The Powerful News That Brings Change

I’ve given up.   I don’t even do it anymore.   It doesn’t really work for me.   Does it work for you?    How many of you made some sort of New Year’s resolution?   Do you know what percentage actually follow through on those things?  8%.  In other words, folks have a 92% failure rate.  Yet still about half of the population makes these resolutions.  Why?  

Folks want to change. They want to break through to a better place in their careers, their relationships, their health, their finances, the list could go on.   That’s great.   Who doesn’t have someplace that they’d like things to be better?   But what if those resolutions point to something deeper?  What if people in these resolutions are searching not simply for a change in habits, but a change in life, a breakthrough in actually who they are.  How does that happen?  

In these words, we’re about to hear, specifically in just two sentences of these words, God gives the answer to that question.  How do you break through to a better life, to the life God actually created you to live?   Here, God shows the way.   Let’s listen and hear what God has to say.

Romans 1:1-17

Let me tell you about two highly religious people, who tried to change, to become more.   One became a monk, even taught theology in a seminary.  The other became a Anglican priest, and even formed a group at his university called the Holy Club.   Yet in both cases, these two folks failed completely until, by their own accounts, they grasped what we just read.  And when they did, these words changed them forever.    That breakthrough changed their lives. It changed the lives of others.  It even changed history.  The monk was MartinLuther, who started the Reformation, and the priest was John Wesley, who started the Methodist Church.  What did Luther and Wesley see in these words that changed them so completely? 

It all came down to a few sentences, and at least initially one word.  What was the word?   You find it in verse 16.  Paul writes, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew and also to the Greek.  What was the word?  Gospel.  Have you heard that word before?   Do you know what the word means?  We translate it Good News.    But the word in Greek is evangel, which literally means good herald.   It’s where we get the word angel, but that’s not what Paul is talking about.   He is using the word the way everyone else did, the way today we use it, as in the Miami Herald. He is talking about news.  The ancient world had no newspapers. They had heralds, the angeloi   Leaders sent out these heralds, these angeloi, to share the news, usually of some great victory.   “Hear O hear, Caesar has defeated the enemy in Egypt”   People would hear this news, and go home happy. 

Now why would that word angeloi, news have such power?   Because Paul was telling people something profoundly different from every other philosophy or religion.  Other religions give you good advice.  If you want peace or change or an encounter with God, then do these things.     But what is good news.   It’s not advice.  It’s not about anything you do.   It’s about something that has already been done for you.   Do you see the difference?

If you asked someone on the street, what is the core teaching of Christianity?  They might say something like love your neighbor as yourself.   And that’s a great thing.   Jesus certainly thought so.  But is that news?   Is that something that has been done for you, outside of you, something so momentous that just knowing that news changes you?    No.  So it’s not gospel. It’s not news.               

If someone tells you that the message of Christianity is to love your neighbor as yourself, you get three reactions.   A person might go, yeah, whatever, I knew that.     Or they might think, sheesh, I can’t do that.  Or they might say, well, I’m doing that all the time already.   As the preacher Tim Keller puts it, it’s either shrugged or bugged or smug, but no breakthrough.

If your faith focuses more on what you need to do for God, then on what God has done for you, you’re not getting it.   You’re probably wondering.   Why did we just baptize this little baby, Alexandra.  She can’t do anything.   That’s the point.   We’re talking about something that God has already done for her, for you.  She doesn’t have to do anything.  It’s already been done.

So what has already been done?     That’s where the sentence in verse 17 comes in.  “For in it (that is the good news), in the good news, the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.”

What does this mean?  It means that because of what has been done for you, God looks at you differently.  God only sees the beautiful, wonderful things about you.  All the ugliness is gone, at least as far as God is concerned.   Do you see the power of that?

So many folks think the gospel is all about forgiveness.   I do bad things, and God forgives me because of Jesus.   Yeah, that’s true.  But that doesn’t get to the heart.   That’s not the part that blew Luther and Wesley away.   That’s not what Paul is saying here.  

Decades ago, I worked with night clubs in New York City.  And I learned that you couldn’t just walk into those places.  You had to look the part, and if the doormen deemed you acceptable, you get the privilege of paying an outrageous entrance charge, and going in.   It hasn’t changed too much.  That’s still the deal at the clubs on SouthBeach.  Now as someone who worked for the public relations firm that handled the club, I could get on the list.  If you were on the list, you could simply go to the front, say to the doorman, I’m on the list, and voila, automatic entry without even a cover charge.   Doing that, I gotta admit, felt awesome. I felt very cool.

But to get on the list I had to justify myself.   I had to say that I was bringing some reporter in to do a story or some contact at a fashion magazine.   I couldn’t just go in.   

But imagine being automatically on the list, every night, every club.   It doesn’t matter how geekily you’re dressed or how much you weigh or how you look, the doormen waves you in every time.  Oh, Mr. McGowan, please go right in.   Now getting in some club might not rock your world, but do you get the point? 

That’s what Paul is telling you.   You’re on the list.  You don’t have to do anything to justify your place there.   Jesus has placed your name there, and it is never, ever coming off.   It doesn’t matter how righteous you’ve been or not been, you’re on the list.  Jesus made sure of that by paying an infinite price to put you there.    All you need to do now is simply trust that it’s true.    And we’re not talking about a dance club, we’re talking about becoming a son or daughter of God.   In other words, you go to God, and say, remember me, your son, and God goes, “Hey, son!  You look awesome!” 

You are on the list.   You are righteous period.   If someone asks you, are you a Christian? And you say, well, I’m trying to be.  You don’t get it.  It’s a standing you have.   You’re on the list.  That’s it. 

Now if you’re going, well, that’s good news for the Luthers and Wesleys of the world, those filled with religious guilt, but not for me.  Don’t kid yourself. People have all sorts of things they make their righteousness, how they get their standing in the world, how they assure themselves of their value or worth.  It could be money or success or popularity or relationships or family, whatever.  Everyone does it.  Everyone looks for this validation somewhere.  But I don’t care where your righteousness is, it will be blown away, if nothing else, then by death.   Only this righteousness lasts.

Do you feel the power of it?  That’s what Paul calls it, power.  Paul doesn’t say that it channels the power of God.  Paul says.  It is the power of God.  You get this, and the power of God flows into you.   

Paul gives us two ways that we feel the power.  First, this news bothers us.  It’s why Paul said he wasn’t ashamed of the gospel.  He knew.   People found this news, weird, even offensive.  They think.  This is way too easy.  You believe, and you’re on the list, like that?  Prostitutes, war criminals, you believe and you’re on the list?   Yep.  If you find that distasteful, then you are feeling the power.   Others feel it’s way too simplistic.   I believe that I’m on the list, and I’m on the list?  Really?   No course I have to take, no esoteric knowledge, no techniques.  Nope.  Believe you’re on the list, and you are.   And don’t think this is some intellectual affirmation, this is personal.  You believe this.  You feel it.  You feel the acceptance. You feel the love.   You break through.  And that brings us to the other way, you feel the power.

The power does more than offend you, it changes you.  At the beginning, Paul puts it this way.  He addresses the Roman Christians;.  To all, God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints.   When you feel the love of the list, that you are the beloved, what happens?   You feel an irresistible attraction to live like the One who put you there.   You can never get the righteousness of God put upon you, without feeling it growing in you.   You can’t feel the love without wanting to live the love.   You feel the call, the beckoning to live like Jesus and you can’t help but answer.   That’s the power that broke through Luther and Wesley; that has broken through the lives of billions.  Do you feel it?   If you don’t, you can feel it right now.  It’s that simple.  It’s that easy.  Believe it or not.