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From the letter of Paul to the Romans.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes,
first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.
For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed,
a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written,
the righteous will live by faith.
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people
who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
since what may be known about God is plain to them,
because God has made it plain to them.
For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities,
His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen,
being understood from what has been made,
so that people are without excuse.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him.
But their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools,
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God
for images made to look like a mortal human being,
and birds and animals and reptiles.
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity,
for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
They exchanged the truth about God for a lie,
and worshipped and served created things,
rather than the Creator, who is forever praised.
Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.
Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.
In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women,
and were inflamed with lust for one another.
Men committed shameful acts with other men,
and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God,
so God gave them over to a depraved mind,
so that they do what ought not to be done.
They become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity.
They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice.
They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful.
They invent ways of doing evil.
They disobey their parents.
They have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.
Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death,
they not only continue to do these very things,
but also approve of those who practice them.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Good morning, Christ Church.
Just to see a show of hands,
how many of you wish that you were preaching this sermon?
How many of you have ever witnessed someone walk on a tightrope across the open crater of an active volcano?
Anyone ever seen that?
That's what you're about to witness right now.
I want to reassure you that I plan to speak about the one thing in this text that you really want to hear about,
which is the wrath of God.
But I know that our eyes are probably glued to these thorny verses in verses 24 to 27 about sexuality.
And probably one of the reasons we've never preached the epistle to the Romans in our 17 years as a church,
at Christ Church,
is probably because of this text.
Who wants to walk over bubbling hot lava?
So I need to make some remarks here up front.
Otherwise, we're going to be distracted about sex the whole time
and not really hear the main point of this scripture.
In God's providential timing,
a few months back,
I preached on Jesus' teaching about marriage and singleness,
sexuality and gender,
and the Gospel of Matthew chapter 19.
If you weren't here for that,
I encourage you to go back and listen to that.
I'm going to repeat a little bit of that preamble
as we enter in today.
And I want to just say,
anytime we talk about sexuality,
recognize these are personal,
sensitive,
serious,
even controversial matters.
They're not just about issues.
It's about real people.
It affects every person here,
people who are not here,
that we love so much and care about so much,
our parents,
our siblings,
our kids,
our friends and neighbors and coworkers.
Anytime we talk about sexuality,
I feel inadequate and often quite nervous
because these topics just inevitably bring up tension and conflict
and texts and emails and conversations
that aren't all that fun.
And perhaps you are more nervous than I am
when these things come up
because issues of sexuality bring up immense pain and sadness,
perhaps even guilt and shame
for things that we've done,
things that have been done to us,
ways that we've been wronged.
Some of us are here today,
and if we're honest,
we're trapped in sexual addictions
and we have sexual secrets.
Some of us are here today,
and we're same-sex attracted,
we're gay,
the church has not been a safe place
for us to feel that we belong
or that we are accepted.
And if you're nervous,
I just want to reassure all of you
that I love you,
that I'm your pastor,
and I love you so much.
And I want you to fear not.
I just want you to open up yourself to God.
God is here to meet you
in his compassion,
his kindness,
his healing,
his transforming power.
Some of us are here,
we're exploring Christianity,
and if that's you,
we preach on this text once every 17 years.
And the first thing you need to do
is really get straight on Jesus.
Is he the son of God?
Did he die for your sins?
Did he rise from the dead?
And have you experienced his grace?
If you deal with that,
then let's have a conversation
about the ethics of Jesus.
But every person here is broken
in the area of sexuality,
including myself.
We don't have it all together.
Our common ground is that we need wisdom.
There's not a lot of wisdom
to be had on these issues,
and we need wisdom.
And I don't think that we're all
going to walk out of this room today
and agree.
And that's okay.
I just want to open the door
for us to seek the mind of God.
And I want to say once again
that sex is not the main point
of this passage.
If you look closely,
it's neither the upfront number one concern,
nor is it at the end
is the climactic concern.
It's just sandwiched in the middle.
But there are two wrong ways
to read that middle part.
One wrong way in our culture war
that's raging right now
is that if you're a conservative
on the right,
you can read texts like this
and you can use them as a club
to beat people over the head
and practice oppression and exclusion
in the name of Jesus.
And I just have to say out loud,
that's wrong.
That's bad.
Stop doing that.
