Romans 1 - the reason the world needs the gospel

Bible Reading

Romans 1:18–32 CSB

18 For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, 19 since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse. 21 For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles. 24 Therefore God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served what has been created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen. 26 For this reason God delivered them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 The men in the same way also left natural relations with women and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error. 28 And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right. 29 They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 senseless, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful. 32 Although they know God’s just sentence—that those who practice such things deserve to die—they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them.

So we are busy looking at the themes of the letters in the new testament. And today we are looking specifically at why the gospel is needed in the world.

Why is it that the gospel writers were so involved and so persistent in preaching the gospel throughout the world.

Was it just that they suffered persecution, and then just told the people around them as they fled about Jesus.

Or does the World actually need the gospel? Is the spread of Christianity in the ealry church simply a byproduct of the spread of christian people, or is there some deeper fundamental need that the gospel of Jesus addresses in a way nothing else can?

well as we will see, the world needs the gospel. And it needs the gospel for three different reasons.

Firstly

The gospel is needed because everyone is without excuse

This is going to be an uncomfortable message.

This is uncomfortable because

we don’t like to think of God’s wrath

. WE don’t like to think about the God of Love,

having in this character trait of wrath.

We are potentially uncomfortable

because this speaks about homosexuality

and sexual depravity

in the context of God’s wrath.

And part of the reason these things are so uncomfortable for us,

is because we live in the world we live in.

where everything goes,

and everyone makes their own truth.

For some, our ultimate truth is God.

We believe in the God of the Bible,

and his Word rules,

or at least should rule our world.

Others believe in karma

, the idea that whatever you do in this life

will be paid back to you either in this life

or the life to come.

Others believe in reincarnation –

the idea that when we die,

we are rewarded in the next life with a life

equal to the sum of the good and bad deeds

we have done in this life.

Some believe that there is no ultimate guiding principle for life at all

, all the while failing to see

that that belief in itself

is an ultimate guiding principle.

That what is true for me, might be untrue for you.

That everything in life is subjective.

And the reason this text hits us so hard,

is because in here,

God’s word says some pretty offensive things

To a pluralistic society.

God’s word makes some very exclusive claims here about why the world is the way it is.

The Bible here declares that God is wrathful against sin,

That there is an objective morality

That right and wrong does exist

and whether something is right or wrong,

doesn’t actually depend on us, or our society’s view on the matter.

But that it depends on God’s standard.

And at some level,

we all know this.

Even if we try to deny it.

We all have a deep sense of morality,

of right and wrong.

In some deep corner of our hearts we know the shame that sin brings.

We have this deep desire to cover up, to hide ourselves

because deep down,

we are all aware

in some sense

of God’s wrath against our sin.

Every human being that lives on earth has this somewhere inside them.

It is just that most of us are too busy or too distracted

to pay attention to the voice that points out our guilt

before an Almighty God.

You know, every other year I run a profession of faith class.

And without fail I get asked the question:

How can God be wrathful

at people who have never heard the gospel?

How is God fair and just when the little pigmy tribe in the amazon,

Die

, but have never put their hope or trust in God?

How can God claim to be just when he someone never hears the gospel

, never has a chance to respond to Jesus,

and then dies?

How can God reveal his wrath against those people?

And what is our text’s response?

Because they don’t exist.

People who have never had the opportunity to respond to God,

do not exist.

That is the answer the bible gives.

God has revealed enough of himself,

in his good and beautiful creation,

to hold everyone accountable.

Romans 1:20 CSB

20 For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.

You see the world needs the gospel

because there isnt anyone in the world

who can claim to be innocent.

When we see the beautiful and glorious creation,

there is enough in it

, to cause us to seek God.

God can be understood through what he has made.

That’s what the bible says.

God can be comprehended,

understood,

known,

through what he has made.

Now how come then,

most people who see a beautiful sunrise,

don’t repent and turn to God?

Why don’t we hear of tribes,

deep in the jungle who are Christians?

Because even though we can know God through his creation,

we suppress the truth.

When we are moved by something truly beautiful,

our hearts are so set against God,

that we suppress the truth

of what that thing was meant to point us toward.

