Are You Ashamed of the Truth?

We read in the Bible, and I think we're fascinated and impressed by many of the men that we read of in the Bible, and ladies too. But we read of people like Peter, James, and John in the New Testament, and we see the magnificent things that they've done in their lives. We think, oh, if we could be like them, we look at the faith that they've displayed, we see how God has worked with them, and the things that they've done with a lasting legacy on all of us as we read the Bible.

When we think about those men, they were just men. The people of the New Testament, and we can even talk about the people of the Old Testament that we may think of as the great heroes of the Bible, they're no different than you and me. Peter, James, John, they were fishermen, they had their common jobs. If it wasn't for God, it wasn't for God in their lives, if God hadn't called them, they would be just another person in history just like you and I are. But it's because God called them, and because they yielded to God and allowed God to work what he wanted to work in them, that they became the men that we know today. And they should be an inspiration to all of us, because God doesn't call the kings, and he doesn't call the great people of earth to lead his church or to preach his gospel. In 1 Corinthians, it tells us he chooses the weak and base things, and indeed, as we look at these men and where they began, that's who they were, just common everyday people like you and me. We could look at a man like Paul. There's 13 epistles that were written by Paul. We see how he lived his life. We know the sacrifice that he made. He gave up everything to follow God.

Once he was called in a dramatic fashion, different than any of us were called, but once he was called, he dedicated his life totally to God. He gave up family, gave up the opportunity of having any home. What he did all through his life was just travel from city to city as God directed him, starting up churches, preaching the gospel, and going through all sorts of persecutions and trials as he did that. But he was willing to do it all. He was willing to do it all, because that was what God had asked him to do. That's what God appointed him to do. Paul, before he was called, he was kind of a rising star, I guess you might say, in the Pharisee party. He was the one who would go out, and he would find the people who were Christians, and he would persecute him. He would gladly stand by if they were killed, because he thought it was his mission in life to be able to sort these people out or scout them out and have it happen that way. Then God turned his world upside down by his calling, and he became a totally different person. Pretty soon he was preaching what he had priorly or formerly preached against. So, in the same way, God can work with us.

Paul, as you read through his writings, he certainly laid a testament for us, as inspired by God in the New Testament, because we look at his epistles, and they talk about doctrine, they talk about how to live with each other, they talk about things that we encounter in our world today. Let's turn over to Romans 1. Romans 1. Let's look at how Paul introduces this book of Romans that he addresses to the Roman Church. Many of the scholars of the Bible will say the book of Romans is the most important book outside of the Gospels in the New Testament, because it does lay down doctrine and it does talk about things, and how two disparate groups of people, Gentiles and Jews, could live together in one church, living by the same law, but they came from such totally different backgrounds that there was a lot that had to be taught and a lot that had to be dealt with, and they had to learn with one another. And it was Paul who was writing this epistle to them. Before Paul wrote this, there doesn't appear to be any apostle who was ever in the Roman Church. And Paul, at the time he visited Rome, before he wrote this, hadn't visited Rome. But we can learn a lot by the way he introduces things and how he thought and what he did with his life. In verse 1 of Romans 1, it says, Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God. Right off the bat, he introduces himself with three things that we would all be well to remember about our calling. Right off the bat, he says, he's called to be a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Now, here he was an apostle. By this time, this book was one of the later ones that he wrote in 57 or 58 AD. He'd been to Corinth for three years. He'd been to Ephesus for three years. He traveled around, started churches, doing the things that he had done. He could have just said, hey, I'm the apostle that you need to listen to. But he saw himself as a bondservant. And right off the bat, what he sees and what he talks about is the need for humility. You know, he never saw himself as the preeminent one. He never saw himself as the great man that we might look at him as. But he always remembered, I'm simply a servant of God. I do what he calls me to do. Now, we would all be well to remember that too, because certainly if Paul, with all the history that he has, could keep that at the forefront of his mind, we need to remember that as well. God calls us as servants. You know, he wants us to remember who we are. And what we know and who we are and what we do is nothing, nothing of us as well at all. You know, he goes on to say he was called, and it's in italics there, it really should just be called an apostle.

You know, the work, the Greek word translated called there could be appointed. He was appointed an apostle. He wasn't appointed that by men. He was appointed by God as an apostle. That was his role in life. That was the position God put him in. And Paul did it very well. Now, similarly, if we look down in verse 7, as he's talking to the people in Rome, Baron, and by default talking to us as well as we're reading his words today, they had their position that they were called into or appointed into as well.

He says down in verse 7, to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called saints. So today, as we sit here, you and I, none of us are apostles. None of us are evangelists or those things that God appoints in the church, but we are all saints. That was how he called us, and that's how he sees us. There's other ways that God sees us. Saints, children, first fruits, firstborn. He sees us as those things, and there's a responsibility with that position that he's put us in as well. Paul recognized what his role was, and he did it exactly the way God wanted him to.

Do we accept the role that God gives us? Are we satisfied and okay with the role God gives us? And do we follow what he asks us to do? For us, the role of saint. For those in Rome, it was the role of saint. He went with the role of saint is in Revelation 14. He says, here's the patience of the saints, those who have the commandments of God and keep the testimony of Christ. Earlier in the chapter, it talks about they are without guile before God. They are blameless.

