God's Gospel

The way to work this week, I heard that West Virginians are boycotting sheets. The messages on the internet, the public boards said this, these cowards, they will not respond. Right is right. We will never go to sheets, never, never, never, never, ever. It's about principle, what you do not have. thought, what could this be? What did cheats do? Did they start donating money to Planned Parenthood? Were they cheating folks on gas? Were they underpaying their staff? Turns out, they started using a Pennsylvania vendor for the pepperoni roll. Now, these folks are obviously very passionate about the pepperoni roll. Right is right. It's principle. It leads me to a couple conclusions. One, either tells me that pepperoni is not important enough to me, or it's too important to them. And trust me, I take pepperoni very seriously. I think it tells us something about us as human beings. We need purpose. We love a good cause because God designed us to have cause. He designed us to want to have meaning and purpose in our lives. And so we see all over the place, people taking up causes, some better than others. As we think about this, and as we move to our first tax enrollments, we need to realize something. We all have a cause. We all take up causes. And we need to ask, are these causes godly right? Are we properly prioritizing the various causes that we take up? A number of people have very passionate causes. There's the cause that I think the West Virginians have, and that we have to buy local. There's the cause, we have the right to bear arms. We need to eat healthy and exercise. We need to be politically involved. There's numerous causes. So what do you herald? What do you take up a banner for and herald? Whose name are you willing to go out and proclaim this, this man, this woman, he or she will fix all the problems? See, as Christians, we're supposed to be about one name. We're supposed to be heralds. We're supposed to be declaring a cause, the cause, above every other cause. So if you think about what we're committed to, maybe it's a team, maybe it's a political candidate, maybe it's a social issue. Are these things taking our passion, taking our attention more than the cause of Jesus Christ and his gospel that saves sinners. We all have causes, God designed us this way. God designed us to want good news and to proclaim good news. The question is, what is the good news? So a way of reflecting on this, what do you talk about the most? Words matter. What we think about, what we talk about, demonstrates what we're most passionate about. Is it God? Is it Christ? Is it the gospel? Is it scripture? Everything else is supposed to be a distant second. Today we're gonna begin in Romans, and if you don't have a Bible, there should be a pew Bible in front of you. If that one's missing, just keep tapping shoulders ahead or behind or to the left or right until you find one. Please take it home with you. It contains the words of life. We'll be on page 939, Romans 1. And our message this morning that we will see from Romans is this. God's gospel saves and strengthens those who believe. Another way of saying that is we are saved and strengthened by trusting the good news of Jesus Christ. God's gospel saves and strengthens those who believe. I like that one better, because it puts the action where it belongs, and that is in God, who saves and strengthens us. Here, Romans 1, the introduction. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures. concerning his son who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who were called to belong to Jesus Christ. To all those in Rome who are loved by God, called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit. in the gospel of his son, that without ceasing I mention you, always in my prayers, asking that somehow, by God's will, I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you. That is that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you, but thus far have been prevented in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I'm eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 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 for faith. As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Will you pray with me? Almighty God, we thank you that you have spoken. We thank you that you have revealed your righteousness. We thank you that we can know who you are. We can know your son and his death for our sins and his resurrection for our life. We thank you that you sent your spirit. We thank you, Lord, for the men that you appointed to provide us these words of authority and clarity. They're sufficient. We thank you, Lord, for the word that we have to guide and direct us. Thank you, Lord, for the power of the gospel. that it saves sinners. May your power be manifested this morning. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Our text, as if you have an outline, and there are some in the back if you didn't have one, there's three sections. We're gonna ask three questions. Well, we're gonna ask three questions that Paul answers. First, what is the gospel? I believe in verses one through six, we have an introduction here, but Paul really, he explains what the gospel is. So what is the gospel? Second, who is the gospel for? Who is the gospel for? This is verses seven to 15. And finally, what does the gospel do? What does the gospel do? First question, what is the gospel? Paul says a lot about the gospel in this passage. Chapter one, verse one, it's the gospel of God. Chapter one, verse nine, it's the gospel of the Son. Chapter one, verse 15, he's obligated to preach the gospel, he's eager to preach the gospel. Verse 16, he's not ashamed of the gospel. Verse 17, in it, that is