A Puddle or a Semi?

We started a new series a few weeks ago called But Now God.

And if you're just jumping in, we started several months ago going through the book of Romans.

And if you know anything about the book of Romans in the New Testament of the Bible, you know that Romans, it's an undertaking.

And this is one of the most dense and rich expressions of who Jesus is and what Jesus did and what it really means for us as believers to follow Jesus that we have in all of Scripture.

And so it's going to take us a while to go through the book of Romans, but we've broken it into sections.

We're going through it bit by bit.

And right now we're in a series called But Now God, and it's focusing on Romans chapter 1, verse 18, all the way through Romans chapter 3, verse 21.

Romans 1:18 Romans 3:21

So we're covering a lot of ground, and this whole section of scripture, it deals with this concept that a lot of us have a hard time with, and understandably so, called the wrath of God.

The wrath of God.

That's really what Romans 1.18 all the way through, halfway through chapter 3, is all about.

It's this idea of the wrath of God.

We're calling the series but now God because I want to make sure that as we go through all of these concepts, as we talk about the wrath of God and ideas like judgment, that we have the end in mind, that we understand where we're going.

And as Paul lays out this idea of God's wrath, he's leading us somewhere.

He's leading us to Romans chapter 3, verse 21, which says this but now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago.

Romans 3:21

So what Paul's gonna do as we go through this section of scripture is he's gonna go into detail about the wrath of God, about the fact that God will one day judge the world, about the fact that God does not tolerate injustice.

And a few weeks back we did kind of a primer on the concept of the wrath of God.

We explored why we as people sometimes have a really hard time thinking about this.

It kind of trips us up.

We get hung up on this, even as believers, because there's a part of us, let's just be honest, that wishes that there was no such thing as the wrath of God.

There's a part of us that just wishes that, no, no, no, God, God doesn't have any of that, and He there's nothing that can happen that can provoke him to anger.

And I don't like the idea that God is going to judge the world one day.

And I really don't like the idea that that judgment may not work out for everyone.

But as we began this series, I really stress this and I want to stress it again.

I'll stress it throughout the entirety of this study.

Do we want to be people who have a mature faith?

That's a real question that we have to ask ourselves.

Do we want to be people?

Do we want to be the kind of followers of Jesus that have a mature faith, a deep faith, and we don't get tripped up every time we encounter a concept that's that's a little more intense than some of the other concepts that we really like.

I mean, of course, we all love to talk about the fact that God loves us, and he does.

He absolutely does.

God is love.

That's something we really have to understand.

God is not wrath.

Scripture never says that God is wrath, he is love.

Love is his normal way of being, but there are times, there are situations where he can be provoked to wrath.

And the reason why is very simple.

God is just, and that's really good news.

That's really good news.

Like I need you to hear this and understand this.

The fact that God is just, that is good news.

Because that means that when you see injustice and it bothers you, and it troubles you, when you see things happening in the world that aren't right, you can trust the fact that it bothers God more.

It's just the simple truth.

Whatever injustice you see in the world, whatever wrongs you see in the world that bother you, that upset you, know that they bother God a lot more.

Because the simple truth is you don't love people the way God loves people.

You don't love this world the way that God loves the world, because he's the one who created it.

And the fact that God is just and the fact that God is good, and the fact that God is going to judge the world one day, which by the way, scripture and the teaching of Jesus stress that over and over again.

It is a clear teaching in scripture.

That fact, it's a good thing.

Be excited about that because that means that every injustice, every wrong, God is going to set right, God is going to correct.

And that applies to you personally.

That means if there are things that have happened to you in your life where you have been wronged, where injustice has been done to you, that means that God sees that, that he's not okay with that, and that God is going to make everything right.

And you can trust that.

The fact that God is just, it's really, really good news.

So we can't be followers of Jesus that get tripped up every time we encounter a concept like God's wrath, because scripture speaks of it often.

And in fact, Jesus spoke of it, and oftentimes Jesus would speak about it in the same breath he's talking about the love of God.

Just read John chapter 3, for example.

John 3 · chapter mention

Jesus talks to this man named Nicodemus, and that's the that's the conversation we get the famous John 3.16 from.

