The Gospel: Righteous in Christ

Romans 1:16-17 “The Gospel: Righteous in Christ”

Prayer

Let me begin with a question: Are you a good Christian? To put it another way: is God happy with you? When you look at your life, are you doing a good job at being a Christian? Have you received an A+ on the report card of your Christian life? Are you squeaking by with a C-? Or do you have a F staring you in the face?

If you are a Christian, perhaps you have felt like a failure as a Christian. At other times you have felt good about what you have done. One week you attend all the services at church, you read your Bible and pray every day, and you even talk to someone at work about the gospel. You are kind to your kids and don’t yell at your wife. You are pumped up about being a Christian. You feel like God is smiling at you. You almost feel like you deserve to walk through the gates of heaven when you die.

Then something happens. You get busy. You forget to read your Bible. You get angry at a coworker or a member of your family. You decide you don’t have time this week for church, so skip out. Then you think about God. Is he still happy with me? Am I a good Christian? If I were to die today, would God really want me in heaven? Despair sets in, and you wonder if you will ever measure up. In your mind, the report card of your Christian life has slipped to a D. Sometimes people get stuck in a rut like this and even begin to doubt their salvation. They may even recommit their lives to Christ. They determine to live a more committed life for Christ.

Then the cycle begins again. You are at the top of your game as a Christian. Heaven is smiling. You are happy. Then you fail, sin, forget about spiritual things. Despair sets in again.

Maybe that has been your experience as a Christian. Maybe you have felt like that in the past. Today I want to offer you good news. This is good news for you as a Christian. This is good news for you if you are not a Christian. The news is that through faith in Jesus Christ, you have a right standing before God that is unchangeable. This news can free you from the bondage of wondering if God is pleased with you. It can free you from the doubts that plague you in your walk with Christ. The gospel is good news for Christians because it reveals to us that we are righteous in Jesus Christ.

I get the Olean Times-Herald, and I find it fascinating to see if they have any really good news to report. Oh yes, there is plenty of bad news. The best news I saw this last week was that people are starting to make maple syrup. Now, don’t get me wrong, maple syrup is exciting. But that kind of news is not going to get you out of bed in the morning. The gospel is news that will get you out of bed in the morning. And that’s what we want to explore today.

Our text for today is Romans 1:16-17, but I would like to read verses 8-18.

My main points for today are this:
1. The Gospel is Power
2. The Gospel Reveals Righteousness
3. The Gospel is for Believers

1. The Gospel is Power (16)
Stepping back a few verses, we find that Paul is ready—he is eager—to preach the gospel to the Roman Christians. He wants to encourage them. He wants them to grow in their faith. Verse 16 answers the question: why is he eager to preach the gospel? He is not ashamed of the gospel. “Somebody stop me” was his attitude when it came to the gospel. He message was unstoppable. He was revving his engine, waiting for the green light to race off to Rome.

Why this passion of the gospel? Why this unshakeable confidence? The gospel is the power of God. With the gospel message proclaimed, God unleashes his saving power in the lives of those who believe.

Paul dealt not in moral improvement. His goal was not a change of lifestyle or social transformation. He was in the business of raising the dead. He didn’t have the power to- God did. God would use the gospel message that Paul proclaimed to bring life and salvation to everyone who believed. Instead of bringing a knife to a gun fight, Paul brought a nuclear bomb. Except the gospel didn’t create widespread destruction. It created spiritual life where it was proclaimed.

This amazing message was for everyone. Verse 14, it was for the Greeks and Barbarians, or the cultured and uncultured of that day. Here in verse 16, it is for the Jews first and then the rest of the nations. The gospel was first announced to the Jews, then given to the rest of the nations. Paul mirrored this in his missionary service by going first to the Jews in a given town, then offering the gospel to the Gentiles. The gospel is offered indiscriminately to all. The key is faith in Jesus Christ. Your background, achievements, nationality, culture, religion have no relationship to your salvation. It is by trusting Christ alone.

2. The Gospel Reveals Righteousness (17)
Paul is not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God. Verse 17, answers the question: HOW is it the power of God? Paul loves to connect ideas, and give reasons. Long sentences. Logic. Thinking. Maybe it’s not what you love to day on a Sunday morning. But this is the text before us today. The gospel is the power of God because it reveals righteousness. One commentator sums it up well: “the gospel is the power of God because it reveals the only way we can be righteous before God” (paraphrase of Calvin). There is no other way to be righteous before God but by believing the gospel message. What, then, does righteousness mean? If the gospel reveals righteousness, we should probably understand what it is.

A. The Definition of Righteousness
Righteousness or justice is used in Romans two ways. First, righteousness is an attribute of God. He is the standard of what is right, and he judges in accordance with his righteousness. This should be terrifying to those who are NOT righteous.

The second way righteousness is used is speaking of the righteousness that God gives to those who trust Christ. This a right standing before God as the righteous judge. Those who trust Christ are given Christ’s righteousness and Christ takes their sin. We call it the great exchange. And this is not an even exchange. It is a gracious exchange, because we in no way deserve it.

This gift of righteousness does mean that we are MADE righteous. No, we are DECLARED to be righteous in God’s books. Before the judge of the universe, not only have we been declared “not guilty” but also declared “righteous.” This is called justification. To justify means to declare righteous.