the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. Now this is an important word for our passage, it's repeated. So what is the gospel? Well, it comes from the word Evangelion. There's two words actually here, good and news, a good message. It's the good message that comes down from God that is about Jesus Christ. Now let me actually begin by addressing two primary errors that we have when thinking about the message of Christianity. The first one is this. Some will believe, may not say it, but it's tempting to believe that the good news is about the golden rule. The good news is about believing and obeying Jesus. It's about doing everything he said. That's one error. The second one is this, the gospel, the good news is he'll forgive all your sins, full stop, period. The problem with both of those is they're overly simplistic. They are saying things that are gospel-like, but they're not the full gospel. You see, the gospel says, we were designed to worship. We have refused God worship. We're rebels. We deserve wrath. So God sent his son to die for our wrath, on our behalf, so that that wrath is satisfied. So we believe in him, we are forgiven. And then we are called to a new life of worship, which is obedience. We're constantly tempted to go to the licentious. I'll always be forgiven for whatever I do. Or we're tempted to say, I'll do it in my strength. The gospel says it's grace that saves you and it's grace that calls you to obedience. This will be repeated over and over again in our study of Romans. So it's good news. We love news, we love media. Especially social media because there we get to talk and we don't have to listen. So our media, it demonstrates what we like to talk about, what we like to hear about. I think if we actually take the Evangelium, if we take that word in its original context, it'll help us understand something very important about the good news. This word is usually used when a general has a victory in battle, and he'll send a messenger back to the city, and he'll declare, he was victorious, we won, and everybody, shouts and screams, there's a party in the street, there's a parade. Everyone is excited and thankful that we have had a victory. The general won. So this is the good news of Jesus Christ. He won. He has victory. He has conquered our enemy. And now we get to hear the good news, sin and death, they're destroyed. I want you to notice some of the good news. It's about Jesus, what He did for us. The good news is about His victory over our enemies. Here's a problem we have to recognize in order to really appreciate that. We too often focus on us. I believed. Oh, God must love me so much. It's about Jesus. It's about his victory, and it's about his glory. You see, that's where the cause comes in. Yes, we receive every benefit from the gospel, but God's cause is ultimately his own glory. He saves us to align us with that cause. Our responsibility is to align our desires with his, which is his glory. I wanna focus on a very simple phrase next. Chapter one, verse one. The gospel of God, the good news of God, If you were here last week, you remember the good news of God starts out pretty bad for us. Sin. The good news has to begin with we're sinners that have been saved and then sanctified and then called to be sacrifices. The good news begins with us being sinners. The good news tells us something about us, but most of all we need to realize the good news tells us about God. God speaks, he wants to be known. In the same way, we can look to the law and we can see God is right. We can all look to the law, lying, yes. God's word is true, we should be truth tellers. Murder is wrong, yes. He designed us for life, we should be living. People should respect our right to life. Do not steal. The law is good because it reflects God. It tells us something about him and his goodness and his righteousness. You have to realize the gospel of God tells us about God. There's two clear truths that we'll see later on in Romans 3. He's just, he's right, and he's a justifier. These two truths are what we have to cling to. He is holy and right, and he's merciful. That is the beauty of who God is. As we look at the gospel, and the beginning is Paul, he's a servant of Christ, he's called to be an apostle, set apart for this gospel of God, and now he starts telling us what the gospel of God is in verse two. And there's four things that we can see about the gospel of God. First, it's promised. Second, Verse three, concerning his son, it's about Jesus. Third, it's about worship. It's for his name's sake. And then fourth, it's for all people. It's to go out to all nations. So let's first look at that phrase, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scripture. What this is telling us is the good news isn't new news. There's new truth in the good news. Mysteries have been revealed, but the good news is the same news that God has been proclaiming since we first sinned. There's nothing new. God has always been promising that he will save a people. We can look down to verse three, concerning his son who was descended from David. Let's just start there. We already heard, as Mike read to us from Acts 2, In 2 Samuel 7, God promises David, a son of yours will reign forever. So there's a promise that a child will be born in the line of David and he will exercise God's perfect righteousness. We go back a little bit and we know David was of the tribe of Judah and we hear in Genesis 49, there's a promise made to Judah, the scepter will never leave your hand. The king, the ruler, the righteous conqueror, he's gonna come out of the tribe of Judah. We know Judah's one of the sons of Israel. Israel, the promised child himself of Abraham. We go back, Abraham