The Gospel in Romans

Intro:

I have a dream. Those words take us to DC by that Lincoln memorial. Can you imagine Dr. King looking out? That huge crowd. What a speech that was back in 1963. It’s such an iconic line. What a lot of people don’t know is that Dr. King had talked about his dream during various rallies throughout the years. During that famous speech on August 28, 1963 Dr. King felt what he had prepared was not getting across the way he hoped. A woman by the name of Mahalia Jackson was urging him to “tell them about the dream, Martin!” And he listened to her. We think it was the first time he uttered those words, but it was the culmination of years of dreaming and rallying and then in one fell swoop we have this masterpiece presentation of the dream that we will never forget. Well y’all this week we begin a series called 13 Letters. The Apostle Paul wrote these letters over the course of his 30 year ministry after the resurrection of King Jesus who revealed Himself to Paul around AD 33/34. And Paul was traveling all over the modern day middle east and into Eastern Europe sharing the gospel. Somebody say gospel. He was preaching this message about King Jesus who had died on the cross and rose from the dead and people started following Jesus. Paul woudln’t stay long. He’d leave. Then he would correspond with them at a distance through letters. He’d send his assistants and friends to check in on the churches and make sure they were helpful. So these 13 Letters are Paul encouraging people and churches to not only believe the good news about Jesus, but to live it out together in their particular context. Some churches had ethics issues; they were living a Las Vegas lifestyle even after knowing Jesus and he was trying to help them see how Jesus and His gospel changes everything. Some churches had ethnic tensions amongst races and Paul wrote them to see how the gospel changes that too. Others had missional issues where they didn’t want to spread the good news about Jesus. Paul had words for them as well. But similar to Dr. King, Paul was sharing this gospel everywhere all the time. But in his letters, he uniquely shares the dream, the gospel, in a pointed way to specific people and places for specific purposes. And this week we start with the book of Romans. If there is a “I Have A Dream” speech in the New Testament about the gospel, this is it. Paul is dreaming for the Romans. People have seen the Lord Jesus and believed in Him through this letter being preached for 2,000 years, and I believe that will happen here today as well. In this series, our goal is to help you see the gospel dream Paul had in each letter. Sometimes you need to go extremely slowly through a letter to catch all of its intricacies. Sometimes taking it as an overview helps you see the beauty of the gospel in a unique way you miss when you zoom all the way in. Today’s sermon is 13 Letters: The Gospel of Romans. We’re going to make sure we understand the context of who/what/where/when/why on this letter and then we will talk about the gospel and me, the gospel and us, and the gospel and them. If you’re ready, say I’m ready.

Context:

This is a letter from Paul which he verbally dictated and was written down by a man Tertius (Romans 1:1, Romans 16:22) and then hand delivered and read out loud by a woman by the name of Phoebe (Romans 16:1).

This is not Paul’s first letter. Galatians was. Paul wrote this in AD 56-67 to the church in Rome while in Corinth (Romans 1:7, Romans 16:23) on his way to Jerusalem to drop off money from Gentile churches to bring them aid during a famine; and afterwards he intends to go to Rome on his way to Spain (Romans 15:22-25).

