December 21, 2022
Author: Pastor Gordon Cook
December 21, 2022
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for
salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the
Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for
faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” For the
wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has
shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal
power and divine nature have, have clearly perceived, ever since the
creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are
without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as
God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and
their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became
fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling
mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God
gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the
dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the
truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather
than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
Romans 1:16-25
I think the first course I took on the book of Romans was from Pastor
Sam Waldren, he taught me in the academy and he opened up Romans
chapter 1. I got a very clear understanding and don’t think I’ve ever
seen Romans 1 until he opened it up to me. But it had a transforming
impact on the way I thought and the way I began to evangelize. But if
you were to ask most people this question: Are you religious or are you
spiritual? I think you will find that most people will answer that
question yes. Even if you were to ask the majority of atheists do they
consider themselves to be spiritual many of them would say yes but at
the same time deny the existence of God. You can understand why men
live with that kind of contradiction. On the one hand denying the true
God but claiming to be spiritual or religious. It is because men have a
sense of God inwardly by conscious but also outwardly by creation. He
has God’s moral law written on his heart, Romans 2 and he also sees and
he hears God by general revelation. That’s why they call it general
revelation as opposed to special revelation because all men are exposed
to general revelation. They know God by the things that God has made.
Creation clearly testifies that there is a God. But men by nature as we
have just read are truth suppressors, Romans 1:18. So, what they do
instead is run and hide from God. What do they do? Well they also
claim to be wise, verse 22. But they are fools. I don’t think in the
history of mankind, maybe way back in the days of the Greek
philosophers, but so many people today call themselves experts and are
always telling us how we should live and the prevailing philosophy of
our day is live any way you want to live as long as it pleases you and
makes you happy. So you could call them intelligent fools claiming to
be wise but fools. But look what they do. That’s who they are but look
what they do. You could say in Romans 1 Paul’s going to describe here
the strategy of the so called wise as they want to suppress the
knowledge of God. What do they do? Verse 23 of Romans 1 says “They
exchanged the glory of God for images resembling mortal man and birds
and animals and creeping things.” Notice the truth suppressor doesn’t
stop worshiping. He’s still a worshiper. You see man cannot not
totally eradicate or eliminate his sense of God. He can’t stop becoming
a worshiper. That’s why a lot of people across the board love to
travel, they love to visit the jungles, they love to go deep sea diving,
they love to climb mountains, they love to smell flowers, they love to
gaze at stars, and they love to go to zoos because behind those starving
eyes and empty hearts, are people who are searching for something
bigger than themselves. But they don’t want someone as big as God.
They don’t want the true God. They have to suppress the truth about
God. They don’t want the big God of the bible. They want a small God, a
God they can control. They don’t want the God who has revealed
himself. So, what they do is go on an endless search to try to find
something that will kind of satisfy their conscious or fill up their
emptiness.
I quoted this man before—it’s one of those quotes
worth quoting by Augustine. He said “Every man has a Christ shaped
vacuum and only Christ can fill that void.” But there is also warning
to us as Christians. We can get our eyes off the main things. We can
get our eyes off Christ Jesus. I just thought about it this past week.
I thought about all the places in the bible where we are warned, even
ourselves—Christians are warned about fleeing from idols. An idol can
be anything that you make more important than God. I would say that the
most important idol in the world is ourselves. We have a tendency to
worship ourselves. We heard last Sunday morning by Pastor Von Doloski
the danger of pride and selfishness. That’s pretty well where it takes
us, to its extreme. It makes us worshipers of self. The great reason
why God gave us the Lord’s Day and the Lord’s Supper is to make us come
back to him again, and again, and again, to remember that he is the most
important person in our lives. Not you, not me, not your children, not
your husband, not your wife, not your job, but the Lord Jesus Christ.
When
you read your bible like I said there is frequent exhortations and
warnings that we as Christians maintain the simplicity as well as the
priority of our devotion to Christ. Think of the letter to the churches
in the book of Revelation. The church at Ephesus is warned about
losing their first love. Think of the churches of Galatia, there were
more than one and Paul starts off saying I am shocked, I am astounded,
or astonished that you so quickly desert him. You desert Christ.
That’s what he’s saying—you are deserting Christ and turning to another
gospel and then he says to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 11 I’m
afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness or cunning
your thoughts will lead you astray from a sincere and pure devotion to
Christ. Remember the Hebrew Christians—they’re in danger of going back
to their old covenant of Judaism, the ceremonies, and the
rituals. What does he say to them? You’re running away from Jesus.
Get your eyes back looking at Jesus the author and finisher of your
faith. So, it doesn’t matter brethren what time of the year, there’s
always a million plus things that can pull us from Christ. Christmas
time can always be a dangerous time. Don’t forget the greatest joy you
have, the greatest treasure you have, the greatest gift is Jesus Christ.
Around Christmas we should pursue intimacy with our family, yes that’s
a great thing to do. But don’t forget the greatest passion and the
desire in our hearts should always be Christ. Going back to the world
in which we live it loves to think that it is spiritual but authentic
spirituality is about Jesus Christ—knowing him, loving him, and obeying
him.
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