The Unnatural Consequences of Sin.

Introduction

No one starts doing heroine with the illusion that it is good for them. Instead, pain drives a person to a dangerous substance and the addict thinks the risk is manageable. The trade off is “worth it”.

Even though there are “warning signs” every where. Even though their own bodies show signs of poisoning—a heroine addict falls deeper and deeper into the darkness.

Eventually life without heroine is not a possibility—and the use and practice of heroine defines life for them. Their thinking, their logic, their world is greatly influecned by the use of and the justification of the drug.

It is not without great intervention that a person escapes from heroine. The “pleasure” of heroine leads to deeper and deeper use and so the person addicted becomes more and more a product of their abuse.

Even if you’ve never done a drug in your life—you are familiar with this slide into degradation. You are familiar with loving the very thing that is killing and destroying you. You are familiar with a mind and a heart that becomes transformed by a harmful “substance”.

Karl Marx famously said that “Religion is the opiate of the masses” But Marx got it wrong. Truly, sin is the opiate of the masses.

Like a child born into addiction we are born into sin—with a taste and craving for it. And as we grow in this world we become indoctrinated by it and transformed by it. We become a product of sin—we celebrate sin—we define our lives by it.

Our text this morning is Romans 1:18-32. And the main point of our passage is that sin incurs the wrath of God and has terrible consequences.

In our text we see I. The War of Sin (18-20), II. The Essence of Sin (21-23), and III. The Consequences of Sin (24-32)

I. The War of Sin (18-20)

Romans 1:18 sets the tone for the rest of the passage. Paul says,

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”

God is not indifferent to sin. Last week, we talked about why our salvation required the death of a perfect substitute—our salvation required that Jesus die for us because we deserved to die. God in his righteousness would not simply excuse our sin—but he paid for it. In the cross we see that God lavishes love on the undeserving.

And in our text this morning we see that the wrath of God is revealed against “ungodliness” and “unrighteousness”. In short, the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against human sin.

Our culture really doesn’t like the idea of God at all—but if people are going to have a “deity” then he should be an all loving, all accepting God who has no standards of morality. God should be more akin to a “life coach” who approves of all that you do—at the very worst he or she or them—I don’t know his pronouns—at the very worst God chuckles at your mistakes and helps you along. If you are going to have a God, then this is the God that is acceptable to culture.

What is absolutely unacceptable is a righteous God—a God that has standards of morality—a God who is angry—a God who punishes and judges. In our culture these are the highest offenses.

This Bible passage is offensive to the world because it reveals that God is not indifferent to how we live our lives. God is as opposite from “indifferent” that you can be.

God is revealing his wrath against sinful humanity.

And notice, that this is not past wrath or future wrath—but this is present tense wrath—God is currently revealing his wrath against sinful humanity.

Remember that the book of Romans is a big, in depth, treatise on the gospel—on the good news of Jesus Christ.

And there is no good news of the gospel without the bad news of the gospel. You don’t get excited and desperate for a savior until you realize that you desperately need to be saved.

And here in verse 18 we see why human sin incurs the wrath of God.

Look with me at the second part of Romans 1:18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”

Sin, rebellion against God, rejection of God’s good rule—”suppresses the truth”.

The truth of what? Of God. That there is a God—that He exists—that He should be searched out—that He should be worshipped.

Verses 19-20 give us the truth about the picture of God in the world.

Romans 1:19-20 “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.”

God says that creation proclaims that there is a God. His eternal power and his divine nature are clearly perceived—ever since the creation of the world.

And this is true—ever since the beginning of man we have been looking at creation and the conclusion has been that there must be a God or gods. There must be some other force and power that created all of this—and us.

And God says that this leaves man without “excuse”. Creation makes plain what can be known about God.

Now creation doesn’t give a salvific knowledge of God. It gives us a general revelation of God: Namely that He exists.

No one looks at the mountains, a sunset, or studies the intricacy of an ecosystem and comes to trust Jesus as their savior. Salvation comes through the specific and special revelation of the gospel. But knowledge of God comes through what has been made.

But Paul’s point is that no one is without excuse to live as if there isn’t a God because the very world that we live in proclaims that there is a God—and that this God is powerful and is divine, is other—than the world He created.

