WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.900 Two weeks ago, Corry preached from verse 18, 16 and 17, where Paul begins this section by 00:00:07.900 --> 00:00:11.179 saying, For I am not ashamed of the gospel. 00:00:11.179 --> 00:00:14.359 And I hope that's the testimony of all of us as Christians here today. 00:00:14.359 --> 00:00:16.559 We're not ashamed, are we? 00:00:16.559 --> 00:00:20.900 We're not ashamed of the gospel, are we? 00:00:20.900 --> 00:00:27.940 I wonder if this chapter, I wonder if this passage will test that in reality for us. 00:00:27.940 --> 00:00:35.560 I wonder if we really understand how bad our situation is without Jesus Christ. 00:00:35.560 --> 00:00:46.000 We say a lot, we know a lot, but I certainly appreciate how little I understand of my condition 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:52.840 naturally without Jesus Christ, as God sees me, and how great His salvation is. 00:00:52.840 --> 00:00:55.600 I don't think I even begin to grasp that reality. 00:00:55.600 --> 00:01:02.560 I see glimpses maybe from now and again in my own heart, and as I seek God's mind. 00:01:02.560 --> 00:01:07.320 But I don't think any of us, probably if we're honest with each other, see things as God 00:01:07.320 --> 00:01:12.719 sees them and sees our heart and our need as God sees it. 00:01:12.719 --> 00:01:20.319 We talk often about being rescued, about being saved, redeemed, released, and the question 00:01:20.319 --> 00:01:23.599 must always be, from what? 00:01:23.599 --> 00:01:30.399 From what is it that we feel rescued and redeemed? 00:01:30.399 --> 00:01:39.759 It has to be a grim situation before we recognize our need for being brought out of it, doesn't 00:01:39.759 --> 00:01:40.759 it? 00:01:40.759 --> 00:01:42.359 Otherwise it's no big deal. 00:01:42.359 --> 00:01:44.560 Jesus is no big deal for us. 00:01:44.560 --> 00:01:52.359 If the rescue and the redemption and the salvation and the release isn't really that significant, 00:01:52.359 --> 00:01:55.359 then we can take or leave Jesus, can't we? 00:01:55.359 --> 00:01:59.920 He's someone we can throw aside as we want. 00:01:59.920 --> 00:02:06.079 And so it's hugely significant for us to think God thoughts, which is what the Bible is. 00:02:06.079 --> 00:02:12.000 It's God giving us His thoughts and is expressing our need and His salvation. 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:15.079 It's that amazing mixture. 00:02:15.080 --> 00:02:22.360 And at the core of our need, as this passage unfolds, is very stark. 00:02:22.360 --> 00:02:30.760 The core of the need of humanity of individuals, and don't just leave it at the kind of broad 00:02:30.760 --> 00:02:32.000 term of humanity. 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:33.720 Take it into your own heart. 00:02:33.720 --> 00:02:41.360 I must take it into mine, is that without Christ we simply don't want God. 00:02:41.360 --> 00:02:43.000 We don't want Him. 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:44.800 We reject Him. 00:02:44.800 --> 00:02:46.680 We will worship. 00:02:46.680 --> 00:02:48.760 We don't want to worship Him. 00:02:48.760 --> 00:02:50.439 We don't want to serve Him. 00:02:50.439 --> 00:02:52.360 We don't like His verdict. 00:02:52.360 --> 00:02:54.640 We are uncomfortable with the diagnosis. 00:02:54.640 --> 00:03:01.240 So as you looked at last week, humanity suppresses God. 00:03:01.240 --> 00:03:03.360 Suppresses that knowledge of God, keeps it down. 00:03:03.360 --> 00:03:05.400 It's a very strong word. 00:03:05.400 --> 00:03:12.080 It speaks of strong physical resistance, deliberate and active suppression of God. 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:13.560 We don't like Him. 00:03:13.560 --> 00:03:19.920 We don't like what He says, we hate His verdict, and we are uncomfortable with His justice. 00:03:19.920 --> 00:03:21.719 So what does it look like? 00:03:21.719 --> 00:03:23.680 Well, it looks like it. 00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:31.360 Verse 23, as you saw last week, is that we will adore, we will worship anything but God. 00:03:31.360 --> 00:03:35.400 They exchanged the glory of God and worshiped created things rather than the Creator. 00:03:35.400 --> 00:03:40.439 So we adore, we put first anything other than God. 00:03:40.439 --> 00:03:47.120 Verse 25 says that we exchanged the truth of God for a lie, so that we choose not to 00:03:47.120 --> 00:03:49.359 accept what God says. 00:03:49.359 --> 00:03:52.479 Right from the very beginning, did God really say? 00:03:52.479 --> 00:03:54.199 Is that right? 