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The River ChurchSermons

REACH, GATHER, GROW

Confident Conquerors

Josh Combs · Sunday, 7 September 2025 · Romans 3:10-18; 3:23; 6:23; 5:8; 10:9-10; 10:13 · 38:05 · 4,841 words

Romans S20 · 3:10-18; 3:23; 6:23; 5:8; 10:9-10; 10:13 Goodrich

Listen to this message

Jesus's vision for the church begins with reaching people with the gospel. The sermon explains that because all have sinned and the wages of sin is death, everyone needs a savior; it then presents the good news that Christ died for our sins and rose again, offering eternal life (Romans 3:10,23; 6:23; 5:8). Listeners are challenged to prepare humbly, pray for chances, and share that hope with gentleness and respect. Every person they know is a soul in the balance, and believers are called to be ready.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

grandpa 14 gospel 39 sin 50 jesus 58 someone 18 hardwired 3 sense 8 confess 9 heat 3 square 3 plane 3 penalty 5

Topics

The Gospel 10 Sin 8 Faith 3 Salvation 2 Hope 2 Justification 1 Mission & Evangelism 1 Grace 1 Atonement & Sacrifice 1 Prayer 1

Scripture referenced 21

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 3 7:27 Romans 3:23 7:48 Romans 3:10 8:50 Romans 3:23 11:55 Romans 2 14:27 Romans 2:10 14:27 Romans 6 15:05 Romans 6 15:23 Romans 6:23 16:37 Romans 5 16:48 Romans 6:23 17:37 Romans 6:23 18:37 Romans 6:23 19:22 Romans 1 19:41 Romans 10 20:02 Romans 10 23:13 Romans 10 23:13 Romans 10 23:48 Romans 10:9 23:48 Romans 10:13 24:40 Romans 10:9 26:16

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

Pre-service announcement — 9 lines, 0:41. Excluded from every count and search on this site, kept here so nothing is hidden.

Hey everyone, my name is Dave Hudgens, and thanks for checking out today's message.

We are so glad that you're here, and we want to connect with you and your family.

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There, we can answer your questions and even help pray for you.

You can also visit our website at theriverchurch.cc to learn more about us and what we have going on as a church.

Finally, if you want to support the work we are doing here at the River Church financially,

please head to our website and click on the Give tab at the top of the page.

Or, you can text the amount you want to give to the number 84321.

Thanks again for joining us, and we hope you are blessed by today's message.

Let's open our Bibles this morning to the book of Romans, Romans chapter number 3.

If you don't have a Bible, I want to encourage you to share with someone sitting next to you.

Or, you can take out your phone, you can download a Bible app or the River Church app.

There's a Bible feature there. I want to encourage you as much as I can to be following along.

Or, here's another option.

Near your seat should be one of these little square pieces of paper.

If you have to fight someone over it, good luck, okay?

Don't get too violent.

But, we want to encourage you, you can take this.

We're going to kind of talk about that a little bit today.

If you're a guest, I want to welcome you.

Honored to have you here with us today.

If you're watching online, I want to welcome you as well.

Over the next few weeks, we're going to be talking about the vision of the River Church.

For some of you, this will be...

a message or a series of messages that you've heard before.

For others, maybe you're newer around here and you go,

okay, what is the River Church all about?

For most of us, we approach church or the idea of church

with a certain expectation of what the church should be doing, should be involved in.

And also, we have expectations of things or areas or parts of life

that the church should not be involved in.

Or,

things that the church shouldn't be doing.

And those expectations vary across this room.

Over the next few weeks, we're going to be looking at what do we believe the Bible says,

what does Jesus say, what does Jesus want for the church.

Now, before we go any further about what we mean by the church,

in the Bible, the church is not a building.

Matter of fact, the early church did not have buildings for the first few centuries of its existence.

So,

we are very blessed to be able to have air conditioning or heat when needed.

I mean, there's no heat in this room, but heat under most circumstances.

Comfortable chairs and nice space and restrooms and parking lots

and all of those things that certainly cost money,

but they're a luxury that we're blessed to have.

For the first few hundred years of the church, they would meet in different places.

Sometimes in public places, sometimes in secret places, sometimes in homes.

The church was not a building.

The church was not a 501c3.

The church was not an ecclesiastical order.

The church was a group of people who assembled together to fellowship around the name of Jesus.

That was the church.

So, the church is not a building.

It's not a place that we go.

It is who we are.

If you know Jesus, you don't go to church.

You are the church.

So, it's important that you understand what Jesus wants you to be doing.

And we're going to answer that.

