Read
vv 16-17
Did you hear
anything to be “ashamed” of?
Shame stings
sharply in the soul. But sometimes it is necessary, because men’s
souls are too often proud and ashamed of nothing. Not even what
they ought to be.
There are times
when shame is appropriate and times when shame is absurd. Times
when it makes sense and times when it makes no sense at all. There
is hope for a man’s salvation when he is ashamed of himself. But
when you are “ashamed of the gospel” – now that’s dangerous turf.
But we all know
by experience how we can be proud of what we ought to be ashamed
of, and ashamed of what we should consider an honor. Some of you
can recall a time when you were ashamed to act like you loved your
mother. You wanted an image of looking cool or independent in front
of peers of your age, and so you acted like she didn’t matter.
At the mall...at the school door….when you got picked up from soccer
practice. Can some of you remember that? And I hope that now you
are ashamed that you ever acted that way.
If not that,
most of you can remember some time when you were ashamed that you
had not ever done certain wrong things, and ashamed that instead,
you did something right. Like, maybe for instance, embarrassed
that you hadn’t smoked dope yet, and that you went to Sunday School.
Our thinking goes so wrong when we value what doesn’t matter and
when we fail to esteem what does. When we value looking cool to
people who mean nothing rather than valuing love and honor to the
person who means everything – a person deserving of it and who
really matters, when those other friends will pass into nothingness.
Stuff like this
is precisely what’s involved when we are ashamed for no good reason:
somebody who should not matter is being given a place of importance
they should not have. And somebody who deserves our love and honor
is ignored. And when Paul says “I am not ashamed of the gospel”
he’s putting us on notice that he does not care what those who
are unworthy of his life’s service think. He prefers to serve Christ.
Paul is a model of what our priorities must be. But Christians
have apparently required reminders and warnings about shame from
the beginning, even from the 1st century:
1 Pet 4:16: “if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed,
but in that name let him
glorify God.”
Heb 10:38: “My
righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back (in shame)
My soul has no
pleasure in him.”
Mark 8:38: “For
whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful
generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes
in the glory
of His Father with the holy angels.”
Did you hear
the contrast? Will you let people whose lives are being tossed
daily into the garbage heap of adulterous living, make you ashamed
that you are a follower of the Son of God? That would be exchanging
very temporary favor for permanent rewards. Exchanging what He
Who gives everything bestows, to get what people who can’t give
anything promise you. Not a well thought out trade.
But most believers
can relate all too well to being “ashamed of the gospel”. We know
about not speaking up for Christ when we could have. And we know
why we succumbed to that. We know that the gospel is so challenging
to men’s ideas, so humbling to men’s pride, so against men’s desires
and repulsive to what they want, it’s not always easy to stand
up for it. Fear of men gets in the way. Or a similar fear, fear
that I won’t be able to field and handle their arguments against
the gospel gets in the way. What if they ask some of those “why”
questions and I don’t have an answer?
If any of this
has ever afflicted anyone here, I’m going to change your perspective
on being a witness for the gospel. I’m going to give you a new
way to talk about it today. I hope it becomes so fascinating for
you to talk about that, you’ll find this completely overcomes all
sense of “shame” and makes you excited about telling the gospel
to people. I’m going to tell you some things about the gospel (the
Apostle Paul is, really – we’ll just be looking at what he said)
which I hope will take you across the tracks of temptation of being
ashamed, and make you exuberant about telling people the gospel.
Does that sound good?
Paul had been all over Europe and Western Asia, talking about how a
guy who died on a cross in an obscure country was the Savior of the
world. He didn’t expect everyone to take him seriously. He knew this
would raise questions, objections, and even mockery. He had once objected
to and mocked it himself. He expected to be made fun of, laughed at,
and thought a fool. But he still found great joy in preaching Christ.
He was as willing to speak of Christ in insignificant, out of the way
places, as in the halls of respected philosophers who would think of
him as not fit to engage the lofty ideas they batted around, no comparison
in scholarship to them. Paul didn’t care what they thought of him.
I’ll talk about Jesus anywhere. And he knew that, as you do this, the
God of power is going to save some – even some like him, whose first
response is, I would never believe that in a million years. It doesn’t
matter. The power of God is able to save those people too.
Paul knew that,
when you tell men who are concerned about influence and power and
getting somewhere in life, that we should become followers of a
man who was born in a barn and died as a criminal, it doesn’t make
a lick of sense to them. It doesn’t sound like the type of person
whose life and message commands our attention and stirs us to follow.
