Faith From Start to Finish

I want to read today from the book of Romans chapter one

and verse 16, a message that God placed upon my heart.

And this afternoon, I just want to be sensitive

to the Holy Spirit.

I may not get through every point in my message

because my goal today is not to finish the sermon,

but it is to minister and to share

what God needs me to share.

So we want to move with whatever direction God wants us to.

But amen.

In Romans chapter one and verse 16 and 17,

the apostle Paul writes these words,

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.

I'm going to preach today on this simple thought,

faith from start to finish.

I'm gonna invite you to pray with me

right there where you are.

Church, friend, let us pray right now.

God, we love you today.

We thank you for the way that you have already demonstrated,

expressed and poured out your love among us, God,

through the demonstration of your power, your spirit, Lord.

We await the testimonies of the miracles

that have already been dispatched.

We thank you, Lord, for the great worship

that you've allowed us to participate in today, God,

knowing that this worship even outdoes

the worship of the angels, God,

because we are a redeemed people

with a testimony of salvation.

God, now I pray that you would speak to us today,

anoint our hearing, our understanding,

give us spiritual ears.

Now that the hearts have been tenderized and prepared,

let this seed of the word fall on good ground

and let it be received with gladness

and anoint these lips of clay, God,

that I might preach this word with fervency

and urgency this afternoon, God.

Let your name be glorified.

In all of this, God, we say in Jesus' name.

Someone say in Jesus' name.

Amen.

God bless you.

You may be seated in the presence of the Lord.

Last week, I did something that I have not done

in a long time.

How many of you wanna know what that is?

I drove a gas-powered car for a long road trip

to Anaheim for our national convention.

With the heavier traffic,

I opted for the quick refuel over waiting

to stop at a charging station with my Tesla.

So I want to apologize for Elon Musk.

You know, he's doing a lot of other great things,

but I did not drive his car

because I just wanted to get to my destination.

And as big as of a tank that I had,

I knew that one tank wouldn't last me

the entire trip.

I still had to stop along the way to gas up

so that I could keep going and reach my destination.

It was very important.

Had a big gas tank, but I still had to stop

and put gas in the tank to meet there.

I don't know if any of you have a story or two

when you thought you had enough gas

to get where you needed to go,

but turns out you didn't.

And maybe you had to call AAA, right?

Or a tow truck or a family member.

And one of the things about running out of gas, right,

is it's got nothing to do with the mechanics of the car.

It's got nothing to do with whether, you know,

the temperatures are right and the conditions.

It's just got everything to do with you gauging

how much gas you have and when you should put gas.

So it's really all up to the driver, you know?

And so I'm looking across and I see the shame

coming over some of you right now.

Here say, that was me, pastor.

I just did that one time and I ran out of gas.

I thought there was something wrong with the car.

And it turns out I just didn't put enough gas

to get to my destination.

Well, I need to let you know today, friend,

that faith works the same way.

Everyone needs a feeling and a refilling of faith

in order to make it to the end.

The journey of faith or the journey of life

begins, spiritually speaking, with that initial fill up.

You know, before you go on that road trip,

you stop at the gas station,

you get that initial fill up, right?

Fill it up to the brim.

And I don't know if you're like me,

but I keep pulling on that trigger,

even when it keeps clicking back at me.

I got anybody else like that out there?

Just one more click, just click, click, click, click.

I just gotta know.

I just gotta know that it's full.

And sometimes it gets so full,

then you pull the gas hose out,

and then a little bit of gas starts spilling out at the end.

You go, uh-oh, put too much.

But I'd rather have that problem

than to feel like I didn't fill it up all the way.

And faith works like that when you first get saved.

There's that initial infilling

of the Spirit of God in your life,

that infilling of fresh faith

when we come to Christ and are saved.

But as we progress, we need to be refilled,

growing and progressing and advancing in faith

and in righteousness,

trusting in God's power to carry us forward.

