Preparing for Easter (sermon)

PRAYING IN THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS

Three ministers were talking about prayer in general and the appropriate and effective positions for prayer. As they were talking, a telephone repairman was working on the phone system in the background.

            One minister shared that he felt the key was in the hands. He always held his hands together and pointed them upward as a form of symbolic worship. The second suggested that real prayer was conducted on your knees. The third suggested that they both had it wrong--the only position worth its salt was to pray while stretched out flat on your face.

            By this time the phone man couldn’t stay out of the conversation any longer. He interjected, "I found that the most powerful prayer I ever made was while I was dangling upside down by my heels from a power pole, suspended forty feet above the ground."

            Jesus prayed often. Many times we read that he went off by himself to pray, but we don’t know what he prayed. One time his disciples asked for instruction on how to pray. But in the shadow of the cross, hours before his crucifixion, Jesus prayed a lengthy prayer that his disciples heard, and we too have the privilege of hearing.

            What does a man pray before facing his own death? Perhaps he prays for mercy. Jesus would do that later in the Garden prayer, but also for God’s will. Perhaps he prays for his loved ones who will be left behind to fend for themselves. Jesus does this too, and the bulk of the prayer is focused on this theme.

            However, for Jesus, as he faces certain death, he prays first for God’s glory to be revealed. Before anything else, Jesus prays not for relief or reprieve or for himself in any selfish fashion, but that this event would make much of God.

            How strange and yet how marvelous. What does it mean for God to be glorified in the death of Christ? What does it mean for us who follow Jesus to imitate this attitude?

1. The time has come to be glorified

This prayer of Jesus is part of a sequence of events beginning back in John 13. From this point on in John’s gospel, eight chapters will tell us what happened in the hours leading up to Jesus’ death.

            Jesus wanted to celebrate a meal with his disciples as was the custom of the time. John writes, “It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father” (John 13:1a).

            Then Jesus gets up from the meal, perhaps in the middle of it, and takes on the role of a servant washing his disciples’ feet. Then he predicts Judas’ betrayal and Peter’s denial. Somewhere in the course of the evening Jesus teaches them about the coming of the Holy Spirit and what he will do when he comes.

            At the end of chapter 14, Jesus concludes the teaching saying, “Come now; let us leave” (14:31). Where are they going? Leaving the Upper Room and the Passover supper they had just shared, Jesus led his little group back to their camping spot. Since they were not from Jerusalem it is likely that they had rented the so-called “Upper Room” which is why they were camped out in the olive grove.

            On their way back to the site Jesus continues to teach them about the Holy Spirit and other things to come. It must have been a bit of a walk since Jesus is able to tell them a great deal and answer questions as well.

            Suddenly Jesus begins to pray in their hearing. Obviously he wanted them to know what he was going to pray. Perhaps it was a way of blessing them before the big event. Jesus looked toward heaven and prayed:

            “Father, the time has come…” (17:1).

            It is amazing to me how perceptive Jesus was of the events in his life. He knew what was going to take place, even how it would take place. Of course, we say, he is God. Yet his humanity was one hundred percent a part of his reality too. We scarcely know what is going to happen to us. Jesus knew perfectly how his life would play out and in what timing.

            Early in his ministry, even before his ministry began, his mother wanted him to help out the hosts at a wedding he was attending. Mary said to him, “They have no more wine” (2:3). Jesus’ reply was akin to “what do you want me to do about it?” Actually, he said, “My time has not yet come” (2:4), suggesting that somehow this miracle of turning water into wine was a bit too revealing.

            Contrast this foreknowledge with the beginning of this prayer and we see that between the Father and the Son, time is in their hands. How many times did people want to kill Jesus and he replied, “Not yet…this is not the time”? Now Jesus declares “the time has come.” It’s in his power, his authority, and his carefully directed control of the events that he should die.

            This was his plan from the beginning. Make no mistake about this, the tragedy of killing the Son of God, God made flesh, was planned long ago in ancient times, before the world began.

            “Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you” (17:1b).

            You know what he’s talking about here, right? The cross! Glorify your Son on the cross. In street language we would say, “That’s messed up.” That’s psychologically sick in the world’s perspective. How does the death of my son make me look good? What glory is there in giving up one’s own flesh and blood on a gruesome cross?

            John’s gospel talks endlessly about God’s glory. Connected to God’s glory, Jesus constantly refers to the cross as the being the vehicle through which God is glorified.

