Crafting Idols

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. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 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. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 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. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their 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, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. 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. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 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.

Growing up in a house with 4 youngers siblings I heard and read a lot of kids stories.. One that got an exausting amount of read time in my childhood was the story, If you give a mouse a cookie.. and its more culturally relevenant version for New Brunswick. If you Give a moose a muffin.

Both stories are essentially the same. You give a mouse a cookie and he asks for a glass of milk to go with it. You give a moose a muffin and he asks for a strong cup of king cole tea to go with it.. And then an buiscuit with molasses and finally a skidoo and a camp somewhere up river.

That isn’t the actually story but the progression of the moose and mouses demands go to prove the point that you should never- ever give a moose a muffin.

Paul is now using a similar progression to show us two things in this text. The great power of sin and idolatry to drag us into even greater sin and idolatry and to show us why verses 16 and 17 are such good news!

Romans 1:18–20 ESV

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

In a complete turn around from vs 16- 17 Paul begins his argument here with the satment that that the wrath of God is being revealled. Wrath being God’s righteous responce to the unrighteous. Paul goes on to say that no one has an excuse for thier rebellion against God because creation itself reveals the glory and righteousness of God- Showing him to be just that- GOD. The righteous creator of the universe in it’s beauty and splendor.

Often when I am out hiking with folks.. witnessing the mountians, the ocean. or a sunset that is what folks like to say to me. Maybe because I am a pastor. “ who could ever say that there is no God? Look at how wonderful this is!”

And that is exactly what Paul is getting at- No one can say, there is no God- because all of creation reveals that there is a holy god to be worshiped.

But the problem isn’t us knowing that there is a God- it is what we have done with that knowledged! Paul says that we have suppressed the truth.

imagine looking at a car and saying- what a beautiful work of nature- isn’t it amazing how it grew to be just like this- on its own. that is exactly what paul says we have done- but we sometimes make it more and more complicated than it should be- like the ancient greeks who said it was the work of thier pantheon of dieties that created the world..

or the egyptians, and canaanites or jews in the wilderness who worshipped the images of animals rather than the one true God.

Romans 1:21–23 ESV

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. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

This kind of behavior led to a debasing of our very being- while the old phrase- you are what you eat is only partially true- what is very true is the phrase- you become what you worship. And rather than worshiping a righteous and loving God paul says that humanity choose to worship twisted idols and false dieties- and so we too became twisted. More specifically our desires became twisted. And mankind lost its created identity in the chaos of our desires sussumed by the worship of idols.

Romans 1:24–27 ESV

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 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. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their 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, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Here paul is saying that God allowed those nations that worshipped idols to decend even further from how they were created to flurish. He is reminding us that in Genesis 1 we were created to worship God. and that the pattern there is one of worship- of marriage ( male and female) in a union that complements and stengthens the whole community.

In contrast As humanity denythe power and law of God- they deny his plan for thier happiness as well. And one obvious example of that disconnect in Paul’s age and in ours is homosexual behaviour. When Paul was writing this letter, homosexuality and sexual trafficking of slaves was common place across the Greek and Roman world. And this was a huge contrast to the way that the jews and the gentile converts to the faith viewed sexuallity. As it is today so it was then. Christians saw the rampant sexual lisence of that age as a false offer of happiness for the gentile world. Always promising but never satisfying.

One thing I should emphasis here is that Paul is not saying that Homosexual behavior is the very worst of sins.. I have had people point to this passage to make that argument. But you can’t make that argument from here. Paul’s point is that when we have denied the existence of God sin and brokeness subsume every aspect of our lives and relationships. Outside of peace with God we cannot flourish as God intended. Any false idol that we look to for happiness with steal far more from us than it will return.

And the stain of sin grows- and the guilt of man grows with it.

Romans 1:28–32 ESV

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. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 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.

Here Paul is leaving no survivors There will never be a person who reads this who doesn’t recognize their own pet idols on this list! - Paul wants his audience to understand that he isn’t just pointing fingers at sexual sin as the root of human rebellion. But instead human rebellion is rooted in the denial of Gods existance and authority. And in our denial of God’s authority we go so far as to proclaim righteous what he declares wrong. All of

Imagine you are driving down a windy canyon road and you see a speed limit sign for 50. You think to yourself 50 seems to slow for this sort of road. Now you have 3 options- 1. You could obey the speed limit. But you don’t do that!

2. You can ignore the sign and speed down the road. You rush down the road and barely survive twists and turns fo the canyon. you might even loose control of your car and end up in the river.

3. and/or you could make your own sign and put it up next to or infront of the official sign- set your own speed limit and encoruage others to follow you into disobedience and death.

Paul is saying that that is what we have done . God’s will is revealled to all in his creation- all are without the excuse , “I didn’t know it was wrong”. . but we have denied his will and his existence and persued our own passions making idols out of the very gifts that God gave us. and as a result God has allowed us to wallow in the resulting moral chaos. hurting ourselves and others in such a way that there can be no doubt our actions merit the Wrath of God. As Paul will say later-

Romans 6:23 ESV

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul began this section by saying that two things were being revealled- one was God’s wrath which was revealled in the moral chaos, and sin of the man. The roman world was a misserable place- And the consequences of human evil were always painfully present. And so it is today!

But Paul is showing all of this to us so we can know something very important- God’s Grace has been revealled as well. And is being revealled throught the gospel.

That God sent his only begotten son the to die to redeem a broken world.

There is no hope that we can escape God’s Wrath on our own. but there is every reason to turn our eyes to christ- to stop denying that he made us, that he loves us and he has a plan for us. To turn from our sins hating the idols that have made us slaves and fools. and choosing instead to live for Christ depending on his righteousness to give us peace with God. and His Spirit help us live righteous lives in a broken and despairing world.

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