Living With Passion and Purpose

The creator of the peanuts cartoon strip Charles Schultz was a believer and quite often biblical themes would find their way into his cartoon strips. On one occasion Linus, as you see pictured here, was throwing a stick for Snoopy to fetch and Snoopy started to run after the stick and then stopped and said, I want people to think more of me when I'm gone than he was a nice guy, he chased sticks. I want to ask you this morning, what will people think of you when you're gone? More importantly, what will God say about you? What will Jesus Christ say about you when you stand before Him? Will He say, he chased sticks? In Paul's terminology, he lived, built his life around things that are called wood, hay and stubble and will burn up at the judgment seat of Christ. The question is this, do you live a life of passion and purpose or are you just chasing sticks? Is your life being lived out in such a way that something counts for eternity? There's passion and eternal purpose in your life or are you just chasing sticks? Paul talks about that in the introduction to the letter to the Romans. This morning, I want to begin a series of messages on the book of Romans. And so find your place there and we'll look at the introduction to the book this morning, but Paul is writing this grand book to this grand church in a grand city, City of Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire, the largest metropolis in the world at that time, several million people, 600,000 slaves alone in the city of Rome, a major city by even today's standards, but a city that was known for its corruption, for its immorality, for its loose living. In the midst of that situation, a group of believers had gathered and this is a church that becomes a strong church, a church that stands like a mighty oak against the winds of corruption, immorality of the day in Rome. And so Paul writes to that church in Rome and he writes for three reasons. He tells us these reasons in chapter 15. We'll see them when we get there at some point. But he says he writes, first of all, because I've never visited you and I would like to do so sometime, this kind of a letter of introduction. And so I want to visit you someday. Second reason he wrote was as every good missionary, he wrote to encourage them to support him on a mission's trip to Spain. He had it in his heart and mind to go to Spain, whether or not that ever took place, we're not sure, but he had it in his heart and mind to go to Spain and he was asking the Romans, unashamedly, as every missionary should, this is the work of God, I need your help, I need funds to be able to get to Spain. The third reason why he wrote, he tells us in Romans 15, verses 14 and 15, he says, I've been careful to remind you of certain points of the gospel. And so he wrote to explain the gospel. And that's a major thrust of this book. The Book of Romans is really a careful presentation of the gospel. It is a very carefully laid out, sequential unfolding of the story of the gospel. And what Paul does is he describes what the gospel is all about. The gospel, as he will summarize it in verse 17 of the first chapter, means that we are able to have a righteousness from God. That's the essence of the gospel that we have a righteousness from God. And so that's really the theme of the book, a righteousness that comes from God. Now I want to just for a few moments kind of outline the book very briefly and then we will jump into the introduction this morning. In dealing with this righteousness from God, Paul, first of all, in chapter 1, beginning in verse 18, he gives a long introduction of 17 verses, the longest introduction of any of his epistles, but in chapter 1, verse 18, all the way through chapter 3 in verse 20, the first section of the book. And I think we have this for you on the screen is righteousness needed. And righteousness is needed because of sin. So Paul spends the first three chapters basically talking about why we need a righteousness from God, it's because of our sin. And then in chapter 3, verse 21, on through chapter 5, he deals with the next concept of righteousness, a righteousness given. And in this section, he deals with salvation. But we need righteousness because of our sin, God gives us righteousness through salvation. And then in chapter 6 through 8, Paul deals with a righteousness growing. And he deals in this section with the concept and theme of sanctification. sanctification is that area of doctrine which deals with our growth in Christ. Once we become believers, we grow to be more like him. We grow in our understanding and living out the word of God. That's sanctification. So righteousness growing is our sanctification. Then in chapter 9 through 11, Paul deals with the fact that Israel has rejected God's righteousness, trying to seek a righteousness of their own. And he'll talk about that in that section. And in this section, he emphasizes God's sovereignty. The whole point in these three chapters is that although God has set aside his people Israel and is doing a new work of building a new people, the church, God's still in control of all things. He hasn't forgotten about his people. He will one day restore his people Israel to their rightful place as God's people. And chapters 9 through 11 deal with God's sovereignty and being control of all this happening in regard to the gospel. And then in chapters 12 through 1513, he deals with righteousness, practiced, how we live out righteousness in our service for Christ. That's kind of a layout of the book. That's the path we'll be following as we trace this theme