Rom 1:18-2:5
Am I a Christian if I refuse to accept parts of the gospel, the parts of the Bible I do not like?
Everything that looks Christian is not necessarily Christian. Many things are dressed in Christian clothes which are not Christian at all, but pagan and atheistic.
Be sceptical of anything that puts us in the centre. Of "theology" where God does everything that we want him to, and where we get power and wealth and health and the American Dream! That’s why we’re going through Romans: because here the gospel is clearly and systematically laid out. What the gospel is, what it contains and why we need it. This is what we believe.
From 1:18 to 3:20, we are in the "Why do we need the gospel" part of Romans. And we immediately crash into something we struggle with in our culture: that God is God! He is sovereign over all things, he judges us, and his judgment is right. Akk! No!
So we’re tempted to say, “but how can a loving God be like that? I can’t believe in such a God”.
What we’re upset about is not that he is sovereign, but that I’m not. Because when everything’s going our way, we love thinking of the sovereign God, ruling on high, smiling down on us and taking care of things. But when he does something that goes against our will, when we disagree with his choice – that’s when we suddenly have problems with his sovereignty.
And the biggest problem with his sovereignty is his judgment - and we struggle with it! Try telling one of your friends. See what reaction you get. “But God is a God of love! What's important is if we've tried”
Really? When you hit your sister in your face, did your parents say, “Doesn’t matter, we're full of love!” Ha! That’s not love, that’s unfair! That’s injustice. If God is really is a God of love, He will judge us for what we have done. He must judge, otherwise he is not good! But like children caught in the act of doing something wrong, we choose to close our ears and eyes and pretend that the parent isn’t there.
Will we believe the word of God, or will we 25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. A tame God for the "modern" Norwegians? Do we believe in Jesus or Jusus? The fake copy, or the real thing?
In today's text, the Holy Spirit, through the Apostle Paul, is teaching us that we all, without exception, have sinned. It is not that there are "good" people and "bad" or "evil" people – that’s the worldly, humanist, atheist way of thinking and it’s not Biblical. Ro 3:23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. says 3:23.
We are stuck the quicksand of sin. And the more you struggle and try to save yourself in quicksand, the faster you sink.
We need the gospel because we have all sinned and are under the right judgement of God, and face his anger.
1. We see God’s judgement in our thinking.
2. We see God’s judgement in our sexuality
3. We see God's judgement in everything that we do
4. How can we understand God's judgement and anger as Christians?
1. We see God’s judgement in our thinking.
18 But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
Because we are sinners, we suppress the truth. What truth? The truth about God: that he exists, that he created us, that he is King. We must suppress this truth, for how can we pretend to be God if God is there?
19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. 20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
Look around you. Look at Creation. See its design. Look at yourself, your morals - why do you say “this is wrong” when you do the same thing? For example, we all “know” that lying is wrong - but we all lie. It’s as if we know that there is a Standard beyond us, above us.
God has made it obvious that He is there. And we have chosen to ignore him. We choose to rather believe that everything is just random, that order came out of chaos - something that never happens - except in evolution! Why? Because we'd rather believe in something so ridiculous than believe in God. We suppress the truth and therefore everyone is without excuse. Not one person can say to God “I did not know you existed”. We are all guilty.
21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And 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. 23 And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 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.
We exchanged the gospel in all its glory with something else, something less. Instead of Jesus and his immense love, we put ourselves and our desires in the centre. Seek first your own interest. Follow your heart. Look out for number 1. Me, me me. What kind of world does that create?
And it affects us as Christians too. We are always tempted to make God less, a little more tame, a little more manageable, a little less sovereign, a little less full of anger, a little less God - and make ourselves a little bigger. But the truth is the greater we make ourselves the less we become in reality. We become limited and full of fear. To acknowledge the truth that God is sovereign that my salvation is based not on what I do but what Jesus has done, and that God works in me in the power of the Holy Spirit, that same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead - then the possibilities are endless. Then I'm really free!
This isn’t just theory, we’ve seen it time and again just in these five years at Rock Church. We have seen people being saved, healed, released from prison, and Satan's power crushed. God is sovereign! Our God is sovereign! And then the possibilities are endless, unlimited. Then we are free to experience all that God can do.
Let's not be tempted to make God small, because that is God's judgment: that he abandons us to dark and confused minds.
We see God's judgement in our thinking.
2. We see God’s judgement in our sexuality
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.
This Homosexuality thing is nothing new. In Roman times, homosexuality was the old, worn out and backwards sexual morality, and it was Christian sexual ethics that was revolutionary and new! Homosexuality is not new and modern and evolved. It’s older than Christian sexual ethics. We haven’t evolved in our understanding. We’ve gone backwards!
That we think now as a society that being gay is a good thing and must be praised says a lot about us and what we think about God and his creation order. We take what he says and do the opposite. We twist it - we will not be women and men, but we’ll decide for ourselves what we’ll be. We won’t have sex with those whose genitals fit - no we’ll choose our own way, our own truth. We won’t have sex in marriage, but out of marriage! But all of this only damages us because it's not the way we’re created. As v27 says they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.
When we commit sexual sin, we punish our own body. We inflict suffering on ourselves. Duh! Whether we are heterosexual or homosexual, sexual sin brings with it a lot of "gifts": a whole bunch of sexually transmitted diseases that can kill us with cervical cancer, make us sterile, destroy our sex drive, or "just" give us sores and an itchy crotch.... And if we’re engaging in gay sex or imitating porn, we can quickly ruin our, let's say, 'rear end'. (Not so sexy to wear a nappy the rest of life).
Homosexuality is no solution. Transgender (pretending you are another gender) is no solution. Saying: “God you’ve made a mistake, I’ll make my own choice, I’ll decide my own reality” when it comes to our gender or our sexual orientation is to really only hurt ourselves. It's no way out, no guarantee of happiness.
That’s not to deny that we can have big feelings, overwhelming feelings that “I'm a girl” or “I want to sleep with men” - but that should not define who we are. That should not be our identity. Our identity is A son or daughter of God, loved by God. And so the question is, will we let God be God and trust what he says? Do we want to live by faith? V17. The righteous shall live by faith. Trust in the goodness of God and his faithfulness. Yes, it may well be difficult, but the alternative is sin - and that only hurts us.
Now, if you’ve been listening and are thinking “Well, this has got nothing to do with me, just those disgusting gays” then the Holy Spirit has a word for us: 2:1 You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things.
When you judge someone else for their sin, you condemn yourself. It's too easy to mock gays and wag your judgemental finger at "them" while we heterosexuals divorce and live together and watch porn and destroy our own lives and society. Heterosexuals ruined the world long before gays organized!
Paul writes very cleverly here, gets us judging and saying - "yes, yes, that's completely wrong" - before he nails us with the next verses 29-31 covering all sorts of sin - because all of a sudden we’re all grouped together with homosexuals! We condemn ourselves with our own condemnation! Brilliant!
Because it’s true that gays have been bullied by the church. When we rage against homosexuality but don’t say a word about adultery, pornography, or cohabitation, or other “heterosexual” sins – that’s bullying. That’s discriminating against a small, vulnerable group. So, I would like to apologise on behalf of the church to my brothers and sisters who are gay: sorry. Forgive us for what we have done wrong. Forgive us because we came with judgement and turned our back on you, closing the door so that it was difficult for you to accept Jesus.
Brothers and sisters let me just say something quite clearly: in this church there is no room for hatred. Here there is no room for judgmentalism, for an attitude of “I'm better than you”. We are all in the same boat, equally sinful, no-one better than another. And if we have accepted Jesus as Saviour and Lord, we are equal in Christ, all children of God, loved equally as dearly by our Heavenly Father.
So this church is for homosexuals and for heterosexuals because we are all sexual sinners. We are all lawbreakers. And we all need Jesus. Jesus accepts us as we are. Remember what we have learned: that the gospel is something God does, not us. So if you're a homosexual you're not disqualified from knowing God because of your sin. And if you’re heterosexual, you’re also not disqualified from knowing God because of your sin. We can both come to Jesus, and be washed clean, whether we are gay or not. Come to Jesus and receive forgiveness, and receive the power of the Holy Spirit, to repent of . - turn away from the sin that comes so naturally, so easily, to us. Whether it's porn, or infidelity, or cohabitation, or fantasies about people you're not married to, or if you're violent or abusive during sex. Repent! Stop doing such things! Or you may refusing to have sex with your spouse, you’re rarely together. Again, by the Spirit’s help, let’s repent.
We need help, and that’s why we have a church. I’d like to challenge us to help each other here. That we can share our struggles with sin with each other, including sexual sin, so that we can pray for each other. And we do not judge each other, no matter what, because we are all sinners, and the only solution is to expose our sin to the light in order to deal with it. If you’re struggling with something difficult or you are too scared to share with someone in the church, feel free to talk to me or to Debby and we'll be happy to help you fight your sin and grow in godliness.
Just before we leave this point I want to clearly state God’s position on sex. Christian sexual ethics is easy. Are you married to the person: have lots of sex, often. If you are not married to the person: Do not have sex, and that includes all kind of sex, including pornography.
We see God’s judgement in our thinking.
We see God’s judgement in our sexuality’
3. We see God's judgement in everything that we do
I’ll just spend a few minutes on these verses.
28 Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking (sin begins up here, in our minds. Beware your thoughts. Be careful what you put in - what you watch, what you listen to. Does it help you to fight sin and obey Jesus, or not? Cut out whatever draws you towards temptation and so to sin. The battle begins here.) and let them do things that should never be done. 29 Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed (we’re fat because we eat too much and drown in debt because we buy too much. We need to eat less, exercise more, and give money to the gospel to be set free from the tyranny of greed!), hate, envy (advertisements! They’re built on envy. And jealousy in the church – she’s prettier than me, they have a bigger house, they... Instead turn to thanksgiving and praise. Thanks God for what you do have instead of looking at what you don’t. Praise Him. It kills envy and jealousy), murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. (Christian gossip starts with "just so we can pray but have you heard". Love ruins gossip and backstabbing. If you want to share something about someone else, stop and ask yourself “Why do I want to say this? Is it to bless and help them - or is it for me?” 30 They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. 31 They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. 32 They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.
they piss out evil
Oh, that's us! And if we think we’re better because “I don’t do all that (well, maybe one or two small things)” then the next verses nail us. Just look at 2:3 Since you judge others for doing these things, why do you think you can avoid God’s judgment when you do the same things?
Naughty, naughty, don’t lie, we say – and then we lie. Naughty, naughty, we say, you gossip – while we’re watching porn. Naughty, naughty, don’t be violent we say – but then we quarrel and use our words like weapons.
Every time we point our finger at someone else’s sin, we judge ourselves because we show that we know right and wrong! And then we choose to do what's wrong anyway!
We see God’s judgement in our thinking.
We see God’s judgement in our sexuality
We see God's judgement in everything that we do
4. How do we understand God's judgement and anger as Christians?
We have spent a lot of time seeing ourselves as we really are: sinners without hope. But how should we understand this as Christians? Why do we still sin? Why do we experience God judgement in our own lives as he allows us to sin? Why does he allow sin in the church and in the life of his children?
That was the question the prophet Habakkuk asked. Why am I suddenly talking about Habakkuk? Because the quote in v17 “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.” is from Habakkuk and his book forms the basis of the argument in chapters 1 and 2.
So in these last few minutes I want to give us a framework for how we can understand God's wrath, his anger, as part of his salvation!
See, Habakkuk’s complaint to God is this: everyone is sinning, the law has no power - what are you doing O God? Save us!
And God says, “I will save you by judging you. I’m sending Babylon to destroy Israel.”
“What?!” said Habakkuk, “that’s not a solution! They’re even worse! Why does allow that?
And God answer to him is “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.” Actually in Habakkuk 2:4 it says “the righteous person will live by his faithfulness”
Trust me, God is saying. Be patient and you will see my faithfulness.
The Babylonians swept in like a flood and destroyed Israel, just like we sometimes experience sin - our sin or other's sin - like a flood. But we must stand firm. We must have faith in God's faithfulness.
When we look around, we look at the church, we look at Christians – oh dear. There’s so much disappointment, so much heartache. And that’s God's judgment. He has abandoned us to our shameful desires... but in that judgement there is salvation, for we who have faith. Have faith in his faithfulness. Stand on Christ as everything else fails and crashes about you – and you will stand firm.
There’s a famous scene from 1928 with Buster Keaton where a whole wall falls on him - but because he's standing just where the window is, he is not be hurt. He’s standing exactly where he needs to be, and he has faith that everything has been correctly calculated so that when the wall falls, he will not be smashed, but will stand tall.
That's how we should be. Stand firm. Have faith, trust, in God's faithfulness. Even though we are in the storm of his anger, his judgement, we who trust in Him will stand.
What about those who keep sinning, and God seems to do nothing – just keeps allowing their sin? Breivik and Hitler and Mugabe and others who just ruin everything around them? Well, we’ll find out next week – but here’s a little foretaste. God’s judgment will fall on them like a wall on a man, and smash them into pieces. Their sins will catch up with them. 2:6 He will judge everyone according to what they have done…11 For God does not show favouritism.
We see God’s judgement in our thinking, our sexuality, in everything that we do! But do not be afraid. Stand firm. Have faith in God’s faithfulness, and as everything crashes around you, you will stand, for salvation comes from the Lord.
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