Good morning.
My name is Matthew Capone, and I'm the pastor here at Cheyenne Mountain Presbyterian Church.
And it's my joy to bring God's word to you today.
A special welcome if you are new or visiting with us.
We're glad that you're here.
And we're glad that you're here not because we're trying to fill seats,
but because we're following Jesus together as one community.
And as we follow Jesus together, we become convinced that there's no one so good,
they don't need God's grace, and no one so bad that they can't have it,
which is why we come back week after week to hear what God has to say to us in his word.
This week we're continuing our series in the book of Romans,
and you'll remember that the book of Romans is a letter written by the Apostle Paul in the 50s AD.
And it is called Romans for a very simple reason,
which is that it is written to the churches in the city of Rome.
Romans is about the gospel.
It's about the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection.
And Paul's hope as he's writing it is that this church would be established in the gospel.
Remember, we looked at that just a couple weeks ago in verse 11 of chapter 1.
And I've been telling you that there are many applications in the book of Romans.
Paul is especially concerned with the mission and the unity of God's church.
And there are many spokes, many different topics we're going to explore.
Those spokes are always constantly coming back to the hub of the gospel.
Last week, Andy Perch finished up for us Paul's introductory remarks.
Really, we could see verses 1 all the way through verse 17 as Paul telling us,
hey, this is my greeting and this is what this letter is going to be about.
Verses 16 and 17 were, in a sense, Paul's thesis statement for the book of Romans.
And so now we are really going to get into the meat of Paul's first argument.
And now if you're like me, sometimes it's tempting when you show up to church,
especially when I was growing up, to think, well, here's another random passage
and some points that are going to be made.
And I hope that's not true for us.
What I hope you see is the overarching arguments that Paul is making as we go through week by week.
And so as we get into the meat of Paul's first argument,
this is going to continue all the way through chapter 3.
From verse 18 of chapter 1 to essentially the end of chapter 3,
Paul is making one point.
And that one point he's going to summarize in chapter 3, verse 23,
when he says,
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
So Paul's making, we're going to spend multiple weeks in this argument,
but he's making essentially one argument,
both Jews and Gentiles,
and by Gentiles he means everyone who's not a Jew,
both Jews and Gentiles deserve God's wrath and punishment.
So I want you to see that there's a larger argument that's happening here.
This morning we're focusing on the Gentile part of the argument.
So Paul's going to wait till later to talk about the Jews.
First he's going to talk about the Gentiles.
And we'll see in this passage,
Paul is pressing to us the witness
that the created world gives to God and his glory.
The ways in which we look around and we see the world that God has made,
and it teaches us that God is the great creator and sustainer.
It's with that that I invite you to turn with me now to the book of Romans.
We're going to start at verse 18.
You can turn in your worship guide.
You can turn on your phone.
You can turn in your Bible.
No matter where you turn, remember that this is God's word.
And God tells us that his word is more precious than gold,
even the finest gold,
and it's sweeter than honey,
even honey that comes straight from the honeycomb.
And so that's why we read now Romans 1, starting at verse 18.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men
who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
For what can be known about God is plain to them
because God has shown it to them.
For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature,
have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world
in the things that have been made.
So they are without excuse.
Verse 21.
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.
I invite you to pray with me as we come to this portion of God's word.
Our Father in heaven,
we do thank you this morning that you have spoken to us.
We thank you that you've spoken to us in creation
and the world around us that we can see and touch and taste and smell.
And we thank you even more that you've spoken to us,
especially in your word.
We thank you for that in the book of Romans,
and we ask that you would help us this morning,
that you would send your spirit to do what you've promised to do,
which is to open our minds,
that you would give us the spirit
so that we can understand spiritual things.
You'd give us clarity,
and you'd speak to us directly.
We ask most of all that you would show us Jesus,
that we would see him in all his glory and beauty and majesty
and power and holiness and mercy and grace and love.
Use Romans chapter 1 to grow our love and affection for Christ.
We ask that you'd use it to grow our reverence and our awe for Christ.
We ask that you'd use it to grow our obedience to him.
And we thank you that we don't worry this morning
about whether we've earned or deserved those things.
We know that we haven't,
and so we simply ask for them in the mighty name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Some of you know that I moved to Colorado Springs in June of 2017,
and when I was first at Cheyenne Mountain,
I was actually only part-time here at the church,
and then I worked part-time at the Vanguard School,
which is a local public charter school,
just a stone's throw away from our church off Southgate,
if you go north,
on 115,
and the first or second week I was teaching in August of 2017.
