Paul proclaims here that he is not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

-He has no embarrassment or feelings of disgrace because of the gospel.

-He doesn’t get humiliated, or mortified, because someone finds out that he knows God, and claims to follow after Him.

Now, you may ask, “Just, why would he be ashamed, why is he claiming not to be ashamed?”

There are a couple reasons…

A few reasons that will help us to know just why he is specifically being BOLD here…and for good reason!

#1 - He is writing to Rome.

Rome was the most powerful of all the cities in the world. And the Gospel came from Jerusalem, the capital city of a small nation that Rome had already conquered.

#2 - For a Gentile city to believe in a poor Jewish carpenter who has died on a cross, the lowest form of death, is unbelievable. No one would do it (in their reasoning), therefore, it is detestable.

#3 - Rome was a city that was full of great philosophers and philosophies, so why believe in a “fable” about a Jew who rose from the dead?

#4 - The Christians saw each other as brothers and sisters, and this was below the prideful and dignified Roman who would never think of being close to pauper.

All of these are reasons that Paul had to go out of his way to declare his PRIDE in the Lord…

Because…these points are all reasons as to why choosing to be a follower of the Gospel of Christ was merely a joke to the Roman mind…

Though the ones around us are not Romans…basically, the mentality is the same…

These are the same type of people we face today in this world…a proud, arrogant, and snooty people.