8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. 9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you 10 always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. 11 For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—12 that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. 13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers,1 that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians,2 both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
The Righteous Shall Live by Faith
16 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. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith,3 as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”4
Footnotes
[1]1:13Or brothers and sisters. In New Testament usage, depending on the context, the plural Greek word adelphoi (translated “brothers”) may refer either to brothers or to brothers and sisters [2]1:14That is, non-Greeks [3]1:17Or beginning and ending in faith [4]1:17Or The one who by faith is righteous shall live
8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. 9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you 10 always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. 11 For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—12 that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. 13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers,1 that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians,2 both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
The Righteous Shall Live by Faith
16 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. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith,3 as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”4
Footnotes
[1]1:13Or brothers and sisters. In New Testament usage, depending on the context, the plural Greek word adelphoi (translated “brothers”) may refer either to brothers or to brothers and sisters [2]1:14That is, non-Greeks [3]1:17Or beginning and ending in faith [4]1:17Or The one who by faith is righteous shall live
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:
If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Romans chapter 1. It's also there in your worship guide. This is our 2nd week in our study through this great letter. I mentioned last week that we won't have time to, to look at every little detail through Romans. We we don't wanna miss the forest for the trees, but that means that we are going to move quickly through some magnificent trees in Romans.
Jeffrey Heine:
This means you're gonna have to study someone of your own. Talk about it in your home group. We've actually created a study guide for you. You can find it on our website and it is a supplement to what you'll be hearing on Sundays, and it will help you walk through Romans in greater depth. I would encourage you to go to, our website and to begin that study.
Jeffrey Heine:
So this morning, Romans chapter 1 beginning in verse 8. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit and the gospel of his son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God's will, I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you. That is that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.
Jeffrey Heine:
I do not want to you to be unaware brothers that I have often intended to come to you, but thus far have been prevented. In order that I may reap some harvest among you, as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So 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.
Jeffrey Heine:
For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. This is the word of the Lord. It is to be with you. Pray with me.
Jeffrey Heine:
Father, we thank you for your word. And we pray that your word would go forth in power as the gospel is being proclaimed and heralded, as we've already heard from Lindsay and we hope to hear now through me, Lord, that your power through your spirit will accompany that and change lives. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus, Amen.
Jeffrey Heine:
So last week, we we began our study in the book of Romans, and we looked at Paul's introduction to this letter. And immediately after the service, someone, they beelined it to me. They said how excited they were about the sir or about our study, and then said, let me ask you a question. Do you think Paul actually knew as he was writing this that this would be the greatest letter in history? And I said, absolutely.
Jeffrey Heine:
Absolutely, I believe this. For starters, you could just tell the way that Paul wrote this letter. It's it's different than how he wrote all of his other letters. It's more technical. The Greek is way more sophisticated.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's also way longer than any letters, during his era. Actually, calling this a letter is somewhat of a stretch because the closest thing we have to anything like this in the 1st century were philosophical essays. But Paul writes this as a letter to a specific group of people. He wrote this letter in such a way that you could tell he knows it's gonna be copied. It's going to be distributed immediately.
Jeffrey Heine:
And one of the things I find interesting about that is is even though he knows that the power and the effect that this letter is going to have, he decides to write this letter in unusual language. He writes it in the language of the immigrant, not in the language of those in power. He's writing to the people in Rome, but he doesn't use Latin. Instead, he uses Greek, which is what the very few Christians, living there at the time spoke. To give you a comparison, this would be like the Pope if he were to write a letter to all American Catholics, and he wrote it in Spanish, not English.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's unusual. It's a powerful message being written to a powerless people. One of the reasons that I believe that he wrote this letter at the length that he wrote, and he addresses all the many issues that he is, he addresses is because Paul hadn't actually met the people who he's writing to. Paul did not start the Church of Rome, neither did any apostle start this church. And so, they weren't really built on, the preaching of the apostles.