So I want y’all to feel the weight of the distance and time we are talking about here and how it plays into the significance of this letter and Paul’s agenda. Jesus died in AD 33. The gospel had been spreading for 24 years now. Paul was in the midst of his final missionary journey. So the reason that Romans is so long and big and deep and is the I have a dream speech of all of his writings on the gospel is because he’s writing to a church in Rome that he’s never met. He’s in Corinth as he writes. He is on his way to Jerusalem and he is anxious. We learn in chapter 15 that he’s anxious about this money he is hand delivering to Jerusalem from all of the churches because of ethnic tension. He’s so nervous that the ethnic Jew/Gentile tension will boil over on his way to give the predominantly Jewish church in Jerusalem some money from predominantly Gentile churches he has been interacting with. So part of why he is writing the Romans is to get them to pray for this offering he is hand delivering to Jerusalem. He is also writing them to tell his intentions for after his trip to Jerusalem which is for him to visit the Romans on his way to Spain to share the gospel, and he is asking the Romans to be prepared to send him on his way to Spain to share the gospel with people who haven’t heard it yet by being his financial partner. So he’s being open that he wants them to pray for him on this ethnic issue and to get ready to give him money and be his supporting church hub as he begins to take the gospel more West than it has ever been. And oh by the way, this Roman church began as predominantly Jewish, but then in AD 49 the Roman emperor was tired of the Christians causing a stir in the city so he kicks out all Jews. So the church has become more Gentile and now they run the church and their is a slight anti-Jewish bent. And as Romans there is an anti-non-Roman bent. So please pray for me while I take this money from Gentiles who follow Jesus like you to Jerusalem with Jews who follow Jesus and then when I come give me some money and oh by the way I’m going to live off that money while I go share the gospel with anybody I can find in Spain, even potentially Barbarians who are constantly a threat to your precious Roman empire.

That’s a tough sell. Isn’t it? That’s about as tough as… ILLUSTRATION

What could Paul possibly tell them in order to get them to see God as the great architect of all of this? Not some Jewish scheme or maneuver to force them to do something they don’t want to do? What on earth could Paul talk about to get them on board? That’s why he gives us the most articulate description of the gospel in the history of the world. Somebody say the gospel. We are about to talk about the greatest message in the world from the greatest letter in the world. You ready?

1. The Gospel and Me (Romans 1:16-8:39)

The gospel and sin (Romans 1:18-25, Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, Romans 8:7, Romans 5:8-10)

The word gospel means good news. It’s an announcement. Hear ye hear ye. Better than your team got the #1 overall pick. Better than hearing your family can eat out for under $20. Better than interest rates just went below 3%. Everyone in America would refinance right now if that were true. Because good news changes things, doesn’t it? So the gospel is good news about what God has done. God has done something. He has sent His Son. But in order to understand how that is good news, we have to understand why He sent Him. Romans is the most robust depiction of sin we have in all of the Bible in a matter of fact way. In chapter 5 Paul tells us that sin came into the world through one man. Who is he talking about? Adam. Adam sinned. Eve sinned. And through their being deceived by Satan and falling into sin, we all inherit their sin nature. So what is sin? Look at Romans 1:18-23 with me.

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 the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

We see in these verses that to sin is to exchange the truth about God for a lie. To be a sinner isn’t just to do arbitrary moral wrong. It definitely includes that. But sin is taking our capacity to love and trust and focus on God; what the Bible calls worship, and we exchange that for created things. Then we suppress the truth about God. To sin is to suppress the truth about God that we all know deep down. And we exchange his glory for the glory of stuff and ourselves. Somebody say to sin is to exchange. So let me tell you what that means, friend. It means that you have chosen to substitute your potential to live with God and make much of him and love him who is so good and beautiful and glorious and made you in his image and instead of living for his glory, you exchanged that for a world where you don’t serve and love God but you are your own god. You are in charge. You call the shots. You want people to worship you. You love silly things, and you become silly in the process. And it is through this exchange process that humanity slowly becomes less human. The Bible calls it idolatry but the basic idea is that God eventually gives you over to what you worship. You become like what you worship. So yes there are extreme versions like people trying to act like animals, or throwing themselves in a river by the millions thinking the river can cleanse them from sin, or denying basic elements of what it means to be made human in their relations with one another. But it also looks like us living extremely comfortable lives, trying to be nice, retiring, and leaving some money for our kids when we die and thinking that’s why we were made in the first place. What? That’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard. We were made in God’s image to rule the world with him. To partner with God. To showcase his greatness. He’s so good. He’s righteous. But we settle. To sin is to exchange. To sin is to settle. It’s to waste our lives. To become worthless. And yes it’s to do and think acts of just evil. Romans 3 says we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Sin is evil because God is good. We have missed the mark friends, but it’s God’s mark. God is good. To exchange him for other things is not only settling and insane but it’s treason. It’s rebellion. It’s to take what he gave us and say thanks but I got it from here. It’s to take his gifts and make them weapons we use against him in our attempt to be God. And for all this sin, friends; sin of lust and gossip and anger and pride and self-pity and hatred, do you know what we deserve? As Romans 1 says, we deserve God’s righteous wrath against unrighteousness. We wouldn’t call a judge good who told a serial killer, no big deal man. No. Not good. God is good and just. He is holy. He will make all things right. He will undo injustice. Wrongs will be made right. If we waste our lives, God will let us. If we hear the gospel and the opportunity we have to live with Him as we were created to do, and turn away, he will give us over to our idols. The wages of sin is death. God is so gracious to continue to offer Himself to us when all we want is our sin. When we want to kill Him and be done with Him. He is so patient and kind.

