Roman 1:8-17

The Power of God

Text: Romans 1:16–17
Preacher: Bryan Schneider
Theme: The gospel is God’s power for salvation because it reveals the righteousness of God given through faith.

Key Points

• Paul is not ashamed of the gospel

  • The gospel means “good news” — the announcement of Christ’s victory over sin and death.

  • Cultural pressure often pushes Christians toward shame or silence about the gospel.

  • Christians should boldly proclaim the message because it is the message of Christ.

• The gospel is the power of God for salvation

  • The power is not merely in the words themselves but in God working through the message.

  • God uses the proclamation of the gospel to transform hearts and bring salvation.

• Salvation means deliverance from God’s wrath

  • Humanity is not merely struggling with self-esteem or circumstances.

  • We are sinners deserving judgment and in need of rescue from God’s righteous wrath.

• Salvation is for everyone who believes

  • The gospel is for both Jew and Gentile.

  • Faith is the instrument, not the ground, of salvation.

  • Faith receives Christ; it does not earn righteousness.

• The gospel reveals the righteousness of God

  • This righteousness is not produced by us.

  • It is an “alien righteousness”—a righteousness outside ourselves given through Christ.

  • God remains perfectly just while justifying sinners because Christ bore the wrath we deserved.

• Justification vs. Sanctification

  • Justification: Being declared righteous before God through Christ (Romans 1–11).

  • Sanctification: Growing in holiness after salvation (Romans 12–end).

• “The righteous shall live by faith”

  • The Christian life begins, continues, and ends by faith in Christ’s righteousness—not our own.

The Power of the Gospel

Main Passage

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…”

1. Biblical Themes

The Power of the Gospel

• 1 Corinthians 1:18 – The message of the cross is God’s power.

• Romans 10:17 – Faith comes through hearing the word of Christ.

The gospel is not merely information—it is the instrument God uses to bring life to the spiritually dead.

Justification by Faith

• Genesis 15:6 – Abraham believed God and it was counted as righteousness.

• Galatians 2:16 – A person is justified by faith, not works of the law.

• Philippians 3:9 – Righteousness comes through faith in Christ.

Salvation from God’s Wrath

• Romans 3:23–26

• Romans 5:9

• 1 Thessalonians 1:10

Christ satisfies God's justice so sinners can be forgiven.

2. Historical Context

Rome

• The church in Rome consisted of both Jewish and Gentile believers.

• Tension existed between the two groups regarding law, identity, and covenant promises.

The Reformation Connection

This passage profoundly influenced Martin Luther, who realized that God’s righteousness in the gospel is a gift given to believers, not a standard they must achieve.

This discovery helped spark the Protestant Reformation.

3. Key Doctrinal Ideas

Justification

A once-for-all declaration by God that a sinner is righteous because of Christ.

Alien Righteousness

Christ’s righteousness credited to believers.

Faith as Instrument

Faith does not earn salvation; it receives what Christ accomplished.

4. Westminster Confessional References

Westminster Confession of Faith

• WCF 11.1 – Justification

  • God justifies sinners by imputing the righteousness of Christ to them.

Westminster Larger Catechism

• WLC Q.70

  • Justification is an act of God’s free grace in which He pardons sins and accepts believers as righteous through Christ.

Westminster Shorter Catechism

• WSC Q.33

  • Justification is an act of God's free grace where He pardons sins and accepts us as righteous in His sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone.

5. Practical Application

1. Do not be ashamed of the gospel

Christians should speak clearly about Christ even when culture rejects the message.

2. Rest in Christ’s righteousness

Your standing with God is not based on your performance.

3. Distinguish justification and sanctification

• Your acceptance before God never fluctuates.

• Your growth in holiness is ongoing.

4. Keep faith focused on Christ

Faith must not trust in:

• past religious decisions

• personal morality

• spiritual experiences

Faith trusts Christ alone.

Please turn with me and your Bibles to Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1 and this morning we'll be looking specifically at verses 16 and 17. I like just for context for us to read verses 8 through 17. Romans chapter 1. If you're using your pre-bibles, you'll find that on page 999.

You're now God's perfect word. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all. That your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers, making request if by any means, now at last, I may find a way in the will of God to come to you.

