Righteousness from Above: The Problem By Senior Pastor Tom Harrison June 3, 2018 Rom 1:18-32 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. 28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 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. The theme of the Book of Romans is the RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. Romans 1:17 is THE verse that launched the Protestant Reformation. It changed Martin Luther s entire worldview. It is about God s righteousness and it was REVEALED from God. That means we didn t discover it, it was given to us. The ultimate revelation of
God is found in Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us about God s revelation. There are other ways we figure things out: Church tradition, our reason and experience. However, Christians follow the teachings of the Bible. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, said he was a man of one book. That book was the Bible. It was the governing authority for his life. It is a top down event. Its essence = God is righteous, not us. This is so hard for us to grasp because we always think in terms of our performance that we must live in certain ways ( pass/fail ) to attain merit in our lives. We must study hard to make good grades. We must work hard to get a good job. We must avoid certain things. So, we end up in one of two extremes: either being UNRIGHTEOUS or SELF-RIGHTEOUS. By unrighteous I mean living out in corrupt, immoral or evil ways. It produces all kinds of problems for us the effects of an unrighteous life are not good. They break relationships. They hurt and abuse people. They break the 10 Commandments and throw families and culture into misery. Paul wrote this letter to the Christians living in Rome. He was not trying to tell Caesar what to do. He wasn t trying to pass legislation. He was writing to Christians to help them follow Jesus. Paul wrote the letter from Corinth. It was an incredibly unrighteous place. In fact, there was even a name given to the City to Corinthianize meant to be filled with idolatry and sexual immorality. Paul knew first-hand what idolatry and immorality looked like. Since Corinth was a seaport, the sailors liked to party when they finally got there. Paul saw plenty of unrighteous, sinful behavior. He urged Christians, don t be like them. We will read about this in our text. We have books that if you are a leader in an Adult Discipleship Community around here and you don t have a copy of, I want you to drop by the front desk today and pick one up. It s called, GOOD FAITH. It s subtitled: Being a Christian When Society Thinks You re Irrelevant and Extreme. To stand for the revelation of scripture in today s culture means that society will think you are either or both irrelevant or extreme. In Romans 2, he goes in a different way and he discusses the SELF- RIGHTEOUS. These outwardly follow the law, but inwardly are corrupt and immoral. One of Jesus parables was called The Prodigal Son. The Prodigal was the unrighteous son who asked for his inheritance (a terrible insult to his father) and went off into a far country and squandered his inheritance. When finally broken by his poverty, he repented, returned home and asked for forgiveness from his father, who eagerly embraced him. However, there are TWO sons in the story. The story is as much about the older brother than the younger. We see a self-righteous individual who is full of hatred
for his younger brother. He won t even refer to his brother as my brother but calls him your son to his father. He is totally disgusted by his brother the slob and wants to have nothing to do with him. He is the good boy who stayed home but was never really at home with his father. He obeyed the rules but missed out on love, acceptance and forgiveness. It does not mean that what the younger son did was right, but he did repent and came back home. There is no hint of compromising the truth. Jesus point in telling the story was not to exonerate the prodigal, but that grace could be offered to any sinner coming home. Sometimes the bad people really get it. It can be hard for good people to acknowledge their need and come home to Christ. They don t need Jesus because they are good enough in themselves. If you ask a lot of people in church why they should go to heaven they will say, Because I ve lived a pretty good life. I try to be good. How can any of us get to heaven on our own? Heaven is a gift of God. It is not something we earn or deserve. Paul, who writes the Book of Romans, had been an incredibly self-righteous, proud man. When he met Jesus, however, he realized how sinful he really was. Instead of saying he was a good and righteous man, he began to say that he was Public Enemy #1, the chief of sinners, etc. He realized he was self-righteous and needed saving just as much as the unrighteous. In fact, in Jesus ministry, He found his fiercest critics were the self-righteous. Whether Un or Self we are all sinners. That s what is driving this whole discussion. It became with the righteousness of God in Christ. Then Paul describes in Romans 1:18-2:4 the life of unrighteousness. After he does that, he describes the life of self-righteousness. His conclusion is in Romans 3:23 all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Revelation God s Righteousness Un Righteousness Self Sin Christ What s my identity? Last week we said that we are SAINTS. Our identity is not in my efforts but that I am in Christ. And we are saints because of God s righteousness revealed in Jesus Christ. The ultimate of that is the Resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus was just another dead religious leader then it doesn t matter. But if
