Romans chapter 1 verses 16 through 17. As we continue to consider the Reformation in this month of October, going through key passages that we depend on for our cause of Reformation and reforming the Church, this week we will cover Sola Fide. by faith alone, by considering Romans chapter one, verses 16 through 17. Here for this is the word of the Lord. 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, the righteousness of God is revealed, from faith for faith. As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. There is always confusion around the topic of what it means to be evangelical. Well, what it meant to be evangelical to the reformers going back to the 16th century was to be gospel-centered. So for us today, it means that everything we do as a church and everything we do as the people of God, as individuals, as Christians, is tied in some way, in some form, to the evangel, or the gospel of Jesus Christ. Every sermon preached is to put forth Christ and Him crucified, raised and ascended on behalf of sinners for the glory of God. There are many people today who are labeled evangelical who may not know the gospel at all. They are labeled evangelical because of certain cultural or social morals they hold, so they follow a certain cultural norm, or because of their political views. But that is not what it means to be evangelical in its original meaning. This week we come to a famous text that jump-started the Reformation and drove it into full gear. This is the passage that is said to be Martin Luther's conversion text. Now, historically, I disagree with that. I believe he was converted way before he came to this text, but that's for another time. Here, Paul understands what it means to be evangelical. Well, what does it mean? to be evangelical. Well, we notice in this letter, there is a zeal behind what he is writing. And this zeal has birthed an eagerness in his soul to preach the gospel to the Romans. Why? He says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel. That, my friends, is an evangelical. One who is not ashamed of the gospel. Now the first question that comes to many in their mind is, well, what is there to be ashamed of? As I read one commentator say, if you're thinking that way, that's not a good place to be. That's not a good place to be. Because if you have never sensed the shame of the gospel, then maybe you don't know this gospel. Why would Paul say, for I am not ashamed of the gospel? Well, because Christians at the time were always regarded as weak. They were ashamed. Christianity and what we believe was always tied to weakness because our Savior, our Messiah, passively died on a cross to save sinners. So to the world, that made him and all those who follow him as weak. The gods of false religions favored the strong because the gods of false religions were strong and mighty. But little did the world know that the weakness of God is stronger than men. And what the world deems as weak is the power of God. He uses the weak things in this world to shame the strong. So Christians from that point on followed in Christ's footsteps and were being persecuted, hunted down like animals and killed. What shame. And this would have led many to hide and to be ashamed of the gospel. Also, the gospel brings shame to those who have been exposed by it. Men love the darkness. So when they hear the gospel, they are ashamed of it. Because the gospel is not about making your life or my life better. The gospel is not about personal and individual freedoms or human rights, as the world makes it out to be. The gospel is not meant to be used as a launch pad for certain agendas. Many people have confused the gospel as a cure or a solution for every problem in our lives here and now. If you only believe, all of your problems will be fixed and you'll live a perfect and a harmonious life in this world with no trouble. Everyone in your household will get along and the world will be a much better place. That is not the gospel. See, when we do that, we are making the gospel primarily about us. Is it about us? Yes, but not primarily. The gospel is primarily about God. It is about what God has provided as a way of salvation. When it comes to you and me, what the gospel does is expose us as sinners, totally incapable of doing anything good or true in the eyes of God. It brings shame to the natural man and exposes us to the truth that everything we do that we consider righteous is truly filthy rags in the sight of God. It shows us our need of a Savior, and without God providing a way of salvation, we would never find it. Without God, we are nothing. That is first to know about this gospel. And the only part we play in the gospel is our sin. We bring our sin. That's it. If you do not consider yourself to be a sinner, condemned in the eyes of God, no matter what you do, and that you are totally lost without him, then you do not understand this gospel. So why was Paul not ashamed of this gospel? He explains it in these two verses. First he answers, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Now, to the Jew first and also to the Greek is speaking of the order of the people of God, chronologically. The Jews had the old covenant promises first, and salvation is from the Jews, as Jesus said, meaning it came from the Jews, because Jesus was a Jew. So there is an order of the gospel going out into the world. Jesus went to the Jews first, then to the Gentiles, and this is the pattern we see throughout the New Testament. But why was it so important to get the gospel to all people groups? Because the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. It doesn't matter your background or where you came from. how you were