Paul, who wrote this, had never been to Rome. Paul wrote this probably from Corinth in Greece, dreaming of going to Spain. And he saw Rome as a possible base of operations as he went to the western furthest frontier of the western Roman empire so that he might see the gospel penetrate the west. As far as he knew, Spain was a place where the gospel had never been spread. And so he wanted to go there. He tells us that in chapter 15. He wants to go to Spain. It's been his ambition to preach the gospel where Christ is not known. And so he writes this letter. seeing Rome as a base of operations. But he has one more trip, he tells us in chapter 15. One more trip before he gets to Rome. He has to go back to Jerusalem. He's gonna take some of the money that he collected from the Gentile churches to present to the Jewish Christians as a way to show mercy to the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem who were suffering. with poverty and famine, but also as a way to signify the unity between Jews and Gentiles. And so it was an act of mercy. It was also an act to show the oneness of the church, Jews and Gentiles. And Paul did. He went back to Jerusalem, but something unexpected happened. He was arrested. Paul did end up going to Rome, but not the way that he thought. He was arrested and went to Rome as a prisoner. An amazing thought to me, I don't know this for sure, in fact, no one really knows if Paul ever made it to Spain. The book of Acts ends with Paul imprisoned in Rome. We don't know, did he die there? Was he released and then made his way to Spain? We don't really know, but the thought is amazing to me that perhaps the book of Romans, one of the greatest gifts ever to the world that we have, perhaps was the result of a broken dream. Paul's broken dream to go to Spain, maybe he never even made it, but God amazingly used that broken dream to bring about a gift. It's such a wonderful example of one of the famous verses from Romans, some of you maybe have even put this to memory, Romans 8, 28, which says, for God works all things together for the good for those who love him. God works all things together for the good, even broken dreams. And so don't discount the way that God can bring good and bring life and beautiful things out of even your broken dreams. Paul had intentions to go to Spain. Maybe he never got there, but we got Romans. We got Romans out of it, okay? So this morning, we're doing this crazy thing of summing up every book of the Bible. And I feel the weight of that every week. Romans is such a rich book with so many nuances. We couldn't do justice in 30 weeks, let alone 30 years. There would still be depths to plunge and to discover. But this morning, I wanna just ask a couple of important questions so that you can get an impression, okay, of the significance of this book and have a little better grasp of how it contributes to the overall story of the Bible, this one story of the gospel from beginning to end. So let's look at the situation of the Roman church. What was their situation that perhaps would have motivated Paul to write this letter? And then secondly, let's just look at a summary of what Paul had to write to them. So first of all, the situation of the church in Rome. First of all, amazingly, there was a church there. We don't know who started this church. Probably the church was started by lay people who years prior under Pompey, a Roman ruler, he brought Thousands of Jewish slaves from Jerusalem and Judea to Rome. At some point they were set free and even received a Roman citizenship. Those Jews who were set free who lived in Rome would travel back to Jerusalem for the various Jewish feasts like Pentecost. Maybe that rings a bell. In Acts chapter two, we're told people from Rome visited. They sat under Peter's preaching. We're told people became Christians from every place, including Rome. So some of these Roman Christians heard the gospel, they believed in Christ, and they went back to Rome, and the gospel spread, and a church was birthed. Over time, this church became a church with Jews and Gentiles, okay? Now, there is a significant moment that we know of in history. When Claudius came to reign in Rome, he actually cast out all the Jews from Rome. So think about this church was Jews and Gentiles. Now, it's all Gentile, this probably network of house churches, okay, throughout Rome. with a later ruler, Nero came in. He said, hey, you can come back. So all these Jews, some of them Jewish Christians, they come back and they find this church that they once were a part of that began with some sensitivity to some of their Jewish heritage and they appreciated some various feasts and some of the customs that they kept from the Jewish heritage. All of a sudden, that's gone. They come back and it's completely led and saturated by Gentiles who don't have the same preferences and tastes for Jewish heritage. And so there is deep conflict. And there is deep trouble. And so Paul is writing. to not only secure a base of operations for himself on his way to Spain, Paul is also writing to revitalize this church, to make sure that they haven't lost the true and pure teaching of the gospel, first of all, to strengthen them so that they might be unified as the church should be with Jews and Gentiles, that there would be a love and a vibrant unity among them. And so Paul wrote this for very personal reasons, right, to secure a base, also having to overcome some suspicions by the Roman church. Some people wondering whose side is he going to take? You know, he's been spending a lot of time with Gentiles. He kind of