We are in Romans chapter 1, and today we'll be looking at just two verses, 16 and 17. And I would say that these two verses present the theme of the book of Romans, the heart of this book. So let's hear now God's word, Romans 1, beginning in verse 16. 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 God's word. It is powerful. It is sharper than a two-edged sword. It is pure truth. Let us pray. Lord, thank you for this portion of your word. Our prayer is that you, by the Holy Spirit, would give us understanding of this word. And Lord, may it pierce each one of our hearts, convict us, but also encourage us and move us to trust in Christ and to keep trusting in you, to turn away from our waywardness, and to keep following our Savior. In whose name we pray, amen. Well, I would say the entire Bible has one theme, and that is the salvation of lost sinners by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. From beginning to end, the Bible says these things, and Christ himself affirmed that. After his resurrection, speaking to two disciples on the road, he explained the whole Old Testament as being about him. So the Old Covenant, however, consisted of promises, prophecies, sacrifices, signs, symbols, types, and ordinances that were given to the Jews that signified Christ and his saving work. But the New Covenant gives us the fullness of what was in the Old Testament only a shadow. The Old Testament laws and ordinances were shadows of things to come and now we have in the gospel of Christ in the New Testament we have the reality. and the fullness of that reality. So the Bible contains the gospel of Christ, the whole Bible. The New Testament in particular can be said to be a clearer and fuller revelation of the gospel, but the book of Romans in particular is the clearest and most complete distillation of the gospel in all of the New Testament. So here we are at Romans. And it's very concentrated truth, if you will. So there's a lot here just in these two verses today to look at. Leading up to this, if you back up to verse 15, Paul wrote, I'm ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also. He was ready. He was willing. He was, in fact, eager to preach the gospel in Rome. And that word ready comes from a root word. That means passion, can mean anger, boiling up, heat, glow, ardor. So for the Apostle Paul, preaching the gospel was not just a ho-hum duty. It was for him one holy passion, the one holy passion of his life. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 16, he says, woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. It was the thing that drove him, his zeal and passion to preach the gospel. And so Paul was rewarded for this in that souls were saved, churches were planted, people were built up in the faith, and we're still reaping the benefits of what he wrote. But Paul also was rewarded with much suffering and much hardship. for an opposition for preaching the gospel. So he says, I'm ready to preach to you who are in Rome. And that leads to the next two verses, which give the reason, if you will, for why he was so eager to preach the gospel to them. And he begins in verse 16, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Well, it's interesting the way he puts it. He states it in a negative way. And we might ask, why would Paul, Or why would any believer be ashamed of the gospel? Well, the fact is that you and I as Christians and the Romans who believed in Christ, we're no different, of course, live in a sinful world that is full of hostility to God. And so we're going to be tempted to be ashamed of the gospel because no one likes to be the brunt of hostility. Otherwise, there would be no need for such admonitions like Paul makes here and in other places, 2 Timothy 1.8. Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, he said to Timothy. And Jesus himself said, you know, whoever's ashamed of me and my words, him the son of man will be ashamed of when he comes in his own glory and so forth. So why is there a temptation for us to be ashamed? of the gospel, Cranfield, in his excellent commentary, put it this way. He said, the temptation to be ashamed comes from the fact that God has intervened in history for the salvation of men, not in obvious might and majesty, but in a veiled way, which was bound to look to the world like abject weakness and foolishness. This explanation is something we can all identify with in our own experience, that the message of the gospel is foolishness to the world that admires and exalts the wisdom of man. The wisdom of God, of course, is far greater. Even what is considered the foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of this world. An example is when Paul went to Athens and he preached the gospel there in the marketplace. There was much idolatry there, and so he chose to preach the gospel there. Philosophers came up to him and asked him questions, and they were saying, what does this babbler have to say? This sea picker, as it means. And then when he preached to them the resurrection of Christ, a lot of them mocked him for that. So to be ridiculed, to be mocked, it is a form of suffering. And