God's Right Wrath

Last week, we left off with looking at verses 16 and 17:

“16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

And Paul is pointing out that we all need saving, and that the only thing that will save us is God calling us into salvation through grace by faith in the redemptive work of Christ on the cross

That God reveals to us His salvation…which means we have something hindering us from knowing it without Him revealing it!

- There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!!!!!

And this is good news!!!!!

Because it also tells us we need saving from something.....

But what do we need saving from?

Lucky for us, wouldn’t you know it, Paul answers that question for us!

And it also points to the fact that this revelation of salvation is not good news unless you have a reason for good news

Read verse 18

What do we need saving from? The wrath of God

And when I say that, I know you all are probably thinking, if you’re thinking, like I was....saved from Hell

Which is true

But what did Paul say?

The wrath of God is revealed…meaning....God is already revealing His wrath, albeit partially, upon earth

Examples: Death; evil; disasters;

Interesting....so God is in the process of giving us over to His full wrath

- “....storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath”

When God fully reveals His wrath, it will be terrifying. Just go read Revelation 16

What is the wrath of God?

It’s not a bad temper, it’s not anger for no reason, it’s not ungrounded hatred, not driven by emotional whims, and He doesn’t replace His love with His wrath

Anger directed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men as verse 18 continues on

The wrath of God when fully revealed will bring everyone to judgement, a

And I don’t want to get stuck here, but I feel i need to say this:

The wrath of God is a good thing. We need God to be a God of wrath!!!!

Because God can’t be the holy, righteous God we need if He doesn’t deal with sin

Since God is infinitely good and perfect and holy, just one, EVEN JUST ONE, sin is an infinite offense on which God’s wrath must be let loose

God hates what is literally destroying us…that’s good news!

And that’s what makes romans 1:16-17 such good news! Because God, in His love.....has revealed a way for us to be removed from under His wrath!

And so God gets to have wrath, gets to show His wrath?

But Paul says it’s revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness...where does our ungodliness and our unrighteousness come from?

It comes from us, humans, suppressing His truth

Suppress - The sin of preventing, hindering, restraining, keeping from, controlling, occupy, put something else in place of

Have you ever tried to suppress your emotions…what are you doing?

You’re trying to act like they aren’t there

Jaxton when he first got nerf guns

TRUTH

Specifically, the truth of God

If you can’t look at today’s culture, especially, where we see truth being suppressed daily, then I don’t know if you’ll ever understand this

AOC - There's a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right

There is no absolute truth

I was at target last night, and there was a mirror for sale that had written on it: “Live YOUR truth”

You can’t know what is really true

This is the exact opposite idea that God is saying here

He’s saying, you’ve suppressed the truth, you’ve denied the truth

What truth is He talking about?

And how have we denied it?

Well, Paul goes on:

Read verses 19-20

Paul’s saying here, that God has revealed Himself perfectly to each and every one of us

Like to you and to me…He’s made himself known

He’s revealed His invisible attributes, so we haven’t seen God Himself, but we see Him through the natural world around us

Notably, Paul points out in verse 20, we see His eternal power and His divine nature

Meaning we can look at the world around us, and we can see that there is a God

But notice what Paul says in verse 20, he says: “they have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made”.

Well, this doesn’t seem bad right? Thanks God!

The problem is, we, humankind, then took that revelation of who God was, and suppressed it.

Whether we are looking at the galaxies in space through a telescope

Or looking at the smallest cell and seeing the meticulous design put into it

Nature

When you look at a beautiful sunset

Whether we marvel at humans and the things they design and the intelligence they show

Each other

What Paul is saying we take that information that we gather, whether it be awe, intellect, amazement…whatever....and we refuse to take it and turn to God in truth

And so God is revealing His wrath…not all of His wrath, but a bit of His wrath upon the world today…which we’ll talk about more next week

But one day, each and every person will stand before God, and they might try to stammer their way through:

But God, no one told me

But God, I never saw you

But God.......

And you know what He won’t say?

It’s okay, I’m a God of love, I forgive you

Nope..instead He’ll say

You have no excuse as Paul writes in verse 20

You saw Me, and you chose to ignore me

Verse 21 - You did not honor me as God. You did not give thanks to me as God. And your foolish hearts were darkened to me

What was once clear to you has now become unclear to you

The other morning, it was real cold out and I went to get in my truck, started it, and looked forward, and realized I could barely see in front of me......

This is a perfect picture of what is going on in our world today…what was once clear is no longer clear. We can’t see God clearly anymore…it’s blurry. We’re no longer able to see God for who He truly is because our sin has wrecked it

This is why we need the Gospel…and this is why it’s such good news.

Because, we’ve become futile in our thinking...

Our minds have become (futile means) worthless because we’ve turned away from God

And now, we claim to be wise, but in reality, where fools

Why? Because we’ve exchanged what we have the ability to know about God through natural revelation.....verse 23....for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things

We fell into idolatry

We worshiped the creature instead of the creator.

We have made everything but God the center of our lives

Again…we suppressed the truth that is able to be gleaned, and given our God-ordained affection to everything but God

Closing

Let me be clear - this wrath problem....it’s worldwide, and it affects everyone, including you and me....because we’re all willingly suppressing the truth, we’re all sinners

And we are all going to be undone by His wrath....and it will be the most terrifying experience you will ever face, to be under the wrath of God

- “ 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

That’s what makes God’s love so amazing.

Jesus took the wrath of God upon Him for you, if you are a believer in Him…so if that’s you, what better response to this week then to spend the week thanking Him and giving Him the glory

Secondly, if you are a believer....why are you living and doing the things that provoke God to wrath?

Why did you spend this week worshiping and serving yourself?

Why did you exchange the glory of God for the glory of yourself?

Guys....we’ve got to live no longer as children of wrath, but as children of God

This week is the week to lay those things down

Maybe you’ve never understood God’s wrath, or whatever, but we are to walk as children of light, not darkness!

Thirdly, we’ve got friends, family members, coaches, teammates, teachers, classmates, cashiers at the market......that are futile in their thinking, that are foolish, that are currently destined to experience the full wrath of God.

And they won’t have any excuse, because they KNOW their is a god, whether they admit it or want to admit it, they KNOW, God can be clearly seen even in their own consciences, the fact that they have one

And as believers, we have the opportunity to bring the ice scraper out, and show them Jesus, show them who God is and bring them into a right relationship with Him

The reason He is holding back the fullness of His wrath is His gracious and merciful act of patience so that others who are blinded can come to saving faith in Jesus!

It’s your call....but if you really believe this, then like Paul, there is nothing more important than the Gospel

Now, we don’t like to talk about God’s wrath do we?

People will talk about the love of God, the grace of God, the mercy of God…but the wrath of God? Come on....aint nobody got time for that

But I want to put something to you to help you to understand

God’s revealing of His wrath, and pointing towards what is to come, is one of the most loving things He can do for us

And you’re probably thinking....what?!?!?