Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah.
! It is wonderful that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah,
either by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray for us
that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself?
The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian,
we really, I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the
Bible, they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will do
what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a non-Christian,
checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't hesitate to send us
questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the types of things
that you're really struggling with. So God bless.
Let's just bow our heads in prayer.
Father, we ask that you would continue to send the Holy Spirit upon us with might and power and deep
conviction. Your Word today, Father, says tough things about our human condition,
tough things about our human condition that if we're honest, we find a bit offensive,
more than a bit offensive, especially if we're meant to take it literally.
Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would fall with a gentle but deep power of conviction to open our
hearts to receive the truths that you desire us to know this morning about ourselves and about you and
about the gospel, and that we might embrace these truths and become, for those of us who are outside of
the Christian faith, be saved, and for those of us within the Christian faith, that we might grow in
godliness, and for us as a church that we might walk in the beauty of holiness. And I ask these things in
the name of Jesus, your Son, and our Savior. Amen.
Please be seated.
So I'm not, uh, I definitely don't want to be alarmist or extremist about this, and I know things can go in all sorts of
different directions, but, um, well, it's, it's, uh, it can be hard when you're preaching through a book to, to, to know how to, to break it into
sections. Uh, and, uh, and so this part that we're looking at today is actually part of a bigger section, sort of a
natural unit that goes from verse 18 to verse 32. I know that's a bit of a boring, nerdish thing. I'm already putting
some of you to sleep. Here's the point. In this bigger unit, which I won't look at today, but I will look at
next week, is a text that could get me in trouble with Bill C9, if it were to pass as it is written right now.
Uh, not exactly, it's not, on one hand, it might not get me into trouble, but given the direction of
court rulings and the way government works, it, it is something that downstream, uh, me preaching on a
text like I will next week, the second part of this unit is a text that could get me in trouble, uh, with
Bill C9. Uh, but that, I'm not looking at that this week because I'm afraid of looking at it, um, but just, I had to
divide the text up because it's very rich and very deep. So, um, so let's look. If you, uh, take your
Bibles, uh, those of you who have Bibles, it's, uh, Romans chapter 1, verses 18 to 25. Uh, next week,
we'll look at verses 26 to 32. And, uh, I'll just read the whole, it's only eight verses. I'll just read
them to give you, uh, to, to refresh your memory about it, and then we'll circle back and, and we'll
look at the different parts. And here's how it goes. It's a very, very, very Canadian text. As you
know, it's the, uh, probably the theme text for seeker-sensitive services, uh, because it begins,
for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and women
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 and 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 or mortal woman and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore, God gave them
up in the lusts, um, another, a better, maybe a more literal, the literal translation of the word lust is
over-desire. Over-desire. So therefore, God gave them up in the over-desires of their hearts
to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth
about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.
Amen. And Christians would say this is the word of the Lord, and we'd respond thanks be to God.
Although, to be honest, some of us wonder entirely how much this is the word of the Lord.
Although I do very clearly, just so you know. It's a bit of a shocking text for Christians.
I read it slowly to try to bring home to you how shocking it is for Canadians.
And if you're watching online or you're here and you're outside of the Christian faith, you're maybe
here as a seeker, you might not know that Christians find it a bit shocking too.
And in fact, it's, it's very interesting. Just before this, in Romans 1, 16 to 17, it says,
For I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation.
And the word ashamed there can also be translated as offended.
For I'm not offended by the gospel, by what the Bible teaches.
And many Canadians, and in fact, even many Christian Canadians, are, are offended by this text.
So just to give you, just as we go into it, here's how you have to begin to understand the text.
The way the book of Romans is designed is the first 15 verses, there's a bit of a greeting,
a longer greeting than normal in the letter. And then there's a few travel details.