Today, let's pick up in Romans chapter number three.

And we're going to do something that I hope will encourage you today

as we talk about the first component of Jesus's vision for the church.

And that is to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

To reach people with the good news of Jesus's death, his burial, and his resurrection.

Someone that you know, someone that you love needs to hear about Jesus.

Not just a stranger or someone in a foreign country, a place that you may never travel to.

Sure, they need to hear the gospel.

There's no question about it.

We want the gospel to go to the whole world.

We're talking about people that you know by name, face, friendship, someone in your family.

Maybe it is a parent or a child, a cousin, an aunt, an uncle, a grandchild, a coworker,

someone that you go fishing with, someone that's at deer camp, someone in your life

whose face right now in your mind you see, someone who needs to know Jesus, who is far

from God, who is unsaved, who lives under the daily condemnation, the guilt, the weight

of sin, needs to hear the hope of Christ, the hope of heaven.

Now, for many Christians, we think, okay, I want people to hear the good news of Jesus,

but I just don't know the answers.

I just don't know what to say.

Maybe it's an anxiety of I just don't want to mess it up.

So my hope today, over the next few minutes, is to equip you, very simply to walk you through

how to do it.

How to share the hope of Jesus that you have.

Peter says, always being ready to give an answer of the hope that is within you.

We don't know when that opportunity is going to arise, but we want to always be ready to

give an answer.

We want to always be ready to share the hope that we have in Jesus.

Peter says, but do so with gentleness and respect.

So the answer of the gospel, we want to have ready.

We want to be prepared.

We want to be studied up.

We want to be prayed up, but we want to deliver that answer with gentleness that is given to

us by the Holy Spirit, and we want to do so with respect, respect even when someone disagrees

with us.

So let's start with just some verses here.

We're going to walk through it.

If you've got a pen, sheet of paper, if you've got your phone, you can take some notes, but

I hope that this will encourage you, young and old, new to the faith, been a part of

a church for a long time.

Hopefully, this will encourage you.

It will encourage you, give you some instructions, and motivate you with the gospel.

Romans chapter 3 and verse number 10.

The Bible says, as it is written, none is righteous, no, not one.

Jump over just a little later in the chapter to verse number 23.

Romans 3, 23.

The Bible says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Any faithful presentation of the good news of Jesus.

Which we would call the gospel, must include some bad news.

Now, if you are listening to a podcast, or a preacher online, or TV, or you're reading

a book, and it's all about the gospel, and there's never any conversation about sin,

let me tell you this, that's a false teacher.

They're not telling the full truth.

You see, the truth of the Bible is that God created all of us, loves all of us, but humanity,

all of us.

We have rebelled against God, and we have sinned.

So, in verse 10, none is righteous, no, not one.

So, there's not this exclusive group of people that can look at the rest of the world and

say, wow, you guys are sinners.

Jesus tells the story of two men who went to the temple to pray.

I love this story.

Jesus says, one goes in and just is proud as a peacock.

Now, he doesn't say that.

That's my translation.

I suppose I should add that.

Comes into the temple, standing tall.

Chest out.

He just looks to God and is basically like, God, you are so lucky to have me.

I pray this many times.

I look around, and man, I'm not like that guy or that lady.

Wow, God, this worked out well for you.

And I'm paraphrasing so much there, but that's the basics of the story.

The second man comes in, and he stays far from the place of prayer.

Can't seem to lift his head because he's so burdened and so filled with shame and can't

even...

squeeze out any fancy religious words. Jesus said he's beating on his chest and he just says,

God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And Jesus ends that story by saying, who left justified?

Well, the Pharisees were very good at looking the part, but the brokenness of that second man

found favor with God. That's who God accepts. God rejects the proud. He embraces, he welcomes

the humble. Jesus was pointing out to the Pharisees and that story points out to all of us

that there's no group who can say, man, I have got it all together. I've hammered this sin thing.

I'm done with it. I don't really deal with that anymore. I used to deal with sin. Here's a truth

I know about every person sitting in this room and every person watching online. Every person

in here today will sin. And if you right now say, probably not me, that's the pride of sin. You can

check the sin box right now. Because we,

we all will sin. We are all sinners. So as we approach people in our life, family members,

friends, coworkers, we must approach people with the good news of Jesus with a deep sense of

humility, a deep sense of gratitude of what God has done for us through Jesus. That we in no way

earned God's favor. That we in no way drew God's attention. Like God was looking around. He's like,

oh, that, that.

