The sermon opens a new preaching series through the book of Romans, beginning not at chapter 1 verse 1 but at Romans 1:14-17, which the preacher treats as Paul's own thesis statement for the entire letter. The sermon frames the whole series around what it calls one of the most important questions any person can ask: how can I be right with my God? It notes that modern people tend to dodge this question by adopting anti-supernaturalism, the assumption that nothing exists beyond the material world, and postmodernism, which renders morality subjective, so that neither divine judgment nor personal guilt feels real to them. For most of history, however, mankind has been acutely aware of its own moral failure and of an impending reckoning before its Creator, which is why this question of being right with God pressed so heavily on Europeans in the early sixteenth century.

The sermon describes the dominant view of the Western Church in that period: a sinner is justified by cooperating with God's grace through participation in the seven sacraments. It uses the era's own picture of sinners as people trapped in a deep pit who cannot climb out on their own strength, but who are given a ladder, representing Christ, that they must climb rung by rung through baptism, the Eucharist, confirmation, penance, anointing of the sick, marriage, and holy orders. Through this gradual process a person becomes progressively holier until reaching moral perfection, whether in this life or through purgatory afterward, and only then is he finally justified. The sermon singles out two sacraments as especially relevant: penance, in which a sinner confesses to a priest, receives absolution, and performs assigned spiritual works, and holy orders, the process of ordination into church ministry. Both practices are affirmed as biblical and beautiful in themselves, but the sermon argues they were paired with a deadly error, namely that grave sin can cause a Christian to lose his justification entirely, so that salvation becomes something maintained by ongoing human cooperation rather than secured once for all by Christ.

Against this backdrop, the sermon sets Paul's own words in Romans, arguing that justification is credited by faith apart from works, and cites Romans 4:3-5, Romans 5:1, and Romans 8:1 to show that peace with God and freedom from condemnation belong to believers now, not as something perpetually re-earned.

To illustrate this recovered truth, the sermon retells the story of Martin Luther, who entered an Augustinian monastery out of terror of death and judgment and drove himself to exhaustive daily confession, yet found his conscience only grew more afflicted the harder he tried to remedy it through penance. As a professor assigned to lecture on Romans, Luther grew angry over the phrase "the righteousness of God," which he initially understood as God's demand that sinners be punished with perfect justice, a demand he knew he could never satisfy despite his flawless monastic discipline. His breakthrough came through Romans 1:17, "the righteous shall live by faith," when he realized that the righteousness of God spoken of in Romans is not a standard sinners must meet but a gift God grants freely to those who believe, received all at once rather than earned incrementally. The sermon recounts Luther's resulting joy, his controversial writings, his refusal to recant before the Diet of Worms with his famous declaration that his conscience was captive to the Word of God, and his providential rescue by Frederick the Wise, who had him secretly taken to a castle where he translated the New Testament into German, turning what looked like the end of Luther's life into the beginning of the Reformation.

Returning to the text, the sermon explains why Paul is not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, Jew first and also Greek, meaning the gospel is no longer confined to ethnic Israel but is extended to all nations without any prerequisite of moral improvement. The sermon draws out Paul's own transformation from a zealous, ethnically privileged Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin into a man whose confidence in the flesh was shattered on the road to Damascus, and who thereafter gladly bore the shame of preaching a crucified carpenter's son to a world, both Jewish and Gentile, that considered the message foolish. The sermon closes by insisting that Jesus receives sinners exactly as they are, tax collectors and outcasts included, and that the righteous shall live by faith alone.

Bible Verses Used

• Romans 1:14-17: The sermon's main text and Paul's summary thesis for the whole letter, introducing the gospel as the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

• Romans 4:3-5: Cited to show Abraham's righteousness was credited through faith, not works, grounding justification by faith alone.

• Romans 5:1: Cited to show that justification through faith results in present peace with God.

• Romans 8:1: Cited to show there is no condemnation, now, for those in Christ Jesus.

• Romans 1:17: Identified as the verse that broke open Martin Luther's understanding, showing that the righteous live by faith rather than by earning God's righteousness.

• 1 Corinthians 1:22-25: Quoted to explain why the gospel of a crucified Christ seemed foolish to both Jews and Greeks, yet is the power and wisdom of God to those who are called.