            So it is appropriate that Jesus would pray in the shadow of the cross, “Dad, get your glory on! Let’s do this thing.”

            What is the glory of God on the cross?

2. The Glories of the Cross

There are three glories of the cross in this passage. How do we see the glory of Christ revealed on the cross?

a) Making known eternal life – When we think of eternal life we think of life after death. This is our hope as Christians as we face death in our later years, or as loved ones die suddenly who have known the Lord.

            Three different ways in the past weeks I have been surprised at how little people think of eternal life, or life after death. At his evangelistic crusades Billy Graham used to ask, “If you were to die tonight do you know where you would end up?” That question used to scare us into making a decision for Christ. Today that question is the wrong question it seems.

            - In talking to someone recently I asked him if he thought about what would happen if he died. He didn’t seem concerned.         

            - In a video about abortion an interviewer asked several young people about heaven and hell. The answers ranged from indifference to flippancy that hell was a party.

            - In a magazine, Christianity Today, the question arose again and for many the prospect of life after death was seemingly irrelevant for them.

            Perhaps if the question is about life now and life later, most people are concerned about what happens right now in their lives. Eternity is just too far away. So does eternal life matter?

            Jesus prayed, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (17:3). 

            Here is the definition of eternal life – knowing God. Eternal life is not so much everlasting life as it is knowledge of the Everlasting One. We were created to experience this and when we don’t have God we are unsatisfied. Augustine said, “You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.” We have that God-shaped hole in our lives that only he can fill.

            “If one defines eternal life in terms of “knowing God,” then one can hardly think of eternal life in static terms, but rather in dynamic terms. Eternal life is not just a moment in time when one trusts in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. Eternal life begins with the moment of salvation and continues throughout eternity, as one comes to know God. And since God is infinite, infinitely wise, infinitely loving, gracious, and so on, then we will never come to know Him fully in this life. Thus, it will take all eternity to know Him fully. This is why we are not only called to faith, but also to discipleship. We must trust Him for our salvation, and we must follow Him as His disciples.”[i]

            We have eternal life now. Eternal life is knowing God. And knowing God takes us into eternity. So the right question to ask is “Do you know God?”

b) Completing the Work – The second glory we see in the cross is in the perfect obedience of Christ.

            Jesus prayed, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do” (17:4). What work is Jesus talking about?

            The interesting feature of this passage is its structure. While we tend to think in linear thought – one thing following another (1,2,3…or a,b,c) – John’s thought was circular. That’s how most of the biblical writers wrote – in circles. We call this a chiastic structure. So these five verses are circular in thinking (see diagram) which means the beginning thought comes around in the conclusion.

            When Jesus says he completed the work in v. 4 we need only to look back to v. 2 for clarity. What was the work Jesus completed? “For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him” (17:2). The work was “giving eternal life;” eternal life is then explained in the next verse.

            Earlier in this gospel Jesus declared, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” (6:29). If, as we said earlier, that eternal life is knowing God, and Jesus is God as this gospel of John states, then our coming to a place of faith and trust in Jesus is the signal that his work is effective and complete.

            On the cross, while Jesus was dying, he spoke his last words, “It is finished” (19:30). The word “finished” means to “bring to completion.” On the cross Jesus finished the work of bringing eternal life to all who would believe.

            This work is the life of perfect obedience from birth to death in the person of Jesus. He was perfectly righteous, perfectly compliant, and perfectly obedient to the Father’s plan. It had to be this way. If Jesus had not gone all the way to the cross then God’s love would be imperfect and there would be a limit as to how far God would go for the sake of love. The glory of the Cross then is that there is nothing God would not do in Christ for love and to redeem those he calls his own.

c) Revealing his true identity – Now Jesus in his prayer returns to his opening theme of glory.

            Jesus prayed, “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began” (17:5). This echoes his first words of prayer, “Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you” (17:2).

            If we can put this in different words I would say it this way, “Reveal your Son, so that your Son can reveal you.”

            The glory of the cross is that it reveals God in the person of the Son. John began this gospel by saying, “We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (1:14b). And later in this gospel Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (14:9b).

            What we see on the cross then is Father and Son in complete harmony. The Son obeyed the Father by dying for the sins of humankind thereby acting as a perfect representative of the Father. What the Father commands the Son does. What the Son does tells us everything about the Father. Who the Son essentially is, is the Heavenly Father in the flesh.