That guy over there. Oh, she's got it. Okay. I mean, the rest of these, but those two, I'll take

that. No, it is all by grace. And so there's this humility. There's this sense of gentleness

because of what God has done for us. Not what we have earned on our own works. Verse 23, again,

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So that should motivate Christians with a

sense of humility, with a sense of kindness, with a sense of humility, with a sense of kindness,

with a sense of compassion. But it also says this, all have sin, meaning this, everyone needs a

savior. Every person you and I encounter in our life is a soul in the balance of heaven or hell.

Every single person is created in the image of God. They will spend eternity in one of two places

away from God in punishment and condemnation, or in the joyous pleasure presence of God.

That's it. So we should not look at people as an inconvenience. We should not look at people

as annoying. We should not look at people as lesser than us. We should say, wow, I am so glad

that Jesus has saved me. And I hope the miracle that Jesus has done in my life, he will do in

your life. Everyone needs a savior because we all have sin. Now, what is sin? We live in a world

today that has just decided certain things are not sin. We live in a world that is just decided certain things are not sin.

And judging sin is sin. And it's just a whole convoluted disaster. So if someone asks you,

what is sin? You can simply go to the 10 commandments in Exodus. And you can say,

here's a summary of God's law. God gave the law to Moses, 600 plus laws, very extensive,

very detailed. But in Exodus, we see the 10 commandments. And anyone who's honest for one

millisecond will take the 10 commandments and their life and go, yeah, I've missed the

mark. Don't ever lie. Okay, I've missed that one. Honor your father and mother. I've missed that

one. Don't covet someone else's things. I've missed that one. And if we're honest, we'll go

through the 10 commandments and we will realize that we are sinners, that we have broken God's

holy law. James says in James chapter two, verse 10, if someone keeps the whole law, but breaks it

in one point, he's responsible or guilty for the whole law. So we have sinned against God.

Every single person. So yes, we're created by God, loved by God, but we have broken fellowship

with God by our sin. What is sin? Sin we see in the 10 commandments. The 10 commandments

points to our universal guilt.

all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

I'll go to Romans chapter six and verse number 23.

If you have a Bible or a pen,

you should highlight these passages, star them,

maybe put the reference to the next one

and the previous one.

Romans chapter six, verse number 23,

last verse of that chapter.

The Bible says, for the wages of sin is death.

So what we are paid, what we have earned by our sin

Our rebellion against God equals death,

a physical death and eternal death.

That is for every person.

None's righteous, no, not one.

All have sinned, fall short of the glory of God

and the wages of those sins, the payment for those sins,

what we have earned by our rebellion against God is death.

Now that's the bad news.

That's real bad news.

That's bad news for every single person.

It doesn't matter if they're,

they're churchy, whether they've never stepped foot

in a church, whether they live in America

or any other country or nation or culture on the planet.

All have sinned, wages of that sin is death.

Verse 23, but the free gift of God

is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Jump back to chapter five and look at verse number eight,

Romans five, eight.

So here we are rebels against God.

We've committed high treason against the creator.

Of the universe who loves us.

We've sinned against God, but God shows his love for us.

And that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

So what we've earned is the wage of death.

That is the pain, the payment, the penalty for our sin.

But God loves us, even though we've rebelled against him,

even though we've sinned against him, God loves us.

And God sent Jesus.

And that's Romans 6, 23.

You can piece these verses together.

The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

How did God accomplish salvation?

He accomplished it not by ignoring our sin.

We live in a world that wants to ignore sin.

And some Christians are like, yeah, that's what God does.

He just ignores sin or he gets over sin.

Or he says, well, that's a big one.

This is a small one.

We can deal with this one.

No.

God does not.

Not a single sin will be ignored.

God sends Jesus to pay the penalty for our sin.

So what is the gospel?

The gospel is that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

So Jesus comes to the cross and Jesus dies on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin.

And Jesus is buried and Jesus rises from the dead.

That's the gospel.

That is what verse 23 calls.

The.

Free gift of God through Jesus.

That's the free gift.

That's the offer.

So what does God do?

God loves the world.

The world rebels against God and God in his kindness makes a way for the world to be saved.

And he does so through the work of Jesus.

Jesus's death on the cross was not just about nails and spears and crowns of thorns.

Jesus's death was about paying the penalty for sin.

What Jesus did.

Is God.

God through Christ offers us eternal life.

What does Paul say about the gospel?

Romans 1 16.

He says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel.

It is the power of God that leads to salvation.

The word power there is the Greek word that we get our word dynamite from.

It's explosive.

