Thank you, music ministers.
You have your Bibles turn with me to Romans
chapter one.
Verse number 16.
Maybe wondering, what are we doing?
In Romans?
Well, as most of you know, some of
you may not know, as a bivocational minister,
one of the greatest enemies that
I have is the enemy of time.
And so as we've been going through the book of
Ephesians, verse by verse, I
have one sermon left.
In Ephesians, chapter 6.
And I worked to hard to get to
it, but old enemy of time got to me.
Well, as you know, what I've been doing is going back
in time on the computer to my old sermons from John
that I preached through the 1st time.
And we've been going verse by verse through John,
when I don't have time to finish the Ephesians 1st of all, this week.
I thought I was going to get finished, but I got late and things happened.
And so I go to my John sermon, And it's only half there.
And I was like, what happened?
And so there were two little
John sermons, and they were both half there.
So somewhere back in time, I must
have started it, something happened with the
computer, and then I must have printed
the full sermon, and didn't save it.
So I was like, well, what am I going to do?
So I started thinking, well, I got a ton
of sermons going back to, I don't remember how far back on the,
community, I used to handwrite my sermons with pencil,
which is wild to me.
I did that for the 1st couple of years.
But as I think about that, I was nuts.
But, It's the Lord.
And I said, what am I going to do?
I said, Romans 116.
favorite verse.
I haven't done that one in a long time.
It's the gospel sermon.
So there must be somebody here that needs to hear it.
Let's look at Romans 116,
and we're going to start by reading verse 16 and 17.
Apostle Paul.
He says, for I am not ashamed of
the gospel, for it, is the
power of God, for salvation, to
everyone who believes, to the Jew first,
and also to the Greek.
For in it, the
righteousness of God is revealed
from faith to faith, as
it is written, but the righteous man shall live
by faith.
Now, If you only had 5 minutes.
And 2 verses.
to explain the
Christian faith to somebody.
These 2 verses right here would get it done.
Any person who responds properly
to these two verses has
their eternal destiny changed forever.
Notice, I said, properly.
These two verses contain the
most life transforming truth
that exist in the world.
And that is not hyperbole.
That is Bible truth, 101.
And these two verses, also,
they form the theme, and
the thesis for this entire epistle
to the Romans.
These two verses represent for us
and for the church for all history, a
statement, on the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Paul is saying here, I am not ashamed
of the gospel, and then, in
very concise terms, he expresses
it in these 2 verses.
And in the 1st 15 verses of this 1st chapter,
after a personal greeting, Paul comes
out of the gates in those 1st 15 verses, and
he's exalting the gospel.
And now that Paul has their attention
in Rome and the church for the rest of all
human history, he wants to get down to business.
With the major point of this
whole letter, which is the gospel itself.
If you've ever read the book of Acts, it
should be very clear to you, that
Paul is most definitely never
ashamed of the gospel in any situation that
he was ever put in as a Christian.
He was never, ever intimidated
by the Jewish religious leader.
He was never intimidated by those philosophers in Athens.
There was never a place that he
ever went in all of his missionary journeys where
he did not display anything other
than the fact that he was very proud of the
gospel, of preaching the gospel.
He considered it a joyful
privilege to be able to proclaim the gospel.
Look back in verse 15.
He tells these Romans that
he is eager to preach the gospel
to you also who are in Rome.
Room!
Think about that.
This fan knew very well what he
would be up against in Rome, namely, his
death, which is where it occurred, we know from
church history, but he's still eager to go.
And think about some
of the things that Paul had been through in his
Christian ministry up to this point imprisoned in Philippi.
Chased out of Thessalonica, stoned
almost to death, in Galacia, laughed
at, in Athens, seen
as a complete fool in Corinth,
a huge problem in Jerusalem, he was.
So he knows what's coming in Rome.
But he's still eager to go there.
And he is certainly not ashamed.
Now wouldn't we all, as Christians,
like to be like that.
We don't like to admit it.
But for all of us, there
are times when we are ashamed.
of the gospel.
There are times when we could speak,
but we don't.
There are times when we could be bold.
But we aren't.
And what stalls us, part
of what stalls us, is the hostility of
this world, in our world, especially
in 21st century America, we have to deal with
the unimpressiveness of the
gospel from the world's perspective.
Gospel?
If you're going to preach the gospel right?
It talks about sin.
And blood.
And death.
And God's wrath.
And judgment.
In our culture, in this
modern day society?
