Apologia Church Live - 01/10/2016

Romans 1 and the Gospel as God’s Power for Salvation

All right, if you were to open your Bibles to Romans chapter 1, what better place to hang out as we talk about this next year, 2016, together than Paul's explanation of the gospel in his letter to the church in Rome.

So Romans, starting in verse 14, chapter 1 verse 14, hear now the reading of God's holy and inspired word. God, I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.

So for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation. To everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith.

As far as the reading of God's holy word, let's pray together and seek God to bless this message. Father, I want to pray, God, that you'd bless now me as a minister of the gospel, that you would, Lord, get me out of the way, that I would decrease, that Christ would be increased, that God, you would guard my mind and my lips, that you would speak through me to your people today from your word by your spirit.

God, that you would bless, Lord, your church, this church, our family, our community, God, that you'd bless us this year with eyes that clearly see before us, Lord, your purposes, that we would be given now at the beginning of this year, Lord, new strength in you, God, a humility of mind and spirit, that, God, as we approach this year, we would seek first your kingdom, God, your glory above our own kingdom and our own glory, that, God, you would bless us this year, please, God, bless us even now, God, with repentance, Lord, that we turn away from things that are meaningless and insignificant, God, that you would put away, Lord, from us, like issues of pride and quarreling, anything, God, that would diminish, God, your glory and, Lord, the mission of the gospel, that you, God, would, Lord, lift this church up with boldness and light in darkness, that you, God, would allow us to serve the king of kings and to put away meaningless things for Christ's name's sake among all the nations, that you'd put your gospel on our lips, that we'd proclaim it, God, with boldness, power, love, truth, in a new way and in a fresh way this year, God, in Jesus' name, amen.

So, as we approach a new year together as a family, I want to keep first things first. As we talk about what we want to do as a church, as we talk about our mission as a church, we talk about our families, first things first.

Romans chapter 1, the apostle Paul says that he's not ashamed of the gospel, not ashamed of the gospel, that the gospel itself is the power of God for salvation to the Jew and to the Greek. That's a very first century way of saying everybody, that the good news, it's actually Romans chapter 1, verse 1, God's good news, God's good news is that message that God uses that is his actual power to ignite faith in people's lives and hearts, to convert people, to change them, to draw them to God.

God uses his gospel to do so. Now, we need to hear that, particularly in our generation, because we have really a popular way of gospel proclamation in our culture that's really not a gospel proclamation.

And we hear things like, well, you really need to develop relationships with people over a period of years. And people will say you need to earn the right to preach the gospel to people. And, you know, people often abuse that quote where they say, preach the gospel, if necessary, what?

Use words. And I often say, and you've heard probably a million times by now, that's one of the stupidest things you could ever say. I mean, that's like saying feed the poor, and if necessary, use food, right?

That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Because the good news is something you have to tell people, you have to say it to people. And we recognize that God is absolutely, completely, 100%, undeniably sovereign from beginning to end.

He's sovereign at the beginning of the world. He's sovereign in this very moment. He's sovereign at the end of time. But God uses means within His sovereignty to bring about His plans in the world. Amen?

For example, God planned before the world began. If you're in Christ, that you were in Christ, and He was going to draw you to Himself. Romans chapter 8, those whom He foreknew, He predestined. Those whom He predestined, He called.

Those whom He called, He justified. Those whom He justified, He also glorified. It was God's plan. However, you know, as well as me, that there's a particular time in your life where you heard the gospel.

Maybe it was on television. Maybe it was a friend that shared the gospel with you, or you're on the internet, on the mininets, and you, you know, punched out something, you heard the gospel, or you opened the scriptures.

You either heard or read the gospel, and your heart was changed, your eyes were opened, and you turned to Jesus, right? If not, repent and believe the gospel right now, right? Like today. Like, don't leave before you do.

But, we need to recognize that God uses us and the means of the gospel in order to bring about salvation. Now, here's the thing. Our perspective in our, in our church, our home, our perspective is very much Jesus wins.

Right? He wins. Not kind of wins, maybe after getting beat up a bit at the end of history. Now, we believe 1 Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul's timeline, Jesus is reigning now, putting all his enemies under his feet.

