Why do we need the Gospel? Why do we need Jesus to save us? What’s wrong with us? Why the need to be rescued in the first place?
• These are important questions because unless we understand our plight, we will not appreciate the Gospel. It won’t be good news to us.
• Jesus: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mark 2:17 NIV)
• In other words, we are all sinners. We are sick with sin and in need of a doctor who can cure us of it and make us whole and righteous.
But the sick needs to know he is sick, only then will he finds a doctor for a cure.
• Some are ignorant, not knowing they are sick. They think they are fine. They are sinners in need of salvation but think they are fine, like the Pharisees.
• These are those who think they can cure themselves, believing that by their good deeds and self-efforts, they can be good.
• And then there are those who are not willing to find help. They are living in denial. They do not want to admit they are in need. Their ego is stopping them.
The Lord wants us to know the truth because only the truth can set us free. (John 8:32)
• We do not want to live in ignorance or in denial, pretending that we are well when we are not.
• We do not want pride or face-saving stops us from admitting our need.
• Deny the problem and nothing will be done. The virus will stay with us and we are going to live with it, for the rest of our life. Call sin a sin and you will have hope.
The first step to any recovery - from sin, sickness, bad habits or any addictions - is to ADMIT that we are powerless and in need of help.
• Then we will seek Jesus and experience the power of God for the salvation of our soul, to all who is willing to trust Him.
Paul explains in the next section - from Rom 1:18 to 3:20 – this sickness we have, the problem of sin in humanity.
• It is not a guilt trip. Paul is not trying to make us feel guilty about ourselves.
• He is giving us the true diagnosis of our real condition in the sight of God.
• Like a doctor holding up our MRI scan or X-ray and giving us a report of the state of our health.
Romans 1:18-23
18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For 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. 21For although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
God has given us evidence of His presence, in nature and creation.
• His unseen attributes of “eternal power and divine nature” have been made visible by the things created.
• Although this is a natural revelation - general in nature and not like the special revelation of the coming of Jesus Christ – it is enough to reveal God.
• Paul says it is plain to them, God has shown it, and He can be clearly perceived. They are without excuse.
Psalm 19:1-2 “1The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. 2Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.”
• If we examine creation, we will see the marks of the Creator. We are without excuse, Paul says.
When Paul and Barnabas were on their first missionary journey at Lystra, they healed a crippled man and the people wanted to make them gods – Acts 14.
• Acts 14:15-17 15“Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. 16In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. 17Yet 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.”
• God did not leave us without a witness from creation about Himself.
Benjamin B. Warfield has this interesting illustration.
He says it is like this glass-maker admiring the glass window. He analyses the glass, examining its quality, speculating on its composition, observing its defects and looking at the way it is framed.
All this while failing to look through the glass window and enjoy the wonderful display or great sights before him. Forgetting that the purpose of the window is for him to look through and not look at. The true purpose of the glass is being overlooked.
So is creation. It is not meant for us just to look at. Creation reveals the glory of God. Through creation, we see our Creator.
The problem is man’s rejection of God. Men ‘suppress the truth’ (1:18) and refuse to accept God as He has revealed Himself.
• The real problem is not the lack of revelation but the suppression of it.
• Why would men do that? If we go back to the Garden of Eden, we would understand. Men want to be gods.
• Men want the freedom to do things their way. Even when they make gods, that will still leave them as their gods. Men just want to rule.
With their rejection of God, men become ‘futile in their thinking’ and ‘darkened in their hearts’.
• They lost the one true bearings and the results are ungodliness and unrighteousness.
• Ungodliness is against God and unrighteousness being against men.
• Hence the wrath of God against ‘all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men’.
We must not think of God’s wrath like human anger. It is not.
• Our anger is often not right and not righteous. It’s self-centred, motivated by selfish, personal vengeance or a desire for revenge.
• God’s wrath is not personal; it is holy. It is directed at sin and evil.
• The truth is, we need it. We want God to judge evil and right what is wrong ultimately. It is a good thing. God’s wrath is just and righteous.
With men rejecting the revelation of God, they exchanged Him with something else.
• Three times the word ‘exchanged’ appears in this text.
1:23 men exchanged the glory of the immortal God for everything mortal - man, birds, animals and creeping things.
• From the immortal to the mortal, from the invisible to the visible, from the eternal to the temporal, from the Creator to the creatures.
• Imagine, making animals gods. And notice man is also in the list of creatures made to replace God. Men made themselves gods. We worship self.
• When we ‘suppress the truth’ about God, we can end up worshipping everything else in this world.
Prophet Isaiah gave this interesting remark about the stupidity of idolatry:
Isaiah 44:13-20 13The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house.
14He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it.
15Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it.
16Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!” 17And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”
18They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand. 19No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?”
20He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”
• Is not this thing a lie? (NIV: Is not this thing a lie?) The deluded heart exchanged the truth about God for a lie.
Romans 1:24-32
24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
Three times we see this: “God gave them up to…”, expressing the consequences of a life without God.
• Rejection of God leads to idolatry, immorality and pervasion of life.
• Men lost sense of what is true and right and good. They indulge in sexual impurity, shameful lusts and corrupt thinking.