And then it's an unusual book in that in verses 16 and 17, he gives you basically the praesi about
what the whole book is about. And then in verse 18, he immediately goes in the direction you're not
expecting, but it's actually a reasonable direction if you think about it. From verse 18 of chapter 1
to chapter 3, verse 20, he does what in, I don't know if they still talk about this in business
world, he sells the problem. We've been blessed by having very good wardens and council members
over the years. And one of the things which is really good about the council members and wardens
I've had over the last, I don't know, 10, 15, 20 years, is they're not afraid to disagree with me
and tell me that I'm wrong. And this is a great blessing for a congregation because I, in fact,
I'm not always correct. Sometimes I'm wrong. But about maybe 90% of the time when they say that
I'm wrong, I'm really wrong, move on to the next thing. They have better wisdom. But about 10% of
the time, so it doesn't happen very often because they don't actually disagree with me that often.
But I'll think about it afterwards driving home and I realize I want to reintroduce the topic,
which I generally don't do. And the reason I want to reintroduce the topic is because I realized
that I saw a problem in the church that I just thought was so obvious that what I did is I present
that when I went to that to talk to the wardens, I just assumed they understood the problem as well and
saw it. And so I didn't try to sell them. I just went to the solution. But I realized going home, they
didn't see the problem. And so the next time we meet, I sell them the problem. I explain in detail
what the problem is. Now it might still be, you know, and after that they go, oh, okay, there's a problem.
Now they still might end up selecting the solution that I thought was the right one,
that they'd come up with a better one. But at least they saw the problem. And so what Paul is
doing here over the next little bit is he's selling the problem. Why is it that human beings need a
salvation that comes from God, that comes with power to save? Why is it that human beings need God to
always be just? Why is it that human beings need God to make them right? Like, what is the problem? Why is that the case?
And he begins then with this, this shocking turn of events in verse 18. So if you turn to it,
we'll just read it again. Chapter 1, verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and women who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
So just, you know, once again, a bit of a pause. This is a, for Christians, this is a bit of a gut check
moment. Will I be offended by this text? Or will I take it as an opportunity to learn about myself and
learn about God? Will I be open to learn? Or will I be offended? And so for those of you outside the
Christian faith listening to this, I think this text is going to tell you irrefutable, true reasons,
two things about the human condition. And it's part of several things in the Bible which just proves
that Christianity is true. Its description of human nature is very, very wise and perceptive
and clearly, obviously seen in the world. But let's look at what he says again. For the wrath of God is
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness
suppress the truth. I'm not going to spend very long on the anger of God right now, other than to
say this. What happens here is that people who liked what just was said in verse 17, when it gets worked
out in verse 18, they realize they don't like it. And so we're actually sort of caught in a dilemma.
It's a little bit like in the, you know, in the Gospels when Jesus challenges the people who hate him
was the, you know, was the testimony of John the Baptist from God or from human beings. And they're all
caught because on one hand, if they say from human beings, they'll get in trouble with the crowd.
And they also sort of believe in John the Baptist as a prophet as well. So, but if they believe that,
if they say, well, he's a prophet, then he says, well, why don't you believe him? If they, anyway,
they can't make up their mind. So he said, I'm not going to answer your question. And so here it is.
Earlier last week in verse 17, it says that one of the things about God is that he's unfailingly just
and unfailingly good. He never stops being good. He's never in favor of evil. He's never in favor
of injustice. He's never in favor of anything which is immoral. He's always good. Always good. And that's
a good thing. And we all probably say, yay, God is always good. And now we come to the next thing. And
it says, by the way, what that means is that God is going to be properly angry at evil. If you could
put up the first point, that would be very helpful. Since God is unfailingly good and just, he will
have proper anger at sin and evil. And that just follows from the other thing. So what do you want
to have? Do you want to say, well, actually, I think, by the way, sometimes he should be again,
he should be in favor of evil and give you, no, no. Is that really a good thing? Is that really what
you want from God? Well, if this first part is something we want, this follows from it.
But just to touch on some of our fears, I'm not going to try to argue for it. The thing about God
is revealed in the Bible is that God is never overwhelmed by anger like we are. And he is never,
ever, ever anger driven like we are. But just as I'm going to mention in a moment, some of the things
that appear to be going on in Iran, and it should anger us. It should anger us at the terrible evil
and injustice that's going on. It's not a sign of moral superiority to be indifferent to some of the
evil in the world. It's a sign that we're less than moral and even maybe less than human. And so God is
properly anger, angry at the evil and the sin and the injustice that is done in the world.