The very last enemy is death. That's the capstone, right? Jesus is building his kingdom, victory over the world, salvation to the ends of the earth. The final thing is death. That's done, and then Jesus is victorious before the entire watching world.

But, we know that in order to get there, we know that God sends preachers. We know that God has moms talk to their kids about the gospel. We know that God has sisters talk to mothers and fathers about, or to their own sisters about the gospel.

We have children talk to their parents about the gospel. We go out and we serve our local communities by giving to them the good news. God does his work in the world of transformation through you and me.

You might say, this is very obvious, Jeff, why he wants you to say, Jeff, or guys, the sky is blue today, right? Obviously, we know that. These are all truths we embrace. Here's the thing. We need to hear it constantly, that God uses us as the means of his grace in the world to draw people to himself.

It's the gospel that God uses to change people, to save them, to draw them to himself. So, I thought and prayed, okay, just go back to Matthew today, get back into this series, and then answer no to myself.

I have to really, at the beginning of the year, encourage us, call us to a mission mindset this year, to live sacrificial mission-minded lifestyles this year, where the focus of our heart and minds and lives is dedicated to the mission of the good news, telling people the truth.

Jesus is the king. God became man, and he paid for the sins of his people, and he rose again from the dead. He has ascended. He is seated on his throne. He's the ruler of this world today. And I love how Douglas Wilson said this in our discussion together.

He said, essentially, Jesus is the king. He's ascended. He has victory over the entire world. He has all authority. So, why don't you guys all come quietly now, right? I love that. That's really, I think, it's a beautiful picture.

He is victorious. He is the savior, and the call now is to repent and believe to the world, and God uses us to do so. And so, here's what I wanted to do, to lay down before us this year. What is our message of the gospel?

To say it for what it is, and let's talk about the things surrounding it that we need to think about in terms of our witness this year. So, Romans chapter 1, 2, and 3, those three chapters begin. Paul said in Romans chapter 1 that it's God's gospel, that God had promised it beforehand through his prophets, and it was concerning Jesus.

That's what the gospel is about. It's about Jesus, who is born of a descendant of David, according to the flesh, and he tells this story of Jesus that was God's story long before it actually happened.

And in Romans 1, you have the beginning of the gospel. Let me just say this. This is very, very important, vitally important to get. If you get this, you'll be able to communicate to people the grace of God and salvation.

If you get this, you'll be able to communicate to people the need for repentance as they come to Jesus. It's important because you, listen, you face different people as you preach the gospel, right? You sometimes face the religionists, the person who believes that they can somehow, through their own righteousness, get right before God, right?

Like, if I'm a good person, if I, you know, maybe someone has like a, like there's a cult, and they kind of believe in Jesus, a version of Jesus, but also their good works, and these things got to kind of work together, faith in Jesus plus good works, to get right with God.

Well, what's the thing that person needs to understand? They have to understand just how holy God is. How come people would actually believe that they could somehow, through their own efforts, attain a righteousness that is acceptable to God?

How come anybody actually believe that? Answer, they don't truly understand how holy God is, and how wretched they truly are. And so how do you communicate to that person that believes they could somehow, through their good deeds, attain a righteousness that's acceptable to God?

You have to communicate what Paul does in the first three chapters of Romans, our utter depravity before a holy God, that we have absolutely no hope that there is nothing before God we have to offer. That's how you communicate the grace of God and salvation to the person that actually believes that they could do it in any way on their own.

And then there's the other person, the other person of our day, the popular evangelical mindset of our day, right? It's a popular, really, version of the gospel today, and that is somehow that Jesus has done his work, and if you simply acquiesce to certain theological truths about Jesus, then Jesus punches your ticket, and you're good to go for heaven one day, right?

You've run into this mindset, right? Somebody says something to the effect of, oh, well, yeah, I prayed that prayer a long time ago, right? I'm good. I'm saved, right? I remember many, many years ago, as God was drawing me out of my addiction and convicting me and really crushing my life, as he was getting me out of my old lifestyle, showing me my sin, I sat with a friend who was wrapped up in all the same sins as me at the time, and he was somebody that was raised in a Christian home under the teaching of the gospel his whole life, and I remember that I started to say to him, like, is this bothering you like it's bothering me?