Jeffrey Heine:
We're not exactly sure how this church came to be. Most likely it was through a group that was there at Pentecost in Jerusalem, and they heard, you know, Peter rushing out of that upper room with his head on fire, essentially, preaching the gospel and miraculously they heard it in their own language. They were saved, and then when they bit went back to Rome, they heralded that message. Others were saved. Eventually, they had enough to form a church.
Jeffrey Heine:
By church, I I don't mean they had a building like this. It would have been a small group of people meeting in a small home. Eventually, if they outgrew that home, they would spread into multiple homes. The Christians during this time, they were some of the poorest people in in the city of Rome. Archaeologists, they could tell us where they lived.
Jeffrey Heine:
If you remember, Rome is the city on 7 hills, has multiple hills, and one of the deepest valleys in those hills was the poor community in which the Christians live. It was the place where the sewage of Rome went through. It was the latrine of Rome. The houses there would have been small. The neighborhoods, dirt, poor.
Jeffrey Heine:
And this is where Christianity was born in that city. And there would not have been many Christians at this time. Rome, this was during the time of Nero and we know that Rome during this time had over a1000000 people. I mean think of that, 1st century in a city way, way larger than Birmingham. Yet they estimate, church historians, that there was probably a little over a 100 Christians at the time that Paul wrote this.
Jeffrey Heine:
There was this little dot of Christians in this sea of paganism all around them, and yet that made Paul so happy when he thought of that teeny band of Christians. I mean, these Christians, they they were the ones who refused to acknowledge Nero as their Lord, as their savior. They refused to acknowledge that Rome was the kingdom in which they belonged, and said they had put all of their hope, they had pledged their lives to Jesus the king. They believed Him to be savior and Lord, and that they were part of His kingdom. And Paul could not wait to someday be a part of His people.
Jeffrey Heine:
And he wants to write this letter as a way of encouraging them. He says he he wants to come to them for three reasons. 1st, he just wants to impart them with a spiritual gift. We don't really know what that gift is. I suspect it's probably his preaching gift, that he wants to come and he wants to preach to them.
Jeffrey Heine:
Then he says he wants to to come to them in order to reap a harvest. Meaning he wants to bring others to faith. And the third and final reason he says he wants to come to them is because he is not ashamed of the gospel. And that is the biggest reason Paul wants to come to this small group of believers. He is not ashamed of the gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:
Now Paul would never bring up this issue of being ashamed of the gospel unless these Christians were beginning to be ashamed of the gospel. And that's not hard to understand, is it? Why they would be ashamed? Just imagine a conversation, if you will, between one of these poor Christians and another citizen of Rome. And so this Christian would say to this Roman citizen, I believe that a Jewish carpenter is the rightful king not just over this city but over the world.
Jeffrey Heine:
And the Roman says to me like, really? Yeah. A a a Jewish carpenter is the rightful king. Isn't that the same Jewish carpenter that the Romans killed? Yes.
Jeffrey Heine:
It is the same carpenter that they killed, but he rose from the dead. So where is he? Well, you he's not here. I mean, once he rose from the dead, he then ascended. He's he's in heaven where we can't see him, but there he is sitting on his throne and he is ruling and he is reigning.
Jeffrey Heine:
Mhmm. And you're part of his kingdom. Yes. I'm part of his kingdom. So let me get this right.
Jeffrey Heine:
You believe in a King you cannot see, that He's reigning over all, you're part of His kingdom, and yet you live in the latrine of Rome. Yet the people who are against this king live in power and in luxury. No thanks. Hey. I mean, can you just see how, like, conversations like that, you you would begin to maybe get a little ashamed of the gospel?
Jeffrey Heine:
Have you ever been ashamed of the gospel? I'm not asking if you've ever been, you know, embarrassed by other Christians. We've all been embarrassed by other Christians. You know, when the minivan goes by you with, you know, the vanity plates or the all the bumper stickers, you know, God's gym or this blood's for you, you know, things like that. I mean, you're all like, oh gosh.
Jeffrey Heine:
And those are the shirts I used to wear when, I was a youth. And we're embarrassed to be associated at times with with other Christians. But have you ever been embarrassed by the gospel itself? 2 weeks ago at Easter, before our first service, I went to usatoday.com. I wanted to read, any article they had about Easter.
