Romans chapter 1 I'll be reading from verse 24 all the way down to verse 32 Romans chapter 1 verse 24 through 32 okay yes I'm reading out of the ESV therefore God gave them up in the loss of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of the bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about 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 dishonorable passions for the woman exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for the error and since they did not see fit to acknowledge God God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness evil covetousness malice they are full of envy murder strife deceit maliciousness they are gossip slanderers haters of God insolent haughty boastful inventors of evil disobedient to parents foolish faithless heartless ruthless though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them let's pray Heavenly Father we thank you so much for this morning we ask Lord God that what you have ordained in your word would reveal in our hearts Lord God where we are we pray that we would understand your grace and what it is that we already have in Christ in a deeper way that our life for you may not simply be going through the motion and just a checkoff list but to really honor and love you that our confession of and worship and adoration may be an overflow Lord God of an understanding of what you've given us so we pray for your blessing and your power of your Holy Spirit to lead and guide us in Jesus name we pray amen let me ask you this morning what do you think your life would look like if you had absolutely no accountability meaning that if you die that there is no heaven there is no hell there is no God and there is no consequence you can pretty much do whatever you want how do you think your life would be different you know possible he doesn't answer this question directly but indirectly he addresses this issue in first Corinthians 15 when people were saying you know there's no resurrection from the dead meaning that Jesus Christ really wasn't who he said he was and so Paul responds that he said if the dead are not raised let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die meaning if there is no consequence Jesus what he said wasn't true and all this is a lie then just live whatever pleases you you know live out your passions and I think if that was true and with Paul saying is if there's no consequence and this is it right there's no judgment waiting there's no consequences there's no such thing as sin that's just something that we've made up or society has made up how would that affect our lives you know the church sometimes gets a bad rap and you probably talk to many people where it's out on a church as churches full of hypocrites and first and foremost whenever I hear that or if I'm on the street sharing the gospel somebody and somebody says I church a full hypocrites my first response is I agree with them we are hypocrites I'm the biggest hypocrite because I I'm here proclaiming the the excellencies of Christ every single Sunday and there's no way that I live up to this this you know I I talk a lot more than I'm able to practice and this is true of every Christian so in some ways we every single one of us to different degrees we are hypocrites but at the same time the kind of things that we experience in church is restraint if you've ever been in a situation where there is no restraint when somebody got angry and they wanted to take vengeance out on you and there was no restraint it's ugly you know if you've ever been in a work environment where where somebody thought that you did something wrong and they're angry with you and you don't even know why but they're taking vengeance out on you I mean it gets ugly you talk about filthy talk and language you go to the gym some of you guys may know what I'm talking about you go to the gym where there is no restraint there's no other ladies you know bunch of guys hanging around and they have no filter and they just say whatever I mean it gets dirty right church to certain degree even though we wrestle with slander we wrestle with hypocrisy there's a certain amount of restraint that there's a the Holy Spirit in this is always convicting us saying and that's not right you shouldn't be saying this there's accountability in the context of the community so even though we experience sin even in the church it is always to a certain degree restraint but what would what would the church look like what would the world look like without any restraint well the passage that we're looking at this morning in verse 24 to 32 we've been talking about God's judgment upon mankind and the reason why he's talking about that is because he wants to introduce Jesus Christ as the answer to humanity that he came to die for our sins and why this justification of our sins can only be by faith and not by our works so he's been establishing starting from chapter 1 but in particular in verse 18 all the way to chapter 3 3 full chapters to convince the readers that you are absolutely in need of Christ so he we talked about that last week on how how mankind chose chooses to worship the creation rather than the Creator how we talked about how we can celebrate the Great Wall and completely neglect the Creator of the mountain that this little wall sitting on but the ultimate judgment of God is explained in verse 24 to 32 and the way he describes it is is that God would leave them God would basically hand them over right it's kind of like if you're struggling with somebody and you try to correct them and you try to train them and they refuse and refuse and refuse and you kind of put your hands up and say okay if that's what you want go to it so three separate times in verse 24 26 and 28 God describes this judgment upon mankind why the wrath of God is being revealed he says verse 24 God gave them up in their lust of their hearts to impurity verse 26 God gave them up to dishonorable passion first 28 God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done so the final judgment of God is is that he says I'm no longer I'm gonna wrestle with you I'm no longer gonna convict you I'm no longer gonna restrain you I'm gonna just let you be John MacArthur describes this judgment and this is what he said when a person lives guided by the mind and the lust and desires they are literally