Christian calendar. It had nothing to do with Halloween, nothing to do with pumpkins or candy. Something much greater than that was marked on October 31st. Now, if you're unaware of that, I don't want anyone to feel awkward. It was only about 15 years or so in my own life ago that I first began to realize the significance of what had actually happened for the Christian church on October 31st. But I'll give you a hint. It had something to do with an Augustinian monk in Germany nearly 500 years ago, and it had to do with the recovery of the biblical doctrine of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, made known by Scripture alone for salvation. If that sounds like just same old, same old, that's the kind of stuff we might have heard so many times in our own day, it kind of passes by without much notice. Do you realize how striking what I just said would have been 500 years ago? That was not being heard. That message was being silenced everywhere. And this is strikingly different, in fact, from all man-made religions. Christianity is not man-made. That's why it differs from all other religions on the face of the earth. So we're going to define what justification is, and really, that just means to be made right with God. When we talk about justification, we're talking about what it means for you to be made right with God so that you live forever in heaven instead of hell. That's important. That is a key thing to note. So we're going to get into that. I'm going to talk about the anniversary directly in just a minute. But I I previewed a few weeks ago when I talked about what I was going to say in this sermon, and I told you I was going to mention one of the earlier heroes of the Reformation, someone who paved the way for what Luther did when he began his Reformation. So I want to remind you of an earlier date and another man. The year was 1384. All right. Think about that. That sounds really dark, really dark does thirteen eighty four. And the man was named John Wickliffe. John Wickliffe in thirteen eighty four was laying on what was to be his deathbed. He had had a stroke and so he didn't have full use of his body. He was very sick, very weak. And around his bed, keeping a vigil were a group of young men that he had discipled for years, he had poured his life into these young men. They were called Lollards. That was the mockery word that they were given by those who derided Wycliffe, Lollards. They were his Bible translators. He had trained them, he had taught them and ministered to them over the years so that they could help him translate the Bible into the language of the people. John Wycliffe has been referred to as the morning star of the Reformation. That's because he protested in his own life many of the same abuses that were going on in the Church of Rome, headquartered at the Vatican, that were later protested in the days of Martin Luther. But he saw them, as did many others throughout the years. And yet, like all true reformers, Wycliffe suffered greatly. He suffered deeply for his stand on the truth of God's Word, because he taught God's Word without appealing to the man-made traditions of a biblically illiterate clergy. He was vilified. He was hated by Roman Catholic authorities. And just in case our cultural sensitivities are pinched when you hear that, Let me remind you that the most loving thing we can do to help people who are in error is to give them the truth of God's word. This is not. I am not. And Luther was not saying that that we shouldn't love Catholic people. What we're talking about is helping them know the true gospel, that they might be set free by the word of God. That's what the Reformation is all about. It's about loving people enough to tell them the truth, even when we have to lay down our lives and sacrifice them to make that truth known. That's what we're talking about. Wycliffe suffered this way. He suffered because he said the Bible was the supreme authority over the church and not the pope. They wanted to kill him for saying that. So he lost his teaching position at Oxford. He was banned from all the state pulpits. He suffered greatly because he believed, as you and I believe, if we're believers today. In fact, if you are a believer in Christ at all today, it's because you believe the same thing that Wycliffe believed. You believe what Luther believed. That's why they were hated. That's why they were vilified. He had seen the truth. He couldn't unsee it. That's the thing about the truth. Once you truly see it, You can't unsee it ever again, and it changes you. Wycliffe gave the uneducated common people of his day a sure hope in the truth of Scripture. When all around them was nothing but subjective superstition and myth. And sacramentalism. And sacramentalism, by the way, is a way of making people think that they're saved by partaking of certain sacraments in the church. You know, if you eat this, that'll be your salvation. If you drink this, that's your salvation. If you go through this ritual, that's how you get into heaven. Or if you're baptized by a certain priest, that's how you get into heaven. And Luther is saying none of that is how you get into heaven. You get into heaven by trust in Jesus Christ. And him alone and all of those things wither and go into the background and fall into obscurity when you embrace the true and living Christ. Now, Wycliffe never claimed to be a prophet, nor was he the son of a prophet. But did you know that Wycliffe proved to be somewhat prophetic on his deathbed? He did. Though his speech was slurred by the stroke, he told these men who were surrounding his bed that the abuses that they had all witnessed in the present Church of Rome were so outrageous, were so heinous, he said the day was coming when even the monks themselves would stand up in protest. He predicted that on his deathbed. But sadly, Wickliffe