raised, it doesn't matter your ethnicity or culture or how much you have sinned against God. In fact, it is heretical to say that one people group benefit from the gospel more than others. The gospel is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes. In light of the context of this entire letter, what he is saying is that the gospel is the power of God for salvation, not the law, and not the works of the law done in the power of man. The law is not the power of God for salvation. The law is good, the law is holy, but the law condemns. The law increases the trespass, it makes our sins ever more severe. It causes us to sin more because we usually think of sin in categories, right? Oh, I sin more in this area. But once we look at the law and all that it requires and its true standards, we realize actually we have fell in every command. We have broken every command. The law in obedience to the law or doing the works of the law will not save anyone, period. You will never be justified in the eyes of God by law keeping. You will never be saved by the law because the gospel does not tell us what to do. The gospel tells us what to believe. Also, just like the gospel does not tell us what to do, the gospel is not even just a declaration of what God has done or about God's power. The gospel is not just about something. As Martin Lloyd-Jones has said, it is not a description of the power of God, right? The gospel is the power of God that saves us. And this is why preaching and hearing of the gospel is so important. That is why we do not put aside the gospel after we have already believed in it. We need the gospel even as believers. And this power of God is to contrast with the power of man. You notice, man is always trying to save themselves. Humans are natural legalists or moralists. We believe we can better ourselves by our obedience. That is why there's always an effort to make the world a better place, isn't it? We put our trust in our activity or activism and think if we only show people the way, then they will follow. In other words, the power of God is in activism. But it is not. Well, we come to find out it is always only temporary, and men who are still dead in sin cannot improve their own condition, especially by the law. Now, it is good to uphold the law of God. Christians are called to. We are saved unto the law in order to obey the law. And it is not only for Christians, but God also requires everyone to obey. That's the standard, to obey. And we are to warn people about disobedience. But then Paul goes on to teach in the next two chapters, to the middle of chapter three, that no one obeys the law. Actually, no one can obey the law, including ourselves. Jew or Gentile, doesn't matter. God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. We can't obey perfectly, and if we break one commandment, we break them all, as James says. That is what it means to be totally depraved. We can't obey the law no matter how much we try. So we are busy making everyone else around us Sometimes we even raise our children this way to become more moral and outwardly obedient, but never eager to proclaim the gospel. Which means they never come to salvation. And this would just make us practical hypocrites. Because the power of God is to save is found in the gospel, not in making other people more moral. It may be good as a guide, as the law is a guide, but it is not serving the purpose that it is meant to serve without the gospel. It is only outward, it is only temporary, and it won't last. And don't forget, everyone, including ourselves, we need the gospel. The temporary fruit of outward morality is plastic fruit without the gospel. It's plastic fruit. It's fake. It's all make-believe. Yes, Jesus said, judge a tree by its fruits, but if it has no roots, it will wither and die. That's the same with outward morality. On judgment day, it will be revealed and burned up because it wasn't built on the gospel, which is the power of God to say, rather, It was built on the power of man. All this activism and morality will not last because it's built on plastic. It's fake, it's outward, and it is not rooted in the gospel. It's built on the power of man. We often look around us, and I say this, we often look around us and judge what condition we are based on morality. How many of us have thought this when we drive through, especially in my neck of the woods back home, we drive through a rough neighborhood, broken down, and say, whoa, they need the gospel. As if the gospel is just a solution to broken down neighborhoods to make them clean and prosperous. We treat the gospel as a solution to temporary problems. But when we look at our neighborhoods, We say, oh, it's a quiet and peaceful neighborhood. This is a good Christian neighborhood with good Christian people. And we're judging by morality. Not because of faith, not because of people receiving the gospel, but because of a false morality that people hold. No, they are just sinners who keep their sin to themselves. They're minding their own business. In other words, they're minding their own sin. We judge based on appearances and we assume based on moral principle rather than the truth of the gospel. This just proves that many of us no longer believe that the gospel is the power of God to save. The question we should ask when we are looking around at our world and around us, how many people believe in this gospel, the truth of this gospel? Not whether or not we're moral. Many moral people are going to hell. How many are sitting under the gospel preaching and believing it? Because all are condemned, the moralist as well as the hedonist. Christians are called to be bearers of the gospel to