The Plight of Humanity and the Power of God

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From the letter of Paul to the Romans.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes,

first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.

For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed,

a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written,

the righteous will live by faith.

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people

who suppress the truth by their wickedness,

since what may be known about God is plain to them,

because God has made it plain to them.

For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities,

His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen,

being understood from what has been made,

so that people are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him.

But their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools,

and exchanged the glory of the immortal God

for images made to look like a mortal human being,

and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity,

for the degrading of their bodies with one another.

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie,

and worshipped and served created things,

rather than the Creator, who is forever praised.

Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.

Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.

In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women,

and were inflamed with lust for one another.

Men committed shameful acts with other men,

and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God,

so God gave them over to a depraved mind,

so that they do what ought not to be done.

They become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity.

They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice.

They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful.

They invent ways of doing evil.

They disobey their parents.

They have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.

Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death,

they not only continue to do these very things,

but also approve of those who practice them.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Good morning, Christ Church.

Just to see a show of hands,

how many of you wish that you were preaching this sermon?

How many of you have ever witnessed someone walk on a tightrope across the open crater of an active volcano?

Anyone ever seen that?

That's what you're about to witness right now.

I want to reassure you that I plan to speak about the one thing in this text that you really want to hear about,

which is the wrath of God.

But I know that our eyes are probably glued to these thorny verses in verses 24 to 27 about sexuality.

And probably one of the reasons we've never preached the epistle to the Romans in our 17 years as a church,

at Christ Church,

is probably because of this text.

Who wants to walk over bubbling hot lava?

So I need to make some remarks here up front.

Otherwise, we're going to be distracted about sex the whole time

and not really hear the main point of this scripture.

In God's providential timing,

a few months back,

I preached on Jesus' teaching about marriage and singleness,

sexuality and gender,

and the Gospel of Matthew chapter 19.

Matthew 19 · chapter mention

If you weren't here for that,

I encourage you to go back and listen to that.

I'm going to repeat a little bit of that preamble

as we enter in today.

And I want to just say,

anytime we talk about sexuality,

recognize these are personal,

sensitive,

serious,

even controversial matters.

They're not just about issues.

It's about real people.

It affects every person here,

people who are not here,

that we love so much and care about so much,

our parents,

our siblings,

our kids,

our friends and neighbors and coworkers.

Anytime we talk about sexuality,

I feel inadequate and often quite nervous

because these topics just inevitably bring up tension and conflict

and texts and emails and conversations

that aren't all that fun.

And perhaps you are more nervous than I am

when these things come up

because issues of sexuality bring up immense pain and sadness,

perhaps even guilt and shame

for things that we've done,

things that have been done to us,

ways that we've been wronged.

Some of us are here today,

and if we're honest,

we're trapped in sexual addictions

and we have sexual secrets.

Some of us are here today,

and we're same-sex attracted,

we're gay,

the church has not been a safe place

for us to feel that we belong

or that we are accepted.

And if you're nervous,

I just want to reassure all of you

that I love you,

that I'm your pastor,

and I love you so much.

And I want you to fear not.

I just want you to open up yourself to God.

God is here to meet you

in his compassion,

his kindness,

his healing,

his transforming power.

Some of us are here,

we're exploring Christianity,

and if that's you,

we preach on this text once every 17 years.

And the first thing you need to do

is really get straight on Jesus.

Is he the son of God?

Did he die for your sins?

Did he rise from the dead?

And have you experienced his grace?

If you deal with that,

then let's have a conversation

about the ethics of Jesus.

But every person here is broken

in the area of sexuality,

including myself.

We don't have it all together.

Our common ground is that we need wisdom.

There's not a lot of wisdom

to be had on these issues,

and we need wisdom.

And I don't think that we're all

going to walk out of this room today

and agree.

And that's okay.

I just want to open the door

for us to seek the mind of God.

And I want to say once again

that sex is not the main point

of this passage.

If you look closely,

it's neither the upfront number one concern,

nor is it at the end

is the climactic concern.

It's just sandwiched in the middle.

But there are two wrong ways

to read that middle part.

One wrong way in our culture war

that's raging right now

is that if you're a conservative

on the right,

you can read texts like this

and you can use them as a club

to beat people over the head

and practice oppression and exclusion

in the name of Jesus.

And I just have to say out loud,

that's wrong.

