[The following is a manuscript of my sermon delivered on Sunday morning, the 9th of October, 2016. Look for the video on our Vimeo channel, http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]
The Apostle Paul was not one to mince words. He pretty much spoke the truth of Jesus and accepted whatever consequences might come from those words. He was never bashful nor at all hesitant about spreading the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus.
But that Good News also often came with a warning, because we all have a choice. We all have a responsibility to act wisely when making that choice. Because the consequences of our choice can be a matter of life or death: life everlasting with God, or eternal death in the lake of fire.
Listen and follow along to the words of encouragement and the rather shocking warning the Apostle Paul gives in his letter to the Romans, chapter 1 verses 16 through the first part of 26, and verse 28 through the first 2 verses of chapter 2, reading from the New Living Translation of our Holy Bible. This is rather long, so bear with me, please. Paul writes…
But that Good News also often came with a warning, because we all have a choice. We all have a responsibility to act wisely when making that choice. Because the consequences of our choice can be a matter of life or death: life everlasting with God, or eternal death in the lake of fire.
Listen and follow along to the words of encouragement and the rather shocking warning the Apostle Paul gives in his letter to the Romans, chapter 1 verses 16 through the first part of 26, and verse 28 through the first 2 verses of chapter 2, reading from the New Living Translation of our Holy Bible. This is rather long, so bear with me, please. Paul writes…
1:16 For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes — the Jew first and also the Gentile. 17 This Good News tells us how God makes us right in His sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “The righteous will live by faith.”
18 But God shows His anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who, by their wickedness, prevent the truth from being known. 19 They know the truth about God because He has made it obvious to them. 20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see His invisible qualities — His eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship Him as God or even give Him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. 22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. 23 And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. 25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator Himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. 26 That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires.
28 Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, He abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. 29 Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. 30 They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. 31 They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. 32 They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.
2:1 You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things. 2 And we know that God, in His justice, will punish anyone who does such things.
--Romans 1:16-26a; 1:28-2:2 (NLT)
Let us pray… Father God, Your Son Jesus saved the Apostle Paul and brought him to You. Your Holy Spirit led him through his ministry. You inspired him as he wrote his letters educating, enlightening, and even at times rebuking the churches of Jesus throughout the land. And You made sure his words would be available to us still today, so that we might also know Your will as he did. Help us understand the important message You have for us this morning, Father. In the glorious name of Jesus we pray. Amen.
I'm sure you know the story of Helen Keller, born blind and deaf but given the gift of communication through the dedicated efforts of her teacher, Anne Sullivan. The movie, "The Miracle Worker" dramatized these women's remarkable tale. But you may not have heard of one little incident between the two.
After painstakingly teaching Helen sign language, Miss Sullivan worked to give her student the names of various physical objects. And then Miss Sullivan attempted to explain God to this deaf, blind girl. She began by tapping out the symbols for the name "God". To her surprise, Helen quickly spelled back, "Thank you for telling me God's name, Teacher, for He has touched me many times before." Helen Keller already knew something of God and His nature, His kindness, but it was a wordless, nameless knowledge. Miss Sullivan gave that oft-felt presence a name: "God".
Compare that, if you will, to what John MacArthur wrote in his book, “Can God Bless America”, where he stated that, "America wants God's blessing, but not God. Our nation has systematically pushed Him out of the national consciousness - rejecting biblical morality, ignoring His Word, and relying on the political and entertainment arenas for moral guidance."
These two anecdotes, when taken together, pretty well illustrate today's scripture reading. Remembering that faith is the firm belief in that which cannot be seen nor proven without a shadow of doubt, we can certainly see that Helen Keller knew God by faith, and so lived by faith. Meanwhile, our nation in general, our modern culture, our national and even global society, has turned from God, has shoved Him aside and out of its life, has chosen to pursue temporary pleasures rather than salvation and eternal life with God.
I believe God smiled upon Helen. Do you suppose He might be angry with much of America?
Our scripture reading covers two very important topics. The first is that we must live by faith. The second is what happens if we don’t.
Paul notes that the scriptures say the righteous will live by faith. Let’s take a moment to look at that particular passage in scripture. It comes from the book of the prophet Habakkuk, chapter 2, verse 4…
I'm sure you know the story of Helen Keller, born blind and deaf but given the gift of communication through the dedicated efforts of her teacher, Anne Sullivan. The movie, "The Miracle Worker" dramatized these women's remarkable tale. But you may not have heard of one little incident between the two.