sinners no matter who they are, moral or immoral. Paul will go on to explain how the sins of the Gentile world, specifically homosexuality, is a revelation of the wrath of God, and how those who practice such things are under his wrath, even today. That standard has not changed. But in case you think you're in a better place, he tells the Jews who have the law, he tells them you are in no better place. You are in no better place because you too are sinners. Now, he wasn't saying that the Jews were guilty of homosexuality, but he was saying all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All have sinned. You may not practice homosexuality, but he asked the question, do you lie? Do you steal? Do you covet? Do you try to cheat the government? Do you try to get around the law? That too is evidence that you are under the wrath of God. Just as much as homosexuality is. Yeah, there's a scale, right? Everybody appeals to the scale. There's homosexuality on the worse end and then lesser sins on the other. But everyone on that scale is condemned. On the lesser scale of sin, yeah, there's less punishment in this world for the lesser sins like lying, and there's worse punishment for murder, but all of these on the scale are condemned. And we know this when Jesus spoke to the towns where his message was rejected. such as Chorazin and Bethsaida. He said, truly I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town. Sodom and Gomorrah was filled with homosexual sin, and they were judged for it. But if you reject Jesus and his gospel, which is the power of God to save sinners, then you're in no better place than Sodom and Gomorrah. Imagine that. Imagine that. In fact, he says, you're in a worse place, no matter how moral you have lived. These towns were Jewish towns that he spoke to with the godliest and most faithful people according to the law, but they rejected Jesus and his gospel. They rejected their Passover lamb. the one who would cover them in their blood, the one who God would pass over for. So it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for those who reject Jesus Christ and His gospel. And we know how wicked Sodom and Gomorrah was. Again, we usually judge the condition of people the condition of the church, or those who live around us, based on what we see on the outside. We look at our towns, our cities, our states, our country, and we say, we're in good shape. We're in good shape. We're pretty moral people. God has blessed us. We obey the second half of the law, not the first, but the second half. We treat each other nicely. But here, according to Jesus, and according to Paul, you could be the most moral and obedient person on the planet, according to your own standards, but if Jesus isn't the object of your faith, then you too will suffer the judgment of God, along with every other type of sinner, because you reject the gospel. How many believe this gospel? For by the works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight. since through the law comes knowledge of sin. All we can say when we read the law, all we can say is I have sinned and I deserve death. If you can't say that, then you do not know this gospel. You do not know this gospel. Your morality will always fall short, but the gospel is the power of God for salvation. And this, on the other hand, is an encouragement. It is an encouragement. Since the gospel is the power of God for salvation, this makes our entire salvation sure and certain. Salvation is the undoing of all that has gone wrong in us, specifically sin, and it is to restore us to God. The gospel is the means to do just that. It is the tool that God uses to save us entirely, no matter who we are and where we are. And the gospel is for our entire salvation, right? From beginning to end. It is not just to call us. It is not just to regenerate us. It is not just to justify us, then, okay, now we are sanctified by the law. No. We'll never be sanctified by the law. Remember, the law is a guide. It can never have any power to do anything in the Christian life. The power is found in the gospel. The gospel is the power of God to elect us, to call us, to regenerate us, to justify us, to sanctify us, and to glorify us in the end. And this salvation is sure and certain because it doesn't depend on us and our faithfulness, but it depends on God and His power. And that is why you are called here to hear and believe it every week. But we are quick to forget, aren't we? We're quick to forget. We often act like the gospel has no power to save. We often act as if the law is the power of God for salvation, but it isn't. As Paul said, the law was our guardian or guide until Christ came. We forget maybe because we forget where we were before the gospel. Maybe we forget where we are now under the gospel. Meaning we forget our sin, our present sin. And that we still need to get over our present sin. And what is the tool that God uses to get over our present sin? The gospel. That is where the power lies. The gospel is the power of God even for what we are going through right now. But the gospel is not only the power of God, it also reveals something that we need. It reveals something that we lack. Secondly, the gospel reveals what we need and how we are saved. So Paul wants to answer the question, how is the gospel the power of God for salvation? It is the power of God for salvation because the gospel reveals what we lack and what we need in order to be considered righteous before God. Because that is the question for all humanity. How can man be considered just or righteous before God? How can I become righteous before God? How can I stand in the presence of God and be favored by Him? Let us consider