Keep sharing good news without ads.
No description available
I want to thank you for, give thanks to the elders for the invitation.
Tony and I have really enjoyed ourselves this weekend here with you. I want to thank you for your hospitality.
It is so encouraging to hear all the young voices reciting these large chunks of Scripture.
What a remarkable encouragement that is. What a wonderful sound that is to hear all those voices memorizing and reciting the
Word of the Lord. It's wonderful to see a church that is committed to the gospel in this difficult place, but also committed to the goodness of family and children and desiring to raise
Christian households. So that has been a great encouragement to Tony and I.
Turn with me please once again to Romans chapter 1. We will pick up where we left off, continuing this difficult section of this incredible book.
And it is difficult. I say it's difficult not because it is difficult to understand.
It's pretty clear, I think. But it's difficult in the way that it deals with the reality of this cursed world that we live in.
It's difficult because it is a clear revelation and description of the bad news that all mankind faces.
It's a clear description of the severity of the bad news, of the ubiquity of the bad news.
The bad news is everywhere. And by bad news, of course,
I mean the reality and the consequences of sin. The reality that makes the good news of Jesus Christ so powerfully bright in comparison.
And it's the bad news that makes the gospel of Jesus Christ so wonderful and so necessary.
But our section here this morning continues to focus on the bad news.
The Apostle Paul wants to make sure that there are no misunderstandings. He does not want the church in Rome to have any misunderstandings or uncertainties when it comes to man's relationship to sin.
Now, this is especially seen in the world outside the church, especially those whose lives seem determined to reflect the exact opposite of God's law and of God's created order.
They act this way, they rebel against God, they exchange the glory of God for the world and for lies, not out of ignorance, but out of a conscious, willing suppression of and rejection of the truth.
The truth that there is a God. The truth that God has revealed and given to His creation standards of obedience for them.
And He both deserves and demands their worship and obedience.
But man willfully rejects this. Man rejects God in unrighteousness, and so God, as we saw yesterday morning, gives them up to their sinful desires.
That is the core reality of sin. It is a willful refusal to acknowledge
God as God. John Piper has a quote about the true nature of sin that is a bit long, but I think it ties in very well to the picture of sin portrayed here in Romans 1.
He asks the question, what is sin? It is the glory of God not honored, the holiness of God not reverenced, the greatness of God not admired, the power of God not praised, the truth of God not sought, the wisdom of God not esteemed, the beauty of God not treasured, the goodness of God not savored, the faithfulness of God not trusted, the commandments of God not obeyed, the justice of God not respected, the wrath of God not feared, the grace of God not cherished, the presence of God not prized, and the person of God not loved.
That is sin. An unrighteous man knows this and suppresses this truth.
He suppresses what is known to him about who God is, and he suppresses what he knows about how he is to respond to this knowledge and to the
Lord. And so God gives them up to their sin. As a form of his righteous wrath and judgment, he gives them up to the lusts of their hearts.
He gives them up to dishonorable passions. And as we'll see in our text this morning, he gives them up to a debased mind.
What we saw yesterday morning in verses 21 through 27 was the lusts and the dishonorable passions manifested in unnatural affections and relations.
What we'll see today is how all -encompassing God's wrath is when it is revealed in unrighteous man.
We're going to see this as Paul will give us a list of things that ought not to be done.
They ought not to be done because they are a counter -opposite to God's holy standard.
And yet, these things are done all the time in this sinful world.
These are reflections of this sinful world that we live in.
But if we are not careful, these can very easily creep their way and find their way into the church.
The church must be aware of these unrighteous acts and not only call them what they actually are, but actively guard against them.
Actively work together with one another to mortify these sins in our hearts.
Now, yes, again, this is a weighty text because, remember, this is the bad news.
But praise the Lord that there is good news. The good news of the gospel frees you from living under the tyranny of sin.
For you who are in Christ, there is forgiveness, there is freedom from these things.
