So our text this evening is from the book of Romans chapter 1, verses 16 and 17. Some of the better known verses in scripture, Romans 1, 16 and 17, the Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says, for I'm 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. We've just celebrated the Reformation, which we officially date as October 31st, 1517, the day that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church in Germany. And it is providential that our study of Romans, that here we are to these verses that were especially influential in the personal reformation, if we want to put it that way, in the transformation that took place in Martin Luther's life as he came to understand the doctrines of grace. I want to share with you James Montgomery Boyce's account as he lays out Luther's struggle to understand what is meant by this righteousness of God that is ours by faith. James Montgomery Boyce says this, Martin Luther began his academic life by studying law, which was his father's desire for him. But although he excelled in his studies and gave every promise of becoming successful in his profession, Luther was troubled in soul and greatly agitated at the thought that one day he would have to meet God and give an account before him. In his boyhood days, he had looked at the frowning face of Jesus in the stained glass window of the parish church at Mansfeld and had trembled. When friends died, as during his college days two of his closest friends did, Luther trembled more. One day he would die. He knew not when, and he knew that Jesus would judge him. On August 17, 1505, Luther suddenly left the university and entered the monastery of the Augustinian Hermits at Erfurt. He was 21 years old. And he entered the convent, as he later said, not to study theology, but to save his soul. In those days, in the monastic orders, there were ways by which the seeking soul was directed to find God. And Luther, with the determination and force that characterized his entire life, gave himself rigorously to the Augustinian plan. He fasted and prayed. He devoted himself to menial tasks. Above all, he adhered to the sacrament of penance, confessing even the most trivial sins for hours on end, until his superiors wearied of his exercise and ordered him to cease confession until he had committed some sin worth confessing. Luther's piety gained him a reputation of being the most exemplary of monks. Later, he wrote to the Duke of Saxony, I was indeed a pious monk. and followed the rules of my order more strictly than I can express. If ever a monk could obtain heaven by his monkish works, I should certainly have been entitled to it. Of this, all the friars who have known me can testify." Still, Luther found no peace through these exercises. The monkish wisdom of the day instructed him to satisfy God's demand for righteousness by doing good works. But what works, thought Luther, what works can come from a heart like mine? How can I stand before the holiness of my judge with works polluted in their very source? In Luther's agony of soul, God sent him a wise spiritual father by the name of John Staupitz, the vicar general of the congregation. Staupitz tried to uncover Luther's difficulties. Why are you so sad, Brother Martin? Staupitz asked one day. I do not know what will become of me, replied Luther with a deep sigh. More than a thousand times have I sworn to our holy God to live piously, and I have never kept my vows, said Staupitz. Now I swear no longer, for I know that I cannot keep my solemn promises. If God will not be merciful towards me for the love of Christ, and grant me a happy departure when I must quit this world. I shall never, with the aid of all my vows and all my good works, stand before him. I must perish." The thought of divine justice terrified Luther, and he opened up his fears to the vicar general. Staupitz knew where he himself had found peace and pointed it out to the young man. Why do you torment yourself with all these speculations and these high thoughts? Look at the wounds of Jesus Christ, to the blood he has shed for you. It is there that the grace of God will appear to you. Instead of torturing yourself on account of your sins, throw yourself into the Redeemer's arms. Trust in him, in the righteousness of his life, in the atonement of his death. Do not shrink back." But how could Luther do that? Where could he hear the Son of God speak to him as Staupitz said he would? In the Bible, said the vicar general, it was thus that Luther, who had only first seen a Bible in his college days shortly before entering the cloister, began to study scripture. He studied Romans, and as he pondered over the words of our text, the truth began to dawn on him. The righteousness we need in order to stand before the holy God is not a righteousness we can attain. In fact, it is not human righteousness at all. It is divine righteousness. And it becomes ours as a result of God's free giving. Our part is merely to receive it by faith and to live by faith in God's promise. Guided by this new light, Luther began to compare scripture with scripture. And as he did, he found that the passages of the Bible that formerly alarmed him now brought comfort. But Luther still had spiritual struggles ahead of him as he came to fully understand righteousness by faith. In 1510, Luther was sent by his order to Rome. On the way, Luther felt dangerously ill and relapsed into the gloomy dejection over spiritual matters that was so natural to him. D'Albin, a French writer, he wrote this, that a stress of mind that he had felt at Erfurt returned with renewed force. The sense of his sinfulness troubled him. The prospect of God's judgment filled him once more with dread. But