Romans 1, part 2

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I’m gonna invite you to Romans. Chapter one is where we are today. Romans Chapter one. This is going to be a doozy of a Sunday, because this Sunday is probably one of the more difficult passages in scripture. Some say it’s the most despised passage in Scripture. So if you’re new to ABC, welcome. We are glad you’re here. You picked a great Sunday to be a part. And if you get through today and you’re like, Hey, that’s not bad, you know, then okay, come back next week, All right? Because this is an a very interesting, challenging passage that we’re going to go through together. And part of the reason this passage presents itself this way is because it’s this is trying to bring a stark contrast to us between Romans chapter one versus 1 to 17, which we saw last week, and Romans chapter one versus 18 to 32. If you remember, the verse 16 and 17 is really the the thesis of what Romans is about, that we are not ashamed of the gospel for it’s the power of God to salvation to everyone that believes for the righteousness of God is revealed through it. Right. So that we see the power of God, the Didymus, the dynamite of God in this this gospel message thus proclaim that brings us salvation. And now, Paul, in making that statement, wants to give us the the understanding of the significance of this salvation that we receive in the Lord.

This is not just a good idea. This is a desperation for our soul to wanting to cling to this and seeing hope and God and the grace of God being delivered to us. And the best way to do that is now to to magnify it, to juxtapose it against what God is saving us from, which is sin. And so there is a stark contrast between what he says to us about the gospel last week and what he says to us in light of sin this week. And as we go further into Romans, he’s he’s going to start with seeing our need for salvation, but he’s going to continue on and and what your relationship looks like in light of Christ, what you receive in Jesus. And as we get through the first eight chapters of Romans, he’s dealing with the depth of what God brings you in the deliverance of salvation. It’s an incredible book of the Bible. In fact, we said last week that some say if you lose all other books of the Bible, but you have Romans as a follower of Christ, you’re going to be okay because you have the the basis of faith explained to us in the book of Romans. This is this is Paul’s masterpiece. In his letters, he did ministry for over 20 years. He had never been to the Church of Rome. He writes this book to them, this letter to them. And in order to give them a basis for their Christian faith, it is an incredible work to to know and to experience.

We’re going to read this, this passage of scripture. And I want us to know, when we talk about sin, the tendency is in our religious nature to then start to force morality upon people. We see things, we’re wrong in life, and we think that morality is the solution. And I want to be clear in recognizing that what we offer today, it’s not morality. It’s not a better you. It’s not a self-help guide to become a better version of yourself. That’s that’s not what we’re about as a church. That’s that’s religion. That’s something different. What we’re here to offer you is an opportunity to die, to self, to live to Christ, which is something completely different than than just simply a self-help guide. And we recognize that brokenness and the bankruptcy of of humanity apart from God, than our desire, when we see a God by grace still pursuing us in our brokenness and giving his life for us, our desire should be to want to respond to that and give our lives back to him and return. And in that we find life in Christ as Jesus has given His life for us. So. So when we come to a passage like this today, I recognize that we’re not reading this to guilt people. We’re not reading this to simply offer morality. We’re reading this as a mirror, to examine our own life and asking ourselves the question, Where are we in the Lord? We’re not here to to to to throw stones and to just play shame on people.

Our hope is that we find hope in Christ and new life and liberation and freedom in him and the freedom to enjoy life with him. And so we dive into this passage. What we’re going to look at is the idea of living life without God. What does Paul describe here in this this passage and recognizing the need for our salvation? And we don’t point to this in order to cast stones, but to recognize all of us come to Jesus in our sin. That the ground is level at the foot of the cross. But in Jesus, there is forgiveness and freedom from guilt and shame. And we have the beautiful privilege of enjoying a relationship with God, both now and for all of eternity. But Paul now is going to juxtapose Romans one versus 1 to 17 to Romans one versus 18 to 32 to talk about what a life looks like without God. And he starts off this way and this is the first blink in your notes, God’s wrath is revealed. Any anytime you start a sermon off with that as your first point, you don’t need a cup of coffee to wake you up in the morning. Right? This is God’s wrath is revealed in Romans one, verse 18 for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all in godliness and unrighteousness of men.

