Now we're going to read from the Bible. We're in the book of Romans. I'm going to read this morning from Romans 1, verses 9 through 17. We're mostly focusing on verses 16 and 17. Romans 1, 9 through 17. For God is my witness. whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers, making a request if by some means now at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you, for I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift so that you may be established That is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith, both of you and me. Now, I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often planned to come to you, but was hindered until now, that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the other Gentiles. I'm a debtor. both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise. So as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek, for in it The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. This is the word of God. Today I want to talk about something that brings us together. Something that brings us together. The Apostle Paul, the writer of this text, tells the church in Rome, I've got something that brings us together. And so in these initial verses, 11 through 13, Paul says, I've got to get together with you in Rome. I'm desperate for an in-person visit with you, and I'm bringing you something. I'm bringing something to you. Paul has something that will bring them all together. And then in the next set of verses, 14 through 16, Paul says, I've got this thing that brings us together. And it's not only something that will bring us together, but it's for all people. And then he starts listing Greeks, Jews, Romans, people who are highly educated, people who are barely educated, people who are very religiously conscientious. He says, people who attend church twice a week, as well as people who can't tell the difference between Noah and Moses. And you sense Paul has this zeal, this zeal to get together with every sort of person in every place. Now, what is this? What is it that could bring that huge range of people, what could bring them all together? Like for our times, what could bring together conservatives and liberals, black, white, and brown, People with PhDs, people with no degrees. What could bring us together? Is it a new crispy chicken sandwich? Those are very popular. Is it some action movie about dinosaurs? Is that what will bring all kinds of people together? Is it a common enemy attacking our country? Paul says this is what can bring us all together. It's the gospel. the gospel can bring us together. So verse 15, he says, I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome. Paul says, it's like there's this pressure on him. Verse 14, he says, I'm a debtor. He says, I owe it to God to bring the gospel to highbrow people and to people who are primitive and uncivilized, both to the wise and to the unwise. I've got to preach this gospel to all of you. Three things from our text this morning. First of all, we were all together. We were all together. Then secondly, now we try to pull ourselves together. We were all together, we try to pull ourselves together, and third, God reveals the way to be together. So let's start with the first. We once were together. Verses 10 through 13, Paul says over and over, I want to get together with you. And I'm gonna act on that. And Paul's been to other countries, he's been to other cities all over the Mediterranean area and the Middle East, but Paul has not yet spent time with the Romans. He has not yet spent time with them. And what you see as you're reading this letter, this epistle that Paul wrote, letters are good. Messages are important, but letters and messages, they cannot compare with physical presence. So Paul's writing, but he says, this is not good enough. It was true then, it's true now. Verses 11 through 12, Paul says, being together It brings an encouragement. He says, I long to see you so that you may be encouraged and that I may be encouraged together with you. He says, it's mutual. When we get together, it's mutual. Being together in person has this potential to brighten their hearts. not only their hearts, but Paul says, my heart. He says, I also get a significant lift from being together. This mutual encouragement when they meet together. Now this is one reason why the church is a community that meets. meets in person, meets weekly, and you and I need the encouragement that comes from that. You're not gonna get it, you're not going to get that kind of encouragement only reading books. You will not get that kind of encouragement just seeing video, listening to podcasts. And so the question for all of us, for you is, is meeting in person with your congregation, is it a priority like it was with Paul? But there's something that's even deeper at work here. There's something that is core to being a human being. Humans are made to be physically with each other, to be together. We're made for community. Humans need community. Humans began in community. We're wired for it. And so when you read about the beginning in the book of Genesis, the Bible tells us that we were originally a community, male and female and God. There was Adam, there was Eve, and there was God also in that community. The community began with God, Adam and Eve. Now, note this about this first community, and this is why they were able to be cohesive and coherent, a community. It was a righteous community. It was a righteous community, and that is part of why they were able to stay