The Consequence of Our Rejection
Romans • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish 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 and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 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 in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 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. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
We have learned thus far in Romans 1 that the God of the Bible is a God of wrath.
That His anger has been revealed from heaven because in spite of how clearly He has made Himself known, people have rejected Him.
This seems like a strange way to start a letter but we can’t appreciate the good news if we do not first understand the bad news.
We can’t appreciate salvation unless we know exactly what it is that we have been saved from.
We have been saved from God’s wrath.
God is angry, and that is very bad news for us because we are the object of His anger.
We have rejected God and there are consequences for that rejection.
The world that God has made is one with consequences.
He has made us free to make choices, but we are not free from the consequences of those choices.
7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.
Paul shows us in this passage that these consequences are one of the primary ways that His wrath is revealed.
There are 3 “exchanges” that are made in which God gives people over to themselves.
In other words there is the rejection of the truth, and then there is God’s response, the consequence to that rejection.
These things apply both to individuals and to nations.
1. They exchange God’s glory for created things.
How often do we honor and glorify things, people, or ourselves rather than God?
You were made to worship, so that even if you don’t worship God you will worship something.
To place anything before God in our lives is idolatry!
In our fallen state, we are prone to glorify anything and everything except the One who created us!
God gave them up to lust, impurity, and dishonoring their bodies.
This is basically God giving us up to ourselves.
One of the worst things God can do to a person is to give them what they want.
He is speaking here specifically about sexual immorality.
18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
God created our bodies to glorify Him.
2. They exchange the truth of God for a lie.
God is a God of truth!
Truth Matters!
17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
160 The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.
To know the truth and not live in obedience to it is to exchange the truth for a lie.
God gives them up to dishonorable passions.
3. They exchange natural relations for unnatural ones.
This is one of the most clear teachings in Scripture against homosexuality, though it is definitely not the only one.
Homosexuality is unnatural because God is the creator of nature. He has set the bounds of what is proper among those made in His image.
To deny this, is to deny one of the most fundamental institutions created by God.
The husband and wife relationship.
English Standard Version Chapter 2
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed
The relationship between a husband and wife is the most wonderful of all human relationships.
It is one of God’s greatest blessings to mankind for our enjoyment.
But this is not how the world looks at the husband/wife relationship.
The world has embraced the lie that this relationship is confining, that it is a burden and not a blessing.
Finally, God gives them up to a debased mind.
That is a mind that is worthless. A mind that is not able to discern the truth.
Indeed a mind that is hostile to the truth.
English Standard Version Chapter 8
7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
We must understand, that this is the place of all people apart from Christ.
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
Though we were once like this, in Christ we are not like this anymore.
9 Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or males who have sex with males, 10 no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God’s kingdom. 11 And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
1 Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, 2 and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God. 3 But sexual immorality and any impurity or greed should not even be heard of among you, as is proper for saints. 4 Obscene and foolish talking or crude joking are not suitable, but rather giving thanks. 5 For know and recognize this: Every sexually immoral or impure or greedy person, who is an idolater, does not have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
We live in a world where all of these things are normal and accepted. It must not be so among those who call themselves Christians.
How you live your life matters.
Your decisions have consequences.
You may choose to reject God and go your own way, but you are not free from the consequences to that decision.
The results of this are tragic.
Life outside of God’s will does not bring joy or peace.
The happiest people I know are those who live their lives in obedience to God.