Sermon Transcript
We’re starting a new series in Romans today, so you can turn now to Romans 1. We’re going to be reading from verse 1 through 7 and then skip forward to verse 15. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, 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 and 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. Skip forward to verse 15.
So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome, 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. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.
So they are without excuse, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
We’ll begin with a couple of trivia questions today as we start our new series. After the first one, you’ll get all of them. Okay, which book of the Bible has the most PhD dissertations written about it or written about passages from it? Romans. Oh, you got the first one even.
All right, Romans is widely considered the most studied, analyzed, argued-over book in all of Scripture. So, another question, which book of the Bible is credited for sparking the Protestant Revolution? Romans. All right, yes. Uh, the Protestant Revolution ignited when Martin Luther, who was a Catholic priest and professor in the early 1500s, when he was reading Romans, actually Romans chapter 1, excuse me, which we will look at today, it was then that he had this epiphany of grace really, and he realized that some of what the Catholic Church was saying at the time was incongruent with the message of the Bible, which famously led him to nailing his 95 Theses to the Wittenberg door, which eventually led to the schism from the Catholic Church that reshaped the Western world.
Started with Romans and Luther. Before Luther, there was Saint Augustine, or Augustine, I say Augustine, so we’ll go with that, who converted to Christianity on the spot. Augustine converted on the spot when he happened to turn to which book of the Bible? Yeah, see, you’re doing so well. Um, the story is Saint Augustine, before he became Saint Augustine, he was a young man of means from North Africa, and he was pursuing every type of pleasure that the world had to offer.
He wanted nothing to do with God. But that path of hedonism had descended to its natural conclusion, and he was burnt out. He was empty. What he thought would satisfy didn’t satisfy. In the end, he felt lifeless.
And then he heard, he says, a voice speak to him which sounded like the voice of a child, but the voice said, pick up and read. So he happened to open the Bible to the book of Romans, chapter 13 actually, where he read a description of exactly the way that he had been living his life, drunkenness, wild parties with women. And then he read, rather than do all of that, Clothe yourself with Jesus Christ and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh. So he, he did. He converted on the spot.
He became a Christian, became one of the historic pillars of the Christian faith, prolific writer, leader. Saint Augustine is still widely studied and referenced today by Protestants and Catholics alike. It began with Romans. Book of Romans was written by the Apostle Paul in the ’50s. The original ’50s, um, what kids might say OG ’50s.
I wouldn’t, but kids might say OG ’50s. Something like 56 to 58 AD is maybe— so maybe 25-ish years after crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. So we’re talking about a very, very early Christian document. Some consider Romans to be Paul’s magnum opus. If you didn’t know, Paul He wrote a lot.
He wrote many letters to many churches. He wrote actually a majority of books that make up our New Testament, but of them all, Romans is his most extensive. It contains the most thorough explanation of the Christian faith out of all of his letters. If you don’t know who Paul is, Paul is credited with much of the spread of Christianity in the 1st century. It’s interesting, no one debates whether Paul was a historical person.
Or not, even the people most skeptical about where Christianity came from or how it rose in influence, everyone agrees, everyone, that Paul, at least after Jesus, Paul played probably the biggest individual role in growing Christianity from a small fringe group to a belief system that, you know, eventually shaped the entire Roman Empire. If Christianity started as a little mom-and-pop operation in Jerusalem, Paul is the one who took it multinational. He went all around the Mediterranean planting little churches. He’s got to be the most successful organizational strategist, architect, growth leader of all time, because his franchises are still in operation, you know, 2,000 years later. Who else has done that?
And the ones he started spawned other little ones, and now there’s billions of people all around the globe who are who participate in this organization called church. Paul set that stage, or, you know, as we as Christians understand it, it was God through Paul, right? But Romans is Paul’s magnum opus. So we’re going to study this book from beginning to end, all 16 chapters. As a church, we often study entire books of the Bible, or at least entire sections of the Bible.
It’s like chapter by chapter, verse by verse. Because we don’t want to miss anything. Going through entire books helps us to cover topics that we may otherwise miss. You know, we might— maybe we just would neglect certain subjects unintentionally. We all have blind spots.