Are you feeling what I'm feeling now that God is not pleased with this, that something's wrong with the way that we're living? And he said to me, well, I'm saved. While we're smoking a joint, while we're just dropping tabs of ecstasy, he said, I'm saved.

He said, I said that prayer when I was a kid, and he said, I want to do all that I can in this life before I go to heaven to enjoy myself. And I want to say, people say, well, that's the extreme. That's kind of crazy.

I want to say this. That's not so crazy as we think. That is a very, very sort of normal mindset in evangelical churches today. You have people in evangelical megachurches that come to church for a period of five, six years that are living with their girlfriend or boyfriend outside of the context of marriage, never checked, never confronted, and living as though all was well, leading Bible studies in their homes while they're living outside of the context of marriage, right?

That is a common theme in evangelicalism today. Now, how do you combat that mindset with Romans chapters 1, 2, and 3? Because you begin to see in Romans chapters 1, 2, and 3 just how serious and far-reaching our sin truly is, just how corrupt we truly are.

So if we're going to clearly communicate the gospel to anybody, we've got to start the way the Apostle Paul does. Start with our sin. We want to find the greatest delight and pleasure in God in your intimate relationship with God of peace, then you need to constantly go back to what God has done to rescue a rebel like you.

You see, if you really think about and contemplate your true condition before Jesus saved you, you can find deep and lasting joy in God because you know what God has done in His grace to rescue you. You see, if you think there was anything in you appealing to God, morally attractive to God, then your salvation isn't so sweet, it isn't so deep, it isn't as glorious as the gospel according to the Apostle Paul in Romans.

Because in Romans chapters 1 through 3, what do you see? Chapter 1, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

For that which is known about God is evident within them, for God has made it evident to them. Even with the creation, Paul says, preaching to us, we do what? We say no, we become fools, we think we're wise, we become fools, our thoughts are futile, we switch God for idols, and God says in Romans 1 that He delivers us over to those sins.

And then all of these sins are just listed in Romans. Read the last portion of the chapter there. Verse 29, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful.

That's what happens to us. You see, here's what's important. If you read Romans 1 just now and you were thinking about somebody else, you got it wrong. That's you. How many of us can look at that and not see ourselves somewhere in there that you're that unmerciful one?

You're the disobedient to parents. You're the one who is a gossip. You're the one with malice, strife, greed. And that's the point that Paul is getting across. He opens up all of humanity's there. We all know Him.

We all know God and we switch Him for idols. God gives us over to all kinds of sexual perversions. He says, you want it? You can have it. And then we act out our sin in all kinds of different ways. And the interesting thing is in Romans chapter 2, you can hear that Jew in the background.

Right? You can hear that Jew in the background like, you know, he's giving Paul the praise. He's like, yeah, get the Gentiles. Those dirty dogs. Right? You can hear him almost in the background just on standby going, that's right, those Gentiles.

And the apostle Paul just turns it around now. You don't realize initially for the Jew who's reading this, they're like, oh, he's talking about you too. So now he deals with the Jew. Romans chapter 2, he's dealing with a Jew.

The Jew that thinks, oh, I have the Bible. I've got Torah. I've got a Tanakh. I kiss it. Every synagogue, I come up to the Torah, the Tanakh, and I kiss the words of God. I know the word of God. I have the word of God.

And the apostle Paul in Romans chapter 2 just tells that religious person, he says, you do the very same things that you tell others not to do. And he basically says in Romans 2 that the sum of the argument, if you read the passage, is essentially this.

Just because you have the law of God does not mean you're justified by it. You would have to actually do what was in the law to be justified by it. And you don't. And then he actually does something that's kind of a low blow, like in that time period, right?

And he basically shows that the Gentiles, read the end of the passage, chapter 2. At the end of chapter 2, verse 25, for indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the law. But if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

Kind of a weird thought. It's in your Bible. Uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision. And he who is physically uncircumcised, that's the Gentile, right? He's not Jewish outwardly. He says this. If he keeps the law, will he not judge you, though having the letter of the law, and circumcision, or a transgressor of the law?

For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter.

And his praise is not from men, but from God. Watch this. This is powerful. He's saying to the Jew of his day, look, these Gentile Christians over here, they don't have physical circumcision, but guess what?