working out the wrath of God when you have an individual or a society that has no restraint and just whatever they please well you know I want to do this I want to go here and I want to watch this and I want to spend my money this way and there is no restraint whatsoever that they don't realize that is a wrath of God being displayed in fact in Psalm 81 11 through 12 God describes a judgment to Israel while he was wrestling with them bringing judgment and yet they kept on refusing and this is how judgment against Israel described but my people did not listen to my voice Israel would not submit to me so I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own counsels he says his final judgment was when he was disciplined when judgment was coming upon Israel he said it was God disciplining them just like a father disciplining their children but the final judgment of God is to release them let them be Hosea chapter 4 verse 17 it describes a judgment against Ephraim because they kept on turning to idols and simple statement but this is what he says Ephraim is joined to idols and here's the judgment leave him alone it's a simple three words leave him alone they refused resisted rebelled and they would not turn from their sin repeatedly over and over again and he simply says just let them be in fact at the end times Paul describes the second Thessalonians 2 9 through 10 before the coming of Christ that there's going to be a period of intense tribulation and he says the way you're going to know that the judgment of God is coming is that the restrainer who restrains the lawless one is going to take his hand off and God is going to no longer restrain the lawless one and let him be and it's described the name of the Antichrist is described as a one without law there's no restraint so the only thing that's restraining this lawless one is God and at the end he says he's gonna he's gonna release the lawless one to make disciples so a disciple of a lawless one is gonna be lawless and that's how the judgment is described how many guys know who Anton Lave is anybody born before 1980 probably you heard this name before which is some of you right Anton Lave was the founder of the first satanic church in the United States and he wrote a doctrinal statement yes they have a doctrinal statement creedal statement of the satanic church and there's nine creedal statements that if you were to be a Satanist you have to follow these things now out of the nine I'm gonna I'm gonna read six of them and see if any of these things sound familiar okay number one Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence number two Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it instead of love wasted on ingrates Satan number three Satan represents vengeance instead of turning the other cheek number five Satan number four Satan represents responsibility to the responsible instead of concern for those who are irresponsible number five Satan represents man as just another animal sometimes better more often worse than those that walk on all fours who because of his divine spiritual intellectual development has become the most vicious animal of all and then number six Satan represents all the so-called sins as they all lead to physical mental or emotional gratification now that's the six out of the nine creedal statements of the satanic church and basically every single one of them can be represented by simply saying live whatever your passion is whatever it is don't let anybody restrict you every sin is embraced because ultimately all it needs is to gratification so it doesn't it doesn't go out and say kill people it doesn't say go start war it doesn't go say go molest children doesn't say any of that all it says is to gratify yourself gratify your anger gratify your passion gratify your sins because in the end it's just for you it doesn't say to come and burn incest to Satan it doesn't say you have to you know go to a satanic church all it says was don't let anybody restrict you live out your passion without any restriction isn't that interesting that in the scripture where scripture says God's ultimate judgment is to let you go to live out your passion your anger your bitterness whatever it may be without restraint see the text that we're going to be looking at this morning the three statements where he says he hands them over we want to look at it examine it carefully you're gonna see that in these three statements there is a progression and degree of debauchery that God says he's going to let them give them over to let's look at the first one verse 24 and 25 God said God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth of God about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever amen so first of all he says God hands him over and again this connects us to the previous passage where God says it's because you refuse to acknowledge God as the Creator and you rather worship the creation and the language he uses here is that he exchanged the truth of God the glory of God for a lie and worship the creation instead there was an exchange there was a deliberate exchange so I don't want to worship God I want to follow the world you know as I was reading this text I remember a specific incident you know when we used to go out to Santa Ana every Tuesday to feed the homeless and I remember this one particular girl and she must have been no more than 17 18 years looked like a high school student or maybe right out of high school blonde hair blue eye five feet seven looked like a cheerleader and so obviously she was way out of place this is seven eight o'clock at night Tuesday and typically the only people out there are people who are getting food or churches were out there feeding because it's not a safe place to be because there's a lot of drug activity at least it was at that time so with us she's she's kind of out of place just walking around and I remember every Tuesday night we would come we would see her there and then eventually we figured out what was happening she was selling her body to get drugs and so she wasn't near where we were we were watching her from a distance maybe about half a block away but every time we come we would see her and we never got to talk to her she never came our way but we're watching this and I saw this unravel probably in the span of maybe about four or