Some of you may remember this.
It was Monday, August the 21st.
We had here in Colorado Springs
and across much of North America
a total solar eclipse.
Of course, we also had a solar eclipse this year.
As teachers, though, this was, of course, a historic event.
A solar eclipse of this type had not happened for 99 years.
And so, of course, we had all the glasses that you use for these things.
We handed them out to the kids.
There was a break in class when we knew that it would appear,
and everyone went outside.
We're out on the sidewalk with kids and teachers
getting to see this glorious event.
USA Today that summer published two articles
about what an emotionally overwhelming experience
the eclipse was for many people across our nation.
David Wysa of Beaverton, Oregon said this,
Short of the birth of my kids,
it was the most beautiful thing I've seen in my life.
Carrie White from Santa Cruz, California,
we're told she choked up and wiped away tears
after a group hug with family and friends.
In the midst of it, I teared up, White said.
It was just a glorious feeling.
And then we learned that this man, actually a woman,
Kev Brock in Oregon said,
One of the most incredible things I've ever seen.
It made me cry, and my children cheered.
Now, that same summer, I had learned from a couple of folks
in this congregation
about a podcast called The Briefing
where Al Mohler breaks down world events
from a Christian worldview.
And in his podcast that week, he said,
Look, of course,
this sort of overwhelming emotional response makes sense.
Why is it that people are weeping
at the sight of a solar eclipse?
Well, it's what we've already read,
what John read for us
in Psalm 19,
that the heavens declare the glory of God.
That there is something incredibly powerful
that we experience and learn
as we look at God's creation.
Of course, we don't have to think merely of a,
or simply, or only of a solar eclipse.
You can think about the same thing that happens
every time you're in Colorado Springs
and you drive west.
What do you see?
The glory of Pikes Peak, right?
And there's something overwhelming about that.
There's something majestic about it.
When we had our generosity initiative last year,
we had a man named Joe Brand
who was helping us with that,
and he would come out and visit Colorado Springs,
and he was overwhelmed by the sight of Pikes Peak.
And so at one point, he said to me,
You know, I wonder if I lived here
if I would get used to that,
if it would ever become boring to me.
And then he said,
If it did,
that would say something about me and my heart.
That wouldn't be a problem with the mountains.
That would show that I had lost this sense
of God's greatness and his glory.
As we've looked at the book of Romans,
we've seen that already there's this connection
between the Old Testament and the New Testament,
and we've seen that in our worship service this morning.
Psalm 19 and Romans 1, verses 19 and 20
are saying the same thing.
And so look with me now at verses 19 and 20.
What can be known about God is plain to them
because God has shown it to them.
For his invisible attributes,
namely his eternal power and divine nature,
have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world
in the things that have been made.
And so Paul and the psalmist are making a very simple point for us.
God reveals himself in nature.
I joke sometimes that it's great that we have this setup in our sanctuary
that you can look out and you can see the mountains.
You can see Cheyenne Mountains specifically.
It's especially helpful if you get to a point
where the sermon's very boring for you.
You can pretend that you're so wrapped in attention, right?
As you slowly look over the preacher's shoulder.
What Paul is telling us, though, is if you do that,
you are still learning something about God.
You can't help but learn something about God.
In his book, Nature's Case for God,
John Frame lays out nine different ways.
There's nine chapters,
all the different ways that creation teaches us about God.
Now, one of the tensions of the book of Romans
that we've already discussed a little bit
is how slow or fast do we go through the book?
There's a sense in which we could unpack
just verses 19 and 20 in one entire sermon.
I say that to say,
I'm not going to give you all nine reasons this morning.
I'm going to give you a quick sampler.
Not all of them, but two of them.
And that's, again, that's the challenge, right?
How fast do we move?
Because there's reasons that people spend years
working through the book of Romans
because it's so rich and deep when it comes to theology.
One of the first reasons,
in fact, the first reason he gives us
is the greatness of creation.
Frame reminds us that there is the great size of it all
that should teach us something about God.
I've told you all before about the time in 2016
when I visited the Grand Canyon,
and my main response was simply to feel extremely small.
If you are struggling with pride and ego,
and if you think you're all that,
I recommend a trip to the Grand Canyon for you.
A helpful, right, could solve it.
It also might not solve it.
Paul tells us that we suppress the truth.
There are some people who go to the Grand Canyon,
and they see the greatness of it.
They're reminded of God's glory and his power.