together. Ephesians 4, verse 24, says that humans, when they were first created, humans were holy and righteous in the image of God. That was part of the image of God. We were holy, we were righteous, as he is. And because it was a righteous community, we could be completely transparent with one another. God created a male and female in his image, in his righteous image. And so even though they were naked, they were unashamed. because they were naked and righteous. There was no blame. There was no shame. God made humans in righteousness, and so there was nothing to hide, nothing of which to be ashamed, nothing to fear it would be exposed. Now, just try to think and imagine that. to be truly, fully righteous, so righteous that you could be naked, not just externally naked, no embarrassment about your physical skin, but especially for the inner person. Just imagine having nothing that you need to cover about your thoughts, nothing that you need to hide or shade about your past. you could say that it is righteousness that keeps people close. Righteousness enables us to be close. In some ways, friendship, human friendship, in some ways marriage still pattern this, this righteous dynamic that enables people to be together. So for instance, a friend, someone who is a real friend accepts the real you. You don't have to hide your foolish mistakes from your real friend. You can tell your friends, yeah, I got these shoes. See these new shoes that I'm wearing? I wanted them so badly that I paid way too much for them. And you don't hide your mistakes. You can reveal the foolish things you do to your friends. And in marriage, isn't this what's patterned in marriage? Your spouse sees all of the private parts of you, not just your body, but deeper, deeper than that. Your spouse is exposed to behaviors. Your spouse is exposed to history that you are too ashamed for others to see. At its best, human friendship and marriage are the community where we show everything without shame, without being ashamed. Now, the reality though is now all of us, all of us live east of Eden. I mean we began, we began in righteousness and so Then, friendship, marriage, there were no walls. There were only windows. You could see in. We could see into one another. We saw one another, and God saw us, and we could bear it. We could bear having eyes on us. We could bear the eyes looking upon us, and all that was possible because we were righteous. Now, what is righteousness? What does it mean to be righteous? Righteousness is a word that's not really in use anymore. Righteousness is conformity to God. Righteousness is conformity to God. Conformity to God's design. Conformity to God's ways and his will. Conformity to God's character and to his commandments. When you are righteous, you can show yourself without any shame. And my claim is that We need righteousness. We need this. We long for it. You were made to be shown and known in a righteous community. That is something true about every one of you here. You were made to be righteous. You were made so that others could look at you, so that you could show yourself in a community. Now, can you imagine if that was actually true and what actually happened in, let's say, in your own family? Think of the family you grew up with. Can you imagine your own family maybe being all together again? Your mom, your dad, your brothers and sisters, and can you imagine home not being a place of hurt? Can you imagine home not being a place of hiding? Can you imagine home isn't a place of insults and mocking? Can you instead imagine home being a place where you could sing out loud, just freedom to sing out loud with your voice and no one complains about your voice and teases you about it? Or can you imagine home being a place where family comes together, maybe around pizza, And no one blows up, no one storms out of the room and leaves the table in a rage, but instead the table is a place of laughter and a place of deep sharing. Can you imagine that? That is our first righteousness. Now let's talk about our lost righteousness. First, we were once together, but now we try to pull ourselves together, and this is the second thing. If you're someone who's listening to this, someone who's here, and you're exploring Christianity, here's one of the central questions. Are people good? Are people good? Are people basically good? Or are people bad? The pure materialist says, That good, bad, that's just a mental construct. The nihilist says the question is irrelevant. The question doesn't matter. The humanist affirms a basic goodness of all people. The Christian view is this. People once were good. Our original native righteousness, and there are remnants of it, but now, people are bad. Adam and Eve were righteous. They did conform to God. They were good, but then Adam sinned. He deliberately disobeyed. He took the fruit, and then humanity became bad. And now, because of what Adam did, every man, woman, and child are conceived in iniquity Psalm 51, surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. We inherit Adam's sin. We are unrighteous and then we add to that original unrighteousness, we add to the original sin our own sins. Now two results of that. The first result of that is that the righteous community broke. The prototype community that God made, God, male, female, it broke and God cast them out of Eden. And then male and female turned against one another and And it's so odd. This is the human situation. We, in our unrighteousness, we've turned against one another, and yet we can't let go