Sin

It is what transforms mankind, changes our life. And Paul here speaks about the gospel. And if you want a clear passage, 1 Corinthians 15 spells it out so clearly. The gospel is that Jesus Christ, God's son, came to the world. He came to this earth sinless, and he died on the cross to carry sin, to pay the wrath of sin. And three days later, he rose again.

That as Romans 3.23 puts it, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That when it comes to God, his perfect standard, the moral superiority, this perfect law that we're supposed to meet, we fall flat on our face. But the good news of Jesus Christ, the good news of the gospel is that God in his love for us made Christ who knew no sin to be sin so that we might become the righteousness of God. We might be in right relationship with the Father.

They have seen the power of sin broken in their lives. If sin has a hold in your life. Romans. Is an answer to that. Romans. If it moves from your ears. Into your mind. And then down into your heart. You will be changed by this book. And so let's begin. Verse one. Paul. A bondservant of Jesus Christ. Called to be an apostle. Separated to the gospel of God. Today when we write a letter. We say everything we intend to say up front.

So I know what I'm talking about. When I talk to you about deep things, that's like what I do. I follow God. God called me. I am an apostle. I've been given that authority. And so I know some stuff, right? And so that's what he's trying to do. He's laying that out. But one of the other facets that he kind of references when he talks about being set apart for the gospel of God is the sinner. If you don't know Paul's story, Paul was actually originally named Saul. And his job earlier in his life, before he was converted to Christianity, was he would go and find Christians, root them out, and have them killed. There are people in scripture who Paul had killed. He was the orchestrator behind their death, behind their martyrdom. And so Paul, he will call himself throughout scripture, Paul the sinner. And so he will go and find Christians, root them out, and have the chief among sinners. That'

And so when we hear this good news, there's one response as Paul would later say in his letter to the Romans, the gospel of Jesus Christ we see is in Romans 10.9. It says, If you would confess, if you would pour out your soul to the Lord, if you would lay your sin before the throne and say, I am a sinner in need of a savior.

The third one that I want to take a look at is Paul the academic. This is one that oftentimes gets forgotten. If you understand how Paul came into the role of a sinner, he was a sinner. He was as Saul, the one who looked to martyr those who were following Christ. The only way that he was given that role is he had to have a deep understanding of Scripture. He was a Pharisee. He was hired by the Pharisees to do that. Well, how do you get hired by the Pharisees? You have to demonstrate that you have a deep, deep knowledge and understanding of the law. He was like the Jew of the Jews, right?

He's talking to the foolish, those that were deemed uneducated or even stupid. My friends, hear this this morning. The gospel of Jesus Christ is for every single man, woman, and child on the face of the earth. It is for every single one. Everyone who will receive him to those who are called according to his name are his children. We have to understand this. It is God who does the saving. He paid the price of sin. And this is amazing news that we've been saved from our sin.

What I mean by this is. If death beat him. You have no chance. Neither do I. If sin held him. The best of us. We have no chance. It would mean that he is dead. And can offer you nothing. But if he died. And as the Bible says. He rose and is alive now. Then this means that he paid for sin. And it means he beat death. He beat hell. He beat the devil. He beat sin. Every enemy. That you have. Has been defeated. And it means that he is alive now.

You know, God understands. It's, you know, it's just a struggle. It's just this kind of thing. If we make our sin small, the cross of Jesus Christ is super small. If our sin doesn't matter, the cross doesn't matter. But if we actually understand that the sin, I don't care how good of a person we think we are, but that our sin separates us from a holy God for us to be unable to have a relationship with him, it breaks our relationship with him.

For salvation to everyone who believes. It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. That is what the gospel is. If you do not know what the gospel is, the gospel is the power of God for our salvation. Everyone who believes. It is the only source of salvation. It is the only source by which people are saved. It is the only way that we can be forgiven. It is the only way that we can be forgiven. It is the only way that we can be forgiven. Paul later on, and actually in chapter one, he highlights the idea of sin. You know, Matt Montgomery is going to be here to preach God's word for you next week. And he's going to highlight that. So I don't want to step too heavy on his toes. So he still has a message next week. But the idea of sin is our disobedience. All of mankind struggles with sin, disobedience from God. The desire to go our own way rather than the way that God inte

But the most insidious thing that's ever happened to humanity, sin, is cured by the cross of Jesus Christ. And it's paid for. It's not that we'll never sin again, but that is paid for for eternity. And we have a hope of eternal life. How can we be silent? How can we be silent about this Jesus we say we love, this Jesus that has changed our lives? Because Paul says here that this gospel is the power of God, God for salvation to everyone who believes.