They actually have the new birth. They have new hearts. They're actually Jews, right? And so they're actually really circumcised in their hearts. And that leaves the Jew of the day, the religious-minded person, saying like, well then, like, where's our hope?

If all of us are fallen, suppressing the truth, if we don't have any hope ourselves in our own righteousness and lawful obedience, then where's our hope? And the apostle Paul tells them there was a blessing in being a Jew.

God entrusted you with the very oracles of God. But he says this, verse 9 of chapter 3, what then? Are we better than they? Not at all. We have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin.

Now stop. This is big. This is one of those big moments in the scriptures. The apostle Paul constantly points back to the scriptures to touch on because God says. Because God says. How does he make his argument?

It's not pragmatism. It's not personal experience. He's not arguing, well, because this feels good to me, right? Like, you should listen to me because I've had a personal vision, right? Think about this.

It's amazing. The apostle Paul does appeal to his time with Jesus and seeing Jesus and getting knocked off the horse. He does say, that happened to me. But every single time the apostle Paul wants to root in your soul some truth, what does he do?

He says, what does the scripture say? Because God says. That's the anchor of your life. That's the anchor of your life. And the apostle Paul now is going to show that his gospel is consistent with the whole of scripture.

So what does he do? He goes back to God's word and now he takes a list of scriptures from the Old Testament to show the universal sinfulness of all of us. Now watch. Why am I saying this to start all this?

Here's why. Because if we're going to have a consistent witness to the world this year and see people changed and transformed by the gospel, people outside of our homes, people inside of our homes, we have got to finally come to grips with our depravity, our sin.

And we don't like to do that. Be honest. We don't like to do it. We're all the products of our culture. Admit it. You and I, we're all the products of our culture. And we're raised in a particular culture today where you don't say things to people that are cutting.

Don't judge. Don't condemn. Don't do that. We live in a politically correct culture where we're not accustomed to living that way. But let me just say this. At the beginning we talked about George Whitefield and you see the great awakening.

Do you know what Whitefield focused on each and every single time he preached? The need for the new birth. You say, how did the great awakening happen in a time like that where there was real darkness that crept in?

Here's how. George Whitefield focused in upon our condition. He proclaimed the truths of the gospel around the central truth of you. You're lost. You are fallen. You have nothing before God. You need to be reborn.

You need to be made alive. You can't live the old way. You can't live in that darkness. And he called people to repent and believe. And they turned and they changed. Why did they call it a great awakening?

They called it an awakening because there was obvious effects as a result of it. Our lives changed. Towns changed. Families changed. It wasn't the same. The crusades, crusades that will come through town.

30 ,000 people showed up. They'll say 15 ,000 people gave their lives to the Lord in a city. 15 ,000 people came to Christ. And I'm hopeful. I say, praise God. Praise God. 15 ,000 people came to Jesus in Phoenix last night.

Let me say this. If 15 ,000 people came to Jesus last night in Phoenix, the next six months would look nothing like the past. It couldn't because you're transformed. And in the great awakening, as the gospel was proclaimed faithfully, repentance and faith, our sin conditioned before God, people's lives were transformed.

One more example in history of what God did to change the world in moments of darkness. Jonathan Edwards. I think we brought it up last week. Did I bring up Edwards last week? I think I did. Yeah. What's the famous sermon from Edwards?

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, right? It's a sermon that he preached after writing down some stuff on a napkin, right? And then he preaches it and then the world changes. Have you read Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God?

Some of you guys maybe did this week. You went back home and you did a Google search. You looked up Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. How'd you feel after you read it? Right? Wow. Who talks about God like that?

We want the nice, hippie, surfer Jesus in a dress, right? He's soft. He's easygoing. Like when you do things that are sinful, he's sort of like, you know, and in reality, when you see in history, as God's changed the world, he's never changed the world through a veiled gospel.

A gospel that was hidden and not clear. When God actually has transformed the world in history and he's changed people's hearts and minds and lives and cultures, he's done it because the truth was told to people.

People like Jonathan Edwards actually told people, God is angry with you right now in your sin. And you're not okay right now with God. Like his wrath, the bow of his wrath is pulled back right now, ready to be drenched with your blood.

That's how wrathful God is over our sin. That's how serious God is over our sin. And when people begin to contemplate their real condition before God, then they cry out for a savior and not before them.