never lived to see that day. In fact, some 40 years after his death, the Roman Church again declared him a heretic, as they had done twice before during his lifetime. Now he's dead for 40 years and they say, all right, he's a heretic again. Let's just make that official. Let's put that on the record for the third time that we're saying Wickliffe is a heretic. They called him a blasphemer for preaching justification through faith in Christ alone. That's the gospel. That's how we're saved. Justification through Christ alone, even though he had been dead for 40 years, the Roman Church wanted to punish this man some more. So how do you punish a dead man? Well. If you're the Vatican at that time, you excommunicate someone posthumously from the church. He's dead. We're going to throw him out of the church since he had already been dead and buried. They burned his books. They destroyed all of his writings. Or what they thought were all of his writings, but then they desecrated his grave. And the decree of Constance was the name of the order To do this, the decree of Constance was issued by the Vatican requiring that his bones be exhumed from the church graveyard and then be piled up and burned, and that his ashes be scattered into a neighboring brook. Why did they do that? This shameful act was supposed to frighten the timid onlookers to say, this is what will happen to you if you do what Wycliffe did. saying, don't you dare ever stand up against the traditions of men. Don't you ever come at us with any power that you say is higher than the traditions of men. And that's exactly what Wycliffe did. He said the Word of God supersedes all the traditions of men. It supersedes all the rituals. It supersedes everything that you think of as man-made religion. So it was to frighten them, it was to intimidate, and the words of English historian Thomas Fuller describing the execution of the decree of Constance have now been engraved on the pages of English history. These are the words that Fuller recorded, quote, They burnt his bones to ashes and cast them into the swift, a neighboring brook running hard by. Thus, this brook conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, and they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wycliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which is now dispersed the whole world over. Beloved. God is never without a witness. Even in the darkest eras of history, God has always had his men. He has always had his women. He has had those who had the light of Christ in their lives, even when all around seemed very dark. There have always been true believers who didn't go along with the flow. There have always been those who said this is not right. Most of their voices were never heard, but a few of them were. And that's why we refer to those who were heard who made such a difference because God placed them in such a position of influence. We call those men reformers. They're not great men. They're not greater than others. They're not more holy. They're not in a better standing before God because of that. But God used them. They're in the same position as we are before Christ. They need the same salvation that we need. But, of course, the church of the day, the Vatican, continued to teach the traditions of men and merry worship and indulgences as a means of salvation to the neglect of scripture for centuries after Wycliffe's death. But, you know, one day it finally happened. Now, that's what we're getting to is what happened that we celebrated yesterday. 133 years after Wickliffe made his declaration that one day even the monks themselves would stand up in protest. That is exactly what happened. It was 492 years ago yesterday. The date was October 31st, 1517, and the monk was Martin Luther, and he stood up. He stood up and he nailed his 95 indictments against abuses of the church on the church door at Wittenberg because the word of God had pierced Luther's heart like a lightning bolt. The just shall live by faith. That was different from everything that is being preached in that day. And that single act nailing those ninety five indictments on that church door changed Western civilization forever. And in a sense, revival swept across Europe for a while. Now, what has been called the Protestant Reformation wasn't anything new. I mean, nothing new was raised during that time. It wasn't the introduction of something new. It was, in fact, the reintroduction of something very old. It was going back to the original source of truth. In fact, it's not an overstatement to say that the Protestant Reformation contains nothing new. It was all a recommitment to the original teachings of Jesus and his apostles contained in the New Testament. So much superstition had replaced biblical theology in witness day and in Luther's day that the ongoing cry of the reformers was the Latin phrase ad fontis ad fontis that meant to the sources. Every time there's error, we need to go back to the sources, which meant the original Hebrew and Greek languages that unlock the meaning of the Bible for the people. We're going to go to the sources. And this meant they understood that the strongest antidote to false teaching and superstition or error in general is really just a clear declaration of God's word. They would go back to the word of God, the Bible again and again and again as their source of authority, regardless of what the traditions of men had contrived and regardless of their threats to not do so. So this morning, in honor of Reformation Sunday, I want to look with you at Romans one and study those two great verses 16 and 17 of Romans chapter one. Because this goes to the heart of what made the reformation necessary, which is a recovery of the gospel. While at the same time providing the power that made the reformation possible. We need to be reminded again that the gospel itself is the indispensable message of the church. And we, as God's people, don't just need the gospel to be saved. We need it to live every single day of our lives. We cannot live without the gospel. So let's celebrate that again this morning. If you have your Bible, Romans 1, find verses 16 and 17. In honor of God and his word, would you stand with me for the reading of these two verses? Inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Apostle Paul wrote to the church that was located in Rome in the first century. 