maybe some would say, well, at least we're not being physically beaten up. Well, Paul was that, too. And we're not being put to death yet for the gospel. But ridicule was a powerful thing. And Christ himself suffered ridicule and mocking. So then, the fact is, if we are ashamed of the gospel, it means, really, ultimately, that we just don't like to suffer. You know, the reason we're ashamed of the gospel is because we enjoy our easy, pleasant life. And when we start really being bold with the gospel, it's going to mean suffering. Now, in this country, it's going to mean certain things. In other countries, it'll mean other things. So we show by our unwillingness to suffer for the gospel that we're ashamed of it. What I want to do today is look at two points from this passage. The first point is to give a couple of reasons why we should not be ashamed of the gospel and then to explain what is revealed in the gospel. So, reasons why we ought not to be ashamed of the gospel. Well, if you know the Lord and you've put your faith in the gospel, I know that you want to be like Paul. You want to be unashamed of the gospel. I want to be less ashamed of the gospel in my own life. And I know that as a church, as a body of believers, if we were truly Boldly unashamed of the gospel it would transform our lives it would it would Probably bring revival in our church. We pray for revival, but you know what? Here's a key for revival just start being bold with the gospel. Let's see what happens See what God will do well the first reason Paul gives in verse 16 for not being ashamed the gospel is that it is the power of God and Again, the world sees in the gospel something weak and of no account, but it's actually the very opposite. It's powerful. The gospel is the power of God, Paul says. We could say the gospel is the omnipotence of God. In spite of all appearances, the gospel is not merely powerful, it is supremely powerful. It is the one thing that is more powerful than all other things. in this world in spite of its appearance. So the Bible uses various metaphors for the power of his own word. In Jeremiah 23, 29, he says, is not my word like a fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. Well, we're all impressed with power if it's just someone who can lift a lot of weights and so forth. I was reading about a bodybuilder who died this week at the age of 36. They called him something like the monster. He was so huge and he could bench press 600 pounds and so on. I can bench press a hundred, maybe. Maybe. But we're all impressed with power, with strength. There's power in nature. And we see it in the wind of a hurricane, or the power of water in a flood, or a tidal wave. And we see it in an avalanche. I remember one time when I first went to school in Colorado and went hiking, and it was around an alpine lake. And I saw this steep, there was still snow on the mountains, and I saw this steep hill. And at the bottom of that hill was a forest of trees that had completely been destroyed. by an avalanche, the power of nature. And so there's something more powerful than the power in nature. The power in nature, or creation, as we would put it, is the power of God. God created it by his word. He sustains it by his word. But there's something more powerful than creation, and that's redemption, the word of the gospel. Hebrews 4.12 says, the word of God is living and powerful. living and powerful. And the gospel is the power of an almighty God. So there's no reason for us to be ashamed of something so powerful. You, yourself, know the power of the gospel in your own life, if you have believed it. And another reason not to be ashamed is the effect of that power, and that's the salvation for everyone who believes. The gospel is the power of God because it's the salvation of everyone who believes. So the gospel power has a purpose, not to destroy. A lot of the power we see in the creation in nature is destructive. Well, we live in a fallen world. There's a curse on this earth. But the power of the gospel has a purpose to save. And yet there is a negative and positive aspect. The negative is that we are saved from our sins from the wrath of God. Positively, we are saved unto righteousness, unto a righteous standing before God, unto a righteous life lived in the sight of God. Now this gospel message saves sinners. That's what it's for. Someone said that power is the one thing that Rome boasted the most about. Greece had its philosophy, but Rome had its power. And Rome had conquered the world. The military might of Rome was unrivaled. But for all its power, Rome had great weakness. There was rot within Rome, because it was full of sin and iniquity. It was a city given over to wickedness and vice. The philosopher Seneca called the city of Rome a cesspool of iniquity. Another ancient writer said it's a filthy sewer into which the dregs of the empire flood. The weakness of Rome was that it was decadent, immoral, and wicked. Well, Paul was not ashamed of the gospel in Rome. He was ready to preach it because he knew that was the message that Rome needed to hear. It's the message we need to hear in this