00:03:54.199 --> 00:03:58.960 We question Him and we are deceived by lies. 00:03:58.960 --> 00:04:04.240 And in verse 28, the third thing that this passage says is that we don't see fit to acknowledge 00:04:04.240 --> 00:04:07.199 God in our thoughts at all. 00:04:07.199 --> 00:04:09.800 We just get rid of God's thoughts. 00:04:09.800 --> 00:04:16.439 There's this threefold condition that is unpacked in these verses, that there's this 00:04:16.439 --> 00:04:23.199 unnatural antagonism towards God, and I think that's clear to us all, isn't it? 00:04:23.199 --> 00:04:24.639 Is it clear to you as a Christian? 00:04:24.639 --> 00:04:29.879 It's certainly clear to me that I face a battle on a daily basis to not have other things 00:04:29.879 --> 00:04:32.040 first in my life other than God. 00:04:32.040 --> 00:04:37.560 There's many times I look at God's Word and I question it, and there's doubt there. 00:04:37.560 --> 00:04:42.120 And so often I will find after hours and hours that I've had no thoughts for God, no thoughts 00:04:42.120 --> 00:04:48.600 for His Word, no thoughts for His character, and He has pushed out, and that is the battle 00:04:48.600 --> 00:04:51.399 that we often face as Christians. 00:04:51.399 --> 00:04:56.279 And maybe if you're not a Christian here today, you can recognize that same reality in your 00:04:56.279 --> 00:05:00.879 life that you push God aside, you doubt His Word. 00:05:00.879 --> 00:05:05.480 There are other things that are more important that come first in your life. 00:05:05.480 --> 00:05:09.280 And in the whole world in which we live, we see that, don't we? 00:05:09.280 --> 00:05:16.319 We see that rejection, that suppression, that unbelief, so that in most scenarios of life, 00:05:16.319 --> 00:05:19.560 God is not Mr. Popular. 00:05:19.560 --> 00:05:22.600 He is not the God that people want. 00:05:22.600 --> 00:05:30.000 And there is, if we are honest, an irrational hatred that seems to well up within people 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:32.520 who choose to reject God. 00:05:32.519 --> 00:05:41.439 So I want to look in specific terms at how that reveals itself in this passage as God 00:05:41.439 --> 00:05:47.279 is diagnosing the world in which we live and diagnosing our own hearts as well. 00:05:47.279 --> 00:05:54.039 When God is pushed out, when God is rejected, when He is doubted, when He is cast aside, 00:05:54.039 --> 00:06:00.159 when He is no longer worshiped, there are two specific things in this passage that we see 00:06:00.159 --> 00:06:01.159 happening. 00:06:01.160 --> 00:06:06.960 There is firstly the unleashing of the body, and then we see there's the unleashing of 00:06:06.960 --> 00:06:07.960 the mind. 00:06:07.960 --> 00:06:12.360 There's the unleashing of the body in verses 24 to 27. 00:06:12.360 --> 00:06:13.360 Speak about that. 00:06:13.360 --> 00:06:19.120 It's very physical, speaking about the body and particularly speaking about sexuality 00:06:19.120 --> 00:06:22.080 in verses 24 to 27. 00:06:22.080 --> 00:06:26.800 And that comes from exchanging, it's this exchange that's going on again, exchanging 00:06:26.800 --> 00:06:32.480 God's way for our own way, exchanging God's truth for our own truth. 00:06:32.480 --> 00:06:37.720 And it means that there's, I maybe I should use inverted commons, the unleashing of the 00:06:37.720 --> 00:06:39.319 body. 00:06:39.319 --> 00:06:47.240 So the physicality of humanity unrestrained and unconstrained by ideas of God, with all 00:06:47.240 --> 00:06:54.319 the narrow constrictions of sexuality within God given parameters, abandoned, with the 00:06:54.319 --> 00:07:02.240 freedom from the idea that men and women are created for each other, and that sexual pleasure 00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:09.399 is to be enjoyed within the confines of a trusting, faithful, humble, sacrificial relationship 00:07:09.399 --> 00:07:10.800 of marriage. 00:07:10.800 --> 00:07:17.920 From free from the whole notion that children are a great blessing in such faithful, monogamous 00:07:17.920 --> 00:07:24.759 relationships, where free from the concept of them being valued and protected and safe 00:07:24.759 --> 00:07:29.040 in the womb, from destruction from outside. 00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:35.920 Free from all of these things, the result is a sexuality that is purely a matter for 00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:37.240 the individual. 00:07:37.240 --> 00:07:38.680 God is pushed aside. 00:07:38.680 --> 00:07:39.960 God is abandoned. 00:07:39.960 --> 00:07:40.960 God is rejected. 00:07:40.960 --> 00:07:42.240 God is not worshiped. 00:07:42.240 --> 00:07:44.280 His truth is a lie. 00:07:44.279 --> 00:07:51.959 Everything is turned on its head, and God has no place in the pursuit of pleasure, physical 00:07:51.959 --> 00:07:58.079 pleasure particularly, and physical sexual pleasure particularly, which is dealt with 00:07:58.079 --> 00:07:59.599 in this passage. 