of a righteousness from God through the book of Romans. But this morning, we want to focus on the introduction, the first 17 verses of the book. In the introduction, Paul introduces both himself and the gospel. And he ties the three together or ties the two together himself and the gospel at three different points. You can see them in verse 1 where he says at the end of the verse, he was set apart for the gospel of God. Then in verse 9, he says, with my whole heart, I serve in preaching the gospel. And then in verse 15, that is why I'm so eager to preach the gospel. To you who are at Rome. So on those three occasions, he focuses on his life's passion and purpose which revolves around the gospel. Now in this passage, Paul is really sharing with us his passion, his purpose for living. And it all centers around the gospel. But this is his passion. This is his purpose for living. As he introduces himself, he can't help but see his heart. He opens wide his heart and shows us what his passion and purpose is. And I want to ask you as we look at Paul's passion and purpose, could this be said of you? Could it be said of me that this is also my passion, my purpose? Do you have any passion and purpose for the things of God, things that count for eternity? Or are you just chasing sticks? Would, hey, and stubble, things that will be all burned up, temporary stuff when you get to heaven? What are you living for? What is your passion? What is your purpose in life? Paul gives us his three. I think it's a good three for us to have too. And to center our lives around. The first one is Paul said, my passion and purpose is to be set apart for the gospel. Set apart for the gospel. Now notice how he introduces himself in verse one. He says, Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus. Paul introduces himself first as a servant. Now if someone else were introducing Paul, they might have started the letter this way. Paul, the imminent theologian, that would have been correct. Or they might have said, Paul, the master of the Old Testament, that would have been correct. Paul, the brilliant intellect, that would have been correct. Or someone might have said, Paul, the pioneer missionary. And that would have been correct. And although all of that is true of Paul, that is not the designation he chooses for himself. What he says of himself is I am a servant of Christ Jesus. The word used for servant here means a born slave. One born as a slave into a household in the first century was called a douloss. And that's the word he uses here. One born into the household as a slave whose life is bound to his master, whose life is lived out every day serving that master with no regard for his own interests. And that's how Paul sees himself. He is a servant of Jesus Christ. No matter who you are, no matter how far you've gone in life, no matter what position you may have climbed to, no matter what ministry you may have in the church, we are all servants of Jesus Christ. One whose lives should be focused around him and not our own interests or our own gain. So he calls himself a servant. Secondly, he calls himself an apostle. He says, called to be an apostle. The apostles were special men in the first century who were uniquely gifted by God with miraculous powers. In fact, to be able to do things that would give them credentials that would show their message was true. And it carried the very stamp of God, the authority of God on it. The apostles in order to be an apostle, to qualify, you had to have seen the resurrected Christ. So these were first century men. The apostles, there are no apostles today. The apostles were first century guys who had walked with Christ in their ministry or in Paul's case, an exception, had seen him after his death. As Paul was saved on the road to Damascus, he saw the resurrected Christ directly commissioned by the resurrected Christ. And so these men, these apostles gave forth the message of God in the first century and helped to establish the church. But then Paul says, I am set apart for the gospel of God. And that's the one he focuses on in the rest of these verses. Set apart for the gospel. That means he was focused on the gospel. He was uniquely focused on the gospel. He was concentrated on the work of the gospel. That's what it means to be set apart for the gospel. So Paul's whole life, his mind, his heart, everything focused on the gospel, concentrating on the gospel. That's his passion, that's his purpose. And notice how he describes it. He says, first of all, I am set apart to the person of the gospel. Verse two, he says, this gospel was promised beforehand through his prophets and the Holy Scriptures. But notice what the gospel is about. Verse three, it's about a person regarding his son who as to his human nature was of the sendent of David and who through the spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the son of God by his resurrection from the dead. Jesus Christ our Lord. Now he focuses on the person of the gospel first. And Paul is set apart focused, concentrated on not just the truth, but he's concentrated on a person, the person of the gospel, Jesus Christ our Lord. And he describes him in both his humanity and his deity. It's a very balanced way of looking at Christ. Verse three, his humanity. He says as concerning his human nature, he was of the sendent of David. I mean, you know, we talk about our ancestors. We talk about our parents, grandparents, maybe great grandparents, maybe we can go back to some famous figure in the past that we've come from. You know, Jesus Christ descended from David. That's his humanity. But verse four, he was declared by his resurrection, shown by his resurrection, to be not only man, but God, the son of God. And so Jesus Christ, the God man, the one who is after the seed of David, who's qualified to sit on David's throne, but also who is the son of God, man and God, this one is called by Paul, Jesus Christ our Lord. That's the summary of it all. He is Jesus. That's his human name. That was the name given to many babies in that day. Jesus was his human name, his humanity. Christ means Messiah, the one who is equipped and uniquely positioned by God to sit on David's throne. And then he is our Lord. He is God. So Paul is first of all set apart, focused on, concentrated on, the person of the gospel, Jesus Christ our Lord, but also he is set apart to the purpose of the gospel. Not just the person, but the purpose of the gospel in verse five, threw him and for his name's sake. In other words, for his glory to bring him glory, we received grace and apostleship and here's the purpose of the gospel to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. In other words, to take this gospel and spread it to everybody we can so that they hear about Christ, Jesus our Lord, and they turned him in faith, they're saved, and as a result of that, they walk a life of obedience then to him. What he's talking about is taking the gospel to everybody we possibly can take the gospel to. That's the passion and purpose of Paul's life. He's focused on that. The person and the purpose of the gospel, are you a gospel person? Am I a gospel person? Am I concentrating on focused on my whole life centered around? Is your life centered around Jesus Christ and his work of getting the gospel to other people? You say, well, I'm not a preacher, I'm not a missionary. That's not what we're talking about. Every one of us in this room who knows Jesus Christ can have this same passion and purpose that Paul did because we can be focused on the person and work of Christ. You say, well, John, I got to live in the make. I got a job to do every day. Certainly, we all do. But we all need to recognize that God has put us here not just to work a job to get stuff to live and save up for retirement and then leave to our kids. That's not the purpose. The purpose is that wherever we are, whether we're in the classroom, the factory, the mind, the office building, in our car representing our company, wherever we are, we are representatives of Jesus Christ on this earth and we're to be focused on him and on taking his gospel with us wherever we go so that when God opens doors, we're ready. We're ready to share the gospel. We're living out our commitment to Christ so that people see that we're gospel people, that we're focused on him and his work no matter where you are, no matter what you do, you can be set apart for the gospel like Paul was. Is your life really focused on that? Is that your passion? Is that your purpose? What is it that may be keeping you from that? If you can't say yes, that's where I am. I'm focused on that on Christ and his work of getting the gospel to the world. That's my life focus. If you can't really say that, then you need to ask yourself the question, what's keeping me from that? Is it sin? Is it something of the flesh that I treasure and enjoy too much to really give my heart's focused to Christ? Is it apathy? Is it just an unconcerned, you know, a lukewarmness living a halfway Christian life? Is that it? Is it maybe a pursuit of the things of this life that has got your heart all bound up and your purpose and passion is in making a living rather than living the Christian life? What is it that may keep you from this passion and purpose? This is the weekend of the Masters, Godthornham, probably the most prestigious Godthornham in this country. In 1961, one of the greatest goffers of all time, Arnold Palmer had the Masters in his grasp on Sunday, the last day of the turnip, walking up the 18th green, last hole, 72nd hole, he's got a one shot lead and he had a beautiful drive off the tee, middle of the fairway, long, just beautiful. He's got the tournament and he's grasped and as he's walking up that famed 18th fairway at Augusta National Goff Club, everybody's applauding Arnold Palmer and he's looking around at the crowd and he noticed on one side of the fairway a friend that had been kind of following him around the course and he walked over and shook that friend's hand and the friend congratulated him on winning the Masters. He lost his focus. His next shot flew into a sand trap, he blasted out of the trap over the green, chipped onto the green, missed a putt, made a double bogey and lost the tournament on the last hole. He said, it taught him a lesson, he never forgot and that is you keep your focus all the way through the end, all the way through the last shot. Have you lost your focus? Have you lost your passion and purpose for life? The purpose for your life in mind is not to be here getting stuff and making a living, our passion and purpose ought to be centered around the person and purpose of the gospel, Jesus Christ and his work of spreading the gospel to all the world. That's our passion, it's our purpose, at least it ought to be, but Paul says there's more to it than that. It's not only that part that is my passion and purpose set apart for the gospel. He also says part of my passion and purpose is serving, serving in the gospel. Notice how he says this in verses 8 through 12. Verse 8, he says, first I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith is being reported all over the world. God, here it is, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his