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 in the gospel. The righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Father, I just pray now that you would once again use your word to do the work that you want done in our hearts today, that you would set captives free, I pray. I pray that you would break the chains of bondage and oppression from any hearts that are bound this day, that you would show them the light of the glory of Jesus Christ in the gospel, that they would forsake everything that is not of Christ and cling to him and live joyfully in him from this point forward. Do it again, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated. these two verses in Romans one really preview the rest of the whole book of Romans that salvation comes by justification through faith in Christ alone apart from human works and with that in mind I want you to consider with me three applications that I find in these verses from Romans 1, 16 and 17, and I want to begin with verse 16. Let's hear it one more time before I state the application. Paul 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. Now, here's the application that we need to get from that verse. First, we are to proclaim the gospel of Christ without shame. We are to proclaim the gospel of Christ without shame in verse 16, he boldly states he's not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, that's significant. Especially in our day, because in our day, there seems to be a tendency and maybe you've noticed this tendency. For people to be almost surprised that Paul would say that he's not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the question comes out, why would he be ashamed anyway? You know, what is there to be ashamed of in the gospel? Now, think about it, because there is a disparity here between what people often think of as the gospel and what the true gospel really is. Sadly, in our own day, so much of what passes for preaching has really purged the true gospel of everything offensive, of everything that might even raise a shadow of shame on anybody. So much of that has been muted in place of something else that has been called the gospel, which is something. But it's not the gospel. It's something else. Call it whatever you like. But if it does not contain those elements of truth and fact that have a tendency to make us go, I don't know if I want to say that that's that's not kosher to say, you know, people don't want to hear about sin. I don't know if I want to tell them about God's wrath. If you have that tendency, then you know what shame is. That's the shame that Paul said he was not going to yield to when it came to presenting the gospel. So much of the world has been teaching the church. Isn't that a shame that the world is teaching the church how to preach? The world is teaching the church what to say. They're telling us we shouldn't talk about sin. The world says we shouldn't mention the reality of hell, that we shouldn't tell people that Christ is the only way, not just one of many ways or even the best of many ways. He is the only way to the father. They say you shouldn't say that. That's too exclusive. We live in a pluralistic world where everybody has their own views to each his own. We've been told that unbelievers don't want to hear that. And if you do say that, they're going to call you names, they're going to call you narrow minded, and nobody wants to suffer that indignity. No one wants to be embarrassed or ostracized for being narrow minded. That's about the worst thing you can be called in our day. Well, it's time for the church to start teaching the world again. Teaching the world the word of God and what it says and his truth and stop letting the world shape the direction for the church. This is the time for the true sheep to hear Christ's true word. The true church of Christ is commissioned, first and foremost, to feed the sheep. That's what we are to do to feed Christ's sheep. Because it's only when the church feeds Christ's sheep that the lost have any chance of hearing the true gospel. That's how the lost are converted. They're saved through the preaching of God's word and the application of faith, which the Holy Spirit uses to bring regeneration. He always does that through his word. Those who understand the full implications of the gospel message realize that there are some Aspects and parts of the gospel that can make the natural mind, let's admit it, feel uncomfortable that can make us feel a little uneasy. If you've ever presented the gospel to someone that you don't believe understands it or knows it, then you have felt this tendency to go. I hope I hope they aren't offended by this. I hope that this doesn't bring shame. Have you been there? That's what we're dealing with. Think of that. Keep that thought in your mind, because these truths, according to the Bible, can make us feel a legitimate sense of shame, especially if we're used to courting public approval. And we want people to like us and we want people to think that we're agreeable people who go along with everything people think. But if we're loving, we can't do that when it comes to the gospel. If we're loving, we're going to tell people the truth. Even if they don't want to hear it, we can't make anyone believe, but we have to tell them the truth. Speaking of this passage in Romans, New Testament