The gospel and justification and righteousness (Romans 3:21-26, Romans 5:8-10, Romans 6:5)

So into this backdrop of sin and idolatry and not wanting God and missing the mark and exchanging and being God’s enemy as Romans 5 tells us God send His own Son. Look at Romans 3:21-26

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Our natural first reaction to hearing we are guilty and sinners and deserving of death is to want to do something. Maybe keep God’s laws. That’s what I should do. Stop sinning. Go to church. Here’s the problem with that. Unrighteous people aren’t actually submitting to God’s law. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. We can’t please Him by keeping the law. His wrath remains on us. Lawkeeping won’t save us. So God does what the law could not do. He sends His own Son in the flesh to condemn sin in the flesh. Here’s what that means. By becoming a man what the eternal Son of God we know as Jesus of Nazreth did is He lived out the perfect life. He didn’t exchange God’s glory. He didn’t settle. He loved God and people perfectly. He lived life with God. He fulfilled God’s law. But at the end of His life He didn’t receive a champions reward, but absorbed God’s wrath on the cross. So, on the cross, Jesus wasn’t dying the death His life earned Him, but the death an unrighteous life earned Him. Why? So by dying in our place, upon being resurrected, we could get his righteousness. Here in Romans 3:26 Paul tells us God is just and the justifer of those who have faith in Jesus. What that means is God had to be able to genuinely forgive people. He can’t be the judge letting murderers off. So someone must absorb the damage our sin did. That’s what Jesus did. So when God forgives the person who puts their faith in Jesus, God is being just because that sin of theirs was paid for by Him. He’s just and justifier. And let me just make sure we understand what’s being said. At the height of your rebellion against God, He sent His Son to die for you. While you hated Him and loved yourself, God sent His Son. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He didn’t die for the version of you that you think is clean. You and I aren’t righteous. Jesus died to make you righteous. And this is the righteousness of God. That means this is the very core of God’s eternal being. To open Himself up and show you who He is all the way at the core is to see the cross where He offers Himself to you as a gift to be received by faith. The cross isn’t God’s side project. Some of us have side hustles but our main thing is we do ____. For God, the cross of Jesus Christ where He takes your punishment and then you get his resurrection for free by faith is the main main main most representative of His heart. This is God’s display to the whole world who He really is at His core. At His core is to set this up so we can know Him as His gift despite our sin; not earn His love as our reward for our good actions.

So, friend, believe this. Jesus died for your sins! While you wanted nothing to do with Him. God wants to unite you to Himself right now. He wants to justify you. So that nobody ever in your past present or future could bring a single charge against you. Though you will continue to sin, no sin, no situation, no circumstance can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus once you’ve been justified by Him. Once you repent. Turn from your sin. Trust in Him. The Spirit will open the eyes and ears of your heart to hear this Word of Christ and receive it with faith. Faith to grab God’s gift. Not to feel motivated to go to church more. But to cling to the cross of Jesus Christ. Cling to Jesus. He will save you. Be reconciled to God. Please. Turn to Him. Be saved. Be saved. This is the gospel. God did it!

