Romans Week 6 August 21, 2022

Introduction

Last week we talked about the wrath of God. This week we’ll explore more of why God’s wrath is being poured out.

Romans 1:18 ESV

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

God acts with wrath towards those who suppress the truth. He wrathfully acts against sin and for holiness. He does this not because wrath is all that He is. He is LOVE and because of this love, God acts to defend those He loves.

So in verse 18 we saw that God acts against those who suppress the truth. In verses 19 and 20 we will learn a little more.

Romans 1:19–20 ESV

19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 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.

to put simply what Paul is saying here is that God has made knowledge about himself playing to everyone therefore he is completely justified in exercising wrath towards humankind.

This isn’t the story of a forgetful father

One of the biggest times that I have to backpedal as a parent is when I start to get upset with the girls for something they failed to do and then they remind me that I actually didn't tell them at all what I wanted them to do.

This isn't what we are talking about here. The kind of situation that we are describing here is like a parent telling his teenage son Billy don't forget to set out the trash. And then on the way to school Billy sees billboards reminding him set out the trash tonight he gets notes in his lunch box reminding him set out the trash tonight he has a message on the school loudspeaker for him to set out the trash tonight I'm going to gets home he discovers voicemails and text messages on his phone reminding him to set out the trash tonight. This is how plainly God has revealed himself. If Billy chooses not to set out the trash it's not because his father has failed to remind him.

If we fail to know God it’s not because He has failed to remind us.

God reveals His eternal power and divine nature.

If we go back to our teenager analogy we know that this teenager Billy knows the rules and knows that his father wants him to take out the trash. But he also has the ability to understand responsibility and what it's like to be a member of his family.

In much the same way God gives mankind the capacity to see beyond the explicit to understand something greater made what we can experience. It's that feeling you get staring at the trees and the beauty around you in Turkey run for example.

I love how David writes in the Psalms..... Psalm 19:1-4

Psalm 19:1–4 ESV

1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. 2 Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. 3 There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. 4 Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun,

As David says the heavens declare the glorious nature of God and display his handiwork. They speak from day to night. And they speak in a language that every human can understand. That's one of the reasons that throughout history men and women have worshiped the stars and the planets and the sun.

Paul is making the case that creation makes it inexcusable for mankind to turn their back on God. To ignore the truth about God.

Why God pours out His Wrath

Romans 1:21–23 ESV

21 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. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

What is Idolatry

What is idolatry really? We live in a culture that does its best to be rather atheistic. So we don't have the shrines you'll find in Taiwan and Japan. We don't have the giant statues you'll find throughout India. And honestly we don't have the figurines you'll find in any Catholic Church. Unless you go to a Catholic Church of course. But what is Idolatry?

In Pauls day and throughout the Roman Empire people frequently had statues or places where they worshipped the gods in their own living room. They had idols. They had literal, figurines around their house that they prayed to and worshiped.

Fundamentally what idolatry is is worship. Whether you've got a statue that you pray to in your house or it's something else. It's giving honor and glory to someone or something.

Idolatry is Glory

And fundamentally the heart of a idolatry is this idea of glory.

Glory is weight

In the Hebrew mindset the idea of glory literally means weight. It means how heavy something is. In the time when Israel dealt in commodities like gold and silver those values were determined by how heavy they were. In a time which really represented much of human history to be fat meant you had wealth and power and influence and weight. So to give glory to something means to give weight to it period to give glory to something means that that thing or person has the capacity to completely sway you. That which we give the most glory to is what we allow to have the heaviest weight in our lives.

If we allow money to be really heavy in our lives then losing money or an opportunity to make money will throw all of our life off balance like a ship or a canoe when someone heavy steps on or off it. new line if we allow our marriage to be the heaviest thing in our life than what our spouse wants or doesn't want will be the most important thing to keeping the boat of our lifes stable. If we allow pleasure and comfort to have the greatest weight in our lives then we will do whatever it takes to protect it and keep us comfortable.

But if we allow God to have the greatest weight in our lives we will recognize that if we are faithful to God then we can weather any storm. We will recognize that if God says we should be or do something then that affirmation has the greatest sway in our opinions and our actions.

Exodus 15:11 ESV

11 “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?

From a biblical perspective really there are simply two types of entities in the universe. There is God and there is everyone that God created. There is every thing that God created. And in between God and creation is an infinite chasm. He is worthy of greater weight than anything.

And yet the beautiful thing is, of all creation man is worthy of more glory than anything else. We are made in the image of God!

Psalm 8:3–9 ESV

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. 9 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Our place in creation is to look up giving glory and honor to the God who created everything. That's why cathedrals and even our church here are built with pointed ceilings that draw the eye upward. That's one of the things that amazes us when we walk through the woods and we look up at the giant trees towering over our heads and older than our grandparents. We were made to give glory and honor to God. And what makes each human special is that we are made in the image of the God who is worthy of all glory and honor.

And So what we see in verses 22 and 23 is that the mistake that humans make is that they exchanged the weight and glory of God for images not worthy of glory. They exchanged the power of the God that made the universe and sustains the Redwood trees for men and women who pass away like grass dries up in a drought. God offers us the opportunity to participate in something marvelous and to worship and incredible God. And yet humans exchanged this marvelous glory for something so temporary.

Romans 1:22–23 ESV

22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

The problem with abandoning the glory of God is foolishness. The problem is that when we take something that can't sustain the weight of glory and we put it in God's place our world experience is serious repercussions. God's wrath is unleashed by these actions.

What God’s Wrath Results In

Romans 1:24–32 ESV

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 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. 26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 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. 28 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. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 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.

Romans C. Results of the Wrath of God (1:24–32)

When people act as if they do not know the truth about God (“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’ ” Pss. 14:1; 53:1), then their hearts become increasingly dark and they move to idolatry. And because idols cannot speak or write, and there is no revelation to govern the people, idolatry always results in immorality (“Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint,” Prov. 29:18). The sin of the human race is getting ever more specific: first, the suppression of truth. Then, the specific sin of idolatry.

As we go through this passage I want you to think about the Roman world and the people that Paul was writing to. For how much or little you know about them. Think about where you live and what you see of mankind and mankind's journey away from obedience to God. Answer for yourself do you think that Paul's assessment of humans tendency towards sin justifies him saying that God is revealing his wrath.

Do the sins described in this passage justify the revelation of God’s wrath?

Do the sins you see in the world around you justify God’s wrath?

As we look at these verses today we are going to divide this passage into two sections. Paul is going to talk about sexual sins and the rest of sins. Sexual sins he's going to talk about in verses 24 through 27 and he will catalog the rest of sins in verses 28 through 32.

What's important to see is that in both verse 24 and verse 26 Paul writes that God gave them up. God gives them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity. And God gives them up to dishonorable passions. And the reason in both cases that God has given them up as because they have surrendered the glory of God and rejected his truth.

Romans 1:23 ESV

23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

When Men and women choose to exchange the truth about God for a lie and worships creatures rather than the creator then God surrenders them 2 idolatry.

God gives people over to their sin

Did you catch what it said in verse 24 God gives them over to their sins? That's such an odd turn of phrase but it's actually used in other places in the Bible and it implies that God in some way takes an active role in allowing people 2 choose their sin. It's like in the Old Testament when God hardens the heart of pharaoh. God is hardening Pharaohs heart on the path that pharaoh has already taken. Now we don't know the end result that God sees or intends. It may be the God with some people allows them or hardens their heart towards sin so that they may eventually turn back to him. Or maybe the others he is allowing them to experience the consequences of their sin. As been said before the punishment for sin is sin.

The people described in verse 24 and verse 25 are those who exchanged the truth about God for a lie and they worship creatures rather than the creator. Do we live in a culture that worships creatures and our desires or do we live in a culture that worships and honors its creator?

Sin starts in the heart before it gets acted out in the body.

The passage goes on to talk about what exactly God gives them up to. It describes the sinful actions in this first section of a sexual nature that God gives them up to. But the first thing I want you to see though is the reality that sin is present in their hearts before it's manifested in their bodies. They worship the wrong thing and as a result of worshipping the wrong thing they give themselves into sinful actions. Out of the overflow of the heart we act.

One of the most shocking aspects of modern archaeology is the audacity of the sexual immorality portrayed in murals and carvings. It's almost as if with many of the idols that mankind has worshiped through history the further away from the God of Israel the more sexual perversions are introduced. Idolatry leads to immorality.

And let me say this one more time: a Dollar Tree leads to immorality. If you think about your money more than God you are struggling with a Dollar Tree. If you think about your career more than God you are struggling with idolatry. If you think about your family more than God you are struggling with a Dollar Tree if you struggled to make time for church attendance or investment in your life spiritually you are struggling with that Dollar Tree. And that Dollar Tree always leads to immorality.

Homosexuality

when you look at Roman history around the time of Paul you understand that homosexual practice was not just tolerated it was celebrated and promoted. 14 of the 15 Roman emperors all practiced homosexuality. It was common for many well to do man to have homosexual partners.