There’s some topics may never come to our minds. So going through the Word of God sequentially brings up what might not otherwise be on our mind. But going through the Bible like that also pushes us to address some topics that are uncomfortable, because the Bible can be controversial, and it’s easier to steer clear of controversy. But if we study entire books, you know, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, we’re pushed to cover it, we’re reminded to cover it, and there will be some challenging topics in Romans. We’ll hit a big one next week, Romans 1:24-27.
So that’s a content warning for next week. You know, you just look it up in advance, make the best decision if you have kids, you’re trying to decide if they’re in here or not. Romans 1:24-27. Later in the series, predestination comes up, you know, free will versus God’s election. The role of government comes up.
What’s a government supposed to do? What’s a Christian perspective on that? God’s plan with Israel comes up, which, you know, with the news this week, we want to say, of course, our hearts are with that entire region breaking. Our hearts are breaking along with theirs. There’s just been ongoing conflict for so long.
So, we’re certainly praying for all the nations there to have good relations with one another, praying for hate to end, peace to reign. May all of this mess somehow be a step in that direction. That’s our prayer. But Paul brings up Israel not to answer a geopolitical question, but there is a different question about Israel that his readers would want to know. You know, in the Old Testament we see Israel as God’s chosen people, but then with Jesus they largely didn’t get on board with Jesus.
So what does that mean? What does that mean if God’s people aren’t with God’s Son? What does that mean? Are they out? Are they in?
Is there some other way for them to be included? People in the first century wanted to know. Some of you might want to know. That’s much later in our series, but there’s going to be some controversy that we work through. However, we believe all scripture is the word of God.
He has included everything for a purpose. And so we don’t want to shortchange ourselves by not studying some part of it. So we will cover everything, chapters 1 to 16. Now, as many of you are familiar with Romans, maybe you’ve attended other churches who have taught all the way through Romans, it is a challenge to cover everything. Some churches spend an entire year going through it.
I know of one church that took 8 or 9 years to cover everything. From beginning to end. We won’t do that. I hope to be done by summer, actually, or if not this summer, we’ll take a break for summer and then come back in the fall, which means we’re going to go pretty quick through some sections. And it also means we won’t read every verse in Scripture out of the book, but we want to give you enough information so that when you go back and look at any part of it on your own, you will have at least heard our take on that.
We won’t gloss over anything that you may have questions about, is another way to say that. And if we do somehow gloss over something you have questions about, you can always send them in on sermon questions. So in that way, we won’t skip everything, even though we won’t read every verse. So today, As we begin our journey studying this extensive ancient letter, we will see what Paul’s central message is. What is Romans really about?
Where this central message came from, why it must come from there, and what happens when it does come. What his central message is, where it came from, why it must come from there, and what happens when it does. So first, what Paul’s central message is. It’s the gospel. Romans is about the gospel.
Here at the beginning, you know, we’re only 22 verses into Paul’s letter and he has already used the word gospel 4 times. It’s even in the very first verse. So Paul is the type of author who tells us what he’s going to say before he says it. It was upfront, he gives us a signpost for where he’s going. Romans is about the gospel.
But not only is his letter about the gospel, Paul tells us his life is about the gospel. He has given everything in order to serve it. He says he was set apart for it. It’s what he lives for. It’s his purpose.
It’s the thing that resonated so deeply for him that he proclaims— this is verse 16— unashamedly proclaims. He’s not hiding anything. It’s not a secret. He’s shouting it from the rooftops. He says the gospel is what I’m going to spend my life doing.
It was worth everything for him. He’d sacrifice anything for it. You know, kind of like us at Bridges, we say the gospel is our only hope. Paul is like that. So of course, if that’s what his life is about, naturally it would be the primary subject of his magnum opus.
But that raises the question, what is the gospel?
We’re actually told quite a bit about what the gospel is simply by the word itself. You know, today the term gospel can be used to mean something just like truth, you know, like the deadline is Friday, take that as gospel. People might say that gospel could even be used to imply like brand identity, customer experience is their gospel. But that’s not what the word meant in the first century. In Greek, the word gospel is euangelion, which means good news.
It was a report that something wonderful had happened. It’s the same word that was used to declare a military victory. You know, when a king’s army had won a battle and a messenger came back from the battlefield to tell the king or tell the town. And the messenger said, the victory’s won, the enemy’s defeated. That report, euangelion, gospel, it’s the news that it’s over, it happened, we won.
