Crossing family. How you doing today?
You guys doing? Well man, it's good to be with
you. I am so excited because today
all across this region and all of our different locations
online and those of your part of the crossing inside, we are
beginning. A brand new sermon series called
Romans. For the next 15 weeks.
We are going to travel through the 16 chapters 433 verses of
the book of Romans and our goal in this sermon series is to
help. It's become better acquainted
with perhaps the clearest presentation of the power of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. My hope is that at the very end
of this journey, you'll have a better understanding of who
Jesus is a more accurate knowledge of the Gospel.
The good news that makes a difference in your life and my
life, the gospel that has the power to save a burning desire
to abandon sinful Behavior. A more meaningful experience
with the grace of God in short. My hope our hope as a church is
that this sermon series and this study in the Book of Romans will
change us, that it will change you.
And it will change me all too often I hear people who start
reading their Bible and they get, you know, they want to
engage in God's word and then they get completely confused or
frustrated and discouraged and I want, you know, we're going to
go on this journey together and We believe that by going on it
together, it will minimize some of the frustration.
It will minimize some of the confusion and give every single
one of us an opportunity to learn and grow together in order
to help you do that. We created this Romans Bible
study Journal. I'm being your fat male Vanna,
White right here. Okay.
Clayton, white, okay, tell them what they want.
Jack are no path. That's it was Pat.
Here are a couple. If you haven't got one of these,
please go grab one. You can grab one after the
service at all of our different locations, this will help you,
and I want to issue a special thanks to all the people who
helped to make this thing happen.
I had nothing to do with this much.
Better people than me made this happen.
I just said, wouldn't it be great?
And then there was a group of people or like we can do this.
So to all of you who worked hard to write all the devotionals,
God bless you. Super thankful for you to those
of you who are editors and content supervisors.
Many thanks God's blessing. May be poured out upon you.
The media team who made it look so elegant.
God bless you as well. Here is what I'm hoping is that
every day between now and September, 7th and 10th, that's
the weekend that this sermon series close closes.
All across this region, people who look just like you and me,
us will spend a little bit of time every day and God's word
that you would be changed by God's word that you would study.
God's word, pray, God's word, and maybe even go so far as to
share God's word. Now, to those of you who are
traveling and doing all kinds of fun things over the summer, you
can just take this with you when you take your makeup, okay?
And then you can watch the service online and stay
connected now To issue a special challenge husbands.
Here is what I want to encourage you to consider doing this.
Bible study with your wife, women will sometimes say I just
wish my husband was a spiritual leader in the home or would be
more spiritual, okay, that's great.
But then he comes to talk to your cold self ladies and he
doesn't know how to, you know, if he came home and said, hey, I
would like to do a Bible study with you, babe, you be like, how
drunk Are you right? That's just not.
Okay. So I'm being the ice breaker for
you. Here's fellas, when you get
home, go ahead. You want to do that thing.
That Clayton was talking about. It's all you have to say and she
says, no, you're off the hook. If she says, yes, here's what
you're going to do. I'm gonna make it super simple.
You're going to do the Bible's the the journal every single day
and then you're going to pick a night during the week where you
and your wife will Circle up ordering your favorite food at
your favorite Jack's, Pizza. Just have a little Meal Time.
I'm get your favorite beverage and then go hey, what did you
learn? And then you tell them what you
learned and then go, how can I pray for you?
And then they go, how can I pray for you?
And then you pray together and see what happens in your
marriage? See, if at the end of September
you're going, you know what, you know, I was really trying to put
our family on a foundation of Jesus has been the worst thing
ever. See if that is what comes out of
your mouth. Now, some of you might be gone
but I don't have a husband. What do I do?
Circle up with a couple friends and say, hey once a week do you
want to get together for like 30 minutes and just talk through
what we learned and see if 30 minutes, doesn't turn into an
hour and a half and turn into something meaningful and
advantageous. Now I know that at the Crossing,
there are a lot of people who are brand new to Faith, who are
trying to figure out how to grow in the Lord.
And so part of the things we're going to do is we go through the
sermon series is we're going to try and teach you how to engage
with the Bible. So what I want to do is before
you start reading a whole bunch of stuff.
In scripture. I want to give you a couple,
like, life hacks and there's a note section in here.
I think it's page seven page 9. Yep.