That's bad.

Stop doing that.

If you're a progressive on the left,

you might make an equal

and opposite error,

which is to dismiss a text like this

as outdated

and to fail to appreciate

the sexual revolution

of the prophets and the apostles.

These men and women

who insisted and demanded

that all sexual activity

be channeled into marriage

between one man and one woman.

And in doing so,

they forced the sexual genie

back into the marital bottle.

And when that happened,

it did untold good

for human society and civilization,

not least for women and children.

So as we're walking this tightrope

over this open crater

of an active volcano

with boiling hot lava,

we want to not fall off on the right

and we want to not fall off on the left.

Okay, how am I doing so far?

So what I want to ask all of you

to do right now

is to just put a pin in this,

suspend your judgment for a moment

so that we can go on

and talk about the main point

of this passage.

And then we're going to circle back briefly

as it unfolds in the text.

An advanced apology.

This is a bit of a longer sermon,

but blame the Apostle Paul.

He put a lot in this text, okay?

So what he's saying

and what the message is for us today

is that the gospel reveals

the cause of God's wrath,

the consequences, and the cure.

The gospel reveals

the cause of God's wrath,

the consequences, and the cure.

First of all,

the gospel reveals

the cause of God's wrath.

Notice in verse 17,

it says the gospel,

in the gospel,

the righteousness of God is revealed.

And then in verse 18,

it says,

the wrath of God

is being revealed from heaven.

So two things are being revealed.

Two ages,

two realms

are being revealed.

The old age,

the old realm

of God's wrath,

and the new age,

the new realm

of God's righteousness

in the gospel.

And Romans 1 to 3

is there to show us

what it means

to live under God's wrath

so that we'll see

the necessity for

and the power of the gospel

to bring us out

from under the wrath of God

and to bring us up

and under the righteousness

of God in Christ.

And so we're gonna keep repeating

verses 16 to 17

because that's the thesis

of this whole letter.

But we're also gonna repeat

these next couple weeks

verse 18

because that's the thesis

of this next section,

these next three chapters.

And you'll notice

that Paul's methodology

is the exact opposite

of the church

in North America today.

The church in North America

does not wanna talk

about the wrath of God.

We don't wanna talk

about the godlessness

or wickedness of people

because that won't

attract people,

it'll make them feel

uncomfortable,

they won't come back

to church,

it won't touch

their felt needs,

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But Paul,

if he were here,

would say,

can we really know God

and know the love of God

without the wrath of God?

Can we really even see

the need that we have

for the gospel

if we don't talk

about the wrath of God?

Now, is the apostle Paul

the only one

in the New Testament

that insists on wrath?

Well, the first preacher

in the New Testament,

John the Baptist,

his main message was

flee from the wrath

of God to come.

And we say,

yikes, let's move on

from John the Baptist

to Jesus.

That's why I prefer

his preaching of love

and grace and compassion.

Well, here's Jesus preaching.

In the Sermon on the Mount,

he says in Matthew 7,

every tree that does not

bear good fruit

is cut down

and thrown into the fire.

Matthew chapter 10,

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

Jesus says,

do not be afraid

of those who kill the body

but cannot kill the soul.

Rather be afraid

of the one

who can destroy

both soul and body

in hell.

Matthew 13,

the Son of Man

will send out his angels

and they will weed

out of his kingdom

everything that causes sin

and all who do evil.

They will throw them

into the blazing furnace

where there will be

weeping and gnashing

of teeth.

Jeez, thanks Jesus.

Happy Mother's Day.

You know,

that's tough preaching

from Jesus

but that's what he says.

He talks about

the wrath of God

and what is

the wrath of God?

The wrath of God

is not human wrath

which is so often

irrational,

uncontrolled emotion,

very often arbitrary

and almost always

full of vanity,

malice,

and revenge.

God's wrath is free

of all that human poison.

The scriptures say

that God is light

and in him

there's no darkness

at all.

And so the wrath

of God

is his holy hatred

of evil.

The wrath of God

is his settled

righteous opposition

to darkness.

It's his uncompromising

hostility against sin.

If we're going to see

love in God

then we also must see

his hatred

because God hates

all that opposes

what's good

and true

and beautiful.

God hates

all that

damages,

defaces,

and destroys

his creation

and his creatures.