And remember, in 117, we saw the the righteousness of God revealed. And now in 118, he’s talking about the wrath of God revealed. And when we talk about God’s wrath, oftentimes people will find themselves appalled. I can’t believe that Grandpa loving God would talk about wrath. Right. But but it’s interesting. When God talks about wrath, sometimes we just we want to kick against that. But if someone does something wrong against you, right. You completely feel justified in your wrath. Oh, God. Talking about his wrath. But. But when someone does something wrong as me, you better look out. You better check yourself before you wreck yourself. Right. That’s. I want to show you what I’m made of. We kind of come with that with wrath. And so the question the question is, what makes your wrath better than God’s wrath? What makes you think that you’re better than the guy? Because when we often think about our own wrath, it’s. It’s a vindictive, self righteous wrath, right? Where we we bring our fury. And it’s very emotionally charged in a lot of ways. God’s wrath is not that way. In fact, God warns us over and over and is very patient with us in our brokenness and sin. And if God didn’t respond to wickedness. Ultimately we would question his goodness and justice. God can’t be good less He deliver his righteousness against sin and often give us the example.

If you’re in a courtroom and someone’s done something to violate it against you and the judge finds the person guilty, but yet chooses not to execute any judgment against the individual, you would look at that judge and say you were not just and therefore you are not good. The same thing’s true with God. If I gave us the example like this. Suppose. Suppose in your home an intruder comes in and they say to you, ignore you. I don’t like you. In fact, you get out of my way. This is my home now, and I’m going to do what I want with anything inside and anyone inside, because now this belongs to me. You would look at that individual and say, we’re about to have a problem, right? Hell, no. Hath no fury like a mother protecting her children. And you think you think about when you think about that, that that idea of here you are in your domain and this is what you have cared for, this is what you have established. This is what you want to nurture. And this is a place that you provide safety and shelter for the people that belong under that roof in which you want to care for. If you didn’t respond to that moment, can you possibly be good? You protect the things that you love. And the thing that same thing is true with God in this world. This is his home.

All things created belong to him, and he created it for his intentions, his purpose, and God cares for it better than anyone. If God didn’t respond to that and protection, when people come along and say, You know what, God, even though you’ve designed all this for your purposes, I’m coming into your place, thumbing my nose at you, saying, This belongs to me, You get out of my way. I will use it for my glory. My purpose is and what I want and to do what I want with with the things that are here in the people that are here. Because they belong to me. How do you think I should respond? And Paul opens up in Romans chapter one. And it reminds us of this. And the truth is, sometimes we don’t like wrath because what what we want is all the good things that God has to offer sometimes without God. But the truth is the only thing God owes us as people. His judgment. And the reason we’ll learn in Romans is because we’ve all sinned. And before a wholly perfect God. He he needed not offers anything but his justice. Now, when you juxtapose this against Romans chapter one verses 16 and 17, what you find is and yet gods, he didn’t. He offers a way of escape to be reconciled to him, to find his grace and enjoy his presence forever. But as it stands in our sin, what we what we should find ourselves in is God’s wrath.

Now, before we jump to conclusions about what God’s wrath might be, because I know sometimes we like to emulate on to God the things that we’ve experienced in human wrath. I want to just punt this for a minute. We’re going to come back to God’s wrath in just a moment. But let’s ask the question then why is God’s wrath revealed? And he goes on in the rest of this verse and in the next verse, and he explains us why he says it like this, who by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth. So why is God’s wrath revealed? We suppress the truth in unrighteousness. That’s what he’s saying. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. So here’s what he’s saying. This idea of suppression. If you’ve ever been swimming with the beach ball, most likely at some point in your life, one of those inflatable ones, you know, you’ve decided what will be really cool is if I push this under the water and see how long I can balance on it. And you start to do that and it’s all fun and games until all of a sudden the beach ball wants to come to the surface and next thing you know pops you in the nose and it’s not fun anymore. It just shoots up and hits you in the face. And it’s like, that’s that’s the idea of the suppression.