was promised a seed We go back farther, Adam and Eve were promised. A child will be born. Satan will strike his heel, but he will crush. He will crush Satan. He will crush him and the power he has over us and what he's done to us, and that is how he crushed sin and death. On the cross, Christ was murdered. Satan struck. But in that, Christ had victory because he died for sin and death. You have to see, that was God's plan from the very beginning. It was promised. That's just one string of promise we could look at. All the plan was promised and never changed. All we see in the New Testament is how it's really fulfilled. Secondly, how it's fulfilled. Verse three, the gospel of God concerning his son. Notice what follows, who descended from David, who was declared the son of God in his resurrection. We see here both Christmas and Easter, don't we? That's why we celebrate those two specific days. They're very important. Jesus Christ was fully man. He was born of a virgin. He took upon our flesh. He took upon our nature so that He could redeem us. He had to become like us in every way so that He could minister to us, so that He could represent us before God. He's declared the Son of God in His resurrection. Because that's how He demonstrates He is God. He is the God of life. He's the God of new life. He's bringing about a new creation. Here we see some of the most full truths that the early church battled over. They're difficult, they're difficult truths, but they're God's gospel. Jesus is fully man. He has a full humanity because he has to become like us in every way in order to redeem us. He's fully God because he has to exercise the full power of God to take away our sin, because only God forgives sinners. Then there's the two actions. He was declared the Son of God and the power of his resurrection. Christ, our Lord Jesus, who was risen from the dead. He died, he rose again. These are two historical events that if they did not happen, we would be pitied. If you wanna know if you're a Christian or not, ask yourself this, is Jesus alive? It all comes down to that. Is Jesus alive? If he's alive, he died for sinners. If he died for sinners, he was God Almighty who took on our human nature. It all comes back to the resurrection. He's either alive and we're now forgiven and redeemed and bought, or we're still hopeless in our sin. He died and he rose again. These are the words that must be our truth. They're God's gospel. This is good news. The third thing, look at verse five, it's about worship. Through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name. Now, God appoints men to teach the church to believe and obey. The men who wrote our New Testament letters and gospels They were apostles, they were given that authority. God appointed them to bring about the obedience of faith. Really, that's everybody's responsibility in the church. Matthew 28, Jesus says to every disciple, teach them to observe all I have said. The gospel. is worship because it's us turning away from our sin and turning to obedience. It's turning away from what we think is right and it's saying what Jesus says is right. The gospel is about His glory, His honor, His praise. When we gather as a church, We're supposed to come with the expectation is that we're gonna set aside our name and our reputations because when we gather, there's only one name that matters. It's Jesus Christ. In many cultures, if you're upper class and you start mingling with the lower class, you can lose your position. Your peers in society will begin to look down upon you. That happens, it happens in the New Testament, I believe that's what's happening in James. Here's the question, are you willing to lose your status and position in society when you mingle and gather with those who are lower in society under the one name of Jesus Christ? That name is all that matters. I get asked about once a month why my name's not in the bulletin, I was asked this morning. It's because of this verse. There's no name that matters other than Jesus Christ. There's no name that matters other than Jesus Christ. We gather only to exalt that name. I assume you'll figure out I'm the pastor. I assume you'll figure out who the elders are. Fourth, the gospel is for all people. The gospel is for all people. Look at the last part of verse five. for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called. Now this is important because he's gonna get into the Jew-Gentile issues as we go on through Romans. It's for everybody. The very first promise to Abraham, it's for all nations, that all nations be blessed. Now we're seeing that come to fulfillment. We're coming to see that into fruition. Every kind of people from every nationality, every tongue, Every kind of people can hear the gospel, be called to Christ and believe. I want you to notice there's some actually, there's some really powerfully sweet words here. From every kind of people, we're called to belong. We're called out of that identity, that belonging, we're called to a new belonging. This is beautiful because Christ, he calls us. He speaks directly to us so that we can belong to him. That's security. The king of kings, the Lord of lords, the righteous king who's the conqueror, who will reign forever, he says, I call you and you belong to me. I call you and all those other identities, they're second. I call you in your mind and nothing can separate you from my love, he says. This is emphasized again in verse seven. To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints. He loves us only because he chooses to love us. He calls us to a new identity. Grace to you and peace from God our Father, the Lord Jesus Christ. So the gospel is that we're sinners. We need a savior. Jesus