Sounds crazy.
Foolish, silly.
Some have referred to it as a fairy tale.
And it makes us afraid.
what people might think of us.
When we present it, when we
make it clear, and that makes for times when we
tend to be silent.
when we shouldn't be.
And that's why the apostle
Paul is such a great example to us.
He understood the contempt.
And the ridicule of
those who reject Christ and reject the gospel.
He faced death itself for the gospel,
but never once.
Was he ever ashamed?
of Christ?
Timothy?
Timothy did.
He got Timmy.
Paul never did.
He would face anybody at any time with the gospel.
And why was Paul so bold with the gospel?
Well, verse 16, here tells us why.
He was not ashamed of the gospel because he
understood so well.
Look what it says next.
For it.
The gospel.
is the power of God for salvation.
He's bold to preach the gospel because
of what the gospel is and what the gospel does.
The gospel changes lives.
And Paul knows that.
Because he's experienced that.
And he's seen that in other people's lives.
And so he believes it down
in his bloodstream.
Now, for sure, to the natural
man, to the unbeliever, the gospel is a huge stumbling block.
And, of course, it's just
downright foolishness to the unbeliever.
But at the same time, it
is also the power of God for
salvation, to everyone who believes.
And nobody knows that better than Paul.
Again, Paul knew what the
gospel did in his own life.
I want you to think about back to that day.
When he went on the road to Damascus.
When he 1st woke up.
In the morning, got his coffee,
got ready for the trip to go to Damascus.
He woke up a Christ hating
zealous Pharisee who was breathing
out threats who was having Christians imprisoned and murdered.
He hated Christianity.
He wanted to stamp out the church, but my sundown.
He was a redeemed, bloodbought,
saint of the living God.
And from that day forward, guess what?
As one of the most heralded Pharisees
there ever was, from that day forward, he didn't care about his
reputation with the Jewish leaders, at all.
He didn't care about his own personal comfort.
And he even offered his own life, without
compromise, in order to make clear the
gospel of Jesus Christ everywhere that he went.
So Paul was not ashamed of the gospel,
because he understood so well, the power
that it contains, to
change people forever.
Now, in these
two verses right here, there are four
words that I want us to key in on, and
this is going to form the outline of our sermon.
Four words which are going to help us
understand better what Paul is
trying to communicate, okay?
So here's the first word.
The first word is power.
The second word is salvation.
The 3rd word is believes,
and the 4th word is righteousness.
We're going to break apart those 4 words.
Let's start with power.
The Greek word is dunamas or dunamas.
That word, we get our
word dynamite from.
Paul has in mind here the fact that the
gospel of Jesus Christ carries with it,
the omnipotence of God, that
word omnipotent means all powerful.
The reality is the all powerful
creator of the universe is operative
in power in regenerating
a spiritually dead human being.
You know it to be true.
that people in general, want to change.
Think about it.
All the advertising.
that goes on in the world, on
the internet, and on television is based on the presupposition
that people want things to
be different in their life from the way they are right now.
That's what all advertising is based on, one form or another.
People want to look better.
People want to lose weight.
They want to feel better.
They want to think better.
They want to have a better life experience.
In general, they want
to change their life.
They want to change the way.
way things are going in their life.
There is an appeal to that, because, guess what?
That is a natural, basic human drive.
Deep down inside, people really want
things to be different, but
in general, where it counts the
most in a human life, they
are utterly unable to change things.
Jeremiah, 1323.
Look what it says.
Can a leopard change his spots?
Can the Ethiopian change his skin?
People have about as much chance to
change their own parts in their
own power and strength.
as a leopard does to change his spots.
All people on their own are
absolutely powerless in this area, in
and of themselves, they can't do a thing about what they are.
Now, sure, people
can moralize, right?
We've seen that.
People can make some reformations
in their life, here and there, naturally.
They can operate, function a little differently.
You know?
Now I don't cuss, smoke, or chew, or go what girls do, right?
They can knock that out.
But real,
true, lasting change, never
happens when man is left to himself.
That's Bible truth.
Jesus said to the religious leaders of his day in Matthew 22, 9,
Look at this.
You are mistaken.
Not understanding the scriptures.
nor the power of God.
They didn't understand that only the gospel of
Jesus Christ has the power to truly change
people in the way that matters most.
It's only the gospel, that
has the power to take people from their sin, and
from living strictly for themselves, away
from the grip of Satan, from the judgment and wrath
of God, and even from death itself.