            What Jesus prays for is this revelation of the glory like the Father’s which Jesus had before the creation of the world. For the Father’s glory and the Son’s glory are the same. Jesus set aside his glory to put on flesh and dwell as one of us. But now, for our benefit, Jesus wanted us to see that on the cross God died for humankind. His full glory would be seen after the resurrection in visual form, but it is his love and righteousness that we see spiritually on the cross.

            Some cannot see this. Paul said, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the glory of Christ who is the image of God…For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:4&6).

            The eyes of the world at large still cannot see that God was on the cross. They still believe they killed a man from Nazareth, a good teacher, a prophet perhaps, and nothing more.

            You see him and you know him and you believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God. This all may seem elementary to you at times but it is extremely confounding to those who have no faith. You know that Jesus is God. “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being…” (Heb 1:3).

            Therefore, the glory of the cross is that the very person of God, Jesus Christ, reveals the character, power, passion, and purpose of God. God is love. The cross will forever be the revelation of that glory for us.

Glory is a dominant word in this text. It is not a dominant theme in our daily toil however. What is our response to the glory of God as we have studied it?

            Let me ask another question:

            What would Jesus do? That has been a catch-phrase for over a century. It’s a good question in terms of decisions and choices in life. What would Jesus do?

            Jesus would do what brings glory to the Father. What do we mean when we say that? I believe we bring glory to God when we remember that as His children we represent him to others. What we do as Christians reflects our God. Our goal then is to weigh carefully the actions, words and impressions we leave with others. Or even if we are not being watched under the world’s microscope, we want to bring glory to God by what we do in private too.

            Do you agonize over some decision in your life? Are you seeking to know the will of God in some particular matter? Our first response should be to ask a simple question: “Will it glorify God?” The answer to this question just might provide you with much of the guidance you are seeking.

            What would Jesus pray? He would pray for the glory of God to be revealed in his life. That is our prayer too. When we pray we have our lists and our requests. But do we seek the glory of God first? Put this at the head of your prayers when you pray: Glorify yourself in me. Or if you prefer, “Reveal yourself in me so that others may know you through me.”

            Consider Paul’s prayer a guideline in this respect: “With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess 1:11-12).                                                    AMEN

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[i] Bob Deffinbaugh, The High Priestly Prayer of Jesus: Part I (sermon)

Romans #2

A HEART FOR THE GOSPEL

I know that the majority of you sitting here today profess to believe in Jesus Christ. It may sound odd then to ask if you have a passion for the gospel. One would assume that your very presence implies that you do have a passion for the gospel. I choose not to assume.

            When you reflect on the gospel of Jesus Christ, his saving work on the cross on our behalf, how would you define your feelings for this gospel? Which statement best fits your opinion of the gospel:

a) The gospel was important for my salvation.

b) The gospel was important for my salvation and I have grown beyond that stage of my life.

c) The gospel is the elementary level of faith and important for new believers.

d) The gospel seldom enters my mind.

e) The gospel does not seem to have a daily relevance for me.

f) The gospel is my salvation and I daily feed on its power for my life, now and in the life to come.

            If you picked the last option because it sounds like the right answer, my question to you is this: Really? The reality for many of us is that we more truthfully live out the other answers. Does the gospel consume you? Does the gospel rule your life? Or are you content to be saved without giving any thought to the ongoing work of the gospel in your life? These are tough questions but you didn’t come here today to be coddled – you came here to be challenged.

            I want to share with you the heart of a man who was consumed with the gospel. The apostle Paul was that man. We are going to look briefly at his plans to visit Rome. We are going to examine his heart. And then we are going to go deeper yet into the gospel itself and observe its power. And the reason I share the power of the gospel with you is so that you will have an overwhelming desire to feed on this gospel every day. Let’s study Romans 1:8-17 together.

1. Paul’s gospel-centered heart

In this letter to the Romans, Paul follows a pattern typical of letters of the ancient world. First he greets them with the introduction we studied last week. This is followed by a note of thanks to the gods and the works of their hands. Of course, Paul gives thanks to the true God. Then he explains what seems to be his travel itinerary.

            At first observance this personal list seems to be irrelevant to the 21^st century reader. But as a person passionate for the gospel, Paul’s plans are not frivolous but gospel-motivated and gospel-centered. Consider the four parts of his personal address:

a) Thanks God for their reputable faith – First, Paul thanks God through Jesus Christ for this church in Rome and the reputation for faith that has reached Corinth, where Paul was staying when he wrote this letter. He praised God for the existence of the church, even though he had never met the people of this church. Paul was excited that believers were gathering in the capital of the empire.

            When we hear of believers in other cities do we get excited? When we hear of the growing church in Asia do we praise God? I confess I don’t think I have praised God for other churches before, be they here in the Steinbach area or abroad. Are we praising God for the spread of his gospel?

b) Praying constantly for God’s people – Having heard of their faith, Paul prayed regularly for them. He said, “God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times” (1:9a). This is pretty weighty stuff. Paul calls God as a witness to verify that he prays for them consistently.

            Is there a church that God has put on your heart to pray for? Can you imagine if we would each adopt an individual church and pray regularly for the gospel to be preached there and to thrive in the Spirit?

c) Longing to share with God’s people – Paul’s desire was to be there with these people. Not only did this love for the gospel compel him to praise God and pray for these folks, he wanted to visit them and see how they were doing. Note that he wanted to give them a gift of some spiritual nature – maybe a word of blessing. But he does not come with a superior attitude because he said he wanted to be mutually encouraged. They would share with each other encouragement from the faith they both had.

d) Planning to be with God’s people – He said he had “planned many times to come to you” but was prevented, perhaps by the work he was doing in Greece. What Paul realized was that there was nothing like being there. The gospel is a relational truth. It is not enough to know the gospel; the gospel is experienced in relationship. So Paul desired to share in their experience of the gospel and preach a word of the gospel to them.

            These are the desires of a gospel-centered heart. They are an example to us of the all-consuming passion of a person who loves Jesus Christ. The gospel’s acceptance among people excites him; it inspires him to pray; it makes him want to share and be with the people who love the gospel.

2. Owning the Gospel Debt

What drives a person to go all-in for the gospel and want to live it, breathe it and spread it?

            Paul describes it in a most unusual way. He wrote, “I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome” (1:14-15).

            Behind the word “obligated” is the sense of financial debt. It might puzzle us how one could be in debt, or obligated to preach the gospel. What does this mean?

            There are two ways of getting into debt. The first is to borrow money from the bank or from someone with the money to lend. The other way is to be given money for someone by a third party.

            For example, if I borrowed $ 1000 from any of you, I would be in your debt until I paid it back. In the same way, if a friend of yours were to give me $ 1000 to give to you, I would be in your debt until I handed it over. In the first sense of debt, I put myself in debt by borrowing; in the second sense, it is your friend who has put me in your debt by entrusting me with money for you.

            It is in this second sense that Paul is in debt. He did not borrow from the Roman believers anything he must repay. But Jesus Christ has entrusted him with the gospel for them.[i]

            The nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ is such that when you have received it you cannot keep it to yourself. It was never meant to be hoarded. Christ entrusted it to us to share with the world. In the terminology that Paul used, we owe it to the people we come in contact with to share the gospel.

            Unless we own the debt we really have not understood nor received the full value of the gospel. Considering the global debt today and the looming recession, even depression of a world economy, I can understand how debt is a bad word. With the gospel, it is joy to own the gospel debt. It is what drives us to share the good news.

            Charles Spurgeon speaks to our reluctance, be it political correctness or unreasonable tolerance, in sharing the gospel, he wrote: “Etiquette nowadays often demands of a Christian that he should not ’intrude’ his religion on company. Out with such etiquette! It is the etiquette of hell! True courtesy to my fellow’s soul makes me speak to him, if I believe that his soul is in danger. How many, my dear friend, were you ever the means of bringing to Jesus? You believe that they must eternally perish unless they have faith in Christ. How many have you prayed for? How many did you ever break your heart about? You believe that they must love Christ or be damned. How many have you ever talked to concerning him who is the only Savior? Are you satisfied to remain silent? Are you content to let those around you sink to hell? What! Never tell of Christ’s love? What! Never tell of salvation? Can this be right? In God’s name wake up!”[ii]

3. The Gospel is God’s power for Salvation

Why wouldn’t we tell others about salvation? Are we ashamed of it? Is the gospel an embarrassment to you?

            Paul declared, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes…” (1:16). Some writers have suggested this is some sort of reverse word-play, that Paul was saying he was proud of the gospel. I agree with others who say that Paul wrote about not being ashamed because there was a temptation to be ashamed of the gospel. We know that shame. We’ve been there when faced with sharing our convictions.

            Consider that Jesus warned his disciples if they were ashamed of him, Jesus would be ashamed of them on the last day (Mark 8:38). And the cross was a humiliating way to die in those days – it was an object of scorn. “Your savior died on a cross? How disgusting,” people would say. But Jesus bore the brunt of this, “who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame…” (Heb 12:2).

            Paul was not ashamed of this gospel. Nor should we be. Not if we believe that it is the power of God for salvation. But what do we mean by salvation in this verse?

            I believe it is not just the power to convert the sinner to sainthood in Jesus; it is also the power to transform the believer and carry him or her to eternal safety in the glorious presence of the Lord Jesus Christ on the final day. There are four reasons to accept this meaning:

a) The power of the gospel is what frees us from being ashamed of the gospel. Jesus took the sting out of the shameful cross by making it a vehicle of his glory. As a result the gospel does not just make converts (any religion can have converts) it actually saves you. And it doesn’t just save you; it saves you completely and utterly for the day when Jesus comes.

b) “Salvation” is not only present in tense but future also. Paul wrote in that tense saying the gospel is “the power of God that brings salvation.” That future tense of salvation is found throughout the NT. Salvation is a future work as “God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth” (2 Thess 2:13). And again Scripture says, “Christ…will appear a second time…to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him” (Heb 9:28).

            So here in Romans we see that salvation is not just conversion. It has the power to bring you to God and his glorious conclusion to all history.

c) Continuing faith is the requirement for salvation. This point comes from the phrase “that brings salvation to everyone who believes…” The word “believes” is a continuing action, so it should read “believing.” This means that the gospel does not create faith, but for those who have faith it brings about salvation. So the point is not that the gospel is the power for conversion to faith; the point is that the gospel is the power to bring about future salvation through a life of faith. It is the only truth that can help you triumph over every obstacle and bring you to God.

d) This gospel is for believers, not just unbelievers. We have to remember that Paul was writing and preaching to believers. If that is so, he preached the gospel to a group that either did not need it, or was still in need of it even though converted already. Obviously Paul saw that they needed the gospel and was not ashamed to preach it to them.

            It is the only truth in the world that will not let you down when you give your life to it in faith. It helps you through temptation and suffering and death and judgment, bringing you to eternal safety in Christ. All else will fail you in the end. Only this gospel saves you from the wrath of God. Therefore we need not be ashamed of this gospel; it is the gospel of God’s power for salvation.[iii]

4. The Gospel reveals God’s righteousness

You may remember from last week that Martin Luther had a real problem with the word “righteousness.” In fact, he hated Romans 1:17 because of the word “righteousness.” He understood it to mean God’s righteousness whereby he punished sinners. So he was afraid of God’s righteousness.

            However, the gospel which is God’s power for salvation reveals the righteousness of God as it was meant to be understood. “For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed – a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith’” (1:17).

            Now what is righteousness? Is it the demonstration of God’s rightness in forgiving sin because he punishes that sin in our substitute, Jesus? Does it mean our right standing before God as forgiven sinners? Or does it mean that moral change in us that makes us obedient children of God?

            As we study Romans we will find that all three are true definitions of righteousness. On our own we cannot stand before the Great Judge, our God, on the basis of our works – they are filthy rags. But God has provided us with righteousness to stand before him in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ. As Paul later wrote, “clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ…” (Rom 13:14), and in Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20a). Jesus covers us with himself and through him we are righteous.

            Martin Luther was not entirely wrong to fear the righteousness of God. God demands righteousness and we don’t have it. The good news is that God himself gave us the righteousness he demands. This is good news. This is the gospel. What is revealed in the gospel is the righteousness of God for us that he demands from us. This is how God saves us: by revealing a righteousness for us that he demands from us. We could not manufacture or invent or supply this righteousness but God gave it freely out of his own righteousness in Jesus Christ.[iv]

            One pastor declared that this can easily be understood even by children. He said, “We all do bad things and we all are bad in the sense that the bad we do comes from a deeply rooted badness. Our bad deeds come from a bad heart. But God says that we should be good or he cannot accept us, because his own goodness would be ruined by our badness. So what we need is for God to take our badness and punish it in the death of Jesus, and then take the goodness of Jesus – his own goodness – and make it ours.”[v]

This is the gospel. We can even say that Romans 1:16-17 is the heart of the gospel. It certainly introduces the theme of the book of Romans as a whole. This is the gospel that saves you.