Jeffrey Heine:
And so on their front page, they only had one article about Easter on Easter morning. And it was this. See what stores are open on Easter. It's like, well, that's disheartening. I was like, well, I mean, that's, that's no no, some liberal paper, you know, for the whole US.
Jeffrey Heine:
Let's go to the biblebell, al.com. Alright? So I go to al.com. I wanna see what stories they have on Easter morning. So I go there, they have 2.
Jeffrey Heine:
First one is this, what stores are open on Easter Sunday? 2nd article is this, is Walmart open on Easter Sunday? Those are the articles. I mean, I was I was hoping, maybe I'm a little naive as a pastor, you know, a believer. But I was hoping I'd read something like, you know, 2000 years after resurrection, Christ's power still at work in this city.
Jeffrey Heine:
You know, that's what I was hoping for. Not is Walmart open or not. But honestly, it's a message that, you know, if you believe, you're like, really? Is that even worth print? Should we put that out there?
Jeffrey Heine:
It can be embarrassing to believe such a thing. Have you ever been embarrassed by the gospel, ashamed of it? Verse 16 verses 16 and 17, they are actually the thesis statement for the book of Romans. 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.
Jeffrey Heine:
As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Now everything that we are going to be reading in Romans from this point forward is gonna be unpacking this thesis statement, if you will. It's a very dense thesis statement. Once again, this is more resembles a philosophical essay than a letter, but it is a letter. But everything we read from this point on is gonna be unpacking this one statement.
Jeffrey Heine:
That as believers of the gospel, we have nothing to be ashamed of because there is a power in that gospel to save. And in it, the righteousness of or the righteousness from God is revealed to us. So let's begin to unpack this. 1st question we need to ask is what exactly is the gospel? We've looked at this a number of times at Redeemer, but the word gospel comes from the word euangel, where we get the word evangelism.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's often translated as good news, and that's that's a good translation. Good news because it is good news. And don't miss the importance of this. That the essence of the Christian message is news. It's about something that has happened.
Jeffrey Heine:
Christianity, in other words, is not advice. It's not about what we should do. That's that's what the rest of the world's philosophies, the rest of the world's religions, they believe. Something we need to be doing. Christianity is about something that has been done.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's history. Something has been done, and it's been done for you. We've looked at this a number of times as a church, but that word, euangel, gospel, was not originally a Christian word at all. It was already at work in the 1st century. Christians came to adopt that word.
Jeffrey Heine:
It was the word that came from a king or perhaps a general making a declaration of some good news. A common way the gospel was proclaimed was perhaps if there was a general off at war, and he just won a great battle. He would send back a herald of the gospel, proclaiming, we won. Victory is ours. And the people, of course, when they would hear the news that the battle had been won and that the victory was ours, they would rejoice in that because that was good news.
Jeffrey Heine:
And Christians, they thought that's that's exactly what we have. We have the gospel. The Christian gospel is when we send forth heralds and they go, hear ye, hear ye. Thus saith the king, the battle over sin and death has been won. Jesus is king.
Jeffrey Heine:
And now he is upholding all things by the word of his power. He is Lord over all. He's redeeming this world, and He's redeeming you. It's good, good news. But do you know how many people miss this?
Jeffrey Heine:
People absolutely have no understanding as to what the gospel is. Many years ago, I went to Ireland, to Trinity College in Dublin, and I spent 2 entire days with a video camera just interviewing college students. I would just walk up to college students, say, Can I sit down and ask you a few questions? And one of the questions I would ask them was, do you consider yourself a Christian? By far, the most common response I got was, well, I I try to be.
Jeffrey Heine:
I try to be. Or something like, I'm doing my best. Well, I'm not quite doing my best. But I am trying. And when I would get that answer, it would show that I show absolutely no understanding of the gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:
And I bet if you were to go out into Birmingham, you were to interview people, sure you would meet some real Christians. But I bet you would still meet a lot of people who would give you the exact same answer. Are you a Christian? Well I'm trying. Are you a Christian?
