Sin in the World // Pastor Bobby

Today we are in Romans chapter one.

We're going to be looking at verses 21 to 32.

I'll just go ahead and tell you,

this is probably the most hated passage.

I heard one pastor say this,

so I'm going to copy him.

Most hated passage of Scripture in the Bible.

Okay, I see.

Now, Joel,

don't. Because my sermon got rearranged to these three points.

First reaction.

Second reaction.

Third reaction.

When you read these verses,

you're going to have a reaction and then I'm going to come back after I

read these verses and you get to decide where your reaction falls.

Alright, but today I'm going to read the passage and I want to warn you

that there are things in this passage that if your kids are in the room,

you might have to explain it later,

because I'm not going to.

Alrighty. But I will preach it because it is where we are.

And. And I cannot not preach it because that would be denying God's truth

and avoiding some of the difficult subjects of the word of God.

And I can't do that.

All right.

Romans 1:21,

Romans 1:21

32.

Here we go.

For even though they knew God,

they did not honor him as God,

or give thanks.

But they became futile in their speculations,

and their foolish heart was darkened.

Professing to be wise,

they became fools,

and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God,

for, for an image in the form of corruptible man,

and of birds,

and of four footed animals and crawling creatures.

Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity,

that their bodies might be dishonored among them.

For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie,

and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator,

who is blessed forever.

Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions.

For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is

unnatural. And in the same way also the men abandoned the natural

function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another.

Men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons

the due penalty of their error.

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer,

God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not

proper. Being filled with all unrighteousness,

wickedness, greed,

evil, full of envy,

murder, strife,

deceit, malice.

They are gossips,

slanderers, haters of God,

insolent, arrogant,

boastful, inventors of evil,

disobedient to parents without understanding,

untrustworthy, unloving,

unmerciful. And although they Know the ordinance of God,

that those who practice such things are worthy of death.

They not only do the same,

but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.

All right,

let's pray.

God, we praise you that your word is true and faithful.

And God,

you have spoken.

We know what your word says.

We've read these verses.

We understand God,

that you have accordingly revealed yourself and revealed that which is

righteous and holy.

And yet God,

you have also pointed out that which is unrighteous,

unholy and subsequently ungodly.

And so God help us to hear you this morning,

not me,

not the culture,

not even our own preferences.

God, let us hear your voice this morning.

And God help us to respond to you.

And we pray it in Jesus name.

Amen. I've shared from time to time that I have been given instruction

over the years of how to do things.

For instance,

how to make what,

cookies maybe I don't bake.

You know,

nowadays you can just go get it in a squirt tube.

There it is.

I did get taught in construction how to do some things the right way,

right? For instance,

I told you,

the guy that I started in construction with showed me that back in the

day when you were building,

I'm going to use these terminology.

If you're in construction,

you know what I'm talking about.

Back in the day,

to build a T post or a corner post,

you used a whole stud.

But that cost money because a stud cost a lot.

But because you make scrap out of two by fours when you're building,

you can take scrap pieces and build a T post or a corner post.

If you don't know what I'm talking about,

don't worry about it.

But there's a right way,

like we used to do it back in the day.

And now here's the,

here's the cost cutting way by using blocks instead of full pieces of

lumber, right?

So there was a right way back in the day.

Today we can do it this way.

But it's not the most stable,

it's not the most right.

I mean,

I was taught these things.

So what God gives us in the book of Romans is the right thing,

the righteous thing,

the Godly thing.

And then from verses 16 and 17,

he gives us the good news,

right? For I'm not ashamed of the gospel,

the good news.

For it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone that believes.

To the Jew first,

also to the Greek,

for in it the righteousness of God is revealed,

right?

From faith to faith.

And so when we look at these verses we're like,

all right,

God's telling us the good things.

And then he spends the next three,

the rest of chapter one,

and the next two chapters after that,

telling us the bad news.

We've got the good news,

now we get the bad news.

And then throughout the rest of the book of Romans,

God starts to unfold how the good news works.

Okay, so that's where that's sort of the overall outline.

