Given Over to a Debased Mind

Scripture Reading

Please turn in your Bibles with me to the book of Romans, Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1 and the sermon this morning will come from verses 24 through the end of the chapter, verse 32. But we're going to read starting at verse 16. So if you're using the Pew Bibles, you'll find that on page 999. Romans chapter one, beginning at verse 16.

Brothers and sisters, this is God's perfect word. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth and unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 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.

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. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed animals, and creeping things. Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchange the truth of God for a lie, and worship and serve the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever.

Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use of what is against nature. Likewise, also men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust for one another. Men with men committing what is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting. being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, fool of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness, They are whispers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful. Knowing the righteous judgment of God that those who practice such things are deserving of death. Not only do they do the same, but they approve those who practice them. Lessons of this reading, this portion of the reading of God's word.

Please pray with me. Father, we come to your word knowing it is true. We have read the words that your spirit uses to break hearts and bring life. And yet what we read this morning is illegal in many countries because it's dangerous. Father, we pray that your spirit might please help us as we approach your word to not be those who approach it from sitting above it, judging it. Lord, we pray that your spirit would give us humility to sit under your word. that as we read it, that it would be applied to our hearts.

Lord, we pray that you would please help us. Father, I pray that you would please help me to teach your word and not go beyond it and not shrink back from it. And you receive the glory as you save sinners like us, and you sanctify your people like us. In Jesus' name, amen. We come to this portion of the Book of Romans.

I need to warn you that there's a ditch on either side of what I'm going to say today. And This isn't like, you know, what you're driving down Highway 61 or something like that where you got nice wide lanes and the roads are dry. I'm talking about you're driving on gravel roads where they just put down new gravel and if you even pressure brakes too hard, you might swerve and end up into a ditch type driving where we got to slow down and be careful. Because on one side of the ditch, is reading this passage, especially verses 24 through 27, and we may be so afraid of what it says because of the current culture that we live in that we shrink back away from it. We wanna make it not as sharp as what it is or not as offensive as what it is. We might even wanna ignore it.

And so there's a ditch on one side of the road, but then on the other side of the road, there's another ditch. And that's a ditch of being so, taking so firmly a stance on verses 24 through 27, that we start internalizing the they-them. And we start looking at everywhere in the culture where there are things out there that are a problem out there, and we end up in the ditch of self-righteousness on the other side.

And I gotta tell you, Paul doesn't give us any place for self-righteousness in the book of Romans. So I need to warn you. I need to warn you that on the one side of the ditch is this lawless side, and on the other side of the ditch is a self-righteous side. And there's dangers on both.

And so what I'm calling you today is to call sin, sin. To call sin, sin. but first look in the mirror. To call sin, sin, but to first start with the mirror. And my hope is that we as a congregation will trust scripture's diagnosis of sin here in Romans chapter one. And that we would grieve over indwelling corruption. And that we might find joy in the grace that Christ offers to us. even in the deepest of our rebellion. So it's a hard task for us today, maintaining biblical standards without becoming self-righteous judges who major on other people's sins, all the while minimizing our own sins.

So it's going to be tough. So I hope you'll help me out here and you'll follow along. So let's go ahead and start with what does it look like when God judges people? What does it look like for God to judge people? Look with me at verse 24. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness in their lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves. This is tied. Because of the nature of preaching, I've had to take chunks.

But Paul's argument in Romans is all one interwoven argument. And we can't separate where we are in verse 24 from where we started in verse 16 with this thesis, right, that for he's not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For as it is written, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. And then that can't, so this gospel, right, there's a whole book of Romans about God's powerful good news.

And then it starts in this weird place, for the wrath of God has been revealed. Or the righteousness of God has been revealed in the gospel. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven. And that's what we started looking at last week. How is that wrath revealed?

By the suppression of God's righteousness, of the truth of God's being, and the idolatry that happens of, well, I don't want to do things the way that God has made the world, and I don't want to be thankful to him or serve him or stand before him with reverence and say, I'll do whatever I want. I'll just keep pushing that down.

So he picks up in verse 24 and says, therefore God also gave them up. Therefore, whenever you're, you're going to find a lot of therefores in the book of Romans because it means that it's tied to whatever came before it. So in verse 24, when Paul starts this section, he says, therefore God also gave them up to their uncleanness.

He's saying, therefore, since they're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness and love the idolatry and don't want to worship him, don't want to serve him, don't want to give him thanks. What does it mean, right? It said in verse 21 that they became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. They were futile in their thoughts and foolish hearts were darkened. Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness.