Jeffrey Heine:
Well I do belong to this church. But that answer right there reveals that they have no understanding as to what the essence of the Christian message really is, Because the gospel is news. It's not advice. It is first and foremost about something that has been done, not about something you are trying to do. Notice what Paul says about this gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:
He says that it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. It's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. He does not say it is, it brings the power of God, nor does he say the gospel results in the power of God. He actually says the gospel is the power of God. It is the gospel come to us in verbal form.
Jeffrey Heine:
So to to the degree you understand the gospel, a power to save you. One of the many privileges that I have as being a pastor here, all of our pastors we have this privilege, is we get to read through all the written testimonies from our members. And, many of these testimonies, they could not be any more different, but they do all share one commonality. At some point, the gospel came to them in power. They heard the gospel and when it was proclaimed, power came and opened up their hearts and their minds to receive Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:
I know many people who've experienced this saving power, through just a conversation. Maybe it was a coworker saying, can I can I take you out to lunch? And over lunch, that coworker shared with you the gospel. And that gospel came to you, not just in words, but it came to you in power and you believed. Some of you here, I know you were at a church and you heard the preacher proclaim the gospel to you, and it just it hit.
Jeffrey Heine:
It hit your heart and it opened up. There was power in those words. And you were saved. I know that one of you here, you actually got saved at a Carmen concert. But somehow, during the Carmen concert, Carmen apparently shared the gospel, and you you came to believe.
Jeffrey Heine:
Someone here got saved at a Billy Graham crusade hearing the gospel and they believed. I also know someone here got saved watching a Kirk Cameron movie. And I've questioned your salvation. I mean, I've read the testimony over and over again. We we we probably should meet afterwards just to make sure.
Jeffrey Heine:
But there's enough of the gospel there where you heard it and power was with it. One of my friends at Georgia, she would have called herself at the time, she was a self described liberal atheist. She hated Christians, hated Christianity. And she decided to go and to read the New testament on her own just so she could understand her enemy. And so she goes and she reads.
Jeffrey Heine:
She's in her dorm room reading this and she can't put it down because the words came to her in power. Jesus saved her then and there. She went on to be a missionary in India where she is now. I know someone else here who literally was so so depressed that they decided to just Google who is Jesus. They came across a YouTube video.
Jeffrey Heine:
And in the YouTube video, there was enough of the gospel that God just saved them then and there, on His own. Power coming through the Internet, through those words there. Church, don't forget there is a power in the gospel. It comes to us and it smashes through. Isaiah tells us like like His word comes like a hammer shattering a rock.
Jeffrey Heine:
And all of us have come to faith when that power broke through. And so we're to never be ashamed of the gospel. When we proclaim that Jesus is the risen King and that He is redeeming all things beginning in us, when we say that, power goes forth. Think of those poor Roman Christians. Insignificant, poor, living in the latrine of Rome.
Jeffrey Heine:
Yet within just a few centuries, the Roman Empire would be Christian because power went out in their words. There's a reason 2000 years later, we're not talking about Nero. We're not talking about the might of the Caesars or the might of Rome. We're talking about Jesus Christ and we're bowing our knee to Him Because there's power in the gospel. And church, there is only one power to save and we are to not be ashamed of it.
Jeffrey Heine:
And we're gonna be looking a lot at this in the weeks ahead. We're gonna be looking at what is wrong with this world and how the Gospel has the power to change it. But we're only looking a lot at the problems of this world beginning next week. But it doesn't take much to just think of the problems of this world. I mean, there's racism.
Jeffrey Heine:
There's bullying. There's greed. There's arrogance. There's injustice. There's the neglect of the poor.
Jeffrey Heine:
I mean on and on and on. You can see that this world is broken. And what happens is the world tries to come up with answers to these problems. And come up with an answer, it doesn't work. Another answer, it doesn't work.
Jeffrey Heine:
Another answer, and it doesn't work. Because none of the world's solutions are gonna fix the world's problems because it has no power in their solutions. Only the gospel can fix this broken world. And so we go forth and we proclaim the gospel. We are heralds of the gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:
When we share this news, a power goes forth. In verse 17, Paul goes on to tell why it is that the gospel has this power. He says, for in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith, for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. So the reason the gospel has power is because in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. Alright.
