Romans Series: Romans 1:13-17

Romans Series: The Gospel Changes What You See

June 7th, 2026/Seventh Day Adventist

Intro:

Last week we began our journey through the book of Romans, and honestly, we barely made it out of Paul's introduction. We spent our time looking at identity and community. Paul reminded us who we are before he ever told us what to do. He reminded us that we are loved by God, called by God, and belong to Jesus.

Up to this point, Paul has been building toward something. It's almost like watching a great movie where you know something significant is coming. The music starts to change. The tension starts to build. The story keeps moving forward. You can feel that the writer is leading you somewhere important, even if you don't know exactly where you're headed yet.

It's like watching The Sixth Sense for the first time. The clues are all there, but you don't fully understand them until the reveal. Then suddenly everything makes sense. That's what Paul is doing here. He's been dropping clues for 12 verses, and now we finally arrive at the moment he's been building toward all along.

Questions to consider:

Why was Paul willing to leave everything behind?

Why was Paul willing to endure shipwrecks, beatings, imprisonment, rejection, and persecution?

Why did this Gospel consume him so completely?

Today Paul finally gives us the answer. Paul is about to show us what happens when the Gospel truly gets hold of a person. It changes what they see.

That's why this passage feels so timely for our church. This summer we're leaning into a culture where nobody gets overlooked.

But here's what I've realized: you can't manufacture that kind of culture through systems alone. Only the Gospel can create a heart that genuinely sees people the way Jesus sees people.

That's what happened to Paul. The Gospel had so transformed his life that he could no longer walk into a city and simply see crowds. He saw people. He saw opportunities. He saw souls.

As Paul unpacks these verses, we're going to discover that the Gospel doesn't merely save us for someday. It transforms us today. It changes how we see people, how we see ourselves, and how we see God.

Scripture Creed:

This is my Bible.

It is God-breathed and true.

It tells me who I am
And how He calls me to live.

It is alive and active.

It never returns empty,
But accomplishes its purpose.

It is a lamp to my feet
And a light to my path.

Heaven and earth will pass away,
But His Word will remain forever.

I will hide His Word in my heart,
So I might not sin against Him.

I will meditate on it day and night,
So my life will be fruitful.

So today,

I will receive it with humility.

I will believe it with faith.

I will obey it with courage.

My mind is ready.

My heart is open.

My life will never be the same.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

Passage:

Romans 1:13-17 CSB

13 Now I don't want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I often planned to come to you (but was prevented until now) in order that I might have a fruitful ministry among you, just as I have had among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am obligated both to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish. 15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.

Pray:

Title: The Gospel Changes What You See

Main Points:

1. Saved People Are Sent People (13-15)

   1. 13 Now I don't want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I often planned to come to you (but was prevented until now) in order that I might have a fruitful ministry among you, just as I have had among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am obligated both to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish. 15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
   2. Explanation: Paul now reveals why he has wanted to visit Rome for so long. He says he often planned to come but was prevented until now. His desire wasn't driven by comfort or opportunity. He wanted to come because he believed there was Kingdom work to be done. He longed to strengthen the believers in Rome and eventually use Rome as a launching point for taking the Gospel even farther west into Spain.
   3. Paul didn't see Rome as a destination. He saw it as a mission. In fact, that's one of the defining characteristics of Paul's ministry throughout the New Testament. Paul was never thinking about arrival; he was always thinking about advancement. Wherever he went, he wasn't asking, "How can I get comfortable here?" He was asking, "How can the Gospel move forward from here?" Wherever Paul looked, he saw people who still needed to hear about Jesus.
   4. Paul says he wanted to have a fruitful ministry among them. Meaning, he wants to see lives changed. He wants to see people strengthened. He wants to see the Gospel take root and multiply.
   5. Then Paul says something that can sound strange to modern ears. He says, "I am obligated both to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish." Paul isn't talking about financial debt. He's talking about Gospel responsibility. The grace of God transformed his life so profoundly that he now feels compelled to make sure others hear about Jesus.
   6. The Gospel didn't simply rescue Paul from something. It sent him to something. And I think that's one of the easiest things for Christians to forget.
   7. Many of us understand that Jesus saved us from sin. We understand that He saved us from judgment. We understand that He saved us from death and gave us eternal life. But sometimes we forget that salvation isn't just about where we're going someday. It's about how we're living today.
   8. The moment Jesus saved Paul, He also sent Paul. And the same thing is true for us. If you have been converted, you have been commissioned! If you have been saved, you are being sent!!!
   9. Reinforce Big Idea: Paul encountered Jesus and the Gospel changed what he saw. He stopped seeing crowds and started seeing souls.
   10. Illustration: I think most of us know what it feels like to be overlooked.
   11. Maybe it was walking into a room where everyone seemed to know each other and nobody knew you. Maybe it was being the new kid at school. Maybe it was sitting alone at lunch. Maybe it was showing up somewhere hoping someone would notice you and feeling invisible instead. What's interesting is that when you read the Gospels, Jesus seemed to have an uncanny ability to notice the people everyone else overlooked. (I mean… He was perfect)
   12. He noticed Zacchaeus when everyone else saw a traitor. He noticed the woman at the well when everyone else saw her failures. He noticed blind Bartimaeus when everyone else wanted him to be quiet. He noticed children when everyone else thought they were a distraction. Over and over again, Jesus moved toward the people others moved past.
   13. The more time I spend studying Paul's life, the more I realize that somewhere along the way, Paul began seeing people the same way Jesus did.
   14. Story: Have you ever walked through a house with a realtor and thought, "There's no way anybody would buy this place?" The carpet is awful. The paint is ugly. The kitchen is outdated. The layout doesn't make sense. Most people walk through and see problems. But then a builder or designer walks through the exact same house and sees possibilities. Same house. Same walls. Same rooms. Different eyes. Nothing changed about the house. What changed was what someone could see. The potential was always there. The builder could just see something everyone else missed. That's what happened to Paul.
   15. Before meeting Jesus, I imagine Paul looked at people and saw categories. Jew and Gentile. Clean and unclean. Insider and outsider. Friend and enemy. But after Jesus transformed his life, Paul started seeing something different. He started seeing possibilities. He started seeing people who mattered to God. He started seeing men and women created in God's image. He started seeing people God loved, people Jesus died for, and people who needed the same grace that had changed his own life.
   16. Application: I wonder if that's one of the things God wants us to do this summer. As we've been talking about creating a culture where nobody gets overlooked, I don't think this starts with a strategy. I don't think it starts with a better system. It starts with asking God to help us see people differently.

   17. Think about the people God has already placed around you.

       1. What if those people aren't interruptions?
       2. What if they're invitations?
       3. What if God has strategically placed them in your life because you've been sent to them?
          18. Because when the Gospel truly gets hold of your heart, you begin seeing people the way Jesus sees people.
          19. Maybe the greatest miracle God wants to do this summer isn't changing who's around us. Maybe it's changing how we see who's around us.
          20. Prayer: “God, help us see people the way you see them!”

2. The Gospel Still Has Power (16)

   1. 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.
   2. Reinforce Big Idea: The Gospel changed what Paul saw. The world looked at the cross and saw weakness. Paul looked at Jesus and saw the power of God for salvation.
   3. Explanation: Everything Paul has said up to this point has been building toward this statement. And now he finally tells us what has fueled his life for the last twenty-five years. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel."
   4. That phrase can lose some of its force because many of us have heard it our entire lives. We've seen it on t-shirts, coffee mugs, bumper stickers, and social media posts. And if you’re a millennial, you might remember this one… *Play Souled Out by Lecrae. C’mon! Still got it.
   5. But imagine hearing those words as a first-century believer living in Rome. Rome was the center of power in the ancient world. Rome celebrated military might, political influence, wealth, education, and status. If there was ever a city that valued strength, it was Rome. And into that culture comes Paul preaching a message centered around a crucified Jewish carpenter.
   6. To many people, the Gospel sounded foolish. The Messiah was laid in a feeding trough. He grew up in an insignificant town. He spent His time with fishermen, tax collectors, and ordinary people. Then He was arrested, beaten, mocked, and crucified on a Roman cross. To the world, that didn't look like power. It looked like weakness.
   7. Yet Paul says, "I am not ashamed." The reason Paul wasn't ashamed is because he knew something the world didn't know. He had seen the Gospel work. He had seen it transform cities. He had seen it transform families. He had seen it transform religious people and irreligious people. Most importantly, he had seen it transform his own life.
   8. That's why the second half of verse 16 is so important. Paul says the Gospel is "the power of God for salvation." Notice he doesn't say the Gospel contains power. He doesn't say the Gospel points us toward power. He says the Gospel is the power of God. The Gospel is not simply information to be learned. It is the power of God that changes lives.
   9. The Gospel doesn't merely educate people. It awakens people. It brings life to what has grown cold. It restores what has grown weak. It reminds people that God is still in the business of transforming lives.
   10. Illustration: I think one of the greatest temptations for Christians is becoming familiar with something so powerful that we stop being amazed by it.
   11. Have you ever noticed that visitors often appreciate where you live more than you do? Every year people travel from all over the world to come to Colorado. They take pictures of the Flatirons. They hike the trails. They stand in awe of the mountains. Meanwhile, many of us drive past them every day without even looking up. The mountains haven't become less beautiful. We've just become familiar with them.
   12. Sometimes the same thing happens with the Gospel. The cross hasn't become less amazing. Grace hasn't become less powerful. Salvation hasn't become less miraculous. We've simply become familiar with what should still leave us in awe.
   13. It's possible to hear the Gospel so often that we forget how extraordinary it really is. We hear about the cross. We hear about forgiveness. We hear about grace. We hear about salvation. And because we've heard it so many times, it can begin to feel ordinary. Salvation… yeah yeah yeah I got that. I’m a christian.
   14. Paul never got over it. Twenty-five years into ministry, Paul is still amazed by the Gospel. He's still eager to preach it. He's still willing to suffer for it. He's still willing to travel for it. He's still willing to give his life for it.
   15. Application:
   16. I wonder if some of us need to rediscover our wonder. Not because we've stopped believing the Gospel, but because we've become too familiar with it.
   17. We know the story. We know the verses. We know the songs. We know the language. But somewhere along the way we've lost our awe. Maybe that's why Romans has been used so powerfully throughout church history. It has a way of bringing us back to the heart of the Gospel. It reminds us that our hope isn't in our performance. It isn't in our effort. It isn't in our ability to fix ourselves. Our hope is in the power of God.
   18. Some of you walked into church carrying situations that feel impossible. A relationship that feels broken. A habit that feels unbreakable. A season that feels overwhelming. A prayer that feels unanswered. Paul would remind us that the Gospel is still the power of God. Not was. Is.
   19. And that's important, because the question isn't whether the Gospel still has power. The question is whether we've forgotten just how powerful it really is. Paul hadn't forgotten. And that leads us directly into verse 17, because Paul is about to explain why the Gospel is so powerful in the first place.

