WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 And this is God's word. 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:10.000 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:16.000 for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:21.000 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:26.000 As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:34.000 Martin Lloyd-Jones, who was the great preacher of London in the 20th century, 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:41.000 he preached five or six straight sermons on these two verses in the 1950s, I think it was. 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:46.000 And he said something very big about these two verses. 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:51.000 He said, there are no two verses more important in all of Scripture than these. 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:59.000 And then he said that these two verses are so important because they are the rock bottom foundation of Protestantism. 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:07.000 Now, it's a new year and in the next couple of weeks we're going to start two new sermon series, Mark and Isaiah. 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:15.000 But we have some opportunities for some standalone sermons and it's always tough to pick what you're going to preach on. 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:19.000 Whenever those opportunities come, I like a series. 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:24.000 Because I know, I want to be told what I'm going to preach, not have to pick. 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:31.000 But why not two of the most important verses in all the Bible if we have an opportunity to pick. 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:34.000 And so here they are, Romans 1, 16 to 17. 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:43.000 The reason Lloyd-Jones said that is because, the reason he said that these are the rock bottom foundation of Protestant Christian faith 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:52.000 is because Martin Luther, Martin Luther in the 1500s, when the Protestant Reformation began, 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:55.000 these were the two verses that he hung his hat on. 00:01:55.000 --> 00:02:06.000 Many preachers, when they preach on Romans 1, 16 to 17, bring up Luther because Luther writes about how in 1519 he had what we've come to call the tower experience. 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:16.000 He was in a monastery in Wittenberg, Germany and he had an experience where he came to understand what these two verses mean for the first time. 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:25.000 Before that, he said that when he read Romans 1, 16 to 17, that he hated these two verses. 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:35.000 And he said that he hated them because he thought that everything about it, everything about what Paul says here meant bad news, not good news. 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:46.000 And so when he was in that tower in 1519 and the Holy Spirit helped him to realize what Paul's saying here, this is what he wrote about it. 00:02:46.000 --> 00:03:00.000 He said, I felt that I was altogether born again and that I had entered paradise itself through open gates and a totally other face of the entire scriptures showed itself to me for the first time. 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:09.000 And so Luther says when he realized what Romans 1, 16 to 17 meant, that he felt as if he had just stepped through the gates of paradise. 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:27.000 Now, no matter where you are tonight, if you're a 50 year Christian or you're coming tonight still curious about the truths of Christianity and the claims, all of us want to step through the gates of paradise. 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:32.000 And Romans 1, 16 to 17 can do that. It can do that for you. 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:39.000 It did it for Luther. He had hated it and then he saw it and he stepped through the gate. 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:46.000 And that's exactly what Paul offers here. That's exactly what God offers here through Paul tonight. 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:55.000 And the interesting thing, the striking thing is for Luther, it was all about what Paul means by the phrase, the righteousness of God. 00:03:55.000 --> 00:04:00.000 But that's not actually Paul's main point. Paul's main point is really clear. 00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:08.000 It's the first few words of verse 16. He says, I am not ashamed of the gospel. That's the main point. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:13.000 And then he says, because of the righteousness of God, because it's the power of salvation. 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:18.000 And so we've got to think about two things. We'll take them in reverse order. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:22.000 Paul tells us about the gospel second, but we're going to think about it first. 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:25.000 What's the gospel? What is the power that Paul's talking about? 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:32.000 And then second, ask, how can we be unashamed of the gospel in 2023? 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:39.000 Okay, so first, the gospel, two things about the gospel that Paul mentions. 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:47.000 The first is the word itself. We Christians, we use the word gospel all the time. 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:55.000 We write it on everything. We talk about it all the time. Romans uses the word gospel more than any other letter in the New Testament. 00:04:55.000 --> 00:05:01.000 And this is the third time already when you get to Romans 116 that Paul has used the word gospel. 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:07.000 So he mentions it in verse one. He talks about the gospel of God. He mentions it in verse nine. 