If people don't believe they're in need of a savior, they don't start climbing to his feet. They have to see who they truly are. Let me say this, just like you did, right? Isn't that amazing? Is that we shortchange people on our gospel proclamation.

Why? Because we're afraid that if we offend them or say something that will turn them away. So we start to sort of soften the message. We don't tell them the full truth. We don't really give them the whole counsel of God to show them their true need for a savior because we're thinking, well, maybe I'll just pat it a bit to make it more palatable, like make it easier for them.

But watch this. Is that how you came to Jesus? How did you come to Jesus? Did you see who you really were? Did you recognize your estate before God? Did you see the cross for what it truly was? That's the place that you should have been punished.

You see, when we think about how we were transformed by God, we recognize that we saw God's holiness. We saw what Jesus had done. We saw our own estate before God. We saw our sins. We saw our brokenness.

And we were like tax collectors beating our breasts saying to God, God have mercy on me, a sinner. And let me say this to you. That is how God changes people. That's how he opens their eyes. And this year, we as a church have to be committed to a bold proclamation of the gospel that is filled with truth, that just tells people the truth.

And it doesn't mean you're being unloving. It doesn't mean you're being unkind. What does it say about the gospel and the scriptures? It says it is offensive. So if your gospel is already offensive along with it, right?

It's offensive all on its own. And it says, the apostle Paul says in Corinthians, that to those who are perishing, it's the stench of death. But to those who are being saved, it's the very power of God.

You're going to give the gospel out at times, and you're going to see you throw it out, and you get like, like, you know, really crazy. You're like, whoa, I didn't expect that reaction. And then other times you give the gospel, and it's like people break down.

They fall down in front of you. I remember being in my office at the hospital that I worked at. It was really one of the best experiences of my life. When it was time to leave, it was time to leave. But it was really one of the most incredible things in my entire life.

I had at least five meetings a day. At least five meetings a day with people. And I had group sessions at night where I'd get to preach the gospel at night to all those people. Like five meetings a day, and I would sit down in front of people.

And every day, you know, we have new people coming in, and people that were really hostile to the gospel. People that didn't want to meet with me, but the therapist said, you need to meet with Pastor Jeff.

And so it's just such an interesting experience. I got to hear the worst stories. I heard things that were unimaginable that had happened to people and broke my heart. And I remember I had periods where I would just be in tears after I left there.

Just out of nowhere, I'd just break down in tears. Some of you guys were with me. We'd be in the middle of like, you know, leadership talking, and someone would say something. I would just break down and start bawling, and I gotta go.

And like, it was really amazing. But I did get to see some powerful things where I would tell people the truth and preach the gospel, and people would be mad. I mean, like, they would...one woman, one woman, she came to me one day after I preached the group session.

And I was preaching, like, on Romans 1. Sin and sexuality is in there. And she came up to me, and she said, I'm a homosexual. I said, okay. And she said, I am so offended by you. And she's like, and I want to hear you explain in a better way than you just did what you said in there.

I said, okay. And she was trying to get me to save myself, right? Like, go ahead. I'm going to give you another chance before I go to the chain of command and get you in trouble. And I said, well, would you like to hear from me?

And she said, I want to hear you explain because you sounded like you were saying that what I'm doing is destructive to my own self and to my children and to everybody around me. And I said, yeah, that's exactly what I said.

And she threw a fit, got angry. She went and started complaining to everybody. And she was going in the hallways, literally yelling to the top of her lungs, and she left. And so there's one example. She was out the door just because we communicated not just the truth about that sin, but really sin in general in her life and the gospel.

And she left. And other times where I would literally walk away from one instance like that where somebody was furious with me, screaming to the top of their lungs, and leaving, I would turn around, go to my office, preach the gospel to somebody, and they would literally fall down on their face in the office, weeping over their sin, literally saying to God right in front of me, God, save me.

Forgive me, God. Change my life. Jesus, take my life. Save me. It was amazing. I would walk out of that, turn around, and somebody maybe try to take a swing at me. I don't know. It's like, you know, it was really exciting, right?

It was constantly changing. But that was really cool. I got to have all these opportunities daily to give the gospel out at times, and you would see at times aggression towards it, and times full reception.