And there are other people who show up
and only take a selfie.
I'm not saying selfies are bad.
I'm saying they only do that, right?
They're saying, look at me.
Look at this experience that I had.
And of course, they missed the point, right?
Look at God.
Look at this great thing that he has made.
It's sad that we are disconnected in many ways
from the stars when we live in big cities
like Colorado Springs because of light pollution.
What does Psalm 19 say?
The heavens declare the glory of God.
There is something overwhelming
about being in the great sand dunes
and being able to look and see
actually how great and majestic our solar system is.
I've told you before that there is a irony
when it comes to climbing 14ers.
And don't hear what I'm not saying.
Climbing 14ers is great.
But it doesn't make you great.
Which is greater, to climb a 14er
or to create a 14er?
The greatness of the mountains
is not in those who climb them.
The greatness is in the God who made them.
The size of creation teaches us something about God.
Frame also mentions for us the goodness of creation.
Remember, Paul is the author of the letter
to the churches in Rome.
We meet Paul also in the book of Acts,
which tells us about the early church.
And in Acts chapter 14,
Paul is talking to these men at Lystra
and talking about God.
He says, look, you knew about God
even though you didn't have his special revelation.
He says this,
yet he did not leave himself without witness,
for he did good by giving you rains from heaven
and fruitful seasons,
satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.
We learn something about God
because nature is good and nurturing and life-giving.
Why are you here this morning?
There are many reasons you're here this morning.
One of them is this,
God has provided food for you
and each of your ancestors.
God has created the world
to be a good and nurturing and beautiful place.
In fact, he provides the glory of the mountains,
the beauty of the Grand Canyon,
whether you believe in him or not.
Remember, our Lord Jesus teaches the same thing.
Matthew chapter five, verses 44 and 45,
he says, look,
the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous.
God's goodness, it's all around us.
It's everywhere to be seen and known.
This hints at a third reason that Frame gives
that I'll mention briefly,
which he calls the oneness of God,
which is to say there must be one God
to hold together the complexity of the universe.
For something as complex and detailed as this world,
it would not make sense for nothing to hold it together,
and it wouldn't make sense for many different gods
to be competing to hold it together.
No, this universe is so complicated
and beautiful and detailed,
it must be one God and one God only.
Now, Paul tells us here,
not that creation or nature reveals everything about God,
but that it reveals specific things about God.
Look with me in verse 20.
It shows his invisible attributes,
namely his eternal power and divine nature.
So we know two things.
We know that God is a God.
We know that he's a really powerful God.
We still need,
this is called general revelation,
what we learn about God from creation.
We still need special revelation, right?
We do not learn from the mountains and the trees
and the rivers that Jesus Christ is God's only son
who's come to die for sinners.
And so that might raise a question for us.
In what sense can God condemn people
for not knowing him
if creation is the only witness that they have?
Well, verse 21 gives us the answer.
For although they knew God,
they did not honor him as God
or give thanks to him.
In other words,
even if we didn't know about Jesus,
we know enough to know
there's a God that we should be praising.
We know enough to know he's one God.
And so you'll look with me
on page seven of your worship guide
and says this,
the truth is,
it takes a concerted act of the will
to deny that a vastly powerful God
made and sustains the creation.
If one is not at least searching after God,
he or she is suppressing the truth.
And so you might say,
oh, I didn't know about Jesus.
This passage raises a question though.
Well, okay, you didn't know about Jesus.
Who were you praising?
Were you praising the creator
or were you praising the creation?
That leads us to Paul's next point.
The very beginning, this is verse 18.
He tells us,
the wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men
who by their unrighteousness
unrighteousness suppress the truth.
In other words,
these truths about God
should be incredibly obvious.
We should receive them
with burning clarity.
He goes even further, verse 20,
for although they knew God.
He's not just saying it's clear
and it's suppressed.
No, he's saying everyone in this world
ultimately knows God.
And if they're not worshiping him,
they're stiff-arming him.
They're pushing him away.
It's a bit of a shocking statement.
Paul says it's true.
The creation gives us
everything we need to know
that there's a God,
that he's good,
that he's great,
that we should thank him,
we should honor him.
I've mentioned before,
in 2022,
I herniated one of my discs,
so I had a very painful journey
going to see a physical therapist
and a chiropractor.
And both my chiropractor
and my physical therapist,
when they found out I was a pastor,
wanted to talk about spiritual things,
which I thought was great.