Thank you. Somebody's somebody's an
overachiever, okay. Page 9, they're sitting in the
front row. Good students.
If you go to page 7, you can our page nine day 7.
You can write this stuff in there.
So anytime you're reading scripture, you want to remember
this word aim. What is the aim of scripture?
And this is short for authors. Intended.
We're trying some new technology meaning there we go.
For the series hear me. Every time you read scripture
there is an author's intended meaning.
The text can never mean what it was never meant to mean.
There is one intended meaning but there are many, many, many
applications worst question you can ask in a Bible study.
What does this scripture mean to you?
To you, is irrelevant. It is.
What does this scripture mean? And then what does this
scripture require of you? How do you apply it?
So there is one meaning, lots of applications, okay?
When the Bible says, love your enemies.
Has an intended meaning. Lots of different applications
because different circumstances, different situations.
The second thing I want you to remember when you're studying
scripture, actually I'll do it over here.
I'm going to go over here for just a second.
As I want you to remember, this is the second one context is
King. I'll draw a little.
This is my crown. Okay, look at Clayton Ross,
doing all of his stuff. Okay, context is King and here's
what I mean by context is King, when you are in your scriptures
you're going to find a word or you're going to find a verse.
And you want to take that verse in context, think of that verse,
as a rock. That's just been thrown into a
lake. And there are all kinds of
ripples. All around it, okay?
And that verse or that word it has a sentence that goes before
and it goes after it, there's a paragraph before and after it
there's a chapter before and after it there is a book of the
Bible that is before and after it and then there is a testament
is this Old Testament or new testament?
How many of you have ever been taken out of context if you're
married, raise your hand? Yeah, I didn't say.
Say that. Right.
God gets frustrated. When we make his word, say
something that his word never said you can create a lot of
frustration to people to give them a promise from God.
That was never actually from God context is King if I'm walking
out to my car after church today and I'm talking to my boys and
you hear me say she is so dirty. You might be going.
Whoa whoa. Whoa.
Was he talking about? One of the greeters, was he
talking about one of the youth workers?
Is he talking about Mom or does Clayton have a female named for
his Chevy Suburban? And she needs to go to the car
wash, which is true context matters.
And so, when you are reading scripture, you're not just
pulling some random bursts out. You are putting it in the
context of what you're trying to, or if you want to understand
it, put It in context. Now as you're studying the
Bible, here's just a couple easy goals for you to hit every
single time when you're reading a chunk of scripture.
Here's the first one, just write this question down.
Keep it for later. What is the important idea of
the chapter? This will help you start to
understand at a higher level? What's going on in scripture?
What's the important idea? What's the big thing?
They're trying to get across, you can usually, if I do a good
job Boyle, an entire sermon down to like one or two sentences.
Sometimes fellows. Wouldn't you like your wife to
not tell you the whole story. And just say Becky had a bad day
instead of well I was at McDonald's and when I ordered
mine and then like 45 minutes later and she's like and Becky
had a bad day, just give me the Becky had a bad day part.
Okay, just give me that part second thing.
What is the verse? I would most like to memorize.
David says, I've hidden your word in my heart that I might
not sin against you. Have you ever done something
stupid? Raise your hands?
The reason you did something stupid, just cause you got
stupid in your heart. And the only way to get stupid
out of your heart is to fill your heart up with other things.
The reason you do what you do is because what you do is in you
and your heart is like your garage fellas.
If your garage is full of all kinds of knickknacks, when
someone gives you a Corvette, you have no space to put it in.
So you got to get rid of the bad stuff so you can put the good
stuff in memorize God's word in your heart.
That way when you're trying to talk to somebody about Jesus or
when you're trying to navigate a difficult situation, the answer
is already in you but it's Not coming from you.
It's coming from him that you've put in you next one.
What is the most challenging idea?
It could be something that you have a hard time, understanding
a hard time hearing and a hard time applying sometimes when I
am reading scripture, I go. That doesn't make any sense.
I'm having a hard time understanding.
That's okay. Just acknowledge it.
Do you think you're gonna have everything?
Figured out know. There might be sometimes you're
going. I'm having a hard time hearing
this. Another times, you'll have a
hard time applying it for instance, love your enemies.
I don't understand what he means.
Have a hard time hearing it is, I don't like this verse.
Raise your hand. If you found a verse in the
Bible, you know like yeah. Okay, let's start there.
And then applying I don't know how to love my enemies.
And just acknowledge this is kind of where I'm at in
scripture, just acknowledge it and figure out, okay, maybe this
will lead me down a growth track or something for me to do then
what is the application of my life in a sentence?
I want to say this, some of you right now, you need to
understand. God's goal is not that you would
read his word, but that you would be a doer of his word.
Scripture cries out, don't Simply Be hearers of the word,
be doers of it, to all of you who are doing your Bible reading
plan and you've made it through before.
I want you to know there is not like box seats in heaven for you
would like air conditioned space and extra, you know, Wings on
the buffet and then there's like a people who got you stopped at
laviticus section. Oh, okay, there's not these two
different sections. Here is what God would rather
have you do. If you're going, hey God check
me out. I read 10 chapters today God's
going. Okay?
What did you apply? God would rather you read one
verse and apply that verse then read all of scripture and do
nothing with it. His goal is transformation.
And then are there any promises of God to me?
Are there any promises of God to me?
There are going to be storms in your life.
There's going to be storms in your parenting storms in your
marriage storms in your job. There are going to be us attacks
of Satan and when those things happen, I want you to have
promises of God that you can rely on and that you can fight
back with. And if you don't have access to
those promises, you're going to find yourself out matched on a
regular basis. That being said, let's talk
about the book of Romans Why are we doing the book of Romans?
I'll tell you because the book of Romans was written to a
church that was struggling. Pay attention to these.
Two cultural pressures rampant, exposure, to sin and divisive
issues causing challenges for Christians to get along cultural
pressures rampant exposure, to sin, divisive issues, causing
Christians to have a hard time getting along.
Do any of those three things sound familiar.
Earlier, God's word is timeless, it is good all the time in
season and out of season. Now, when this book was written,
it was written to unify a divided Church, defend God's
righteousness. Clarify the gospel and bring
about a spiritual transformation with cultural implications.
And I bet that that is exactly what we need.
And this book did just that this letter that was written to a
group of Christians in Rome. We're so transformed by what
they read and the gospel message and the power of the Gospel that
it revealed that inside of the span of three hundred years.
Rome went from murdering Jesus, murdering Christians to making
Christianity, its National religion.
This book, The Gospel has transformative power, not just
at an individual level, not just at a cultural level but at a
national level now here's what this sermon series is going to
look like the first eight chapters.
The first eight weeks, we're going to talk about, God can be
trusted. We've been building to this all
year. That's why we took you through
the entire apologetic series. We talked about the reliability
of the Resurrection. The reliability of the word of
God, the philosophical arguments, forgot.
All of that was designed to build trust in God.
So you can trust God with your everyday life.
You can trust God with your salvation.
Then we're going to talk about trusting, God, when others
don't, that's the cultural pressure that you guys, feel
today, that you are trying to go on this road with Jesus.
And you feel like people are constantly trying to push you
off of it. And then we're going to get to
the part that nobody likes which is how do we actually live this
out? And be noticeably be a
noticeable neighbor among our friends.
That being said, I want to spend a little bit of time, talking to
you about the author, the author of the book of Romans is a man
by the name of Paul. Those of you who grew up in
church, you already know all the answers here.
But to those of you who are brand new, I want to give you at
least some context about the guy who God used to write this book
called Romans. There's a lot of different words
that you could use to describe him, the first word that you
could use. Is that he was a Pharisee, he
was a religious zealot. He was as religious and as
serious as you can get. So means he was smart, he was
educated and he was overly rambunctious for the cause of
God. The problem is, is all of that,
you know, religious energy, made him a persecutor.
He was a religious terrorist, he was so on fire for in his
commitment to God that when God revealed his son Jesus he
couldn't see that. Jesus was God's son.
And so he started to persecute people who believed in Jesus,
talk about a guy who got it all wrong, but here's the crazy
part, he eventually became a convert On his way to Damascus
to persecute more Christians. God revealed himself through
Jesus and his life was absolutely and completely
transformed. Which means he eventually became
a writer when you are reading the New Testament, 13 or 14 of
the books, depending on how you handle Hebrews were written by
this guy say what? Yeah, this guy which means he
eventually became a church planter if Paul was on staff at
the Crossing we would have like 1,000 locations because Coz
everywhere he would go, he would just drop off a church.
