Father, your word today says some hard words to us.
And we know, Father, that we know because of Jesus and his death upon the cross
that even when you say hard words to us, it is because you love us.
And so, Father, we ask that you would help us.
We ask that you would gently but very powerfully pour out your Holy Spirit upon us.
Pour out your Holy Spirit upon our minds, upon our hearts, upon our wills, upon our souls, upon our bodies.
Father, pour out your Holy Spirit upon us so that as we hear your word and think about your word,
that your word might enter deep within our lives and then produce much fruit for your glory
in Ottawa and to the ends of the earth.
And this we ask in Jesus' name, your Son and our Savior. Amen.
Please be seated.
So, just to get right to the elephant in the room, is the Bible hate literature?
Does God hate lesbians, gays, and all other non-heterosexuals?
Does God hate people like that?
And I'll say no.
And that's the end of the sermon.
We can all go to the next part.
And people say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, George.
You can't just say no.
I mean, we just, if you can just imagine if you read that at your work or at the coffee shop out loud
and then you said, does God hate gays and said no, nobody would be satisfied with that answer.
So, what does the Bible say?
Well, here's what we're going to do.
This week, something happened in my family.
I had been telling them about my, I'd been watching on Netflix a television series on Netflix.
And after I'd watched, you know, five or six or seven episodes, I mentioned to my wife and kids that they should watch it,
that they'd probably really enjoy it.
And one day, just sort of, it happened to be in the room when it was on for just a couple of minutes.
And I said, it was an image of a really, you know, attractive young woman, sweet, innocent-looking young woman,
talking to a guy.
And I blurted out, she's an assassin.
And my kids said, oh, Dad, you know, spoiler alert.
Like, why on earth did you go ahead and tell us that she's an assassin, right?
They, you know, pushed back, and they should.
It was a dumb thing for me to do.
But here's the thing.
They actually believed me when I said that.
They didn't say, no, no, no, no, Dad.
Just look at that image for a moment.
That woman's not an assassin.
She's a sweet, you know, attractive, kind, caring young woman who's showing kindness to the young man,
not actually thinking about whether she should murder him and when.
And in other words, they believed me when I said, I know how the earlier episodes go and how the story's turning out.
And they were mad at me because they believed me.
And so the first thing, before we're going to look at this text, which on the surface, as you said, as I said, I'm not exaggerating, right?
If we were to say this, if we were to go to Starbucks afterwards and we got everybody's attention, read a passage of the Bible,
and read that passage of the Bible, we would feel uncomfortable because that's how people would hear the text.
So let's just see a little bit of the context to see if the context starts to make this text sound a bit different.
So Andrew, could you put Romans 1, 16 and 17 up on the screen?
That would be great.
And those of you who were here other weeks, one of the things last week, this is the second week we're doing Romans,
one of the things I said was that this verse, the way the book of Romans is written as a book is that Romans 1, 16 and 17,
Paul, after his introduction and after some welcomes, he basically gives the abstract of the entire book.
He gives the theme, the basic message of the entire book in two verses.
And all of the rest of Romans are going to basically show how this verse, what it means in its depth and its riches.
And so let's, could you read this verse out loud with me at this time?
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,
to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.
As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.
Here's the context.
The whole book of Romans is all about this text where it says,
for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,
to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
So here's the problem for us when we hear this.
If I was to go out with a couple of you and we were to go to that corner to King Edward and Rito,
and I was to take this table, take off the communion stuff,
bring it out there with some of our cardboard takeout coffee things,
and I was to go there and I was to stack the cups along the table,
and we were to put a big sign on the table that says,
great deal, cups of air for a dime.
Now, I mean, we would probably get people stopping to look at the table, right?
They'd say, I mean, this is pretty ridiculous, like cup of air for a dime?
And then they'd say, like, is this one of those things that you see on airplanes
where they take videos of people doing funny things and see how they react?
And then if I said, no, no, no, I'm serious.
I'm selling this for a dime.
It's a spectacular deal.
It's only 10 cents.
It's really cheap.
You should have some.
And then, you know, eventually if they realize that you're serious,
I mean, they'd wonder if you were mentally ill, right?
That's what people would think.
They'd wonder if you were mentally ill.
They'd say, George, I'm breathing for free.
Even the government hasn't figured out how to tax breathing yet
or make us pay for every breath.
It's completely and utterly free.
I don't need to pay 10 cents for a cup of air.
Now, here's the issue.
For just about everybody who walks by that corner in King Edward and Rideau
in Ottawa today, they would say that their relationship with God
is exactly the same as their relationship with air.
