Power For Living
By John C. Orlando, Jr.
25 Apr 2004
Covenant Presbyterian Church, Abilene TX
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Scripture: Romans 1:16,17
Background
of Text:
Last week we examined Paul’s argument to the church at the Greek city of
Corinth that Christ has indeed been raised from the dead.
One of the things I stated was that since Christ has indeed been raised,
that means all of the promises of the Gospel are true.
With that in mind, we turn to the Epistle of Romans, which like First
Corinthians was a letter written by the Apostle Paul to a church, only this was
a church that Paul had never visited.
The year was 57 AD, during Nero’s reign of the Roman Empire, and interestingly enough Paul probably wrote this letter from Corinth. The book of Romans has been referred to as the Constitution of the Christian faith, as Paul systematically expounds on every key doctrine of the Christian faith. In our passage, Paul sets the theme for the entire letter to the Romans.
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Scripture
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for Illumination
Intro
Scripture declares, “there is a way that seems right to a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death.” The truth of those sobering words can be easily seen, whether it is in the never-ending rise and fall of what were thought to be mighty and invincible empires, or whether it is in all of the vain, empty, and powerless self-help philosophies and religions that promise a life of contentment and eternal bliss, but fail to ultimately deliver what they so adamantly promise.
Where the mighty war machines produced by human ingenuity wear out and eventually crumble, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, His mighty Word, will last forever and is sharper than any two-edged sword able to pierce even to the division of soul and spirit. Where all of the designs of men, all of the philosophies of men, and all of the false religions of men will fail because they all lack the power necessary to deliver on their promise of contentment, both in this life and the life to come, the Gospel of Jesus Christ alone stands as the only indestructible power that can give faith to the faithless, hope to the hopeless, love to the loveless, and life to the lifeless!
James Francis, in His poem, One Solitary Life, commenting on the impact
of the life of Christ and by extension the power of the Gospel notes, “I am
far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all
the navies that ever were built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all
the kings that ever reigned, put together have not affected the life of man upon
this earth as powerfully as that One Solitary Life.”
It is the gospel of that One Solitary Life, Jesus Christ, that Paul tells us is God’s power for salvation because it shows us how our righteousness comes from God, and the Gospel provides not only power to live for eternity, but also the power we need to live each day. Since this is true, we must be diligent to live our lives according to the only power that can sustain us: The Gospel of Jesus Christ, because the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only thing that can give us Power For Living.
Let us first look at how the Gospel gives us...
I. Power to Live for Eternity: Paul touches first of all on…
A. The Glory of the Gospel
1. The word “For” is the first word in the passage. Paul is continuing his thought
from the preceding verses where he has already mentioned the word “gospel” 3 times, but it is the first of those 3 times that I want us to look at now. Look at verses 1-4 (quote)…
When Paul says that this Gospel was something that was promised before through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures, our minds are immediately fixed to eternal matters. The Word of God, and thus the Gospel, is something that has been settled in Heaven from all eternity, and the fact that the prophets proclaimed that message which has its genesis in the eternal mind and purposes of God demonstrates the absolute sovereignty and providence of God, who not only foreordained that there would be a Gospel, but also determined what that Gospel was to be, and who would be its ultimate beneficiaries.
So utterly glorious is this Gospel that Paul is about to expound upon, that He says:
2. “I am not ashamed of the gospel…” – Paul was proclaiming the Christ who died the shameful death of crucifixion. As Paul would remind the churches in Galatia, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on the tree.” Paul’s words also remind us of the words of Christ in Mark 8: 38: “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father…"
Our Lord states those startling words in the context of the challenge that all who would follow Him must deny themselves and take up their cross. It is interesting to note that Paul began his letter here in Romans by referring to himself as a bondservant, or a slave of the Lord Jesus, which is the essence of what it means to deny ourselves and take up our cross.
Here then Paul reassures and encourages his Roman readers that he is willing to go to the very heart and soul of the Roman Empire, Rome itself, and confront all of its depravity, all of its philosophies, all of its “wisdom” with the Gospel of Christ…
He is willing to go to the very throne room, if you will, of the Emperor who would dare claim to be God incarnate, to proclaim loudly and boldly the only One and True Living and eternal God incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul did not fear those who have the power to kill the body but cannot kill the soul, and he stands ready and unashamed to proclaim this glorious Gospel because he says:
3. “…it is the power of God to salvation”- 2 things to notice here:
a. “power of God” – The Greek word for power in this passage is the word
dunamis, where we get the English word dynamite. The word means inherent power, power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature, or which a person or thing exerts and puts forth.
Here then we have the omnipotent God of the universe, who alone exerts the power necessary to explode through hard hearts of stone through His ordained means: the glorious Gospel of Christ.