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:12.000 He talks about the gospel of the Son of God. So this is the third time. 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:17.000 And the word gospel gets used 134 times in the New Testament. 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:22.000 And it's the Greek word, the evangel. 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:27.000 So when we say evangelism, we mean telling somebody about the gospel. 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:33.000 And we call it evangelism because the Greek word for gospel is the evangel or the Evangelion. 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:39.000 Now, a commentator, many commentators point out just the basic makeup of that word. 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:45.000 I've mentioned this before from this pulpit, but evangel is E-V-A-N-G-E-L. 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:50.000 And so the back half of the word, if you take the prefix away, is the word angel. 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:55.000 And the reason for that is because an angel, the word angel just means message. 00:05:55.000 --> 00:06:00.000 An angel is a messenger and an angel is also just a noun that means message. 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:03.000 And the E-V at the front means good. 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:10.000 And so the word gospel very literally means a good message or as we often say, good news. 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:18.000 Now, that's simple. And for many of you that's old hat, you know that the gospel means good news, the good message. 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:26.000 But it's really important to say that this is the word that the Bible writers chose. 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:31.000 This is the word that Jesus chose to use when talking about what he came for. 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:36.000 And the reason that's so important is because in the first century, when Jesus chooses this word, 00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:42.000 when John the Baptist chooses this word, when Paul chooses this word, this is not a religious word. 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:47.000 It's not a word that they made up. It's not a word that hadn't existed. 00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:55.000 In fact, the first instance we have of the use of evangel is about 500 years prior to Jesus' birth. 00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:59.000 And this was a word that was being used all over the place actually, all the time. 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:01.000 You would have seen it very regularly. 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:07.000 And the place that was most common for it to be used was in the Roman Empire. 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:15.000 If Rome went out as they always did and fought a great battle against the barbarian hordes of Gaul or wherever it might be, 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:22.000 and they win that battle, they would send a messenger with the angel, the message. 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:30.000 And he would come and stand on the hills outside of Rome and he would wave the flag and it would be the evangel to the city. 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:35.000 And everybody in the city of Rome would know the evangel has been proclaimed. 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:40.000 The good news, we've done it again. We are very powerful. We are very good fighters. 00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:43.000 We keep beating back all the barbarians. 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:46.000 That's the evangel. That's how the word was used all the time. 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:52.000 And that means that Jesus and John the Baptist and Paul and many others co-opped this term. 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:56.000 And they take it and they pack it full of new meaning. 00:07:56.000 --> 00:08:07.000 And the reason that they choose it is because everybody in the Roman Empire knew that the evangel in Greek meant good news. 00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:17.000 They knew that it was a word that meant something like a messenger standing on the hill waving a flag saying, we've done it. We've won. 00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:28.000 And as one preacher famously puts it, he says that that means the gospel is more like opening the newspaper than going to see a counselor. 00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:31.000 Everybody knew what it meant and it means good news. 00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:40.000 In other words, the gospel, it's very simple, but it's very important that the gospel is not advice. 00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:51.000 It's not good advice. It's not like going to see a pastor. It's not like coming to see me or Derek or somebody and saying, I need you to help me think through this decision. 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:55.000 And it's not like going to see a counselor and saying, can you work with me through my problems? 00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:59.000 Those are important things, but that's not what the gospel is. 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:05.000 The gospel is the proclamation on the hillside that God has done something. 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:12.000 It's news. It's not advice. It's more like a messenger or a newspaper rather than somebody telling you a command. 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:19.000 And that's the reason that Paul picks this word because the people understood evangel means something has happened. 00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:21.000 It's history. It's not advice. 00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:30.000 Now, the second thing Paul points us to here, not just the word. The word means that there's news. God's done something. 