Adam. You didn't think I'd go there. Adam, what was he to do in order to be considered righteous before God and stand in his presence in a favorable position? He was to obey the law of God perfectly in every way. But he didn't. He sinned once and he was cast out. That standard does not change today. If you have sinned once in your entire life, you cannot stand in the presence of God in a favorable position. Many people say, well, God on judgment day is just gonna accept me and all of my sins and all of my faults because he loves people unconditionally. No. No. He cannot. Accept sin at all. He will not accept your sin. He will not accept your faults. He will not accept your imperfections. You sin once and you cannot stand in God's presence. He will not, he cannot because of his holiness. Because of his holiness. No one can stand in His presence with sin. This is the same standard today. And the Gospel reveals it. The Gospel reveals the righteousness of God. That is what God requires as righteousness. And this revelation is not new, right? It was revealed in the Old Testament in seed form. Like looking in a mirror dimly. But now there is no more mystery. This righteousness has been fully revealed in the gospel. What is this righteousness? This is the righteousness we need to possess for God to consider us righteous. This righteousness is of God, which satisfies God. Because God still requires perfect obedience. If you don't have perfect obedience, it's not gonna cut it. Not gonna cut it. And that's the problem. We are not righteous. We are not righteous. We do not possess righteousness. We disobey God daily. So, as Luther explained, this righteousness is an alien righteousness. A righteousness found outside of us, extra nos. This is not a righteousness that we achieve or attain by living a good and obedient life. This righteousness is a righteousness given to us from God that we can never achieve, even as Christians. This is a righteousness that we do not possess naturally because naturally we are depraved sinners, incapable of doing anything truly righteous. When I say truly righteous, I mean a righteousness according to God's standards, not the standards that we've made up for ourselves, a righteousness that is pure in motive as well as in action, in every way, shape or form. A righteousness that always has the good of neighbor in view and the glory of God. So this righteousness is not the righteousness that we find being taught by the world by men. This is not a form of kindness or social morality where you can these days find a one-liner on a bumper sticker, put it on your car to rub it in other people's faces. This righteousness far surpasses that being taught in movies and by celebrity sports players. This righteousness far surpasses any social club charity event. Because this righteousness is from God, and it is ultimately revealed in the gospel. This is not man-made, and it is not produced by man. But this is the type of righteousness we need to stand before God. If we do not have it, we will stand condemned. This is what the gospel reveals to us. It was in seed form in the Old Testament, law and types and shadows, then it was fully revealed in the gospel. And I don't know about you, But if I need this righteousness to stand before God, it is too late for me. It is too late for me. I've never lived up to it a day in my life, even as a Christian. So the ultimate question is, who possesses this righteousness? How does the gospel reveal this righteousness? Well, there is only one. who God has revealed, possesses this righteousness, and it is Jesus Christ. There is the gospel. I've often said that the gospel is Jesus Christ. It is Jesus Christ. It is everything about him, what he has done, how he was born, how he lived, how he died, how he was raised, how he was ascended. He came to fulfill the law and live up to God's standards perfectly. It is exactly how Jesus lived. It is his righteousness that he possessed. You're probably asking, yeah, so what? What does that have to do with our salvation? Well, thirdly, we still need to answer, how is someone made righteous before God? The gospel is a gospel of salvation, and in order to be saved, we must have this righteousness. But how do we attain it? Paul would later explain that this righteousness of God that he reveals in the gospel is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So what do we do with it? Well, he says this. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, that is in seed form. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no distinction. for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation or atonement for our sins by His blood. And what are we to do with it? To be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of one who has faith in Jesus. The righteousness of Jesus Christ found in the life, death, and resurrection of himself reveals the righteousness of God and that God is just and justifier. It is saying that not only is God just to condemn us, but He is also the justifier who saves those who have received the work of Jesus Christ. So how are we saved? This righteousness that is revealed in the Gospel is given to us in and through Jesus Christ because He was born under the law and He satisfied the demands of the law. He kept the law perfectly and fully in every respect and He dealt with the penalty that we deserve. And all we are called to do is receive it by faith. In doing so, He imputes or He places His perfect obedience and righteousness into our accounts. So we who are unrighteous are counted as righteous in God's sight. We are what we are not, in other words. We are righteous even when we are not. Imagine