Paul knew the “explosive” power of this Gospel first hand. What else could possibly have turned the anti-Christian zealot Saul of Tarsus who did all he could to lay waste the church and the Gospel, into the Apostle Paul, the man who now is not ashamed of the very Gospel he once despised and tried to eradicate from the face of the earth!
And notice; this isn’t just some self-help philosophy designed to appeal to our fleshly desires and “felt-needs.” This isn’t a seeker-sensitive church growth scheme aimed at tickling the itching ears of Secular Sam, or Secular Samantha. It is the very truth of God Himself, the message of the cross, which Paul says in 1 Cor 1:18 is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved is the power of God!
And as Paul said in that passage, he also says here, it is the power…
b. “to salvation” - The most obvious sense is eternal life. But God’s salvation involves more than just giving us “fire insurance.” His plan is to save the entire creation, and the entire person. And from God’s perspective the whole of our salvation is finished. We have been justified. We have been, are still being, and will be sanctified, and though it still hasn’t occurred, from God’s perspective we have been glorified. How is this all possible? The Gospel of God! We must view the Gospel in terms of its objective and intrinsic efficacy! What in the world that does mean?! It means that the Gospel doesn’t need our help to make it work.
It means that the Gospel is something that never fails to accomplish every aspect of our salvation.
It means that God is the one in charge of salvation, and that every person He has determined to save by His established means can never fail to be saved.
The cross was not a Divine afterthought, as if it were a plan B, in the mind of God, where God sent His Son to die, crossed His fingers, and hoped that someone might “accept” Him.
It was the place where Christ made a full, all-sufficient, all-powerful and perfect sacrifice, and finished the work of atonement whereby He fully satisfied the wrath of God and really, not potentially, propitiated and expiated the sins of His people.
By His work on the cross, Jesus accomplished far more than just making people savable. He actually saved them! Jesus doesn’t just try to save; Jesus saves!
B. The Universal Nature of the Gospel
1. “for everyone who believes…Jew…Greek,” - The Gospel holds no ethnic or
geographical boundaries: It is the means by which an absolutely sovereign and Holy God has determined to infallibly save a multitude of sinners from every nation, tribe and tongue; sinners who deserved nothing except the just condemnation and wrath of God.
Yet God, out of His sheer grace and mercy and alone, chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, then came to us in the Person of Christ, bore the full penalty for sins, rose from the dead, and guarantees the free gift of eternal life to every person who believes. As Paul would later write, whoever believes the in Lord Jesus Christ shall, not might, be saved!
But we must note that one of the benefits of the Gospel is that it gives to us the very faith that is needed to embrace it, because that faith was purchased by Jesus on the cross. In other words, Jesus didn’t just do His part, and now we do ours. The Gospel isn’t merely a theoretical message that we can either take or leave. It is about what God has purposed, what God has accomplished, what God has applied. It is about what God has done, is doing, and will do! There is nothing left to be done to secure the salvation of people.
The work of Jesus Christ on the cross is effectual in and of its self. It doesn’t need anything to be added to it to make it effective: it doesn’t need the sacraments, or the “free will” decision of a person to fill up what is lacking in its saving power. Jesus actually saved people at the cross!
True enough, the benefits of that work must be appropriated through saving faith and repentance. However, faith is not the cause of our salvation; rather, it is the instrument, given to us by Christ, through which we are enabled to take hold of Him who had taken hold of us from before the foundation of the world.
Thus,
Jesus Christ Himself is the sole sufficient and
efficient cause of our salvation. The late Dr. Greg Bahnsen
comments, “It isn’t the cross plus
my converted heart that equals salvation; rather, it is the cross that gives
me a converted heart and therefore
salvation.”
Paul
now is about to strike the key chord in the symphony of the Gospel.
Paul says that in the Gospel…
2. “the righteousness of God is revealed” - The Holy God of the universe who is absolutely righteous Himself requires perfect righteousness of those who would enter into His presence.
How can we, who are totally depraved creatures, whose righteousness the prophet Isaiah describes as “filthy rags” and whose best works, as the Confession says, are defiled and mixed with our weakness and imperfection, and cannot stand the scrutiny of God’s judgment, ever have any hope of living and reigning with God for eternity?
God, in His amazing grace, has provided the remedy! What God does for sinners is that He orchestrates a great exchange of clothes, so to speak. When Jesus died on the cross, God took the sinner’s dirty clothes, and placed them on Jesus, and when the sinner places saving faith in Christ, God takes the perfectly clean clothes of Jesus, and places them on the sinner. The clothes are Jesus’ clothes that have been given to the sinner as a gift, and this is why the Bible says that Jesus Christ is our righteousness.