What was the difference? The grace of God. Not me, not you. When someone sees Jesus, and they want Him, and they want to know Him, they fall down before Him, they only do so because of the grace of God, and that's not a pithy slogan.

That's the truth. It's because God is the one who is changing their heart, their mind, and listen, He only does so through the gospel, which means that they have to hear that message and be changed by it.

So Romans chapter 3, there is none righteous, no not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become useless. There is none who does good.

There is not even one. Their throat is an open grave, but their tongues they keep deceiving. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood.

Destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. So here's what we must communicate to ourselves, to our children, and to everyone around us.

That is you. That is me. And you see it all around every day in our society. This is our society. This is who we are. And so what's the hope? Is it in the law? Romans chapter 3, after that long list of verses 19, now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth might be closed, may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God.

What's the purpose of the law? Keep you accountable. Shut your mouth, right? Why? Because what do you see in the law? Like how good you are? No, you see your sin on the page. You know, I think truly, watch this.

This is really interesting. I think a lot of why people don't like to really dig into the Old Testament passages, like say the first five books of Moses, like say Leviticus. How come you don't like to read Leviticus?

Because you see so much of yourself in Leviticus, right? As you're reading the passage, you're like, oh that's amazing, and you look down, you go, oh that's me, and then there I am again, and then there I am again.

You see in the law of God, like yourself, and the law of God can do nothing to justify you before God, and if you understand, watch, your condition, you would see why the law could do nothing to solve the problem, because it only shows your sin, and so Paul says what?

After he says the law closes your mouth, it says, verse 20, because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. Now, we all know this, right?

But in order to communicate the gospel to somebody effectively, we have to say condition. Paul says you cannot do this on your own. You cannot do it through law. Condition before God. It cannot be through law, and now you move into what?

Grace. What does it say? Two very popular, powerful, amazing words, but now. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God is manifested being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there's no distinction.

What's Paul say? Apart from the law, faith, it says, for all of sin and fall short of the glory of God, being justified. What's justified mean, guys? Righteousified, declared righteous. What is it? That's courtroom language.

Justified is a courtroom language. It's a declaration of righteousness. We are justified, Paul says, verse 24, as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith.

This was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration, I say, of his righteousness at the present time so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Here's the point. The Bible says that God has done all this in Christ as a gift through faith. We've all fallen short of God's glory. It's through the redemption that's in Jesus. And the amazing thing about this redemption is it's God buying us out of slavery.

He's purchased you out of your slavery. You go from one place to another. He has redeemed you, purchased you, got you out of your slavery, and now you belong to him. Through the propitiation that was in Jesus, God has poured out his wrath upon Jesus.

Propitiation is a big word, and it's an important word. It basically is Jesus absorbed and fully exhausted the wrath of God in the place of God's people. This is why Paul gets to this point. Redemption, gift, grace, propitiation, God is just, and the one who declares righteous, the one who has faith in Jesus.

And so what does it say? It gets him to the place he has to get. Verse 27, where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. Verse 28, for we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law.

Faith alone. Faith apart from works of law. Any work of law. Faith apart from obedience. Faith apart from you. Do you get that? You're in Jesus because of faith in Jesus. Not because you're a good Christian.

Not because you've got better at being a Christian. Not because of any of your works. Not ever. Not now. Not future. Never. It's through faith in Jesus. And watch this. This is, by the way, for some reason I think this is missing out of a lot of evangelical Bibles.

I do. It's like, it's not in the, does the NIV, the new NIV drop this verse? I don't know. Verse 31, after grace, grace, grace, grace, redemption, redemption, propitiation, no works, all Jesus, all Jesus, gift of God.

Then it goes, verse 31, do we then nullify the law through faith? May it never be. On the contrary, what? We establish the law. We uphold the law. Now, I wanted to say all that, okay, to get to this quickly.

Bold Proclamation, the New Birth, and the Great Awakening

Read the book of Acts. Let's do that as a church. I mean this. Let's do that as a church. If you don't have a particular Bible study that you're doing right now, you don't have a particular pattern you're reading through, you're just kind of in certain passages or books, let me give you this encouragement.

Do this. For this next month, for the rest of the month, why don't you read the book of Acts? The book of Acts. Read the book of Acts through. Look at what God did as he ascended and he sends his mission of the gospel off into the world.