What does God's wrath look like? Or what does God's judgment or anger look like? delivering us up, giving us up. We think of God's wrath and we think of Sodom and Gomorrah. We think of the ground splitting open and Korah's rebellion being swallowed up. We think of God's wrath as we think of Aaron's sons as they come and they bring the strange fire and God consumes them with the fire. And we think of that as God's wrath. But Paul here, what God tells us here in Romans chapter one is God's wrath, God's anger, In verse 18, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. What does that look like? Verse 24, God gave them up to uncleanness. God allows them to do what they want. That's a scary thing. That's a really scary thing.

I'm just going to go a little bit polemical here, because people will often talk about Calvinists, and they'll talk about people of our types of convictions, like, well, they don't like free will, and they think we're just robots, and et cetera, et cetera. And we say, hold on, back that up. We totally believe in free will. The issue is that our will is corrupted.

And that if God takes his restraining hand us off, we're going to do the sin we want to do. And that's what God's wrath, his justice, or his judgment looks like. His giving them over, gave them up. Said, okay, that's what you want to do? Go for it. And that's the hard thing about our lives. As we sit here and we look at this, it's easy for us to think about God gave them up. And there's this paradox that happens in life, right? Often when it looks like God giving people up, shouldn't say often, but sometimes, their life actually looks like what our culture thinks is fun. Right, no worries, no concern.

And it wasn't any different, like when Paul is writing this in first century Rome, he's saying this about the societies around him. He's been to Athens, and he's seen their wisdom, and they scoffed at him. He's been in Ephesus, one of the most wealthy cities in the entire world, where the Temple of Diana was one of the seven wonders of the world. He's been there where people brought all their gold and brought all their idolatry, and the silversmiths wanted to raise up the people to kill him. He's writing to the people of Rome. People travel today, 2,000 years later, to go and see the marvels of Rome from 2,000 years ago, and yet, Paul is saying, God's given them up in his anger. What does it look like when God gives them up? When God gives his anger?

In my mind, it's kind of like the, well, me. I like pie, and I like ice cream. But you know what it would look like for God's justice to be? If I said, you know what, I don't care about my body being a temple of the Holy Spirit. I'm going to eat pie and ice cream as much as I want, whenever I want.

Okay, fine. You want your diabetes? You can have it. Go ahead. Don't have self-control. Do to yourself slowly the death that's coming upon you. Fine. You don't want to honor parents? Fine. Destroy the family from the inside out. Great, you don't want to follow after me? You want to do your own thing? Okay. Do your violence. That's what it looks like here. Feels good until it doesn't. That is a scary thing.

The scariest thing for me of Romans chapter one is God giving us up. In judgment, it looks like God giving us up to what we naturally want to do. So that's what God's judgment looks like. God's anger being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. The question is, who's being judged?

That's really the bulk of what's left here in verse 24 through 31. Paul starts in verse 24 through 27 with very, Paul is writing as a Jewish person and there's a, The sins he's going to talk about in verses 24, or really, as he's even talking about idolatry, verses 21 to 27, are mainly Gentile problems, right? Like, Jewish people don't have this problem with idolatry. And in Paul's mind, as well as other Jewish writers, like Philo down in Alexandria, what comes in 24 through 27 really is, in their minds, a Greek problem, a Gentile problem, not a Jewish problem.

So what is this? Who are these types of people that God's anger is being revealed from heaven against? Well, the first is God gives those up to uncleanness and the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves. Who exchange the truth of God for a lie and worship and serve the creature rather than creator who is blessed forever, amen. So what does this rebellion look like? Who are the type of people who say, no, I'm not gonna worship you, I'm not gonna serve you, I'm not gonna do this. They look like people who are filled with lust, uncleanness, and dishonoring themselves with their own bodies, exchanging the glory of God. So how does that play out? Well, that's verse 26 and 27.

For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. for even their women exchange the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise, also men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust for one another. Men with men committing what is shameful and receiving themselves the penalty of their error, which is doom. This is what Paul is saying. He's going right back to Genesis chapter two language and he's saying, the total normal natural thing is for a man and a woman to be together. And yet this is a changing of that natural order.

He's not saying it's not natural for them to have this desire, he's saying it's against nature itself. They may be born with this inclination, this desire to go chase after this thing, but he's saying even that, giving in to those passions, giving in to those desires, he's saying is shameful. I know this is very likely that this anywhere that this is maybe the live stream will already cut off, right? Because this is not a popular thing to say. That says that the anger, his judgment looks right now like him giving people over to their lustful desires. So okay, if that's what you want, go ahead. Go ahead.