People, you need to know,

people do not quit because they want to quit.

They don't give up because they want to give up.

They don't stop, spiritually speaking,

because they just want to stop.

They stop because they run out of gas, out of faith.

No one plans on quitting.

No one plans on backsliding.

No one says, you know,

this will be a good year to backslide.

This will be a good year to just, you know,

just start shying away from the things of God.

No, it's something that just happens gradually

as we are not ensuring that we are being refilled

with fresh faith.

And so this is the idea that I want to hold

in your mind today as we look at these words

from the Apostle Paul after he greets the believers in Rome,

which a few weeks ago,

I did a whole series on chapter eight in Romans,

and I'll probably keep revisiting this powerful book

for all the things that it has to say.

But Paul transitions to the very heart of his letter

here in verse 16 by declaring the power of the gospel

as our fuel of faith.

And you may ask today, somebody here may ask,

and you may be surprised,

even though we say this word often,

what is the gospel?

You may be surprised that not everyone knows what that is.

The gospel, someone say the gospel.

Amen.

How about we say that again?

The gospel.

The gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ.

It is that God who came to earth to die on the cross,

for our sins and was buried in a tomb

and resurrected three days later with the promise

that one day he would return for his people.

That is the gospel.

The gospel is that Christ came for us.

The gospel is God's grace personified or exemplified in Christ.

It is love poured out.

Amen, somebody.

It's mercy reaching down.

It's healing through his nail scarred hands.

That is the gospel that he was wounded, as Isaiah said,

for our transgressions and that he was bruised

for our iniquities and that the chastisement of our peace

was upon his shoulders but by his stripes.

We are here.

That is, how many of you today are thankful for the gospel?

Come on, let's clap our hands today, amen.

Thank God for the gospel.

The gospel is the good news.

It is the message of Jesus Christ

that for God so loved the world,

he gave his only begotten son.

Whosoever believes in him should not perish

but have everlasting life.

That is the gospel in a nutshell

and it is the power of God unto salvation.

And Paul was so unshaken in his conviction

that the gospel, that primary message of Christ,

was indeed the power of God to save, to sanctify

and to sustain us through every stage

of the Christian journey.

It is what fuels our faith.

It is the gospel.

Let me tell a new saint or an older saint today,

let me tell you that you never outgrow your need

for the gospel.

Hallelujah somebody.

You never outgrow or move beyond your need for the gospel,

whether it's in the beginning of your Christian walk

or at the end of your Christian walk,

when Jesus finally calls us home,

you need the power of the gospel

to provide that fuel of your faith.

And I want to walk you through this afternoon

a few of those steps.

And I already put out my disclaimer

that I may not get through all of them,

but we'll see, we might get through them.

Because the first is the most important.

Let us begin with the first level of faith that we need,

which is saving faith, which is a faith to begin,

saving faith.

Someone say saving faith.

Because Paul said it is for it is, excuse me,

the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.

And so what I need today is to preach for a few moments

about the power of the gospel.

I need to preach.

The Holy Ghost will not allow me not to preach this today.

Why?

Because there are some today who have yet to give

their whole lives to Jesus.

And you need to understand the power of the gospel.

I must preach the gospel to you today

because you have been feeling the tug of God

in your heart, in your life,

to give your life fully to Jesus

by being baptized in the glorious name of Jesus,

and then being sealed with the infilling of his spirit.

And God has been working on you,

and you have been hearing and feeling

and experiencing this divine call of God

to give your heart to him.

And that tug that you feel in your heart,

some of you have been feeling it for a while now.

You have been feeling it for some time now.

That tug that you feel is the tug of the gospel.

It is the power of God to salvation

that has been tugging, that has been pulling on your heart,

convicting you of your sin and your life

and your path saying, come unto me,

all you who are weary and heavy laden.

And as Jesus said, I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, for my burden is light.

My yoke is easy.

Oh, this is the tug of the gospel

that somebody has been feeling.