son, is my witness how constantly I remember you and my prayers at all times. And I pray that now at last by God's will the way may be open for me to come to you. Now we'll go on through verse 12 in just a moment, but what I want you to see here is that Paul is talking about how he served in the gospel. He mentions three ways that he served others in the framework of the gospel work, three ways that he served others. This is a great part of our life, passion and purpose is serving others in the context and the framework within the parameters of the gospel we can serve others. And three great ways to do it Paul says he was serving first of all by praying. Did you notice that in the verses we just read he was praying for the Romans. And that was one of the ways he serves Christ and others in the gospel. Now Paul mentions actually three different kinds of praying in these verses. And by the way, I would commend this to you as a great pattern for a disciplined prayer life. I want to challenge you this morning because one of the greatest ways you can serve others and serve Christ is through prayer. Really is. One of the greatest ways you can advance the cause of Christ and his kingdom around the world is through prayer. And so I want to challenge you to develop a spiritual discipline of prayer. And these are three good things to include in the kind of praying that we ought to be doing if we're going to develop a discipline of prayer. First of all, praise. Praise ought to be a part of that discipline to prayer life. In verse 8, Paul says first, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith is being reported all over the world. So he spent some time in his prayer time thanking God for the Romans and what was happening among them to spread the gospel. You spend any time thanking God for other people, for our missionaries, for those who may have impacted you in your understanding of the gospel, led you to Christ, for Sunday school teacher, you helped you understand the Bible, for youth pastors, others who through the years have helped you to grow in your faith, for others who are serving with you, for friends, family members. Are you thanking God for people? That will be a regular part of our time of prayer. But not only does Paul pray by thanking Paul also praise with regular consistent prayer. Notice, verse 9, God whom I serve with my whole heart and preaching the gospel of his son is my witness. Notice this, how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times. Constantly, at all times, in my prayers, just that word itself indicates a regular routine habit, spiritual discipline of praying. Do you have that? Do you have some time in your life that you say, this is my time of prayer or is the only time you pray when you're in trouble? God help me get out of this fix. Is that the only time you pray? Or maybe it's the only time you pray right before the lights go out at night and you say, Lord, I don't know if I did anything wrong today, if I did, please cover it up, forgive me and help me to be safe and be good tomorrow and good night. Is that the only time you pray? It's the only kind of praying you do. Is there, and I'm not saying it has to be an hour or two, is there any kind of regular discipline of prayer in your life? Paul could say, in my regular prayers, I constantly pray for you at all times. That's a regular need on my prayer list, if you will, that I remember is the Roman church. Do you have that kind of prayer life? So, praise, regular prayer, and then urgent requests. In verse 10, he says, I've got a special request here, and I pray that now at last by God's will, the way may be open for me to come to you. See, praying for the Romans all the time, but now he's got a special request in regard to them that he's praying for right now. This is on his heart, on his mind. So, he's praying for this diligently right now that God will open the door for him to come visit them. That's a third kind of praying, and that is about special urgent requests that are up on your heart. That ought to be a part of our regular prayer time as well. Some time in praise, some time with just those regular requests that we spread before the Lord every day, maybe a list that you use of people and ministries and things you pray for for your own life or whatever, but then there should be those times of praying for urgent needs. Right now, this is something I want to pray for for this brother or this sister or my own life or my family. You have those kinds of prayer times? One of the best ways to serve God in the gospel and to serve others through the gospel is in prayer by praying and Paul lays out a pattern here for us. They're two ladies in this church, and I'm not going to call their name. I think they'll know who they are. Two ladies in this church, at almost every time I have seen them since I came back in January, I said, I'm praying for you. Give me an update on what's happening with you know, either the sale of your house or then the move. Now that getting into a new house and other things and getting back here in the ministry, almost every time I see them, they say that. And I really believe that although there may not be a lot of other things that they do can do in the ministry of God, they are serving God in the gospel through prayer. And I'm convinced in my heart that part of the blessing God has shouered out out upon us in making this transition as smooth as it is because of their prayers. I'm convinced of that. They've been praying. Okay, are you praying? Are you serving in the gospel by praying? Secondly, Paul said, I'm