loves the Gentiles. Is he going to, like, be for them? Or, you know, he is a former Jew. Is he going to take their side? So there were many suspicions with Paul, and he had to overcome that. It was also very theological. Paul was writing to remind them so that they would realize again what it is they believed in the true gospel, what it means that they're Christians. And it's very practical. He gives instructions for the church, their relationships with one another, how to do church in a secular society and interactions with government authorities and all that kind of stuff. So it was very practical, all right? That was the situation Paul was writing into. Now let's ask the question, let's summarize, what did Paul have to say? If we had to sum it up, and it pains me, I'm embarrassed to have to paint with such broad strokes this morning, okay? But that I must. So let's paint with some broad strokes. Let's summarize. this book of Romans, if you had to really summarize it into one word, you could, okay? Because there's one word that's used more than any other. Paul opens his book with it, he closes his book with it, and it's saturated all throughout, it's the word gospel. In the Greek, it's euangelion, okay? This book is about the gospel, okay? The good news, that's what gospel literally means, it is good news, okay? So when we're talking about the gospel, we're not talking about a music genre like gospel music, okay? Gospel music is a thing, but it's like a literary genre. We're not talking about a genre of literature like the gospel of Mark or the gospel of Matthew, which we looked at some weeks ago. Okay, that's a genre of literature. When we talk about gospel, it's a technical term that really means something. Gospel is the good news of the person and work of Christ. Okay, it's understanding who was Jesus, what did he accomplish for you? That's what gospel means and that's what the book of Romans is about. Notice Paul says in verse 16, which was in our passage, the gospel is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe. And it's an amazing statement. God has a lot of power. He could have vested his power and displayed it in any way that he wanted. And how did God choose to display his magnificent power? In the gospel. is where God displayed his power. Literally, the word that Paul uses for power there, dunamis in the Greek, is the word where we get dynamite. Paul's saying, it's explosive. It's an explosive power, so that's what we're gonna talk about. I'm gonna try to sum it up by focusing on three areas where Paul sees the explosive power of the gospel, and he focuses in on this throughout his letter. So first of all, Where do we see this explosive power of the gospel? Let me remind you, this was not just for the Roman church, this is God's inspired word, it's for us. And so please here, see these things, embrace these things, this is for us, okay? First of all, the explosive power of the gospel, it's the only power that exists that could possibly bring you out from underneath the condemnation of God's wrath. That was foundational for Paul. It sets him up to say everything else that he was going to say. The explosive power of the gospel is the only power that can bring you out from the condemnation of God's wrath and bring you into a right standing with God where he actually accepts you and loves you, okay? So Paul starts with the bad news, okay? Paul starts with the bad news chapter. The middle of chapter one into chapter three is a picture that Paul paints of total darkness. I don't know how else to say it. It's a picture of total darkness. Paul makes it clear that every person who has ever lived, religious or irreligious, okay? Jew, Gentile, Greek, Michigander, Wolverine, doesn't matter. you are all under the gaze of God's holy wrath and under his condemnation. He begins in the middle of chapter one by explaining how this is the case for the non-Jewish culture, which is the Gentile culture. Gentile is anything non-Jewish, okay? I, you know, come from Gentile roots. And so Paul begins by explaining the broader culture And not only Roman culture, but really some of the patterns we see in any culture of any age. I just want to read some excerpts in different parts of Romans this morning for you so you grasp this better. Listen to Paul's language as he shows why even non-religious people are under God's condemnation. He says, for example, in Romans 1, starting in verse 18, for the wrath of God, there's that word. Just throwing that out there. Paul uses this word, and it's important to note, by the way, when we talk about wrath, we're not talking about a God who woke up on the wrong side of the bed and is in a bad mood. Okay, we're not talking about some God who's moody or who just lost his temper. When we talk about God's wrath, That's a word that actually describes the perfect and pure hostility of God toward evil, like we would expect from any good judge. I mean, any good judge, we want them to have a hostility toward evil and a love for what's good. If they mix those up, that's a bad judge. God is the judge of all judges, perfect and pure in his upstanding of what's righteousness, hostility toward evil. And so he says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and all unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and His divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they didn't honor God. nor did they give thanks to God, but they became futile in their thinking, and their hearts were darkened, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and they worshiped and served the creation rather than the creator. Okay? He goes on to say, in themselves, the due penalty for their error. 