If you're a progressive on the left,
you might make an equal
and opposite error,
which is to dismiss a text like this
as outdated
and to fail to appreciate
the sexual revolution
of the prophets and the apostles.
These men and women
who insisted and demanded
that all sexual activity
be channeled into marriage
between one man and one woman.
And in doing so,
they forced the sexual genie
back into the marital bottle.
And when that happened,
it did untold good
for human society and civilization,
not least for women and children.
So as we're walking this tightrope
over this open crater
of an active volcano
with boiling hot lava,
we want to not fall off on the right
and we want to not fall off on the left.
Okay, how am I doing so far?
So what I want to ask all of you
to do right now
is to just put a pin in this,
suspend your judgment for a moment
so that we can go on
and talk about the main point
of this passage.
And then we're going to circle back briefly
as it unfolds in the text.
An advanced apology.
This is a bit of a longer sermon,
but blame the Apostle Paul.
He put a lot in this text, okay?
So what he's saying
and what the message is for us today
is that the gospel reveals
the cause of God's wrath,
the consequences, and the cure.
The gospel reveals
the cause of God's wrath,
the consequences, and the cure.
First of all,
the gospel reveals
the cause of God's wrath.
Notice in verse 17,
it says the gospel,
in the gospel,
the righteousness of God is revealed.
And then in verse 18,
it says,
the wrath of God
is being revealed from heaven.
So two things are being revealed.
Two ages,
two realms
are being revealed.
The old age,
the old realm
of God's wrath,
and the new age,
the new realm
of God's righteousness
in the gospel.
And Romans 1 to 3
is there to show us
what it means
to live under God's wrath
so that we'll see
the necessity for
and the power of the gospel
to bring us out
from under the wrath of God
and to bring us up
and under the righteousness
of God in Christ.
And so we're gonna keep repeating
verses 16 to 17
because that's the thesis
of this whole letter.
But we're also gonna repeat
these next couple weeks
verse 18
because that's the thesis
of this next section,
these next three chapters.
And you'll notice
that Paul's methodology
is the exact opposite
of the church
in North America today.
The church in North America
does not wanna talk
about the wrath of God.
We don't wanna talk
about the godlessness
or wickedness of people
because that won't
attract people,
it'll make them feel
uncomfortable,
they won't come back
to church,
it won't touch
their felt needs,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
But Paul,
if he were here,
would say,
can we really know God
and know the love of God
without the wrath of God?
Can we really even see
the need that we have
for the gospel
if we don't talk
about the wrath of God?
Now, is the apostle Paul
the only one
in the New Testament
that insists on wrath?
Well, the first preacher
in the New Testament,
John the Baptist,
his main message was
flee from the wrath
of God to come.
And we say,
yikes, let's move on
from John the Baptist
to Jesus.
That's why I prefer
his preaching of love
and grace and compassion.
Well, here's Jesus preaching.
In the Sermon on the Mount,
he says in Matthew 7,
every tree that does not
bear good fruit
is cut down
and thrown into the fire.
Matthew chapter 10,
Jesus says,
do not be afraid
of those who kill the body
but cannot kill the soul.
Rather be afraid
of the one
who can destroy
both soul and body
in hell.
Matthew 13,
the Son of Man
will send out his angels
and they will weed
out of his kingdom
everything that causes sin
and all who do evil.
They will throw them
into the blazing furnace
where there will be
weeping and gnashing
of teeth.
Jeez, thanks Jesus.
Happy Mother's Day.
You know,
that's tough preaching
from Jesus
but that's what he says.
He talks about
the wrath of God
and what is
the wrath of God?
The wrath of God
is not human wrath
which is so often
irrational,
uncontrolled emotion,
very often arbitrary
and almost always
full of vanity,
malice,
and revenge.
God's wrath is free
of all that human poison.
The scriptures say
that God is light
and in him
there's no darkness
at all.
And so the wrath
of God
is his holy hatred
of evil.
The wrath of God
is his settled
righteous opposition
to darkness.
It's his uncompromising
hostility against sin.
If we're going to see
love in God
then we also must see
his hatred
because God hates
all that opposes
what's good
and true
and beautiful.
God hates
all that
damages,
defaces,
and destroys
his creation
and his creatures.
If God didn't
hate those things
then God would not
be God
and he would
certainly not be
a God that's
worthy of our
worship.
So Paul says
the wrath of God
is being revealed
and what is causing
the wrath of God?
He says
it's our denial
of God.
It's our suppression
of the truth
about God.
Verse 18 says
the wrath of God
is being revealed
from heaven
against all what?
All godlessness,
all ungodliness.
we were created
by God
and for God
to trust
the truth
of God
and to live
these God-centered,
God-full,
godly lives.
All of us
and everyone
you've ever met
or will ever meet
were made
to love
the Lord our God
with all our heart,
soul,
and strength.
And the problem
is that we're not
godly like that,
we are godless.
We're made to be
these dependent creatures
but instead
we seek independence
from God.
We're made to be
these God-centered people
but instead
we become
these very self-centered
people.
And that's the essence
of sin.
The essence of sin
is to be godless,
to be ungodly,
to be against God.
It's to hold down
the truth about God
and refuse to desire
God with our whole being,
to want Him
as the supreme object
of our desire
and to want to know Him
and to live entirely for Him,
to do His will
and to live for His glory
and His glory alone.
See, Paul is telling us here
what we've been created for.
We've been created
in verse 20
to be in awe
of the invisible qualities
of God.
We have His eternal power,
His divine nature,
His holiness,
His righteousness,
and justice,
all these things.
He says,
we've been designed,
according to verse 21,
to glorify and thank God
in all things.
We've been made,
according to verse 23,
to delight in the glory
of the immortal God
and we've been fashioned,
as verse 25 says,
to worship and serve
our Creator
and to praise Him
and please Him
with every thought,
word, and deed
that we do.
Our failure
to do these things
is not
the breaking
of some random rules
that God has set up.
for us.
Our failure
to do these things
is in fact
a violation
of our very own essence,
our very own nature
as creatures
made to live
with and for
our Creator.
And so,
every time
we fail to do these things,
we're tearing
at the fabric
of our own being.
To break away
from God
is to break
our very selves
because myself
needs God
more than it needs
oxygen.
You don't want
to go very long
without oxygen.
Godliness
is our design.
Godlessness
is our demise.
And friends,
even before
Adam and Eve
ate that forbidden fruit,
they had already
fallen into
ungodliness.
They were questioning God.
They were saying,
did God really say?
Is God
really good?
Is He for us?
Can we trust Him?
Can we trust
His word?
Any of you ever
question like that?
Any of you ever
live against God
and apart from God
in that way?
Just think about
this morning.
Today's Sunday.
It's the Lord's Day.
How much time
passed
this morning
where you didn't
think about God?
You didn't thank God?
You didn't glorify God?
Think about
your past week.
Did you love God
with all of your heart,
soul,
and strength?
Paul is saying
that the primary matter
on which we're all
going to be judged
is our response
to God
and all that He is
and all that He
has done.
And he says
that God has revealed
enough of Himself
so that even the most
irreligious people
can look around creation
and know that we are,
we're just mere creatures.
We are not the key
to our own existence
and the existence
of everything around us.
We know at least that.
We know enough
to believe
that we are utterly
dependent
and completely
accountable to God.
Although they knew God,
they neither thanked God
nor glorified Him
as God.
Every person we meet,
including ourselves,
has enough of the truth
to know
that the only right
and reasonable response
to God
is to glorify
and thank Him,
to worship
and serve Him.
But Paul says
the problem is
we suppress the truth.
we restrain the truth.
We hold the truth down.
We fight against it.
We push it aside.
We dismiss it
and twist it
and explain it away
and do everything we can
to get rid of it,
to throttle it,
to drown it out.
And the gospel
is revealing to us
that the cause
of God's wrath
is this truth suppression,
this godlessness
in our lives.
Friends,
do you realize
that apart from
the grace of God,
your life has been poisoned
by this godlessness?
Your life has been
completely ruined
by ungodliness.
To withhold from God,
the God who made us,
anything of ourselves
is a sin against Him
grievously.
Every human being,
Paul says,
is living in this old age,
this old realm
of godlessness
under the wrath,
the condemnation,
the judgment of God
without exception.
And unless and until
God graciously
and powerfully intervenes
to bring us
into this new realm,
this new age
of the righteousness
and salvation
and life of God,
we're stuck.
We're absolutely stuck.
So the gospel
reveals God's,
the cause of God's wrath,
but it also reveals
the consequences.
Really,
the rest of Romans 1
just unpacks verse 18
and talks about
how our godlessness
leads to wickedness.
Our ungodliness
results in unrighteousness.
If our relationship
to God were right,
then all of our actions
would be right.
And we'd not be guilty
of any of the particular things
that are listed
here in our text.
But because we are ungodly,
because we're against God,
we become unrighteous.
We become against other people.
We even become against ourselves.
And Paul describes
this descent,
step by step,
downward, downward, downward,
from godlessness
to unrighteousness.
And he talks about
a few things.
He talks about
deceitful idols,
degraded bodies,
depraved minds,
and decaying societies.
Each of those
is a sermon in and of itself.
I'm going to touch upon them
ever so briefly.
First of all,
deceitful idols.
He says in verse 23,
we exchanged the glory
of the immortal God
for images
made to look like
mortal human beings.
And in verse 25,
we exchanged the truth
about God for a lie
and worshipped and served
created things
rather than the creator.
My wife and I
had the privilege
of going to the United Kingdom
last summer.
And let's suppose
that had we gone on that trip
and taken a million U.S. dollars,
like we typically do
when we travel,
we took a million U.S. dollars
and we exchanged
that money
for 100 British pounds.
What would you say
about that exchange?
Would you say
that that was a wise exchange?
No, you would say
that's outrageous.
That's absurd.
Jonathan,
you're an idiot.
And Paul's saying
we exchanged
the glory and the truth
of the living creator God
for these counterfeit gods.
We traded in
this life-giving relationship
with God
because we'd rather enjoy
the creatures
and the created goods
and created ideas.
We've become so confused.
It's absurd.
We've been created
to worship this uncorruptible,
majestic creator,
and yet here we are
creating these little
golden cast substitutes
and we say
this little thing down here,
this is ultimate.
This is what I'm going to live for.
This is my precious
money
or power.
Let's live for the state.
Let's live for the markets.
You know,
let's live for our race.
Let's worship
and serve our bodies.
I've got a great idea.
Let's live entirely
for our children.
Let us bow down
to human-made ideas
about God
rather than the self-revelation
of God himself.
And some of you might say,
Jonathan,
you're taking this too far.
There are no real idols
in the modern world.
That's all ancient,
primitive stuff.
We've outgrown it.
We've matured beyond it.
I could literally
take you outside right now
and show you people
bowing down
to these little black mirrors
that they're carrying around
in their hand.
And those little mirrors
reflect our image
back to ourselves
so that all we do all day
is see ourselves
and we go around like this.
I'm not kidding.
Our modern world
is full of idols.
And these idols,
they really just exalt us.
They're there to put us
in control
so that we don't have to rely
on the control
of God in our lives.
And again,
I can't say much about this
but I encourage you
to look at these books,
Counterfeit Gods,
The Empty Promises
of Money, Sex, and Power
by Tim Keller
and also a book
by Richard Foster
that has some dynamite
on the front
about money, sex, and power.
A lot more we could say
about that.
But Paul moves
from our deceitful idols
to our degraded bodies.
And he says in verse 24,
he says,
Therefore God gave them over
in the sinful desires
of their hearts
to sexual impurity
for the degrading
of their bodies
with one another.
You know, the body
and sex,
these are some of God's
best gifts.
And we take in
those gifts
that are designed
to operate
in a male-female marriage,
to ennoble us
and to humanize us.
And whenever we take
those gifts
and we remove them
from that God-designed context
and we put them
over here
into any other context,
inevitably, Paul says,
degrades us
and dehumanizes us.
Paul's writing
from the city of Corinth
in 57 AD
and he's looking out
in this city
he can literally see
the cult of Aphrodite
which is the goddess
of love.
He sees all these girls
and these women
who are being objectified
and used.
Paul can look over
at the cult of Apollo,
the god of beauty
and the shrine
that's been set up
to the unbridled male sex drive
to do anything at once
without any limits
and Paul looks at all this
and says,
oh my goodness,
they've taken God's best gift
and they've turned even it
into an idol.
And it's doing so much harm.
It's doing so much damage
to people.
People think that
in their sleeping around
and in all their experiences
of false intimacy
they're just expressing
their freedom
but what's really happening
is they're becoming
more and more enslaved.
And so Paul writes
to this church in Corinth
in 1 Corinthians 6
and he says this
to these people
who are surrounded
by a cult of sex.
So pressured to conform
to the pattern
of that world around them.
And here's what he says.
He says,
do you not know
that the unrighteous
will not inherit
the kingdom of God?
Do not be deceived.
Neither opposite sex sinners
nor same sex sinners
nor idolaters
nor thieves
nor the greedy
nor drunkards
nor slanderers
nor swindlers
will inherit
the kingdom of God.
And Paul says,
that is what some of you
at Christ Church Corinth
that's what some of you were.
That's what some of you
used to be.
But then God came in.
And God came in
and he says,
but you were washed.
You were sanctified.
You were justified
in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ
and by the Spirit of God.
Paul's saying that
no matter how much
you've slept around,
no matter how much
false intimacy
you've practiced,
it doesn't matter anymore.
You've been cleansed.
You've been set apart
to God.
You've been declared
righteous in God's sight.
But now,
he says,
brothers and sisters,
you've got to unlearn
all those old ways
that degraded you
and you've got to learn
God's new ways
that humanize you,
that ennoble you.
And so he says,
the body
is not meant
for sexual immorality
but for the Lord.
And the Lord for the body.
Do you not know
that your bodies
are members of Christ himself?
He says,
flee
from sexual immorality.
All other sins
a person commits
are outside the body
but whoever sins sexually
sins against their own body.
Do you not know
that your bodies
are temples of the Holy Spirit
who is in you,
whom you have received from God?
You are not your own.
You were bought at a price.
Therefore,
honor God
with your bodies.
Paul's saying
to be a Christian
is to no longer
have this very low view
of the body.
To be a Christian
is to have a very high
an exalted view
of the body.
That this body
that's going to be
one day
resurrected from the dead,
this body even now
is full of the Holy Spirit
of God.
This body's been purchased
by the infinite value
of the blood of Christ.
This body
no longer belongs to me,
it belongs to God.
And Paul's question
to us in this text
is how many of us
have acted
as if our bodies
are not God's
but they're our own.
How many of us
have dishonored God
with our bodies,
with our eyes,
with our thoughts,
with our hearts
and our desires?
Can any of us
honestly look in the mirror
or look in the face
of God himself
and say,
I am sexually righteous?
And Paul's whole point
is no one can do that.
None of us are righteous.
No, not one.
Again, so much more
to say about that.
You're going to have to go
listen to other sermons
that are preached.
But Paul's talking about
our deceitful idols,
our degraded bodies,
and then our depraved minds
and decaying societies.
He says in verse 28,
furthermore,
just as they did not think
it worthwhile
to retain the knowledge
of God,
so God gave them over
to a depraved mind
so that they do
what ought not to be done.
We've been made
to love our neighbors
as ourselves.
And then Paul lists for us
these 21 vices
in verses 29 to 31.
Of all the ways
we don't love our neighbor,
we destroy our neighbor,
we make our neighbor
absolutely unhappy
and miserable.
If you just scan
over that list,
is that not a perfect summary
of human history?
Does it not explain
why things are as they are?
We tell ourselves
with all of our education,
all of our technology,
all of our culture,
that we're going to
continually improve
and make progress
and one day bring in
the utopia.
And yet,
somehow,
in this entire last century,
we've not yet
been able to eradicate,
with all of our advances,
we've not yet been able
to eradicate greed,
for example,
or envy of our neighbor.
In fact,
Paul says,
we invent new ways
of becoming even more
vile and violent
and vicious
toward one another.
And what does God do
about all this ungodliness
and unrighteousness?
Three times,
it says,
God gave them over.
When we refuse
to glorify God as God,
when we do not thank Him,
when we do not worship
and serve Him as we ought,
when we,
in our wisdom
and our cleverness,
dismiss Him
and turn our back on Him,
then God does exactly
the same thing to us.
We give Him up,
and so He gives us up.
We abandon God,
and so He abandons us.
We break up
our relationship with Him,
and so He allows us
to break up everything else
in His creation.
He hands us over
to ourselves
so that we just stew
in our own juices
and go round and around
in circles.
And when God withdraws
Himself and His presence,
all that's vile
and violent and vicious
floods in
and is let loose
and given free reign
so that the world
becomes a living hell.