And because of that, we praise the Lord for His grace. Even as our flesh, even as these elements of sinful and unrighteous man seek to creep up in our lives, even as in the church we are redeemed, we are forgiven, we are saved, we are washed, we are cleansed.
But these things still try to creep in. But through the power of the gospel, we can identify them, mortify them, and walk in righteousness.
So let's look at our text. I'm gonna begin reading in verse 24, and I'll continue through the end of the chapter.
Therefore, God gave them up in the lust 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. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions.
For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And 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.
And 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.
They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.
They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.
They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
Though 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.
Father, once again, we're humbled before your word. We thank you for its clarity. We thank you for its authority.
Lord, I ask that you would give us ears to hear the goodness and truth of your word. I pray,
Father, that you would, by the power of your spirit, give us the ability to search our hearts for any of these things that are listed here, that we might deal with our sin in a way that shows that we acknowledge our sinfulness before you, we acknowledge the sacrifice that Christ has made on our behalf, and that we desire to live lives that reflect the calling of Christ and that he has given to us.
Father, help us to understand in humility and reverence here this morning. And it's in Christ's name we pray.
Amen. So now in verse 28, we find ourselves at the third of these three references that Paul gives to the action of God's judgment towards unrighteous man.
In verse 24, God gives unrighteous man up to the lusts of his heart, to impurity.
Verse 26, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. And now in verse 28,
God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
And as we see, there is a reason, there's an explanation, there's a justification for all three of these.
You see it in the language that Paul uses here. Therefore, God gave them up.
For this reason, God gave them up. We've covered these reasons in the first two already, and you can see them right there in the text.
The reason for this third mention of God giving them up is the fact that unrighteous man does not see fit to acknowledge
God. And acknowledge is an interesting word. There's a root word in there, acknowledge.
The root word is glaring, right? That word is knowledge. But knowledge is a noun.
To acknowledge something is not just knowledge. To acknowledge something is an action. Acknowledge is a verb.
It's something that one does. Knowledge is a thing that is possessed. But to acknowledge something is to respond to the knowledge that one has.
A biblical definition of acknowledge is to declare that one recognizes the claim of a person or thing fully established.
Unrighteous man does not declare or recognize the claims of God as God.
He does not recognize the claim of his Creator as having the authority of a
Creator, of his Creator. He doesn't see fit to acknowledge
God. He would rather acknowledge the creation. He would rather acknowledge some contrary system or some small and tiny idol.
Or most of the time, this is a reflection of the fact that he would rather just acknowledge himself as having sovereign authority over himself.
Because of this, therefore, since this is how they view
God, God in his righteous mind gives them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
And of course, it is a reflection of a debased mind to not acknowledge God for who he is anyways.
But unrighteous man, as they do this, God then, in his wrath, in his judgment, gives them what they want.
He gives them over to it. And I think it's remarkable both how true this verse is that those with a debased mind do what ought not to be done.
I also think it's remarkable how aggressively the world would disagree with this verse. With the very premise and idea that there is a known ought that exists that man should pay mind to.
That there are things that man ought not to do. That very premise is so contrary to modern man's thinking.
How dare you tell me what I can or can't do? How dare you tell me that there is an ought that I should listen to and obey?
And the things that they think ought not to be done are the exact opposite of what God says ought not to be done.
It's not that they don't have their oughts. It's that their oughts are the exact opposite of God's.
That is the clear distinction in the world today between unrighteous man and a holy
God. The fact that there is a disorder regarding morality, regarding the ought, is a direct reflection of what
Paul is referring to here in this passage. Unrighteous man wants nothing to do with God, and so God gives them exactly what they want.
And since they want nothing to do with God, they want nothing to do with his moral standard, and they do what ought not to be done.
Now, we've already talked about how this is reflected in their rejection of the created order.
With sexual perversity that Paul referenced in the preceding verses. I mean, how can we look at the sexual degradation in society, including the desire to remove the very distinctions between man and woman, and not see how it's all an abject rejection of God, of his holy standard, and of his created order?
