This Good News is Jesus

Today, we begin a study of the book of Romans.

And I'm so excited about this.

It's been a long time coming.

I've been working on our church going through Romans for over a year now.

And if you know much about the book of Romans, you probably can understand why this has been a year in the making.

Romans is an incredibly special part of Scripture.

It's one of the most influential parts of Scripture that we have.

All of Scripture is God-breathed.

All of Scripture is inspired.

And at the same time, we have to recognize the fact that there have been certain documents in Scripture that have had, frankly, a bigger effect on our faith and how we understand our faith and the expression of our faith.

Romans is one of those aspects of Scripture.

More so than any of the other letters that we have in the New Testament.

I'm not talking about the gospels and the stories of Jesus himself and his direct teachings, but more so than any of the other letters that we have in the New Testament.

Romans has influenced our understanding of who Jesus really is, what he did for us, why we needed him to do what he did for us, what it means for us to live in response to Jesus.

It's influenced those ideas probably more than any other specific letter in the New Testament.

It's powerful.

It has shaped the history of our faith.

That's how inspired it is, that's how powerful it is.

For example, in 386, there was a young man who was not a believer, and he happened to pick up Romans.

And when he read Romans, he read something that stirred his spirit, stirred his heart so intensely that it led him to give his life to Jesus.

He became a passionate Jesus follower, and he ended up becoming someone whose writings and teachings influenced our faith for centuries, still influences our faith today.

His name was Augustine or Augustine, depending on how you want to pronounce it, but it all started for him with Romans, and here we are today, and we're still influenced by what he wrote.

In 1515, there was a German monk who opened up Romans.

And when he read the reality of the mercy that God has for us, the love that God has for us, and the fact that our relationship with God is by faith alone, that it's not by works, it's not by our own effort, it's just faith in Jesus.

When he read that, when that really connected with him, it led him to challenge the institution of the church, which in his day had become incredibly corrupt.

And it led him to lead a movement that we're still in today, and that movement's called the Reformation, and that man's name was Martin Luther, and it all started with Romans.

So just understand that as we as we begin to study Romans, what we're reading is powerful.

It is inspired, it is the word of God, it is spirit-breathed, it's life-changing.

Now, like I said, it's gonna take us a while to go through Romans.

Romans is rich, it's comprehensive.

But today we're gonna begin a series on Romans chapter 1, verses 1 through 17.

Romans 1:1–17

So I want to encourage you right now to grab a Bible and open up to Romans chapter 1.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

And if you don't have a physical Bible nearby, or if you don't have one at all, look, just grab your phone and Google, say, Romans 1, and it'll pull it up for you.

It's all over the place.

You'll find it.

If you have our mobile app, the His Hands Mobile app, you can open up the message for today in Romans 1.

It's right there.

We're gonna read Romans 1, verses 1 through 17.

Romans 1:1–17

We're gonna spend a few weeks on this.

So I want to encourage you right now, eliminate any distractions that you have.

Open up God's word, have an expectation that He's gonna use this to help you better understand Him, to shape you, to mold you, to teach you, to encourage you.

Because what we're about to read together is powerful.

So let's read it.

This letter is from Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus.

Chosen by God to be an apostle, it's sent out to preach his good news.

God promised this good news long ago through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures.

The good news is about his son.

In his earthly life, he was born into King David's family line.

And he was shown to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead.

By the power of the Holy Spirit.

He is Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Through Christ, God has given us the privilege and authority as apostles to tell Gentiles everywhere what God has done for them so that they will believe and obey him, bringing glory to his name.

And you are included among those Gentiles who have called to belong to Jesus Christ.

I am writing to all of you in Rome who are loved by God, are called to be his own holy people.

May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

Let me say first that I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith in him is being talked about all over the world.

God knows how often I pray for you.

Day and night I bring you and your needs in prayer to God, whom I serve with all my heart by spreading the good news about his son.

One of the things I always pray for is the opportunity God willing to come at last to see you.

For I long to visit you so I can bring you some spiritual gift that will help you grow stronger in the Lord.

When we get together, I want to encourage you in your faith.

But I also want to be encouraged by yours.

I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to visit you, but I was prevented until now.

I want to work among you and see spiritual fruit, just as I have seen among other Gentiles.

For I have a great sense of obligation to people in both the civilized world and the rest of the world, to the educated and uneducated alike.

It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes, the Jew first and also the Gentile.

This good news tells us how God makes us right in his sight.

This is accomplished from start to finish by faith.

As the scriptures say, it is through faith that a righteous person has life.

Paul wrote, For I am not ashamed of this good news about Christ.

It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes.

This good news, because that is what Romans ultimately is all about.

It's about the good news of Jesus.

Paul uses the phrase good news seven times in this first section alone.

He says good news in verse 1, he says good news in verse 2, he says good news in verse 3.

