The Gathering Surf City

Today we are in Romans chapter one.

We're going to be looking
at verses 21 to 32.

I'll just go ahead and tell you,

this is probably the
most hated passage.

I heard one pastor say this,

so I'm going to copy him.

Most hated passage of Scripture
in the Bible.

Okay, I see.

Now, Joel,

don't. Because my sermon got rearranged
to these three points.

First reaction.

Second reaction.

Third reaction.

When you read these verses,

you're going to have a reaction and then
I'm going to come back after I

read these verses and you get to decide
where your reaction falls.

Alright, but today I'm going to read
the passage and I want to warn you

that there are things in this passage
that if your kids are in the room,

you might have to explain it later,

because I'm not going to.

Alrighty. But I will preach it
because it is where we are.

And. And I cannot not preach it because
that would be denying God's truth

and avoiding some of the difficult
subjects of the word of God.

And I can't do that.

All right.

Romans 1:21,

32.

Here we go.

For even though they knew God,

they did not honor him as God,

or give thanks.

But they became futile in
their speculations,

and their foolish heart
was darkened.

Professing to be wise,

they became fools,

and exchanged the glory of
the incorruptible God,

for, for an image in the form
of corruptible man,

and of birds,

and of four footed animals
and crawling creatures.

Therefore God gave them over in the
lusts of their hearts to impurity,

that their bodies might be
dishonored among them.

For they exchanged the truth
of God for a lie,

and worshipped and served the creature
rather than the Creator,

who is blessed forever.

Amen. For this reason God gave them
over to degrading passions.

For their women exchanged the natural
function for that which is

unnatural. And in the same way also
the men abandoned the natural

function of the woman and burned in
their desire toward one another.

Men with men committing indecent acts
and receiving in their own persons

the due penalty of their error.

And just as they did not see fit
to acknowledge God any longer,

God gave them over to a depraved mind
to do those things which are not

proper. Being filled with
all unrighteousness,

wickedness, greed,

evil, full of envy,

murder, strife,

deceit, malice.

They are gossips,

slanderers, haters of God,

insolent, arrogant,

boastful, inventors of evil,

disobedient to parents without
understanding,

untrustworthy, unloving,

unmerciful. And although they
Know the ordinance of God,

that those who practice such
things are worthy of death.

They not only do the same,

but also give hearty approval
to those who practice them.

All right,

let's pray.

God, we praise you that your
word is true and faithful.

And God,

you have spoken.

We know what your word says.

We've read these verses.

We understand God,

that you have accordingly revealed yourself
and revealed that which is

righteous and holy.

And yet God,

you have also pointed out that
which is unrighteous,

unholy and subsequently ungodly.

And so God help us to hear
you this morning,

not me,

not the culture,

not even our own preferences.

God, let us hear your
voice this morning.

And God help us to respond to you.

And we pray it in Jesus name.

Amen. I've shared from time to time
that I have been given instruction

over the years of how to do things.

For instance,

how to make what,

cookies maybe I don't bake.

You know,

nowadays you can just go get
it in a squirt tube.

There it is.

I did get taught in construction how
to do some things the right way,

right? For instance,

I told you,

the guy that I started in construction
with showed me that back in the

day when you were building,

I'm going to use these terminology.

If you're in construction,

you know what I'm talking about.

Back in the day,

to build a T post or a corner post,

you used a whole stud.

But that cost money because
a stud cost a lot.

But because you make scrap out of two
by fours when you're building,

you can take scrap pieces and build
a T post or a corner post.

If you don't know what
I'm talking about,

don't worry about it.

But there's a right way,

like we used to do it
back in the day.

And now here's the,

here's the cost cutting way by using
blocks instead of full pieces of

lumber, right?

So there was a right way
back in the day.

Today we can do it this way.

But it's not the most stable,

it's not the most right.

I mean,

I was taught these things.

So what God gives us in the book
of Romans is the right thing,

the righteous thing,

the Godly thing.

And then from verses 16 and 17,

he gives us the good news,

right? For I'm not ashamed
of the gospel,

the good news.

For it is the power of God unto salvation
for everyone that believes.

To the Jew first,

also to the Greek,

for in it the righteousness
of God is revealed,

right?

From faith to faith.

And so when we look at these
verses we're like,

all right,

God's telling us the good things.