at the very moment that these terrors had reached their highest pitch, the words of St. Paul, the just shall live by faith, recurred forcibly to his memory and enlightened his soul like a ray from heaven. Luther was learning to live by faith. Comforted and eventually restored to health, he resumed his journey to Rome. Luther had been sent to Rome on church business. But in spite of this, he approached the ancient imperial city as a pilgrim. And when he arrived, he began his rounds of the relics, shrines, and churches. Then there occurred the famous incident told many years later by Luther's son, Dr. Paul Luther. In the church of St. John Lateran in Rome, there is a set of medieval stone stairs. said to have originally been the stairs leading up to Pilate's house in Jerusalem, once trod by the Lord. For this reason, they were called the Scala Sancta, or Holy Stairs. It was the custom for pilgrims like Luther to ascend these steps on their knees, praying as they went. At certain intervals, there were stains said to have been caused by the bleeding wounds of Christ. The worshiper would bend over and kiss these steps, praying a long time before ascending painfully to the next ones. Remission of years of punishment and purgatory was promised to all who would perform this pious exercise. Luther began as the others had, but as he ascended the staircase, the words of our texts came forcefully to his mind. The just shall live by faith. They seemed to echo over and over again, growing louder with each repetition, the just shall live by faith, the just shall live by faith. But Luther was not living by faith, he was living by fear. The old superstitious doctrines and the new biblical theology wrestled within him. By fear, said Luther. By faith, said St. Paul. By fear, said the scholastic fathers of medieval Catholicism. By faith, said the scriptures. By fear, said those who agonized beside him on the staircase. By faith, said God the Father. Last, Luther rose in amazement from the steps. of which he had been dragging himself and shuddered at his superstition and folly. Now he realized that God had saved him by the righteousness of Christ, received by faith. He was to exercise that faith, receive that righteousness, and live by trusting God. He had not been doing that. Slowly he turned on Pilate's staircase and returned to the bottom. He went back to Wittenberg, and in time, as Paul Luther said, he took the just shall live by faith as the foundation of all his doctrine." In a similar way, these words, the words here in verses 16 and 17, these words are for Paul, but really the foundation of the book of Romans. OPC minister and professor John Fesco, he's a member of our own presbytery professor in a, Mississippi at Reformed Theological Seminary there. He's written a commentary on Romans, which I've been using. And in his commentary, he sets forth these verses as he calls them the thesis of Paul's letter. In other words, what is stated here in these verses is the purpose. It's the whole reason for Paul writing this letter. James Montgomery Voice designates these words, these verses as the theme of the epistle. And some Paul presents to his readers in these couple of verses, the purpose of his epistle as a setting forth of the power, the scope, and the nature of the gospel. The scope, the power, and the power, the scope and nature of the gospel. As for power, the gospel is nothing less than the power of God for salvation. Who then are the recipients of this power? What is the scope of the gospel? Everyone who believes. to the Jew first and also to the Greek. And what is the nature of the gospel? In it, God reveals his righteousness from faith for faith, a righteousness by which we have life with God, not on the basis of works, but by faith in God's son, Jesus Christ, who was sent to redeem us from our sins. I take it as the theme of these verses, the gospel, the power of God. And we will consider the same under In time, three points. This evening, the points that we will consider are what and how, and in a future time, the result. But what and how, under the theme of the gospel, the power of God. So we begin with what. Paul says of the gospel that it is the power of God for salvation. As the power of God, the gospel is the means by which God accomplishes his will in the salvation of lost sinners. When we think of power, we think of the ability to accomplish something. Electricity is a power, steam, wind, these things are powers. Anything with explosive force, we think of as something with power. Something with power always has an effect on something else. And so it is with the gospel, the good news of what God has done and is doing for sinners through his son, Jesus Christ. And notice in that way, I've just defined the gospel. Back in verses one and three, the gospel is referred to as the gospel of God. It's a gospel. It's good news from God. It is his work. And Paul has said in verse three, it concerns his son, that is God's son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so that's the good news. It's all about what God is doing, has done. through his son, Jesus Christ. And this gospel is not just a message of words recorded in the Bible. If it was only that, it would be no different than other influential writings of men. There are many classic works of literature that are celebrated for their effect, we might say, their power on people's thinking, upon their emotions, upon their outlook on life, even to the degree of shaping our culture for the better. But it's only the gospel of God that has an effect that can be traced to God, and it is only the gospel of God that has the effect of transforming people spiritually into children of God with