They're fine with God.
And so, George, if you're going to say something about needing righteousness from God
or to be made right with God by Jesus, they'd say,
George, just like they'd say about the air, I can breathe fine, George.
I don't need to buy the air for a dime.
They'd say, listen, my relationship with God is fine.
I don't need religion.
I don't need spirituality.
I don't need you to tell me what to do.
I don't need you to sell anything like that because I'm fine.
I'm fine.
That's how it is in Ottawa.
That's how it is in Canada.
And so, what that means is that when people look at Romans 1, 16, and 17,
which we're going to read again in a moment, they'd say, I don't need anything like that.
I don't need anything in that text, George.
Nothing in that text do I need because I'm fine with God.
So, can you put it up again, Andrew?
There is even the version that we're all going to read together and memorize.
Could you say this with me again, folks?
That would be very helpful.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,
to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.
As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.
So, that's the text.
And now, Paul is going to start with verse 18.
And what you have to understand is from 118, and this is going to be over the next two sermons after this,
from 118 to 320, Paul is trying to tell you that the relationship with God is not like your relationship with air.
He's going to try to build a case that you need to pay attention to this verse.
And he begins, and now you listen, he goes right from that to verse 18 in your Bibles, Romans 118, for.
In other words, because, okay?
Listen to that, 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.
Is my mic going in and out, by the way?
It's fine?
Okay.
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 exchanged the glory of the immortal God
for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
So Paul is going to begin in this chapter with just talking about the basic human condition.
In the next two parts, which we'll talk in other weeks,
he's going to talk about how religion and spirituality and moralism and institutions
deals with this whole thing and just how it deals with it.
But right now he's talking about sort of the basic level human condition.
And he's in verse 18 when it says,
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of human beings, of men and women, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
What he's talking about there, if we could think of it as vertical sins and horizontal sins.
In other words, ungodliness means that all of the different ways that we turn our back on God,
that we try to belittle God, that we demean God, that we try to tame God,
that we try to put God in his place, that we try to just ignore him, live our life without him,
tell him, did you really say this?
And it's all the vertical.
And unrighteousness refers to the horizontal sins.
And in fact, actually, it's a fine word, but it actually says that all the things that we do
that violate or transgress God's created order.
So it actually would involve things like cruelty to animals, pollution, like other types of things.
But it's referring to how we relate to the created order, in particular human beings.
And he's saying that God's wrath is revealed because we have both broken this vertical relationship
and broken these horizontal relationships and God's wrath is revealed.
And some of you might say, George, I don't, like, what does that mean, George?
Are you saying that, I don't know, I tell a lie and God zaps me with a thunder, you know, a lightning bolt?
Like, that doesn't happen, George.
Like, are you talking about sometimes, are you saying that if, you know, one of those other places,
there's a flood or something like that, and that's all God's judgment and all the bad people there?
Is that what that text is saying, George?
Because that's like a pretty weird way of understanding and viewing the world.
Like, that's pretty weird, George.
Is that what that text is saying?
It's not saying that at all.
Well, it's saying something that might touch on that, but it's actually trying to get at a far more different point.
And I'm going to use another two movie analogies.
Sorry, folks.
I don't know how many of you have watched the movie I Am Legend or World War Zed or those zombie films.
But, you know, for those of you who aren't familiar with it, there's often these films where something,
some virus or some illness or some contagion gets unleashed on human beings, gets released to human beings,
and human beings get infected by this contagion.
And then eventually it turns everybody into, like, vampires or zombies or, you know,
like, people with, like, hyper rabies who like to eat each other, like something really, really bad.
And what usually happens in those types of movies is the movies begin with just the few little hearty survivors,
you know, trying to hide or fight the vampire zombies or whatever it is that the contagion is.
But often as the movie progresses, there's flashbacks to either what the world was like before the contagion
or usually to the early days of the contagion when different weird things were happening,
but nobody realized that they had the contagion.
All of these movies are based on the same type of idea.
You know, in the Will Smith movie I Am Legend, you know, they go back,
and in fact, it's originally something that I think was going to cure cancer.
And then there starts to be these odd little symptoms,
and people didn't realize that these odd little symptoms were, in fact, an early warning sign,
a symptom of a contagion that was going to consume the individual and consume society.
And so what Paul is going to do in Romans 1.18 at the end of the chapter
is he's telling us four different signs that human beings have a contagion.
And right in those movies, in a sense, the contagion is the beginning,
like the early symptoms mean you have it.
You just see an early symptom of it,
and by the time you're watching the rest of the movie,
you see what happens when it completely takes over the person
and completely obliterates society.
So what Paul is doing here is he's going to give you four examples
of the fact that human beings have a contagion,
that our relationship with God is not like our relationship with air.
And the first contagion was in this section,
and it had to do with human beings knowing that God exists,
but suppressing that and acting as if that's not the case.
And people here might say,
George, I could never convince people in our society that that's true.
But here, I'm going to give you another movie.
I think it's my final movie analogy.
It's not from any movie.
It's a movie that I would love to make someday.
I'll never make it.
But here, imagine, this is a science fiction movie.
Imagine that, you know, we figured out wormholes or hyperdrive or time,
you know, whatever.
And so we have some spaceship, the good spaceship,
and the shuttle from the good ship Enterprise,
and we're in some far corner of the universe,
and there's a small crew.
There's like 12 of us or 10 of us,
and we come across a ship, a spaceship,
a spectacular spaceship drifting in space.
And as we come across this spaceship drifting in space,
we look at it, and we realize there's no life forms on it,
and it just seems to be just floating along.
And so I'm the captain, and I stay in the ship,
and the nine of you, the rest of you from the shuttle,
you all go over to the other ship to try to figure out what's going on.
And one of you goes in, and you press a button and turn a lever,
and all of a sudden, woo, the lights come on.
All of a sudden, woo, the oxygen comes on.
All of a sudden, woo, the gravity's working.
Okay, and I'm here on the ship, and I'm talking to you guys,
and you're walking around the ship saying,
oh, wow, the powers come on, the oxygens come on, all these things.
And then all of a sudden, one of the people talking to me says,
you know, I think this ship is a result of an explosion
on that planet that's just dust and rock,
and I think this ship is a result of an explosion there,
and it's as when the particles came into space,
they all banged together, and they made this ship.
And then the next, I'm thinking, what?
That doesn't make any sense.
And then the next thing you know, a second person, third person,
all of a sudden, they're all saying this.
And I start saying to you folks, one moment,
how could particles banging together make oxygen and gravity
and complicated machines, and how could it paint
and put letters and symbols on it?
That's not right.
And they keep saying, no, no, no, no, no,
we're completely convinced this is a result of an explosion.
By chance, it's completely remarkable.
And I would go, Captain's log, date, star date,
1, 5, 3, whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I should have looked that up.
There is some contagion on this ship,
and I am not sure whether I should let the crew back on the ship
lest I get it as well.
They are under a profound delusion
that that ship has been caused by an accident.
Right?
Let me tell you.
Human DNA is vastly more complicated than a spaceship.
Your eyeball, your brain, vastly more complicated than a spaceship.
And not just that, you know, if you think about,
even whatever you think about the theory of evolution,
whatever that's going to mean, you know,
before there was any life at the level of just straight matter,
the idea that matter could come together as a result of just the fact that, you know,
matter has an attraction to each other,
that the different chemicals could come into existence,
that it could all just come from nothing,
and that it could create something as complicated
at the molecular and the chemical level of an eyeball or of your DNA.
It's vastly more complicated than a spaceship.
And we think that God doesn't exist.
And so Paul's going to say the very, very first sign
that there's a contagion in human beings
is the fact that they suppress this idea of the existence of God
that has created them and designed them.
And that, in fact, the fundamental problem for human beings
is they don't think of themselves as being made.
They think of themselves as being gods with a small g.
And it's a commonplace amongst human beings
that we think that we're like gods with small g,
rather than every day waking up and saying,
isn't it remarkable that there is a creator that created me?
And Paul's going to say this is the first sign
that there is a contagion in human beings.
I mean, you know, you just think about it for a second
before we get to the next couple.
Ottawa is one of the safest, richest, freest countries, cities, places
in the history of the planet.
We are.
We are one of the richest, most prosperous,
safest places that human beings have ever congregated.
Could anybody with a straight face look at Ottawa and say,
it's obvious from Ottawa that every person in Ottawa is completely right with God?
I mean, just this week in the Ottawa Valley,
this man who's released from jail with a long history of violence against women
murdered three women.
Can anyone actually, with a straight face,
actually believe that Ottawa is a sign?
If you look at Ottawa, you see evidence that human beings are completely and utterly right with God.
And in fact, just before we go to the next thing,
isn't it the case that every time we watch a movie
where there seems to be utopia presented,
instantly we know that that means that there's a great evil behind the utopia,
that the utopia is not real.
But why is it that we think that we're fundamentally good
or that our relationship with God is fundamentally right all by itself?
Like, why is that?
Is it possible that human beings have a contagion
that will lead to them being consumed and destroy them
and that we need something from outside of ourselves
to make ourselves right with God?
Is it possible that human beings are not relating to God like we relate to air,
but that it is something like I am legend or World War Zed
and we have a contagion that will consume us unless God does something?
So all of a sudden you think, okay, so, oh, that's a very different way of,
okay, George, that sort of caught me by surprise.
It sort of caught me by surprise a little bit.
But, well, let's see how Paul, he, this is in fact exactly what Paul's trying to get at.
So I'm going to skip the two parts about sexuality.
I am going to get it.
I'm not going to avoid the question of does God hate gays and lesbians.
But let's slip to the end of the passage to see how Paul continues.
So, in fact, I'm going to suggest that in Romans 1, 18 to 32,
Paul gives four examples to try to get us to realize
that there's a contagion present in human beings that means that they need God.
Let's look at the end one, verses 28 to 32.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God,
God gave them over to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
Just sort of an aside, there's a bit of a, there's a word play in Greek.
Like if you were to translate it quite literally, what it says is,
and since they did not consider it worthwhile to know God,
God gave them up to a not worthwhile mind.
It's actually like a bit of a pun in Greek that our minds are not worthwhile.
Verse 28, they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness.
They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness,
with all manner of evil, of greed or covetousness, and of malice.
We are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and maliciousness.
We are filled with gossips, slanderers, god-haters, insolent, arrogant or haughty.
We are boastful, and human beings invent ways of doing evil.
That's another way of saying inventors of evil.
And we are disobedient to parents.
And then the last four, where it says foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless,
and actually in the original language, it says that we have no understanding.
We have no fidelity.
In other words, we don't keep faith and covenant and promises with others.
We have no love, and we have no mercy.
Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die,
they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them.
So, here's the thing.
Actually, I missed putting up my...
Here's the thing.
We all know people who give themselves up to these things.
And when it talks about the wrath of God is revealed,
in the original language, what it's saying is it's not saying that God has...
that God is short-tempered, cranky, or anger-driven.
In fact, being short-tempered, cranky, and anger-driven describes idols and demons.
And the Bible's not saying that God's anger is like human anger,
that usually human anger is rooted in pride, greed, hatred, insecurity.
And when the Bible says that God's wrath is being revealed,
it's not saying that God's anger comes from any of those things.
Once again, that actually describes idols and demons.
God's wrath ultimately develops out of his love, his goodness, and his beauty.
It describes God's calm opposition to evil,
that he will always be opposed to sin and evil,
and that he's completely and utterly, calmly opposed to it.
And his opposition to evil flows out of the fact,
not that he's insecure, anger-driven,
but it flows out of the fact that he is love.
He is goodness itself.
He is beauty itself.
And so things that mar the beauty of the created order,
the beauty of other people,
things that hurt other people or the creation,
or that out of his love and goodness and beauty,
he cannot stop being himself,
and he is just calmly, always, resolutely opposed to it.
And the beginning of God's wrath, in a sense, is the sin itself.
But it's possible that that sin itself can grow.
Every single one here in the room tells lies.
If you tell me that you've never told a lie in your life,
I would believe you're lying.
You would too, right?
Anybody who tells you they've never told a lie,
you'd say that you just lied.
Right?
Wouldn't believe anybody who said they've never told a lie.
But not only have we met,
do we all tell lies,
but you and I have probably met people
who their lying has become something like a habit.
And in fact, you might have met people
that their lying is so much like a habit
that you, anytime they talk to you,
you don't really trust them.
And in fact, probably all of us have met people
who not only do they lie all the time,
but you start to wonder,
do they actually now even know the difference
between the truth and the lie?
Has their entering into lying
robbed them of their ability to even know the truth?
And when you meet a person like that,
don't you pity them?
Like, many of us, every one of us boasts.
If you told me you'd never boast,
I'd think you're boasting.
You'd think the same thing.
We would take it as a boast that we never boast.
But haven't we met people
who seem to boast all the time
and who seem to believe they're boasting?
Haven't we met people
who they can't even talk to you apart from boasting?
And they're so completely and utterly consumed with boasting
that you don't even like being with them
because they never ask you how you're doing,
they never want to talk to you,
all they want to do is just tell you how great they are.
And not only do they only want to tell you
how great they are,
but don't you start to wonder
that they actually believe that stuff?
And don't you pity them?
Don't you hope that you would never be like them?
Don't you hope that if your wife
or your boyfriend or your kids
start to be like that,
wouldn't that be something you would pray against?
And you see, this is the idea here
that Paul is trying to get at,
the Bible is trying to get at,
he's trying to get at
that our relationship with God
is not like our relationship with air,
that human beings have a contagion within them,
and that God,
not that he's petty or, you know,
spoiled or needs to get his own way
or stamps his little feet
and bangs his hand and screams and yells
if he doesn't get his own way,
that God, who is the good,
who is the true,
who is the beautiful,
who is always himself,
who has no needs,
who's always self-contained and self-controlled,
he is just calmly, unalterably opposed
to anything which is not good,
not of love and not of beauty,
and that's just who he is and what he is,
and that when human beings
suppress the truth that God exists
and believe that they are gods themselves,
and when they give themselves
to the different things that they,
now that they've turned their back on God,
and they give themselves
to their dreams of always being able
to be over other people
or being able to have this
or have that or not have that,
and when they start to tell lies
and then get addicted to lies,
and you have a sense that every lie
or every boast,
in some ways it's its own punishment,
even if sometimes that lie
or that boasting is successful
or makes you feel good at the time,
that in some ways,
when we look at what happens,
if lies become a habit,
we start to understand
that the lie itself
is its own punishment
and a sign
that human beings have a problem,
that I have a contagion.
So, actually, Andrew,
if you could put up the first point.
I got mixed up in my points.
Here's the first point.
Every person has an idol problem.
I sort of said that a few minutes ago.
In other words,
what the Bible is saying
is that when you stop believing
and you suppress the idea
that there is a God that does exist,
it doesn't mean that you become an atheist.
It means that you worship an idol,
that you trust in something,
believe in something,
your imagination is formed by something,
that you serve something,
that you get value in something,
you understand your self-worth
in relationship to something
that's not God,
that's an idol,
and every human being
has an idol problem.
And the second thing,
if you could put it up, Andrew,
that sin and evil
show that every person
is fallen in rebellion against God
and cannot make themselves right with God.
That's what Paul's doing here in this.
Rather than relating to God
like we relate to air,
Paul, the Bible's trying to show us
that sin and evil exist in us,
in every single person,
in religious people,
in irreligious people,
in secular people,
in very, very devout people,
in people inside the church
and outside the church,
in mosques,
and in temples,
and in parliament,
and in capitalist centers,
and in Bridgehead,
and in Starbucks,
and amongst street people,
and amongst billionaires,
that every single human being,
that there is sin and evil in them,
and that it shows
that human beings are fallen.
It means that we have,
in a sense,
made ourselves bent and twisted.
And the image of God,
that we were made,
so that we were made in the image of God,
to reflect God,
and to be connected to God,
and be connected to the God,
and who we were made in image,
that's now become bent,
and it's become twisted.
And that's what it means to be fallen.
And that every single human being
is in rebellion against God.
That every single person has a time,
even the most humble of us,
even those who are most willing
to accept correction or reproof,
that there's every single one of us,
if a time comes,
and we get called on the lie,
we get called on the boasting,
we get called on something we do,
that we do not like it.
Do not like it.
Even if we have good manners
to cover it up,
we don't like it.
We're rebellion against God.
And that we cannot make ourselves
right with God.
In light of that,
let's look at sex.
Let's look at sex.
Let's look at verses 24 to 25.
Once again, remember I said
this section's talking about
the human condition.
And so the first thing,
because I've sort of got it out of order,
the first thing is our suppression
of the truth about the existence of God.
The fourth thing was just the reality
of all these other things,
of deceit, of covetous, of greed,
of slander, of gossip,
and all of those types of things.
Let's go back up to the second one,
verse 24.
Therefore God gave them up
in the lusts of their hearts
to sexual impurity.
That's what the word means.
It's translated as impurity,
and you have to add the word sexual
so that we understand
that that's what it's meant.
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.
That's the second sign.
What the Bible here is telling us
is that every single one of us
in this room
are sexually bent and twisted.
I stand before you
as a fallen man.
I stand before you
as a man
who is not sexually whole.
And I'm addressing
a room of people
who are not sexually
whole and perfect.
This text
is not a text
that says,
in here
we're pure,
out there
they're bad.
And times
when that creeps
into the church's thinking
it is profoundly unbiblical.
Profoundly against the gospel.
In fact,
the book of,
the Bible begins
in Genesis 1 and 2
with the creation
and then Genesis 3
is the fall.
And immediately
as soon as human beings
are falled
we see that there's
a breakdown
of the relationship
between the sexes.