And that sin is anything that is contrary to God and his character, which is evil, right? God is good. He is perfect. He is holy. He is loving. He's kind. He's true. He's all these great things. And so sin is evil. It is hate. It is lies, right? It's all these different things that are contrary to who God is and how God has called us to live. And so that sin has earned us death, separation from God, right? When we talk about death, we think physical death. And sin did bring apart, in part, physical death to our world. But the reality is we will, in part, exist for eternity. Both saved and unsaved will exist for eternity. Now whether you spend eternity with God or eternity separated from God in hell are two very different things. Experiencing good things, experiencing worship of God, experiencing no pain, no sickness, right? Joy, love, peace, all these great things, or the opposite of tho

This is what grace does. Now, let me say something to you. If sin has a stronghold on you, the solution is not for you to try harder. The solution is, is to look at and to understand and to believe grace. If sin has a hold on you, you don't understand grace. Grace does not have a hold in your heart. And so sin is very appealing. Guess what happens? It takes a passion to conquer a passion. And guess what happens? When you understand grace, you're so overwhelmed by the goodness of God that these other things, they don't have the same appeal anymore.

Right? So he was my spiritual leader, but he was also my father. And I can't tell you how many times I would push my dad to the utter edge. And how many times would I go, Matt, don't go do this. What do I do? I'm going to run over here. I'm going to do it anyway. Matt, don't do that. I'm going to go run over here and do that. And then I've got the ultimate of Matthew Ray. I knew I was dead. I knew that was the moment. And I think that's what we're going to study this morning, is God's going to have that Matthew Ray moment with us. Right? He's got to tell us there is a point where you're going to get in trouble. And I think Paul's trying to tell the church that there are issues going on in the church that cannot continue. And we have to understand that sin is sin. And the greatest thing about Romans is the Romans road. We're taught that as Christians.

That's how we lead people to Christ. Without Romans, we have no true understanding. And we understand that through Romans, that sin is real. And that there's a penalty paid for sin. Because it says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But what does that wage? Well, the wage of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So we know that we can be saved. But this takes it to an extra step. He's saying, listen, church, we have some issues in the church. We need to clear it out. And we need to cleanse ourselves. And we need to get back to God. Worshiping the God that we are not even worthy of serving. But we need to clean our lives up. So we're going to read, I'm going to read Romans chapter 1, 18 through 32. I'll give you a minute to turn there. It should be up on the board as well.

This whole section that we are about to read and dive into is all about the wrath of God towards ungodliness, unrighteousness, and sin that is in the world. Sin that we commit, sin that the world has. This is what it's about. And Paul is about to lay out why this is the case. And now this is very important for us. It's very important for us as we read verse 18 to truly grasp the weight of what Paul is saying here. To truly understand what Paul is saying here in verse 18.

But he didn't tell her. I'm not sure that was the right move, but that's what he did. There were other times when I got in trouble that my dad hid my wrongdoing from my mom and covered me. I don't know, sometimes when I think of our God, I kind of think, "Man, if I could make up a God of my own, I would want him to be like that. A God that covers, or not covers, but hides my sin, or helps me hide my sin." But the truth is, that's really not who our God is.

We learned that God is right to punish sin, that we've fallen away, we've fallen short, and God rescues those who believe in Jesus. And we learned today why God is right, righteous, just to be angry with sin, that we've fallen short, and God rescues those who believe in Jesus. And we learned today why God is right, righteous, just to be angry with sin, that we've fallen short, and God rescues those who believe in Jesus.

And we learned today why God is right, righteous, just to be angry with sin, that we've fallen short, and God rescues those who believe in Jesus. And we learned today why God is right, righteous, just to be angry with sin, that we've fallen short, and God rescues those who believe in Jesus. And we learned today why God is right, righteous, just to be angry with sin, that we've fallen short, and God rescues those who believe in Jesus.

And we learned today why God is right, righteous, just to be angry with sin, that we've fallen short, and God rescues those who believe in Jesus. I'm going to be talking openly about sin today, all right? So you need to be aware of that. If you'd like to take your kids to the church of the children's ministry and do that at this point, that's up to you. But I do want to make sure you understand we're talking about sin this morning, and I will be specific, okay?

He is going to explain how we are fallen, that we are not good, that we are in desperate need of salvation. And to receive salvation, to be in a place where you bow before Jesus, if you've been there, or you're like, I don't know. To get to that place, you must first realize that because, because of my sin, Jesus went to the cross. Not somebody else's sin, not the bad thing that they did, but the thing that I did, and the way that I think, and the way that I act when no one's watching.

