When God Gives Up

Over the last few weeks, we've been hopping around certain parts of scripture. It's a great freedom that I have every now and then between series to preach these once off sermons that I just have a sense God would want us to hear. And as I was driving here this morning, I was reflecting on today's message in the scheme of what has been preached the last month or month and a half. And one of the key themes that has come through is God's glory. God's glory.

A few weeks ago, we looked at Romans 5, the joy that we as Christians can have in God's glory, delighting in God's majestic victory over sin and death that we can participate in. That is the Christian's greatest joy. But this morning, we look at a passage that talks about humanity's greatest attempt to tarnish God's glory. Humanity's greatest attempt to tarnish God's glory. A few years ago, one of the big universities in England had a Christian student group much like the ones we have here at Griffith University or University of Queensland.

A Christian group who decided to attempt to share the gospel in a very powerful, influential way. They had the words of Romans 1:18 printed up and distributed amongst all the students on campus. It was printed as though it had been written, however, in the twenty first century. So no Bible mentioned, no references to the Bible are made, just the words. It was distributed throughout the whole university.

And it wasn't too long before the university authorities called in the council members of this Christian student group and told them in no uncertain terms that they would be censored for their offensiveness. The university authorities demanded that they produce the author of this offensive piece of writing so that they may bar them from publication in the university. And the students obviously pointed them to the Bible and couldn't direct them to the author of that apart from telling them it was God. But I've been in similar situations where this strong reaction to God's word has been received. Now we may come to these same words this morning and also be offended.

Just like the university authorities were, we might cringe as we read these words and as I read those long lists of sin out. And just as each word came up, I just cringed a little bit, just felt uncomfortable at hearing them. And we could squirm at the thought of liberal teenagers and young adults on a university campus hearing these words and just think, they would balk at this idea. They would reject this out of hand. But Paul's response in writing these words was never to stroke our backs.

He certainly had no intention of saying, you are doing as well as any other era in history has done and I am comfortably pleased with you. Now this whole purpose in him writing this passage is a driving logic that begins from Romans 1:18 where we started and ends in Romans 3:20. He sets something up and it is this: to shut up proud mouths and to demonstrate to all of us that all of us without exception are guilty and by nature under the condemnation and the judgment seat of God. Paul says in Romans chapter 3 and he quotes Isaiah that no one is righteous, not even one. And so it shouldn't surprise us that the message of the gospel, which this is, Paul introduces Romans as the gospel.

It shouldn't surprise us that the message of the gospel when it comes to self sufficient university students would be offensive. But Paul well understands that until the truth of Romans 1:18 to Romans 3:20 has penetrated every heart and every mind and every conscience to the point where our mouths are shut and we cease to make excuses for ourselves and stand and put up a hand in the law court of God and say, I am guilty. Not until that moment has happened will these words need to be shared and spread and communicated. Paul's concern before he brings us in the good news of Jesus is to help us to understand the reason why it is good news. And indeed, he says here, you notice in Romans 1:20 that we are by nature inexcusable.

We are by nature inexcusable for not fulfilling day by day, fulfilling truly to honour God inwardly and outwardly before Almighty God and blessing Him for His glory because the world from the first day has known God exists. And the result, he says in chapter 1, verse 18, is that the wrath of God is being revealed. And notice what tense that is happening in, present tense. The wrath of God is revealed. The average man or woman in the street and potentially even the average man or woman in the visible church, the church as it exists in human terms, thinks that where God is going to reveal His wrath is at the end of time, if at all.

But what Paul is saying is that against the unrighteousness and ungodliness of men and women, God's wrath is being revealed if we only had the eyes to see it and the mind to understand it. And he does this and he reveals this and he stresses this by repetition, by refrains. And we saw that in Romans 5, he did the same thing. Wonderfully powerful ways of making the point. Two courses running through these verses from verses 18 to 32.

The first refrain, the first repetition that he uses is the word exchange. In this reality of humanity, an exchange takes place. Verse 23, mankind has exchanged the glory of God for the glory of idols. We don't build idols today. We know that.

