Romans 1:26-32
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A Few slogans have made their way into American life.
A Few slogans have made their way into American life.
I am sure you will recognize these slogans.
Live your life. You do you. You only live once. Live your best life. Just living my best life. a A slogan thats a little more antiquated. A little older. Carpe Diem.
These are all slogans that essentially urge people to just do what you want to do. Do what pleases you. And by the way, don’t judge me for me doing me.
More recently, all of these mindsets have converged into one prevailing mindset that now seems to be the latest slogan and mandate of most Americans.
Live and let live.
But have we stopped to question whether or not any of these mindsets/slogans are biblical?
The World- live your life- The Bible- whoever wished to save his life will lose it. I have been crucified with Christ. (Quote Galatians 2:20)
You only live once- Well thats not true if we believe the Bible and believe that there is a heaven and a hell
Live your best life- Do we really believe we can do this in a sin and sickness and pain infested world? One man said, “If we are living our best life now, we a re headed for hell.”
Carpe Diem- Seize the day- The Bible teaches us to look beyond today to eternity.
Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Live and let live- Now we will get to that one later, but suffice it to say each and every one of these worldly slogans is an unbiblical mindset grounded in idolatry, and short sightedness .
But This is what we see in our world today.
People who seek to live and let live. Just live your best life.
But living according to these mindsets could all end tragically because at its core all these are essentially bound and determined to pursue earthly pleasure, and in the pursuit of earthly pleasure, we have forgotten the Creator who created the earth and all it contains.
Last week we ended by discussing the reality of God’s judgment on sin both now and in the future.
We talked about how, When it comes to how God operates now, when someone is bent on sin and idolatry, he may give the unbeliever what they desire in their own heart, and it becomes judgment.
That is how he may operate now.
Later in eternity, we know how God will operate.
Those who do not trust in Christ alone for salvation will experience the reality of God’s wrath forever in a place called hell.
I will repeat again this week as we approach the realities of this passage: God is not passive concerning sin. He will not allow His glory to be wrongfully stolen by any other god.
And in his justice, he may allow the unbeliever to experience the emptiness and pain of sin.
What we find in this passage are the results of God removing his restraining hand from someone’s life.
And if we are honest, it will be hard not to see the contents of this passage playing out in our country, our communities, and maybe even in our homes.
What in the world is going on?
What we are seeing is the sin and its results play out.
When there is No desire for holiness. No desire to please God. Their minds become dulled to the reality of their sin as they continue in it, we can expect things to become dark and twisted very quickly.
Last week we learned where this all starts.
For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
There’s an exchange.
They’ve exchanged God’s truth for the world’s lies.
They’ve exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for idols.
They are worshipping the wrong things and what we see in Scripture over and over again is that people serve what they worship.
You will serve what you worship. And its an undeniable fact, that everyone is worshipping something, because everyone is serving something.
And Whether it be God as it rightfully should be, or it is money, esteem, sports, yourself, etc., we will serve what we worship.
And when we serve other unholy gods and unholy idols, we should expect unholy behavior.
Look at the first part verse 26
For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural,
We see, The punishment of idolatry is God removing his restraining hand and letting the sinner have what he or she wants.
Here in verse 26, its described as degrading passions. Other translations say dishonorable passions, shameful lusts, vile affections, shameful desires.
In either of those cases, you get the picture, its wrong and twisted passion or desire.
Now this is key here. This is not denying that their is a desire.
The problem is that it is a wrong desire. It is a shameful desire. It is a vile affection.
And it tells us what those vile and shameful desires are. It tells us what the degrading passions are.
Look at v. 26-27.
Did you hear what it said?
The women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural.
Men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts.
This is speaking of sexual action and one’s sexual desire and lifestyle.
And what we see is that the result of idolatry, is notably evident in the sexual desires of an individual and in a godless society.
This is what happens when someone individually or a society seeks to live their lives outside the bonds and boundaries of the Creator.
They give up that which is natural. They give up which they were created for, for the very opposite.
This natural and unnatural is important for us to see, because we see there is a standard.
There is the way in which God created it and designed things to work. Despite what our society and popular culture tells us, God has designed the world and us for a specific purpose. And as the creator, he gets to determine those things not us.
Let me remind you of how God originally designed man and woman.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Then in Genesis chapter 2 we see God established and ordained the first marriage and for all marriages after that, this is the God ordained pattern.
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
That is God’s design.
God’s design for sexual relationship is that it happens in the context of a marriage between one biological man and one biological woman for a lifetime.
That is God’s design. No ifs ands or buts.
To go against that design in anyway is rebellion and its not ignorant rebellion, its high handed rebellion. Its rebellion that knows its wrong and does it anyhow.
The world today would have us to believe that the standard for sex as to when it happens and who it happens with to be determined by nothing more than our particular desire at the time.
But if it does not align with God’s standard, it is wrong. It is sinful.