Humanity should look around and search for God—and those that are looking to know Him find Him. But human sin from the very beginning obscures the image of God and suppresses the truth of God—that there is a God in Heaven.

And when the special revelation is shared—when the gospel is proclaimed it is the unrighteousness and ungodliness of people that discredit the message—that say, “What a fantasy this is. What a ridiculous idea you have!”

The spread of sin and the frequency of sin supresses the truth by creating a new normal—even if that normal is broken. This is how culture works.

If everyone is covered in filth and you are the only clean one in the group—guess what—you are the outlier—you can talk about the benefits of good hygiene, to fight disease, to smell better, to feel better—but you are the outsider. “If being clean is right then how come we are all dirty?!” —> If everyone is doing it ,it must be right.

And friends, God is not indifferent to this suppression of His truth. He is not indifferent because by suppressing the truth we lead people to Hell. We lead people away from the grace of God. And God takes this very seriously.

On the day of judgment many people will stand before God and be condemned for their own sin and for suppressing the truth—for leading others in the way of destruction.

Transition: Human sin supresses the truth and for this reason the wrath of God is being revealed against humanity. Let’s continue our passage and we’ll see...

II. The Essence of Sin (21-23)

Sin looks a lot of ways. There are countless expressions of sin within human culture. But they all have the exact same essence—at it’s root all sin equals the same fundamental problem.

Romans 1:21-23 “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.”

The root of all sin is misplaced worship—it is the worship of idols.

There is a reason that God when He gives his holy law through Moses first says, “You shall have no other gods except me.”

There is a reason that Israel would constantly repeat, “Hear, O Israel, the LORD, your God is one.”

There is a reason that Jesus when he is asked what the greatest commandment is in God’s law starts with “Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Love God with all of you—with all of your worship—give it to the one, true God.

This is such a prevalent message from God because all of human sin is fundamentally, at its core the worship of idols. The worship of things that are not God.

Humanity’s most prevalent mistake is not the disbelief of God but the worship of false gods.

We were created with hearts of worship. God created us to share in his glory. The human heart is made to behold and to taste and to exult.

It’s why we love celebrities—it’s why we love art—and music—and food. We can’t help but cast our affection and admiration and trust on something. No more than a duck can stop loving water. It’s how we are created.

Even atheism at it’s core is a worship of self. Now an atheist wouldn’t say that, but we are masters of self deception.

The problem isn’t a lack of worship, but the worship of wrong things.

Even though God can be seen in the creation and that what we see is that God is eternal, and powerful, and mighty we ignore this God—we don’t give thanks or cry out to Him—we don’t search for Him.

Instead we replace Him.

And Paul says this is foolishness and futile thinking. It doesn’t make sense.

Imagine if you came to my house—and in my backyard was a magnificent sculpture—just breathtaking, and intelligent, and emotional—and you asked, “Who did this?”

Imagine at that moment I pulled out a small statue of a squirrel. “It was the squirrels. Come and worship with me.”

“Thank you, O mighty squirrel for your gifts to us.” —> You’d think I was crazy right?

But friends this is what humanity does. We exchange the glory of God for created things—humanity ever since the fall has been rejecting God and instead giving their worship to created things, to household gods.

We recognize that our worship must go somewhere, but foolishly with darkened hearts we cast that worship on things that are not God.

And this isn’t just an innocent mistake—it is a wholesale and deliberate rejection of God. Because in our sin, after the pattern of Adam and Eve, we don’t want the true God. We don’t want his rule!

Squirrel God demands nothing of us, but that which we are willing to give up already. Squirrel God just wants my acorns.

And before we get judgy on our ancestors, this isn’t just an ancient problem. We've just replaced Squirrel God with Technology God, Modern Reasoning God, Enlightened Culture God.

We have not ceased in our idol worship. We have just given new, shiny names to them.

This too has been happening ever since The Fall, “Look at Bildad over there worshipping Rock God. Ha, ha idiot. Everyone knows that Snake God is the true God.”

We’re no different we just changed the names and what our idols require of us. Squirrel God wants acorns. Rock God wants pebbles. Politically Correct God wants cultural approval in our lives.

