A message to be proud of (Romans 1:16-17)

Martin Luther was a German monk who knew something about the holiness of God but little about the kindness of God.  He believed that a person had to live a righteous life in order to be saved from God's condemnation.  When he read the term 'the righteousness of God' he thought it simply referred to the righteousness whereby God punishes people for their sin.  He also knew that he couldn't live a good enough life to satisfy the demands of this holy God.  So he was miserable.  

Then he had a breakthrough in his understanding.  He began to understand the term 'the righteousness of God' more fully.  'I grasped that the righteousness of God is that righteousness by which, through grace and sheer mercy, God justifies us by faith.'  Now he could experience peace and joy.  'I felt myself reborn, and to have gone through open doors into paradise ...'  

This gospel is amazing, so why might we feel ashamed of it?  This gospel is amazing, so we ought to boast about it.

1.  Four things that might tempt us to be ashamed of the gospel

'I am not ashamed of the gospel ...'

The great Welsh preacher of the last century, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, suggested that if we have never been tempted to be ashamed of the gospel it is probably not because we are an exceptionally good Christian but that our understanding of the gospel has never been clear.  For the gospel is a message that will cause people to look down on us and we are tempted to feel ashamed when people make fun of us.  I want to suggest four things that might tempt us to be ashamed of the gospel.

Firstly, we are tempted to be ashamed of the gospel because people think it is irrelevant.  

Rome was the centre of Caesar worship with all its grandeur, pomp and ceremony.  But the Christians in Rome claimed that a poor carpenter from the provincial backwater of Galilee was greater than Ceasar.  They claimed that Jesus is the King of kings.  That seemed unlikely.  Compared to the Caesar, Jesus seemed unimportant.  They were likely to be laughed at in mighty Rome.

In our society Jesus can also seem irrelevant.  Our society has turned its back on the version of Christianity it grew up with.  To become a Christian is to be a member of a minority group.  It is to belong to something that people believe no longer matters.  We can be tempted to feel ashamed of the gospel because people claim it is no longer relevant.

Secondly, we can be tempted to feel ashamed of the gospel because people say it is foolish.

The Roman world valued the intellect.  They loved the lofty ideas philosophy.  But the gospel is a simple message for ordinary people.  It is not designed to make us look smart.  In fact it may make us look foolish.  A man dying a shameful death pays for the sins of the world.  Many Romans didn't think it made sense.  

In our society atheists present a false divide between science and religion, and so label us as simply being superstitious.  We might be tempted to feel ashamed of the gospel because people say it us foolish.

Thirdly, we can be tempted to feel ashamed of the gospel because it is fanatical.  

The gospel calls for a whole life response.  Jesus calls us to take up our cross and lay down our life for his cause.  Jesus also claimed to be the truth and the only way to God, which sounds decidedly fundamentalist.  

In our society fanatics and fundamentalists are seen as the enemy of freedom and tolerance.  To be labelled a fundamentalist puts us in the same category of Islamic State; even though our fundamentalism teaches us to love our enemies.  If you understand and live the gospel even your friends and family will claim you take Christianity too seriously.  We are tempted to be ashamed of the gospel because it us fanatical.

Fourthly, we are tempted to feel ashamed of the gospel because its message is offensive.

If you misunderstand the gospel, leave out the cross, and present Jesus as a moral teacher who wants to enhance our lives then you will offend no one.  If you want to make Christianity popular then explaining what the cross is about is bad public relations.  The cross says that God is angry at human sin and that we would be condemned if Jesus did not die in our place.  The gospel also reveals that even the most noble life is absolutely pointless and that without Jesus and that the most moral life amounts to a pile of stinking rags.  The gospel is offensive, so people ridicule it and resent it, and therefore we are tempted to be ashamed of it or even afraid to share it.

2.  Six reasons to be proud of the gospel

When Paul writes 'I am not ashamed of the gospel' what he is really saying is 'I am proud of the gospel.'  It causes him to rejoice.  While we might be tempted to be ashamed of the gospel because the world mocks it, there are actually many reasons to boast about the gospel.  I want to mention six.

