Unashamed

We thank you, Lord, for just showing up.

For just allowing us as your children to be close to you.

There is nothing that compares to just sitting in your presence.

There is nothing that even comes close to just sit at your feet.

We say thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Lord.

For being so good to us.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

So as the worship team leaves the stage, if you will, everyone sit.

And if you have served or are actively serving in the military, we know Tuesday is Veterans Day.

We want to honor you.

We actually have a gift for you.

If you have served in the military or you are active, would you please stand up just for a moment so that we can honor you and say thank you.

Thank you so much.

Hallelujah.

Yeah, come on.

If you will remain standing, not yet, Bill.

Don't get out there.

I'll make you get back up.

We have a little gift for you, so just remain standing.

And as you get your gift, you can have a seat.

We'll let them do that.

Just remain standing until you get your gift.

We want to present you with something.

You can open it up.

So my name's Shayna, and it's an honor to get to be a part of Honor and the Veterans that belong to Connect Church.

We have a certificate for you guys.

Anybody.

I don't know if y'all know this or not, but um actually have the pleasure of calling Lori and Mac, Aunt Lori and Uncle Mac.

And I was gonna see if you would come here for just a second for me.

I have a special treat for you.

He sent us a picture.

And he is he is yes, this is Staff Sergeant Garrett Ford, and he's in the United States Air Force, you guys.

Oh, for Angelina, okay, she gave the mic back.

Here, come on.

Frangelina prove it.

The army.

The Bible says that no greater love.

Has someone that will lay down their lives for somebody else.

Most of us, without days like this, we don't even realize or understand the freedom we actually walk in every single day.

Without ever having to do anything for it.

And military people they lay down their lives for people they will never see.

They'll never get a thank you.

They'll never understand what it's like to be a military family, they'll never understand what it's like for sacrifice of the highest degree.

And so, thank you.

While you're standing, get your Bible.

All right.

Woo! Getting all emotional up in here.

Look at Romans chapter 1, verse 16.

Romans 1:16

If you've been here for a while, you know we have the last two weeks.

This is the week number three.

We are breaking down, we're going verse by verse, line by line, chapter by chapter, and we're going through the book of Romans.

But what a great way to not only end the year, but it'll probably also begin the year.

Any new believer that has never gone through the book of Romans, I highly recommend you study it.

Any seasoned believer, I highly recommend that you look at it and you study it because there is so much meat in the word of God.

Do not do not look to a man on a stage, do not look to a man on YouTube or woman on YouTube or on a platform to tell you what the word says.

Read it for yourself.

Know what the word of God says, it is alive and it is active.

Romans chapter 1, verse 16.

Romans 1:16

It says, For I am not ashamed of the good news about Christ.

It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes.

How many of you are thankful that you were saved when you believed?

Come on.

Saving everyone who believes.

The Jew first.

How many of you know there's always somebody first in line?

They got the first portion.

We got the end.

Come on.

The Jew first and also the Gentile, you may be seated.

We've already opened up a prayer.

So we're just going to be seated in the word and in the presence of the Lord.

So I believe if you have three words that would encompass the book of Romans, it would be the gospel, it would be power, and it would be transformation.

So the gospel, the power, and transformation.

So as we go through this, we're going to break this down.

The title of today's message.

Y'all, we're going to only get two verses deep today.

We started off with about seven verses, went about six or seven the next.

Now we've only got two.

But today's title is Unashamed.

Unashamed.

Imagine what the world, the culture would look like now if church people that used to be unashamed and would speak out against evil and sin remained speaking out against evil and sin.

How different would the world look?

We wouldn't be the biggest or homophobes.

Can I get real in the house today?

But we have allowed culture to infiltrate the church instead of the true church of God, the church, the body of Christ, not a building, not a gathering, that is a portion of it.

But the true church is what should be grafted.

You are a piece of the true church.

Your body is actually called the temple of the Holy Spirit.

So us as willing participants in being a part of a body of believers, the body of Christ, that God is the head, He is the all authority in the church.

But instead, we would prefer, we like preference over God's presence.

Three of y'all got that.

We're talking about being unashamed.

First, point number one: the gospel is the power of God.

The gospel is the power of God.

For I am not ashamed.

Back to verse 16.

For I am not ashamed of this good news about Christ.

It is the power.

Turn to your neighbor and say, power.

Some of y'all ain't got it yet.

Turn to your neighbor and say, power.

There's a power in the house today.

Hallelujah.

Saving everyone who believes, the Jew first, and also the Gentile.

Paul declares he is not ashamed of the gospel.