And then he spends the next three,

the rest of chapter one,

and the next two chapters
after that,

telling us the bad news.

We've got the good news,

now we get the bad news.

And then throughout the rest
of the book of Romans,

God starts to unfold how
the good news works.

Okay, so that's where that's sort
of the overall outline.

But we're in the bad news part now,

so just buckle your seat belts,

because the way that I believe God wants
me to share this with you this

morning really comes down to how
we respond to the word of God.

What's your reaction?

Right. How is it that you respond
to God's written word,

God's spoken word,

God's revealed word?

Do we respond in righteousness,

surrender, submission,

and obedience?

Or do we respond by weighing it against
what is going on around us,

weighing what's going on within us,

weighing what's going
on in the world?

So I want to make this statement.

To not worship God is
plain and simple.

To worship oneself.

Okay, now what do I mean by that?

If you go back to the garden,

Adam and Eve were given
an instruction,

don't eat that tree.

Eat all the other trees.

Don't eat that tree.

And then by temptation,

Satan says,

why?

Because we'll die.

You'll not die.

You won't die.

You'll just be able to know,

as God knows.

And they say,

oh, I can be like God.

I can be my own God.

I can be God.

See, to worship,

to not worship God is thus
to worship oneself.

Now, how that starts to play out is
that as I'm worshiping myself,

I get to decide what's important.

I get to decide what's
right and wrong.

I get to decide what is righteousness
and what is unrighteousness.

I can let other things feed my knowledge
and opinion of what is the right

thing versus the wrong thing,

as opposed to what God has said
is righteousness and what is

unrighteousness? Or what is godliness
and what is ungodliness?

Now, I am not the one that
came up with this text,

okay? So if you've got an
argument this morning,

you're not arguing with me.

You want to get mad this morning?

Don't get mad at me.

Go ahead and get mad at me,

because I'm going to preach it.

But truth is,

I didn't originate this.

This was not the thoughts
of my mind in my heart.

And quite honestly,

I'm not going to explain the
breakdown of verses 26.

And following where it starts
talking about men and women,

just go read the newspaper or
watch something on the news.

It's explained in culture today.

All right,

so I'm not going to break it down for
you because there are kids in the

room, all right?

It's there and there are examples
of it all around us.

So first reaction,

here's the first reaction.

You ready?

Because you're in church,

welcome to church.

We're glad you're here.

You're in church.

And so here's the thing that we do.

We go,

ah, see,

that's the sinners around us.

And I'm in church,

so I'm not.

You know where we see that?

We see that when Jesus points out the
Pharisee and the tax collector

praying, right,

Lord, thank you.

That I'm not like this ungodly
tax collector.

See, that's the first reaction.

I've been in church since I
was nine months pre birth.

I've been in church all my life.

I've been given a right to point
at the sin in the world and God.

And look,

I mean,

get this imagery.

I'm looking down my finger right
at somebody and going,

that's, that's okay.

I'm not saying that we're not
supposed to point out sin,

but I am going to tell you that the minute
you do that in the next couple

of chapters,

it's going to say,

guess what?

And then you get back to
the third reaction.

All right,

but we haven't got to
the second one yet.

Okay, I believe the second reaction to
this text is some people will look

at the culture and society
and try to justify it.

With regard to changing culture,

we're more sophisticated now than the
1st century Roman Empire in Paul's

writings. Now everything's going on in
Rome during that Nero as emperor.

There were some things going on in the
capital that just keep repeating

themselves throughout history,

just so you know.

All right,

so this justification of people,

and here's the word that
we like to use,

this.

They just,

God wants them to be happy.

So we start to justify every
behavior in the world.

And here's what I've noticed and you've
noticed and studies and research

shows that the more you try to justify
unrighteousness and ungodliness,

the unhappier the culture gets.

Suicide rates are up,

prescriptions are through the roof
trying to make people happy.

So we try to justify a
behavior that says,

okay, we'll just let people do
whatever they want to do.

They'll be happy.

That doesn't work.

Sorry, that's a bad reaction.

But that's my reaction.

Here's the third reaction,

folks, and here's what I believe
is the biblical reaction.

And as we work our way through
chapters two and three,

this is what we're going to see.

Third reaction should be an examination
of our own hearts,

our own sin.

That not so much the magnifying
glass to the world around us,

but the mirror to who we are.

All right?

Because we're going to get to them where
it says beginning of chapter

two, therefore,

every one of you who judges
is without excuse right?

Now, judgment implies conviction
in sentencing,

okay?

Because God does call upon us
to recognize righteousness,

but to recognize our hearts for our
love for and our pursuit of

righteousness. So to not worship
God is to worship oneself.

And the problem with mankind from the
Fall is that we are self centered.

We love worshiping ourselves,

right? We like our own ideas,

many of us.

I'm raising my hand because
I'm included in this.

I think myself reasonably smart.

I can kind of figure
some things out,

right? And then if I'm
given instruction,

for instance,

on how to build a T post,

I can do it,

I can accomplish that thing,

right? So I think I'm pretty well
accomplished in these things.

But the truth is,

is that anywhere along the way
where I refuse to submit,

surrender, obey and acknowledge
God for who God is,

I am already going down
the wrong road.

Okay, now I love that Nick just came
in and sat down last week.

I was watching him at this hour
as I was driving to Burgo.

And I like that he brought up the fact
that sin is sort of disease,

like sin's a disease.

And I've used the illustration that disease
is a lot like cancer because

it creeps,

it keeps claiming more ground.

And that's what sin does.

And so this passage kind of takes us
through this and it points out

things that,

yeah, we can identify with and go,

yeah, we're not that.

So we can point our fingers at that.

But then it goes on down there
and that list at the bottom,

that's the one I'm going
to hit in a minute.

Because self centered man
is one of three things.

We're either unrighteous,

self righteous,

or over righteous as
self centered man.

And that's where we're
going through.

And I didn't come up with that,

somebody else did.

So I stole it.

1, 2 and 3 deals with
unrighteousness,

self righteousness and
over righteousness.

And the problem is that we've done exactly
what this text says in that

We've begun to worship creature,

the created thing,

as opposed to the creator.

And that's in verse 24.

Therefore God gave them over in the lust
of their hearts to impurity that

their bodies might be dishonored
among them.

For they exchanged the truth of God
for a lie and worshiped and served

the creature rather
than the creator.

Folks, God's word calls us to bow before
the throne of God who is the

creator of all things.

And last week's verses were the very
simple fact that we are without

excuse. God has revealed himself
through his creation.

He's revealed his power,

his design,

his omniscience,

his omnipresence,

all of that stuff.

God has revealed it to us.

So none of mankind from the beginning
of the world to this very day has

an excuse not to acknowledge that there
is a designer and a creator.

Now what we did through
the Dark ages,

into the Reformation and into the Enlightenment
is of our own minds,

in our own sort of professing
to be wise.

They became fools.

They exchanged the glory of the incorruptible
God for an image in the

form of corruptible man.

And of birds and four footed animals
and crawling creatures.

We started theorizing,

trying to explain away the existence
of an all powerful creator.

God started looking at,

looking at creatures in the
Galapagos and going oh,

that's what we came from.

So we'll write a book about it and we'll
convince the world that this

organized system agreeing incredible
body of mankind developed from the

smudge at the bottom of some pool because
lightning struck it and enzymes

went whoa.

That's this whole process that
quote scientism has given us.

Now notice I didn't say science because
science is just studying,

recognizing what God
has put in place.

Scientism, worshiping our own ideas
and our own explanations,

right?

So I would say follow science,

yes, but don't follow scientism.

Okay? I'm just.

My reactions,

get mad at me if you want to.

Self centered man,

unrighteous, self righteous or
over righteous creature,

worships anything the created
can come up with.

We are the created and we end up worshiping
anything we can come up with

to give us some sort of rationalization
to deny that we are bound under a

creator God.

We'll worship just about anything.

I remember first time we had an AA group
up in Maryland that met in our

building there at at town Baptist.

And remember the first time I heard somebody
say they had just come out

of rehab and in REHAB
they do 12 steps,

right? And the first one is to
acknowledge a supreme Being.

Well, the original AA said
acknowledge God.

It didn't say acknowledge you can
make up your own supreme being.

And I remember this guy telling me that
one of the guys in his group for

AA grabbed a pillow on
the couch and said,

this is my supreme being.

A pillow.

I'm sorry.

Created man will come up with anything
to worship to keep from having to

be submissive and surrendered
to creator God.

That's what this verse is about.

So what happens is it starts
us down a path,

error. And it started in the
garden and it's sin.