Firstly, 'I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power ...'  This message is powerful stuff.  Through the gospel God opens the eyes of the spiritually blind, draws rebels to himself, changes us from within, and keeps us until we see him in glory.  Who knows what God will do when we let this message loose?

Secondly, 'I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God ...'  Every other religion centres on what people do for their gods; Christianity focuses on what God has done for us.  This is not a program for self-improvement or a call to self-effort.  This is a revelation of God's wonderful goodness and kindness. 

Thirdly, 'I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God that brings salvation ...'  Martyn Lloyd-Jones says that salvation is the key word of the New Testament.  Salvation is more than forgiveness.  We are forgiven and we are being changed from within.  We are restored to fellowship with God and adopted into his family.  We are made the apple of God's eye and can look forward to enjoying him in glory forever.

Fourthly, 'I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile ...'  God is an equal opportunities rescuer.  This message is good news for the self-righteous and self-loathing.  'There is nobody hopeless as regards to the gospel' (Lloyd-Jones).  God wants us to share this treasure generously so that he may do for others what he has done for us.

Fifthly, 'I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.  For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed ...'  The gospel reveals how God makes sinful people righteous.  God takes our guilt and places it on Christ on the cross and then God clothes us in Christ's perfect obedience.  The gospel shows how God is righteous in accepting sinful people as his children because through the cross God demonstrates that is is both just and the one who justifies the ungodly.

Sixthly, 'I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.  For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed – a righteousness that is by faith from first to last ...'  The word translated faith can be translated trust or believe.  Faith is the means by which we accept God's gift of righteousness.  But we can not take the slightest amount of credit for our salvation because even this faith is generated by God.  The Christian life begins by trusting God and continues living in that same trust.

In Cafe Church we are doing an Old Testament overview.  We are trying to see that the Old Testament points to Jesus and proclaims his gospel.  It might not be as clearly seen in the Old Testament but it is there, as the final words of these two verses show.  Paul quotes the prophet Habakkuk who said, ‘The righteous will live by faith' (or possibly 'the righteous by faith shall live').  God's grace is on every page of the Bible.

Conclusion

So tomorrow morning, as you mix amongst the people at your school, workplace, family or neighbourhood, you are going to have a battle of two competing emotions.  

On one hand you will be tempted to keep your head down and your mouth shut because it is easy to feel ashamed of the gospel.  It is not because there is anything wrong with the gospel, it is just that it is hard to share something that people think is foolish, and causes people to label you as a weird, superstitious, religious fanatic.  

On the other hand you should be so proud of the beauty of Christ and his cross, and so great-full that he has rescued a wretch like you that you want to tell others about this gospel.  I am not encouraging you to be tactless or disrespectful, but may this gospel so delight us that our desire to share this treasure will overcome the temptation to be embarrassed or fearful.

Romans 1:1-15 'Living as a people who are loved'

Who shapes your understanding of love?  Is loved defined for you by romantic comedies, popular music or soppy books?  John Stott says that if you want a definition of love you should not look for it in a dictionary, instead you should look to the cross.  Jesus is the one who shows us what our love should look like!

You won't understand Jesus' love if you don't understand the concept of grace.  You see, God does not love us because we are lovely but because he is love.  While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.  God gave his Son for us while we were morally repugnant.  Grace has a love that we do not deserve.

This sermon is about living as a people who are loved and who are loving.  It is about being grace-filled.  Jesus prayed that his followers would be known by their love and that through such love the world would know we belong to God.

1.  Love is the result of being loved

Paul writes 'to all in Rome who are loved by God ...' (7).

There is a world of difference between children who grow up in homes where they know they are loved and those who have reason to doubt their parents' love.  To be a Christian is to be the object of the purest and most passionate love any human being can experience.  We have a Heavenly Father who loved us while us were his enemies, who adopted us as his children, and who promises that nothing can separate us from his affection.  One of the great prayers we are to pray for our Christian brothers and sisters is they may have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:17-19).  One of the reasons some of you are unhappy is because you struggle to believe that God delights over you (Zephaniah 3:17).

