Please stand for the reading of God's Word. We are continuing our snail's pace, but I do hope you'll see why. We're only going to look at the beginning of verse 18. We will pick it up, but this is a massive transitional verse here that is going to sort of show where we're going to be for the next few months. and it's heavy stuff. I'm not doing this for effect. Do pray that God the Holy Spirit would be working powerfully. I can scream about the wrath of God until the cows come home, but if by God's grace and the empowering work of the Holy Spirit, like Isaiah, you see him high and lifted up, you will run to Christ and flee from the wrath of God. And it won't just be, you know, some Greek exposition of words. It won't be some pastor, you know, screaming his face off. When God becomes real to us by the Holy Spirit, when we understand God's righteous wrath and indignancy against our rebellion and sin and ungodliness and unrighteousness, our defiance, our rebellion, our high-handed treason against him, when we see that, enabled by the Spirit, who then shows us this refuge named Jesus Christ, we run. And that's why Paul's not ashamed of the gospel. It is the only way by which we as sinners can find refuge from the holy wrath of God. And I'm praying that you'll not leave here with sort of a distaste for God's wrath, but actually you'll leave with a greater savor of God's love. you will understand what happened on that cross, that God did not set aside his justice or his righteousness or his holy standard, but rather he maintained them perfectly as the Son of God becomes that sin offering for his people. So that's why we're slowing down. But here now, not my words, here now, the Word of God, Romans 1, beginning in verse 16. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel, For it is God's power that brings salvation to everyone who is believing, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, God's righteousness is being revealed from faith unto faith, even as it has been written, but the righteous one shall live by faith. For God's wrath is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness are suppressing 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. Let's pray. Father, God forbid that we would ever read your scripture in a way to play with people's emotions, but oh God, would you give us reverence when we read your word, when we hear it preached, would you give us a reverence for it that would lead to an obedience to your word? Now we would just ask, as we think through this crucial aspect of what makes the gospel good news, namely Christ taking on wrath for sinners, would you help us to pay attention? As we've often prayed, would you help us, like Lydia, as Paul was preaching, to hear intently the things Paul was saying, that she might be saved. And Father, I pray that for any this morning, especially if they're unconverted, come to church, maybe with parents, maybe out of obligation, maybe to pay back some deity, would today be the day you arrest not only their attention, but their conscience. And they would say, other refuge have I none. That they would see Jesus Christ alone must be my Savior. I will stop working and trying, and I will believe this good news as offered to me in the gospel. I will receive the gift of God's righteousness in Christ. And for us, Lord, would you help us to be better evangelists? Would you help us to understand not only who you are, but what we've been saved from and what we've been saved to? Thank you for your word. Thank you for inspiring the Apostle Paul to write it for us and that it would be preserved for all these years, Lord. Thank you that it is as relevant to us today as it was to that initial congregation in Rome. O Holy Spirit, help us to tremble under your word, help us to receive it with faith, and help us, Lord, to apply it. Even as Paul said, he wants the obedience that comes from faith. So grant us faith as we sit under the preaching of the gospel of your grace, And Father, would it lead to transformed living and transformed lives, and would it be a wonderful beacon, would it be a wonderful light by which the nations are compelled and irresistibly drawn in to the family of God, to the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. Work now, Holy Spirit, help us to see Christ, cause us to see Christ, and bring glory to His Father and ours, we ask in His name, Father. Amen. Please be seated. Well, it's interesting that finally getting through verses 16 and 17, which I would still encourage you to commit to memory. We're now going to unpack Paul's thesis statement. And I don't want to use big fancy university words, but a thesis statement is basically summarizing the gist of your paper. And so Paul is summarizing Romans. This is God's good news. This is how God unleashes his power and reveals his righteousness to those who believe. And why Paul is excited to preach the gospel in Rome will make a little more sense now in verse 18. Why, Paul, are you eager to share the gospel? Why do you want to reveal God's righteousness in freely