This is true of all peoples,

at all times,

everywhere.

We all have the opportunity to know God,

even in his creation,

but our sinful hearts suppress his truth

, our eyes don’t see his beauty behind the beauty of what he created,

and we push down the desire of our spirits

to relate to God.

That is the fallen state of the world.

And what that means is

that everyone

, everywhere

has no excuse for not worshiping God.

That is the biblical picture.

There are no people

who haven’t had the chance to respond to God.

And the result?

God’s wrath.

So what do we do with that?

What do we do with the knowledge that no one has an excuse,

what do we do with the fact that God’s wrath awaits all who reject him

, and that most have rejected him?

We preach the gospel.

WE share the message of Jesus.

We share the good news.

Jesus is the only way out of God’s wrath.

The gospel is needed

because no one has an excuse.

We need to tell people about God’s wrath,

we have to warn them,

some of us here probably need to turn and repent because of God’s wrath.

You see the only way out,

the only way to avoid God’s wrath,

is through trusting in Jesus and his work on the cross.

The gospel is needed because everyone is without excuse.

That is the first thing we see.

The second thing we see is that the gospel is needed because people are lost in idol worship.

The gospel is needed because people are lost in idol worship

So not only are people lost because they have no excuse not to seek God.

But they are also lost, because instead of worshiping God, they stand condemned because have devoted themselves to worshiping idols!

The gospel is needed because the world is so lost in idol worship.

Romans 1:21–25 CSB

21 For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles. 24 Therefore God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served what has been created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen.

But what is idolatry really?

What is at the heart of idol worship?

To see that

, we have to think right back to one of the first real cases

of true idolatry

that God’s people committed.

And for that we have to travel right back to Exodus 32.

Now what happens in most of the book of exodus

is that Israel camps at the foot of the mount Sinai,

where God meets with Moses,

to give him the law

that was supposed to set Israel aside as his chosen people.

And Moses actually ends up spending a significant amount of time

on the mountain

as he receives this law from God.

And what has Israel been busy doing at the foot of the mountain?

They had made an idol

, and image of a created thing.

Now we tend to think that they created this idol as something to worship instead of God.

That they wanted to worship a different god

than the real God who brought them up out of Egypt.

But that’s not quite what happened.

When they make the golden calf

– what is it that happens?

As Aaron presents this calf,

what does he say

“Here O Israel is your God,

who brought you out of the land of Egypt”.

And then proclaims that the very next day

will be a feast to the Lord,

to Yahweh.

It is not even that they worshiped a different God,

but rather that they worshiped their own interpretation,

their own image of God.

A broken and incomplete view of God.

A god reduces to the picture of a golden statue.

But look at what happens when you redefine God in your own image.

Who knows what happens in this story after teh golden calf is made and declared

“here is your God”.

What do they do?

you should read this in exodus 32.

The Israelite start cavorting in wild chaos.

We are supposed to see in our minds eye,

a frat party

a burning man dessert party

in an effort to worship God, they get drunk, and if I read the text correctly they are essentially having a dessert orgy.

Yes, that is in your bible - go read it for yourself. :)

That is what happens when you recast God in your own image.

This is what happens when you redefine God according to your own terms.

This is what happens at the heart of idolatry.

You take what is meant for good, and you turn it into evil. You take the holy standard of God’s moral character, turn it inside out and call evil acts an act of worship.

And do you know what happened to the Israelites caught in this chaotic cavorting dessert dance? They were struck down and died at the base of God’s mountain.

But O, my friends is this not the state of our world today.

We are expert craftsmen and craftswomen

when it comes to making idols.

and calling dead things our God,

and then worshiping those idols in a chaotic cavorting dance

and calling that evil good.

We are experts at this.

But it always leaves us dead at the base of God’s mountain.

A recent Christianity Today article listed 4 common things we idolize today

Number 4:

Money or stuff.

Consumerism.

Materialism.

There is a multi-billion dollar advertising industry

that is dedicated to making us believe

that if we have the latest,

newest,

most exclusive

something or other,

then we would be happy and content.

Whether that something

is a luxury car,

an overseas holiday,

the latest self help book,

or the burger from hungry jacks,

the basic premise is always the same.

If you have this,

then you will be ok.

Then you will be happy.

Then you will have the life you always wanted.

And so we buy that golden calf, and we worship at the altar of that company, only to find that actually the car breaks down, the holiday ends, the self help book wasn’t that helpful, and the burger made you fat.

That is the chaos of the cavorting dance in the dessert. It always leaves just a little bit more dead at the base of God’s mountain.

Number 3: the Idol of Image.

There is a wealth of evidence,

both clinical and anecdotal

that using social media

facebook,

snapchat,

Instagram etc

regularly makes us less satisfied

with our lives and more envious of our friend’s lives.

It is linked with higher rates of depression and anxiety.

And we feel driven

to make every post more interesting,

more risqué,

more glorious,

more insta-worthy.

Our lives becomes an endless chase at perfecting our image,

our personal brand,

and getting everything right – just so.

Just the right filter,

Just the right video,

and your life can look like everybody’s dream come true.

And the likes you know you will get,

Drives you to do things you would never do in real life.

If it wasn’t for the perceived pressure.

The problem of course is that everyone else is trying to do the same thing too.

We all chase

that feeling of joy

, the feeling of satisfaction,

the little dopamine hit

that comes when someone likes or comments on our posts.

And the problem of course is that it never lasts.

That is idolatry. That is being ruled by our pursuit for the perfect image.

And it doesn’t work. You become a slave to the insta-worthy pic. You become lost in the hunt to get just the right angle.

The chaos of the dessert dance kills you. Sometimes quite literally.

In October last year, it was reported that in the UK deaths as a result of taking selfies tripled from the year before. And Men are more than twice as likely as women to die as a result of chasing the perfect insta-worthy pic.

The chaos of the dessert dance kills you. Sometimes quite literally.

Number 2: Phones.

Our number two idol apparently is our phone.

Our phones run our lives.

How do you know if a phone has taken the place of God in your life

ask yourself this question:

if I leave the house without my phone

, will I feel anxious that something will happen to me

And I wont be OK.

That’s idolatry…

Stings a bit that one

, doesn’t it?

Number 1: Success.

Chasing success, can be an idol.

Now let’s be clear,

God wants us to be successful.

This is a true statement.

But his idea of our success

Is often far different from our idea of success.

We find satisfaction in what we think makes us successful.

That might be the promotion at work

, the big house,

the jetski holiday,

whatever success looks like to you,

it can be your idol.

Once pursuing that thing

, becomes the driving factor,

the deciding factor in how you live your life,

you have started worshipping the idol of success.

Often I think this filters down to our children

and how we prioritise

what is important for them.

What do we do with our Sundays?

Is playing footy really more important

than investing in our children’s spiritual lives?

Our idea of success for our kids,

can ruin their spiritual lives.

And before we know it,

they don’t want to come to church,

because they don’t know anyone there…

The chaotic dessert dance of success kills your worship of God.

This is why it is so important to preach the gospel.

The Gospel is needed because the world is so lost in idol worship.

but not just the world,

us too!

You see we will only give up our idols,

if we love Jesus more

, than our idols.

The more we love him,

the more our love for him

will displace those other loves in our hearts.

That is why we need to preach the gospel to ourselves.

Only when we see and teach ourselves what Jesus has done for us,

When we see what he went through to purchase us

When we see what he had to go through to set us free,

Only then can we start to love him.

That is how the gospel,

the good news of Jesus,

can set us free from these things.

It reorients our loves,

so that our love for God,

overpowers our love for these lesser things.

The gospel is necessary, because we can be lost in our idolatry.

Finally the gospel is needed.

The gospel is needed because God has started lifting his sin restraining hand from our nation

Romans 1:26–32 CSB

26 For this reason God delivered them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 The men in the same way also left natural relations with women and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error. 28 And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right. 29 They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 senseless, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful. 32 Although they know God’s just sentence—that those who practice such things deserve to die—they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them.

This is a dangerous and difficult part of scripture to preach about.

Because it speaks about God’s wrath

and what that looks like

today.

Now we have to be careful,

And make sure we understand what these verses mean

so we have to trace Paul’s thought

through the whole passage.