scholar Dr. James Stewart of Edinburgh, Scotland, wrote, There is no sense in declaring that you're not ashamed of something unless you've been attempted or excuse me, unless you've been tempted to feel ashamed of it. Let me say that again. There's no sense in declaring that you're not ashamed of something unless you've been tempted to feel ashamed of it. See, Paul felt that I believe he has struggled with that before the Apostle Paul obviously felt that struggle as he went among his own people and as he went out among the Gentiles who didn't believe it. He says, I've been there. For example, the good news of the gospel begins with a negative premise. that all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. Now, unless you're a Pharisee, you don't like to tell people that they sinned and you don't like to point out people's shortcomings. You don't want to point out where you see that's where you've fallen short. We don't like to do that. Then, because of our sin in Adam, the Bible says, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. And there you go again. That's another thing that we don't like to talk about, the wrath of God. We don't like to talk about God's wrath coming upon people who have sinned. And then the only remedy is faith, which is a gift. It's not something that you can produce. It has to come from God's faith in a crucified and resurrected Savior. And then it all starts again. We feel uncomfortable. People are going to think it's crazy to believe there's only one way, first of all, and crazy to think that an innocent man had to be crucified in place of other people who are guilty and crazy to believe that a dead man got up and walked out of a tomb on the third day. But, you know, the only problem is it's true. It's true, those are the facts that actually literally happened. And as hard as it is for someone to hear those things and say, I believe that that is a miracle of regeneration that only God can do in a heart. It's true, and we have been committed with these facts to go out and proclaim this gospel to everyone, whether they want to hear it or believe it or not, to let them know that this is true. So the very foundation of the good news conveys information that prompts shame in the natural realm. So I want you to mark that. Notice that. That is an element that you're preaching the true gospel when you go, all right, this is going to maybe get me into trouble, because if you cleanse everything out of the gospel that is uncomfortable, you will not have a gospel anymore. You just won't. Talking about sin and wrath and judgment can make us all feel a sense of shame, especially when those truths are being rejected and ridiculed. Now, Jesus knew this. Did you know that Jesus has a word to say about this aspect as well? Jesus knew that his followers were going to be put in this situation where if they talk about him truthfully, they're going to have a tendency to feel a sense of shame from their culture. So he told them that they would be blessed when they overcame that temptation. And not only that, but he warned them and us that real shame would happen if they didn't overcome that temptation. Listen to Luke chapter nine, verse twenty six, Luke nine, twenty six. This is incredible, Jesus said, for whoever is ashamed of me and my words of him, will the son of man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the father and of the holy angels? Now, folks, that is a frightening verse that shakes me, because if I'm putting everything that I do in life in the context of the eternal and I and I believe that Jesus is absolutely true, I believe what he says, even if I can't demonstrate it in this life, I know that he's telling me something that he knows infallibly. So if I put my whole world into context and I go, all right, I want to be obedient. I don't want to be ashamed when I'm standing before the Lord and it might cost me something in the here and now. And in a battle of competing fears, I would much rather feel the temporal shame in the presence of unbelievers here on Earth for the sake of proclaiming the gospel to be ultimately received in the glory of the father and have him not be ashamed of me. than to be temporally embraced by the world, because I silence the truth of the gospel to be eternally ashamed in the presence of the father and of his holy angels. And yet that's the choice Jesus is saying is before us. Where are you going to feel the shame? If you say I don't want to feel shame now, then you're going to feel shame later. You see, there's no escaping it. We can't get around this. Commentator Jeffrey Wilson wrote the unpopularity of a crucified Christ has prompted many to present a message which is more palatable to the unbeliever. But the removal of the offense of the cross always renders the message ineffective. Now listen to this next line. He said an inoffensive gospel is also an inoperative gospel. Thus, Christianity is wounded most in the house of its friends. I believe that I've seen so many people who, in the name of reaching more people, change the gospel so that it reaches no one. They've made it so anemic, so weak that there's not enough in the so-called presentation of the gospel for the non-elect to reject it. They don't even see it. It's just an offer of happiness and peace right now. Heaven on Earth sort of theology. Surely, Paul felt the stabs of ridicule addressing a mixed audience on Mars Hill about a crucified and risen savior. It says they ridiculed him. It was foolishness of the Greeks, it was a stumbling block to the Jews, but one thing neither Paul nor the twelve apostles nor any of the later reformers did was to exchange the gospel message with attempts at entertaining the masses. Under the guise of reaching a larger audience, you know, the answer to the church's anemia, the weakness that we experience in the American church