forgiving and righteous-ifying the unrighteous? Why do you want to preach that, Paul? Is that your hobby horse? Maybe. It's because in verse 18, Paul says something is happening, and it's something we can't ignore. It's something that many churches would love to sort of, you know, pogo stick over because it makes congregants and potential guests and visitors uncomfortable. But Lloyd-Jones, when I was reading him, he said, this is where Paul goes and it's where we must go. Right, after talking about God's gospel and how it brings salvation and reveals his righteousness, right, as we receive Christ and his righteousness is imputed to us by faith, you think it would be all lollipops and cotton candy. And Paul's going to explain why. This is why you must preach the gospel to your kids. It's why, when they're tired on the Lord's Day, you bring them to church so they can hear the gospel. Why? Because God's wrath is being revealed. It's not an option. It's a reality. Now, we can pretend like ostriches to stick our heads into the sand and pretend God's wrath is not being revealed, but it is. Whether we like it or not, it's the reality. And the only refuge that will rescue us from God's righteous wrath is God's righteous Son. This is why we must preach Jesus Christ and Him alone, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This is why Paul says this is what the essence of the gospel is, not trying harder, being better, being religious. It's receiving what God has done for us in Christ simply and solely by faith. And so I don't want to become too impassioned, lest you think I'm one of those hellfire and brimstone preachers who relishes in beating down people. But I do want to, with Paul, say, by open statement of the truth, we commend ourselves before God and men. I have to give an account to God, and I don't want to play fast and loose with any part of his word, especially this. And so notice, in verse 18, it begins with that all-important conjunction for. If you've got an NIV, just write the word for in there. Paul is giving us an argument. He's reasoning with us. Why is the gospel a non-negotiable? He's coming to Rome, not so he can have a siesta, not so he can take a break, not so he can enjoy all of the fun things tourists do. Paul is absolutely convinced that God is righteous, and therefore, God must deal righteously with sin and sinners. Verse 18, 4. And so, if you're studying verse 16 and 17, there's three genitive constructions that you should sort of circle and draw a line. God's power, God's righteousness, God's wrath. In the Greek, they're all very similar. And this is Paul's logic. God is righteous. Therefore, he has wrath against sin. but God has power to overcome that by the gospel. You see that? That's how Paul's reasoning, right? For those of you homeschooling kids, logic is good. We don't leave our brains at the church doors. We bring our brains with us and we worship the Lord our God with all of our heart and soul, yes, and all of our strength, but also with the mind He's given us. This is very reasonable. And in listening to John Piper preach through this, we as Christians think, unbelievers don't want to hear God's diagnosis. of why the world is what it is, but that's actually what they need. That's why there's all the foolishness in universities, with all these lettered men talking about useless things and philosophizing. The Christian must say, this is why people die. This is why there's futility. This is why it seems like there's wrath being poured out, because God has declared it be so. We are sinners in the hands, yes, of a loving God, but also of a holy and righteous God, who is angry with sin and sinners. So in verse 17, notice Paul uses the word twice, righteousness or righteous. The gospel is revealing God's righteousness. God has been revealing this from the old into the new, most supremely so in Christ. And then he's got this word righteousness in his mind in verse 17 and how it's displayed in the gospel. And the reason why it must be displayed in the gospel, because his righteousness is also being displayed elsewhere. in his wrath. And be very careful of breaking God up into nice compartments that are easy to, you know, little wrath drawer here. We really like the love drawer. That's more accessible. It's maybe got like a double drawer to it. Everything about God is simple. And I'm using fancy theological terms, but God is simple in that he's one. He's not made out of parts. And so we think of love. God's love is a wrathful love. And here's the illustration, because you think those are incompatible. How can God be loving and wrathful at the same time? How can he be righteous and gracious? How can he? Well, here's an earthly example that will help you to see. I hate abortion because I love life. Do you see that? We shouldn't be indifferent to abortion. If we are, we don't love life. So God loves righteousness. And what you need to understand is that his wrath is an expression of his holy righteous indignation against all that is good and right and true. God must exhibit wrath or