We as believers cannot back down or be ashamed of what the word of God says.

And I don't know if you've ever been through this before, but firsthand experience being someone who loved my sin, loved where I was.

I didn't like the fruit of what it produced, but I enjoyed it while I was in the middle of it.

It wasn't until I got offended and felt convicted that I want to leave it.

People worried about offending somebody.

I'm not telling you to beat people up with the word of God, but I'm telling you to love them and show them and do not back down and affirm their lifestyle because you're worried about hurting their feelings.

It's time some good, wholesome church people get our feelings hurt.

So we are spurred to conviction.

We are spurred to growth.

We are spurred to spiritual maturity.

When people in the house get mature, we can have hard conversations and not want to leave.

What was the good reason?

He knows firsthand what the gospel can do.

Talking about Paul, the author of this book.

He knows firsthand.

How many of you and don't don't raise your hand, I don't want to embarrass you.

You get saved and you are on fire, you're ready to go.

We do this when we come to new churches.

Come on, somebody.

We want to serve until somebody hurts our feelings.

Huh?

Come on, where you at?

When you like me being here and you're always praising me and giving me high fives and loving and hugging on me, and then one day you ain't, well, I don't want to be here no more.

Then you have to ask yourself this why are you here?

Do we come to church to make it about us?

Or do we come to church because we want to get closer to God?

We want to praise his name.

If you are here and God called you here and he hasn't moved you, then you're gonna be in a very, very hardship of life.

We call this rebellion.

Anybody ever had a teenager before?

Come on, somebody.

You have to repeat, you have to rinse, you have to do it over again until they get it.

We understand firsthand, just as Paul did, what the gospel can do in our lives if we don't water it down.

Watered down gospel doesn't change a culture.

Watered down gospel doesn't make us want to be, it doesn't make them want to be saved, doesn't make us want to live righteous, it doesn't make us want to be the spotless bride that Jesus is coming back for.

It doesn't make us want to do anything except be pacified in our church.

God's not coming back for a church that's pacified, he's coming back for a church that carries the passion for Jesus, the passion for the gospel.

Last week we talked about the burden of the gospel, it is a weight on our shoulders, it is a coal on our lips, purification, purification that we want to be willing vessels.

Revelations tells us that we are overcomers by two things the blood of the Lamb and the Word of our.

When we get familiar with church, when we get familiar with church people, come on somebody, when we get familiar with our spouses, what happens?

We become complacent.

Complacency will rob you of the purpose and the calling.

We don't want to be complacent, we want to remember, we want to daily, y'all.

The reason I get so emotional when I talk about what God has done in my life is because I remember where I was when he pulled me out of the pit.

Let us never let us learn and let us never forget what that felt like, what sinful nature tasted like.

It was good on the outside, but when you take a bite, it's rotten on the inside.

If you remember Paul, before he changed over, he was Saul, and he was once a murderer of the new Christian culture.

Now he is their most passionate messenger.

You even read in some of the books where he has to like start talking about his experience and stuff because he's writing to people he used to chase after.

Think about this, and now he's like, No, guys, I'm on your side.

And they're like, Okay, bro, nice try.

He was once a murderer, but now he is passionate about giving the message of the gospel.

Why?

Because he encountered the power of the gospel.

There is power in the gospel.

This isn't about motivational speaking, this isn't moral teaching, this is the power of God at work, not in theory, not even just in history, but in people right now.

If you don't believe in the wonder working power now, then why are you here?

The gospel doesn't just inform, the gospel should transform us.

Here's why we have successful organizations we call churches that are packed to the rim.

There's no spiritual maturity or actual teaching of the word of God, but there's pacification where everybody feels good about where they are.

The gospel does not leave us where we are.

Thank God He will He will save us and find us where we are, but God is not calling those who come to the gospel that the gospel is not something that gets you fire insurance so you don't go to hell.

It's something that changes and transforms you on the daily.

Every single day I have to choose in my mind, in my heart, in my home that as for me and my house, we will serve.

It is an active choice every single day to allow the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, to do its work in me.

And once it begins to do the work in me, what's cool about God is that when he begins to do a work in you, all of a sudden you realize when you look back that he's actually doing a work through you to reach other people that normally wouldn't even come to a church.

I was talking with somebody this last week about this.

We were talking about inviting people to church.

Inviting people to church is not the first step to you ministering to somebody.

You don't invite them here so I can do all the work.

Think about it.

Why do we invite people?

Yes, we love it here.

But if if I'm not showing Christ, if I'm not displaying the gospel to them, then it's just another building filled with a bunch of other people.