00:07:59.599 --> 00:08:07.239 So there's a movement of the sexual act, excuse my explicit language today, into the realm 00:08:07.240 --> 00:08:15.439 of merely a biological function, removing it from the diversity of gender and from the 00:08:15.439 --> 00:08:23.800 confines of monogamy, from the significance of procreation, and releasing it into the service 00:08:23.800 --> 00:08:32.159 of disordered loves at best, and sheer unrestrained passion at worst. 00:08:32.159 --> 00:08:38.039 So we see in the world in which we live that dumping God out of the picture is seen as 00:08:38.039 --> 00:08:41.039 life's great aphrodisiac. 00:08:41.039 --> 00:08:44.480 It's the best possible thing for sexual liberty and freedom. 00:08:44.480 --> 00:08:45.919 Dump God out of the picture. 00:08:45.919 --> 00:08:51.679 Get rid of Him, and we can all enjoy the freedom of our bodies as we were intended to enjoy 00:08:51.679 --> 00:08:53.159 them. 00:08:53.159 --> 00:09:01.240 The unique biblical concept of marital sexual love between opposite genders in all its diversity 00:09:01.240 --> 00:09:11.720 is taken, and it's mimicked within the same gender, where sexual activity becomes damaging, 00:09:11.720 --> 00:09:19.200 and separated from its original intent, which is the fusion of opposites, the coming together 00:09:19.200 --> 00:09:26.919 of two different peoples, different genders in one physical and spiritual union, with 00:09:26.919 --> 00:09:32.319 all its complexity and all its mystery and all its adventure. 00:09:32.319 --> 00:09:43.039 Now can I say at this point, this is not in any way a condemnation of same-sex attraction, 00:09:43.039 --> 00:09:49.319 nor indeed of the ongoing temptations that we all face sexually in our lives. 00:09:49.320 --> 00:09:57.040 This is a broken moral world that we live in, and we battle against these realities all 00:09:57.040 --> 00:09:58.540 the time. 00:09:58.540 --> 00:10:03.040 Each of us has different struggles sexually in our lives. 00:10:03.040 --> 00:10:10.360 Some it may be same-sex attraction, for others it may be a whole myriad of different issues 00:10:10.360 --> 00:10:12.720 that we face. 00:10:12.720 --> 00:10:18.280 And it's true, I imagine, in this particular group of people as we come together, that 00:10:18.279 --> 00:10:26.039 all of us in one degree or another are struggling with loneliness, singleness, marriage, maybe 00:10:26.039 --> 00:10:37.220 singleness or loneliness within marriage, faithfulness, overcoming lust, rejecting pornography, understanding 00:10:37.220 --> 00:10:44.439 our sexuality as God intends us to do, dealing with all the deep-seated and competing desires 00:10:44.440 --> 00:10:51.560 we have in the confusing emotions that we sometimes think nobody else has but us. 00:10:51.560 --> 00:10:59.800 And so we are called, remember this, we are called to make this gospel community a safe 00:10:59.800 --> 00:11:11.600 place, a good place, a place of love and of understanding that's supportive and non-judgmental 00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:21.759 on these issues, faithful to God in all his grace and justice, but hugely accepting and 00:11:21.759 --> 00:11:25.040 loving and understanding and generous. 00:11:25.040 --> 00:11:27.440 I pray about generosity. 00:11:27.440 --> 00:11:33.120 If we don't understand grace, if we don't understand our own hearts, we will never be 00:11:33.120 --> 00:11:37.399 generous, spirited, I mean. 00:11:37.399 --> 00:11:45.799 We will always be mean-spirited, always finding fault, always looking morally and self-righteously 00:11:45.799 --> 00:11:48.879 to the failings of others. 00:11:48.879 --> 00:11:57.120 Grasp generosity, grasp grace, grasp our own need of his generosity, and it will change 00:11:57.120 --> 00:11:59.759 the way we look at other people. 00:11:59.759 --> 00:12:06.000 And it will change our attitude to the perceived failings we see in others and maybe focus 00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:13.480 the attention more on the real failings that we ourselves need forgiven from, moved from 00:12:13.480 --> 00:12:18.799 and transported and transformed towards the living God. 00:12:18.799 --> 00:12:22.840 This is not about condemnation of any of these things. 00:12:22.840 --> 00:12:29.879 This is very much, particularly this section is about the place of active physical sex 00:12:29.879 --> 00:12:39.320 within God's universe and the rejection of God and his morality consciously, willingly 00:12:39.320 --> 00:12:46.320 and deliberately so that its passions can be satisfied without restriction, without 00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:49.399 reference to God in the equation. 