It's all about the good news of Jesus.

And if we're going to understand Romans and really, if we're going to understand our faith, we have to understand the concept of good news.

In Isaiah chapter 52, verse 7 says, How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who brings good news, the good news of peace and salvation, the good news that the God of Israel reigns.

Isaiah 52:7

It says, How beautiful are the feet of the one who brings good news.

And that's kind of an interesting phrase.

Because I don't know how you would describe feet.

I wouldn't say that most of us would say, hey, when I think about the human body, the most beautiful part is feet, right?

Rarely would we describe feet as beautiful, but it says that the feet of the one who would bring good news is beautiful.

And the picture here is actually very specific.

Because in ancient days, when there would be a battle and the battle would be over, the army would send a messenger back to the capital or back to wherever the army was stationed, wherever the king was, to deliver the news of what had happened.

And just imagine in these ancient cultures, you know, you've got someone that's running a marathon, you've got someone that's running a long distance, and no doubt their feet are going to be sweaty, their feet are going to be covered in mud and dirt, their feet are going to be gross.

But if those feet happen to be carrying the news of victory, well then there's nothing more beautiful than those feet because of what they carry.

And that's what it's talking about.

How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.

The good news that the battle has been won, the good news that there is victory.

We have good news.

Our faith is defined by the good news of Jesus Christ, the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross and through his resurrection.

That good news is what shapes us.

And it's so important that we really understand this because sometimes, sometimes our faith gets reduced down to less than good news.

There's a very well-known author and theologian named Tim Keller, and he talked a while ago about the fact that there's a big difference between good news and good advice.

Sometimes our faith gets reduced down to good advice.

But our faith is so much more than good advice because good advice is something that you have to listen to, you have to apply, you have to put it into action to achieve a certain result.

That's very different than good news.

Good news is that something has already happened.

A result has already been achieved.

The battle has already been won, and now we can live in response to what has already happened.

That's good news.

Good news can change everything.

And the message of Jesus, the story of Jesus, it's not good advice.

It's good news.

We're gonna spend the next few weeks exploring what this good news really entails.

There's a lot to unpack, but we're gonna start with a really simple statement.

The good news, this good news is Jesus.

This good news is Jesus.

Something that we say pretty often at his hands is that we don't need something, we need someone.

One of my mentors years ago used to say often that it's not about what, it's about who.

And what he was talking about was that when you're trying to solve a problem, it's not that you necessarily need to figure out what to do, you need to figure out who the right person to figure out what to do is.

If you get the right person, then the what, that all seems to take care of itself.

It's about who, not what.

We've all experienced this.

Your life is so much more about who you're with, oftentimes, than what you're actually going through.

You could be going through something terrible, something horrific, but if you're with the people you love, those situations can actually one day become treasured memories.

On the flip side, you could be doing something enjoyable, something objectively good, but if you're with the wrong people, it can be completely ruined.

It's about who you're with, not necessarily just what you're doing.

It's the who, not the what.

We need someone, not something.

And Jesus, Paul is saying, is that someone.

That Jesus is a someone unlike any other.

Let's take a look back in Romans 1 at what Paul actually says about Jesus, just in these first few verses.

He says that this letter is from Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus.

Right there, he he says, Jesus is Christ.

We have to remember Christ is not Jesus' last name, it's a title.

It means Messiah, it means anointed one.

And we have to understand too that Jesus, unlike many of the others in Scripture who were anointed, there were kings who were anointed by a prophet, for example.

Jesus was not anointed by a person.

Jesus was anointed directly by the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus was baptized, the heavens opened up and the Spirit of God came and settled on Jesus.

Jesus was anointed directly, directly by the Holy Spirit.

He is the anointed one, he is the Christ, he is the Messiah.

That's a huge statement.

And Paul leads with that.

It says, to preach this good news.

God promised this good news long ago through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures.

Okay, so right there it's telling us that not only is Jesus the anointed Christ, the Messiah, but he's the one that the scriptures were speaking of, that the prophets of old foretold of Jesus.

He's the one who was promised.

We see promises of Jesus as early as the first few chapters of Genesis.

And those promises are often very specific.

We have promises and prophecies about his birth, the place of his birth, the nature of his birth, and the nature of his death, and Jesus fits the bill.

So he's the Christ, the anointed one.

He's also the one that the prophets spoke of.

It says this good news is about his son.

So it says that Jesus is the son of God.

Now we have to understand in scripture, son of is a very interesting phrase.

We see certain times in the Old Testament, for example, where it calls a group of people the son of the prophets.

We see this, for example, in the story of Elijah and Elisha.

Right before Elijah is taken into heaven, there's a group and it says, and the sons of the prophets were there.

And these were not the biological children of Elijah and Elisha.

That phrase son of it meant in the Hebrew of the same substance.