• Sin affects every part of man — his body, emotions (passions), mind (will), desires — are corrupted by sin.
• Sin affects every aspect of his life — his relationships, his marriage, his family; practically all his connections with people.
• It destroys WHO they are and WHAT they do. It starts from rejecting the truth about God.
Read this line carefully. It is NOT God giving up on them but God gave them over to.
• God doesn’t give up on us, it is the man who gives up on God.
• But God will give us up to our wishes if we insist. “If you do not want Me and prefer to have all this stuff over me, then so be it.”
• Men want God to leave them alone and He will grant them their wishes. God hands sinners over to their sins.
Paul uses the word “exchanged” to describe it.
• 1:23 they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and animals; 1:25 they exchanged the truth of God for a lie; 1:26 they exchanged the natural relations for unnatural ones.
• Men have chosen to reject God and indulge in their own ways. This is rebellion against God.
I like to highlight two points from this text:
(1) The act of homosexuality is a sin; it is a pervasion. It is the giving up of the natural relations for the unnatural.
• 1:26 Paul calls it “dishonourable passions” (NIV shameful lust; NASB degrading passion). 1:27 “shameless acts” (NIV indecent acts).
• They “received in themselves the due penalty for their error” (NIV their pervasion).
• In order words, they will suffer for it; they will be punished because of it.
• What due penalty? The sexually transmitted diseases that come with it, like HIV/AIDS.
This long list of behaviours is the consequence of a godless life.
• It is unlikely that Paul just pick up these behaviours; he was likely listing out the lifestyles of the pagans he sees in the Greek-Roman world, from the Greek culture and paganistic Roman world.
• He named them openly because his readers see them in their society and understand. They can identify with these people.
(2) Notice that Paul also listed some “socially acceptable” sins like covetousness, gossips, insolent (being rude or disrespectful), haughty, boastful, disobeying parents.
• And these are listed along with murder, haters of God, inventors of evil, ruthless…
• If these are considered vices of Paul’s days, what about today? Think about that.
• I think it’s clear. Sin is sin, whether serious crimes or your pride. There is no big sin or small sin.
I was just thinking, we take so much efforts to ward off this COVID virus which can destroy our physical bodies and take away our lives, don’t you think we should put greater efforts into guarding our spiritual lives against the virus of sin?
• One is physical and temporal, the other is spiritual and eternal.
• In a sense, we have to mask ourselves from all impurities that can pollute our minds and our hearts.
• We have to wash frequently with the truth of His Word. Eph 5:26 says the Lord cleanses us by the washing of water through the Word.
• Psalm 119:9 “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your Word.”
• We have to disinfect the surroundings, ‘keeping ourselves pure and not share in the sins of others.’ (cf. 1 Tim 5:22)
• We keep a safe distance because Psalm 1 tells us not to stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. (Psa 1:1)
• Most importantly, we have to get the vaccine. We put our trust in Jesus Christ. 1 John 1:7 says “…the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Let us protect ourselves from sin with the same vigilance and diligence as we protect ourselves from COVID today.
Is there hope for these sinners? Yes, of course. And Paul knows that.
• He has already said it right at the beginning that the Gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.
• If they acknowledge their rejection and rebellion, repent and return to God, and place their trust in Jesus Christ, they will be saved and their lives changed.
• He is sure of this because he has met believers with transformed lives.
• Remember he was writing this letter (Romans) from Corinth:
Listen to what Paul wrote earlier on in 1 Cor 6:9-11
9Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
The evidence before him speaks for itself. Look at all these lives before him in Corinth!
• That’s Paul’s confidence in the Gospel and that is our confidence today.
• Although men are spiritually bankrupt before God, they are not hopelessly lost.
• God offers His grace and mercy when He sends us His Son, who took upon Himself the wrath of God against sin.
Men just need to turn to him, in humility and repentance.
• When we turn to Him in repentance and humility and receive His forgiveness.
• God let the blood of Christ be shed for the sins of the world, thus justifying us who believe and providing us access into His presence.
• Jesus died FOR sin so that we do not need to die IN sin and can now, by the grace of God, die TO sin and live a life in righteousness.
If we can believe a doctor when we tell him our condition; if we can believe a lawyer when we leave the case in his hands, and if we can trust a banker when we put our money with the bank, why can’t we trust our Saviour Jesus fully today?
• The simple answer is, we can, but are you WILLING to? Do you WANT to?
• As the text tells us today, it is not a question of the lack of revelation or evidence. It has to do with the condition of our hearts.
• Don’t suppress the truth; receive it gladly with a humble and willing heart. Let God change you!
PRAYER:
Forgive us, Lord. We have suppressed the truth, denied you and walked in our own ways. Now that we are in the light, keep us Lord, in the light by your sustaining grace. Help us stay humble and always dependent on you.
Sanctify us Lord by your Word. For your own Name’s sake, do what you need to do in our lives.
We remember the many who are still searching. Continue to knock on the doors of their hearts. Open their hearts and enlighten their minds. May they come to understand their need of you and experience your saving grace and love. We pray that day will come soon. We thank you in advance.
This we pray in your Name, AMEN.
