What you have just seen is incredible. This is a public baptism in a nation in SE Asia where other believers have been run out of their village and their homes burned to the ground. This husband and father have recently come to know the Lord after someone personally shared the gospel with him many times. This man came to know Christ after our teams shared the gospel with his wife in combination with local believers. He came to know the Lord after one family from our church spent nearly 15 years sharing the gospel in the area. This past month, he has taken down his Buddhist idols to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ! Our friend has asked us to pray for a church to be planted and by the grace of God, I now have the privilege of telling you the church has been planted!
Today, I want to speak to you about the importance of developing the regular habit of personal evangelism. My question for each one of you is this: Who’s Your One? Please find the book of Romans with me, will you? All this year, we are focusing on this question: Who’s Your One? Mr. Believer and Mrs. Believer, who is the one person the Lord is putting in your life to share the message of the gospel? Who’s Your One? Again, this is our focus for 2020 and you are going to want to be a part of this because some lives are going to be changed! For 2020, I want to challenge you and to empower you to be a life-changer and difference-maker. All this year, we are challenging you to have a conversation focused on the gospel – a gospel conversation.
Romans 1 is our focus today. Paul writes the introduction to one of the greatest letters you’ll find anywhere. He follows the conventional format of how you would open up a letter of his day. Except he makes one important change – where most people would have said something to the effect, “I hope this letter finds you healthy…” …or, “I hope your business is doing extremely well…” When Paul tell you, “Hello, how are you doing?,” but he doesn’t take about wealth or your health; instead, he wants to know about faith.
Today’s Scripture
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. 9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you 10 always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now, at last, succeed in coming to you. 11 For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— 12 that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. 13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith” (Romans 1:8-17).
Let me point out three items as a way of background before we move on.
Thankful
Paul thanks God for their faith in verse 8. A smile comes to his face when he thinks about their face. He was thrilled to hear about their faith from such a long distance and continually thanks God for their faith. If you are a believer give thanks to the Lord today! Take special note that God is thanked “through Jesus Christ” in verse 8. If you want to get to God, you need to go through Jesus Christ. Jesus is the mediator of God the Father; Jesus is the only open highway to obtain access to God the Father. I encourage you to get to know Jesus Christ today.
He then takes an oath in verse 9 that he is continually in prayer for the Christians in Rome. “God is my witness” is how we know he prays continually, unceasing. So if you’re with Paul on Monday, you overhear him in the morning praying for the believers in the capital city. And if you’re with Paul on Wednesday at dinner time, he mentions the believers in Rome right before you break bread. And when the two of you are sleeping just feet away from one another on cots on Friday night, you can hear even a ‘mumbling prayer’ coming from Paul’s direction concerning the Roman believers. He doesn’t cease to give thanks or to pray for the believers. Pause: a believer in Christ, what group of Christians are you praying for around the globe today? If you take the time to trace it out, you’ll discover Paul isn’t just praying for the Christians in Rome but for believers spread out all over the known world of his day: “I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers…” (Ephesians 1:16).
Paul and Rome
While he prays for believers spread out all over the globe, Paul is specifically asking the Lord for His permission to finally go to Rome. Paul has prevented from going to Rome at the time he write the New Testament book of Romans. Notice at the end of verse 10, his prayers include, “asking that somehow by God’s will I may now, at last, succeed in coming to you” (Romans 1:10). Why does he want to come to Rome, the capital city or the Washington DC of the day? Well, it wasn’t to see the coliseum; instead, he wanted to “impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you” (verse 11). Second, he wants to come in order “that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith” (verse 12). Third, he desired to come to Rome “in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles” (verse 13). So let’s quickly review because that’s three really good reasons for us gathering together this morning. We gather in the name of Jesus Christ this morning in order 1) to strengthen one another; 2) to encourage one another’s faith, and 3) to see people of all races come to faith in Christ. Why do you come into the house of God today?
