Who's excited to be here today? Absolutely. I was so excited that I got here about four o'clock this morning. God decided it was funny to give me another sleepless night and wake me up nice and early.
So he doesn't quite often for me. Amen. So again, thank you guys. I greatly appreciate it.
It's an honor. It is really truly an honor. Don't I let your keys on the chair right there for you, so you don't lose any of your keys. Don told me he has a tendency to forget things lately.
I just got to help him out every once in a while. Amen. Amen. So the message that I have for you guys today, you saw one of the guys been working for several weeks with me.
As you guys already know, I was just told my favorite book in the Bible was the Book of Philippians, not just because it has my name in it. But literally, the first verse I ever remembered was in Philippians. And it's one that stuck with me. But lately, guys have been working the Book of Romans with me.
And I've gotten the opportunity to sew into our homes. We're going through the Book of Romans right now, chapter by chapter. And as I'm digging into this, I've found some really good things. And the service that I have today, I give a lot of the credit of it.
It's ultimately God, but there is a pastor out of Ontario, Pastor Paul with Calvary Chapel. If any of you guys get a chance to watch him, he is an amazing pastor. So Pastor Paul, if you see this, I'm giving you a shout out there. But seriously, if you guys get a chance to watch him, he walks you right through chapter by chapter book by book.
It's amazing how he does it. So but I titled this message here today, Went in Rome. I'm sure you guys know the rest of that. It says, Went in Rome.
It says, I'm going to read these verses to you guys just real quick before we get started here. Starting in verse one, it says Paul, a bond servant of Jesus Christ called to be an apostle separated to the gospel of God, which he promised before through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. Concerning his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh and declared to be the son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, and resurrection from the dead. Verse five, through him, we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name, among whom you also are the call of Jesus Christ, to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, grace to you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse eight, first, I thank my God for Jesus Christ for you, all that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world, for God is my witness whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers, making requests, if by some means now at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you, for I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gifts so that you may be established. That is that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith, both of you and me. Now, I do not want you to be unaware, brother, that I often plan to come to you, but was hindered until now, that I might have some fruit among you also. Just as among the other Gentiles, I'm a debtor, both to Greeks and barbarians, both to wise and to unwise.
So as much as in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also, 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. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. Amen. Let's go ahead and pray with the service and ask God to just speak it for us.
Heavenly Father, just we tell you thank you this morning, we tell you to love you. God, we thank you for your word, but more importantly we thank you for the gospel. The death, the burial and the resurrection of your Son. Now we thank you for the freedom that you've given us, we thank you for the instruction you give us.
God has always, we ask that this be a hundred percent of you today, zero of me. God, use this time to mend broken hearts, allow people to know the freedom of you, God, allow them to receive the salvation that you gave to them with your life, Father God. Again, we tell you thank you and we love you. In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen. The just shall live by faith. It's very important to know that faith is in the gospel. And I asked multiple people this week of what the gospel is to them.
And I got multiple different answers of what people believe the gospel is. Before we get started in this, I want to tell you that what I've learned, what I believe, there's one thing that the gospel is. It's an event. It is the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus.
Jesus says to go preach the gospel to the nations. And that is what he was trying to proclaim. To preach that I died, that I was buried, that I rose for the salvation of you. Before we get too far in, I want to give you a couple little facts about the book of Romans.
It is the first book of Paul in the New Testament. And I believe it's placed there because it's much of the theological point of viewpoint for the rest of the New Testament. It really bridges that gap from the Jewish culture over to the Gentile culture is what he's trying to show us. And also Paul is really stressing the point of the gospel inside of this.
Romans has broken into two parts, chapter one through eleven is what we should believe in eleven through sixteen is how we should live. So it gives you the heart of it first and then how to walk out the heart of it. Something I picked up through the study is the themes of their sin, salvation, sanctification, sovereignty of God and service. Those are the key factors of your walk with Christ and in your salvation comes from God, but in your salvation.
So when Paul wrote this to the Romans, once you guys had to think about this, there was no Bible at this point in time. The Romans are showing their faith through not having a Bible just by word of mouth. And how awesome would it be if your faith was shined through the world, where people hundreds of miles away are hearing about you when you don't have Facebook and TikTok and Twitter and means to communicate with them so easily. How awesome would that be of our faith today shined as much as that?
We have on an instruction book of every step, not every step, but the major gist of Jesus's walk. And these people were communicating this without that type of thing. And that's amazing to think about. But I want to go ahead and get into also good fact.
