When God Gave Us Up

Children’s Bible Page 1224

Introduction: Giving Up On Piano

As a kid, I had the opportunity to take piano lessons, and honestly, I really liked it.

I have always loved music and been able to enjoy all different types of music.

And I really connected to playing the piano.

But, unfortunately, my too cool for school middle school self decided that sports were cooler than playing the piano, so I gave up on the piano.

I’m not a big person on having regrets, but that is one I still think about to this day.

I wonder if you have something that you gave up on and now you wish you wouldn’t have.

We probably all have something like that.

But, have you ever thought about God giving up on something?

It’s kind of a strange thought right?

What would God possibly choose to give up on?

What if I told you that God gave up on me and you and all of humanity?

Now, of course, as soon as I say that, we are all quick to run to the gorgeous gospel truths that God has given His son to redeem us, and God will never leave or forsake us, and God is for us, and that is absolutely the right impulse to have.

But, what the second half of Romans 1 is doing is making us sit in the very reasons why we are so in need of redemption in the first place.

Like I said last week, you cannot truly treasure the good news of the gospel as you ought until you truly grasp the weightiness of the bad news of our sin, rebellion, and idolatry against God.

Last week, we explored how we as humans have all exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is the only one who can truly and eternally satisfy our souls.

And I would say, for the most part, we are all tracking with Paul up until this point.

As believers, we can all agree that we often have allowed created things to be more weighty in our hearts than the Creator God.

But, that idea is still a bit theoretical.

Yet, Paul is going to move beyond this big picture theoretical view of idolatry today, and he is now going to flesh out what this looks like in our daily lives.

And, I’m going to warn you in advance, because it happened to me this week as I was studying.

You are going to be tempted to remove yourself from Pauls logic at this point.

You are going to be tempted to stop applying the truths of sin and idolatry to yourself, and you are going to be tempted to turn your finger from pointing inward at yourself to pointing outward toward others.

But, I want to urge you not to do that.

Actually, Paul is going to urge us not to do that next week in the beginning of chapter 2, but I’m giving you advance warning.

How does my exchanging the truth about God for a lie and worshiping and serving the Creator flesh out in my day to day life as a lost sinner? How do I continue to battle it even as a redeemed saint?

Let’s read together:

Romans 1:26–32

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.

1. In Our Idolatry, God Gave Us Up To Dishonorable Passions

When God saw humanity, including you and me, worshiping and serving created things rather than the Creator God, he gave us up to dishonorable passions.

Part of the wrath of God presently being revealed on humanity is God allowing sinful humanity to pursue their sinful and dishonorable passions full bore.

I was created to worship and honor God, so when I desired to worship and honor myself by desiring to please everyone and impress everyone in my life, no matter what, I was giving myself to a dishonorable passion.

My passion was created for the glory and honor of God, but I sinfully turned my passion toward self-glory, which is dishonorable and totally against what I was designed and created for.

No wonder I was crushed and defeated when I came to realize it was an impossible task to please and impress everyone in my life.

I was not meant for that, but I had for a time pursued it full on.

That’s just one of many illustrations from my own life of how God has given me over to my sinful dishonorable passions,

But notice, when God determines to illustrate for us what giving us over to dishonorable passions looks like, he chooses to illustrate it with the dishonorable passions of homosexuality.

Second half of verse 26:

Romans 1:26–27

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.

Notice, Paul is going to go on and list for us in our passage today 21 other ways that our dishonorable passions can manifest themselves in our daily lives,

But He chooses homosexuality as the main illustration, not because it is a more heinous sin. It is equally heinous as other sins.

But He chooses it, I believe, because it gives us such a tangible example in order for us to clearly perceive what being given over to our dishonorable passions look like.

Think about in the teachings of Jesus, many times Jesus would use very tangible, physical, every day life kinds of illustrations about everyday kinds of things like working in a field, or cleaning out your house, in order to illustrate pictures in our minds that help us understand and grasp spiritual realities.

It would make sense that the Holy Spirit of God led Paul to use the illustration of homosexuality for the same purpose.

For, what is natural based on God’s good creative and authoritative design is clearly given to us in

Genesis 2:22–25

22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called Woman,

because she was taken out of Man.”

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.

So, if a person marries, they are to marry and join themselves with the other.

Man to woman, woman to man.

Even the Creation mandate to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it necessitates a joining of a man and a woman together, who were together designed to be able to come together and have children.

The man and woman align properly in order to come together in that way.

These are honorable passions based on God’s creative design, yet in our sin, women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another.

It is such a clear tangible physical example of how we dishonor God in the very way we reject how we are designed, and give ourselves over to dishonorable passions.

Verse 27 ends, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

A reminder that sin leads to penalty, bad consequences, and ultimately death.

2. In Our Idolatry, God Gave Us Up To A Debased Mind

Romans 1:28

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.

Paul uses a play on words here.

In the original language, it is clear that Paul is saying, “Because humanity did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, he gave us over to a mind that is not worthwhile.”

It is a mind that is corrupted and cannot be trusted to make good, right, and moral decisions.

It is not altogether different than saying that he gave us up to dishonorable passions and a debased mind.

The two certainly function together as our minds, hearts, and wills are interconnected.

So, just as some people’s dishonorable passions and debased minds lead them to homosexuality,

For others, it leads them to all manner of unrighteousness

evil

covetousness

malice

Being full of envy

murder

strife

deceit

maliciousness

Being gossips

slanderers

haters of God

insolent

haughty

boastful

inventors of evil

disobedient to parents

foolish

faithless

heartless

ruthless.

One commentator I read this week listed twelve different places in the New Testament where Paul writes what he calls a vice list like he does here.

And one of the main purposes of these lists really serves the goal that we see Paul have for really the next two chapters of Romans, and that goal is to put every single human being who has been, is, or will ever be on the exact same playing field and in the exact same category:

Romans 3:23

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

All are rightly condemned in their sin.

If you can get through that whole list without seeing yourself in there somewhere, then you are radically deceived.

That’s the point Paul is trying to make.

You see, we are all tempted to be really appalled by sins that we don’t think we struggle with, while at the same time, we are all tempted to pass off sins that come very naturally to us.

It may be easy for me to stand around after the service and bemoan the sin of homosexuality and how our culture applauds it, but I don’t want to talk about the number of times I’ve been envious of someone else’s life and wish mine was more like theirs, or the number of times I have wanted to say something negative about someone else so that it would make me look a little more positive.

Yet, Paul is saying, it all comes from the same place!

It all comes from a heart that has exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen!

It is all a rebellion against how we were created to find all of our desires satisfied and needs met in our worship of the one true God alone.

It is all a complete rejection of the nature and design God gave us.

God did not design us to be rude or malicious or heartless anymore than did he design us for homosexuality.

But, in our sin, our nature rebels against God’s good design and can manifest itself in all these different ways.

Kids and youth, you were designed by God to respect and obey your parents, and your bent to disrespect and disobey is sin.

We were designed to live in harmony with one another and to lift one another up, so when we stir up strife or speak down on another, we are in sin.

You are designed to give intimate romantic affection to the opposite sex not the same if it is God’s plan for you to marry, it is a sin to live that way with someone of the same sex.

We all sin.

And notice what Paul says in verse 32.

Romans 1:32

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.

Let’s remember that Paul is writing to a group of Christians in Rome who have both Jews and Gentiles.

So, you have some people who grew up learning God’s law through the Old Testament, and others who have grown up in pagan Rome apart from God’s law.

So, what Paul does in Romans 1:18-32 is he argues for the sinfulness of man and the righteousness of God from the pagan perspective of people who did not grow up with God’s law.

That’s why he argues that He has plainly revealed enough in the created world all around us to show everyone that there is a God of eternal power.

And now, he says that they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die.

Now, chapter 2 is all going to be about how Jews who grew up with the law of God are just as bad of sinners as those who grew up apart from the law,

But for now, he says that even people who grew up with no knowledge of God’s law actually know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die.

You see, God has built into every human a conscience.

And because of that, every human society has some conception of right and wrong.

Every human believes there are some things that deserve punishment.

Even the secular postmodern who says we should be tolerant of anything and everything, becomes very intolerant of people who refuse to tolerate things they believe they should tolerate.

Ever more so, if God has made plain to us through nature that there is an eternally powerful God, the experience of seeing creatures die tells us that something has gone wrong, and we are dying from it.

If there is a God who created all this, and we just take the creation at face value, we would observe, oh yeah, a man and woman go together, in a way that a man and a man and a woman and a woman do not.

Oh yeah, surely this creator God would not want us to hate and murder one another, and destroy what he has created.