They are virgins. They have, through the course of their life, become the pure people that God wants them to become. And as Paul will live through his life, you can see the purification process that he went through. He never shied away from anything. He never shied away from any of the problems that came his way.

He never shied away from any of the correction that God gave him. He was called an apostle by God. And for 14 years, you remember that he was trained by Jesus Christ. And during that time, I have a feeling it was probably a difficult and trying time for him.

Here he was, this preeminent one in the Pharisaical world. And he was out leading the charge to tine, locate, and persecute Christians. But here he was now called a servant in a different light. And he had to learn about his personality. He had to learn how he was going to affect other people. He had to learn all the truth of Jesus Christ. He had to learn the truth.

He had to have it committed to him. He had to learn how to be approachable by people. Because he was kind of this upfront guy who just kind of blurted it out. But he learned that wasn't going to work. So later he would talk about, you know, to the weak I'm as weak, to the strong I'm as strong, to the Jew I'm a Jew, to the Gentile I'm a Gentile, I become what I need to become so that I may win some for Jesus Christ.

Because he knew his mission in life was to lead them to Jesus Christ and to lead them the truth of God. And whatever he needed to become to do that, as God led him, he was willing to do that. Similarly, God calls us, saints. And through the process, we learn things about ourselves that we need to undo, things that we need to modify, changes that we need to make, sins that we need to eradicate from our lives.

As God leads us and calls us and gets us ready for what it is that he wants us to do, just like he did for Paul. There's a training period we're in. For Paul, it was 14 years before he went out and began working as an apostle.

For us, it's much longer, in some cases, before God puts us in the role he will have us when Jesus Christ returns. So Paul here at the very beginning, he talks about humility. I'm a bond servant.

And here's the role I'm in. I was called, I was appointed an apostle, and I was separated, he says in verse 1, to the gospel of God. I was separated. I was called out on the road to Damascus. God separated me from the rest of the world. The world that I lived in before, I was no longer part of. I was separated to the gospel of God. Still living in the world, still operating in the world, still doing the things that need to happen in everyday life, but he was separated to the gospel of God. That's exactly what you and I have been as well.

God called us out of the world, and when we accepted the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, when we accepted that call, he separated us to a different purpose in life. We still live in the world. We still work in the world. We still go around with the people in our neighborhood and chop in the same places and do all the activities of daily living, but we're separated to the gospel of God. We're separated to live a different life, march to the beat of a different drummer, understand the Bible, and become ambassadors and become the saints that God has called us to become. Paul recognized all that, and as he begins to talk to the Romans, he talks about those three things that we would be well to remember in our lives as well. As you go down in the book of Romans here, the first chapter, and we know the chapter here as he gets into it later on, he talks about the Gentile nations and pretty much spells out why the Gentile nations became the depraved people they were. Basically, they didn't want God in their knowledge, and he gave them up to the based mind. But as he introduces this down in beginning in verse 18, he says a couple other things that we need to keep in mind for ourselves. Let's pick it up in verse 20 here. Romans 1, verse 20 says, "...for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made." Meaning we can look around and see how we're made, carefully and wonderfully made. We can look at the world around us. We can look at the ecosystems. We can look at the planets. We can see how everything works so perfectly in an order.

If people would just let down their defense and their rebellion against God, they would know clearly there's a God. This is not possible that this could be that there isn't a God. There is a God. "...being understood by the things that are made, even as eternal power in Godhead, so they are without excuse." And then he lays two reasons why they became that way. Because although they knew God, they didn't glorify Him as God. You know Paul? He always glorified God as God.

And if you read through his epistle as you see themes that he would talk about, one of these is giving God the glory, always acknowledging Him in 1 Corinthians 10.31. He said, whatever you do, whatever you eat and drink, whatever you do, do it to the glory of God. And you know, one thing we know about Paul is he practiced what he preached. You know, a couple times in 1 Corinthians, he said, imitate me. Imitate me as I imitate Christ. And he met what he said. You know, I'm holding myself to the standard to follow Christ and to follow the way that I've been called to live. And he did it.

When people would persecute Him, question Him, accuse Him of things, they never found anything in Paul that they could accuse Him of. He lived what He taught. And as we go through our lives, to remember to give God the glory daily. Not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think, not thinking because we're so smart or we're so special or we have this or we have that, that God called us or we do the things we do, we give God the glory. It helps to keep us humble, helps us to keep in the role that God has called us to be, the saints, the people that He wants us to become, that we're yielded to Him and that we allow Him to work in our lives. Because although they knew God, they didn't glorify Him as God in the next three words, nor were thankful.