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 are 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, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them themselves, but they give approval to others who practice these things. Whoa, did you see why I said he's painting a picture of total darkness? Now at this point you can imagine the Jewish Christians in the crowd saying, yeah. Yeah, those non-religious Gentile, they really are slime buckets, aren't they? And Paul said, wait a minute, not so fast. Not so fast, because he quickly turns to the Jews and says, oh, you call yourself a Jew. This is chapter two, beginning verse 17. If you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God, you who boast in the law, you dishonor God by breaking the law. What then, are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we've already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin. As it is written, none is righteous, no, not one. No one understands, no one seeks God. All have turned aside together, they've become worthless. No one does good, no, not one. One, total darkness. Now what was Paul doing there? It was actually quite brilliant. Paul was showing, first of all, people who have no interest in the Bible, the Bible's never even come to them, they've never even heard it, how could they be held responsible? God says they have written on their hearts a certain knowledge of their creator, it's just that they suppress that truth. They have a certain knowledge of what's right and wrong. You don't even need the Bible to know that there's something that's not right about stealing. You know why? Because you don't like it when someone steals from you. You don't like it when someone gossips against you, but you don't even live up to your own knowledge because you don't praise the creator you know exists. You steal, you gossip, and all the list that that, goes through, and then he turns to the Jews and says, you haven't lived up to the knowledge you have. So he's showing everyone, whether you had the Bible or not, no one has lived up to the knowledge that they know they should. And this places them under the condemnation of their creator. But then we get into the middle of chapter three. And in verse 21, I hate to put it this way, but we have one of the most beautiful buts in all of literary history, and I'm not trying to be funny, but there is a but after this darkness. Paul says, but, and it's a great one, because he says, but there is good news. There is a way out from this terrible darkness. Do you wanna know? Do you wanna know how to get out? Paul says, yeah, there is good news. There is good news. As bad as that bad news was, there is good news. God has displayed his explosive power at the cross to get people out of this condemnation, to get them into being accepted by God and loved by God. There is good news because God has displayed his explosive power at the cross to show his just way of justifying the unjust. Think about that. God can't compromise his holiness. He can't compromise his standards. He can't just sweep things under the rug because that'd be a terrible judge. He can't just say, oh, I'm gonna forget about it because he would be betraying his own sense of justice. But he found a just way justify the unjust, he found a righteous way of righteousing the unrighteous, of actually placing a righteousness on you, of seeing you as someone who has perfectly obeyed him, and he's just in love with you, and that relationship, that standing will never change. Can you imagine such a thing? Paul says you don't need to imagine. That's what happened at the cross. How could such a thing happen? Paul goes into detail here about this good news, about this gospel in chapter three. He says it was to show, God did this to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might, here's that language, that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Listen, he says, again, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But God has justified people by his grace as a gift, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. Very important language there. God, the just God, actually justifies people. That means He makes you righteous. You get the legal settlement of being righteous and not guilty. He justifies you. How? Well, as a gift. As a gift, God redeems you. That is, he purchases you through the blood of Christ out of the darkness of condemnation. He purchases you out of that slavery and brings you in to his grace. He brings you in to be his child. He brings you in to be a citizen of his kingdom. How could all this happen? Because he put forward Jesus as a propitiation for your sins. Very important word. This isn't new to Christianity, by the way, this idea of propitiation. This was an act that that most any pagan cult, even of Paul's day, they would have known something of propitiation, okay? But here's how propitiation would work in, say, a pagan cult, and we don't call it this, but we still see this sort of thing today in the way that people relate to whatever deity they think is there, okay? So there's a drought. We need rain. The gods must be angry at us because the gods aren't sending rain. So what do you do? You have to propitiate, that is to assuage his anger or his wrath. You have to turn away his anger so that he'll be happy with you. So what did they do? They would find some paltry animal and offer it as a sacrifice to sort of bribe the gods. That's propitiation in their way, because they were