today, especially in evangelicalism, is not having a better marketing strategy. That's not the answer. It's not in changing the music or the style of the church. It's not in adding a coffee bar to the lobby. That's not the means that God is appointed of reaching the lost. Rather, it's a return to the passionate preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that includes the whole counsel of God. We are to go forth with this gospel, to preach it and let people rejoice and delight that Jesus is the Savior who saves. That's the good news. The church, the true church, has never been called to compete with the world for entertainment. Hollywood runs circles around the church when it comes to entertaining. Let them have it. Let them have that domain, we are the only ones that can preach the true gospel, and God has not appointed any other institution on the face of the earth to preach the word of God, except the Church of Jesus Christ. And that's the one thing, the only thing really that we can do better here than in heaven is to preach the gospel, because in heaven you're not going to need the gospel. They're already going to be in his presence. But we have this gospel and we have this moment in time. Now. How does this gospel change us once we believe it? That's the second point. Second, we are to cast ourselves on the righteousness of God in Christ for salvation. And not on man centered attempts at human goodness. In verse 17, Paul says, For in it that is in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. That's the ESV most of us are used to from faith to faith. You know, it was this verse that caused Martin Luther so much struggle. He struggled when he was translating through the New Testament and he got to Romans and he got to verse 17 and he stopped. It just it just messed him up because he couldn't understand what Paul was talking about. Listen to what Luther wrote in his journal. Luther said, I took the righteousness of God to mean that justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that I stood before God as a sinner, troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. Therefore, he said, I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him. Yet, I clung to the dear Paul and had a great yearning to know what he meant, so that's where Luther was before he understood what it means to be justified, in other words, to be made right with God. It was through persistence and wrestling with the text of Scripture that God's grace broke in on Luther's darkened mind. And that reminds me of another Reformation slogan. After darkness, light. After darkness, light. Because there had been so much darkness and then there was light. Now, honestly, there had always been light. It had just been obscured light and it wasn't broad light. But here we see a massive burst of light. And it began with this light that Luther saw in the word of God. And it was this old understanding of God's righteousness that launched the Protestant Reformation. It's not new. It's old. This is the old, old story of Jesus dying in the place of sinners. That's what started it. Now, here's what Luther wrote after he understood what justification means. He said, I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that the just shall live by faith. Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy, God justifies us through faith. Thereupon, I felt myself to be reborn. and have gone through open doors into paradise. He said the whole scripture took on a new meaning. And whereas before the justice of God had filled me with hate, he said, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet with greater love. After darkness, The righteousness of God is not something that we supply or produce or give back to God. It's something that God gives and supplies to those who have nothing to offer before him who say my hands are empty. I don't have anything to earn your favor, God. If there's anything that can save me, it has to be something outside of myself. And he says, that's why I sent my son. My son paid it all. His merit is absolutely perfect and sufficient and supreme. He alone can save you. Cling to him now. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Believe on him. That means forsaking all other means, so-called means that you think will make you saved and saying, I cling only to Christ, only to his merit, and by him alone can I be saved. That's the gospel. The gospel isn't something we do to please God. It isn't something we earn. The gospel is God presenting himself to us in Jesus Christ and giving us faith to see and savor who he is. In other words, God is the gospel. God himself is the gospel. God the Father is the good, the ultimate good, who makes the gospel good news. And if the gospel, quote unquote, points to anything other than salvation in Jesus Christ, then it isn't good news because it's pointing us away from that which is ultimately satisfying and delightful and only redemptive. That is the only way we can have redemption. The gospel is something that God did to satisfy his righteousness on our behalf. It is his righteousness that saves us. It is his righteousness that justifies sinners in his sight. This is the good news that answers our universal problem with sin that we have had ever since the fall in the Garden of Eden in Genesis chapter three. This answers that problem. And this alone answers it. It gives no glory to man. It gives all glory to God. In fact, solely Dale Gloria is written all over your salvation from top to bottom. Every bit of it has his fingerprints all over it. It has his stamp on it. But sadly, there are many people who hear the gospel and still think that it's something they did to earn God's favor. They think it's their goodness that must save them or some ritual or some ordinance in the church. But Romans one seventeen tells us the answer, because