Our idols are just as foolish! Our idols point to our own darkened and foolish hearts that exchange the glory of God for created things! That ignore the majesty of God and the otherness of God. We are no diffferent—humanity has not changed and neither has humanity’s biggest problem.

We cast our worship on everything but God. We are spiritual whores. This is the essence of sin.

Transition: And this sin is not without consequence. There is future consequence for all those who persist in sin—there is final, coming judgment down the road—but our text reminds us that this sin has present day consequences, now. The rest of our passage shows us ...

III. The Consequences of Sin (24-32)

And what we see is that like drug use—sin drags us deeper and deeper.

Our foolishness and the darkness of our hearts only gets worse and worse as we continue in it. Remember this is the bad news of gospel. Humanity is at war with God.

First we see that as a consequence of our rejection of God, God gives us what we “want”. Let’s read...

Romans 1:24-25 “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.”

Our text says therefore—Paul is saying that humanity worships idols and rejects God—and so because of that “God gives us up to pursue our impure lusts”.

(Picture) J. C. Ryle—who was a bishop in the Church of England—said, “When an eagle is happy in an iron cage, when a sheep is happy in water, when an owl is happy in the blaze of the noonday sun, when a fish is happy on dry land - then, and not till then, will I admit that the unsanctified man could be happy in heaven.”

The first consequence of our sin is that God gives us what we want.

We see this in 1 Samuel 8. Israel is led by God himself and yet they look at the nations around them who have kings to rule them and say, “We want a king.” They had THE King, but they rejected Him.

1 Samuel 8:7–9 (ESV)

And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”

God gives them the king that they wanted in Saul. He was tall, handsome, powerful, a sight to behold—a man above men. And he was everything that Samuel said he’d be.

Samuel warned the people that a king would take their sons and put them to war. That he would take their daughters. That he would take the best of the crops and the animals. And that the people would serve him.

Ano 1 Samuel 8:19-20 records their response

1 Samuel 8:19–20 (ESV)

, “No! But there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”

God was their king, he fought their battles, he judged them according to perfect justice and wisdom and they rejected him. Why? Because their foolish hearts would rather have a king they can control!

And they received all the consequences that God warned them about.

As a punishment for their rebellion they received what they asked for. A king to rule over them.

Friends, humanity today does the very same thing—we desire our sin and so God gives us what we desire. And this is not grace to us it is a punishment and consequence of our rebellion. This is what we see in the world today for all those outside of Christ.

Romans 1:24-25 “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.”

And the result is that humanity in its fallen nature gives itself to things that are impure, that dishonor us—that chip away at the foundation of who we are—a people made in the image of God.

And what we should do is turn around, is repent, is see the danger that we are in and cry out—but our addiction is so strong—we stick another needle in our arms, and another, and another.

Transition: We persist in our rebellion and idol worship and so more consequences come. We fall deeper down the well. Look with me as we continue in...

Romans 1:26-27 “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.”

You ignored the image of God and desired idols—therefore God gave you over to the lusts that you wanted—you persisted in them and loved and craved them more--- “For this reason”

The consequences of sin build on each other, they compound...

And then Paul addresses what is a very sensitive subject in our culture—He addresses the subject of homosexuality. And whether you are online or in this room I want you to bear with me here...

In verse 24 we see that God gives the sinner what he wants—his sin—and as they pursue it they dishonor themselves.

All sin dishonors man because men and women are made in the image of God. All sin.

When we snap at our spouse—when we lie—when we steal—when we gossip—all these things are impure and dishonor us because they are a rejection of our value and purpose as God’s created people.

And in verses 26 and 27 Paul jumps to the ultimate expression of rejection of God.

In Genesis 1:28 after the creation of Man and Woman he says, “Be fruitful and multiply”

Adam and Eve are called to create new worshippers of God that they too may enjoy the glory of God.

The main purpose of sex is to procreate—and God in his grace to us also made it pleasurable and fun.

But men were created in a way and women were created in a way that the natural function of their bodies is to fit together and to be able to make children. This is God’s design.

Homosexuality is the exact opposite of this design. It says, “No!” to God’s purpose and plan for humanity.

It says, “Though you created the body in this way I will do what I want with it. I will repurpose it. I will reject your design and create something new.”

This is why Paul calls it “unnatural” because it is contrary to nature.

In our culture today, there is great effort in the church, in the society, to normalize same sex relationships. But God is clear here in our passage how he feels about same sex relationships. He says they are:

dishonorable

unnatural

shameless

and an error

An embrace of homosexuality is a rejection of God.

James 4:4 “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

Now hear me clearly. An embrace of homosexuality is a rejection of God. But—an embrace of people living homosexual lifestyles is the work of the kingdom. We do not reject the people, just that their sin is good for them.

No more so than we would reject someone with a porn addiction or someone who tells lies.

This subject is so emotional. In our culture. What you may have heard me say is that we should hate queer and gay people.

I don’t hate homosexual people and neither should you. Some of the most delightful people I have known have been homosexual people.

Jesus is very clear—we should love people and hate sin.

Luke 5:30-31 “And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”

“Now wait a minute pastor are you saying that homosexuality is a sickness? That's offensive!”

I am saying that. Friends, ALL SIN IS SICKNESS!

Are you tracking here. I am saying that homosexuality is wrong. I am saying that it is not good for people. I am saying that God does not approve of it. Because it is sin—and all sin is sickness and idol worship.

I don’t care if the culture thinks it’s good. I won’t hate any person so much that I will pretend that what they are doing to harm themselves is healthy.

I will tell the truth in love—like Jesus did. He went to the sick and broken sinners and he said, “This idol that you love, that you think makes you whole. This is killing you. This is condemning you. This isn’t your true identity. Leave your sin and be healed in me. Find your true purpose as the people of God in me.”

Jesus didn’t sugar coat sin—he revealed it for the danger that it is. So that people would repent of it.

Transition: Because as our text continues we see that sin begets sin…it just gets worse and worse. If people do not repent of their sin they fall deeper and deeper into it. Let’s continue on in...

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.

At the end of our passage we see the full gamut of human sinfulness.

Christianity has often been blamed by secular humanism to be a dividing line for people. The genesis of chaos and pain for humanity.

But our passage proves that devoid of God humanity does not create a utopia. The great communist ideal that man, free of faith will live in a just and peaceful world couldn’t be more wrong.

Humanity left to itself produces instead a world of unrighteousness, of evil. A world of covetousness and malice.

Humanity in the falleness of sin is full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malicious behavior.

We are gossips, slanderers, and haters of God.

We are insolent, and haughty, and boastful.

We reject authority and are foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless.

If you don’t think this is an accurate description of humanity you are in denial.

We know that these things are wrong and we do them anyway!

Not only that, but in our great desire to be justified in our sin we gather and encourage and approve of others doing the same.

We were created to spread the glory of God and instead we spread death and destruction so we can feel good about the death and desruction that we love best.

The Bottom Line

For our sin we deserve death. For our sin the wrath of God is revealed against us because by it we suppress the truth.

This is the bad news of the gospel. The bad news is not that there is a God. The bad news is not that God has a righteous law.

The bad news is that humanity is guilty of sin. We are god haters and sin lovers. Life rejectors and death embracers.

And for this we are experiencing and will experience the wrath of God.

But as the people of God—as those who have been plucked from the fire—we know the truth that people need.

We have the message of special revelation that doesn’t just reveal that there is a God—but tells who He is and what he has done to rescue people from the consequences of their sin.

We have the good news of Jesus Christ.

Friends are you sharing it? Are you living it? Are you inviting others to come and taste and see that God is good?

You were not saved to sit on the sidelines. You were saved into a people saving mission. You were saved and called to the kingdom work of Jesus, to have compassion on the sick and dying world.

You were saved to help the sin addicted become whole in Jesus.

And the good news of the gospel is that God is saving people. He saved you. He saved me.

He showed us the horror of our sin. Convicted us. Granted us repentance. He called us to trust Jesus.

And God has not stopped that work! Until Jesus comes back again the work continues.

In the beginning of this sermon I said, “That it is not without great intervention that a heroine addict escapes their addiction.”

Brothers and sisters, God has greatly intervened! Let us look to the cross and see that God is rescuing his people and let us be about that work with Him. Let’s pray.

Discussion Question: How can we disagree with our culture while also showing them the love of Christ?