They weren't even thankful to God. They didn't look around at the universe and thank God for the varieties that He had placed on this earth, for the food that He provides, for the rain that waters the earth, for the minds that we have, for the mobility that we have, for the houses that we have, the homes, the cars that we drive, the society that we live in, for the things that make up our lives of which we have so much to be thankful for. You know, Paul sounded that fame again in Philippians 4 and verse 6. He said, you know, whenever you pray to God, pray to Him with thanksgiving. Make that part of what your every day begins with. Thankful to God. When we're thankful to God, it keeps us in the right state frame of mind. It keeps us humble. It keeps us content. It keeps us happy. You know, if we're depressed and if we're despondent, I say often, just sit back and count the blessings that God has given you, and you can't possibly stay in that in that state. And Paul did those things. I believe every single day he gave God the glory for everything in his life, and he was thankful to God for everything that he had. And compared to us, he had so little. As I said, he didn't have a family. He didn't have a home. He traveled around from place to place. He didn't have the lives that you and I have. And yet he was thankful, he was content, he was happy, and he was at one. He was at one with God.

We can learn a lot. We can learn a lot from Paul. Well, in Jacksonville, you know, we finished the book of 1 Corinthians in a Bible study last month, and we began the book of Romans this month in a Bible study a few days ago. And as I was preparing for that Bible study, there were three verses in the Romans 1 that struck me in a way that they hadn't before. So I want to talk about those three verses today. Let's look at verse 14. Verse 14. Again, Paul is in his introduction nearing the end of it, but he tells us something about himself. Something about himself, how he lived his life, what his outlook was, how he saw himself. And in verse 14, he says, I am a debtor, both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise.

I'm a debtor. The Greeks were the wise of the world in the world's view. To the Greeks and all the rest of the Europeans that were out there that weren't considered the wise of the world. And to the wise and the unwise, I'm a debtor. Now, probably most, if not all, of us are debtors. We have mortgages on our homes or maybe loans on our cars or whatever it is. We're debtors.

And we know when we owe someone something, we'd better follow through with what our obligation to them is. If we fail to bank our mortgage payments, we're going to lose the house that we have. If we fail to pay back our car loans or make our payments on time, chances are you're going to get repossessed and that car is not going to be yours anymore. We know what it means to be a debtor.

You know, Paul saw himself as a debtor. The newer translations, because when you look up the word here, it can mean that he was obligated. And they'll say, I am obligated to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and the unwise. Paul was indebted to Jesus Christ and he was indebted to him to do the work that God had singled him or separated him out to do.

He saw himself as that. I do what I need to do because I am indebted to Jesus Christ.

Paul knew where his calling was. He knew specifically when he had been called. He understood that that gave him salvation, that before what he was doing, he was going nowhere except to death, and that God gave him the salvation, and salvation came through Jesus Christ. That because Jesus Christ died, his sins were forgiven. Because of the resurrection, he had the hope of eternal life. His life now had meaning. His life now had purpose.

He was indebted to God. He was indebted to Jesus Christ. And he owed everything in his mind to God. Everything! Because everything that God had given him, even though he did so much that you and I enjoy every day, he knew he owed it all to God. And he was indebted to him to do whatever he said because God had given him life, had given him eternal life. I am a debtor both to Greeks and to the other and to the barbarians. You know, it's another theme that Paul gave here. Let's turn to 1 Corinthians 6 that you see throughout his epistles. In 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 20, he says, you were bought at a price. Someone's bought and paid for you. Someone bought your life.

You were bought at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. Glorify him physically. Glorify him spiritually. Everything you have, mind, body, spirit, they're God's. You owe it all to him. And Paul knew that. Paul felt it. He understood that obligation. And literally whatever God was going to ask him to do, he was going to do. He wasn't going to hesitate. He wasn't going to say, I don't want to go there. Those people don't like me. They're going to persecute me. They're going to throw me in prison. They're going to beat me. He didn't care. He was obligated to do what God wanted him to do. And you and I are in the same boat. Whatever God asks us to do, we owe him everything. And if we truly believe and if we truly accept his sacrifice, we understand we owe him everything. And as part of that accepting his sacrifice, we are obligated to do his will. To do what he wants us to do. It's as simple as that. Paul knew that. It maybe cost him far more than what he ever expected in life, but he was willing to do it all. He kept that at the forefront of his mind. I glorify God. I'm thankful to God. I'm willing to do whatever he wants because he's given me eternal life. He's given me salvation and rescued me.

Rescued me from a futile, meaningless existence. One chapter over in chapter 7, in verse 23, he says, you were bought at a price. You were bought at a price.

Don't become slaves of men. Don't become slaves of men. Your obligation is to God.

Now, we all have obligations. I talked about financial obligations. We can talk about family obligations. We all have family obligations, right? There's things our families want us to do. They expect us to be at reunions. When someone is sick, you know, we go to help them out. If they've got other troubles, we help them out. We do the things that our families do because we have family obligations. The Bible talks about some of the family obligations that we have.

They're important. We do them because God is the one who established family, and He wants us to recognize those family obligations. We have obligations to our employer. If we have jobs, there's obligations when we take that job. We show up at this time. We give them a good day's work. We don't leave before now and whenever or before whatever the time is. We're honest with them. We have obligations, and we should fulfill those as Christians to the best of our ability exactly the way our employer says, as long as it doesn't contradict what God's law says. So we know what obligations are. We all have them in various areas. We have obligations to God. What Paul is saying here is, your obligations to God trump or supersede every other obligation you have.