Did you know the book of Romans was carried by a female? Seven-on-one's of terrors. Women did have a part in the making of the church. So I just want to tell you that women of the church are as much valued as the men are and there's absolutely a place for all of us.
So, verse one, the first word that you see is Paul. And most of Paul's writings, he does this. He places his name first. And the reasoning behind that is Paul wants you first to know who he is.
And the reason it's written first is in this time letters weren't written in the same manner that we write letters today where we sign our name at the end. That's because we have pages that we can leaf through. They didn't. They wrote him on scrolls.
So instead of having to unscrew the entire thing to see who wrote it, to know who's speaking to me, instantly as soon as you opened it, it says, what I want you to see, as soon as Paul identifies his name, what does he do? He says, a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Called to be an apostle, separated to the Gospel of God. A bondservant.
I'm going to bring up the All About Fill series again. I mentioned this back then, but I want to expand on it a little bit of why Paul identifies first and foremost, my name and what I am. And that bondservant, the actual meaning of it or word is doulas. And there's something very, very unique about a doulas.
Is it a word for slavery? Yes. But not slavery as we know it. Not like it was in America 150, 200 years ago.
A bondservant is a person who chose to be it. And under the Mosaic Law, if you drop back to Exodus 21 verse 2, it says, if you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years and the seventh, he shall go free and pay nothing. Servants were, they took a monetary value for their family. They weren't, as we see it forced into this.
There was something to gain from them being a servant. But they had to go free on that seventh year. Now here's where the word doulas truly comes into play. If you drop down a few more verses in the book of Exodus chapter 21, starting verse 5, it says, But if the servant plainly says, I love my master, my wife and my children, I will not go free.
Then his master shall bring him to the judges. He shall also bring him to the door or to the door post. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him forever. A bondservant is someone who freely chose to say, my master, the person I serve is so good to me that I want to willingly serve him for the rest of my life.
But I found it fascinating. I'm not sure yet of what an awl is, AWL, but I found it really interesting that they marked their self, that they were servant to that master. Okay? Okay?
I would imagine they had different ways of identifying for different people. So if you got pierced by this master, when somebody seen you in the streets, they knew who you served. I want to ask you guys, what marks you to let people know you serve Jesus? When you walk past somebody on the street, can they look at you and say, I know that person serves Jesus freely and willingly?
Or you a bondservant of Jesus as the apostle Paul is talking about here? He goes, I want to say called to an apostle. Now, I want you to see that he says, I'm Paul, I'm a servant to Christ first. And under my servant, good to him, he has called me to be an apostle.
Because if you're called to do something, if you have a master over top of you, you don't pick your job title. When you go and apply for somewhere, several people here have applied for Barry Plastics lately and they've gotten the job there. One thing they didn't get to do when they sat down and accepted that job was say, well, I'm going to be your maintenance man. I'm going to be your design person.
No. They said, yes, I'll serve you. And then the owner or boss of the business said, here's the job you're going to do. We have to start looking at God like that.
If we are truly bondservants to him, what job has he called you to do? We're all called to make disciples and I know there's verses and everybody though has a unique purpose in the kingdom of God. You have a job to do and when you have a purpose, it has meaning when you know your purpose. With being called to an apostle, Paul wants them to know where his authority comes from, that it does not come from himself, that it comes from his master, that he's serving.
He's a servant, then an apostle. A lot of us get that backwards. I know I did for some time. I want it to be the job before I want it to be the servant.
And we have to realize that we have to have the heart of a servant before we can serve in the position separated through the gospel of God. I am not going to try to pronounce this word. As you guys know, I'm not the greatest on pronunciations with all of them. It took me long enough to learn doulas of about 35 times going through YouTube watching it.
So there's the word. All right. You can see it up there. What's to mark off from others by boundaries to limit, to separate, to a point, set apart for some purpose.
When you come to God, he literally gives you a piece of land to cultivate that is your purpose in life. And when you're set apart from it, I'm not called to serve my wife. A benefit of serving God is serving my wife. That sets the marriage apart from what the marriages of the world set.
With service and with being set apart, it's not something that you naturally love to do. It's not something that's natural in you. When we wake up in the morning, our heart says, make myself happy. Do what's easiest for me.
With God and being set apart from the world, that's not what it is. It is a daily choice to wake up and to serve him. I want you guys to realize that sometimes it's work. Sometimes it's not easy.
