A couple of weeks ago, we started a study of the Letter to the Romans. We noted that the main message of the letter is the Good News of Jesus Christ. Please open your Bibles to Romans Chapter 1…. look with me v16-17….
God through the Apostle Paul declares what the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ, can do! The Gospel has the power of God to save people from judgment of their sins. Does God have a right to judge and why??
God is the Creator of all things, therefore, He has the right to judge everything including us! Like a sculptor who finds a problem with what he is sculpting, the sculptor has a right to do whatever he wants with what he is creating! God has a right to judge everything!
But from the very beginning, because God is love, God already had a solution from the judgment of sin! God allowed Jesus Christ who is God Himself to die for people’s sin. Believing in Jesus Christ cleanses one of all their sins! The Gospel provides a way to be saved from judgment and makes one right with God! The Gospel is not just good news, it is great news!!
How personal is God and this Gospel to you and me? Let us all take a moment to quietly humble ourselves before our Creator God. Let us bow our hearts before our Creator and give thanks for Jesus Christ who is our only Savior and Righteousness! Put on the Belt of Truth and the Breastplate of Righteousness…………
Let us now continue to learn about God and how sinful all people can be. Please open your Bibles to Romans 1:18-24 and read along with me………….
This Letter to the Romans 2000 years ago is supposed to be about the Good News! Why is God speaking about wrath? Verse 18 states that the wrath of God is being revealed! The original Greek word for wrath does not have the meaning of rage but it is the temper of God towards sin. It is not uncontrolled anger but it is a wrath with reason!
Look carefully at v18. What is the focus of God’s wrath?
The wrath is against all the godlessness and wickedness of people. God’s wrath is not directed at people. God’s wrath is against people’s sin. But let us take note right now, people are infected with sin and are carriers of sin! Unless a person
is cleansed of the infection of sin and no longer carry sin in God’s eyes, God’s wrath will be on that person. And because God is eternal and God created people with eternal souls, God’s wrath on sin carriers will be eternal!
How do people become carriers of sin? How do people become ungodly and wicked? We can note three facts in our passage today how people become ungodly and wicked. What do we read in v18?
People become ungodly and wicked because they #1 – suppress the truth. And the word of God tells us how people suppress the truth. People suppress the truth by ignoring what God has made plain to them! What has God made plain to people??
God created the world and the universe for all to see!!
And what does verse 20 tells us what people can see with the creation of the universe??
God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, are clearly seen in creation!
Picture yourself for a moment in the middle of the night and the sky is full of stars; and maybe you’re even see shooting stars. Can you picture that? Some of you may even have seen the Northern Lights! How do you think the universe declare God’s eternal power??
Scientists today tell us that the universe has no edge! We can not even imagine how big the universe is! Some will tell you a “Big Bang” started it all. Where did the stuff for the Big Bang come from? Who started the Big Bang? At some point in all our wonder and questioning about the universe, one will be challenged with a powerful God! Every person has a choice, believe in God or not believe.
Maybe this is a harder question; How do you think the universe declare God’s divine nature??
In the midst of all the physics, energy, and turbulence in the universe, there is purity, harmony, and order! And remember when we talked about Genesis 1? The earth was created first, then the entire universe was created. God created the earth for people to live on and the entire universe was created for people to enjoy!! What does this indicate about God to people? God loves people!
How do we know God exists? If anyone has doubts about God, tell them to look and wonder at the universe!
God can be seen in creation!!!
The universe declares Your majesty! You are Holy! You are Holy! God, You are Lord of heaven and earth!
And so, how do people become ungodly and wicked?; they suppress the truth! And how do they suppress the truth; they will say, “God does not exist!!!” God is plain to see, but God has given power to every person the ability to chose to believe or not believe in God!
Suppressing the truth = God does not exist!!!
We must know how to reason with people the existence of God. You may want to go back to our study of apologetics.
Remember, first of all, there is Cosmological Truth which says, Every known thing has a cause and the cause of great things such as the universe is God!
Let’s move on quickly to the second truth how people become ungodly and wicked. We read in Romans 1:21, For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him. How important is worship? How important is thanksgiving to God? If we neglect worship of God, especially on Sundays, and if we forget giving thanks to God, we are in danger of being ungodly and wicked!
And now look again at v25……
People will become ungodly and wicked when they exchange the truth of God for a lie, and worship and serve created things rather than the Creator!
Now, we can easily point fingers at people who worship statues!
But worship is about placing something of worth above anything else. We spend much time in what we worship.
How many of you know people who worship other people??
How many of you know people who worship nature??
How many of you know people who worship money??
How many of you know people who worship entertainment??
How many of you know people who worship machines??
If we worship anyone or anything above God, we will be ungodly and wicked! This is not good news is it?
As we study the Letter to the Romans, let us always remember that there is Good News for all people!
But before we can truly understand the Good News, we must know the Bad News. The Bad News?
God has wrath against sin! God hates sin!
Now, Anyone of us never guilty of any sin in v18-25?
We have all done it at one time or more in our lives, haven’t we? All of us have suppressed the truth! All of us have ignored worshiping God or giving thanks to Him! All of us at one time or another, replaced God with something else!
We are all guilty of sin and the bad news is God’s wrath will be on those who are not cleansed of sins!
Thanks be to God, there is Good News: God loves people!
Let us close by talking about how we can share this Good News of God. How do we share the good news?
1. Believe that there is a God!!
We must all personally be convinced that there is a God and be ready to give reasons why. I challenge you to know 5 reasons for the existence of God. We need to help people believe that there is a Holy and Powerful God! If we can not have people agree with us that there is a God, then they will never believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ because they think they have no need for it.
But not only is God Holy and Powerful, we need to tell people that 2. God is love!
God created you and me out of love! God desires to share Himself, His Holiness, His Power, His Joy, His Beauty, and Eternity to everyone!
But we need to tell people that there is bad news.
3. God has to judge sin! God has to judge the sinner!
The person who has not been cleansed of their sins will face the eternal wrath of God! God has reserved hell for eternal judgment on those who still carries sin.
How can this happen? Here's an illustration. Let say there is an outbreak of ebola virus right here. The virus interferes with the cells lining the interior surface of blood vessels and with coagulation. The ebola virus will destroy your blood and eventually kill you!
But then someone comes in and says “I have the vaccine to cure you of the ebola virus and it is free for the taking!”
Many of us will believe and receive that vaccine won’t we?
But there will be some who will believe there is no virus!
They will find reasons to reject the truth, and will not see the need for the cure. And of course sadly they will eventually find out the truth but it will be too late as they face death.
But they chose to reject the truth didn’t they?
God has given us a vaccine for all our sins, His Name is Jesus Christ! Know and memorize John 3:16! Tell people to believe in Jesus Christ who paid the penalty for all our sins. But please, don’t stop there, we need to tell people that certainly Jesus Christ is Savior but He is also God, who we must worship and obey!