And we believe that. Jesus took the full divine wrath of God towards sin on himself on the cross. That is how we are saved. That is why our penalty is paid. That's why he says it is finished. Jesus said that. They wanted to change the words to Now that may seem like a small change. It's just one verse of one song. And yes, God's love was magnified on the cross. However, though, it is a microcosm of a much larger issue that people are starting to reject the truth that God's wrath is going to be poured out on sin.

That Christ died for my sin. See, if we ignore God's will towards sin, one said the gospel will never quite make sense. We'll never know we're in need. Do you have that friend who you look at them and go, hey, you probably should go, you know, get that checked out. There's a sickness, you're like, hey, you probably need to go to the doctor. Hey, and they're like, no, I'm fine. You're like, no, I don't think that's working how it should.

And a God that just says, "The circumstances are enough, and we're going to let you slide." But the truth is, that's not who our God is. This morning I want to ask you this question before we start. What kind of God are you worshiping? Is it the God of your imagination, or is it the real God of Scripture? The God of Scripture is a loving, merciful God who sent his Son to die for us to cover our sin. But he is also a God of wrath, punishes sin.

I don't listen to the words of Paul. I want to listen to the words of Jesus, the red letter Bible. That's what I want. But this is not no new teaching of Paul. The scriptures all throughout attest to the promise that God's wrath is going to be poured out on sin. Yes, we preach. We preach and believe. God is a God of love, ultimate love, the best love. But he's also a God of wrath. He will not overlook sin. He will not be mocked.

And you have to understand the timing of all of this going on. When the churches were created, you know, on Sunday nights, we're studying the Revelation, and we talk about the end times of the seven churches. And when you look at the period of those seven churches, and the fact that the apostles really were the pastors of those original churches, Paul here is saying, hey, as I'm telling you, you need to get your sin squared away. Get it out of your life, because you're to the point, you're to the brink of destruction, where God's going to turn you away. And this was always a scary thing. There's two things in the Bible that scared me so much as a young man, that I could be so caught up in my sin that God's going to turn his back on me. The second was, when you stand before the throne of judgment, and he says, turn away from me, you worker of iniquity, I knew you not. And they said, but G

We had a summary of what Romans is and now we are full on into this section. Verse 17 told us the righteousness of God is revealed. The very next verse, we bring out the velvet drop cloth and we see the wrath of God now is revealed. And so this is so important. The wrath of God is not something that people want to talk about very often. We often think of sin as fairly harmless. We think of it as, you know, we minimize it. We dismiss it as not that big of a deal. It's just sort of something, you know, that's common to everybody. And so it's excused. But the truth is sin is like not having any money in your bank account and writing checks all over the place. It takes one of those for that to be a criminal offense. You're writing bad checks.

There's a nice back rub. He is telling everyone about the nature of sin and its consequences. This author went on to say that we see the nature of sin and how there's the rejection of God. We see the rejection of God's plan for intimacy. We see the rejection of God's love for one another. So this morning, there is going to be some touchy things said. There are going to be some personal things said to deal with things in our life, to deal with people that we love.

You can do this if you give me money. You know, the realism is, it's been the lie of Satan since day one, you know? Well, it's not that bad, you know, just a little sin. And, you know, I tell I was talking to my girls one day, and I was talking to some others, and I thought, you know, Satan didn't completely lie in the Garden of Eden when he said, hey, Eve, did he really tell you you couldn't do this? And she said, well, yeah. And he's like, well, really, it's, you know, you'll know things if you do it. Like, you'll know more. Was that a lie? No, what she was going to learn was what sin was, and the penalty of sin, and what that brought. So he didn't completely lie to her, but he led her astray. And I find that in our own lives. We let sin get in, and we let that sin fall and foster. And as that sin fosters in our lives, we let it get so far out of hand that we no longer can control it.

For it is the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the righteousness shall live by faith." So Paul's tying the gospel to the wrath of God. So why is the gospel important? Why is it important? It's because the wrath of God is real. It's because the wrath of God is real. The thing that brings deliverance from the wrath of God, the only thing, is the gospel. Right? There is a punishment for sin, there is a wrath of God for our sin, and the only thing that delivers us from that is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

know the sin is so strong that we can't accept the penalty. We don't want to even think about the penalty of that sin. So we have a hard time going to him and asking for forgiveness. So we're going to break this down verse by verse. It's a lot. I mean, I'll try not to run over. I'm not promising anything. I'm one of those guys, but I'm usually pretty good about it. But the first thing we need to understand is that we are a world of sin. We are a world of sin. We are a world of sin. We are a world in the need of a Savior. That's the whole premise of this message is we need Jesus Christ, right? So we understand that because of verse 18, we can figure out a couple things. God's wrath is contemporary. It's not for the past. It's not for the present. It's not for the future. It's all-encompassing. It's a contemporary wrath. And I always run into people that say, how can you believe in a God t