Sometimes there's mental anguish to it. But that's what sets us apart of being willing to do it. When your purpose is for God, you can be fulfilled. If your purpose is in the world, as soon as that world stops it, that world fails you, you lose your purpose.
Several people that I speak with that want to be TikTok famous. That's all great. TikTok can be used for great things. I'm not bashing it.
But what I am saying is that you can make a fabulous video. You can get thousands upon thousands of likes and comments and that. But a couple days down the road, guess what happens? People stop smashing that thumbs up button.
And you lose your purpose. You lose your heart in the situation. When you're set apart by God, your purpose has already been fulfilled. Your purpose can't be taken because it's already completed in him.
Verse 2 goes on to read, which he promised before through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. So Paul identifies who he is, what he does, his purpose. And now he's beginning to tell you how he's set apart. So it's who Paul is and then what he's writing about.
Also, Paul was identifying that who he serves, they knew of the Old Testament Scriptures. They knew of what was prophesied for them. He's trying to begin to show the Romans that what was written before is now being fulfilled through the prophets of the Holy Scriptures. He's referring back to Old Testament with them.
What he wants to tell them, concerning his son Jesus Christ, our Lord who was born of the seed of David, according to the flesh. Again, when he's saying the seed of David, at this time frame in life, your genealogy was an important factor of where you come from. So he's identifying that. But I want you to see that word concerning, his son Jesus Christ.
The word concerning comes from, I believe it's pronounced peri, p-e-r-i. And I want you guys to think about this word. We've smashed it together in life with another word and it's periscope. The reason that we call it a periscope is the same reason it's a word as for.
You can see 360 degrees around. The word itself literally means all around, all in. Now think about that. So the actual breakdown of it is about concerning on the account of because of, around or near.
So take that word concerning out of there and start replacing it with the meanings of it. About his son Jesus Christ. On account of his son Jesus Christ. Because of his son Jesus Christ.
Around his son Jesus Christ. Near his son Jesus Christ. He's telling you, he's telling us that everything that I'm saying to you and everything in this walk of salvation is 100% surrounded on one thing. Jesus.
The one of our sources, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness. By the resurrection from the dead. Through him, verse 5, through him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to faith among all the nations for his name. We're obedience to faith.
We know what obedience to law is. We know what obedience to instructions to rules to training. Obedience to faith is kind of a foreign saying to us. I'm not even 100% sure that I fully understand it myself but I'm going to, it's something I've been dwelling on for probably three days now.
But think about it. Obedience to instructions is I tell you to do something and you do it. Obedience is training. I show you something and you do it.
Obedience to rules is obedience to law. Old Testament. Obedience to faith though is purely residing in the death, the gospel, the death, the burial and the resurrection. To know that the only reason that you have what you have today is because of that.
That the only reason that you can, that you can stand, that we don't have blood soaked altars and we have animal body parts laying across it is because of obedience to the faith. Obedience to the gospel. Obedience to law brings obedience to intimidation of intimidation. And that's what they love behind the old, Old Testament.
Obedience to faith is standing in the freedom that she was given today. Safety of faith, not my works. Without obedience to faith, we try to beat the flesh with the flesh. Does that make sense?
You can't do that. You can't in your own strength, stand and defeat the sin that you have. There's no sacrifice that you can make. There's no sacrifice that I can make in that.
Obedience to faith is also knowing that you don't lose your salvation. And that's an important thing. I get that question. Can I lose my salvation?
Obedience to faith is understanding that your salvation is already bought and paid for. It's already taken care of. It can't be taken back. It is, if I purchase something from Whitney, it's officially mine.
She can probably take it, but technically I still have ownership of it. She can take it back out of my hand, but I have ownership. I can willingly hand it back to her and it be hers. It's the same with God.
You can willingly hand back to yourself. You can willingly say, I don't want to accept that. Obedience to faith, though, says, I know that you've already done this. I know that you've already paid for this.
I know that you've already given this to me. And I stand in that today. Verse 6 tells us, among whom you are also called, also the call of Jesus Christ. Do you guys believe that you're called?
Seriously, do you guys believe that you are called by Jesus? Absolutely. Because I'm here to tell you that Paul didn't include that in there for no reason. He's trying to tell all over him a pagan culture that even know there's people surrounding you that do what they do.
They're still called just as much as you're called. They just have to be willing to accept like you're accepting. If you guys read no other verse today, please reread verse 6 multiple times. So in verse 7 it says, to all who are in Rome.
He's continuing on from what he's just saying. That you're called to all who are in Rome. And that's what I'm saying. It was a pagan generation.
