The Problem of Sin

What Problem are we solving

One of the great things about having children is that you can get into some of the most bizarre conversations. That is particularly the case when they get into those silly creative moods.

Recently when I was driving one of my children, she decided to share some ideas she had for new inventions. One of these inventions was a two-storey car. The idea seemed to get crazier the further we travelled. In the end she was going to have every road with some sort of channel so that cars would travel half below ground and half above.

Now we had a good laugh trying to think through some of the issues, but I asked her a question, which might have been too serious given the silliness of the conversation - but I asked her: what problem are you trying to fix with this invention?

Now that was just a bit of silly fun, but all good inventions happen to solve a problem.

For example, let’s get back to just your regular old single leveled car.

Actually, let’s say I’ve got myself a fancy new car, with a sun roof, an amazing paint job, fancy wheels and the most amazing sound system.

I take you over to show you, but then tell you, oh, but it’s got no engine. It doesn’t go anywhere. You would say the whole thing was useless.

It is only in it’s ability to carry out what an intended function that we can gauge the worth of something. The bells and whistle are a mere novelty. It’s the main function that counts.

Purpose of the gospel

Now for Christians, we all love the Gospel. After all, this is what unites us together.

And you’ll often hear us talk glowingly about this gospel. It is awesome. It is wonderful. It changed my life. It is my comfort, my assurance, my everything.

That is all very true, but sometimes it’s almost as if we reduce it to this warm cozy feeling.

In some ways, it’s like reducing your fancy car to just the fancy features without actually considering how well it drives.

You see, the function of a car is to get from point A to point B.

In a similar way, we see the gospel serve a function. That function is to restore the broken relationship that we have with God.

Well, let me just stick for a moment with the analogy of a car. You see, it can actually be difficult for us to appreciate that basic function of a car. The reason is it so difficult to appreciate, is that we are just so used to being able to get from point A to point B in a reasonable length of time, so we take it for granted.

Now perhaps there are some listening now who remember a time when they didn’t have a family car. If that’s you, then maybe you might be in a better position to actually appreciate how difficult it was to move any decent distance.

Now I just suggested that the function of the gospel is to restore our relationship with God.

But like having a car, sometimes it can be easy to just take for granted that our relationship has been restored without realising the problem that has been solved.

You see, the problem that we have is sin. Of course, we don’t like talking about sin and so we struggle to get a good understanding of what sin is.

That being said, there are of course a few things that everyone would be very happy to label as sin: murder, rape, armed robbery and the like.

But then the vast majority of us, if not every single one one us can quite clearly say that we have never murdered anyone, or raped anyone, or been involved in an armed robbery - at least, not in the traditional way of understanding each of those crimes.

And so, you can see that by re-calibrating sin to only the worst crimes, it’s easy to conclude that we actually don’t have a problem.

By doing this, we pull the guts out of the gospel. We reduce the gospel to just a feel good message, which at best will give you nice feelings.

Romans 1

So with this I want to open up our problem. This message (and for that matter, next’s week as well), might not be entirely comfortable. Because we’re going to see how big our problem really is.

But while it is uncomfortable, it is something we really need to understand, because without it, we won’t appreciate the best gift we’ve ever received.

Now last week I started our series in the book of Romans.

I considered the stirring of the heart that we get when we allow the gospel to touch us.

The passage I read ended with two powerful verses, namely 16 and 17.

He described how he wasn’t ashamed of the gospel. Why? Because it was the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.

He goes on to explain how in the gospel we receive a righteousness that comes from faith.

This is what is exciting Paul, but it’s all meaningless dribble if we don’t understand sin.

And so in verse 18, while it can sound like a really sudden change in topic - it is actually a necessary change to explain what he is about. And so he starts talking about the wrath of God

God’s wrath

But let’s just pause really briefly on this idea of God’s wrath - because in some circles, this is a very unpopular idea. Many people seem unable to reconcile the idea that the God of the New Testament could be compatible with wrath of the Old Testament.

After all, in the New Testament we find Jesus teaching us to turn the other cheek. We find a God of forgiveness and mercy.

How is that compatible with wrath.

Actually, I’ll argue quite strongly that the God of the New Testament is the God of the Old Testament. It is folly to think other wise.

Part of the problem is that we think of God’s wrath in a similar way that we might get angry. When we get angry, it is usually full of pent up emotions. It includes hate, malice, perhaps some envy and jealousy. It perhaps is also fueled by our selfish desires. In short, our anger is almost always bad.