And I believe today that as I speak,

someone under the sound of my voice

has been right on the edge.

I'm talking about right on the verge.

You're just inches away from making that lifelong decision

to make Jesus your Lord and Savior.

And I just come today under the inspiration

of the Holy Ghost to tell you that this could be the day.

Woo, hallelujah.

This could be the day that you give your heart to God

and respond to the glorious gospel

and say, Lord, I accept what you did for me on the cross.

I accept that you shed your blood

to wash away every ounce and inch of sin in my life.

And I want to God, I want to make heaven my everlasting home.

I have come today under the inspiration of God

to get down into somebody's heart

and tell you that there is no other day like today.

This is the day that the Lord has made

and I will rejoice and be glad.

This is the day, the Bible says, of salvation.

And so for those of you here, or perhaps even watching

that have been contemplating, giving your life to Jesus,

can I tell you, you may know parts about the church.

You know parts about city life.

You know parts about the ministry.

You know things about the songs.

You know things about what you feel.

You know here, you've heard a little here and a little there.

And I've come to tell you today

that God is calling you to get all the way in

and experience that love and that grace.

I see, I get excited when I think about this.

Then you know for yourself that God is everything

that he said he was, that he's a,

how many of you know he's a good God today?

And Jesus came for you to save you,

to save you from your sin, to save you from your past,

to save you from hell fire,

to deliver you out of your depression,

to deliver you from the clutches of the enemy,

to swoon my Lord and to deposit his glory in your life.

This is why he came.

He didn't come just for you to become a good moral person.

There's a lot of people out there friend

that are good moral people, but that are going to hell.

Uh oh, is it okay to say that?

Because if you don't have Jesus,

all your morality and all your ethics

and then you can be an outstanding citizen,

a model citizen even.

And if you don't have Jesus' name on your life,

then you have no hope of salvation,

but because there is no other name given among men,

whereby we must be saved, it is the name of Jesus.

Whoo, hallelujah.

How many of you know his name today?

It is the name of Jesus.

And so we can know a lot of things.

We can know the lyrics of the songs.

We can know that brother or that sister and this and that.

But the question is, is your name written

in that book of life?

I wanna pray right now.

Father, I thank you Lord Jesus

for what you're doing in this place today.

I'll invite everyone to close your eyes

because somebody right now in the middle of this message,

God is speaking to them.

God is dealing with their hearts.

God is calling.

You see, this thing we call salvation

is a serious matter.

We are talking about the difference between heaven and hell.

We are talking about the difference

between judgment and freedom.

We are talking about the difference between life and death.

And it's a serious, and somebody is right there.

So I'm just praying, somebody help me pray.

I pray in the name of Jesus.

If there's a woman in here, a young person,

a young man, a young lady, somebody in this house,

a man who is contemplating giving your life to Jesus,

right now in the name of Jesus,

I claim your soul for the kingdom of God.

Some of you have been convinced

that this thing does not belong to you.

You've been convinced through the lies of the enemy

that if you give your heart to the Lord

and you're baptized in Jesus' name, that you will fail God.

Well, welcome to the club.

We all fail God at some point,

but God is rich in mercy and he's everlasting in grace.

And if you would just surrender today, hallelujah,

God will hold you up and you're gonna make it.

Come on, let's give God some glory.

Come on, somebody help me give God some glory, hallelujah.

Oh, all you gotta do is repent of your sins.

All you gotta do is repent of your past.

And when you repent,

the Bible says that all of heaven rejoices.

When just one sinner, woo, hallelujah.

You know, we think heaven breaks out in a party

when a hundred people come to the Lord.

And you know, I'm thankful to God for that.

How many of you have seen those videos in the mission field,

Africa, Ethiopia, Philippines, where thousands of people,

and we think that maybe only heaven rejoices over that.

Can I tell you, all heaven breaks out in celebration

when just one person, woo, my God.