else he's not righteous. You can't say, well, I want God to be righteous, but let's get rid of the wrath. And Paul's trying to help us think through this because the gospel is the only message that shows us how God can retain his righteousness in saving unrighteous sinners. No other religion does that. This is why Paul's eager to come to Rome. So Paul is contrasting the righteousness of God shown in the gospel, verse 17, versus his righteous wrath being revealed from heaven. Verse 18, do you guys see that? If you get one of these fancy journals, you can start circling and drawing lines. It will help you see Paul's argument that he is, yes, supernaturally inspired to write this, but God's using Paul's brain. So why do I want to share the gospel? Why do we preach Christ and him crucified from this pulpit? Because God's wrath is being revealed. It's in the present tense, and this Greek word orge, for wrath, is gonna be used 12 times in Romans. Interestingly enough, all the other ones are looking more towards this end time wrath of God poured out on judgment day. But Paul doesn't use that here. He doesn't say God's wrath is going to be revealed. Why do you need the gospel today? Because God's wrath is upon you today. If you're outside of Christ, God's wrath abides on you. John 3 says that. You think, oh, Paul is just this angry rabbi. You know, he's got a problem with life, and so he's just writing all this vitriol. The son of God who came into the world. In the same chapter where he says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting. In that same chapter, at the very end of John 3, he says, for those who don't receive the Son, the wrath of God abides on them. Children, you need Christ far more than I can plead with you. Oh, that the Holy Spirit would open up your eyes to see. That being good, a good pagan, being a religious Jew is not enough. And that's what Paul's going to show us. So verse 18 is sort of moving now from Paul's thesis statement. He's going to start unpacking it. And if you're writing notes in your journal in your Bible, he's going to take us to chapter 3 and verse 9. Okay, so this is a new section, and Paul wants to show us God's righteousness in his wrath against all. And he's going to start with his righteousness and his wrath against Gentiles. That's chapter 1, 19 to the end of the chapter. And then chapter 2, basically, is how God is also righteously angry. His wrath is upon Jews who are outside of Christ. And what he wants to show in chapter 1 is that the Gentiles have no excuse. They can't say, we don't have a Bible. We're exempt. They can't say that. We're going to see that next week. Paul say, they're without excuse. So he's gonna show the Gentiles, you are culpable. You might not have the oracles of God, all these privileges that the Jews have at the chapter three and nine, but you're still accountable to God because he has revealed himself to you in creation and you know, you know his divine powers, theotes. But then in chapter two, because the Jews are like, yeah, stick it to those pagans. And Paul's gonna say, your law doesn't help you either. Your law will not save you from God's wrath. And he's gonna spend much of this letter saying the law stirs up sin. The law brings wrath. Don't find refuge in the law. Pagans, don't find refuge in the law. Don't find refuge in doing. Find refuge in Christ. And that's what I think Paul wants to do. And so hopefully, as we're working through this, you'll see Paul's reason, right? Because look in chapter three and verse nine, right? This is sort of what Paul wants to close off God's righteous wrath against Gentiles and Jews. Look at chapter three. What then, are we, Jews, any better off? Not at all, for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin. What do you mean you've already charged that all are under sin? Paul says Romans 1 is charging Gentiles under sin. Romans 2 is charging Jews under sin. Okay, so Paul's like a lawyer. And he's saying that the Jews don't have any benefit if they're outside of Christ. Are they better? No, they need to be in Christ. The law will not save. Just like a pagan without the law tries to be a good person. That doesn't save them either. which is why Paul says that he's going to preach the good news of God, 1-2, which is concerning his son, 1-3. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ, not the gospel of law, not the gospel of works, but the gospel of God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And why do you need Christ here this morning if you're not a Christian? because we're going to show you through Paul that you're under sin. You are guilty, and God is righteous. He will judge sin. And then he goes on to say that no one is righteous, no not one. He's sort of just heaping on, or I think kids would call it dogpiling. He's like, ah Paul, we get it. No, you don't got it. Let me just emphasize it just a little bit more, lest you think you have a sliver of righteousness. I've charged you're under sin, you're under God's wrath, and you have no righteousness that will meet his standard, which is why I preach the gospel. Verse 21. Chapters one and two and three are meant to make unbelievers thirsty. It's meant to drive them away, out of themselves to Christ. Look what 21 says. But now, as so massive, here is your only refuge. If you're a child here this morning, religious yet unconverted, listen to this. God demands righteousness from you. You have none. You're condemned, you're under law and its power. Not only are you guilty, you're helpless. But here's the good news, this is very reminiscent of 1.16 and 1.17, Paul's thesis statement, it's going to sort of show itself over and over, and here it is showing, in light of the fact that we're under sin and condemned, Paul says, but now, here's the gospel again, the righteousness of God, His righteousness has been manifested, is being revealed apart from the law. So do Gentiles need to become law keepers? No, the law doesn't save you, the law points you to Christ, Romans 7. God's righteousness is manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, like Habakkuk 1. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned, all have fallen short of the glory of God. Many of you have that memorized, but I hope as we work through Romans you can be like, that verse is so much richer than I ever thought. All have sinned, and to fall short of His glory is to fall short of His righteous standard. You need this righteous standard. How do I get it? Well, you keep reading. You're justified, declared righteous by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, here it is, whom God put forward as a sin-bearing, wrath-atoning sacrifice in His death by His blood and is received by faith. So God upholds His righteous hatred of sin. Do you see the cross that way? Not only do you see on the cross God's amazing love for you, But hopefully by the time we get to Romans 3, you'll see on the cross God's amazing hatred of sin. Right, when we sing that song, and on the cross as he died, the wrath of God was satisfied, I hope that brings you to tears. That God is pouring out his love, yes, onto us as he's pouring out his wrath on his innocent, unstained, unspotted, blameless, righteous son. This is the gospel and it makes no sense unless the Holy Spirit is working. So, back to chapter one. I'm just explaining why we're going to be here for a little bit. Paul wants us to have a greater appreciation of the gospel. Just like somebody who is sick hopefully will have a greater appreciation for their medicine when the doctor faithfully points out their malady. Why do so few people in our churches run to Christ for refuge? Because we don't like to talk about God's wrath. but God is holy and righteous, and therefore he has wrath. His wrath, I wrote this down, is his settled opposition to and displeasure with sin. There's different Greek words for wrath. This one's orge, it's a settled. It's like, it comes from this word to like bubble, sort of when you're making stew, and just bubbling, and just remains constant. It doesn't blow up. That's thumos, that's another one, but God's wrath. Though you might not see, you know, that pot bubbling over, it's bubbling. And I pray that if you're not in Christ this morning, the Spirit will arrest and convict you, that this is you outside of Christ. You might not see it, but God's wrath is, present tense, being revealed from heaven. So we sang Psalm 73. I've been studying Ecclesiastes. Sometimes this world operates as though there's no God. That's how pagans live. No God. He doesn't see what I'm doing. I'm getting away with it. I can cheat on my taxes, cheat on my wife, I can do whatever I want. Where is God, Psalm 10? God is in heaven. He's angry. and he is revealing his wrath, which will culminate in his thumos. His settled disposition against sin is being revealed, but it will culminate when he unleashes it in fury. Look at chapter two. Not only Jews, but Gentiles as well, in verse four, do you presume on the riches of God's kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? Why has God not, poured out, unleashed his thumos, his wrath on you because he wants you to repent. And so it's his settled orgy that is upon you. God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. But even writing to these religious Jews, because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. Do you see the same language? God in his mercy right now is revealing his wrath because one day is coming when God without mercy will reveal wrath. Are you getting that? Have you ever wondered why God let you get away with so much and now you're a Christian? It's that you might repent. And if you're not a Christian right now, now is the day. He's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. His forbearance, his kindness, his patience should be wooing you. But do not be mistaken. Just because your house hasn't burnt down, or you're maybe living your best life now, do not think that maybe God's wrath has skipped over you. We're going to see that this is actively present in our culture. God's wrath is being poured out