City Life Starter

I. The Word: Romans 1:24-27

24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. 25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

II. Reflection Questions:

1. In verse 24 God shows his wrath by giving us over to our lusts. In other words he allows us to pursue what we want without him, just as the Father in the story of the prodigal sons. Why do you think that is such a dreadful thing to happen?
2. In verse 25 Paul talks about an exchange of loving and worshipping creation rather than the Creator. Where is your worship and attention pointed to today, Creator or creation?
3. Paul is explicitly calling homosexual lifestyle sinful in these passages. At the same time Paul, in his writings, offer tremendous grace to those living in sinful lifestyles. How can grace and truth live in harmony in your thoughts and actions today?

Last week I preached on Romans chapter 1 verses 18-32 at our church service. This is not an easy set of scriptures to approach, especially in our culture today. One of the things I talked about was the different types of wrath we see in the scriptures. First, the future wrath and judgement of God at the end of days. Second, the present disclosure of God’s wrath through the public administration of justice (Rom. 13:4). Third, God’s passive wrath by which he allows men and women to go their own way and pursue their passions without Him. The third, passive wrath, is what is being revealed in this scripture. Paul, in essence, tells us that our minds will justify what our hearts truly want. Paul is saying that God allows us to pursue those idols in our lives until we have our fill. Unfortunately, there is never enough to satisfy so we are left in wanting and desiring. Instead of turning back to our true need (our Creator) our hearts will continually pursue creation and all it has to offer.

Paul paints such a dark picture of our desperate state so that when he finally gets to Jesus in a few chapters it is like that first drink of water to a deserted traveler. It truly becomes grace. Unmerited, undeserved, amazing grace.

The hard part about these scriptures alone, without context and moving on to read the rest of the book of Romans, is it just tells you the truth. The truth is that we have all gone our own way and the passions we pursue we have been allowed to pursue by our God in His passive wrath. The truth should make us aware of our condition, bring guilt, and turn us back to our Creator. Unfortunately, it’s not always that simple. We continue down the rabbit hole like Alice only to go deeper and deeper into darkness. Paul points this out in verses 26-27 while tackling same sex relationships. This is where our culture battles for ground for equality and rationalizes what God makes clear is not right.

That, at first glance, sounds horrible to say to someone. “You are not right in your passions and desires.” To say this today is to disrupt people’s “happiness” and pursuit thereof. Paul is not trying to spoil anyone’s fun though. He is not trying to take something away from anyone. His goal, rather, is to ultimately point to joy found in pursuing God’s righteousness as the Creator who fully and truly knows the creation He made. He knows what makes you tick and what brings about the best in you and out of you for His glory and honor and the good of the whole world. Fortunately, He also is very well aware of what does not do this. The lines can seemed blurred to us, but maybe that is a heart problem.

On the other hand, there is a heart problem in the way we treat others that do not share biblical beliefs. The righteous indignation of some people to position themselves as better than someone else because of what they believe can be just as evil as what they are fighting for. This should never be the case for a believer as Paul later points out that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). That understanding should create in us a humility as we stand for what God says. Our words should become laced with grace while speaking truth in love at the right time and place. This tension can be a hard one to manage and those that choose to pursue it will quickly see their daily need for dependance on the Holy Spirit.

So how do we approach people that do not think like Paul? For further thought/study check out the video and links below.

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/two-minute-clip-homosexuality-every-christian-should-watch?utm_content=buffer2dc14&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer