Romans 1:18–25 "Everyone Worships Idols"

Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah.

! It is wonderful that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah,

either by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray for us

that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself?

The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian,

we really, I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the

Bible, they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will do

what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a non-Christian,

checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't hesitate to send us

questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the types of things

that you're really struggling with. So God bless.

Let's just bow our heads in prayer.

Father, we ask that you would continue to send the Holy Spirit upon us with might and power and deep

conviction. Your Word today, Father, says tough things about our human condition,

tough things about our human condition that if we're honest, we find a bit offensive,

more than a bit offensive, especially if we're meant to take it literally.

Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would fall with a gentle but deep power of conviction to open our

hearts to receive the truths that you desire us to know this morning about ourselves and about you and

about the gospel, and that we might embrace these truths and become, for those of us who are outside of

the Christian faith, be saved, and for those of us within the Christian faith, that we might grow in

godliness, and for us as a church that we might walk in the beauty of holiness. And I ask these things in

the name of Jesus, your Son, and our Savior. Amen.

Please be seated.

So I'm not, uh, I definitely don't want to be alarmist or extremist about this, and I know things can go in all sorts of

different directions, but, um, well, it's, it's, uh, it can be hard when you're preaching through a book to, to, to know how to, to break it into

sections. Uh, and, uh, and so this part that we're looking at today is actually part of a bigger section, sort of a

natural unit that goes from verse 18 to verse 32. I know that's a bit of a boring, nerdish thing. I'm already putting

some of you to sleep. Here's the point. In this bigger unit, which I won't look at today, but I will look at

next week, is a text that could get me in trouble with Bill C9, if it were to pass as it is written right now.

Uh, not exactly, it's not, on one hand, it might not get me into trouble, but given the direction of

court rulings and the way government works, it, it is something that downstream, uh, me preaching on a

text like I will next week, the second part of this unit is a text that could get me in trouble, uh, with

Bill C9. Uh, but that, I'm not looking at that this week because I'm afraid of looking at it, um, but just, I had to

divide the text up because it's very rich and very deep. So, um, so let's look. If you, uh, take your

Bibles, uh, those of you who have Bibles, it's, uh, Romans chapter 1, verses 18 to 25. Uh, next week,

Romans 1:18–25

we'll look at verses 26 to 32. And, uh, I'll just read the whole, it's only eight verses. I'll just read

them to give you, uh, to, to refresh your memory about it, and then we'll circle back and, and we'll

look at the different parts. And here's how it goes. It's a very, very, very Canadian text. As you

know, it's the, uh, probably the theme text for seeker-sensitive services, uh, because it begins,

for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and women

who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them,

because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and

divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things

that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him

as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were

darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images

resembling mortal man or mortal woman and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore, God gave them

up in the lusts, um, another, a better, maybe a more literal, the literal translation of the word lust is

over-desire. Over-desire. So therefore, God gave them up in the over-desires of their hearts

to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth

about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

Amen. And Christians would say this is the word of the Lord, and we'd respond thanks be to God.

Although, to be honest, some of us wonder entirely how much this is the word of the Lord.

Although I do very clearly, just so you know. It's a bit of a shocking text for Christians.

I read it slowly to try to bring home to you how shocking it is for Canadians.

And if you're watching online or you're here and you're outside of the Christian faith, you're maybe

here as a seeker, you might not know that Christians find it a bit shocking too.

And in fact, it's, it's very interesting. Just before this, in Romans 1, 16 to 17, it says,

For I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation.

And the word ashamed there can also be translated as offended.

For I'm not offended by the gospel, by what the Bible teaches.

And many Canadians, and in fact, even many Christian Canadians, are, are offended by this text.

So just to give you, just as we go into it, here's how you have to begin to understand the text.

The way the book of Romans is designed is the first 15 verses, there's a bit of a greeting,

a longer greeting than normal in the letter. And then there's a few travel details.

And then it's an unusual book in that in verses 16 and 17, he gives you basically the praesi about

what the whole book is about. And then in verse 18, he immediately goes in the direction you're not

expecting, but it's actually a reasonable direction if you think about it. From verse 18 of chapter 1

to chapter 3, verse 20, he does what in, I don't know if they still talk about this in business

world, he sells the problem. We've been blessed by having very good wardens and council members

over the years. And one of the things which is really good about the council members and wardens

I've had over the last, I don't know, 10, 15, 20 years, is they're not afraid to disagree with me

and tell me that I'm wrong. And this is a great blessing for a congregation because I, in fact,

I'm not always correct. Sometimes I'm wrong. But about maybe 90% of the time when they say that

I'm wrong, I'm really wrong, move on to the next thing. They have better wisdom. But about 10% of

the time, so it doesn't happen very often because they don't actually disagree with me that often.

But I'll think about it afterwards driving home and I realize I want to reintroduce the topic,

which I generally don't do. And the reason I want to reintroduce the topic is because I realized

that I saw a problem in the church that I just thought was so obvious that what I did is I present

that when I went to that to talk to the wardens, I just assumed they understood the problem as well and

saw it. And so I didn't try to sell them. I just went to the solution. But I realized going home, they

didn't see the problem. And so the next time we meet, I sell them the problem. I explain in detail

what the problem is. Now it might still be, you know, and after that they go, oh, okay, there's a problem.

Now they still might end up selecting the solution that I thought was the right one,

that they'd come up with a better one. But at least they saw the problem. And so what Paul is

doing here over the next little bit is he's selling the problem. Why is it that human beings need a

salvation that comes from God, that comes with power to save? Why is it that human beings need God to

always be just? Why is it that human beings need God to make them right? Like, what is the problem? Why is that the case?

And he begins then with this, this shocking turn of events in verse 18. So if you turn to it,

we'll just read it again. Chapter 1, verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against

all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and women who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

So just, you know, once again, a bit of a pause. This is a, for Christians, this is a bit of a gut check

moment. Will I be offended by this text? Or will I take it as an opportunity to learn about myself and

learn about God? Will I be open to learn? Or will I be offended? And so for those of you outside the

Christian faith listening to this, I think this text is going to tell you irrefutable, true reasons,

two things about the human condition. And it's part of several things in the Bible which just proves

that Christianity is true. Its description of human nature is very, very wise and perceptive

and clearly, obviously seen in the world. But let's look at what he says again. For the wrath of God is

revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness

suppress the truth. I'm not going to spend very long on the anger of God right now, other than to

say this. What happens here is that people who liked what just was said in verse 17, when it gets worked

out in verse 18, they realize they don't like it. And so we're actually sort of caught in a dilemma.

It's a little bit like in the, you know, in the Gospels when Jesus challenges the people who hate him

was the, you know, was the testimony of John the Baptist from God or from human beings. And they're all

caught because on one hand, if they say from human beings, they'll get in trouble with the crowd.

And they also sort of believe in John the Baptist as a prophet as well. So, but if they believe that,

if they say, well, he's a prophet, then he says, well, why don't you believe him? If they, anyway,

they can't make up their mind. So he said, I'm not going to answer your question. And so here it is.

Earlier last week in verse 17, it says that one of the things about God is that he's unfailingly just

and unfailingly good. He never stops being good. He's never in favor of evil. He's never in favor

of injustice. He's never in favor of anything which is immoral. He's always good. Always good. And that's

a good thing. And we all probably say, yay, God is always good. And now we come to the next thing. And

it says, by the way, what that means is that God is going to be properly angry at evil. If you could

put up the first point, that would be very helpful. Since God is unfailingly good and just, he will

have proper anger at sin and evil. And that just follows from the other thing. So what do you want

to have? Do you want to say, well, actually, I think, by the way, sometimes he should be again,

he should be in favor of evil and give you, no, no. Is that really a good thing? Is that really what

you want from God? Well, if this first part is something we want, this follows from it.

But just to touch on some of our fears, I'm not going to try to argue for it. The thing about God

is revealed in the Bible is that God is never overwhelmed by anger like we are. And he is never,

ever, ever anger driven like we are. But just as I'm going to mention in a moment, some of the things

that appear to be going on in Iran, and it should anger us. It should anger us at the terrible evil

and injustice that's going on. It's not a sign of moral superiority to be indifferent to some of the

evil in the world. It's a sign that we're less than moral and even maybe less than human. And so God is

properly anger, angry at the evil and the sin and the injustice that is done in the world.

And the other two bits, the unrighteousness and ungodly, which sound almost like, if you listen

to it again, verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and

unrighteousness of men and women. It almost sounds like a punchline that a comedian would make on

Saturday Night Live. You know, are you being ungodly and unrighteous? And the crowd laughs because it's so

square and uncool. But actually, it's a flip side, once again, of something that most people think

is pretty wise. So earlier on in the service, and I've talked to even those outside the Christian

faith, and they often think this is actually a pretty reasonable... I mean, they might not believe

in God, but they think it's a pretty reasonable and interesting way that Christian moral teaching

goes, is that Jesus says, Jesus has asked, what are the two greatest commandments? And the response is,

you know, the two great commandments are these. You should love... You know, the great commandment

is this. You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your

strength. And the second is like onto it. You should love your neighbor as yourself. And people say,

that's actually pretty cool. Well, ungodliness and unrighteousness is what happens when we deny these

two great commandments. That's actually literally what it means. So ungodliness means when you deny the

first commandment, and you say, I'm not going to serve or honor God or acknowledge God, I'm going

to deny him, I'm going to suppress him, I'm going to live as if he doesn't exist. That's violating the

first great commandment. And the second one, unrighteousness, is violating the second one of

loving your neighbor as yourself. And as the Bible will go on to reveal, you can't break the second

commandment without also breaking the first, because God has designed a moral universe. And so if I lie

to Morris, I'm not just lying to Morris, I'm also lying against God. I'm not just doing something

wrong against Morris, I'm doing something wrong against Morris and God. Because all of the horizontal

sins always contain a vertical... So all of a sudden you see, that which sort of looks really unreasonable,

we're sort of caught, because we actually like the idea of the great commandments, and we like the idea that

God is always just, we just don't like the consequence. But that doesn't mean that there's something with the

Bible, it means there's something wrong with us and our desires, and our thinking.

Now, George,

it's still a bit of an odd text.

Like, look at it, George, again, it says,

Like, what does that mean? Well, just listen on what he goes on and says.

Verse 19,

And that can also literally be translated that in the day of judgment, they will have no defense.

They will have no defense.

Because they have suppressed the truth.

This Bible text is saying something which, of course, modern social science and psychology and

psychiatry have learned far, far later, which is that we are not just brains on sticks,

but we are connected. Our will, our moral, our affections, our desires, our creativity, our mind have

interconnections. And so that if we do something which is wrong, there's also an act of suppression

there, not only against the truth, but against God. And on one level, it's saying nothing that's

particularly shocking. But what is shocking is this idea that, well, that

that the knowledge of God is sort of obvious.

Here's the thing to start to enter into in this text.

I was reading one news report this morning that came out of the Middle East.

And Israeli intelligence has estimated that in the last 48 hours, the last 48 hours, the Iranian

regime has killed 30,000 protesters. 30,000 protesters. Now, obviously, we don't know if that's correct.

It might be an exaggeration. In fact, here, all good people should be hoping and praying that that's a

huge exaggeration. Right? We should, that's, that should be our prayer. We hope they've really

exaggerated that, that it's not true.

But 30,000, that is very evil.

And should both make us angry and break our heart.

And, um, and here's what the book of Romans is saying about suppressing the truth and about what's

plain and obvious to them, which is very countercultural to Canadians.

For us as Canadians, one of the most standard things that people will say to me as to why they don't

believe in any God whatsoever, whether they're at best an agnostic, but maybe an atheist,

is, uh, uh, or even maybe just as they're apatheists, they're apathetic about the whole thing,

is they say to me, George, look at the world, and you see all of the evil in the world.

In all of this evil in the world, it must mean that God does not exist.

And the book of Romans is going to challenge us, as it just did with this text, and say,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You're not observing the world the correct way.

What you should see when you look at the world, and you see if it in fact is true,

and we hope and pray that it isn't, that the Iranian regime has killed 30,000 of its citizens

in 48 hours.

And then we look at all the other evil which is going on in the world, and we'd say, boy,

you can't look at this world and not come to the conclusion that we are under the judgment

of God.

And that every single human being is under God's judgment, that no one by themselves are close

to him, that we're all by nature far from him.

And Romans said that's actually the wise question to ask and observation to make when you look

at the evil in the world, that we are obviously under the judgment of God.

And so that's, if you could put up the second point, this big idea is that you suppress your

knowledge of God, and that's what becomes a little bit more complicated for people.

So, you know, I've shared before how over my first 10 or 12 years of being a Christian,

I had about five or six or seven or whatever times when I came very close to walking away

from the Christian faith because I had intellectual and heart problems with the Christian faith.

Some of them were around the problem of evil, and there's a variety of other ones that I

had.

And in every case, one of the things that brought me back and kept me in the faith was that just

is if Jesus rose from the dead, Christianity is true.

Like, I don't know, maybe know the answer to this question, but Christianity is true if

Jesus rose from the dead, and that there will be a good answer.

A second thing is connected to this text, is I just kept being stuck by the obvious design

in the world, and I just couldn't believe that it happened by chance.

And actually, in the third thing, which I don't talk about as much, is that the line by Dostoevsky

just seemed to me, in the Brothers Karamazov, just seemed to me to be unmistakably true,

that if God is dead, everything is permissible.

If God is dead, everything is permissible.

And I just couldn't believe that that is correct.

It is wrong to kill 30,000 of your citizens to stay in power.

Period.

That means God must not be dead.

But this text says that it's obvious to people that by the things that they're made that God

exists.

And this seems like a controversial claim.

So I just want to give two examples, one from science fiction and one from horror movies.

Because I obviously spend lots of time reading very intellectual things and watching very

intellectual movies.

And the first one would be in a scientific movie, imagine a science fiction movie.

Imagine that in a couple of years' time, they finally are able to land, human beings are

able to land on Mars.

And when they land on Mars, they sort of go on a bit of an exploration.

And they come upon what seems to be an alien space station.

And in fact, to their great surprise, it even has something like technology that we have,

is that they actually are able to, they press a button on the door and the door opens.

And they're able to go inside.

And first of all, that the door opens shows that it has some power.

And as soon as they go inside, some type of light comes on.

And it's very obvious that it's an alien space station.

Now, if in the movie they said, isn't this amazing that by accident this appears, develops

on Mars?

I wonder what dust storms and solar storms and earthquakes created this.

Well, I mean, that wouldn't even happen.

It's obviously just too ridiculous for words.

In fact, the whole movie would be a bit of a detective work from looking at the alien space

station to come up with some conclusions about what the aliens were like.

At the dawn of evolutionary theory, the cell was basically just viewed as something very,

not much more complicated than just a blob of almost like gel.

And those of you, many of you know science vastly more than me.

But in the years that have followed, it becomes more and more obvious every year.

The unbelievable complexity of just a single cell.

The many parts that make it up.

They even have like machines and engines almost that do things within it.

It's a very, very complicated system.

And so every year as science develops, it becomes more and more possible to think that that could

just happen by chance under a rock in a primordial sludge.

It's far more complicated than find an alien spaceship.

And every reasonable person in the world would go from the space, sorry, the space station to trying to figure out what aliens were like from what they have made.

And we are surrounded by things that are made.

Obviously with design.

Just one final one.

One of the delights that people, I don't like horror movies by the way.

I think I get too scared.

I don't mind tense ones sometimes like zombie things and stuff like that.

Those are sort of more like thrillers.

But, you know, one of the things I think that people like about, well, one of the things they like about zombie movies is that people in the zombie movies keep doing dumb things.

And so we feel smart.

But one of the things that people like about horror movies is that people do dumb things.

And so we feel smart.

Like, don't go in the room.

Don't split up.

Like, you know, the certain common things that they do, right?

And we feel very smart about it.

So if, in fact, they walk into a room and it's a cold day and there's like steam on the window and they see written on the window in the steam, I am coming to kill you.

And if you looked at it and the two people said, wow, isn't it pretty amazing that the way that steam forms on that window almost comes that type of design?

Like, that's pretty cool, isn't it?

You'd be going, how dumb are you?

It's obviously written by somebody and they're going to come and kill you.

Nobody would take that simple little message to just be the chance development of steam or frost on a coal window.

And yet the amount of information in a strand of DNA is vastly, vastly, vastly more complicated and more detailed than that.

We live in a world where the truth about God is suppressed.

Now, by the way, one of the things you need to understand as this continues to go on is that one of the things which is really unique about the Bible is that it's not othering.

It's not saying, look at all those woke people.

Look at all those MAGA people.

Look at all those suburban single household dwellers.

Look at all those fentanyl addicts.

And look at how they're alike.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

That's not how the text is written.

It's talking about all human beings.

Talking about all human beings.

We suppress the truth about God.

Now, the second big thing about this text is it says something which is very, very, very un-Canadian.

Another thing which is very, very un-Canadian.

But it's actually, I think, very, very profoundly true.

And if you could, and here's what it says, verses 21 to 25.

So, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

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

Therefore, God gave them up in the over-desires of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever.

Amen.

Amen.

Now, actually, if you could put up the third point, Claire, that would be very, very helpful.

Human beings are designed to give thanks, honor, worship, and serve God.

So, what this is saying is there's a sort of a, so if the first problem that human beings are going to face is that we seem to have a deep tendency regularly to suppress the truth about God, and when we suppress the truth about God, we're also going to suppress the truth in general.

We're going to suppress moral truths and aesthetic truths and inconvenient truths.

We're going to suppress these things, and that's a feature of what human beings are like.

And, by the way, that's just true.

It's just true.

Right?

It's too blunt.

And some of us, it might be too despairing, but I'm going to get to that in a moment about why this text isn't a cause for despair, but for hope.

And it's actually sort of beginning to be seen here in the text, part of the hope of it, believe it or not.

And then the second thing it's going to say is that because we are hardwired, we're not in a world where there is no God, and life is just one dang thing after another, and then we die.

That's not what the real world is like.

The real world is that we've been designed and created by a real God who really exists.

And part of how he designed us is to know him, and in knowing him, to serve him and love him and honor him and be fruitful and to multiply.

But what happens is that when we decide to suppress the knowledge of God and live in disobedience and rebellion against God, it doesn't mean that that part of us which is hardwired dies.

It just gets redirected.

It's redirected.

You see, what in a sense this text is saying is that when you go out today, every single human being you meet, there's one truth that you can know about them.

They worship idols.

They worship idols.

And there's also one other thing that God wants you to know is that when you look at the mirror and you see yourself, you're looking at a person who worships idols.

You see, so what happens is that we turn from, we're designed to worship God.

We don't want to do that.

We don't want to look up.

We turn our backs on him.

We want to be gods ourselves.

But tragically, our need, our design purpose to know, to honor, to thank, to worship, and to serve, that just doesn't get turned off.

The human question is never, will I worship?

The question is, what are you worshiping?

That's always the question.

Excuse me.

What are you actually worshiping?

Not whether you will worship.

What are you honoring?

Not will you honor.

And so we don't worship God, and so we start to either worship and serve and honor and thank things which are quite evil.

There's death cults.

And in Canada, we are increasingly part of a culture that has a death cult aspect to it.

It worships death.

Excuse me.

I'm a bit hoarse.

Or we worship and serve demons.

Or we take things which are good in and of themselves, but by making them an ultimate thing and serving them, we turn them into bad things.

We turn them into idols.

We worship our marriage.

We worship money.

We worship power.

We worship degrees.

We worship children and family.

We worship cleverness or technology or companies or political movements or ideas.

Or in some parts of the world.

We worship animals and bugs and snakes.