eternal life. Only this gospel can transform a sinner from a state of unrighteousness and death under the wrath of God as a violator of his law into a state of righteousness and life under the blessing of God as one viewed perfectly obedient. Only the gospel can change the sinner's heart and make the rebel against God into a living saint. Paul was a living testimony to this transforming power of the gospel, turning him from a hater of Christ into one of the most powerful missionaries and a missionary who desired to proclaim the gospel wherever he could, even in Rome. But let's be even more clear about what Paul means by the gospel of salvation. The world has its own ideas of good news and of salvation regarding how they think that man can be saved. And all of these ways involve men doing various good works or various religious acts in order to receive some measure of happiness in this life and in the next. But the gospel Paul was talking about is good news regarding a salvation that comes to us with the power of God through Christ. Back in verse nine, Paul calls it the gospel of his son, that is God's son. And so this is the gospel of Christ. It's good news concerning Christ. It is the glad tidings that though we are lost in sin and worthy of God's condemnation, God's son became one of us. Paul has told us specifically that Jesus is a descendant of David and he has become one of us in order to die in our place, suffering God's wrath that is due to our sin so that all who put their faith in him will be saved from having to face that wrath. We can even say that the whole Bible is the gospel because its entire message is ultimately about Christ and the offering of himself on the cross as the sacrifice for our sin. The Old Testament was all about Christ's coming and by the types and shadows of the tabernacle and temple and all of the The different ceremonies connected with those places, Christ's offering of himself was pictured. He was pictured as the Lamb of God atoning for our sin. The New Testament records his actual coming, his accomplishment of our salvation on the cross, and how sinners can know that they are saved. The key word that Paul uses here in these verses to describe the salvation that God gives is righteousness. That's the key word, righteousness. He says in verse 17 that in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. He says it is the righteous who live instead of dying in sin. Righteousness is the status of being right with God. It's being without sin in the sight of God, our holy God. Righteousness involves both justification and sanctification. Justification is part of our salvation. It's when God deals with the guilt of our sin, declares us righteous in His sight, forgiven of our sins, and without sin in His sight, all because of the righteousness of Christ that is put to our account. The fancy word for that is imputation. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to us, put to our account by faith. Sanctification is Also part of our salvation is when God deals with the pollution of our sin. Justification deals with the guilt, sanctification with the pollution of our sin by making us righteous, completely removing all of that sinful corruption from our hearts so that we are perfectly obedient in our thoughts, words, and deeds. This is an ongoing work in the hearts of those who are united to Christ by faith. It's a work that God completes only when the believer dies. And what belongs to this righteousness is fellowship with God. For the problem is sin separates us from God. We are not righteous. Our unrighteousness separates us from God, but God restores that state of righteousness and in that way restores our fellowship with him. Those who are righteous in Christ are never again under the wrath and curse of God. The righteous are loved. The righteous are blessed by God. The righteous are heirs of eternal life. It is this gospel that is the power of God for salvation. You must understand that the gospel of Christ accomplishes the salvation that you need. The power of the gospel of Christ is such that it causes unsaved people to see their need of salvation. When prior to the gospel, there was no sense of need, no sense of spiritual need. And this is a truth that is often ignored or forgotten. People tend to think that the power of the gospel shows up only after people exercise faith in it. It's thought something like this. There's the gospel with all of its untapped power. It's been presented, and the impression given by many is that all God can do is just wait to see what man's response is going to be before its life-changing power will be unleashed. But in reality, the power of the gospel includes its ability to create faith. And this important truth is tucked away there in the phrase of verse 17, for faith. Paul states for in it, that is the gospel. In the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. The word revealed there means brought to light, uncovered, manifested. So in the gospel, the righteousness of God is brought to light from faith for faith. And the wording for faith begins with a preposition that means into, towards, or unto, and has the idea of motion that brings a particular purpose or result. I hope you can see the point. Now, first Paul says the gospel sets forth the righteousness of God that is ours from faith. That's the first thing Paul says, and that's a point that we will consider further in a moment under how the gospel becomes the power of God in our lives. And the short answer is that we receive righteousness from faith or out of faith. But there's more. There's this second phrase, which indicates that the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel for faith. Notice, it's the very preaching of this good news that God uses for faith to create faith in his elect. Righteousness is not simply ours by faith. Its proclamation creates faith. when it's accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit. And this is an amazing, and it is a great thing, because it means then, you see, it's not up to us to generate our own faith. Think of what it would be like if God said to us poor sinners, I have a righteousness to give you, the righteousness of my son, and the only way that you can have it is by faith. But as for this faith, you are on your own to create it in yourself. So as soon as you can muster up some faith, you can have this salvation. Now, some clarification I imagine is needed at this point to avoid misunderstanding. You might be saying to yourself, and I would think probably rightly so, but wait, doesn't God call us to exercise faith? Doesn't scripture say even here that righteousness is ours by faith? And doesn't that imply a responsibility to exercise faith? And yes, that is true. When Jesus says in Matthew 11, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. That is a call to faith. It's a call to stop pursuing righteousness through your good works and to trust in Christ. And when Jesus says in John 6, 29, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent. And in verse 35, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger. and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. And then verse 37, notice I'm picking all these verses from John because we've been going through John, when he says in verse 37, all that the father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. These are calls to exercise faith, calls to go to Jesus for righteousness. It is necessary for any sinner who would have salvation to seek it from Jesus by faith. the very same time we have to face the reality of our total depravity, which prevents us from doing anything spiritually good, even to exercise faith. And that's why Jesus in John six, the very same chapter in which he calls sinners to come to him, he also states in verse 44, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. And that is what I mean by saying that it's not up to us. to generate faith or to muster up faith out of our own sinful, depraved hearts. I'm talking about this idea that somehow we are spiritually autonomous and have the ability in and of ourselves to go to Christ with our faith. Now, that makes faith a good work. But in truth, faith is a gift of God, something that must be granted to us out of grace. And thankfully, this very thing of faith that we must have, that you must have to have the righteousness of Christ isn't left to your own strength and ability. That's what I mean. God doesn't simply offer salvation to spiritually dead sinners. That would not be good news. That would be something like this. You're confined to a wheelchair. You're unable to You are told that there is a surgery that you can receive in order to have your ability to walk restored. All you have to do is walk up the steps of the hospital and you can get yourself to the operating room and then you will be able to walk. You see, that's not good news. It doesn't even make sense. It's not good news to be told that something great can be yours as long as you meet certain conditions that you can't meet. That's not good news and that's not what God does. His salvation is such that when the good news is proclaimed, that there is righteousness that comes from faith. It comes with the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit to create the faith by which we can lay hold of that righteousness and make it ours. Now, to be clear, the gospel doesn't come with this power to everyone. The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. It shows its power in belief. And it is only those who believe who can claim the power of its salvation. As Paul will emphasize again and again in his letter to Rome, salvation is from beginning to end a work of God's sovereign grace. Nothing is left up to us who are totally depraved in sin. And yet this doesn't in any way minimize the way in which we, we come to have this salvation, which is by faith, which brings us to our second point this evening. How? Do you realize your need for righteousness and salvation, the need to be delivered, rescued from the guilt of your sin in order to be right with God and escape eternal judgment? Do you also realize you need to be delivered from the pollution of sin, which still indwells you? This means realizing that you not only sin, but are a sinner. The salvation that Paul proclaimed as being rescued from the punishment that your guilt and sinful condition deserve. And this good news is amazing because it's God who has been offended. It is God who as judge has every right to sentence sinners to everlasting punishment. He is the one though, who provides his son to give sinners righteousness. So how do we get this salvation? How can we know that the power of God is at work in our lives giving us salvation? Well, it's already been said in so many ways, but I want to emphasize at this particular juncture that the way we receive this salvation is by faith. Paul really refers to this in three different ways in our text. First, Paul says that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Second, he says the righteousness of God is revealed from faith. And then third, he quotes from Habakkuk that the righteous shall live by faith. So it's those who believe who can know that they are righteous in the sight of God. Well, believe what? Well, believe in the gospel. Believe in Jesus. Believe that God sent his son to earn righteousness for you who are not