And so I've talked to my physical therapist
a lot about these things,
and she would tell me
that she was unsure
of what exactly it was
that she believed
about the world
and who was in charge.
And so I pointed out to her one day,
I said,
you know,
you use creator language a lot.
You say things like,
your body was made to,
your body was designed to,
right?
Your body is set up
to function in such a way,
and that's language
that implies there's someone
who created the body, right?
There's a designer.
And she said,
yeah, that's interesting.
I do use that kind of language.
Verse 18,
the wrath of God
is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men
who by their unrighteousness
suppress the truth.
My physical therapist knew God.
And despite what she might say
she believed,
her stated beliefs,
she couldn't escape the fact
that the witness of the human body
was that it had a designer
and a creator, right?
There's a suppression of the truth.
In fact,
people use this sort of language
all the time.
It's hard to escape.
Even when you're talking to people
who say they don't believe in a God,
they'll talk about
what something was designed to do,
how things are created, right?
Because it's hard to escape that.
As you look at the world around us,
we could say,
verse 19,
what can be known about God
is plain to us
because God has shown it to us.
For his invisible attributes,
namely his eternal power
and divine nature,
have been clearly perceived
ever since the creation
of the world.
Paul's making a challenging statement here.
No matter where you are
in your spiritual journey,
no matter what you claim to believe,
you deep down know
God created the world.
He deserves to be worshipped
and praised.
And at the end of the day,
you will have no excuse.
God, as creator and sustainer
of this earth,
is clear for anyone
who's willing to see.
The problem, of course,
is that often we don't.
And that's the point
Paul goes on to make
in verse 23.
There's this tragic exchange
that's happening.
Verse 22,
we'll start there.
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.
There's a tragic exchange.
There's a trade.
Paul's saying
what we've talked about before,
what Bob Dylan says,
you have to serve somebody.
Humans are worshipping creatures.
We will worship
someone or something.
We will either
worship the true God
or we will worship
something created.
There's a variety of ways
this plays out in our world.
Some people actually,
in a very explicit way,
worship nature and the earth.
You'll see bumper stickers
around Colorado Springs
that say,
love your mother.
And they have a little sign
of the earth, right?
Which is to say,
our source and our origin,
it's not from God,
it's from the earth,
it's from the created things.
Now, don't hear what I'm not saying.
We are stewards of God's earth.
We should be taking care
of the creation
he's given us.
We want to be good stewards.
C.S. Lewis writes
this essay, though,
where he says,
we don't have a mother earth,
we have a sister earth.
And it's a sister earth
because the earth is created,
you are created.
Worship the creator,
not the created things.
Some people worship the creation
when they put all their hope
into a political figure.
It is not uncommon
for a politician,
especially a presidential candidate,
to show up on the scene.
And suddenly,
the language
that surrounds this man
is messianic language.
The imagery that's used
to depict him
depicts him as the savior
of the world or the earth.
And this is not something
that's true of only Republicans
or only Democrats.
We can pick figures
throughout the 20
and the 21st century
who have been treated
in this way
both sides of the aisle.
Why?
Because there's this desire
right within the human heart
for someone
to come and save us.
And if it's not going to be God,
we'll find a man.
There's many other things
we can worship
that God has created.
We can worship experiences
in nature.
We can worship sex.
We can worship money.
We can worship power.
But as we've already talked about
in the book of Romans,
it is in God's glory
that we discover
our good.
It is worshiping God
that actually leads us
to life
and flourishing.
And so that's why I say
it's a tragic exchange.
It's changing the glory
of God
for images resembling
mortal man
and birds
and animals
and creeping things.
we're jumping around
in this passage
a little bit,
but that helps us
understand now
the very first verse,
verse 18,
for the wrath of God
is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness
of men.
In other words,
since we have refused
to worship God,
since mankind
has worshipped
the creation
rather than the creator,
God's justice
and wrath
is being poured out
on the earth.
Now this is a challenging doctrine
for many people.
They say,
why is God
a God of wrath?
Shouldn't he be
a God of goodness
and love, right?
I want to serve
a good and loving God.
I can't believe
in a wrathful God.
The problem
with all of that
is this,
a loving God
must be
a wrathful God
because if he is
a loving God,
he wants all evil
cast out of his universe.
Sometimes people will say,
why has God not
solved this problem
or that problem?
Why has he not dealt
with evil
once and for all?
And the problem
with that question
is this,
you are part
of the problem.
The problem
is that you're
part of the problem.