We live in a completely pagan society today. I don't know if you guys pay attention to it or not, but idolization is the world today. People worship their phones, drugs, sex, rock and roll, cars, homes, wives, and a list continually goes on and on. This is why I titled this message of when in Rome there was the Romans.
Because we're literally sitting in what the Roman culture was at that day and age. Beloved of God, called to be saints, graced to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all that your faith has spoken of throughout the whole world. I've asked my wife this question and this was the one that was devastating to me.
And I don't say that in a bad way, but it did hurt when I got the answer. I asked my wife, what do you see in me? She said some pretty amazing things. She thanks very highly of me and I greatly appreciate that.
But you know the one thing she didn't say? Your faith. What is seen in you guys? Is your faith seen?
How amazing would it be if we go out here into the streets, I'm just talking about the small town of Cumberland, Maryland right now. And we asked what do you know about city reach Cumberland? I bet you're going to get things like they do great things. They give away shirts.
They have amazing times at the park. They do great food drives. They help a lot of people. All great answers.
All good things. You know what I'm proclaiming? This church to be known for from now on, our faith. I want to walk.
Sunday is the only day of the week that I do not wear a city reach Cumberland shirt. And that's because Fred doesn't allow me. But every day somebody says something about the shirt. Oh, you go there.
That's a great church. I want people to start saying that's a faith filled church. That's a faith filled person. That's what I want to start hearing.
And that should be the goal of every one of us to be like the Romans that are being seen right now. And not just in Cumberland, Maryland. I'm talking clear to Africa, Mexico, Canada, all of it. That when somebody says the name city reach Cumberland, that's a faith filled church.
I don't want to be identified anymore as what we do. I want to be identified as what we are. He says in there grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. You're a peace.
And I believe Paul wants one at the room to know that your peace comes from one place and one place only. Again, you can find peace in the world for a momentary second. But if you're looking for peace in your job, you may get it for a day or two, but it's not going to continuously stay. I may try to find peace in my wife and I may get that for a moment or two until I don't do the dishes.
Alright, the peace of the world will always fail you. The peace in Christ will never fail you. Now that doesn't mean that that doesn't mean that once you come to God that life is going to be skittles and rainbows. You're still going to go through hard times in the world with God.
You can have peace in the situations of the world. How many people have had a hard time this week? How many people have had some type of mental exhaustion this week? Absolutely.
I want to reassure you guys that that was all mental exhaustion of the world. That was not mental exhaustion of Christ. So in Rome at this point in time, Christians are being killed for their faith. It's where a term Roman Candle comes from.
If you were a believer and you professed it, you could be dipped in oil, stuck in a cage, hang on the side of the street and lit on fire, and would literally light their street up. They found peace in that toe. Well, here's what we need to do. As the Romans stop listening to the world, stop caring what the world thinks about it.
I love our church. I do. I love our church. You guys are just jacking me all up today.
But Paul is telling the Romans that the Roman Christians that are there exactly what Jesus was saying to us. In Matthew 16 verse 18, he said, and I also say to you that you Peter, and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. Paul is reassuring in the positive room. He said he's got there.
He's reassuring them that not even death itself can stop what you guys are doing. Not even death itself can separate you from what you're doing. Continue to show your faith is what Paul is trying to encourage them. And I want to give you guys that same encouragement today.
We live in a generation today where we have freedom. If you want to take a soapbox down to downtown, and start screaming out Bible verses, you're allowed to do it. If you want to ask somebody on the street, I see you limping a little bit. Can I pray for you?
And watch healings happen? You can do it. And not be persecuted for it. Now is that saying that that person is not going to tell you to shut up and go away?
They very well might. And that's when you reply to them, I'll pray for you anyway. Because I believe that my faith through Jesus can't heal you, even though you don't want to receive it. Because God wants to show his power there.
So I want to encourage you guys today to truly have the faith like these Romans had. I want to encourage you to allow your light to start shining inside of this city, this dark place that's out there. Some of you may know it, some of you may not know this from new people with us today. Multiple people sitting here have been radically set free from some massive bondage in life.
And I believe that God not only set them free for their self, we'll get into it in a second, but also for the faith of you. Not for just their own faith, he set them free for the faith of you also. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you. That's your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.
I didn't know this till recently. Paul had never met these people. Paul had not ever been to this part of Rome that he's sending this to. And he says it here in a little bit.
He's thanking God for people he's never met. Too many times we spend our prayer life worried about what's right around us. What about the other 10 million miles worth of people out there that's around? What about the...