Now, man tries a lot of other things.
to try and change himself.
Many believe they can be changed by doing good works.
The deeds of the law.
The Ten Commandments, doing their best.
Having their good outweigh their bad.
The Bible says, by the deeds of the law, nobody can be saved.
The flesh can't save anyone.
Jesus said, the flesh prophets what?
Nothing.
The Bible makes clear that no amount of
religion can save anybody.
What it says is, neither is there salvation in
any other name, for no other name under heaven is given among men whereby
we must be saved, than the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Only the power of God
can truly change people.
I'm standing here telling you today there
is no other way.
Romans chapter 5, verse 6.
For while we were still helpless,
Christ died at the right time for the ungodly.
In other words, man
left to himself is totally impotent, cannot change himself.
He is trapped and left to himself.
He cannot do anything at all about it.
Romans 8, 3.
For what the law could not do, trying
to get right with God by keeping his law.
It was weak through the flesh, what happened?
God did, sending his own son.
So you can give man the rules.
You can give him the principles to follow, and he still can't do it.
God has to do the changing.
James 118.
Look what it says.
In the exercise of his will, he brought us
forth by the word of truth.
In other words, what man cannot do for
himself, God can do for me.
This is the basic principle of the gospel church.
Man is sinful and unable to remedy his condition,
and the gospel then becomes the most powerful
force and change agent in the
human experience.
The word dunamus is throwing the
emphasis here on the force, rather than the process.
The gospel is the power in the
sense that God is the source of this incredible,
limitless power that transforms people's lives.
Now, look at
1 Corinthians 1:18.
It says, for the word of the cross is
foolishness to
those who are perishing, and it really is.
A crucified Jewish carpenter
from Nazareth, who lived 2,000 years
ago, saves your soul?
That's ridiculous.
In the world's eyes, it's stupid.
But look next in this verse.
To us who are being saved, it is what?
The power of God.
That's a key point.
The gospel may be foolishness to the lost,
but it really is to all of us who are saved, the power of God.
The Gentiles used to laugh at Christians.
Right?
In Rome, they used to feed them to the animals for
sport and watch them, get eaten alive.
The pagans in Rome and Corinth mocked
the Christians relentlessly.
In their world, their gods were
just indifferent.
They were detached, remote, really, they couldn't care less.
And the idea of
an incarnation of God in human flesh,
Jewish carpenter from Nazareth, albeit,
was insane to them.
In fact, archaeologists
have found some interesting things when
digging around Rome.
They came across a picture in their digs
from the Christian era of Roman times,
and it depicts a slave, who
is bowing down before a cross, and
underneath the drawing, it says, Alex
Minos worships his God.
And crucified on the cross, is
a man with the head of a jackass.
That's what they found.
That's what they thought, the pagans
in Rome did, about Jesus.
That tells us a little bit about the attitude of the Romans, huh?
towards Christianity.
Absolutely ridiculous.
The same of many people today,
when they think about Jesus.
It's always been this way, folks.
Around the year 178,
there was a man named Celsius, who wrote
the following about Christianity.
This will give you some of the flavor.
He says, Let no cultured person draw near,
none wise, nonsensible, for all that kind of thing, we count evil.
But if any man is ignorant, if any is wanting in
sense and culture, if any is a fool, let him
come boldly to Christianity, we see them in their own houses,
wool dressers, cobblers, and fullers,
the most uneducated and vulgar persons.
He said, Christians are like a swarm of bats.
They're like ants, creeping out of their nests.
They're like frogs holding a symposium in around swamp.
They're like worms covering in the muck.
And then he said, Christians worship a dead man.
What a guy.
Right?
Check out Bill Mayer.
Now he might be one of the most common sense leftists that there is.
But he hates Christianity.
He holds about the same opinion of Christianity as this guy did.
It's all foolishness.
But to us who are saved, it is the power.
of God.
So for sure, the world laughs
at us, mocks us.
We expect that.
But we know better about the gospel, because
it is the power of God.
Look down further in 1 Corinthians 21.
Paul goes on, he says, And
when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority
of speech or wisdom, proclaiming to you the
testimony of God, for I determine to know
nothing among you except Jesus Christ
and him crucified.
Oh, if they had cut me loose in the
Senate that day after my prayer, what do you think I would have preached?
Paul had one message.
The message they mocked, the message they
despised, and Paul said, hey, mock it if you want to.
