Overwhelmed by the Power of the Gospel — Listen and Understand
A note on the audio: This lesson has a Korean audio recording. The notes below are in English, but pressing play will play Korean speech.
1. I Am Not Ashamed of the Gospel
The recording opens with the congregation reading Romans 1:16-17 together. The evangelist calls these two verses "the Magna Carta of the gospel," introduces them as the verses that summarize the gospel unfolded through the whole of Romans, and explains that Paul says he is not ashamed of the gospel because there was considerable resistance to the gospel then, and there still is now.
Resistance That Continues Today
At the church where the evangelist serves, the evangelism team hands out gospel tracts to children in the neighborhood and receives complaints by phone that same afternoon almost every time. In the past, sharing the gospel with children and giving them a snack was accepted without much social resistance, but the recording says that today both children and parents often react to the gospel with hostility.
How Jews and Greeks Responded
Based on 1 Corinthians 1:22-23, the evangelist explains how people of that time responded to the gospel. The Jews sought signs and wonders. Moses, whom they revered, had parted the Red Sea and brought down ten plagues, and the messiah they expected was a mighty warrior like David who would free their nation from Rome. But the gospel proclaimed that the Son of God had died on a cross, and this sounded "offensive" to the Jews — something they found distasteful and unlucky to hear.
The Greeks sought wisdom. The evangelist explains that for two or three hundred years before Jesus came, philosophers like Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle had been active, and this was an age when schools of thought like Neo-Platonism, Stoicism, and Epicureanism stirred intellectual curiosity. But what Paul preached was not brilliant philosophical rhetoric but a message demanding repentance — the story that the Son of God had died on a cross, Rome's harshest form of execution, and had risen again after three days. To the Greeks, this was far from intellectually satisfying; it felt burdensome, and it sounded like "foolishness."
Why He Was Not Ashamed, Even So
Based on 1 Corinthians 1:18 and 1:24, the evangelist explains that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those being saved, it is the power of God. The same gospel of the cross sounds foolish to some, but for those who repent and receive it, it works as a powerful force of God. At this point, the evangelist mentions the word "dynamis" and explains it as the power of God. The evangelist also explains that Paul proclaimed this word with the conviction that, whether people liked it or not, the gospel alone has the power to bring life.
A Personal Struggle with Shame
The evangelist shares a personal experience from after receiving grace and resolving to preach the gospel: on a crowded bus, a strong urge arose to cry out the gospel, but shame kept the evangelist from speaking. The evangelist says that, weighed down by a sense of defeat after getting off the bus, they found the courage again to preach the gospel with a guitar in the subway and in the marketplace.
The Currents of Seminary and the Path the Evangelist Chose
The evangelist recalls a current of thought from seminary. In an age of reason and science, many seminary students at the time felt that concepts like the cross, the resurrection, heaven, and hell no longer resonated with modern people, and that instead of proclaiming these events as fact, they should be explained in terms of the "meaning" they carry for life's suffering and hope — and that even the claim that Jesus alone is Savior could sound intolerant. Citing 1 Corinthians 1:21, the evangelist explains that God chose instead to bring salvation through the very message the world considers foolish — the cross and the resurrection — and says that when a pulpit stops speaking of the resurrection, creation, heaven, and hell, the church loses its strength. The evangelist connects the decline of the European church to this same current of thought.
Against this current, the evangelist describes choosing to keep preaching the message of the cross, repentance, and heaven and hell as they are. They recall facing ridicule from other students, but also seeing repentance and revival. The evangelist emphasizes that what matters is not the size of a crowd but preaching the message God stands behind.
2. The Saving Power Held Within the Gospel
After reading Romans 1:16 once more, the evangelist says that the greatest power of God in this world is held only within the gospel. Scripture records other displays of power too — the parting of the Red Sea, fire falling from heaven — but the evangelist says the most powerful of all is the saving power within the gospel of the cross and resurrection. The evangelist describes being saved as itself already the greatest miracle: a spirit that was dead is brought to life, and one's very being is changed. Only by actually experiencing this gospel, rather than merely knowing it in our heads or treating it as something superficial, do we come to be overwhelmed by it as Paul was, and to proclaim it.
The evangelist organizes the saving power held within the gospel into two: the forgiveness of sin, and life.
First, the Forgiveness of Sin
The evangelist explains that God identifies humanity's most fundamental problem as sin. This sin is not merely a moral failing but a root condition — a severed relationship with God. Only once this diagnosis is clear does it become clear what the forgiveness offered by the gospel actually is, and why we must believe this gospel.
Based on Romans 3:23-24, the evangelist explains that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but are justified freely by God's grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. The evangelist describes this redemption in terms of the atoning blood shed on the cross, and says that believing in this blood brings the forgiveness of sin and restores, at the root, our relationship with God.
The evangelist goes on to say that no other religion has anyone who has declared and accomplished this kind of atonement on their own; only the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ resolves this problem of sin. This is recorded here as a claim the evangelist makes while comparing other religions, not as a statement of fact in this summary.
The evangelist says that anyone who lives cut off from God and dies in that state comes to hell, and stresses how important the relationship restored by the forgiveness of sin truly is. This, too, is recorded as a claim made by the evangelist, not as a statement of fact in this summary.
Second, Life
The evangelist says that those who have received the forgiveness of sin are then given life. Based on Romans 5:18, through one righteous act many are made righteous and connected to the life of God. This life is hard to understand for someone who has never experienced it, and the evangelist uses the example of durian, a tropical fruit — no matter how much you describe it, you cannot really know it without tasting it, and the same is true of God's life flowing into a person. When the Holy Spirit comes in and brings back to life a spirit that had been dead deep within, peace and joy well up from that very place.
Based on John 4:13-14, the evangelist describes this life as living water — a spring that wells up from within, eternally. The evangelist says that people carry not only physical thirst but an inner thirst that is never satisfied, and that chasing success or pleasure does not quench it. The evangelist explains that this living water is the Holy Spirit, and that the Spirit becomes the water of life that satisfies our true spiritual thirst.
The evangelist says this life is held only within the gospel of the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that no philosophy, religion, or law holds this life within it.
Living a Life That Preaches the Gospel
The evangelist shares an experience of running home that same night after encountering this gospel and crying out the gospel to family members. In a ministry setting where a strongly pluralistic and philosophical current prevailed, the evangelist began proclaiming the gospel once again and says that family members came to faith one after another as a result. The evangelist compares what happens when one person is overwhelmed by the power of the gospel and begins to proclaim it to the way leaven makes a whole batch of dough rise — the change spreads through an entire household.
The evangelist says that their life changed like night and day after beginning to proclaim the gospel, and recalls sharing it with everyone they encountered, in the military and everywhere else. The evangelist says that when the gospel is proclaimed, God's love — the love that gave up God's own Son so that we could be forgiven — is poured out together with it, and describes the joy of watching people weep, repent, and be born again as they receive that love as a joy beyond any price. The evangelist closes by saying that this gospel has been entrusted to us.