Christ has come to conquer our enemies, sin and death. He is risen. That is what we're supposed to proclaim. So who is it for? Who are we supposed to be speaking to? Let's begin in verse eight. Notice how Paul starts after the salutation. First, I thank my God through Christ Jesus for all of you. Now, if you're familiar with the New Testament, you know this is very different than the way he starts the letter to the Galatians. He just, there's no greeting, there's no I'm thankful for you, he just lays into them, how have you abandoned the gospel? Now, we need to recognize he's starting very pastorally. It's very personal. He doesn't know the Church of Rome. He's never been there. We know this from what follows. So he's writing to a church that he may know a handful of folks from, but he's never been there. He doesn't know them all. He hasn't yet brought the gospel there himself and bore the fruit he desires to do. But he says, I pray for you. This is the most pastoral thing anybody could ever do for somebody else. That's the most personal way a Christian cares for another Christian. It's praying. I thank my God through Christ for all of you because of your faith is proclaimed in all the world. God is my witness that without ceasing, I mention you always in my prayer. Paul loves these people, even though he doesn't know them. And he loves them because they have been called to Christ. Now, Paul says, I want to impart some spiritual gift to you. It's not real clear what that gift is. I think it could be this. I think what he might be saying, and this is kind of Paul-like, I think what he could be saying is, everything I'm going to tell you, I wish I could come and tell you in person, but since I can't, I'm gonna write this letter. I think the spiritual gift is actually what he's going to impart in this letter, which he wishes he could impart in person. And the spiritual gift is this. It's just the clarity of the gospel. That's a gift. to strengthen a church in the clarity and the power of the gospel. I'm not certain that's what the spiritual gift is, but I think that's a likely guess. The gift, it strengthens the church. This is what the apostle and pastor should be doing, apostles especially. They're sent to be the foundation of the church. They're sent to strengthen the faith. Now, how do you strengthen your faith? It's a bit of a tricky thing because when I think about it, initially I think, how am I gonna muster more energy from my heart to trust God more? That always leaves me very frustrated. However, what I think God designs for us to strengthen our faith is to hear him more. to see him in his glory and his power, to see his promises, to see how much we can trust him because he's so trustworthy. So when we strengthen in faith, it's actually being strengthened in the one that we believe in. It's seeing more and more of who he is and that he is truly trustworthy. We see that as he speaks in his word. This is why this word must be what informs us, constrains us, directs us, and transforms us. He says something very interesting in verse 15. Who's the gospel for? Notice in verse 15. I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. Who's the you? He's talking to Christians. He's saying, I want to come and I want to preach the gospel to you believers who are in Rome. The only thing that stands out to them uniquely is that they're in Rome. Paul is eager to preach the gospel to believers. Now, this may be startling. It was startling to me at one point in life because I thought the gospel is what non-Christians needed to hear. The gospel is what those who don't know or believe in Jesus, they needed to hear so they would become Christians. What Paul is telling us here is that he's eager to preach the gospel to the church because the gospel strengthens the church. We need to get over the idea that the gospel is for sinners only. The gospel is for those who've been called. The gospel is what strengthens us. We never graduate from the gospel. Here's why. The gospel continues to strengthen our faith. It reminds us that we have and can do nothing to earn favor with God. We have to get over this idea that we're saved by grace and then it's all about good works. No, we're saved by grace for good works. It's only by grace that we can do anything of any value. The gospel reminds us it's only His work, Jesus Christ. The best thing we can do is become more and more dependent upon him. The gospel reminds us that we are sinners in need of grace. See, when we're faced with temptation, there's really three options. One, you say, yes, let's try that out. That's not the Christian option, where you say, I'm gonna try this sin out, and then I'll just ask Jesus for forgiveness. The second one, which is just as dangerous. You know, I'm gonna try to work this out on my own strength. I'm going to fight this sin and I'm going to have the power to do it. And you're gonna end up where Paul is in Romans 7, 16. I want to do it, but I do not have the capacity to do it. Sin defeats us because it is stronger than us. The third option, you go to Christ. He begged, completely dependent, Christ, give me the grace to persevere. Christ, give me the grace to obey you. Christ, give me the grace to resist you. That is the only source of life. That is the only source of fighting temptation. It's the gospel. The other two options, choosing to go after or trying to muster up the strength to fight against on your own power, they're going to end in frustration and failure. But if we ask Christ, he strengthens us and keeps us. Secondly, the gospel reminds us we've been saved for a purpose. We don't need to go find crazy purposes. We have the greatest news, the greatest purpose is proclaiming