Sermon26-20 Rom1 "Life by Faith" Guide

Romans 1:16-17 theme verse Romans 1:16

The praise and honor and glory be to our heavenly Father who seeks true worshipers who worship Him with the Spirit and truth.

In this fifteenth Sunday of the year 2026, I pray that His grace of the application of all the benefits which Jesus earned for our salvation and the glorious ministry of the proclamation of His kingdom by the power of the Holy Spirit may be full in our life.  Last week, on the Easter Sunday, through Acts 2, we mediated on the proofs of His resurrection and its meaning. Yet, in truth we observe this Easter season for fifty days from last Sunday of Easter Sunday until the Pentecost Sunday as a time to be clothed in the life-giving power of His resurrection. Therefore, on this second Sunday of Easter season, we would like to meditate on how to live the life of faith while receiving this living vibe of resurrection through Romans chapter 1 together.

1)    The today’s passage opens the main body of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and serves to expound upon the central theme of the entire book, I mean, the gospel of justification by faith. It declares that the very essence of the good news of the gospel is that we human beings obtain God’s righteousness through faith which is the the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.

And then in the verses from 1:18 to 4:25, Paul further elaborates on this gospel of justification by faith, I mean,

a)     God has revealed His eternal power and divine nature in His creations through which all humanity can know His existence and give thanks and worship Him.

b)    However, because of sin and corruption, despite knowing that God exists, human beings did not give Him thanks or worship Him so that they became all under the judgment and wrath of God.

c)     So, in response, God inscribed His law upon the human conscience so that He intended people to live in accordance with it; yet, because their thoughts became futile, they instead pursued lives characterized by impurity and immorality.

d)    So, furthermore, God chose the Jewish people and entrusted them with His written law—specifically the Ten Commandments—to serve as the standard for how humans ought to live before Him with the purpose that, by living in accordance with His will, they could examplify for the rest of the world; yet, even the Jewish people failed to live in obedience to God’s will.

e)     Therefore, beyond the law inscribed upon the conscience and the law written in Scripture, God opened up a new path to His righteousness that sending His Son to this earth in the likeness of sinful flesh, where He condemned sin within that very flesh, He crucified Him for the vicarious atonement to meet His righteousness. Thereby, God opened a new way for humanity to receive the forgiveness of sins through faith and to attain His righteousness.

This is said the very gospel of God, which is the power of God unto salvation.

2)    Therefore, today, I hope we could learn few lessons together by meditating together on several points among today’s text.

First, we would like to meditate on the "righteousness of God" in today's text:

It refers to the inherent “righteousness of God which He possesses as an absolute righteous Being, Himself.

And secondly, it refers to the "righteousness of God” which was manifested in Jesus as the "righteous acts" that God accomplished in order to rescue humanity from the bondage of sin.

Thirdly, it refers to the saving righteousness of God through faith in Jesus, in which when we accept in faith, God forgives our sins and declares us righteous, I mean, ”we are justified," in a "forensic sense" of the "righteousness of God."

And then fourth, for those thus declared righteous, their relationship with God is restored through Jesus Christ which can be understood in a "relational sense."

Finally, it refers to the righteousness of God which works in believers during the process of sanctification as a "practical and progressive work of grace" that liberates the believer from sin and transforms them into holiness through the power of the Holy Spirit and God’s faithful and sovereign activity, which enables believers to live lives that increasingly resemble Jesus Christ by following God’s Word and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In this process of sanctification, the righteousness of God moves beyond justification to manifest as actual "goodness" and "power" that actively molds both our inner selves and our outward conduct into holiness.

3)    By the way, today’s text says that this righteousness of God can be received through faith.

And here the faith refers to believing in and confessing everything that God has revealed to us through the Scriptures as Rom 10:10.

And the Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 21 says that “True faith is not only a sure knowledge by which I hold as true all that God has revealed to us in Scripture, but also a wholehearted trust.” And also Q&A 23 teaches that the content of this true faith is the “Apostles’ Creed,” which we profess.

4)    And then as Paul cites the Old Testament verse from Habakkuk 2:4 "The righteous shall live by faith” and declares that through faith that one is justified, receives salvation, and attains eternal life, this salvation by faith not by works, had already been proclaimed in the Old Testament. I mean,

a)     even when Leviticus 18:5 declared, "You shall keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them,"

b)    Isaiah 64:6 confesses that “We have all become like one who is unclean & all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” since human righteousness can never measure up to God’s righteousness.

c)     Furthermore, Psalm 53:1–3 also declares that "there is no one who does good. and there no one who understand, who seek God. Yet every one of them has turned aside; they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one" since there is no righteous person in this world who does good.

d)    So, Psalm 32:1 declares, “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered,” thereby confessing that righteousness does not originate from within the human being nor is it achieved through human deeds.

e)     Yet, Habakkuk 2:4 says, “The righteous will live by his faith,” thereby confessing that salvation is ultimately received through faith. And also Isaiah 26:4 admonishes, “Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal.”

f)     Even, this teaching that one is justified through faith, is a truth that reaches back as far as the time of Abraham, I mean, Genesis 15:6 says, “And Abram believed the LORD, so He credited it to him as righteousness.” Thus, we can know that throughout the entire Bible, consistently it is said that one is justified through faith.

