Romans 1:7 to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. 9 For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you, 10 always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you. 11 For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established; 12 that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine. 13 I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented so far) so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
Romans 16:25 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past,
The Gospel of His Son which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of God, the Gospel of the glory of God, and the Gospel of the grace of God is utterly glorious. However, modern day theories of preaching have found better ways of doing things. The Gospel is thought to be for unbelievers and so dry intellectual sermons are prepared for believers. People are given duty after duty and law after law in order that they will be useful in the kingdom and serve the church. People are prepared in the intellect to know things line upon line. People may be taught some theology in some circles, but that is of the intellectual kind only. But of course in some places certain things are taught that sneer at theology and do things that are called “practical.”
What must be seen in our day and all other days is that the Gospel is what all sinners need. People are not converted and then they have no need of the Gospel, but believers need the Gospel as bad as unbelievers. It is the Gospel that weak believers need to hear. It is the Gospel that believers with tender consciences need to hear. It is the Gospel that believers with hard hearts need to hear. It is the Gospel that intellectual believers need to hear. It is the Gospel that non-intellectual believers need to hear. What they don’t need to hear is what is termed “the gospel” in our day because it is no gospel at all. It is a message that depends on the will and power of man as if God had worked all He could do and now it depends on what man does. But that is not a true Gospel at all, it is a false message with false hope. What all people need to hear is a steady diet of the true Gospel of Christ alone and grace alone over their entire life span.
What did Paul want to go and preach to the believers at Rome? He wanted to preach the Gospel to them. As seen in Romans 16:25, the Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ is what establishes believers. It is not all the things that people do and carry out in the modern day that establishes people, but it is the preaching of the Gospel and of Jesus Christ that builds them up and puts them on firm footing. It should also be noted that preaching the Gospel and preaching Jesus Christ are one and the same thing. No matter what is preached of Jesus Christ it will always be related to the true Gospel. No matter what aspect of the Gospel is preached it will always be the preaching of Jesus Christ. The problem today is that people attempt to preach a message to get people saved that is quite apart from the true Christ and the true Gospel. People don’t need to hear a plethora of watered down nonsense, they need to hear the glories of God in Jesus Christ and the Gospel of grace alone.
Modern preaching also focuses on morality and expositional preaching. There are word studies and history in the sermon, but precious little of Christ and the Gospel. There is a lot of showing how things fit together in a section of Scripture, but there is almost nothing showing how all Scripture is to fit together and manifest Christ Himself. There are many words of application as to doing moral things, but so little of how to seek Christ for more of Himself by grace alone. It would seem that in modern preaching there is little of Christ, little of the Gospel, little about the cross, little about imputed righteousness, and certainly little on sin. But Paul was eager to preach the Gospel to believers and to see them established according to the Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ. Yes, preaching the cross is offensive to men. Yes, preaching Christ is offensive to men. But not preaching them thoroughly Sunday after Sunday is offensive to God. Oh for men to be broken and preach Christ and His Gospel!
God Loves... Himself 
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