2.  Love causes us to enjoy God's people

When we realise the gracious love of God we become more patient with our Christian brothers and sisters.  The church at Rome was far from perfect.  There was a big problem there between Christians from a Jewish background and Christians from a Gentile background.  Yet Paul does not start his letter by criticising them, but by telling them how thankful to God he is for them.  'I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world' (8).

It is not hard to imagine what people thought of Rome.  Like all large cities Rome was home to all sorts of vice.  It was filled with idolatry and was the centre of emperor worship.  Yet in that wicked place God had extended his kingdom by bringing people into relationship with himself.  Their faith might not have been exceptional, but the fact that Jesus was building his church in Rome encouraged every Christian throughout the Roman world.

3.  Love prays

Now Paul was possibly the busiest Christian leader at that time.  He travelled as a missionary, he wrote as a teacher, he encouraged as a father in the faith, he gave of himself as a pastor, and all the time he supported himself through tent-making.  Yet he also found time to intercede in prayer for the churches.  'God ... is my witness how constantly I remember you and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you' (9-10).

What a lesson in the sovereign purposes of God!  God works all thing together for the good of those who love him.  But he does not always work in ways that are comfortable and expected.  Paul had hoped to visit Rome on his way to Spain.  However, God had different plans.  When he visited Rome it was in the chains of a prisoner and he had to minister to them from the room where he was kept under house arrest.

4.  Love lets others encourage us

Paul was a giant figure in the early church.  In contrast, the Christians in Rome demonstrated their immaturity through their divisions.  Yet Paul wants to both encourage them and be encouraged by them.  'I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong – that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith' (11-12).  

Sometimes it is easier to minister to people than to let them minister to us.  That is because proud people would rather give than receive, and proud people do not want to be in debt to anyone.  But love is not proud (1 Corinthians 13:4).  Love is willing to let others encourage us.  Love recognises that God has given every Christian gifts to minister with.  Love lets others encourage us.

5.  Love shares the gospel

Paul's love motivates him to share the gospel.  But notice that he sees this gospel-sharing in terms of discharging a debt!  In what sense is Paul in debt to the world?  How could an undeserving world say that Paul owes them the gospel?  Yet Paul writes, 'I am a debtor both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish' (14).  

It works like this.  Imagine a king gives his servant a thousand pounds to be distributed amongst the residents of a village.  That servant is now in debt to the villagers until he has shared out that money.  The villagers may have done nothing to deserve the gift from the king but the servant still owes them the money.  The villagers may even hate the king but the servant has still to give them his gift.  We have a treasure that is to be shared with the world.  Indeed there are people who won't hear this good news unless we share it with them.  May God give us the courage, wisdom and opportunity to discharge this debt.

6.  Love is rooted in grace

Notice that Paul also wants to preach the gospel to the converted!  'That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome' (15).  The good news of the gospel is more than simply telling us how we can be made right with God, it also shows us how to live as God's people.  That is because the gospel is all about grace (God's undeserved favour) and grace is applicable to every area of our lives.  Someone has said, 'you never grow beyond the gospel, you simply grow deeper into the gospel.'

Think of how grace is to change our attitudes!  If God has loved me with a love that I do not deserve, then surely I must not demand that people prove worthy of my love.  If I have been forgiven, then surely I am obliged to forgive others.  If Jesus was willing to go to a cross, then surely following him involves taking up my cross and follow him whole-heartedly.

Conclusion

Robert Chapman was a remarkable man who served God in the small English town of Barnstable during the nineteenth century.  Despite deliberately trying to avoid publicity he became known for his great compassion, wisdom, and love.  He was referred to as the apostle of love.  One time a letter from overseas addressed simply to 'R. C. Chapman, University of Love, England' was correctly delivered to him.  He wrote, 'God is love. His children please Him only so far as they are like Him, and walk in love.'  Let us walk in love as because we have experienced love and grace. Let us walk in love as we enjoy God's people.  Let us walk in love as we pray for them and let them encourage us.  Let us walk in love as proclaim God's love to a lost world.