            How precious is this gospel to you? Do you meditate on it every day and consider how much the Lord has done for you? Is it so important that you want to share it with everyone you know?

            People are dying without knowing Jesus and the righteousness that could present them before the throne of God without spot or blemish. People we live with day in and day out are walking around with no hope or knowledge of the One who died for them. Many are living in despair because they lost their jobs or are going through divorce or because they live with an addict. Without the Lord Jesus and the gospel of God they have no hope and are on the brink of destruction. Do we care?

            The righteous will live by faith. Are we living by faith? Do we believe that the gospel has the power not only to convert us but to save us in our present troubles and conflicts?

            Perhaps at this point, you are sitting there ashamed. I have no wish to shame you or hammer you on the heads. But if I have shamed you for any reason, I want you to be unashamed of the gospel of God which is the power of salvation for those who believe. For I am not ashamed of this gospel, so God help me speak of it in ordinary times as well as from the pulpit. For your glory Lord….

                                               

                                                                        AMEN

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[i]  John Stott, Romans, BST, p. 59.

[ii] C.H. Spurgeon (MTP - vol. 12, #704).

[iii] Adapted from John Piper’s sermons on “How does the gospel save believers” pt 1 & 2

[iv]  Ibid.

[v]  Ibid, pt 2.

Romans #3

UNMASKING THE HUMAN CONSPIRACY

To conspire is to meet secretly for an unlawful purpose such as plotting an assassination or devising a plan to overthrow the government. A conspiracy is the agreement to carry out the plan.

            One of the favorite conspiracies of the last generation involved the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Theories abounded suggesting that the mafia took him out, that the CIA wanted him dead, or that Lyndon B. Johnson wanted to be president. Then of course there is the mysterious second shooter on the knoll in Dallas. Fun stuff.

            Whenever something does not add up or the logical and obvious answers seem too simple people begin to speculate about hidden agendas. Major events like 9/11 and the downing of the two towers bring out conspiracy theorists in droves. Was the U.S. just looking for a way to start a war? Did they plant explosives in the towers? Was flight 93 actually shot down by American jets?

            When it comes to the human conspiracy the obvious answer is the right one. There is no mystery here, just a widespread agreement amongst humankind to rebel against God. Jesus said that light has come into the world but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed (John 3:19-20). The conspiracy against God is born in darkness but we forget that God can see in the dark. And his light shines in the darkness exposing the rebellion of humankind.

            We have been introduced to the main theme of Romans - the gospel of God which is the salvation to everyone who believes. Now we are told why we need the gospel in the next two and a half chapters. The first of these reasons is the wrath of God which has been revealed in the gospel. What is the wrath of God? What in humankind has caused God’s wrath to be revealed? And to whom is this wrath revealed?

1. Why God reveals his Wrath

From a cursory reading of verse 18 we might quickly assume that the wrath of God is manifested in the global tragedies and cataclysms we have seen in the past decade. Some religious radicals point to the tsunami as God’s judgment on the pagan Asian rim. This is unfair to both the Christians and the others living in the region. These same radicals point to the hurricane that hit New Orleans or the earthquake/tsunami that hit Japan as God’s judgment on unbelieving or overtly pagan people.

            But the sentence structure and parallelism of verses 17 and 18 make it clear that this is not what Paul had in mind. Paul said, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (1:18). Parallel this with what Paul said earlier, “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed…” (1:17). So God’s wrath is also being revealed in the gospel as the gospel is proclaimed and preached. (This is why we preach a series on one book).

            When we put these two verses together like this we see that the source of revelation of God’s righteousness and the source of revelation of God’s wrath are from the same origin, the gospel. In the gospel we God’s righteousness and wrath revealed. How do we recognize this dual revelation?

            If it is revealed in the gospel then we understand that the gospel being the crucifixion of Jesus Christ for our sins is both the wrath of God and the righteousness of God. His righteousness was given to us through the resultant power of Christ following the resurrection. God gave us Christ’s goodness so that we would not have to die for our sins. But we see God’s wrath poured out on Jesus on the Cross for the sins of the world.

            Do you ever notice how the cross is an offense to people and society in general? It is not just because the cross is a humiliating way to die; it is because it is God’s judgment on humankind, that they deserved this death themselves.