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:34.000 It's the gospel of what God has done, the good news of what God has done. 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:41.000 But of course, news has to have content. So news has to have something that it points to. 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:44.000 And so what's the content of that news? 00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:54.000 And this is where it gets difficult. So we've got to buckle down for just a moment because verse 17. 00:09:54.000 --> 00:10:05.000 Verse 17, Paul says, here's the gospel. In the gospel, in it, which is gospel, the righteousness of God has been revealed. 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:08.000 So you say, Paul, what is the news? What's the good news? 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:15.000 In this good news, Paul says, this is what he wants to tell you, the righteousness of God has been revealed. 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:26.000 Now, if you say tonight, what does that mean? What does it mean to say in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed? 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:38.000 Then it's good to know that millions, if not hundreds of millions of pages have been written on what that little phrase means. 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:43.000 So many trees have been cut down to try to answer the question, what does Romans 117 mean? 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:52.000 It's the biggest question of all the New Testament, probably. What does this little phrase that Paul uses mean? 00:10:52.000 --> 00:11:01.000 And it's very famous because in part because in the 1500s when Martin Luther tried to decide or figure out what it means, 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:11.000 when he looked at it for most of his life, he came to the conclusion that he hated the gospel because of what he thought it meant. 00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:21.000 And this is what he writes. Listen to this. He says, when I read Romans 1, I did not love, yes, I hated God. 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:31.000 The righteous God who punishes sinners and secretly, if not blasphemously, I was angry with God. 00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:38.000 I labored as to how to understand Paul's phrase, the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel. 00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:42.000 I sought anxiously, but the expression was locked away from me. 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:51.000 Now, Paul Luther said that his entire life he wrestled with this person, he hated it because he couldn't understand it. 00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:58.000 And the reason for that is because he understood well what the word righteousness means. 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:00.000 What does righteousness mean? 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:15.000 Righteousness means to be conformed entirely to God's character, to have total conformity in your character, your heart, and in your actions, your life. 00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:20.000 To live your life with the same character that God possesses. 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:22.000 That's what it means to be righteous. 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:31.000 And Luther knew that if a person is to see God and to have salvation and to be near to God, then they would have to have righteousness. 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:37.000 They would have to have a life and a love in their heart that conforms totally to the character of God. 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:41.000 And so when he came and he looked at this, he said that he hated it. 00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:43.000 Now, here's why. 00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:49.000 Because every single one of us, no matter what you believe in today, tonight, many of you are Christians. 00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:54.000 Perhaps some of you are wrestling with Christianity or you're convinced otherwise. 00:12:54.000 --> 00:13:04.000 But no matter where you are in life tonight, there's one thing that all of us share, and that's that we all feel the weight of guilt in our lives sometimes. 00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:11.000 Every single one of us, we don't have to be taught to experience shame because of something that we've done. 00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:19.000 We all know that we've got thoughts and actions in our past that we're embarrassed by. 00:13:19.000 --> 00:13:27.000 And when those things happen and when those things are happening, the weight of guilt bubbles up deep down in the belly. 00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:39.000 And then it starts to pour forth in a life of being ashamed of what you thought or did or said or the way you put your foot in your mouth or sent the wrong text message to the wrong person or whatever it might be. 00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:46.000 All of us feel it. It doesn't matter what you believe in. If you're human, you know the weight of guilt. 00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:52.000 Now, you might not have a worldview that can explain why you feel guilty, but all of us feel it. 00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:54.000 And Luther felt it. 00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:58.000 And he knew that if he was going to see God that he could not have guilt, he had to be righteous. 00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:02.000 He had to conform totally to the character of God. 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:13.000 And so here's what he thought Romans 117 meant, that in the gospel, when Jesus Christ came into the world, the righteousness of God was unveiled to the world. 