We don't build idols the way that people in the ancient East did. But John Calvin rightly said that our hearts are what the problem is, not the fact that things are being moulded and fashioned and our affections are drawn to an inanimate object. The problem is our heart. And he said that we and our hearts are perpetual idol factories. If we stop building idols of clay and stone and wood, we just create different things.

We create an idol of science. We create an idol of status. We create an idol of lifestyle. These are the things that we have created, maybe not with our hands, but sometimes we have, but with heads and hearts as well. Things that we have a passion for that far outweighs any passion we might have for God and His glory.

In fact, it is God's good things that He has created. It says here in verse 20, the things that God created that we have started worshiping. We worship the created instead of the Creator. What a great irony. But then the refrain comes again.

That word exchange comes up again in verse 25. They, humanity, have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. And the tragedy of this is that we have exchanged the truth for a falsehood. And the problem is when you believe a lie, you're not able to discern the truth. Exchanging the truth of God for a lie results in a third exchange that Paul uses.

Verse 26, that God gave them up to dishonorable passions for their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men do likewise. There is another exchange. It builds. Can you see?

Exchanging the truth of God for a lie results in this next exchange. Now what is Paul saying when he talks about this exchanging of God and the glory of God taking place? He is saying that when God made man in Genesis 1 and 2, in the image of God, that man lived as it were as a reflection, to be a reflection of God's goodness, God's glory. So when mankind sins, Paul says they fall short of reflecting the glory of God. When we fall short of the glory of God and in exchange the glory of God for idols and for idolatry, that is when everything starts falling to pieces.

When we cease to live according to the maker's instructions, it is as if the clockwork pieces in our hearts and minds start coming undone. The gears and the springs don't work anymore. And Paul is showing us in the most shocking sense what it looks like when human life doesn't live in that way. But I want you to notice the point he's making and that is this: that this doesn't happen by accident but by God's design. This doesn't happen by accident but by God's divine design.

That's why there's another refrain that runs through these verses as well. And it's an even more solemn usage than the first refrain. We can casually exchange God for trivialities in our lives and we can see spiritual and moral disintegration happening. We don't love Him as we ought. We are not energised by Him.

We fit God into our pockets and we say, God, you may have control of this part of life, of my life. Now behave in there, you domesticated God, we tell Him. In our Christian Australia, we do this very, very well. And Paul says that in response to that, there is divine activity and in that divine activity, verse 24, verse 26, verse 28, God hands us over to our own desires. And the reality is, like C.S. Lewis pointed out, is that terrible moment when the God of the universe says to us on that day, that final day, you've always said, my will be done.

And God will say, okay. Let your will be done. Three refrains, three other points that Paul makes here. Firstly, in three segments from verse 24 to verse 26, God gives this rebellious man, God gives this rebellious man who has made God in his own image, over to the lusts of their heart.

God gave them over to the lusts of their hearts, to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. It is a form of judgment, Paul says, to be handed over in this way. Contrary to popular opinion, these activities are not freedoms from God. Think about all the world is saying about personal choice. How I choose to live is being sold as freedom.

Casting off the yoke of Christianity. Casting off the yoke of traditionalism. Freedom. But these activities are not freedoms from God. At the end of the day, it's an expression of being under the judgment of God.

And the kind of things that Paul talks about here are almost too embarrassing to read in a public occasion like this. But you see these acts when humanity removes himself from God leads to an enslavement of the mind which is utterly and totally totalitarian. It is a dictatorship of which no matter how many times you try and vote in an election, the results are always the same. It's being trapped in a regime that will always beat you. Have you noticed how many angry people have gotten about sexuality?

Even in this church, we might have very divided opinions on this area of sexuality and homosexuality, which is part of what Paul was talking about here. And I believe in the two thousand years of the Christian church, we haven't seen an era that has been as similar as Rome's time as it is today. Our world now is so much like the world of the first century, it's not even funny. If we think today is bad, however, go and read the history of the Romans and how they saw their bodies and their sexuality ten times worse. Paul is saying, God has given them over to their religion.