righteous. Believe that God will actually give you the righteousness of Christ, imputing to your account Christ's perfect record simply through the faith of acknowledging that you need and want his righteousness. and in faith receiving it as a gift earned by him. And furthermore, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith. Luther struggled with this concept of the righteousness of God because he thought that it was referring to the attribute of God as righteous, meaning referring to the perfect standard of God's righteousness. that he had to reach by his own goodness, that he had to, by his own good works, please God, and in this way escape God's judgment. Luther rightly understood that this is an impossible standard to reach. But then he came to understand the good news, that the righteousness of God that Paul is talking about here is a righteousness from faith. This is a righteousness that comes out of faith, that finds its origin in faith. In other words, while yes, God is himself eternally righteous. It's not the revelation of his righteousness that is good news to unrighteous sinners. What is good news is that there is a righteousness that comes from God, that is connected to faith, that in fact becomes ours by means of faith. And then third, the final confirmation that this is a righteousness that is ours by faith comes out of the Old Testament history of Habakkuk that Paul here quotes. When he writes, the righteous shall live by faith, he's quoting Habakkuk 2 verse 4. Let's have a little bit of background to what is going on there in the prophecy of Habakkuk. The prophet is concerned about Judah's sin, and he knows that judgment is inevitable unless God intervenes because there's so much wickedness in the land of Judah. He claims that there are righteous people in the land, but there's so much wickedness that the righteous are finding it very hard to live righteous lives. Habakkuk doesn't like God's response to his concern. God says he's going to send the Babylonians against Judah in judgment. And Habakkuk is perplexed by this because to him the Babylonians are more wicked than Judah. And God again answers Habakkuk and his answer is that The Chaldeans themselves will be punished. God doesn't minimize the sin of the Chaldeans. He knows that they are puffed up. He speaks to that. They are puffed up with pride. They lack uprightness. But even for Judah, his covenant people, God says, the righteous shall live by faith. He doesn't say to the good people in Judah, Your hope for a future of blessing is to live your righteous lives in contrast to the wicked Babylonians and your wicked neighbors. That's not what he says. The only way to live, the only way to escape God's judgments is to be righteous. And the only way to be truly righteous is by faith. And this means that even the so-called righteous of Judah are not to place their hope in being better, more righteous, so to speak, than the people around them. being more righteous than others, which actually doesn't even make sense because righteousness is an absolute word. But anyway, being more righteous than others, as people think that's possible, that's not our hope. Our hope is to be perfectly righteous because by faith, Christ's righteousness is imputed to us. In the Old Testament, the people of God think of Abraham. He had righteousness imputed to them through faith as they laid hold of the covenant promises of God. And what was at the heart of those promises? The promise of a coming savior who would save them from their sins. Their hope never was to gain God's blessings through obedience. Even faithful Judah and even the most faithful Christians of today are not perfectly faithful. Faith then is looking to God's anointed, to Jesus, to make you righteous over against trying to make yourself righteous by being as good as you can or trusting in yourself that you are good, declaring yourself to be righteous. No true faith says I sin and I deserve judgment. My only hope is the promise of God to save me through the work of Jesus offered in the gospel. We don't have time this evening to consider the final point, which is result, but to state the result briefly in conclusion, the result of understanding the power, the scope and nature of the gospel is that we are not ashamed of it. Paul says, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Why? 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. We're not ashamed of the gospel. We understand it and believe it. We rejoice in it. We want to tell others about it. For it's all about the glorious hope that doesn't depend upon us, generating our faith, our own faith, generating righteousness. No, this gospel is a salvation that God powerfully gives us through his son, Jesus Christ. Amen. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for the gospel. This gospel that is your gospel comes from you. It's your plan of salvation that concerns the Lord Jesus Christ, coming and providing for us a righteousness that is not our own. Lord, we pray that you would grant each one of us faith, for this is salvation for those who believe. It's a salvation that comes by faith, a faith that you must give. Father, we thank you that even faith is a gift from you, a gift of your grace. We, Lord, thank you for how even in these opening words here in Romans, we can see the entirety of what Paul is going to say as he is going to emphasize again and again that our salvation from beginning to end is God's sovereign work. Lord, we thank you that our salvation does not depend upon us, not even the smallest part of it. We thank you, Father, that you do it all. And therefore we boast not in ourselves, but boast in you. And we pray these things in Jesus' name.