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Introduction/Main Theme

Josh Yates · Sunday, 27 April 2025 · Romans 1:1-17 · 48:21 · 7,854 words

Romans S1 · 1:1-17 Lake Orion

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

The sermon opens with the Sawi people’s story of a peace child, which points to Jesus as God’s ultimate peace child guaranteeing everlasting reconciliation. It then introduces a series through the book of Romans, emphasizing that the gospel remains necessary every day for believers. The speaker reminds listeners that all Christians are called to be servants of Christ, not ashamed of the gospel, and to share it boldly. The message closes with an invitation for those who have not yet trusted in Jesus to do so today.

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.

gospel 60 rome 24 greatest 16 jesus 92 ashamed 13 silent 5 letter 14 joe 5 rescue 9 villages 3 faith 37 journey 6

Topics

The Gospel 18 Faith 11 Salvation 6 Righteousness 4 Sin 3 Atonement & Sacrifice 2 Obedience 2 Justification 2 Freedom 1 Mission & Evangelism 1 Grace 1 The Flesh 1 Prayer 1

Scripture referenced 12

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

Romans 1 6:34 Romans 1 6:38 Romans 1:1-17 6:40 Romans 1 7:10 Romans 1:1-7 7:11 1 Corinthians 2:2 12:12 Romans 1:4 15:02 Ephesians 2:8 17:37 Matthew 5:1 32:01 Romans 1:17 34:34 Habakkuk 2:4 36:40 John 3:16 39:30

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, 0:40. Excluded from every count and search on this site, kept here so nothing is hidden.

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

So for centuries, the Sawi in Papua New Guinea, a tribe there, had lived as cannibal headhunters

and each Sawi village warring with the others.

Ordinary murder is nothing to them.

To be a legend maker, you have to create a special scenario in which you pretend to make peace with someone

and then kill him when his guard is down.

This Sawi ideal is known as the Tui Asonai Man.

Having caught a pig to do, which means to fatten with friendship for unexpected slaughter as one would fatten a pig.

The Sawi have no word for nor concept of God

and they believe only in a disinterested or malevolent demons and spirits of the dead.

When missionary Richardson learned the Sawi's language and he tells them the story of Jesus to his disappointment,

they brighten at the account of Judas' betrayal of Jesus

and regard Judas as the super Sawi

and as the hero of the world.

As the hero of the story.

Richardson felt that he had failed

and his very presence had caused several Sawi villages to come into unnaturally close contact,

thereby precipitating constant outbreaks of fighting.

Richardson hadn't yet found the key to making the gospel affecting among this tribe,

but he announced that he's going to leave because he's the cause of these Sawi killing one another.

The warriors are distressed, losing the source of their modern medicine and steel axes,

so they say they're going to make peace.

In light of the Sawi idealization,

Richardson wonders what possible guarantee that can really solidify this peace.

He soon finds out.

The one and only guarantee that all Sawi will honor is an exchange of infants between villages.

An exchanged infant is called a teroptim or a peace child.

And as long as this peace child lives in both villages,

peace is guaranteed.

Although most any other murder is honorable,

killing a peace child is a despicable act.

This is the key that Richardson was waiting for.

As he presents Jesus as God's peace child who will never die

and therefore guarantees everlasting peace,

many of the Sawi are transformed by this message and a church was established.

That's from a book called Peace Child written many years ago.

But what a story of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And we're about to embark on a journey for the coming months,

all the way through the summer,

all the way to Christmas.

All right,

we're going to be on a journey through the book of Romans.

It's going to be a great journey.

I love the book of Romans.

Or maybe I should say the letter.

It's one of the most influential books of the Bible.

Possibly one of the most important books ever written.

Commentator Kent Hughes puts it like,

or actually illustrates it by saying this.

the most brilliant theologian of the early centuries,

came to conviction of sin and salvation

after reading some verses from the 13th chapter of Romans.

discovered the doctrine of salvation by faith

through his study of Romans 117

and went on to lead the Protestant Reformation.

While listening to the reading of Luther's preface

to the book of Romans,

who founded the Wesleyan church and Methodism,

he felt his heart strangely warmed in conversion

and became the catalyst of the great evangelical revival

of the 18th century.

John Bunyan was so inspired

as he studied the great themes of Romans in the Bedford jail

that he wrote The Pilgrim's Progress.

In our own century,

we're going to be reading the book of Romans.

While we may not always agree with this theology,

his arguments from the book of Romans

devastated liberal Christianity.