And the other two bits, the unrighteousness and ungodly, which sound almost like, if you listen
to it again, verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men and women. It almost sounds like a punchline that a comedian would make on
Saturday Night Live. You know, are you being ungodly and unrighteous? And the crowd laughs because it's so
square and uncool. But actually, it's a flip side, once again, of something that most people think
is pretty wise. So earlier on in the service, and I've talked to even those outside the Christian
faith, and they often think this is actually a pretty reasonable... I mean, they might not believe
in God, but they think it's a pretty reasonable and interesting way that Christian moral teaching
goes, is that Jesus says, Jesus has asked, what are the two greatest commandments? And the response is,
you know, the two great commandments are these. You should love... You know, the great commandment
is this. You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your
strength. And the second is like onto it. You should love your neighbor as yourself. And people say,
that's actually pretty cool. Well, ungodliness and unrighteousness is what happens when we deny these
two great commandments. That's actually literally what it means. So ungodliness means when you deny the
first commandment, and you say, I'm not going to serve or honor God or acknowledge God, I'm going
to deny him, I'm going to suppress him, I'm going to live as if he doesn't exist. That's violating the
first great commandment. And the second one, unrighteousness, is violating the second one of
loving your neighbor as yourself. And as the Bible will go on to reveal, you can't break the second
commandment without also breaking the first, because God has designed a moral universe. And so if I lie
to Morris, I'm not just lying to Morris, I'm also lying against God. I'm not just doing something
wrong against Morris, I'm doing something wrong against Morris and God. Because all of the horizontal
sins always contain a vertical... So all of a sudden you see, that which sort of looks really unreasonable,
we're sort of caught, because we actually like the idea of the great commandments, and we like the idea that
God is always just, we just don't like the consequence. But that doesn't mean that there's something with the
Bible, it means there's something wrong with us and our desires, and our thinking.
Now, George,
it's still a bit of an odd text.
Like, look at it, George, again, it says,
Like, what does that mean? Well, just listen on what he goes on and says.
Verse 19,
And that can also literally be translated that in the day of judgment, they will have no defense.
They will have no defense.
Because they have suppressed the truth.
This Bible text is saying something which, of course, modern social science and psychology and
psychiatry have learned far, far later, which is that we are not just brains on sticks,
but we are connected. Our will, our moral, our affections, our desires, our creativity, our mind have
interconnections. And so that if we do something which is wrong, there's also an act of suppression
there, not only against the truth, but against God. And on one level, it's saying nothing that's
particularly shocking. But what is shocking is this idea that, well, that
that the knowledge of God is sort of obvious.
Here's the thing to start to enter into in this text.
I was reading one news report this morning that came out of the Middle East.
And Israeli intelligence has estimated that in the last 48 hours, the last 48 hours, the Iranian
regime has killed 30,000 protesters. 30,000 protesters. Now, obviously, we don't know if that's correct.
It might be an exaggeration. In fact, here, all good people should be hoping and praying that that's a
huge exaggeration. Right? We should, that's, that should be our prayer. We hope they've really
exaggerated that, that it's not true.
But 30,000, that is very evil.
And should both make us angry and break our heart.
And, um, and here's what the book of Romans is saying about suppressing the truth and about what's
plain and obvious to them, which is very countercultural to Canadians.
For us as Canadians, one of the most standard things that people will say to me as to why they don't
believe in any God whatsoever, whether they're at best an agnostic, but maybe an atheist,
is, uh, uh, or even maybe just as they're apatheists, they're apathetic about the whole thing,
is they say to me, George, look at the world, and you see all of the evil in the world.
In all of this evil in the world, it must mean that God does not exist.
And the book of Romans is going to challenge us, as it just did with this text, and say,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
You're not observing the world the correct way.
What you should see when you look at the world, and you see if it in fact is true,
and we hope and pray that it isn't, that the Iranian regime has killed 30,000 of its citizens
in 48 hours.
And then we look at all the other evil which is going on in the world, and we'd say, boy,
you can't look at this world and not come to the conclusion that we are under the judgment
of God.
And that every single human being is under God's judgment, that no one by themselves are close
to him, that we're all by nature far from him.
And Romans said that's actually the wise question to ask and observation to make when you look
at the evil in the world, that we are obviously under the judgment of God.
And so that's, if you could put up the second point, this big idea is that you suppress your
knowledge of God, and that's what becomes a little bit more complicated for people.
So, you know, I've shared before how over my first 10 or 12 years of being a Christian,
I had about five or six or seven or whatever times when I came very close to walking away
from the Christian faith because I had intellectual and heart problems with the Christian faith.
Some of them were around the problem of evil, and there's a variety of other ones that I
had.
And in every case, one of the things that brought me back and kept me in the faith was that just
is if Jesus rose from the dead, Christianity is true.
Like, I don't know, maybe know the answer to this question, but Christianity is true if
Jesus rose from the dead, and that there will be a good answer.
A second thing is connected to this text, is I just kept being stuck by the obvious design
in the world, and I just couldn't believe that it happened by chance.
And actually, in the third thing, which I don't talk about as much, is that the line by Dostoevsky
just seemed to me, in the Brothers Karamazov, just seemed to me to be unmistakably true,
that if God is dead, everything is permissible.
If God is dead, everything is permissible.
And I just couldn't believe that that is correct.
It is wrong to kill 30,000 of your citizens to stay in power.
Period.
That means God must not be dead.
But this text says that it's obvious to people that by the things that they're made that God
exists.
And this seems like a controversial claim.
So I just want to give two examples, one from science fiction and one from horror movies.
Because I obviously spend lots of time reading very intellectual things and watching very
intellectual movies.
And the first one would be in a scientific movie, imagine a science fiction movie.
Imagine that in a couple of years' time, they finally are able to land, human beings are
able to land on Mars.
And when they land on Mars, they sort of go on a bit of an exploration.
And they come upon what seems to be an alien space station.
And in fact, to their great surprise, it even has something like technology that we have,
is that they actually are able to, they press a button on the door and the door opens.
And they're able to go inside.
And first of all, that the door opens shows that it has some power.
And as soon as they go inside, some type of light comes on.
And it's very obvious that it's an alien space station.
Now, if in the movie they said, isn't this amazing that by accident this appears, develops
on Mars?
I wonder what dust storms and solar storms and earthquakes created this.
Well, I mean, that wouldn't even happen.
It's obviously just too ridiculous for words.
In fact, the whole movie would be a bit of a detective work from looking at the alien space
station to come up with some conclusions about what the aliens were like.
At the dawn of evolutionary theory, the cell was basically just viewed as something very,
not much more complicated than just a blob of almost like gel.
And those of you, many of you know science vastly more than me.
But in the years that have followed, it becomes more and more obvious every year.
The unbelievable complexity of just a single cell.
The many parts that make it up.
They even have like machines and engines almost that do things within it.
It's a very, very complicated system.
And so every year as science develops, it becomes more and more possible to think that that could
just happen by chance under a rock in a primordial sludge.
It's far more complicated than find an alien spaceship.
And every reasonable person in the world would go from the space, sorry, the space station to trying to figure out what aliens were like from what they have made.
And we are surrounded by things that are made.
Obviously with design.
Just one final one.
One of the delights that people, I don't like horror movies by the way.
I think I get too scared.
I don't mind tense ones sometimes like zombie things and stuff like that.
Those are sort of more like thrillers.
But, you know, one of the things I think that people like about, well, one of the things they like about zombie movies is that people in the zombie movies keep doing dumb things.
And so we feel smart.
But one of the things that people like about horror movies is that people do dumb things.
And so we feel smart.
Like, don't go in the room.
Don't split up.
Like, you know, the certain common things that they do, right?
And we feel very smart about it.
So if, in fact, they walk into a room and it's a cold day and there's like steam on the window and they see written on the window in the steam, I am coming to kill you.
And if you looked at it and the two people said, wow, isn't it pretty amazing that the way that steam forms on that window almost comes that type of design?
Like, that's pretty cool, isn't it?
You'd be going, how dumb are you?
It's obviously written by somebody and they're going to come and kill you.
Nobody would take that simple little message to just be the chance development of steam or frost on a coal window.
And yet the amount of information in a strand of DNA is vastly, vastly, vastly more complicated and more detailed than that.
We live in a world where the truth about God is suppressed.
Now, by the way, one of the things you need to understand as this continues to go on is that one of the things which is really unique about the Bible is that it's not othering.
It's not saying, look at all those woke people.
Look at all those MAGA people.
Look at all those suburban single household dwellers.
Look at all those fentanyl addicts.
And look at how they're alike.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
That's not how the text is written.
It's talking about all human beings.
Talking about all human beings.
We suppress the truth about God.
Now, the second big thing about this text is it says something which is very, very, very un-Canadian.
Another thing which is very, very un-Canadian.
But it's actually, I think, very, very profoundly true.
And if you could, and here's what it says, verses 21 to 25.
So, 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 the images resembling mortal man and mortal woman and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore, God gave them up in the over-desires 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.
Now, actually, if you could put up the third point, Claire, that would be very, very helpful.
Human beings are designed to give thanks, honor, worship, and serve God.
So, what this is saying is there's a sort of a, so if the first problem that human beings are going to face is that we seem to have a deep tendency regularly to suppress the truth about God, and when we suppress the truth about God, we're also going to suppress the truth in general.
We're going to suppress moral truths and aesthetic truths and inconvenient truths.
We're going to suppress these things, and that's a feature of what human beings are like.
And, by the way, that's just true.
It's just true.
Right?
It's too blunt.
And some of us, it might be too despairing, but I'm going to get to that in a moment about why this text isn't a cause for despair, but for hope.
And it's actually sort of beginning to be seen here in the text, part of the hope of it, believe it or not.
And then the second thing it's going to say is that because we are hardwired, we're not in a world where there is no God, and life is just one dang thing after another, and then we die.
That's not what the real world is like.
The real world is that we've been designed and created by a real God who really exists.
And part of how he designed us is to know him, and in knowing him, to serve him and love him and honor him and be fruitful and to multiply.
But what happens is that when we decide to suppress the knowledge of God and live in disobedience and rebellion against God, it doesn't mean that that part of us which is hardwired dies.
It just gets redirected.
It's redirected.
You see, what in a sense this text is saying is that when you go out today, every single human being you meet, there's one truth that you can know about them.
They worship idols.
And there's also one other thing that God wants you to know is that when you look at the mirror and you see yourself, you're looking at a person who worships idols.
You see, so what happens is that we turn from, we're designed to worship God.
We don't want to do that.
We don't want to look up.
We turn our backs on him.
We want to be gods ourselves.
But tragically, our need, our design purpose to know, to honor, to thank, to worship, and to serve, that just doesn't get turned off.
The human question is never, will I worship?
The question is, what are you worshiping?
That's always the question.
Excuse me.
What are you actually worshiping?
Not whether you will worship.
What are you honoring?
Not will you honor.
And so we don't worship God, and so we start to either worship and serve and honor and thank things which are quite evil.
There's death cults.
And in Canada, we are increasingly part of a culture that has a death cult aspect to it.
It worships death.
Excuse me.
I'm a bit hoarse.
Or we worship and serve demons.
Or we take things which are good in and of themselves, but by making them an ultimate thing and serving them, we turn them into bad things.
We turn them into idols.
We worship our marriage.
We worship money.
We worship power.
We worship degrees.
We worship children and family.
We worship cleverness or technology or companies or political movements or ideas.
Or in some parts of the world.
We worship animals and bugs and snakes.
We worship sharp as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans as humans
and that's what it means to be human
on this side of the fall
now some of you might be thinking as I draw this to a close
George you've described something which is very very very bleak
and I have a feeling George that you're doing what's a very
classic move of people describing
sort of you're caught in knowing and behaving in certain types of ways but they exempt themselves
when they say these things I've had many many people over the years
tell me that you know the sociology of knowledge and the psychology of knowledge
shows that I only believe the things that I believe because of my upbringing
and this and that and that and I listen to them very politely and I say well
that all sounds very good and a lot of it might be very very true but the problem is
you're exempting yourself you think it only applies to Christians
like me you don't think it applies to your skepticism and they all look completely and utterly shocked
at it because it never dawned on them that these psychological processes might apply to them
and so is that what the Paul is doing here no he's not doing that and it's not completely a cause to despair
and that's because we don't live in a universe where there is no God and it's just one dang thing after another but then we die
we live in a universe where God exists and so listen to verse 24 again therefore God gave them up in the over desires of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves and we're going to look at this more because this connects very much with the last part of Romans chapter 1 but for now there's two things the first thing is if you notice the very interesting justice of God because here it describes one of the ways that God punishes us and interestingly
and interestingly enough it's very similar to what a skeptic and a non-christian by the name of Oscar Wilde famously said and Oscar Wilde bon vivant skeptic famously said
when the gods wish to punish man when the gods wish to punish man they answer their prayers they give them what they want and that's part of what the Bible is saying here is that part of the way that God judges and punishes people is this he says
the God says to God says to in a sense to George George George you give yourself over to this won't use George because you think I'm let's say Bob Bob you you have completely and utterly chosen lies you regularly like to lie and so I'm going to allow you to lie more and more because that seems to be what you want
and but what Bob doesn't realize is that when he starts to tell more and more lies is that that's inevitably going to mean that he becomes more and more lonely because nobody wants to be with him because all he does is lie
and one of the things that people are going to want is not give him the promotions that he wants because he just lies and he doesn't realize that if he just always lies and sometimes he'll even lie
when the lie gets him in trouble and just telling the truth would not get him in trouble and still he lies and at some point in time he can't tell the difference between truth and a lie because he's given himself to lies and all God does in that particular case is says you want to give your entire life over to lies I'll allow I'll begin to allow that to happen
you want to give yourself over to to sexual sin I'm going to begin to allow that to happen you want to you want to worship this I'm going to allow that type of thing to happen you want to make your children your gods and then there's going to completely
not really break your heart or you're completely not really going to ruin them because they end up becoming like your little puppets and your adornments and they end up resenting you for the rest of their lives and all he does is allow what you have turned into an idol to go further with it
how can you complain against God's justice if he does what you want
in Oscar Wilde's world how can you shake your fist to God and say how dare you answer what I asked for
but this is also the source of hope
if you could put up the fourth point that would be very helpful
you are dependent upon God's common grace
a few Sundays ago I talked about how
you know one of the things to understand about the fall is
imagine a magnet and you have a magnet and if you pick up
a piece of iron with that magnet and the magnet has no magnetism in and of itself
and you pick up the magnet the magnet
picks up the iron and the
magnetism flows through the into the
iron and so you can pick up a second piece
of iron and then you can pick up a third
piece of iron and then depending on the strength of the
iron and I mean the iron
and the magnets you can pick up a variety of places
and in a sense that's
what human beings are like that we were designed
in a sense to have Adam
and Eve like pieces of iron connected to God and the life of God the magnetism of God flew through it
and it's as if when Adam and Eve decided to rebel against God as if they just talked to each other and said hey listen we're filled with magnetism look at the other things that are holding to us
we can hold things together we don't need to be with God so let's separate from God and they don't realize that when they separated from God they no longer were magnetic but God didn't allow them to completely and utterly fall apart but held them together
to some extent
and it's because of God's common grace
that our suppressing of the truth is not complete and total
that our
our serving of idols is not complete and total
that God restrains this
because we don't live in a mechanistic and deterministic universe but we live in a God-drenched God-supported
God-inhabited universe
and so those things are not
allowed by God
to completely and utterly
to completely and utterly overwhelm us
they are restrained
and part of what God's punishment is sometimes for us is to weaken the restraint
for us
so why does he do this
it's because if we are to hear this knowledge and we say after hearing about it
I look at the world and I'm obviously under God's judgment
I come aware of my own evil and idolatry
I'm always under God
I'm obviously under God's judgment
I have suppressed the truth about him
I am obviously under God's judgment
but there is this hope of common grace
and maybe if there is common grace
there is saving grace
and my heart is tuned to call out to God
God
I cannot make myself right with you
Lord in your mercy
may there be a power and a means that comes from you
that I can receive unworthy as I am
that can make me right with you
not my own ability
I cannot do this
I am dependent upon you to act
and we understand this
we understand how good it is to hear
that I am not ashamed of the gospel
Romans 1 16
why?
it is the power of God for salvation
to everyone who believes
and that means not just being made right with God
but learning to become more like God
and eventually being glorified with God
it is the power of God for salvation
to everyone who believes
to the Jew first
and also to the pagan
for in it the righteousness of God
is revealed from faith for faith
as it is written
the righteous shall live by faith
and as we talked about
and we'll talk about more
that something comes from God
he always is righteous and just
and he provides a means
in this power for us to be made right with God
if you could put up the fifth point
you need to be saved
very briefly
just three very brief
carry home points for us
obviously the first one is
if you haven't given your life to God
there's no better time than right now
to call out on him
and say Jesus
I really need you to save me
Father I need you to save me
please save me
Jesus please be my Savior and Lord
I give myself to you
whatever the language is
to call out to God
and for those of us who know Jesus
three very quick things
the first one is that God wants you to learn humbly
this truth about our potent
our constant desire to suppress the truth
isn't a means to say that we should despair
and that we can never know
we also understand that God's common grace
means that God wants us to learn humbly
he wants us to learn the truth
he wants us to know him
he just wants us to be humble
to be humble in our judgments
to listen to others
to be open to being proven wrong
he wants us to learn humbly
but he wants us to learn
and secondly
that if you could
that was hopefully put that up
clearly God wants us to learn humbly
secondly
be repentance and obedience
clarifies your mind and heart
a lot of times
the best way to move forward
is to say
I was wrong
I was mistaken
or just to say
you know I lied
I betrayed you
and that's partly the whole Christian community
about how you manage that with God
and how you say that to other people
without making things further down
that's why you need small groups
and mentors
and people that you can discuss these things with
about how to make amendment
but that's the way towards clarifying
that the inside of you is filled with light
and one final thing is this
point C
we're going to see that
after the gospel
the bad news
and the good news
is described
one of the very first things
one of the very first truths
of the book of Romans
is in chapter 12 verse 1
where he says
he says this
I appeal to you therefore
brothers and sisters
by the mercies of God
to present your bodies
as a living sacrifice
holy and acceptable
to God
which is your spiritual worship
do not be
conformed to this world
but be transformed
by the renewal
of your mind
that by testing
you may discern
what is the will of God
what is good
and acceptable
and purpose
perfect
pray for the renewing
of your mind
that as you know the gospel
and as you know the bible
he will renew your mind
because we do not walk
through this life alone
we have his dear presence
to cheer and to guide
we have the comfort
and the presence
of the Holy Spirit
we have a father
who desires
and longs to hear
our prayer
and he longs
to hear you and me
pray
Lord
renew my mind
Lord
renew my mind
invite you to stand
bow our heads in prayer
Father
my hope and prayer
is that those
who are here
and those watching online
have
even if at first
we were a bit offended
by the bluntness
of your word
that we are no longer
offended
that we hear
your truth
and it's
it's blunt
and it takes us
aback
but that as we
think about it
and pray about it
and as our hearts
are open to it
we realize
it's all true
and that these
are truths
that you have
spoken to us
not to humiliate us
not to shame us
not to lead us
to despair
but that we might
have hope
that we might
live freely
that we might
truly start to know
more truly
and more beautifully
and more clearly
that we might
live with more
freedom
that we might
live with hope
so Father
we thank you
for the gospel
and power of God
for salvation
for all who believes
and we thank you
for the whole
counsel of God
and we ask Father
that Jesus
will become so real
to us
and so real
in terms of
what he has done
for us
that more and more
and more
our lives
might be characterized
by keeping the first
and great commandment
that we will love you
with all our heart
and soul
and mind
and strength
and the second
that is like unto it
that we will love
our neighbors
as ourselves
and we ask this
in the name of Jesus
your son
and our savior
amen
as you
Thank you.