            Jesus said that God did not send him into the world to condemn the world but to save it. “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (John 3:18). When confronted with the cross people are confronted with a choice: to believe or not believe. In refusing to believe they condemn themselves. Next, they invent reasons why they don’t need Christ or his church. They believe the pretense that they are good people; they cover their woundedness with advancing their career; they blind themselves to the wrath of God as seen in the cross with alcohol abuse and other addictions.

            As Paul said, they “suppress the truth by their wickedness.” Sin is always an assault on the truth, the truth that God is our Creator, Redeemer and Judge. When faced with the truth people must come to terms with the cross of Christ if our lives are going to count for something. Either that or we sink deeper into the pit of sin.

            So no, the assaults of weather patterns on our globe are not the wrath of God on unbelieving souls. The wrath of God is revealed in the broken, bleeding body of his one and only Son on the cross. Now how are we going to deal with that?

           

2. Humanity’s Conspiracy of Ignorance

Though humanity may plead ignorance of God and God’s wrath, there is no excuse, Paul said. No one can say they don’t know God.

            The argument for this is found in natural revelation. God has revealed himself in various ways. Two of the prominent revelations we know of are natural and supernatural revelation. Natural revelation is the evidence of Creation, the natural world around us. Supernatural revelation is found in the incarnation, that God became the man, Jesus Christ.

            So natural revelation is fundamentally obvious to everyone who lives upon the earth. We read in verses 19-20 that God has shown himself and his qualities in creation. God, in an elementary sense can be known from Creation. Therefore, people have no excuse.

            Humanity’s conspiracy of ignorance makes gargantuan efforts to deny the existence of God. Their godlessness knows no bounds in trying to eliminate God from the human equation. Evolution and the Big Bang theory are ways of excluding God and thereby explain humanity’s existence. Even if as theistic evolutionists declare, God could have used evolution to introduce humans to the earth, you still have to say “God did this.” Or with the Big Bang, that a great explosion millions of years ago resulted in our universe, someone had to light the fuse. I choose God. But all in all these theories are the tool of the godless to ignore God. (Not saying if you believe in evolution that you are godless).

            I like how Ray Stedman put it: He and his daughter were walking at night in the mountains and enjoying the stars. He pointed out the Milky Way, the Big Dipper, the North Star and Pleiades. Then jokingly he said to her, “But remember, dear, all this happened just by chance.” And she began to laugh! How ridiculous, he said, that in all this vast, impressive, imposing display of beauty and light and order anybody should ever say it all happened by chance. How can we say that only by intelligence and wisdom and skill can a watch be built, but hearts beat and babies grow and roses smell simply by chance. Isn’t that ridiculous?[i]

            This is what Paul is saying: no one can look at Creation and say there is no God. By virtue of this statement we must also say there is no such thing as an atheist. It is only by godlessness and wickedness that a person comes to the conclusion that there is no God. The Teacher in Ecclesiastes wrote of these people saying God has set eternity in their hearts – yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end (3:11).

            Because they deny God his rightful place in their lives, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened (1:21). We give thanks this weekend since it is a national holiday. It is ironic in some sense that the whole country pauses to eat turkey and offer thanks but have no idea who to thank. As believers we thank God daily for our food, our homes, our families and our nation as gifts from God. But who do you thank when you do not acknowledge God as Creator and Redeemer?

            To withhold glory and thanksgiving to God makes the human heart descend into greater darkness and greater wickedness.

3. Humanity’s descent into Darkness

Those who ignore God exchange God for lesser objects of worship. Humankind was created to worship. It is engrained in our psyche to worship someone or something. I read of a so-called atheist who denied this inclination saying he does not worship anything. What he failed to understand is what worship is and that by rejecting God he worships himself.

            In the next ten verses (22-31) we read a threefold repetition that “God gave them over” to their wickedness. I used to think that this meant that God gave them over to hell, since that was their choice. I have used these verses to suggest that God does not send anyone to hell, people choose to go to hell. That is a mistake to read this into the passage.

            What we read here is a progression of humankind’s descent into depravity and further alienation from God. There are three steps repeated three times. In Step 1 human beings exchange God for what God has made; in Step 2 God hands us over to what we prefer; and in Step 3 we act out externally and bodily in our sexual relations a dramatization of the internal, spiritual condition of the fallen human soul.[ii]

            In the first exchange (23-24), humans have traded the glory of God for images, idols and so forth. God gives them over to the sinful desires of their heart and the result is the degrading of their bodies through sexual immoral deeds. Without God all boundaries of morality are gone. The lines become fuzzy and committing adultery with another person’s spouse is easily excused (“we fell in love,” “we couldn’t help ourselves”).

            With the second exchange (25-27), humans traded the truth of God for a lie, such as human philosophies and theories. God gives them over to their shameful lusts permitting them to carry out their godless fantasies. The resulting action is unnatural sex. Homosexual advocacy groups will claim that what they do is natural and that unnatural sex refers to heterosexuals having homosexual relations. However, the grammar Paul uses is quite clear that homosexuality is the sin referred to here. Women with women and men with men is a perversion of God’s design for humanity.

            With the third exchange (28), humans traded the knowledge of God for a knowledge without God. Again God gives them over to a depraved mind and the result is that they get to do what ought not to be done (see 29-31).

            Now, why does God give them over? Does he not care about these people? Is he just chucking them into hell? No, God deliberately allowed them to go their own way in order that they might learn to hate the futility of life turned away from the truth of God. Throughout the time of their Godforsakeness, God is still concerned with them and dealing with them.[iii] In his mercy he keeps the door open for repentance.

            This reminds me of the father who tries to convince his son to stop smoking by shoving a big wad of cigarettes in his son’s mouth and says “now smoke.” Smoke until you are sick of it. Or to cure a child of sugar make them eat as much candy as they can until they puke. No, God is not doing that (neither should we). But God has given us free will and if we choose this or that lifestyle God allows us to go that way, even to our hurt, so that we will realize that his way is best.

            One more detail may puzzle us. Why does the exchange of God for the worship of things always seem to result in sexual immorality, even homosexuality? Sexual immorality shows us what is going on in our spiritual lives. God allows these sins to become obvious because it shows where we’re at in our worship focus. Sex is linked with worship. Sex is the human’s longing after worship. Sex is a desire to possess another body and to be possessed by another. It is a deep-seated craving inherent in every human being.

            The Bible tells us that only God can give true and lasting fulfillment. Only God can satisfy the deep longing in all of us for a complete identity and unity with another person. This is worship. When we worship, we are longing to be possessed of God, and to possess him fully. To allow a person to go off the deep end and look for this in homosexuality or promiscuity, God hopes they will see the emptiness of it and return to him.[iv]

4. The Continuing Conspiracy of Silence

The final word on the current situation of humankind is that keeping silent is not an option. Those who do not speak against evil participate in it by association.

            Paul wrote, “Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them” (1:32).

            One commentator indicated that those who applaud or affirm those who practice shameful deeds, even if they do not practice it themselves, are not only as depraved as those who practice it, but are actually more depraved than the actors.[v]

            At the same time, while homosexuality stands out as the premier sin in this passage, we only need to look back at the list of sins in 29-31 to realize that “we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” To remain silent about any sin is tantamount to participating in it.

            C. S. Lewis wrote this in Mere Christianity, “If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual. The pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me competing with the human self which I must try to become: they are the animal self, and the diabolical self; and the diabolical self is the worst of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig, who goes regularly to church, may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But of course, it's better to be neither.”

            It does no good to point out the more heinous sins of others. Sin is sin and it is all detestable to God. To hide our eyes from sin is a sin. To keep silent about sin is a sin. All our sins have prompted God to reveal his wrath in the gospel of his Son Jesus Christ. And as he reveals his wrath he also reveals his mercy. If only we would acknowledge him as God…

What are we to do?

Give thanks to God for his gospel, for it is power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.

Acknowledge God as the Holy One, your Creator, Redeemer and Judge.

Focus and believe on his Son, Jesus Christ, the content of his gospel.

To God be the glory, great things he hath done, so loved he the world that he gave us his Son; who yielded his life an atonement for sin, and opened the life-gate that all may go in. Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, let the earth hear his voice! Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the people rejoice! O come to the Father through Jesus the Son, and give him the glory, great things he hath done! (Fanny Crosby).

            Let the earth hear his voice. Call sin what it is: sin. Not to condemn the world but to save the world. Speak the truth in love, live the gospel out in your families and marriages, and do not hide your faith.

            Give God the glory by boldly standing for him.

                                                            AMEN

           

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[i]  Ray Stedman, from the sermon The Tragic Sense of Life

[ii]  John Piper, from the sermon The Other Dark Exchange: Homosexuality Part 1

[iii]  Cranfield, Romans, p. 34.

[iv] Stedman

[v]  Cranfield, p. 38