For I long to see you that I may impart some spiritual gift so that you may be established, that is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith, both of you and me. Now, I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often planned to come to you, but was hindered until now. that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the other Gentiles. I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise. So as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith.

Thus ends this portion of God's Word. Brothers and sisters, don't let it fall on deaf ears. I don't say this because it's routine. But the grass will wither, and the flower will fade, but the word of our God endures forever. Let's pray. Father, your word is perfect and true.

We come to you as needy beggars, people pleading with you for your spirit to work in our hearts. You know that we have so many concerns in this life, There are so many times that we come even into your presence at worship, and the weight of our lives, the concerns of life, even the deceitful things like wealth, can try to choke out the seed. Lord, please be with us as we look at your word. Lord, we pray that in the preaching of the gospel, you might indeed save, because you are just. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Martin Luther, when he was a monk, was describing how he felt about God. And he said, love God? No, I cannot love God. But indeed, if I was telling the truth, I hated God. Because God in his mind as a monk, as he had lived his whole life, was a God of pure righteousness and wrath and hatred towards sinners.

And he couldn't find a way out from underneath that wrath. How could he ever find eternal life? Because everywhere he turned, he found a remnant of sin. In his good works, there were lacking. In his good works, there were mixed motives. In his repenting, there wasn't a repenting enough. He could never have peace for his soul.

And then he was studying and pouring over this passage in front of us. Wrestling with the grammar of it. And what does this mean? How is there actually anything that's good news? It was like a lightning bolt from heaven to him. that there was a way to be made right with God, a way to be made alive, and it didn't depend on him. The good news became good from this passage. So the questions I want you to wrestle with this morning is how are you made alive? How do you live? How do you find hope? How do you stand before a righteous God?

We can't do it by our own righteousness. I'm not going to hide it from you. The good news is it's a righteousness that we find in Jesus, given to us by God through the instrument of faith. So first, Paul starts off in verse 16 saying that he is not ashamed of the gospel.

He's just told them in verses 13 and following, well it's really verses 10 and following, that he's wanted to come and visit them. He's wanted to come and preach the gospel to them. He's longed about this and he's prayed about this. He's tried to make plans and they've been thwarted, but every time he's wanted to make plans he's been sidetracked because he had to go preach the gospel somewhere else. The Spirit was leading him where he needed to go. And so he wants them to be clear here in verse 16.

It's not, he hasn't been tardy in showing up in Rome because somehow he's ashamed of the message that he's been appointed to preach. He says, I'm not ashamed. It's not like he hides his face because, well, I can't muster up the courage there to tell you. No, Paul is really writing this letter. It says, I'm not ashamed of the good news I have. I'm not afraid to take it to anyone and everywhere in the world. I don't hide it. I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not ashamed of the good news.

We have lots of words that we just say or even translate it for us, right? The gospel. Gospel, this is an old English word. But the Greek behind it is Ev Angelion. So Ev is like if you ever had a eulogy, it's the EU, it's good. And Angelus is a message. So it's a good message, it's good news to people. It's proclaiming something wonderful to someone. It's what you would do if you were given a message from the battlefield. And somebody handed you a letter, and you were supposed to take that letter, and the letter said, we've defeated our enemy. And you were to take that message from the battlefield and run into town as fast as you can, as hard as you can, and get there and tell everybody in town, get ready, we're gonna have a massive party, we're gonna have the triumphal entry, because there's good news, we have victory.

Paul says, I'm not ashamed of that message. Because notice what it says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, and then notice whose good news it is, of Christ. I am not ashamed of the gospel of my Messiah, of my king, my prophet, my priest. He says, I'm not ashamed of that. I don't hide it from people. I'm not scared of coming to you and telling you. I know that even in the heart of Rome, though they might not want this good news, and even though there may be persecution, even though the Jewish people are not looked good upon, and I'm Jewish myself, none of that matters. That's not why I haven't come. I've come because I've been unashamed to preach the gospel everywhere else. and I want to come to you." He's not boasting in his own strength here, but he's saying, I'm not ashamed.