serving in the gospel by fellow shipping. Look at this. What's he praying for? Verse 10, that the way may be opened for me to come to you then verse 11, I long to see you. Paul wants to be with the Romans. He wants to see the Romans. He wants to fellowship with the Romans. We all need that as believers. We all need fellowship with other believers. We all need to be able to share our lives with others to get to know people, to begin to laugh together, cry together, pray together, share our needs, live life in community, in fellowship with other believers. We all need that. You'll never grow like God wants you to grow in isolation. I mean, that's been tried throughout church history. There were guys in the early years of church history that said, I want to get away from the world. I'm going to live in a cave. And they tried to deny themselves of any contact with other people and so forth. That didn't work. It's been tried. You cannot grow properly in isolation. You need the fellowship of other believers. A couple of months ago, I preached the message on fellowship and you may recall that we talked about certain ways you can find fellowship among God's people. You've got to be proactive about that. You see, it doesn't just happen. Get in a Bible fellowship. A smaller group that will give you some fellowship time at the beginning of the class where you're sharing a cup of coffee and a donut, maybe a full breakfast as some of those classes have. And you're fellowshiping with others, getting to know other people and you sit down by someone in class, you find out they've got the same interest you do and maybe found out about their job. You get to know people and you begin to share your life with other people. That's a start. Get in a Bible fellowship. Get in a ministry of some kind of this church, which will put you with a smaller group of people that have the same interest in that ministry and you can learn to know there are lots of ways to find fellowship. We all need that. We all need that. Paul said one of the ways that I'm serving in the gospel is I want to come see you folks. I long to be with you. But then the third way he's serving in the gospel is by strengthening the purpose for his coming to be with them is not just to drink cup of coffee and have a donut. That's just the entree into fellowship. That's not fellowship itself. What he wants to do, look at this. This is ministry. He says I long to see you, verse 11, so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong. He wants to strengthen them. And he realizes that's a two way street, verse 12. That is that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith. So Paul says I want to come so that I can minister to you so that I can use whatever giftedness God has given me, whatever spiritual gift God's given me to strengthen you, to build up your faith and I believe you'll do the same for me. Now that's part of what what fellowship is all about. That's part of what serving is all about is ministering to one another using the God-given spiritual gifts. And by the way he's given every believer some ability to serve him. And the way you find that out is not by just waiting for God to write it on the wall. You find it out by getting involved in ministry. And as you do you find your heart getting ignited by something and you're effective in something and other people are saying wow that's a blessing to my heart and that's how you identify your spiritual gift. But God's given us all some kind of ability to serve him. Usually it corresponds, it harmonizes whatever, whatever passion and heart longing and desire is given us to do something that will impact the world for him, that will impact one other life for him. So we've all been given some kind of ability to serve him and when we plug that in to his work then we are blessed and others are blessed. That's what Paul's talking about. I will strengthen you and you will encourage me. We'll encourage each other as we serve together in the gospel. So Paul talks about serving in the gospel. That's part of his passion, his purpose. Are you involved in any kind of serving? If you don't give your life in some way to help other people to serve someone else by praying, by fellow shipping, by strengthening or in some other way, then you're not living your life for things of eternity. You're living for wood hands, stubble. You're chasing sticks. So Paul says, purpose and passion in life is to be set apart for the gospel. It's to serve in the gospel but thirdly it's also sounding out the gospel. Paul said, I'm I'm set apart. I am serving in the gospel and I'm sounding out the gospel. He sounded out the gospel. Look at verse 13. I do not want you to be unaware brothers that I planned many times to come to you but have been prevented from doing so until now. And here's the reason in order that I might have a harvest among you just as I've had among the other Gentiles. I'm obligated both to Greeks and non-Greaks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I'm so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome. Now we'll stop right there for just a moment. Paul says, I have as my passion and purpose to sound out the gospel, to preach the gospel. You say, okay, I'm off the hook on that one. I'm not a preacher. I don't know, I'm not going to let you off the hook that easy. The word that Paul uses here is not the normal word for preaching. The word which means to herald forth, to proclaim publicly like I'm doing this morning. That's not the word he uses. He uses a different word which is not the normal word for preaching. It means literally