You can actually see in real time the effects of God giving sinners over to their sin.
But even though Paul makes a point to specifically reference the dishonorable passions and the lusts first, cultural sexual depravity is not the only evidence of God giving a people over to their sinful desires.
This is what we see in verses 29 through 31. Paul lists 20 specific vices that are evident when
God gives one over to a debased mind. There are 20 things listed here that ought not to be done.
And there are some doozies in here. Murder. Agreed.
Ought not to be done. Maliciousness. No, we should not be malicious towards one another.
Haters of God. To us, yes, that sounds bad. We should not be a hater of God. Heartless.
Ruthless. Things like that we would look at and say, yes, obviously those are bad. But in this same list, and given no scale as to being worse or better, you have things like covetousness.
Gossips. And the one that may have stood out to you as we read this passage, disobedient to parents.
Cue all the parents side -eyeing their kids. Now remember, what
Paul is saying is not that anyone who sins in these ways is necessarily under the judgmental wrath of God.
But when they are given over to a debased mind, these are patterns in their life.
And yet as believers, as saved, justified, redeemed followers of Christ, there remains the possibility and temptation that you will sin before a holy
God. I dare say there's probably no one in this room that reads through this list and can say, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, not me, not me, not me.
There's things in here that even believers struggle with, wrestle with, deal with.
You might find yourself tempted to gossip. You might find yourself coveting, being envious, being boastful.
You may even on a bad day find yourself disobeying your parents. Now when this takes place in the life of the believer, there is a particular response that should be seen in the heart, in the life of that believer.
And that response is the response of repentance. We acknowledge the sin before God.
We acknowledge our guilt of that sin. We commit to turn from it, to turn towards Christ.
We confess our sins. And Scripture promises that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
That is walking in repentance. Because when a Christian sins, he acknowledges, there's that word again, he acknowledges his sin before God, confesses it before God, and secures his faith in the cleansing power of the shed blood of Christ.
That's the good and normal practice of Christians who find themselves struggling with sin.
So this list is not a full -blown condemnation of all who do these things. Repentance is available.
Forgiveness is available in Christ. But here in this context, we don't see repentance.
We don't see the gospel having yet had its effect on those who do this. Because this is unrighteous man.
God has given these people over to their sins to the point that they don't desire repentance.
They don't acknowledge God as God. They don't acknowledge His authority. They don't think they've done anything wrong against this
God that they do not acknowledge because they don't hate this sin.
They love it. They don't desire repentance. They desire more of this.
They feel empty without their sin. And so Paul says that they fill themselves with it.
They are filled with all manner of unrighteousness. And right there with that statement, they're filled with all manner of unrighteousness,
Paul makes it clear that this list he is going to give is not all -encompassing. Paul makes other lists of sins.
For example, in Galatians 5, and there are some that are listed here that are not listed there, and some there that are not listed here.
The human capacity and ability to develop all kinds, all manners of unrighteousness is remarkably endless.
I think that's why Paul includes the phrase inventors of evil here. Think about that.
They're so filled with their passion for unrighteousness that they actually set about and determine to invent new ways to be evil.
There will never be a fixed list of the potential sins of man because unrighteous man is so depraved they will find new ways to invent new evils.
And so things will keep being added to the list. They get creative with their sin.
They get creative with evil. And they're filled with all manner of unrighteousness.
Paul uses this imagery in other places about being filled with things. Unrighteous man here is filled with all manner of unrighteousness.
He uses the same language in Ephesians 5 .18 when he says, and do not get drunk with wine, which is debauchery, which would fit in nicely with the
Romans 1 list, but is not included. He says, don't get drunk with wine, but be filled with the
Spirit. And then there in the following verses of Ephesians 5, you see evidence of what it looks like to be filled with the
Holy Spirit. Addressing one another with psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, singing, making melody to the
Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. And then as you continue in Ephesians, that leads directly into how husbands and wives should treat one another.
