The Book of ROMANS: "Buckle Up" Romans 1:16-2:4 - Part 2

Brett Meador: Paul doing something that Jesus did. Do you remember when Jesus preached the sermon on the mount? Oh, I like to live by the sermon on the mount. No, you do not. Nobody can make it to heaven on their own righteousness. That's the point.
Kurt: Pastor Brett Mether and the essence of the gospel.
Brett Meador: But if you repent of your sins, that's kind of built into Romans, and you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart the Lord Jesus Christ that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. See, all of this is to get us to the place where we know we need to be saved.
Kurt: Chapter one of Paul's letter to the Romans deals largely with the major themes of unrighteousness and ungodliness. As we see how these manifest in our own lives, Pastor Brett Mether has us consider not only why we must take our sins so seriously, but learn how we can find truth, forgiveness, and righteousness through salvation offered in Jesus Christ. That's all in today's word.
Brett Meador: Turn to Romans chapter one. What I want to do is start in sort of a kind of an intense verse, but this will really get us thinking about God and what Paul's wanting us to understand about God in the first section of Romans. It's Romans chapter one, verse 18. Let's start there. Romans 1:18. It says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Now, what is this all about? This here in Romans 1:18. First of all, let's talk about the word wrath. That word really is this and if you look it up in a Greek dictionary, it's passionate anger, violent emotion, indignation, anger exhibited in punishment. Now, there's a thing where some people think all wrath is evil, wrath is sinful, or anger is wrong. Well, it is most of the time with us, but there is such a thing of righteous anger, righteous wrath, and that's the epitome of who God is. God has a righteous indignation, a righteous anger, and he will express his anger exhibited in punishment. That's why this word is used here. And by the way, if you become more skilled in the Bible and you actually read it cover to cover, there's something you learn about every time you see the wrath of God, you realize it's always linked to the love of God. God doesn't just do things full of wrath just to be punitive. He expresses his wrath in more of a protective and even loving way. He says the wrath will be revealed from heaven against ungodliness, number one, and unrighteousness of men, number two. You should note the difference between the two. When it says here ungodliness, that's our sin against God, but the unrighteousness of man speaks of our sin against other people. That's what Paul is talking about here when he says his wrath will be upon ungodliness and against God, unrighteousness of men sinning as man. And I want to just go over three simple things about Romans about God's nature. First of all, number one, this is where we're going to learn God is in the business of judging. People don't like judging. Don't judge. And they quote, you know, sanctimoniously Matthew chapter one, judge not lest you be judged. That's what Jesus said. But in the same chapter, he explained how you are supposed to judge. So, which one is it? Are you judging or not judging? Read Matthew seven, the whole thing. Because if you're judging just to condemn people, then no, you should not be judging people. But if you're judging to discern what's good and what's bad, what's helpful, what's not, Jesus even talks about judge them according to their fruit. Some trees bear good fruit, some bad. The way you check it out, you judge. And if it's bad fruit, don't waver on that. Like so, judging is a part of thing. And by the way, it's a godly characteristic. In fact, it's part of his job description. He's called the righteous judge. So, God's wrath is going to be poured out upon the a Christ rejecting sinful world and and he's the judge just like he judged in the days of Noah. It's funny to me that when I walk into a nursery with the Noah theme, I'm calling okay, so mom and dad, you you chose a story in the Bible where there's two giraffes, a little boat, and rainbow. I get it. But you realize that's a story about God destroying everyone on the earth. Everyone dies except for Noah and and his family. Uh seven souls were saved out of billions. That's the same God. Do you understand? The rainbow's wonderful. We love it because of what? What does it mean? God promises to what? Never destroy the earth again? With a flood. Okay, I hope you remember the flood part because he's going to destroy the earth again, but this time with fire. Which one do you want, flood or fire? I like that's tough, but good news, you and I can be saved from the destruction coming. But God's going to be the judge who's going to judge, who's going to go through the fire of trouble and who's going to be saved. And God, his heart is love and goodness and kindness. He would that none should perish. But at the same time, if you have a hard heart against God, you're going to stand before the judge. Who's going to stand before the judge? Well, let's let's just read on. I'm going to give you some high points of this uh Romans chapter one. Look at verse 19. It says, because that which may be known of God is manifest. The word manifest means made known. So, it'll be made known in them. Who? The ungodly in the previous verse who were holding against the truth. God says I'm going to make known through them what I'm going to do for God hath showed it to them. Verse 20, for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Who's going to be without excuse? The people standing before the judge. And the people that held against the truth and were ungodly and lived unrighteously toward men, God says you're going to be without excuse. Well, what if I didn't know? What if I didn't know? What if nobody told me? The Lord says you are without excuse because it says verse 20, even the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen. In other words, nobody's going to have excuse because you have creation staring you in the face all the time. When you go outside, look at the trees, the stars, the sun, the