But it's still the power of God.
And so that's what I want to preach.
Then he says down in verse five.
So that your faith would not rest
on the wisdom of men, but on what?
The power of God.
With my own eyes.
I have seen the gospel totally
change and transform people's lives.
As you know very well, I've
seen that reality happen in my own life, from a very different
life than the one I'm living now.
Later on in 1 Corinthians 4, verse 20.
Look what Paul says, for the kingdom of God does
not consist in words, but in power.
God's power, folks, is beyond our comprehension,
but the Bible lets us know a little bit about this power.
That is behind the gospel.
Look in Psalm 79/11, according
to the greatness of your power, Exodus
15:6, God is majestic in power,
Jeremiah 10:12.
It is he who made the earth by his power.
Jeremiah 27, 5.
It is I, who, by my great power and my outstretched
arm, have made the earth.
God has all power.
Psalm 33, 8 through 9.
It says, let all the earth fear the Lord.
Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe
of him, for he spoke, and it came to be.
He spoke everything that your eyes can see,
and those that your eyes cannot see into existence
by the word of his what?
Power.
And by the same powerful
command, God maintains and upholds
and governs this universe, every planet
that spins around every star, everything,
every atom, every molecule, is governed
by him.
Behind every miracle in the Bible is what?
The power of God.
He parts the sea.
He brings food from heaven.
He makes the lame to walk, the blind to see, but
I'm going to tell you this right here today.
absolutely.
The greatest expression of his power is
found in his power to totally change
and transform and change the
very nature of a natural born sinner.
If he can change me.
It can change anybody.
Ooh, if you had the documentary of my life.
There'd be, we got to get back there and get him out of here.
I mean yeah, he's a preacher now, but let's let somebody else do this job.
Psalm 106, 8 9.
He saved them for his namesake that he
might make known his mighty power.
God is glorified.
By the manifestation of his power in
salvation, and that's the 2nd word that we're going to look at this morning.
Salvation, back to Romans 1:16.
It says the power of God for salvation.
That's where the power is seen in salvation.
Because Ephesians 2 says, We
are naturally, spiritually dead in
our trespasses and sin.
What can a dead man do?
Stink.
That's it, right?
I can't remember who said that, somebody did.
And the salvation act of God makes
a naturally, spiritually dead person, spiritually
alive, to live forever, fit for the kingdom of God.
That word salvation is used 18 times
by Paul.
Five times here in Romans, the verb form 29
times by Paul, and 8 times here in Romans.
The word means deliberance.
That's what it means to be saved, church.
to be delivered.
Delivered from what?
Delivered from the wrath of God.
Delivered from the holy justice of God.
Delivered from sin and self.
delivered from the grip of Satan.
Delivered from judgment.
delivered from hell
itself, which Jesus preached far more about
than he did about heaven in the New Testament.
Check me out and see.
One theologian says it this way, delivered
by God from God.
And only the gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to do that.
So much is bound up in this word, which
is God's word, salvation, man's safe passage
through the trials of life, his safe passage from divine
judgment, his entrance into eternal blessedness.
It includes forgiveness.
It includes escape from
wrath that we all deserve.
It includes life in the spirit.
It includes resurrection.
It includes eternity.
Salvation through the gospel is God's effective power,
active in the world to bring about deliverance for men
from God's wrath, sin, judgment, death,
and hell incredibly.
Incredibly.
All of those are topics that are missing from
many of today's pulpits in America.
You won't hear them.
You won't hear them mentioned.
It's too hard, too harsh.
We gotta, we gotta, we gotta make God seem nice.
Another 11th commandment, thou shalt be nice.
And really just parse
off the whole council of God.
to make your ears tickled, as
the Bible warns about.
that in the last days, they would
not endure sound doctrine.
but keep to themselves, teachers, having
itching ears, in other words, what they want to hear, not what they need to hear,
what I'm giving to you today.
The culture in which Paul
wrote this epistle was
ready for this message.
I mean, they were looking for salvation, no different from the
culture we live in today.
Now, listen carefully to this part.
People don't naturally
think after the God
of the Bible.
The Bible says no man seeks after God.
Now, they seek after the God of false religion, they seek after the God of
their own imagination.
But let me tell you something.
All people are looking for salvation.
They believe they need political salvation.
Some people believe they need social salvation.
Some people think, oh, if I can just get economic salvation.
Everything is gonna be all right.