nation today. We need the gospel. And if the world's going to get the gospel, it's only going to come about as believers are unashamed to declare that gospel. It changed lives. and delivered men and women from wickedness in Rome, and it can do the same today. It can do the same for you today. God can change your life through this powerful message if you will believe it. So the gospel, what it does, it rescues us from wrath and from judgment. And it's powerful enough to give us life eternal in the presence of God without sin, without suffering for all eternity. Now the Roman emperor was looked upon as a savior and worshipped as a god in those days. And with the backing of the Roman military, deliverance would come to those who would need it. So the Roman government was the savior, if you will. Well, that's what people are doing today. They're looking, those who do not believe in the Lord are looking to the government as their savior. what a weak and pitiful savior government is. Well, and remember this, that the greatest need of man is not deliverance from earthly enemies or earthly problems, but a spiritual problem that we have. We need to be saved. But you know, the power of God for salvation is for everyone who believes. everyone, not just everyone, period, but everyone who believes. So this message will do no good to you or to anyone unless it is mixed with personal, sincere faith from the heart. Hebrews 4.2 says, For the gospel was preached to us as well as to them. But the word they heard did not profit them because it was not combined with faith in those who heard it. The gospel will not save you unless you believe it. Faith, in essence, activates the power of the gospel. Without faith, the gospel won't save you. One scholar from Scotland, Dr. John Murray, commented that the salvation which Paul is going to deal with in this epistle has no reality, validity, or meaning apart from faith. So you may have heard the gospel all your life. You may be very, very familiar with the gospel message, but have you truly, sincerely believed it? Paul said the gospel is for everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. It was thought by the Jews that they were the only ones that God had chosen, but that's not true. And when Christ came into the world, he taught his disciples to go into all the world, to preach the gospel to all nations. And Paul says here, it's for everyone who believes. First for the Jew, yes, they were the ones that were given the most revelation from God, given the scriptures and so on, given the ordinances that picture Christ. The Jew will be saved, who believes, but the Gentile will also. That's all the rest in this world. Well, a jailer once asked Paul in the middle of the night, when Paul had been put in jail for preaching the gospel, He said, what must I do to be saved? And you know his answer. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. Have you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ? What does it mean to believe? It means to personally trust in who Jesus is, the eternal Son of God, what he came to do, to die on the cross, to pay for your sins, and to be raised for your justification. So to believe means to rely on Christ and him alone. and not your own righteousness or salvation. So Paul is not ashamed of the gospel because it's powerful and it saves all who believe. It saves instantly and eternally the moment true faith is exercised. So we should not be ashamed. Don't be ashamed to believe it this day. And don't be ashamed to proclaim it as well. Moving on to verse 17 now, the second point, what is the gospel of Christ and what is revealed in it? Verse 17, for in it, the righteousness of God is revealed. So notice first that the gospel, which means good news, the gospel is the revelation of God. The message and the content of the gospel is something that if God didn't reveal it, it would remain hidden. We wouldn't know what it was. The Greek word for revealed means to make known or manifest, to disclose what before was unknown. And God, you see, has disclosed the good news to us. He's revealed it. And some people complain, you know, I would believe in God if he would just reveal himself to me, make himself known in some way. Well, guess what? He has. He sent his own son. The incarnation of God himself came and lived among men and taught them, died, rose again, ascended into heaven and has given us his word in the gospel He's been revealed to us already, but God reveals himself on his terms, not ours. God reveals himself in a somewhat veiled and cryptic way sometimes. Now, for us today, we look at this, we say, that's not veiled. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. He came and lived and died. Well, these are all concrete ideas. And so it's not that hard for us, but that's only because God has opened our eyes and revealed these truths to us. He has revealed himself in the person and especially the incarnation of the Son of God when he became flesh and dwelt among us and all the rest. So the message of the gospel, in that message the truth about God's Son, who he is and what he's done is revealed to us. Now this gospel cannot be known by your own wisdom. It cannot be known by the light of nature. It cannot be known by simply contemplating or studying the great writers and philosophers of this world. It can only be revealed. Now it was, as I said, it was veiled under the shadows of the ceremonial law. It's brought to much clearer light in Jesus Christ, but it is It is concealed from unbelievers. And it's concealed until God chooses to give them eyes to see it. Jesus said, to him who has ears to hear, let him hear. To him who has eyes to see, let him see. Well, only God can open the eyes of the blind. Why did Jesus do these things, these acts of healing? Why did he heal the blind? Well, of course, that's an act of compassion. in an act of great power, but it's to demonstrate that God will open and can open the eyes of the blind spiritually, and only God can do this, something that man cannot do. Well, unless God does open your eyes, it will remain hidden. Now, if you say, well, but I want to see. Well, then you're in a good place. God will hear and answer that desire, that prayer. Open my eyes, Lord, that I might see. God will hear that prayer. And thank God for the revelation of the gospel itself. The gospel is the revelation of God. Now you need eyes to see and hear and understand it. And as we'll see later in this same chapter, God does reveal himself in other ways, through creation, through conscience, but most clearly and powerfully in And he tells us specifically what is revealed in the gospel. In it, the righteousness of God is revealed. Well, that tells us something, doesn't it? What's in the gospel? The righteousness of God. And so if we would understand the gospel, we have to understand something about the righteousness of God. This word, righteousness, it's an ethical term. It means to be right, to do right, It has to do with being in conformity to God's righteous standard. In this case, with the gospel, it has to do with being in a right relationship with God. And the only way to be in a right relationship with God is to be righteous. And the problem is, as Paul says in Romans 3, there's none righteous, no not one. And we cannot produce that righteousness. And so that phrase, the righteousness of God, the key to understanding the gospel is to understand that phrase. And Martin Luther was a German monk. He was trying to be saved by being a monk and doing all kinds of things, penance, serving the sacraments, doing good works. and praying until he could stay awake. He would pray all night. He would confess his sins for hours, wearing out the priest who heard his confession. And he read that phrase, the righteousness of God in Romans, 117, but when he first read it, he understood it to mean the attribute of God's righteousness. And to him, that was not something that gave him any comfort at all. To him, it was no different than talking about God's wrath. This is what Luther said. He said, I hated that phrase, the righteousness of God, which I had been taught to understand as that righteousness by which God is righteous and punishes unrighteous sinners. So the righteousness of God was not, it didn't help. It didn't give him any peace at all. But after a long study of this verse and prayerful meditation on it, God opened his eyes and showed him that God's righteousness in this verse is something else. It's not referring to the attribute of God's righteousness, it's referring to a righteousness that's from God and that he gives as an act of free grace to those who believe. It's not something that we earn. It's not something that we should fear. It's something that we should receive by faith. We don't earn it, but Christ earned it on our behalf. And it's a gift that we receive by faith alone. So when you believe the gospel, when you receive Jesus Christ, At that moment, you are declared righteous and accepted as righteous in the sight of God. The moment you trust Christ, you're reconciled to God, and you're in a right relationship with God. John Blanchard, a British pastor and evangelist, he wrote a book years ago, and I used to give it out to people, and it's an excellent book, and it's just simply titled, Right with God. Are you right with God? How do you get right with God? You come to Christ. You believe the gospel of God's righteousness. You believe the good news of his death and resurrection and that Jesus alone brings us into a right relationship with him. So if you receive Christ by faith, then you have a right relationship with God. You have God's righteousness in Christ imputed to you. and accounted to you. It's credited to you as if you had lived that perfect life that Jesus lived. Again, to quote Professor Murray, he said, it's a righteousness that meets all the demands of God's justice and therefore avails with God. You see, our righteousness, Isaiah put it this way, all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. that kind of righteousness is really unrighteousness. God has provided in his son that which he alone could provide, a perfect and complete righteousness that measures up to God's perfect standards, that satisfies God's justice. So here's the