The Shameless Perversion Pt 2 3-20-2022

WALK WORTHY THE SHAMEFUL PERVERSION Pt.2 Sunday March 20, 2022 Scripture Reference: Romans 1:24-27 (NLT) Intro. A. Let's get started by looking at these three verses we began exploring last week. "So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other's bodies. 25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. 26 That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. 27 And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved." Romans 1:24-27 (NLT) 1. Last week our focus was on these first four words, "So God abandon them". Last week we began to discuss this theological issue that has divided the church into two camps. I will not review all of that today. If you missed that message, you can view it online. The one thing I want to emphasis before we move on in this passage is that when it says that God abandon those who wanted to be their own god, it doesn't mean that He turned His back on them and refused to hear them if they cry for forgiveness and help. It means that He will not interfere with our free will. He will not force us to love and serve Him. Now let me remind you again as I have so often in these past few messages. This pathway to depravity does not begin with God. God has done everything necessary to make Himself fully known to us. I won't take the time to read it now, but we all know and love what Paul tells us in Romans 8. Where he tells us that nothing can separate us from God's love. Friends I don't think I have to tell you that this is a wonderful, amazing, and incredible truth, but we must also understand this. God does love us, and nothing will stop Him from loving us, not even this sin we are reading about here in these verses, BUT, and this is indeed a big but. The fact that He loves us does not negate the fact that He must also deal with our sin and rebellion. He cannot be the Holy God; we know Him to be if he pretends that this rejection is not happening. It may not be the perfect illustration, but when my kids were younger, I loved them (of course I still love them now), but I could not ignore or dismiss their disobedience. In fact, it was because I loved them that I had to discipline them when they disobeyed. Here is what the Bible tells us. "And have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as his children? He said, "My child, don't make light of the LORD's discipline, and don't give up when he corrects you. 6 For the LORD disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child." Hebrews 12:5-6 (NLT) I will say this once again, we should rejoice and celebrate these words we studied a few weeks back. "But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness." Romans 1:18 (NLT) If God did not in fact reveal that sin was going to be punished, then Paul's words, and I spoke on this last week, but Paul's words, which are God's words would be untrue. He said we have no excuse, but if we didn't know that sin was going to be judged and punished then we would have an excuse. We could say, "Well I never knew this was wrong. God never told us it was wrong." NO, we will not have that excuse and we can thank God we do not. 2. Today we will continue to look at this downward spiral of the persons life who choses to reject the One True God. We saw that this begins with rejecting the obvious, that God is real. Then that rejection leads to our refusal to worship God or give thanks to Him for all He has provided for us. Then because we need God in our lives, but we chose to reject the True God, we begin to lose our sensibilities. Our thoughts become vain, and our hearts become dark and confused. This leads to the creation of our own gods. Whether that is ourselves or something else. Either way we have made a very foolish exchange in that we decide to exchange the incorruptible for the corruptible. We trade the one True God for a matchbox imitation. No wonder Paul said, "They became utter fools". Trans. Sadly this downward spiral does not end here. Now we will have to look at The Shameful Perversion. The next step in this downward path is: I. SINFUL MAN BECOMES SHAMELESS. Let's look at V.24 again. "So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other's bodies. What I see happening here is this. A. Sinful Man Choses Sin Over God. 1. This is such a sad and terrible choice to make, and we might ask, "What causes a person to make such a senseless choice?" We saw the answer in V.21, "they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. 22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools." Romans 1:21-22 (NLT) Friends make no mistake about this. When man choses sin over God he will become enslaved to sin. Sin stirs up more sin. The fact is the more we sin the easier it becomes. When we take that first step away from God to do what our sinful heart's desire, we might feel a little remorse and regret, hopefully we will feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Let me say again, this is a great thing. It is not just a good thing; it is a GREAT thing. This can be the course correction that we so desperately need, but if we ignore that still small voice within that says, "This is wrong, I need to ask forgiveness and move away from this thing." What will happen to us is that we will stop giving our sin a second thought. Here is what Paul told Timothy happens when people ignore the true God reveals. "These people are hypocrites and liars, and their consciences are dead." 1 Timothy 4:2 (NLT) This is a very sad picture given to us here. It means that this sense of guilt that God has given us, which can cause us to stop this wrong thing we are doing. [] I asked permission to do this, but Mike Lackey, as some of you know has severe diabetes. So much so that it has caused a condition