See, this letter to the Roman church,

the believers in Rome,

wasn't meant for the elite.

It wasn't meant for the religious elite

or the intellectual elite.

It was meant for everyone in Rome

and believers everywhere.

And so this book of Romans

is all about the gospel,

the good news of Jesus Christ.

And we're going to be hearing about the gospel

and we're going to learn a lot about the gospel

over the next few years.

Over these coming months.

Now, I get it.

There's always some people,

when we start saying we're going to talk about the gospel a lot,

we can go,

well, I already heard that.

I already believe that.

I've heard Jesus.

He died on the cross.

He rose from the dead on the third day.

Yeah, I remember that.

Yeah.

We talked about that last week at Easter and Good Friday.

I don't need to hear it again

and again and again

and again and again.

Sometimes when somebody gives the gospel,

they say, I already believe it.

I don't need to hear this part of the message, right?

But if that's where your thoughts are headed this morning

or over this series,

you're going, wow, that's going to be a long time.

I want to stop you.

I want to encourage you,

possibly even exhort you,

and even correct you

as we journey together on this journey.

You need the gospel every day.

We need the gospel every day.

See, this book was written to people

that already believed in Jesus in Rome.

They belonged to him,

and Paul wrote it to them,

and he writes it to us.

See, God's going to speak to you

through this letter to Rome

if you'll allow it to.

Some of the verses you're going to hear

are going to be familiar.

Some of the verses you've heard before.

Allow God's spirit to speak to you.

He's going to speak to you fresh and anew.

And listen for his voice

and his call on you.

Because we need the gospel every day.

We need to be reminded of what it cost

Jesus to pay for our sin.

And we need to be reminded of the love

that God has for us

every single day

and how he showed it

through his death on the cross

and rising from the dead.

We've got to be reminded of that

every single day.

So if you have your Bibles this morning,

let's turn to Romans chapter 1.

It's a good place to start,

beginning of the letter.

We will be in Romans chapter 1.

Romans chapter 1, verses 1 to 17 this morning.

And I know if you have your devices,

you can pull those out.

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And you can download that

and it has the ESV version of the scripture

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You can also listen to previous messages

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and find out all kinds of things

about what we're doing as a church,

events, register for things

like men's retreat next weekend.

It's going to be fun.

Romans chapter 1,

I want to start by reading verses 1 to 7.

It'll be on the screen behind me as well.

And this is how Paul begins.

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus,

called to be an apostle,

set apart for the gospel of God,

which he promised beforehand

through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures,

concerning his son who was descended from David

according to the flesh

and was declared to be the son of God in power

according to the spirit of holiness

by his resurrection from the dead,

Jesus Christ our Lord,

through whom we have received grace

and apostleship

to bring about the obedience of faith

for the sake of his name

among all the nations,

including you who are called

to belong to Jesus Christ,

to all those in Rome

who are loved by God

and called to be saints.

Grace to you and peace from God,

our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so the letters written during this time,

letters written all over this time

were started much in this manner.

They started with a greeting.

They indicated who wrote it,

why they were writing it,

who was it going to be to.

It's all the beginning in this,

in this letter when Paul begins it.

But he also puts a little bit more.

He says he's called to be a servant of Jesus,

called to be an apostle,

set apart for the gospel of God.

He says that he's a servant of Jesus.

The word servant at the very beginning

can also be translated as the word slave,

can also be translated as the word slave.

Can you imagine what Paul's mind goes to

every single time he talks about the fact

that he was called to be an apostle,

called to go and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Maybe he's not called to be an apostle,

maybe his mind goes back to the road to Damascus

when he was on the way

and to go kill Christians, followers of the way,

and all the people that he did murder

or observed being murdered and approved of.

Every time he thought of his calling,

he remembered what he was pulled out of

and how he met Jesus,

that Jesus met him on that road to Damascus.

He was blinded, but then he went

and got these scales taken off of his eyes

and God radically changed his life.

And Jesus came before him and was like,

why are you persecuting me?

And Paul's going, I didn't know I was.

And his life is ruined.

He's radically changed.

See, he's preaching the gospel

because he saw its impact in his own life.

Such an amazing thing.

And his purpose in life went from killing Christians

thinking he was doing the right thing before God

to now going and making disciples,

preaching the gospel,

helping people grow in their faith in Jesus Christ.

He proclaimed it, he lived it, he breathed it.

His life had been changed by Jesus

and he'd seen thousands changed by Jesus

and he wanted even more to know who Jesus is

and to be changed.

He was changed by him.

And he sees himself as a servant.