moon go, wow, what an amazing coincidence that there was a big explosion and it just all that chaos just through billions of years of accidental circumstances, everything just kind of came together miraculously and now we have beautiful trees and the wow, and God doesn't exist. God says you, my friend, are out of excuses. That's not an excuse. In the beginning, God created heavens and the earth and if you read it carefully, he created it spoke the worlds into existence. And he did it six days and on the seventh day he rested. Oh Brett, you believe that? Well, it's easier to believe than the the explosion theory, the Big Bang from goo to you in a million years. That's even harder to believe than anything. That's ridiculous. Even scientists are jumping off that now. So many people are still stuck back in the '80s evolution arguments, uh which are so ridiculous because a lot of secular scientists are jumping the evolutionary bandwagon saying, yeah, not in a billion years. But they still want to deny God. So they say aliens planted the seed of life or have you ever the looping theory that humanity somewhere from other planets came and planted the seed of life here, blah blah blah. They're coming up with all kinds of other theories because they want to deny Christ and hold back, suppress the truth. But God says there's going to be all kinds of evidences in his Bible against you, but the one thing that leaves you without excuse is creation. That's why we, Christians, pastors, die on that battlefield. We believe that God created the heavens and the earth. Evolution is a theory that has been really largely proven to be wacko. But it's up to you whether you're going to believe it or not. Now, with all that said without excuse, it gets even more difficult. Check it out. You're without excuse because verse 21, that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. You see, all those arguments against God and his existence and so-called science that proves that this and that and the other and people saying absolutely and they really go against the Bible on so many things. Things like gender. God says in his word male and female did he create them and people say no, there's many genders. God's wrong. This is people who have started to buy like like a lot of the world says how can Americans think so crazily? Where did they lose their marbles? A lot of the world is asking that right now. And those who believe in all these multiple genders, they've just bought the thing and they've been buying each lie and it gets easier and easier and that's why this ramps up. It says they were neither thankful to God, neither did they glorify God, so they became vain, which is a total, you know, prideful, arrogant thinking they know everything in their imaginations and their foolish hearts were darkened. And it says professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. Pretty very nice, God calling people fools. Is that like God calling people stupid? What does Proverbs say? Proverbs 12:1 says, whosoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid. That's the Bible. The Bible does God says there are people that are stupid. I've always been to the thing is a stupid question. Now, as a pastor of many years, I I say there's a lot of stupid questions. Uh I'm not one of those people who believe that there's no I've heard a lot of stupid questions. But all that to say, stupid is something God actually says in his word. Why are you pressing in on that Brett? Because you have to be careful. Don't go the way of the world because it leads to more and more foolishness which actually ultimately according to the Bible speaks of stupidity. Hold on though, there's more. Look at verse 23. And they changed the glory of an uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Are there people that worship animals and earth and mother earth and all that? They've exchanged God for mother earth and for Peter and animals and all that stuff. Wherefore Now, this is where it gets really heavy, verse 24. Wherefore God also gave them up. Now, this is a major theme in Romans chapter one and this brings us to point number two. Now, point number one is simply that God is the judge. He's in the business of judging. But point number two is God can give man over. Now, I had to call it this because I wanted to be careful not to misspeak. I was tempted to call this God can give up on you. That's what I wanted to call it. The reason I don't feel good about calling it that because God part of his nature I read about all over the Bible is he's long-suffering, patient, his mercy endures forever. So, I know that God is really patient, long-suffering. But Romans one does kind of imply there's a point where God will say like and the reason I say God can give a man over is because that's sort of what's going on here in Romans one. But the idea is there is a point where God says I'm done with you. Now, calling it giving up on you uh I think it's more like you're giving up on God, so God gives you over to what you want. Uh that what it says. Let's keep reading verse 24. Wherefore God gave them up to uncleanness, that's sinfulness, through the lusts of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. For this cause, God gave them up. There it is again. To vile affections, for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust toward one another, men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. In other words, you receive in yourself the repercussions of that kind of sinfulness of uh you know and now now some of you like Brett, preach it brother. Can I just say we're all in big trouble here in a second. Like this something you have to be really careful for. Uh yeah, the Bible if if there was ever a clear scripture about the God's view on homosexuality, it's right here. Uh I sat across the table from an atheist creaker who believes he's okay being gay and and acting out gay lifestyle. And I just wanted to talk to him and we talked biblically and I showed him this what the Bible says. And he said, well, this Pastor Brett is speaking about people who are gay but they're not married. They're they're not married in a gay relationship. So, it's it's sexual or just like heterosexual sex. If you have sex that's fornication. Same thing here. Uh that's not what this says. This is very clear that homosexuality is called sin in the Bible. It goes on in verse um 28. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over, there it is again, to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient or not good for you is the idea. Verse 29, being filled with and here's a big list, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication which that by the way is sexual immorality, not just gay immorality, but heterosexual immorality. If you're doing anything sexual outside of marriage, that's fornication. Wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers. Some of you are like check, check, check. Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud. That's you who just said check, check, check. So, you're already on the list now. Boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents. By show of hands, how many of you were disobedient to your parents at least once? Some of you are like I was the perfect child. Yeah, you're on this list. Bad news. Also, it gets worse. Verse 31, without understanding some of us have a lack of understanding, covenant breakers. If you ever broke a promise or a marriage covenant without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful. Have you ever been unmerciful to somebody? How many times I've been in a counseling office where a person says Pastor Brett, I am not going to forgive that person. That's on this list. Verse 32, these people who knowing the judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death. Not only that do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Well Brett, who has pleasure in those who do those? Well, if you watch movies with gay stuff going on in there or any kind of sexual immorality and that had pleasure watching that movie, you're on this list. There's a death penalty and that shouldn't shock us because guess what? I've been preaching this for years. What's the wages of sin? Death. What's Paul doing here? It seems to be like he's closing the door to all of us. We're all sinners. We've all messed up and it's just this brutal like wow, I love chapter one of Romans. What's going on here? Paul's doing something that Jesus did. Do you remember when Jesus preached the sermon on the mount? Oh, I love the sermon on the mount. I like to live by the sermon on the mount. No, you do not. Because guess what? The sermon on the mount says stuff like uh unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you will know wise enter the kingdom of heaven. Well Brett, maybe my righteousness is better than the Pharisees. Oh, study the Pharisees. I know you all know them as rascals and and the guys that battled Jesus and all that. But to the listener of the sermon on the mount, the Pharisees they were the holiest guys around. They would be careful to never sin even though they were full of sin. And if that's not enough for you, then Jesus goes to the next section and says you have heard it has been said of old thou shalt not commit adultery, but I say unto you if you even look at a woman with lust in your heart, you're guilty of adultery. There goes half the population right there. The later is like yes, praise the Lord. Oh, it goes on. Jesus said you've heard that it's been said of old thou shalt not kill, but I say unto you if you even have anger in your heart toward someone, your brother, you're guilty of murder. What's Jesus doing? And by the end of the sermon on the mount, he just says you won't enter in the kingdom if you do it like basically everybody would be left standing there going who's going to heaven then? And the answer is nobody. And Jesus leaves it there. Nobody can make it to heaven on their own righteousness. That's the point. That's what Paul's doing here. Now, as I like to rehearse in our ears and our voices, why did Jesus not give the solution to the sermon on the mount? Because he is the solution to the sermon on the mount. Because Jesus said yeah, you're all sinners and you're doomed. So, I'm going to die on the cross for your sins, resurrect proving my claims, and you can be saved from all your sins that my sermon on the mount proved to you you can't do it. By the way, the law of the Old Testament did the same exact thing. Prove that the Jews couldn't keep the law. Jesus sermon on the mount proved nobody can really be saved apart from his grace and saving faith. Paul is doing that in Romans. He's painting this black backdrop of sin and wow, good luck. You're on the list here and you're guilty and worthy of death. But Paul's going to leave us hanging longer than Jesus and he's going to make the first several chapters of Romans. It's just going to come on harder and just when you think you're off the hook, he's going to put you right back on the hook. That's why I say buckle up in the book of Romans. But let's read the last part of the chapter. Those of you guys that read books, do you ever read the last chapter sometimes before you finish? But I'm going to give you a little moment here because Paul is going to get to the diamond right around chapter eight and then the rest of the book we're going to talk about the glorious doctrines of salvation, redemption, propitiation, justification. We're going to get into salvation and how that's all worked out. But this is where I want to give you the third attribute. First attribute of God of God's in the business of judging. God can turn you over to your own sin and say I'm done, I'm out. And then the third one is God, number three is in the business of saving. God is in the business of judging, full of wrath, but he's also a God who will give you over. If you really want to reject him, he'll say okay, I'm out. By the way, there's Old Testament examples of that. Remember Samson? Samson God was helping him, giving him powerful strength, and God was with him. But Samson just kept sinning and sinning and doing stuff and pretty soon he's just arrogant, thinks he's all that, and he forgets about God and his Nazarite vow. So there are finally Samson, he realizes that uh you know he's been strong even though he's been sinning. So he