Again, this is the type of thing that, as Paul is, from a Jewish perspective, looking on very Greek sins, by the way, this is how much homosexuality there was in the first century. There's plenty of writing on that, and not all Greek people were okay with this. There were certain Stoics who wrote against homosexuality, but you read somebody like Plato in his Symposium, This is one of the arguments that people are trying to make for what is perfect love is this idea of an older man taking patronage with a younger man and having homosexual affairs with him. So it's there. It's just there. You read all over the pages of history with this type of stuff.

But then notice Paul goes on for who are the ones who are being judged, who the wrath of God is being revealed against. Look at me at verse 28. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting. being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness, they are whispers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of them, not only do they do the same, but they approve of those who practice them. Who else are they who are being judged?

Well, this moves away from this. If it was a telephoto lens zoomed in, right in on the Gentile's most heinous sin that the Jewish people would look and go, that's solely a Gentile type sin. He starts broadening out, zooming out the camera. And you find more and more people in the scope of God's judgment. Who are the type of people who are being judged, it escalates from being them out there to all of a sudden you find yourself in the them. You find yourself in the group. And there's a structure here in Paul's vice list.

There's four different types of categories of sin. With unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, and covetousness. There's a category type sins. Unrighteousness means anything unjust. Another category of sin is sexual immorality, porneia. This is literally where we get our word pornography from. Sexual immorality, any debased sexual desire that's outside of God's covenant design of marriage. Wickedness, covetousness. Have you ever just noticed how broad and expansive The 10th commandment is on covetousness.

You shall not cover your neighbor's house, nor his manservant, you shall not cover your neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that resides within your neighbor's gate. Big category. Be content with your own life. Don't worry about wanting your neighbor's stuff. Don't want your neighbor's life.

So there's these four categories here. sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness. But then there's other sins in this vice list that start getting pretty narrow, whittled down more. Maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness. There are whisperers. Backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents. There's like a huge list here, and in the first part are relational sins, malicious, envy, strife, deceit. And there's eight different character types. Gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful. And when he says God-haters, he's not talking about the person who's shaking their fists up to heaven, the angry, mad atheist.

Oh, I hate you, and I don't believe in you, God. I watched a couple of YouTube videos this week about some guy like that, and I thought, man, you hate God so much that you have a lot of passion to preach against a God you don't believe exists. But that's not what Paul's talking about here. Here he's talking about people who even hate the idea of God having authority over them. This is the type of person who thinks, I would never worship a God who dot, dot, dot. Insert whatever Bible passage they don't like.

That's a type of hating of God that's disguised as, I'm going to actually judge over God. the insolent or violent person that he's describing here is the person who delights in humiliating others. If we were to put that into today's words, the person who is violent, we might say, let's just translate a little bit, this is the Brian's non-literal translation, They're full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness. They are whispers, backbiters, haters of God, internet trolls, proud boasters.

All right, the people that are, I'm just gonna do everything in my ability to be as sarcastic and demeaning and pulling you down as humanly possible. I don't care about your feelings and I don't care about who you are. You're wrong, period. Insolent and violent. willing to do anything to destroy somebody else's reputation.

Contrivers, now that was an interesting one as I was in the King James, contrivers, inventors of evil. Isn't just people who are doing bad things, but actively creating new ways of doing evil things. And this could take a whole bunch of different forms. I mean, there's a reason why there's lawsuits right now that big-time lawyers are paying big-time bucks to try to defend social media companies for, even though they knew the addictive nature of the platforms they were building, purposely continue to build them for financial revenue's sake. Putting dollars over people. Or pushing certain ideas or people who create new financial schemes.

I love watching these like anti-scammer videos, right? There's this guy online who will find all these people who are like doing phishing emails and he'll like hack into their own networks and like, you know, take over their computer and shut them down and stuff. But I'm sitting there thinking like the amazing thing that these people do with creating websites and knowing how to take over your computer and access your personal files.

And you're sitting there thinking, you know, if you just used that smart brain of yours to actually do something good, you could actually make an honest living. But instead, you're inventing evil ways to steal people's money. Why don't you get a real job and a life? That's what he's talking about here with inventors of evil.

But then notice there's four different Uns are five different uns here. Undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful. Un, un, un, un, un. Undiscerning. They're not actually thinking about God's ways. Untrustworthy. Covenant breakers. People without affection and natural bonds and love. Breakers of basic family units. Parents abandoning children and children cutting off elderly parents. Unforgiving. Unmerciful. Unmerciful in some translations is ruthless. Ruthless. No second chances, period. Cross the line once with me, we're done. No grace, no mercy. The problem I have with this passage is how many times do we find ourselves in those verses? How many times are we unloving? How many times are we refusing to show mercy to someone else?