Jesus marshaled no armies, ruled no nation, taught at no university.
So you can understand, to the Jews there were religious objections
and to the Greeks there were intellectual objections.
It all makes
it easy to be “ashamed of the gospel.” And I can give you some
more reasons to be ashamed of it, in case these are not enough
for you. See, here you are in church, and I’m going to honestly
and frankly admit in front of you every possible and conceivable
reason to not be bothered with Jesus of Nazareth! In addition to
what’s already been said:
* This gospel
requires renouncing all human worth and merit. Men hate doing that!
But this gospel
says you have to dump all that
* Because it demands that you cut ties with all your sins
* Because it separates men into two classes: those in Christ and those
of this world
* Because it insists that every other faith is all wet and only following
Christ brings salvation
Paul knew that
Rome was a challenging city to bring this new message to; and the
church at Rome had already felt persecution for holding to their
new, unapproved religion. Emperor worship did not tolerate rivals
very well, and Paul knew that the disciples there were looking
down that gun barrel when they declared themselves Christians.
I think Paul says “I am not ashamed of the gospel”, not to brag
about his own boldness, but to incite the Christians in Rome to
be bold: to get them on the wagon of his boldness, and to get them
to feel as he does – that it is a high honor to tell men about
Christ.
Fast forward
to our city, our times. To say “I love Jesus” and “I follow Jesus”
has very little risk of shame now. I suppose that a majority of
people will still think you’re a fine person if you say that, even
if they don’t love or follow Jesus. Because most people we might
say that to have no idea how extensive, radical and life-changing
that is! They don’t know Who Jesus is. They don’t know what He
calls for. If they did, they’d hate His guts. Because He won’t
let you live independent of His Lordship: He demands all. You can’t
have an independent righteousness of your own: He says you have
none.
So what is this
gospel message about? It is about how the gospel is power in the
hand of God! And I guess that what’s so offensive about that is,
it insists that there is no power in the hand of YOU! And that
brings us to the 3 points on which we closed last week – so, look
at the back of your bulletin with me. These are so important, I
asked Sheryl to print them here for us all to see together.
The Gospel is
About:
~ How the Power of God Saves us
~ The Power of God Saves us by Providing the Righteousness of God for
us
~ The Righteousness of God is Revealed to all Those who Believe
Last week, I
quoted William Cunningham (principal of the College at Edinburgh,
England, for training of ministers, sometime in the 1800’s). Not
that it matters much who he was. But his most famous quote is:
"The righteousness of God is the righteousness which His righteousness requires
Him to require"
It’s on the back of the bulletin too, in case you have a hard time
following it when said audibly. God is holy. And being holy, He will
not tolerate less than holiness in His presence; it is not just a rule
to Him. It’s His nature. His own righteousness of character compels
Him or requires Him to require righteousness from you. And given that
you cannot produce a match for His own righteousness, then in order
to fit you for His presence, He supplies you His. That is how the gift
of His love in Jesus is expressed.
Jesus is the
forgiveness of sins for us. And more. Jesus is the gift of righteousness
for us. Sin is negative, demerits, against our account. He takes
that away. Righteousness is positive, it’s merit, favorable to
our account. And He gives us that.
Can you tell
this really gets to me? And that it sparks me to speak with a kind
of passion and authority? That is not me! But it does that to me,
because I know that I’m talking about power in the hand of God!
Only God could provide power like this! Have you ever seen somebody
really little get boldly “big”? The Selby’s had a dog: Brownie.
And I love to tell this story, because it was so illustrative to
me of so many things, when it took place (tell of the time you
were parked at the Selby house, waiting for them, and Brownie barked
at you, but he got really bold when he saw their car turn the corner).
Well, I’m being
“Brownie” here. I’m not speaking just as “Dennis.” Those of you
who knows me – and I mean, if you really know me – you know I’m
about as UN-authoritarian as a guy can be, by nature. I don’t want
to rule others. I have no forceful wishes. But when I speak of
the gospel, I speak with authority. Because I can speak with the
authority of the power of God at work! And the best part being,
what’s so good about this is revealed in something Chrysostom (an
early church father) once said: that many men, when they think
of “power” in hand of God, think of His capacity to create or to
punish. To make things or to destroy. But this is talking about
God’s power to save. Power to rescue us from the seemingly irrecoverable
situation of our self-ruin in sin. He changes that in the gospel.