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:21.000 Meaning, if you want to know what it takes to conform to the character of God, read the gospels. 00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:27.000 In other words, look at the life of Jesus. You want to know what it truly means to be perfect? 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:32.000 Read about Jesus and he'll show you. 00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:39.000 And when you look at Jesus' life and then you think about your life, Luther realized, my shame gets all the worse. 00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:43.000 My guilt gets all the worse. He read Matthew 5 and 6. 00:14:43.000 --> 00:14:50.000 And when Jesus says in Matthew 5, the point of the Sermon on the Mount is that you've got to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. 00:14:50.000 --> 00:15:00.000 Luther says, that's the gospel. The good news is that Jesus came into the world to say to me, you've got to be perfect as God is perfect if you want to be righteous and see God. 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:09.000 And so he said, if that's the news that Jesus has come into the world to show me by example what it means to be righteous, I hate it. 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:11.000 It's not good news, it's bad news. 00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:17.000 He felt crushed by it because he had given up his whole life to God. 00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:24.000 He had become a monk and lived in a monastery and said he would never have a relationship and all sorts of things. 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:32.000 And he had studied the Bible more than anybody and he had prayed like nobody's business and he said, I cannot stop sinning. 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:35.000 And so he felt crushed by the gospel. 00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:41.000 He thought that the gospel meant when Jesus came, the great example has come. 00:15:41.000 --> 00:15:43.000 This is what it looks like to truly be righteous. 00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:46.000 And he knew that when he looked at it, he wasn't it at all. 00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:54.000 Now look, on that day in 1519, the tower experience, the penny dropped. 00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:58.000 And he realized that Paul meant something different. 00:15:58.000 --> 00:16:07.000 And he said that when he woke up, when the Holy Spirit woke him up, it was like walking through the gates of paradise. 00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:10.000 What did Paul mean? 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:13.000 Here's what Paul meant, very brief. 00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:16.000 Here's a way to think about it. 00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:18.000 Translate it just slightly differently. 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:27.000 In the gospel, the righteousness provided by God has been revealed in faith. 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:36.000 You see, he realized all of a sudden from reading the rest of Romans that Romans 1.17, the great thesis statement of Paul, 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:44.000 does not mean that the good news is that Jesus has come into the world to simply show you what it means to be righteous by an example. 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:53.000 Instead, it means that Jesus Christ has come into the world to give you the righteousness that you could never have on your own. 00:16:53.000 --> 00:17:00.000 In the gospel, the righteousness of God was provided to you by God. 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:14.000 The good news is that righteousness, the exact thing you need to stand in the presence of God, true justice, no shame, no guilt to be without error from top to bottom. 00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:19.000 It's been given in the gospel of God. 00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:26.000 And that's the very reason that the gospel is good news and not bad news, like Luther had thought. 00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:33.000 Now, the reason we know that, I just want to read one verse and we'll move on, is because you got to read the rest of Romans. 00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:35.000 That was the mistake Luther was making. 00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:40.000 And then when you read Romans 3.21 and 22, it says it exactly. 00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:46.000 In Romans 3.21, it says, the righteousness of God has been revealed apart from the law. 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:54.000 And instead, how verse 22, the righteousness of God has been revealed through having faith in Jesus Christ. 00:17:54.000 --> 00:18:03.000 In other words, the true gift has come not by obeying, but by a gift, by simply believing. 00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:19.000 And so the good news, the evangel for 2023, as it was for the first century, is that the righteousness you need to see the living God has come in Jesus Christ as a gift to you. 00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:22.000 That's the thesis statement of the book of Romans. 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:25.000 It's the thesis of Paul's entire ministry. 00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:28.000 It's the gift that God has given out. 00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:30.000 All right. 00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:35.000 The conceptual world of Paul is not always easy to grasp. 00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:42.000 And the phrase, the righteousness of God has been revealed is not always the easiest thing to hang your heart on. 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:45.000 It's the intellectual side of it. 00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:49.000 Let me give you the metaphorical side, the image. 