Some people say, Well, I just need to upgrade my life.
Or we just need to upgrade society through
these man centered methods.
So they really are, in a general sense, looking for
salvation, just like in Paul's day.
When Greek philosophy in Paul's day was starting to turn
internal, and it was saying, man, things are just not
right with mankind.
We need to be able to change some things with man.
This has always been the case with
man, ever since the fall.
But isn't it interesting?
How spiritual deadness,
here's the only message that
can possibly bring salvation.
When a spiritually
dead person, hears the gospel, and
God is not involved in drawing that person.
It sounds just so stupid to him.
But again, the reality.
is that it is the power of God.
The Bible's very clear.
Man is naturally lost.
The gospel brings salvation from lostness.
Jesus said he came to seek and save that
which was lost.
If you are a believer sitting in this church today,
you didn't find Jesus.
He found you.
He wasn't lost.
You were.
Natural man is on the wrong road.
He doesn't know where he's going.
He doesn't know where he's come from or where he is.
He is literally lost.
And all of a sudden, when
he comes to Christ on his terms,
Instantly, instantly, he knows where he came
from, he knows where he's going, and right where he is.
Let me tell you, that kind of change in a sinner requires
by necessity divine power.
You don't just come upon that on your own.
Think about how the Bible characterizes the
natural man, willfully ignorant.
purposefully self indulgent, deep
in false religion, filled with wrong motives, self
deceived, trusting in his own good deeds,
which are best filthy rags, loving
the passing things of this world, hating the truth, full
of pride, pleasure seeking, guilty,
lustful creatures with no right at all to enter
the kingdom of God.
That's how the Bible describes the natural man, and so they have to be.
By necessity, delivered
from all of that, and only the omnipotent power
of God can do that.
So Paul says, My
thesis is, the power of
God can bring salvation.
Well, how does that happen, Paul?
Well, that is our 3rd word.
Look in verse 16 again.
to everyone who believes.
Faith is the third key word,
or belief, same thing.
If it's the power of God that can
do it, for whom?
Does the power of God do it?
Paul makes it clear.
For everyone who believes.
Salvation, power operates
only through faith alone.
What is faith?
Faith is believing.
Every one of us lives by faith.
You've heard me say this before, maybe some of you haven't.
You go to the sink.
Turn on the faucet.
Field the glass, and water comes out.
And you drink it.
How do you know what's in there?
Huh?
Our folks over there in Livingstone,
How about when you get to boil the water alert?
Huh?
What's coming out of them pipes?
Get on a plane.
Who's flying that thing?
What's he all about?
How do you know he didn't snort four lines
of cocaine trying to get over the hangover he had from the night before?
How do you know?
You don't know.
You get on a plane and he lets, he lets it fly.
That's faith.
We live by faith all the time.
Faith is trust.
How about when you go to a restaurant?
That food just comes out onto the table.
What was going on back there in that kitchen?
You don't know, and neither do I.
We all live by faith.
It's the only way we can survive.
God has put it in the heart of man so that he understands,
that he has to live by faith, but faith
in the spiritual dimension is far different than that kind of thing.
It's also the same idea, though,
that it is trusting
and believing, I'm trusting and believing, that when
I drink that water out of that faucet, then I'm not going to kill over and die.
And yes, the power of God can save,
but it'll only save those who believe.
Believe what?
Believe in your heart that God has raised Jesus from the dead, for one thing.
Believe in who Jesus is, God in human flesh.
Believe who he said he was when he was here.
And that he died for the reason that
he said he was going to die for, and that he rose from the
grave on the 3rd day, just like he said he would,
and that what he did, this is what you also have to
believe, that what he did on the cross does
actually have the power and the ability to save your soul.
You have to believe that.
And if you believe that, you
also believe, well, by grace, unmerited
favor, nothing that you did, for by grace,
you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God, lest any man should boast.
Why did Paul put that in there?
To make it clear to you, when you get to heaven, you're
not going to be boasting about how good you were, and that's why you let me in, God.
There's no boasting.
We don't have anything to boast about because salvation is by grace.
It's all Jesus work.
And when you come to Christ, you understand that.
You believe that.
Saving faith is not professing Christianity
with your lips.
Saving faith is not baptism.
Saving faith is not moral reform.
Saving faith is not going to church.
We've been hearing that from Ed Lacy for weeks in Sunday school.
Saving faith comes to a person.
Who is the old Puritans used to say.