Oh, when just one person comes before the Lord

and repents of their sins and says, I want Jesus.

Oh, heaven throws a party.

Let me tell you, heaven throws a party.

And you know, right now,

can I work on this a little bit more?

Right now, the balloons are getting ready

to drop in heaven.

Confetti's getting ready to drop in heaven.

The band of heaven is waiting for the cue.

Hoo, my Lord.

The angel choirs are getting ready.

The St. Michael's getting ready.

They're all getting ready with bated breath.

You know what they're waiting for?

For one of you today to say, all right, preacher,

I've heard enough.

I'm ready to give my life to Jesus.

And then God will turn to the band

and the orchestras of heaven and say, let it rip.

Hallelujah.

Because one more, I wish somebody

would get excited about that.

Oh, if we would celebrate more,

if we would praise more,

maybe God would do it more.

Hallelujah, Jesus.

I'll get excited today.

And this is what you need to know.

Now, Paul, Paul, he deals with something

that this is gonna help you

because I could just keep on and on and on

getting excited and you know,

just spitting at you here today.

I don't wanna do that, okay?

Listen, I can keep going on and on in my excitement,

but you need to know that Paul addresses,

he exposes probably the one thing

that keeps people from that next step.

And he exposes the issue of shame.

You see, this is this one enemy

because there are certain enemies.

There are fears and enemies and hurdles,

hindrances keeping you from that next step.

And Paul exposes shame as one of the biggest enemies

of saving faith when he declares, he says,

for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

Now, what do you think the opposite of not ashamed is?

Right?

And the opposite of not ashamed is obviously unashamed.

Or excuse me, the opposite of ashamed is unashamed, right?

The opposite of not ashamed is ashamed.

And so that's a very easy thing to comprehend.

And so when he's saying that I am not ashamed,

this statement confronts an issue

that some might feel on the edge of that decision.

When he says that, he confronts the shame

that some people might feel in response to the gospel.

We get excited about this and we can clap ourselves happy

all the way to the end of the service

and not realize that some people are still being held back.

Why?

Shame.

Let me help you understand what's at work here.

In the original context of this verse,

Paul addresses two groups of people in this line,

two groups of people who are struggling to believe Christ

and get baptized.

And the first were a religious group, the Jews.

He said, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,

for it is the power of God to salvation

for everyone who believes.

And then he mentions these two groups,

the first for the Jew first.

And he mentions the Jews because for the Jews,

this whole idea of a crucified Christ

was just contrary to their thinking about a Messiah.

And in another place in scripture,

that the whole idea of the gospel of God coming down,

dying on a cross was just antithetical.

It was just, it clashed with their whole view

of what this promised Messiah was supposed to be.

And the Bible calls it a stumbling block

that Christ, the gospel was a stumbling block

for the Jew, for the religious people.

Now these were the people that were waiting

for the Messiah to come.

And yet they just couldn't quite grasp,

they couldn't quite accept that this hope

that they had been waiting for was a man

who died a horrific death on a cross.

And even though he rose three days later,

this whole concept, they struggled.

It was a stumbling block for them.

It was shameful that their savior,

the hope of their life was nailed naked to a cross.

It just, they couldn't,

they just couldn't understand how that was the answer.

How that could be what they have been waiting so long for.

And the second group were the Greeks.

The Greeks had a bit of a different struggle than the Jews.

The Greeks were a bit more cultured in their,

they had these humanistic philosophies, intellectualism,

they were very secular, very cultured.

And so the idea of a savior or of a God

that came down and died a criminal's death

and the horrific event that it was

just did not fit their paradigm about a God

with all the different pantheon of gods that they had.

They just couldn't fit this Jesus

in the middle of all of that.

And so I want you to see, now I can dig into more of this,

but I just want you to see how both of these groups,

the religious and the non-religious, okay?

The ones who kind of grew up in church

and the ones who were completely unchurched,

those are the terms I'm using.