00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:56.000 Because the Bible not only tells it to you in word, but it gives you these images to think about. 00:18:56.000 --> 00:19:04.000 And probably the most consistent image for this same message from Genesis to Revelation is through the metaphor of clothing. 00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:08.000 It happens in the Old Testament and the New Testament a number of times. 00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:11.000 And in the book of Isaiah, especially, it pops up. 00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:14.000 Isaiah 64. 00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:26.000 Isaiah 64 says, all of our righteous deeds, all of our attempts at being just people, are like filthy garments before the Lord. 00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:35.000 So the metaphor, the Bible says, is imagine that when you stand before the Lord and you put on clothing woven out of all of your attempts at good works and being just, 00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:38.000 it would appear before God as nothing but filth. 00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:40.000 There's so much bad mixed into it. 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:47.000 But then Isaiah 61 says, but God has clothed me with garments of salvation. 00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:51.000 He's wrapped me with a new robe, a robe of righteousness. 00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:59.000 And so the Old Testament idea that Paul is talking about here is that every attempt at being righteous is nothing but filth for us. 00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:03.000 But yet God has come and said, but I'll just give you a different outfit. 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:06.000 And he's hung over your head a robe of righteousness. 00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:07.000 It's entirely a gift. 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:11.000 Here's the New Testament image of what Paul is saying. 00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:26.000 It's when the prodigal son and the prodigal daughter come home from the horizon after living a life far away from the Lord, far away from the Father. 00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:37.000 And the Father runs out to them on the horizon and he throws over his son and throws over his daughter his best robe. 00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:45.000 And he slides on their finger the signet ring and he gives them his own sandals to wear and he ushers them back home. 00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:47.000 That's what Paul means. 00:20:47.000 --> 00:20:55.000 That everything you need to stand, to stand at the party of the fattened calf, to be in the presence of the living God, 00:20:55.000 --> 00:21:02.000 to be in the place that you are made to be is because God the Father has run out to the horizon of existence. 00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:11.000 And he's thrown over you in Jesus Christ a robe that you did not make, a ring that you did not forge and sandals that are not yours. 00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:18.000 The gift of righteousness, the gift of exactly what you need in Jesus Christ and through Jesus Christ. 00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:26.000 Now, let me close this long point and we'll finish by just saying this. 00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:28.000 This is not a costless gift. 00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:30.000 It is free. 00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:36.000 The gift of righteousness is free to us, but it was not free to God. 00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:40.000 And maybe one more image to drive this home. 00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.000 When you read through the Gospels, if you read through the Gospels, 00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:54.000 one of the things you can do to try to read the Gospels in power is to ask yourself why you read, where am I in this story? 00:21:54.000 --> 00:22:01.000 How does Matthew, Mark, Luke, John want me to see myself in each of the stories and each of the characters? 00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:08.000 If there is one place, I think, that we can go to to find ourselves in the Gospels, it's at the very end. 00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:13.000 At the very end, Jesus was about to die. 00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:18.000 And he had been arrested and beaten. 00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:25.000 And he was brought out by the Roman governor, as it was the tradition on the Passover, 00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:32.000 where the governor would take two criminals and he would place them before the people, the Jews, 00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:38.000 and he would give them the power to vote, the power to cry out to release one of the prisoners. 00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:46.000 And on that day, you remember probably that the governor brought out Jesus Christ and he brought out Barabbas. 00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:53.000 And Barabbas was a hardened, murderous criminal, and Jesus Christ was the one who had solved the public health crisis. 00:22:53.000 --> 00:22:59.000 You know, Jesus had been going around to all these towns and getting rid of all the diseases, 00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:03.000 you know, that COVID couldn't survive in the place that Jesus was around. 00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:09.000 Everywhere he went, there was no more sickness and people weren't hungry. 00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:17.000 And even if you don't know who he is or who he was, you saw his life and you knew that this man is putting away disease. 00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:21.000 He's feeding people that are starving to death. 