Paul expresses in his opening remarks how he was passionate to preach the gospel and see people established in the reality of Christ. He explained that he felt obligated to everyone; whoever was willing to listen to him declare the good news. This was the very thing he desired to do in Rome. Within these opening remarks, Paul makes the following statement regarding the gospel he had spent his life preaching:

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. Romans 1:16

This is an amazing statement for him to make when you consider that this letter to the Romans was written after a life time of ministry that included the very public Corinthian debaucheries and the Galatians churches rejection of him and his gospel. He went through his whole life preaching Christ and the good news of the new covenant reality; the good news of God’s grace apart from law. He continually served people; humbling himself and coming down under people to where they were at in the hope that they would take hold of this wonderful reality. Paul was not standing proud and pressuring people to accept his theology. To Paul, the gospel was a reality that was outlived in his life as well as his preaching.

It was well known that other preachers felt it their duty to slander the ministry of Paul during these times through pointing out, as evidence of his illegitimacy as an apostle, the churches he founded and the mess they were in.

Perhaps they went about publicly slandering and humiliating Paul with the hope of pressuring him to change his message to include not only the finished work of Jesus, but also the unfinished work of the law. Their slander attempted to expose that his message was wrong; he was wrong, his churches were wrong and he should have been preaching the law to the churches he founded; telling them that they were sinners and they needed to clean up their act!

Yet Paul never buckled to such preachers, rather his attitude was that if anyone had accepted Christ then they were a new creation, the old had gone and the new had come and all this was to the glory of God! Paul refused to preach to the believer’s ‘old self.’ Paul maintained that the old self died with Christ in his death, and every believer had been raised with Christ in his resurrection and made a new creation. In Christ we are all new, and Paul was committed to maintaining this was indeed every Christians reality and preaching from that perspective.

Paul was steadfast in his belief that the new man could not be broken like the old man; believing that Christ in the believer was strong enough to walk out the ‘God life’ in their life, they only needed to put their confidence in him and in the reality that was rightly theirs in him. What broke the old man could not break the new man; the need for the believer wasn’t to hear about their old self, but to hear of the reality of their new self and given confidence to live in it.

Paul’s ministry was discredited. Some simply dismissed him as a fool, some took offence at him, others slandered him as a false teacher. Everything that he did was continually discredited, and yet even at the point of writing his letter to the Romans, even after all the set backs, the failures and the misunderstandings that took place in the churches he founded, he still was preaching the good news of God’s grace apart from law.

It was after all this that he wrote within his letter to the Romans this bold statement that he was not ashamed of the gospel, because Paul knew it was the reality of God. Paul didn’t care how discredited he got, and how many people called him a fool, pointing out his failings or how he wasn’t a trained speaker and often stumbled upon his words. Paul maintained he was not ashamed, because despite his lack, weakness and failings, the gospel message he preached was nonetheless the power of God!

Paul wasn’t ashamed of the gospel, and today we too join Paul as a community of people who are not ashamed of the gospel, because the gospel of God’s grace, apart from law is the power of God! It is the power of God for obedience, righteousness, holiness, wisdom, salvation. What ever you need to be saved from, this gospel is the power that brings that salvation into your life.

It is the gospel that lifts up Jesus and boasts in the glory of who he is, and boasts in the incomparable riches of his grace, and rejoices in him; in his glory, his power and his person. It is the good news that reveals his finished work; that he is powerful enough to fulfil the old covenant, and powerful enough to establish a new covenant. It is the message that testifies to the truth that his sacrifice on the cross and the spilling of his blood was powerful enough to cleanse us perfectly. It is the good news that declares that Jesus is powerful enough to make us new and perfect and whole in him.

Paul was preaching the same message his whole life; the gospel that is truly glorious and gives all credit to God, and when believed upon, caused the ‘Christ life’ to be lived out victoriously in the lives of the believers. Paul didn’t look to his own ministries fruit, or what other people were saying to decide what truth was; he looked to the gospel that God gave him and declared that it was simply the truth, and that is why he preached it.

That too is why we preach it today!