That is not the word that is being used here to describe the wrath of God. The Greek word here is actually orge, which means a settled and abiding condition. It's a controlled anger, and it's set on the obliteration of all wrongdoing. All wrongdoing. Why? Because sin puts everything out of order. Sin destroys everything. It disorders everything. Sin tears apart families, and some of you in this room know that all too well.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. So we know that as one trespass entered this world, the condemnation happened for all men. We know that all are sinners, right? And this is repeated throughout Romans. But then it says God's wrath is all-inclusive, right? We know that against all ungodliness and all unrighteousness of men. It says that in verse 18. And then we know that God's wrath is completely inescapable. Inescapable. We can't get away from it. The wrath of God is a real thing.

Sin destroys families. Sin breaks hearts. Sin brings ruin financially, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. It destroys marriages. It brings hate and discord. It brings disease. It sets people against God himself. And if that's what sin does, doesn't it make sense that God would be wrathful toward it? Because he wants us to know him. So how could God even come close to being just if he wasn't also full of wrath against sin?

But the suppression of sin doesn't end there. Let's continue in verse 24 and 25. It comes up three times throughout this passage. It's a scary phrase. God giving people what they really want. It's God demonstrating the consequences of sin. God allows sinners to be immersed in their sin, which is the punishment. It's this is what you chose and the consequences are terrible. The second bad belief that leads to bad behavior here is doing what I want.

Blessed forever. Amen. In this section of scripture, we see that Paul is laying out the truth of the condition that all of us are in. This is our nature. This is who we are apart from Christ. And Paul is laying out this truth, this idea of the depravity of man, how fallen we are, how sinful we are. And what that simply means, it's the conviction that every element of human nature is thoroughly sinned. It's thoroughly infected with sin.

See, God loves every single person on the face of the earth, but he gives us all a choice. Do we want Jesus, or do we want what we want? He loves us enough to give us that choice. So God, being a just God and a perfect judge, he must judge sin. And his wrath has been revealed against all sin. Our desire for justice comes from somewhere. You think it comes from us? No. It's the image of God being played out in us. That's why things, when they don't go right, we want justice.

Man, that's a tough ending. Because he just said, vengeance is mine. And then he says, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. What do you think that really is encompassing this morning? How do you feel about that statement? I know when I started searching my heart, I thought, man, I sin every day. I hate to admit it. But I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner saved by grace. My family will attest to you every time I get behind the wheel of a car. Probably going to sin. Whether it's my attitude, whether it's stupid drivers, now I'm sinning. Whether it's me speeding. I don't always keep the law. I don't always do the right thing. So I know I have to fight that in my daily life. I know that as I get behind the wheel, I have to make a cognitive effort to try to not sin. And I fail at it a lot. And there's many other things in life that I have.

See, the great thing is, it doesn't matter who's preaching for this pulpit. It doesn't matter who's talking to you. We're all sinners. And sometimes we want to lift up the pastors as they're some kind of beacon and light. And they are. And they're to be revered. And they are to be respected. But the fact is, they're still a sinner. They're still a man. They're still a man saved by grace. And grace is so important for us to understand. And that's what Paul's trying to say here is, listen, you know, we can't escape God's wrath. Understand that sin has a penalty. So he goes into these depths to let them know that. And then it talks about, we're in need of salvation because of the complete depravity that we're in. And we learn these things throughout Romans in chapter 1, verse 19 through 32. And it says, the inexcusable sin of man. When you look at verses 19 through 20, it says, this was an

They realize their nakedness. They realize they're in sin. And really the sin at that point was, we just said, we did what we were told not to do. But within two chapters, you see the first murder. Cain killed Abel over jealousy. And as that sin progresses, it gets deeper and deeper and deeper and harder. And it's something that we have to deal with in our own lives. As sin starts to take control, it's easier and easier to do worse and worse things. I grew up in a very religious family, obviously. I grew up, I was a pastor's kid. I went to a Christian school. I was astonished at some of the things I saw when I got out of school of kids who allegedly served God their whole entire life and how crazy they went, including my own family members. My brother was a great example. God rest his soul. I love my brother. But he ended up paying with his life for the sin that he had led throughout his