I invite you to turn in your Bibles to the book of Romans, we're going to consider tonight from Romans chapter 1, if you're using a pew Bible that can be found on page 1116, 1116 in the pews. We're going to read verses 14 through 19, but we're really going to focus this evening on verses 16 and 17. Romans 1 beginning at verse 14. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I'm eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I'm 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. 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. Well, it's obviously the Christmas season and there's a lot that goes into the Christmas season, isn't there? There's the decor and decorations. There's the playing of Christmas music, the shoppings, the smell of Christmas trees and wreaths. And of course, there's all the different foods and sweets that we eat around this time. And with all of these things, there's kind of a build-up to Christmas, isn't there? There's something of a Christmas crescendo, if you would. And rightly so, Christmas is a special day, the day that we celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. But then, when the day of Christmas comes and goes, all that buildup can leave one with a kind of feeling of loss, kind of post-Christmas blues, if you've ever experienced that. See, the wonder of Christmas can seem to go away with the passing of the day of Christmas. Well, tonight I want to tell you and say to you that the wonder of Christmas doesn't ever have to go with the day of Christmas, especially for us as believers in Jesus Christ. See, the excitement of Christmas is not dependent upon all that we put into the day of Christmas. It's not dependent upon the decor and decorations. It's not dependent upon the music and the sounds or even the smells and the tastes of the season. It's definitely not dependent upon the shopping or even the gift giving that we participate in during Christmas. Because the wonder of Christmas is founded upon the message of Christmas, isn't it? The message of Jesus Christ, the message of the good news of Christ, the message of the Savior coming into the world to save sinners. This isn't just a message that we celebrate once a year. It's a message that we celebrate every Lord's Day, even twice a Lord's Day. It's a message that I hope we celebrate and reflect and meditate upon every day of our lives. And this is the message that Paul brings up here in this short text before us. And it's this powerful message, which indeed is the message of Christmas. And so tonight I want to look at two things with you through this text. The power of God and the righteousness of God. The power of God and the righteousness of God. Paul says in verse 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. If we were to survey Christians in America, if we were to ask them, what is the power of God to draw people to himself? Or maybe we asked it a different way. How does God primarily draw people to himself? We'd probably get various answers, wouldn't we? I expect some would say that the way that God draws people to himself is by the exercising of various spiritual gifts where people are amazed by the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit. Others might say that the way God draws people to himself is by using our lives lived out in our neighborhoods or in our work where we share our testimony of the work of God, That's the way God draws people to himself. So others might say it's by the experience in the worship service through cutting-edge music, arts, performances, where we speak positive messages of better living and how we can live better lives. I don't deny that some of these things indeed have some power and influence in themselves, but they're not what God primarily uses to draw people to himself. It's not what Paul calls here the power of God for salvation. Paul leaves that description exclusively for the message of the gospel. What does God use to bring men and women to himself? Paul tells us here it's the message of Jesus Christ. That message that he says in 1 Corinthians is foolishness to Greeks, stumbling blocks for Jews, for Greeks seek wisdom, Jews demand signs, but we preach Christ and him crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are being saved, both Greek and Jews, the power of God. It's the gospel which the Bible says is the power of God unto salvation now our text comes to us obviously from the book of romans now one thing this church struggled with was to understand the importance and the significance of the gospel the message of jesus christ to embrace the importance of the gospel as the primary means which god uses to draw people to himself in fact there were some at rome who thought paul was making too much of this gospel Paul made too much of the message of God's grace to sinners. At Rome, there were some who tried to even spread the idea that the message of gospel wasn't something to make all that much about. It wasn't significant. It wasn't all that powerful. And in these comments was the explicit or implicit idea that this church and these people were ashamed of the message of the gospel. Now, we can certainly imagine how that could happen, can't we? How comments attempting to undermine the message of Jesus Christ could influence people within the church, particularly at Rome. Imagine with me, living in the city of Rome in its day of magnificence. Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire. Contained over a million people. It was an amazing city. Huge and beautiful structures like the Roman Colosseum, the Emperor's Palace, Circus Maximus. These massive, beautiful structures. And these things were symbols of the power of Rome. Rome was into power. So, when these Christians come along and speak of the message of Jesus Christ, we could see how some could say, the message of a man on a cross, how could that be powerful? Well, we're faced with similar notions today, aren't we? Our culture has been described as a post-Christian culture, hasn't A culture that at one time was highly influenced by Christianity, but that influence now has eroded, hasn't it? It's eroded greatly. And so with the loss of the influence of Christianity, many Christians have been faced with this very question, where is the power of Christianity? What are we to turn to in order to shape and influence our society? Where's the power of God? And as I said, many Christians have answered that in different ways. Maybe today, in this month of December, we look to the Christmas festivities as the power of God. Maybe it's the lights and just all the decor and the celebration that we say, here, here is where Christ is really shown forth. Others look to politics, political power and influence. Others still turn to marketing tools, social media, robust and exciting church services and programs. That's where the power of Christianity lies, is the claim. Now again, each of these things could be useful. But are they what the Bible says? It's the primary power unto salvation. They are not. And the different places that we turn to for influence kind of leaves us with the question of, are we today as american christians ashamed of the gospel of christ do we have a lack of pride and trust in god's ordained means by which he has chosen to draw people to himself what will we look to in order to see god's power set forth as a church do we look to programs good and useful things but not the gospel in and of itself are we trusting in our music whether it's traditional music or even celebratory music of the season or are we saying with paul in the bible our pride and trust is in the gospel we too are not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of god for salvation Another way of asking this is, have we grown tired of hearing the message of the gospel? I had a man in the URC once tell me he was tired of hearing the gospel. He asked, why do we have to hear the gospel preached? Every single message we hear the gospel. Shouldn't we move on to Christian living? We're familiar with the gospel. We hear it over and over. I think one can only say that if we think that the gospel is something that has lost its power for us. Like many after the day of Christmas, when the celebration is over, when the decor comes down, and we feel that loss, those blues, that nostalgia, that longing for that excitement that built up to the Christmas day. But you see, we never need to take down the wonder of the good news of Jesus Christ. That's something we celebrate tonight. That's something we celebrate tomorrow. That's something we celebrate every day and every moment of our lives. Because the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. It's what God uses to initially draw people to himself. And it's what the Lord uses to continually bind hearts to himself. hearts that so easily wander from him. And that's why Paul says in verse 15, he's eager to preach the gospel to these Christians at Rome. Why would Paul be eager to preach the gospel to these Christians at Rome? Don't they already know the gospel? Aren't they already familiar with it? Well, Paul here is eager to preach the gospel to these Christians and to all Christians because the gospel is not just a call to initial faith but it's a call to continual faith in Christ to continually walk in faith in Jesus Christ the righteous shall live by faith Paul will go on to say right and so this is something that we greatly need to hear every time that we gather together we need to hear the wonders of the message of Jesus Christ the forgiveness that comes from Christ. The reconciliation that comes from Christ. The message of Christ. The message of Christmas. Because the truth is, we too still struggle, don't we? We still struggle with abiding faith. We still struggle to have faith in Christ. To grow faith. To have our faith strengthened. We still struggle with sin on a daily basis, do we not? Our own catechism even teaches. Even the most holy among us have only a beginning of that obedience that god requires and so we too need to hear the powerful message of salvation not only today we need to hear it every day every sunday because it is the power of god unto salvation but not only that as paul says here in it is revealed the righteousness of God that we so desperately need. Paul says in verse 17, for in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. And there's been a lot over the years made of this phrase, the righteousness of God. And this goes all the way back to the Reformation and even before it. It was Martin Luther who said, while struggling over this passage, I had certainly wanted to understand Paul in his letter to the Romans, but what prevented me from doing so was that one phrase in the first chapter, the righteousness of God is revealed in it. Luther says, I