five six months and I didn't see her every Tuesday but I saw her in that span enough where I could see the digression you know where she was being hooked on drugs and people were telling me the guys who were in that area would come back and say what's going on with that girl and then found out she's selling her body and then she eventually got so hooked on drugs she ended up coming out in the streets and then if you're out in the streets it's dangerous so you kind of have to be connected with some of the guys out in the streets for protection and I remember watching that whole digression looking at that thinking wow at least on the surface I don't know what was going on at home for her but at least on the surface I mean she looked like a cheerleader she looked like you know one of the girls who would be popular in high school when she was out there exchanging her body and doing drugs and again after about six months I stopped seeing her again reason why I had this picture in my head is because when the scripture talks about the judgment of God God describes this as a deliberate exchange exchange from worshipping and honoring and following the truth of God his glory and then and then and it abandoned all of that and chase after foolish things so he says therefore God gave them over to the lust of the impurity dishonoring of their bodies talking about sexual impurity sexual immorality if you read the New Testament and the Old Testament but in particular New Testament whenever Paul or the Apostles describes a list of debauchery list of sins almost always sexual immorality is at the top of the list now I've mentioned this before whenever you see a list in the Bible it is not done randomly if you look at the list of the twelve disciples Peter's name is always on the top the three in the inner circle is always on the top and there's a reason for that because at that time when they wrote things the people who are the most prominent were usually on the top of the list so whenever they made a list of something whatever is on the top of the list is there for on purpose that it is meant to be highlighted that this is something that you ought to pay attention to so every time there's a list of sins sexual immorality is on the top of that list it is highlighted in fact Paul says it and he distinguishes this particular sin in first Corinthians 618 he says flee sexual immorality he didn't say sit and fight he doesn't say combat it he doesn't he said first and foremost flee sexual immorality every other sin a person commits outside the body but the sexual immoral person sins against his own body so yes there are other sins there's other things that that corrode our society corrode us but he highlights this sexual sin as being devastating first Corinthians 7 - Paul says but because of this temptation to sexual morality each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband it was so prominent at that time and I believe today he says it's better to be married it's better and don't deny yourself for that purpose first Thessalonians 4 3 & 5 know how many of you okay don't raise your hands a rhetorical question how many of you sitting here thinking about what is the will of God maybe some of you freshmen came into college thinking what's God's will for me should I be you know I should I be a doctor should I be you know a you know go into business and you have all these so what is the will of God some of you are on the verge of dating somebody is this the will of God should I marry this person not marry this person should I have another child should I move my job that's probably one of the number one things that people ask for counsel like I want to know the will of God the Bible doesn't describe the will of God specifically that way and said God's will for you is to marry this person I mean you could search through scripture but it's not there right there is no halo on that person that you're supposed to marry you walk around oh there she is you know God said that's the will of God for the most part you have to use sound judgment seek counsel right ask older brothers just be wise about how you choose but there are specific things that God has said this is the will of God and he uses that language and first that's known as 4 3 it says this for this is the will of God your sanctification your holiness that this is the will of God so before we come to God and say God do you want me to have this job or that job or this major or that major or marry this person or that person before we can ask that question we have to understand that God's primary desire primary will is our sanctification our holiness so if we're ignoring that and then we're coming to God saying I want to know all of this other stuff you know we have this thing backward but here's I'm going to continue so for this is the will of God your sanctification that you abstain from sexual immorality specifically the first and foremost before we wrestle with what does God want for me in my life that we need to know absolutely crystal clear that what God wants is sexual purity and this thing is again highlighted above other sins in fact in Peter first Peter 2 11 he says beloved I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from passions of the flesh referring to sexual immorality which wage war against your soul it wages war against our soul that's why again the reason why Paul highlights this is because if we compromise if we make excuses if we allow that say yeah you know it's no big deal in fact I run into people all the time we say it doesn't bother me right I bothers MP what doesn't bother me the fact that it doesn't bother us is actually a bigger problem that our conscience have become so seared that we are shocked by less and less things that is not because you're mature because our conscience has become seared he says is waging war against your soul an individual whose whose conscience has been seared because we've compromised to the point where our soul is at war and you don't even recognize it it is a condition the scripture says that will happen when we sin against God again and again God says okay I hand you over to this in fact this this sin is so prevalent in our culture and I'm not just talking about our society and morality I'm talking about even finance even our economy is influenced by pornography again