That you are the same as.

That he is divine.

So he's the Messiah.

He's the one that the prophets spoke of.

He's the son of God.

It says he was born into King David's family line.

That was one of the prophecies.

And if you weren't of Kings David of King David's line, you couldn't claim to be the Messiah.

It says he was shown to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus was killed.

He was unjustly murdered.

And three days later, he rose from the dead.

That happened.

And the early church, the early followers of Jesus, went from being fearful people hiding behind locked doors because their leader had been killed, to the most fearless, the most bold people this world has ever seen because they saw Jesus conquer death.

He rose from the dead.

He says, He is Jesus Christ, our Lord.

And that word Lord is a powerful word.

It means master.

It actually has a connotation of ownership.

We see Paul describe himself very often as a slave, as a servant, as a bondservant to Jesus Christ.

And he's not saying that Jesus had oppressed him, Jesus hadn't conquered him.

This was a willing act of Paul.

Paul laid his entire life at Jesus' feet and said, I belong to you.

Paul writes elsewhere that we need to remember that we're not our own.

He is our Lord.

It means that we're not just a fan of him.

We don't just root for Jesus.

We don't just recognize that Jesus is amazing and awesome, but but we say that he is Lord.

That he's Lord, that he's master.

Think about everything that Paul is saying about Jesus here, that he's the one the prophet spoke of, and he's the Lord, and he's the Son of God, that he was raised from the dead, that he's the anointed one.

And ask the question: could anyone else, could anyone else check those boxes?

Is there anyone else that we could slide into that spot that Jesus is in and make the same claims about?

And the answer is no.

Jesus stands alone, Jesus stands apart.

That's why we as followers of Jesus have to look first and foremost to Jesus, because Jesus is first and foremost.

We see Paul talk more about who Jesus is elsewhere in the New Testament.

In Colossians, for example.

Colossians chapter 1, verse 15, he says, Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.

Colossians 1:15

He existed before anything was created, and he is supreme over all creation.

For through him, God created everything in the heavenly realms and on the earth.

He made the things we can see and the things we can't see, such as thrones and kingdoms and rulers and authorities in the unseen world.

Everything was created through him and for him.

He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.

Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body.

He's the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead.

He's the first in everything.

For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself.

He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ's blood on the cross.

Here what we're talking about is the finished work of Jesus on the cross.

The finished work of Jesus on the cross and the finished work of Jesus' resurrection.

That is the good news.

That's the good news that changes absolutely everything.

When Jesus died on the cross, he defeated the power of sin.

The sin that all of us have experienced, the sin that all of us unfortunately struggle with.

The sin that so often feels like it's winning.

Sometimes we look at the world and it can feel like sin is winning.

We can look at that right now.

And it can feel like things like racism are winning, like injustice is winning.

Or we can look at some of the motives that seem not to be 100% pure in some of the people in leadership, some of the people that we have on television, and we we see sin, we see selfishness, we see greed, we see ulterior motives and pride and all kinds of things.

And sometimes it can feel like sin is winning, but we have to understand that sin is not winning, sin will not win because Jesus Christ defeated the power of sin on the cross.

This good news is Jesus.

He wins, he's victorious.

And we put our hope in that.

When Jesus died on the cross, he defeated the power of sin.

And when Jesus, when he rose from the dead, he defeated the power of death.

So Jesus has defeated sin, he has defeated death.

This good news at the end of the day ultimately is Jesus himself.

That's why, again, we look to Jesus first and foremost.

Why?

Because Jesus is first and foremost.

He is over all creation, he is the Lord of lords, he is the King of kings, He is the one who created everything, and He's the reason everything was created.

That one day all of history, all of the earth will lay at the feet of Jesus, and all the glory belongs to him.

He is first and he is foremost.

This good news is Jesus.

And that is so important, that is so practical, that is so necessary in times like these for us to remember.

2020 has been an interesting year.

There have been so many memes online about what else could happen in 2020.

I tease, sometimes I talk with our staff, and I say, hey, if later on this year we're gonna be dealing with an alien invasion, you know, outer space aliens, that kind of thing, then just wouldn't shock me.

Like that's the way 2020 is going.

And it's easy for us right now to think about what defines 2020, what defines this year.

And uh at the beginning of the year, if you're an American, you might have said that 2020 is defined by impeachment, that 2020 is gonna be defined by an election, and then 2020 is defined by a virus.

And then 2020 is defined by civil unrest and pain and hurt or racism and injustice or violence and ludy.

Whatever you want to, so many different people would say that 2020 is defined by it by this, and 2020 is far from over, so who knows?

But please understand what I'm saying when I say this.

2020 is defined by the finished work of Jesus Christ.

The good news of Jesus overshadows everything else that has ever happened, that is happening right now, and that will ever happen.

All of history, all of human history is ultimately defined by the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

That's what Paul said in Colossians.