There's a courage that we see in Paul that I think most of us, when we read through places like the book of Acts, we're somewhat envious. Thinking, man, I don't know if I could ever live up to something like that. Maybe some of you don't feel that way, but I know I've talked to people, and I know I've felt that way at times. Even when I've been in conversations with people, and there's an opportunity to tell somebody the gospel. You know, there's almost this point, and we feel it, I think, tangibly more and more in the American culture, that the culture wants us to be ashamed of the gospel.

That somehow preaching the victory message of Jesus may ruin your relationships with people. That somehow it's intolerant and unloving and hurtful. And maybe you shouldn't say these things to people that sin is real and you need a savior. Because see, this is the counterintuitive thing about the good news.

The good news points out something that is lacking in us. That I'm not perfect. That we don't have everything all together. That we all are part of a living world in a dying generation. And people don't like to be told, you need a savior and there's something wrong with your life. So the shame happens. I think when we're often ashamed of telling the gospel, it's because our culture doesn't like shame. It doesn't like being told that they may be wrong. That shouldn't be too foreign for us as Christians, right? I know I don't like when my wife tells me I'm wrong about things.

Paul's not saying that the gospel is going to be the good news. It's going to be respectable by worldly standards. I say, I'm not ashamed of that. I'm going to go preach it. I'm planning to come to you and I'm going to preach with the power of God. Because it is the good news of Jesus. Now I need to make sure this is very clear in your mind, right? Because there are many people who will talk about gospel and they'll talk about good news, but they won't actually say the good news. So one of my big critiques of Reformed preaching is a lot of theology and people don't just tell the good news. Jesus Christ came to save sinners of whom I am the worst. Jesus Christ laid down his life on the cross as a ransom for many.

And if we confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved. Do you act like your life is perfect or are you the person who comes to the Lord, not in your own righteousness, not acting as if you do not sin, but confessing your sin to God, knowing that God is the one who is righteous and forgives you of your sin. and cleanses you of all your transgressions. That is the good news of Jesus Christ, that we were dead in our trespasses and sins, but by grace, he has made us alive through faith.

This is the message of redemption. This is the good news of Jesus. Don't be ashamed of it, Christian, and be clear about what it is. There's so many people who just try to muddle up and over-theologize what the good news of Jesus is. Jesus Christ came to save sinners, of whom we are the worst. So we're not ashamed of that message because it doesn't come from a place of pride, but of gratitude, and of hope, of love, and of peace.

Because it's about Jesus. And that's why he says in the second part of verse 16, for it is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes. For everyone who believes. But it is the power of God. What is the it there? For it is the power of God. The it is the gospel. That's hard, right?

What does that mean that gospel is power? Does it inherently have power? Do the words themselves have power? How do words written on a page or spoken from somebody's mouth have power? I mean, there's all sorts of people who will pick up the book and they'll read the pages. I've done enough evangelistic Bible studies with people that will go through the Gospel of John and they go, not for me. I don't want it. So are the words powerful themselves, the printed words? Well, they're true.

But the words themselves are powerful because it is the power of God to salvation. It is God who must be at work in the person's heart and in the life to take the words on the page and pierce them into their soul that they might truly hear and believe.

Paul could read through the Old Testament cover to cover again and again and again and miss the entire point while his name was still Saul. But it wasn't until Jesus Christ interacted with him and the Spirit changed his heart. But make no doubt about it, God does this amazing, miraculous thing that it happens by people talking about the good news of Christ. This is why Paul's not ashamed of preaching, of teaching, of proclaiming the good news of Christ, because he knows it is the power of God to save people.

But save people from what? From a bad day? From a poor self-esteem? From living in poverty? What are we saved from? It is the power of God to salvation. Well, you gotta, if you're saved, you gotta be saved from something. I mean, imagine watching a cartoon as a kid, and you got Superman saving the day, but you never know what the villain is. You'd just be constantly scratching your head. What is this? Who are you saved from? What are you saved from? We are saved from the wrath of God himself. That's what Paul is going to do, right?

Romans chapter 1 verses 16 through 17. Romans 1, 16 through 17 is the thesis, is the heart, is what's going to open up the rest of the book. And I gotta tell you, next week and the following, probably five, six sermons from now, probably aren't gonna be the most non-controversial sermons. Because until you get to Romans chapter three, around verse 21, 22, 23, everything between now and Romans, the middle or the second third of Romans three, is all how sinful we are.