that. Imagine that. We are righteous, we are counted as righteous in God's sight when we are not because of what Jesus Christ has done. Many have appealed to the Psalms, and I'm just gonna drop this quick, it might extend the time a little bit more, but many have appealed to the Psalms and to fight this doctrine and say, well, the psalmist says he is righteous. The psalmist says he's righteous, so Christians can call themselves righteous. Why are you saying we're only righteous in Christ? Well, who are the Psalms about? From beginning to end. Who is Psalm 1 about? Jesus Christ. And then Psalm 2, what is Psalm 2 about? Us being united to the King. Jesus Christ. And then from that point on, there's this ascension throughout the book of Psalms to the mountain. That's what Jesus does and he brings his people with him. That's what the Psalms is about. When God the Father looks at his children, he sees Christ and what he has done and passes over our sins. God has put forward Jesus as a propitiation or atonement by his blood and what are we to do? We are to receive that propitiation by faith with empty hands and nothing to offer him back. We are called to receive what he has done on our behalf, and this is the way of salvation. There is no other way. Faith is receiving and resting, and we are to receive and rest on the righteousness of Christ, not our own righteousness, because that will never cut it. That will never cut it. It is given to us and to be received from faith for faith. As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. That is from the time that God reveals the righteousness of Christ, the righteousness that He requires, and we receive it for the first time to the last day of our lives. It is all through faith. The righteous shall live, not only in this life, but shall have eternal life by faith. This does not say that the righteous shall live by faithful lives. Many have interpreted that to say this, but no. This is saying that the righteous shall live by faith in what God has revealed in Jesus Christ. That's the context. That's the context, and it goes right through chapter three. The righteous shall live by faith in the gospel. Our entire lives are marked by it. We shall live eternally, of course, but we don't look back at our lives with a checklist and say, well, I've done this as a Christian, I've done that as a Christian. Right? We don't start off by faith and then live by the law. The law is a guide, but we don't have life by it. We don't have life by it. Our entire lives ought to be marked by faith in Christ. Not, oh, look at what I've done for Christ. No, faith in Christ. In the failures, in the victories, whatever it is, we are called to live by faith. The righteous shall live by faith in the gospel. And we seek to obey the law, as good works is the fruit of faith. But we only have life through the means of faith. Through the means of faith. Now this doesn't mean that faith is a condition that determines salvation, because then we'll be turning faith into works. But faith is a vehicle or means that salvation comes by. We are saved by grace from God through faith, which is a gift of God. It is all from God. Nothing that we have achieved. Nothing. Our salvation is based on what Jesus Christ has achieved. Salvation is by the law because Jesus obeyed the law for us. And faith is opposite everything legalistic, moralistic, or meritorious. We can't merit anything from God. Faith is the instrument that we receive Christ's righteousness. Because get this, it is Christ's righteousness that puts us in the right with God. Not even the strength of our own faith puts us in the right with God. We can be strong in faith, and those who are weak in faith are just as right in the sight of God. Our supposed strength will not commend us to God. Christ's righteousness is the foundation of the Christian life. No doing on the part of man can make us right. Let us never forget that. So there is no such thing as a second justification by works of the law in the sight of God. based on good works, that when we will be judged, we'll be judged on the list of good things we have done. No, the good things we have done is evidence that we were His. Like when He separates the sheep from the goats, or wolves. It was just evidence that they truly believed. But that is not how we are saved. The righteous shall live by faith in the righteousness of Jesus Christ that has been freely given to us. And what this ought to do for us is grant us much assurance in our walk. Because if you're not sure where you are with the Lord, remember, your active duties or doing good works are not what places you in the right with God. They will not place you in the right with God. It is only through His righteousness that has been revealed and given to you. It doesn't matter where you have been or where you come from. Your past doesn't matter at this point. What you have done in the past two minutes doesn't matter. The question is, have you received what He has offered you in the Gospel? Yes, we are called to do, we are called to repent, we are called to grow in Christ's likeness, but the question is how? The question is how? By faith in the gospel that has been freely given to us. The gospel that reveals Christ's righteousness. The righteous shall live by faith. To live by faith means that we are stripped of all of our worthiness, stripped of all of our good works, and we depend upon the work of Christ alone for our daily lives. We need to be reminded of what God has done in the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes. It is the power of God for our entire salvation, beginning to end. Now the question is, do we believe it? Do we believe it? Amen.