We have a person who might want to miss him. Start praying now to intercede for those people that they're going to go talk to. Never met them a day in their life. Want to see how our faith can flourish throughout the world like the Romans?
Start praying for them now. The missionary, theirself, yes, pray for them. Pray more though for the people that they're about to meet. The same that Paul was doing.
I know that I'm going to meet you in the near future. And I'm not going to wait till I get there to pray for you. I'm going to pray for you now. The very seats that you sit in right now start praying for the people that are going to sit in them from 10 years from now.
Because I'm believing in that time frame. We're not going to have empty seats. Why? Because our faith is going to start showing inside of Cumberland, Maryland.
And we're going to start... We're going to need a bigger church in the next year or two. Or not. For God is my witness.
When everything else is said... First God is my witness that we're filling these seats. But in the Bible here. For God is my witness who I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son.
I want to pause right there for a second. Where does his spirit serve? In the gospel. Not in the world.
His spirit doesn't serve in the Bible. His spirit doesn't serve in preaching aware which these are all benefits. These are all things that he gets to do. But his spirit serves in one's soul purpose.
Death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers. Making requests that if by some means now at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you. So just a second ago that he had never met him before.
And this is one of the places that I started referring to that I've seen this and I started looking at it. By some means now at last I may find a way. But that last part is the most important. In the will of God.
This is something in my life even from five years ago when I sat and I sat over there that I tried to do. In my own strength I tried to push forward. I tried to make things happen. I wanted to meet people.
I wanted to go places. I wanted to do things in that. One thing that I didn't consider at that time for in my life is in the will of God. And once you guys start asking yourself that when you start planning something, when you start trying to endeavor into a new devil endeavor.
Is it the will of God for you to be walking into what you're walking into? Because if you're doing it in your own strength it's going to fall apart. If you don't have God's blessing over top of it first it's going to fall apart. Because it was never meant to be.
As I was in here thinking of the service this morning I got to thinking about right as COVID hit. Yes please don't throw things at me. I mentioned the C word. I got to think about I was supposed to go to Nicaragua right as COVID hit.
I asked myself was COVID my fault. Was I trying to push my will into something that I wasn't supposed to do yet? God utilized that to stop me from where I'm seeing now I wasn't prepared to preach the gospel there yet. Now I'm believing so believing in a will of God that will happen in the very near future that I will preach in another nation that if but only if it's God's option.
Me and my wife we are we're looking into homes right now one of the biggest things that I'm praying is God if it's your will. Let it be. And I think we need to start taking Paul's example here and really identifying out more in our own life of when you're trying to make a decision in your life. Are you taking it to God before you take it to the world?
Are you taking it to God before you take the Facebook and get everybody else's in the world's opinion off of it? How many of you made a decision off of that? You put the post up you get 35 comments so you're like yeah I'm supposed to do that. No you're not.
First and 11. For a long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gift so that you may be established. Who knows that my gift is not for me. Your gift is not for you.
That's a foreign thought to us. Because I'm gonna tell you what when I unwrap a Christmas gift it's mine. Okay nobody's getting to play with my ball until tomorrow at least. All right.
God gives you a gift. And this is why we don't see Christianity flourishing the way it should be. It's because we want to take it and we want to do this with it. It's mine.
It's not. It's not. We need to start saying God gave this to me for you. God gave me love so I can give you love.
God set me free so that I can help set you free. What gift are you holding on to that you need to start giving away? Is it your gift of speech? Is it your gift of friendship?
Is it your gift of love? There's multiple gifts out there that it's not just confined to a smaller section. There's multiple things that you can be doing. Your gift maybe transports somebody to church the filly seats up.
Are you willing to utilize your gift for the benefit of someone else? First one says that is that I may be encouraged that I may be encouraged together with you by mutual faith both of you and me. I told you guys this morning. It's prayer and faith that brought me to where I am in my life.
But it was not my own faith that brought me to where I am. It was a small tiny little part of it. What gave me the life that I have today is the faith of everyone who was surrounding me. Our hope homes, these men come in, these women come in lost, broken and hurt.
And it is the faith of every one of you all sitting here today that encourages them to keep pushing through. That gift that you're given is supposed to be given away. First I think I just want to say now I do not want you to be unaware of brothering that I often plan to come to you. Again, reinforcing that it hasn't seen him.