That's it.

But if we choose here, we choose here, we choose here, we choose in our homes that we are going to be transformed and changed by the gospel.

Look, in the original Greek, here the power is actually dunamis, where we get the word dynamite.

The gospel carries the explosive power of God, miraculous power of God, soul-shaking force of God.

It can raise the dead, it can heal the sick, it can break addiction, it can restore any marriage, it can set any captive or sinner free.

There is power in the gospel.

And something I know about the gospel, it will explode and destroy any way I think about anything.

I can have my mind set up of how I think things are, and then I read some scripture and I'm like, I'm an idiot.

Because scripture, as you read it, it reads you and it reveals things to you, and all of us are sinful nature.

Once Adam fell, sinful nature was now grafted into our DNA.

So we have you don't have to tell little kid to not hit, to not rebel, to not lie to cover something up.

It is in us.

So as adults, we have to realize that that is how we are born because sin was introduced to mankind.

So we need to look at ourselves with honest eyes and an invite of the Holy Spirit to say, Lord, show me what I need to walk away from.

Just because it's good doesn't mean it's good for you.

Just because somebody else can do it doesn't mean you can't.

Don't base your salvation and your walk and your theology on somebody else.

What does the word say?

Not a cherry-picking verse.

What does the word say?

The gospel, the power of the gospel, it is available to everyone who chooses to believe.

Jew or gentile, church or unchurched, religious or rebellious.

Come on, somebody.

The gospel does not discriminate, the gospel saves.

Let me tell you, no one is too far gone for the gospel to transform them.

As Paul said and displayed several times, he said, I am the chief of sinners, I am the worst of the worst, I am dark, I am sinful, but yet his grace much more abounds.

It doesn't matter how bad I go or do or say, he can restore, he can renew, he can transform, and he can wipe away.

His blood will make me white as snow.

His righteousness will make me righteous.

The gospel is still powerful enough to reach them where they are.

Just as the gospel was powerful enough to reach you and I where we were.

If we look back and remember where God brought us from, some of y'all you got a few years between, then you gotta think a little bit.

But I can remember how dirty and nasty, and all the things that was in here, and all the things that have been produced out of here, I was evil by the fullest extent of the word.

I was all about myself, everything, every relationship I had, I used it to manipulate and get what I wanted.

Maybe y'all are all perfect.

Somebody else said amen on that.

But the Gospel, I don't have to know your story to know mine, and me knowing mine, I know that it's powerful enough.

That's all I need to know.

That's all he had to do to convince me that he can reach anybody else.

But how does God reach people?

He uses his people.

So be available to what God wants to do.

Because God wants to use his people to spread the gospel.

When Jesus gave the Great Commission, He didn't say, Listen, all of my twelve disciples only go into the world, preach the good news, and baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Don't nobody else, just the twelve.

Did he say that?

I hope you know the Bible good enough that you know that's not true.

He said he was speaking to them so that they can multiply what he had spoken.

It wasn't a one and done of getting the gospel out.

We need to preach the gospel with our lives, and yes, sometimes use words.

If need be, sometimes use words.

Point number two, the gospel makes us right with God by faith.

Romans chapter 1, verse 17.

Romans 1:17

The good news tells us how God makes us right in his sight.

This is accomplished from start to finish by faith.

As the scriptures say, it is through faith that a righteous person has life.

The gospel not only does it have power, but it is revealing.

It reveals how we need to be made right.

The reason the Ten Commandments were given to the children of Israel is because there was no written yet standard of what was right and what was wrong.

They had no mirror yet of this is the big ten.

And everything else will fit in there.

So if you follow these, everything else will take care of itself.

So the gospel was not about religion.

Did you hear me?

The gospel is not about religion, it's not about trying harder.

It's not a I give and he gives.

It's not about if I do all these things right, now I can be safe.

Now that what I have done, now that the right church I'm going to, now the right guy I listen to on YouTube or podcast, now that I have this in order, now the gospel has become powerful and effective.

None of these things have anything to do with the power of the gospel because we cannot earn salvation.

We cannot climb our way to God to get into his good graces.

You believe your way into the right standing by faith.

By faith through grace, so that no man can boast.

Paul says from start to finish.

That means you're saved by faith and you live by faith.

It's not a one-time transaction, it is a daily trust, it is a lifestyle, it is the way we as believers should live daily.

God doesn't love some future version of you, he loves you right where you are right now, and he's gonna spur you into being closer to him, to living a life that looks like you know God.