Their religion. God gives you over to your unclean minds and the next thing that happens in that religion is that it demands total loyalty and it despises and it demeans those who get in the way. It gets angry. Really, really angry. But this isn't a twenty first century Western English speaking issue.

It is a sign of being under the judgment of God and God giving us up. That's the first point. So God gives men over to the lusts of their heart, their desires, every inclination that they have. Secondly, God gives men over, mankind over to dishonorable passions. And this is a passage that's again so painful for us to read.

In verse 26, the second half, we find Paul saying men and women give up natural relations between one another for unnatural ones. And the error here is of a sexual one. They are consumed with lust and that's a bad start. They are consumed with this desire of their heart, but then they commit themselves to shameless acts, Paul says. So they commit the act and that is a bad lifestyle.

And then Paul concludes, but they receive the due penalty for what they have done in themselves. Now the language is broad here. We don't exactly know what Paul is necessarily referring to what that judgment is, but the principle here is clear. Paul seems to be hinting at this idea that we have licence to do what we want, when we want, how we want, and our attempt to just write God out of the history books. To take Romans 1 and I've heard friends, Christian friends, I dare say even Christian leaders say that this is referring to sexual aggression and violence.

This is not mutual love being talked about here. Painful. We try to write God out of what He is saying to our society, the things that are hurting us to hear. And Paul says, you can live with all these things and you can write God out of your life and you can try and do whatever it is you find, whatever contents your heart. But Paul is hinting at this reality, your heart won't really be content.

Your heart won't really find peace. The very language he uses in verse 27, they receive in themselves the due penalty for their error is one of Paul's many ways of saying, listen, the judge of all the earth will do what is right and the mode in which He judges us will come by the same way in which we rebel against Him. Does that make sense? God's wrath comes in the same way that we rebel against Him. That's the divine way.

That is the way that God has often moved. If you shake your fist at God and say, my will be done, then God will say, therefore, your will be done. And He will give you over to that and all the consequences of that in your life as part of His wrath. And you may do that, you may do it over and over again, but you will not find peace with God. You will not find a content heart.

Your conscience will never give you rest. Let me make it clear that this is not a sermon on homosexuality or gay marriage. That may be a discussion we have at another time. But Romans 1 partly explains to me at least why the very topical issue we are talking about here within the LGBT sphere. Romans 1:27, I think gives me an indication why the suicide rates among these individuals are still so high.

So high. In a time when bullying is being stamped out, rightly so, and in a world that is embracing it as a legitimate lifestyle, there is still no rest. There is still no rest. And I think this is a tragedy. Paul says in verse 32 that the human heart and the human state of our society will add their approval to what is objectionable to God.

They will reinforce it over and over again. Verse 32, though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, meaning they deserve God's punishment, they not only do them, but they give approval to those who practice them. You see the stereotyping and the reinforcing of this is even happening today. A young person struggling with their identity can be walked up to and say, it's time you come out. Just accept that you are gay.

The stereotype of a man who enjoys fashion or is a hairdresser or I mean, can we not see that they are being pigeonholed and approved of being gay. But instead, Christians should see them as struggling individuals with the same struggles that all people have. The struggle to do what God's will is. The third thing Paul says, the third giving up that happens in God's wrath being poured out on us even today on the world is a debased mind, he says. Verse 28, God gives up humanity to a debased or a depraved mind.

And you see it in this long list of things that come out. Malice and envy, deceit, gossip and slander, disobedience, heartlessness. In other words, sin manifesting itself in the hearts and the minds of those who are seeking to break out of God's mould, breaching God's law. We see sin leading to things like abandonment, sin leading people to the point where there is only their way and they silence their consciences by dragging others into their own sin because there is safety in numbers and the more of us there is against Him, the less of us can be punished. Now is there any hope, friends?

Is there any hope in a world like this? In a world with a mindset so firmly against the God of the Bible, is there any hope for them? Some of us would say, no, there isn't. There shouldn't be. They should be condemned to hell for their sin.

