Humanity, We’ve Got a Problem

Bigger Than a Mission to the Moon

Obviously, my title is a play on the famous phrase from the Apollo 13 mission to the moon. It is actually a misquote. The exact quote came as a result of an explosion onboard the spacecraft. Jack Swigert, the pilot, said, “Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” Regardless, the phrase is used now to describe an unforeseen problem, with a sense of ironic understatement.

Well, sin is the problem that Paul talks about as Romans begins.

How can we get rid of sin? Not by giving in to the sin and “getting it over with” or “getting it out of our systems.” Thinking this is sheer deception, a way to justify our actions. Furthermore, sin does not decrease in a heart that is not yielded to God. Sin pours gas on a flame that explodes, resulting in death.

In one movie some shipwrecked men are left drifting aimlessly on the ocean in a lifeboat. As the days pass under the scorching sun, their rations of food and fresh water give out. The men grow deliriously thirsty. One night while the others are asleep, one man ignores all previous warnings and gulps down some salt water. He quickly dies.

Ocean water contains seven times more salt than the human body can safely ingest. Drinking it, a person dehydrates because the kidneys demand extra water to flush the overload of salt. The more salt water someone drinks, the thirstier he gets. He actually dies of thirst.

When we lust, we become like this man. We thirst desperately for something that looks like what we want. We don’t realize, however, that it is precisely the opposite of what we really need. In fact, it can kill us.

What we need is not another dose of deadly salt water, with so-called “benefits,” like those of sin, are fleeting, deceptive, and disastrous. Continuing in sin will only end in death. What we need is a dose of Living Water, whose “end” is eternal life![1]

God Has Made Himself Known to All

Let’s take a look at how Paul introduces his teaching:

                  Read Romans 1:18-20

Romans 1:18–20 “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

Romans 1 leaves no room for one to claim that they didn’t know. There is a God sized hole inside of all mankind that can be filled with nothing but God.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 refers to God’s placing of "eternity in man’s heart." God made humanity for His eternal purpose, and only God can fulfill our desire for eternity. All religion is based on the innate desire to “connect” with God. This desire can only be fulfilled by God and therefore can be likened to a “God-shaped hole.”

We actually spent an entire message on these verses at the beginning of the year when I introduced our 2025 theme, Everyone Reach One, in a message called “Scratch It!” Everybody has an itch that needs to be scratched – it is the God sized hole that can be filled by only God. C.S. Lewis believed that mankind tries to solve it in either one of two “wrong ways” or the “right way”.

The 1st of the two wrong ways is blaming things that fail to provide permanent satisfaction: another vacation, another car, another wife or another husband. If they could just find ‘the real thing’.

The 2nd wrong way is to become the cynic. These people don’t expect too much so they aren’t too disappointed when they do not get it. This is the best approach for those who don’t believe in eternal life or a ‘blessed hope’.

The right way – the Christian Way – goes like this:

“The Christian says, ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.”[2]

Ignoring God is Deadly

Romans 1:21–28 “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not…”

The problem, though, is that humanity ignores this hole or attempts to fill it with things other than God.

· Jeremiah 17:9 describes the condition of our hearts: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”

· Solomon reiterates the same concept: “The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live…” (Ecclesiastes 9:3).

· The New Testament agrees:

o “The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so” (Romans 8:7).

o Romans 1:18-22 describes humanity ignoring what can be known about God, including presumably the “God-shaped hole,” and instead worshiping anything and everything other than God.[3]

Sin is a Horrible Downward Spiral

Paul describes the descent of the creation. Remember that the Garden of Eden was God’s ideal for mankind. However, because of man’s disobedience and sin, they were removed from the Garden. Do you remember what is described afterwards?

- Cain kills his brother. Cain is banished as a wanderer throughout the earth.

- 2 chapters later we learn that the world was wicked.

Genesis 6:5 (NIV) 5The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.

- Noah and his family are the only ones found righteous and become the saviors of mankind, an example of Christ.

That is the history of sinfulness, but Paul wants the Romans to understand that sin persists. In verse 29 there is a verb tense shift.

Romans 1:29 (NIV) 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,…

The verb phrase "they have become" is in the present perfect tense. This tense is used to describe actions that started in the past and continue to the present. This is the situation of the world as we know it.

Boice puts it this way: “When we run away from God we think our way will be uphill, because we want it to be so. But the way is actually downhill. We are pulled down by the law of moral gravity—when God lets go” (1991, 1:179).[4]

Idolatry leads to immorality. When people reject God’s authority, they replace it with their own authority. In effect, they take God’s place and do what they want without restraint.[5]

Mark 7:20–23 (NIV) 20He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

Sinfulness culminates into a person who doesn’t just participate in a sin or live in sinfulness, but they will approve the sin:

There was a high-profile trial that ended this past week. Seans Diddy Combs was acquitted on the most serious charges. During the trial many of us were shocked to hear details of his lewd and immoral behaviors at indecent parties. From an article I read, once the jury gave their “not guilty” verdicts on the most serious charges, Diddy gestured prayer hands toward the judge and jury then got down on his needs to apparently thank God. The audience cheered him and outside his fans mimicked his immorality, lewdness, and evil…a celebration of wickedness.

Romans 1:32 (NIV) 32Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

And, so, Paul begins his next thought…God’s judgment.

The Wrath of God

The concept of the wrath of God was presented at the beginning of our passage today:

Romans 1:18 (NIV) 18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness,

God has a right to His anger. Retribution for sinfulness is the natural result of willful sin. Paul will tell the Galatians:

Galatians 6:8 (NIV) 8Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

It is a terrible thing when God abandons a wicked person to his or her own ways and lets sin run its course. This is the worst judgment God can give to sinful people—to lift His restraining hand and allow them to do as they please.

God manifests His wrath by paying sinners what they deserve. The punishment fits the offense. The just payment for wickedness and rebellion is death. Rejecting God, the source of life, leads to death. People reap what they sow. “The wages of sin is death” (6:23). Sin in any form progressively grows stronger, spreads, and becomes worse. Whoever chooses to abandon God and truth for his or her own way launches on a downward slope that leads to destruction.[6]

Don’t Worry, there is a Solution!

Romans 3:22–24 (NIV) 22This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

[1]Leadership Ministries Worldwide, Practical Illustrations: Romans(Chattanooga, TN: Leadership Ministries Worldwide, 2004), 86–87.

[2]Excerpt From Mere Christianity. C. S. Lewis. https://books.apple.com/us/book/mere-christianity/id360638379. This material may be protected by copyright.

[3] https://www.gotquestions.org/God-shaped-hole.html

[4]William F. Lasley and Richard Dresselhaus, Romans: Justification by Faith: An Independent-Study Textbook, Third Edition (Springfield, MO: Global University, 2010), 47.

[5]William F. Lasley and Richard Dresselhaus, Romans: Justification by Faith: An Independent-Study Textbook, Third Edition (Springfield, MO: Global University, 2010), 47.

[6]William F. Lasley and Richard Dresselhaus, Romans: Justification by Faith: An Independent-Study Textbook, Third Edition (Springfield, MO: Global University, 2010), 48.