tells Delilah, the prostitute that he's sleeping with, the secret to his strength that his hair has never been cut. And so he goes to sleep with the prostitute in her bed. And then she wakes up Samson, the Philistines are upon you. And he jumped up and that verse in Judges 16:20, one of the sad verses of the Bible it says Samson awoke out of his sleep and he he said I will go out like other times and I will beat up these Philistines. But it says there and he wist not or he didn't know that the Lord had departed from him. Remember this giving over thing? God will give you over if you really want to. That's a real danger. If you're a person who's been drugged to church, I'm here just because my grandma dragged me here and would you please hurry up? I've got things to do today. You can resist that, but there's a point where God says I'm going to give you over like Romans chapter one said three times. That's the bad news. But the good news is if you repent and acknowledge your sin before God, God is also in the business of saving you. How does he save you? I already shared with you the gospel. Do you guys remember 1 Corinthians 15:3 where we talked about the gospel in a nutshell? It's got three components. Number one, Jesus died on the cross for our sins. That's the first component. The second component and he was buried because he really died and was buried just like he told. And then the third maybe most important component not only they died on the cross for our sins, was buried. And then the third part he rose again on the third day. That's important. That's the gospel in a nutshell because if any of that wasn't true, the gospel is a waste of time and we're all doomed. But because Jesus did all that, God sent his son to die and be buried and then raise up from the grave on the third day so that we can accept and believe so that Romans Paul's going to later say those glorious verses like if you repent of your sins, that's kind of built into Romans, and you confess with your mouth Romans 10:9, you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart the Lord Jesus Christ that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. See, all of this beating us up today is to get us to the place where we know we need to be saved. So, the pastors that are preaching God loves you, has a wonderful plan for your life, and if you get saved, you get to come to our church and have community. Do you see why that's a big waste of time? That's like you're on a 747 going to Hawaii and suddenly the pilot gets on the thing and says hey, would anybody like uh a parachute? We have enough parachutes for anybody would like one. By the way, we're you know we want peanuts and magazines and but if you want a parachute, you can have one. That's all he says. You're like uh don't want a parachute, but I'll take a peanut. But what if the pilot got and said both engines have failed. We only have a thousand miles left to get to Hawaii. We're not going to make it. Who would like a parachute? Everybody in the plane are like give me a parachute, open the fail because there's an urgency. The urgency of the gospel is not God has a wonderful plan for your life. He does. Or he God loves you. He does. Or you could be part of our church. You can if you want to. Uh you could be part of our community maybe. But more importantly, you're headed to hell and doom and destruction and God loves you so much. He wants to save you. People leave that out because they don't want to talk about wrath and judgment and hell and fire. Meanwhile, people are just smugly going all the way to hell without even being told the truth. God is in the business of saving and he wants to save you.
Kurt: Pastor Brett Mether closing our introductory study of the book of Romans in today's word, reflecting on the only remedy of man's unrighteousness and that's salvation through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And Pastor Brett is standing by to join me here in a moment to close our first message here in Romans. But first, if you missed any portion of our study, you'll find all of his messages online at todayswordradio.com. Well, right now Pastor Brett has joined me and as we begin this new series in the book of Romans, the apostle Paul is just getting started in his letter to the Roman church. Brett, why is it so important for Christians to study the book of Romans?
Brett Meador: Well Kurt, I think it is hugely important for so many reasons, but one of the main objectives I think Paul wants to give us the cure. But before he can do that, he gives us the diagnosis. And it's kind of a push-pull good news, bad news. And he starts with the bad news and it's really bad news. It really comes from Romans 3:23, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But praise the Lord. Right after that verse and the next verse talks about Jesus and how he justifies and saves us. So, God is not trying to shame people. He's he's inviting us to be forgiven. And one of my favorite invitations really in all the book of Romans is Romans 5:8. But God commended his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Think about that. You know, Jesus didn't wait till we cleaned up our lives or got it all together. He said while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's the heart of the gospel. And if people don't fully understand the bad news first, they may never fully appreciate the good news. That's what Romans so beautifully does. The bad news is pretty bleak, but then when Paul turns on the light of Christ, it's powerful and wonderful.
Kurt: Yeah. That is indeed such a great reminder that Jesus didn't want for us to do a cleanup in our lives before he decided to die for us. And you're so right. The good news really cannot be appreciated until we hear the bad news first. Thank you Pastor Brett.
Brett Meador: Yeah.
Kurt: Well, if you'd like more information about this todayswordradio program or Pastor Brett Mether, just go to todayswordradio.com. And that's all the time we have. Next time, Pastor Brett will show us that it's a humble servant heart that God delights to use. Today's word with Pastor Brett Mether is an outreach of Athei Creek Church in Westland, Oregon. k