We're saved from the wrath of God that we justly deserve for our own sins. We're not just saved therapeutically from feeling bad. It's not just God making us feel better. But we're saved, really and truly, from the wrath of God that Jesus talks about in Gehenna, in hell. But the fire is not quenched, and the worm doesn't die. The salvation of God includes the pardon of our sin, our being reconciled to God, and our new life in Christ. To be saved means that there is an enemy, and there is a judgment.

And I need to warn you, there are many traditions, and many, you can pick up a lot of commentaries lately, and even study Bibles, who will do something here that's a grave disservice to the grammar of the text. If you come to Chalk A Talk, especially in Romans and when I do Pauline Epistles, I often show you sentence diagrams of the Greek and try to show you what's going on here. And there's something really clear that's going on here.

And what's going on here is we are saved from our sin. We're saved from God's wrath on us for our sin. But there's an important qualification here, because we're going to start talking about something, a big theological word, justification. And that word justification comes from this root word for righteousness. In Hebrew, it's tzaddik. But in Hebrew, there's all these different righteousness verbs and nouns that kind of come together. So whether it's dikaios or whether it's dikaiothini, it's all these righteousness words that are tied together.

And there's a distinction. that we make as Christians. On the one hand, there is a righteousness of God. There is a unrighteousness of man. There is a righteousness that God gives us, which is His righteousness. And then there is a righteousness that God is doing, making us more and more righteous.

And so this is where I have to go kind of teacher mode on you. I know this is kind of getting heavy theology, but it's really important that you have two categories in your mind here. One category is justification. How are you made right or righteous with God?

That's Romans chapter 1 through Romans chapter 11. And then there's a hinge that happens in Romans chapter 12, and it will go from Romans chapter 12 through the end of the book. And now it starts talking about sanctification. How are you made more and more holy like Jesus?

How do you become more righteous now in this life? And I'm begging you, as we go through the book of Romans, Keep those distinctions firm in your mind because the issue that happens in our minds as people is we want to flatten or conflate those two. The issue is if we start confusing our righteousness with the gift of God that he saved us from our sins, we can end up right back in the same place of being prideful before a holy God. and thinking that, oh, well, now my life is together and I am righteous by myself. And it leads into scary places in people's lives where they lose the hope and the joy of the gospel. But in this verse, and especially in verse 17, Paul stresses first on the righteousness which the sinner stands accepted before God and that righteousness comes from God.

But notice who this salvation is for. Who is this good news, this powerful message of God that saves people? Who is it for? To everyone who believes. Everyone. To everyone who is believing. This is a present, middle, participle, if you're the type of grammar person here. This is saying the person is right now, it is part of themselves, it is the instrument by which they are being saved, or the instrument by which they have been saved, is their believing, their faith. And again, this is where chalk and talk, I wish sometimes I can do this in a sermon and show you, because the word believing and the word faith are from the same word. In the Greek, it's both P-I-S-T. So that's how I would put it in English letters. P-I-S-T. Pistevo and Pistis.

Faith and belief are the same word group. To those who are believing, faith is not the grounds of our acceptance, yet faith is the instrument by which we receive The work of Jesus. Faith is not a work that earns us righteousness. Maybe you've interacted with somebody like this before. It's very common in revivalistic Christianity. How do you know you're saved? Well, when I was six, I walked down the aisle and I accepted Jesus into my heart. But then you start digging a little bit and you find out it's not, their confidence is not because they actually love Jesus, have received Him and rest on Him, and they're hoping in Him.

What they're resting is, I said something. I walked down an aisle, and I'm not downplaying what that emotional experience must have been like. What I'm saying is, I've met people who on their deathbed, their confidence was not actually in Jesus, but it was that I said something at one time. What are you resting in? Who is the object of your faith? Who are you hoping in? You? The fact that you said something? Or you prayed some prayer? Or that Jesus died for you?

Faith receives a righteousness, receives a savior outside of us. This verse rules out any merit, any moral pre-qualification, any ceremonial qualification, any ethnic qualification. Notice it goes to the Jew first and also to the Greek. It's to everyone who believes. This was Paul's normal thing he did. When Paul would go into a new town, he would always go and try to find out where the synagogue was.

