Good News For Everyone Pt 2 2-13-2022

WALK WORTHY GOOD NEWS FOR ALL Pt.2 Sunday February 13, 2022 Scripture Reference: Romans 1:16-17 (NLT) Intro. A. Let's begin today by looking at the verses we began to explore last week. "For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes-the Jew first and also the Gentile. 17 This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, "It is through faith that a righteous person has life." Romans 1:16-17 (NLT) 1. I want to review again quickly what we talked about last week to help lead us into the rest of this message. Last week we focused on the words "I am not ashamed". We talked about that in Paul's human nature there could certainly be things he could feel ashamed of. I will not list those again today but encourage you to watch the message if you missed it. As we talked about in V.1-7 Paul had a Divine call on his life. He had Jesus appear to him on that road to Damascus and call him to preach this good news everywhere. It was a compelling call. For him it was sinful to not do what God called him to do. Then we noted last week that some think that based on Pauls' words here that there were those who felt he was afraid to come to Rome. He could be bold and preach this gospel in other places, but these other places were not like Rome. But as we can see in his own words beginning in V.13 that Paul earnestly desired to come to Rome to preach this good news. He was not afraid, and he was not ashamed. Trans. Now what I want to begin with today are Paul's reasons why he is not ashamed of this gospel and why we too should not be ashamed to speak up for what we profess to believe. The reason Paul was not ashamed was because he knew as we must that: II. THE GOSPEL IS A POWERFUL MESSAGE. Let's look at what he said again. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes-the Jew first and also the Gentile. Wow there is so much here, so let's dig in. First, I want you to see that Paul tells us: A. The Gospel Is A Message Of God's Power. 1. I want to break that down for you. a) First notice that this message has power. The original Greek word here is where we get our word Dynamite. I think we all understand that dynamite is a powerful force. The word also means something that is in Active Operation. That is very important as well because we know what it means for a stick of dynamite to go off and the destruction it can leave in its wake. Here we are being told that this incredible power of God is continually at work in our world. I wish we had time to do so because I am certain that many of you could attest to this power in your own lives. When we think about what God has done in our lives and the incredible things, He saved us from, that power is every bit as great as the forces of nature today. Now consider this. When we think of dynamite, or even many of the forces of nature we think of the damage and sometimes the destruction they cause. This power has that same force, but what this power does is to destroy what has been destroying US! Now Consider this; when we have an earthquake, a tornado, a tsunami, or a flood those forces rearrange what once was don't they? Well friends this is what God's power does in our lives. When we experience God's power in our lives, we are not who we once were. I love how they say it in the Chosen series. "I was once one way and now I am completely different." Just as Paul said, "This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!" 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT) (Channing Lackey to share testimony) Folks, Christianity is a religion of power. It is not about intellect even though it does present reasonable truths to our intellect. It is not a religion of emotion, even though it certainly does appeal to our emotions. It is first and foremost about the power of God, the power of God to transform lives. It provides power to escape the passions that conquered by our personal determination. It opens for us an inexhaustible supply of strength, energy, and confidence to do and be what we could never do or be on our own. 2. Secondly, I want you to see here that it is the power of God. As we just talked about there are powerful forces in this world, but none compare to the power of God. The God who literally spoke the world into existence. Paul would know full well the power of Rome and not just it's power in the city of Rome but it's power around the known world. It was a power that many did not wish to recon with, but Paul is not ashamed to come to Rome and proclaim this message, because it some much greater than the power of Rome. 3. It is the power to save, Praise the Lord! This is the need of every man, woman, and child, and it is something that cannot be accomplished by our own power. We see people trying to do this every day, but they constantly and continually fall short because they do not have the power within them to accomplish this. Now notice that Paul shows us how this incredibly powerful thing that can happen to us. It can happen by something as simple as believing. Now remember again that this is not an intellectual assent. This is not saying, "Yes I acknowledge that a person named Jesus lived, died, was buried and then rose again from the dead." True believing is receiving. True believing is acting on what we say we believe. I can say I believe the lights will come on if I flip the switch, but if I never flip the switch I am still in the dark. There are some people who think that acknowledging Jesus will save them, but it will not. We must confess our sins, we must repent, which remember means to make an about face in our lives and then believing means living in daily obedience to God's word. Now notice with me that: B. This Is An Indiscriminate Message. 1. Paul said it was for EVERYONE! How many times have we heard people say to us, "Well you don't know what I have done" or "You don't know how bad I have been" or "If you only knew". Friends the truth of the matter is the only real differences there are between us are superficial. Morally we all belong under one category. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Friends, we need to shout from the top of our lungs, "WHO CARES!" This is not about what you have done, it is about what HE has done. It is about the Power of God to do in your live what you think could never be done. It is about God's power to wipe away every sin you ever committed more powerfully and more quickly than any flood, tornado, or tsunami could ever do. 2. Let me explain a few things this salvation God provides means to us and those we wish to receive this message. a) First it provides deliverance for those lost. This is the natural man, the man without Jesus. We are lost and wondering around trying to find our own way. As Jesus said, "For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost." Luke 19:10 (NLT) b) This salvation means deliverance from sin. Sin is like an infection in our blood stream for which there is no cure. It is a master that enslaves us and won't let go. Man's only hope is in a power greater than himself and thankful that power is available for all who will seek him. c) Salvation means deliverance through dangers and difficulties. I am sure you noticed the language I used here. The salvation God gives us does not mean we will never have any more troubles or difficulties in this life. If this were so, then Paul had certainly NOT experienced this salvation. This salvation means God will give us security and peace no matter what happens to us. It means an inner strength and courage to stand in the face of those dangers and difficulties of this life. 3. Now let me quickly address these words of Paul when he says that this salvation is for the Jew first and then the Gentile. This really is not expressing an order of priority. Paul is simply telling them that this message of salvation was in fact first given to the Jewish people. They had the law they had the temples; the Messiah had come through Jewish lines so naturally they would be the first to hear this message. Sadly, many of them had not accepted this message. In my studying for this series, I read a fact I had not been aware of. Did you know that Israel hosts the largest population of Atheists in the world today? How sad that the birthplace of the world's savior would also be a place where so very many are living in spiritual darkness. Trans. Now let's finish by looking at the last verse, verse 17. "This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, "It is through faith that a righteous person has life." Romans 1:17 (NLT) Here we discover that: III. THE GOSPEL IS A REVELATION OF GOD'S RIGHEOUSNESS. A. Man Has A Serious Problem. 1. As we just talked about, man's problem is that he is a sinner, and he is not capable of saving himself. We were born into this world with a bent towards sin. David made that abundantly clear. "For I was born a sinner- yes, from the moment my mother conceived me." Psalms 51:5 (NLT) Paul expresses this in Romans 5. "When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam's sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned." Romans 5:12 (NLT) 2. We see mans problem on a daily basis. We see people who feel that they can be made righteous by their own efforts. If I just do enough of the right things, then God will declare me righteous. The problem is no matter how hard we try our righteousness is imperfect and God is perfect righteousness, and He cannot allow imperfection in His presence, not even the man He created. The only way to live in His presence is to be made righteous and how do we do that? The gospel gives the answer. The gospel is the revelation of God's righteousness and how we can be made righteous. We will study these verses later but look at what Paul said in Chapter three. "But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. 22 We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are." Romans 3:21-22 (NLT) For hundreds and hundreds of years God was patient with man's attempts at self-righteousness through the law, but now the time of God's righteousness has come, and this righteousness is only found through His son. The Paul's once again reminds us of how we discover this righteousness. B. The Remedy Is Faith. 1. This faith is first of all a saving faith. A faith that says, "I know I cannot save myself by the things I do so I am believing that Jesus and Jesus alone can forgive my sin and cleanse my heart." "I am going to confess my sins and ask Jesus to forgive me." This my friends this is the beginning of our spiritual journey, but please note that it is NOT The End of the journey. 2. Along with this saving faith must also come a Living Faith. Now please do not miss understand me and think I am now preaching a salvation by works because I am not! But what I am clearly telling you is that if we have truly put our faith in Jesus to save us, how can we possibly walk away from that unchanged? Is this the same "power" Paul talked about in V.16? Remember we said that this is a power greater than the power of nature and that power rearranges things. The power of God does this in our lives. The power of God at work within us does not leave us the same way it found us. Notice what Paul said, This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. Notice there is a starting point and there is a finishing point and faith connects both points. Then again Paul connects the Old Testament to the new when he says, "It is through faith that a righteous person has life." This was taken from the prophet Habakkuk. We are not saved by living righteously, but because we are saved, we live righteously by faith. As the writer of Hebrews told us, "And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him." Hebrews 11:6 (NLT) Conclusion: A. I think I can only conclude this message one way and that is to ask, "Have you experienced this power in your life?" Do you know what is means to have a stick of God's dynamite go off and your life and wipe out every sin? Do you know what it means to have your life completely rearranged by the power of God? Do you know what it means to say, "I was one way and now I am completely different?" 1. If you have not experienced this power in your life then why not open your heart to Jesus this moment? 2