Romans 1:2-7 'The basis for unity'

To dwell above with saints we love, That will be grace and glory.  To live below with saints we know; Now, that's another story!

We are not told how the church in Rome was established.  Perhaps Jews from the Imperial City, who had been in Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost, returned home with the knowledge that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah.  Their conversion caused a stir among their fellow Jews.  There was unrest between those who proclaimed Jesus as the Christ and those who denied he was the Christ.  This unrest became such a problem that, in A. D. 49, the emperor Claudius expelled, from Rome, all Jews (including those Jews who were now Christians).  For the next few years the church in Rome would be dominated by Gentile (non-Jewish) Christians.

After the death of Claudius, Jews were allowed back to Rome.  Now Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians had to learn to get along with each other.  People from different cultures can find that difficult.  Their issues were bigger than the fact that some cultures are more rigid about time-keeping than others, or that some cultures are more expressive than others.  Add into the mix the fact that every church has to unite people of differing temperaments and you can see how relevant this letter is for us.

So what does Paul do to bring together this diverse collection of Christians in Rome?  He unites them by teaching the core truths of the gospel.  There is no such thing as real Christian unity where the gospel, which is so wonderfully explained in Paul's letter to the church at Rome, is not preached.  Christians need to be united on these truths.  The letter of Romans teaches us that God draws rebellious people to himself, forgives our sin on the basis of Jesus' death on the cross, and accepts us as dearly loved children.  These truths are the condition on which we fellowship with other Christians, not because they are some lowest common denominator of Christian doctrine, but because they form the epicentre of all we believe.

What do these opening verses in Romans tell us about the a gospel Paul wants to unite them around?  They tell us who the gospel is about and what the gospel has achieved for us.

1.  Who is this gospel about? (2-4)

I'm doing an Old Testament overview in Cafe Church and the key thing I want people to see is that the Old Testament is all about Jesus.  This is what the Apostle Paul teaches.  He speaks of the gospel 'promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son' (2-3a).  

Go back to Genesis (3:15) and you see that God promised a descendent of Eve would crush the serpent's head.  Moses spoke of a prophet who would come after him (Deuteronomy 18:15).  Turn to Micah and you will read of the child to be born in Bethlehem (5:2).  Isaiah say that this child will be born to a virgin (7:14) and describes the nature of his death (53).  Zechariah tells of the king who would enter Jerusalem on a donkey (9:9) and that he would be sold for pieces of silver.  The Psalms prophesied that people would cast lots for his garments and the Psalms also looked forward to his resurrection (22).  

The apostle Paul reminds the Christians in Rome that in his flesh Jesus was descended from king David - David who had been promised an descendent who would rule forever (2 Samuel 7:12-16) -  'and through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to the he Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord' (4).

Jesus was not made the Son of God through his resurrection, he was declared to be the Son of God through his resurrection.  The resurrection proved who Jesus is.  He was the eternal Son of God who had reigned with the Father and Holy Spirit forever; but when he was raised from the dead, through the Holy Spirit, his reign as Messiah began.  He had come into the world as a helpless baby, he had been subject to human weakness, but through the resurrection he is declared to be Son of God with power.  Now he rules as God's promised, heavenly Messiah.  

2.  What is this gospel about? (5-7)

So the gospel centres on the person of Jesus, but what is the gospel about? In his opening greeting Paul introduces some key words that will play a central role in his letter.  He writes of grace (mentioned twice), call/called (mentioned four times), loved, peace, obedience, holy, faith and belonging.

What the apostle Paul is going to teach us is that becoming a Christian begins with God's effectual call (we don't find God so much as he finds us and draws us to himself).  The amazing thing about this is that we were enemies with God, hostile to his rule over our lives and subject to his righteous anger at our sin.  But God has chosen to make peace with us.  This is an act of grace (free, unmerited and undeserved favour).  This grace is the result of the fact that Jesus paid the price for our guilt on the cross.  Having being reconciled to God we now belong to Christ.  We are the objects of his special love.  As his chosen people we are called to live a live of obedience and strive to be a holy people.  From our side all this comes through faith (actively depending on God from first to last).

