By Faith - Romans 1:18-32
Notes
Transcript
Romans 1:18-32
Romans 1:18-32
For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. 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. 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. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.
Therefore God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. 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.
For this reason God delivered them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 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.
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. They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful. 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.
What is Sin?
What is Sin?
Sin in its most simple definition just means to miss the mark. It is miss the mark, what what is the mark? Romans 3:23 tells us
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;
Everyone has sinned and missed it.
Sin is not just a list of things not to do, sin is often a corruption of good things.
Sex is a gift given to men and women to enjoy within the bonds of marriage. To use the gift in the wrong way is to sin, it is miss the mark.
To not help when it is within your power to do so is sin. Because God has given you the ability to do good but you chose to withhold the good.
To tear someone down with your words is sin. Because the power of the tongue is meant to build up and edify others.
Don’t focus on someone else’s sin. Worry about yourself
What is supposed to be our response to sin? It is supposed to be repentance and lamenting.
When we talk about sin we should be broken and no pointing fingers. It should cause us to lament.
We are supposed to first notice the beam in our eye as Jesus says in Matthew 7:3.
Lament
Lament
St. Basil the Great says, Weep over your sin: it is a spiritual ailment; it is death to your immortal soul; it deserves ceaseless, unending weeping and crying; let all tears flow for it, and sighing come forth without ceasing from the depths of your heart.
turning (to God), complaining (your anger, pain, heartache, or sadness), asking (for forgiveness), and trusting (that God has forgiven).
2 Kings 22:11
The Holman Christian Standard Bible Chapter 22
When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes.
Christian Standard Bible Chapter 5
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect
The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach the message that I tell you.” Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the Lord’s command.
Now Nineveh was an extremely great city, a three-day walk. Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, “In forty days Nineveh will be demolished!” Then the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth—from the greatest of them to the least.
When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he issued a decree in Nineveh:
By order of the king and his nobles: No person or animal, herd or flock, is to taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink water. Furthermore, both people and animals must be covered with sackcloth, and everyone must call out earnestly to God. Each must turn from his evil ways and from his wrongdoing. Who knows? God may turn and relent; he may turn from his burning anger so that we will not perish.
Our sin should be something that drives us to our knees and shows us what we really are without the Lord.
I do not often cry but when I think about the forgiveness of Jesus. When I think about how He has forgiven me, loved me, cared for me, in spite of brokenness, in spite of selfishness, in spite of my sin, I cannot help but weep. I know my sin, I know my depravity, I know how the depths of my brokenness and to know that Jesus loves me and gave Himself for me causes me to both weep and rejoice.