Death Spiral (Romans 1:24-32) | Louis Azuma

Speaker: Romans one is where we're going.

Romans one.

And we're gonna be looking at verses 24.

This is 32.

Romans 1, 24 to 32, Romans 1, 24 to 32.

So you may have heard, you may have heard that today something really sad happened.

Um, something really sad and really, really evil happened.

So there was someone who, um.

Who believes some things that the Bible says, and they were shot by someone

who didn't like that about them.

They didn't like what they believed and they shot him.

Um, I would not, I would, I would tell you, don't go look this

up because it's live on camera.

Someone caught it on camera, so don't watch it.

Um, so don't watch it.

But the reason I bring it up is 'cause some of you might have heard about it.

Um.

And the reaction to it was, obviously people are very, feel

very bad about this, right?

Someone, a guy died, a husband died, a father died.

Um, but one of the reactions that I noticed, someone I know, um, their

reaction was really, really, really sad, actually made me feel sick.

Um, they were excited and they were happy that this person died.

They were celebrating that this person was shot and that these, this wife

doesn't have her husband anymore, and that these kids don't have their dad anymore.

They were excited because they think this person spreads hate and

this person spreads violence, and they think that this person doesn't

deserve to be alive, and so they are celebrating that this person was shot.

They're celebrating an innocent person's death because they

disagree with what this person says.

It's really sad.

How does someone get to that point?

How does a real person, a real, not, not just someone online, but

a, a real person gets to the point where they're excited that an

innocent person got shot and killed.

What makes someone get to that point?

What takes someone to, to be that hardhearted and set in their sin and

is, is what we're gonna look at tonight?

This passage, Romans one is gonna show us a downward spiral of sin.

It's gonna show us where that spiral starts and kind of

the steps along that spiral.

And it, it's kind of a, it's, it's a spiral 'cause it's cyclical.

It, it reoccurs and you go further and further, further

down into what this death spiral.

And you end up like this person that I know who.

Just, I can't even explain how horrible this is, that they're excited, they're

celebrating this person's death.

Um, and that's because they are currently living out this passage.

This passage talks about our sin.

It talks about, um, what happens when we reject God and, um.

That's what we're gonna see in tonight's passage.

So our main point tonight is that rejecting God starts

a deadly spiral of sin.

It begins with a rejection of God.

It doesn't begin with who your parents are.

It doesn't begin with how you were raised.

It doesn't begin with your who you follow on Instagram, or the kind of books you

read, or the podcast you listen to.

It begins.

With what you do with God, with who God is to you.

That's where it starts.

And once you reject God, once you say that, that you don't want God in your

life, once you oppose God in that way, you have set yourself on this trajectory,

this downward spiral that will take you to terrible, terrible places, obviously

in eternity, apart from God in Hell.

But also along the way, you, you won't go to places that you.

Want to be in.

So remember the big picture, right?

We're we're seeing Romans one, two, and three are showing us

that God's wrath is righteous.

It's a good thing for God to show his wrath.

It's a good thing because God is a good judge.

He's being a good judge.

When he shows his anger towards sin, that's the, that's what we're

looking at for these first three chapters of Romans, and this passage

is showing us what that looks like.

So what's gonna be interesting about this passage is that this is

actually how God shows his wrath.

He hands people over to their spiral of sin.

He says, okay, if you're gonna reject me, I will let you keep doing that,

and I will send you down this path.

Down this spiral to your destruction, and this is what

we're gonna see in this passage.

Okay?

I don't know if we're gonna be able to read through the whole thing,

but this is what the spiral is.

There's three steps to the spiral, okay?

The death spiral of sin starts with rejecting God.

People reject God to worship other things.

They say this is better than God, this thing that they want.

Maybe it's money, maybe it's power, maybe it's control.

Maybe it's pleasure.

Maybe in, in this case, it's a statue right?

In, in, in Romans one.

Um, they worship other things than God.

They say, I don't want God.

This is better.

Remember we talked about last week, sin is preferring something else to God, right?

Sin is is not first and foremost something bad.

The reason it's bad is because you're saying something's better than God.

That's sin.

So it starts with rejecting God to worship other things.

Then God shows his wrath by handing people over to their sin.

