Sermon: Romans Part 7 (Pastor Brian Fuller - Romans 1:21-25)

Hi, and welcome to the Sermon podcast of First Baptist Church Woodlawn in Woodlawn,

Illinois. I'm Senior Pastor Brian Fuller, and it is our desire to

impact the world with the Gospel of Jesus. We do so through small group

ministry, personal testimony, as well as corporate gatherings. You can find us

on Facebook, YouTube, and our website FBC Woodlawn dot org. Join us

now as we hear from God's word today, we'll continue in our study of

through the Book of Romans ed. If you're keeping score, today is part

seven and a very simple question that comes to mind when when I go through

this is do you know God? I can't make it any any clearer than

that, and I think we will see that as we go through not only

the scripture and the discussion, that it'll be a question that you can ask

yourself, do I know God? I might know about God, but do

I know God? So let's look at Romans one and verses twenty one through

twenty five. We'll get through as much as we can today, starting with

verse twenty one. For although they knew God, they did not honor him

as God or give thanks to him. But they became feutile in their thinking,

and their hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools

and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, and

birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lust

of their hearts, to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,

because they exchanged the truth about God for a life, and worshiped and

served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. And So,

Dear God, one more time, we pray and we ask that this

word, your word, would go forth and do what it does. It

reveals and it changes us. So Lord, please have your way speak through

me. In the name of Jesus, I asked, Amen, Thank you

Eric. Last week we proved through scripture that all of mankind, all throughout

the passage of time, is held responsible for knowing about God and his power

and his divine nature through his creation. Right because what the Psalm nineteen one

say. We've referenced Psalm nineteen one so many times. The heavens declare the

glory of the Lord, and the sky proclaims his majesty, And Paul says

they are without excuse because God's eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived

in the things that have been made. So there's no excuse. And at

its core sin, I can ask you the question, at its core,

what is sin? You could say something simple like, well, it's failing

to do God's will. Now you can look at sin that way. But

at its core, sin is the is the failure to value God above all

things, and it is the glorification of human reason and intellect. Right,

the theory of evolution is so widely accepted and taught by all levels of school

because it elevates the intellect of man and it rejects the authority and the creative

power of God. And Paul starts with verse twenty one, and he says,

he starts by saying, for although they knew God, the word the

word knew, knew refers to a personal knowledge of the existence of God,

an acknowledgement of his divine nature. And more than likely man experienced God through

creation, even if he chose to not honor him as the God who saves.

Right, you got to acknowledge God the creation. Oh, there is

a god. There is a God. He has shown himself and proven himself

in his creation. But that doesn't mean that we automatically honor him as the

one who saves man. Neither honored God nor gave thanks to him. To

honor someone, and we do that from time to time. To honor someone

means that we hold them in high regard and admiration. And to give special

recognition to a company might show honor to a long time in employee. They

might give them a ceremony. They might name a building after them, or

a wing of a building after a certain person. So that why, so

that future generations will know the influence of that person. We have right here

in Woodlawn we have Chapman Sports Complex. Right that name Chapman wasn't just pulled

out of the air. It is a great example of this community honoring the

memory of a beloved members of this community, Junior Chapman, who served in

this church as as custodian for many years. And of course he was a

coach and an umpire and beloved by many. Shagnon Gymnasium malvern In Township High

School named after a coach, Stanley Shagnon, who coached the boys basketball teams

in the forties and fifties, leading to four state championships. And I believe

your dad played one of those teams, didn't he. Yeah, And Golf's

dad was a member of one of those teams. Sides Jim. Right across

the street at Woodlawn High School is named after longtime custodians at the school.

Bill and Evelyn sides, anybody remember them? I don't anybody remember them.

He has a couple showing your age. So I'm just telling you a long

time ago, A long time ago, man knew of God through creation,

but he did not honor him as God. Man did not enthrone God or

worship him as God. In fact, scripture says or alludes to that man

deliberately chose to dethrone God. Think about that man intentionally chose to dethrone God.

They chose to not place him in the position of power and authority in

their lives as he rightly deserves. That's his rightful place is on the throne

of the universe and in our lives. Verse twenty one says they did not

honor him as God. And the Greek word for nought in ot, the

Greek word means absolute negation, to negate, to cancel, to deny the

existence of and even though God was revealed to them in creation, they chose

to deny the very existence of the one who created everything, the heavens and

the earth. The scripture says they became futile in their thinking. And I'm

an old Star Trek Next Generation fan, and I want to say futile every

time, because resistance is futile, and that seems like the right pronunciation to

me. But I think it actually is futile, right, you know,

futile? Well, all right, if I say futile, that's just a

natural thing for me to do. The scripture says they became a futile in

their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. So I have to ask

you this morning. And you know, you might recognize God as the creator,

but you know what the demons do that the demons know and acknowledge that

God created all that there is. But do you honor God in your life?

Do you elevate Him to the place of the highest priority in all aspects

of your life? It's a tough question. Do you worship him? Do

you adore him? Do you savor him above all things. And I love

that word because I love to eat, and I love the very, very

smell of food when I walk into either of the house or in a restaurant,

and I can I can savor it without tasting it, but then to

taste it makes it all the better. Do you savor God your life above

all other things? Do you give him the recognition in your life as your

Lord and as your savior that he so deserves. If not? If not,

then you have become futile in your thinking, and your heart is darkened.

Scripture says they became futile in their thinking. They became to become Anything

is a gradual process, right, It's a transformation over time. Boys become

men through the physical and emotional changes in their life. Girls become women by

the same process. To become I'm a great musician takes time. There are

some like Mia that have amazing natural ability, but to become a great musician

takes time. It takes time for a boy to become a man or a

girl to become a woman. So what happened to those who became futile in

their thinking? What happened to them? Well, it started when they dethroned

God. They dethroned God, and they allowed their mind to be to be

self focused. Come on, they allowed themselves to become self focused instead of

God focused. And when you remove God from the throne of your life,

you become atheistic. Your mind becomes secularized, you become godless. And if

you ask most, if not all, most for sure atheists or agnostics who

once believed in God, ask them when was it? When was it that

they stopped believing, and they will tell you, well, it didn't happen

overnight. It just kind of happened over a period of time. And that's

how deception works, a little bit at a time until you become something that

you hadn't set out to become. Right. James points it out in first

chapter fourteen, verses fourteen and fifteen, and he says, but each person,

when tempted, when he is lured and enticed by his own desire n

Verse fifteen. Then desire, when it has conceved, gives birth to sin,

and sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. You

know, Satan is methodical like that in his deception, he's very methodical.

He causes you to become numb and apathetic towards the things of God. Anybody

been there. I've been there a lot of times in my life that I

become numb, even to the point where today I don't even care about the

things of God. Self focused, and over time he can convince you that

you're better off without God, and the results of that demonic process is futility

of mind, a godless imagination. The King James version says they became vain

in their imaginations, meaning that they became self loving and self obsessed and self

absorbed. You know, anybody like that, and there is there is not

a worse place for a person to be than to remove God and set him

or her own self in that place of honor and attention. And you know,

you could say, Brian, I don't think that would ever happen.

A liar can't be too confident. Because Satan comes as an angel of light,

becomes as a wolf in sheep's clothing. We can recognize what seems to

be good and beneficial, and under the surface it's evil and destructive and as

foolish as you think that it might sound. To allow yourself to be elevated

and to remove God from the throne of your life. It can be only

a matter of time until you become numb towards God, self focused, and

you can find yourself with a darkened heart and a godless mind. It happens,

It can happen quicker than you think. Peter says in One Peter,

Chapter five, verses eight to nine. What's he saying? He says,

be sober minded, Be watchful your adversary. The devil trowls around like a

roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him. Firm in your faith.

The only remedy, the only fix for a darkened heart, is the

Gospel. We try to fix anything with anything other than the Gospel or off

the mark, we're using methods that are not godly. Paul speaking to King

Agrippa in Acts chapter twenty six. He's telling the king of his conversion and

the mission that he received from Jesus, and in verses seventeen and eighteen,

Acts twenty six, this is the message that Jesus says to Paul. He

says, I am sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn

from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they

may receive forgiveness. Of sins and a place among those who are seanctified by

faith. In me, it's the spirit of God alone, through the anointed

word of God alone, that opens blinded eyes and transforms a hardened and darkened

heart into a softened and enlightened heart. It's no other way that a hardened

heart becomes soft. It's the word of God. It's the anointing of the

Word of God. So do you have any know it alls in your life?

Know it alls in your life? You can't teach them anything because they

always claim to know what they're doing. You know, somebody like that in

their own eyes they have it all figured out and husbands and wife stopped looking

at each other. They have it all figured out, and when in reality

they're completely lost. And you want to say, man, just admit it.

You don't know what you're doing. You don't know what you're talking about,

because it's clear to everyone else that you do not know what you're doing.

In verse twenty two, Paul says, claiming to be wise, they

became fools. The word fool, and we use that word kind of loosely,

right, We could throw that word around the word fool means very stupid.

Or to become nonsense. That's pretty accurate. Claiming to be something that

you're not means that you're you're pretending with confidence. Now, I've made it

commonly known that when it comes to math, I'm just not very smart.

The common everyday stuff you know, I'm okay with. You know, I

spent twenty years in retail, So percentages and simple multiplication and you know,

stuff like that, I'm okay with that. But algebra, trig and geometry,

calculus just forget it, forget it. But what if? What if

with confidence, I advertised that I was going to start tutoring calculus students to

help them get better grades and a better understanding of higher math. Now you,

knowing what you know about my understanding of math, would you take me

up on tutoring your kids in math? Please say no, because I will

mess them up. So for me making the claim to be proficient in higher

math would soon be evident to all that my claim was false, and I

would make myself out to be a fool full of nonsense claiming to be wise.

They became fools. Trusting in man made philosophies is utter foolishness, especially

in God's eyes. We can see it sometimes, but in God's eyes,

trusting in man made philosophies is foolish, as Scripture says that in their foolishness,

they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and

birds and animals and creeping things. Is there a more foolish act or anything

more ridiculous than to exchange or replace the glory of God for images of man.

You know, there's nothing more foolish than that. But that's what That's

exactly what man has done. And that's the deception of the enemy, to

make you think that your wisdom is greater than God's. And that was Satan's

first deception in the Garden of Eden. Right with that very first temptation of

man, Man became a fool because he exchanged the glory of God with the

ideas of man. He exchanged the glory of God for worldly wisdom, which

leads to death. So how do we know God? How do we know

it? We know about God through Scripture. We know that he exists through

his creation, because the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above

proclaims his handiwork. But we get to know God because of the cross.

Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin, no forgiveness

of sin without the shedding of blood. And on the cross is where Jesus

laid down his life, and he did so willingly. He laid down his

life willingly to pay the full price of the penalty of sin. Because Jesus

took our place. Jesus took our place. We deserve to pay the penalty

of sin. Amen, we deserved it. I still deserve it. But

Mercy continues to say no. Mercy of God continues to say, no,

I did it. I took care of it. And it's it's nothing that

we've done on our own to deserve it, because we know that we do

deserve that punishment, that separation from God. And I believe that. I

believe it's the separation from God that would be the epitome of hell. But

the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, and all who

will deny her own wisdom, trusting in Christ and calling on his name.

Scripture says, will be saved and set free from the curse of sin,

from the penalty of sin. So do you know him? You can say

you know about God. There are a lot of smart people that know about

God, but there's a lot of smart people that say they know about God

that don't know God. If you know about Him but you don't know him,

today's your day. Today is your day to know God through the death

and burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because the spirits that raised Jesus Christ

from the dead dwells in you. If you are a child of God,

There's nothing more powerful. There's nothing more powerful. Not even an atomic mom

is as powerful as the Holy Spirit residing in the believer. We're the ones

who limit it. Today's your data, know Him, Pray with me.

Thank you for tuning in to today's broadcast. We hope you are encouraged and

challenged by the preaching of God's word. You can reach us by phone at

six one eight three nine zero ten forty six, contact us via Facebook or

our website FBC Woodlawn dot org. It's our prayer that you answer the call

of God on your life to follow Him and share your faith story with others.

Goodbye for now, and God bless you.