What he’s saying is the evidence of God is apparent to us, but we actively and if we want to deny God, what we actually actually have to do is we have to suppress him, to stifle him, to push him down, to push him away from our life. Because the the reality of God is should be so apparent to us. He gives us some reason why in just a moment. But but as human beings, in order to not give God his rightful place, we actively have to suppress the truth of who God is. In unrighteousness. We we push that down and he goes on in verse 19, and what he’s saying to us is, look, and no one’s without excuse. There is no one on planet Earth without excuse. Because the evidence of God is apparent to all of us. And so when we think about the purpose of God’s wrath, it’s to it’s reminding us that God will deliver his wrath. This is not this is not an idea of of just trying to come down with this guilt towards you. But but in reality, it’s a warning for us. Out of love. To see that in order for this God to be good, he must deliver this. But he cares enough to us to remind us of the of the path this leads us on. And we weren’t made for that. Be at our heart, and rebellion against him will suppress that.

And to recognize there is no one that has a justifiable excuse before before the Lord. So how then do we suppress the truth? And it goes on a little further and he begins to explain this. The answer is actually in in in verse 23, but I’m going to read this verse 21. He goes for his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. What he’s saying in this past. As we go back to this first, before I explain the next part, what he’s saying in this passage is that God, he has revealed himself just simply by creation. And some of you know, when you just go outside, you just say Psalm eight and Psalm 19 and the heavens declare the glory of God, right? I mean, you can just look at this and logically conclude that in order to have this creative design, there must be a creator. And theologians refer to this as as general revelation. And I think this is this is an important passage for us to consider in general revelation, because it’s general revelation. I don’t know how I got so far. Their general revelation for us is it’s this way of revealing God’s handiwork in this world. There’s a there’s what theologians refer to as special revelation. General revelation, Special revelation would be God’s word, Jesus And the flesh.

General revelation is just it’s the evidence of God himself, His handiwork. We can just see the apparent nature of God being revealed through His invisible, visible attributes in all of creation. And truth be told, this idea that that that Paul talks about in Romans chapter one, this is where I enjoy talking about with my atheistic agnostic friends when I encounter them. And and they tell me their position in this world and this atheistic agnostic way. And sometimes we hear that and we’re like, oh, you know, we went back as Christians. Like, worries us. I know why they’re like that. It’s because of science, their intelligence. Right. And I don’t want to argue with intelligence. And we sort of back away with that. But I want you to know, because a lot of times when you engage people that don’t believe in God or aren’t sure about God, what you really find out is at some point in their life, they got burned, most likely from a religious experience, and they’re just worn out by it. And as you begin to talk about them, you talk to them, you start to realize it’s not so much of an intellectual disagreement as it is more of an emotional experience that they’ve had. And in Romans chapter one, Paul comes this place and he says, I’m going to put my finger on this and I want you to think through this because we’re suppressing God’s truth and God is a God as a parent in this world.

And that’s why we’re not without excuse. And so you get the opportunity as a Christian to come along and kind of put your finger on that and say, look, no, you’re you actually acknowledge the existence of God. You’re just denying it. And you help them begin to see where they’re where they’re borrowing. From a Christian worldview, though, they claim that God doesn’t exist. And theologians have used some some thoughts throughout the throughout history to explain what those are. And the three most popular are just put on the screen here, the cosmological argument, the teleological argument, and the axial logical argument. Now, when we leave just now, there’s not going to be a quiz on this, right? I don’t really expect you to memorize these, but I do want you to know what they are because they become an important basis for being able to dialogue. You don’t have to remember these words to to to dialogue over the topic. But when you’re talking to someone that’s been worn out by a religious experience, just taking time with them is so important. I find the probably the the leading growing belief system in Utah is either agnosticism or atheism. And and there is an important place for God’s people to be able to speak in that, because in a lot of ways, if they’re worn out, they’ve had some bad experiences. You don’t have to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

God wants to be known in the lives of people. And so how do you share that with the cosmological argument? Answers the question. At least dialogs over the question Where did everything come from? Right. You can’t have an unknown cause. Cause there has to be something that started everything. And I know how the the dialogue goes in the science world. If people that are atheistic or agnostic want to go that trail, they’ll start with. It all began with matter, which you’ve already got a difficult place to be to explain how how anything could come from absolutely nothing. Right to all of a sudden just matter exists. There’s a little bit of a challenge there and not just matter. Right? You also have to have a space in time. It’s one thing just to have substance, but you also have to have space and time. You have to have a space for that substance to come into existence and a time, a point in time for that for which to exist. You can’t just have simply matter. You have to have you have to have space and and time with that. And you have to have an unclosed cause from outside of that that can bring all of that into existence at one time. And the UN calls, calls that transcends all of those things he’s got himself. It’s why you can’t explain the question or answer the question Where does God come from? Because in order to come from anywhere, you have to have a space from which to exist.

You have to have matter from which makes you up and a time from which to exist in. It’s why you have a birthday and God doesn’t because God transcends time, space and matter. He is beyond all of it. He is the unclosed cause that brings it into existence. Now, I would tell you, I don’t spend a whole lot of time with with people in dialoguing over that particular subject to cosmological argument. But rather, when I talk to people, I get more into the teleological and theological argument. The teleological argument deals with the idea of of of logic, not just where did everything come from, but how, How in the world does chaos create order? Right. If you if you can explain how something came from nothing, you then have to explain how all of that nothing made sense. How does it become logical? How does one plus one always equal two and forever equal two? Because if this world just randomly came into existence, you would expect that it’s just randomly moving into chaos. But yet science math depends on the fact that yesterday will be like today, which will be like tomorrow. It’s built on the basis of logic and the teleological argument reasons. Through that we didn’t just randomly all come into existence. It’s the basis of this. It’s like it’s like suggesting you take all of the junk in every closet you own.

You throw it into your garage and you walk away for 1000 years and come back and all of a sudden you’ve got a Lamborghini parked there, right? For, for, for, for things just to illogically come together to create something logical makes no sense. And then when you get to the the the archaeological argument, this deals with what I call the the MVP and the morals, value and purpose. So I often find in this world is when people deny God, they really borrow from a worldview that of a Christian worldview and explaining things even though they might deny God. And one of the ways that we do that is morality. Universal thoughts that people should obey. Look, if all of us just randomly came into existence. There’s not a moral aught that people there’s not a moral lawgiver. There’s no logical reason to explain why someone should obey your moral laws all across the world. The fact that you hold anything that should be good for everyone suggests that there is a moral law giver or a good giver. In fact, that was one of the basis for which C.S. Lewis came to to the Lord. He said, How? How could I cry out for things to be good unless there be God? That was his basis for argument, because there had to be someone that gave me the idea that good needed to win over evil.

I mean, I left to an atheistic worldview. All we are as human beings are just stardust bumping into stardust. Who cares what you think about a moral that someone should hold to? In fact, when you think about the the idea of value as a as a human being, there’s nothing more important about you than a rock or, say, an animal. All that really happened with your existence versus anything else in this world is that you just fizzed a different way and you sort of just became what you are. But there’s no intrinsic value in you because you’re random. Just as any rock outside. When you leave today, pick it up and you’re equal to that. It just so happens that that’s how they evolved. But yet we don’t live that way. We live recognizing the value of human life. It’s like the the age old. The question you’re on a you’re in a raft and you have a baby and a dog. I don’t know why you would be on a raft with a baby and a dog, but both go over right and and you can only save one of them. Which do you save? The answer is the baby because you didn’t know. But the reason is, is because you recognize there are some intrinsic value. And where does that come from? Because without God, it makes no sense to place that kind of. But with God you see that we’re created in the image of God and even your soul cries out.

You can’t deny it. It’s why, even in death, you don’t have to tell people who are atheistic that that your soul is grieving and death. I mean, we in death when we when we lose loved ones, our our souls grieve at a level that nothing else in life relates to. And purpose. We want to live for what matters. We long for our life to matter. And these arguments just they walk through that and you don’t have to call them arguments if you’re adverse to the word argument. We don’t like to argue with people. But but you see the basis for this and this is what Paul’s saying, is we suppress it. We suppress the truth and no one was without excuse because the evidence of God, it’s there. And he goes on further for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give things to him. But they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. And what Paul is saying is, look, it’s not an intellectual problem. It’s actually a moral problem. There are people that are educated beyond their wisdom, right? Like just walk on a college campus and talk to professors. There’s a lot of smart people doing a lot of dumb things in this world. It’s not an intellectual problem. When we come against God, it’s a moral problem. And he goes on to explain more.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immoral God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. So here’s here’s what he’s saying to us. He’s acknowledging for us what the problem is. We’re exchanging the glory of God, because what we would rather worship is ourselves. Well, we want to make life for is us. That’s why we come into God’s house, thumb our nose at God and saying we’re using it for our purposes. It’s not an intellectual problem. It’s a moral problem. We’re overstepping his authority by declaring ours beyond him. Claiming to be wise. I mean, that’s what Adam and Eve did, right? This is as old as humanity. Genesis chapter three, verse five. The statement was, and you will be like, God. Overstepping him and declaring what was right and wrong, exchanging the glory of God for their own. It’s self worship. And we all do this. We all do this. But we. We look at God and we say, But God, you know, I know what you say, but that’s for them. That’s for them. That’s a general idea for most people most of the time. But you know me, I’m the exception to this. That’s what we generally say to God, God, that’s good for everybody. But for me, in this moment, I become the exception to this. And this is I get I get a pass. And and so we we we believe the self-deception and elevate ourselves.

But what is the result in of suppressing the truth? That’s what we start to see in verse 24, the result of suppressing the truth. And this is talking again about God’s wrath. There is a natural consequence to God’s wrath. When God brings His His wrath, we often think about immediate judgment and punishment, right? There’s a story I remember about a farmer who hated God, and his farm was right next to a church, and so he decided he was going to bail his hay on Sunday. And the people in church, they couldn’t hear what the service that day. And and the farmer even wrote into the newspaper bragging about I had better crop yield than anyone. So what do you say about that to your God? You know, just publicly, just trying to shame them. And they just said, well, God doesn’t take into account what you’re doing in October, right? He’s like he’s like they’re saying God will God will bring that judgment one day, but he’s just giving you grace in the month of October. For now. That’s that was their response to the moment. And in verse 24 years, you see this. He says, therefore, God gave them up in the loss of their hearts to impurity. What it’s saying is you want to know what God’s wrath is in this moment. God says, that’s the way you want it. Fine. Reap the results of that. See how that works out for you.

A God will ultimately bring judgment. But these moments, he’s letting them go through the natural consequences of sin. Therefore God gave them up in the loss of their hearts to impurity, to dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchange the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and serve the creature rather than the Creator who was blessed forever. Amen. God gives them up when oftentimes think in terms of God’s wrath working this way. We usually read Wrath and we think very active presence and bringing judgment right in that moment. But there’s another way in which Scripture talks about his wrath, and you’re saying natural consequences of sin reap that. In fact, in Psalms 80, 81, it says this verse 11, but my people did not listen to my voice. Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubbornness of heart to follow their own counsels. God’s allowing. Them to follow the path of their lie. Which we know leads to destruction. As you follow. Follow the father of lies. Who is Satan? Now, before I read this next little verse 26 and 27, let me just let me give you a hypothetical or maybe a scenario. Let me call it a scenario because I don’t like hypotheticals. Let me give you a scenario. Suppose for a moment your tasks, you’re leading this church and you get a phone call and someone wants to you to perform their wedding.

And you say, okay, well, you can come talk to me. And they come in and they they meet with you and they say to you, you find out that it’s a 50 year old man and an 11 year old girl, and they love each other and they want to get married. Now. What do you say to that? Correct answers. No. Okay, but. But what do you say? I think I heard one person say it. All right. So good for you. But. But no. Right, but. But. But what if. What do they say to you? Well, we believe it’s right. I love I love her and she loves me and we believe it’s okay. Right? So. So what’s the harm in that? It’s just love. It’s just love, right? Who are you to rain on their parade to tell them no when they both agreed that they love each other and this is what they want to do? Let me add another level to this. What if what if their culture. Says it’s okay. What if their country says it’s legal? What if you don’t agree to do it and their country says it’s legal and you’ll face punishment for it? What do you do? Sometimes in life. Culture asks us to do things and agree with things that God doesn’t. And you have a decision to make. You can obey the world or you can obey his word. When you have a person like that that says we think it’s okay and you think it’s not okay, what do you appeal to to come to an agreement? The only thing that you can do when two people disagree is to appeal to an authority outside of yourself.

And when that authority might be the country and the country agrees with the individuals that you disagree with, what do you do? Because we understand as Christians, the greatest authority that we should appeal to is God. But what if these people don’t agree with God? For for for God’s people. The best thing that we can do in a culture that might disagree with us and whatever capacity. Is to love the Lord with all her heart, love them as best we can and share truth. When we talk about sharing truth, the only way that a heart will align with something like that is not preaching morality to them. It’s Jesus. It’s to understand that Jesus calls us to live for something completely different. There is the world’s kingdom and there is God’s kingdom. In my heart, no matter the consequence, should be inclined to follow what God’s kingdom says. And in doing that, it doesn’t mean I hate people. It doesn’t doesn’t mean I need to be unloving to people. It just means I’m following Jesus and I need to meet people where they are and help them understand Jesus. And that’s all that means. And in this world, when you when you walk through this world, you’re going to encounter people that live according to the system of this world and maybe sometimes obey those laws and sometimes obey their own personal laws.

And you’re going to meet those people throughout all of your life. And your decision as a believer should be. But I want to follow Jesus. And I’m going to love Jesus and I’m going to love people where they’re at and help them come to know Jesus. We should not expect people that that don’t know Jesus to live like they know Jesus. But we should understand in our own life, had God’s grace not entered in our world. We’re just like them. Apart from the grace of God, that’s all of us. So we don’t say things to throw stones at people. I’m reminded of when Jesus went to the woman at the well. The only person, the first person in John’s gospel, he tells I’m the Messiah, too, is the one with the well. And he tells us in that passage also her son. She’s been married five times and she’s living with someone that’s not her husband. And Jesus loves her. And Jesus. Here is truth with her. Verse 26 and verse 27 What is the result of suppressing the truth? Well, I can read this for you, too. There’s this article that came out that talked about sexual liberation, the way it’s filled our culture and specifically felled women. And there was even written by a book written by a lady who was a secular author.

So let me just tell you, I’m not promoting this book to tell you to read this book. This book, they tell you, is very abrasive book. It’s not even a Christian book. It’s got some values of Christianity in it. But the title of the book is The Case Against the Sexual Revolution. And the latest conclusion into the book is this We would need a technology that discourages short termism in male sexual behavior, protects the economic interests of mothers, and creates a stable environment for for raising children. So they recognize all of this that we’ve been telling everybody about their sexuality. It’s actually bankrupting us. And she’s like, we need we need all of these things. And she says, and we do already have such a technology, even if it’s old and clunky and prone to periodic failure. It’s called monogamous marriage. That’s what she says. And of all the things that we can pursue, this is this is what’s important for for the Lord’s people and then some or for for people in general. And in Romans chapter one, verse 26, for this reason, God gave them up. To this honourable passions for the women exchange natural relations for those that are contrary to to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving themselves due penalty for their error.

God made your body. What you do with it matters. The physical is not disconnected from the spiritual. What you do with your body is an act of worship. It’s just a matter of what you worship. Do you see your body as belonging to you? Because you’re Lord of this world. And you use it. For your pleasure and your glory. Or do you see it belonging to God? There’s not a person in this room. That does not have to yield some capacity of their sexuality to the Lord. Every one of us has something to die to self in that in order to honor God through it. And when the Bible talks about sexuality, it follows the scope of anything from pornography to rape. And anything in between. God created sexuality for a purpose. And when we live for an altogether different purposes, not about personal gratification. That leads the end of the day, though. God does make our sexuality have delight in that. But it’s in the surrendering of his purposes to the to the to the benefit of human flourishing. All of us have something to yield in the Lord in that. Which is why we can look at a passage like this today and say, look, it’s not about throwing stones at one person, but about everybody. If you look at porn and stop. If you fornicate, quit. You’re taking what belongs to the God and using it for your glory.

When you make when you make your sexuality all driven about your pleasure, what you do is you start using people as tools for your own gratification. You treat them like you would use a hammer out of a toolbox. They’re intended for your gain, your pleasure, your wants, and when you’re done, you can discard them. That is not God’s picture of people. People are made in his image. And God calls us to glorify him and bless others in the way that we live in this world. And the way that we do that as people is completely surrendering our lives to his desires above our. God, What is it that you want? Verse 2026 and 27. Then if you if you got this, what is the result of suppressing the truth? Let me let me give you one, two and three. One is God gives them up to his receive the due penalty for their error. And number three is destruction. It’s destruction. Yeah, I know. We can we look about the purpose of sexuality. I can get very simplistic in this and say, like, young ladies, when you marry or when you’re dating a young man, I know sometimes we have conversations and we’ll say like, well, my intentions are, are to marry them, so it’s okay. And what we do, because God knows the motive of our heart is intended to be married to them. And let me just say, if he really loves you, then he would push you closer to Jesus, not further from him.

On her God. Honor the Lord in the only way that happens is surrender. And the reason we surrender is to see the goodness of who he is and his grace as he gave his life for us. The Gospel. Verse, verse 28 to 32, then talks about that destruction as he continues to see his God hand. God takes his hand off when we live for our glory, rather than surrender ourselves to his. And these verses, what you see is is a life about self, a life about self, and this is what it builds. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness and evil and covetousness and malice, and they were full of envy and murder and strife and deceit and maliciousness. And they are gossips, slanders, haters of God, insolent Heidi, boastful inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decrees that those who practice such things deserve to die. They not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. We might say tolerance. It’s interesting when you look up the word tolerance in the Bible, it’s usually used with negative connotations, like in Revelation chapter two, verse 20, the Church of the Tira. It says You tolerate Jezebel in your presence.

Tolerance and love are not. Equated with one another. Truth and love is. But not tolerance of love. In fact, you can tolerate someone straight to perdition. If you love someone, you’ll stand with them and for them. I mean, that’s what Jesus did for us as we fought against him. And that’s what Romans one is. We fight against him, and yet he gave his life for us. So have you passage today, right? Every passage. But when you come from a passage like this, let me just remind you guys of the importance of of looking at both positions and Romans Chapter one from the first 17 verses in verse 18 to 32, I think Here’s Paul’s intention is to awaken the church, to realize the significance of what you mean to this world. The truth that you have. I mean, I think it’s incredible that you have a secular author writing a book, realizing the sexuality that our culture is promoting is leading our culture to a place that’s bankrupt. And what can I answer? Do they have to put in its place? That’s where you fit in. Knowing Jesus and seeing what Jesus has done for us and realize He calls us to something altogether different and being able to live for that. There was a Christian in Russia who was exiled from Russia in 1987, and he said something interesting about the American church. And I think the times are starting to change today.

But this is what he said about American Christianity as he compared it to Russia. He said, in Russia, Christians are tested by hardship. But in America, Christians are tested by freedom. And testing by freedom, he said, is much harder. Nobody pressures you about your belief. So you relax and are not concentrated on Christ, on his teaching and how he wants you to live. Church. My hope and prayer for us this morning. And so we can we compare just the two positions of what Paul has shared for us and Romans is that our hearts rests in the significance of what we received in Jesus by His grace, not by our works. But not only that, the blessing that we carry as we go forth today to be able to share this with the people, to know the goodness of Christ and to live for something altogether different because the things of this world. And they’ll bring you temporal pleasure. But at the end of the day, you begin to recognize. But really, apart from God, you have nothing. But thanks to God, He gives us his grace. It’s not about throwing stones, but finding freedom. Recognizing all of us at some point have a place where we are broken, like the woman at the well. But what does Jesus do? He meets us as his need. He loves us where we are. And he points us to the hope that we can have in him.

Romans 1, part 1

Romans 2