God As...

Read Romans 1.18-32

Last year during my final semester at KCU the section I was in went through Romans for devos that semester. They met at about 10 on Tuesdays, during the fall, when Sons of Anarchy, my soap opera as many call it, was on. There aren't many shows I watch religiously, but that is one of them. So needless to say I missed quite a few devos. I know. I'm a sinner.

But I tell that to tell this: The first week we did our dorm devos we went through Romans 1. We read it, and just dove in. A friend of mine, who I didn't know at the time because he was new, said, "I'll just jump in here. I really love how it all says that 'For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness for men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.' I think it's awesome how God just shows his wrath to the wicked, the sinners, ungodly and he punishes them in his wrath."

Now being on a Christian campus, you can expect some differences in theology, as you can anywhere else. But this one pushed some people over the edge and a riot was almost had against this guy. "God isn't wrathful like that! He's loving and gives everyone a chance! He saves his judgement until the end, no while they're here!" We then came to the fantastic difference between free will and predestination. Anger, shouting, slandering, hating, all the typical things you find in a major argument between Christians over something they believe is cut and dry.

Now me being the oldest and wisest there, I quietly cut in and get everyone to listen. The first thing I say is this:

You view God how you choose to see him.

What I meant was this. My buddy chose to view God as a wrathful, angry God who punishes the wicked. Yeah. That's sound theology, we find that in scripture. I choose to see a loving God who waits to unleash his wrath to give all a chance because we we'll see throughout Romans, salvation is for all. Over all, I lean towards free will, I learn towards a loving God above all else. I recognize that there will be consequences for those who have not sought refuge in the only one in whom there is refuge. But that's how I view God. That's my theology. As long as your theology is sound in scripture without taking something out of context I'm alright with it. I may not agree with it, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is that we believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and the Son of God, and that he was nailed to a cross, dying for our sake, taking on our sin, and that he rose again 3 days later. As long as we can agree on that I'm not entirely worried about our differences.

So, all of that is for the italicized sentence above: You view God how you choose to see him. So looking at the second half of Romans 1, we'll see a different view of God which may or may not be your own view of him.

In the second half of Romans 1 we see a lot of information about God.

• He hates ungodliness
• He hates the truth being suppressed
• What can be known about God has been made plain to all because he has shown it to them
• His power and divine nature has been seen since the creation of the world

It needs to be noted that this particular chapter of Romans is Paul writing about Gentiles, pagans, anyone who isn't Jewish, which we will see later that that particular group makes up a big chunk, if not the majority of the church in Rome.

There is a lot in these three verses. We obviously see God's hatred for ungodliness. That's easy to get. But we also see that What can be known about god has already been main plain to Gentiles. His invisible attributes are seen by all. This is called "general revelation." This is the idea that all have seen and recognized that there is a higher power. Some close their minds to it and say that these invisible qualities of God can be explained by science. While we may have explained some things by science, there is still much much more that cannot be explained. Don't ask me what because I'm horrible at science. 

God reveals himself to us all, in one way or another. I wrote a while back about how we all come to God in different places, be it a basement, a heater in a house, on a hill in the rain, or a chair in a campus house, somewhere in our lives God reveals himself to us. Something unexplainable happens and we just know that it had to be God. And what I mean by unexplainable is the thing happens, we recognize God's hand, and we just can't put into words what happened. Not that we can't explain how it happened, God did it, but we can't explain what happened.

They passed on God, the infinite and immortal God, for carved images of beasts and man, things they understand that truly hold not power at all. Because of this is why God gave them up. He gave them up to their own lusts and sin, allowing them to dishonor their own bodies. The traded the truth of God for lies from their own minds which they attributed to stone and wood.

In verses 26-27 we see that yes, homosexuality is a sin. I'll say it and won't pull any punches. Homosexuality is not natural, it is not what God intended. It is a distortion of what God has given us, much like gluttony. It is worshiping something other than God. And God despises this. But as the text says, he gave them up to their own sin, and they are receiving their due penalty for their sin. It should be noted, I do not condone gay marriage, but neither do I condemn it. This is not a Christian nation, I do not think that what I believe should have laws made about it. If I am free to practice my religion, I feel two men should be able to practice what they wish. But, if there are Christians trying to justify their own homosexuality, it can't be done. If you're a pagan, act like a pagan. If you're a Christian, act like a Christian. If you struggle, that's fine, we all struggle with something. But don't try to justify your sin because they you are nothing more than a person trying to be both. Homosexuality is a sin. And like all sin it's a choice. We love you, and we want to help you, but if you try to justify your sin as I once did you only mar the name of Jesus. So you need to make a choice. Yourself, or Christ. There is no middle ground.

But moving on from that, we see in verse 28 again that God just gave them up. He let pagans act like pagans. They didn't acknowledge him, he so let them go. This does not mean that God gives up on us. That needs to be very clear. GOD DOES NOT GIVE UP ON US. He stays stationary, and let's us walk away. If I decided today that I no longer wanted to be a part of the Church, no longer wanted anything to do with God, and I walked away, he would remain where he is, waiting for me to come back. Hoping for me to come back. He would let me go to live in sin, and be filled with all that we see in verses 29-31. But that doesn't mean that he wouldn't still want me. That doesn't mean that if I truly repented he wouldn't forgive me. Of course this is how I view God and this is what I see in scripture, others may say something else. But this is how I see it.

Verses 29-31 gives us a big list of things not to do, or mindsets not to have, or things to avoid. However you want to look at it, these things deserve death (32). They are:

• unrighteousness
• evil
• covetousness
• malice
• envy
• murder
• strife
• deceit
• maliciousness
• gossips
• slanderers
• haters of God
• insolent
• haughty
• boastful
• inventors of evil
• disobedient to parents
• foolish
• faithless
• heartless
• ruthless

I want you to look at this list. See if there is anything in here that you fall under. Do you gossip? Boast in yourself? Do you disobey your parents? Do you cause unnecessary conflict? Do you covet? Do you envy? Do you bash others? What is it that you do that you deserve death for?

In Romans 1 we see that no, Gentiles are not righteous by a long shot. Tomorrow in chapter 2 we will see that the Jews also are not righteous at all, which will completely blow their mind.

As promised, I will define righteousness. It will be brief, but it will be good. Looking above at the list we see a lot of bad characteristics to have. All of these fall under being unrighteous, or going against what God wants us to do. So if that is the opposite of righteous, then righteous must be doing what God does want us to do. And what does God want us to do? Glorify his name. Worship him only. Not sin. Have you ever sinned? Have you ever put something before God? Maybe a couple extra minutes of sleep so you don't get to spend time in the morning with God. Maybe you set aside your religion to do something to make you happy. "But God wants us to be happy so I should get to do what I want to be happy right?" That is trying to justify your sin. It doesn't work like that. We only, truly find joy in life in Christ (1 Peter 1.8-9; Romans 5.2). Joy is in the Lord, not ourselves. We are not complete. Christ is. When we come into him we come into completion and we find all we need. That is joy. And in Christ we also take on his righteousness. The only one who ever did all that we are commanded to do is the only one who is truly righteous, and when we are in him, we take on his righteousness as our own.

So righteousness is not something we can achieve ourselves, only Christ has. Only Christ has done right by God, because he himself is God. No one can be righteous by their own accord, which is why we need Christ and God's grace.