But we're in the bad news part now,

so just buckle your seat belts,

because the way that I believe God wants me to share this with you this

morning really comes down to how we respond to the word of God.

What's your reaction?

Right. How is it that you respond to God's written word,

God's spoken word,

God's revealed word?

Do we respond in righteousness,

surrender, submission,

and obedience?

Or do we respond by weighing it against what is going on around us,

weighing what's going on within us,

weighing what's going on in the world?

So I want to make this statement.

To not worship God is plain and simple.

To worship oneself.

Okay, now what do I mean by that?

If you go back to the garden,

Adam and Eve were given an instruction,

don't eat that tree.

Eat all the other trees.

Don't eat that tree.

And then by temptation,

Satan says,

why?

Because we'll die.

You'll not die.

You won't die.

You'll just be able to know,

as God knows.

And they say,

oh, I can be like God.

I can be my own God.

I can be God.

See, to worship,

to not worship God is thus to worship oneself.

Now, how that starts to play out is that as I'm worshiping myself,

I get to decide what's important.

I get to decide what's right and wrong.

I get to decide what is righteousness and what is unrighteousness.

I can let other things feed my knowledge and opinion of what is the right

thing versus the wrong thing,

as opposed to what God has said is righteousness and what is

unrighteousness? Or what is godliness and what is ungodliness?

Now, I am not the one that came up with this text,

okay? So if you've got an argument this morning,

you're not arguing with me.

You want to get mad this morning?

Don't get mad at me.

Go ahead and get mad at me,

because I'm going to preach it.

But truth is,

I didn't originate this.

This was not the thoughts of my mind in my heart.

And quite honestly,

I'm not going to explain the breakdown of verses 26.

And following where it starts talking about men and women,

just go read the newspaper or watch something on the news.

It's explained in culture today.

All right,

so I'm not going to break it down for you because there are kids in the

room, all right?

It's there and there are examples of it all around us.

So first reaction,

here's the first reaction.

You ready?

Because you're in church,

welcome to church.

We're glad you're here.

You're in church.

And so here's the thing that we do.

We go,

ah, see,

that's the sinners around us.

And I'm in church,

so I'm not.

You know where we see that?

We see that when Jesus points out the Pharisee and the tax collector

praying, right,

Lord, thank you.

That I'm not like this ungodly tax collector.

See, that's the first reaction.

I've been in church since I was nine months pre birth.

I've been in church all my life.

I've been given a right to point at the sin in the world and God.

And look,

I mean,

get this imagery.

I'm looking down my finger right at somebody and going,

that's, that's okay.

I'm not saying that we're not supposed to point out sin,

but I am going to tell you that the minute you do that in the next couple

of chapters,

it's going to say,

guess what?

And then you get back to the third reaction.

All right,

but we haven't got to the second one yet.

Okay, I believe the second reaction to this text is some people will look

at the culture and society and try to justify it.

With regard to changing culture,

we're more sophisticated now than the 1st century Roman Empire in Paul's

writings. Now everything's going on in Rome during that Nero as emperor.

There were some things going on in the capital that just keep repeating

themselves throughout history,

just so you know.

All right,

so this justification of people,

and here's the word that we like to use,

this.

They just,

God wants them to be happy.

So we start to justify every behavior in the world.

And here's what I've noticed and you've noticed and studies and research

shows that the more you try to justify unrighteousness and ungodliness,

the unhappier the culture gets.

Suicide rates are up,

prescriptions are through the roof trying to make people happy.

So we try to justify a behavior that says,

okay, we'll just let people do whatever they want to do.

They'll be happy.

That doesn't work.

Sorry, that's a bad reaction.

But that's my reaction.

Here's the third reaction,

folks, and here's what I believe is the biblical reaction.

And as we work our way through chapters two and three,

this is what we're going to see.

Third reaction should be an examination of our own hearts,

our own sin.

That not so much the magnifying glass to the world around us,

but the mirror to who we are.

All right?

Because we're going to get to them where it says beginning of chapter

two, therefore,

every one of you who judges is without excuse right?

Now, judgment implies conviction in sentencing,

okay?

Because God does call upon us to recognize righteousness,

but to recognize our hearts for our love for and our pursuit of

righteousness. So to not worship God is to worship oneself.

And the problem with mankind from the Fall is that we are self centered.

We love worshiping ourselves,

right? We like our own ideas,

many of us.

I'm raising my hand because I'm included in this.

I think myself reasonably smart.

I can kind of figure some things out,

right? And then if I'm given instruction,

for instance,

on how to build a T post,

I can do it,

I can accomplish that thing,

right? So I think I'm pretty well accomplished in these things.

But the truth is,

is that anywhere along the way where I refuse to submit,

surrender, obey and acknowledge God for who God is,

I am already going down the wrong road.

Okay, now I love that Nick just came in and sat down last week.

I was watching him at this hour as I was driving to Burgo.

And I like that he brought up the fact that sin is sort of disease,

like sin's a disease.

And I've used the illustration that disease is a lot like cancer because

it creeps,

it keeps claiming more ground.

And that's what sin does.

And so this passage kind of takes us through this and it points out

things that,

yeah, we can identify with and go,

yeah, we're not that.

So we can point our fingers at that.

But then it goes on down there and that list at the bottom,

that's the one I'm going to hit in a minute.

Because self centered man is one of three things.

We're either unrighteous,

self righteous,

or over righteous as self centered man.

And that's where we're going through.

And I didn't come up with that,

somebody else did.

So I stole it.

1, 2 and 3 deals with unrighteousness,

self righteousness and over righteousness.

And the problem is that we've done exactly what this text says in that

We've begun to worship creature,

the created thing,

as opposed to the creator.

And that's in verse 24.

Therefore God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity that

their bodies might be dishonored among them.

For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served

the creature rather than the creator.

Folks, God's word calls us to bow before the throne of God who is the

creator of all things.

And last week's verses were the very simple fact that we are without

excuse. God has revealed himself through his creation.

He's revealed his power,

his design,

his omniscience,

his omnipresence,

all of that stuff.

God has revealed it to us.

So none of mankind from the beginning of the world to this very day has

an excuse not to acknowledge that there is a designer and a creator.

Now what we did through the Dark ages,

into the Reformation and into the Enlightenment is of our own minds,

in our own sort of professing to be wise.

They became fools.

They exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the

form of corruptible man.

And of birds and four footed animals and crawling creatures.

We started theorizing,

trying to explain away the existence of an all powerful creator.

God started looking at,

looking at creatures in the Galapagos and going oh,

that's what we came from.

So we'll write a book about it and we'll convince the world that this

organized system agreeing incredible body of mankind developed from the

smudge at the bottom of some pool because lightning struck it and enzymes

went whoa.

That's this whole process that quote scientism has given us.

Now notice I didn't say science because science is just studying,

recognizing what God has put in place.

Scientism, worshiping our own ideas and our own explanations,

right?

So I would say follow science,

yes, but don't follow scientism.

Okay? I'm just.

My reactions,

get mad at me if you want to.

Self centered man,

unrighteous, self righteous or over righteous creature,

worships anything the created can come up with.

We are the created and we end up worshiping anything we can come up with

to give us some sort of rationalization to deny that we are bound under a

creator God.

We'll worship just about anything.

I remember first time we had an AA group up in Maryland that met in our

building there at at town Baptist.

And remember the first time I heard somebody say they had just come out

of rehab and in REHAB they do 12 steps,

right? And the first one is to acknowledge a supreme Being.

Well, the original AA said acknowledge God.

It didn't say acknowledge you can make up your own supreme being.

And I remember this guy telling me that one of the guys in his group for

AA grabbed a pillow on the couch and said,

this is my supreme being.

A pillow.

I'm sorry.

Created man will come up with anything to worship to keep from having to

be submissive and surrendered to creator God.

That's what this verse is about.

So what happens is it starts us down a path,

error. And it started in the garden and it's sin.

And it goes back to the verses we've dealt with previous to this passage.

Is that the unrighteousness and godliness and suppressing the truth in

unrighteousness. Let's come up with some other means of worship so that

we don't have to worship God.

That's suppressing the truth and unrighteousness,

okay? Coming up with theories that have yet to be proven for all the

hundreds of years or whatever they've been trying to prove that stuff.

You see.

So I look at this thing and my outline was self centered man,

creature worship,

first path to error.

And then I thought,

all right,

you know what?

I. And as I did the devotionals for this week,

and some of you have watched the devotionals this week,

and in the devotionals I mentioned some of the cultural things that we're

dealing with today in our news reports.

I mentioned it in the devotionals,

right?

But I look at that and I go,

okay, God,

what do you want me to do?

Can I tell y'all what God told me to do?

This morning at about 5:30,

I was on the floor in my room on my knees with my face to the floor

going, God,

show me my sin,

show me my heart.

Am I that judgmental guy?

Am I the one that's actually pointing to myself when I'm pointing to

others?

See what's our reaction supposed to be going to First Corinthians 11

where Paul says,

let a man so exist,

examine his own heart himself.

Folks, this is one of the reasons why I'm just telling you we can love

everybody. We can love people.

We don't have to agree with people.

We do have to.

When given the opportunity by the spirit of God,

we have to share with them what God's word says.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to walk out of here and go find me a

gathering somewhere where they don't agree with me and I'm going to start

beating them with my Bible.

I'm not going to do that,

I might hug their neck.

What's our reaction?

What's our response?

So here you go.

This is what I did before I was on my face this morning.

I googled.

I got three pages.

The first one was that in 600 A.D.

pope Gregory,

I delivered the message of the seven deadly sins.

Now, under seven deadly sins,

you got a lot of breakout sins,

a lot of little sort of corollaries to the seven,

right? You know,

I made it eight when I told you not to put decorations in your coffee.

God never intended for you to decorate coffee.

Anyway. Just kidding then.

And I don't know where this.

This one doesn't attribute who came up with it.

But you got things like several breakdowns,

four general categories.

Pride, jealousy,

abusiveness, and depression.

And then this one here,

y'all, this is the one I want to show you.

2 full pages,

99 sins with verses attached to them.

How about that?

Man, we could be pointing at folks all day long.

Except that I might find myself in some of these,

right? So there's the consideration I want us to have for a minute.

And I want us to go down and look at the last section of this text from

verse 28 and listen to what it says.

And just as they did not see fear fit to acknowledge God any longer,

God gave them over to a depraved mind.

Depraved mind.

Now, I had to listen to somebody talk about this,

and I looked it up.

It means an untested,

an unexamined thought process.

What does that mean?

That means letting your own thoughts run away.

Just thinking up anything you want to think up.

Depraved, unchallenged,

untested, unexamined.

What a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper.

Being filled with unrighteousness,

wickedness, greed,

evil, full of envy,

murder, strife,

deceit, malice.

They are,

and that's added into the text.

They are gossips and slanderers and haters of God.

Insolent, arrogant,

boastful inventors of evil.

All right,

parents, y'all all hear this one.

Disobedient to parents without understanding.

Untrustworthy, unloving,

unmerciful.

And although they know the ordinance of God that those who practice such

things are worthy of death,

they not only do the same,

but also give hearty approval to those who practice it.

Now, in rereading this and reading and reading and reading it over and

over again,

that's where the first reaction,

second reaction,

third reaction come from,

folks. It is sinful and ungodly to practice these things.

It is Also equal,

sinful and ungodly,

to give hearty approval to those who practice them.

So I'm not saying we agree with the culture and go,

okay, whatever.

You know,

I'm not saying that's okay because the Bible says definitively it is not

okay. All right,

so there you go.

That's my message on it right there.

So what do we do then?

We examine our hearts to make sure there's not a log in our eye so that

we approach sin hypocritically.

Okay, so when you see that list,

now, that's not this list.

This list got 99.

I didn't count all those in Romans.

But when you see something like that,

arrogant. Am I guilty of arrogance?

Absolutely, I'm guilty of it.

God help me to see my sin.

You know,

am I boastful?

There are times,

right? So when I look at this and I go,

okay, God,

you pointed all this out in verses 26 and 27.

Two verses back there.