V18: God’s wrath is revealed from heaven,

because people should have known and acknowledged him,

but they don’t.

Therefore their thinking becomes worthless and their senseless hearts were darkened,

which led to sexual impurity in general and idolatry in particular.

And because of this,

because of people’s idolatry,

God delivers people over to their passions

, in particular homosexual desires.

God hands people over to their corrupted minds

, so that they sin and sin and sin.

And finally this leads to a society that applauds corruption and sin.

Now let’s be clear.

Paul is speaking of the Romans in this time. He did not have the western world of today in mind

But what he describes here describes life in ancient rome.

This kind of lifestyle

, as described here

was pretty common in Rome at this time.

But doesn’t this sound so familiar about our world.

All kinds of unrighteousness,

evil, greed, wickedness,

people who are full of envy

, murder,

Quarrels

, deceit and malice.

A world full of

God-haters, arrogant, proud boastful people,

disobedient to parents,

untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful.

Or perhaps even worse as in v32,

people not only do these things,

but applaud those who do them.

Wow. Is this not the world we live in today?

But friends, why is this the world we live in today?

What is the reason, the world goes like this? what is the reason society becomes like this?

Pay attention to what the text actually says here!

This kind of life

, a society governed and full of people like this,

That is God’s judgment.

That is how God pours out his wrath.

That is how God reveals his wrath.

He wants us to see the consequences of our actions.

He wants us to see what happens when he lets us have our ways.

You know we tend to think of God’s judgement

as fire and brimstone

raining down from on high to destroy the world.

And sure it has meant that in the past for some places.

But here in particular,

God’s judgement

, his wrath

, is slow and simmering.

It doesn’t come by meteor from the sky.

It comes as him,

simply slowly removing his restraining hand from the world.

His wrath

his wrath,

is him handing us over

to live exactly

in the ways

we really want.

God’s wrath essentially is him saying

“Ok so you want it your own way,

fine then,

have it your way”.

And if you want to know how far down the path we already are, just follow the flow of thought:

(make ladder with hands)

First, we turn away from God,

then we invent our own idols,

then our minds become dark and senseless

, then we deny God’s existence

and “swap the truth of God for a lie”,

and then we pervert ourselves and our society.

And the result is a chaotic world,

where you cant trust anyone or anything.

Everyone does what they see fit,

and everyone does what is right in their own eyes.

Where on this path do you think we are?

Friends we are here (indicate end).

You know,

people sometimes complain that God shouldn’t restrain us

, that he should let us live completely free.

Completely without any restraint.

That he shouldn’t overrule.

But don’t you see,

that would be the worst possible thing for us!

His restraining hand on our lives is part of his grace.

IT is a gift to us.

But God has started letting human beings in the west at least have their way.

People today bumble about in spiritual darkness,

believing they are enlightened.

But we live in a time of great spiritual darkness

. And there is only one way out.

The gospel is needed, because our world is under God’s judgement.

We are a nation stumbling in darkness.

You see the gospel is necessary because Jesus is the light.

The gospel is a foolish message though, to this world.

This message

that Jesus

, who is eternally powerful,

majestic and glorious

would make himself vulnerable

, human,

and killable.

And come to the creation that had been corrupte

d to save it.

And to do so he lived the perfect life,

never sinning even once.

But the world,

who was in spiritual darkness did not recognise him,

we hated him and

we killed him on a cross.

But on the cross God did a miracle.

He put the sins of the world on Jesus,

Jesus died under the weight of sin and God’s wrath.

He died willingly so that all who would believe in him

would have eternal life in him.

That message is foolishness to the world. IT is offensive to the world. It might even be offensive to you.

But it is the only way out.

It is the only way to have our minds enlightened.

IT is the only way to turn from our sin and be saved.

And we,

even today

have the opportunity to turn from our sinful ways,

from our idolatry,

from the lies we have been believing

and putting our trust in Jesus

as the only one who can save us.

If we will come,

if we will turn

, repent and believe

, then we can get out from God’s wrath,

and we will be saved.

That is the only message,

the only thing that will break through the darkness of someone’s life.

May we bring light into this dark world.

Amen