The gospel and sanctification (Romans 6:1-14)

But Paul isn’t done. Not only can the penalty of sin be removed from your life. No condemnation. So charges. But also you get to lvie with God every second of every day. Jesus died to break sin’s penalty hanging over your life, and to bring sin’s power in your life. Some of us think trusting in Jesus is a get out of jail free card to be shown to God when we die to go into heaven. Wrong. Trusting in Jesus is to receive a gift that binds us to the Father through the Son by the Spirit. Norfolk has some welding schools around here. Tons of welding going on. Imagine an unbreakable union between you and God. God the Father made the plan, the Son executed the plan, and the Spirit applies the bond. So Jesus didn’t die just to get you out of hell but to unite you to God. If we have been united with Him in a death like His we shall surely be united to Him in a resurrection like His. So you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Jesus died for your sin. Sin is what killed you. Jesus brought you to life. Now embrace a new way. Sin isn’t your master anymore. You run on the Spirit now. On Jesus. You will sin still, but your default is walking in the Spirit. God is your Father. Trust Him. Run on grace. Not sin.

2. The Gospel and Us (Romans 9:1-15:33)

So Paul spends chapters 1-8 diving into the depths of this gospel message where God unites sinners to Himself and how that works out intricately in Jesus’ death on the cross and being applied to us by faith in what He has done, and not by our keeping of the law. And throughout the letter He was pointing out how all humans need this gospel grace. Both Jews and Gentiles. Jews were those God chose in the person of Abraham. God called Abraham despite being an old man, Abraham believed God, and God credited Abraham’s belief to Him as righteousness. So just like us, Abraham was saved on faith, not on lawkeeping. What had happened over the years was those in Abraham’s lineage were wasting the prvilege of sharing his physical lineage but not having faith in God, but instead trusting their lawkeeping. So when Jesus came on the scene He was a lightning rod of controversy amongst Jews, and still is. Many, like Paul, who was Jewish, saw trusting in Jesus as a continuation of what it means to be a Jew. But many walked away from Jesus the Messiah. So Paul goes in on how God has been faithful to the Jews. He has fulfilled every promise He ever made to them. He is righteous towards them. And remember, He’s writing to a mixture of Jews and Gentiles but they’re primarily Gentiles, or non-Jews like us. So by highlighting God’s dealings with the Jews he is in effect saying, don’t get it twisted, the gospel is for the Jew first. Whoever isn’t Jewish and belives in Jesus owes some humility towards the Jews because God has used their not getting as a part of us getting it. So don’t be arrogant you Gentiles receiving this letter towards Jews. He who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. And as I mentioned earlier he says in chapter 15 that he is on his way to take a bunch of money he collected from churches to the church in Jerusalem who has been dealing with a famine and they need aid. How cool is it y’all that Paul wants to hand deliver this money from Corinth? Y’all, it’s an extra 1,800 miles he’s adding on. Because he coudl just as easily handed the money to an assistant to take to Jerusalem. After all, Paul says his ambition is to preach the gospel where it’s never been befroe. His real desire was to get to Spain. But he’s adding months and months of travel to not share the gospel with new people, but to bring money from mostly Gentile Christians to mostly Jewish Christians. Doesn’t that feel inefficient to us? But y’all, to Paul he wanted this offering to go well so badly. If race divided the church in the 1st century Paul knew he had wasted his life. It doesn’t matter if I go Spain with the gospel if this offering doesn’t go well it means the gospel has united the church were I’ve already been like I thought it did. You know what this means about the gospel, friends? We shouldn’t just be glad to be united to God through Jesus. But through the blood of Jesus and the Spirit of God we become family through the gospel. Regardless of age or race or who you voted for or what you smell like or where you live, if we both trust in Jesus we are closer than blood relatives. Many of us might think of ourselves as willing to die for Jesus. Let me ask you this, would you die for Jesus’ church? Paul would. Paul was willing to travel 1,800 miles to show that the church is a picture worth fighting for. One concern I have right now in America is we don’t only live ashamed of Jesus many times but many who proclaim to know Jesus are ashamed of His church. And hear me, I get it. Church hurt is real. I don’t want to dismiss that. But, y’all, all of the baggage and drama of the early church didn’t push Paul or the early Christians away from the church, it pushed them towards it. How good God is in the gospel dictates how hard we fight to defend the picture and reputation of the gospel in His people, the church. So whether you’re in high school, college, living in Norfolk for 2 years, staying here forever; if you follow Jesus, become a part of a local church and be committed to it through thick and thin because by doing so you’re embodying your commitment to the God who saved you.

We’ve talked about the gospel and me, the gospel and us, now let’s talk about the gospel and them.

3. The Gospel and Them (Romans 1:1-15, Romans 15:14-16:27)

Turn with me to Romans 16. We’re not going to read them all right now, but do you see how many names Paul lists here? Y’all this isn’t random. Paul knows what he’s doing. I mentioned to you that he tells us in chapter 15 that he wants to go to Spain with the Romans support, right? Well in chapter 1 he also uses this word he doesn’t use elsewhere; he says I am under obligation to both greeks and to barbarians. What is he implying? He’s implying I love you guys. I want to preach the gospel to you. But I also want y’all to financially have my back while I take the gospel to people beyond you that you might not ever meet. You may even view them as uncivilized barbarians. God is seeking His glory amongst all the nations. Everywhere people are sinning and settling and exchanging the glory of God for worthless idols, and He is worthy for me to share it with everyone. So have my back. And those 26 people he lists in Romans 16 are a mixture of Greeks and Jews, people in Corinth, and even some Latin names. Paul ain’t no fool now. He knows he is asking big things of them. He is dripping shoutouts to people they know who are from all over the world who are getting the gospel and embracing how multiethnic it is, and by so doing he’s implying, what I’m asking you to do in having my back to Spain people are saying hello to you that you don’t know. The gospel is worth it. Even if you don’t know them, God wants them. So you should care about Spain and beyond because you care about God. Romans please enter this worldwide mission and don’t get too big for your briches and think the gospel is just for you. You see, family, when the gospel unites us to God we are committed to Him looking good here, there, and everywhere. We want God to be glorified. In our jobs. In how we work. In where we work. In what we say to people. The words we share. The places we choose to live. The gospel message we tell our friends. And yes we want the gospel to reach every nook and cranny of this earth. We will give dollars to the gospel going further in Norfolk. We will support other churches. And we will spend dollars for the gospel to go to every people group and language under heaven.

Outro:

I want to close our time by returning to Paul’s I have a dream line that we had read earlier. And just meditating for a moment on that together and what God might be calling us to. Let’s re-read Romans 1:16 together. Here we go.

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.

I am not ashamed of the gospel. I wonder what you’re not ashamed of here today. Maybe you’re an eagles fan today and you’re not ashamed of it. I will pray for you, but hey you’re not ashamed of it, right? Maybe you think that Bluebell cookie 2 step is the best ice cream in the game like I do and you’re not ashamed of it. You will defend it. You represent it. You are an ambassador. Maybe you’re a first generation college student or you’re doing better financially than your family did growing up and you’re unashamed of it. Or you’re crushing your fitness and financial goals to start 2025. Friend, if you don’t know this let me tell you the truth. The gospel is greater than any goal. It’s greater than anything having to do with you. The gospel is the power of God to save you and unite you to the holy and righteous and good God who made you in His image. Jesus Christ died in your place. He died your death.

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.

And when you’ve experienced the power of this news to change you, you’re unashamed of it. This is the gospel. This is the good news. Tell somebody. There’s a God who loves you.

The gospel. There is nothing like it. The gospel. To God you can be united.

The gospel. Sin has been your constant. The gospel. You thought you were God and this is what you flaunted.

The gospel. Christ stepped in and took your place. The gospel. He lost his life so you could save face.

The gospel. His blood was shed to bring you in. The gospel. The depths of this love there is no end.

The gospel. Now God wants to live with you. The gospel. It’s crazy to imagine, but it’s true.

The gospel. You’re united to God and to His people. The gospel. The church is us, it’s not a steeple.

The gospel. It’s the greatest news of all time. The gospel. Share it with somebody. You can even use this rhyme.

The gospel. It’s the power of God, not yours. The gospel. Don’t get to work, just fall on your face to the floor.