sometimes, and you just having a hardened heart. to the things of God and sin." So God's wrath is being revealed from heaven. He's in the heavens, and he's holy. One commentator was saying that heaven is emphasizing, highlighting God's holy standard. It's not an earthly righteousness. It's not an earthly wrath. It's a heavenly righteousness with a heavenly standard. and it is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. So what Paul's doing here is he's going to say that this stifling of the truth, this suppression of the truth, is not only Gentiles, but it's Jews. The Jews are suppressing God's truth, the Gentiles are suppressing God's truth, and what the gospel has come to do is to reveal God's truth. Is that making sense? This is why you want to preach Christ to people. His wrath is being revealed from heaven against what? Godlessness or ungodliness. And we'll unpack that word a little bit more. And he's revealing it against unrighteousness of men and women, who in or by their unrighteousness are suppressing the truth. And so we're gonna look for the next couple weeks, maybe two or three weeks, of how do the Gentiles suppress the truth? And how is God revealing his wrath and handing them over and handing them over and handing them over? And the reason why it's good to sort of linger here is because I want you to be good soul winners. I want you to be able to watch the news and to be able to interpret it for your coworkers. Why are we doing what we're doing? Why are all these laws getting passed? Because God is revealing his wrath. So I want three things to come out of this next section. One, a greater appreciation of the gospel. You will never appreciate the gospel of God's love and grace for you until you realize who God is as a holy and righteous, Okay? That's the first thing. I want us to leave Romans 1, 2, and 3 with a greater appreciation for what the gospel is, what Christ has done for us on the cross. The second thing is I want us to be better soul winners. Spurgeon wrote a book, The Soul Winner, Proverbs 1130. He who winneth souls is wise. And so what Paul is doing here, and I agree with a man named Thomas Schreiner and another guy named Joseph Fitzmyer, they think that Romans 1 may have been what Paul generally preached to unbelievers, to pagans. When you read the book of Acts, what would he preach to the pagans in, say, Acts 14 in Lystra or in Acts 17 when he's, you know, preaching in Athens? I think something like this, because the Gentiles would be like, well, we don't know who he is. And God would say, yeah, but you're still culpable. So I want you to be better soul winners, because as you understand Romans 1, you can preach the gospel to so many, say, of your Hindu classmates, who've never heard about Jesus, but they're still culpable to God. Or your Muslim neighbors, or your Mormon friends. or perhaps the very children God has blessed you with. You want to be able to be a good soul winner, and so you can explain to them, why is God angry? Does he just fly off the handle? Is he just like a really bad dad? No, because he's holy, and he's righteous, and he's true, and he's light, and all these glorious things. And so you should be able to explain to your children as well why God does what he does. So first that we would love the gospel better, that we'd be able to explain it, that we'd be good soul winners. So you can say to people, this is why they're passing these laws. Why is Canada given over to homosexuality and all of this strangeness? Romans 1 has an answer for that, and they want an answer for it. It might be uncomfortable and unsavory, but God has an elect people. and they will be drawn to Christ as you preach to them the truth as it is in Jesus. And then thirdly, I've forgotten my third point, just give me one second here. Because, and this is from John Piper, superficial diagnoses lead to false remedies. So if you don't understand how bad cancer is, you'll make light of it. Right? If I think cancer is something else, or I don't want to, and then my oncologist says, Ryan, sit down. You got cancer. All right. See ya. That's not what Paul does. Christians do it. The churches in the West do it. Jesus loves you, has a wonderful plan for life. True. But look what Paul does. Superficial diagnoses lead to false remedies and no cures. Sometimes to get the cancer you got to cut deep and so this is what Paul's doing here He doesn't say you're all sinners, which is true He's going to unpack and logically show what God is doing and then the only way of escape Okay, so I want us to be good soul doctors Right your your neighbors struggling. What do you say? I just go to church and That's the easy thing, it's not offensive. But if you can work through Romans 1 with him, or if he's religious, maybe he goes to a church, maybe even baptizes an infant and he thinks he's okay with God. What do you do with him? You take him to Romans 2. And then you show him from Romans 3 that he's under sin, under his condemnation, and he's helpless under its dominion and reign. And he must flee for refuge to Christ alone. That's what a good soul winner does. He diagnoses the problem, and then the person is like, oh, it's that bad. Religion won't help me. OK. Christ alone, he's the only cure? You better believe it. Then I better be running to Christ. Yes, you better. Is that helping? The church is just full of all kinds of man-made remedies because we're not dealing with the true diagnoses of the human condition before a holy God. And as Haldane says, as you focus so much here on God's holiness and His wrath is revealed from heaven, it'll help us to flee to the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. That's my short message today. We're gonna unpack it more next week in verse 18 of how the Gentiles are actively suppressing the truth, right? How they are denying God and his creatorship and his rule and his reign. And we're going to see not only why God is doing, but how God is revealing that. And it will help you to see society rightly. And it'll help you to point people like Philip to the Lord Jesus Christ. You'll want to go with Paul to Rome, or you'll want to go to work, and you'll want to tell people about this wonderful good news by which God, who is righteous, declares me righteous by punishing my sin on his righteous son. Is that fair? My prayer was that as we partake of the table, you'd think a little bit about it. The bread signifies not just his body, but his broken body. The cup signifies what? His blood or his violent death. And what you need to say is, "'Twas my sin," right? "'Twas my sin that caused this." Right? Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended? He hasn't. Who brought this upon me? The hymn writer says. Alas, it's Jesus. I have. It's my treason. It's my high-handed sin that caused you to come into the world as the God-man, to take on flesh, to suffer as the second Adam in my place as a human. Right? That bread is because we're sinners. He didn't die for angels, he died for sinners who are humans, and so he took on human flesh. And then the cup, why did he die? Not for his sins, but for ours. Right? This is what 2 Corinthians says. He who knew no sin in our place became sin, so that in him we might become righteous before God. So as you're putting that cup to your lips, you're like, oh, This is the cup of the new covenant, which signifies the removal of my sins, and therefore the removal of God's wrath upon me. I'm not condemned because Jesus was in my place. He's that propitiation. Thank you, Father, for revealing it to me. Pagan as I was, or maybe religious as you were, thank you, Father, for revealing this righteousness to me in the gospel of your Son. And I receive it afresh by faith. Remember that. Father, we thank you for your goodness. And I just ask, Lord, that even in this short sermon, your spirit would be powerfully working. Lord, that only by comprehension and apprehension of who you are as the high and holy one will we understand, Lord, just how repugnant and offensive and how deserving our sins are. And Father, I would just even pray that you would help us to see our loved ones outside of Christ this way, not as projects, but as people who must hear the gospel, who have no other way of salvation, no other sacrifice will do, no works done in righteousness, only Christ and Him crucified can save. Help us, Lord, to pray for gospel opportunities, and would you give us the courage and the boldness and the love to speak the truth and to tell good religious people or people who've never even heard the name of Jesus, that there is a God and he is holy, and therefore he hates sin, and he must and he will most certainly punish it in hell or on the cross. Help us, Lord, through preaching the gospel to tell others there is a holy wrathful God who must be appeased, and that there's no other way for us sinners to be saved, but by faith in Christ and the gospel alone. And as we partake of this wonderful feast, help us to say, even as the hymn writer said, Lord, why was I aghast? With trembling lip, Lord, why? And we would say, only by thy grace, only by your mercy. And even in the table, we behold the kindness and severity, the grace and wrath, the mercy and righteousness of God, kissing in the person of your Son. Oh God, make us more grateful for the gospel and give us a burden to preach it to the ends of the world, even as Paul was eager to go to Rome and eager to go to Spain, to spend and to be spent. Help us to articulate this gospel which reveals your righteousness in wrath and in salvation. Help us to articulate it simply, clearly to our children. And, O Lord, use the gospel as it is preached. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the message of Christ. Use it even today, that someone would be stopped in their tracks, and they would say, I can't do anything until I'm right with God. Give them now not only conviction of sin, but convert them, grant them saving faith and repentance. Father, we do love you and we thank you. Be with us as we continue to work through the gospel according to Romans, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.