Jeffrey Heine:
Now the Greek here is incredibly complex. And can I just go ahead and tell you it is way beyond me? It is way beyond me. I know that, a lot of you guys, you think of, you know, the preachers who get up there and preach, that we're that kind of scholastic type. Well, I should just speak for myself.
Jeffrey Heine:
Alright? That I'm that scholastic bookworm type who just loves to study. I'm not at all. I am not the sharpest tool in the shed. Can I just tell you?
Jeffrey Heine:
So I have to run everything by my wife before I preach it, and she is just, like, slashing it all. Alright? So these ideas, the Greek here, the way Paul writes is really hard to understand. I take comfort in this that Peter actually writes in 2nd Peter 3. He writes this concerning Paul's writings.
Jeffrey Heine:
He goes, now Paul's letters are difficult to understand. That is Peter trying to make sense of what Paul is writing. He says it's really hard, and you know what? I'm kinda the rock on which the church is built. Martin Luther, one of my favorite quotes from him, he says, I am wrestling with Paul, and I will win.
Jeffrey Heine:
And this is one of those texts that actually Luther said he would just beat his head up against the wall. Literally. He said he he pounded his head trying to figure out this verse. He wrestled with Paul in it until he would win. But this was a verse that that made Martin Luther hate God.
Jeffrey Heine:
Remember we talked about that last week? Because he came across that phrase, the righteousness of God. It's like the righteousness of God. And he he hated that term because that's the standard that God placed on him and he knew he could never meet it. He could never meet it.
Jeffrey Heine:
He had to wrestle with this. And when he finally comes to an understanding, which I'll show you in just a minute, when he finally came to that understanding, it was the birth of the Protestant reformation. But it did not come easy, and it's not gonna come easy to you. You gotta dig into this. Alright.
Jeffrey Heine:
So let's let's talk about the Greek in this verse. The reason that the gospel has power is because the righteousness of God is revealed in it, but you can translate that phrase 2 different ways. It can either be the righteousness of God or it could be the righteousness from God. It can either be the righteousness of God or the righteousness from God. If you have the ESV, it's gonna be the righteousness of God.
Jeffrey Heine:
If you're reading a NIV, it's gonna be the righteousness from God. And I'm here to tell you that both are correct. I think this is gonna be what Paul does throughout this letter. He's gonna use some, ambiguity here actually to mean 2 different things. He's very deliberate in the Greek that he uses.
Jeffrey Heine:
And so He is meaning here both the righteousness of God and the righteousness from God. Does that make sense? Don't lie to me. Don't be like yes and you have no idea what I'm talking about. It's alright.
Jeffrey Heine:
We'll unpack this. So the righteousness of God, well, that's his justice, the fact that God is just, God is holy, God is righteous. The word righteousness and justice are the same word in Greek. Okay. And that's what Martin Luther looked at.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's like, God demands that I'm supposed to be holy like He is holy. I might as well be asked to jump to the moon because there's no way I can be righteous like God is righteous. And that's why when his mentor asked him, don't you love God? He goes, no. I don't love God.
Jeffrey Heine:
I hate him because of his righteousness. He's demanding something from me that I can't possibly give back to Him, I can't achieve. So that's the righteousness of God. Then we have the righteousness from God. From God is the righteousness, God's righteousness that He now gives to us.
Jeffrey Heine:
It comes from him. So here's the good news of the gospel. We put both of these together. Right? God demands of us a righteousness.
Jeffrey Heine:
You are to be righteous. He demands of us a righteousness, and we don't have it. So the only hope we have is that God himself would then give us the very righteousness that he demands from us. And he does. And that is the good news of the gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's the power of the gospel. There's this beautiful exchange that happens. Paul talks about this in 2nd Corinthians 5 when he says, for our sake, he made him who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. In other words, Jesus who knew no sin, sinless, He took our sin, and he placed it on himself. And then he took off his beautiful righteousness and glory and he put it on us.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's exactly what Lindsay just spelled out for us beautifully in her testimony. There was a swapping of clothing. We get his righteousness. He got our filthy rags. Do you remember this past summer?