He says, okay, if that's what you want, if you really want something

other than me, I'll let you have it.

You can have this thing besides me to to be your God.

He hands them over to that.

He says, here you go.

You wanted it.

Then those people say, awesome, great.

I finally got what I, what I wanted.

I don't have God in my life anymore.

I got rid of God.

I, I'm the authority now.

I'm in control.

I'm most important.

I finally got what I wanted.

I can do whatever I want.

No more rules.

No more restrictions, no more big, bad God telling me what to do.

And they're, they're free from that.

And they embrace that sin, right?

They embrace their, their.

They're in control of their lives now, or they can do whatever they

want, this freedom, this autonomy.

They can do whatever they want and then they keep on going down this spiral.

That's what this passage is gonna show us, that there's

these three steps to this spiral.

So the, but it starts with rejecting.

Starts with rejecting God, and that's what we see in this passage.

All right, so what I want you to see is just from, I took kind

of a few verses from Romans one.

Just to kind of show you what Paul is saying, people reject God, right?

They, they know God.

They don't honor him as God.

They know about God, right?

They say, oh yeah, God exists, but they say, uh, well, I

don't really wanna worship him.

And he's saying, everyone is in that boat.

Everyone knows God exists.

Everyone can know that God exists because of his creation, right?

We talked about that I think two weeks ago or last week, that everyone can

know God exists because of his creation.

He's made it obvious that he exists, but people don't worship him.

People don't treat him like he's God.

They live their own life.

Another way they do that is they exchange the glory of God for images.

They say, well, I know that I'm supposed to worship God, but instead I want this.

This is better than God.

This is more important than God.

This is cooler than God.

This will make me happier than God could make me.

They exchange the glory of God for images.

Right in, in our day it's maybe not a, a picture or, or a statue,

but it's a feeling we want or a position we want, or a relationship

we want or something, right?

We, we say, I want this more than I want God.

Something else that we do is we exchange the truth about God for a lie.

We say, well, maybe, maybe you think that about God, but I think God is like this.

We, we take things that are true and we say, I don't want to believe those.

I know maybe you say that God exists or you say that God says this,

or God wants me to live this way.

And you say, I don't want, I don't wanna believe that.

And you believe lies.

That's the other thing that we do.

Another way we reject God is we take things that are true

and we say, I don't want those.

I don't want things that make me feel good.

Things that I like.

I'd rather hear what I like than hear what's true.

And then another way, right?

Don't fit, see, fit.

To acknowledge God.

We say, I don't, I don't want to deal with God.

I'm just gonna put God to the back of my mind.

I don't want to, I don't want to think about God.

I don't wanna live as though God exists.

So it starts with a rejection of God.

And so these points, the three points tonight, they're gonna be what not to do.

These three points are three ways to ruin your life.

So the points are what's not or you're not supposed to do, right?

The points are three ways to ruin your life, three ways to, to

take this downward spiral of sin.

And end up under God's wrath.

So the first way to ruin your life and blend in with, with our world

that hates God is to reject God to worship other things, right?

That's the first step in our spiral.

It starts with rejecting God.

Just like we said last week, all sins starts with preferring something to God.

All sins starts with, I want that.

I don't want God.

I wanna do things my way, not God's way.

This is better than God.

That's how sin starts.

We even see that, right?

I showed you this earlier, but we see that here they exchange the truth about God.

Verse 25.

So these people who are, whose God's handing over to to their own desires,

they exchange the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served

the creature rather than the creator.

Said, I like the things God made more than God, right?

That that's all of us in this room.

We want the things that God made more than we want.

God.

That's called sin.

We're all sinners.

We're all wired this way.

Everyone starts off in this boat.

We all start wanting what God made more than we want God, right?

We want approval more than we want God.

We want money more than we want God.

We want security and comfort more than we want God.

We want pleasure more than we want God.

All these things, we want more than God.

We serve what God made instead of serving God.

That's how sin starts.

Every sin trades something true about God and and says it's a lie, right?

If you think about this, even with.

Sins that maybe seem more common, right?

Something like, well, I'm not like worshiping an idol.

What about like anxiety?

Anxiety?

You're trading the truth about God for a lie.