We immediately see
that Adam and Eve
are conscious
of their nakedness.
We immediately see
that Adam and Eve
passing the blame.
We immediately see
disharmony in the relationship.
We immediately see
the entering
into the world
after they deal
with murder
of polygamy,
of violating
this idea
of that God's
intention in creation
is faithfulness
in heterosexual marriage
or sexual absence.
abstinence.
That's the consistent
teaching of the Bible.
To be faithful
in one man
with one woman
and if that is,
if you're a man
and you're not married
to a woman
then God calls you
to sexual abstinence.
If you're a woman
and you're not married
to a man
God calls you
to sexual abstinence.
Another way to put it
is that there is
to be no sexual knowledge
or sexual stimulation
outside of the relationship
of one man
to one woman.
And,
you know,
the fact of the matter is
it doesn't matter
if you're a soccer mom
in Canada,
it doesn't matter
if you're a stay-at-home dad
living in one of the
expensive condos
in Ottawa,
that we have problems.
We idolize our kids.
We idolize
childlessness.
We idolize our body.
We idolize
maybe our marriage.
We make an idol
of the other person.
We make an idol
of ourselves
and we demand
that the other person
think of us
in a particular way.
And if actually God
could just for one
week's period
put all of the thoughts
and all of the impressions
and all of the ideas
and all of the imagination
and all of the fantasies
that go on
in our head
just in the relationship,
just in terms
of sexual relations,
no single,
and if that could be put up
on that screen today,
even the best one of you
would be horrified
at what the rest of us
would see went on
in your mind.
And the Bible is saying
that this is the second sign
that we have a contagion.
And then the third sign
that we have a contagion
is a subset
of sexual brokenness.
and it's the relationship
that some people have
that they,
a man,
men desire men,
women desire women,
or other things
that depart
from a man
sexually designing a woman
or a woman
sexually designing a man.
It's in verses 26 and 27.
For this reason,
God gave them up
to dishonorable passions.
For their women
exchanged natural relations
for those that are
contrary to nature.
And the men likewise
gave up natural relations
with women
and were consumed
with passion
for one another.
Men committing shameless
acts with men
and receiving in themselves
the due penalty
for their error.
Remember what Paul is doing?
He's giving four signs
of contagion.
The first is in terms
of our knowledge of God.
The second is in sexual sin.
Generally,
this is the third one
and then the fourth one
was the long list of vices
which come immediately
after that.
you know,
over the last
35 years,
40 years,
there's been a profound attack
on reading this
in this particular way.
There's the normal way
that it should be understood
in the Greek
and it's been always understood
by the church.
There's been attempts
to say that it's not
talking about that.
It's talking about
men and boys
or it's talking about
abusive relationships
between two men
or abusive relationships
between two women
or that it's men
who are heterosexual
engaging in gay sex
or other types of things
but all of those
revisionist attempts,
they're all completely
and utterly wrong.
Like,
they're all wrong.
There's word games
that are not,
they're not right.
And just as a bit
of an aside
for those of us
who are Christians,
you know,
given that this verse here
is saying that
not that men
who desire
to sexually know
another man
or a woman
who desires to sexually
know another woman
is the worst sinner.
It's not saying that.
Not saying that at all.
In fact,
actually,
we Christians
have a lot to repent of
in terms of dealing,
those of us
who do not find
that,
you know,
like,
that we desire
people of the same sex
or that we desire
to be a different sex.
Like,
we have a lot
to repent of
in terms of
our relationship
with people
who do struggle
with those things.
You know,
because often
people who struggle
with those things,
they sense
how we
who don't struggle
with those things
pull away
as if somehow
we're better.
And somehow
we can easily
fall into talking
about them being,
like,
perverted or something.
And yet,
we don't say
that somebody
who is a Mercedes
driving,
fully devoted
servant of mammon
has a debased mind.
I'm not insulting.
If you drove here
in a Mercedes,
I didn't mean
to insult you.
Like,
why is it
that we could,
we might pray
that we would get
close to this
Mercedes driving,
fully devoted
servant of greed
and be terrified
about actually
drawing close
to a member
in our congregation
who struggles
with attraction
to the same sex?
Like,
where do we get
that from the Bible?
Like,
where does that
fit here?
Folks,
it should break
our hearts
if we do that.
It should bring us
on our knees
in repentance
if we find
that we have
no problem
associating
with a Mercedes
driving,
fully devoted
servant to greed,
but feel
uncomfortable
talking to ones
who struggle
with a different
type of sin.
it should break
your heart
and mine.
We should pray
that that not
characterize our church.
The same token,
churches that say
that being attracted
to a member
of the same sex
is a sign
of God's blessing
and it should be
honored and celebrated,
that becomes
a gospel issue.
All of this
is written
so that we realize
we need a Savior,
not that we believe
that we don't need
a Savior
and that Jesus
should pat us
on the back.
And for a church
to say that it means
that Jesus should
pat us on the back,
it is a profound
rejection
of the gospel.
A profound
rejection
of the gospel.
See,
here's what God
wants us to understand.
If you could put up
the final point,
Andrew.
I'm sorry,
it's 41 minutes.
I'll wrap this up
quickly now.
Only God
can act rightly
to make ordinary
people
right with himself.
The Bible
wants us
to come to realize
that there's
something like
a contagion
in my life
and yours
and that
only God,
only the creator,
only the sustainer,
only he
can act
in the right way,
which we'll get
to see clear
as the weeks go on,
to make ordinary
people right
with himself.
Andrew,
can you put up
Romans 1,
16 to 17 again,
please?
Want to read this
with me?
Remember,
this is all
in service of this.
Read it with me,
please.
For I am not
ashamed of the gospel,
for it is the power
of God
for salvation
to everyone
who believes,
to the Jew first
and also to the Greek.
For in the gospel,
the righteousness
of God
is revealed
from faith
to faith.
As it is written,
the righteous
shall live
by faith.
There are several
responses we will
have to this sermon.
I know,
I'm sorry,
I'm just going to
go a few minutes
over my time,
but listen,
here's one of our
responses.
Some of you might
hear this and say,
God should just
get out of my face.
He should just
leave me alone.
George,
how dare that
say that in the Bible?
You know,
that's why people
don't go to church
anymore.
Like,
either God
should get with
the project
of my life
and should be
supportive of
what I'm going
through and
what I desire,
and if he doesn't
get supportive
with me,
I don't want
anything to do
with him.
He has no right
getting involved
with this in my life.
Some of you
might have noticed
that all the way
through this text,
it says,
God gave them up.
And if we react
by saying that
to God,
then we've just,
I'm not saying
this to insult you.
It's a description
of hell.
You're just,
you're asking
that that lie
that you give yourself
for those who are liars,
that that lie
just becomes
your identity
and takes over you.
The whole image
of God gave them up,
it's an image
of captivity.
It's an image
of common grace.
It's an image
as if there's a river
and there's a boat
tied up to a dock
on the river
and the river,
the current of the river
keeps wanting
to pull the boat away,
pull the boat away,
but God,
by his common grace,
stops the boat
from going
and then you say,
I don't want God
to get involved
in my life.
I want God
to leave me alone.
I want to be able
to do the things
I want to do.
I want to pursue
my projects
and if God can't
affirm me,
I want him
to just let me go.
I want him
to get out of my way,
out of my life,
I'm completely
and utterly fine
by myself
and God unties
the moored boat
from the river
and lets the boat
be carried away
by the river
and God gave them up
as a sign of his wrath.
It's a sign
of contagion.
I implore you
in response to this
not to react that way
and some of you
might say,
George,
okay,
especially those of you
who struggle
with same-sex attraction,
George,
you know,
if you just knew,
if you just knew
how strong
that drive was in me
and George,
if you just understood
and know
how many times
people condemn me,
they don't know
that I have
these attractions
or maybe they do
and they say snide things
and they make jokes
about people
like myself
and George,
if you just knew
how my dad
used to treat me,
if you just knew
how my dad
would look at me
and how my coach
would look at me
and how my pastor
would look at me
and how godly people
would look at me
and how people on TV
would look at me
and if you just knew
all those things,
all the wrath,
all the anger,
all the put-downs
that I have to endure,
then George,
you would not say that
because George,
sometimes in the face
of all the wrath
and all the anger
that seems to befall me
and I seem to sometimes
feel myself
and it's only when I embrace
my same-sex attraction
or my same-sex,
that it's only then
that I seem to get
some type of release
because George,
if you just knew
the anger and the wrath
and the setting aside
and turning the back on
that just characterized my life,
you not,
God wouldn't say that,
you wouldn't say that.
When we read about
the wrath of God
at the beginning,
Paul is setting up
one of the most
spectacular promises
promises in the whole
book of Romans.
If you just turn
in your Bibles,
those of you have Bibles,
if you don't,
you can just listen.
Turn to Romans 3,
verse 21 and 26.
Remember I said
that from 118
to chapter 3,
verse 20,
you might not remember this,
that Paul is painting
the picture
that there's a contagion
amongst human beings
that means that
we need a Savior
and when he comes
to an end,
this is how he triumphantly
brings it to an end
in verse 21.
I mean,
he's going to explain it
more throughout
the rest of the book.
We're going to look at
in a couple of weeks,
but here's what he says.
But now the righteousness
of God has been manifested
apart from the law,
although the law
and prophets
bear witness to it.
The righteousness of God
through faith in Jesus Christ
for all who believe,
for there is no distinction,
for all have sinned
and fall short
of the glory of God
and are justified
by his grace
as a gift
through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus,
whom God put forward
as a propitiation
by his blood
to be received by faith.
This was to show
God's righteousness
because in his divine
forbearance
he had passed over
former sins.
It was to show
his righteousness
at the present time
so that he might be just
and the justifier
of the one
who has faith in Jesus.
Look back up
to verse 25,
whom God put forward
as a propitiation
by his blood.
What does that mean?
What does propitiation mean?
the wrath
that I deserve,
Jesus comes
and says,
George,
if the wrath
that is coming upon you,
if it comes upon you,
it will completely unmake you.
Let me take your place
and let the wrath
that is falling on you
fall on me
and I will take
every drag
of wrath,
every drag
of hostility,
every drag
of putting aside
and belittling
and diminishing
and demeaning
and I will take
every drag
with nothing
left over
and I will take
that upon
myself
for you.
that is what
I have done
for you
on the cross,
George.
Don't embrace
sin,
embrace me.
Embracing sin
does not take away
the wrath
or the anger
or the diminishment.
Embrace me
and let that
fall on me.
I will do it
for you
out of love
for you
to make
you right
with God.
My death
for you
upon the cross
is a power
that comes
from God
that swallows
wrath
so you
can be right
with God
and be free.
Do not
embrace
your sin.
Embrace
me.
Andrew,
could you put it
Romans 1,
16 to 17
one final time?
Can we all
stand please?
That's what
Paul's talking
about here.
Can you say it
with me one
more time
please?
For I am not
ashamed of the
gospel
for it is the
power of God
for salvation
to everyone
who believes
to the Jew
first and also
to the Greek
for in the
gospel the
righteousness of
God is revealed
from faith
to faith
as it is
written
the righteous
shall live
by faith.
Faith means
you come
with empty
hands
you don't
surrender
you don't
tell God
to go away
you come
to that
point
where you
say only
God
only you
can act
in a way
that's right
that will
make me
right with
yourself
only you
will do
it
and you
will do
it for
the religious
and the
irreligious
the spiritual
and not
spiritual
the greedy
and the
people who
give things
away
the people
who are
sexually
broken
terribly
and those
who are
hardly
sexually
broken
at all
that you
will give
it for
ordinary
people
that it's
a gift
that God
gives
and offers
to you
and there's
no better
time than
today
to once
again say
Jesus
I don't
understand
all there
is about
this text
but whatever
this is
talking about
I want to
have that
I want to
embrace that
I want to
have that
as my
identity
I want to
have that
as the
ground
of my
life
I want
to have
that
enter
into
my
life
Jesus
that
for me
and me
for that
may that
be the story
of my life
that begins
today or is
deep in
let's bow
our heads
in prayer
Jesus
we thank
you for
dying on
the cross
for us
we thank
you Jesus
that on
the cross
you took
my place
you took
the place
of people
who are
here
we thank
you Jesus
that on
the cross
that you
not only
took the
wrong things
that we've
done upon
yourself
but the
proper
anger
that God
and others
and the
whole created
order
have at
the things
that we've
done
to mar
goodness
and love
and beauty
that you
took that
proper
anger
upon
yourself
for us
that you
took it
all right
to the
dregs
with nothing
left over
Jesus
we thank
you for
what you
have done
for us
on the
cross
please
Jesus
pour out
your
Holy Spirit
upon me
help me
Jesus
to be
grounded
to receive
this
to be
grounded
in this
to be
shaped
by this
to have
this
grip me
so that
it
so that
I
Jesus
help me
not to
turn
and embrace
my sin
but embrace
what you
have done
for me
on the
cross
and
that you
have made
me right
with God
and that
nothing can
take that
away
because you
have done
it for me
it's your
power not
mine
Jesus
make me
a disciple
of yours
gripped by
this gospel
who now
lives for
your glory
and this
I ask
in the name
of Jesus
your son
and our
savior
amen
to
him
to
him
he
can
you
he
can
go
him
in
bye