And that's what hell is.
Hell is just simply
being given over to ourselves
to exist in a state of being
without God,
without His restraining hand
and His restraining grace
that holds back
all of our self-centeredness.
And you see,
the gospel reveals
these things to us.
The gospel reveals
the cause of God's wrath
and the consequences
of God's wrath,
but it also reveals
the cure of God's wrath.
Now, so far,
you're like,
this is an awful sermon.
Okay?
This is terrible preaching.
It's Mother's Day.
And why all this doom and gloom?
Why are you making us feel
so helpless and so hopeless?
Well, that's precisely the point.
Do we see now why Paul says
that he's not ashamed
of the gospel?
Because he says that Christians
are the only people
on the planet
who know not only the cause
and the consequences
of God's wrath,
but we know the cure.
We not only know
the plight of humanity,
but we know the power of God,
the one power
that's sufficient
to deal with
our deepest problems.
Paul says,
I'm not ashamed of the gospel
because it is the power of God
that brings salvation
for everyone who believes,
first for the Jew,
then for the Gentile,
because in the gospel,
the righteousness of God
is revealed,
a righteousness
that is by faith
from first to last.
As it is written,
the righteous will live
by faith.
Paul says,
we living in the midst
of this old age
and this old sad realm
of the wrath of God,
God has come in
and he's revealed something new.
He's revealed a new age
and a new realm
of his righteousness,
a righteousness from God
that God,
in his infinite wisdom,
in his love,
in his mercy and compassion,
he has made a way
to save the ungodly
and the unrighteous.
He's made a way
to make us righteous,
to give to us
and impute to us
a righteousness
not of our own
but of his own son,
Jesus Christ.
Amen?
When Paul says,
I'm not ashamed of the gospel,
he means,
actually,
I'm very proud of the gospel.
I glory in the gospel
and I boast in the gospel
and the gospel
just thrills me
down to the very marrow
of my bones
and the very core
of my being
because the gospel reveals
the only hope,
the only hope
for humanity
that God provided
a righteousness for us
that none of us,
even if we had all
tried to get together
and do it together,
none of us
could have achieved
or produced
the righteousness
we need
on our own.
So yes,
Paul says,
God gave us over
to fester
in that gutter
and that cesspool
of evil
but God also
gave Jesus over
to be our righteousness.
Paul uses the very same word
in Romans 8, 32.
He says,
God,
who did not spare
his own son,
he gave him over
for us all
and Jesus left heaven
and he was born
willingly under the law
and he came
and he lived
that godly,
righteous life
that we were meant
to live
and he gave himself
over voluntarily
to die for us
to take our ungodliness
and our unrighteousness
upon himself
and more than that
to take upon himself
the wrath of God,
his holy hatred of evil
so that we wouldn't
have to bear it,
so that we rather
would get the righteousness
of Christ
placed upon us.
why is Paul
so proud
of the gospel?
Why is he so pleased
to announce
this righteousness
of God?
Because nothing,
nothing but the gospel
is adequate
to meet
our terrible need
under the wrath
of God.
Paul's been very clear
that nobody
under the wrath
of God
will live.
It all obviously
ends in death
and destruction
but he says
those
who are righteous
by faith
in the righteousness
of God
they will live.
That's the only way
to experience
the power
that saves.
If you're exploring
Christianity
we're so glad
you're here
and I hope
that I've convinced
you to at least
consider
that the main
problem that we have
as human beings
is that we've turned
away from God
and therefore
the only solution
to that problem
is to turn ourselves
back to God.
And if you're here
and you're a Christian
and you really believe
these things
that we're talking
about today
you will not long
for a life of ease
and rest
and comfort
because you will
feel the burden
and you will feel
the great plight
of humanity
upon your very breast
and you will begin
to pray
and cry out to God
for revival.
Call out to God
for spiritual awakening
and an outpouring
of the Holy Spirit
so by the power
of the God
who saves
more and more
of the people
living around us
could come out
from under the wrath
of God
and they could come
and live
joyfully
and fully
under the righteousness
of God
that's been provided
for us
in Jesus Christ.
As it is written
the righteous
by faith
will live.
Will live eternally.
Will live abundantly.
Thank God for that.
Let's pray to that end
in the name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.