Romans 1 beginning in verse 16. 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. So those last six words totally transformed Martin Luther's life. We hear it typically as, the just shall live by faith, but righteousness, righteous and just are basically the same word, and we'll talk more about that momentarily, but this is gonna be familiar to you, but Martin Luther said this, quote, unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason, for I believe neither Pope nor councils alone as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves. I consider myself convicted by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures, which is my basis. My conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one's conscience is neither safe nor sound. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen." Martin Luther was convinced that the just shall live by faith. In those six words, like I said, revolutionized his life, but maybe he didn't know it then, but we certainly know it today. It began what we know as the Protestant Reformation. Now, when a person comes to faith in Christ, something very significant takes place. I call it the Great Exchange. If you want to put the theological term on it, it's double imputation, or sometimes referred to as the Glorious Exchange. And basically all that is, I shouldn't say just all that is, it's pretty significant, God, upon our believing on Christ for salvation, He imputes our sin on Jesus Christ, who paid for it on the cross. He suffered God's full wrath for it. But God also took the righteousness of Christ and He imputed it to us. So that was a pretty significant thing. And so when you read the words, the just shall live by faith, that word just, it's a legal term. because we have been made whole. We are, in God's sight, sinless. It's very significant. And Martin Luther, he would struggle with sin. He would repent and spend hours in it, and wrestling with this. He would even, I would just say, harm his body at times, trying to find whatever repentance would bring God's favor to him. that God in His mercy showed him these six words. And it totally changed his life. So, with that background, when we read our text passage, we see that Paul begins in verse 16 with these words, I am not ashamed of the gospel. Paul was not ashamed of the gospel in any shape, way, or form. In fact, He understood the opposition against the gospel in a couple of different ways. He understood it intellectually, the people that he could confront and have these arguments with. So he understood the opposition from the intellectual, but he also understood the opposition against the gospel physically. He suffered tremendously for the gospel. And we know this because he spent time in prison. He was chased out of Thessalonica, he was smuggled out of Damascus, he was laughed at in Athens, and he was considered a fool in Corinth. But no matter of what he experienced, he did not allow that to dampen his passion for proclaiming the gospel. In fact, he was quite eager to preach the gospel. He wasn't deterred in one way by the opposition. He wasn't disheartened by the criticisms that were put upon him. He just wasn't ashamed of the gospel because he understood the power of it. The Gospel, both then in Paul's day and today, we hear and read in Scripture, is a stumbling block to the Jews. It is foolishness to the Gentiles. But either way, the Gospel is the only way that an individual is going to come to Christ. And so what pastor was just sharing with us out of Luke is tracking right along with this because repentance is what is required. And that doesn't happen apart from the gospel being proclaimed. Paul was enthusiastic about proclaiming the gospel. He did not see it as a burden. He saw it as a privilege. He proclaimed the gospel and it increased Paul's joy. And he suffered a lot for the gospel, but it emboldened him even more to proclaim the gospel no matter where he found himself. Whether he was in a Roman prison, or in a home incarceration, or wherever, he was proclaiming the gospel. Paul understood that it is a serious sin to be ashamed of Christ, to be ashamed of his gospel. And he knows that it can be a difficult thing for believers. We're afraid. We have fear of rejection. We have fear of maybe the physical consequences, which I believe more and more is something that we're going to see in our day that we've not seen in great detail here in America yet. But think about Peter. When Christ was arrested and he was in that kangaroo court, what did Peter do? He denied Christ three times. And this text tells us that he ran out and he was weeping. He grieved over the fact that he denied his Savior. But it didn't end there for him. He repented. And do you remember on the beach after Christ resurrected? He said to Peter three times, do you love me? That was significant in Peter's life. So one thing that we know about the gospel, or at least we should know, on its own merits, without any help from me or you or anyone else, the gospel is offensive to the unbeliever. By nature, it is offensive. Why? It's because the gospel exposes sin. It challenges their depravity, our depravity, and it makes unbelievers uncomfortable. Now when we're proclaiming the gospel, we ought not to be intentionally offensive by any means. The gospel is offensive on its own merit enough. We need to be whimsical in how we proclaim the gospel. We want it to be attractive, to draw people, but we need to remember that it's God who does the work. Jeffrey Wilson wrote this, quote, the unpopularity of a crucified Christ has prompted many to present a message which is more palatable to the unbeliever. But the removal of the offense of the cross always renders the message ineffective. An inoffensive gospel is also an inoperative gospel, unquote. I think he hit the nail on the head with that. Now as we work through these verses this morning, Paul uses four key words to highlight the gospel. And that's what I want to focus on this morning. And so the first word is this. We read it in verse 16. He says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God. So that first word is power. It's dunamis. It's where we get the English word dynamite. So what this is descriptive of is that the power of God is explosive. It moves mountains. It can do what it was sent to do and it does so in a powerful way. We in America these days have a lot of self-help gurus on the internet. Call them influencers, whatever you want to call them. But nothing that they are trying to do for people can help a person accomplish what is needed in their life. And that is to deal with the problem of sin. There is nothing that you or I or anyone else can do that can change our nature. That is not something that we can do. Only God can do that. And that's why it's powerful. We can do good works all day long. We can go to church every time the doors are open. We can even follow all the rituals that some churches have. It doesn't matter. You can be as faithful as the day is long to do them, but if you have not had the power of Christ working in your life for salvation, it doesn't matter. Only God's explosive power can change individuals. Think about what Paul said in Romans 5. He said, for while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. The second word that we see is salvation. So if you look at verse 16 again, he says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God, for salvation. One of the best ways that God's power is shown is when He brings a lost soul to Himself and saves them. Psalm 106 verse 80, He saved them for His name's sake that He might make known His mighty power. There's two things here, two reasons for why God saves people. And there's more than two reasons. But these two right here, for His namesake and to show His mighty power. That is for His glory. But it's also for our good because apart from Him saving us, our eternal destination is going to be hell. The Greek word that Paul used for salvation is a word that means to rescue. And so God is rescuing us from our sin. He's rescuing us from that final ultimate penalty for sin. So you can say He's rescuing us from Satan. He's rescuing us from judgment, from wrath, and from spiritual death. And salvation is found in Christ alone. It's through faith alone and by grace alone. We read that in Ephesians chapter 2. And I have verses 1 through 10 listed. I'm not going to read them all. You can read them later. But listen to these first five verses. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God, such beautiful words. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. That's the power that we were just talking about. He made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. The third word that we see here is believes. So again, verse 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew and then to the Greek. Belief, faith, is what he's saying there. Faith is the key that unlocks the door to salvation. And if you think about it, Well, let me back up. The Greek word that he used for believes there is in the present continuous form. So it means is believing. So it's every moment of every day. You are believing. And when we think about having faith in things or believing in things, we really can't live our lives day by day without having implicit trust in a lot of different things. Think about it. The chair you're sitting in. You have faith to believe that it's going to hold you up. That it's not going to collapse and you're going to fall on the floor. We trust the fact that when we turn the faucet on in the kitchen, that that water is going to be safe to drink. With the exception of Helene. But the point remains, we drive over bridges every day. We expect that those bridges are going to be strong enough to let us pass over them. Some of us have spent many hours on an airplane. We expect that when that plane comes down, it's landing and not crashing. So we have to exercise faith each and every day. But this is not the faith that we're talking about here. We're talking about a supernatural faith, a faith that saves us. It is a faith that is only produced and given by God Himself. That's the faith we're talking about. And it's a faith that is sure, because we know the water coming out of the faucets in Asheville right now, you probably don't want to drink that because of the hurricane. We know that some bridges have been washed out and you can't drive over them. But the faith in Jesus Christ, the faith that God gives us, is a sure thing. And it will never waver. Back to the Ephesians passage, verses 8 and 9. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. We can't do anything to earn believing faith or the faith that comes from God at all. John MacArthur wrote this, quote, eternal life is both gained and lived by faith from God in Jesus Christ. And he continued and said this, God does not first ask men to behave, but to believe. That is critical to understand. We can't behave well enough to get saved. It is an impossibility. So He calls us to believe, to trust Him. That is what will save us. Our efforts can't save us. It is Christ alone. We have to trust in the completed work of Jesus Christ on the cross. He died on the cross, He was buried for our sins, and He rose again on the third day. But we also see that Paul mentions First, it's to the Jew, and then second, to the Greek or to the Gentile. Why is that? Well, if you look all through Scripture, God always brought the message of salvation first to his chosen people, the Jews. And so, God sent the apostles. He sent Paul to the Jews. They rejected him. And he forwarded them on. He sent them to the Gentiles as well. So praise the Lord he went to the Gentiles, because I am a Gentile. I don't have any Jewish roots in me as far as I know. So we're grateful for that. But then there's a fourth word that Paul uses in verse 17. For in it the righteousness of God. That's our fourth word, righteousness. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. This is that double imputation that I was talking about earlier. Our faith in Christ activates the power of God to salvation. What I mean by that is God is working in an individual's life to draw him to himself. So I'm not saying we are doing anything here. But by Him giving us faith to believe, it begins that double imputation. of taking our sin and putting it on Christ, and then Christ's righteousness being imputed to us. It is a powerful act. It is one that we cannot do. It is one that is by God alone. Think about what Christ suffered on the cross. We need to remember and remind ourselves Christ suffered the full wrath of God for our sin. God didn't hold back. Not one iota. Jesus took it all. That was meant for us. That was our lot. But by God's grace, when He saved us, when we believed on Him for salvation, we now have Christ's righteousness living upon us. Well, there's two passages that I think make this very clear, and if you want to look and follow along as I read them. The first is Philippians chapter 3, verse 8. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. and also in Romans chapter 3 verse 21. 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 were 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. Then Paul continues and he says, from faith for faith. And it seems to parallel and follow along with what Paul said in verse 16 where he said, to everyone who believes. What the idea here that's being conveyed is it's from start to finish. So from the time that God gives us believing faith to put our trust in Christ all the way through when our faith becomes sight. So into eternity. And it's this continuation throughout all of our lives. So Paul begins to wrap up.