Yes, you have obligations to family. Your obligations to God are more important. Yes, you have obligations to employer. Your obligations to God are preeminent. Yes, you have obligations to, financially, your obligations to God come first. To the first commandment, put God first.

Do His will first. Don't take any account for self. Don't take any account for those things. Do the things. Be right. Be righteous. Do the things that you need to do. Put God first.

Put God first in all we do. Be a slave to Him and not to men, Paul would say. Paul did just that.

He kept his obligations. We don't read any place in the Bible where Paul didn't keep up the obligations that he had. If he said he was going to do it, he did it. But he always put his obligations to God first exactly the way God would expect you and me to do. God's will first.

God's commands first. And doing exactly what Jesus Christ said, loving Him first, choosing Him first, and putting the rest down the list a little bit, but doing what He wants us to do. Slaves do what their Master says. If we see ourselves as indebted to God, if we realize and really believe we owe Him everything, we'll do what He wants first and above all. Let's go back to Romans 1. Paul opens and tells the Romans, I'm a debtor. And he's telling them, you are too. You owe everything to God.

You've got these issues they're trying to work out in Rome, but you owe it all to God. You will work it out. You will become one. You will keep the same principles and the same lifestyle and laws that God has asked us all to do. In verse 15, he says something else as he's talking to them. There's the three things he says here. He says in verse 15, so as much as in me, I am ready.

I'm ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also. I'm ready. You know, he'd been asked to do this if it was God who put it in his mind. He needed to lay the foundation for the Romans. There had been no other apostle there that had laid the foundation. He was going to lay the foundation of doctrine, addressed how they were going to live together, appreciate each other's backgrounds, realize that everyone was a sinner and that they all were coming into it. And they couldn't pit one against the other and say, well, I'm more righteous than you and you're less righteous than me. They were all in the same boat as you go through Romans. And he shows how to do that. But here it is. He's saying, I'm ready. You know, when we're ready, we've prepared ourselves. We're eager. And the sense of the word in the Greek is, you're eager to do that. You know how it is when if your boss asks you to make a presentation on something, you know, we have this new product coming out or we have this new initiative that needs to be done. We want you to put together the presentation on what it needs to be done. And you spend the time. You don't just put it out of your mind and then go in the morning of the presentation and start thinking about it. At that time, you spend the time preparing, researching, putting together your PowerPoint, thinking about what you're going to say, thinking about the salient points of that. And as you do that, and if it sinks more and more into your mind, you realize, man, I can't wait to get up and talk to them about this. This is a good idea. This is exactly where we need to go on that. And as you're prepared and as you're ready, you're eager to do it. Paul says, I'm ready. I'm ready to talk to you about these things. I'm ready. I've prepared. I've done the work. I've done the my homework on this. And I'm ready to do. I'm ready to talk to you about what it is that the Roman church needs to do. And, of course, as God keeps this for us, that we need to do as well and learn our lessons from that. It's really the first same thing that Jesus Christ said. Let's go back to Luke 12. Luke 12. Luke 12, verse 35.

I may have read this in the last couple of weeks here. From a different thing, I and if I haven't, you may be hearing it another week or two. Luke 12, verse 35.

Christ, talking about the end time. Times ahead of you and me. Talking to his saints, the people called saints. He says, verse 35, Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning. What he's saying is, be ready.

Be ready. Don't wait until the time to get dressed. Don't wait until that time to get your lamps burning. Be ready. Be ready. And you yourselves be like men who wait for their master when he will return from the wedding. That when he comes and knocks, they may open to him immediately.

Immediately. Not, oh, hold on, hold on. Let me get my shoes on. Let me get my out of my robe. Let me get the door. Give me five minutes to get with you. Know that you're ready whenever he comes.

That you're ready. You're prepared. You're waiting. Immediately. That there is no trying to do that.

Of course, we can talk about the five foolish virgins. They needed time. They weren't ready. They were asleep. Give us more time to get ready. God says, that's not a servant that recognizes he's a debtor and owes everything to God. That's not a servant that knows who he is and knows what he owes God. That's not a servant that's thankful and grateful to God and glorifies him in all he does. You yourselves be like men and you're ready that when he knocks they may open to him immediately. Verse 37, blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching.

Assuredly I say to you that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat and will come and serve them. What a good servant they are! How satisfying that they waited up for me! How satisfied they were ready when I came! You know what? I want to do good things for them. I want to give them a reward because I see how they lived their lives. I see how they committed to me and that I was the most important thing in their life and they had made themselves ready. And if he should come in the second watch or come in the third watch and find them so, blessed are those servants. But know this, notice that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore, you also be ready. Be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you don't expect.

Paul was ready. Paul was ready. He wasn't asleep at the switch. He wasn't wasting his time. He wasn't thinking, oh, I've got a few years before this has to happen and I'll get on it at that time. He was always ready. Wherever God sent him, he was ready. When it was time to write an epistle to the Romans, he was going to lay down some doctrinal foundation for that church. He was ready. He prepared. He was eager to do it. The question for us is, are we ready?