turning away the anger of the gods so that God would be happy with them. The Christian idea of propitiation, what Paul's talking about here is very different. Because notice, notice, who initiates the propitiation? Well, in the case of pagan cults, well, the people initiate. The people initiate it. But in this case, we're dealing not with a moody God, not a God who has a bad temper or rolled off the wrong side of the bed. Remember, it's his perfect and pure hostility toward evil. That same God initiated the propitiation, not by offering some paltry animal, but by offering his precious son. So God, from first to last, delivered what was necessary to turn away his own wrath from you so that you would be set free and loved and accepted by him. Do you see this gospel? Do you see why this is good news? Do you see what Paul's saying? You contribute nothing to your salvation. There's nothing that you contribute to get God to love you. There's nothing you contribute to being saved. It's all from God. It is all from God. and yet it's received. How is it received? How can you have this? How can this be true for you? By faith. Faith isn't some other work that you do. Faith is like the hand that receives the gift. It's the eye that looks to Jesus and sees him as the Savior and you trust him to be your Savior because of what he did for you on the cross through his blood to set you free. And so that's why Jesus lived a perfect life. Why did Jesus' life matter? Jesus' life mattered because he was racking up rewards. He was obeying God. He's the first and only human being who lived the perfect life without sin. And so he racked up God's favor. He earned God's favor. the blessings of God. And yet, when he went to the cross at the end of his life, when he died there, his blood was shed, there was a great exchange that took place. Because for those who trust him, even you today and those of you who have trusted him, all the blessings he racked up, he gives to you. And all the wrath that was aimed at you, that you deserve for your sin, that was placed upon Jesus, okay? That's how God justly justified the unjust, through his explosive power at the cross. And Paul says, of this gospel, I am not ashamed. I'm not ashamed of this gospel." He received a lot of criticism. And you will, too, to the degree you make it clear that this is the gospel you hold on to and as you seek to share it with others. Paul would have received a great deal of criticism from those who are more idealist, who love to think that most human beings at the root are good. and are righteous. Maybe there's a few outliers out there who are bad apples, but by the most part, people are good. So Paul, how could you be so nasty? How could you be so mean, Paul, to say that people are sinners? That's just nasty language. That's kind of rude to say. And Paul would respond by saying, I'm not ashamed because without the bad news, you don't have any good news. Without the bad news, you have a superficial gospel. And a superficial gospel might make people feel good on the surface, like, oh yeah, you're fine, you are a good person. Really, you just need, you know, God really exists to help good people become better, not to bring sinners out of death and into life. And so if that's what you believe, you have a superficial gospel which makes for superficial Christians, which makes for superficial worship. Why in the world would you even be here if there was a God who didn't bring you out of death into life, who justified you freely by his grace? It's a response to his amazing work. And so Paul would say, I'm not ashamed of this gospel, because I don't have a superficial gospel. The real gospel has real bad news, but it has really, really good, good news. And you don't get the good news without the bad news, so I'm not ashamed. To the intellectuals, he would say there's nothing that betrays a true intellect other than denying our Creator God. and recognizing the truth of our Creator and seeing that right in the middle of history, He came in the person of Christ and was raised from the dead. And people saw it. and reported it and we know that. And so I'm not ashamed of this gospel because Jesus is raised from the dead. To the relativist who said it's so rude to have this gospel because if you are just adding another God to the Roman Pantheon, if you're just adding sort of another avenue that people can get to God, that's fine, but to say he's the only way, that this is the only good news by which you're saved, that is rude, that is wrong. Paul would say I'm not ashamed because it's true and the most unloving thing I could do is to say, oh, this is just one of the ways among many different gods. That would be the most unloving thing I could do because it would be a lie. And so out of a heart of love, I share this gospel and I'm not ashamed to the moralists and the religious folk who say that is offensive that you have some idea of a God that we don't have to work for his favor. We need to work for his favor. We need to obey God. What kind of a God isn't gonna demand that people do works to get his favor and his love? And so the moralists were outraged by this gospel. That's why Paul so often was under attack because people hated this good news of God's grace and there's nothing you can do to get it. You have to receive it through Christ. And I remember my freshman year of college, I was a new Christian. One of my good buddies was a football player named Ishmael. He was a Muslim. And I had just become a Christian, and so I started opening my Bible and sharing the gospel with Ishmael, and he was so