I want you to adopt three attitudes to make you a difference-maker and a life-changer. I want you to see three “I am” statements right here. Look, if you will, in verse 14. He says, “I am under obligation.” Look in verse 15—underscore this: “I am eager.” Then, look in verse 16: “I am not ashamed.” Now, if you just put those three “I am’s” together you’re going to understand what motivated one of the most important men in the world.
History tells us Paul was a little man. But he was a little man who had a mighty heart for Almighty God who could say, “I am under obligation,” “I am eager,” and “I am not ashamed.” And oh, would to God that I could say and YOU could say with the apostle Paul, “I am [bound],” “I am eager,” and “I am not ashamed.” To be a difference-maker and a life-changer, you need to adopt these three statements.
1. I Am Bound
“I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish” (Romans 1:14).
The first attitude you need to develop is an attitude of obligation.
1.1 I Owe, I Owe
First of all, he says I am a debtor—I am a debtor. Move your eyes to the beginning of this sentence found in verse 14 where you read, “I am under obligation.” There are two ways I can be in debt. The first way is if I borrow $1,000 from you. I would owe you this money, wouldn’t I? The second way I can be in debt to you is if I were given $1,000 by your friend in order to give it to you. I would owe you this money, wouldn’t I? When we received Jesus Christ as our Savior, Jesus entrusted us with the gospel for our friends, family, Greeks, barbarians, the wise, and the foolish. When we receive the gospel we incur a debt. “Obligation to Him who died produces obligation to those for whom He died.” Paul had not borrowed a penny from anyone in Rome but he owed them something. For Jesus Christ had entrusted him with the gospel for the people of the Eternal City.
If the gospel has come to me, I have no right to keep it to myself. The gospel is far too valuable to keep to myself. You see, God tells Christian believers to do something called evangelism. What is evangelism? Evangelism is the compassionate sharing of the good news of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to lost people with the intent of seeing them embrace Christ as their Lord and Savior.
The simple truth is that you cannot serve Jesus with a zipped lip, my friend.
1.2 How Do You See Yourself?
Let me ask you a question, “How do you see yourself?” Circle back to verse 1: “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God…” (Romans 1:1a). Circle the word “servant” in verse 1 and write out beside it “slave.” When Paul introduces himself, where we would say our occupation, Paul calls himself a “d?????.” The word is really slave. Paul sticks out his hand to shake yours and says, “My name is Paul and I am a slave of Christ Jesus.” Do you know that early Christians called themselves slaves of God? It wasn’t just Paul that was a slave of God, but Moses is described as God’s slave (Revelation 15:3). And Mary, the mother of Jesus describes herself as a slave of God: “Behold, I am the servant [d????? ] of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38b). And then as the New Testament ends and the period of the Church Fathers picks up, we witness even ordinary, average Christians call themselves slaves of God.
Friend, you are not your own but you were bought with a price! In a world where everyone wants to experience freedom, Christians enjoy the bonds of limitation to our loving heavenly Father. There’s genuine freedom and joy in being a slave to Christ (John 8:35). My life is not my own for I’ve been bought with a price!
1.3 Gentiles
Circle back in verse 13 with me. Jews during the New Testament time would often view the whole of humanity as two races: Jews and everyone else. Everyone else was called Gentiles and that’s exactly how Paul breaks down the population inside the capital city of Rome at the end of verse 13: “in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles” (Romans 1:13b). He sees two groups of people inside the immortal city of Rome: “you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles” (Romans 1:13b). Then, Paul drills down inside the second group, Gentiles in the next verse by differentiating two groups in verse 14. Look at the back half of verse 14 with me where you’ll read: “Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish” (Romans 1:14b). All Greek-speaking people could understand from the foreigners were sounds of “bar, bar, bar.” So Persians, Egyptians, Spaniards, Germans, and literally everyone else would have called a “barbarian.” He continues to describe everyone in the world when he says, “the wise and to the foolish” at the end of verse 14. There’s the cultured, the educated snobs, and every one of the rest of us that work for a living. No matter if the people have differences in language, religion, culture, nationality, or even education – every single person is in view here.