00:12:49.399 --> 00:12:55.960 And you know, and I know, that leaves Christianity today beyond the pale for the majority of 00:12:55.960 --> 00:12:59.720 society and for the majority of the world we live in. 00:12:59.720 --> 00:13:10.560 More Christianity in mind is beyond the pale because of this model of morality and physicality 00:13:10.560 --> 00:13:13.080 and sexuality that is given. 00:13:13.080 --> 00:13:22.080 Many different interpretations are given to change, to fuse it with today's thinking, 00:13:22.080 --> 00:13:28.000 none of which are faithful to God in His Word. 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:31.360 So there's the unleashing of the body. 00:13:31.360 --> 00:13:37.879 But there's also, secondly, the unleashing of the mind, as it were, from verses 28 to 00:13:37.879 --> 00:13:44.320 32, since they do not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to 00:13:44.320 --> 00:13:45.679 do what ought not to be done. 00:13:45.679 --> 00:13:50.600 So it's speaking about the mind, but the fruit is activity. 00:13:50.600 --> 00:13:52.440 It's about action. 00:13:52.440 --> 00:13:55.559 But it is, I'm using that, the unleashing of the mind. 00:13:55.559 --> 00:14:01.839 So there's this, twice it speaks about the exchange, the exchanging of truth of God for 00:14:01.839 --> 00:14:07.799 a lie and the exchanging of the worship of God for idolatry, and that this exchange has 00:14:07.799 --> 00:14:09.239 gone on. 00:14:09.239 --> 00:14:15.759 And God is pushed out of the mind as well as the body and all that it stands for. 00:14:15.759 --> 00:14:24.439 So humanity rejects God's mind and all the narrow-mindedness and the restrictions that 00:14:24.440 --> 00:14:28.240 are perceived to belong to God. 00:14:28.240 --> 00:14:36.560 We've ditched the concept of absolute truth and any sense of accountability beyond accountability 00:14:36.560 --> 00:14:38.840 to one another in society. 00:14:38.840 --> 00:14:46.440 The rejection of all the Judeo-Christian foundations, which allows, as God has thrown out of the 00:14:46.440 --> 00:14:54.200 mind and thrown out of the intellect, allows independence and an inverted commas reason 00:14:54.200 --> 00:15:01.320 and scientific ideology to formulate a new fluid morality. 00:15:01.320 --> 00:15:05.960 There's the rejection of needing to know God at all. 00:15:05.960 --> 00:15:11.120 Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, gave them up to, they were filled with 00:15:11.120 --> 00:15:13.240 all manner of unrighteousness. 00:15:13.240 --> 00:15:21.160 They simply didn't feel the need to acknowledge God. 00:15:21.159 --> 00:15:25.719 So there's a rejection of the knowledge of God. 00:15:25.719 --> 00:15:27.480 And what's the reality of that? 00:15:27.480 --> 00:15:31.879 What's the reality of that in the world in which we live and in our hearts? 00:15:31.879 --> 00:15:37.959 The result is where God is abandoned, we're all gods. 00:15:37.959 --> 00:15:39.719 Isn't that what happens? 00:15:39.719 --> 00:15:44.039 When we throw God out, we all become gods. 00:15:44.039 --> 00:15:45.959 We all become sovereign over our own lives. 00:15:45.959 --> 00:15:48.319 Isn't that the great mantra of today? 00:15:48.319 --> 00:15:50.720 I am my own person. 00:15:50.720 --> 00:15:54.279 I make my own decisions. 00:15:54.279 --> 00:16:00.100 And that is lauded and that is worshiped and recognized. 00:16:00.100 --> 00:16:04.160 We all become gods when God is taken out of the picture. 00:16:04.160 --> 00:16:07.840 And that leads to a survival of the fittest mentality. 00:16:07.840 --> 00:16:14.960 We live in a world where equality reigns, where materialism drives the human heart, 00:16:14.960 --> 00:16:21.280 where life itself is stripped of its value at either end of the spectrum, within the 00:16:21.280 --> 00:16:24.720 womb and beyond the pensionable age. 00:16:24.720 --> 00:16:26.800 Life is cheapened. 00:16:26.800 --> 00:16:31.160 Ways are looked at to dissolve and to get rid of life. 00:16:31.160 --> 00:16:34.759 Searing poverty covers half the globe in which we live. 00:16:34.759 --> 00:16:36.480 Authority is rejected. 00:16:36.480 --> 00:16:39.600 Loyalty and faithfulness is sneered at. 00:16:39.600 --> 00:16:41.879 The individual is king. 00:16:41.879 --> 00:16:44.240 We are all gods. 00:16:44.240 --> 00:16:48.799 And the freedom that we believe we have has enslaved us. 00:16:48.799 --> 00:16:52.840 Look at the characteristics of these verses. 00:16:52.840 --> 00:16:57.639 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetous, malice, envy, murder, strife, 00:16:57.639 --> 00:17:02.080 deceit, maliciousness, gossip, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, hotty, boastful, 00:17:02.080 --> 00:17:04.240 inventors of evil, ruthless. 