interested, and he was asking questions and learning, and he went back and told his family about some of our conversations. I went out into my dorm room hallway one day, and Franklin Hall, walked right out into the hallway, and there was his dad and his uncle, who were both larger than Ishmael, and I have both put together, staring down at me, demanding that I tell them what I have been sharing with Ishmael. And so I began to share, I didn't know much about the Bible, I was a brand new Christian, and I just knew this news of Jesus, and I began to share the gospel with them. And at some point I said, you know, this is by grace. It's a gift that God has given, there's nothing you can do to earn it. And I'll never forget the look of their eyes pouring out fire at me, and they stammered and screamed, Grace! Grace! What are you talking about? That is outrageous! What kind of a fake God do you have that saves people by grace? And I will say I was a little bit afraid for my life, but I was not ashamed. I was not ashamed of the gospel. Because this is the gospel that is the power of God for salvation unto all who believe, and it is by grace. And so Paul shows the explosive power to bring people out from under the condemnation of God and into right standing. Paul also, secondly, shows the explosive power of the gospel as the only power that can really transform you from the inside out. Paul knows the question is coming. He rhetorically asks this question in chapter six. He says, okay, so God saves us by grace, not by works. Wonderful, that means we can go do whatever we want. We'll just go on sinning so that grace may increase. Paul, in the strongest possible language, says, get out of here with that question. God forbid you ask such a question, because to ask that question, to say, oh great, Christianity is about grace, not work, so I can just go live however I want. Paul says, you don't understand grace. that you don't understand grace. Because by God's grace, when you become a Christian and trust in Jesus, guess what? He says, you died with Christ. You were crucified with Christ. You died to sin. It's no longer your slave master. Not only that, Christ has come and lives in you by His Spirit. You are in union with Christ who has been raised from the dead. There is new life in you. Your relationship with your sinful nature, your old longings, your old desires, your old habits, your old ways, the things you used to love, that's totally changed. It's been severed. That's no longer your heart's desire. Now your desire is to live for the Lord who saved you. to please Him. You have a new power to do so because the Holy Spirit lives in you. Paul goes into great lengths talking about this, and you have a new motivation. I mean, how could you not want to lay your life down and obey the King who just went to the cross to rescue you and has set you free? The one who has said, therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ, Romans 8.1. The one who has said, Romans 5.1, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we've gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. You don't stand in condemnation, you don't stand in death, you stand in grace. And your greatest desire is to say, I'm gonna follow the one who brought me here. That's why Romans 12, one, Paul says, in view of this mercy of God, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. And so he says, don't be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed, there's that word. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. To be a Christian is to know the transformational power of new life. Living for the Lord, obeying His Word, doing what He said, not to get His love, but because He has loved you in Christ at your greatest desire. Now, this doesn't come without a struggle. Chapter 7 is all about the struggle. If you're not a Christian, you don't have this struggle because you've gotten used to your sinful nature. You sort of like your lusts and your greed and you kind of like living for yourself and a self-centeredness and you kind of like being able to gossip when you want and all that kind of stuff. But when Jesus comes and lives in you, all of a sudden there is a battle that rages. Romans 7 talks about this. Paul says, when I want to do good, evil is right there with me. I do what I don't wanna do, I don't do what I do. Who will rescue me from this body of death? Ah, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So Paul, it's very important, go back and read chapter seven. He's talking about the struggle of the Christian life. There's a battle that rages within you if you're a Christian. Because the Spirit is waging war against your sinful nature. Your sinful nature is trying to hang on and get you to be who you were and how you used to think, but the Lord says, no, you are new. And this battle rages. However, because the Spirit's in you, there is victory. There is victory. I want you to know Paul in Romans talks about the victorious, the victorious Christian life because the Holy Spirit of God is in you. I have to just read an excerpt from chapter eight. Chapter eight, I don't use the word epic much, but chapter eight is one of the epic chapters in all the Bible. Let me just read some verses for you of Paul talking about this victory you have. And this is part of what you have because of the transformation the gospel has brought in you from the inside, from the inside out. Listen to Paul's words. He says, the Holy Spirit of God dwells in you, okay, as a Christian. So for those who live according to the sinful nature, they set their minds on the