Our society – God resistant

I’d like you to notice a contrast – look at vv17-18

17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,

Two things are being compared here

• The righteousness of God – which is received by faith
• The resistance of man – as he suppresses the truth

It’s a devastating analysis of mankind as he really is. Beneath the plush exterior of our comfortable lifestyle there is a beast in the basement

God’s wrath

Wrath (dictionary) “deep intense anger or indignation”

We have a unnerving suspicion that ideas of wrath are somehow unworthy of God. Shouldn’t he be above and beyond all that kind of thing?

• We think this way because we tend to confuse our anger with his

Human anger often erupts when there is a lack of self-control in a person – and that’s why it’s often so destructive

So what is God’s anger like?

It is a settled attitude of opposition to anything that is evil.

In other words it’s not based on fickle feelings, but solid facts – on God’s perfect judgement of our actions and reactions

• Therefore God’s anger is not more likely to be experienced if He’s having an off day! (he doesn’t have off days!)

An important distinction …

• <ppt> God’s judgement is a objective thing, his wrath is a passionate thing
• and the one results from the other.

For example, consider a murder trial in court <ppt>

a man is charged.

• evidence in presented – there’s no doubt that he did it – (and perhaps tried to hide it)
• the jury pronounce him guilty – that’s the judicial part
• their decision is dispassionate (we hope) and based solely on the evidence the verdict has to be ‘beyond reasonable doubt’

BUT when the judge pronounces sentence – that’s a different matter

• the severity of the sentence expresses society’s wrath at the seriousness of the crime
• a premeditated, heinous crime will result in a long custodial sentence
• a crime with mitigating circumstances may call for some leniency.
• passion is expressed in the length or severity of the sentence

God’s judgement is an objective thing, his wrath is a passionate thing.

His deep desire and aim is to release our lives from the poison of sin so we live in peace and wholeness.

• So we can enjoy the whole reality of the whole Gospel!

And the lengths God went to in order to achieve this were astounding!

• nothing short of coming here himself in the person of Jesus to bear our penalty and die in our place!

If those are the lengths God went to is it any wonder that he is implacably opposed to anything that would foul up our relationship with him!

• We need God to exercise wrath against sinfulness

Suppose he didn’t.

• Think about the consequence of the absence of God’s wrath at human sin.

If there was no opponent to wrong-doing, no-one holding people to account then we could just do as we like!

• We could treat people just as we like with no come-back if we mistreat or exploit them
• And if you happen to one of the poor unfortunates who finds yourself exploited then there is no God to champion your cause.

<ppt> A God without wrath at sin leaves the Universe without justice for the powerless

If God doesn’t bring about ultimate penalties for wrong-doing, then who can? Who has the moral authority to do so?

• Does the church? But we’re all fallen people and recent money mismanagement and child protection scandals in the Catholic and protestant churches prove that we’re far from faultless!
• How about the police? They are a relatively recent invention and only have the power that other people give them.
• Society at large? By what universal objective standard is society at large going to assess sin? We, of course, do our best with our legal system and judiciary but we all know miscarriages of justice can occur.

So if you want wrong-doing to be accounted for, assessed and judged then you have to have a God to do the accounting to.

So beware, my friends

We would all like to rest in the fact that our God is compassionate and merciful (and that He certainly is!)

• but you can’t have mercy without justice.
• You can’t have compassion for a victim without wrath for the perpetrator.

A God who just has compassion for everyone all the time is a weedy deity!

Our Society – already receiving God’s wrath

Did you notice the tense of the verb Paul used in v18

18 the wrath of God is being revealed … against the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth

Not might be, if it suits God’s purpose, or will be at some future day of reckoning, God’s wrath is being revealed now, today, at this very moment.

• You may say “how?” “what evidence is there of this?”
• I don’t see people being punished for wrong-doing?
• I don’t see people being zapped for their sin? How is God revealing his wrath?

Hold that question! We’ll come back to it.

But first, Paul has some things we need to know before we get there.

Our society – constantly being called out to

Spoken to by God about who He is

We are not as ignorant as we like to seem

19. since what may be known about God is plain to them (that is to godless and wicked people), because God has made it plain to them.

How is he doing that?

He built into every person a conscience – moral barometer

So for people who have never been exposed to God’s message of freedom and salvation in Christ, their response to conscience will be one of the factors God uses in assessing their lives and actions

20 <ppt> For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, because they can be understood from what has been made,

The invisible qualities of God – clearly seen

• How did God do that? – by making the world in such a way that the world itself carries within it an irrefutable message about the ‘fantasticness’ of God!

The creation tells us about the creator!

<ppt> Take a birthday cake for example.

On January 23^rd I was given a wonderful cake. It was a fruit cake (my favourite) and it had a layer of marzipan and lots of icing (even better!) and it was decorated “happy birthday dad!”. It even had candles – not one for each year of my life (that would be a fire risk!) And it thrilled my heart!

• Somebody loves me!
• Somebody loves me enough to create and decorate a cake in my honour!
• It does your heart good!

Now, says Paul – look around you at the world and its intricate beauty –

• Somebody loves you! (That’s the heart of the gospel!)
• Somebody loves you enough to create it in your honour! That’s the heart of the gospel
• It does your heart good!

So mankind can infer the character of the creator from the nature of his creation.

• something in the order, beauty and wonder of creation speaks volumes aout the order, beauty and wonder of God!

Consequence?

Our Society – without excuse

20 … so that we are without excuse.

If we think we will ever be able to stand before God and claim that his message isn’t plain, we have to think again!

• We don’t have a leg to stand on!
• God reveals himself through conscience (the internal barometer)
• and through creation (the external, always speaking – cosmos.
• And for those of us who have heard the message, ultimately through Christ.

Our Society – rejecting God

What does humanity’s rejection of God look like – Paul describes this downward spiral in vv21-26

We reject wisdom vv21-22

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools

We worship objects v23

23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

We pervert sex v24-27

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.

… a reference to gay sexual activity

This is one of those verses of scripture that some people feel in unpalatable in our contemporary society.

• It is sometimes assumed that because we are a Bible-believing Evangelical church we are therefore anti-gay
• I’m sometimes asked ‘Is Victoria a gay-friendly church?’ or is it anti-gay?

I am passionate about believing that people matter to God – and that’s all people – regardless of background, intellectual capacity, financial resources (rich or poor), ethnicity or sexual orientation (gay, straight, transgender or bisexual).

It has been our aim to open the door of the church to the widest array of people possible. That is one of Victoria’s greatest strengths (and simultaneously one of our greatest challenges)

And in the 13 years I’ve been senior minister here that diversity has increased so that we are now a church that it broader and more diverse than we have ever seen in the past.

• That is a good thing and is a testimony to the love, the grace and the good will shown by the members of our community – Well done!

To suggest that we check the credentials – especially of sexual orientation at our doors is just not true.

What is true is that we encourage both homosexual and heterosexual people to live out the sexual ethics taught in the scriptures

And what is that ethic?

• The Bible which encourages full sexual expression only between a man and a woman in the covenant of their marriage and abstinence and purity for everyone else (gay or straight)

I know this challenges some people’s behaviour, but I hope we do so attitudes full of grace and compassion, recognising the brokenness and confusion that is so prevalent in our fallen world.

• I want to honour the journey of everyone who is sincerely attempting to follow Christ

I do not believe that the gay orientation is condemned in scripture, but the acting out of a gay orientation in sex is. And Romans 1 is one such scriptural directive.

This has consequences

When someone comes through our door who is gay, (and that might include some of you here this morning) we are not going to manipulate you into being straight!

• (that would be insulting) We respect you for who you are.

We will not perform gay marriages.

• By any normal understanding of the concept a wedding is the ceremony that marks the beginning of a state of freedom to participate in sex together – and that’s what Paul is warning against here.

• at present there is a protection written into the legislation for religious organisations like churches to refuse gay weddings on the grounds of conscience
• As things stand today, I’m relying on that law to assert this Biblical ethic.

Our Society – how does God show his wrath?

I asked you to hold this thought a while ago.

If the wrath of God is being shown, how can we see it? Paul tells us in vv 24 and 26

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.

How is God showing his wrath today? By lifting his restraint!

• The Bible often talks about how the Lord gives us strength in the face of temptation and feeds us with grace and determination to combat sinful desires – of any sort!
• He is the one who give us the power to restrain ourselves.

The devastating statement here is that <ppt> God is showing his wrath by removing Hos own restraining force

• He just lets people carry on. Because built into the actions and attitudes of the sinner is consequential self-destruction. “Do this and you’ll die inside”. In fact every time someone defies God a bit more of them dies inside.