Now, before we jump to Romans 10, I want to just pause here, because as we walk through these

things, you and I, we try to squirm out of this a little bit. Maybe you're sitting here like,

oh, pastor, you know these verses. You should come share the gospel with my family member,

or you should come to work with me so you can talk to my coworkers. And the truth is,

I love to share the gospel with people. You have the relationship. They know who you are.

They see how you live. And you, not just pastors and professional Christians, so to speak, you

have been entrusted with the power of the gospel. It's explosive. It's dynamic. It is what changes

people's life. You say, I'm just not good with words. Listen, you don't need to be good with

words. You just need to be faithful to the gospel. The gospel is the power. You say, I'm just not

super persuasive. That doesn't matter. It's not the power of persuasion that saves people. It's

the power of the gospel.

You say, well, I just don't know if the setting is going to be right. Let me tell you this. It's

not the setting that matters. It's the power of the gospel. You say, I don't know if I'm going to

have enough time. What if I only have like two minutes? I need, you know, a long time. Listen,

it's not the extensive amount of time that you have or don't have. It's your faithfulness to

the gospel because the gospel is the power of God. We've been studying Romans over the last few

months, and we know some of these things behind the scenes. In the heart of every person, God has

his law. So he's written on the hearts of every person, the law of God. So that's why universally

through all cultures, we see murder being wrong, stealing being wrong, lying being wrong, because

God has hardwired that into the human heart. So when you talk about sin person, when they are

honest, we'll go, yeah, I understand that they may not even know the scripture, but it's hardwired

into their soul. Ecclesiastes says that eternity is hardwired. Eternity is placed into the heart

of mankind. So here we are. We have the law of God. We know we are guilty before God of sin,

and we know something comes next. Something comes after this, and you see it throughout history.

Let's appease this false God or this false goddess, and hopefully that will gain us immortality.

Sometimes you see it with medical things throughout history. I want to gain immortality. I want to

live forever because eternity is in the hearts. God has put it in the hearts of every person.

God has gone before you. He has placed these things in the human heart. He's given us as

his representatives, the powerful gospel of Jesus Christ, Jesus dying for sinners, Jesus rising from

the dead. Let's turn over to Romans 10. Romans chapter 10, verse number nine. I encourage you

this week, maybe it'll take you a couple of weeks, but I want to encourage you to memorize this

verse if you don't know it. Romans chapter 10, verse nine says, because if you confess with your

mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be

saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, so justified, the idea of being made

right before God, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the scripture says,

everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame, for there is no distinction between Jew

and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on

him. So it doesn't matter your genealogical background, Jew, Greek, doesn't matter. Jesus

offers his riches to all who call on him. Verse 13, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord

will be saved. So what is the gospel? The gospel is the death of Jesus to pay the penalty for sin

and the

resurrection of Jesus from the dead. That is the gospel. There's no other gospel. There's never been

any other good news. There's never been any other way in human history to be saved. Question is,

what is a saving response to the gospel? I'm going to ruffle some feathers here, and I half-heartedly

apologize for that. Bible does not say, ask Jesus into your heart. That's not there. Bible doesn't

say, walk an aisle and pray at an altar. Fill out a card, raise your hand, stand. Those things have

been used as responsive methods to the gospel in some powerful ways. There's one and only gospel.

There is one saving response to the gospel, and that's verse 9. To confess with your mouth that

Jesus is Lord. That's to say, Jesus, you are king of my life. You're Lord. You're the boss. I follow

you. So confessing with your mouth, Jesus is Lord,

and

you

are

of my

You're Lord. You're the boss. I follow you. So confessing with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and

believing in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. So we see, confess and believe. Sometimes

confess can be repenting, meaning turning. We have a Lord. We have a boss in our life right now.

That might be our sin. That might be ourselves. That might be something else. But the gospel is,

we hear the death of Jesus for our sin. We hear about the resurrection, and we turn from that

being Lord of our life, and we say, Jesus, you are Lord, and I believe in my heart that you are

rose from the dead. That's the saving response to the gospel. Now that might mean leading someone

in a prayer. That might mean saying, listen, let's take a moment. Let's talk about what that

looks like for you to confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, to believe in your heart that God

raised Jesus from the dead. You know what's fantastic about this? You and I are not responsible

for the results, but you and I are responsible for being ready. This isn't like a sales class

where I'm like, listen, everybody, we're going to give you the training. Let's see how you do

percentage-wise a sales. Let's see what your batting average is. That's not what this is.

This is as a Christian, God is putting people in your life at school, on your campus, in your

office, at the shop, at the gym, at the rest, at the coffee shop, wherever it might be. God's

putting those people in your path who need to know Jesus, who have never heard the gospel.