Adultery is wrong. Pre-marital sex is wrong. Pornography and lust is wrong. Homosexuality is wrong. Pedophilia is wrong. Transgenderism just like the rest of this is rebellion against God’s design and is therefore wrong.
Now, I don’t think I even need to say this, but this isn’t popular.
This probably would even be considered hate speech by a lot in America, but this isn’t motivated by hate or any kind of phobia. This sermon is motivated by a desire to communicate what God has said.
Immoral sexual behavior in our society is seen as something to be celebrated rather than condemned.
Our society as a whole has degraded to the point where the media, tv shows, kid’s tv shows, commercials, celebrate sin and the desire is for us to leave what God has design as good and holy(Marriage between one man and one woman) and celebrate what God calls vile, shameful, and degrading and they want us to do this in the name of love.
We live in a culture that is playing out the contents of Romans 1 and the desire is that the church would tolerate wickedness.
I would submit to you today, it is not merely toleration that our society is after.
Toleration is not the goal. Approval is the goal.
Why?
Because if we do not approve, we will have to speak against it.
Anytime we do speak the truth and speak against it, it reminds them of the truth they know in the heart but are seeking day by day to suppress.
Now I want to be clear.
As is the case with all sin, the good news is God can save from sin if they will only repent and believe the Gospel.
And We have to do a better job, as the church, of sharing the hope of the Gospel along with our confrontation of sin.
Which means, we don’t just sit back and wave our fingers in the air and say thats wrong.
We confront sin with how God confronted sin. With the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is how anyone is saved. All of us are sinners and needed the grace of God.
Listen to what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
Paul says, These will not inherit the kingdom of God and then he reminds the Corinthian church that this is who they were and who they would still be had it not been for God’s washing, God’s sanctification, God’s justification through Christ.
God saves through Christ and the Gospel. As believers we are witnesses to this.
But in Romans 1 tells us what happens when people no longer acknowledge God.
And The world Paul is describing to the church of Rome was happening then and it is happening now.
Look what he goes on to say in verse 28 and following.
And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful;
What a list.
And all this evil is flowing from the decision not to acknowledge God any longer.
I said this last week, and I’ll say it again, these verses are all too familiar.
We in America are not far removed from this context of the people of Rome, and it may indicate, and I would argue it does indicate that God has given many over.
He has given them over to a depraved mind at which point, then its just a free for all.
We will see evil play out of the heart into the actions.
When you read verses 26-31, To me it sounds like someone looked at the headlines in America for the past 6 months and compiled a list.
And what I am saying this morning is this. This is what we should expect when people reject God and his standards.
Verse 32 ends with a reminder that people know God’s standard. They know there there is a God. They know inherently that there is a judgment coming some day, but they reject and live as if they do not care and they couch it in worldly ideologies and sayings like “You only live once” “Live your life.” “Live and let live.”
But essentially the heart of all that is “I’m going to do what I want to do, and I really do not care what God says about it.” Look at verse 32.
and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
Verse 32 is important because it condemns both the doing of the act and the approval of the act.
Some believe that as long as we don’t do that stuff, we can “Live and Let live.”
For a Christ follower to live with the theme of “Live and let live” is ultimately to say “Live and let die.”
We must speak the truth that sinners will perish unless they repent and trust Christ alone for salvation. It’s ultimately unloving to preach or live by any other message.
We must proclaim the good news of the Gospel as we confront sin.
Pause…
now I know these last two sermons have been doom and gloom, but I believe this is why we are seeing what we are seeing in the world today.
What was going on in the world when Paul wrote Romans is not new.
Romans 1 tells us “What in the world is going on?”
But there is good news.
Paul doesn’t end the letter in chapter 1. In chapter 1-4, he is merely explaining the problem.
In fact, after chapter 3, he explains the hope we have in Christ and the hope we are to take to the world.
We, as the church, can learn from the example of the apostle Paul.
His understanding of what is going on in the world does not cause him to throw up his hands in disbelief, sit down in the corner and become dormant. No thats not what he does.
In fact, he spends the rest of the letter to the Romans proclaiming the hope that is found in Jesus.
I want to prove this to you, so I am going to read some verses from chapter 5-16 to see Paul’s response to chapter 1.
Read slow
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.
Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
“And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘you are not My people,’ There they shall be called sons of the living God.”
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.
for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
For the report of your obedience has reached to all; therefore I am rejoicing over you, but I want you to be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.
That’s not a man defeated. That’s a man empowered by the Gospel (Preach the Gospel).
Believer- you look around you and you see see all that is going on, let me encourage you to rightly place your trust in the King who holds it all together. Romans has more than one chapter. There is hope in Christ. Trust him.
Other things will fail you-political candidates will fail you, your money, your body, and your wisdom will fail you. insurance will fail you.
Find hope in what Paul found hope in.
Unbeliever. Hear the warning today.
Living for today and trying to live your best life now will disappoint you both now and in eternity. But there is hope. Again Romans has more than just one chapter.
Paul says in this same book.
For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Will you call upon him today?
Let’s pray.