God doesn't love a future version of you, he loves you right now, mess and all, because of the righteousness of Jesus that covers your life.

It's not you try to grow good spiritual fruit and then you are saved and you are redeemed.

It's that by faith through grace you are saved, and then out of you flow good deeds, out of you comes action.

Faith without works is nowhere does it say that about salvation.

It doesn't say salvation without works is death.

It says faith.

So there is a the gospel requires action of us.

The gospel requires action of an unbeliever to then believe.

So it takes a step, your toes pointing, I always think very like logical and like physical.

My toes are in the direction I want to go, but when I accept Christ as my savior, now I need to be pointing to God and looking at Him.

It changes it.

There should be a pivot in your life to where what you were is now behind you, and where you are going is where God is leading you, not where you are leading yourself and then asking God to approve it.

That makes God your slave.

What did Paul say?

I am a slave to Christ.

We are subject to him, he should be our Lord, not the other way around.

We're not in charge, and then we invite God along on our adventure.

We should first go to him and say, Lord, what have you for me to do with my life, with my family, with serving others?

If you're exhausted from trying to measure up, guess what?

I got some great news.

You don't have to.

Aren't you glad that the system is not dependent on my performance?

Because how many of you know I would fail?

I need to lift up both hands.

If it was dependent on me doing good and being good and thinking good and living righteous, I would fail.

God's power, the power of the gospel, the truth of the salvation, the the truth of the word is not dependent on who I am.

It's me who becomes dependent on it.

Christ, the solid rock, not Stephen, your pastor, the solid rock.

Do you understand what I'm saying to you?

You can't depend on a person or a man because I one day will die, or God forbid, go somewhere else.

And where will your salvation lie?

Is it in man or is it in God?

It should always be God.

It can't be in our spouses, it can't be in our kids, and heaven forbid it can't be in our grandkids.

Because let's say, heaven forbid we have a story like Job.

If everything that you love and care about and hold dear to you was taken away from you, would you still serve the Lord?

If he is your Lord, I know that's hard to think about.

But I don't think the story of Job in the book of Job was in there by happens to answer just like, hey, let's just throw this one in.

I think it was intentional like every other book of the Bible to show us that even when the person you love, his wife, says, You just need to curse God and die.

I mean, I don't know what kind of inheritance or life insurance he had because I think everything was gone by then.

But apparently she was so miserable she just wanted to be by herself too.

And then Job had people speaking into his life that had no business whispering in his ear.

But if God took everything you loved yesterday, I put my hand on the baby in my my wife's stomach, and we just prayed for protection.

Because she got a doctor's appointment Thursday, and we're you know, we're just we're just praying.

And you can't help y'all, y'all know this social media is really good at giving you all the stuff you don't need to hear.

And so, like, two videos popped up or something about women losing their baby, and and so she got a little worried.

I mean, rightfully so.

She comes in there and her face is all serious, and she closes the door, it's like either I'm in trouble or something serious is going on.

Thank God it wasn't me.

You know what I'm saying?

And so she told me her worries, and so I laid my hand on her stomach and I prayed.

I mean, I tell you what, I'm not saying it would be easy, but if God took that baby, if my life belongs to God, whatever he decides is okay.

When we start framing things in this seriousness and getting real for a minute, we start realizing that maybe I don't maybe I don't trust God as much as I do with this.

Because if things start getting taken away and we lose things, we lose finances, we lose people we love, we you know, the pressure of life, the realness of life, we lose.

Would I still trust him enough to even though I prayed a prayer and he didn't answer, but I will still pray in the altars for somebody and believe that healing will come.

That's trust when you don't get what you asked for, but you're still praying in belief for someone else, that is truly trusting, believing, and having faith in the Lord.

And that's what Paul wants us to have.

To understand that the power of the gospel is not dictated.

Our trust in God, our leaning on the Lord should not be dictated by the circumstances of life.

Because if that's what manipulates us to love him more, love him less, depend on him more, or follow him, then we have never belonged to him.

Now I'm not saying doubt, I'm not saying a season of disbelief, but I want to encourage you that even though we all have been through some portion of life that just was not fun, I went through a portion of my life where I cried every night in my bed.

Grown man, just ugly crying.

Because I wanted God to answer prayers.

Now I look back and I'm like, thank you, Lord, for not answering those prayers.

Thank you, Lord.

But we've got to, if our life belongs to God, then whatever he allows to happen, we must say it is well with my soul.

No matter how it looks, no matter how it feels, if I don't see him, if I don't feel him, my love, faith, and dependence on him is not whether I see him or feel him or knows where he is, because I know who he is, and I know that he is faithful in spite of how I feel in a temporary moment.