It didn't matter what he'd done or who he might lead.

He was a servant of Jesus.

He was called by God and sent by God to be an apostle.

That means one sent.

And he was set apart to share the gospel

to anyone that would hear it.

We all have to understand something this morning.

I don't care what you are or what you do,

whether you're a pastor or a teacher,

an office worker, a policeman or woman, a CEO,

a financial manager, a stay-at-home mom,

a professional athlete, a college student.

We are all servants of the Most High King.

We are.

I received all kinds of interesting things

being in my role.

And I was sent some messages,

let's say about four or five months ago,

around the time of the election and everything.

And somebody that I used to be really close to

and I got a bunch of text messages

that was trying to get me to basically

talk about politics from this stage.

I hadn't talked to him for a long time.

And in those messages,

I was called some choice things.

It's called a coward.

I was called a few things.

They're trying to motivate me

to speak about politics from the stage.

My mind always goes back to a verse

that's on the front of my Bible.

This Bible is special to me.

I've told this before, but if you've heard it,

I apologize, but it's a special Bible to me.

There was a dear old lady by the name of Loretta Gardner.

She died back in 2021.

I had the honor of doing a funeral.

I knew her the whole,

22 years I've been here at the church,

And when she died,

she left me a very, very generous

and out of the ordinary honorarium at her funeral.

And I was like,

I got to do something that would honor her.

And so I bought a Bible

that I never would have bought for myself

because this one wasn't cheap.

It's real leather, all that kind of stuff.

But I wanted to honor her.

And on the back of the Bible,

it says in loving memory of Loretta Gardner.

But there's a verse on the front of it

that means so much to me

that is so part of my life.

And I want it to exemplify my life.

And it's 1 Corinthians 2.2.

And it says,

For I determined to know nothing among you

except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

And that's our calling.

The world has a lot of things in it.

The world has,

you're going to have people

that are going to call you all kinds of names

because you're not going to necessarily agree

with what they want.

We have to know Jesus and him crucified.

That was the call of Paul.

That was what God had placed upon the life of Paul.

And you know what?

We can be called every name in the book.

But if my name is continually associated

with Jesus Christ and he's greater than mine,

that's what I want to be about.

And that's what we want

to be about as followers of Christ.

May we be no more for Jesus

than for anything else.

That was Paul's desire.

That was Paul's call in his life.

And so then Paul goes on

and he talks about how the gospel

is rooted in the Old Testament.

Got to tell you,

I know some people are like,

I just love the New Testament.

I can't really always understand

the Old Testament.

Let me tell you something.

You cannot understand the New Testament well

without an understanding of the Old Testament.

And you cannot understand the Old Testament

without understanding the New Testament.

Both testaments are awesome

Is the Old Testament tough

to understand sometimes?

Yes, I will agree with you on that.

Okay, it's written to the Jewish people,

to a culture that is not ours.

We don't trade in sheep, right?

I mean, we live differently.

However, so much of the principles

that they struggle with

and the things that they fell into sin with,

we're the same people.

It just looks a little different.

There's so much to understand.

And Paul understood that.

He also knew he was speaking to Greeks

and non-Greeks in Rome,

but there was also some Jews there too.

And so he was saying,

look, you've got to understand

that the gospel is rooted in the Old Testament.

And you're going to see this

all the way through this letter

that he wrote to the people

and the church in Rome.

The entirety of scripture is focused on Jesus.

And so he basically pulls out here

that he says in Jesus' human nature,

he was a descendant of David,

which was the prophecy.

And by the spirit of holiness,

he was declared, he was appointed

the son of God in power

by resurrection from the dead.

He is Jesus, the man,

Christ, the Messiah,

and our anointed king,

and our Lord, the ruler

and the heir of the world.

He is all of those things.

And what else was revealed about this Jesus,

this Messiah in the Old Testament?

Well, who would Jesus' mother be?

What house would he be born of?

David, the royal line of the Jews.

What name would be given?

How would he die?

A cross pierced with no bones broken.

All of those things are prophesied of Jesus.

All given in the Old Testament

thousands of years before.

But it's interesting that he also talks

about the fact that he is the son,

the son of God in power

in verse 4.

Again, we can just read words on a page

and not fully understand what's being said here.

I don't want us to miss this.

It's an interesting way to put who Jesus is,

especially writing to the church in Rome.

Because in Rome, at this time,

it was the greatest city

in the world.

Think about, it was the center of everything.

Kind of like a New York,

but with the ruler of the world

or the known empire at its center.