Are we getting ourselves ready? Are we making ourselves ready?

You know, Paul had to go through a lot in his life. Here he is. He wrote some epistles, but there were times in his life when he wasn't just talking to the saints at Rome or at Ephesus or Corinth or Ephesus or Thessalonica or wherever he was. He was called on to come before kings.

To come before magistrates. And they didn't like this new sect, as they would call it, that was out there. We had the established Gentile religions that were out there. They were all fine with that. The Greek religions and the number of gods they had. And they were okay and were used to the Jewish religion and how they operated their lives. But here's this new sect. Paul, what are you talking about? Who's this Jesus Christ? What? He rose from the dead? You're preaching this stuff? What is this? And he was held to account on those things at Mars Hill in Athens. He was there in front of a whole city. They were going to try to show him up, catch him off guard, make him feel uncomfortable. He was ready. He was ready to answer their questions. He was ready to face them. He was ready at the Bema in Corinth. But Gallio said, no, we don't even have to do this, but he was ready. He was ready to defend what he knew.

God would say, hey saints in Orlando, hey saints in Jacksonville, hey saints in America, be ready. Be ready. Peter, the Apostle Peter, talks about this as well. 1 Peter 3. 1 Peter 3. 1 Peter 3 and verse 15.

Sanctify the Lord God, Peter writes in your hearts, and always be ready.

Always be ready to give a defense. Or an answer, the old King James says. Be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.

Be ready. How are we ready? Well, we study the Word of God.

We read the Word of God. We think about how the Word of God applies into our lives, and we practice those things. We build it into our lives. If we don't build it into our lives, if we don't deny ourselves what we want to do ever and just think we know it, it's not enough.

It's not the hearers of the law that will be justified. The doers who put it into practice.

Paul put it into practice. Paul practiced it daily. He believed in it. It was down to the core of his being that he believed it. And Peter said, you be ready, too. If your neighbor asks, what are you doing on the Sabbath? Why do you think the Sabbath is the day you should go to church? Are you ready to give him an answer? If someone asks you why you have a...what your opinion is on some of the moral dilemmas or issues of our time, why do you think transgender issues are not something that are a civil rights issue? What do you think of that?

Are you ready to give an answer? Are you ready to...or do you kind of slink away and hope that they don't ask that question? If you're asked about living together before marriage, what is so commonplace in America today? Are you ready to give the answer as to why you don't believe that's the way to live? In the spite of everything the society around us tells us to do, and manipulates us into believing is the right thing to do?

Be ready. Be ready, Paul says. No! Know what it is, what those answers are.

And be ready. Be ready by the way you live your life. Paul goes on here. He says, be ready to give an answer. In verse 16, he says, having a good conscience that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.

If you're going to run around preaching that you believe this and you believe that and you keep the Sabbath holy and you keep the holy days and you understand the plan of God and what God is working, and yet someone can point you and say, then why did you do this? Why were you there? How come about this? What did you do with your employer? What did you do this day? Wow! That could be a little embarrassing, couldn't it? Because people want to know you not only talk the talk, but walk the walk. Paul talked the talk and Paul walked the walk. Be ready. Be ready to give an answer.

Make sure your life backs it up. Make sure if you're going to say, I put God first, that really in every example in your life you're putting God first and not sometimes putting family first or other things first or self first. Make sure if you're going to say that you back it up.

Paul did. If you say you're willing to sacrifice whatever, be willing to sacrifice whatever and back it up by the things that you do. Otherwise, we're not ready. Otherwise, we're not ready. Paul was ready. So the question I asked myself, the question we can ask ourselves, are we getting ready? Do we take advantage of the opportunities that we have to get ready?

When things come our way, do we make decisions to choose God first?

When we have opportunities for Bible study and Bible studies, do we choose to do that? Or is there something more important that we would do? Because God does give us opportunities, all of us, to learn, to grow, to understand more of the things that He teaches us and wants us to know?

Part of being ready. Part of being ready. Do we take the opportunities and are we getting ourselves ready the way Jesus Christ would say, Be ready. Be ready when He returns. So Paul, as he's talking to the Romans, he says, I see myself as a debtor. I'm obligated to do this and I want to do it.

And I'm ready to do it. And I'm eager to do it. And in Romans 1, verse 16, to me when I read this, it caught my attention and I've been thinking about it for a long time.

He has one more thing to it as he talks to the Romans or introduces himself. In verse 16, he says, For I am not ashamed. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

Now, of all the things that Paul could have said as that third point, isn't it interesting that he said, I'm not ashamed? I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. And if you look up the Greek word translated, ashamed there, that's exactly what it means. We all know what it's like to feel ashamed. We've all been done something in our life, been caught in something. Someone's brought something to our attention, something in our past that we're ashamed of. That we like to keep hidden, that we don't really want to talk about because it's a mistake in our lives. We just as soon forget and not have anyone know. Maybe it's something that's happened on the job, maybe something in our personal lives, whatever it is, we're ashamed of it. And that's probably a good shame because if we keep it in front of us, we realize who we are and it helps motivate us to become more and more like God. But we know what that feeling of shame is. You know, our children, they understand the feeling of shame when you catch them in something. They're ashamed when they get caught in the things that they're caught in. You know, in the Bible it talks about shame and being ashamed. And Paul says, of all things, I'm obligated to do this. I want to do it. I'm ready to do it. I'm eager to do it.