called peripheral neuropathy. When I looked this up online, I was amazed (but I shouldn't have been), this is a condition that occurs when nerves outside the brain cause numbness usually in the hands and feet, but other places as well. I was just amazed at how this mirrors what Paul has been telling us. What did we learn back in V.21? "As a result, their minds became dark and confused." Romans 1:21b (NLT) This is incredible. Here we see a physical picture of a spiritual reality. Just as this neuropathy deadens the nerves in our body, sin deadens the nerves in our spirit. When we do not listen to the voice of God's Holy Spirit, sin no longer brings the guilt and shame it should. Our spiritual nerve endings have gone dull. Oh, my friends this is such serious business we are talking about. Yes, I know that sin looks good, it tastes good, and it feels good. If it didn't there would be no temptation, but my friends do not forget that sin eventually destroys. 2. If you are taking notes, please write this down. (I made this a fill in the blank in your notes.) SIN ALWAYS LIES! Sin claims to bring us pleasure. It claims to make us happy, but in reality, it destroys. Let me list a few of the things it will destroy. It will destroy your body. I am not going to get there this week, but in V.26,27 we are going to see what Paul says about homosexuality. I understand that this can be a sensitive issue, especially in our society today, but let me just say this now. Paul is not highlighting this as a sin that is worse than others and it certainly not the only sin that damages our bodies. Sin destroys families. How sad it is to have witnessed over and over again in my years of ministry the damage done to families because of sinfulness. Marriages broken apart, children abused, wives abused. Sin destroys friendships. I wonder how many of us here today have lost one of more friendships because of sinful behavior. You had to break off the friendship because they just kept going further and further down that pathway to depravity. It's not that you don't still love them and pray for them, but you can't be with them because of their sinful behavior. Sin destroys professions. You probably know someone who lost their jobs or even careers because of sin. This happened a few years back, but one of our own Chino PD officers was caught up in a sex trafficking event. To me it just seemed so crazy. Here is a guy involved in police work, so he knows how difficult it is to hide illegal behavior and yet because his mind had become dark and confused, his sin destroyed his career and his family. Let me just list a few more things sin will destroy without elaborating on them. Sin destroys our will, it destroys our hope, it destroys our values, it destroys our futures and yes it will destroy our lives. a) As I was writing these words God brought to mind our vision. Our vision is to rescue the Next Generation. (Lets review it again, it has been a while. Put up vision.) I don't know if you are seeing this as I am, but I hope you are. All these things I have been talking about today only emphasis how important, how vital it is that we actively and aggressively pursue this vision. Friends we must do all we can to stop this Next Generation from beginning this pathway to destruction! Somehow, someway we need to be a church that lays down in the road and says, "STOP! Don't go this way it will destroy you!" Conclusion A. There is so much here in these verses I am going to need a little more time to finish V.24-27, but I want to conclude with this. There is a tragedy that happens here that I fear does not get the attention is deserves. Because we are a people who can become so self-centered and selfish it is easy to forget that we are not an island unto ourselves. Actually, I just talked about this, but may we never forget that our sin involved others. Just as it is destroying you it is destroying those around you. Sin always involves and influences others. It hurts and dooms our spouses, our children, our friends and our society. It reminds me of that scene in A Christmas Carol when Jacob Marley confronts Scrouge about their past business practices. Scrouge says, "It was just business" and Jacob responds, "Mankind was my business." 1. It once again reminds us of how sin makes us so selfish and self-centered. When sin is in control it is all about me, when it should be all about God. 2. I want to conclude this message in a way that I do not think I have ever concluded a message in my 36 years of pastoring. Usually, I would invite you to come forward to pray and seek God's forgiveness for any sin in your life that needs to be confessed, and if that is something God is asking you to do this morning then I certain want to encourage that. But what I feel God telling me is to open these altars today for us to pray over those we know who are caught up on this terrible and destructive pathway. Unless you are hold up in your house and never go outside, of course that is not the case because you are here. Then you have someone in your life who is headed down this path right now. Sadly, they might be a long way down this path. They could be as Paul described, people whose conscience is dead, but maybe they are just starting down this path and their conscience is still sensitive. Either way I believe God can reach them no matter where they are. I believe that pray is the conduit through which God works in their lives. So, I am inviting you to come forward today. If you can kneel at these alters you are welcome to do so. If you can't kneel then use these front chairs as your altar to sit and pray. Tony is going to come and quietly play for us as we kneel here to seek God on behalf of those we care for. I will close in pray when I feel we are done. 2