how you can go from death to life. It reminds us we have been called to worship Almighty God, the one who's truly worthy of worship. We have the name that is above all names. We've been redeemed to serve him and worship him. He didn't save us so that we can continue in sin. The truth of the gospel is we're all worshipers. We're called to worship Christ alone. The third thing the gospel tells us, if you're doing it alone, you're doing it wrong. Notice how Paul, The apostle, he wants to be mutually encouraged. The one who's been given the mysteries that have been revealed, he needs mutual encouragement. If we're doing it alone, we're doing it wrong. The gospel says we're meant to be a body made up of many members who are depending upon one another, committing our lives to one another. Fourth. Gospel gives us hope. As we'll see in Romans 8, the beauty of the Bible is it doesn't paint a picture that's false. It fully describes how horrible this world is. The reality we know that is painful, that is difficult, the Bible doesn't pull back on that. This life is hard because there's a lot of sinners. Sinners mess things up. When we sin, there's consequences for those, well, for everybody. There's oftentimes different consequences for those who've been called to God because he disciplines those he loves. Here's something to remember in the midst of this very painful world full of sinners. You can't lose everything. You can't lose everything. because Jesus called you and you belong to him and he's not gonna lose you. It may feel like you're losing everything, but this is the truth of the gospel. You can't lose Christ. When he calls you, you belong to him. And where our sin abounds and where the consequences of sin abound, his grace abounds all the more. Persevere. knowing that you belong to him and that he does work all things out for the good of those who love him. Trust this. He kept his promise that he would crush his own son for our well-being. What is he ever going to hold back from you if he did not hold back his own beloved son? This is the gospel truth. Pray for the grace to trust it. Again, something that stands out here is that Paul says, I'm going to come and give you some spiritual gift, and I want to be mutually encouraged, both your faith and mine. The gospel produces mutual encouragement. Here's an apostle, a very unique position that no longer exists because it was such a unique position in the church. He wants to be built up and encouraged by others' faith. We must see that we're all called to invest. We're all called to be a mutual encouragement. We're not meant to just be spectators. Christianity is not a spectator religion. It's one that calls us to sacrifice. There's nothing like being a part of a church that boasts in Christ together. There's nothing like it where we're singing together. What a blessing. Where we're discussing God's word throughout the week, where we're studying God's word together. We must be committed to being a gospel people, to be that church that boasts in Christ. Something else that's interesting here is I think Paul wants to go to Rome to see how these believers are living out their faith. And we just sent a team to Ethiopia. There's another couple guys to Zambia. A number of people take missions trips. And it's always interesting when you go to these other cultures, they may have different kinds of cultural expression. You can go to the street and find different means of cultural expression, but it's the one truth. I'm a sinner, Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins. He rose again as being proclaimed. That is something that's encouraging here as Paul, he wants to go to Rome. We can go all over the world and we can find how Christians are being faithful. And praise God, they don't all look like us. So how do we encourage one another? How should we be that kind of mutual encouragement in the gospel as we proclaim it to one another? First, I like to start fairly simple. Be present. Be present. There's no way you can encourage somebody if you're not with them. Be present. Facebook doesn't count. Secondly, be prepared. If you're just present, well, you're present. You gotta come prepared by studying God's word, by keeping yourself from idols, by keeping yourself close to Christ, ready to give. Not to just receive, but to give. So be present, be prepared. Third, pour out. A lost discipline in at least American Christianity, I believe, is stewardship. We have been given gifts to give them away. That is a clear universal principle throughout scripture. If you've been given something, it's yours to give away. Whatever is yours is meant to be given away. God blesses so that we might bless. We're called to be living sacrifices. While we're pursuing Christ, we're given insights, we're given conviction, we're given repentance. We're given suffering. so that we might actually walk alongside others and encourage them in the midst of their trials and difficulties. Give yourself over to others. Fourth, be present, be prepared, pour out, preach. How many of you are saying, I don't want you to encourage yourself in this way? Preach. We're supposed to be preaching. Here's something you have to realize. In order to promote the gospel, it requires words. Just think about it. If you're an advocate for a presidential candidate, think about how you might promote him without words. Try to herald somebody for an office without words. It's impossible. They have to know the name. They have to know who he is and what he's done. Friends, we cannot proclaim the gospel another without the words of the gospel. The gospel is never presented in deeds. Now, our deeds can ruin our proclamation of the gospel. Our deeds can help people listen to our proclamation of the gospel, but deeds are not the gospel. We must herald that name. and it requires words. We must declare the words to one another. Here are the words that have to be part of who we are at Jefferson Park. I'm sorry, I forgive you. Those are the way, that is one clear way of being gospel proclaimers at Jefferson Park. Fifthly, work properly. Ephesians 4 makes a promise, when all the members work properly, the church builds itself up. This means we see where the church needs us, not what we really like to do. That's how we work, properly. Third, what does the gospel accomplish? Our third and final section, what does the gospel accomplish? Two verses. 