That was Rome.

Caesar lived there.

He ruled from there.

Which, by the way, it was Nero,

which we'll come to later.

But Nero was not a good guy.

And we will learn more about that as we go.

But here's the thing about calling Jesus

the son of God in power to people in Rome.

Caesar had many official titles,

not the least of which being

the son of God.

Paul knows exactly what he's saying here.

Caesar's birthday was celebrated as

And he claimed the allegiance

of the greatest empire

of the world that ever seen.

Paul knew exactly what he was doing.

He was saying, look, I'm going to tell you about

the actual son of God who reigns in power.

He's reminding these Roman believers

of who this is.

Only Jesus is the true king.

He's the real son of God.

He commands and deserves the loyalty of all the world.

He's the world's rightful Lord.

And everyone that claims Jesus in Rome

needed to know it and to live by it.

The good news had come.

That's what Paul was declaring.

So through Jesus and for his name's sake,

Paul had been called to be an apostle

and he received grace.

He's talking about the grace of God.

He's like, just the fact that God called me.

I think he's remembering everything he had been.

The fact that God called him out of that was God's grace.

That he was able to do the things he was doing

for the cause of Christ.

But then he talks about this idea of

calling the people in Rome

to the obedience of faith.

The obedience of faith.

What is that?

What is the obedience?

The obedience of faith.

My friends, true faith, true faith

always results in obedience.

Although they're separate.

True faith results in obedience.

We have to understand, Paul wrote this

in Ephesians 2, 8, and 9,

that we are justified only by grace through faith.

It's not of works.

We're not justified.

We are not saved by our works.

That is emphatically established.

It's the core of the gospel.

You cannot save yourself.

Only Jesus saves.

We have to understand that.

That's why the gospel is so important to us.

Every single day.

Every single day.

But, what is the nature of that saving faith?

What is the nature of that faith that saves?

So, ultimately, the initial faith that we express in Christ

is about trusting and believing that Jesus is who he says he is.

He is God.

He's our Savior.

He died on the cross in my place.

Died and rose from the dead.

However, this initial faith is also coming to the one

who is asking for your full allegiance.

This is not a fire.

This is not a fire insurance faith.

We don't go to God and say,

well, you're the only way to keep me out of hell.

Save me.

Keep me out of hell.

I'm going to go do whatever I want now.

Thank you, Jesus.

I don't see that kind of faith in scripture, my friends.

I don't see a saving faith like that in the scripture at all.

That's trying to use God so you can do what you want.

I think that's a very dangerous place to be.

That's a dangerous place to be.

There is no fire insurance faith in the scripture.

We learn to live out allegiance as we live.

We live our lives and that's where obedience comes in.

It is part of that big word,

the theological word called sanctification.

Being consistently set apart for God

as God reveals things to you.

As God reveals, hey, we need to work on this.

Hey, we need to work on that.

Hey, you know, and he does it.

Why?

Because he loves you.

He knows the you he created you to be.

And he wants that for you and for the kingdom of God.

And this happens until we're in heaven,

becoming more like Christ.

And so faith, Paul is saying here that faith and obedience

are two sides of the same coin.

They're different, but they can't be separated.

The gospel isn't meant to just save us.

Hear this, my friends.

The gospel isn't meant to just save us.

It is meant to transform us, to change us into who Jesus is.

And we're going to continue to look to this

all throughout this letter to the Romans.

So Jesus is who he says he is.

Jesus, the man, Christ, the Messiah and King

and the Lord and the rule of the world.

That's what he's established.

But then he goes on.

He says, basically, Jesus is King

and he must be proclaimed in verses eight to 15.

Let's read this.

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you

because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.

For God is my witness,

whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son,

that without ceasing, I mention you always in my prayers,

asking that somehow by God's will,

I may now at least or at last succeed in coming to you.

He'd been trying to come to Rome for a long time,

to see the believers there.

He wanted to, but he just wasn't able to get there.

For I long to see you that I may impart to you

some spiritual gift to strengthen you.

That is that we may be mutually encouraged

by each other's faith, both yours and mine.

I do not want you to be unaware brothers

that I have been often intended

or that I have often intended to come to you,

but thus far I've been prevented

in order that I may reap some harvest among you

as well as among the rest of the Gentiles.

I am under obligation, both to Greeks and to barbarians.

Both to the wise and to the foolish.

So I'm eager to preach the gospel to you

also who are in Rome.

And so Paul now moves to his relationship

with the Christians in the church in Rome.