After painstakingly teaching Helen sign language, Miss Sullivan worked to give her student the names of various physical objects. And then Miss Sullivan attempted to explain God to this deaf, blind girl. She began by tapping out the symbols for the name "God". To her surprise, Helen quickly spelled back, "Thank you for telling me God's name, Teacher, for He has touched me many times before." Helen Keller already knew something of God and His nature, His kindness, but it was a wordless, nameless knowledge. Miss Sullivan gave that oft-felt presence a name: "God".
Compare that, if you will, to what John MacArthur wrote in his book, “Can God Bless America”, where he stated that, "America wants God's blessing, but not God. Our nation has systematically pushed Him out of the national consciousness - rejecting biblical morality, ignoring His Word, and relying on the political and entertainment arenas for moral guidance."
These two anecdotes, when taken together, pretty well illustrate today's scripture reading. Remembering that faith is the firm belief in that which cannot be seen nor proven without a shadow of doubt, we can certainly see that Helen Keller knew God by faith, and so lived by faith. Meanwhile, our nation in general, our modern culture, our national and even global society, has turned from God, has shoved Him aside and out of its life, has chosen to pursue temporary pleasures rather than salvation and eternal life with God.
I believe God smiled upon Helen. Do you suppose He might be angry with much of America?
Our scripture reading covers two very important topics. The first is that we must live by faith. The second is what happens if we don’t.
Paul notes that the scriptures say the righteous will live by faith. Let’s take a moment to look at that particular passage in scripture. It comes from the book of the prophet Habakkuk, chapter 2, verse 4…
4 “Look at the proud!
They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked.
But the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God.”
--Habakkuk 2:4 (NLT)
That also has two points of interest. The righteous will live by their faithfulness to God. We talked about being righteous before, and I asked do we really think ourselves righteous. God truly is righteous and His righteousness is shown in the righteousness of Christ Jesus that is considered by God to belong to the one who believes. In other words, God passes along the righteousness of Jesus to us because we believe in Him. God, through the death of His Son, declares righteous those sinners who come to true faith in Christ. But note that we must fulfill our part. That’s the second point. We must be faithful to God; we must live by faith.
And I think it very interesting to note that this verse from the Old Testament shows that the way of living by faith was known even in ancient times, long before Jesus came to this earth as a man. Another interesting little side fact is that this particular passage in scripture greatly inspired Martin Luther. This simple message put him on the path that led to nailing his list of proclamations on the church door that ultimately led to what we call the Great Reformation, and eventually to this church.
All of that is the good part - the words of encouragement Paul offers. We quickly move into the warning. And he starts out by letting us know that God will show His anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who, by their wickedness, prevent the truth from being known.
They know the truth! How could they not know, since He has made Himself evident from the very beginning of man’s existence. We can see and experience His creation all around us. We can understand His invisible qualities. Yet so many refuse to acknowledge Him, refuse to worship Him, refuse to accept Jesus as His Son. They put other things first in their lives, worshiping the created rather than the Creator. And worse yet, they encourage others to sin.
So how does God respond? Basically, He says, "OK, if that's the way you want it, do whatever you want to do. I'm through with you. I release you. I'm letting you go. I'm abandoning you."
Three times in this short passage, God threw His hands up over these sinners and abandoned them: in verses 24, 26, and 28. He wants to make sure we notice that some people have been and will be given up on, abandoned, left to do whatever they want and to suffer the consequences of their actions!
That’s kind of a scary thought, isn’t it, to be abandoned? If we think about how that would feel, then we can better understand how Jesus must have felt as He hung from that cruel cross and shouted, “My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me?”
Abandoned, left alone. But it gets worse.
Paul brings us all down a notch or two when he tells us we have no grounds for judging these people that God will abandon. Their lives may be full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip, but so are ours! They may be backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful, but so are we! They may invent new ways of sinning, disobey their parents, refuse to understand, break their promises, be heartless, and have no mercy, but we are subject to doing all those ourselves! We cannot condemn them because we are just as bad as they, and we know better!
We also know that God, in His justice, will punish anyone who does such things. We know, and we have fear, because it is written in the great Book of Jesus’ Revelation to the Apostle John, chapter 20, verses 11 through 15…
God keeps two book on His creation. One is the Book of Life, in which He records all those who believe in His Son Jesus. Those that Paul describes whose names are not listed in that book will be sentenced to perish eternally in the lake of fire. The second book records all our deeds and actions and words and thoughts while we walked this earth. We will stand before God and we will answer for all those things, but we will still live for eternity with Jesus because of our belief.
Still, we will be judged. So it’s best that we strive to live up to the righteousness that comes to us by the death of our Lord Jesus. We must try with all our strength to live a life of faith, and of faithfulness to God. For in the end there will be no place to hide that God cannot find us.
Don’t risk being abandoned. We must repent of those sinful ways that Paul described, and accept Jesus as our Lord or rededicate ourselves to Him as our Master. Only through Him can we truly be righteous.
In the blessed name of Jesus. Amen.
Let us pray… Father God, we come before You as sinners, seeking to be righteous in Your sight. We believe in Your Son Jesus and we accept Him as our Lord and Master. Please, Father, do not abandon us, for we need You always by our side.
Hear us now, Father, as we pray in the silence from our hearts, repenting and seeking forgiveness…
Lord Jesus, we can only sense what You must have felt there upon Your cross, as You died so that we might live. We so desperately do not want to be or even feel abandoned. Help us, please Lord, to live a life of righteousness and faithfulness.
This we pray in Your glorious name, Christ Jesus, our Lord and Master, the one true Son of God, in whom we place all our hope, all our trust, all our faith. Amen.
And I think it very interesting to note that this verse from the Old Testament shows that the way of living by faith was known even in ancient times, long before Jesus came to this earth as a man. Another interesting little side fact is that this particular passage in scripture greatly inspired Martin Luther. This simple message put him on the path that led to nailing his list of proclamations on the church door that ultimately led to what we call the Great Reformation, and eventually to this church.
All of that is the good part - the words of encouragement Paul offers. We quickly move into the warning. And he starts out by letting us know that God will show His anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who, by their wickedness, prevent the truth from being known.
They know the truth! How could they not know, since He has made Himself evident from the very beginning of man’s existence. We can see and experience His creation all around us. We can understand His invisible qualities. Yet so many refuse to acknowledge Him, refuse to worship Him, refuse to accept Jesus as His Son. They put other things first in their lives, worshiping the created rather than the Creator. And worse yet, they encourage others to sin.
So how does God respond? Basically, He says, "OK, if that's the way you want it, do whatever you want to do. I'm through with you. I release you. I'm letting you go. I'm abandoning you."
Three times in this short passage, God threw His hands up over these sinners and abandoned them: in verses 24, 26, and 28. He wants to make sure we notice that some people have been and will be given up on, abandoned, left to do whatever they want and to suffer the consequences of their actions!
That’s kind of a scary thought, isn’t it, to be abandoned? If we think about how that would feel, then we can better understand how Jesus must have felt as He hung from that cruel cross and shouted, “My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me?”
Abandoned, left alone. But it gets worse.
Paul brings us all down a notch or two when he tells us we have no grounds for judging these people that God will abandon. Their lives may be full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip, but so are ours! They may be backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful, but so are we! They may invent new ways of sinning, disobey their parents, refuse to understand, break their promises, be heartless, and have no mercy, but we are subject to doing all those ourselves! We cannot condemn them because we are just as bad as they, and we know better!
We also know that God, in His justice, will punish anyone who does such things. We know, and we have fear, because it is written in the great Book of Jesus’ Revelation to the Apostle John, chapter 20, verses 11 through 15…
11 And I saw a great white throne and the One sitting on it. The earth and sky fled from His presence, but they found no place to hide. 12 I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up its dead, and death and the grave gave up their dead. And all were judged according to their deeds. 14 Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death. 15 And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.
--Revelation 20:11-15 (NLT)
Still, we will be judged. So it’s best that we strive to live up to the righteousness that comes to us by the death of our Lord Jesus. We must try with all our strength to live a life of faith, and of faithfulness to God. For in the end there will be no place to hide that God cannot find us.
Don’t risk being abandoned. We must repent of those sinful ways that Paul described, and accept Jesus as our Lord or rededicate ourselves to Him as our Master. Only through Him can we truly be righteous.
In the blessed name of Jesus. Amen.
Let us pray… Father God, we come before You as sinners, seeking to be righteous in Your sight. We believe in Your Son Jesus and we accept Him as our Lord and Master. Please, Father, do not abandon us, for we need You always by our side.
Hear us now, Father, as we pray in the silence from our hearts, repenting and seeking forgiveness…
Lord Jesus, we can only sense what You must have felt there upon Your cross, as You died so that we might live. We so desperately do not want to be or even feel abandoned. Help us, please Lord, to live a life of righteousness and faithfulness.
This we pray in Your glorious name, Christ Jesus, our Lord and Master, the one true Son of God, in whom we place all our hope, all our trust, all our faith. Amen.
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