Gospel, good news. And this is the word Paul uses to describe the thing to which he unashamedly gives his life. So off the bat we’re clued in that the gospel is an event that happened, a great event likely having to do with some— having something to do with a victory being won. Something was accomplished in the world apart from us and now we’re hearing about it, which means if it has already been accomplished the gospel is not something for us to accomplish. It’s not about what we must do, it’s about what has been done.
You know, a messenger doesn’t come back from a victorious battlefield with a report that says, we got to redouble our efforts, try harder, send more resources. That wouldn’t be good news, that wouldn’t be gospel. If he came back with gospel, it’s to say it’s over, everything that needs to be done has been done, we can throw a party. That’s gospel. It was a common word in their culture.
Kings often sent out gospels to every corner of the kingdom saying they had won victories, it’s over. You know, they were familiar with the term, but Paul applies the word gospel not to a military victory but to what Jesus has done. He starts off indicating this gospel, this good news, is bigger than any of the other gospels they would ever hear. He says it’s God’s gospel, verse 1, of his Son Jesus Christ, meaning he’s telling the news of what Jesus has accomplished, of what Jesus has won.
So what did Jesus accomplish? What did Jesus win? What is it that’s over? We’ll see more and more as we get deeper and deeper into Romans, but up front we can say that Christ has has already done everything required to reconcile us to God, to remove our shame and guilt, to defeat the sin and darkness that is in ourselves, to defeat the sin and darkness that’s in the world, to overcome our temptations, to end evil, to heal the world, to remove our insecurities, to remove our worries about the future, to make us whole.
Jesus has done it. He won. Everything that needs to be done has been done. That’s good news. That’s Paul’s message.
Paul believes it’s worth sacrificing anything he has in order to tell people about that. Now second, where does this message come from? It comes from God. Paul seems to go to great lengths to explain this news is not something he made up. It’s not something he realized.
It’s not something, you know, he went and sat under a tree and thought about life for a while and he figured out what life’s all about and now he wants to come share it with people. It’s not that. He says, this isn’t even from me at all. Instead, he says, verse 2, this is something God said God was going to do from long ago. It was foretold by the prophets.
And then verse 3, it’s something Christ did. And finally, verse 5, it’s something we receive. He’s doubling down on grace here, saying God did the work to get to us. We don’t do the work to get to God. The gospel is God acted, we are acted upon.
God is the effector, we are the affected. God is the author, we are the work. You can think of the gospel and its effects as like how the light from the sun shines on the earth. The sun is the effector, the earth is the affected. The earth had no part in creating the light that hits it, nothing to do with that whatsoever.
The earth just receives the light from the sun, but that light from the sun that it receives changes everything on earth. You know, sunlight gives us energy, warmth, plants that grow, life. This is the gospel. It comes from outside of us, from God. It is something God did in history.
It happens to us, but it gives us life. It rescues us from darkness like the sun rescues the earth from darkness. It’s why Jesus describes receiving the gospel in John 3 as being born again. Just like our natural birth, it happened to us. We had nothing to do with our own formation in the womb.
We did not create ourselves when we were born. You could say our birth was wholly a work of grace. We just received the life that was given to us. So likewise, Jesus’ point in John 3, that’s how you’re spiritually born. It’s not something we do.
It’s something God does. It happens to us. We receive it just like a new baby receives life. So how are we reconciled to God? How’s our shame and guilt removed?
How’s the sin and darkness in ourselves defeated? How’s it defeated in the world? How do we overcome temptations? How is evil ended? How is the world healed?
How do we remove our insecurities? How do we stop worrying about the future? How can we feel whole?
It’s by what God did. It’s not by what we do. It’s wholly a work of grace. This is why it’s not just news, it’s good news. It’s why it’s such a relief.
The pressure is off. Pressure is off of us to earn it or to merit it. This is what thundered so loudly in Luther’s heart in the 1500s. You know, Luther was the type of person who felt enormous pressure to perform, to be good enough for God, to earn God’s favor, to be accepted by God. He thought he had to measure up to be included, and he knew he didn’t measure up.
He was very down on himself. I’m unworthy. I’m the worst. I’m a failure. I’m a disappointment.
I’m hopeless. He’s quite negative, and therefore he did all kinds of extreme things attempting to make himself good enough for God. It’s even part of the reason he sought to become a priest. He thought, well, if I need to be good enough for God, what’s better than being a priest? I’ll just go be a priest.
He also excessively fasted, which fasting, it can be good. Fasting can be a wonderful spiritual practice, but the frequency in which Luther did it, I mean, the length of time he fasted, he permanently damaged his digestive system, all in an effort to make himself good enough to please God. And yet, even after all of that, he knew he still wasn’t. He still felt unworthy. Until one day, he’s in deep despair, he’s in the throes of beating himself up, He found Romans 1:17, which describes the righteousness of God that happens to us.
It’s received by faith. It’s given to us. It comes from the outside. It’s not what we do. It’s what God does for us.
If you read 1:17, which you should, it’s actually not even that clear in that verse. If you read 1:17, you might say, what’s this? Which is why I’m not putting it on a screen. But that same idea It becomes much more clear later in Romans, but Luther somehow saw it in Romans 1:17, that God provides the righteousness that we need. God provides the worth to make us worthy.
God provides the acceptance that we long for. It’s not something that we produce on our own, it’s freely given to us by what Jesus did, by what Christ accomplished in history. Luther realized Jesus had measured up for him. Jesus was worthy for him. Jesus lived the life that Luther should have lived, and then Luther gets the credit for it.
Jesus died the death Luther deserved to die for his sin and guilt. And if that— if he is— Jesus has died for it, that means the debt has been paid. It removes all shame and guilt. Further, Jesus even secured the favor of God. Luther didn’t need to buy favor from God, which is one thing the Catholic Church was teaching right then through indulgences of its day.
He didn’t need to buy favor, but he also— Luther didn’t need to earn God’s favor through his behavior because Jesus had earned it for him. And if we have already the favor of God permanently through what has already been accomplished, If God is favorable to us, we can rest without worry. If God is for us through what has already been accomplished and it’s done, then who can be against us? That’s Romans 8. We’ll get there.
But the idea is Jesus did everything necessary to ensure that we would be blessed and highly favored. That’s good news. It’s all done. It’s all completed. It’s over.
The victory is won. The pressure is off. We can live free. That news changed everything for Luther. He exploded out into the world like a cannon.
Now, why must it be like that? Why must our righteousness, worth, favor from God be earned by Jesus, not us? Why must it come from the outside as opposed to us achieving it for ourselves? Why can’t we reconcile ourselves to God? Why can’t we merit his favor upon us?
Why not? Why must it come from there, from the outside? It’s because we won’t achieve it on our own. Paul paints a pretty bleak picture of humanity here, but if we’re honest with ourselves, we will probably find it true. Verse 18 through 22, he says all of us, all of us, you, me, himself, everyone, all of us, regardless of what home we grew up in or what faith we were taught or even if we weren’t taught any faith at all, all of us have an inherent awareness of God and his goodness.
We know what is true and beautiful. All of us do. But also, of us freely choose the opposite. We forsake the true, good, and beautiful. We taint it.
We pollute it. Even though we know we shouldn’t, we still do. Paul says we suppress the truth that we know, verse 18. And we’ve experienced that. You know, we’ve been on the precipice of some decision, or we’re about to say something that we know if we say it, it’s going to cause damage.
And there’s that little voice inside of us telling us, don’t break the world any more than it already is. This will damage others, maybe damage yourself, damage the world. Don’t do it. And we say, shut up, little voice. I want to break that person.
I may want to break myself. We suppress the truth to pursue what is wrong, and we know what we’re doing when we do it, which means, as Paul says, we’re without excuse. We can’t say, oh, I didn’t realize what was true and good and beautiful. I thought what I was doing would add to truth and goodness and beauty in the world. God can’t hold me accountable for what I did because no one ever told me.
No.
Don’t play that game. We knew. We knew what we were doing. We wanted to participate in the darkness, haven’t we? Hasn’t that been your story?
It’s been mine. You’re probably a better person than I am, but I imagine if you’re honest with yourself, it’s still true about you. Why does righteousness need to come from the outside? Because we’re not righteous.