He would be like the Dollar General of Jesus followers, like
Dollar, Generals are giving birth to Dollar Generals like
you can go in one Dollar Generals and then there's like,
more doors to another Dollar General inside of there.
Like, how did you that was Paul? That's what he was doing.
He was the CEO of what? Never okay, I'll stop because
I'm going to say something, I don't want to say, all right,
then check this out, not only has become a church planter, he
eventually becomes. A martyr.
Now, I want to get you a picture of how cool our goddess if you
would have picked, who is like the worst person on planet Earth
to Christians at that moment in time, they would have said Paul.
And God went oh that would be a perfect guy for me to just pour
out my grace on. In fact I'm going to use this
guy to advance my gospel in ways.
You can't even imagine do any of you know somebody who you just
want to say is too far gone to jacked up.
Oh my goodness, when are they ever going to get it right?
Those are the kind of people that God's, like, watch this,
don't you ever give up on somebody that God could end up
using? Because he starts off
persecuting people for the faith and then he ends up dying for
the faith. Here's what Paul would say about
himself, and he does. Chief of sinners.
In Paul's mind and this is something for you.
And I to take home and Paul's mind he was the worst of the
worst. He's going to say some
incredibly hard things in the Book of Romans, there's many
times you're going, why are we doing this?
I want you to know it's written by a guy who sees himself as the
worst of worst and our attitude among people around us should be
that we have a serious understanding of our sin and how
we have messed things up so that way we can have the right
posture. When we're trying to make a
difference in the world around us that being said, let's jump
into Romans 1:1 Paul a servant. That's another word he would
use. Use of Christ.
Jesus, the word servant here is slave.
Here's what Paul did. He was so consumed with what God
had done on his behalf that he pulled out the handcuffs
voluntarily, and he voluntarily handcuffed himself to the
mission of Jesus. I'm going to spend the rest of
my life serving Jesus, making Jesus known, I am chained to
this. I serve that.
This is what I do. This is why I exist.
It is not about this is not about what is my occupation.
It's my preoccupation tomorrow. Hopefully, all of you have jobs,
right? You are going to go out and you
are going to do your job, Paul would say, yeah, I have a job,
too. I make tents.
You might paint. You might process insurance
claims. You might want you do you, but
he would say, nope, but this is my primary responsibility.
I'm simply doing my day job so I can do.
The thing. I'm passionate about the thing
I'm passionate about is I am a servant of Jesus Christ called
to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel.
Gospel of God, the gospel he promised beforehand through His
prophets, in the Holy scriptures, regarding his son,
who has to his Earthly life was a descendant of David.
He's going to talk to us about Jesus here for a second.
And then through the spirit of Holiness was appointed the Son
of God in power by his resurrection, from the dead
Jesus Christ, Our Lord Christ means anointed.
If you paid attention to our Christmas service, this past
year, I talked about there were three offices that were anointed
into service in the Old Testament and Jesus fulfills.
All three of those offices as Prophet priest and King and what
what Paul is doing at the very beginning is he is showing us
the human Of Jesus, through the line of David and the divine
origin of Jesus through the power of God.
What he's getting across this is that Jesus is 100% God and 100%
man at the same time some of your going.
I'm not that great at math Clayton but 100 plus 100 doesn't
equal 100? Well, that's because you're not
God. That's how that math works.
You can't do that in your math class.
But you could do that when you're talking with God, why
does this matter? That means that he knows what it
is to struggle with sin in our Humanity.
But he also understands the power and the Holiness of God
this makes him uniquely qualified to offer all three
offices of prophet priest and King, this is evidenced by his
death and Resurrection because only a human can die.
But only a God can raise you from the dead.
This means that Jesus Christ is Lord.
He's in charge and everything else in your life has to be a
distant. Second, some of you I'm going to
do. We move forward.
This is some of you, you would understand this, if I thought
you were to rate all the things that are the priorities in your
life, anything that you put in the number one spot.
That's not God, that's idolatry. But sometimes what we'll do is
we'll go, I'll put Jesus in the number one spot and then just
right. Right behind number one.
I'm a Christian. Jesus.
Number one, Republican, 1.2 Democrat. 1.2 Cubs fan. 1.2 like
will get it as close as we possibly can to Jesus.
And he do know, when Jesus Christ is Lord, Jesus is in the
number one spot. Everything else is a distant
second way. Separated.
