The Great Exchange
The Great Exchange
Romans 1:18-32
Pass out newspaper and read through to find out what is the overall portrait of humanity. Are we good? Are we bad? Are we getting better? Worse?
(Give time to read through and take responses)
In your opinion, would you say man is overall good or bad? If you take your cues from the world as to what man is, you will get many different answers. From some philosophers they will tell you that man in inherently good and the key to living a successful life here on earth is to find the good in you. Some people will tell you that there is a bad part of you and a good part of you and you need to always seek to find the good in you and emphasize that so that you can live a good life here on earth. Some people will tell you that you aren’t all that bad and not to worry about if you mess up because we all mess up. So in an effort to feel good about the fact that all of us mess up a little, we are told that the key to humanity and the key to living in relationship with other people is to be tolerant. We aren’t allowed to point out things that others are doing wrong because to do so doesn’t allow them the freedom to express their humanity however they want to express it. Over time, being truly human means doing whatever you want to do with yourself and not telling someone else that they cant do something that they want to do. What is the nature of humanity? This morning we are going to look at Romans 1:18-32 and look and see what God says about who we are and who he is but let me warn you, what you are going to learn about yourself and others is some of the most intolerant, exclusive, in-your-face truth because it doesn’t tell us what so many of us what to hear about ourselves. In this passage, we will look at the idea of what about people who have never heard of the gospel, what happens to them? We will ask ourselves the question, can a man be totally ignorant of God? We will deal with the issue of whether man is accountable for replacing God with another religion? And specifically we will deal with the issue of the wrath of God and how a loving and good God who loves all people could ever express or experience wrath towards his people.
>>Turn to Romans 1:16-17:
16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
Remember Paul is writing to the Romans and he is expressing to them how he is not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ because of its power to change your life. But this gospel can only be received by faith, not be works or good deeds. The question then becomes, why not? Why can man not attain this salvation and this gospel by doing enough good things? Why do all of the other faiths, who sometimes appear as though they show more religious zeal and enthusiasm than I ever would, why are they not allowed to receive this salvation? Why does those people who give up their Saturdays to come and knock on my door, something I would never do, why do they not get credit for their work and somehow make it into heaven? The question is essentially, why does God judge people? Paul gives the answers beginning in verses 18-20:
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 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 men are without excuse.
The first reason why God judges people is:
Humanity has no excuse before God (v. 18-20)
According to these verses, what does everyone know about God?
(Take responses)
Paul is saying that the wrath of God is coming against all who are ungodly. It is important to understand here that the wrath of God is not like our wrath. Many of you know clearly what the wrath of man is as you may often display it towards others or have it displayed by others. The wrath of man towards each other is often self-centered, sometimes loud and obnoxious and is centered around the fact that I wasn’t happy. These explosions may result because we’ve been overlooked, neglected, or cheated. This is nothing like the wrath of God. The wrath of God is not God getting mad because he was slighted but the wrath of God is a result of disobedience which always results in self-destruction. Just as a loving father would never sit back and watch his son destroy himself and say, “Boys will be boys,” God doesn’t just sit back while humanity is committing murders and adultery and sexual immorality and just say, “Well, they are just humans being humans.” God is a holy God and he is a God who will not accept sin to get in the way of his holiness. Therefore Paul says to us here that his wrath is being and will be poured out on all ungodliness. If you were to tell someone today that God’s wrath was being and would be poured out on them because they are not right before God, what excuses would you hear from people?
(Take responses)
We can use whatever excuse we want to but we clearly have no excuse. This means we cant use the excuse of ignorance and that we didn’t know. God says that he reveals himself through creation and through nature. This means that there is enough information about God so that people are without excuse and are held accountable for their actions before God. Turn over to Psalm 19:1-3:
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. 3 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
This psalm speaks of how God has been made known through his creation. What this is implying is that people who don’t even know about God knows about God and therefore and held accountable to God. What do you think about the fact that all are accountable before God?
(Take responses)
The wrath of God is being poured out on all humanity because we have no excuse before God. Secondly, the wrath of God is being poured out and will be poured out:
Humanity exchanges the true God for their own God
Keep reading in Romans 1:21-23:
21 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. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
Paul is saying that man will always suppress the truth of God. They will either be indifferent towards it, or they will respond with ingratitude, or they will respond with ignorance. In what ways do you and others suppress the truth of God?
(Take responses)
When we suppress the truth of God, it always leads to an exchange. Over time, when we try and do our own thing, rejecting God, not giving him gratitude, responding with ignorance, we eventually make up our own pleasures and our own rules so that these will come together and suit ourselves. Our theology always plays out in our sociology. What this means is the most important thought you will ever have is what you think about God because what you think about God determines how you view everything else. Someone give an example of an issue that we can deal with where there is clear sin going on that we can trace back to a faulty understanding of God.