00:23:21.000 --> 00:23:31.000 And the crowd cries out and says, we want this one to die, Jesus Christ, and we want Barabbas to be set free. 00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:38.000 Now look, that means the day that Jesus Christ went to the cross for you. 00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:45.000 The guilty man went free precisely because the innocent man was condemned. 00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:55.000 And when you read the Gospels, if you were to find yourself in one place, it's in the crowd, but even more, it's Barabbas. 00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:57.000 I'm Barabbas, you're Barabbas. 00:23:57.000 --> 00:24:05.000 All of us stood, you see, the guilty go free because the innocent one was condemned. 00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:12.000 And that means that the righteousness of God is a gift to us, it's free to us, but it was not free to God. 00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:18.000 And C.S. Lewis calls this the Great Exchange, him for us and we for him. 00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:20.000 But Lewis got that from Martin Luther. 00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:25.000 Luther was the first one to use that phrase. He called it the Glorious Exchange. 00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:36.000 And tonight in 2023, you cannot become righteous before God of your own accord, but you can respond. 00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:39.000 And you can respond tonight in faith. 00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:46.000 And Paul says at the end here that it's from faith to faith, which means it's faith from top to bottom. 00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:48.000 This year is the year of faith. 00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:53.000 At the beginning of this year, Christian or a curious skeptic, 00:24:53.000 --> 00:25:05.000 it's an invitation to commit yourself to the life of faith because in faith, in Jesus Christ, the righteousness of God is gifted to you. 00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:13.000 Now, if that's you tonight, let me close with this, secondly and briefly. 00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:21.000 If you believe this message tonight and Christ has clothed you in a new garment, the righteousness of God, 00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:31.000 the main point is to actually hear that Paul says, I am not ashamed of that gospel. 00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:40.000 We know Paul was not ashamed. Paul over and over again said, I glory in the gospel. I'm not ashamed. I glory in it. 00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:45.000 He said, and Paul was beaten for it and he was crushed for it and ultimately murdered for it. 00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:55.000 We know Paul is not ashamed of the gospel, but the reason that he said this is because struggling with being ashamed of the gospel is a real thing. 00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:04.000 And he even said to Timothy in the second letter that he wrote to Timothy, don't be ashamed of the testimony of the Lord of the gospel. 00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:12.000 And so it's probably the case that Timothy was struggling with being ashamed of the gospel in his own ministry. 00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:20.000 Now, Lloyd Jones, when he's preaching on this, he, this is how he puts it. 00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:27.000 He says that Paul is calling all of us tonight to ask the question, am I ashamed of the gospel? 00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:35.000 And this is what Lloyd Jones says, if you have never known the temptation of being ashamed of the gospel, 00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:46.000 it's probably not due to the fact that you're an exceptionally good Christian, but that your understanding of the Christian gospel has never been very clear. 00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:54.000 Oh boy. Lloyd Jones says, if you say tonight, I've never struggled with the temptation to be ashamed of the gospel. 00:26:54.000 --> 00:27:02.000 It's probably not because you're an exceptionally great Christian, but because your understanding of the gospel may not be clear. 00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:11.000 And this is what he means by it. What he means by it is that when you understand this gospel, that the righteousness of God has been revealed in Jesus Christ as a gift, 00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:19.000 and all that it says and all that it means, you know that the gospel is naturally offensive. 00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:27.000 That the gospel message is explicitly offensive precisely because it's inclusive and exclusive and explicit. 00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:36.000 And one preacher puts it like this. He says, think about the offense of the gospel in the first century and today simultaneously. 00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:43.000 And here this is how you could think about it. Paul puts it like this. He says, think about the first century, 1 Corinthians 1. 00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:50.000 The gospel to Judaism in the first century is a stumbling block, Paul says it. Why? 00:27:50.000 --> 00:28:00.000 Because the Jewish expectation of a Messiah was that the Messiah would come in utter power and that he would march straight to Caesar's Roman, 00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:11.000 that he would take over the empire. And when the gospel is preached, the Messiah is a poor carpenter's son who came from Nazareth, 00:28:11.000 --> 00:28:18.000 which was kind of a dump in the first century. And he was crucified and murdered as a common criminal. 00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:28.000 And you see, in the mind of Judaism, the gospel is too weak. It's not nearly powerful enough to be the Messianic hope that was promised. 