How children and parents should relate to one another in the Lord. How slaves and masters should relate to one another when they are filled with the
Holy Spirit. When they're not filled with all manners of unrighteousness.
You take that, Ephesians 5 leading into Ephesians 6, and you contrast to all of that listed here in Romans 1.
Contrast being filled with the Holy Spirit with being filled with all manner of unrighteousness. And your heart breaks for those that are insistent on abiding in their unrighteousness.
There's no regard for God. They don't honor Him as God.
They don't acknowledge Him as God. And that's why you see things listed here in Romans 1 as they are haters of God.
Insolent, which means rude. Arrogantly disrespectful. And that certainly applies to how unrighteous man views
God. Foolish is listed here. We talked about how foolish the exchange that was being made was yesterday.
But the Bible speaks quite a bit about fools, about foolishness. The fool says in his heart, there is no
God. And here is the result. Unrighteous man is haughty.
They're proud before God. And they are faithless. So there's no regard for God here in this list.
There's also no regard for others. Envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, gossips, slanderers, boastful, heartless, ruthless.
Just about all of these reflect how those filled with unrighteousness have no regard for others.
We talked about the first law last night.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself. Unrighteous man does not love his neighbor as himself.
He does not know how to do this because he doesn't understand what love is. Scripture says that Christ demonstrates his love for us and that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us. This sacrificial giving example of love, unrighteous man loves only himself.
So others are there for their use, for their benefit only. Which is why envy, murder, strife, deceit, gossip, slandering.
That's why these are characteristics of unrighteous man. And of course we already saw the evidence that they have no regard for themselves as created in God's image as they pursue sexual depravity and degradation.
When you have a regard for God, when you acknowledge God for who he is, as creator, authority, standard, you will by necessity then also have a healthy regard for yourselves and for others.
Someone says, I love God and then hates their neighbor, they both cannot be true.
When you do not acknowledge God, you will find that you are unable to have a healthy regard for anything worth having a healthy regard for.
Now, I do just want to spend some deeper time with one of these. We really could spend quite a bit of time working through these and showing how they directly reflect against the character of God.
But I want to look at one of these. We have to again point out the fact that disobedient to parents is included on this list.
But why? Well, it's because we think we know what real sins are.
Right? Murder, yes, that's a sin. Don't do that.
We all agree murder is sin. Evil is on this list.
I hope we would all say, amen, evil is sin. Not good.
Inventors of evil, not good. Haters of God, not good before a holy God. We think we know what sins are, and those are sins that we believe and understand why we see
Paul later say in Romans 6 that the wages of sin is death. Someone commits murder, the wages of sin is death.
Someone hates God, the wages of sin is death. Someone disobeys their parents, whoa, wait a minute.
It's challenging to think of our children who, I don't know about you,
I have seen my children disobey me once or twice. But it's hard to think of them, therefore, as now being worthy of the judgment of God to the degree that Paul speaks of in Romans 6.
The wages of that sin is death, because here it is in this same category.
This really should not surprise us, though. What is the fifth commandment way back in Exodus?
Honor your mother and father. God has cared from the very beginning that children should obey their parents.
In the Lord, for this is right. And you see in God's law in Deuteronomy 21, the people are instructed to stone to death a persistently rebellious son.
That's a hard passage. Now, I don't believe that the text there is talking about three -year -olds.
If it were, there would be no four -year -olds. What about a 13 -year -old?
What about a 14 -year -old who is persistently, aggressively disobedient to parents?
In Jewish culture, 13 years old is seen as the mark of manhood. My point is this.
God cares very much about children obeying their parents.
And God's word makes it very clear that a child who disobeys their parents, particularly as they grow older, that is sin.
And it is not a sin that should just be overlooked. It is a sin that, just like any other sin, should be named and dealt with.
A child who rebels against his parents, a child who hates the parents that he can see, is rebelling against and dishonoring the
Lord whom he cannot see. So yes, a culture, a people, where the children are known for their disobedience to parents, where it's accepted, it's expected, it's a culture and a people that God has given up to their sin.
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. It is an ought.
It is an ought that you should do. But just like every other sin, when we are deceitful, when we are envious, when we are covetous, the gospel is powerful to save, to cleanse, and to redeem.
And certainly the same is true for children disobeying the parents. Parents, you have an incredible opportunity, probably more frequently than you wish you did, to show your children the clear, powerful standard of God's holiness and the amazing grace that is offered in the gospel when they disobey.
I don't know that I need to explain or elaborate, as I said, on each of these sins. They're fairly clear and understandable.
If there's one that you have a question on, I'm sure Ross and the elders would be able to elaborate or clarify on those for you.
One other reminder about this chapter and the verse headings in Scripture, they're not inspired.
They were added many years later. For the most part, they make sense and they're very helpful. Though sometimes, feel free to read in the middle of one chapter or the middle of another, just to change things up.
Don't feel like you're obligated to read just by the chapters and verses. But I have to wonder, when this chapter was numbered, why was verse 31 numbered the way it was?
Verse 31, I use the ESV. I realize I think you guys use the New King James, so I appreciate you bearing with me, looking at the
ESV. In the ESV, verse 31 has four words, foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless.
What's it in the New King James? Okay, so five words.
Interesting. That's verse 31. I love that you guys are memorizing a large chunk of verses from Joshua.
There's a clear, consistent theme in that. You know, someone says, hey, have you ever memorized
Romans 1 .31? It's just this list of four or five sins before the
Lord. I find that interesting. You might be like, okay, what's the point, Ken?
Well, there are definitely some categorical similarities to these four.
These are heart matters more so than actions. They can be manifest in different ways, but these are root heart issues, root sins that begin in the spiritual part of unrighteous man and reflect a fullness with all manner of unrighteousness.
They clearly belong on this list. I don't know if they belong on their own verse, but consider these from the
ESV, these four sins, foolishness, faithlessness, heartlessness, and ruthlessness.
How would a loving, gracious God change the person that is given over to those root sins?
How would God change a foolish man? He would make him wise.
How would God change a faithless man? He would give him the gift of faith.
How would God change a heartless and ruthless man? He would show him his own love and compassion towards him and then give him the ability to love others as Christ has loved him.
Give him the ability to show compassion towards others. And he would make him merciful.
Because a man who was these things but found forgiveness in Christ would rightly understand the depth of mercy that he had received from Christ.
He would rightly understand that these are root issues of the flesh that must be mortified.
He would understand that life and freedom in Christ abound to those who are washed in the blood of the
Lamb. And so these heart issues, foolishness, faithlessness, heartlessness, ruthlessness, don't let them be found in your church.
They are a direct opposite reflection of the kind of transforming power that the gospel has in the life of the believer.
And these are the kind of sins that can really tear down and destroy relationships in the unity of the church.
Verse 32. Paul, in the beginning of this section, he made it crystal clear that man knows
God. God has revealed himself to man. Even if not by name,
God has at least revealed his divine power, his creative ability. He has revealed his presence to man.
And he's also revealed to man elements of truth about who he is, about what man ought to do.
And there's something very interesting here in this last verse. Paul makes a very, I think it's a fairly provocative claim.
He claims that unrighteous man knows that the punishment for his sin, the sin that he loves, the sin that God gives him over to, the punishment for his sin is death.
Paul says that unrighteous man knows this and it doesn't make any difference to them.
It does not make an impact on them whatsoever. In fact, the opposite happens.
Though they know God's righteous decree, we could certainly spend more time on the decree of God.
They know God's righteous decree and that decree is this. Those who practice such things, all these things that we've seen back since the beginning of verse 18, they know
God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die.
Sinners, on account of their sin before a holy and righteous God, deserve to die.
And Paul's saying here, they know it. They know it. They suppress the truth and unrighteousness, but they know it.