00:17:04.240 --> 00:17:08.440 Twenty-one different characteristics that are repeated at different places in the Bible 00:17:08.440 --> 00:17:14.320 that characterize, not exclusively, but do characterize the world in which we live. 00:17:14.320 --> 00:17:19.240 And the reason given is that they have chosen, humanity has chosen to leave. 00:17:19.240 --> 00:17:22.039 He isn't, God is not worth thinking about. 00:17:22.039 --> 00:17:24.200 God is not worth having in the mind. 00:17:24.200 --> 00:17:29.200 And therefore the freedom all to be gods brings this reality into the world in which 00:17:29.200 --> 00:17:41.319 we live, and lest we become complacent and judgmental into our own hearts, to a greater 00:17:41.319 --> 00:17:43.960 or lesser degree. 00:17:43.960 --> 00:17:49.519 Let not anyone here stand in judgment, but let us all look at our own hearts. 00:17:49.519 --> 00:17:55.400 Because the question then becomes, as we seek to draw it together, where is God? 00:17:55.400 --> 00:17:58.360 Where is God in this bleak picture? 00:17:58.359 --> 00:18:04.519 I haven't painted a very attractive painting of the world in which we live, nor of myself, 00:18:04.519 --> 00:18:07.159 nor of our own hearts. 00:18:07.159 --> 00:18:10.240 And I don't think we like to talk about it very much. 00:18:10.240 --> 00:18:15.159 I'm sure some of you are fairly uncomfortable this morning and are longing for the sermon 00:18:15.159 --> 00:18:16.479 to end. 00:18:16.479 --> 00:18:17.959 We don't analyze. 00:18:17.959 --> 00:18:20.439 We don't want to consider the world in which we live. 00:18:20.439 --> 00:18:23.199 We don't want to consider its injustices. 00:18:23.200 --> 00:18:28.720 And more significantly, we probably don't like the mirror of Scripture exposing what 00:18:28.720 --> 00:18:34.400 we might feel conscience-prick this morning in our own hearts. 00:18:34.400 --> 00:18:36.400 It's ugly, isn't it? 00:18:36.400 --> 00:18:37.400 It's uncomfortable. 00:18:37.400 --> 00:18:39.400 So what do we do? 00:18:39.400 --> 00:18:41.279 We suppress it. 00:18:41.279 --> 00:18:46.720 We take our physical, mental and spiritual energy and we shh, we suppress it. 00:18:46.720 --> 00:18:51.360 We decide not to think about it. 00:18:51.359 --> 00:18:54.639 We move our minds somewhere else. 00:18:54.639 --> 00:18:59.719 Think about how blissful it will be half an hour from now and how I can just put these 00:18:59.719 --> 00:19:05.000 thoughts out of my life and out of my heart. 00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:07.599 We shut our Bibles. 00:19:07.599 --> 00:19:15.359 We don't listen to our conscience because God makes us uncomfortable. 00:19:15.359 --> 00:19:18.119 So God makes us uncomfortable. 00:19:18.119 --> 00:19:19.439 Where is He in this? 00:19:19.440 --> 00:19:24.720 Well, can I say He's intimately involved in this? 00:19:24.720 --> 00:19:27.240 He's intimately involved. 00:19:27.240 --> 00:19:29.160 That might be a strange thing for us to say. 00:19:29.160 --> 00:19:30.160 What? 00:19:30.160 --> 00:19:31.160 How can that be? 00:19:31.160 --> 00:19:35.720 How can God be involved intimately in this mess? 00:19:35.720 --> 00:19:44.240 Well, can I argue that He's involved in three ways in this world in which we live? 00:19:44.240 --> 00:19:46.600 The first is He's involved in judgment. 00:19:46.600 --> 00:19:48.080 Now, Corey spoke about that last week. 00:19:48.079 --> 00:19:51.919 That's really the domain of the previous section. 00:19:51.919 --> 00:19:58.039 For the wrath of God, verse 18, is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness, unrighteousness 00:19:58.039 --> 00:20:00.879 of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 00:20:00.879 --> 00:20:02.679 So we saw that last week, didn't we? 00:20:02.679 --> 00:20:04.279 He's involved in judgment. 00:20:04.279 --> 00:20:11.159 So the world is already, God is involved in discipline and in judgment because He is just 00:20:11.159 --> 00:20:13.279 and perfect. 00:20:13.279 --> 00:20:15.799 And that's the story of the whole Bible. 00:20:15.799 --> 00:20:16.919 We're in a mess. 00:20:16.920 --> 00:20:23.039 And part of that mess is of God's making in the sense that He has brought His anger, His 00:20:23.039 --> 00:20:30.480 wrath down upon us because we are accountable to Him and there has been a downright rebellion 00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:33.800 against His lordship. 00:20:33.800 --> 00:20:38.240 We've rejected the author and the giver of life who every day has allowed you to breathe 00:20:38.240 --> 00:20:42.320 the air that you breathe in your nostrils as you've come here. 00:20:42.320 --> 00:20:44.120 There's been a coup d'etat. 00:20:44.120 --> 00:20:45.320 There's been a takeover. 