But God’s wrath is very different to our selfish anger. Rather God’s wrath is related to his holiness.... to his love of justice.

So when it says in verse 18 that God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness - it’s not at all saying that God has lost his cool with some sort of lack of self-control.

It’s talking about the reaction of a perfect God, who has made all things just right, and yet humanity has gone against his good way.

A matter of nature

You see, Paul goes on to explain the situation.

And what you’ll notice is that Paul makes reference to God’s created order.

What also becomes clear is that you don’t need to be some super scholar to figure out this created order.

As Paul says in verse 19, what you need to know has been made plain to them.

You see, while in some respects, the nature of God is beyond our comprehension, but guess what? There are some aspects of his nature which we just intuitively know.

In fact, I’ll suggest that it is so intrinsically known that children are born with the idea that God is there.

Paul specifically mentions God’s eternal power and his divine nature.

You might not know exactly how God works (actually, no one fully knows), but just look at the world God has placed us in. Even today in our modern world where science can explain much of the ways of the world, yet it is still clear that there is something behind all of this, something divine by nature.

And from all of this, we can actually know what is right and wrong.

To start with the big ones, you don’t need to study theology to figure out that murder and rape are wrong. It’s clear from nature that they are wrong.

But why is it clear? Well, can I suggest it is because we intrinsically know that there is value in life. But you see, in recognising that, you’re recognising that we are more than just atoms that have been randomly placed together. There is a creator behind us and this gives meaning.

Without excuse

And because this meaning is plain to all, Paul can state at the end of verse 20 that all people are without excuse.

Now this is not to say that somehow through this general revelation that God has given us that we can somehow save ourselves. We can’t.

But it does mean that intrinsically we can know that what we are doing is wrong.

As we’ll see at the end of this chapter, through a series of exchanges, we manage to switch around what we intrinsically know to be true, but there is an inherent nature that God has made which tells us right from wrong.

Three Exchanges

Now I just mentioned a series of exchanges, and as we go through the remainder of the chapter, Paul is going to use this word of exchange three times. As we look at these three exchanges we’ll start to see how easy it is to slip into a destructive pattern.

Glory to an image

So let’s look at the first exchange.

This one starts with the glory of God.

You see, from nature, we know that God deserves all the glory. People naturally know this. But there is a problem.

You see, to glorify God, you naturally need to take the focus off yourself. And we’re going to see that this is the start of the problem.

And while I’m largely following Paul in using the slightly ambiguous “they”, which makes us think that I’m talking of those other sinners (not us of course), but this pattern I’m describing is something that effects all us.

You see, we’re all tempted to take the focus off God and put it on ourselves.

But this is obviously a foolish thing to do.

When we take the focus off God, we put it on things we make.

And so we find the first exchange in verse 23: “…[they] exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles”.

Now Paul here is specifically talking about physical idols that people commonly made back then (and in some cultures, still do today). We might not make physical idols carved out of wood, but we still make a similar exchange.

And I believe ultimately, we make the exchange for selfish reasons. Because we want the focus on things that we can control.

God gave them over

In the very next verse after the exchange is described, we find a phrase which we’ll also see repeated 3 times.

It says that God, therefore, gave them over to these sinful desires.

I’m not going to make too much of a point about it now, but we sometimes ask why God doesn’t just do away with evil in the world, but it is because we’ve made a choice, and God has allowed us to do so.

Truth for a lie

But let me come to the next exchange.

You see, once we go down this path of turning our back on the glory of God, we’re going to come up against a bit of a problem. That is, that it turns out we don’t control everything. We can’t bring things into existence like God. We don’t have full control over our destiny.

So what do we do?

Well, it’s easy. As Paul says in verse 25: you exchange the truth about God for a lie.

This is something that today we’ve become very proficient at. In fact, we’re largely living in what many people call a post-modern world, a world in which there is no absolute truth - truth becomes a relative term. What’s true for you might not necessarily be true for me.

That makes it very easy these days to make this second exchange.

If you don’t like something you see or hear, that’s okay, we’ll just put a different spin on it and make a new truth.

Now specifically from an ethics standpoint, you can see how this exchange can help us to make anything acceptable.

Telling a lie can becomes acceptable because it’s necessary in life. We can start to justify stealing and violence.

Once we’ve exchanged the glory of God for an image, and then the truth for a lie, we’ve now opened up things in a big way.

And so in the next verse, that is verse 26, we see God giving them over again, this time to their shameful lusts.

Natural relations for unnatural

And now we come to our third exchange, and in this exchange we delve into our sexual relationships.

Specifically, we’re told that the natural sexual relationships that God has given us have been exchanged for unnatural ones.

Now let me just pause a moment here, because sometimes the Bible can get a reputation that it is anti-sex. Sometimes Christians can almost give that impression, that is, that sex is a dirty thing and not to be talked about.

The truth however, is that when we look at the bible, it is anything but anti-sex.

In fact there’s a whole book which deals with a sexual relationship, namely the Song of Songs.

Sex is something God has given us and it is a beautiful thing. It is part of God’s natural created order.

But, because of it’s great value, it needs to only be exercised within the bounds for which it was created. Outside of those bounds, it is a very destructive thing.

And again, we naturally know this. That is why someone having an affair is such a big deal.

But once we’ve done these series of exchanges, we’re now free to re-write the rules. And we’ve certainly seen this in recent times.

It now doesn’t matter what nature teaches. We’ve told each other the very clear lie that sex is just a physical activity - a mere recreation.

Paul here specifically talks about homosexual relationships. Women have sex with women and men having sex with men.

Now this is a very unpopular thing to say today. People will try to argue that it is actually a natural thing.

But that’s an argument that is a lot easier to make after you’ve exchanged the glory of God for an image and the truth for a lie.

Now a note of warning that I want to make particularly as this has become such a hot button issue. I will strongly maintain that sexual activity between two men or two women goes against God natural order, however like anyone acting in a way contrary to God’s order, it is very important that we act in loving and caring ways towards these people.

But perhaps my bigger warning is that we need to be very careful not to focus on this issue while forgetting the far more frequent ways that we see people turning their backs on God.

Actually, while we’re on sexual sins, can I suggest something which is far more prevalent and damaging in society, and for some reason we seem to largely ignore.

Pornography.

This is an industry that has been around for a long time, but since the rise of the internet over the last few decades, has absolutely sky rocketed.

It is now very easy to access and can be done with a great deal of anonymity and it is very destructive.

We could speak of the destructive nature to the largely vulnerable women.

But to the viewers, it is complete distortion of God’s design for sex.

This is something that we really should be speaking out against.

Giving over to a depraved mind

But let me come back to the passage. For a third time we read that God gave them over… this time to a depraved mind.

And thus we get to a horrific list of sins.

Greed, depravity, envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. Gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful.

And the list goes on.

The picture Paul is painting is the end result of when you have exchanged the glory of God for an image, exchanged the truth for a lie, and exchanged the natural for the unnatural.

And as he ends in verse 32, not only do they practice such things, they approve of those who practice them.

After all, what would you expect when you’ve exchanged the truth for a lie.

Application

So what do we make of all of this?

Well, we need to remember that this is fitting within the bigger picture Paul is painting of the gospel.

Paul is leading us to the point where we the gospel changes everything.

So if you hear these exchanges and think - yes, I’ve inadvertently done that. I’ve exchanged the glory for an image. I’ve exchanged the truth for a lie, and the natural for the unnatural, then know that the gospel is there to change everything for you.

You are forgiven in Jesus name.

But for this morning, I want us to pause and reflect that we haven’t lived the way we should.

The description in this passage will fit each of us, even if to varying degrees.

To gloss too quickly over it means that we will fail to see the good order God has created and how far we have strayed.

The purpose of spending time pausing on it is not to try and make you all feel bad and terrible. Actually, in some ways it’s the opposite. We can see how good God is and how good his ways are.

We need to reflect on God’s ways. Meditate on him. And see that what he has given us is good.

You see, this is what we should be doing with regards to sex. We spend so much time saying what you can’t do, that we fail to see how wonderful this is when it is done in the way it is designed.

Conclusion

No one ever likes talking about sin. But the problem is, by ignoring it, we’re ignoring what our real problem is.

But we can look for some tell tale signs for when we start slipping into sinful patterns.

When the focus starts falling on us. When we treat the truth with contempt. And when we ignore what is natural.

Paul has given a stark picture of what it looks like to turn our back on God. And we need to be aware that we are sinful.

Unfortunately, before we get to the good stuff, next week, it’s actually going to get worse. Because even if you think maybe you’re not too bad on this, you might need to think again.

But there will be good news coming.

Because the gospel changes everything.

And while we anticipate that, let me pray now...