Sermon: “Humanity Without Excuse”

TEXT: Romans 1:18-23 (page 757 of pew Bibles)

REVIEW

1. Gospel of Christ: The gospel that Paul preaches is the gospel of Christ. His role as our representative in His perfect obedience and atoning death is central to the covenant of grace, and therefore to our salvation. No Christ – No good news.

2. Our Duty to Stay on Message: This righteousness from God that has been granted to us in Christ is the story of our lives as the church. We must not be too easily distracted by the passions of the world around us or by our own troubles and celebrations. It is our duty to keep our minds focused upon the gospel of Christ.

TODAY’S PASSAGE:

¹⁸ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven

against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

¹⁹ because what may be known of God is manifest in them,

for God has shown it to them.

²⁰ For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen,

being understood by the things that are made,

even His eternal power and Godhead,

so that they are without excuse,

²¹ because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful,

but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

²² Professing to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and changed the glory of the incorruptible God

into an image made like corruptible man – and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

1. Wrath of God is revealed from heaven

God is angry with sin. During the first three chapters of Paul’s letter to the Romans, Paul has a job to do. He needs to show the Roman church that there is no hope for any man except in the gospel of grace that has come to us through Jesus Christ. The gospel of the atoning death of Jesus Christ is necessary because God is angry with sin, and by this I mean that He is angry with sinners – people. By the time Paul is finished with Romans 3, he will have forcefully made the point that all have sinned. In another place Paul tells us that we in the church were by nature children of wrath, just like all the rest of humanity.

God’s wrath has been revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Next week we will look at the surprising ending of this chapter, where the Apostle explains the way in which the wrath of God against sinners is revealed. But it is in verse 18 of this morning’s text that Paul explains the root of man’s ungodliness and unrighteousness. He says that human beings “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” Much sin and misery is the result of our unwillingness to embrace obvious truths that we already know. Because we refuse to worship God, we work hard to drive from our minds the very truths that would be most helpful to us.

2. What we know about God and what we do with this knowledge

Everybody really knows God. You will not discover that by reading survey data. We lie. You can’t expect an honest answer from people who are committed to suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. We have reasons for not wanting to own up to our knowledge of God. Therefore we reach the point where our suppression of truth is so intent, that we don’t even seem to know that we know God.

But all of this is really very silly. To deny God we have to deny our own existence. For not only are we creatures who have been created by a Creator. We, above all the other creatures, have been made in the image of God. Have you been noticing the squirrels of late? They are busy about their normal instinctual activities at this time of year. They do what they do without language. They hold no formal meetings, and they hear no persuasive speeches. They cannot communicate about the nature of God. They cannot understand history. They make no use of symbolism in art or literature. They come up with no scientific hypotheses and they create no false religions.

When we pretend that we do not know God, we not only must deny God, we have to reject the reality of what it means to be a human being, for we have been created in the image of God. Man is the most obvious icon of God, representing Him as His image-bearers. What may be known about God is in us somehow. When we use language and reason to contend that we are nothing more than biological organisms, we prove the point that we are very different from everything else in the created order.

And yet, it is also very obvious that we are not supreme over creation. We do not control the wind and the waves. We did not put the sun up in the heaven. We cannot keep our lives going forever. We cannot rule over all of the events of this world. There is Someone else. There is Someone who has made us a little lower than the angels, and who put all things under our feet. But it is very obvious that He is not under our feet. There is Someone else who has eternal power. There is Someone else who has Sovereign Godhead. Naturally we must worship Him. He made us leaps above everything else that He made, but He is so infinitely far above us. He is God. We are obligated to Him in every way. We should be calling out to Him always. We should be seeking knowledge of Him with all our heart. We should be praising Him. We should be filled with thanksgiving for His many good gifts to us. But not only do we not worship Him, we even suppress the knowledge of Him in unrighteousness. Our behavior is indefensible. We are without excuse.

3. Worship of idols

There are consequences for this lunacy. It leads to more lunacy. Paul says that our thinking becomes empty and useless, and our hearts and minds are darkened. The more wise we think we are without God, the more we become obvious fools. The word used is mwrai,nw (mo-rah'-ee-no) in the Greek. It means to be foolish or to act foolishly. We could care more than anything that we wear the right hat at just the right tilt bearing the right brand name with just the right amount of torn cloth, but have almost no concern for the mind that God gave us in the head covered by that hat. There are so many ways to think that we are wise, when we are just being foolish.

This kind of foolishness is a bottomless pit. It never says enough is enough. It only leads to more darkness and more foolishness. Instead of being the image of God, we create images of God. We are supposed to be God’s icon, but we instead make icons of God. Sometimes we make the immortal, invisible God to look like mortal, visible man. As we become more foolish in our darkness, our icons become more idiotic, and our gods become birds, bulls, and slithering reptiles. We have become spiritual morons.

APPLICATION:

There is simply no excuse for this behavior. Of course, this is exactly what the Apostle says. He uses the word avnapolo,ghtoj (an-ap-ol-og'-ay-tos), which means without defense or without excuse. It is the word for someone who is in a court of law who is obviously guilty, and who has no reasonable defense that could be mounted. Our behavior is indefensible. Now consider this. Perhaps we are well able to see the lunacy of paganism and gross idolatry, but consider that while all men know God as image-bearers, some have the great blessing of knowing Him as Redeemer. How much more are we who have been redeemed by God in the debt of Him whose electing love touched us in the baseness of our dark foolishness. How much more should we be eager to know Him, to hear Him, and to follow Him. How much more are we “without excuse.”

I hear excuses from time to time from people who won’t face the simple fact that they are sinning. They are too busy to do the right thing. They are trapped by a bad situation, so they cannot do the right thing. Sometimes it turns out to be someone else’s fault why they have not done the right thing. How about the sin of not being attentive to God’s Word. My words are too hard to understand or the messages are too long. But think about your privileged position. You have God’s Word, the Bible, in written form. Beyond that, every week a sermon comes to most of you via the internet, so if anything is too complicated you can come back to it and take a more careful look later. Clarification is just a phone call away. Do you really want to know God? Do you really want to grow in your faith and love?

I believe that you do. Give up on your excuses for sin and repent today. If the pagan world is without excuse, surely you who profess that you do know God through Jesus Christ have no excuse to continue in sin. How marvelous that God is not content to leave you in your silly excuses. Your excuses are sin upon sin. But Jesus died for your excuses. As dearly-loved children of God, do not walk in excuses any longer. Walk in the light of the love of Christ, who lives now for you. Repent, and when you repent, repent deeply. See that your sin is more than a matter of your behavior, your words, or even your thoughts. Your sin comes from a root of being unwilling to more fully acknowledge God as God, to glorify Him and to give Him thanks. God is angry with sin, but what abiding love He shows us in Christ.