of one another. It's the ultimate go away, come closer. That's the dynamic. Because we were made for community, we innately long for connection. But because we lost righteousness, we can't bear to be seen. Without righteousness, we can't stay close. the righteous community broke. That's the first thing that happened. But secondly, this is also what happens. Now we try to regain the righteousness that we lost. In Genesis, when Adam and Eve commit their first sin, they've just lost their original righteousness, what do they do? They immediately are ashamed of their nakedness, and they can't bear to be seen by one another, they can't bear to be seen by God, and so they cover themselves. It's an attempt to regain the righteousness that they just lost. And so they take leaves, they take fig leaves, these large leaves from plants, they stitch together the leaves, and they make, basically, they make underwear for themselves out of leaves. They cover the parts. that they're ashamed to show with leaves. That's what every person since then, all of us, has attempted to do. We try to pull ourselves together. Because we sense that we lack righteousness. And we can't bear it, and we want to cover it, and we attempt to make ourselves somehow presentable, to give ourselves I mean, some people try to do this. There's so many ways we try to do this, to regain our righteousness. Some people try to do this in trying to make a name for themselves. I've got to be known. I have got to be recognized. I've got to be known as someone who wears clothing that looks reasonably in style. I've got to dress with flair. I want people to admire my clothing. And it's just a way to try to make a name for ourselves. That will be my connection to the community. I want to be seen. I want to be admired by others. I've got this plaque. It's a dark wood stained plaque, it's got a brass engraved plate on it with my name etched on it, and it's very handsome. It was given to the top scorers in this competition that I entered, and that year I received a plaque for third place, and the plaque is very impressive. But what you can't tell from looking at this plaque is that that year, the competition had about six different divisions, and every one of those six divisions had further subdivisions. Every one of those six was divided into four more subdivisions. So six divisions total, four subdivisions in each division, so something like 24 subdivisions total. And each one of those subdivisions had a first, second, and third place. My plaque is for the lowest skilled subdivision in my one division. And in that year, in my little subdivision, I was third place out of three competitors. Only three other competitors in that subdivision. I was third place. I was also last place. but I made a name for myself, and it's on a plaque. We want to pull ourselves together. We want to get back the righteousness that we lost. We want to have something where we can say, look at me, look at this. Some of us do it through religion, like the Pharisees. They pursued meticulous excellence in their study of religion, in their practice of religion. Do you keep count? Do you keep count for yourself of the number of people whom you've mentored? Do you keep count of the number of times that you've read your Bible? Do you keep count of the amount of donations you've made? And do you feel good about yourself because of those things? Some of us try to find value in power or in wealth. Maybe you've seen those interviews with wealthy people. There are these people in the world who, they really know how to make money. And for them, it's just simple. They just do it and it works. And for them, some of them, money means security. For some of them, money means respect. It's a righteousness, isn't it? For some of them, the story is, I grew up poor, and as a kid, I told myself, one day, people will see that I'm something. Look at me now. Now some of us try to regain this righteousness through knowledge. You're like, I'm gonna get all these advanced degrees, look at my learning. Doesn't that make me worthy of respect? All these books that I've read, all these people who consult me. And some of us, maybe it's not wealth or power, maybe it's through virtue, virtue signaling. It's a way to gain a righteousness. I will post online about hot topics. I will blast people who are wrong. I will scorn them. I will scoff at them. I will cut them off. And it's a way for me to regain a righteousness before the world. Some of us look for righteousness in having a family. I am worth something because I'm a mother. I am worth something because I'm a dad. I've got children, and I'm good at it. People admire me for it, as long as my family is a model family. And we could post pictures online, and people post all these approving comments, and I feel acceptable. But if my marriage has flaws, if we are in counseling, or if my child is headed to juvenile detention, I can't bear for people to look at me. In an honor and shame culture, the family name is the righteousness that we're attempting to regain. And so kids who go against the family way and against the family name, they've got to be cut off, they've got to be cast out. One more thing, another way that we try to regain the righteousness that we lost, it could be through appearance, it could be through beauty. Isn't it easy to look for acceptance through appearance, through beauty, like wear this eyeliner, dye your hair, being able to do this many crunches and this many pushups, and always in our mind, in that kind of