And it goes back to the verses we've
dealt with previous to this passage.

Is that the unrighteousness and godliness
and suppressing the truth in

unrighteousness. Let's come up with some
other means of worship so that

we don't have to worship God.

That's suppressing the truth
and unrighteousness,

okay? Coming up with theories that
have yet to be proven for all the

hundreds of years or whatever they've
been trying to prove that stuff.

You see.

So I look at this thing and my outline
was self centered man,

creature worship,

first path to error.

And then I thought,

all right,

you know what?

I. And as I did the devotionals
for this week,

and some of you have watched
the devotionals this week,

and in the devotionals I mentioned some
of the cultural things that we're

dealing with today in
our news reports.

I mentioned it in the devotionals,

right?

But I look at that and I go,

okay, God,

what do you want me to do?

Can I tell y'all what
God told me to do?

This morning at about 5:30,

I was on the floor in my room on my
knees with my face to the floor

going, God,

show me my sin,

show me my heart.

Am I that judgmental guy?

Am I the one that's actually pointing
to myself when I'm pointing to

others?

See what's our reaction supposed to
be going to First Corinthians 11

where Paul says,

let a man so exist,

examine his own heart himself.

Folks, this is one of the reasons why
I'm just telling you we can love

everybody. We can love people.

We don't have to agree with people.

We do have to.

When given the opportunity
by the spirit of God,

we have to share with them
what God's word says.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to
walk out of here and go find me a

gathering somewhere where they don't agree
with me and I'm going to start

beating them with my Bible.

I'm not going to do that,

I might hug their neck.

What's our reaction?

What's our response?

So here you go.

This is what I did before I was
on my face this morning.

I googled.

I got three pages.

The first one was that in 600 A.D.

pope Gregory,

I delivered the message of
the seven deadly sins.

Now, under seven deadly sins,

you got a lot of breakout sins,

a lot of little sort of corollaries
to the seven,

right? You know,

I made it eight when I told you not
to put decorations in your coffee.

God never intended for you
to decorate coffee.

Anyway. Just kidding then.

And I don't know where this.

This one doesn't attribute
who came up with it.

But you got things like
several breakdowns,

four general categories.

Pride, jealousy,

abusiveness, and depression.

And then this one here,

y'all, this is the one
I want to show you.

2 full pages,

99 sins with verses
attached to them.

How about that?

Man, we could be pointing
at folks all day long.

Except that I might find myself
in some of these,

right? So there's the consideration
I want us to have for a minute.

And I want us to go down and look at
the last section of this text from

verse 28 and listen to what it says.

And just as they did not see fear fit
to acknowledge God any longer,

God gave them over to
a depraved mind.

Depraved mind.

Now, I had to listen to somebody
talk about this,

and I looked it up.

It means an untested,

an unexamined thought process.

What does that mean?

That means letting your
own thoughts run away.

Just thinking up anything
you want to think up.

Depraved, unchallenged,

untested, unexamined.

What a depraved mind to do those
things which are not proper.

Being filled with unrighteousness,

wickedness, greed,

evil, full of envy,

murder, strife,

deceit, malice.

They are,

and that's added into the text.

They are gossips and slanderers
and haters of God.

Insolent, arrogant,

boastful inventors of evil.

All right,

parents, y'all all hear this one.

Disobedient to parents without
understanding.

Untrustworthy, unloving,

unmerciful.

And although they know the ordinance
of God that those who practice such

things are worthy of death,

they not only do the same,

but also give hearty approval
to those who practice it.

Now, in rereading this and reading and
reading and reading it over and

over again,

that's where the first reaction,

second reaction,

third reaction come from,

folks. It is sinful and ungodly
to practice these things.

It is Also equal,

sinful and ungodly,

to give hearty approval to
those who practice them.

So I'm not saying we agree
with the culture and go,

okay, whatever.

You know,

I'm not saying that's okay because the
Bible says definitively it is not

okay. All right,

so there you go.

That's my message on it right there.

So what do we do then?

We examine our hearts to make sure there's
not a log in our eye so that

we approach sin hypocritically.

Okay, so when you see that list,

now, that's not this list.

This list got 99.

I didn't count all those in Romans.

But when you see something
like that,

arrogant. Am I guilty of arrogance?

Absolutely, I'm guilty of it.

God help me to see my sin.

You know,

am I boastful?

There are times,

right? So when I look
at this and I go,

okay, God,

you pointed all this out
in verses 26 and 27.

Two verses back there.

Now we got four verses down here that
give a whole different list of sin.

And God,

I fall into that.

So what must my reaction be?

To confess and to repent of my sin and
to love people with the love that

God showed me,

redeeming me.

Okay, now I'll be honest.

I've preached these verses before,

and I've preached them under
reaction number one.

I admit that,

man. I pointed down my
finger and said,

see, it was just on the
news last night,

right? I've done it.

And I'm not saying that it's
wrong to point out sin.

However, I am saying that we've
got to examine ourselves.

First reaction,

not third reaction.

Okay, so here's how I do it,

and I'm going to tell.

I've told this story before.

It happened right here in this
congregation many years ago.

There was a couple that came to be a
part of the gathering back then,

and they brought friends and others that
were not in agreement with some

of the things that are in the Bible.

And so after I preached that day,

they said,

do you really believe all
that that you said this?

And it had to do with Chick
fil a and all that.

Anyway, I'm just giving you a pinpoint
in time as to when this took place.

Had to do with Chick fil a.

And I made a comment about getting
to Chick fil a before they do.

Remember that?

So after that day,

somebody came to me and said,

do you really believe all that?

And so we were back here when
the office was right here,

and I said,

sit down a minute.

I opened the Bible And
I turned to Romans,

Chapter one.

I said,

read chapter one.

Just read it.

I said,

we're not going to talk about it.

I just want you to read it.

That's the word of God.

That's God speaking.

That's not me.

It's not Bobby.

I didn't come up with that.

Just read it.

He read it.

Shut the Bible.

He said,

okay, never ask me another
question about it.

See, God's got to speak and
we've got to pay attention.

You can't cut out the parts
you don't like.

Can't ignore the parts that
you don't want to apply.

God speaks,

and we've got to pay attention.

We've got to submit,

surrender and obey.

Okay, because we're going to get
over in here to chapter two.

God points out the sin in the world,

the sin in the Gentile world.

Then he's going to get to the
sin in the Jewish culture,

faith and all of that.

And then we get to the
end of chapter three,

and he says,

there's none righteous for all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of

God. See,

so what is it that God's.

What is God drawing us to?

He's drawing us to the
third reaction,

which ought to be the
first reaction,

which is,

God, show me my sin.

Okay. All right.

There you go.

That's it.

God rearranged it.

I didn't.

I just had to pay attention.

If you got questions about it,

my phone number is abundantly
available.

You can call me if you
want my phone number,

come down here,

I'll give it to you.

Not going to announce
it because we're on.

Live on.

On the Internet.

Somebody from Timbuktu will
be calling me this week.

Is there really a place
called Timbuktu?

There is.

I didn't know.

But anyway,

I just always heard it.

Folks, taking God's word seriously
is the posture of worshiping the

Creator.

And that's what God calls us to do.

See, if you don't know Jesus,

we want you to know Jesus.

We want to introduce you to Jesus.

And we have worship times like this
to study and be encouraged by the

word of God and to be challenged
by the word of God.

And this is a text that
challenges the world,

more specifically,

cultural events and attitudes
and ideas.

It challenges it.

How do we respond to that challenge?

Do we respond to the challenge
with submission,

surrender, and obedience,

or do we respond to the challenge
of God's word with rebellion?

That's the question.

We're going to sing a song.

Gives you the opportunity
to respond to God.

You're not responding to me.

You're not responding
to the gathering.

You're responding to God.

What is it that God has spoken
to you in your heart?

What is it he's revealing to you?

If he's calling you to confession
and repentance,

personally, individually,

he expects you to respond.

You can do that right where you are.

You can do like me.

Just get in the floor,

put your face on the floor.

Just God,

show me my sin.

That's a response to the
righteousness of God.

Okay, pray with me.

God, thank you for today.

Thank you for your word that
it's true and faithful.

And God,

we can trust you.

We can trust your word.

You've given it through the ages and
protected it for us to have all

through the ages.

God, help us to read it in 2025 and realize
that your word is for today

too. And God,

we read it and we are called to respond
to your word as we are called to

respond to your love for us that
is seen in the gospel,

the good news,

Jesus on the cross,

our sins forgiven and redemption
and victory.

We thank you for those things and
we pray it in Jesus name,

Amen.