Remember,
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
said,
the line between
good and evil
cuts through
every human heart.
Yes,
God could deal
with evil
once and for all
right now.
If he did,
what would happen
to you?
That's what we
talked about
many years ago now
when we were
in 2 Peter 3.
Peter,
the apostle Peter
addresses this question,
why is God delaying?
Why has he not
purged the world?
And Peter gives
this very simple answer.
God has delayed
his judgment
so that you would
have time to repent.
Imagine that God
had fully and finally
purged the world
in 1950.
What would that
mean for you?
Some of you
would be fine.
Many of us
would not have
been born,
right?
God's forbearance,
his patience
is holding back
his judgment.
God is so good
that he will
eliminate all evil
from his world.
The problem is,
Paul's going to
go on to say this,
all have sinned
and fall short
of the glory
of God.
Everyone deserves
God's wrath
and his judgment.
You'll see this
on page 8
of your worship guide.
God is planning
a perfect world
in which there
will be only good
and no evil
and there will be
no place
in that perfect world
for people
who are unwilling
to repent.
Yes,
God is going to
deal with all evil,
and have a perfect world.
Will you
be there?
Paul goes on
to provide a clear answer
for us about
who will be there
and who won't.
What are we supposed
to do with the fact
that all have sinned
and fall short
of the glory of God?
In other words,
everyone is part
of the problem
of evil
that needs to be solved.
Well,
that's why we have
Paul's discussion.
Remember,
at the very beginning,
he says he's a servant
of Jesus Christ,
that the hope
for us to be part
of God's good
and perfect world
is not in our behavior
or our performance
because we fall so short.
No,
our hope
and our only hope
is in our Lord
and Savior,
Jesus Christ.
our hope
and our only hope
is that Jesus came
and took
God's wrath,
the wrath of God
that's revealed from heaven.
That as he died
on the cross,
he took the punishment
that we deserve
and as he lived
his life on this earth,
he lived the perfect life
that we should have lived.
And so,
for everyone
who has faith
and trust
and follows
after Jesus Christ,
your hope
is that you will be
in God's perfect world
when he comes
and makes
all things
right.
If you do not
have faith
and trust
and follow
after Jesus,
verse 18
is a sober warning.
For the wrath
of God
is revealed
from heaven
against all
ungodliness
and unrighteousness
of men
who by their
unrighteousness
suppress the truth.
Yes,
God is patient
for a time.
He will not
be patient
forever.
And so,
the time
to have faith
in Christ
is now.
The time
to stop
exchanging
the glory
of the immortal God
for created things
is now.
Mary Oliver
is a famous
American poet,
Pulitzer Prize winner
who died
in 2019
and it's widely
known that Oliver
survived a very
challenging
and difficult
childhood
and one of the ways
that she survived
that childhood
is by spending
an enormous amount
of time in nature.
In fact,
that went on
to become
one of the major
themes
of her poetry.
It's not clear
whether or not
Oliver ended up
coming to explicit
assured faith
in Jesus Christ.
There are reasons
to believe
that she didn't
although ultimately
that's probably
not something
that we're going
to know.
It is clear
from her poems
that she was
very familiar
with scripture.
She was familiar
with stories
about Jesus,
about the reality
of the world
and I would go
on to say
she was probably
familiar with
Psalm 19
and Romans
chapter 1.
And she,
regardless of what
she believed
ultimately about Jesus,
knew that the
created world
reveals God.
She writes clearly
about this
in her poem.
This is on the back
of your worship guide
called
I Wake
Close to Morning.
Why do people
keep asking
to see God's
identity papers
when the darkness
opening into
morning
is more
than enough?
Certainly,
any God
might turn
away
in disgust.
In other words,
God's not interested
in you asking
him to prove
himself to you.
He already has.
Think of Sheba
approaching the
kingdom of Solomon.
Do you think
she had to ask,
is this
the place?
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.
Let's pray.
Our Father in heaven,
we do
thank you
and praise you
that you
uphold
this world
by the word
of your power,
that in all
its complexity,
all its detail,
all its beauty,
you,
one God,
hold it together.
We ask that you
would show us
your glory
more and more.
You'd lead us
to trust you
that we would
choose
the glory
of the immortal God
and we would
turn away
from the images
of men
and animals
and creeping things.
We thank you
for the grace
and mercy
of your Son
and our Savior,
our Lord Jesus.
We ask that you
would lead us
to trust him
more and more
and we ask
these things
in the mighty name
of Jesus Christ.
Amen.