00:20:45.319 --> 00:20:51.279 We've taken the rightful place of God and He is punishing humanity and us individually 00:20:51.279 --> 00:20:52.279 for that. 00:20:52.279 --> 00:20:54.119 We are separated from Him. 00:20:54.119 --> 00:20:57.599 We are dead spiritually and dying naturally. 00:20:57.599 --> 00:21:00.359 He is involved in judgment. 00:21:00.359 --> 00:21:01.759 But what does that mean? 00:21:01.759 --> 00:21:04.079 What does that mean as it's unpacked here? 00:21:04.079 --> 00:21:05.079 In what way? 00:21:05.079 --> 00:21:09.319 Well, if you've looked at this section, you may have noticed there are some things are 00:21:09.319 --> 00:21:12.279 repeated, repeating things are always good. 00:21:12.279 --> 00:21:17.079 And three times it says God gave them up or gave them over. 00:21:17.079 --> 00:21:20.599 Verse 24, God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts. 00:21:20.599 --> 00:21:23.279 26, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. 00:21:23.279 --> 00:21:27.680 And verse 28, God gave them up to a debased mind. 00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:31.119 So that is how God is involved in judgment. 00:21:31.119 --> 00:21:35.559 We talked earlier, didn't we, about the exchange going on, the humanity exchange, the truth 00:21:35.559 --> 00:21:36.799 of God for a lie. 00:21:36.799 --> 00:21:40.480 The exchange, the worship of God for the worship of humanity. 00:21:40.480 --> 00:21:42.079 Well, this is another exchange going on. 00:21:42.079 --> 00:21:43.679 The other way. 00:21:43.679 --> 00:21:46.240 And God is also exchanging. 00:21:46.240 --> 00:21:52.399 He's handing over both, and I believe there's both a passive and an active sense in which 00:21:52.399 --> 00:21:54.079 He is doing so. 00:21:54.079 --> 00:22:03.279 God is in effect saying, and I hope I say this reverently, okay, this is what you want. 00:22:03.279 --> 00:22:05.399 Here is your freedom. 00:22:05.399 --> 00:22:07.679 You've wanted rejection. 00:22:07.679 --> 00:22:10.079 You've wanted me out of the picture. 00:22:10.079 --> 00:22:14.799 This is not what I want for you, but you make the choice. 00:22:14.799 --> 00:22:21.720 The choice will often lead to misery in your life and degradation and disaster ultimately. 00:22:21.720 --> 00:22:23.599 But I'm handing it over to you. 00:22:23.599 --> 00:22:25.279 It's your choice. 00:22:25.279 --> 00:22:27.679 This is what you want. 00:22:27.679 --> 00:22:32.919 He's saying, look, you make terrible gods, because you're all gods and all competing 00:22:32.919 --> 00:22:34.559 with one another. 00:22:34.559 --> 00:22:38.559 And your choices will make terrible masters, terrible lords. 00:22:38.559 --> 00:22:39.559 But this is what you want. 00:22:39.559 --> 00:22:41.599 I'm handing it over to you. 00:22:41.599 --> 00:22:42.599 It's judgment. 00:22:42.599 --> 00:22:44.399 I'm giving you what you want. 00:22:44.399 --> 00:22:47.399 Your independence is slavery, but I want you to see that. 00:22:47.399 --> 00:22:51.200 There's both a passive handing over, but an active judgment within it. 00:22:51.200 --> 00:22:54.039 And I was wrestling with how to try and illustrate that. 00:22:54.039 --> 00:22:58.039 I couldn't think of any modern day illustration in any way that would parallel. 00:22:58.039 --> 00:23:01.720 The only thing I could think of was the prodigal son. 00:23:01.720 --> 00:23:04.960 In a sense, it's the mindset of the father, isn't it? 00:23:04.960 --> 00:23:08.839 The son says, I want you dead, dad, and I want your money. 00:23:08.839 --> 00:23:10.559 I want your inheritance. 00:23:10.559 --> 00:23:11.679 I don't want you. 00:23:11.679 --> 00:23:16.199 I don't want your fatherly care or love, but I just want the money that will come to me 00:23:16.199 --> 00:23:19.000 as if you were dead, and I just want to spend it. 00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:20.599 And the father gives him it. 00:23:20.599 --> 00:23:23.559 It's the wrong choice. 00:23:23.559 --> 00:23:27.679 But he gives him his inheritance, and he probably says, I know that this is the wrong choice, 00:23:27.679 --> 00:23:31.959 but I'm going to let you make it. 00:23:31.959 --> 00:23:32.959 And he lets him go. 00:23:32.959 --> 00:23:34.919 He knew it would be a disaster. 00:23:34.919 --> 00:23:36.879 He knew it would be enslaving for him. 00:23:36.880 --> 00:23:40.240 He knew it would be full of unfulfilled promise. 00:23:40.240 --> 00:23:45.920 But even in judgment, here there is grace, because it wasn't it so that he would come 00:23:45.920 --> 00:23:48.200 to his senses. 00:23:48.200 --> 00:23:54.440 And isn't that in the sense why God gives us over so that we will come to our senses 00:23:54.440 --> 00:23:56.800 and see we make bad gods? 00:23:56.800 --> 00:23:59.680 We make bad choices without him. 00:23:59.680 --> 00:24:01.160 He's our loving father. 00:24:01.160 --> 00:24:04.080 He's just, but he's given us freedom. 00:24:04.079 --> 00:24:08.159 And we've chosen the path of freedom without him. 00:24:08.159 --> 00:24:11.679 So he's involved in that sense in judgment and giving over. 00:24:11.679 --> 00:24:15.720 But can I also say he's involved in another way in common grace? 00:24:15.720 --> 00:24:19.559 The last verse says, therefore, that though they know God's righteous decree, that those 00:24:19.559 --> 00:24:22.000 who practice such things deserve to die. 00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:27.559 Not only do they do them, and you could translate that, that they continue to do them, but give 00:24:27.559 --> 00:24:29.319 approval to those who practice. 00:24:29.319 --> 00:24:33.159 There's a sense in which God allows things to continue. 00:24:33.160 --> 00:24:38.120 And in chapter two, if you look over in verse four, it says, do you not, don't presume 00:24:38.120 --> 00:24:44.600 when the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness 00:24:44.600 --> 00:24:47.759 is meant to lead you to repentance. 00:24:47.759 --> 00:24:52.680 So there's this sense that God, even in the mess of this world, is involved in grace. 00:24:52.680 --> 00:24:54.920 He allows the world to continue. 00:24:54.920 --> 00:25:00.840 In 2 Peter 3, 9, the Lord is not slow in keeping his promise as some understand slowness. 00:25:00.839 --> 00:25:06.399 And he's patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 00:25:06.399 --> 00:25:12.480 So he lets people, he lets your husband and wife, your neighbor, your son, your daughter, 00:25:12.480 --> 00:25:15.839 your colleague at work, he lets them wake up every day. 00:25:15.839 --> 00:25:17.359 He sends the sun and the rain in them. 00:25:17.359 --> 00:25:23.559 He gives them love and laughter and marriage and friendship and family and work and life, 00:25:23.559 --> 00:25:29.159 even though they never acknowledge him, even though they may never consider him. 00:25:29.160 --> 00:25:35.000 We live in a world where people are creative, where there is beautiful humanitarian acts 00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.920 that are done, where people are faithful and loving in different relationships, upright 00:25:39.920 --> 00:25:44.800 and moral in the business place, where many unbelievers are nicer than Christians. 00:25:44.800 --> 00:25:46.200 We know that, don't we? 00:25:46.200 --> 00:25:51.920 Any of them are nicer, where the gay community has so many lessons to teach us from which 00:25:51.920 --> 00:25:54.320 we can learn. 00:25:54.319 --> 00:25:59.799 The reason God doesn't bring eternal death to all every living creature is because he 00:25:59.799 --> 00:26:05.119 is God who is both and loving and just. 00:26:05.119 --> 00:26:09.639 Together, they fuse together in his glory and in his perfection. 00:26:09.639 --> 00:26:13.599 In many ways we seek, we don't understand. 00:26:13.599 --> 00:26:23.240 So he is intimately involved in judgment, in common grace and in incarnation. 00:26:23.240 --> 00:26:25.680 That is how he is most involved. 00:26:25.680 --> 00:26:27.720 He's most involved. 00:26:27.720 --> 00:26:29.279 And that takes us right back to the beginning. 00:26:29.279 --> 00:26:32.120 I'm not ashamed of the gospel. 00:26:32.120 --> 00:26:34.120 What is the gospel? 00:26:34.120 --> 00:26:41.039 It's where God involves himself in a world that has rejected him and abandoned him and 00:26:41.039 --> 00:26:42.980 pushed him out. 00:26:42.980 --> 00:26:47.559 He comes into the arena of his own judgment. 00:26:47.559 --> 00:26:56.159 He experiences life in the trenches, breathes the dirtied air of a world that has rejected 00:26:56.159 --> 00:27:00.240 him and doesn't want him. 00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:06.480 God comes in among all the pseudo-Gods, and he comes to reveal himself. 00:27:06.480 --> 00:27:16.839 For 33 years, he's gentle and strong, living in enemy territory, living as one who knows 00:27:16.839 --> 00:27:22.879 rejection and despite. 00:27:22.879 --> 00:27:29.919 And the greatest guilt of the human race is when they take the one man, the one human 00:27:29.919 --> 00:27:38.399 being that ever lived a perfect life, inwardly and outwardly, pleasing God and loving his 00:27:38.399 --> 00:27:42.799 neighbor and nailed him to a cross. 