The ones who had a religious background

and the ones who had a secular background.

And Jesus came to save both of those groups,

but both of those groups were kind of like stuck

where they were.

And they were troubled on receiving this message

of the gospel and taking that next step in faith.

Why?

Because of shame.

Because of shame.

Shame over what this message read.

Shame over the fact that if I believe in this,

what is it gonna say about me?

If I put my hope in this, if I trust in this message,

if I trust in this Jesus, you know,

this thing that is so counter-cultural,

so counter-intuitive, so against the grain

of what I think I know about life

and about the afterlife and about all of these things,

if I put my faith in this man who died on a cross,

you know, can I deal with that kind of shame?

And these are the questions they were asking.

You know, am I good enough even?

It might've been the shame of not feeling good.

As somebody here today, hear me,

I say this with all sensitivity,

your struggle is that you don't feel good enough

to be an apostolic Christian.

I don't know if I can be like all these other people.

I don't know, mmm, my God.

And that's the same feeling that one who goes to the gym

for the first time and starts comparing themselves

to a bunch of, you know, triathlons and decathlons,

and you're saying, well, I don't know if I can be like that.

Well, they have been working at that for a long time

and you're new to the gym,

but that ought not to stop you from signing up

because if you sign up, God will work in you too, amen.

But you're struggling with that shame.

I don't know if I can dress like that.

I don't know if I can live like that.

Hey, those are the lies of the enemy.

Don't feel like you're not good enough.

No, you are worthy and you are good enough.

Otherwise, God would've never came.

He never would've died on the cross.

Do I have a witness?

Come on, help me out today, church.

He never would've went up Calvary.

He never would've shed his precious blood

if he didn't think that you were worth it today.

So let me just tell you right now, you are worth it.

And if you would give your heart to Jesus,

you're gonna make it.

Come on and clap your hands.

Shame over bad things that you've done.

I don't know, is God gonna set me with my baggage

that I have with the things that I've said?

There's been times, pastor, you don't know the times,

I've cursed God in my past.

I've blasphemed, I've said things I can't unsay.

I've done things, I've believed strange things about life.

And I was into witchcraft or I was into sorcery

or I was into astrology.

I would read my horoscope and I don't know it.

I've got all this religious and spiritual baggage.

I'm not sure, I grew up in a different faith

and all of these things might be the case for you.

But you need to understand today.

Is it okay, can I preach like this?

I mean, I preach to the safe folks every single Sunday

and some of y'all don't even act safe sometimes,

hallelujah, but you gotta come back for next week.

Hallelujah.

Can I preach to somebody here today?

And don't worry because if it was your son and daughter

that hadn't been baptized, you'd wanna keep on going, pastor.

Come on now, somebody.

There's somebody here right now that's right on the edge.

And if it was your daughter or your son,

you'd be like, Tom, Pat, you better keep preaching

this thing until it's done.

And I'm here to tell you, what about the bad stuff?

You know, God considered all of that

and yet He still came for you.

The Bible says while we were yet sinners,

Christ didn't wait for you to get godly before He saved you,

even though some of you think He did.

He didn't wait for you to get godly.

He didn't wait for you to get righteous.

While you were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.

Say, I'm not godly enough.

I'm not righteous enough.

That's okay because God will give you His righteousness.

Somebody clap your hands today.

Let's give God some praise.

Say, well, the shame, the shame, the shame.

The shame of embarrassment.

I don't know if I can face my family members if I do this.

What are they gonna say?

What are my coworkers gonna think about me

if I'm one of those Jesus people?

If I'm one of those tongue talkers?

You know, if they're gonna start sending me

all the little memes and little reels on Instagram,

of all the weird Pentecostal stuff.

They say, oh, so you're one of these now.

All this stuff, I'm gonna have to deal with it.

I'm gonna have to hear it all Christmas long.

Oh, you're one of them now.

And so the shame of it.