I remember when I first joined the military. I walked into basic training in my own civilian clothes. The military then issued me the clothes they wanted me to wear to identify me as one of theirs. Once I put on that uniform, I was then fully identified as a member of the Air Force, and not a civilian, and as such I had full access to all of the privileges that are afforded those who are in the Air Force—privileges that can only be enjoyed by those who “wear the uniform.”
The only righteousness (“uniform”) that could ever qualify one for Heaven is a perfect righteousness, and the only One who has a perfect righteousness is God Himself. When we embrace Christ by saving faith, we receive the righteousness (“uniform”) of Christ! We are then full identified as a citizen of Heaven and declared “not guilty!” and we are declared righteous!
…Heart of Reformation. Luther wrote in 1515: “I greatly longed to understand Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, “the righteousness of God”… Night and day I pondered until…I grasped the truth that the righteousness of God is that righteousness whereby, through grace and sheer mercy, he justifies us by faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise....”
The Gospel gives us power to live for eternity, but it also gives us the…
II. Power to Live Each Day
A. “from faith to faith;” – The idea here is one of continuity. In other words, we enter into righteousness by grace alone through faith alone, in, by, and because of Christ alone—that’s just the beginning of the journey of faith, and the only thing that can equip and empower us along our pilgrim’s progress is the very same things that put us on the path in the first place: God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in, by and because of Christ alone. The NIV thus translates the verse “by faith from first to last.” Paul then quotes the prophet Habakkuk:
B. “as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” Notice Paul says it is the just
who must live by faith. The NAS translates this “the righteous shall live by faith…”
Who are the just or the righteous? As noted above, only those who have embraced Christ as Lord and Savior, because they have had the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ imputed to them. We entered into eternal life through faith, and now we must live our everyday lives by faith.
Sadly so many of us lose sight of this. Oh, yes, we have embraced the Gospel and received Christ as our Lord and Savior. But I fear that far too often we then take the Gospel and put it on the shelf after we receive Christ. We think that the Gospel is only for unbelievers!
Once we do that though, we have moved away from the only thing that can give us victory in our daily lives in our battles with the world, the flesh, and the devil. We are in a war with those things, and the goal of those enemies is to get us to take our eyes off of Christ and place them on ourselves.
We begin to try and earn God’s favor by doing or not doing all kinds of things, and when we mess up, we feel overwhelming guilt. Or, we are painfully aware of all of the depravity and death that still remains in our flesh, and we are so horrified that we feel that not only can we never be accepted by God, but we feel utterly condemned.
Do you see the problem here? We fall right back into the trap of trying to earn God’s favor by what we do. While we believe in justification by faith alone, we nevertheless fall into the trap of believing in sanctification by works alone. The only thing this produces in bondage.
I’ll never forget hearing about the preacher who constantly told the congregation: “We need to quit riding the coattails of God’s grace!” Dear one, if we’re not riding the coattails of God’s grace, the only thing we are going to do is crash! No beloved! Let us mount up upon those mighty coattails of God’s awesome grace and ride them all the way to glory!
It is God alone who gives power to the weak, and those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk, and not faint! Why? Because they are resting in the grace of God alone!
We must take hold that glorious Gospel of the Living Christ, and we must yield to it everyday, we must set our eyes upon it everyday, and we must preach it to ourselves everyday! What does this mean? Jerry Bridges, in his book The Discipline of Grace states that to preach the gospel to ourselves everyday means:
“That you continually face up to your own sinfulness and then flee to Jesus through faith in His shed blood and righteous life. It means that you appropriate, again by faith, the fact that Jesus fully satisfied the law of God, and the He is your propitiation, and that God’s holy wrath is no longer directed toward you…It means that you believe on the testimony of God that “therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…It means that you dwell upon the promise that God has removed your transgressions as far as the east is from the west. And that all of these wonderful promises are based upon the atoning death of Jesus Christ.”
Our hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus’ Name!
The Gospel of Christ is not a pull yourself up by the bootstraps philosophy, but a dying to yourself reality that is lived by the same kind of faith that justifies (which itself is a gift): trusting in Jesus Christ alone. Christ is the only solid rock upon which we can ever stand.
Conclusion
Let us take hold of the truth that not only is our justification by faith alone, but so is our sanctification by faith alone! Let us be encouraged this day not to do what seems right to us, according to the flesh, knowing that it only ends in death, but let us live in accordance to the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ! Not only is it the means that God is using to perfectly save sinners from every nation, tribe and tongue, but it is the power we need to live each day.
It
is at the cross of Christ where the full penalty of all of our sin—past,
present, future was paid for. It is
at the cross of Christ where I have been made a new creation and given the power
to live holy life. It is at the
cross of Christ where I have been saved to the uttermost, which will result in
my ultimate glorification and deliverance from the very presence of sin itself.
Let us then be diligent to live our lives according to the only power that can sustain us: The Gospel of Jesus Christ, because the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only thing that can give us Power For Living. Amen.