The 16th century reformer Martin Luther was saved by studying these two verses. At that time, he was a monk who was striving to earn a right standing before God by doing good works. He tried hard to keep God’s laws and discipline his body. He was in agony over these verses. They made no sense to him. How is the gospel good news if it reveals that God is righteous and will judge the sinner? That’s bad news. Finally after wrestling day and night with this passage, God opened his eyes to see that this righteousness was God’s gift to those who believe. In his words: “Thus that place in Paul was for me truly the gate to paradise.”

B. The Need for Righteousness
I think we should all know we need righteousness. None of us measure up to God’s perfect standard. Oh, you may think that you are better than a person sitting next to you. But the standard we are measured by is not human but divine. That’s why we need the righteousness of Jesus Christ given to us. Verse 18 reminds us of the plight of humanity. Everyone’s guilty. Everyone has stolen cookies from God’s cookie jar. Everyone deserves punishment. That’s why we need righteousness.

C. The Receiving of Righteousness
This righteousness is revealed in the gospel message from faith to faith. It is only by faith that we can receive righteousness. We cannot work for it. We cannot add anything to it. It is all Christ’s righteousness credited to our account. The only thing we contribute is the sin which makes this gift of righteousness necessary.

3. The Gospel is for Believers
The amazing message that you can have a right standing before God by faith is a message for everyone to hear. Even believers. Even people who were literally born in church. There are 3 reasons I see that the gospel is for believers.

A. Paul wants to preach the gospel to the Roman Christians
Verse 15- I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome. Who are these people at Rome? Verse 6 and 7: they are people who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, loved by God, and called to be saints. They need to hear the gospel. And Paul is willing to travel many miles to speak the gospel to unbelievers AND believers.

B. Salvation is a process
In the NT, we learn that salvation is completely done for us by Christ. We are still in process of being saved. We look forward to our final salvation: eternal life and complete transformation. Look at Romans 5:9-10 Justified. Yes. Reconciled. Yes. But we WILL be saved. Look back at 1:17. The righteous shall live by faith. This is not speaking of living the Christian life by faith, but receiving eternal life by faith.

C. The need for continuing faith
Verse 16 shows that salvation is for everyone who believes. The word here for believe signifies ongoing action. Not a one-time belief, but continuous belief in Jesus Christ. In verse 17, righteousness is received from faith to faith. The Christian life begins and ends by faith. It is only by faith, not by works that we begin the Christian life and continue the Christian life. The way we enter the Christian life is the same way we continue in the Christian life, and the same way we reach heaven. Faith. Trusting Christ for everything we need.

The gospel is for Christians, because it sustains our faith in Jesus Christ. Again and again we need to hear that our right standing before God is because of what Christ has done for us. As sinners we are hardwired to trust our own works instead of Christ. The gospel is not only the power of God for our entrance into the Christian life but also the power of God for the Christian life. Again and again we need to hear the sweet sounds of the gospel in our ears. We needs its life giving message to continue in the Christian life…to sustain our faith…to focus our eyes on Christ…to keep us from boasting in our works.

You probably know of people that always have their TV on and tuned to the news station. They have CNN or Fox News always blaring. We as Christians must always have the TV of our minds tuned to the gospel station. We need the gospel always in our minds, reminding us of Christ. In one sense, the gospel helps Christians rediscover every day that they are accepted in Jesus Christ.

There once was a man named John Bunyan. You may know him as the author of Pilgrim’s Progress. There was a time when he really struggled with this idea of being righteous in Jesus Christ. He recounts when he discovered that only Christ was his righteousness. He saw:

“that it was not my good frame of heart [when he felt good] that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame [when he felt bad] that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, “The same yesterday, today, and forever.” Heb. 13:8. Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed. . . . Now I went also home rejoicing for the grace and love of God.”
I began this message by describing a person who did not understand that their righteousness was in Jesus Christ. A person that felt like John Bunyan. Their feelings of acceptance rose or plummeted based on their performance. That is an awful way to live. My prayer is that your eyes would be opened to see that Christ is your righteousness. Not your good deeds, not how you feel, but Christ.

You do not have to base your acceptance before God on your performance or your feelings. Yes, Christians work hard for the Lord. Yes, we strive to please our Father. But, not to earn his favor, but because we are completely loved in Jesus Christ.

This news that you can be perfectly accepted before God because of what Christ has done for you is a message that gives FREEDOM. It is message that gives JOY. I want each one of you to understand and to believe this message. I want every one of your to experience the joy of knowing that you are fully accepted in Jesus Christ.

So, how does your report card read for your Christian life? How do you measure up? Have you kept God’s laws perfectly? Are you loving God with all your heart soul, mind, and strength? I would have to say that none of us have A’s in these subjects. When God looks at your report card, what does he see? If you have trusted Christ for your righteousness, when God opens your report card, he finds Christ’s report card in its place. And there are A pluses for every subject. If you belong to Christ, the same is true of you. God opens your report card, and finds Christ’s perfect record in its place. And he sticks it on the fridge. When we sin, when we get an F in prayer or loving our wives, God sees Christ’s report card hanging there in place of our blemished record.

We are counted righteous. We are loved by the Father, accepted in Jesus Christ. There is no better news in this world.