those of you who are around in the 80s you know there was a big debate at that time again I know this is outdated and Esther will make fun of me later at home you know and back in the 80s there was a discussion between is the VHS or the beta going to be you know going to to take off okay some guy's looking at me what the what is beta right okay so you guys know what I'm talking about basically you know what a VHS is right I should have brought one to show you okay now everything's DVD okay so VHS is about this size in which we still have right back in the 80s the VHS and beta came out at the same time and I think beta was from Sony I forget but there was this big debate like I said because they're they did the same thing and the quality was just the same but the beta was just smaller and the machine was small so beta video machines were about this big and the VHS was that that big and so when I heard that they were debating which way to go saying why would that even be a question you go beta because it's smaller same price does the same thing why would you not go this way and then I heard and I read on the news that it's actually going toward VHS and eventually beta is gonna disappear and the reasoning behind this was that the porn industry made a made a deal with the people who are making VHS that they're gonna use VHS as their primary way of recording pornography and that's when I found out the reason why they made such a big deal is because so much of the money that was being spent for these VHS was coming from the porn industry whatever they decided to go by was what was going to win and that's why we have VHS today at least in my closet by your closet okay now now even VHS is dead right that's how much impact that the porn industry in our culture has again nobody more now on television you know the in sitcoms they're very open about watching porn but in larger society it's something hidden in behind the scene today let me give you some statistics about online pornography 35% of all internet downloads are related to pornography are you surprised by that 35% it's not Netflix it's not movies not YouTube is it it's pornography 25% of all search engine queries are related to pornography or about 68 million search queries a day so one in four times somebody puts something in the search engine is related to pornography search engines get hundred and sixteen thousand queries every day related to child pornography okay 34% of internet users have experienced unwanted exposure to pornographic content through ads pop-up ads misdirected links or emails in other words you don't even have to go look for they're gonna come look for you 2.5 billion emails sent or received every day contain porn 2.5 billion this is daily every 39 minutes a new pornography video is being created in the United States every 39 minutes no wonder it affects the economy on the underlying currency which is kind of dictating the internet is pornography what content is chosen to be on what website is dictated by pornography you think the advertisers don't know this they know it they know that 25% of the time when people are online they're looking for porn so do you think that affects what kind of advertisement comes on websites and how it directs you what's on YouTube what's on Facebook right it is we are bombarded by this and I know I know that a lot of us you know let's be honest that that is a struggle that is behind the scenes let me go further and how this erodes not only individually but families he said 47% of families in the United States reported that pornography is a problem in their homes 47 that's almost 50% one out of two families it's a problem pornography use increases the material marital infidelity rate by more than 300% so 50% on 47% of households where this is a problem that doesn't mean the other you know 53% is not an issue he says it's it's gone to a point where it's a problem this is not a survey of a particular church or an area this is broad that means 300% more likely that there's going to be infidelity 40% of sex addicts lose their spouses 58% suffer considerable financial loss and about third lose their jobs scripture says that because we exchange the glory of God for things made by men God hands over when God's hands over the one of the first things that happen is sexual immorality I mean I don't think I need to convince you that you and I see it all around us and how rapidly it's growing because of the internet you know they're struggling with pornography at one point used to be having enough courage and going to a video store and being embarrassed now it's on your phones in every Christian every young man every young woman has it on their phone private no one else watches it but you so the temptation is greater than ever but here's I don't want to keep going on this because the second part of this he goes from sexual morality and he goes he dies even a little bit deeper on this and he says for this reason verse 26 to 27 the second handing over says for this reason God gave him up to dishonorable passions for their for their woman exchange natural relations for those that are contrary to nature and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves a due penalty for their error now one of these days we're gonna have a whole day dedicated in exploring what the scripture says what the arguments are and how we're going to deal with this and and I don't have time today to go too deep into this but I want to make this absolutely crystal clear because we're in this text I've been hearing more and more in the Christian community sometimes even in Bible teaching churches that the Bible does not teach this because of the pressure because of the propaganda in our generation that this is not true that that the church has has basically dissected it and and added and basically perverted what the scripture says and that is not what the scriptures and I want to make this absolutely crystal clear that what you just read is what it says in the Greek there's nothing hidden here he says when sexual morality that is taken to its effect and just kind of run free there's no boundaries is that one of the things that happens is that dishonorable passions lead to women exchanging natural relations with women men exchanging natural relations with with women and practice homosexuality now I