So he'd go preach to the Jewish people first. You go preach to the people who already had the book, already had all the Old Testament heritage, already were of the tribe of Abraham, who shared his same family line with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He would go there first, because in the covenant of grace, as we see God moving throughout history, he chose a specific people, the Jewish people. That was where he was going to show his particular redemption. He was going to choose a people for himself. Paul's going to address that not everybody who was ethnically Jewish, who had Jewish blood in their veins, was actually of God's people. Because why? They had to have faith.

It says to the Jew first, and also to the Gentiles, to the Greeks. Anybody not Jewish, right? When you read the word Greek there, it's not talking about people who are just over the sea there in the peninsula. It's not talking about just people in Athens or Sparta or something like that. He's saying, in the Jewish mind, this is ethnoid. Actually, we get our word for ethnicities from this.

All other types of people who aren't Jewish. Now this is where I am gonna step back, because there's a poison that's starting to come into the church, and we're gonna really lean in on this in chapters 10 and 11 in Romans. But there's a poison seeping into the American culture and even in the Reformed church, where people are starting to treat Jewish people who are just ethnically Jewish as if somehow they are outside hope and horrible and the most wicked people in the world.

I want to encourage you. Maybe this is something you can do later. Go read Romans 10 and 11 and ask yourself, could you really say that? Because Paul says, if he could take the curse of hell upon himself so that Jewish people would be saved, he would do it.

I just need to warn you about the anti-Semitism that's rising up. I'm not saying that we don't evangelize them. I'm not saying we don't pray for their conversion. I'm not saying we just blanketly accept anything any Jewish person says because they just happen to be Jewish. What I'm saying is if there is a bias and a hatred towards Jewish people, you're not going to find it here. You're not going to find it here.

It's something that's puffing up the pride of a certain group of people that troubles my soul, and as a pastor, I just need to warn you that I'm seeing this in places of the corners of the internet, sometimes spoken very boldly in places like former Twitter ex. Be on guard, Christians.

If we are people of the good news, we ought to be the most humble people. God's message of redemption started with the Jews and we are not Jewish people, most of us sitting here. And we're like, there was an olive plant and a tree and the branch that was bad was broken off. And we're of a different tree. And God has taken us and he's engrafted us, a wild branch into that tree. That we might receive the blessings that come from it. Make no doubt about it, Jesus was Jewish through and through. And we're engrafted into Christ. We have no place of pride there.

The good news is for everyone who believes, first to the Jew and also for the Greek, And then notice in verse 17, for it is, what is the it there? For it is the righteousness of God. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. What is the it again? The it again is the gospel, the good news. For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed.

We might want to change the name of the book of Romans to be the Revelation of Paul. Right? We have the Revelation of John, the book of Revelations. Right? It's literally called the Apocalypse of John. But that's the same word here. It's the apocalypse. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed, is apocalypto. Apocalyptite. It is This hidden mystery that's opened up. The scrolls are opened up.

What was once hidden away. How would the world be saved? How would people come into contact? How could Jewish people sing Psalm 67 and Psalm 117? Talking about all the peoples praise Him. And the answer was Christ. The whole time. The answer was by faith. The whole time. The second, for in this, here in verse 17, so in this series, the emphasis in verse 17 is for in it.

Why is the gospel God's saving power? Because in the good news, the righteousness of God is revealed. In the good news, the righteousness of God is revealed. This is the central theological issue at hand. What is the righteousness of God? When we're looking here, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed. What is the righteousness of God here?

This is the the enigma, the paradox, the mystery, the puzzle. How can God be perfectly just, perfectly holy, not even able to stand the presence of anyone or anything unclean, perfectly morally pure without spot or wrinkle or blemish in any way? never twisting justice, yet abounding in mercy and kindness, forgiving transgressors.

Because he is savingly righteous. Because all of his righteous wrath was fulfilled and the willing sacrifice of his own son. God's moral righteousness is shown in his covenant faithfulness. God satisfies His own wrath for unrighteousness by supplying the righteousness Himself. His own righteousness in His own Son, Jesus Christ.