We worship sharp as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans

and that's what it means to be human

on this side of the fall

now some of you might be thinking as I draw this to a close

George you've described something which is very very very bleak

and I have a feeling George that you're doing what's a very

classic move of people describing

sort of you're caught in knowing and behaving in certain types of ways but they exempt themselves

when they say these things I've had many many people over the years

tell me that you know the sociology of knowledge and the psychology of knowledge

shows that I only believe the things that I believe because of my upbringing

and this and that and that and I listen to them very politely and I say well

that all sounds very good and a lot of it might be very very true but the problem is

you're exempting yourself you think it only applies to Christians

like me you don't think it applies to your skepticism and they all look completely and utterly shocked

at it because it never dawned on them that these psychological processes might apply to them

and so is that what the Paul is doing here no he's not doing that and it's not completely a cause to despair

and that's because we don't live in a universe where there is no God and it's just one dang thing after another but then we die

we live in a universe where God exists and so listen to verse 24 again therefore God gave them up in the over desires of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves and we're going to look at this more because this connects very much with the last part of Romans chapter 1 but for now there's two things the first thing is if you notice the very interesting justice of God because here it describes one of the ways that God punishes us and interestingly

Romans 1 · chapter mention

and interestingly enough it's very similar to what a skeptic and a non-christian by the name of Oscar Wilde famously said and Oscar Wilde bon vivant skeptic famously said

when the gods wish to punish man when the gods wish to punish man they answer their prayers they give them what they want and that's part of what the Bible is saying here is that part of the way that God judges and punishes people is this he says

the God says to God says to in a sense to George George George you give yourself over to this won't use George because you think I'm let's say Bob Bob you you have completely and utterly chosen lies you regularly like to lie and so I'm going to allow you to lie more and more because that seems to be what you want

and but what Bob doesn't realize is that when he starts to tell more and more lies is that that's inevitably going to mean that he becomes more and more lonely because nobody wants to be with him because all he does is lie

and one of the things that people are going to want is not give him the promotions that he wants because he just lies and he doesn't realize that if he just always lies and sometimes he'll even lie

when the lie gets him in trouble and just telling the truth would not get him in trouble and still he lies and at some point in time he can't tell the difference between truth and a lie because he's given himself to lies and all God does in that particular case is says you want to give your entire life over to lies I'll allow I'll begin to allow that to happen

you want to give yourself over to to sexual sin I'm going to begin to allow that to happen you want to you want to worship this I'm going to allow that type of thing to happen you want to make your children your gods and then there's going to completely

not really break your heart or you're completely not really going to ruin them because they end up becoming like your little puppets and your adornments and they end up resenting you for the rest of their lives and all he does is allow what you have turned into an idol to go further with it

how can you complain against God's justice if he does what you want

in Oscar Wilde's world how can you shake your fist to God and say how dare you answer what I asked for

but this is also the source of hope

if you could put up the fourth point that would be very helpful

you are dependent upon God's common grace

a few Sundays ago I talked about how

you know one of the things to understand about the fall is

imagine a magnet and you have a magnet and if you pick up

a piece of iron with that magnet and the magnet has no magnetism in and of itself

and you pick up the magnet the magnet

picks up the iron and the

magnetism flows through the into the

iron and so you can pick up a second piece

of iron and then you can pick up a third

piece of iron and then depending on the strength of the

iron and I mean the iron

and the magnets you can pick up a variety of places

and in a sense that's

what human beings are like that we were designed

in a sense to have Adam

and Eve like pieces of iron connected to God and the life of God the magnetism of God flew through it

and it's as if when Adam and Eve decided to rebel against God as if they just talked to each other and said hey listen we're filled with magnetism look at the other things that are holding to us

we can hold things together we don't need to be with God so let's separate from God and they don't realize that when they separated from God they no longer were magnetic but God didn't allow them to completely and utterly fall apart but held them together

to some extent

to some extent

and it's because of God's common grace

that our suppressing of the truth is not complete and total

that our

our serving of idols is not complete and total

that God restrains this

because we don't live in a mechanistic and deterministic universe but we live in a God-drenched God-supported

God-inhabited universe

and so those things are not

allowed by God

to completely and utterly

to completely and utterly overwhelm us

they are restrained

and part of what God's punishment is sometimes for us is to weaken the restraint

for us

so why does he do this

it's because if we are to hear this knowledge and we say after hearing about it

I look at the world and I'm obviously under God's judgment

I come aware of my own evil and idolatry

I'm always under God

I'm obviously under God's judgment

I have suppressed the truth about him

I am obviously under God's judgment

but there is this hope of common grace

and maybe if there is common grace

there is saving grace

and my heart is tuned to call out to God

God

I cannot make myself right with you

Lord in your mercy

may there be a power and a means that comes from you

that I can receive unworthy as I am

that can make me right with you

not my own ability

I cannot do this

I am dependent upon you to act

and we understand this

we understand how good it is to hear

that I am not ashamed of the gospel

Romans 1 16

why?

it is the power of God for salvation

to everyone who believes

and that means not just being made right with God

but learning to become more like God

and eventually being glorified with God

it is the power of God for salvation

to everyone who believes

to the Jew first

and also to the pagan

for in it the righteousness of God

is revealed from faith for faith

as it is written

the righteous shall live by faith

and as we talked about

and we'll talk about more

that something comes from God

he always is righteous and just

and he provides a means

in this power for us to be made right with God

if you could put up the fifth point

you need to be saved

very briefly

just three very brief

carry home points for us

obviously the first one is

if you haven't given your life to God

there's no better time than right now

to call out on him

and say Jesus

I really need you to save me

Father I need you to save me

please save me

Jesus please be my Savior and Lord

I give myself to you

whatever the language is

to call out to God

and for those of us who know Jesus

three very quick things

the first one is that God wants you to learn humbly

this truth about our potent

our constant desire to suppress the truth

isn't a means to say that we should despair

and that we can never know

we also understand that God's common grace

means that God wants us to learn humbly

he wants us to learn the truth

he wants us to know him

he just wants us to be humble

to be humble in our judgments

to listen to others

to be open to being proven wrong

he wants us to learn humbly

but he wants us to learn

and secondly

that if you could

that was hopefully put that up

clearly God wants us to learn humbly

secondly

be repentance and obedience

clarifies your mind and heart

a lot of times

the best way to move forward

is to say

I was wrong

I was wrong

I was mistaken

or just to say

you know I lied

I betrayed you

and that's partly the whole Christian community

about how you manage that with God

and how you say that to other people

without making things further down

that's why you need small groups

and mentors

and people that you can discuss these things with

about how to make amendment

but that's the way towards clarifying

that the inside of you is filled with light

and one final thing is this

point C

we're going to see that

after the gospel

the bad news

and the good news

is described

one of the very first things

one of the very first truths

of the book of Romans

is in chapter 12 verse 1

where he says

he says this

he says this

I appeal to you therefore

brothers and sisters

by the mercies of God

to present your bodies

as a living sacrifice

holy and acceptable

to God

which is your spiritual worship

do not be

conformed to this world

but be transformed

by the renewal

of your mind

that by testing

you may discern

what is the will of God

what is good

and acceptable

and purpose

perfect

pray for the renewing

of your mind

that as you know the gospel

and as you know the bible

he will renew your mind

because we do not walk

through this life alone

we have his dear presence

to cheer and to guide

we have the comfort

and the presence

of the Holy Spirit

we have a father

who desires

and longs to hear

our prayer

and he longs

to hear you and me

pray

Lord

renew my mind

Lord

renew my mind

invite you to stand

bow our heads in prayer

Father

my hope and prayer

is that those

who are here

and those watching online

have

even if at first

we were a bit offended

by the bluntness

of your word

that we are no longer

offended

that we hear

your truth

and it's

it's blunt

and it takes us

aback

but that as we

think about it

and pray about it

and as our hearts

are open to it

we realize

it's all true

and that these

are truths

that you have

spoken to us

not to humiliate us

not to shame us

not to lead us

to despair

but that we might

have hope

that we might

live freely

that we might

truly start to know

more truly

and more beautifully

and more clearly

that we might

live with more

freedom

that we might

live with hope

so Father

we thank you

for the gospel

and power of God

for salvation

for all who believes

and we thank you

for the whole

counsel of God

and we ask Father

that Jesus

will become so real

to us

and so real

in terms of

what he has done

for us

that more and more

and more

our lives

might be characterized

by keeping the first

and great commandment

that we will love you

with all our heart

and soul

and mind

and strength

and the second

that is like unto it

that we will love

our neighbors

as ourselves

and we ask this

in the name of Jesus

your son

and our savior

amen

as you

Thank you.