He thanks God for his relationship with them,

for the fact that their faith

has been reported all over the world,

that this faith of these Romans is genuine

and that Paul preaches with his whole heart the gospel.

He preaches with his whole heart

from the center of who he is.

We have so much to learn from Paul in this life.

In this letter, so much to learn about the gospel.

He desires to see them

and is constantly praying for them.

See, faith brings glory to God.

Boasting puffs ourselves up as though we did something.

We don't see Paul saying,

hey, I can't wait to come to you because,

listen, man, there are thousands of people

following Jesus because of me.

You can't wait till I come.

You're gonna be blessed when I get there.

And I'm bringing these little yellow cloths

that are 25 shekels of peat.

No, that isn't what,

that isn't what he's doing.

Paul is saying, look, it's about Jesus.

I'm gonna give glory to him.

He's the one who's done it.

Because if we think we've done something,

it always leads to strife and derision.

It always leads to that.

It's not the glory of God.

And then in verses 11 to 13,

his desire is spoken a little bit more specifically.

He longs to see these believers in Rome.

He wanted to see them

so he could impart some spiritual blessing to them.

And you're like, wait a minute, what is that?

Well, he says, ultimately,

so that they can be mutually encouraged.

They can share testimonies of what Jesus,

what Jesus has done in Rome.

He can share testimonies

of what Jesus is doing all over the world.

And they can be encouraged by what God is doing

in them, through them, and around them.

Things they haven't heard yet.

My friends, that is the beauty of the local church.

When we get together and we tell our stories

of how God is impacting our lives,

impacting our family,

when we share our hearts, when we're struggling,

we don't know what the next step is.

And somebody has faith for us

when we don't have it at that moment.

That's the beauty of the local church.

And I wanna tell you this morning,

if you're standing on the,

outside of a local church,

if you're coming on Sundays

and you're not feeling connected,

I wanna tell you something.

And this is, I don't want this to come across harsh,

but I wanna be firm in this.

If you're on the outside of the church,

I have to tell you something.

That has been your choice.

We wanna welcome you, but we can't touch base.

I certainly can't touch base with every single person.

I'd love to, but I'm only one person

and I have to sleep when I have a family, right?

There are growth communities that you can get involved in.

There are people that would love to care for you.

There are people that you can end up caring for

and God will use you in ways,

but you have to decide that you wanna be a part of a family,

not just come and hear some loud guy talk on a Sunday morning.

There's beauty in the local church.

We are so far from perfect and we get it wrong

more than we get it right.

Praise be to God for his grace.

But the reality is,

is it is about mutually encouraging one another.

And Paul knew that.

And he saw that happening in a church in Rome

and he wanted to continue it.

And quite honestly,

he wanted to be a little bit in it for a little while.

He probably needed the encouragement.

Here's the thing that you guys often don't know.

I don't always hear your stories firsthand,

but when I hear them,

my gizzard gets blessed.

For those of you who are like,

what the heck is a gizzard?

It's okay.

You have no idea how much you bless me

when I get to hear your stories.

When I hear you made a decision about something

or God used you in a specific way.

Gosh, it's why we do what we do,

to see people following Jesus Christ.

I don't care if it's a result of anything I did.

I love it when I hear somebody else

had a conversation with somebody else

and then that person had a conversation

and I wasn't even a part of it.

I'm like, praise God.

That's the beauty of it.

That's the beauty of the church.

It's not about one person.

It's about all of us.

Well, it is about one person.

It just ain't me.

It's Jesus Christ.

That's what it's about.

And we were becoming like him.

We're becoming in his image.

We're being made disciples

as we decide to try to make disciples as well.

We go out and we're called to do the same thing.

And so Paul is thankful for these believers

and the church in Rome because of what it means.

We have to understand under the nose of Nero,

who would eventually persecute these Christians

and Jesus followers,

God had raised up a people in Rome

under the nose of the emperor.

And they had understood

that they live for a different kingdom,

a different hope and a different faith.

And Paul knew that these believers

would be facing persecution

and they were gonna need this encouragement.

And so that's why he wrote this letter to them

because he knew that they were gonna need a Jesus.

They need to know him because he would change them,

save them, sustain them and transform them.

And then in verses 14 to 15,

he talks about the fact that he's obligated

or bound to Greeks and non-Greeks,

the wise and the foolish.

It's interesting that Paul uses the word he's obligated

Some translations say he bears a debt.

What is he talking about there?

Why is he obligated?

What is he exactly obligated to do?

He's obligated to preach the gospel.

Again, Paul had been pulled out of deception.