And yet Paul writing this letter to the church spread throughout Rome picks this sin as the prime example of sexual immorality. He could have talked about betrayal or other sexual sins. But he picks this one because it is the inversion of God's plan. It moves out of the realm of what's natural and into whatever you can make up.

obviously homosexuality is not the most harmful sin. But it is and extraordinarily arrogant sin. It is living in opposition to how God has created the world.

Paul's point in chapter one of Romans is that mankind experiences God's wrath because they have rejected God's truth. In what greater way do we reject God's truth then by rejecting how God has naturally created us?

I know that there are men and women who could argue me under the table on this topic. And maybe some of you feel strongly about the topic of homosexuality. I'm covering this topic because Paul does. I'm commenting on it to stay true to how it's presented in God's word. The bible's position on this topic is clear for anyone willing to look and read.

homosexual practice was a widespread and accepted thing in the Roman Empire. So for Paul to take aim at it in this passage is just as controversial as it is today. We are called to find our identity and our relationship with our savior. We are called to see the world through the lens of gods truth. And this includes how we see ourselves sexually. How we act.

God gives them over to a depraved mind

Romans 1:28 ESV

28 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.

When we fail to guard our minds we open ourselves up to terrible choices.

Remember that one time Jesus had a discussion with his disciples about the religious leaders. The Pharisees thought that they could keep the outside of their lives clean and their heart would follow. They could pile on all the rules in the world and that would change their hearts. Jesus said they had it backwards. Out of the overflow of the heart comes our actions.

Mark 7:20–23 ESV

20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

The Vice List

The first four are general in focus

Romans 1:29 ESV

29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,

The next five are all about envy and it’s consequences

Romans 1:29 ESV

29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,

The last twelve cover slander, arrogance and other sins

Romans 1:30–32 ESV

30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 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.

Conclusion

Romans III. Conclusion: The Master Clock

In the town hall in Copenhagen stands the world’s most complicated clock. It took forty years to build at a cost of more than a million dollars. It has ten faces, fifteen thousand parts, and is accurate to two-fifths of a second every three hundred years. The clock computes the time of day, the days of the week, the months and years, and the movements of the planets for twenty-five hundred years. Some parts of that clock will not move until twenty-five centuries have passed. While enormously impressive, and while the clock would serve faithfully for more than the lifetime of any person alive, the two-fifths of a second it loses every three hundred years are a problem. By what perfect standard shall the clock be reset every three hundred years?

The atomic age has come closer to solving the problem. The cesium-atom clock is used to define the second, the basic unit of time of the International System of Units. Cesium-133 atoms are bombarded with microwave radiation which generates energy within the atoms. The frequency levels associated with the energy generation are used to calculate time to an accuracy level of about plus or minus one second in one million years. Well, that is closer than the Copenhagen clock, but still not the perfection we are looking for.

The interesting thing about even the most precise clocks is that they are all dependent on something else for setting the correct time. No man-made clock can set, and keep, perfect time on its own. There has to be a reference point by which time is set. Whether it was the sun in 3,500 B.C. that was the reference point for the earliest shadow clocks, or the energy levels of atoms in the twentieth century, everyone recognizes that the universe—God’s creation—is the standard reference point for life on earth.

While we have made progress in keeping better time over the centuries, we have actually just succeeded in discovering smaller reference points—from the sun to atoms. We have not succeeded in eliminating the reference points and becoming independent of the creation in which we exist. Nor, Paul argues in Romans 1, have we succeeded in becoming independent of the Creator.

Paul shows we are part of a grand plan by a marvelous creator. We are not independant of our creator. Creation constantly points us to Him calling us to listen!

There was once a church named harmony church. It was based outside of a major metropolitan area. It was an old church, over 100 years old,. A developer came through wanting to turn the area around the church and the church property itself into a major suburb. The church was offered a massive sum of money to move. Naturally they jumped on the prospect and accepted the offer and started making plans to construct a new facility. Frankly they had enough money for two facilities. The older members of the congregation who had been there for a long time wanted to build a more traditional building like the old one just a little bit larger. Younger members wanted to build something new I totally different design. Over the passing months more and more heated arguments came up as people fought for what they wanted.

The church with the name harmony became known four fights and division more than harmony. People got so consumed buy what they wanted that many left the church. Because so many people worship the idea of a beautiful new facility more than unity in relationship with God they allowed sin to take root in their lives.

I share this story because it's really easy for us to look out there at culture. It's really easy for us to point fingers at the news or movies or TV shows for their blatant sin. But we need to look in our own hearts first period we need to make sure we ourselves are worshipping God first. Because if we don't our worship of self will lead to fights. If we don't our worship of comfort will lead to division. If we don't then our own idolatry will cause us to live out some of the same sins we despise in the world around us. Who do you worship?