Conclusion

Now, remember the context of this letter.  Paul is seeking to unite diverse Christians together in love.

Eighty thousand people go to Croke Park for a U2 concert.  They come from all sorts of backgrounds.  But for a couple of hours they are united in their enjoyment of the band.  Twenty-six thousand people pack into Thomond Park for a European rugby cup match.  They come from all sorts of backgrounds.  But for a couple of hours they are united in support of the Munster team.  Focusing on a common love brings unity.  It is the same with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Of course the unity we have through the gospel should surpass anything that a music or sports fan knows.  We are to be united in Christ through the message of the gospel.  As one preacher points out, 'as forgiven sinners at the foot of the cross, our petty differences and arguments pale into insignificance.  What does it matter whether you’re a Jew or a Gentile; rich & sophisticated or poor and struggling; we’re Christians together? What does it matter that one of us has been in the church for ages and another has just joined; if we both believe the Gospel, then we’re fellow Christians;  brothers and sisters together in The Lord?'

In the last part of this letter (chapter twelve on) the apostle Paul will show the Christians in Rome how to put the truths of the gospel into practice.  Included in this are some 'one another' commands.  What we experience in Jesus must effect our relationships with one another.

'Be devoted to one another in love.  Honour one another above yourselves' (12:10).

'Live in harmony with one another.  Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.  Do not be conceited' (12:16).

'Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another', over disputable matters (14:13).

'Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God' (15:7).

The call to single-mindedness (Romans 1:1)

The message of Romans changes people's lives.

Augustine, in the fourth century, had a mother who was a Christian.  Yet he turned his back on the faith she taught him.  He sought truth elsewhere and lived for his lusts.  Then, while in Milan, he heard the preaching of a bishop called Ambrose.  He could not shake off what he heard.  So one day he went into the garden on a friend to wrestle with his thoughts.  Suddenly he heard, from a nearby house, a child chanting 'pick up and read, pick up and read'.  He took this as an instruction for himself and lifted Paul's letter to the Romans.  His eyes fell on the words, 'let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.  Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature' (13:13-14).  In his spiritual autobiography he writes,  'I neither wished nor needed to read further.  At once, with the last words of this sentence, it was as if the light of relief from all anxiety flooded into my heart.  All the shadows of doubt were dispelled.'  Augustine was to be the towering figure in church history from that time until the reformation.

Which brings us to Martin Luther.  Martin Luther was a German monk who had been taught that God required him to live a righteous life in ordered to be saved.  Although he was scrupulously religious he actually hated God in his heart, for he thought that God required of him what he could not do.  He could not overcome his sin and justify himself.  Then he finally grasped the meaning of a verse in Romans.  'In the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed - a righteousness that is by faith from first to last' (1:17).  'I grasped that the righteousness of God is that righteousness by which, through sheer grace and mercy, God justifies us by faith.  Thereupon I felt myself reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise ... And as I had formerly hated the expression "the righteousness of God," I now began to regard it as my dearest and most comforting word.'

Luther's thoughts on Romans were to bring comfort to another great figure in church history.  John Wesley was a Church of England clergyman in the 1700s who had returned disillusioned from America where he had served as a missionary.  Despite his strenuous efforts at holiness he felt that he did not know God in an intimate way.  Then, on 24th May 1738, he went to a Moravian meeting in Aldersgate  Street, London.  There someone was reading from the preface to Luther's commentary on Romans.  Wesley explains in his journal, 'about a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.  I felt I did trust Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.'  Wesley became one of the great evangelists of the 1700s.

1.  This message changed Paul's life

As was customary in the Roman world, Paul begins his letter by introducing himself.  'Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God.'  Paul's own experience demonstrates how the message contained in Romans changes people's lives.