As we close, you don't have to make salvation work.

Does that make sense?

You don't have the power to make salvation work.

Do you understand what I'm saying to you?

You do not have the power to make salvation work.

Jesus has all authority and power and his sacrifice, his blood that was shed, that was the key to salvation for us, that we didn't have to live like the Jews.

We can rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Point number three we must never be ashamed of the gospel.

But let's be real, we talked about this in the very beginning.

It's easy to feel pressure to be silent.

Sometimes it can feel like you're disrespecting someone else, or you're you know what I mean?

It can get uncomfortable.

But if it is the gospel of Jesus Christ and it is the word of God, I would much rather get uncomfortable and hear well done, good and faithful servant, than to hear you had a prime opportunity and you missed it.

And I tell you that's pretty easy to do.

Because culture will try to paint us up as the problem.

They will take their sin, paint it as righteous, they will take my truth, and they will paint it up as the truth when they have no truth in them.

It's the biggest trick of the enemy to use partial truths, mix it with a load of lies, and try to sell it as a bit of goods.

And I'm telling you straight up, the church people is the only voice that will correct this.

The government's not gonna do it.

People in the sinful culture, they're not going to do it.

The reason sinful nature has become so prevalent in the culture is because the culture of the church has allowed sinful nature to be okay in the house.

So, what does that mean for us?

Now, this is what stinks for us that are here today, and you believe that the Bible is the actual word and truth of God, is that we got a lot of work to do.

And it's like once you go so far, now you gotta go all the way back for some sort of reset because you're like, Man, this is just it was it was let to be done, to be done, to be done, and now we've got listen.

Personal preference.

I say this all the time.

I am glad I'm not a woman.

You know what I'm saying?

I couldn't handle what y'all go through, even just physically, mentally.

I don't know if I'd ever have a baby.

The devil has been at work for so long that he has twisted up truth into being something that doesn't even make common sense.

Logic is completely excluded from this.

But imagine the other day, and they may see this, I don't care that I'm a client right now, anyways.

The other day I had to shoot some headshots for a magazine.

And I went in the house.

And you ever like come up on a situation and you had no clue it was what it was until you were there, and you're like, is my face showing what I'm thinking?

You know what I mean?

Like, you feel it inside, and you're like, my brain is going in overdrive, and I don't know if they see what I'm thinking up here.

Lord, please hide please shield their eyes from my shock and awe.

Because the photos I went to take was a broker of a real estate agency.

And then he asked me, Hey, can I get some photos of via my husband?

So I had a choice.

Some of you may not agree with this, but just listen to what I'm trying to say here.

We're in East Texas, so people are gonna turn their nose up.

You know what I'm saying?

I'm like, you're what?

You know, a little bit different down here.

We ain't in California, you know what I'm saying?

And I didn't say I'm a pastor, no.

You guys are fornicating.

You know, I didn't go through the list of stuff.

That's unnatural.

You know, I didn't say all that.

But what I did in my head, I'm praying, I'm like, Lord.

Am I so concerned about me being uncomfortable that I won't love them anyways?

I'll tell you straight up.

I ain't gonna show up and shoot your wedding if it ain't right.

I ain't gonna I ain't gonna preach it.

I ain't gonna shoot it.

That's just my policy.

But I was not informed of the situation.

And I showed up and I'm like, you know what?

I hope that I love them with the love of Christ, and they begin to ask and find out that I'm a pastor and it will shock the pants off of them.

Sometimes I just say things.

They were cordial, they didn't do the lovey-dovey stuff, because I would have shut that down to But what I chose to do and I felt the Lord just leave me, like, you know what?

How would I treat somebody who's living against?

Would I beat them with scripture and tell them how wrong they are?

Or could it be possibly that me loving them in the way Christ loved those that were against him and was doing wrong?

Would possibly, who knows?

Years down the road, or it could be a month down the road where there's a bridge built and they find their way to Christ.

I choose hope.

And we can't affirm.

I didn't give them ha-fas for loving each other, but I showed the love of Christ in spite of me being uncomfortable, and it got me it caught me off guard because I wasn't prepared.

And instead of being hard-nosed about a truth that I know, I allow the truth to be poured out of me in a container of love on the truth.

But it's very, very difficult when all the culture paints anybody who stands up for righteousness and truth and the way God designed things.

You you you some people are like, you know, if you're more Christ like people like you, bro, they nailed him to the cross.

Because he spoke truth.

It wasn't easy to speak truth, but truth from a place of love transforms.