hated that phrase, the righteousness of God, which I had been taught to understand as the righteousness by which God is righteous and punishes unrighteous sinners. Luther at first understood the righteousness of God here in verse 17 as referring to an attribute of God. That righteous nature by which God righteously judges and condemns unrighteous sinners. And that horrified Luther, as it should horrify anyone who believes that that's what is being spoken of here. However, it was Luther's breakthrough in this verse that led to a renewed realization concerning the message of the gospel. Paul here is not speaking about an attribute of God. He's speaking of God's gift of righteousness to sinners who trust in Christ by faith. The righteousness of God which he imputes to sinners who trust in Christ. Now this doesn't make us righteous in and of ourselves, right? We know that's not the case. As I said, even the most holy of us have just the beginning of this righteousness. this obedience that God requires. And so we need to hear, again, the message of the gospel, the message of God granting to us this imputed righteousness of Christ. And that's why Paul goes on to say just in two chapters, in verse 21 of chapter 3, But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. And then he says again in chapter 4, verse 3, what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteous. Not to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteous. And with this gift of righteousness, we're really talking about the heart of the gospel here. That God has made those who are not righteous, righteous by the righteousness of Jesus Christ. That's the heart of the gospel. This really is the great gift that God has given to sinners. That's really what Paul is talking about here. A gift from God. Now, I don't know one person who doesn't appreciate a good gift. Certainly, it's better to give than to receive. But it does feel pretty good to be on the receiving end of a good gift every now and then, doesn't it? Children, I'm sure on Christmas morning you'll get some gifts that you're going to be pretty excited about opening up. Well, the Apostle Paul here feels that excitement, that joy about the righteousness, that gift that has been received through Jesus Christ. And he uses a word here in the text that relates the gospel to a kind of unwrapping of a present. It's the word revealed. He says, for in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. So the gospel is indeed like a gift. It's a gift from God. In fact, that's how Paul describes salvation in Ephesians 2, right? He says, it is the gift of God, not of work so that no one may boast. And as the recipients of this gift of God, when we open this gift, when the message of the gospel is revealed, when it's preached to us, when it's uncovered, unpackaged, we discover in this gift that God has given us the greatest gift we could ever receive. Righteousness. Righteousness. the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Children, maybe this year you'll get a Christmas gift that will be entirely unexpected. You know, one of those gifts that catch you off guard, catch you by surprise, and it leaves you thinking to yourself, mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, how did you know I wanted this? How did you know I needed this? When you get gifts like that, those are the best gifts, are they not? they're wonderful but Paul is telling us in this passage that God himself is the greatest gift giver because he has absolutely and utterly astonished us and surprised us with the gift that he has given to us the gift of righteousness you've probably heard the phrase the gift that keeps on giving now when I hear that I think that's a pretty cheesy statement about any gift, right? But that's a perfect way of describing the gift that God has given to us. Righteousness. Righteousness. And God's gift is not like the gifts that we give to each other, right? Not like the sweater or shirt that eventually fades. Not like that technology computer or camera that eventually breaks. It's not like that game that we wanted but eventually grows old. God's gift of righteousness never fades. It never breaks. It can't be taken from us never to grow old. In fact, if we're honest with ourselves, we must admit that we need this gift every single moment of our lives. See, the gift of righteousness deals with the single greatest problem that we as humans face. The problem of the wrath of God. The wrath of God. We don't even like to hear about the wrath of God. We don't like to say the wrath of God, right? People don't like to preach the wrath of God. Paul mentions the wrath of God here in verse 18. Just as the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel, the wrath of God also is being revealed. And the wrath of God is a huge problem for humanity. And it's one of those, one of the scariest thoughts that we as people can ever think about, right? That God will one day judge people for their unrighteous acts, for their sin. You might be here tonight and you might think, Well, that's certainly not me. I'm not an unrighteous person. I don't do unrighteous things. In fact, I come to church regularly. Friend, the problem isn't that we don't or do go to church. The problem is that we need perfect and perpetual righteousness. We need perfect and perpetual righteousness. On our own, where will we get that? We