1.4 In Debt to Everyone
He’s under obligation to the civilized and the savage. Really, I am in debt to all people, all kinds of people, and all races of people. He’s wrapping his arms around all people – categorically every single person – to say, “I owe them something. I’m in debt to every person and every kind of person alive today no matter their nationality. I owe them.”
Suppose you become aware that the state of Texas has sentenced to a man be executed for a capital crime. Suppose our Governor Abbott has called you and said, “I’m have decided to pardon this man. I need you to deliver this pardon to the Livingston prison and deliver it to the prison warden because he has been pardoned.” Suppose you took that pardon, put it in your pocket, and then remembered that your spouse told you to pick up a gallon of milk on the way home. Then you remembered that you had some bills that you had to pay and an assignment was due in class. And then you remembered also that daughter’s car wasn’t working and she needed a ride back from the car mechanic. Life gets you busy working on the things that life requires. And then, a buddy calls you and says, “You know what, I’ve got a couple of extra plane tickets, why don’t you and I go to Florida and have a few rounds of golf?” You say, “That’s wonderful!” as you put on your plaid golfing pants. And you go down to sunny Florida, and you finally, come back to Fort Worth. Immediately you find yourself a little behind in your work, so you’re trying to catch up. One day you’re having your coffee when you’re reading the headlines on your phone or your iPad, and a news story jumps out at you. The state of Texas executes the very man Governor Abbott entrusted you to pardon. He was executed the night before and you reach out to your dresser where you find the very pardon—there it is! He had been pardoned, but you had never delivered the message.
How would you feel? How would you feel when the dirt was piled on top of this man’s grave? And how will you feel at the funeral of your sister, your mother, your neighbor, and your co-worker when they never been told of God’s pardon for them?
“I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish” (Romans 1:14).
The hymn we have sung for a half of a century, “Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.” Obligation to the One who died is an obligation to those for whom He died. If the gospel has come to me, I have no right to keep it to myself. The gospel is too valuable to keep to myself.
Who’s Your One?
I am a debtor to the Lord Jesus Christ; I’ve am bound!
1. I Am Bound
2. I Am Eager
“So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome” (Romans 1:15).
To be an effective Christian, you not only need to develop an attitude of obligation but also an attitude of ambition. You’d think a Christian with this strong sense of obligation has only this heavy sense of foreboding duty. But nothing could be further from the truth.
2.1 Eager
Look closely at the word “eager” because behind this word stands the Greek word that means you are willing, even passionate. The word pictures someone whose heart is burning with tremendous zeal. My friend Roy Fish called this a Christian with holy heartburn because this person is on fire! Isn’t that a great picture? It pictures a person set to go with a hair-trigger for a passion for the task ahead. Paul says, “I am eager.” I wonder if you are eager?
2.2 Eager to Evangelize
Now, if I’m in debt to all people, how do I pay my debt to all people? Do you know the word behind your English translation “preach the gospel” in verse 15 is our word “evangelism”? The words “preach the gospel” in verse 15 hides the true, personal nature of what needs to happen here. You don’t need to be a preacher and a pulpit to share this news. All you need is a willingness. Are you eager to evangelize? Does your heart burn with a passion to personally share this message? I find too many Christians just aren’t that eager.
2.2.1 We Make Excuses
We tend to disregard our lack of evangelism as a real problem. We miss opportunities to share Christ and then we justify our disobedience with thoughts like this: “Someone else will share with them someday,” or “The timing just wasn’t right.”
2.2.2 Failure to Launch
I read this week where nearly half of all believers will not invite another believer to church but we often invite only other believers. A believer will invite another believer to church; but get this: only 2 percent of believers will invite an unchurched or unsaved person.
Only through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ can we be assured of heaven. Only through Him can we find forgiveness of sin. He’s the only one who provides true peace of mind, security, identity, and rest for our souls.
Here’s how we pay our debt – we personally share the message of the gospel.
Didn’t somebody tell you about Jesus? Didn’t somebody bring the gospel to you? Then you are called to “preach the gospel” to another. Copy Paul’s eagerness into your life.