Now we got four verses down here that give a whole different list of sin.

And God,

I fall into that.

So what must my reaction be?

To confess and to repent of my sin and to love people with the love that

God showed me,

redeeming me.

Okay, now I'll be honest.

I've preached these verses before,

and I've preached them under reaction number one.

I admit that,

man. I pointed down my finger and said,

see, it was just on the news last night,

right? I've done it.

And I'm not saying that it's wrong to point out sin.

However, I am saying that we've got to examine ourselves.

First reaction,

not third reaction.

Okay, so here's how I do it,

and I'm going to tell.

I've told this story before.

It happened right here in this congregation many years ago.

There was a couple that came to be a part of the gathering back then,

and they brought friends and others that were not in agreement with some

of the things that are in the Bible.

And so after I preached that day,

they said,

do you really believe all that that you said this?

And it had to do with Chick fil a and all that.

Anyway, I'm just giving you a pinpoint in time as to when this took place.

Had to do with Chick fil a.

And I made a comment about getting to Chick fil a before they do.

Remember that?

So after that day,

somebody came to me and said,

do you really believe all that?

And so we were back here when the office was right here,

and I said,

sit down a minute.

I opened the Bible And I turned to Romans,

Chapter one.

I said,

read chapter one.

Just read it.

I said,

we're not going to talk about it.

I just want you to read it.

That's the word of God.

That's God speaking.

That's not me.

It's not Bobby.

I didn't come up with that.

Just read it.

He read it.

Shut the Bible.

He said,

okay, never ask me another question about it.

See, God's got to speak and we've got to pay attention.

You can't cut out the parts you don't like.

Can't ignore the parts that you don't want to apply.

God speaks,

and we've got to pay attention.

We've got to submit,

surrender and obey.

Okay, because we're going to get over in here to chapter two.

God points out the sin in the world,

the sin in the Gentile world.

Then he's going to get to the sin in the Jewish culture,

faith and all of that.

And then we get to the end of chapter three,

and he says,

there's none righteous for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of

God. See,

so what is it that God's.

What is God drawing us to?

He's drawing us to the third reaction,

which ought to be the first reaction,

which is,

God, show me my sin.

Okay. All right.

There you go.

That's it.

God rearranged it.

I didn't.

I just had to pay attention.

If you got questions about it,

my phone number is abundantly available.

You can call me if you want my phone number,

come down here,

I'll give it to you.

Not going to announce it because we're on.

Live on.

On the Internet.

Somebody from Timbuktu will be calling me this week.

Is there really a place called Timbuktu?

There is.

I didn't know.

But anyway,

I just always heard it.

Folks, taking God's word seriously is the posture of worshiping the

Creator.

And that's what God calls us to do.

See, if you don't know Jesus,

we want you to know Jesus.

We want to introduce you to Jesus.

And we have worship times like this to study and be encouraged by the

word of God and to be challenged by the word of God.

And this is a text that challenges the world,

more specifically,

cultural events and attitudes and ideas.

It challenges it.

How do we respond to that challenge?

Do we respond to the challenge with submission,

surrender, and obedience,

or do we respond to the challenge of God's word with rebellion?

That's the question.

We're going to sing a song.

Gives you the opportunity to respond to God.

You're not responding to me.

You're not responding to the gathering.

You're responding to God.

What is it that God has spoken to you in your heart?

What is it he's revealing to you?

If he's calling you to confession and repentance,

personally, individually,

he expects you to respond.

You can do that right where you are.

You can do like me.

Just get in the floor,

put your face on the floor.

Just God,

show me my sin.

That's a response to the righteousness of God.

Okay, pray with me.

God, thank you for today.

Thank you for your word that it's true and faithful.

And God,

we can trust you.

We can trust your word.

You've given it through the ages and protected it for us to have all

through the ages.

God, help us to read it in 2025 and realize that your word is for today

too. And God,

we read it and we are called to respond to your word as we are called to

respond to your love for us that is seen in the gospel,

the good news,

Jesus on the cross,

our sins forgiven and redemption and victory.

We thank you for those things and we pray it in Jesus name,

Amen.