I'm going to talk more at Chalk and Talk this afternoon about different ways in which people continue to twist that I'm really simplifying what I'm telling you here, because there's been millions of pages written on what does this mean, the righteousness of God. I'm going to try to spend more time showing you categories for this in Chalk and Talk. I don't have time for us to look at it here today. But the righteousness that is provided here is the righteousness of God.

It is not our righteousness. It is an alien righteousness. It is a righteousness outside of us. It is not a righteousness we're producing in us. Or somehow that we are becoming righteous and because we are becoming righteous, God is saving us. No, it is a righteousness that God grants to us. Not produced by us. But yet it is truly ours. It is our righteousness because it was given to us in Jesus. And that's our hope.

Because if you're hoping in your own righteousness, if you're hoping that you're going to be saved and you're going to live and you're going to be right with God because you're living a righteous life yourself, what happens tomorrow when you're impatient with your spouse?

What happens next week when you disobey your parents? What happens when you find covetousness lurking underneath the surface in your heart? What happens when you find out you've thought you've been doing something loving this whole time and all in reality you've been sinning against somebody? What happens when the house of cards falls down because you've been trusting in your own righteousness and all it's taken is a little of criticism? and our righteousness comes tumbling down, where will your hope be?

See, this is why I'm trying to encourage you. Do not rest in yourself, in your own righteousness, but rest in the righteousness that's promised to you and given to you in Jesus. That is where we find confidence and hope and peace and rest and joy, because our righteousness, our salvation, our life doesn't depend on us. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that is a gift of God, not the result of works, lest any of us should brag about it. Justification is the once-for-all act of God's free grace. May you take hope, Christian. For as it is written, the just shall live by faith. Righteousness of God was revealed to us by faith, we received it by faith, we hope in God's righteousness by faith, and it ends with trusting and hope and righteousness in God's faith, or in God's righteousness.

Our faith from the beginning of our lives to the faith at the end of our lives must constantly be focused on not our own righteousness, but on His. Again, this is why Paul says it's a trustworthy and faithful saying worthy of all remembrance. Jesus Christ came to save sinners of whom I am the worst. If Paul had to say that, man, I need to remember it. This is what the scriptures have all pointed to.

The righteous shall live by faith. We don't live by our own righteous deeds. Now, big no doubt about it, if you hope in Jesus, if you've been born again, you're going to start looking more like Jesus, never perfectly. But by faith, we trust and we live in His righteousness. And this is one of those beautiful things.

When Paul here in verse 17 quotes Habakkuk 2.2, Habakkuk is saying, Lord, those who are clearly unrighteous in the world are prevailing.

The Babylonians don't worship you. They don't love you. They're just doing their thing. They're sinning, and they seem to be prospering. And the Lord essentially says, dude, chill out. I'm righteous. They will get their judgment, but you live by faith. That is the walk of the Christian life. So I start this off asking you the same question, or I end this asking you the same question I started off with.

How are you made right with God? What hope do you have that he has saved you? How do you know that he has made you alive? Who is the object of your faith? I pray and I hope that your confidence, your hope, your joy, and your life are hidden in Christ. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for the good news That You have sent us Your Son. And He is our good news. He is our righteousness. He is our only hope. Whether in life or in death. Lord, we thank You that You have conquered sin and death.

And You have given us a gift more profound, more deep, more rich. more wonderful than anything we could ever imagine. Lord, and if you have loved us this much to give us your own son, how shall you not also with him also freely give us all things? Lord, and if you have given us your son, what could possibly separate us from the love, from your love, which is in Christ Jesus? Lord, please. As we go through this book of Romans and as we live our lives, we pray, pleading with you that you would give us your spirit, that we would hope in Jesus alone. In his name we pray, amen.

• Why might Christians today feel pressure to be ashamed of the gospel?

• What does it mean that the gospel is the power of God?

• Why is it important to understand the difference between justification and sanctification?

• How does the idea of “alien righteousness” bring comfort to believers?

• What does “the righteous shall live by faith” look like in daily life?

• Gospel – The good news that Jesus Christ saves sinners.

• Justification – Being declared righteous before God through Christ.

• Sanctification – The lifelong process of becoming more like Christ.

• Imputation – Christ’s righteousness credited to believers.

• Faith – Trusting in Christ alone for salvation.