2.3 The Subway Superman
It was just a little over thirteen years that the man they call the Subway Superman jumped into action. Wesley Autrey was a fifty-one-year-old Harlem construction worker on his way home with his two little girls. He waiting for his train on the 137th Street platform when a stranger began to have a seizure. As the stranger began to flail, he fell onto the tracks immediately in front of the No. 1. Subway on-coming train. Wesley said later, “… it came in fast, whizzing by.” The man fell into the tracks backward, right into the gutter with his arm and legs still shaking. Wesley knew he had to jump on the tracks to save the man. With the train horn sounding and people yelling, Autrey’s only option was to pull the man’s shaking limbs inside the tracks and squeeze both of them into the trough or gutter in the middle. When the train finally stopped above him, it had passed right over the two men with only a ½ inch clearance. The train grazed the Navy Vietnam War veteran’s blue knit hat as it stopped over him, heart still pounding. The first thing the father did was to yell from under the train in order to let his girls know he was safe. The power was cut and forty minutes later, he was finally rescued. He eventually dropped the girls off at the house and he went to work! That blue hat had a grease stain leftover from the ordeal. New York City went wild over this man. Then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg hugged him. Night show host David Lettermen featured him. And even eventual President Donald Trump hailed.
Why all this fanfare? Well, everyone instinctively knows why. It’s because a man’s life was saved. The Subway Superman was eager to save, are you? Few things cause me so much joy as to share the good news of God’s love through Jesus Christ.
This past week, I drove to grab a pizza for my son and me one night. Behind the counter was a high school student named Allison. Our conversation began and I asked her about her spiritual life and if she has a church home. I made sure she had no other customers and then I asked her, “If you were to stand before Jesus Christ and He were to say to you, why should I let you in my Heaven … how would you respond to Him?” I had the privilege of sharing the message of Christ’s love with this teenage girl. If left her by asking her to consider carefully our conversation. Pray for Allison with me, will you?
Often when I have the privilege of sharing, I’m filled with joy because I know how this gospel can change someone! You must be eager and you must be bound.
Who’s Your One?
To be an effective Christian, you not only need to develop an attitude of obligation and an attitude of ambition, but lastly an attitude of conviction.
1. I Am Bound
2. I Am Eager
3. I Am Not Ashamed
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16).
Would to God that I could say and YOU could say with the apostle Paul, “I am [bound],” “I am eager,” and “I am not ashamed.” Friend, to be a highly effective Christian, you need a dose of debt, add a sprinkling of enthusiasm, and lastly, a dash of daring.
“Must I be carried to the skies
on flowery beds of ease,
while others bled to win the prize
and sail through bloody seas?” — ISAAC WATTS
3.1 Ashamed
You have your style and I have mine, but we have to overcome our fear of evangelism. Truth be told: all of us have felt a sense of shame about the gospel at one time or another. All of us have experienced the shame that silences us. Do you know how to get past this shame? Know that the message of the gospel is the message that saves! “I am [bound],” “I am eager,” and “I am not ashamed” are three powerful statements each genuine believer must make. There’s a sense of obligation because I have been entrusted with the good news. There’s a sense of conviction because I know the gospel has saved me, it could save others.
Here is our boldness. Here is our courage. It’s found in this vital truth: the gospel … is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” The gospel has inherent power in it to change lives.
I love how Paul comes full circle from verse 13 to verse 16. Every single person and every single kind of person he felt obligated to is every single person and every single kind of person who can be saved when they believe
Have you arrived at the place where you can say, “I am not ashamed of the gospel” at your business?
Who’s Your One?
Have you arrived at the place where you can say, “I am not ashamed of the gospel” around your house?
Who’s Your One?
Have you arrived at the place where you can say, “I am not ashamed of the gospel” around your school?
Who’s Your One?
Have you arrived at the place where you can say, “I am not ashamed of the gospel” with your friends?
Effective Christians arrive at this “I’m Not Ashamed” stage in their journey.
