I’ve decided to do a little more to bridge the gap between my writing ministry and my ministry here at First Baptist Jasper. To this end I’ll occasionally post sermons that I’ve preached in the past that I believe may be helpful to others.
I don’t blame Cubs fans for being slightly ashamed. (And I say this as a Royals fan). They don’t have much of a reason to have confidence. But as a Christian I’m shocked by the times when I’m ashamed of the gospel. We have every reason to be confident in the power of the gospel.
I’ve always been challenged by Romans 1:17. It challenges me because while I’d like to believe that I’m not ashamed of the gospel, I’m not totally sure that I am. The context of Romans 1 shows us that Paul is eager to preach the gospel in Rome.
Rome was a culture that is similar to ours. And so I have to ask myself am I eager to preach the gospel in places where it might not be well received?
I know that I should be. And I know that what made Paul eager—his confidence in the gospel—is something that I too should have. In fact there are three reasons that I see in Romans 1:8-17 why we should have confidence:
- We can be confident because the gospel is contagious
- We can be confident because God blesses obedience
- We can be confident because the gospel is powerful
These were the three points that I had on this text when I preached through it. In my opinion the sermon starts out a bit slow (I didn’t feel like the intro worked) but there is an illustration at the end, that I hadn’t planned, that was very powerful for us as a congregation.
Have a listen:
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photo credit: antiapathy via photopin cc