If God didn't

hate those things

then God would not

be God

and he would

certainly not be

a God that's

worthy of our

worship.

So Paul says

the wrath of God

is being revealed

and what is causing

the wrath of God?

He says

it's our denial

of God.

It's our suppression

of the truth

about God.

Verse 18 says

the wrath of God

is being revealed

from heaven

against all what?

All godlessness,

all ungodliness.

we were created

by God

and for God

to trust

the truth

of God

and to live

these God-centered,

God-full,

godly lives.

All of us

and everyone

you've ever met

or will ever meet

were made

to love

the Lord our God

with all our heart,

soul,

and strength.

And the problem

is that we're not

godly like that,

we are godless.

We're made to be

these dependent creatures

but instead

we seek independence

from God.

We're made to be

these God-centered people

but instead

we become

these very self-centered

people.

And that's the essence

of sin.

The essence of sin

is to be godless,

to be ungodly,

to be against God.

It's to hold down

the truth about God

and refuse to desire

God with our whole being,

to want Him

as the supreme object

of our desire

and to want to know Him

and to live entirely for Him,

to do His will

and to live for His glory

and His glory alone.

See, Paul is telling us here

what we've been created for.

We've been created

in verse 20

to be in awe

of the invisible qualities

of God.

We have His eternal power,

His divine nature,

His holiness,

His righteousness,

and justice,

all these things.

He says,

we've been designed,

according to verse 21,

to glorify and thank God

in all things.

We've been made,

according to verse 23,

to delight in the glory

of the immortal God

and we've been fashioned,

as verse 25 says,

to worship and serve

our Creator

and to praise Him

and please Him

with every thought,

word, and deed

that we do.

Our failure

to do these things

is not

the breaking

of some random rules

that God has set up.

for us.

Our failure

to do these things

is in fact

a violation

of our very own essence,

our very own nature

as creatures

made to live

with and for

our Creator.

And so,

every time

we fail to do these things,

we're tearing

at the fabric

of our own being.

To break away

from God

is to break

our very selves

because myself

needs God

more than it needs

oxygen.

oxygen.

You don't want

to go very long

without oxygen.

Godliness

is our design.

Godlessness

is our demise.

And friends,

even before

Adam and Eve

ate that forbidden fruit,

they had already

fallen into

ungodliness.

They were questioning God.

They were saying,

did God really say?

Is God

really good?

Is He for us?

Can we trust Him?

Can we trust

His word?

Any of you ever

question like that?

Any of you ever

live against God

and apart from God

in that way?

Just think about

this morning.

Today's Sunday.

It's the Lord's Day.

How much time

passed

this morning

where you didn't

think about God?

You didn't thank God?

You didn't glorify God?

Think about

your past week.

Did you love God

with all of your heart,

soul,

and strength?

Paul is saying

that the primary matter

on which we're all

going to be judged

is our response

to God

and all that He is

and all that He

has done.

And he says

that God has revealed

enough of Himself

so that even the most

irreligious people

can look around creation

and know that we are,

we're just mere creatures.

We are not the key

to our own existence

and the existence

of everything around us.

We know at least that.

We know enough

to believe

that we are utterly

dependent

and completely

accountable to God.

Although they knew God,

they neither thanked God

nor glorified Him

as God.

Every person we meet,

including ourselves,

has enough of the truth

to know

that the only right

and reasonable response

to God

is to glorify

and thank Him,

to worship

and serve Him.

But Paul says

the problem is

we suppress the truth.

we restrain the truth.

We hold the truth down.

We fight against it.

We push it aside.

We dismiss it

and twist it

and explain it away

and do everything we can

to get rid of it,

to throttle it,

to drown it out.

And the gospel

is revealing to us

that the cause

of God's wrath

is this truth suppression,

this godlessness

in our lives.

Friends,

do you realize

that apart from

the grace of God,

your life has been poisoned

by this godlessness?

Your life has been

completely ruined

by ungodliness.

To withhold from God,

the God who made us,

anything of ourselves

is a sin against Him

grievously.

Every human being,

Paul says,

is living in this old age,

this old realm

of godlessness

under the wrath,

the condemnation,

the judgment of God

without exception.

And unless and until

God graciously

and powerfully intervenes

to bring us

into this new realm,

this new age

of the righteousness

and salvation

and life of God,

we're stuck.

