Today we’ll be looking at Romans 1:16-17:
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 for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
One commentator has called these verses the venter point of the entire book of Romans! That means it’s incredibly important to understand it to comprehend the rest of the book. Paul begins be stating he’s not ashamed of the gospel. Why would one be ashamed of it? I sometimes worry that we’ve been over saturated with the message that we need to be gospel people. There’s more book, conferences, blog posts, articles and discussions on this than we could ever have time to digest, so when we use a word so often we have a tendency to become immune to it, which is what I worry has happened with the gospel! Literally, it’s “good news,” the good news that Jesus has descended to earth, died our penalty on the cross, then rose again on the third day, has ascended into heaven where He sits next to His Father to prepare a place for us until He returns to right everything that’s wrong. That gospel message has power to change the entire cosmos (as Paul will get to in Romans 8). That same power that was at work in Jesus to raise Him from the dead is now available to anyone who will believe in Him! So we now have the privilege of following Him with our lives!
Then we see God’s righteousness. In the gospel message, God’s righteousness is revealed. God in himself is completely perfect and holy, lacking in nothing. The gospel is a visible demonstration of that perfection and holiness. His righteousness has been ultimately revealed in Him sending His one and only Son to bear the penalty for our sins. And that righteousness can be our righteousness, if we put our faith in Him. We then go back to the beginning of this! If we are living by faith and have put our complete trust in Him, then we have no reason to be ashamed! We will one day see Jesus face to face and will spend eternity with Him. So let’s do whatever we can to bring others along and share the gospel that we’re not ashamed of!
SONG:
Today’s song is one of my favorite songs from Lecrae’s group 116 Clique. This one features Trip Lee, Andy Mineo, and KB. Trip currently serves as a Pastor in Dallas while touring on the side. This song is called ‘One Sixteen’ and they got the name from Romans 1:16! You can listen to it on YOUTUBE or SPOTIFY.
Pastor Mike's Musings 