God has sent you. God has sent you. Are you ready? And if every person that

sits in this room today, every person that watches online, took this card or one like

it, flipped it over to the nice, you know, River Church logo, doodled on that a little

bit, and then in this bottom of space wrote someone's name. You know, that person in your

family who doesn't know Christ, friend that you grew up with, son, daughter, brother,

sister, and you just wrote their name and you said, God, I'm going to pray every single

day for an opportunity to share the gospel. Every single day. God, I'm going to prepare

and I'm going to pray. And Lord, when you open that opportunity for me to share the gospel,

when you open that door, I'm going to go through it. I remember as a young boy sitting with my

mom's dad, my grandfather, at the picnic table at his house in the backyard. And I'm sure you can

understand this. I was a very shy, quiet child. I remember sitting with him, and I knew my

grandfather did not know the Lord. So I sat with him, and I remember just as a little kid, I was

probably around seven, eight years old. And I sat in the backyard and I said, grandpa, if you were

to die today, do you know where you would spend eternity? And he looked me square in the face.

At that point, I thought he was about seven feet tall. And he looked me square in the face,

a very unhappy expression on his face. And he goes, that's none of your business. That's mine.

I think I squealed and screamed like a little girl and ran away. I was terrified. My gosh,

that was not the response. That was not the conversation I had planned in my head. It took

me 10 years to have that conversation again. I was out, my brother and I were working,

we were mowing grass. And I just, I don't know what it was. I thought, let's go talk to grandpa

today. So I pull in my grandpa's driveway and I come in. I said, grandpa, a long time ago,

we had a conversation together. And I said, grandpa, I just, what do you believe? My grandpa

looked at me and he said, well, I believe what you believe. I said, grandpa, what does that mean?

You might think, you might try to take who I am now as a 44-year-old man and superimpose that into

a 17-year-old boy. But I was just a dumb 17-year-old kid who knew a handful of Bible verses. I wasn't

like this proficient preacher or anything. I was just 17. Grandpa, what do you believe? As best as

I could, it was like, grandpa, do you believe that Jesus died on the cross for his sins? You believe

that Jesus rose from the dead? Do you believe that? Where are you at with the Lord? And I found

out that day that somewhere along the line, my grandpa had come to faith in Christ. My brother

and I, I got up, hugged my grandpa, left, drove home, told my mom. I remember telling my mom in

the kitchen, she began sobbing. Got on the phone, called her sisters because they had prayed for

years and years and years for my grandpa to come to know the Lord. Sitting on my desk in my study

today is a little picture of my grandpa being baptized when he was 60 years old. My grandpa,

my grandma, I don't know if she still does. I think I see it from time to time. My grandma

still buys the cardboard box cameras with the wheel on it. And I love my grandma. She's a

wonderful woman. She's a terrible photographer. So it's not like this awesome, fabulous picture

from a, you know, angle and lighting and everything. It's pretty terrible. But the content

of the picture means so much to me. Because when I was a freshman in college, I was getting on a

plane to fly to Dallas. I was getting on a plane to fly to Dallas. And I was getting on a plane to fly to Dallas.

My grandpa's cancer came back. And I drove to Carniac General Hospital. And it was the last time

I saw my grandpa alive. But I had great joy, great hope, and great comfort because he knew Jesus. I

wish I could tell you that has been the character of my whole life when it comes to sharing the

gospel. But it is not.

Sometimes I get afraid.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm gonna have the right words.

Sometimes I wonder if someone's gonna reject me.

Sometimes I wonder if someone's gonna ask me a question

that I don't know the answer to.

Maybe you feel that same way.

We are not the power of the gospel, just the messengers.

Gospel is the power.

Someone you know, someone you love

needs to know about Jesus.

They're looking for hope.

They're looking for peace.

They've run from God.

You know it, they know it.

They know that you know it.

Maybe you just need to look at someone and say,

you remember God loves you

and he offers to you the forgiveness of all of your sins

through the death of Jesus

and he offers you eternal life through his resurrection.

That's the good news of Jesus.

And you might say, I'm trying to memorize this verse

but I'm just gonna read it to you.

If you will confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord

and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead,

you will be saved.

Jesus' vision for us, Jesus, his mission for us

is that we would be busy in our lives reaching the world,

with the gospel.

Whoever that is in your life,

pray that you will be praying about that,

preparing for that.

And when God opens the door for the conversation,

nerves and fear and anxiety,

all of those things included,

you will run through the door and see what God does.

Listen to this message