As a culture, especially in evangelicalism, we need to be able to call sin, sin. We'll spend a lot of time, a lot of time defending what is just very clear in verses 26 and 27 about homosexuality. And yet, Are we broken in our hearts about our covetousness? When we're looking and pointing at somebody else's sin, and it may very well be a sin in their lives, do we look at our gossip and take it with the same type of destructive nature? I'm saying this to you as your pastor, and I'm saying this as a brother who loves you.

What I'm saying is we have to be able to do both. We have to be able to say, this is sin and it's wrong. And I got sin in my life too and I gotta deal with my sin. So I'm gonna start with me. I'm gonna look in the mirror first and I can't look in the mirror and see who I am and then walk away and forget as I judge you. No, I gotta, as I see the speck in your eye, I'm gonna go take a log in my own eye. But I am still gonna try to come and talk to you once I'm done with the sin in my own eye.

And so you wrestle with the culture that we're in. This is one of the things that just boggles my mind that I'm seeing culturally happening right now. As I see people who are, I would agree on many things about where we're going as a culture with a lot of the far left's push, and yet I'm sitting here at the same time, you guys are the most sarcastic, caustic, mean-spirited, horrible people who call people all sorts of names and don't care about anyone's reputation. Whoa! I don't even want to be on X, because I don't want to absorb this. The hatred. I'm just concerned.

Like I'm saying this as a brother, we need to be those who are calling sin sin, and yet we should be them. If we take chapter one seriously, man, we better not be proud. Better not be boasters. Better not be untrustworthy or unloving or unmerciful or unforgiving. Because if we are, we are no better than that person who had a gigantic debt to be paid. And then afterwards, when we're forgiven of our massive debt, when we're shown love and mercy that we don't deserve, then going and choking out the other person because they're sinning and you want your dues back.

It is amazing to me as I think about one of my mentors, Ken Smith, and his interaction with Rosaria Butterfield. One of the things that convinced her to even start thinking about Christianity was, Ken and Flo's kindness, genuine concern, love, and care for Rosaria. Just asking her questions, inviting her into the home, understanding that she had her positions, and interacting with her in a respectful way.

There's a technical term here. The school of this is called rhetoric. The art of speaking and convincing. And Paul is using a rhetorical device here. By pointing out them, them, they, they, and then all the while, by the time you get to the end of the speech or the end of this section, you realize that you're part of the they. you're engaging in the same sins.

And we're gonna pick up in chapter two next week with the next therefore. The next therefore is the challenging one. Whoever you are who judge, from whatever you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge, practice the same things. By verse 32, Paul has moved from those out there to stuff we got to wrestle with in our own hearts. But this is where I want to push us to at the very end here.

Is there hope for people who have been judged like this in God's anger? The answer is yes. And I say that because In verse 26 and verse 24, the verb is used three times in this section. Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness. For this reason, God gave them up to their vile passions. This verb for giving them up is used three different times. And then in verse 28, God gave them over to a debased mind. This giving them over, the Greek word is parodidumni. Paul said to me, and this word in verse 24 and 26 and 28, there's God giving over, delivering over. It's gonna become an important word for Paul. Why don't you just flip to Romans chapter four. And let your eyes scan down to the last verse of that chapter. Keeper, finger at verse 25, and we're just gonna read that last paragraph.

Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in him, who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. And this is the important part here for today's sermon. who was delivered up because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification. That delivered him up, that Jesus being given up is the same word, the same word for God gave them up to their desires, delivered them to their desires. God delivered Jesus up. for our justification.

God takes Romans chapter one with all of its sin and all of its conviction all of the condemnation against the humanity and against the Greeks and the Jewish people, against both classes of people. You've got all these sins, all these categories of violations of God that he's allowed you to just walk in all of your sin. By the end of chapter one, there is no hope for anyone. By the time you get to Romans chapter eight, It is that there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You see, this is the Christian hope. Romans chapter one was given to us so we would take sin seriously. And then we would start by looking in the mirror.

So then when we come to the Lord's Supper, we don't come as though saying, oh, I don't have sin. deceiving ourselves and making God a liar. But we come as wretched saved by His grace because He is loving and merciful and kind and gracious and good and righteous. And we need Him. So my prayer for you today as we wrap up the sermon, land the plane and sing and take the Lord's Supper, is that you come with a great deal of joy. That God can be so merciful to sinners like us. That we take sin so seriously that we deal with it internally and recognize it in the world we live in. So we come with joy, we come with peace, and we come with renewed vigor, zeal, that the world needs this good news, this powerful righteousness of God which has been revealed from heaven.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. God, you know our sin. the dark, polluted corners and recesses of our souls, where we still want to cry out, mine. Father, please forgive us. And we thank you for the goodness that you have shown us in Jesus. We pray that he might be our only hope, our only peace, our deepest joy. In Jesus's name we pray. Amen.