Anxiety is saying, well, I know that God's in control, but I don't

really feel like he's in control.

I know that God loves you.

I don't really feel like he loves me.

And so you believing a lie instead of what's true, right?

Or something maybe like impurity you're saying, I know that God promises joy, but

really I think this will make me happen.

Be or laziness.

I know that following God and doing this hard thing would actually be better for

me, but I'd rather listen to my, my flesh and I will buy the lie that being lazy

and undisciplined will be better for me.

So every sin, you're, you're buying a lie, right?

We talked about that last week, right?

You're, you're trading, you're making a bad trade, right?

You're, you're, it's like you're the general manager of the Cowboys.

You're making a bad trade.

You're, you're, you're trading something true for a lie.

But then part of this spiral is you also reject God's good design.

So you not only reject God, you reject the way he made things to be.

That's what the next few verses talk about, verses 26 and 27.

For this reason.

So what reason?

Well, the people exchange the truth about God for a lie.

So then God gave them up.

He handed them over to their desires.

He said, okay, you wanna worship something other than me?

Here you go.

I'll let you, I'll give you over to those sinful desires that you have.

And this phrase, natural relations comes up, right?

The point that Paul's making is these people, these women and these men, they're

sinning against God's created design.

God made the world to work one way, and they're saying, God, we don't

like the way you made the world.

We're gonna make it.

We're, we're gonna do our own thing that we think is better.

What happens with sin is we not only reject God, we

reject the way he made things.

Right?

In this case, what Paul is talking about is Paul is talking about

homosexuality here in this passage, right?

That's what he's saying.

Women who exchange natural relations for those that are contrary to

nature, against nature, right?

God designed marriage between a man and a woman.

God designed there to be men and women.

And for you to stay a man and a woman or a woman, they're women.

So these people, they, they say, I don't want the way God designed me to be.

I want a different way.

And so they're exchanging that they're going against God's created design.

Verse 27, same thing.

These men do the same thing.

Instead of wanting to be married to one woman, they say, well, actually

I want to, I, I desire other men.

So this is a down the spiral consequence of rejecting God.

You reject God, then you start to reject what he says, and

so then you reject his design.

So it's down the spiral, right?

So you reject God, you start rejecting things.

God says that's what happens.

And that's what Paul's talking about here.

He's talking about homosexuality.

Now, next week we are gonna talk more in depth about homosexuality.

So if you have questions, don't terrorize your leaders yet next

week you'll be able to do that.

So next week we're gonna talk about what the Bible says about homosexuality,

how to talk to people who maybe believe that other things about homosexuality

or any of the other LGBTQ plus letters.

That's what we're gonna be talking about next week.

Okay?

So if you have questions about that, what the Bible says, save 'em for next week.

But we do care about that.

We, 'cause God cares about it.

Um, and so we want to explain that to you and equip you to maybe talk

with people who believe those things.

So that's what we'll be covering next week.

But right now what I want you to see is that, what Paul is saying

here is that homosexuality is a rejection of God's design.

It's, it's an extension of rejecting God.

You reject God, so then you reject the way he made things.

Right?

That's, that's Paul's point.

So.

Then what happens next?

Well, maybe you're like, well, my sin isn't that bad.

I'm not one of these people that's totally rejecting the way God made the world.

Well, look what else Paul says, verse 28.

Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, these people who, who didn't wanna

worship God, God gave them up to a debased mind, like a twisted, messed up

mind to do what ought, ought to be done.

And then he has this big list of things.

There's like over 20 things on this list.

I'm on this list.

You're on this list, right?

Maybe you were like, oh, well I'm not one of those people that

totally rejects God's design.

Well, you're still one of these people, right?

You're still one of these people who don't acknowledge God as this,

and then you, or before you were Christian, you were one of these people.

So there's this big list of things and some of these things you're like, man,

that's tor, that's terrible, right?

You see murder over there.

You see haters of God on there.

You see heartless or, or ruthless, and you're like, man, that's terrible.

Those are really bad people.

Well, who's, who else is in the same category?

Anyone ever done that before?

Right?

What about this one?

You ever wanted something that wasn't yours?

What about this one?

You ever lied?

What about this one?

Right.

This is all the same category, boasting.

It's all the same group.

All of these people deserve God's wrath.

You deserve God's wrath.

I deserve God's wrath.

And the worst sin you can think of deserves God's wrath.

Every single person does.

All of us reject God.

All of us categorically do the same.

Same thing, right?

We sin, we say, I want this more than God.

So before you say, well, I'm not as bad as those people keep reading the passage and,

and, and think about, man, I, according to Paul, I do what these people do.

The people who reject God, I do the same things that they do.

So how do I not do this right?

How do I not start this downward spiral?

How do I not right?

I, I'm a sinner.

I, I know that.

I, I see it.

Okay, how do I not reject God?

Well, hopefully you've already done this, but you, you embrace God

the opposite of rejecting, right?

You think of like rejecting, pushing on away, embracing you.

You come to God, you say, God, I want you.

That's what trusting God is.

It's embracing him.

Or you, maybe you heard the term, receive Jesus.

That means like to, to come to him, to, to embrace him.

And you say.

You.

You trust God.

You say, you know what?

God, what you designed is good.

The way you made the world to work.

The things you say in your word is good.

It's good for me, right?

You're a good God.

You're a kind God.

You're a loving God and I trust you.

I trust you to save me.

I'm messed up.

I'm a sinner.

I need you to save me.

And that starts when you become a Christian, but also for the rest of

your life, there's gonna be things that are hard for you to believe

that what God says is better.

It's gonna be hard, like for the rest of your Christian life.

It's not just a one time, okay, I, I didn't reject God.

Great.

I'm a Christian.

No.

It's like, well, I, you keep on embracing God.

You keep on saying, God, I trust you.

Your design is better.

Right?

Maybe I didn't get into the school I wanted to go into.

I don't have the friends that I, I thought I'd have, or I'm not as good

at this as I want to be, or what.

You have to trust God with those things and say, God, you are working for my good.

And then also something else to, to prevent this spiral is you see how

destructive and, and terrible your sin is.

You, you, you see where this goes?

You see where this spiral, that's why Paul does this, is he shows you where

your sinful desires will take you.

You refute lies with truth.

You, you, you think back when you're tempted to sin.

You say, what?

We talked about this last week, right?

Your sin is trying to sell you something.

It's trying to make, it's trying to offer you something, and

you say, well, that's not true.

It's not worth it.

Here's what God offers me.

God offered me something better.

And that's why you need to know what God says because if you don't know what

God says, it's gonna be hard to believe that what he has for you is better.

So

the first step in this spiral is to reject God and worship other things instead

to want other things more than God.

And the second step in our spiral right, was that God hands people

over to their, to their sinful desires, which is interesting, right?

'cause God is the one actively doing that.

It's not that you did it, God did it.

It's that's how God shows his wrath.

Even presently, God is presently showing his wrath against people who

are living and walking around on the earth by giving them over to their sin.

And that's what we see in this passage.

I forgot to show you this.

This is how Paul ends Romans one.

Those who practice such things disobeying their parents, gossiping,

envying, deserve to die, right?

You need, we need to see how bad our sin is.

My sin put Jesus on the cross, right?

My sin deserves hell, just like that person's sin, who maybe seems worse.

Anyway, that was our first point, talking about now the second phase in our spiral,

that God gives people over to their sinful desires when they reject him.

We see that right?

Verse 24, 26, 28.

Like this.

That's where I got the spiral idea from.

Right?

It's like a, you ever seen a spiral staircase, right?

Paul is like walking down this spiral staircase of sin, and

God is the one who's saying how, here's how I'm gonna show my wrath.

I'm going to hand you over to your lusts, to your passions, to your sinful thinking.

I'm gonna give you over to those things.

It's like almost like, um, in a courtroom, right?

When someone's convicted, they hand them over, right?

They're guilty, they hand them over.

He's saying, here you go.

This is what you wanted.

It's actually how God shows his wrath.

God punishes you by letting you sin.

Isn't that weird?

So if you wanna continue down the spiral of rejecting God

and ruining your life, 0.2

would be to let your desires loose.

That's the second way you can ruin your life and end up

apart from God under his wrath.

Do whatever you want, right?

Don't hold back any of your sinful desires.

Just follow them wherever your body, wherever your sin tells

you to go, follow it and just go.

That's how you ruin your life.

But it's really interesting to think about that.

God shows his wrath by letting people sin, right?

He hands them over to their sin.

That's that.

It's probably something you haven't thought about before.

And how does that work?

Well, if what you want is bad for you, it's a punishment to

let you keep doing it, right?

If what you want is bad for you

to punish you, I would just let you keep doing it right,

because that's bad for you.

It reminded me of this really old book that I read in elementary school.

I don't, no one's probably ever heard of this book.

It's called Mrs.

Pickle Wiggle.

Now this book, so this, this, it's this about this old lady and Mrs.

P wiggle is like this, this lady who's like really good at like parenting tricks.

So all the people in their little town, they come to her and they're like, my

daughter has this problem, or my son has this problem and they ask her to fix it.

And she comes up with some like really funny, like clever way to help them.

So.

For example, uh, this dude, he didn't wanna put his toys away.

He never wanted to clean up, right?

He never wanted to clean up.

His toys are all over his room.

He doesn't wanna clean up.

And so here's what Mrs.

Pickle wiggle decides to do.

She says, okay, fine.

Just let him keep all his toys out.

And it's like, what?

That seems counterintuitive, right?

But what happens is they, for like, I don't know how long, maybe it's like a

month, they let him keep all his toys out and he takes all 'em out and he has,

his room is full of toys and eventually he can't even like get out of his room.

And like he's, there's like delivering him food at the door of his room.

Anyway, it's really funny.

But then what Ms.

Tickle wiggle does is she leads like a parade, like a really fun parade,

like this big party outside the house, and he's stuck in his room

because he wouldn't clean up his toys.

So now he can't go enjoy this parade.

He can't be part of this awesome party because he didn't put away his toys.

You see that?

So what she did is she said, Hey, don't, it's fine.

Keep all your toys out.

You're gonna miss out on what's better, right?

Same thing, I, I'm not sure if it was this girl.

It was, there was a girl in the book.

She never wanted to take a bath.

She never wanted to shower.

Right.

Which that's pretty easy to hand someone over to, right.

So what they did is they were like, fine, we're just gonna let you not shower and

not take a bath and never clean yourself.

And then this girl gets like so dirty.

They like, it's really weird.

They plant like a like seeds on her 'cause there's so much dirt on her

and she ends up like covered in like plants, which is probably not good.

But the point is, okay, fine, you don't wanna take a shower, that's totally fine.

You're just gonna be gross and disgusting, right?

That's what God does when he hands you over to your sin.

He says, okay, you wanna keep sinning, you wanna keep following your impure thoughts.

You want to keep being anxious and not trusting me.

You wanna keep coveting and envying and gossiping, and slandering,

and disobeying your parents and all the things on that list, fine.

Do it.

It'll kill you.

That's what God says.

That's how God shows his wrath.

By letting you keep sinning, you miss out on these amazing things

that he has to offer because you settled for something lame, right?

You, you kept all the toys out in your room and you missed out on the party.

You ended up gross and disgusting in your sin because that's what you wanted.

You wanted it, and he says, here you go, have it.

That's part of this spiral.

If you let your sinful desires lead you, right?

If you let your sinful desires take you where they want you to go, where you

think you want to go, you will continue out in this spiral under God's wrath.

That's why self-control is such a good thing.

Self-control is a, is a good thing because it prevents you from following

this spiral and ruining your life.

Paul is trying to show you the end of the story, this passage, what God is doing.

God doesn't want you to to end up stuck in your room with all your

toys out missing out on the party.

God doesn't want you to be gross and disgusting with plants all over

you because you didn't wanna shower.

God loves you too much.

And so he gives you warnings and he says, if you keep going

that way, it'll kill you.

And so he says, don't like follow me.

He gives you a better offer.

But we have to fight our sinful desires to do that even if

it feels good in the moment.

Think about when you're, when you're tempted, right?

You want to, your desires are pulling at you.

The best thing to do in that moment is to think, okay, where is this gonna take me?

If I give into this temptation, where is this gonna go?

Right.

Kind of like you ever been to all you can eat Korean barbecue?

Yes.

It's like Kenneth just woke up.

Um, so right.

All you can eat Korean barbecue, they have all those like,

random things out on the table.

You know, like, there's like vegetables and weird stuff, right?

I know some people that don't even eat the rice at cream barbecue cup.

Why?

Because they wanna save as much room as possible for the meat.

They wanna save as much room as possible for the bulgogi and the, you know,

Korean fried chicken and the pork belly.

They want to save all the room for that.

So they're like, no appetizers.

I don't want it.

Some people even skip lunch.

They're like, I wanna be ready for this, so I'm gonna skip lunch so

that I can be as hungry as possible to eat the, to get my money's

worth on this 30 something dollars.

All you can eat barbecue, right?

Mm-hmm.

So what helps you be self-controlled?

Let's say you're skipping lunch, which don't do it, but let's say you're

skipping lunch to, to enjoy your all.

You can eat Korean barbecue at dinner when you're starving at 3:00 PM and you want to

go to the to the pantry and grab a snack.

What's gonna keep you motivated to be self controlled and not give into your desires?

You gotta think about, you gotta think about the Korean barbecue.

You gotta think about how good it's gonna be.

You gotta think about, oh man, I can just order like however much

I want and I can just eat it.

And you think about how awesome it is.

You're like, oh, you know what?

I'll wait.

I'll pass on the Doritos.

I'll pass on the whatever, snacks, pretzels, whatever.

I don't know.

I'll pass on the snacks because I want, I want what's better, right?

That's what God is offering you.

He's saying, here I have an all you can eat barbecue of, of goodness

for you, but you're settling for the lame little appetizers on the table.

You're, you're eating the kimchi and the, the salad and the whatever you're, you're

eating all that, and you should be saving room for what's, what's really good.

That's how you'd be self-control.

That's the secret to self-control is, is to have a, a bigger desire.

Well, I want this more, so I'm not gonna fall for the little thing.

I'm not gonna snack because I, I want dinner.

That's what God gives us.

He gives us promises, he gives us warning.

He says, if you eat this.

You won't be hungry for dinner, you'll miss out.

So think about right when you're attempted and you feel the pull of your desires.

Think about the end of the story.

Think about where is this gonna take me?

How is this gonna go for me?

And think about that.

Your sinful desires are destructive too, right?

They'll kill you, right?

They, they appear to be good, but really they'll kill you.

I heard a story, I, I forget where I heard it a long time ago,

about how some people kill wolves.

They're shepherds, they're trying to protect their sheep, and

this is how they kill wolves.

Okay.

It's, it's kind of crazy.

Um, what they do is they take a, um, they take like a, a steak,

essentially like meat, and they put it over a, um, a knife and then

they freeze it and they put it out.

The wolf smells the meat, right?

And there's like blood and everything.

And so the wolf starts licking the ice to get the meat off or to get the ice off

the meat so he can eat the meat, right?

So the wolf's like licking, licking this ice to get, to get this meat.

And all the wolf tastes.

The wolf smells the meat, the wolf tastes the meat, and there's blood.

And so he tastes, he tastes blood.

And that's good, right?

He's hungry, he wants blood.

So as the wolf starts licking this, this ice and chewing on this meat,

he starts licking the the knife.

And then it cuts his tongue and his tongue's bleeding and the whole time

he's licking it and like chewing on it.

And he's tasting what he thinks is the animal that he's trying to eat,

but whose blood is he really tasting?

His.

And then the wolf bleeds out and dies.

Yeah, that's, that's what your sin is doing.

Your sin is tricking you.

Your sin makes you think you're eating this awesome steak, but

really you're, you're dying, you're bleeding out on your own blood.

That's what your sin does.

And the hard part is seeing it for what it is, right?

Because you're, you're, you get so wrapped up in, oh, this tastes so good.

And you, you, for, you don't realize what you're doing to yourself, right?

And so that's why God gives us these warnings.

That's why he says, Hey.

Look out, right?

God's wrath is coming on.

These types of sins, God's wrath is, is against these people.

These type of sins will lead you to death.

That's what God says, and the reason he says that isn't 'cause he hates

you and wants you to have no fun.

It's 'cause he loves you and doesn't want you to die.

So your your sin, your sinful desires.

If you follow your sinful desires, it tricks you because it gets

you to like what kills you.

Right.

That, that's, that's how your sin kills you.

It gets you to like what kills you.

And so you keep, you keep licking it and you bleed out because you, you're

enjoying it, but you're, it's like you're addicted to poison, right?

You're just drinking and drinking and drinking poison, and you kill yourself

because you're enjoying what kills you.

That's what your sin does.

And so you have to see where is this taking me?

What is this doing?

But that state right of I, I enjoy what kills me.

That's what sin does to you.

And if you follow this spiral, you reject God.

You let your desires lead you.

That's what Paul means when he says that God gives you over to your sinful desires.

He talks about your mind.

He says they're, they're, they're futile in their understanding

or they claim to be wise.

They became fools because they started to like what kills them.

You see that?

In our passage from last week, they became futile in their thinking.

They thought they were smart, but they were actually being foolish, and then God

gave them up to a debased mind, right?

A sinful mind.

Verse 28.

What your sin does is it gets you to like what's killing you, and that's

how you end up trapped in this spiral.

That's the very bottom of the spiral.

You like your sin and you hate God, and you love hating God, and you love sinning.

So the last step in this spiral is to embrace sinful thinking and values.

So you start enjoying it, right?

Your sin used to feel bad and now it doesn't anymore.

Now it just feels normal, and then it starts feeling good

and doesn't bother you anymore,

right?

If you're, if you're starting to enjoy your sin, if you're approving

your sin, if you're saying, this is great that I'm doing this, I love.

Being lazy, right?

I love being, I love gossiping.

It's so fun.

Just the thrill of being able to spread news and, and the control I

get from being able to, to define the narrative around people or, oh,

I, I love, I just, I love how much better I am than other people, right?

And your pride, once you start enjoying it, and once it starts

being comfortable and normal for you, you're in a really bad spot

because.

You've got, you're, you're enjoying what's killing you, right?

It doesn't bother you anymore.

Or when you watch that, it, it doesn't really convict you.

Or when you play that game or hear those words or make those

jokes, nothing, it doesn't, there's, there's nothing happening.

You're just like, oh, that's really funny.

Or That was such a, that was really good.

And, and that's what.

That's what God is warning you right?

Is, is people at the bottom of this spiral, and maybe that's, you think

that they're, they're doing great.

They're like, look how free I am.

I don't have to listen to God.

I don't have to read the Bible.

I don't have to be just, I can do whatever I want.

I get to escape all of these rules that my parents put on me or that,

that the Bible says they think they're doing great, but in reality they're

foolish because they're saying, I love this thing that's killing me.

And that's where Paul goes, verse 27, they're, they're

doing shameless things, right?

They're not embarrassed about it.

They're, they're doing it openly.

They're not, they're not embarrassed if someone knows that they're sinning, right?

Maybe they're bragging about it or they, this last part, they

approve people who do those, right?

That's like what we do when we laugh at a dirty joke.

We're giving approval to someone who's sinning.

We're saying, oh, that's, that's great.

That's funny.

So

at the bottom of this spiral, your sin becomes more normal and more enjoyable.

And, and the problem is you don't really notice it, right?

Just like that wolf doesn't notice when it went from sheep blood to wolf blood, you

don't notice it because it's so subtle.

And that's why, um, your sin, like pastor PJ mentioned on Sunday.

You can't just have a little sin in the corner and be like,

oh, it's just a little one.

It's okay.

It's just gossip or it's just coveting or it's just lying or, uh, well, I don't,

I don't act on my lustful thoughts.

I just have lustful thoughts.

Those desires are trying to kill you.

They're not just there.

Right.

It's like having you hear about every once in a while you hear this headline about.

You know, owner killed by Pet Snake.

It's like, why did you have, why did you have a pet boa constrictor

that was probably gonna kill you if it got out of its cage?

Right?

If you're treating your sin casually, like, oh, it's just a little sin,

it's just not a, it's not a big deal.

You're, you're keeping a, a deadly pet and it will kill you.

It's trying to kill you.

And so this, this whole thing starts with rejecting God.

This whole spiral of now at this point, the bottom of it, you're

embracing sin, you're celebrating sin.

You're not embarrassed about sin, you're not convicted.

It starts with the rejection of God, and that's why your relationship with

God, even as a Christian is so important because the closer you are with God,

the more obvious your sin will be.

Right?

Just like

the cleaner.

Your house is the more obvious it is when something's dirty.

Right?

I, my, um, college apartment, I had two roommates.

I moved in to their apartment.

It was, it was disgusting.

Like this one dude like literally stopped doing his dishes,

like just put 'em in the sink.

And I was like, what in the world?

Like, what are we doing guys?

Um, the other dude would like stay up till 2:00 AM and play.

Rocket League and never clean anything.

It was, it was like the worst of what you think of from college living.

And then they both graduated.

Praise the Lord.

After I got there, and then I had this other roommate moved in and this roommate,

he's from Germany, his name is Marcus, and he was like the best thing ever.

He came in, he like deep cleaned everything right?

He was like, he took like everything outta the stove, like all the

burners out and everything.

And I cleaned.

I was like, this is wild.

This is awesome.

So.

Now, right now I'm married and I'm not living with dudes

I'm living with, with Shay.

And Shay's a very clean person and she designs things that

look really cool and awesome.

Um, and so if one of my old college roommates wanted to to

live with us for a month, we would notice very quickly, right?

Dirty things started showing up, or there was footprints on

the floor because it's clean.

But if it's already dirty, you don't notice it.

Right?

If your relationship with God is, is close, right?

If you're in God's word, you're your time in, you're spending time in prayer.

You, you have a, a, a growing love for him, a concern for others.

You're excited to be with Jesus.

You're, your sin will hurt more because you're closer with God, so you'll

notice your sin more and you'll be less vulnerable to this type of spiral.

So,

like we talked about on Sunday, which I, I hope you're paying attention

to Pastor PJ when he's preaching, but holiness right of putting off

sin is, is how you enjoy God, right?

The, the holier you are, the happier you'll be because the more you'll enjoy

God, the closer you'll be with God.

So the reason we, we warn you about these things and we tell you about

this spiral and how to ruin your life and all that is so that you go to God.

We want you to go to God and 'cause God loves you and God will

make you happier than your sin.

Hands down, end of story.

And so the reason that, that Paul is pointing all this out is because he's,

he wants to show you that you need Jesus.

That's where that's where we're gonna go at the end of Romans chapter three.

He's gonna say that all of sin and fallen short of the glory of God.

And so the only way to have a relationship with God, to enjoy

God is to have your sin taken away.

And so as a Christian, it's putting off sin because you've already been forgiven.

But primarily it comes from forgiveness, from justification,

from getting Jesus righteousness.

That's how you enjoy God is the, the, the gateway into that is

putting your faith in Jesus.

And so if, if, if you saw yourself in this spiral tonight, if, if

you saw, you know that to me.

I'm enjoying my sin.

I'm celebrating my sin.

Don't fall for it and turn to Jesus.

Right?

You, you've been shown that your sin will lead you to your

death, but Jesus offers you God.

That's the, that's the reason we, we get forgiven.

That's the reason Jesus gives us righteousness so we can be with God.

The whole point of forgiveness is who you get.

You get God.

So, um, if you're a Christian, pursue holiness so you can get God.

If you're not, get trust Jesus and get his righteousness so that you can enjoy God.

Let's pray and we'll go to small groups.

God, we are grateful that you want us to be happy, and maybe we've never thought

about that before, but thank you that you love us and you made us to enjoy you.

That's what Christians for.

Centuries have said, is the purpose of our existence to glorify

you and to enjoy you forever.

So I pray that we would see sin as something that hinders, that,

that prevents us from being happy, and that we would see you as.

Our ultimate happiness that you, God, love us so much and you want what's

best for us, and we can trust you to make us happy if we follow you.

So I pray tonight that you would help us to see our sin for what it is, and I pray

that in small groups as we talk about our sin and, and its consequences and,

and its effects that we would be honest about ourselves and, and how we're so

drawn to our sin and that we would repent of sin, put it off and kill it so that

we can put on you and enjoy you more.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.