A person who hears this gospel.
And they come to the end of themselves.
And they recognize.
What I'm hearing is telling me that I am morally
and spiritually bankrupt, as
a person before a holy God, and I have absolutely no
resources in and of myself to change this
situation of being morally and spiritually
bankrupt, and they come to see themselves as lost.
They come to see themselves as undone and
completely sinful, and as they perceive the
absolute pollution of their own nature, they
are drawn to Christ, as the only solution.
The only remedy for their dilemma.
And they see Christ as who he
claimed to be.
For the first time, they see that the god man
died as a substitute for sinners.
He conquered sin.
They see him, as the word proclaims that he
paid the price for their sin.
He offers life eternal, and they see that, and
they understand that, and they say, I believe.
And it doesn't matter who that man is.
Look next in verse 16.
To the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
Now, here in particular, we see, again, the reality of the primacy
of salvation was first extended to the Jews.
There's a lot of stuff online about the Jews running
the world and all, and they're doing a pretty sorry job if they're running the world right now.
We learned in our study of Matthew
and Acts, it was
to the Jews first that the Messiah came, right?
When Jesus got started in his marriage, he said, I
am not come but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
This is the clear plan of God.
You don't have to be dispensational to believe this.
For the Messiah, come and be revealed to the Jews first.
Listen to commentator Robert Haldane.
Be clear about this.
From the days of Abraham, the Jews have been highly distinguished
from all the rest of the world by their many great privileges.
It was their high distinction that of them Christ came,
who was overall God bless forever.
They were thus as his kinsmen, the royal family of the human race.
In this respect, higher than all others, and they inherit
Emmanuel's land, while, therefore, evangelical
covenant, and consequently, just justification and salvation,
equally regarded all believers, but the Jews
held first rank as the ancient people of God, while
other nations were strangers from the covenants of promise.
The preaching of the gospel was to be addressed to them first,
and at the beginning, to them alone.
I am not sent, Jesus said, but to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel.
And he commanded that repentance and remission of sins be preached
in his name, among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
Thus, while Jews and Gentiles were united in the participation
of the gospel, the Jews were not deprived of their rank
since they were first called.
Don't be confused by the internet.
Be biblical.
Don't look at the internet.
Look at the Bible.
And understand about the Jews biblically.
So for the sure, you can't
escape it, the Jew first, but also notice to the Gentiles.
Making clear that the salvation of God was not
limited to any nation, but all people.
Jews and Gentiles.
Now, follow this train of thought.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ has power.
It has the power to save.
It has the power to save
the one who believes.
But how?
Let's ask that question, okay?
How can it change the one who believes?
Look next.
in verse 17.
This is the crème de la crème, right here.
For in it, the
righteousness of God is revealed.
The reason it can save is because
when you believe the righteousness of God
is revealed to you and incredibly.
it becomes yours.
It's put on your account.
How is that possible?
Man is so sinful as I described.
He's so helpless to save himself.
He's so hopeless that even if he believed,
and even if it has the power of saying, to save,
how can it do this?
It can, because listen very carefully.
Not because all of
a sudden, we ourselves become righteous.
No.
But because all of a sudden, to us,
is revealed the righteousness of God.
What do I mean by that?
What I mean by that is when we come to Christ on his terms?
We are declared righteous.
Declared righteous with the righteousness of
another, not ours, Christ.
And that's the 4th word in our outline, and the last one for today.
Righteousness.
And it's used 60 plus
times in the book of Romans.
Gospel power is released in salvation
by faith, because faith activates
the revelation of the righteousness of God.
I don't have any righteousness.
None.
You don't have any righteousness.
Nobody has any righteousness in and of
themselves when compared to God's standard of righteousness,
but guess what God requires from us?
He requires a perfect righteousness to
be in his presence in heaven when we die in order to be right with him.
And I can't be perfectly righteous on my own.
And neither can you.
So God has to give us his righteousness.
Christ righteousness.
And he does.
Win, we, believe.
For all believers, Jesus
took our sin as a substitute for
us who believe, on the cross, and when we
believe, in exchange, God gives
us, grants us, proclaims us,
righteous with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
That's why the Bible says that Christ became
sin for us, that we might
become the righteousness of God.
in him.
What does that Lacy say?
He says, God treated Jesus.
As if he had lived
my sinful life, though
that, he could treat me as
if I had lived Jesus perfect, righteous life.
That's the great exchange.
Is that too hard to understand?