I'm not ashamed. I'm not ashamed to do it. When I read it, it reminded me of Christ's words back in Mark 8. Luke also mentions it, I think, in Luke 16. But let's look at Mark 8 in verse 34.

Mark 8.34 says, When Christ had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He rebuked Peter when He had called the people to Himself and His disciples also, He said to them, Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny Himself. We've talked about that. Let him take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it. If he chooses his will first, if he chooses other things first, he's going to lose it all. But whoever loses his life, whoever gives it up and chooses Me first, loses his life for My sake and the Gospels will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? He's saying, you've got to put things in perspective. It might be millions of dollars. If you die and you've got an eternal death, what is it? If you have no future, God has given us, can't compare to anything the world has to offer. And then He says in verse 38, For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, and 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. Same Greek word. If we're ashamed of Him, if we feel some kind of embarrassment, if we kind of want to hide something, if we kind of cringe when something is brought up about the Gospel, about what we believe, about truth, about Jesus Christ, if we're embarrassed by Him, Christ says, I'm going to be embarrassed by you also. I'm going to be ashamed of you. I'm going to be ashamed of you. Shame on you.

I gave you the keys to the Kingdom. Shame on you. I gave you the opportunity to have eternal life. Shame on you. I gave you the opportunity to be a saint, a child, a firstborn, a first fruit. I gave you the opportunity to be part of the bride of Christ and to reign with Christ forever and ever and ever. Shame on you, you discounted it. Shame on you, you took it for granted. Shame on you that you didn't put the time and effort onto it. I'm ashamed of you because I gave you everything you needed, and yet you didn't do any of it. You weren't ready.

You didn't glorify me. You weren't thankful. You weren't appreciative. You became dull of hearing.

Didn't want to hear it, and you froze it out of your hearts and minds.

I don't think any of us want Christ to be ashamed of us, do we? I don't want Christ to say one day, I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed of you. You're a shame. You're an embarrassment to me because, believe me, we will feel shame if that happens to any of us when we realize what we have done, or more importantly, I guess, what we haven't done. But Paul says, I'm not ashamed. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. I'm ready. I'm prepared. I'm obligated. I'm not ashamed. You know, for Paul to say that, for Paul to say that somewhere in his life, he encountered someone that was ashamed about the truth that they knew. Maybe it was him. Maybe when he was first called, he was a little bit ashamed. I don't know. I don't see that in Paul. But as he got to know people, and as he watched the churches, he began to see some people are ashamed, ashamed of the gospel. But he says, I'm not. I'm not ashamed of the truth. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. And again, if we look and remember where Paul was when he was in that time, there was an enormous amount of peer pressure in the ancient world that was against Jesus Christ, against him as Messiah, against Paul, against the sect that was called Christians. No one wanted to be, or none of the world wanted this Christian religion that was there. Similar, we live in a world today where there's a lot of peer pressure. I think our young people find a lot of peer pressure when they have to say, I can't do that on Friday night because it's my Sabbath. I can't go there Saturday.

It's my Sabbath. Can't do that. That's a holy day. And they have to be kind of on, and us too, in the jobs that we have and the work that we do. You know, we have to stand up for what we believe at times. And sometimes we can just wish maybe it didn't even happen, or people wouldn't bring it up, right? You know, Paul encountered someone that had shame that was part of theirs. Let's go back to 2 Timothy 1. As he's writing to a bright young man that Paul sees has a future in the church, someone that's going to be a minister. In the first few verses here of 2 Timothy, he lays out to him some of the things that he needs to do, some of the things he needs to be aware of. Paul, who's been through this and is training him to do this, he kind of reminds him about some things. Let's pick it up in verse 6. He says, Therefore I remind you, Timothy, to stir up the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. Timothy, remember the Holy Spirit. You do the things to keep that stirred up. When you're feeling a little lass, when you're feeling a little scared or timid, stir up the Spirit, and we know how to do that. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. That's the Spirit he's put in us. Verse 8, Therefore, he says to Timothy, don't be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner.

You know, I'm going to go through all that. It's no fun to be in jail. It's not kind of like people think, hey, look at Paul, he's in jail. It's kind of a shame to be in jail. If any of us are in jail, it's kind of kind of be a shameful thing. But he says, don't be ashamed of me.

Don't be ashamed of the gospel. Don't be ashamed of the testimony of Jesus Christ. No matter what the world says, no matter how much they want to put you down, no matter how much they want to ridicule you and mock you and say, what are you thinking? That's kind of a goofy thing you're thinking here. Don't let that shake you. Don't be ashamed, Timothy. And then he tells him some of the things that he can do not to be ashamed. Share with me in the sufferings for the gospel.

Get involved. Be part of the church. Be part of what I'm doing. Be part of the work.

Throw yourself into it. Make it the thing that makes you wake up in the morning, and that is important to you. Share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God. Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling? Called to be saints.

