Last weekend, many of our brothers and sisters in Christ and I were at the Challenge Youth Conference in Sevierville, Tennessee. This year the topic was “Unashamed,” and there were a lot of good lessons taught. If you have never been to CYC and have an opportunity to go in the future, I would highly recommend attending. It is very encouraging, and you will learn a lot.
Today, I want you to think with me about being unashamed of the gospel. If you are ashamed of something, you probably don’t want to talk about it. In Mark 16:15 Jesus said: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” We cannot teach and preach if we are ashamed of the gospel. If we are ashamed, we won’t follow the Great Commission. We cannot take the whole world something we are ashamed of. If people in the world find out you are a Christian and can see you are ashamed of it, they will not be attracted to the gospel. Why would they want to believe the good news of Jesus when they can see you are obviously embarrassed by it?
We must not be ashamed of the gospel of Christ because it is what saves souls. As Christians, our job is to get to heaven and make sure as many people go with us as we can. Paul said in Romans 1:16: “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.”
Paul is saying here that he was not ashamed of the gospel because he knew that it is the power of God unto salvation. The gospel is the only way to get to heaven. There is no back door. We have to do what the gospel says to get to heaven, and one of the things it instructs us to do is to spread the word.
If you are ashamed of what you believe in, do you really believe it? Why would you be ashamed of a God who is so loving that He came to the earth He created, and to people who were continually disobeying Him? Not only did Jesus come, but He died to give people the opportunity to be saved knowing that most of them would reject Him. We should never be ashamed of His death which provides us with life. If we are ashamed of His death, then we are letting it go to waste.
We need to be people who go out and are always unashamed to talk about God. We need to be people who live in a way that reflects God’s image and not be ashamed because we don’t speak, dress, and act like the world. We need to be people who live lives modeled after the life of Jesus. We need to be people who unashamedly reflect God in everything we do.