00:27:42.799 --> 00:27:50.159 That's the ultimate judgment on humanity, that they took the only perfect human being 00:27:50.159 --> 00:27:52.599 and said, we don't want this. 00:27:52.599 --> 00:27:54.399 We don't like this. 00:27:54.399 --> 00:27:58.000 We want to be gods, and we don't want this God. 00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:00.240 And they nailed him to a tree. 00:28:00.240 --> 00:28:08.440 And isn't the greatest irony of all that in that ultimate rejection, that is the path that 00:28:08.440 --> 00:28:16.120 God himself chose to be the answer to the rejection. 00:28:16.120 --> 00:28:25.080 Because in doing so, he takes our place, and he takes all of God's wrath on himself, all 00:28:25.080 --> 00:28:33.320 the forsakenness, all the just anger, all the assault of hell, drained it dry on the 00:28:33.319 --> 00:28:41.559 cross, in the place of all who will accept his gift of righteousness through the gospel, 00:28:41.559 --> 00:28:48.639 a new righteousness that is not ourselves, not our own good works, but a gift. 00:28:48.639 --> 00:28:51.000 Gift. 00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:56.799 Can you imagine giving a gift to someone who has spent their lives hating you and rejecting 00:28:56.799 --> 00:28:58.159 you? 00:28:58.160 --> 00:29:04.200 And yet that is the grace of God, he says, paid and fooled. 00:29:04.200 --> 00:29:06.240 And what is it? 00:29:06.240 --> 00:29:09.519 It's another exchange. 00:29:09.519 --> 00:29:10.840 It's another exchange. 00:29:10.840 --> 00:29:14.200 He says, I take your guilt. 00:29:14.200 --> 00:29:18.640 I take all that you can't do. 00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:24.200 And you take all that I've done. 00:29:24.200 --> 00:29:31.519 So that in the power of God, by the Spirit of God, as we are reborn by God, we can do 00:29:31.519 --> 00:29:35.000 all these things that sin stops us doing. 00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.960 We can worship Him, put Him first. 00:29:39.960 --> 00:29:45.160 We can believe the truth and not be deceived by the lie. 00:29:45.160 --> 00:29:51.360 And we can retain and look for the knowledge of God and not throw aside as being insignificant 00:29:51.360 --> 00:29:52.360 and unimportant. 00:29:52.359 --> 00:29:55.279 That is the gospel. 00:29:55.279 --> 00:29:58.599 There's great mystery there. 00:29:58.599 --> 00:30:03.439 There's great depth that we can't, I can't even begin to plumb. 00:30:03.439 --> 00:30:10.119 But let us not do the disservice of treating the gospel cheaply or lightly or insignificantly 00:30:10.119 --> 00:30:17.279 or casting God aside and saying, it's irrelevant for today or it's not the moral liberalism 00:30:17.279 --> 00:30:20.519 that we've come to believe and understand and know and see. 00:30:20.519 --> 00:30:28.279 But let us look with God's eyes and let us see His grace and His wholeness. 00:30:28.279 --> 00:30:31.319 And may He change your heart and mind. 00:30:31.319 --> 00:30:37.680 If you're not a Christian today, can I ask you to consider this diagnosis that God makes 00:30:37.680 --> 00:30:44.319 and see if you can see its truth reflected in your heart. 00:30:44.319 --> 00:30:52.839 Because Christians, let's not be self-righteous and let us not think we are better than we 00:30:52.839 --> 00:30:53.839 are. 00:30:53.839 --> 00:30:57.200 But may that not paralyze us. 00:30:57.200 --> 00:31:04.000 But may we move beyond it into seeing the impossible realities of becoming children of God and 00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:09.799 what that means being filled with the Spirit and the power of the risen Savior. 00:31:09.799 --> 00:31:10.799 Amen. 00:31:10.799 --> 00:31:11.799 Let's pray briefly. 00:31:11.799 --> 00:31:15.480 Father God, we thank You for who You are. 00:31:15.480 --> 00:31:20.519 Forgive us for not understanding You properly. 00:31:20.519 --> 00:31:23.799 Help us to reflect You simply. 00:31:23.799 --> 00:31:26.519 Grant us wisdom. 00:31:26.519 --> 00:31:32.639 Protect us from the evil one and His deceit and His lies. 00:31:32.639 --> 00:31:39.680 Keep us from seeking, consciously or unconsciously, seeking to be God's, which we so often do 00:31:39.680 --> 00:31:41.240 in our lives. 00:31:41.240 --> 00:31:45.039 So often see a world that revolves around us. 00:31:45.039 --> 00:31:48.839 We see problems revolving around us. 00:31:48.839 --> 00:31:53.200 It's all about us because we are on the throne. 00:31:53.200 --> 00:32:01.200 Lord, help us to see the freedom that comes from recognizing who You are and what You have 00:32:01.200 --> 00:32:08.359 done for us at the extent and the glory of the cross and the resurrection and the promises 00:32:08.359 --> 00:32:09.359 of God. 00:32:09.359 --> 00:32:14.279 May we plead them and live them today and in the days that lie ahead. 00:32:14.279 --> 00:32:15.759 We ask it in Jesus' name. 00:32:15.759 --> 00:32:42.759 Amen.