00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:33.000 Or if you think about the Greeks, Paul says, well, to the Jews, it's stumbling block. 00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:43.000 To the Greeks, what did he say? He said, it's foolishness. And the Greeks of the first century are just like modern progressive secularists today. 00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:53.000 They say, well, look, we know too much. We've got philosophy. We've got science. We've got the empirical method. 00:28:53.000 --> 00:29:00.000 We've got way too much data to keep believing in this. We know too much. The Greeks were saying the same thing in the first century, 00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:06.000 that the gospel is foolishness. It's foolishness. Then it was foolishness in the first century. So many it's foolishness. 00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:15.000 Today, I heard Joe Rogan recently say, when are people going to stop talking about Jesus? That was the, because he said, we've studied too much. 00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:26.000 Science has taken us too far. And so for Judaism, the gospel is too weak for the Greeks. And for modern secularists, the gospel is too simple. 00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:31.000 It's not sophisticated and intellectual enough. There's not enough research behind it. 00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:38.000 But what about the world religions from the first century till now? The world religions say, they look at Christianity and they say, look, 00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:46.000 if you're telling me that all you've got to do is believe that this man died and rose again for you. And that's it. You're in. 00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:55.000 Your God has looked on you with favor. And the world religions say, that can't be enough. What about morality? What about conformity? 00:29:55.000 --> 00:30:04.000 What about discipline? What about right and ritual? And so the world religions say, it's too easy. Judaism says it's too weak. 00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:11.000 Modern progressivists like the Greeks say, it's too simple. We know too much. It's not sophisticated enough. 00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:20.000 The world religions look at the gospel and they say, it's way too easy. People's morals will get way too lax if it's that easy to get in. 00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:29.000 Imagine the Romans, what did they say? Well, they said the same thing that Nietzsche said in the last century, the greatest atheist mind of the modern era. 00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:37.000 Nietzsche, like the Romans said, look, if God really was to come down and save the world, he wouldn't look like this. He would look a lot more like Hercules. 00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:44.000 He would have big muscles and he'd be powerful and strong. He wouldn't be like this. And so the gospel, they said, is much too fragile. 00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:52.000 It produces weak people, Nietzsche said. And you imagine Paul walking into the great city of Rome, which is actually the point of Romans. 00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:58.000 Paul writes Romans and says, I'm writing this letter because I want to come visit you and I want you to know that. 00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:07.000 Imagine him getting there and walking into Romans, the eternal city, the city of pomp and grandeur, and walking into the great halls of philosophy 00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:17.000 and saying, believe on the poor carpenter's boy from Nazareth who died as a common criminal, but he didn't stay dead. 00:31:17.000 --> 00:31:22.000 And they would have laughed at him and they did laugh at him and they murdered him eventually for it. 00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:31.000 And the reason Paul says, don't be ashamed of the gospel is because when you understand the gospel, you realize that it's easy to be ashamed of the gospel. 00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:37.000 Because the world and all of its flavors and concepts stands against the gospel. 00:31:37.000 --> 00:31:45.000 And so Paul comes and says, don't be ashamed of the gospel and the gospel would flip the Roman Empire on its head within 200 years. 00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:50.000 Now look, truly the close. 00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:56.000 If you go out into the world today in a great city, a world city like Edinburgh, 00:31:56.000 --> 00:32:05.000 and you say to people, Jesus Christ, Christianity is the inspiration for my life. 00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:10.000 You know, I want to be a better person because of Jesus. 00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:13.000 I look at what Jesus did and I'm inspired. 00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:14.000 I want to change. 00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:17.000 I want to be disciplined because of Jesus. 00:32:17.000 --> 00:32:23.000 Jesus is the wholesome religious element that I need to fill out and round out my existence. 00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:29.000 Nobody is going to be offended by the gospel. 00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:40.000 But if you go out into the world and put Christ at the center of your life and say, Jesus Christ is a historical fact who rose from the grave in the middle of history, 00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:50.000 who claims holistic kingship on the entirety of who I am, who claims holistic kingship on every human life, 00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:56.000 who demands my time, my talent, and my treasure precisely because of who he is, 00:32:56.000 --> 00:32:59.000 then the world will always stand against that message. 00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:03.000 And so there will always be the temptation to be ashamed of the gospel. 00:33:03.000 --> 00:33:07.000 Now let me just ask this question. 