We're absolutely stuck.

So the gospel

reveals God's,

the cause of God's wrath,

but it also reveals

the consequences.

Really,

the rest of Romans 1

just unpacks verse 18

and talks about

how our godlessness

leads to wickedness.

Our ungodliness

results in unrighteousness.

If our relationship

to God were right,

then all of our actions

would be right.

And we'd not be guilty

of any of the particular things

that are listed

here in our text.

But because we are ungodly,

because we're against God,

we become unrighteous.

We become against other people.

We even become against ourselves.

And Paul describes

this descent,

step by step,

downward, downward, downward,

from godlessness

to unrighteousness.

And he talks about

a few things.

He talks about

deceitful idols,

degraded bodies,

depraved minds,

and decaying societies.

Each of those

is a sermon in and of itself.

I'm going to touch upon them

ever so briefly.

First of all,

deceitful idols.

He says in verse 23,

we exchanged the glory

of the immortal God

for images

made to look like

mortal human beings.

And in verse 25,

we exchanged the truth

about God for a lie

and worshipped and served

created things

rather than the creator.

My wife and I

had the privilege

of going to the United Kingdom

last summer.

And let's suppose

that had we gone on that trip

and taken a million U.S. dollars,

like we typically do

when we travel,

we took a million U.S. dollars

and we exchanged

that money

for 100 British pounds.

What would you say

about that exchange?

Would you say

that that was a wise exchange?

No, you would say

that's outrageous.

That's absurd.

Jonathan,

you're an idiot.

And Paul's saying

we exchanged

the glory and the truth

of the living creator God

for these counterfeit gods.

We traded in

this life-giving relationship

with God

because we'd rather enjoy

the creatures

and the created goods

and created ideas.

We've become so confused.

It's absurd.

We've been created

to worship this uncorruptible,

majestic creator,

and yet here we are

creating these little

golden cast substitutes

and we say

this little thing down here,

this is ultimate.

This is what I'm going to live for.

This is my precious

money

or power.

Let's live for the state.

Let's live for the markets.

You know,

let's live for our race.

Let's worship

and serve our bodies.

I've got a great idea.

Let's live entirely

for our children.

Let us bow down

to human-made ideas

about God

rather than the self-revelation

of God himself.

And some of you might say,

Jonathan,

you're taking this too far.

There are no real idols

in the modern world.

That's all ancient,

primitive stuff.

We've outgrown it.

We've matured beyond it.

I could literally

take you outside right now

and show you people

bowing down

to these little black mirrors

that they're carrying around

in their hand.

And those little mirrors

reflect our image

back to ourselves

so that all we do all day

is see ourselves

and we go around like this.

I'm not kidding.

Our modern world

is full of idols.

And these idols,

they really just exalt us.

They're there to put us

in control

so that we don't have to rely

on the control

of God in our lives.

And again,

I can't say much about this

but I encourage you

to look at these books,

Counterfeit Gods,

The Empty Promises

of Money, Sex, and Power

by Tim Keller

and also a book

by Richard Foster

that has some dynamite

on the front

about money, sex, and power.

A lot more we could say

about that.

But Paul moves

from our deceitful idols

to our degraded bodies.

And he says in verse 24,

he says,

Therefore God gave them over

in the sinful desires

of their hearts

to sexual impurity

for the degrading

of their bodies

with one another.

You know, the body

and sex,

these are some of God's

best gifts.

And we take in

those gifts

that are designed

to operate

in a male-female marriage,

to ennoble us

and to humanize us.

And whenever we take

those gifts

and we remove them

from that God-designed context

and we put them

over here

into any other context,

inevitably, Paul says,

degrades us

and dehumanizes us.

Paul's writing

from the city of Corinth

in 57 AD

and he's looking out

in this city

he can literally see

the cult of Aphrodite

which is the goddess

of love.

He sees all these girls

and these women

who are being objectified

and used.

Paul can look over

at the cult of Apollo,

the god of beauty

and the shrine

that's been set up

to the unbridled male sex drive

to do anything at once

without any limits

and Paul looks at all this

and says,

oh my goodness,

they've taken God's best gift

and they've turned even it

into an idol.

And it's doing so much harm.

It's doing so much damage

to people.

People think that

in their sleeping around

and in all their experiences

of false intimacy

they're just expressing

their freedom

but what's really happening

is they're becoming

more and more enslaved.