it goes on to say that the just are not just justified by faith, but the just shall live by faith. While our works can never make us right with God, true justification always produces God honoring works of obedience to his word. The root of regeneration inevitably buds with the fruit of growing conformity to Christ. And, you know, that's another word for sanctification. growing conformity to Christ. That's what it means to be sanctified. It happens all throughout your life, beginning the moment you were saved. Now, what if someone says, all right, God has saved me. But now I don't have to do anything. You know, it's God's job to make everything work in my life. Now, that's taking a little bit of good theology and misapplying it. It is true that God does all the good work that grows, but that doesn't mean we are to have no effort or to want to move in that direction. So here's the next point. This is the third and final point from the text. Third, we are to expect the faith that justifies a believer. To be the same faith that sanctifies a believer. Let me say that again, we are to expect the faith that justifies a believer that makes you right with God to be the same faith, the exact same faith that is also going to sanctify you and ultimately bring you into his presence in glorification. Paul wrote in Romans 117, the just shall live by faith. That is, we're not just saved by faith. We go on to live by faith. It's not that faith gets us into the kingdom and then we're on our own. No, we are to live by faith. We are compelled internally. We are commanded externally to live by faith. So justifying faith is sanctifying faith. Sanctifying faith is justifying faith. It's one faith. One faith that does it all. It is the power of God in us that instantaneously justifies us and then daily, listen, it daily sanctifies us. You are justified by Christ instantaneously. That's done. But after you are justified, a daily process begins at that moment that is the sanctifying process. And that goes on every day of your life until you die. Until you enter the presence of Jesus, where it's suddenly over because you're in his presence and you're in the presence of glorification then. So the gospel know what Paul said, the gospel is whose power. It's the power of God, right? It's not your power. It's the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. Right. It's the power of God to everyone who believes. So you have to believe the gospel. When a person hears the gospel and truly believes both of these things become more and more evident in the in the reality of their daily life. Now, the question is that and this is where I find the tension in the text, in the reality of how we live our lives. Is it possible for a person to have a truly justifying, saving faith and see no change in their lives? Is it possible? Someone might say, what about the thief on the cross? All right, let's go to the thief on the cross. I saw tremendous change in the believing thief. You saw somebody whose hands and feet were bound. I never saw such a change in someone who couldn't move their body. Everything about his heart changed his whole attitude toward Christ changed before he was cursing Jesus. And then he's saying, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. What a change. Only God could do that. That is the change. That's the difference between the believing thief and the unrepentant thief. There was no such change in the unrepentant thief. There was no change in his life. And so biblically speaking, there's no such creature as an unchanged believer. God changes those who have faith. God always does that. As James wrote, even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead being by itself. James isn't saying you're saved by faith plus works. He's saying faith alone saves you. And the faith that saves you will always produce works. It will always bud with the flower of conformity to God's word. That's what we're talking about. Don't confuse the root with the fruit. Faith is the root. The things that you do as a result of faith are the fruit that bud from that root. In other words, living faith works itself out in the way we obey God's word in this life. That means justifying faith is the same thing as sanctifying faith. One faith, when it's real, does it all all the way through glorification. Now, there are many church people who Think they have true faith in Christ, even though their lives have never changed since they made that profession. Now, let's just get this on the record. There are none but sinners here. Right. Myself included. We all acknowledge if we have a biblical understanding that we are all sinners. None of us are any different in that regard. We all need salvation in Jesus Christ, and many of us have come to faith in Jesus Christ. That's why we want to hear his word. But if there's anyone here who thinks they have no sin, and I know there's a movement of some people who think that they've somehow come to Christ and now they've gotten their lives so mastered that they've mastered sin in their lives and they're now without sin. I think there's a problem. I have a problem with that, biblically and practically, because I think for someone to say they have mastered all sin in their life means they even either change the definition of sin and lowered it so low so that they make it look like they've just mastered the obvious gross sins of life or they have an exalted view of themselves. And either way, they're not seeing themselves as God sees them. If a man comes to me and says he has no sin in his life, I want to talk to his wife. You don't want to see what her side of the story is, because I think I'll hear something different than what he's telling me. So even though we are new creatures in Jesus Christ, we still live in this fallen world with fallen bodies. And that's why we still need the