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 for faith. As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Notice he's not ashamed of the gospel. This is a term from the previous verse. I am eager to preach the gospel to you. I am not ashamed of the gospel. He's willing to suffer for the cause of the gospel. The only other time we see the gospel proclaimed with this kind of power is Colossians, or 1 Corinthians 1. The context there, the gospel sounds foolish to some. No, I'm not ashamed of suffering for the gospel. I'm not ashamed of being in prison for the gospel, Paul would say. And again, it's the gospel for those who believe. He is not ashamed to tell Christians about the gospel. Believe in the midst of your despair, Paul would say. Hope in the midst of suffering. Trust even when you would want to retreat. Repent so that you may be healed. Not ashamed. So there's one way we could ask, are we ashamed to proclaim the gospel to those outside of the walls? I think here it's actually context. Are we ashamed to proclaim the gospel to one another? It can be kind of dangerous to proclaim the gospel to other Christians. You can lose friends when you preach the gospel to fellow believers. If you tell them what they don't like to hear, they're probably going to go find somebody who will tell them what they like to hear. Paul actually warns about that. You will lose your reputation when you preach the gospel because some Christians will call you judgy. Here's the issue. Do you believe the gospel is actually the power of God to save, or do you want to try to give them wisdom that will actually entertain them, that they would like better? We will either be bold and trust the gospel, or we'll make the church shameful. We'll start finding other ways to interpret scripture. We'll start finding other information. We'll try to find something. Every New Testament epistle is trying to correct a church that was not satisfied with the gospel truth alone. They were corrupting the gospel by adding to it or taking away from it. This is our temptation. Look with me to Romans 1, beginning in verse 28. This is gospel truth. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, They're full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanders, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, hearthless, ruthless. Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but they give approval to those who practice them. Those are all gospel issues. That list, they're all gospel issues. How many of those things take place in the gospel community? How many of these things do we practice? How many of these things do we approve? These are gospel issues. We can't back away from the high calling of the gospel. That makes us different. That makes us more faithful in our worship. we must be committed to being eager and unashamed about God's gospel because it is the power of God for salvation. Those words should stir something in us. Look at them. It is the power of God for salvation. These words we've been talking about. Christ came down. He died, he rose again. Those are the words, that message, the power of God for salvation. I believe this is an axiom. I will not be ashamed of the gospel in as much as I am assured it is the power of God to save sinners. My assurance that it is the power of God to save sinners determines how ashamed I'm going to be. My certainty about it being the power of God to save sinners is what drives my eagerness to proclaim it. Does God's word really work? Does God's gospel actually affect people and change them and save them and heal them? Is it sufficient? Our trust in the gospel of Christ and his word, it demonstrates, it's demonstrated by often we look for truth and wisdom outside of his word. Are we convinced it is his good gift that is sufficient for us? This must be the message we herald, for it is the power of God for salvation. Notice an important qualifier. For everyone who believes, Faith is how we gain the benefits of God's truth. Trusting Him, having confidence in what He says and what He has done. Not my power, but yours, God. Complete dependence. Now here's the good news. God can fix you. He promises to do so. He can heal you. He can save you. He can strengthen you. We must cry out. God, I need you. God, I'm sick and tired of how I keep trying to fix things and make a mess of them. Will you bring about the power of your gospel that heals, that transforms, that changes? Do we trust God? That's what it comes down to. Do we trust him that he's speaking and what he says is right and true? If you're not a Christian this morning, You may be thinking, you don't know what kind of sinner I am. No, you're right, God does. The beauty of the gospel is that every sin that Jesus died for was all looking ahead for us. Every sin we have ever committed, we ever will commit, he died for. He died for murderers, he died for rapists. He died to forgive all kinds and every kind of sinner. Your sin is not more powerful than God's gospel. If you recognize your sin, call out