He is Resurrected, then Christmas has meaning, everything he taught is validated, his crucifixion makes sense, and He has ascended to heaven and has gone to prepare a place for us. And there will also be judgment. If Jesus is dead then Christianity is just another philosophy. If Jesus is Resurrected, then I am confronted with the decision to follow Him or not. If you are a follower of Jesus and you want Jesus Christ to be your Lord, we ll get enormous benefits (the best they are out of this world ). Companionship (the Church and the Holy Spirit), Forgiveness, a Guide (the Bible), Meaning and a purpose in life (Helping Others Follow Jesus), and Eternal Life. However, when we say that Jesus Christ is Lord, there is a cost that is associated with following Jesus. We are called to learn and to love His Kingdom. 2 things that make Christians uncomfortable: money and sex. Christians don t want us to talk about it. But these are things that Jesus spoke about a lot. In fact, money was the #2 topic of Jesus (after The Kingdom of God ). The New Testament talks about sexual matters within the church. There is a particular sexual ethic. It is this that there is to be sexual union only between a man/woman married to each other. This goes back to Genesis 3 and the creation of human beings. Sometimes people deviated from this, but the results were never good. The New Testament is insistent this is exclusively the way it is supposed to work for those who profess that Jesus Christ is Lord. If Jesus is the Lord of my life, I must do things HIS way, not MY way and not the way of the culture. This is a long introduction to our scripture reading. I won t have a lot of time to comment on the text, but suffice it to say, that the inappropriate attitudes towards money and sex are not the only problems in the church. There are a lot of issues Paul raises here. His purpose is reached in Romans 3:23 for ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We were meant to follow Jesus, but we all fall short for one reason or another. 100% of us. We do not highlight one or two sins as being the worst. A sin is a sin. Some will have greater consequences than others. The Gospel is not just about our sin it s Good News about what God has done for us in Jesus Christ while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 1:18 The wrath of God is also revealed. Wrath is not a word we prefer. God is not throwing a temper tantrum. It s about God s character. We want God to judge justly. We just don t want God to just US justly we want wrath. God is Holy and cannot tolerate sin. 1:24 Sexual impurity. The Bible is steadfastly against the practice of homosexuality. Always. Some Gentiles practiced it, but it was always banned in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Always. No exceptions. People may try to dance around it, but that argument cannot be made from scripture. You can
justify it by saying, Well, it s my opinion or it s how I think but it s not something based on scripture. While some battle with same-sex attraction and orientation, that is one thing. Acting upon it is another. You can t stop the birds of the air from flying over your head but you can stop them from nesting in your hair. Some things we must not give ourselves over to. In the churches I ve pastored the overwhelming problem has never been with homosexuality but with heterosexuality run amuck. We can condemn the sin, but we don t condemn people. We always offer grace. We always root for people to get it right. We do not compromise the truth. If we do that, we lose our souls and we will lose our church. But we do not condemn people and hate people. That is a compromise of truth as well. At our core, we are new creations. We are not unrighteous nor are we selfrighteous but we must have the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. That s what the Book of Romans is all about the Righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. We can only experience God s righteousness thru faith. Everything flows from this. 3:23 All have sinned (UN or SELF righteous). ALL need redemption. All need a savior. The only way we can have a savior is to recognize our need and to repent. We ALL need to repent. This is our communion liturgy. And then we hear those wonderful words: In Jesus Christ you are FORGIVEN. That forgiveness empowers us to live in new ways and in a new life. My identity shifts from being a Sinner to being a Saint, not based on my performance but based upon the Righteousness of God revealed to me in Jesus Christ my Lord and savior.