So here are the
points I made last week. I do not have anything more important
to tell you about, as long as I live!! That, The Gospel is About:
~ How the Power of God Saves us
~ The Power of God Saves us by Providing the Righteousness of God for
us
~ The Righteousness of God is Revealed to all Those who Believe
And now, we will
cover each of those.
A) The Gospel
is About How the Power of God Saves Us – v 16
Paul is not ashamed – why should he be? – we’re talking about “the
power of God for salvation to everyone who believes”! Paul’s plain
meaning is: the news we learn in the gospel is the power that God saves
people with! Said another way: more than anything else in the world,
the omnipotence of God shows in the capacity of God to save men through
the gospel.
Please look up
with me a few verses about power. You ought to be interested in
these. You know why you ought to be interested? Because this is
about the power of God for salvation, and in that department, you’re
a punk, with no power. If you haven’t learned that yet, I don’t
even know why you’re sitting in a building called Grace Bible Church.
Why would you come listen to this if you believed you had any power
over your own salvation? If it was a mystery, why everyone stands
and sings their lungs out in here, it’s because you’re in the midst
of people who know that, when we had no power to get out of the
mess of our sins, God saved us!
Rom 5:6: “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ
died for the ungodly.”
Rom 8:3: “For
what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God
did: sending His
own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin,
He condemned sin in the flesh…”
Being “saved”
and talk about “salvation” has become a common word that people
don’t understand anymore for overuse! It means, being rescued and
delivered! Many religious ideas make people feel better about themselves,
but they don’t touch the real problem: they have no power to remove
sin, change guilt, and buy forgiveness. That’s not something you
can do! That requires power that is out of your hands!
Now, look at
the 2nd half of v 16: “to the Jew first, and also to the Greek”
– you and I do not have any idea how that sounded in the 1st century!
It sounded like this: “Whites and even niggers can be saved!” But
here are the realities of how the gospel went out:
When Jesus sent
out His 12 disciples the first time, He sent them “only to the
lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And when Paul carried out his
mission mandate, he and his companions took the gospel, first of
all, to the Jews. It was God’s plan for God’s reasons. Perhaps
in part His plan because it was best to have the message at first
preached right in the place where the great transactions and events
had been accomplished on which the gospel was based and founded.
The work of the gospel, through Christ and His Apostles, in a very
tiny nation and region of the world, waited about 5 years for Jewish
repentance that did not come.
And slowly, events
unfolded in such a way in the hand of God that it was clear, the
Lord Jesus was pushing the messengers of the gospel more and more
towards Gentiles. He was opening doors to Gentiles and making clear
that His disciples were to pass through those doors. And the Jews
who had been first in privilege soon found themselves first in
penalty: the privilege of hearing the gospel was theirs first,
the penalty of rejecting it was theirs first. And soon, it was
being taught by the Apostles that any wall of separation between
Jew and Gentile was being completely torn down. That there was
no longer any distinction.
Is it still necessary,
in evangelism, to take the gospel to Jews first? It is not. That
has already been done. Now they are just a people-group among the
world, and in fact their blood is a lot more Gentile than they
think it is. None of that matters. We tell all men about the power
of God saving them now. We tell men, as John 1:12 says: “But as
many as received Him, to them He gave the right (power) to become
children of God.” To understand salvation, first base is understanding
that it’s up to the power of God, from beginning to end.
There are times
when the Word of God tells us that our salvation depends on the
power of God, and it means that God has the power to change us
from sinful into godly people, 2 Tim 3:5. At times Paul means that
the gospel came with preaching that was accompanied by life-changing,
Holy Spirit power, 1 Thes 1:5. At times the Word of God means the
power of the Spirit to break our resistant wills, to make us willing,
Ps 110:3. But Paul is not talking about those here. This time,
he tells us exactly what kind of power he means. You might call
it “provisionary power.” And that leads to my 2nd point:
B) The Power
of God Saves us by Providing the Righteousness of God for Us –
v 17
“For in it (in the gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed”
The gospel shows the power of God for salvation because it reveals
the righteousness of God. That may at first strike you as just “information”
– God is righteous. God is holy. That was how Martin Luther took it
at first. Then it began to dawn on him that this was not what Paul
was saying.
The word “righteousness”
is a big theme in Romans – probably THE theme! The word “righteousness”
is used almost 40x! Until a person understands what Paul means
by righteousness, he won’t understand Romans. Go further with me:
until a person understands what Paul means by “the righteousness
of God” he will definitely miss the message of Romans! That comes
up about 8x. You not only have to understand it, you have to come
to know that it is what you need! Or you haven’t quite caught on
yet. In coming weeks in Romans, you’re going to meet that phrase
often – numerous times in Romans.