Take responses and trace back
When we exchange God with something else in our lives it's called idolatry -- making an idol. There's a god-shaped vacuum in every one of our lives and when we take God out of our lives (reject Him) something is going to fill it -- a person, a thing, an ideal. It becomes an idol and we create our own little gods. We don't have physical idols like they did in Paul’s day, but what do we idolize? Wealth. Success. Physical beauty. Pleasure. Fame. Our idols aren't wood and stone. Our idols are made out of metal and plastic -- cars, houses, nice clothes, things that we idolize. Anything that becomes number one in your life becomes your God. Why does man create idols? He is selfish. He wants to be served. He creates an idol and "prays" to it so he can get what he wants from it. He wants the idol to serve him. Materialism is idolatry. Today we worship those kinds of things. We worship athletes, movie stars, musicians -- they're idolized. But the biggest idol is ourselves. We then take these idols and make them into rules and rationalizations that fit it and this causes and warrants the wrath of God.
>>So we know that the wrath of God is warranted because all humans are without excuse and all humans exchange the truth of God for what they make up themselves, but how does God judge us? What does God do as a result of our sin. The answer is found in Romans 1:24-32:
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. 28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They 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, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although 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.
Notice three times the expression, “God gave them over” in verse 24, 26, and 28. What does it mean that God gave them over? Let me explain it like this: Let's say you have a 19-year old teenage son. He's making a mess of his life. He's into cocaine and all kinds of other drugs. He's in to alcohol and comes home drunk and vomits on your living room floor. He's living a wild licentious life, no morality. You come to your son one day and say, "You're 19, already past the legal age of 18. I can't run your life any more. But if you're going to continue to stay at home you've got to follow the rules. If you can't follow the rules, you're going to have to move out. You're not going to wreck our life too." You son walks out. And sadly what you do is you give him over to the lifestyle that he wants to live. Do you want to do it? No. Are you glad to do it? No. But you've given him free choice. He's old enough to make choices on his own. You give him over. This is what God is doing with his people, his creation. He is letting them dig their own grave. God is letting them choose the path that they have chosen. So often, in times of difficulty and pain, we can often look back and see that we got ourselves in this mess to begin with. Notice what it says God gave them over to:
God gave them over to immoral passions (v. 24-25)
This means that God has allowed them to do what they knew should be done. Verse 25 says they fell into this trap which was really a lie. They convinced themselves that the things that they did weren’t really that bad and they began to worship that instead of God. The temptation was to be your own God, do your own thing, and not worry about what that means or says to God. So God told them, “fine, you can have it.” What is an example of this in our nation?
(Take responses)
Second:
God gave them over to indecent perversions (v. 26-27)
Underline (v. 26) shameful, unnatural, indecent, perversion. Romans didn't need any explanation for this. They were a corrupt society. He says their next step was their perversions in life. It's unnatural. It's obvious that male and female bodies were made for each other. He said that they received the due penalty in themselves. There is a self inflicted problem when people get involved in perversions. There is a despair, a loss of identity. What do these verses say to us about the homosexual debate going on in our culture right now?
(Take responses)
Homosexuality is used here as an example, not the only one, but an example of the downward spiral of humanity when we throw out God’s system and God’s plans for our own. It isn't just a matter of homosexuality being sinful, it is a matter of homosexuals exchanging the truth of God for something that they want and know they are forced to live with those consequences. Look at the final way in which God gave them over:
God gave them over to irrational practices (v. 27-32)
There are 21 different types of sins cataloged here. It all starts in the mind. The way you think affects the way you act. There are people who are evil, greedy, malice, gossips, slanderers, insolent, arrogant, senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Which ones of these sins do you see most in our culture?
(Take responses)
Notice verse 32:
32 Although 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.
Misery loves company. We think if we can get more people doing it, it will be more acceptable for me. The Greek word is applaud. Rather than be ashamed it says people approve of it. They applaud evil. You don't think today that people are entertained by watching evil do you? Nobody would be entertained by watching violence and senseless perversion! This sounds like a soap opera. We even give Academy awards for movies that promote sexual promiscuity and violence. Movies that totally produce a lifestyle contrary to the will of God. Yet so often we may not find ourselves specifically doing these things, but we find ourselves celebrating those that do.
>>The lesson today is this, every since Adam and Eve, things have been getting worse. Our world and humanity is constantly on the decline. But turn to 1 Corinthians 6:9-11:
9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. 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.
It is my prayer that we recognize the desperate need of all humanity for Christ and that we realize that all of us were in this boat, but that doesn’t mean we have to stay there. The gospel of Jesus Christ can bring someone from the depth of their sin to new life in Christ, but you first have to know that you need Christ in the first place. Let’s be active this week in light of the universal problem of sin and tell others about the fact that we don’t have to stay that way.
Pray