Paul, who was originally call Saul, was a Jew who had been born a Roman citizen.  He was brought up in Tarsus, one of three main centres of Greek culture.  He was a tent-maker.  He was single.  He was trained in the Jewish religion by Gamaliel, one of the greatest rabbis in history.  He was a  Pharisee and he had hated the early church.  It was while he was travelling from Jerusalem to Damascus, hoping to imprison Christians, that he had an encounter with the risen Jesus.  Jesus showed him that he was a rebel who needed to experience peace with God.  Jesus showed him how sinful people can be reconciled to God through the cross.

Paul is changed from being a Christ-hater to being a servant of Christ.  He actually calls himself a slave of Christ.  In the Roman world a slave was a bonded-labourer.  It was not unusual for such a slave to rise to a position of trust and influence yet they were always at the disposal of their owner.  Paul is gladly owned by Jesus.  'He is a bond-slave in the sense that anybody in love is always a bond-slave to the one he loves.  He is captivated.  He is captured' (MLJ).  The great Welsh preacher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes, 'I have no hesitation in asserting that as we grow in grace, we talk much less about ourselves and our experiences, and much more about him.'

God was preparing Paul to be his servant long before he made him a Christian.  All the seemingly incidental experiences of Paul's life had significance for his service of God.  His singleness, his tent-making, his understanding of Greek culture, his Roman citizenship, his education in Jewish Scripture and his dramatic testimony all play a role in his missionary endeavours.  Similarly God's sovereign hand lies behind all that you have experienced.  He has drawn you to himself, he has given you certain gifts and talents, and he has ordered your circumstances.  Do you see that God has prepared works in advance for you to do (Ephesians 2:10)?  Do you realise that God has placed you in a neighbourhood/with a family/in a workplace where people will not hear the transforming message of the gospel unless you share it with them?  Do you realise that God has given you unique gifts and experiences that can be used to encourage the church and spread the good news?

2.  The message is from God

Paul had a unique role to play in the establishment of the church.  He was called to be an apostle.  An apostle was literally 'a sent one'.   Apostles were representatives who travelled with the authorisation and authority of the one who sent them.  In the book of Acts we see the unique role given to a select group of apostles.  The church devoted itself to the apostles' teaching (Acts 2:42).  Amongst the criteria to be such an apostle was the need to have encountered the risen Jesus, which Paul had done on the road to Damascus.  The apostles laid the foundation for the church (Ephesians 2:20).

Many people, who call themselves Christians, think that they can disagree with Paul' teaching.  But change his message and you will robe it of its power.  The church has always recognised the authority of the early apostles.  Peter refers to Paul's writings as scripture (2 Peter 3:16).  Paul warns those who ignore his teaching that they will find themselves ignored (1 Corinthians 14:28).  So if your understanding of the Christian message isn't in line with the message of Romans then it is not Christianity and it will be unable to bring anyone to God.

Romans begins with bad news: all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and the wrath of God is being revealed against human sin.  Then it moves on to good news: God sent his Son do die as a sacrifice for our guilt, and that while the wages of sin is death the gift of God is eternal life.  Romans tells us that we only receive this gift of eternal life when we give up trying to earn our way to heaven and instead put our trust in the person and work of Jesus.  Romans shows us that when we have truly encountered Jesus we live our lives as an act of grateful worship.  Martin Luther called Romans 'the very purest gospel.'  Paul says that this gospel didn't originate with him, it is 'the gospel of God.'

3.  This message is for all people

Paul was a curious mix of a man.  On one hand, before his conversion, he was scrupulously religious and thought he was serving God - he can say that he was blameless in outward conformity to the Jewish law.  Yet Paul had hated the church and breathed murderous threats against God's people - he says he was the worst of sinners.  His testimony reminds both the self-righteous and the notorious that they need God's rescue and that abundant grace is available to them.

This gospel so wonderfully expounded in Romans is still transforming people today.  Self-righteous people like the woman who sat in church for years refusing to acknowledge her need of God's grace until God opened her eyes to see that she was a desperate sinner in need of God's mercy.  Notorious people like the loyalist paramilitary who opened a Bible while in custody and realised that God was interested in rescuing him.  This is the transforming that should gladden our hearts so much that we cannot keep it to ourselves.