For God so loved the world he gave his one and only son.

That comes there.

And just a few verses later, Jesus is saying, But those who do not put their trust in the Son will be under the judgment of God.

It just kind of goes hand in hand.

Jesus didn't get tripped up over this idea that God is just, and we can't either.

And I believe that what we're gonna see as we go through this section of scripture together, we're gonna see that everything Paul is teaching us about the wrath of God is actually designed to fill our hearts with wonder at the idea that God has forgiven us.

Paul's purpose in talking about the wrath of God and really making the case, as he's going to do in the weeks to come, as we study this week by week, making the case that no one, not one person on this earth, not your best friend, not the nicest person you ever owned, not even like your grandma, not one person can claim that they could stand before God and on the merit of their own life try to argue that they are worthy of inclusion in the kingdom of God.

Not one person could claim to be somehow not worthy of God's wrath.

That's really what Paul's gonna say, and it sounds intense because it is intense.

He's gonna lay out the case that there's no one, there's no one who could truly stand before God and make the argument that they do not deserve the wrath of God.

And he's doing all of this not to discourage us, not to make us fearful.

He's doing all of this to actually enhance the wonder that we have at the idea of God's grace.

And so I'm gonna go back.

By the way, I'm reading all of this from the His Hands Mobile app.

So if you have the His Hands Mobile app, follow along, all the scriptures there.

I'm gonna read Romans 3.21 again.

And this is remember, this is where we're going, this is where we're heading in this whole conversation.

He says, but now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago.

Now, what you've got to understand is that when Paul said this, this statement to him would have been a revolution.

This statement to him would have just been audacious.

But now God has made a way for us to be made right with him without us having to keep the requirements of the law.

See, Paul was a Jewish man who had been taught from birth that he had sin, that there's something inside of us, there's something that we're born with, this condition that we have, and it causes us to choose selfishness.

It causes us to ignore what God values and to elevate what we value.

And every single person, every single person who's born, it's this is our natural condition.

This is something that scripture speaks to often.

And that's why we look around at the world and we see so much hurt and we see so much pain because people are just doing what people do.

They're often doing what's best for them at the expense of others.

The scripture calls that sin.

And no one can escape it.

And so what happens is religion tries to mitigate that, right?

It's like behavior modification.

And Paul grew up in that.

He grew up in the Jewish religion, and the Jewish religion was filled with laws and requirements, behavior modification saying, hey, don't do this, don't do this, make sure you do this, make sure you do that.

Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of laws and regulations, requirements for how to mitigate your sin and be acceptable to God.

And their mindset was the same as the mindset of pretty much every religion in the world.

And that's why we have to understand, Christians, that we are not part of a religion.

We might be called a religion, but we are not a religion.

We have a relationship with God.

A religion is a system in which you have to do all these different things to earn the favor of God.

That's not our situation.

Jesus has given us his favor, he's forgiven us.

Now we have a relationship with God because of what Jesus did, not because of what we have or have not done.

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

He's saying, but now God has done something, he's fundamentally changed the relationship, and now we can be made right with him, we can have a good relationship with him, and it has nothing to do with whether or not we've we've done a good job following the law.

For a first century Jewish man, and someone like Paul who had studied the scriptures, who had lived a very devout religious life, this statement would have just blown him away.

Because he would have understood that he was not deserving of that.

That he was deserving of the wrath of God, not this.

But hear me when I say this.

Statements like this in scripture often for us, they just don't hit us the way that it hit Paul.

We can read a statement like this, but now God has shown us to be the way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law.

We just read that and we keep going.

Like we don't even stop and just go, whoa, what in the world?

This is amazing.

What is he even saying?

But but that's that's the feeling Paul would have had.

See, for Paul, for all the early Jesus followers, the idea that God has done this and God has forgiven us, it would have just filled them with awe and wonder.

We have a hard time experiencing that awe and wonder.

It's difficult for us as Jesus followers today to just live life walking around in awe of what God has done for us.

And I believe that's in large part because in our modern American culture, we have greatly minimized the seriousness of sin.

We've greatly minimized and underestimated just how serious sin actually is.

And so in our minds, very, very little sin, we might call them sins, like certain actions, very few sins, we would actually, in our logical way of thinking, would say should merit the wrath of God.

You know, there might be some that we would say, yeah, that that's deserving of the wrath of God.

That sin, like that's so horrible, that's to such a level that the wrath of God is what that sin demands.

But there would be all kinds of other behavior that is absolutely sinful, that all of us have have participated in, and we would be like, well, I don't think that is deserving of the wrath of God.

We start to apply our standards and our filters, and what we do is we minimize the seriousness of sin.

And hear me out on this.

When we minimize the seriousness of sin, what we actually do is we minimize how absolutely amazing and incredible God's grace, his forgiveness really is.

So if you if you minimize sin, you end up minimizing your ability to just live in awe and wonder at what God has done for you.

And that's what Paul's gonna do for us as we study this together.

I like to think about it this way.

This is an analogy that really helps me, and trust me, I know that every analogy breaks down at some level, but this is a really helpful one for me.

Imagine that you are crossing a street, and let's picture in our minds some really busy intersection, right?

Like think New York City, something like that.

You're you're crossing a really busy street, and you're doing what most people do when they walk around anymore.

You're looking at your phone.

So you're just walking and you're looking, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, someone comes and they aggressively shove you out of the way.

And like you go flying backwards.

This person just shoved you.

You didn't expect it, you didn't see it coming.

And so for a second, you're like, what in the world?

What's going on?

You look at this person, you're you're almost maybe ready to fight.

But then you you notice that you were about to step right into a puddle of water.

And if you would have kept going, if this person hadn't shoved you out of the way, your shoes would have gotten soaked.

And maybe the puddle's deep enough that that like your socks even get wet, and that that's awful.

Like soggy socks are one of the worst feelings in the world, right?

And so in that situation, you would you'd probably still be mad at the person who shoved you a little bit.

Like you'd be grateful for the fact you didn't step in the puddle, but you'd look at that puddle and go, I don't think that was was worthy.

I don't think the potential danger there was worthy of the aggressiveness of your actions.

You probably wouldn't want to hang out with that person.

Now let's look at it a different way.

Let's say you're walking across the street, you're on your phone, same scenario, someone comes and they aggressively shove you out of the way, and you look at them and you're like, what the heck?

But then you notice that you were about to step into a manhole, like a cartoon or something.

There's just an open manhole for some reason in the middle of the street, and you were about to step into it, and if that person hadn't shoved you, you could have fallen down that manhole, you could have like broken your leg.

Well, in that scenario, your adrenaline would would probably still have you be a little on edge toward the person who pushed you, but you would recognize that and you go, Oh, oh wow, that was that was kind of serious.

Thank thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

I I really could have hurt myself.

You'd be grateful.

And you might even think about it the next day, and maybe even a month later, be like, Man, I'm so glad I didn't fall in that manhole.

But let's let's take it a step further.

You're crossing the street, and you're on your phone and you're looking and you can't see where you're going, and you think everything's fine.

Someone comes, they aggressively shove you out of the way, you fly back, and then you look up just in time to see them hit by a semi-truck.

Because you were unbeknownst to you, about to step into oncoming traffic, and there was a semi right there, and this person shoved you out of the way, and they took the hit, and they sacrificed their life to save you.

Now, in that scenario, your life would be forever changed.

You would be flooded with such a variety of emotions that you probably couldn't even process it.

Because instantly the recognition would come over you that that was supposed to be you, that you were the one that was supposed to get hit by that, and some person shoved you out of the way, took the hit for you, sacrificed their life so that you could live.

That would change the way you would think about your life from that moment on.

Here's what I'm trying to say.

The apostle Paul, who wrote this, he didn't see his sin like a puddle in the road.

He saw it like a semi coming at him.

He understood the seriousness of sin.

He understood the goodness of God and the fact that God, being so good, has to oppose evil.

Please don't believe for a second that God tolerates evil.

God is opposed to evil because he's good.

He's good.

So sometimes God is provoked to wrath because his wrath is justified because of the seriousness of sin.

And the question we all have to ask ourselves is do I see my sin like a puddle on the road?

Some minor inconvenience, and it's like, yeah, it's not good, but it's not that big of a deal, or do I see my sin like a semi coming at me?

And on the forefront, what I want you to understand is that if you see your sin like a little puddle, then you're probably not gonna live in awe and wonder of what Jesus has done for you, because all Jesus did for you was save you from some minor inconvenience, some awkward situation.

But if, like Paul, who once called himself the chief of sinners, if you see your sin for what scripture says that it is, something intense, something that has provoked the wrath of God, and then you understand what Jesus has done, that that but now God statement, but now God, it should bring you to your knees.

It should just bring you to your knees.

And what Paul's gonna do as we go through these chapters is he's gonna lay out for us that that's how all of us should feel.

And he's gonna begin in chapter 1, verse 18, by walking us through this idea that might sound pretty foreign to many of us, and it's the idea of idolatry.

And so what I want to do is I want to go to Romans chapter 1, verse 18.

Romans 1:18

I'm gonna switch to the English Standard Version, and that's what we have on the mobile app as well.

Um, the New Living Translation is what we usually use.

It does a great job of taking the original language, putting it into kind of modern terms in a way that we can understand the ESV, it's a little more technical.

And this is one of those sections of scripture that I want to look at technically because there's a lot of terms, a lot of words that I want to make sure are exactly right.

We're gonna talk about idolatry and the fact that this is Paul's argument for really at the end of the day why every person, every single person should understand that the wrath of God is something that logically they should understand that they're they're due.

But again, remember, this is meant to encourage you because all of this is heading toward that, but now God.

The goal of this is not to make you feel bad, it's not to make you feel like you're a failure.

No, the exact opposite.

The goal of this is to help you understand just how intense what Jesus has done for you.

This should, like, by the time this is done, my prayer is that through the Holy Spirit, you are like, yes, yes, like now God has freed me, now God has saved me.

That should have been me.

Like, I'm guilty of that, but now I've been forgiven.

We should be so filled with passion for what he's done.

So, with that in mind, let's let's go to Romans chapter 1, starting in verse 18.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

I'm gonna read through verse 25.

He says, For the wrath of God, there's that term, whoo, wrath of God, is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

Now, this is very important because sometimes today in our in our culture, people who teach on scripture will try to try to spin things in a way that makes it seem like God never has wrath toward people.

And you know, maybe his wrath is for some undefined evil in the world, maybe his wrath is for just injustice in general, or maybe you even get spiritual language, and he's gonna have wrath for for Satan, for demons, whatever words you want to use.

But but God would never have wrath toward people.

That's not what this says.

It says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, 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, in 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 they 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 their lusts, the lust 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.

So, at a basic level, what Paul's describing is ancient idolatry.

Right?

He says they exchanged the glory of God for things of this earth, right?

For like animals, birds, and if you look at most ancient cultures, they would have gods that they would have worshipped, that would have resembled animals, that would have resembled nature.

Sometimes they were like a combination of people and animals.

If you look at the Egyptian culture, things like that.

He's talking about idolatry.

And even in the time of the ancient Jewish people, of like Abraham, you'll read this in the early scriptures about people who worshipped idols and and what they would mean by idols in those situations were these little like carved pieces of wood.

People would actually take wood and they would carve it into some shape, and that would be their idol, their God.

And they would they would carry that with them everywhere they would go and they would worship it.

They were nomadic people very often, so it made sense for them to have a little, a little god they could put in their pocket and take with them.

And these people would would worship, like literally worship and offer sacrifices to these little little wooden statues, these idols.

And in Isaiah chapter 44, we get this perspective that God has at how ridiculous and how audacious that kind of thinking is.

Isaiah 44 · chapter mention

We'll read it, uh, verses 9 through 20.

This is God speaking.

He says, How foolish are those who manufacture idols.

These prized objects are really worthless.

The people who worship idols don't know this, so they're they're put to shame.

Who but a fool would make his own God?

An idol that cannot help him one bit.

All who worship idols will be disgraced, along with all these craftsmen, mere humans who claim they can make a god.

They may all stand together, but they will stand in terror and shame.

The blackmith the blacksmith stands at his forge to make a sharp tool, pounding and shaping it with all his might.

His work makes him hungry and weak, and makes him thirsty and faint.

Then the wood carver measures a block of wood and draws a pattern on it.

He works with chisel and plain and carves it into a human figure.

He gives it human beauty, and he puts it in a little shrine.

He cuts down cedars, he selects the cypress and the oak, he plants the pine in the forest to be nourished by the rain.

Then he uses part of the wood to make a fire.

And with it he warms himself and bakes his bread.

Then, yes, it's true, he takes the rest of it and he makes himself a god to worship.

He makes an idol and bows down in front of it.

He burns part of the tree to roast his meat and keep himself warm.

He says, Ah, this fire feels good.

And then he takes what's left and he makes his God, a carved idol.

He falls down in front of it, worshiping and praying, Rescue me, he says, You're my God.

Stupidity and ignorance.

Their eyes are closed and they cannot see.

Their minds are shut and they cannot think.

The person who made the idol never stops to reflect.

Why?

It's just a block of wood.

I burned half of it for heat, and I used the rest to bake my bread and roast my meat.

How can the rest of it be a god?

Should I bow down to worship a piece of wood?

The poor deluded fool feeds on ashes.

He trusts something that can't help him at all, yet he cannot bring himself to ask, is this idol that I'm holding in my hand a lie?

Now, we probably hear this and go, yeah, that's crazy.

To worship something like a piece of wood is crazy.

And you see that with God, it's like he can't even fathom this thought process.

How in the world could you be foolish enough?

This is God speaking again in Isaiah 44, paraphrasing, how in the world could be you be foolish enough to like worship a piece of wood that came from a tree that you cut down?

Like clearly you could see how weak that tree was.

You cut it down and you saw that it could be consumed by fire.

Because you use some of that wood to cook your food, to bring you warmth.

And then you turn around and you believe that the rest of it is a God that can somehow do something for you, that can somehow save you.

This is absolute foolishness.

And he says that there's no excuse for this.

There's no excuse, there's no way to justify this, that no one should really be able to come to that conclusion and then somehow defend it because it's utter insanity.

That's what Paul, though, is saying about everyone in Romans chapter 1.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

Paul's making the argument that all of us have done that very thing.

That all of us have exchanged worship of God for the worship of a created thing.

All of us have exchanged the worship of a God, the Creator, who made all of us.

And instead, we've we've replaced that worship with the worship of something of this earth, something far lesser than God, that all of us, all of us have engaged in idolatry.

That's what Paul's saying.

You know, it's funny, I remember the first time I came across the idea of idolatry was probably in the fourth, fifth grade.

My family started going to church.

We didn't go to church really before that.

And I started reading my Bible.

My parents got me a Bible, I still have it today.

And I remember going to this little Sunday school class, this little Baptist church, and you would get a sticker if you memorized the week's like Bible verse.

And so I wanted the stickers, and I had a bunch of stickers, and I began to read the Bible.

And I started at the beginning and I did what you're supposed to do with books, right?

You go from one end to the other.

And so I remember getting to Genesis, getting through it, getting to Exodus and some of those books, and I had a really hard time with Leviticus and all that, and you understand why.

But I remember in Exodus reading about the Ten Commandments, reading about God's original commandments that he gives the people, saying, Hey, this is how I want you to behave.

And the very first one talks about idolatry.

It says, you shouldn't worship any God but God.

And I remember reading that as a fourth, fifth-grade kid, being like, Well, yeah, duh.

Like, who would do that?

That commandment did not seem very relevant to me.

Now, the other commandments, like don't lie, don't steal, like those seemed pretty relevant.

I had been tempted to do all those things.

I had done those things by fourth and fifth grade.

Those seemed relevant to me.

Honor your mother and father as a fourth, fifth grade kid.

That seemed relevant to me.

That was one of the commandments.

But commandment one, don't practice idolatry, that just didn't seem relevant to me at all.

Why would I do that?

Who would do that?

And so I used to think that that one was just strange, but now my thinking has changed.

And at 37 years old, I should think differently than I did in the fourth or fifth grade.

Now I realize that, oh, maybe, maybe the reason that idolatry is commandment one is because it's the number one struggle that we have as people.

You see, we as people, you are designed by God to worship.

You are hardwired to worship.

And if we we don't worship God, we will inevitably worship something else.

Some people worship money, some people worship sex, some people worship success, some people worship another person.

There's this person they're in a relationship with.

Maybe it's romantic and and their whole world revolves around this person.

And they can't imagine life without this person.

If something ever happened to that person, their entire life would come crashing down.

The truth is they've moved into a worship state with that person.

I know people who are who are worshipers of their own ideas.

I know people who are who are so in love with the sound of their own voice, who are so convinced that they have all the right answers that they actually worship their own thoughts.

All of us can choose to worship something.

What we have to understand is it's kind of sneaky how it often happens.

In fact, my wife came up with this really great filter on Isaiah 44, and it's this filter of warmth or worship.

Warmth or worship.

Go back to that idea and we just read in Isaiah 44 that that tree was something that is meant to be used to bring you warmth.

You know, it wasn't a bad thing that that person cut down the tree and and made a fire and used it to warm themselves.

But then they went a huge leap in the wrong direction and began to worship.

There are things in this life that God has given us, and they are designed for our warmth.

They're designed for our warmth.

But instead, we we choose not to just be warmed by those things, not to just enjoy those things and allow them to bless our lives, but we begin to obsess.

And they move from warmth to worship.

I've experienced it in some really unique ways.

A big one that's gonna come as a shocker to those of you who know me well would be like youth sports.

You may not know this, but my oldest son is really good at basketball.

And it's amazing how quickly I've watched him playing basketball move from just being something that brings me warmth, something that makes me happy, brings me joy, to being something that I'm like kind of obsessed with sometimes in an unhealthy way.

And I've had to ask myself hard questions with youth sports, like, is this something that I'm just enjoying, or have I moved into this obsession, borderline worship like it has to happen.

He has to be good, I have to do these things, because if not, I just don't know how I'll function anymore.

I mean, it sounds crazy, but but all of us have experienced this, all of us experienced this idea of something moving from a warmth category to a worship category.

And we've taken the blessings that God has given us and we've actually raised them up above God.

We've prioritized them above God.

And I'm not saying any of this to be a jerk, I'm not saying any of this to convict any person.

Trust me, one of the hardest things to do is to talk on Sunday mornings now to a camera, knowing that you're watching, but I can't wait till I'm looking at faces again.

So when I say this, just please know my heart is not it's not to convict you to make you feel bad, but look, there's a lot of Jesus followers.

And this whole COVID-19 thing, and and and not having the ability to physically go to church and be present.

I'm not talking about a medical situation, I'm not talking about, I'm not talking about that.

I'm not talking about a scenario where, you know, like you've got some crazy thing happening in life and and and you're you're sick, you just you can't come.

I'm just talking about normal life stuff.

There's a lot of people who this whole COVID shutdown these last months, it hasn't really changed their rhythm of church at all.

Like, very, very little.

And they would call themselves Christians.

And they would say, Yeah, I'm a Jesus follower.

And I got and again, I'm not saying this to be a jerk, I'm not saying this to be convicting, but man, like for many of us watching this, not being able to be here right now is a it's a hard thing.

Some of you watching this, you are so eager to be able to worship God in the presence of other believers that not being able to, it's almost torture.

And trust me, that's like a good thing.

That shows that your heart so desires to worship God, so desires to encourage those around you, that you are you are in line with the heart of God.

But for many other people who would call themselves Christians, and that's only who I'm talking about right now, those of us who say I'm believers, if if getting up early on a Sunday morning and coming to worship God, if that doesn't rise above the level of a game that's on TV or of some other activity that you want to do, it just doesn't rank high enough.

That's a real problem.

That's like an idolatry situation.

And you've got to do some wrestling on that.

You've really got to think about that.

I was talking to a gentleman that, by the way, I love this guy.

I've known him for a long time.

I was talking to him several months ago.

I hadn't seen him in church in years.

And I assumed that I must have said something from the stage that really upset him.

I must have done something as a leader that threw him off.

And I was like, hey man, we miss you.

And he said, Yeah, man, you know, there was just something about that 10 o'clock hour that was really great for me.

And what he was talking about is we used to meet at 10 a.m., which is what we're gonna meet at again when we come back together.

We'll we'll meet every Sunday, one service at 10 a.m.

But for the last few years, we've had two services.

And so we went from 10 o'clock in the morning, we went to 9 into 11, and then it became 9:30, 11.15, whatever.

But but what he was saying is, yeah, man, 10 o'clock was just great for me.

And you know, like when you guys moved it to 9 or 11, it was just that just wasn't, it just didn't work for me.

So I just haven't been.

And I remember sitting there and trying to like process that, just going, I mean, okay, okay, but like you're a Jesus follower.

And so the idea of of you worshiping God and being alongside other believers and serving and engaging with other people, if it's just a matter of convenience, then that's that's not worship.

If it's just a matter of convenience, you're worshiping something else.

It's gotta be a matter of conviction.

I've done the same thing.

I'm not I'm not judging that gentleman.

I've done the same thing.

I have elevated things above God.

I have worshiped created things instead of my creator.

That's idolatry.

All of us have done that.

All of us have done that.

James chapter 4, verses 2 through 4.

James 4:2–4

I'll start halfway through verse 2.

And understand, James, he doesn't mince words.

I know, by the way, this message is hard-hitting and challenging.

Stick with it though, because we're almost done.

And I'm telling you, it gets good.

He says, you don't have what you want because you don't ask God for it.

And even when you ask, you don't get it because your motives are all wrong.

You want only what will give you pleasure.

He's talking about like seeing God as a vending machine.

You only go to God when you want something, and it's only what you want, not what maybe God wants for you.

He says, You adulterers, whoo, that's intense language.

Don't you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God?

I say it again, if you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.

When he says world there, he's not talking about people, he's not talking about serving people and loving people, he's talking about the values and the priorities of this world, which do not match the values and the priorities of God.

Like as Jesus followers, we just have to accept that, that God has a different value system than the world that we live in.

And if our value system looks more like the world we live in, that value system, then it looks like God's, that's a problem, and we've got to deal with that.

We've got to wrestle with that.

James uses this term adultery.

He calls us adulterers, like spiritual adulterers, because we've essentially cheated on God.

Because we've worshiped other things.

And we've done it, we've done it a lot.

That's what Paul's talking about in Romans 1 when it's when he says that none of us have an excuse, that we have all exchanged the worship of our God for the worship of something, something else.

There's not one of us that could claim that, no, I've never done that before.

I've never done that.

Now, again, we could stop right here, and and the point of this could just be to make you feel terrible.

Like, you adulterer, what's wrong with you?

Why have you done this?

Why haven't you valued God as much as you should value him?

But that is not the purpose in what Paul is saying.

Remember, all of what he's saying here, this whole discussion of God's wrath and idolatry, and in the next few weeks, he's gonna get to some big arguments that you probably have in your mind.

Like, what about a genuinely good person?

And what about someone who's even religious?

Shouldn't they be excused from the wrath of God on their own merit?

And Paul's gonna dismantle that argument because he's getting all of us to see that our sin is not a puddle in the road, it is a semi-truck coming at us.

And none of us could escape it.

None of us have lived a life where we could claim that we could escape that.

That is what is coming toward us, but now, God, I'll read it again and read this in the way that it's meant to be read and understood.

Understand that you were about to step in front of oncoming traffic, that a semi was coming at you, that there's nothing you can do, there's no time for you to change course, but now God has shown you a way to be made right, but now God has rescued you.

That's what it's saying, but now God has saved you, but now Jesus has shoved you out of the way, and he's taken on the brunt of God's wrath himself.

When he died on the cross, when he died on the cross, when he was whipped and beaten and tortured, he did all of that in your place to save you.

God's wrath was poured out on Jesus so that you would be spared.

By his stripes, we're healed.

That's what scripture says.

And he did it for you because he loves you, because he loves you that much.

And the idea of that, the idea of that should fill us with wonder and awe that Jesus gave his life for us.

And we didn't deserve that.

That we weren't about to step into a puddle, we were about to step in front of a semi, and Jesus took the hit for us.

And now, because of that, because of that, we're saved.

Because of that, we're alive, not just physically alive, but spiritually alive.

Because of that, now we can have a relationship with God where we know that we're right with him, that he looks at us and he gives us his seal of approval, and he loves us, not because of anything we've done, but because of what Jesus did, this idea.

But now, God, it should fill you with wonder.

I hope at home right now you're standing up and you're shouting and you're jumping around because of hearing this.

Doesn't move your heart, move your spirit.

Something's wrong.

None of us deserve this.

But he's given it to us.

It's the greatest gift that's ever been given.

Like, shout, yell, be excited, do something.

You've been forgiven of everything.

He loves you, he loves you, he's made you right with him.

Come on.

If there were people in the room right now, I'd hope to hear like at least one amen.

Because clearly, this is big, this is this is good news.

Clearly, this is a big deal.

He loves you.

He's crazy about you.

And your sin, as Paul's gonna keep laying out for us, it's a big deal.

It's a it's a huge deal.

It's not a puddle, it's a semi, but but now God.

We'll pray, we'll wrap up, and then we're gonna take Lord's Supper together.

But but every time I sit down and I plan a message, one of the questions I always have at the end is what should we believe?

Like, what's the point of this?

What's the point of this conversation?

And at the end of the day, the the conversations we have as we as we talk about scripture and and our God, it's all about our belief systems.

It's all about shifting and renewing what we believe.

And the point of this conversation this morning is that you would believe that yes, yes.

And I'll use my own my own language here about myself, that if I were in your shoes, the hope is that today you would say, Yes, I'm an idolater.

Yes, I have worshipped things other than God.

In fact, I I've done it a lot.

And I know and I know better.

I absolutely know better than that, but I've done it anyway.

That I actually very frequently allow things in this world to rise above importance in my heart to God.

But now God.

But now Jesus has forgiven me of all that.

That my guilt, the fact that I have no excuse for doing what I've done, it's all been wiped away, and Jesus has saved me.

The thought of that, if you believe that's true, it should free you.

It should free you like you're not a failure.

Even if you failed, you're not.

You're not, you're not a spiritual screw up.

You're in the same boat as everybody else.

We've all done this, and now God has given us something we don't deserve, like thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus.

We should all believe that and be filled with wonder.

And so, with that in mind, I just want to pray.

And my prayer is that right now, is as we're praying together, if you're watching this, if you're listening to this, and and it's never hit you before, just how seriousness, how serious, seriousness, just how serious the seriousness, there I'll bring it around, of your sin actually is.

If that's never really hit you, that it would hit you for the first time, and then you would realize that you've been saved.

That by putting your faith in Jesus, you've been saved.

If you've never done that before, it's as simple as this.

You just you ask him.

You thank him.

Really, it's even not so much asking him because he's already done it, right?

Like in the scenario we talked about with the semi, he's already shoved you out of the way.

He's already taken the hit.

That happened 2,000 years ago.

It's not so much about you asking him.

Sometimes we use that language, it's really about you recognizing that it happened and you thanking him for it, you acknowledging it, you saying, Jesus, I recognize what you've done for me.

I believe in you, I put my trust in you, I thank you.

I'm gonna live my life in response to what you did for me.

When you do that, you're saved.

And you have a new lease on life.

And you are completely and totally rescued from what Scripture calls the wrath of God.

Let's pray.

Jesus, thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Lord, for saving us.

Thank you so much, Lord, for stepping in front of what we had coming our way.

Lord, we have all messed up.

And Lord, we we according to your word, we are all deserving of wrath.

None of us have any excuse.

All of us have recognized that you are you are God, and yet we've chosen to elevate far lesser things above you.

Every one of us has done that.

I've done that more times than I care to count.

But now you have saved me.

God, let our whole week be shaped by the recognition of that.

Let our let our entire week ahead be shaped by the wonder and awe of what you've done for us.

Let us rest in your love.

Give us that peace, God, that comes from knowing that we're free because of what you've done for us.

I pray all this in your name.

Amen.