What does it
speak of? Sometimes, in the Bible, “the righteousness of God” is
a way of referring to God’s own attribute of holiness. The fact
that He is a holy God. But in Romans, that is NOT how Paul uses
it most of the time. Paul means by it, God’s righteousness given
to sinners; the gift of His own righteousness bestowed upon others.
Rom 3:21-22; 5:17. The gospel does more than just “reveal” God’s
righteousness, as in, “show” us that God is holy. The gospel shows
us that God gives holiness. It reveals the power of God at work
in us, in changing our status, by the gift of His righteousness.
Paul never said
it blunter than in 2 Cor 5:21: “He made Him who knew no sin to
be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of
God in Him.”
“Become”? How
do we “become” that? But that’s what you most need. Paul explains
it best in Phil 3:8-9 – where he says he would trade anything for
it, and proves that he means it, in that he did trade valuable
things for it! Paul did “the pearl of greatest price” swap.
Among Hebrew
peoples, the ideas of “right” and “wrong” were legal ideas. That
is, they always thought of what’s right and what’s wrong as something
settled before a judge, who was a wise interpreter of the Law.
Righteousness was not thought of so much as a moral quality as
a legal status. When they spoke of your moral qualities, they would
far more likely speak with the term “integrity” – tom (Hebrew)
than the word “righteousness” – tsedeq (Hebrew).
They knew: God
is the righteous one. Those whom He declares as “in the right”
with Him, are righteous too, and are safe. If God does not declare
you righteous – in the right – you are ruined. And speaking of
ruined, let’s allow Martin Luther to clarify this for us, because
he does such a good job of that! It’s as hard to talk about “the
righteousness of God” in Romans and not talk about Martin Luther
as it is to talk about light bulbs without Thomas Edison or the
history of Islam without talking about Muhammad.
To Luther, this
was the discovery of all discoveries to him – and it made him so
eager to proclaim it and felt such an obligation to proclaim it
to all men that, his work changed the face of Europe – again! Listen
to a sampling of his insight on this, from his commentary to the
Romans: pointing out that, there have always been people, among
Jews and among Gentiles, who believed in the merit of their own
goodness and the possibility of pleasing God and earning a right
to paradise by their own goodness. Luther shows that Romans teaches
the exact opposite – that the only way for any person to merit
any reward from God is to humbly submit to receive God’s gift of
righteousness, provided entirely by God, by grace, unearned. And
he says:
“For God does
not want to save us by our own, but by an extraneous (great word!)
righteousness, one
that does not originate in ourselves but comes to us from beyond ourselves,
which does not arise on
earth but comes from heaven.”
And again, Luther
testified one day, as part of his teaching Romans to students at
Wittenburg, Germany:
“I greatly longed
to understand Paul’s epistle to the Romans, and nothing stood in
the way but that one
expression: the righteousness of God. Because I took it to mean, that
righteousness whereby God is
righteous, and deals in a holy way in punishing the unrighteous. Night
and day I pondered until I
grasped the truth that the righteousness of God is that righteousness
whereby, through grace, and sheer
mercy, He justifies us by faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn!
And to have gone through open
doors into paradise! The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning.
And where before, the
righteousness of God had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly
sweet, in greater love.
This passage of love became to me a gateway to heaven.”
Once you discover
this, it changes your view of the Bible. Is it a boring book of
binding rules? No, it’s like a book notifying us of the best possible
gift! It changes your view of God. Is God a strict kill-joy? No,
He’s the kindest provider of the most wonderful gifts. It changes
your view of the Law and commandments. Are they frustrating and
seem un-keepable? Great! It’s good for us that we learn that. We’re
catching on when they seem that! Because God always meant to use
the law to bring us to a frustrated end of ourselves so we’d turn
from self-confidence and self-righteousness to embrace the gift
of Christ!
So it changes
everything! I can testify of it! For I felt all those ways before
about God, the Bible, the commandments, all of it. But what a change.
And the 3rd and final point for today:
C) The Righteousness
of God is Revealed to All Those who Believe
Did you catch when I said that, Paul’s meaning here for “revealed”
is, the idea of, a work done in us, to show us what we possess. Not
just showing us something, but providing it for us. And what do we
have to do to get it? The gospel is the most amazing bargain, the most
astonishing “deal” ever cut. All we have to do is believe. Faith is
all He requires of us – vv 16 and 17 both say it. It comes up in both
verses:
V 16: The gospel
is about “salvation to everyone who believes”
V 17: It is “revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the
righteous man shall live
by faith.’”