struggle with righteousness so much that we struggle to even acknowledge or see our need for such righteousness. We're inclined to think more highly of ourselves. We don't think we need God's righteousness. We think we can do it on our own. We're not that bad. At least comparatively speaking, we're not as bad as those other people, whoever they may be. And yet the Bible teaches that on our own. We are all unrighteous. We've all fallen short of the perfect expectation of God. In fact, the Bible describes our own righteousness as filthy rags before the Lord. And so yes, we are all in need of perfect and perpetual righteousness. Where can we get such righteousness? Only from God himself, only from the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. You see, yes, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on Christmas. We celebrate his birth because he was born, born to live, born to die, born to earn for us righteousness that we need and we can't and shouldn't separate the birth of christ from other aspects of his life doing so could lead us to a kind of romantic idea of one part of his life all to the neglect of other parts and then over time to our own detriment we need every aspect of the life of Christ. His birth, his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, and him sitting at the right hand of God the Father where he right now rules and reign. And it's this perfect work of Christ that we trust in for our salvation. And by faith in this work of Christ were declared righteous before God just like Abraham who believed God and it was credited to him as righteous that's why Paul will go on to say in the second half of verse 17 that this righteousness is from faith for faith or as the NIV puts it a righteousness that is by faith from first to last. Children, aren't you so glad that God doesn't treat you like Santa Claus? Aren't you glad God doesn't treat us as our sins deserve to be treated? For those who trust in Christ, he credits to us the wonderful gift of the righteousness of Christ. It's a beautiful, beautiful truth. It's by faith, by faith that we trust in Christ. And so as we think that, and if we think that we have played any part in that righteousness, we lose it. We've lost it. We're not any longer trusting in Christ alone. And friend, there's no hope in a message of Christ plus anything else. There's no security in a message of Christ plus our own good deeds. There's no power in that message. Because if the good news depended upon us, we know that that would not be good news. How could there be good news for sinners who depend upon their own weak, insufficient, imperfect attempts at righteous living? That's why Paul brings up Habakkuk here. The righteous shall live by faith. It's the exact verse that we heard this morning from Hebrews, right? That's where we are. We have to live by faith. not in ourselves, not in other things, not in the Christmas season. We live by faith in Jesus Christ. We live in trusting in Him. You see, in Habakkuk 2, what we find there is the people of God who are being told that they're going to suffer at the hand of the Chaldeans, the hand of the enemies of the people of God. And God was going to use these people to punish them. And the prophet is struggling to to come to terms with how the lord will use wicked people to punish his people but then he has this realization the people of god are people who trust in the promise of god and so he gives in and he says the righteous shall live by faith in god's promise well god has promised something to us in the gospel hasn't he in the message of the gospel he's promised salvation through Jesus Christ. A message that today might not seem all that powerful, but God has ordained to use it. A message that may seem weak and foolish, but in it is revealed the righteousness of God. And so we too have to be a people of that promise, a people of that message, a people of the gospel. See, when Luther realized the good news, it changed him. It changed him from a person who trusted in himself to a person, a man of faith, a man of the promise. And Luther said that when he came to this realization, it immediately made him feel as though he had been born again, as though he had entered through the open gates into paradise itself. That's how we feel on Christmas morning, right? When we celebrate the birth of Christ. When we celebrate Christmas. When we celebrate Christmas, we're celebrating the birth, the life, the work, the death of Christ who saved us from our sin. This is the powerful message of salvation, The message of the gospel. The message of Christmas. It's a message that I call you to continue to walk in. Continue to trust in. Tonight, today, this Christmas season, and into a new year. Let's pray. Lord, we give you thanks and praise for our Lord Jesus Christ. We praise you for the salvation that you have brought through him. We thank you that he was indeed born, Lord, lived and died for us and for our salvation. Lord, in this Christmas season, grant to us a renewed appreciation for the salvation that you have so graciously granted to us. Grant to us a renewed appreciation for the powerful means by which you draw people to yourself. The wonderful message of Christ. We thank you for this message. We thank you for the way that you have used it in each of our lives. Continue to use it, Lord. For we pray this all in Christ's name. Amen.