Jeffrey Heine:
We were going through the parables and I shared how, I got to fly in a private jet to go and see you 2 in concert in New Orleans. I just like to drop that in occasionally. It's where your tithing money goes, so not at all. I see I see Josh. She's like, no.
Jeffrey Heine:
No. And cannot say that, Joel. No. So, you know, that actually it got to happen. Right?
Jeffrey Heine:
So some some guy just, you know, flew in his jet, got to go and, watch, U2 in concert in New Orleans. And and and the same guy whose jet it was, he wanted to take me out to eat, and I said, well, okay. Yeah. I'm fine. And so he takes, my wife and I to one of the nicest restaurants in New Orleans.
Jeffrey Heine:
You remember this story? And I get there and you can already smell the food and I'm stopped by somebody at the door. And they said, I'm sorry. We can't let you in like that. I said, What do you mean?
Jeffrey Heine:
He's like, Well, you have to wear a coat. And I didn't have a coat. You know, I don't normally fly jets, you know, do these things. And and I didn't I couldn't get in. And he said, It's okay.
Jeffrey Heine:
We have a coat that you can wear. And at that point, I had a decision. I I could either just, in my arrogance, say like, well, who do you think you are? I I mean, you should let me in as I am or not let me in at all. Or as I'm looking at our table, which is reserved there and I am smelling the food, I could humble myself and allow myself to be dressed by another and have that coat put on me and then I could go in.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's what I allowed to happen and then I went in and I feasted. That's the gospel. That's the gospel. We try to get an entrance and God's like, nope. You can't come in like that.
Jeffrey Heine:
But here's my righteousness. Here's my righteousness. Now come in and feast. And all we have to do is to believe this message. That's that's the question for us.
Jeffrey Heine:
Do you believe this gospel? Paul says you, you only need to believe it to be saved. When Paul says that the righteousness of or from God is revealed from faith, faith. It's all about faith. You never outgrow the need for faith as a Christian.
Jeffrey Heine:
We become righteous by faith and we live in righteousness by faith. We don't work for righteousness. We always trust God for our righteousness. So the question is, have you trusted God for your righteousness? Have you been clothed by Him?
Jeffrey Heine:
For some of you, as I've been speaking and I've been, you Lindsay shared the gospel, as I've been sharing the gospel to you, for the first time, that that gospel is coming to you in power. Right now, you're hearing Jesus. He is calling. He's cracking open your heart. And for the first time, you're like, it's not about what I do.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's about what He has done for me. If that is you, call out to Him. Call out to Him. And for those of you who have already received the gospel, don't you ever be ashamed of it. Don't ever be ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation.
Jeffrey Heine:
And what I want you to do over the course of the next few months is this. I'm going to ask something very specific of you. I want you to pray and ask God to put one person on your heart that you will share the gospel with over the course of the next few months. One person that you will be a herald of the gospel. Reminding yourself, it didn't matter when that messenger went forth and said, here ye, here ye, thus say the king.
Jeffrey Heine:
Nobody cares what the messenger looks like. They don't care if his voice stutters. They don't care, you know, about His power or His beauty because who He was had nothing to do with the power of the gospel. He was merely the herald. And when He said, hear ye, hear ye, thus saith the king, There's a new king.
Jeffrey Heine:
Forgiveness and life for being offered in Him. Power goes forth. That could be you as the herald and I'm asking that it would. Pray that God puts one person on your heart and that you would share, you'd be faithful to share with that person over the course of the next few months. Pray with me, church.
Jeffrey Heine:
Lord Jesus, we are so grateful that your gospel came to us not in word only, but in power. Through your spirit, you woke up our dead hearts. We have believed. We thank you that the Christian message is not about what we do but what you have done. And you have bought us.
Jeffrey Heine:
You have purchased us. You love us. And I pray that we would rest in that. For those who don't know you, may they hear you in this moment calling to them. And we pray this in your strong name, Jesus.