When Paul says here, the righteousness
of God is revealed, he doesn't mean that it's just disclosed
to human minds, he doesn't mean that it's just spoken
into human history, he means that it is specifically revealed
in the action and in the operation of regeneration
and imputation.
Every Christian needs to know what that word means.
Imputation.
Put on the account up.
He imputes it to you.
He puts it on your account.
That is why the gospel is the power of God for everyone
who believes, because that belief activates
the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ to
you, so that when you stand before God in heaven, you
are wrapped in the robes of Christ's righteousness, put
on your account, not your own, or you wouldn't even be there.
The best translation is really righteousness from God.
The righteousness from God is revealed.
And it wouldn't matter what I believe.
I could never be righteous.
Not in and of myself, could I?
No.
And neither could you.
None of us could.
We could believe all we wanted to.
And we still could not be righteous according
to God's standard of righteousness.
Christ paid the penalty, and all of our sins were
forgiven, yes, but that just gives us a zero.
That doesn't give us to a perfect righteousness.
We also have to have that as well, because
his standard is life, long, perfect obedience to the
law, both inside and out.
I can't be perfectly holy.
I can't be without sin.
So God says, if
you'll just believe in my son.
If you'll just believe in who he is.
If you'll just believe in
what he did, to save your soul on my terms,
I will grant to you my righteousness.
That will be the righteousness that makes you right with me.
How can God do that?
Because Jesus has borne your penalty when you
believe as your substitute.
And when you believe with saving faith, guess what happened?
He gets your penalty, he pays your price,
and he gets, you get his righteousness.
What better news is there than that?
Did you know that's what the gospel means?
The word gospel means what?
Good news.
Do you know any better news than that in all of human history?
I don't.
Paul says in Philippians 3, 8, and 9,
so that I may gain Christ and
be found in him.
Check it out.
Here it is.
Not having a righteousness of
my own derived from the law.
That means my trying to keep the law, but that
which is through faith, in Christ,
the righteousness which comes from God, on the basis of faith.
I mean, I can't explain it any better that.
That, folks, right there is
the core of the message of the whole Christian faith.
That's the glory of the gospel.
That's the power of God for salvation.
That is activated by faith, and
that faith activates it because faith releases the manifestation
of the righteousness of God on our behalf.
So as we close, look at verse 17 again,
the righteousness of God is revealed, and then he
says, from faith, to faith, as it
is written, the righteous man shall live
by faith.
Go look what happened to Martin Luther when he read that verse.
Look it up.
From faith, to faith.
In context, here is parallel with the idea,
and everybody that believes.
Jews and Gentiles.
In other words, from faith, to faith, to faith, to faith, everybody's faith,
everybody who exercises saving faith, no limitations
at all, all nations, all people groups, all
everybody, Jews, and Gentiles, who believes, just like
it was in the Old Testament.
And what does he do right here?
He quotes, Abachic 2 4, but the righteous will
live by his faith, Old
Testament.
That's nothing new.
Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for what?
Righteousness, right?
Not the labor of my hands can fulfill
the lost demands.
Could my zeal, no anger?
No, could my tears forever flow?
All for sin could not atone, and what's next?
Thou must save, and thou alone.
That's why we sing the hymns.
So let's wrap it up.
Paul in these, just 2 verses, presents
the theme of the gospel, power.
Salvation.
Hey, righteousness.
those four words, that is, the message,
folks, of true biblical Christianity.
And more than ever, this is what
needs to be coming from the pulpits of our nation if
we're ever going to have revival in this country.
This is what has to be preached from our pulpits.
Pray
that God will continue to
sustain our little church here on the corner of Hooper
and love it, so that we, by
God's sovereign grace alone can continue to thunder from
this pulpit, God's gospel,
in all of its magnificent gore.
and that we never get tired.
And that we never get weak.
And that we never give in to
compromise in order to draw a
cloud, and that we will
always Philippians chapter 3, verse
14, press on toward the
goal for the prize of the upward call of
God in Christ, Jesus.
Let's pray.
By the way, thank you today for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It is the most important, significant,
glorious, eternal destiny,
message that there is.
And either you believe it or you don't.
Either you believe it on God's terms,
on Christ terms, or you
perish, forever, and hell.
I pray you would take the word preach, combined with the power of
the Spirit, and do your work here this day.
We pray that all that we've done from start to finish has
been done such a way from your church today to bring you maximum
glory.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.