00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:09.000 I'm asking this question tonight. 00:33:09.000 --> 00:33:10.000 Am I ashamed of the gospel? 00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:17.000 Here's one way to know a diagnostic of how this looks like in my personal life and your personal life. 00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:31.000 Do my colleagues, friends, neighbors of one year, five year, 10 year, 15 year, 20 year know that Christ is the center of my life? 00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:39.000 Do the people that you're around most often in your life that don't believe for the last year, five years, 10 years, 20 years, 15 years, whatever it may be, 00:33:39.000 --> 00:33:47.000 did they know, will they say of you to another person, Christianity is at the center of that person's life? 00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:50.000 He's a little weird for it. 00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:52.000 He's a little too religious. 00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:54.000 Will they say that? 00:33:54.000 --> 00:34:01.000 And it's one way to measure and to ask, am I tempted to be ashamed of the gospel? 00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:05.000 Why should we be unashamed? 00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:07.000 We'll give the last word to Lloyd-Jones. 00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:14.000 Lloyd-Jones, when he's preaching on this, says, here's the reason to not be ashamed of the gospel. 00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:22.000 Here's the reason, here's why you shouldn't say you're unashamed of the gospel. 00:34:22.000 --> 00:34:25.000 We can never say it like this. 00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:27.000 You know, I'm unashamed of the gospel. 00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:36.000 I have full confidence in the gospel because I've been a believer for 20 years, for five years, for a year, whatever it may be. 00:34:36.000 --> 00:34:39.000 And it's always made me feel happy. 00:34:39.000 --> 00:34:44.000 And, you know, that Jesus brought something to my life I hadn't had before. 00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:50.000 That when I looked at Jesus, I felt better. 00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:51.000 I slept. 00:34:51.000 --> 00:34:53.000 I started sleeping better. 00:34:53.000 --> 00:34:55.000 My habits got better. 00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.000 My emotional life changed. 00:34:59.000 --> 00:35:01.000 All of that can be true. 00:35:01.000 --> 00:35:03.000 And the gospel does do that. 00:35:03.000 --> 00:35:10.000 But that can never be the main reason to chase after and make the gospel the center of your life. 00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:11.000 Not at all. 00:35:11.000 --> 00:35:12.000 And you know why? 00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:22.000 Because every single religion, every single philosophy, and every single self-help productivity book, people say the exact same thing. 00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:29.000 You know, people say all the time, I joined the gym and found this exercise class, and I'm sleeping better. 00:35:29.000 --> 00:35:30.000 I feel better. 00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:31.000 My emotional life has changed. 00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:33.000 This is my community. 00:35:33.000 --> 00:35:34.000 These are my people. 00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:36.000 I can't stop going six a.m. every week. 00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:39.000 It's been the best thing that's ever happened to me. 00:35:39.000 --> 00:35:47.000 If you say that that's the reason that Jesus is the centerpiece of your life, then you've not missed the center. 00:35:47.000 --> 00:35:48.000 And here it is. 00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:49.000 This is what Lloyd-Jones says. 00:35:49.000 --> 00:36:00.000 He says the only reason, the primary reason, the reason that you've got to choose to say, I'm not ashamed of the gospel is not because of the way it's made you feel or how it's made you feel. 00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:03.000 Or how it's helped you to sleep better. 00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:10.000 But only because you looked at it and said, this is true. 00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:11.000 That's the question. 00:36:11.000 --> 00:36:17.000 Did this man die and rise from the dead three days later in the middle of history? 00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:25.000 If he did, if he did, you have to put your entire life completely around him. 00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:30.000 And if he didn't, then Paul says, leave it. 00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:32.000 It's futile. 00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:39.000 It's not feelings, but truth that matters in being unashamed of the gospel. 00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:44.000 Jesus Christ did rise from the dead in the middle of history. 00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:45.000 That's the truth. 00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:53.000 And so tonight you can believe, you can be righteous before God, and we can step into the new year unashamed. 00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:56.000 So let's pray and ask God that he would do that for us. 00:36:56.000 --> 00:37:04.000 Lord, we give thanks for the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel and we know it to be power. 00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:07.000 That's the reason it's so good. 00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:11.000 It's because it truly works because it is real power. 00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:14.000 And so we ask tonight, Lord, that you would help us to be unashamed. 00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:16.000 And we pray that in Jesus' name. 00:37:16.000 --> 00:37:26.000 Amen.