to carry a message. You, Angolids, of my carry a message is the same word as angel, a messenger. It's a messenger to take the gospel and any of us can do that. You don't have to be a preacher to do that. You can share the message of the gospel with anybody. Any of us can do that. And so that's what Paul's talking about here is sharing the message of the gospel with other people. Now notice how he does that. Verse 14, first of all he does it as a debtor. He says, I'm obligated, both the Greeks and non-Greaks, both to the wise and the foolish. He realizes he has a moral obligation to share with others the gospel of Jesus Christ. You've ever been driving down the road and you see something that's happening, maybe an accident or somebody pulled off looking like they're having trouble and you just feel obligated to try to help to do something. There's just kind of a moral obligation. Somebody's in trouble. I got to do something, whatever I can to help. I remember a number of years ago, back in the 80s when we were living in Indiana, we'd gone to a neighboring town, done a little shopping or something and we were coming back up route five to South Whitley, Indiana. And I looked over to my left and there was a house on fire and nobody was around. And the things burning up, I mean flames are coming out the windows. It's just almost consumed in flames. And so I just felt, I got to do something. And so I pulled off right across the road. There was another house right beside the one that was burning. And so I knocked on the door of that house, got comes to the door. I said, it did. The house over here is burning. Have you called nine ways? You called the fire? Do you know the house is on fire? Yeah, I know. I said, well, have you done anything? Have you called? No. And he went on to explain the fire department using that as a test burn. It's an old house. They're burning it down. And I said, well, why aren't they still here? He said, well, they've finished. It's almost gone. And he said they just asked me to kind of look over. It's an old building of mine. Well, now, you know, I felt an obligation to do something when I saw what was happening, even though it didn't turn out too well. We have a moral obligation to warn people because all around us, there are people who are dying without Christ. And that means they suffer an eternity of separation from God in a place that is described as a lake of burning fire. Are there people around us who are slipping away into a Christless eternity? We have a moral obligation. We cannot just drive up the road like nothing's happening. We've got to stop and share the gospel with people. I was a passion of Paul's life. And he did it as a debtor. I have a moral obligation to do this, but he also did it willingly for 15. That's why I'm eager to preach the gospel. Nobody had to twist these army. He was eager to do it. He did it willingly and thirdly, he did it unashamedly. Verse 16, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Are you ashamed of the gospel? Are you ashamed of Jesus? Do you get tongue tied when there's a wide open opportunity to declare your faith and share what Christ means to you? Do you back out of that? Christ was not ashamed of you. He was not ashamed of you. Don't ever forget that. He was willing to leave all the glories of heaven and came down here for the express purpose of dying for your sin. And he did so in a humiliating way. Stripped naked, spread eagle on a cross, the cruelest form of torture known, a slow death. In the midst of a crowd who was scorning him and mocking him the whole time. And he was unashamed. He was unashamed. He didn't do, he did that for you. He did it for me. He was not ashamed to die openly, publicly, humiliating, shameful death. How can we be ashamed of him? Paul shared the gospel unashamedly. That's why he did it. That's how he did it. Why? Why does he share the gospel? And why should we share the gospel quickly because of the power of the gospel? Verse 16, I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. And maybe you've heard before that this word is a word we get the word dynamite from, but that's the wrong idea. It is the Greek word dunamis. The word dynamite might come from it, but it's the wrong concept of power. It's not what the Greek word means. The word doesn't mean explosive power. We get another English word from this word dynamic. And that's the idea. An inherent power, something that is inherent in the gospel. An inner working power, a dynamic. When you share the gospel with someone, you unleash an inner dynamic that God then takes and plants in the heart and brings about, hopefully, conversion in that person's life. There is something in sharing the gospel that is unlike anything else you will tell someone else. It has an inner dynamic, a power to bring salvation. So that's why we share the gospel, but we also share it because of the content of the gospel. Verse 17, four, here's why we share it, four, in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last. Just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith. It quotes from a back at two. Paul quotes twice from that. The writer Hebrew is also quotes from it. It's a foundational concept. But what Paul's saying is because of the content of the gospel, I must share it. It's a passion and purpose of my life. Because the gospel tells you the only way you can get to heaven. He says in the gospel is revealed, the only way you can get to heaven is revealed, a righteousness from God. That's the only way you can get to heaven, the only way I can get to heaven. Our righteousness is not good