What was hindered until now that I might have some fruit among you just as among the other Gentiles. I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians both to wise and unwise. This is where Paul begins to bridge that gap between translations that worded a little different throughout them. So if yours reads differently, it's not wrong.
It starts bridging that gap really though between Jew and Gentile and proclaiming that we're the same. That we all received the gift of God the same way. We all received the salvation of God the same way. And that by the one means of Jesus and what he did, the gospel.
I want to look at that word debt though. When you guys work a job, you're owed a debt, a paycheck. If you give $5 to somebody, you're owed $5. It's typically how we operate.
He says I'm a debtor to both Greeks and to barbarians both wise and unwise. It's not that he physically owes them. It's that he owes Christ. His repayment to him is to give to others, to bear the fruits within others.
Now, the debt that we owe, excuse me, my wording was wrong, the debt that we owe, we can never repay. We can barely begin to scratch the surface of it. The debt though that he's trying to repay is exactly what we talked about before this. My gift is not for me.
The words that I have or not for me, my cards, it's not for me, it's for you. It's an obligation. But what's great about this debt, and I want you guys to really hear this, set it at the beginning, this debt's a choice. You can choose to just be there.
The debt is the repayment of the debt is a choice that's in you and I to whether to serve one another, to whether to do as we're called to, to be a bond-servant. Again, I told you on the sixth year the slave can go free. You guys are more than welcome to go free. You guys are more than welcome.
The price will let you go right out there and wallow on whatever you want to wallow in. What choice will you make today? 15 says so. As much as is in me, I'm ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also.
He says I'm ready to preach the gospel. I want you to see, let me find it for a minute. 1 Corinthians 15, 1 through 4. He says more over, brother, I declare to you.
Still Paul speaking, I declare to you the gospel. He says the gospel which I preach to you, which also you receive and in which you stand. This is what verifies of what the gospel is. By which also you are saved if you hold fast that the word which I preached to you, again the word that I preach was the gospel.
Unless you believe in vain. For I delivered you first of all that which I also received. That Christ died for our sins according to the scripture. And that he was buried and that he rose again on the third day according to the scriptures.
The gospel that I preach to you and he's telling you clearly what the gospel is that Paul is preaching. And I want to really just, I want your mind to leave here today and I want you constantly to be telling yourself. That's why I'm saying so much of what the gospel is and what you need to be telling people about. Because I believe that I can put as much thought process into the rest of the Bible.
I can come up with as many elegant words, Greek meanings, Greek words, all of that. But I truly believe that I will fail Christ if I do not stand here and tell you. The gospel is the death, burial and resurrection. And we need to get back to the basics of saying that more.
The thing that brings you salvation is not your prayer life. That's a benefit of the gospel. Your communion with Christ is a benefit of the gospel. You're serving in the church, you're your time on the streets, all of it.
That's all a benefit of the gospel. But it is pointless if we are not saying death, burial, resurrection. Verse 16 and 17, the last two verses, there's one to say, for I'm 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.
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. We have to stop being ashamed to stand in the supermarket and say the gospel. We've got to stop being ashamed to stand in front of our kids and say our home is here because of the gospel. We've got to be willing to speak it at the workplace because that's the only way we're going to begin to do what the Romans did.
And shine our light throughout the cities, throughout the nations, throughout the world. Please worship Him. It says, from faith to faith, it is written, the just shall live by faith. It's not a set of laws.
It's not what church you go to. It's not a religion. It's not Pentecostal, Baptist, Lutheran. Any of those other fancy words, it's the gospel.
And once you guys, as we talked about at the beginning here, we thought of the things that Christ has overcame in our life. And once you guys spend a few minutes before you leave here today and not worry about the things that He's done in this life for you, but the thing that He did 2,000 years ago for you. And that was gave you the gospel of the death of burial and resurrection. The freedom that you have today to be able to stand in the streets and say those words.
Take some time and thank God for the gospel. Let's go ahead and pray. Father God, this afternoon we're just going to tell you thank you. We're just thank you.
Thank you. Thank you for the gospel. Thank you for the freedom that we have in our gospel. Thank you for the love that gave us the gospel.
Just thank you, God. We love you for what you did for us. Thank you that you did it for us to open up the gates for us. God, I ask as everyone travels from here today, let's you allow the gospel to be at the forefront of the mind and allow them to do as you've instructed us to preach the gospel to the nations.
Give us an opportunity today, God. Just speak about it. But most importantly, God, we ask that you pierce our ear right now so that everybody that ever sees us will know we are bond servants to you. That we are debtors to you for what you've done for us.