And so Paul writes

to this church in Corinth

in 1 Corinthians 6

and he says this

to these people

who are surrounded

by a cult of sex.

So pressured to conform

to the pattern

of that world around them.

And here's what he says.

He says,

do you not know

that the unrighteous

will not inherit

the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived.

Neither opposite sex sinners

nor same sex sinners

nor idolaters

nor thieves

nor the greedy

nor drunkards

nor slanderers

nor swindlers

will inherit

the kingdom of God.

And Paul says,

that is what some of you

at Christ Church Corinth

that's what some of you were.

That's what some of you

used to be.

But then God came in.

And God came in

and he says,

but you were washed.

You were sanctified.

You were justified

in the name

of the Lord Jesus Christ

and by the Spirit of God.

Paul's saying that

no matter how much

you've slept around,

no matter how much

false intimacy

you've practiced,

it doesn't matter anymore.

You've been cleansed.

You've been set apart

to God.

You've been declared

righteous in God's sight.

But now,

he says,

brothers and sisters,

you've got to unlearn

all those old ways

that degraded you

and you've got to learn

God's new ways

that humanize you,

that ennoble you.

And so he says,

the body

is not meant

for sexual immorality

but for the Lord.

And the Lord for the body.

Do you not know

that your bodies

are members of Christ himself?

He says,

flee

from sexual immorality.

All other sins

a person commits

are outside the body

but whoever sins sexually

sins against their own body.

Do you not know

that your bodies

are temples of the Holy Spirit

who is in you,

whom you have received from God?

You are not your own.

You were bought at a price.

Therefore,

honor God

with your bodies.

Paul's saying

to be a Christian

is to no longer

have this very low view

of the body.

To be a Christian

is to have a very high

an exalted view

of the body.

That this body

that's going to be

one day

resurrected from the dead,

this body even now

is full of the Holy Spirit

of God.

This body's been purchased

by the infinite value

of the blood of Christ.

This body

no longer belongs to me,

it belongs to God.

And Paul's question

to us in this text

is how many of us

have acted

as if our bodies

are not God's

but they're our own.

How many of us

have dishonored God

with our bodies,

with our eyes,

with our thoughts,

with our hearts

and our desires?

Can any of us

honestly look in the mirror

or look in the face

of God himself

and say,

I am sexually righteous?

And Paul's whole point

is no one can do that.

None of us are righteous.

No, not one.

Again, so much more

to say about that.

You're going to have to go

listen to other sermons

that are preached.

But Paul's talking about

our deceitful idols,

our degraded bodies,

and then our depraved minds

and decaying societies.

He says in verse 28,

furthermore,

just as they did not think

it worthwhile

to retain the knowledge

of God,

so God gave them over

to a depraved mind

so that they do

what ought not to be done.

We've been made

to love our neighbors

as ourselves.

And then Paul lists for us

these 21 vices

in verses 29 to 31.

Of all the ways

we don't love our neighbor,

we destroy our neighbor,

we make our neighbor

absolutely unhappy

and miserable.

If you just scan

over that list,

is that not a perfect summary

of human history?

Does it not explain

why things are as they are?

We tell ourselves

with all of our education,

all of our technology,

all of our culture,

that we're going to

continually improve

and make progress

and one day bring in

the utopia.

And yet,

somehow,

in this entire last century,

we've not yet

been able to eradicate,

with all of our advances,

we've not yet been able

to eradicate greed,

for example,

or envy of our neighbor.

In fact,

Paul says,

we invent new ways

of becoming even more

vile and violent

and vicious

toward one another.

And what does God do

about all this ungodliness

and unrighteousness?

Three times,

it says,

God gave them over.

God gave them over.

God gave them over.

When we refuse

to glorify God as God,

when we do not thank Him,

when we do not worship

and serve Him as we ought,

when we,

in our wisdom

and our cleverness,

dismiss Him

and turn our back on Him,

then God does exactly

the same thing to us.

We give Him up,

and so He gives us up.

We abandon God,

and so He abandons us.

We break up

our relationship with Him,

and so He allows us

to break up everything else

in His creation.

He hands us over

to ourselves

so that we just stew

in our own juices

and go round and around

in circles.

And when God withdraws

Himself and His presence,

all that's vile

and violent and vicious

floods in

and is let loose

and given free reign

so that the world

becomes a living hell.