3. The Righteous Live By Faith (17)

   1. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.
   2. Reinforce Big Idea: The Gospel changed what he saw. He stopped seeing righteousness as something he had to achieve and started seeing it as something God provides through faith.
   3. Explanation: Verse 17 is one of the most important verses in the entire book of Romans. In many ways, it serves as the thesis statement for everything Paul is about to unpack over the next sixteen chapters. If Romans is a mountain range, verse 17 is the peak that allows you to see where everything else is headed.
   4. Paul says, "For in it..." In what? In the Gospel. In the message of Jesus Christ. In the good news that Paul has just described as the power of God for salvation. "For in it the righteousness of God is revealed."
   5. That phrase can be confusing because when most of us hear the word righteousness, we think about behavior. We think about morality. We think about right and wrong. We think about somebody who follows the rules and lives a good life. While righteousness certainly affects how we live, Paul is talking about something even bigger here. He's talking about our standing before God. He's talking about how sinful people can be made right with a holy God.
   6. Most religions answer that question with some version of the same response: try harder. Be better. Do more. Work your way toward God. Earn His favor. Prove yourself worthy. The details may differ, but the basic idea remains the same. If you perform well enough, perhaps you'll eventually find acceptance.
   7. The problem is that deep down most of us know how exhausting that approach becomes. No matter how hard we try, there is always another standard to meet, another failure to overcome, another mistake to regret. If our standing before God depends on our ability to perform, then we're all in trouble because none of us perform perfectly. That's what makes the Gospel such good news.
   8. Paul says that in the Gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. I take that to mean a righteousness from God. Not a righteousness that comes from us. Not a righteousness that we achieve. Not a righteousness that we earn through effort, discipline, or religious activity. A righteousness that comes from God Himself.
   9. This is the great exchange at the heart of Christianity. Jesus lived the life we could never live. He perfectly fulfilled God's standard. He perfectly obeyed the Father. Then He willingly went to the cross, taking upon Himself the punishment that our sin deserved. Through faith, our sin is credited to Him and His righteousness is credited to us.
   10. That's why the Gospel is powerful. The Gospel doesn't tell us how to make ourselves righteous. The Gospel announces that Jesus has done for us what we could never do for ourselves.
   11. Paul then says that this righteousness is revealed "from faith to faith." Scholars have debated that phrase for centuries, but at minimum Paul is emphasizing that the entire Christian life is rooted in faith. We begin by faith. We continue by faith. We grow by faith. We don't trust Jesus for salvation and then spend the rest of our lives trying to earn what He already purchased. The same faith that saves us is the faith that sustains us.
   12. To support his argument, Paul reaches all the way back into the Old Testament and quotes Habakkuk: "The righteous will live by faith." That's important because Paul wants his readers to understand that this isn't a new idea. God has always related to His people through faith. Even in the Old Testament, righteousness was never ultimately achieved through human effort. It was received through trusting God and His promises.
   13. Illustration: I think one of the reasons this truth resonates so deeply is because every one of us knows what it feels like to try to prove ourselves.
   14. The problem is that no achievement ever fully satisfies. There's always another goal to reach, another accomplishment to pursue, another standard to meet. The finish line keeps moving.
   15. Tim Keller once wrote, "If you make anything more important than God, it will eventually demand more from you than you can give and disappoint you in the end."
   16. I think that's true of success. I think it's true of money, relationships, reputation, and our achievements. The reason the finish line keeps moving is because none of those things were ever designed to carry the weight of our identity. They make terrible saviors.
   17. And that's really what Paul discovered. Before Jesus, Paul thought righteousness was something he could build. After Jesus, Paul realized righteousness was something he could receive.
   18. That's why so many people spend their lives exhausted. They're trying to get from achievement what only Jesus can provide. They're trying to earn what can only be received as a gift.
   19. That's exactly what Paul is talking about when he says, "For in it the righteousness of God is revealed..."
   20. Many people approach God the same way. They assume Christianity is primarily about trying harder, doing better, and becoming more religious. They spend years climbing a ladder, hoping they'll eventually reach a place where God finally accepts them.
   21. The Gospel tells a completely different story. The Gospel says that acceptance isn't something we climb toward. It's something Jesus secured on our behalf. We don't work for God's love. We work from God's love. We don't obey in order to be accepted. We obey because through Christ we already are.
   22. Application: I wonder how many people walked into church today carrying the weight of trying to be enough.
   23. Maybe you're carrying guilt from your past. Maybe you're exhausted from trying to hold everything together. Maybe you've spent years believing that God is disappointed in you and that if you could just get your life together, then He might finally accept you.
   24. If that's you, maybe the Gospel needs to change what you see. Maybe you've been seeing God through the lens of performance. Maybe you've been seeing yourself through the lens of failure. Maybe you've been seeing Christianity as another ladder to climb. Paul would tell you to look again.
   25. Paul would tell you that your hope isn't found in trying harder. Your hope isn't found in becoming a better version of yourself. Your hope isn't found in your performance. Your hope is found in Jesus.
   26. The Gospel reminds us that our standing before God rests entirely upon what Christ has accomplished. That's why the Gospel still has power. Because our confidence has never been rooted in our ability to reach God. It's rooted in the fact that God came to us through Jesus Christ.
   27. The righteous live by faith. That was true in Habakkuk's day. It was true in Paul's day. It was true for Martin Luther. And it's still true for us today.

Closing:

As I've sat with this passage, I noticed something I had never really seen before. In just three verses, Paul gives us three statements about himself.

"I am obligated."

"I am eager."

"I am not ashamed."

Most Christians read those as three separate ideas. I think they are a progression. Paul is showing us what happens when the Gospel truly gets hold of a person.

The Gospel changes what you see.

Paul stopped seeing crowds and started seeing souls. That's why he was obligated.

Paul stopped seeing a weak message and started seeing the power of God. That's why he was eager.

Paul stopped seeing righteousness as something he earned and started seeing it as something God provides. That's why he was unashamed.

Notice the order. He doesn't start with, "I'm not ashamed." He starts with, "I'm obligated." Why? Because people matter. The Gospel had so changed Paul's heart that he first saw people, then desired to reach them, then refused to be embarrassed by the message that could save them.

That's really what Romans 1:13-17 is all about. The Gospel changed what Paul saw. It changed how he saw people. It changed how he saw himself. It changed how he saw God.

And that's the invitation for us today. To become the kind of people who see others the way Jesus sees them. To rediscover the power of the Gospel that has become familiar. And to stop striving for a righteousness we could never earn and start resting in the righteousness Christ freely gives.

Invitation:

If you want to make a decision to follow Jesus. Then join me and everyone else in the building as we pray out loud together. It’s not the prayer that saves you, but your faith, making Jesus Lord of your life. We don’t let anyone go on the journey alone. If you have faith in Jesus, then let’s join together as we pray…

Prayer of Salvation:

Jesus, I acknowledge that I need you

I confess that I have sinned against you

I believe that God raised you from the dead

And right now, by faith, I say “Jesus is Lord”

Thank you for forgiving me

By your grace I am saved

And by your power I am set free

Conclusion: