Warning Against Ungodliness - Romans 1:18-32
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
Good morning, everybody. A little drizzly, gloomy out there. been kind of a, I don't know, one of those weeks, I guess. And it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. So we're going to continue in our series today, part two of Romans chapter one. And so Pastor Andre did a fantastic job last week and set us up on this journey that we're going to be taking here for quite a while. We're going to go kind of verse by verse, section by section to the book of Romans for the next season, couple seasons. We'll have a couple breaks in there. But I'm really excited about this. Pastor Andre and I have been talking about this for quite a while now and praying through it. And he kicked it off last week, and the Apostle Paul writing this letter to Rome doesn't pull any punches. He opens up the chapter, boom, coming and swinging. I feel like last week Andre just presented like just a giant big old steak dinner and said, let's chew on this for a while. And the theology of this opening section was just so dense. We could probably spend a week, two weeks, three weeks, a month just in this opening section. We won't do that. But Paul just loads up this letter and it's not going to get any lighter. Paul's just going to keep it coming, coming, and coming. And if Paul last week was like a pop, pop, this week is going to be that left hook coming in. So buckle up this morning. No.
But Andre did a fantastic job setting us up and Paul isn't pulling back. Paul isn't slowing down. He didn't hit the gas into the turn then he's kind of feathering off and just kind of coasting like he is in it to win it. And I think I was having a conversation with Angus, a worship leader this morning. We were talking about Paul and who he is and his zeal and his heart and his passion that just flows out of this letter is because of his heart for the gospel and who Jesus is. And this is the series, this is the theme for the entire book of Romans, is all about the power of the gospel. It's all about Jesus. It's all about who he is, what he has done, and how he's here to change lives. And so Paul doesn't pull back, and we're jumping in this morning. If you wanna give a title, Paul is gonna just hit it and give a incredible, serious warning against ungodliness. Paul is kind of preaching some fire and brimstone this morning. So you know that's not my style. That's not usually who I am. But I want to honor the scripture and honor God's word. And so we're going to jump in and dive in today, if that's all right with you guys. We're going to go for it. So let's start in verse 16 because I want to back up a smidge because Paul here kind of tags on what Andre shared last week to kind to be the on-ramp onto where we're going with the scripture this morning.
So starting in verse 16 it says this, it says, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith." "For," we're gonna go right into this section, "For the wrath of God is revealed in heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened, claiming to be wise, but they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, and birds, and animals, and creeping things. Paul runs right into this section after this opening, talking about who God is, and Jesus, and the gospel, and says, The glory of God has been shown and revealed to everyone since the beginning of creation."
Ever since the beginning of the world, God has created around us, as we look out, I love this sanctuary to be able to look out here, Look out here and to see the nature and the glory of God that points us to him. And not only in that, but God also puts within us deep down inside a desire for something bigger than ourselves. A desire for something to make us go, hmm. A desire to go, if this is the world, there's gotta be something out there. And that wooing and that drawing is actually what brings us and draws us into who God is. It's impossible to live on this planet without recognizing God, as nature is proof of his existence. Whether you're toes in the sand on the beach, you're up looking at the snow in Lake Tahoe, you look at animals. I know I make the joke around here, but you think God's creative? Look at the platypus, it's hilarious. God has a sense of humor. The sun, the moon, the stars, even Psalm 19:1, the Psalmist says, "The heavens declare your glory, "the glory of God. "The skies proclaim the works of his hands." Also says in Psalm 33 five, "The Lord loves righteous and justice. "The earth is full of his unfailing love." Jesus himself, even in Matthew seven, talks about knocking and seeking and pursuing God. anybody who knocks, anybody who's, I'm standing at the door knocking, if anybody would just answer me, I'm right there. And so Paul here is sitting this, setting this thing up to say, say Jesus and God Himself, just everything around us is leading and drawing us to Him. That's what Paul's saying. And humanity either chooses to follow that leading, which takes them to Christ and finding salvation in Jesus, or they choose not to. It's one or two of the options.
Just coming to the knowledge of God isn't enough. Let me say that again. hearing isn't enough. We just talked about this, right? In our master class series talking about the sermon on the mount, the difference between the wise builder and the not so wise builder, the one who built on rock and the one who built on sand. It wasn't an issue of hearing. They both heard. It was their choice. It was their choice that made the difference of whether they were gonna hear and choose to do that or not hear or hear and not choose to do that. Paul Paul here is saying a very similar thing. He's saying that nature itself, there's enough drawing and leading and wooing of us to begin to seek something greater. And that something greater is God. Now I'm not saying this is a salvation thing. I'm saying this is what leads us towards the salvation piece of saying yes to Jesus in our lives. What I'm talking about here is that in this wooing and drawing, there's two choices. Either we say yes to that or we say no. And for those who have chosen not to follow that leading, Paul here is saying they are led by their own desires. 'Cause we don't choose God, who do we choose? Me, ourselves. And in that choosing of their own selves, they create many fake false gods or begin to view themselves as God. Paul says it right here plainly. They became futile in their thinking, their foolish hearts were darkened, claiming to be wise. These are the results of left to our own thinking. That we begin to believe that we know it all, right? We think we have this all figured out, and we put our own crown on our own head and claim our royal throne and say, I am God. And we rule our own lives like that, and we try to rule other people's lives like that. That's what happens. And Paul says all of this is actually so foolish. Foolish because they exchange the truth of the glory of God in our lives and become self-proclaimed gods.
I think we read the Old Testament sometimes and we see these stories of the Israelite people or other nations and they're making these false gods. We go, "How crazy are they? How foolish could they be to carve something out or to cast it with molten metal or whatever and go, "This is God. I will bow down and worship this statue." How insane are these people? And yet we do it in our own lives. We're not necessarily building a little statue out of clay or rock or wood or metal, but we make idols in our own lives of money, materialism, education, a political stance, fame, influence, status, a certain neighborhood or zip code to live in, you name it, we make our own gods. And Paul here is stating a life not choosing God leads down a very, very dark path. And he speaks from experience because that was Paul when he was Saul. Before Paul came and had that encounter on the Damascus Road, and we read about in Acts, where God showed up in his life in a massive, drastic way and shook him to the point that, do I have your attention yet, Saul? That moment when Saul's idol was persecuting Christians and being the religious elite of that day, Paul says, I know what that's like to have an idol in your life, that that's all you think about. You live on it, you breathe it, you focus in on it. Every single moment of every single day I've been there and God rocked my world and saved me by His grace. And I now, Paul, am trying to tell every person I know, don't live that life because it is a dark, dark place.
Let's continue on, verse 24. "Therefore, God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth for God, about God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever, amen. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature, and men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of righteousness, evil, covetous, malice. They were full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They were gossip, slanders, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.”
Whoo! Pow, pow, left hook. Paul throws down. So to recap, to put this scripture into a couple sentences, it goes like this. "God, since the beginning of time, revealed Himself in creation and in a leading to Himself inside each of us." Humanity either chosen to follow that leading to God or chosen not to. For those who have chosen not to follow that leading, they are led by their own desires. We just read a list. entering into creating either many fake false gods for themselves to worship or bringing themselves as gods. Those desires are not of God and lead to a place of sin, choosing one's own selfishness. That selfishness, left unchecked, leads to sinful desires, which ultimately leads to sin. And Paul lists those out. He says, "Lust, greed, envy, anger, strife, malice, hate, pride, these are the results of choices." That's what this is. These left to our own demise, our own thinking, our own going, "I am God," lead to this dark place of sin.
Paul says it perfect in Romans 1.25, "Because they exchange the truth about God for a lie, and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen." Paul here also is saying that these choices aren't being made in a vacuum. But these choices here made, as he says in verse 20, that his eternal power and divine nature has been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. Paul here is saying, these people, you people, humanity, the created being of God, the created being, the only thing that was created in the image of God, us humans, understand what is being at play here. And Paul says, "You are without excuse." This hits hard. Because of the revealed God and the leading towards righteousness inside all of humanity, The consequences of the aforementioned sin that I listed off is death.
Paul's not beating around the bush. He's not buttering people up. He's not like doing the soft lead in. Paul's just like Kramer, like boom, right into the apartment going, "Hey, what's up? Do you know Jesus?" Like he's just like coming in hot. And I'm like, "Paul, bro, pump the brakes, dude." But there was obviously something in his spirit. He's hearing God saying, "Paul, I need you to tell the church in Rome what's going on. I need you to remind them what is at stake and it is their life." This isn't just a, "Hey, here's an investment opportunity. Maybe it works out. Maybe it doesn't." Paul's like, "This is serious business. This isn't something to be messed around with. And he's talking about directly saying that the end result of sin is death. And this is a place that everyone finds themselves in. This isn't for this person over here. It isn't for that worst criminal over here. This isn't for that horrible person over there. This is everyone. And Paul himself in the next chapter here, in chapter 3, we get to in a few weeks, is going to talk about this himself. He says, "No one is righteous," Romans 3 23, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." It's everybody. Paul himself then again talks in Romans chapter 7 about himself being stuck in this cycle of sin in this fleshly, this carnal, unspiritual struggle with sin. Paul understands the struggle of sin firsthand. He isn't some perfect dude out there, because we only know the perfect person to ever be on earth was Jesus. Paul isn't this perfect dude out there going, "Yep, sin's hard. You guys need to fix that problem yourselves." Paul's going, "I know it myself. I struggle with it, but he understands the implications, the drastic nature of it. And it's because of that that he can understand. And he doesn't give himself an excuse. Not only no excuse for himself, but then if you remember the ending part there, he talks about others, those around him who also know better and are supposed to be living that way and see it done in other people they basically have committed it themselves. So there's literally absolutely zero excuse of anything.
The struggle is so real in our lost and broken world. There's been a progressive degradation of morals in our society and this debate over right versus wrong. We see in society this struggle of well it's not that wrong but do I really have to do what's right? there's got to be some gray area where I can kind of play around in, right? Paul here is saying no, it's not. And I think Paul draws on this even so much so of Hebrew tradition and teaching that goes back to King Solomon himself. If you guys know, King Solomon was the son of David. He was the third great king of Israel And he himself prayed to God and asked for wisdom. And he was granted so much wisdom that it was said he was the wisest person ever to live on the face of the earth, both then and forevermore. But King Solomon was the top dog. He knew it all. He reigned in that wisdom. He led Israel well, except for his weakness. And he had a blind spot, a fleshly weakness, a struggle, that he, over time, slowly tarnished the holiness of him seeking God through opening himself up to outside influence. And that outside influence came in the form of his 700 wives and his 300 concubines. And God had warned him, even the wisest dude on Earth has weakness. They're human, not God. And King Saul himself talks about, even recorded through 1 Kings chapter 11, this understanding that this compromise in what we worship and what we allow to influence our lives leads us down a path of immorality. That idolatry ends in immorality. And I would say specifically sexual immorality. I don't think there's a difference there.
And there is nothing different from King Solomon in the early 10th century BC, but it's also true in this first century of Romans in the church in Rome, which is just coming about 20 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Rome was known for sex. They were. Rome literally worshipped sex. That's what they were focused on. Their abuse of, their pride in, the rampant infatuation of sex shaped their culture and their societal norms. life was completely influenced, wrapped up in, and surrounded in sex. Some scholars would go as far to say that that was actually at the core of the demise of the Roman Empire, was their infatuation with sex. And Paul here is giving a harsh warning against this ungodliness. Paul's giving this warning because of the wisdom he knows from King Solomon. Because the way that the Romans worshipped and viewed and participated in sex is the polar opposite of which sex was originally intended. God has this beautiful image and purpose of sex, which was different than how they viewed it in Rome. See, sex created by God, it is intended for a God-centered marriage between a man and a woman. It is the fulfillment of God's intended creation of the intimacy. And just like the day that Paul wrote this letter, our society today has a corrupt image of sex as well. taking what is supposed to be this loving, emotional communion, bringing together of two hearts, is exchanged for a cheap, manipulative, broken, loveless shell of its original form. And it's an attempt to steal away what God intended for good. Sex in itself within a God-centered marriage actually is a form of worship to God. You ever thought about it like that? And this worship towards God has been polluted by society. Paul here is saying it was never supposed to be like this. It's never how God intended it. But in our selfishness, in our humanity, We made ourselves out to be God and said, "We know better." And that's sin.
And God hates sin. He absolutely hates it. That's just who God is. He is a holy God. And because of that, there has to be a separation between that which is holy and godly and that which is ungodly or sin and evil. Psalm 5, 4 says this, it says, "For you are not a God who takes pleasure and wickedness. "No evil person dwells with you." Paul here is saying, either you're the one who sees God in His nature and the leading inside all of us and responds to follow God, or you're the one who chooses to follow our own desires, our sin nature. And this is black and white and it's hard to swallow. I don't wanna be up here saying this this morning. I don't wanna be preaching a Psalm that says, "Hey, encouragement, trust in the Lord. He'll give you every all desires of your heart. Just seek after Him, it'll all be good." But Seth's not preaching the whole Bible. That's taking this idea of God and focusing only in on this loving God. You wouldn't make an excuse, this is loving, but we've painted this image in our mind of this flowery, loving God, right? Full of grace and mercy and love. Ever patient, abounding in forgiveness. But you can't have that dimension of God without His seriousness of how He views sin. I see it in an equating of a loving parent. You love your kids unconditional. But when they do something wrong, your heart breaks for them. And sometimes that requires a punishment. Sometimes that requires having to go, "I need to get your attention because you're not walking in the way of the Lord." And as parents, that's our obligation to do so. Kids are only on lease with us for only so long, right? And we have to do everything we can to lead them towards God and to push them in that direction. And sometimes it means getting serious with them. But that means we deeply, deeply love them.
And that's what I see here. I see a God who cares for us so much that he would send his son from heaven to come down to live on earth in our struggles, continue to be perfect, to sacrifice, to give himself up a painful, painful, excruciating death on a cross. Defeat death in the grave, rise again so that we could walk in redemption with Him, but that walking in redemption of Him means He wants to change who we are. God loves us so much that He sent His Son to die for us, but He also loves us so much to not leave us the way that he finds us. That's what Paul is talking about here. And in our church, we want to have just this loving God who's accepting of all which he is, but we begin to paint this picture that puts us in a place where we put sins into categories. Well, it's just a white lie. It's not, this is just a small sin compared to this big one over here. Like I'm not going there. I'm just, no I'm not gonna look at it. If I don't look at it I don't have to admit that it's in my life. We justify our actions. We minimize the way in which those pull us apart from God and lead us in unrighteousness. Or even worse, we get into the comparison game. Well, God, I'm not as bad as that guy. Or I haven't done something as bad as they did. I mean, God, let's be honest. I show up to church once a month, drop a couple ones on the way out. Like, God, good man, right? We're good. And I'll tell you, this isn't a situation where we're losing salvation or being pulled away or works versus faith. It's still a faith-based relationship of saying yes to Jesus. But Jesus has a purpose for us. And when we compromise and we sit in these places, we're not being used fully to God for our full purpose.
Paul here is saying, stop it. Stop it. Just stop it. You know better. You know you shouldn't be doing it. Just stop it. You know better. It doesn't matter. Well, God, God, the world says it's OK. It's not that big of a deal. Now, here's the part that I hate. I'm going to quote my mother right now. Well, if everybody jumped off a bridge, would you jump off of it? I hated that as a kid. Like, Mom, I've already inspected the water. I've already checked it out. It's not that far. Like, it's going to be OK. No. Paul here is saying, you know better. Knock it off. But the reality is that everyone has struggles. Yes, 100%. Everybody's got struggles. And Paul himself, on multiple occasions, through multiple letters, says he himself that he is not perfect. Nobody is, just Jesus. And the struggle in this is that there is seen and there is unseen struggles. And the danger is the unseen. When everything on the outside looks perfect, This is that comparison game. That is so dangerous. But I also want to say this morning that the power of the gospel can overcome anything, that nobody is too far gone. Well, Pastor Chris, you just don't know. I've heard stories, man. I've heard stories of God redeeming people that never thought would ever be redeemed. Some of your guys' stories that you have shared with me, you've been in those places, and God's light penetrates the darkest of the darkest of the darkest, can break through even the calloused of hearts.
That is this power of the gospel that Paul is preaching here right now. We could get into so many different things with this scripture this morning, but I want us to focus in on as we close today, is that it doesn't have to be like this. It doesn't have to be this struggle. It doesn't have to be this power that sin might have in your life. It doesn't have to be this struggle all of the time. 'Cause God wants to free you from this. We sang a song this morning, bring it all to the table. There ain't nothing he ain't seen before. I love that line of that song. He's not surprised by any of it. So just bring it to him. And on the other side, we need to stop minimizing sin in our life. That's not that bad. God doesn't want any of it. He doesn't like any of it. He doesn't want it to have any power or any crack or anything. Do you know water is one of the most powerful things on the face of the earth? Water can get into a tiny little crack and begin to expand. And when it freezes, it presses that nothing can stop it. God doesn't want any little crack in your life, even if it's a small crack. That's God's heart.
So the question becomes for us today, how do we respond to this scripture? I think respond in a way of how can you and I live a righteous life? A life that is focused in on who God is for us, allowing him to pour over us and to cleanse us from any little tiny itsy bitsy teeny-weeny thing of sin in our life and to not go, "It's not that bad." That's the kind of attitude that King Solomon had that ultimately went to his demise. It's just one wife from this place over here. We'll put Baal up so she can worship. How can we exponentially increase the revealed glory of God in our world? To allow the gospel of God to completely saturate our lives, bringing the righteousness of God here and now. I think it's amazing that God put his glory in creation so that if nobody on the face of the earth ever recognized God or worshiped him, he would still have recognition in this place. You ever think about that?
So the question for us becomes, will we either reflect that and build upon it, or we, in our settling of saying, it's not that bad, it's not that much sin, it's just okay, Will we then detract and push away God's glory here on earth? Vision of mission says to see our community saturated with the glory of God through making disciples in the everyday stuff of life. Do we add to that glory of God being here and now on earth? Or do we detract from that? So a way to add to that is through making disciples in the everyday stuff of life. of working through all of that junk by the power of God helping each other, encouraging each other, pointing each other to go to Jesus, to Jesus, to Jesus. And this is what Paul is saying. Will we further his reflection of righteousness in this world or will we detract from it? The choice is ours.