He is so preeminent in your life that everything else has to be a
long long way away because some of us, we only like half of the
Jesus equation. So here is the Jesus equation.
We've Got Heaven. And then we've got you, I'm
going to draw you. Oh, Clayton.
You are so good at arts and make sure I get this right.
Okay, cool. This is you.
And here's Jesus as your savior and this is Jesus as your lord.
Now some of us only focus on the Savior part and this is where
Jesus comes and he rescues us from the Dominion of darkness.
And so when Jesus as your savior, he's trying to get you
into heaven. But when you start following
Jesus, as your lord, what he's trying to do is he's trying to
get heaven in to you. This is how you become a city on
a hill, a lamp on a stand. Salt of the earth.
It is. When you start to live
differently because the values of the kingdom of God, take
place or take over in your heart.
And it brings about transformation in your life.
Which gives people evidence to see that God can do a mighty
work now. I'm a mom.
Let's get into. A bigger chunk of scripture.
Now, before I get into this chunk of scripture, I want you
to know that we're about ready to read some scriptures that
some of you are going to go, this is fantastic.
And you want to clap like way to go way to take a stand and then
there's gonna be others of you who are going to find yourself a
little triggered, a little frustrated, a little
disoriented, what I want you to do, as, as we get ready to read
this text clear and clean this up real quick.
Watch me work. Okay, here we We go when we get
ready to read these chunks of scripture.
Okay, here's you again. Boy, I'm good.
And what I don't want you to do is I don't want you to pick up
binoculars. And look out this way.
What? Good Christians do when they
read the scripture, what good Christians do when they pick up
the scripture. Is they are looking at a mirror.
This is this right here is supposed to be a mere okay,
dominate a Pictionary, okay? Because when if you are reading
scripture and your go, or you're listening to this sermon, you're
going, oh I'm so glad. My husband is hearing this right
now. Bad Christian if you're going oh
I wish so-and-so is here so they can hear the sermon When likely
bad Christian here is what a good Christian does.
A good Christian pulls up the mirror and they allow scripture
to reveal things about themselves who is the worst
person? You know Point Adam some of you
are just idiots this person. Yeah no it's you you're the
worst person. You know, it's not Person next
to you, you, you need to be exposed to scripture.
You need to be changed by scripture.
That's what has to happen to me. Is we have to allow ourselves to
be exposed to the truth of God. Now, here we go.
Take a deep breath. Will all survive.
The wrath of God is being revealed from Heaven, against
all the godlessness and wickedness of people who
suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be
known about the about God is plain to them because God has
made it plain to them and some of you are going I knew it.
You guys have been talking about.
God is a god of love for way too long, but there it is.
I knew it existed. I didn't know where it existed,
but you showed your hand. I know that God is an Angry God.
I'm not hiding that he's angry. The opposite of love is not
Wrath. It's indifference, it's not
caring. Let me ask you a question.
Come here for a second. Who are the people you've been
the most angry at I'm guessing you made them.
Yeah. Oh, oh, oh yeah.
I mean, the amount of Grace you have going through the
drive-thru Just eating his phone.
Oh no. Napkins in the bag.
No problem. It's okay.
God bless. You have a church home.
We went through the drive through the other day, just the
four of us who was like, fifty, five dollars, which is a good
thing. We had a credit card so we can
Finance it over the next nine months.
But while I'm going through what I didn't do, is any pop off at
the person? How are you doing this?
I just went will pay for the person behind us, right?
But you come home to your house and your kid leaves 1 spoon out,
Why are you leaving the spoon out on the counter every day?
I come home from a long day of work and there's a spoon on the
counter and then everybody hides because you're an angry troll.
Yeah. We get the most angry at the
people we make, because we know that they know better, we know
what they're capable of. Do you ever get frustrated and
angry at what you see in the world to those of you who watch
Fox? Fox News, the answer we already
know for you is yes. And don't you think God looks
down at the world and he sees all the pain and suffering and
gets angry to. This is not what I wanted.
This is not what I wanted to see happen.
This was not my design and don't you think God also gets angry
because people don't follow, God's will screw up the world
and then we blame God for a world that screwed up and he's
going it's screwed up because you didn't do what I asked you
to do. Right.
Don't you think God, the conscious that you have is also
in God that what he sees in the world angers him.
The treatment of people angers him.
When people disobey him, it angers him, that's not the
opposite of love. It just reveals that he cares
that it matters to him now. Well, here we go.
For, since the creation of the world, God's invisible
qualities. His eternal power, his divine
nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has
been made. So people are without excuse.
What he's saying here, you'll remember in the sermon.
Hopefully, if you guys came to church while back, we did a
sermon series on the philosophical arguments of God.
What Paul is saying here is that the argument of origin The
argument of design. The moral argument, God has made
himself known on some level to all people.
So that nobody's without excuse. 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, people who don't follow God, get dark Hearts,
dark Hearts, do dark things. You want to know why the world
is dark? It's because people are doing
dark things because they have dark Hearts because they're not
following the will of God. This is how it happens.
And hear me, keep the mirror up, not the binoculars, the world is
bad because we are bad. The world is bad because we sin.
Although they claim to be wise, they became fools and exchanged,
the glory of the immortal. God for images made to look like
Mortal human beings, and birds and animals and reptiles.
Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their
hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies
with one another, but Circle up on this one.
What does it mean that God gave them over?
I'm gonna give you two options to think through this because
you might be going. I don't know how I feel about
God giving them over. Did God, make them do this or
did God allow this to happen to God?
Let go of the boat or did God push the boat away?
Let me explain this to you in your world.
At my house from time to time. I will utter these words, boys,
bring your dirty clothes downstairs.
Boys. Bring your dirty clothes
downstairs, boys. You better bring your dirty
clothes down tonight. You know what sometimes happens.
My boys because they have a little bit of their mom and
them. Don't listen.
And the next day, you know where this is going, the kids come
sauntering down the stairs and they say, I have nothing to
wear. You don't have anything to wear.
Yeah, you do wear those clothes, those clothes are dirty.
We'll put them on. Did I make my kids wear dirty
clothes? No.
Did I allow them to wear dirty clothes?
Maybe. Actually, it's not true.
You know what happens? My wife goes up the stairs, pick
some up. Bring some okay, this is for
anybody over. 120 cash. Clayton, doesn't help out around
the house at all, does he? Yes, I don't know what this is.
How you wash stuff. All right, here's what's
happening. Paul chief of Sinners is saying,
hey everybody, we've all got dirty laundry and you take it to
Jesus, you take it to the Holy Spirit and you allow it to
transform you from the inside out, but if you don't follow
Jesus, if you don't turn your life over to him.
If you don't let the holy spirit in your clothes are going to get
dirty and when your clothes, get dirty, you stink and when you
stake, it's hard to make friends and you go down all kinds of bad
roads. Saying hey, God's been crying
out. Take or bring down your laundry.
Bring down the dirty clothes but if you don't, there's
consequences. So he gave them over to the
desires of our to the desires of their hearts to sexual impurity.
They exchanged the truth about God, for a lie and worshiped and
served created things rather than the Creator who was forever
praised. Amen, because of this God gave
them over to shameful lusts, even their women.
Exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
In the same way men, abandoned natural relations with women and
we're inflamed with lust for one, another men committed,
shameful acts with other men and received in themselves, the due
penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did
not think it worth while to retain the knowledge of God, so
he gave them over to a depraved mind so that they do what not
ought be done. Let me be clear.
Paul is making a statement here about human sexuality and God's
design for sex. Now for those of you who are
brand new to the crossing here is what God teaches is.
How sex is supposed to operate. You have sex and God, put
boundaries around it, and that boundary is marriage.
Which is a covenant and that is between men and women and
anything outside of this is called sin.
So, help me out here. If you're having sex with your
girlfriend. Is that sin yes or no?
Oh, everybody's real quiet. Oh yeah.
You're having sex with her boyfriend, is that a sin?
Yes or no. Oh there you go.
Okay, okay. Alright, we're definitely gonna
let the girls know that what you just did is wrong but when the
guy was having sex with his girlfriend and I mean, she's
pretty okay. Can you have sex?
If you're married with like your side piece, Is that a sin?
Yes or no. Okay, your pet.
Can you have sex with your pet? No, not somehow that's a no-go.
Can can you have sex? That's this.
No. Can you have sex?
That's this. These are chromosome questions.
For those of you, okay, the answer to that is no.
When can you have sex? When you have decided that you
are going to love and serve and cherish until death?
Does you part? Then you can go.
Yeah. This, this is for you.
This is God's purpose. This is part of God's plan
anything outside of this. Now, some of you I want to hear
me say this, this is just one of the sins that Paul's mentioning
here. So if those of you who are
going, hey, you know, I'm not gay.
So this was my favorite service ever because, you know, he was
preaching at all of the bat. No.
No, no. We are all going to find
ourselves buried underneath the weight of our sin and just a few
moments, I just want to make sure what it was clear.
What Paul is saying about sexuality now.
Our church is going to do a sermon series in September on
Hot Topics, which will include sexuality and gender and the
like, and if there's anybody who's still a part of our
church, when we get to that sermon series, it will be a
careful thoughtful, sermon series that I believe will be
beneficial to all of you. We will unpack more of that
later. But what I want, you know, is
Paul does call homosexual activity a sin, but he is also
going to go on a long list that includes the send that you
struggle with even though there's this sin that maybe
other people struggle with and with the same level of Grace
that you would like people to treat your sin.
I think you should treat other people with their sins.
And here we go. They have become filled with
every kind of wickedness, evil greed and depravity.
That pick any of you up yet? Oh no, I don't know.
Maybe, I've seen their full of Envy murder, Strife, deceit, and
mouse. Some of your gone.
All that's great news because I'm not a murderer, but just
remember. Jesus says, if you have Hate in
Your Heart, you've already committed murder.
So those of you who are hardcore, Republicans, how do
you feel about Democrats or Joe Biden?
Okay, well, no, that we found you, okay?
And if you're a Democrat and you have thoughts, I'm Trump and you
have a little bit of Hate in Your Heart.
Oh, yeah. Guess what you?
And the Republicans just found Common Ground.
Okay, look at this. Here's one of my favorite things
about. Here we go.
Here's one greed. Do any of us in America struggle
with greed? When our clothes have houses,
and our cars have houses. Oh, no, not us.
And we we have all the money in the world to do all the fun
things we want. But boy, we are just tight on
cash when it comes to helping people out or advancing the
mission of Jesus Christ. Oh man, you caught me at a bad
time. We're saving for Cabo.
How do you okay? All right.
Just so, you know, greedy people and homosexuals.
He's going. Hey, I got a problem with you.
No, no, Clayton. Homosexuals are like the worst
of the worst and greedy people, they're just right.
I think just they just got a they just got hit just a wittle,
bitty sin. Nope, he's saying you screw-ups
and put on. I've got a mirror.
He's looking at me to it gets worse.
We're gossips. Hey ladies, glad you could join
us slanderers. God haters insolent, arrogant,
boastful, they invent ways of doing evil.
They disobey their parents. No, Clayton, not little Timmy
with his button nose. Not my little Grand kid who just
so precious balls. Going.
Hey, homosexuals. Grady people, your grandbaby,
that's super precious. Sinners who have rejected God
and brought about Darkness on the earth.
Oh my goodness. We got 15 more weeks.
We've got 421 more verses to go strap on.
Okay, although they knew 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. Let me take you to my favorite
verse. Versus one are 1:16 through 17.
If you're looking for like the key verse in this chapter one,
if you want me to give you the answer before you do the
homework, if you want to know what verse you should probably
memorize, its this one, because Paul makes this statement, you
just heard some pretty heavy stuff and some of your going, I
don't know if I want to be a Christian and some of your going
to. I do not like this at all and
some of you are a little embarrassed, like, I can't
believe that. That's actually what Christians
believe some of you're going. I can't believe.
This is what the crossing actually believes.
Stay With Me. Paul says, I am not ashamed of
the gospel because it is the power of God.
That brings salvation to everybody say this word to
everyone. He's saying I'm not ashamed of
what I'm telling you because it's where the power of the
Gospel lies because God made this a reality that he brings
about salvation to redeem our broken nature.
You might be gone but I don't like some of the things that God
is calling sin. That's fine.
Go create your own World and you create your own boundaries for
your own sin. Oh, you don't have a world.
You didn't create one, you're living in his.
Well, if he created it, he gets to Define what's in and what's
not send, what you, and I have to do is live, according to his
purpose is not our purposes, but here is what Paul he's saying.
So much more that brings salvation to everyone who
believes Paul is trying to show every single person.
This is how bad you have been. But Look at how good God has
been, and he is here to save you from your sin.
He is here to save you from all the bad things that you have
done. He is going out of his way to
show us that God is for everyone to bring about salvation.
First for the Jew. Then to the Gentile will unpack
Jew and Gentile. Next week for in the gospel.
The righteousness of God is revealed.
What does it mean that he is the one who makes us, right?
He is the one who purifies us. He's the one who deals with the
sin. He is the one who turns us
around. Just it is written or wait,
righteousness. That is by faith From First to
Last. We do not create the
righteousness. We are not responsible for the
righteousness. Our job is to take, hold of the
righteousness. That's our part from first to
last. We add nothing to it.
God is the one who's brought about all the righteousness?
On his own account, our job is just to grab a hold because the
righteous will live by faith hear me.
God can be trusted because he has done this marvelous work on
our behalf. He, we will get into this in
Romans chapter 5 that he moved before we moved.
We had nothing to it. Is his work.
His Redemption, his glory, his Holiness and it is available to
us how serious does God takes sin.
So much so that he sent his son to die on the cross.
How bad are we so bad? That he sent his son Jesus to
die on the cross. How serious is God about
Redeeming the world and restoring what's broken.
So serious, that he sent his son to die on the cross.
On our behalf, how angry is God at the condition of the world.
So, angry that he sent his son to die on the cross.
How much? Does God want you to be saved?
How much does God want? You to be made righteous so much
that he sent his son Jesus to die, on the cross?
How does God make you righteous by sending his son Jesus to die
on the cross? Well, why did he send Jesus to
die on the cross? So that absolutely everyone can
come to Salvation if they will take hold of it by faith.
This Is a gospel message that we can get behind.
This is a gospel message that we can't be ashamed of we're moving
to a time of decision. If you're in this room and
you're new to the church, or maybe you've never started an
intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you've never
accepted and received the gospel that we were just talking about.
You see the sinful behavior of your life?
You've noticed, the trajectory that you're on and you're going
this cannot be what I was. Created for, I have to have been
made for something more, and if you're ready to get out of the
driver's seat of your life and allow Jesus to be Lord, which
means you let him take over, and you do what he says, what you
can do is, you can begin that intimate personal relationship
with Jesus Christ today. You are we going well, how do I
get into that relationship with? The Bible is super clear that
there's a couple things that every person who comes to Faith
in Jesus Christ, do the first thing is, they believe it.
They believe that God is real, Jesus is Alive.
The Bible is true and that Died on the cross on their behalf to
bring about the righteousness of God into their life.
They repent of their sin, basically saying, I don't want
to be this person anymore. I want to be the person that God
created me to be. That doesn't mean that you're
not going to send any more but you were going to be start
sending less and less as the Holy Spirit as you allow the
Holy Spirit to take over your life.
Another thing that they do is they're baptized that they model
what Jesus Christ did that, he was a barrier that he died and
he was buried in the he was brought back to life and that is
what happens with us. We are born again, our sins are
washed away and then we are brought back to New Life In
Christ. And if you have questions about
that in just a few moments the people in this room, there's
going to be a couple of them over there by the Baxter who
would love a chance to talk with you about how to begin that
intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
And the people around, you are going to stand and sing some of
their going to come up to the steps and praying.
And while they're doing that, I will be your cue your
opportunity. That if you want to talk to
somebody about how to start that relationship, you can to those
of you who are Christians in the room.
I don't ever want the Gospel of Jesus Christ to get old us.
I don't ever want us to lose sight of what he redeemed us
from our posture. In this world, has become way
too binoculars and not nearly enough mirrors.
Our posture needs to be realizing what God has
constantly saved us from, and let that inform how we operate
and how we live and how we love the people around us.
And if you're a person who's concerned about the direction,
our country is going with the direction that our world is
going. And you're concerned about how
people around, you are behaving and acting, and all of those
things. What I would tell you is, I
think probably the best posture is a posture of Prayer.
That you would have a contrite heart before him being honest,
about your own sin. So that way you can have
Grace's. You deal with the shortcomings
in the failures and the sins of others.
Would you guys stand with me? Heavenly Father, Duo work.
That only you can do and this church right now.
God, I'm praying that you would watch over this sermon series
that you would Start something in this church.
A hunger for your word. A hunger to live.
According to your ways and God that he would transform us and
the people around us your name, I pray.
Amen.