thinking, there are these images that we've seen online or in the gym, and we think, if I look like that, if I conform to that appearance, I can know that I'm good. I will like being seen by others. I'm looking for that lost righteousness. Do any of these things, do any of these things give you confidence in yourself? Which if any of those things, if it was taken from you today, if you lost it, it would knock you down. if you lost your looks, if your kid walked away from the faith or the family, if your ministry faded into nothing and nobody noticed. Here's one way that you can tell that you are trying to make for yourself a covering out of leaves, make a righteousness for yourself. A few weeks ago, I was just really tired. It had been a long week, a long day of work. And someone sent me something that was funny. And I was tired, I was watching it. I spent about 40 minutes watching it and then watching all of the other funny videos in the series that someone sent me. And then the next day, someone at home told me, I think you're addicted to your phone at night. Do you know how much time you spend on your phone at night? And immediately I said, well, let's pull up the numbers. Do you see how much it is? It's not that bad. And then I thought, this person is not convinced. And so I said, I'll show you. I'm going to spend a whole week never looking at my phone at night. Then you'll see that I am not addicted to my phone. And do you know what happened at the end of the week? I didn't look at my phone at night the whole week. Nobody noticed. And here's the key that shows I was looking for a righteousness. I was so irritated that they couldn't tell, that they wouldn't acknowledge it. I was trying to make a righteousness of my own, to prove it. In all these ways, we try to pull ourselves together because we've lost righteousness and we need to regain a righteousness. Now, the third thing is this. God is the one who reveals the way to be together. Verses 16 and seven. We've spoken about our first righteousness. We've spoken about our lost righteousness. This is our revealed righteousness. The entire book of Romans is about the gospel. It's gospel teaching, gospel living. The entire book of Romans is about the gospel. Verses 15 and 16 are the core of the gospel. Romans 1, 16 and 17. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For the gospel is the power of God to salvation. For everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. From faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. In the gospel, God reveals the way to be together, the way to be pulled together, and it requires righteousness, the righteousness which we lost. Like now we try to keep, we keep trying to pull ourselves together, and I run into people who are trying to get it together. Maybe they're people who, who know they have a substance addiction, people who know they've got a screen addiction, people trying to keep it together, trying to pull themselves together. Two words for you. You can't. You can't. Not on your own. And people will spend years promising themselves, promising others, I'm working on it. I'm working on it. Give me more time. I'm changing. I will change. A Christian is a person who doesn't look down on people who are blowing up their lives with bad decisions. A Christian is a person who doesn't look down on people who are doing that. People who go to stupid places, doing stupid things with stupid people. We don't look down on people who do that. Why? Because a Christian is a person who knows I've done that, or I am one step away from doing that myself, and if not for the grace of God, I would be doing that right now. Romans 7, for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. I also run into people who think, I've got it together. And two words for you. You don't. And so a Christian is a person who doesn't look down on people. You don't look down on people with mental health diagnoses. A Christian doesn't look down on people with chronic depression. A Christian is a person who doesn't look down on people who have some kind of pathological distorted perception. You don't look down at them. Why? Because you know. that you yourself are just a few steps from falling to pieces if God didn't keep you together. Verse 16, Paul says the gospel is the power of salvation for everyone who believes. What Paul is saying is that everybody, everybody needs rescue. Everybody needs salvation. You need to be saved from yourself. You need to be saved from your unrighteousness. You need to be safe from your suffering. And this is true whether you're the top person in your organization, the brightest person in the room, or maybe you're on the verge of being evicted. Maybe you're on more meds than there are days of the week. Paul says this gospel is for you. He says I'm a debtor to preach this gospel to Greek, to uncivilized, to wise and to unwise. I'm ready to preach this gospel to you. And Paul's saying this, he's saying, you need to be saved. And the gospel is the power of God to save you. He's saying, all of us, no matter how gorgeous you are, no matter how much you can deadlift, we're all too weak. We can't make up the deficit in our righteousness. And you hear this, and it's like saved. Saved from what? Saved from wrath. Saved from the wrath of God. The wrath of God is revealed against all unrighteousness. We talked about this some in the past weeks. God is righteous. And because God is righteous, God is angry. That unrighteousness. If you love good, if you love what is good, it makes you