Is there any hope for us if we hold that view? Well, there are two answers to this question. The first answer is this, from First Corinthians 6:9 to 10. Paul writes it in these ways, do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. So the question, is there any hope for us?

The first answer is no. None of these people in that condition will enter the kingdom of God. That is clear. My question to you this morning is, if you were honest, do you recognise yourself in that list? It's easy for us to probably have a view on homosexuality.

But if we place ourselves in that list, are you greedy? Are you a reviler which simply means a slanderer? Do you have you spoken evilly or badly of someone? Have you gossiped? What's your relationship with alcohol like?

What do you do with other substances? Do you abuse it? Are you an adulterer?

Have you been with a man or a woman outside of wedlock? If you have said yes to any of this, Paul is saying that the wrath of God stands against us, and we will not see God. We will not enter His kingdom. Thankfully, this passage, and I thank God so much for it because this is what He says next. And 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 God. In these verses this morning, we see three times the words to be given over, to be handed over, to be given up being used. God giving sinners over to their fate, facing not just the natural consequences of their decisions, but the wrath of God in this life now. But just a little later in this same letter in Romans chapter 8, verse 31, he uses this word to give up another time.

And this is what he says. Romans 8:31. What then shall we say? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us.

How will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Is there any hope for sinners? No. In and of ourselves, we refuse to enter God's kingdom. A sinner's mind is clouded by rebellion and sin and such were some of you.

But Jesus Christ upon the cross bore your judgment of homosexual practices, of adultery, of greed, and of gossip. And from the cross, you will hear Him give the clearest evidences that this was done for you when He says, my God, my God, why have You forsaken me and given me up for these things? The truth is Christ has gone down further than you. He has been punished much more severely than you ever will and He has been forsaken much more than you are today. But now, He's also able to embrace you and say, such were some of you, but I've washed you.

Oh, I have cleansed you. I have purified you and made you whole. What great news. Christians, we are therefore to love these ones that are still lost. We are to plead with them the gospel of grace, not the gospel of law, not the gospel of look how well together my life is.

Be like that. We are to preach to them the gospel of grace of a Saviour who has cleansed them as He has cleansed us. For it is by grace that you have been saved. And so before we get angry, before we get upset at a world that is going to hell and glad seemingly to do so, before we get self righteous, we have to be humble. We have to bring everyone to meet the cross of Christ first so that God may redeem the glory that is in them, that has been tarnished by this sin, the same way He has done in me and in you so that He may get the glory.

Amen. These words, ancient words, long preserved for our walk in this world. Come to us through sacrifice, have come to us through martyrdom, being guarded and shielded by the blood of the saints. These words in Romans 1, that we may be tempted to throw off or ignore or put aside. These words bring life.

Oh God, we dread and we fear this wrath. And we rightly do so, Lord, because we know that an eternity in hell, an eternity of condemnation, and an eternity away from You is a reality. Oh God, and then we think of all those around us who are facing this as a present threat. God, in our heartbreaks, Lord, to the point of despair. But God, You are more gracious than the power and the influence of this sin can ever be.

You are more powerful, You are more victorious than Satan and all His demons could ever try and muster together. And so Father, we pray for our country, for our societal leaders, for the influencers, for those who tweet and Facebook and jump in front of the camera right down to our brothers and our sisters, our colleagues. And we pray, God, will You not revive us? Will You not cast us to this place of great shock and fear where people will realise what they are doing in view of the Holy One of Israel, the holy God who holds to His will and to His word unwaveringly, unshakably, immutably, unchangingly, and calls each one of us to repentance. Father, we pray for our country.

We pray for our family members. We pray for our church family, Lord, that we may all accept this cleansing work that You are doing in us and then strive, Lord. Commit ourselves to Your purification work in us. Let this church be known for our love and our holiness, our desire to see those that are not saved to be saved. And, Father, continue this work in us so that You may receive the glory in us. In Jesus' name. Amen.