And that's what hell is.

Hell is just simply

being given over to ourselves

to exist in a state of being

without God,

without His restraining hand

and His restraining grace

that holds back

all of our self-centeredness.

And you see,

the gospel reveals

these things to us.

The gospel reveals

the cause of God's wrath

and the consequences

of God's wrath,

but it also reveals

the cure of God's wrath.

Now, so far,

you're like,

this is an awful sermon.

Okay?

This is terrible preaching.

It's Mother's Day.

And why all this doom and gloom?

Why are you making us feel

so helpless and so hopeless?

Well, that's precisely the point.

Do we see now why Paul says

that he's not ashamed

of the gospel?

Because he says that Christians

are the only people

on the planet

who know not only the cause

and the consequences

of God's wrath,

but we know the cure.

We not only know

the plight of humanity,

but we know the power of God,

the one power

that's sufficient

to deal with

our deepest problems.

Paul says,

I'm not ashamed of the gospel

because it is the power of God

that brings salvation

for everyone who believes,

first for the Jew,

then for the Gentile,

because in the gospel,

the righteousness of God

is revealed,

a righteousness

that is by faith

from first to last.

As it is written,

the righteous will live

by faith.

Paul says,

we living in the midst

of this old age

and this old sad realm

of the wrath of God,

God has come in

and he's revealed something new.

He's revealed a new age

and a new realm

of his righteousness,

a righteousness from God

that God,

in his infinite wisdom,

in his love,

in his mercy and compassion,

he has made a way

to save the ungodly

and the unrighteous.

He's made a way

to make us righteous,

to give to us

and impute to us

a righteousness

not of our own

but of his own son,

Jesus Christ.

Amen?

When Paul says,

I'm not ashamed of the gospel,

he means,

actually,

I'm very proud of the gospel.

I glory in the gospel

and I boast in the gospel

and the gospel

just thrills me

down to the very marrow

of my bones

and the very core

of my being

because the gospel reveals

the only hope,

the only hope

for humanity

that God provided

a righteousness for us

that none of us,

even if we had all

tried to get together

and do it together,

none of us

could have achieved

or produced

the righteousness

we need

on our own.

So yes,

Paul says,

God gave us over

to fester

in that gutter

and that cesspool

of evil

but God also

gave Jesus over

to be our righteousness.

Paul uses the very same word

in Romans 8, 32.

He says,

God,

who did not spare

his own son,

he gave him over

for us all

and Jesus left heaven

and he was born

willingly under the law

and he came

and he lived

that godly,

righteous life

that we were meant

to live

and he gave himself

over voluntarily

to die for us

to take our ungodliness

and our unrighteousness

upon himself

and more than that

to take upon himself

the wrath of God,

his holy hatred of evil

so that we wouldn't

have to bear it,

so that we rather

would get the righteousness

of Christ

placed upon us.

why is Paul

so proud

of the gospel?

Why is he so pleased

to announce

this righteousness

of God?

Because nothing,

nothing but the gospel

is adequate

to meet

our terrible need

under the wrath

of God.

Paul's been very clear

that nobody

under the wrath

of God

will live.

It all obviously

ends in death

and destruction

but he says

those

who are righteous

by faith

in the righteousness

of God

they will live.

That's the only way

to experience

the power

that saves.

If you're exploring

Christianity

we're so glad

you're here

and I hope

that I've convinced

you to at least

consider

that the main

problem that we have

as human beings

is that we've turned

away from God

and therefore

the only solution

to that problem

is to turn ourselves

back to God.

And if you're here

and you're a Christian

and you really believe

these things

that we're talking

about today

you will not long

for a life of ease

and rest

and comfort

because you will

feel the burden

and you will feel

the great plight

of humanity

upon your very breast

and you will begin

to pray

and cry out to God

for revival.

Call out to God

for spiritual awakening

and an outpouring

of the Holy Spirit

so by the power

of the God

who saves

more and more

of the people

living around us

could come out

from under the wrath

of God

and they could come

and live

joyfully

and fully

under the righteousness

of God

that's been provided

for us

in Jesus Christ.

As it is written

the righteous

by faith

will live.

Will live eternally.

Will live abundantly.

Thank God for that.

Let's pray to that end

in the name of the Father,

Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.