angry when bad destroys good. And so God is the one who is righteous, and so he's angry at sin and unrighteousness in the people he created. I think of this time, I was probably fourth grade, like maybe nine, maybe I was 10. I was at home and my baby brother had, he was a toddler, maybe a little bit older than toddler, and he had a potty accident in the living room. He was in the living room and for whatever reason we all just looked at him and we could tell, oh no, he's not going to make it to the bathroom. He was wetting his pants. We realized he was doing it. We said, run, run, get to the potty, get to the bathroom. It was just too late. He just kind of stood there as kids do and just made this puddle in the carpet. And so my mom and dad scooped him up, took him to the bathroom. They were cleaning him up. I remember staying back in the living room with my little sister. We were both looking at the puddle of pee in the living room on the carpet, and we were kind of giggling. We were kind of grossed out looking at it. And I recall having this stupid idea that seemed like a great idea. I was thinking, wouldn't it be so funny if I peed in this puddle and added to it? And so I did that. And we were giggling, we were snickering, and then my dad came in. And my dad was angry. And suddenly what seemed so hilarious to me didn't seem very funny. And my dad was angry, and he was right to be angry, and I realized, yeah, he should be angry. I was way too old to do something like that. And from what I remember, my dad looked at me, angry, And all he could say was, why did you do that? What is wrong with you? My dad was right to be angry, angry at my foolish, stupid act, angry at my stupefying lack of good sense. How much more the righteous God who made us good is angry at what we have made of ourselves What is wrong with us? The gospel is the power to be saved from the wrath of God. Not only that, verse 17, the gospel is the righteousness of God revealed. The gospel is God revealing the only way to be made right with God, the only way to regain the righteousness that we'd lost long ago. And it says it's a righteousness from God. It's the righteousness of God. That means it's not something that you can do. It's not a righteousness from yourself. It's not something that if you try hard, you'll be able to improve yourself, work on yourself, and then you'll be righteous. The gospel is a righteousness from God. In historic theology, it's called an alien righteousness. God gives us a righteousness that's not from ourselves, a righteousness from outside of ourselves. It's the righteousness of Jesus Christ. his righteous record replacing your unrighteous record. He gives that to you. My question to you is, have you received the righteousness of God? Or are you still trying to make a righteousness of your own? There must come a time when every person must say, God, it is I. I am unrighteous. I can't pull myself together. And would you, God, forgive me for all that I've done? I believe Jesus became my sin and was put to death for my sin. And I believe that Jesus gives me a righteousness that I've been lacking all my life. Jesus was good. And so now I look good to you. Have you understood this? Is this something new to you? Have you trusted this? Have you prayed this? Verse 17 says, this is the faith that we live by. The just shall live by faith in this. Verse 16 says, this salvation is by faith. It's to all who believe this. Have you believed this? And when it says the just shall live by faith, shall live by this, believer, I ask you this. You might have been saved 30 years ago. Are you still today living by this faith, living in the righteousness of another, of Jesus? Or are you still trying to find a righteousness of your own making? Finding it in your family, finding it in your devotion to religious practices, finding it in your long hours at building a business. You are trying to cover your nakedness with leaves that you stitch together. And that's why you're so angry when someone else gets credit for what you do. That's why you're so frustrated when people who know you refuse to give you credit. That's why you're so depressed when you get turned down. That's why you daydream about people admiring you, where you're the hero. Maybe that's why you have some secrets that you still won't reveal. I can't be naked. I can't bear for this to be seen. In the gospel, Jesus was stripped naked. On the cross, he was posted for everyone in the world to see. And what did they see? They saw the unrighteousness of the world. on him. All his people's sins, all of their unrighteousness. And they saw the wrath of God come down on Jesus and kill him for it. And God looked away from him in utter disapproval of the unrighteous sight. And because of that, now God looks at you and he's pleased at the sight because to him, seeing you wearing the righteousness of Jesus, you look real good today. That is the gospel. That can bring us together. Let's pray. Jesus, we come to you. We confess that we're unrighteous. But we believe that you are righteous and that you took our unrighteousness, you gave us your righteousness, and this is the only way we can get righteous again. We thank you, Jesus. We trust you. And I pray that for when we go back to trying to make those fig leaves for ourselves, we would turn away from it and turn back to you. I pray that if it may be for the first time for someone here, they would turn to you in faith and believe on Jesus, our Savior. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.