5)    However, as the Greek word “pistis”—translated as "faith" in verse 17, which quotes from Habakkuk 2:4 can refer to either "faith" or "faithfulness."

And in Habakkuk 2:4, the Hebrewאֱמוּנָה (emunah), signifies faithfulness which denotes right belief and righteous conduct that flows from it, and a life lived without falsehood.

Therefore, Habakkuk 2:4 can mean that the righteous can live by the faithfulness of God. I mean, because of God’s faithfulness in His "covenant," His people can be saved and live, despite their own iniquities.

And then this divine faithfulness ultimately finds its manifestation in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ so that Christians are the ones who believe in Him and start to live the life of faith with faithfulness within that very faith.

6)    In that sense, verse 17 says ”in Gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith”.

Here the phrase “from faith to faith” can mean

a)     the growth of faith as Calvin said, through which Christians can recognize more deeply and enjoy the righteousness of God,

b)    or that in salvation, from beginning to the end, the faith can lead us to the right relationship with God,

c)     or that the faithfulness of God, I mean, the faithfulness of Jesus Christ results in the faith of believers.

d)    or that the faith which leads to the salvation makes us live the life of faith.

7)    Furthermore, the Bible says that the believers can obtain many benefits through this faith. I mean,

a)     In Galatians 3:24, it is said that through faith, we are justified.

b)    In Galatians 3:26, it is said that through faith, we become adopted children of God.

c)     And in Hebrews 2:11, it is said that through faith, we are united with Christ and partake in sanctification.

d)    And in Galatians 3:9, it is said that through faith, we are blessed together with Abraham.

e)     And in Galatians 3:14, it is said that through faith, we receive the promised Holy Spirit.

f)     And in 1 Peter 1:5, it is said that through faith, we are protected by the power of God.

g)    And also in Ephesians 3:17, it is that through faith, Christ comes to dwell in our hearts. And that’s why Galatians 2:20 says that “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

8)    As we have seen, faith serves as the means by which we receive justification, sanctification, and various other blessings.

Yet sometimes we can believe as the Holy Spirit enables us to comprehend and helps us to believe, while in other cases, it is said that we can have understanding or knowledge after we believe first,

That’s why 2 Peter 1:5–6 says “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love” and also why Hebrews 11:3 says “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”

This principle is not new to us since even in secular world, the renowned Joseon-era scholar and writer Yu Han-jun said “If you love, you will come to know; and if you know, you will come to see—and what you see then will no longer be the same as before.”

9)    Therefore, even from the very moment of creation, God desired for us to live by faith; indeed, even the prohibition of eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a reflection of His desire for us to live by faith. Here to live by faith means not clinging desperately to the visible things of this world but rather living faithfully in the presence of God and in accordance with the principles of the Gospel. Thus, living by faith is not merely about obtaining material blessings; rather, it can be understood as establishing a right relationship with God and giving Him the opportunity to work within our lives. Consequently, as our faith matures, we naturally come to prioritize God’s will over our own desires. So I hope that having been saved by faith, we may all continue to live by faith throughout this year, thereby doing God’s will, pleasing Him, and glorifying Him.

Key Questions as Small Group Activity

Q1 Through today’s text, we became to know that we can receive the righteousness of God by grace in the Gospel which is the power of God. So after reflecting our life of faith and checking if we are living in the power of God, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Q2 And also, we became to know that faith for the salvation results in the life of faith. So after reflecting our faith and meditating on if we are living in faith, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Love you. Thank you. God bless you.

Prayer Note

Dear ( God’s attribute which you found Today ) God!

Thanks for ( something you received through the sermon or  even during the week )

Praise, gratitude and glory be to You, Lord!

Today, I realized my sin (pains) that ( the sin God reminded through the sermon ),

please forgive (or heal) me and help me not to repeat ( the sins you recognized   ).

I learned that ( something you learned through the sermon                                    )

Please help me to live in that (  learned way of life                                                )

I pray in ( Jesus’ attribute you find ) Jesus’ name. Amen.