Spiritual Defiance (Part A)

I am not ashamed of the gospel. Being ashamed of Christ has never helped anyone. And the devil knows that. So he puts a lot of energy into keeping Christians being bashful about their faith. That's one thing to be led, it's another thing to be afraid and petrified.

Not moving. That shame is even attached to the gospel, is indicative of something wrong in creation. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Mechanicsville, Virginia. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Romans, so please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio.

Specifically, how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Romans chapter one as he begins his message, Spiritual Defiance. Romans chapter one. Romans chapter one will do verses 16 and 17. 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. Two power verses. You can take either one and spend quite a bit of time on preaching them. Spiritual Defiance is the title for this morning.

Some of you are familiar with Mordecai. He exercised Old Testament defiance against wicked Haman. The apostles exercised New Testament defiance against Christlessness. In both cases, hell counter-attacked.

Mordecai was really surprised at what happened with him, and the apostles were ready. And I think the lesson is, and think in a sense I'm sure, is that we are not to be surprised, shocked, or unprepared by Satan's attacks and his counter attacks. We are to expect these things.

We are to be ready. And that is, belonging to that is Spiritual Defiance. It is not carnal. It's not only natural of us.

You know, man has naturally fallen. So we want to be careful of that and make sure that our reaction and our approach to life is more spiritual than carnal. In these two verses, the English translators have used our English conjunction, or the word for, as a conjunction. It's three times in the Greek, but they're right in their translation and using it four times just in these two verses. It connects what he's been saying, Paul, in this letter and what he's going to say. He says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel.

He's unashamed of the message that we all are entrusted with. He says, For it is the power of God to salvation. Well, it's God empowered, not man's power. For the Jew first, the people of the Bible, in those days, he continues, For the Greek also, the people without the Bible, in those days. For it is the righteousness of God.

Those are God's standards. They're made in heaven and they're given to us and they're defied by sinners. For the wrath of God is revealed. God's displeasure can be known.

You don't have to guess. Well, I wonder what irritates God. He tells us.

He takes us quite a bit of time. 31,000 verses telling us what irritates him. Anyway, these things indicate that the thoughts are joined and they're moving as one. Ezekiel, in his great vision of the throne room in heaven, looking at those cherubim moving about the throne of God, he writes these quite powerful things.

He says, And each one went straight forward. They went wherever the Spirit wanted to go, and they did not turn when they went. When they moved, they went toward any one of four directions. They did not turn aside, when they went. Wherever the Spirit wanted to go, they went, because there the Spirit went. That's the Christian life. Well, it was supposed to be as many as our children of God are led by the Spirit of God. Paul will write in this Roman letter.

Now, that was a blend of Ezekiel 1 verses 12, 17, and 20, but no additives, no preservatives, and no MSG. Then, offsetting this thought of moving in the direction that God is moving, we have in Romans 2, Paul says, To those who are self-seeking, as opposed to Christ-centered, Christ-led, to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, then he adds, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, to the Jew first, and to the Greek also. That's diversity.

All right. Judgment is diverse. It is not interested in who is a minority or not. It will judge the guilty. And what about those who can escape that?

Well, those with the blood of Christ on them, and that's what we're going to get to. So, now we look at verse 16, and you young Christians, try to keep up. I counsel you. You usually know where I'm going to be on a Sunday morning. Read ahead of time, so you're not playing catch-up the entire time. Oh, what are you talking about?

When are you going to be done? Anyway, that's some of the adults, too, right? Verse 16, 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. There's so much doctrine here. The trident passion of Paul to get to Rome.

It wasn't only Rome. He had the same thing going on for other places. He just writes it down to the Romans. He says, I am a debtor. That's his burden. It pressed on him.

I've got to get the word out. Then there's his boldness. He says, I am ready.

That there's eagerness and preparation in that. That's verses 14 and 15 of Romans 1, but now in our text before us, verse 16, we have his belief. I am not ashamed of the gospel. Being ashamed of Christ has never helped anyone, and the devil knows that. So he puts a lot of energy into keeping Christians being bashful about their faith. That's one thing to be led. It's another thing to be afraid and petrified, not moving. That shame is even attached to the gospel is indicative of something wrong in creation.

What is there about Jesus not to like? Well, the world comes up with a bunch of stuff. Looking at one definition from the dictionary, a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety. Well, Bible covers that very easily, and that's not a criticism of the dictionary. Consciousness of guilt. Guilt is you've done something wrong. Shortcoming.

Well, if you die without Christ, you're going to fall short of making it to heaven if you've heard the gospel especially. Impropriety. Well, bottom line, sin. Doing the wrong thing. Doing what you're not supposed to do. These things bring shame.

You would think, well, somebody's got to set standard for that. The sinful heart persuades sinners, if possible, into excusing themselves, and often accusing God. This was Cain, and these are people. Jeremiah the prophet said, the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Don't trust it. Oh, my heart. What does God say?

Never mind your heart. It might be right. It might be wrong. We want to know what God says.

That settles it. Yeah, well, I'm not letting Satan tell me what to feel ashamed of, but he will if you let him. You better have a spiritual defiance about you. Granted, there are some Christians that, they're bold, but it's not spirit led. They're just trying to show, see, I'm not ashamed.

Well, that's less than ideal. Our quest to be accepted at the cost of avoiding Jesus is a serious matter in God's eyes. So Jesus warns us about this. Luke writes, for whoever is ashamed of me and my words of him, the son of man will be ashamed when he comes in his own glory. That's not a little thing.

It's a very big thing. I will not conform to criticisms of Jesus Christ from anyone. That ought to be for every Christian. I will not conform to any criticism against Jesus Christ from anyone, nor some internal voice of my own disapproving of my faith. If you serve the Lord, you'll get hit with both of those. You will have an encounter with someone criticizing your Christ. You will have an encounter with the voice of Satan in your ear. Your response is to be defiant spiritually, not just because, not just because, well, I'm a defiant kind of person.

You don't tell me what to do. That's not the idea. The idea is because of who you serve, a spiritual defiance. The natural man is the sinner in the New Testament, the man that is not born again. And so I mentioned when someone says, well, it was only natural, where, you know, yeah, natural in the fallen sense. Shame is supposed to be for the guilty, but guilt before God is to be without Christ, because we're guilty. We who are saved by the grace of God, we're guilty. We are sinners, but we are saved sinners. And I'm going to hit that a little harder in a little bit, but those who are guilty without pardon are those who are guilty without Christ.

Big difference. Zephaniah the prophet, writing to Jews about their faith, being faithful, said Yahweh is righteous in her midst, in the midst of the people of God, in the midst of Israel, in the midst of Jerusalem. He will do no unrighteousness.

Do you believe that? Abraham said it this way, shall not the God of the universe do right? God's response to that was, of course, no need to respond to that.

Abraham wasn't dictating to God, he was voicing a fact, a doctrine. Zephaniah goes on, he says, he will do no unrighteousness. Every morning he brings justice to light, he never fails, but the unjust knows no shame. Those who are not interested in the standards of heaven are not shamed by the standards of heaven, but Paul says I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. He certainly would be ashamed, ashamed of himself to commit sin, but not, maybe as you, some of you might take that, not as one beaten down, but one is not proud of sin.

But shameless people cannot be convicted. Luke talks about this in his gospel in chapter 18 in verse 10. Well, Jesus actually, Luke just writes it down for us. Jesus gave it in the form of a parable.

Parables tend to be easier to remember and apply. Two men went up to the temple to pray. One a Pharisee, the other tax collector. Now the people, they respected the Pharisees as a rule, but they despised the tax collectors.

After all, they worked for the imperial Roman Empire. He continues, the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you that I'm not like other men. Extortion is unjust, adulterous, or even this tax collector.

I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess, and that's where he ends it. And then Jesus said, and the tax collector standing afar off would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. Then Jesus gives us the punchline.

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Peter says humble yourself in the presence of the Lord, and he'll exalt you in due time. Don't self, self-esteem is not biblical. Christ esteem. Esteem the Lord, and he'll lift you up in due time when he's finished with you.

When he's finished using those things that were interfering. Now, I don't care for psychological words, but for the sake of time, a sociopath, they feel no shame. They have no regard for the feelings of others, for right or wrong. They use intelligence. They use charm. They use guilt to manipulate others. They have no shame.

Lying and harming others comes easy to them, especially if they can take advantage of the innocent and those who cannot protect themselves. The Bible sums it up very quickly though. I mean, you can go out and I'm sure buy psychological books that have whole book, you know, 400 pages on this topic, or you can read 1 Timothy chapter 4 verse 1. I like getting to the points.

I want to take a little time doing it because, you know, you go to the you see a YouTube, you know, how to do something in five minutes, and they take 30 minutes to get to the point. You fast forward trying to find it. Anyway, the Bible gets to the point. Speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron. The wicked have no shame, as Zephaniah said. They can do something about that, but they opt to stay in their wickedness. Now hypocrisy is, a hypocrite is an actor when they're not supposed to be acting. When the others think they're not acting. That's what a hypocrite is. They act like they mean it, but they really don't, and they know it.

It's intentional. If the wicked though are not ashamed of their wickedness, why do we find that the righteous are ashamed of the gospel? I hope if you have been in that spot, were you afraid to tell your peers, your coworkers, your co-workers, if you're afraid to say, look, I serve the Lord Jesus Christ, the maker of heaven and earth, the one who died for my sins, who loves me and has prepared a place for me. I serve him, not your opinions, not your culture, him. I don't mean to be sounding rude, but I do mean to spiritually defy everything that is against my Lord.

Well, stand by for a counter-attack, if that is where you find yourself. We are not to be ashamed. That's why Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Now he's not imprisoned yet, but he's taken some beatings already.

He's not yet made it back to Jerusalem where he will be arrested, but he stands his ground until his death. And so it is natural to be ashamed of righteousness in a world that is boastful of sin. So if you find yourself ashamed of Christ, understand that is natural. It is not spiritual. It is spiritual to defy any shame attached to Christ. Unfortunately, there are many counterfeits out there and they attach things to Christ that don't come from him, and we have to learn to discern what needs to be rejected, rebuked, and what is embraced.

Now our Christ, why would I be ashamed? Jesus died in someone else's place, in a literal sense and a spiritually literal sense. He died in the place of Barabbas.

Barabbas was an outlaw. He was the one that was supposed to go to the cross. But Christ went in his place.

Well, he went in my place and your place too. His dying for Barabbas was dying for me and everybody who's born, everyone who's created. I have to add that because Adam and Eve, you know, they weren't born.

They just were created. Well, he was buried in someone else's grave. Joseph of Arimathea, a righteous man, but still there was no grave for Christ. He borrowed the grave. Well, the grave is that place of death and that death is forever if you have not the Lord. And so he dies in my place, he's buried in my place, and he bore someone else's shame to that public execution that was my shame, was your shame, so that we don't have to be ashamed in front of the Lord God Almighty. Isaiah, he writes about this in advance and I want to hit that when we get to the Jews having the word first, but right now Isaiah said this is Messiah speaking through the prophet about his crucifixion.

That's over 700 years away from the time Isaiah writes these words. I gave my back to those who struck me and my cheeks to those who plucked out the beard. I did not hide my face from the shame and the spitting. Well, when people attack you Christ, they're spitting.

They're spitting out and spewing out all sorts of things that they may think is true but are not. And you want to say, you know, you think you're right, but you're not right. But that's not enough. Paul, he realized the supremacy of Christ and that made him unashamed. And so if you are ashamed of Christ, remember the supremacy of Christ.

He's put you in that place, not for you to be bashful about who you serve, but to be spiritually defiant. That's what the other guy needs. What they're going to do with it is up to them, but that's what they need. You don't get anything from a Christian ashamed of the Christ they claim. And anytime the world tries to shame you, remember you're not the first one.

You won't be the last one. And they can ramp it up very quickly. They can introduce two other things to that. Death, which might not be that bad, but torture. Well, that one's bad. But the Christians have faced that.

They've faced lions. Remember, the world, they are the ones that should be ashamed of themselves for what they do in the presence of a holy God. The apostles wrote about this and I'm going to take them out of order because I just want to.

But I'll just read various New Testament statements. The operative word is shame or unashamed. Paul wrote, for this reason I suffer these things. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed, for I know in whom I believe and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed to him until that day. That's spiritual defiance. Nevertheless, I'm not ashamed. I know in who I believe and I'm persuaded.

That persuaded is not, you know, a curious persuasion. That is a committed viewpoint. In another place, he writes to Timothy, therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner. Share with me in the sufferings of the gospel according to the power of God. Well, we're reading about him saying, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God. Peter rings in on this, yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter. Again, the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain.

I know I've been reading some of these over the last few weeks, but they're fun to read again. Hebrews chapter 11 tells us that God is not ashamed of us, but now they desire a better, that is a heavenly country. Yeah, we want to go to heaven.

That's where our second primary citizenship is. Therefore, God is not ashamed. Recall their God, where he has prepared a city for them. Well, I believe that.

I go to prepare a place for you. I believe every word of that. Jesus said, if it weren't so, I would not have told you, which is kind of tough when you're looking for the promises of God to blossom in your life and then not. Then you got to hang tough. You have to persevere. The proverb says the righteous are as bold as a lion.

Yeah, because they're not ashamed of what they're doing. And that's what Paul is, boldness. I'm ready to preach the gospel to you.

I'm pulling to preach the gospel to you. And so we come now in verse 16 to the gospel. There is no message of Christ's gospel without his cross and his empty tomb. The cross, of course, condemns sin and it condemns it at a price. God's saying to man, this wasn't cheap.

This is not casual. This is God the son dying for you. The power over sin is expressed in the empty tomb. It's one thing to say, I'm going to die for you. It's another thing to rise up and say, see, I'm in control. No one took my life.

I gave it up and I picked it back up too. The message of eternal life comes through the message of temporary death and none of us should like it. None of us like to curse. Whoo-hoo, Adam and Eve, glad you did that.

That would be crazy. Well, it is the power of God. And there is power of God to save or power of God to destroy, which brings me to Matthew 10, verse 28. I memorized the Bible, but why should I show off?

I have not. Well, Matthew 10 is in here, I know. Verse 28, you'll know this. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Pretty serious stuff. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We're currently going through the book of Romans. If you're in need of hearing this message again or want to listen to others like it, head over to crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. On our website, you'll be able to learn a little more about the ministry of Cross-Reference Radio, so make a note of it, crossreferenceradio.com. That's all we have time for today, but thanks so much for listening. Pastor Rick will be back next time in the book of Romans, here on Cross-Reference Radio.