He thought he was doing the right thing

by killing Jesus followers.

He thought he was following God.

And God in his mercy met him in his deepest darkest moment

and pulled him and let him see the light of the truth.

His debt was to God.

His payment was to people.

See, he had been set free.

He had to let others know that they could be set free.

He'd been given this gospel

so he'd go and give it to everybody.

He was called and he was sent just like his letter started.

And then he says,

there's no difference for those who were citizens of Rome

and those that weren't,

those that spoke Greek

and those who were of an upper class

or those that were non-Greek.

The word barbarians also means buffoons, dimwits, idiots.

Any of us here this morning,

can I get an amen in the house of the Lord?

Anyway, the reality is that he's not talking

just to the wise,

those that thought they were smart.

He's talking to the foolish,

those that were deemed uneducated or even stupid.

My friends, hear this this morning.

The gospel of Jesus Christ

is for every single man, woman, and child

on the face of the earth.

It is for every single one.

Everyone who will receive him

to those who are called according to his name

are his children.

We have to understand this.

It is God who does the saving.

He paid the price of sin.

And this is amazing news

that we've been saved from our sin.

And no matter where you are this morning,

the gospel is for you.

The gospel is for you.

I don't care what your story is.

I don't care where you've been.

I don't care what you've done.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is for you

if you will accept him as your savior.

If you will allow him to transform your life

and not just play words and play around with it,

but actually give him your life,

he will transform you.

He will give you a hope and a future.

So Paul is excited to be going to the Roman church

and to be praying for you.

He's excited to be preaching the gospel

and see God save, change and transform people.

He's excited because he's not ashamed.

And so let's hear that in verses 16 to 17,

two of the most awesome verses in the Bible.

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.

See, Paul is saying,

he is not ashamed of the gospel.

Can you imagine a man that went

and killed people of the way

that were following the gospel

and now he's been transformed so much

that all he does is talk about that gospel

that he persecuted?

He's going wherever God wants him to go

and he will not be silenced.

Just to give you a little insight into Paul,

you may have heard this, you may not have,

but Paul was whipped, beaten, shipwrecked,

bitten by a poisonous snake, imprisoned,

and he never, ever kept quiet.

He never, ever kept quiet.

He never, ever kept quiet.

Why was he not ashamed?

Because the gospel is how God rescues.

It is how God rescues broken men, women, and children

from the effects of sin.

He was confident in the power of the gospel.

Why was he confident in the power of the gospel?

Because it had changed him.

My friends, I think that's part of our problem sometimes

when we are unwilling to share the gospel

because it's too easy to forget

what we've been saved from.

I've said it before, I'm gonna keep saying it.

If we look at our lives and we kind of go,

well, you know, I struggle with this,

I struggle with this, but man, it's not that big of a deal.

You know, God understands.

It's, you know, it's just a struggle.

It's just this kind of thing.

If we make our sin small,

the cross of Jesus Christ is super small.

If our sin doesn't matter, the cross doesn't matter.

But if we actually understand that the sin,

I don't care how good of a person we think we are,

but that our sin separates us from a holy God for us

to be unable to have a relationship with him,

it breaks our relationship with him.

And we have a full understanding.

We are poor in spirit, like Jesus said in Matthew 5, 1,

that we're poor in spirit and we mourned over our sin.

And we understand that, my friends,

the cross stands above it all.

The cross that is huge

because it's what we've been saved from.

Again, any one of us in here,

we come across the cure to cancer.

We're gonna be like, oh, I don't know

if I wanna share it with people.

Might offend somebody.

We're not gonna do that.

You know, I might tell somebody what they have to do

to do something.

My friends, the cure for the most insidious,

devious disease, and I don't wanna call it a disease

because it's not something that happened to us.

It's what we chose.

But the most insidious thing

that's ever happened to humanity, sin,

is cured by the cross of Jesus Christ.

And it's paid for.

It's not that we'll never sin again,

but that is paid for for eternity.

And we have a hope of eternal life.

How can we be silent?

How can we be silent about this Jesus we say we love,

this Jesus that has changed our lives?

Because Paul says here that this gospel is the power of God,

God for salvation to everyone who believes.

Every human being that God rescues,

he will rescue through the cross of Jesus Christ.

He who has done it no other way,

he will do it no other way.

It is what you believe about Jesus

that is whether or not you are saved

from the curse of your sin, period.

Now, ultimate salvation's in heaven,

but the gospel impacts our salvation today

by keeping us in Christ until that ending.