3.2 Who’s Your One?
We want to equip you in how to share your faith. In every one of our Bible Fellowship Groups, you will be equipped in your Bible study. We want to encourage you to share your faith. When you engage someone in a gospel conversation, we are asking you to stop by and share this with the volunteer by this display (show display). Many of you will drop a ping pong ball like this one into the display. When you do this, your little ping pong ball will encourage others. This is not a game of “one-up manship” but it is to encourage others to share their faith. Oftentimes, evangelism is invisible and we want it to more visible. Our goal is to have 5,000 of these gospel conversations by Thanksgiving. Will you join me in this year-long endeavor?
As you exit today, each one of you will receive a ping-pong ball and I’ll invite you to write down the first name of you’re one on the ping-pong ball. Who’s Your One?
3.3 Amy Carmichael’s Dream
Amy Carmichael spent fifty years of her life with the lost caste boys and girls of South India. She was a powerful Christian woman and her story encourages us to this day. She shares a moving vision she experienced of her life’s calling in India: “The tom-toms thumped straight on all night and the darkness shuddered round me like a living, feeling a thing. I could not go to sleep, so I lay awake and looked; and I saw, as it seemed, this: That I stood on a grassy sward, and at my feet, a precipice broke sheer down into infinite space. I looked, but saw no bottom; only cloud shapes, black and furiously coiled, and great shadow-shrouded hollows, and unfathomable depths. Back I drew, dizzy at the depth. Then I saw forms of people moving single file along the grass. They were making for the edge. There was a woman with a baby in her arms and another little child holding on to her dress. She was on the very verge. Then I saw that she was blind. She lifted her foot for the next step . . . it trod air. She was over, and the children over with her. Oh, the cry as they went over! Then I saw more streams of people flowing from all quarters. All were blind, stone blind; all made straight for the precipice edge. There were shrieks, as they suddenly knew themselves falling, and a tossing up of helpless arms, catching, clutching at empty air. But some went over quietly, and fell without a sound. Then I wondered, with a wonder that was simply agony, why no one stopped them at the edge. I could not. I was glued to the ground, and I could only call; though I strained and tried, only whisper would come. Then I saw that along the edge there were sentries set at intervals. But the intervals were too great; there were wide, unguarded gaps between. And over these gaps the people fell in their blindness, quite unwarned; and the green grass seemed blood-red to me, and the gulf yawned like the mouth of hell. Then I saw, like a little picture of peace, a group of people under some trees with their backs turned toward the gulf. They were making daisy chains. Sometimes when a piercing shriek cut the quiet air and reached them, it disturbed them and they thought it a rather vulgar noise. And if one of their number started up and wanted to go and do something to help, then all the others would pull that one down. ‘Why should you get so excited about it? You must wait for a definite call to go! You haven’t finished your daisy chain yet. It would be really selfish,” they said, “to leave us to finish the work alone.’ There was another group. It was made up of people whose great desire was to get more sentries out; but they found that very few wanted to go, and sometimes there were no sentries set for miles and miles of the edge. Once a girl stood alone in her place, waving the people back; but her mother and other relations called and reminded her that her furlough was due; she must not break the rules. And being tired and needing a change, she had to go and rest for awhile; but no one was sent to guard her gap, and over and over the people fell, like a waterfall of souls. Once a child caught at a tuft of grass that grew at the very brink of the gulf; it clung convulsively, and it called-but nobody seemed to hear. Then the roots of the grass gave way, and with a cry the child went over, its two little hands still holding tight to the torn-off bunch of grass. And the girl who longed to be back in her gap thought she heard the little one cry, and she sprang up and wanted to go; at which they reproved her, reminding her that no one is necessary anywhere; the gap would be well taken care of, they knew. And then they sang a hymn. Then through the hymn came another sound like the pain of a million broken hearts wrung out in one full drop, one sob. And a horror of great darkness was upon me, for I knew what it was - the Cry of the Blood [on my hands].”
Conclusion
Who’s Your One?