gospel, the gospel. We don't need to be saved again. Once you're saved, you're always saved. But you still need the gospel to live every day of your life in conformity with Christ. So the Bible teaches us that true believers are being renewed day by day. When God saves us as we are, he never leaves us as we are. He is conforming us to the image of Christ. Remember, it's the power of God that saves us and it's the power of God that sanctifies us. Believers are daily being conformed to the image of Christ. Now, think of how amazing that is that I just said that to be conformed to the image of Christ. You think that's not going to require change? That's going to require massive change, massive, fundamental, foundational change every day of my life. There's going to be chiseling. That means there's going to be hurt. I'm going to have to be broken in places where I haven't been broken. My false ideas, my wrong thoughts are going to have to be changed. My pride is going to have to be broken and praise God when he does it. Praise God that that's what he's doing to bring us into conformity with the Lord Jesus Christ. I need it. You need it. We all need to be changed by the Lord. The same faith that justifies you also sanctifies you. These truths are inseparable. Brothers and sisters in Christ, I want to talk to you directly. If you have heard this message now, you believe this. No, most of us came to church this morning, products of the Protestant Reformation, because we do believe the gospel and we want to hear someone preach the gospel and we want to hear someone explain the gospel clearly and remind us that we're not alone in believing these things that the world ridicules. This is our time. This is where we gather to encourage ourselves to edify and be strengthened in the presence of other believers. Because when we go outside the walls of the church, that's where the battle begins. That's where we need to remember that this is true regardless of where we sit, regardless of where we stand. It's not just true for one hour on Sunday and then we dispense it for the rest of the week. This is always true. And we need to remember this because this is the only message that brings people out of death spiritually and into the life of the son of God's love, who is Jesus Christ. It's time again to stand. We need to stand for the gospel. We need to stand like Wycliffe stand and like Luther stood in his day. Romans one, 16 and 17 tells us how it tells us the reason in the face of shameful taunts for proclaiming the true gospel. We need to be unashamed in the face of self-righteous attempts to earn God's favor with unholiness in the visible church. There is so much unholiness that goes on in so many churches. It breaks my heart to hear the stories of pastors who are being unfaithful. of church members, of leaders in churches who are being immoral. That breaks my heart. It's time to stand. It's time for cleansing. It's time for true believers to stand for the truth as the apostles did, as all the reformers did, as many Christians are standing today and giving their lives to stand in places like Afghanistan and Sudan, in places where this gospel is daily ridiculed and they kill people who believe it. It's time for us to stand even in the comfort of America, where we have the privilege and the right and the freedom to stand. And yet we we don't. We so often stand silent when the gospel is not being declared. In closing, let me ask you, what would the church look like? What would the church in America look like if every pastor and every church member were truly unashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Can you imagine? That would be revival. And that would be reformation. But what about this church? What if no other church did it, but just this church? What if just the people gathered here right now were truly, totally unashamed of the gospel? Would that change our witness? Would that change the way we live in this world? Absolutely. It's time to stand. It's time again to stand for the gospel. What would be different in your life right now, beginning this hour, if you began to live as totally unashamed of the gospel of Jesus and you committed to feed daily on his word? It would change everything. My prayer is that such reform and growth will occur. I pray that it will change your life this morning as a result of hearing God's word. and that you will believe the gospel if you haven't believed it already, that you will let go of every other false way of being made right with God and cling only to the Lord Jesus Christ through faith alone. That's my prayer for everyone here. And my prayer for those who have already embraced Christ is that you will stand with courage, unashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, to make these facts known to people who are lost and perishing, because now more than ever, Providence, this is a time to stand. We need to stand. Let's pray. Father, I do pray that you will use these glorious truths from your word, your inspired word in Romans chapter one to remind us to be unashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that it is your power for salvation to everyone who believes. I pray for those who have heard this message and it strikes a new note for them because they've not heard such things before. I pray that whatever offense is there would melt into submission to your word, that they would check these things out, that they would research and find in your word that this is consistent with what it means to be made right with you through Jesus Christ so that they can live forever in your presence and be free to delight in you now and worship you on this earth. Oh Lord, do it in our presence. We pray that you would reform our lives every day, beginning today, with your word. And we thank you for what you're doing among us already. In Jesus' name, Amen.