enough. In fact, the Bible says that our righteousness is, are like filthy, dirty rags that are good for nothing but to be discarded. That's how our righteousness looks in the sight of God. Because God's standard is perfect holiness. For all to have sinned and come short, what's the standard? Come short of the glory of God. So we can't work up our own righteousness. We need a righteousness from above. We need a righteousness from God. And God offers that in the gospel. Paul said it also in Romans, or Ephlipians chapter 3, in verse 9, where he said, this is his desire to be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, in other words, being keeping the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, a righteousness that is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. So this is a righteousness that is a gift from God, it's given to you by God, and it comes to you, it's received like you receive any gift, by faith. You just take it, you trust that what Jesus did for you on the cross was sufficient to pay for your sins, and you trust that sacrifice as the only hope for you to get to heaven is the only way for salvation. And that's why Paul says here in Romans 1, this is by faith from first to last, from beginning in, salvation is by faith, nothing else. You cannot earn your way to heaven by your good life. You need a righteousness being right with God, which is from him, which is given by him as a gift, and you receive by faith, trusting what Jesus did on the cross to pay for your sins. That's how you get righteousness. Don't get confused about the content of the gospel. Don't miss the message. If you miss this message of the gospel, you miss heaven. You miss eternity with God. You can't miss this. It's so important that you understand, salvation is a righteousness given to us by God. It comes by faith in Jesus Christ, not through joining the church, not through getting baptized, not through living a good life. It's a gift of God through Christ. December 17th, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright completed their first successful flight, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, 59 seconds. They kept their little biplane that looked like a bicycle with wings on it up in the air, first flight. And in the excitement, they jotted off a telegram to their sister in Dayton, Ohio, these bike makers who had a bike making shop in Dayton, said, our first flight, 59 seconds in the air, hope to be home by Christmas. And she was so excited to get that telegram, she took it to the editor of the local newspaper. And sure enough, the next day, the headline reads, famous bike makers to be home by Christmas. This is a life-changing discovery, the ability to fly for the first time. And he missed the message. He didn't get the content right. Don't miss the message. Don't get the content wrong in the gospel. The gospel is very plainly a righteousness that comes from God. It is not worked up and presented to him. It is given from him down to us and is received by faith because of the content of the gospel. Our passion should be to preach the gospel. Everyone in this room needs to ask yourself these two questions. Number one, have you received God's righteousness? Have you received God's righteousness? Please ask yourself that question. Please don't think you're going to get to heaven because you're a good person. Have you received God's righteousness? That's the only way to be saved to know that you're delivered from sin and punishment of that sin to get to heaven. Second question, all of us need to ask ourselves, is this, are you, as a believer, wondering aimlessly through life? Are you wondering aimlessly through life? Are you living with passion and purpose set apart to the gospel, focused on the gospel, focused on the person and work of the gospel? Are you serving in the gospel, involved in ministry, making some impact for the glory of God on this earth and somebody's life by praying or by fellowshiping or by strengthening others or whatever? Are you serving in the gospel? Are you sounding out the gospel? Is that the passion and purpose of your life? Are you doing something that counts for eternity or are you just chasing sticks? Christian songwriter Matthew West and his latest project has a song called The Motions and he says this ought to play it for you this morning because he sings it with the passion that this song deserves. He says this might hurt, it's not safe, but I know that I've got to make a change. I don't care if I break, at least I'll be feeling something because just okay is not enough and he breathes this prayer, help me fight through the nothingness of life. Here's the chorus, I don't want to go through the motions, I don't want to go one more day without your all-consuming passion inside of me. I don't want to spend my whole life asking, what if I had given everything instead of going through the motions? I don't know about you but I don't want to, I don't want to ask myself at the end of my life, what would it have been like if I had given everything? What would that have been like? I don't want to be asking that question at the end of life rather than going through the motions, are you just going through the motions, are you just chasing sticks or does your life really have purpose and passion to it? Focused on the gospel, serving in the gospel, sharing the gospel. Is your life being lived out with passion and purpose or are you going to come to the end of your life and be asking yourself that question? Wonder what it would have been like if I had given everything. Would you pray with me please?