1st, Paul says,
“to everyone who believes”! To make sure we know that there is
no obstacle, no matter what race or nationality or sex you are.
And no matter how far down into sin you went, that’s no obstacle.
No matter how degraded you got – no obstacle! Remember! This is
about the power of God saving you, so it is a given, understood
that you could not save yourself. But whoever has faith, in him,
the omnipotence of God works salvation.
To say that faith
is what we contribute is to say that we contribute nothing of merit.
When we get to Rom 4, you will see there that faith is contrasted
with works. Works earns points; faith earns none: Rom 4:5. Works
gets you what you earned and deserved. Faith receives a gift, Rom
3:24. Faith works like this: God says, “I give”. The sinner reaches
out and says “I take.” So to say that faith is all that’s called
for from you, means you contributed nothing to your salvation.
God gave the power; God gave the righteousness. Faith opens empty
hands and receives what the power of God gives.
2nd, Paul says
it another way: “from faith to faith” – an odd phrase. It’s the
only time it’s used in the Bible. How do we know then what it means?
We can tell by what follows it, which is where he explains it –
when Paul writes: speaking the 3rd time about faith, saying “as
it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’” –
to say “as it is written” is to quote an OT Scripture – and he
picks one written about the same subject to explain: “the just
shall live by faith.” It’s from the prophet Habak 2:4.
To say, “the
just shall live by faith” is referring to a walk of faith. Continuing.
All their life. And so that’s what “from faith to faith” means.
Only by faith, from beginning to end, never relying on your works
at any point in life, always by faith. This also serves to emphasize
that real faith in the gospel is not something you believe just
once, at the start, but it’s a walk in faith, continuing in it.
Faith is not a one-time act of believing something that you forget
about and which has no affect on your life then. It is a way of
life to trust Christ.
Now, to combine
this with the rest of what we have said, to make sure we can’t
miss it, I’m going to quote you 3 Scriptures – the 1st, one in
Romans that we’ll get to soon in our studies:
Rom 3:20: “by
the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for
through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.”
Gal 2:16: “nevertheless
knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but
through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ
Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by
the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh
be justified.”
Gal 3:11: “Now
that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for,
‘The righteous man shall live by faith.’”
You’re going
to notice that the Scriptures say that:
We are “justified” by faith, and
We are “saved” by faith, and
We “live” by faith.
V 16 says there
is salvation for everyone who believes and then v 17 backs that
up with a quote which says the righteous “live” by faith. When
you hear the words “life” and “salvation” realize that these words
were practically synonymous to Hebrew peoples. Paul, raised by
Aramaic-speaking parents, he most likely used the same word when
talking of either “life” or “salvation”: Aramaic hayy. So for Paul
to say “we are saved by faith” would be virtually the same as saying
“we have life by faith” – because, if you’re not saved, you’re
left in what situation? You’re left in death. You’re stuck on death.
But now, because
God is righteous – you can have eternal life. Notice that: because
God is righteous. You see, God being gracious is not some accidental
feature of His personality. Sometimes when we think of the righteousness
of God, we tend to think like Luther, of daunting, overwhelming
holiness that we can never meet the standard of, and we’re intimidated
and discouraged. Here is how I want you to witness the gospel now:
tell people that, since God is righteous, you know what He can
do? He can bestow the gift of His own righteousness on any sinner
He wants to give it to. And He can do that and be perfectly just.
That’s what the gospel is about: God’s personal power and right,
His authority, to bestow His own righteousness – so that it’s not
just possible for a sinner to be forgiven. It becomes a positive
necessity for that sinner to be accepted by God. Because the righteousness
which the righteous God requires Himself to require, is given.
Sometimes we
talk of how deserving we are of hell. And there was a truth to
that. But it’s a “was” truth, not an “is” truth anymore. He has
changed our legal status. He has changed what we deserve. In God’s
sight now, when you become a Christian, He sees to it that what
Jesus Christ earned is your status. And it was costly for the Lord
Jesus Christ to earn it. The OT is full of hints of what the righteous
God would do through Christ. You want to see an interesting one?
Close with me with a look at Psalm 15:4:
Among the attributes
of a righteous man, he “swears to his own hurt and does not change
his mind.”
And you know,
God swore to Abraham that he would bless the world through him.
And He swore to his own hurt, but did not change His mind when
the time came to bestow the gift.