They know that their actions have eternal consequences. They know in some way that they have wronged the judge of all creation, that they have sinned against their creator, and therefore justice must be served.
They deserve to die. Paul says they know this.
It is something else to hear people talk about what they deserve. You hear it all the time.
I deserve this, that, or the other better thing. I don't deserve this or that negative thing that has happened to me.
Those who have tasted and seen of the goodness of the Lord, those who know of God's holiness, those who know of their own sin before a holy
God, know that the only thing that we deserve is death. And so we praise the
Lord for His grace, for His mercy. Paul says that sinners know that they deserve it.
They deserve the just punishment for their sins because they know
God exists. They know that He is in authority over them. They know that they're disobeying
Him. And if they know this, it follows that they would then know that they're guilty before Him.
And they even know the sentence that must be carried out. Now Paul says they suppress the knowledge of God, the truth of God.
They don't acknowledge it. They ignore it. They worship the creation rather than the creator.
And yet the knowledge of the sentence that they deserve, the knowledge of the sentence that is coming, it doesn't change their behavior.
In fact, it leads them to give approval to the wicked behavior of those around them who do the same thing.
They hate God so much. They hate the fact that He exists.
They hate the fact that He has an authority over them. They hate the life that God has given them.
They hate the fact that God has sovereignty over that life. They hate it so much that they chase death.
And they're so full of hate that as they chase death, they are just reaching and grabbing to bring anyone and everyone along with them.
We see this all the time. There are some in our church that, on as many
Saturday mornings as we can, will go to the city of Attleboro. There is an abortion mill there.
And we'll go and we'll be a presence trying to call out to the women to not murder their babies.
But over the last year or two, there's been a coordinated, aggressive effort of those that are in favor of abortion to gather there and counter -protest those of us that are there.
We call them the pink hats because they coordinate and wear...
They're all in pink, which is so bizarre because of the amount of little baby girls that are being murdered in that place.
But they gather there together, and they are the very personification of Romans 1.
Paul says that they know the truth. And you can stand there and listen to them for 10 minutes, and you can think, they have no idea who
God is. They have no idea what God's righteous standard is. But Paul says that they absolutely do.
They know. They know who God is, but they hate him.
And because of that, they give approval to those who do these wicked things up to and including murder.
They literally shout their approval of it. They actively and aggressively resist anyone who is trying to plead with these women to not go and commit murder, to not kill their children.
But these people absolutely affirm it, endorse it, insist upon their ability to do it.
They have to. Because if they remain silent for too long, then the truth that they're suppressing might just break through into their darkened hearts.
And they can't have that in their hatred of God. They do not approve of God.
They do not acknowledge God. They do not approve of his righteousness. So what they do approve of is those who practice the evil acts that are referenced here.
And they shout their approval of it at the top of their lungs every chance they get.
But apart from God's intervening grace, even though they affirm the wicked and unrighteous acts, even as they affirm them, they will eventually share the same judgment from a holy
God, apart from God's intervening grace in the
Gospel. The approval that is given to those who do these wicked acts is seen as especially troubling here.
And it is very troubling when wicked acts are approved by others, which is why the
Church must be very careful to guard against a tendency to be soft towards sin.
The Church must never give approval to sin. You, individually, in your heart, must never give approval to sin.
In your home, you must never give approval to sin, despite the powerful and constant pressure from society and culture, maybe even loved ones, to do so.
Remember, a year or two ago, it might have even been longer, Alistair Begg got into trouble for encouraging a grandmother to go to her grandchild's wedding, despite the fact that her grandchild was a homosexual.
Begg said, you should absolutely go. You should bring them a gift so they can know that you love them and that you're there for them, and maybe you can have an opportunity to share the gospel with them.
He felt sorry for this grandmother. He wanted the grandmother to have a relationship with her grandchild that was focused on love so that maybe, one day, the grandmother might be able to lead their grandchild to repentance.
It was pretty controversial. And you hear Alistair's heart in that.
And you think, well, yeah, that's a good and loving heart. But the problem is, that counsel seems to be a direct contradiction to this verse here.