If you’re not convinced yet, think about it this way. I don’t know the last time you sat down and read Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. You can find it in Matthew 5 to Matthew 7. It’s only 3 chapters, won’t take you any time at all. It’s Jesus’ most famous sermon.
It has this reputation for being about how we all need to love each other and get along, which is true. But it is not a soft sermon because Jesus says things like, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and teachers of the law, this is their priests, unless your righteousness surpasses theirs, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus also says anyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment.
He says anyone who says, you fool, will be in danger of the fire of hell.
He says anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
He says if someone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go 1 mile, go 2 miles with them. If any— give to the one who asks to you and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you.
Not tolerate them, not avoid them to keep the peace. Love your enemies. Why? Jesus says, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. Be perfect, Jesus says, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
This is just from Matthew 5. You still have 2 chapters to go in the Sermon on the Mount. And if we’re honest, If we’re honest, we hear Jesus’ words, we will say, well, I can’t do that. That’s beyond me. I’m incapable of that.
No one could be that true, good, and beautiful. Exactly.
You’re right, none of us will measure up to that. But when we hear those words from Jesus, we all know, don’t we, it is a description of true and good and beautiful. In fact, it’s a description of a beauty beyond anything we have ever experienced. If the world were like that, it would be a wonderful symphony of glory. I mean, everyone going the extra mile for everyone else, anger, lust, selfishness, all that’s gone.
If that was the world, we recognize it would be a beautiful world. We even knew that before we walked in here today. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is widely praised by Christians, non-Christians alike, of what humanity should be, should aspire to be. I mean, we recognize true, good, and beautiful. We know what it is.
But we aren’t it.
Instead, we pollute it. We damage it. So, if we’re honest with ourselves, we might be as neurotic as Luther because we know we don’t measure up. We don’t measure up to the standard of goodness that we see in our mind of what would be beautiful.
Righteousness must come from the outside. Because we are not righteous.
And in Jesus it does. This light from his life hits us and it changes us. So lastly, what is it like when what he did on our behalf is activated in our hearts? What happens when this message does come to us? It’s power.
It’s power. This is what happened to Luther. He just exploded with such freedom, such energy, such confidence to challenge the systems of his day. It’s what Paul says in verse 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. The word is dynamis.
It’s explosive force. It’s what happens when sunlight hits the earth. It’s power. It gives life. You feel alive when it hits you.
The burden will be gone. The voice that says you’re not enough, it loses authority. You’ll stop striving to impress God or to get his attention. You won’t strive to impress him, but you will strive with an excitement and a freedom. The paradox is the moment we stop trying to manufacture righteousness is the moment the real righteousness begins to grow.
It’s like how plants grow. Plants don’t grow because they’re trying to impress the sun or earn something from the sun, but they do grow. Why? They grow because the sun gave them power. We grow in righteousness because Jesus gave us his.
You know, we’re not motivated in righteousness because we’re afraid we might be rejected. That’s already taken care of. We’re motivated in righteousness because we already belong. We’re not fighting for a seat at the table, we’re already there. We’re not beggars at the door of a house, we’re sons and daughters of the house.
We can walk in confidence.
That kind of confidence is how we can go out into the world. We already have all the acceptance, all the worth, all the approval, all the favor, all the blessing. We already have all of it. By what Christ did for us. So when we go out into the world, we go out into the world complete, whole.
We don’t go out and interact with the world like trying to achieve wholeness or recognition through some kind of accomplishments. We go out into the world knowing that we already have that. That’s power.
That’s a confident kind of power that you never feel like you have to measure up. You never feel like you have to impress. You never feel like you have to work to be accepted. That’s power, and that’s what we have in Christ. I heard one pastor say it like this one time: What will you do now that you don’t have to do anything?
What will you do now that you don’t have to do anything?
Everything. You’ll do everything, not in order to get anything, but because you have the confidence of wholeness. That’s what you have in Christ. Let’s pray. Father, thank you for Jesus.
Thank you for Paul, who wrote about Jesus and his gospel. I pray that it would explode in our hearts with dynamis, with power, that we would feel the effect of what Jesus did on our behalf, Lord, that we would feel free, that we would feel confident, that we would feel whole, that we would feel favored as we go out and engage with the world.
May us know what it means that Jesus measured up for us. May we receive this gospel as it is, as good news. We pray those things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