And on and on we can go.

But, since we all sin and have a sinful nature, it feels so natural to sin, that although we intuitively know that something is wrong, we believe there is strength in numbers,

So, not only do we sin, but we give approval to others who sin as well.

No one wants to sin alone, they want others to sin too.

Because then we can look around and compare ourselves and say, “See, everyone is doing it.”

It’s one thing to sin and confess it as sin.

It’s another thing to sin, cause others to sin, and then affirm sin as though it is not sin.

To many in our culture, Christianity is bigoted, hateful, and hungry to maintain power, and that’s why we decry sins such as homosexuality and refuse to be affirming of it.

Yet, for those of us who know Jesus Christ, through the precious gospel of grace, we know it is from a heart of love and care that we cannot affirm the rejection of God’s good design that leaves people separated from God and under His righteous wrath.

Yet, while we must not affirm sin, neither must we fight sin with sin.

We must never be malicious, heartless, or ruthless, and that includes toward those who affirm sin such as homosexuality or put us down for being unwilling to do so.

Instead, we speak the truth in love, and then:

Romans 12:20

20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”

We do this, because we know we are all sinners, in desperate need of salvation that can only come from the very one we have sinned against.

So, yes, there is something God has given up before.

God has given up all humanity to dishonorable passions.

And God has given up all humanity to a debased mind.

Yet, only by stunningly undeserved love, grace, and mercy, when God saw us in this place, He gave up something else in order to buy us back.

3. In His Love, God Gave Up His Son To Save Us

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 is another passage where Paul gives us another vice list, and I want you to consider with me for a moment what he says here:

1 Corinthians 6:9–11

9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. 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.

Once again, since we all know what idolaters means, none of us makes it through this list unscathed.

And when he says, “Such were some of you, He doesn’t mean some of you were sinners and others of you weren’t.”

He means that some of you were publicly known for these things.

For some people, because of the public nature of their sin and their persistence in living in sin, they are known for their sin.

When their name is brought up, their sin is the first thing that pops up in peoples’ minds.

And listen, maybe you are here today and you feel like that is you.

Maybe you’re here and you are thinking, well, maybe we are all sinners, but not everyone is known for and identified with their sin like I am.

I feel like my sins and my lifestyle choices define me with others.

Maybe you are here today, and you have lived a homosexual lifestyle, but you wouldn’t want anyone in the church to know.

Or maybe you secretly struggle with same sex attraction and you wonder why you feel and think so differently than those around you and you would be scared to death to let a Christian know.

Or maybe there is some other kind of sin and struggle in your life that you work so hard to keep secret because you are just sure that cleaned up Bible believing church people would reject you in a heartbeat if they knew about that.

And if you feel like that in any way, I wish I could sit and look you in the eye and tell you that no true genuine follower of Jesus being led by the Holy Spirit is going to judge you for whatever your deepest darkest secret is,

Because all of us are broken and wretched filled with dishonorable passions and a debased mind, if I could only sit and share with you some lies of the enemy that I am regularly tempted to believe,

And the only thing we place our hope in is the fact that though God gave us up to our own sinful passions and sinful mind, He loved us enough to give up His son.

And God’s son, Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross and suffered the death that we deserved due our sin, though He has never sinned.

Then God rose Jesus from the dead, defeating our sin that was placed on Jesus.

And for every idolater, for every homosexual, for every slanderer, for every hater of God, and I could go on and on…

For every sinner who accepts what God gave up for them in Jesus, you are washed, you are sanctified (meaning you are set apart as holy), you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (that means you are given the perfect right innocent standing before God that only Jesus deserves), and the Spirit of God lives in you.

And when you see the level playing field we are all on due our sin, and when you see the power of the gospel to wash us clean and make us right before God, you realize you no longer have to be afraid to share even your darkest secret with another believer in Jesus, because we have all walked in darkness until God saved us by His light!

You see, the church is not some holy huddle for good and self righteous people.

It is a hospital for sinful broken people who have experienced the redemption of Jesus and are now learning to walk with Him more and more even through the struggle,

Even through the darkness,

Even through seasons of stumbling and falling back into sin and lies,

Please don’t just come to church on your best day, the best time to come is on your worst day!

Because the answer to our darkness is His light.

The answer to our brokenness is His healing.

The answer to our shame is His cleansing.

The answer to our guilt is His declaration of innocence.