Sermon Tone Analysis

“So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written, ‘The righteous will live by faith.’”

For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people...” (CSB)

Big Idea: We are not okay, and that’s not okay.

But God gives us a way to be okay: his gospel.

Big Idea: We are not okay, and that’s not okay.

But God gives us a way to be okay: his gospel.

The main question asked during the Protestant Reformation was simply this: How does a person who is not right with God, get right with God?

“O LORD, if you kept an account of iniquities, Lord, who could stand?” (CSB)

The gospel announces that God has conquered sin and all of its effects for sinners, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to renew all of creation for His glory.

A Summary of (Keller)

v.1- The gospel is what Paul’s whole life is about

v.2- The gospel is what the whole Bible (Old Testament) is about

v.3-4- The gospel is about Jesus, the God-man

v.5-6- The gospel leads to obedience through faith

v.8-15- Paul’s goal: to preach the gospel at Rome

v.16-17- Paul’s thesis: the gospel in a nutshell

“Salvation” in Verse 16: The final triumph of the gospel in bringing believers to eternal safety and joy in the presence of our holy and glorious and beautiful God.

“A firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence towards us, found upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”

John Calvin’s definition of faith

“At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, “In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.’”

There I began to understand [that] the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith.

And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which [the] merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.”

Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.

Here a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me.” Martin Luther