to Christ. I am a sinner. I need your forgiveness. I need your new life. Please do not leave without talking to somebody about that. If you are burdened or convicted over your sin, The words of the gospel are God's power. He empowers his gospel. They're not just interesting words. It's not just kind of interesting philosophical statements. This is a message that carries the power of God. We cannot expect him to bless us, our efforts to save sinners, if we're not actually being obedient to proclaim it. The gospel is the most powerful instrument man has ever had in his possession. It's ours. We can call it a weapon. It is the most powerful instrument we have at our disposal. If we simply declare it, we can trust God to use it to change people. But we're too worried about our reputation in case somebody rejects us. We're too worried about how somebody might respond or that we might mess it up. The beauty of God's gospel is it's never dependent upon how clever the speaker is. It's his power that changes lives. The Jew first and the Gentile, Lord willing, that will become clear as we continue. In Romans, as we see that those two are being reconciled together, it's the gospel that saves all kinds of people together. Let's go to verse 17. He continues, I am not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. For in it, the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. Notice, the gospel doesn't reveal our righteousness. The gospel doesn't reveal our righteousness. And let me just tell you, everybody has righteousness. You know, maybe that you're strong. Maybe that you're attractive. Maybe that you're wealthy. Maybe you have a high position. Maybe, there's all kinds of righteousness that we could actually boast of, but the gospel is not about that. All that righteousness, it's fleeting. passing away. What God's gospel talks about is his righteousness. It's a mirror and he doesn't put us in front of, he doesn't put the mirror in front of us so that we see our best features. No, when God's gospel's in front of us, it shows us how bad we are and how good he is. It shows us what is right and true and trustworthy about God. The gospel shows us how great he is and how gross we are. He shows us how forgiving he is and how much we have forsaken him. He shows us our faults, our guilt, our rebellion. And he declares, I forgive you. God's righteousness is something he declares to us about us. This comes down to the heart of the gospel. We'll see this especially Romans 3, verses 21 to 26. God As a righteous God, he should declare us all as we really are, guilty. We have sinned against him, we deserve the declaration, you're guilty, you have an eternity of wrath to suffer. But God in his mercy sent his son, to be born in the line of David, to live that perfectly righteous life, we could not, so that when he was nailed to the cross, God declared him guilty. He treated his son as if a sinner, so that he could turn to us and say, I have punished your sin, it has been accounted for. Now I declare you righteous. See, we exchange accounts. He takes our sin account, which was full. He gives us his righteousness account, which was perfect. In order to receive that blessing, you first have to see, as Paul's gonna begin, we are deserving of wrath, and praise God, and we will give thanks to God, and we will honor him, because he is declarative, righteous. Again, if you were not a Christian this morning, it simply says, from faith for faith, for the righteous shall live by faith. You can get hung up on what that phrase is, from faith for faith. I believe it's simply this. The emphasis is, it's by faith alone that you are declared righteous. It has nothing to do with your works. The gift is ours when we say, I see my sin and I can't wash it off. Jesus. Would you cleanse me? Jesus, would you wash me? Jesus, would you take away these stains? Christian, this is for us. We still have sin. We still have sinful hearts that produce sinful words and sinful thoughts and sinful actions. And we have to simply say, Jesus, who paid it all, will you wash? Will you cleanse? Will you help me be a more righteous follower of the righteous God? If we want to be gospel believers in a gospel church, four quick things. Meditate on God's word. This is how we will be strengthened in the gospel. We have to be assured and confident that his word is true. And the only way to do that is by reading it and focusing on it and hearing it, meditating on it. Second, meet regularly with gospel people. Surround yourself with those who trust the gospel so that they will help you trust the gospel. This is where younger believers need to be with older believers. Third, pray. God, change my heart. God, I know I'm prideful and that's why you've been resisting me. Give me the humility to come before you and truly receive your gift and your blessing. Finally, pursue Christ and his righteousness. Jesus tells us if we hunger and thirst for his righteousness, we will be satisfied. If we hunger and thirst for His righteousness, if we ask for Him to declare us righteous, we ask for Him to show us the righteous way to worship Him, as He's designed us to, we will be satisfied. Will you pray with me? Father, the gospel is so good and so true It is so heavy because you do not leave us alone in our despair, in our sin. You come and you approach us exactly where we are. Lord, there are saints that are hurting. May your gospel heal. There are those who are still clinging to sin. wanting to live as if you'll always forgive them, Lord. Lord, call them to repentance. Give them your spirit to give them a heart that truly turns away and sees how destructive sin is. Give them a longing and a hunger and a thirst for righteousness.