Oh, I'm gonna have to face my family reunion.

I'm gonna stick out like a sore thumb.

Everyone's gonna go, everybody's Catholic, and here I come.

Everybody's this, or everybody's that,

nobody's religious at all, and here I come.

I don't know if I can deal with that shame,

that embarrassment, that rejection.

Can I tell you that it might be difficult at first,

I'm not here to paint this pretty picture for you,

that it's just gonna be easy, but it will be worth it.

Why?

You say why, why?

Because the grace of God, because of his love in your life,

God will give you the strength to stand there.

Whoo, my.

Say whatever you want, say whatever you want.

People might turn on you at work, might turn on you here,

say, but I don't know if I can do that.

I'm not, listen, today God is saying to you,

take that next step of faith,

and watch me work in your life.

My advice to you today, as I get ready to close here today,

my advice to you today is to take your focus

off of everyone else.

Now, I'd like to apply this to everybody today,

no matter what stage of faith you're at.

You may be past saving faith.

I've been serving the Lord for 25 years, 30 years,

50 years, praise God.

You may have gotten baptized when Paul did, I don't know.

Wow.

We can all go to another level.

We can all grow in righteousness.

We can all grow in faith.

But there's somebody here today.

In fact, I want us to close our eyes one more time.

Thank you, Jesus.

Brother Rick, if you can come on up here and play.

Something, hallelujah God.

There's somebody here today that needs to take that next step.

Pastor, I didn't know you were gonna put us

on the spot like that.

Well, it's not me, it's the Lord, because God loves you.

You can get baptized before this year is over.

You can give your life to Jesus, start the year clean,

clean, redeemed, with your sins washed away.

Ah, hallelujah.

Father, I pray right now over this congregation, Lord.

There's somebody right now today, Lord,

who in a few moments is gonna come to this altar.

We're gonna pray with them, God,

who wants to give their life to you.

Or is at least ready to learn about what we believe, God,

so that they can.

But right now, God, there is some shame.

There may be other things, Lord.

There may be other things.

There may be other fears or questions or doubts.

But that's all right, God, because even Thomas doubted.

Even Thomas wasn't 100%.

And even Thomas was honest enough to say,

Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief.

And Lord, you didn't reject him.

You didn't tell him to get lost,

come back after you've grown a little more.

No, God, you received him, God.

And Lord, I know that there's different stories

and backgrounds here today, Lord.

Even if just one today would respond, God,

I'm asking you, Holy Spirit, somebody pray with me.

God, touch that person's heart.

Touch them right now, Lord.

Work.

Oh, God, work on them today, Lord.

Oh, God, it's not the will of God

that any man should perish,

but that all should come to you, God.

That all should come to salvation.

It's not your will that one person

leave this place today, God,

undecided about their future,

undecided about their destiny, God.

It's not your will, Lord,

that one person leave today

and not receive the gift of God,

the gift of salvation in the name of Jesus.

Oh, God, I thank you.

Let's just stay in the spirit right now.

There's a sweet, sweet spirit that is in this place today.

Oh, hallelujah.

As we continue to pray, church,

I'm inviting you to continue praying with me right now.

Just stay with me if you can in the spirit.

And I'm gonna call those up right now.

There's at least one here today.

The Lord already showed me who you are,

but I can't force anyone to do this.

There's at least one today.

I need you to come right now,

and I need you to stand at this altar.

If you want what I have preached today,

if you want this Jesus,

if you want more of God,

if you want to be saved,

I didn't ask you if you want religion.

I didn't ask you if you just wanna join a church.

If you want to be saved,

if you are unsure of your salvation,

you are unsure whether you are truly saved or not,

don't look to your neighbor,

don't look behind you because God's talking to you,

and he wants you to come.

He wants you to come.

And all we're gonna do today

is we're gonna surround you with prayer,

and we're gonna ask God to fill your faith.

Ooh, hallelujah, to fill your faith.