That's why Paul is speaking to Christians in Rome.

See, Rome was the city of the world,

the day.

A commentator said it like this.

Her law was the foundation for all that followed.

Her art was borrowed but appreciated.

And her military system was the wonder of the world.

But Paul says,

I'm unashamed of the gospel because of its power.

The Greek word here is dynamis.

Guess what word we get from that?

Dynamic as well.

It is the power,

it is the explosiveness of God to save

is the gospel of Christ.

And we see that because there's typically

a pretty dynamic reaction

when we talk about Jesus, isn't there?

It's either radical change or radical rejection.

And then in verse 17,

the gospel reveals the righteousness of God.

This righteousness imparted,

it's given to us in our place through the gospel.

It's by faith in Christ,

believing the gospel.

It's an act of God that he alone can do.

He alone starts.

He's put people in right relationship with himself

because of the gospel and what Jesus,

what Jesus has done.

If you know Jesus this morning,

I want to tell you something.

You stand before the Lord righteous,

justified as if you had never sinned

because God the Father sees Jesus in you,

not all the stuff you've done.

That should be an amazing truth

to give us strength every single day.

You stand justified today

because of the power of God

to salvation through Jesus Christ.

But if you do not know him,

you are not justified

and you stand in your sin guilty before a holy God.

I have to tell you that this morning,

God has offered you a free gift.

And if you don't know him today,

come to him,

believe on the Lord Jesus Christ

and you will be saved.

Believe he's the son of God.

Believe he died on the cross

and rose from the grave for you.

Ask him for forgiveness.

And my friend, you will be saved.

But it's not just words that you speak

because remember this Jesus,

also demands our allegiance.

Power of God into salvation.

And we're transformed.

When we come to the Lord to be saved,

we come to him with our hands empty

because there's nothing we can do to earn it.

There is no scale on the earth

that will weigh your good works

against your bad works.

And God says, you're all set.

It is what you believe about Jesus today

and in eternity.

And he says, the righteous shall live by faith.

It's a quote from Habakkuk 2.4

where Habakkuk contrasts the prideful

that the people of Israel

trust in themselves

that I'm going to be okay

but their lives are crooked

and the righteous who live by faith.

Faith is taking God at his word.

Pride is the opposite

and the enemy of faith.

And this is the amazing thing

about this righteousness

because God replaces our sinful hearts

with his righteousness.

It's his righteousness, not yours.

The only good in any person in here,

the only good in me is Jesus.

And I was reminded of that on Friday night

when a ref made a terrible call

against my daughter

and I wanted to give him a piece

of my mind for the whole afternoon.

I'm still not over it.

Don't get me started.

All right, we tied.

You can talk to me about it later.

The only good in us is Jesus.

I want you to know this morning

that Jesus is King.

He must be proclaimed

because he is how God rescues.

Jesus is King and he must be proclaimed

because this is how God rescues.

How does God rescue?

Jesus is the son of God.

He is God.

He's lived a perfect life

and a complete obedience to the father.

He was accused, abandoned,

put to death on a cross in my place.

Let's sink in for a minute.

God died my place and your place

so that I won't have to.

So you won't have to.

Adopts us into his family through Jesus.

I love that word adoption

because when you're born into a family,

I mean, you're born

and it's not really the,

I mean, you'd still choose your kids every day,

but you know,

when somebody's adopted,

I'm going to choose you

and you're going to be part of my family

and you're going to have all the rights,

all the privileges

and I'm going to love you as my own.

I love this.

It's a different way of looking at John 3, 16.

It's not mine.

It's a quote,

but it goes like this.

It says,

for God,

the greatest lover,

the greatest degree,

the world,

the greatest company

that he gave,

which is the greatest act,

his only begotten son,

the greatest gift

that whosoever,

the greatest opportunity

believes the greatest simplicity

in him,

the greatest attraction

should not perish.

The greatest promise,

the greatest difference.

Have the greatest certainty,

everlasting life,

the greatest possession.

we are loved by God.

We need to get used to this,

but we should never get over it.

How can we keep this to ourselves?

How do we stay silent?

Jesus changed me.

I can't stay silent.

I live for a different kingdom.

My purposes are different

because this God pulled me in.

He pulled me out of a pit

and became my father

when I didn't have one.

He loved me.

He died for me.

He set me free.

And he's continuing to set me free.

How can we be silent?

For many of you in this room,

you have similar stories like that.

And if you don't share this story

of Jesus saving you today,

you can be saved by God today

through Jesus Christ.

we have to proclaim Jesus,

the gospel of Christ.