Not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. But has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ who has abolished death and brought life and immortality of life through the gospel.

To which, he says, I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles. Verse 12, For this reason I also suffer these things. I don't like being persecuted. I don't like being beaten in front of the masses. I don't like being whipped. I don't like being put in prison.

It's not a fun thing to do. For this reason I also suffer these things nevertheless.

I'm not ashamed. I'm not ashamed. I'm not going to let that deter me from what my mission is. I'm not going to let that deter me from what God has called me to do. I'm going to continue doing it. I simply won't let shame manipulate me out of the kingdom of God.

You know, shame is nothing new, right? You know, it's not a New Testament thing. It's there in the Old Testament, too. In fact, it's right here at the beginning of when mankind is. Let's go back to Genesis 2. Genesis 2 and verse 25. Right at the beginning of creation here after God creates the entire earth, puts man on it, gives him the bodies that he has, man and woman together, introduces the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. In verse 25 of chapter 2, it says, they, but Adam and Eve, they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they weren't ashamed. It was good. Everything God created was good. There they were, two people on earth, God with them, they weren't ashamed. But in chapter 3, the serpent is introduced.

And he's got a cunning way of talking things, and whatever he said to Eve, he was able to get her to take of that. And, you know, as you heard in the sermon, Satan is a pretty good manipulator. He can lead you down the path that he wants you to go, and Eve bit. She bit. So when we look at chapter 3 and verse 7, it says, the eyes of both of them, Adam and Eve, were opened, and they knew they were naked. Now, how did they know they were naked? There was no shame. There was no shame in what God had given them. Shame came into the world by Satan in this instance. And they knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. Just two people on earth, the same two people, God, the serpent now. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees in the garden. And God called to him and said, Where are you? So Adam replied, I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid. I was afraid. Well, he wasn't ashamed before. Sometimes shame can lead to fear. I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.

And that's what we can do when we're when we're ashamed. We hide ourselves. We hide behind doors. We hide behind whatever. And shame was introduced to the earth at that time. Paul said, I'm not ashamed. I'm not ashamed of the truth that I know. I'm willing to stand up before kings and magistrates and give an answer for the reason of the hope that's in me. Put me in front of everyone. I'm ready. I'm ready. Beat me, imprison me, whip me, stone me. I'm ready. I won't be ashamed, and I won't let you manipulate me into being ashamed of what I know to be the truth.

Well, that verse 16 in Romans 1 has been on my mind, and I read some blogs. How do you, how do you, you know, what are some of the things that you can think of, you know, what are the things that might show? We're ashamed of the gospel. We're ashamed of Jesus Christ, because he says, you know, don't be ashamed of me. And Paul specifically said, don't be ashamed of the gospel.

Paul said that, Timothy, don't be ashamed. Timothy, don't be ashamed of the truth, and don't be ashamed of me. You know, some people are not ashamed at all. And I admire people who have no shame, and, you know, they boldly speak the truth no matter what. I see them do it. I hear of them do it, and I think, man, that is great. They can just, when someone has asked them something, they just simply boldly tell them what it is. They give them this great talk just like Paul did.

And others, you know, we're a little more, maybe coy of what we say, a little more cautious, like Timothy was. Well, let me read to some of you, and I've amended some of these questions that it is, and some things we can think about ourselves and see. Could it be that we ever feel ashamed of the truth, ashamed of what we believe? Here are some of the, a few of the ones that I gleaned that I thought might tell us something about ourselves. One, am I ashamed?

Am I ashamed to read the Bible on an airplane or in public? Would I be willing to bring my Bible out with two other people sitting right next to me and start reading my Bible, or would I be like, I don't know that I want to do that, even though I've got the time and there's nothing better to do.

Don't these read the magazines? I'll read the Bible. What do we hesitate to do that, or would we just do it? Am I ashamed to place a Bible on my desk at work?

Not today I can say no when I go up to the home office, right? But back years ago, what I've been, what I've just had a Bible sitting on my desk all the time, so that if I had extra time or at lunch I wanted to read it, it was just there. Or if I wanted to look up something and thought, you know, there's a biblical principle involved here, I want to look that up, would I have done it?

Would I have placed a Bible on my desk at work? Do we feel ashamed or uneasy or a little afraid, given what's going on in society today and how people can respond to our words? If I masked my opinion on same-sex marriage, if I masked my opinion on the transgender issue, or even if I've asked my opinion on people living together before marriage, but I just kind of wish that topic never came up, or do I boldly say what I believe and why I believe that even though society would maybe condemn me for what I say?

Am I ashamed to mention God, Christ, or the church when you're with people who aren't in church?

Not that we would ever just kind of force it on people or bring it up, but if it comes up in the conversation and you come up with something and you think, man, here's an example I could let these neighbors know or these friends we have or people at work, do I just kind of think, nah, I'm not going to mention that. I don't want to bring up church. I don't want to bring up God and what His principles are. I just assume not to do that, even though the door may be open for you to walk right through it and give Him a reason on what some truth is.

Will we just shy away from that, or will we take the opportunity to do that?