things of the sinful nature, but those who live according to the Holy Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on your sinful nature is death, but to set your mind on the Spirit, that is life and peace. For the mind that's set on the sinful nature is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law nor can it do so. He goes on to say, by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, and then you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you didn't receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you've received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. Father, that is the most intimate terms for a daddy. This is your new relationship. Because of the Spirit in us, we cry out from within, daddy, my father. He says, this is what we cry. He goes on to say, What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? Listen to this note of victory because the spirit living in you. He who did not spare his own son for us but gave him up for us all, how will he not also graciously along with Christ give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against us? It's God who justifies. Who is it who condemns? No, Christ Jesus, he's the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who's at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? No, no, nothing can separate you from the love of Christ, because in all these things we're more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I'm sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That's epic. That's yours because of the good news. Now lastly, let me close with the third. The explosive power of God is seen in bringing this church out of their toxic conflict. There was trouble in this Roman church, and Paul writes to it. I won't go into the detail, but if you want to go back and read, for example, you can find out about some of their trouble in chapter 14. It's over these Jewish customs. What should we keep? Should we keep certain feasts? Should we eat certain things, not drink certain things? There's differences of opinion. Paul masterfully helps them to see you are unified because of who you are in Christ, not because you agree on all these peripheral things. You have different tastes, you have different preferences. And by the way, isn't that true? Isn't that true for us? Isn't that true for us? Some people may be on the left, some people on the right. We have different politics represented. We have different tastes in music. We have different tastes in food. There's all these different preferences. Is that how we're one, that we're just supposed to all agree on those things together? And Paul's saying, no, you are new in Christ, and he gives them wisdom for, there are certain freedoms you can have, there are certain things you can believe and embrace, there are certain preferences you can have, but don't bring that into the public court of the church, and judge others because of it, and hate them because they don't line up with how you might think politically, or with regard to whether you should drink wine, or not drink wine, or eat vegetables, and he goes into this in chapter 14. He gives great wisdom there. But then he says, here's how there is real unity in the church, and the only way you can get it is because of the explosive power of the gospel. Listen to Paul in chapter 12, for example. He says in chapter 12, for if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you're no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. Let love be genuine. Listen to this, folks. Listen to these instructions. Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty and proud, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it's written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, you feed him. If he's thirsty, you give him something to drink. And then I think he sums up his message of how the church is to be one when he says in chapter 15, may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may, with one voice, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to these words. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. Folks, it is only by the power of the gospel that people with different backgrounds and preferences and tastes and politics and all those things can come together and truly be one. There is no other place on earth where you will find it. And it's only because by the power of the gospel, we have that in the church, and we can be one. And so Paul to the Romans writes of the explosive power of the gospel to bring us out from the condemnation, to transform us from the inside out, and it's the only power by which we can truly be one and reflect the love of Christ. Christ welcomed us by grace, and so we welcome. one another. Let me just close by mentioning something you may not know. The University of Michigan is quite famous for, in the Hatcher Library across the street, possessing the oldest manuscript written on papyrus of Romans that exists. It's really amazing. You should check it out sometime. second century, so it's quite fascinating. In fact, they have one of the largest papyri collections in the world, worth around $100 million. And as I thought about Romans this week, I know that the manuscript is greatly cherished by the papyrology department. I hope that you will prize the message of Romans, the gospel of Romans, more than any professor here could prize that piece of papyrus. I pray that you will prize the gospel more than $100 million, that this would be life for you. And so read it, put it to memory, love it, and embrace it. Thank God for this gift of Romans.