How can we do any less?

We cannot be ashamed of the gospel.

Being ashamed is to be publicly disgraced,

to be in the wrong

if we're ashamed of it.

The gospel is truth,

We share it as often as we can.

I want to end with this story.

Alan Emery shares a story

in his book,

A Turtle on a Fence Post.

The day after Pearl Harbor,

Emery, like thousands of others,

his choice being the Coast Guard.

He was immediately put to work

in his hometown, Boston,

as a quartermaster,

and he was given the Friday night duty

of guarding one of the wharfs.

On one particular Friday,

he had wisely decided

to get some sleep before duty

and was in his bunk resting

when one of his new acquaintances

Joseph Olaszewski

came in his immaculate dress blues,

his hat squared,

piping on his snow white cuffs,

his shoes spit shined.

He gave his biggest smile

and asked Emery how he looked.

Emery replied that he looked great

and asked what the big event was.

Joe excitedly explained

that at the USO the previous night,

a wealthy girl had invited him

to spend the weekend

at her apartment on Beacon Hill.

She was going to take him

to the opera that night

and had plenty of records and alcohol.

He didn't have to be

back until 0700 Monday morning.

He ended the story by saying,

this is going to be

the greatest time of my life.

Emery replied that

he would be praying for him.

His friend walked out

but immediately reentered saying,

what did you say?

He said, I'd be praying for you,

Why will you be praying for me

when I'm going to have

the first great weekend in my life?

Because, Joe,

Monday morning,

you'll be back aboard ship

and you will not be

the same person you are tonight.

Sin leaves its...

Joe swore at Emery

and went out into the night.

Emery prayed for Joe

as he prepared for guard duty.

And he was startled

when an unsmiling

and agitated Joe

suddenly reappeared

in the guard post floodlights.

Can you have a good time

when someone's praying for you?

He said,

you've ruined my weekend.

I stood up my date

and I've been waiting

until you came on duty.

Now tell me to find

how to find God.

That night,

Joseph Wazalewski

heard for the very first time

in his life

the promises of God.

Change was immediate.

He joined Park Street Church,

spent his free time

on the commons

inviting other servicemen

probably praying for them too.

He prayed with his buddies

at St. Paul's Cathedral

which was always open

and drew in his knowledge

of the scriptures

under Dr. Harold Okigna.

Then,

on February 1st, 1943,

he volunteered for sea duty

on a minesweeper

headed for Iceland

and just a few days

out of New York,

a torpedo found its mark.

Never know how God

when you are not ashamed

of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You don't have to do things

the way I do them.

You're called to do them

the way God has called you

to do them.

Where you play,

where you get your hair cut,

where you work,

get your groceries,

in the parking lot

when somebody's about

to cut you off.

You're called to not be ashamed

of the gospel

wherever you go

because there's some people

that don't understand

what it means to have

the righteousness of God.

And unlike Joseph,

they've never known

what it is to be free

from their sins,

to be righteous before God

and to have Christ

in their life.

The Bible has never

been alive to them.

They haven't experienced

the joy of being encouraged

in the faith.

Christ can change all that.

It is so simple.

The gospel is the power

the power of God

for everyone who believes.

It is a matter of faith.

So may it be true of us

that we are not ashamed

of the gospel

of Jesus Christ.

Why?

Because it's how God rescues.

I have to ask one final question

for those that may not know him.

Do you believe in Jesus today?

If you are not sure,

I'll be hanging around

after the gathering.

We have people

at guest services

that would love to speak with you.

Let today be the day

that you give yourself

and give your life to Jesus

because I'm going to be

praying for you.

Pray for the people

in your life

that don't know Jesus.

Let them know

you're praying for them.

Maybe even be specific.

Follow the leading

of the Holy Spirit

in your life.

Don't ever be ashamed

of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You don't know how God's.

Lord, thank you so much

for your word.

Thank you for Paul.

Thank you for his desire

to serve you

and your inspiring him

to write this letter

to the Romans

and to us.

God, I pray that

as we embark

as we begin this journey

through this letter,

I pray you would use it

us, to mold us,

to shape us,

to challenge us

and yes,

to even correct us.

God, may we not be ashamed

of the gospel of Christ today

but may we

look more like Jesus.

May we not be jerks

about the gospel of Jesus

but may we be

those that are not ashamed

of the gospel.

Help us to love

like you love.

God, help us to share truth

because that's part of love.

May we know

nothing among people

except Jesus Christ

and him crucified.

In Jesus' name we pray.