Grandma's presence is going to equal approval, whether that's her intent or not, whether she wants to admit it or not.
You can love your family. You can love your friends. Maybe, as your children get older, you're forced to make this kind of distinction.
You love your child, but you cannot approve of their actions. You cannot approve of sin in their life.
It could be your parents. It could be a spouse. You can love those who do these things, but we must not ever give approval to those who practice these things.
We must call sin, sin.
Because if we do not call sin what it is, if we do not call sin, sin, then the cure will not have its desired and intended effect.
One of our elders recently, last year, went through a non -Hodgkin's lymphoma diagnosis and disease and went through all the chemotherapy and the doctor's orders to go through, and he's on the other side, and we praise the
Lord for that. But when the doctor said, I'm sorry, but you have non -Hodgkin's lymphoma, it would have been very foolish of Ron to look at the doctor and say,
How dare you? Why would you say that to me? That's unloving.
That's unkind. It would have been foolish for him to say that. He needed the doctor to rightly diagnose his condition so that the cure could be applied.
Sinners need to know that they are sinners. Even though they do know this, even though they don't acknowledge
God, they know that they are sinners, the Spirit needs to bring that out of their unrighteous suppression so that they can find grace and forgiveness in Christ.
We must call sinners to repentance. We must call them to holiness in Christ. We must call them to be filled with the
Spirit rather than filled with all manner of unrighteousness. We must faithfully remind them with concerned compassion that those who practice such things as are listed here deserve to die.
We don't say this from a position of better morality. We say this because we have also done these things, but we have found forgiveness and freedom and reconciliation in Christ.
We must remind them that 2 ,000 years ago, Jesus Christ took the death that sinners deserve.
He took that death upon himself despite his never knowing, never acting in any way that is referenced here.
He experienced that death in your place, in excruciating agony on a wooden cross so that those who believe in his name could have forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
That's the good news of the gospel. That's what they need to hear. And when they hear that, when we are faithfully proclaiming that to them, the gospel is powerful enough that it can take their unrighteous suppression of the truth and it can decimate that and the truth can rise up in their hearts and they can hear and know and believe.
That's the good news of the gospel. It's the power of the gospel that in Christ and in Christ alone, there is life today and life to come.
But apart from Christ, there is only unrighteousness. And it's God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die.
The gospel is an absolute, eternal matter of life and death.
The bad news is that bad, but the good news is that good.
Praise God that Christ has won the victory over sin and death and that he is the way, the truth, and the life.
And as you go forward as a church, keep short accounts of sin, call sin what it is, repent of it, glory in the gospel and the grace of Christ, and then continue to call unrighteous man to repent.
Let's pray. Father, we confess before you even now,
Lord, how often we fail in succumbing to the temptation to participate in these unrighteous acts that are mentioned here and elsewhere in your word.
Father, we confess that we are sinners before you. Even knowing the gospel, even knowing the goodness of Christ, Lord, we still wrestle with our flesh.
We wrestle with that old man. We wrestle with the temptation to not glorify you in everything that we say and do.
We wrestle with the idols that form in our hearts. So, Father, we pray and ask that the power of the gospel, that same power that redeemed us and justified us, would sanctify us,
Lord. Would help us grow in righteousness, would help us grow in holiness, would help us grow in our understanding of sin, help us to recognize it, help us to root it out, that we might walk as Christ did.
Father, we know that that is our goal, but we know that we will fail, and so we trust you,
Lord. We trust that you will be gracious, you will be kind, and you will give us your spirit to guide and direct and prod and provoke.
Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the light that it is to our path. I pray,
Father, that if there is anyone here that is still locked and mired in their unrighteousness, that they would hear the truth of freedom in the gospel of Jesus Christ and believe today.
Lord, we are humbly grateful for the gospel. We know,
Father, that apart from it, we deserve nothing but death. So we thank you for the life that we have in Christ, and it's in his name that we pray.