I mentioned about ashamed of being, you know, saying you can't do something on Friday night. You know, do we say, can't do that on Friday night? It's my Sabbath, or do we have another excuse?

No, we can't do it. Still can't do it, but I'll give you this excuse instead because I don't want you to think about Sabbath or why I'm not really doing it.

You know, years ago when I was growing up and really even when I was an adult, I would, from time to time hear a minister talk about, you know, when he became a minister, he would be asked, what do you do for a living? And he would say things like, not every one of them, but I would hear, I didn't want to hear that question. I just didn't want to tell him I was a minister. And I remember thinking, why not? You're a minister, what's wrong with that? But then I became one.

And I had other jobs before this with other titles. And I remember, what do you do for a living? And I would hesitate and I think, oh, I'm a minister. And I would hesitate and I would think about that and I think, wait a minute, why am I hesitating? Why am I not just saying what I do?

Why have God put me here? Why aren't I just saying it? And I would think about Mark 834, and over the time I've had to come to understand some of that in myself. But when people ask you to kind of hesitate, kind of maybe a little, not ashamed, but a little, just don't want to go down that road. Paul didn't go down that road. Paul boldly, boldly proclaimed who he was.

Nothing the world could do, nothing the people could do, could ever shame him into silence or reticence about what he believed. Now, what I'm not talking about here, when I talk about being bold, is no one, the Church of God does not go around door to door. You don't go knocking on doors and talking about the gospel of God. That's not what God says to do. We don't go out on the street corners and have our banners and stop everyone and say, this is what the truth is, blah, blah, blah. That isn't what we do. Peter says, be ready to give a defense for those who ask and when the opportunity arises. And that's what Paul did. That's what Paul did. He talked to those who wanted to talk. That's what Jesus Christ did. He talked to those who wanted to talk. He didn't force it down their throats, but he was willing and he was never ashamed to speak the truth, even though he knew Jesus Christ did. And Paul, too, what was going to happen to him if he spoke as boldly as he did. He didn't mince words. He didn't try to water the truth down. He didn't want to make a sound, try to make a sound, and his purpose was really, really close to what you do. The only difference is this. He would just simply say what the truth is and expect the people to do it. And if they didn't like it, then he would suffer for righteousness sake, and that was the way it is.

That's what God would have us do, too. Simply live by the Word of God. Simply speak the Word of God.

Simply boldly proclaim it when asked. And as part of our commission, you know, as a church, to preach it to the world boldly, strongly, because it is the most important thing that the people will ever have, ever have in their lives. Let's go back to Romans 1.

You know, Romans 1, verse 16. Paul concludes the verse with why he isn't ashamed of the gospel.

Verse 16, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for, or we could say, because it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. For the Jew first, then also for the Greek. Why would I be ashamed of what the world needs more than anything? Why would I be ashamed of the truth? It's what the world needs to know. If I believe it to my core, I'm not ashamed of it at all. There's nothing that will stop me from talking about it or answering. I won't feel any shame at it at all. I will simply answer the question. People will know exactly where I stand. If we feel shame, and I ask myself the same question, you know it says something about us, maybe. Maybe we need to think, do I believe as deeply as I think I believe that this is the truth?

Do I believe with all my heart, mind, being, and soul what Jesus Christ said? Because if we really, truly believe, that's what will happen, and it changes the way we think, and there is no doubt in our minds. If we really believe, there won't be any shame in what we believe and what we say.

Buy the same token if there's faith. If we have the type of faith that Jesus Christ is looking for when He returns, if we really have faith in Him, if we really believe in Him and His promises and counts on them, there won't be any shame. There won't be any hesitation.

There won't be any of those things. So if we ever feel that, we might ask God, is there something in me that needs to be healed? Does some unbelief need to be healed? Do I need to believe more deeply?

Help me to believe more deeply. Help me to follow you more deeply. Help me to commit to you more deeply. Help me to throw myself into the life that you called me into more deeply. Help me be living it 24-7 more deeply and more completely.

Let me learn. Let me do. Let me suffer for the gospel if need be. But help me to be ready. Help me to be complete. Help me to have faith. Help me to feel the humility and the obligation that I need to you that I will do whatever, whatever it takes. But I won't let others make me feel ashamed or timid or afraid because you've given me answers that can only come from you, only from you, and are the answers that will change the world if we would just believe it.

Let's turn back to Isaiah 49. Isaiah 49.

Here in this chapter, it's looking ahead to the time that Jesus Christ is on earth gathering His people back together to their land that He's going to place them in.

And in verse 22, it says, Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will lift my hand in an oath to the nations and set up my standard for the peoples. They'll bring your sons in their arms and your daughters will be carried on their shoulders. They may have looked down on you now. They may have ridiculed you now. They may think, you know, what a foolish people you are. What a goofy people you are to believe these things.

Kings will be your foster fathers, the kings of the earth who think they're so wise, but not really. And their queens will be your nursing mothers. They shall bow down to you with their faces to the earth and they will lick up the dust of your feet. Thus you will know that I am the Lord, for they, that you and me, that you and me, for they shall not be ashamed. They shall not be ashamed who wait for me.