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For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation. to everyone that believe it to the Jew first and also to the Greek for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written the just shall live by faith for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth and righteousness because that which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath showed it unto them for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead so they are without excuse because that when they knew God that Glorified Him not as God; neither were they thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

so we'll start by saying that Paul's boldness about the gospel was the opposite of his his society at that time they said you ought to be ashamed your leader was was executed by the government on the demands of the highest religious leaders of your religion I feel ashamed of them I feel ashamed of them I feel religion how dare you come here preaching his phony message you ought to be ashamed of yourself so we don't think about it that way but if you're living at that time the society was like Jesus Christ was a they saw him he was a loser yes a rebel he was a rebel he was killed executed by the government because the the highest most senior religious leaders of Judea demanded that he be put to death so there was a stigma there was a stain on the name of Jesus and and the antichrist Jews made sure that stigma

was spread Across the world, they would get ahead of Paul, trying to figure out where he was going to get to the next city and badmouth Jesus and Paul before he got there. So Paul, Paul opens this letter and he says, 'Hey, I want you to tell you something-I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; praise God! Yes, I'm quite proud of it. I am bold in talking about it and I'll tell you why: I'm not ashamed. It is the power of God under salvation. So this message, all right-the message of Christ, the gospel, the good news was offensive to Jews and foolishness to non-Jews. Right? The Jews, the non-believing Jews were just highly offended by the gospel of Christ, but To non-Jews, it was like, that is the craziest stuff we've ever heard.

You want us to believe that a man who was put to death on a cross, you're telling us he came back to life, and and you want us to believe that his spirit is inside you, that is absolutely crazy! There are a lot of people think that today, yeah, most of the world today falls in one of those two camps don't they? That's right, that's right. So the gospel really defied Roman values of power, the gospel promoted humility and grace, the Roman values promoted power, prestige, honor, kind of like the American empire mentality today, yeah, um, you know the the mindset that's in ascendancy. Right now in 2025 is America is on the move, and we can take over the world, yeah, you've pretty much got it, Rick, get out of our way

Well, that was the Roman Empire attitude, but I don't want to get in that. I'm just trying to show you that really things haven't changed a lot. The Christian leaders of today in America are making Jesus Christ and his gospel subservient to Americanism, it is to help America; it is the Gospel's here, Jesus is here to to promote America, and that's that's the mentality that they have, right? But Paul's saying, 'I am not ashamed of the Gospel. I have no, um, embarrassment at all telling you that Jesus Christ...' appeared to me that I was one of the the the worst enemies of the Gospel and Christ appeared to me, struck me blind, and saved my soul; and now I serve Him as a slave, as a bond servant.

He described the Gospel as the power of God unto salvation. The power of God! First of all, good news is the Gospel-it's the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. When we say Gospel, we're saying the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. And Paul says the Gospel, and what is the Gospel? The good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. He said that is the power of God. If you desire to release the power of God in your life, in your community, in your family, in your church, wherever, speak the word of the Gospel. Yes, don't mix it with anything else. Don't mix it with, you know, psychology or self-help or political ideology or anything else. Just the word itself is a challenge and a transformative agent in the culture.

Just the word of God itself without attaching anything else to it. Somehow, I don't understand it. How do we describe it? There is supernatural divine power in words. Words that proclaim the Gospel.