thing, all human beings, we have this innate desire and longing and awareness of a need to be accepted. It isn't always with reference to God, although that's really where it's coming from. Why is it that all human beings want to be accepted? We want to be justified. We want to justify our existence somehow. And so we're all really, even if we don't believe in God, we as human beings are trying to be acceptable to God. And we do that in lesser ways by trying to be acceptable to each other. But it's ultimately God. And if we're trying to block him out, maybe, but that's who we're really trying to please. But that's an impossible task. But God has not only made it possible, he's made it available This acceptance with God, justification, is offered freely to all in Jesus Christ. Now, the last half of verse 17 says this righteousness is from faith to faith. And that phrase from faith to faith has been variously understood. Maybe it's talking about the righteousness of God is received by faith alone. Others say, well, that means that there's growth in our faith. and in our Christian life once we believe. But I think it's just a literary device to say from beginning to end, this justification, this gospel of righteousness is something that is only by faith and it's always by faith. In other words, when you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you're justified immediately, it's not that you begin that way and then later start earning your way. Jesus does the first part and you do the rest. No, that's heresy. That's not the gospel. So from faith to faith, it's all faith. And it's faith alone that secures that right relationship. So nothing you ever do before or after you're saved contributes to that. It's a perfect thing. It's complete, given to us in a perfectly completed package. So nothing can add to your righteous standing before God. You're perfectly righteous in Christ if you believe in Him. How can you improve on perfection? You cannot. So, but it is by faith alone. Faith is not a condition as much as it is the means. It's the channel. It's the instrument. It's the only instrument by which we receive His forgiveness and His perfect righteousness. And he quotes the book of Habakkuk at the very end. He says, the just shall live by faith. That can be translated, the righteous shall live by faith. It's the same word. Faith does not save you. Christ saves you through faith. So our trust is not in faith, our trust is in Christ. He alone has the power to save. So it's by faith that we take hold of Christ and his righteousness. What do we contribute? Nothing. Zero. Less than zero. Nothing. At all. Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to that cross I cling. So this righteousness is at the beginning, by faith, and at the end. So Paul was not ashamed of this gospel. This is the gospel he preaches in the book of Romans. Now, there are results. There are ramifications. There are manifestations of a life of faith. And he's going to talk about that beginning in chapter 6. He's going to talk about the sanctification and the growth of our faith and our life before him. But the gospel itself is what God has done, not what we do. And it is a powerful message. And so may each one of us be unashamed to embrace it, to confess Christ publicly as my Lord and my Savior, and then begin to declare the good news of Jesus in whatever way we can in this world. Because the world needs this message. The world needs this message more than it needs a political message. Politics is important. Politics is very prominent right now. It seems to be much of what we're occupied with. But this is the message of the free offer of the gospel. And the foolishness of the world is to reject this offer. But how can they reject it if they don't hear it? You and I need to offer it. We need to be understanding of the gospel so that we actually tell people this good news to anyone and to everyone that we can. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we praise you that there is such a thing as the gospel, that there is good news. We know the bad news and we'll hear more about that as we get into this book, Lord, but I thank you that we begin this book on such a wonderful, positive, joyful note. of the good news of the power of the gospel. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Oh, Lord, may that be true for all of us as it was for Paul. I pray that we would be willing to suffer, that we wouldn't just think that life is all about having an easy road. Life is about following Jesus, and that is a narrow road, but it leads to life. I pray, Lord, for anyone here today or anyone listening to this message as it's been recorded, that today they would turn from their sin and receive Jesus by faith and trust in him alone as their Savior and Lord. In Christ's name I pray, amen. Our closing hymn of consecration. It's hymn number 570, and this hymn is Faith of Our Fathers. Paul is one of the fathers of the faith, if you will, but he's not the only one who contended for the faith, which was once and for all entrusted to the saints. So let's stand as we sing hymn 570, Faith of Our Fathers. Oh.