That through Christ, through Jesus, God has reconciled everything to himself.

He's reconciling this entire world to himself through Jesus.

And we have to believe that.

We have to understand that Jesus Christ is bigger than everything happening right now, than everything that has happened, and then everything that will happen, he's bigger than all of it.

This good news is Jesus, and everything is defined by his finished work.

Look at that on a on a micro level.

Look at that when it comes to yourself.

What defines who you are?

What defines you?

What defines your life?

For many of us, we're we're tempted to point to our failures and to say, you know what, my life is defined by this mess of my own making.

Some of us are tempted to define our lives by our successes, to say that my life is defined by these things that I've accomplished, or all these good things in my life.

No, no, no.

Your life is defined by the finished work of Jesus Christ.

The good news of Jesus is what defines who you are.

It's what defines the way that God sees you.

The cross.

And what the cross represents the sacrifice of Jesus and the freedom that it purchased for us.

That is what defines who you are.

Not your failures, not your successes, not your struggles, but the victory that Jesus has won for you.

And that should lead you to have hope in the midst of any situation.

Hope that no matter how difficult things are.

The finished work of Jesus is bigger, it's more powerful, and ultimately it wins out every time.

I had a really great conversation.

Megan and I had a really great conversation with Josh Clemens.

Josh is one of the leaders of One Race, a ministry that we've been partnering with for the last two and a half years as a church and a ministry that is incredibly active and needed right now in the midst of everything happening.

And we called Josh and had a quick conversation with him.

It was about a week ago, and everything was kind of getting crazy.

And uh and we just asked him how he was doing.

And what Josh said was really profound.

He said, You know, I'm tired.

He said, I'm really tired.

Um, but he said, I'm just having to believe that God's word is true, that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose, that he's going to use this for good.

And in the midst of uncertainty and pain and struggle and hurt, Josh is looking not to what's going on around him, but he's looking to the finished work of Jesus.

And he's recognizing that the good news of Jesus, that's our hope.

That's our hope.

And that hope inspires us to take action.

That hope inspires us to do things.

That hope inspires us to look at the world and not settle for injustice and not settle for hardship and pain when it's unnecessary.

That hope leads us to do something.

Jesus said, look, you know, perfect love is defined by laying down your life for one's friends.

Love is action.

But that hope, it's not coming from Josh's or anyone else's internal belief in who they are.

It's coming from the finished work of Jesus.

This good news is Jesus on a micro level, on an individual level.

The good news of Jesus is what defines us, it's what gives us hope, it's what powers us through.

And on a macro level, all of human history, when everything is said and done, will be defined by the finished work of Jesus Christ.

The finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross is what will define all of history.

It's what will define years like 2020 and 2021 is what will define decades.

Think about the way we tend to define decades, right?

We define decades based on the music, we define decades based on the movies.

I love the 80s.

Anyone who knows me knows I love the 80s.

My wife gets so tired of the 80s playlist that I've created playing in the car.

My kids are tired of it too.

Everyone's tired of it, but me, I love the 80s.

I define the 80s by music, I define the 80s by the video games that I played as a kid because I had a Nintendo and I'm a kid of the 80s, and that was Super Mario, that was that was the 80s, and the movies that I watched, you know, Top Gun, things like that.

It's the 80s, right?

That's what defines the 80s.

No, the 80s and the 90s and the 2000s and the 2010s and the 2020s and every decade after and every decade before is defined by the finished work of Jesus Christ.

What he has done for us, what he's done for all of humanity, for all of creation.

It defines years, it defines decades, it defines centuries, it defines all of history.

And here we are in the midst of a very seemingly never-ending, challenging, crazy situation-filled year.

And if there's one thing we need to remember, it's that this good news of Jesus Christ is greater than everything.

So let it define you.

Let it define you, let it give you hope.

Let it fill you with the confidence that God the Father wants you to have in who you are in his eyes.

Because he sees you through Jesus.

He's brought you into a relationship with himself, not through you, but through Jesus.

You are his son, you are his daughter because of what Jesus did.

This good news changes everything.

This good news is that Jesus is alive.

He's alive, he's powerful, he has defeated sin, he has defeated death, and he loves you.

Let that define you.

Let's pray together.

Father, thank you so much for this good news.

Thank you so much, Jesus, that this good news about who you are and what you've done defines us, that it defines everything.

And Lord, I pray that you give us the ability to recognize that, to believe that, and to live that out.

Lord, we're affected by the things that happen around us.

We're affected right now by what's happening in our country.

But Lord, please don't let us be more affected by what's happening around us than we are affected by the reality of who you are and what you've done.

Lord, let it let it give us hope.

Let it give us strength.

Let it unite us together.

Because we're all loved by you.

Thank you, Jesus, for this good news that is you.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.