know in this room especially some of you who are new to this church may have may never have been confronted with this issue maybe maybe you've been having discussions and arguments with your friends sometimes even Christian friends saying that this is not what the scripture says one of the arguments against this this particular passage is that when he says natural he's not talking about God's creation that again this is one of the arguments that they make against this to nullify this text is that what God meant natural is somebody was naturally heterosexual to practice heterosexuality and somebody was naturally homosexual to practice homosexuality so what he's what he's going against is a natural homosexual practicing heterosexuality and natural heterosexual practicing homosexuality and the reason why they say that is because well they were born that way so therefore that they're practicing what is natural to them so what he's saying is what is unnatural so one the only reason why you get that is because you're you're changing the meaning of what he says here so you read it for yourself is he talking about a natural homosexual practice heterosexuality or is he talking about God's intended purpose and creation and let me make this absolutely crystal clear he's talking about what God intended how God created male and female and how he created Eve for the purpose of what for procreation it wasn't good for man to be alone so he created Eve's so that they would have what sex that they would have relations and through that process that they will be fruitful and multiply and so to have a relationship between man and a man and woman and woman is unnatural that's what this text is saying now the argument that we have as well it's unnatural well what if they were born that way that's natural so they practice practice homosexuality okay let me try to argue it this way you know Esther every once in a while will say Peter you've been born with extra amount of testosterone right and I know why she says it you know she said if you have extra you're kind of like a Neanderthal you know and you're thinking so that's why it's a joke in our house right let me let me ask you is monogamy natural in fact after the Supreme Court decision that discussion has opened up and more and more people saying that monogamy is not natural because naturally you are filled with lust naturally you don't want to be you with just one person so even if you are married even if you're in a monogamous relationship your natural desire is to have physical relations with the opposite sex whether you're married or not so if you have this impulse did you put that in there did you choose that no you were born with that impulse so to use the argument that you are born with this particular impulse so therefore it's natural so therefore it is not sin you have to argue that our natural impulse to have sex with as many people as possible should not be called sin because we naturally have that instinct now we will argue that a very few people who argue for homosexuality will argue vehemently against polygamy and against adultery here's the problem what the scripture says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God meaning not only homosexual tendencies but even heterosexual tendencies have been perverted so even our desire to have sexual relations with everybody we've been born with this sinful nature so simply to disqualify because somebody was born and they didn't choose to be that way so therefore it can't be sin that means nothing we naturally desire is sin we naturally want to be better than somebody else so if we naturally lie you know and we latch naturally cheat right we have extras extra level testosterone and you happen to be more aggressive and angry than an average person then that's not your fault because you were born that way we would never argue that if somebody who is more aggressive take out their aggression against somebody else we would say no you got to stop that that's wrong you can't behave that way well we imagine if that person but I was born with extra testosterone right no one ever would ever excuse that because that behavior we say is wrong see the scripture tells us that every single one of us whether you are a heterosexual or homosexual all of our sexual tendencies have been perverted in the fall and so the way that Paul describes it is that when he hands us over sexually there is perversion and then this leads to specifically not in every case but in some cases homosexuality if there was any question whether the scripture taught this or not Leviticus 18 22 it says you shall not lie with a male or as with a woman it is an abomination in Leviticus 20 13 if a man lies with a male as with the woman both of them have committed an abomination they shall surely be put to death their blood is upon them some people have argued that the word homosexual is not in the New Testament and they are absolutely correct the word homosexual that literally that word is not in the New Testament but I'll tell you what the what the word is that has been translated homosexual in the New Testament the Greek word that has been translated homosexual is arsenic coitus arsenic coitus now you don't need to remember that word but basically that word literally means male lying with male that's what that word means is two words put together male lying with male and so in first Corinthians 6 9 and first Timothy 1 9 that word arsenic coitus instead of saying male lying with male they just said homosexuality so if anybody comes up to you and tells you that that is not what the scripture says I hope you took notes right that you are able to defend this but the Bible clearly does teach this now I want you to see the propaganda and and I'll bet from my experience that some of you have already been affected by this propaganda what percentage do you think of people in the world would claim to be homosexuals don't say it okay because I'm gonna end up correcting you right I think the number how many of you heard whether you agree how many of you heard the percentage about 10% oh really and nobody wants to admit it all right 10% 10% is the term that's been hanging around probably since the 70s and 80s that I remember and and the term 10% that's been floating around and it may be different now but it comes from a man named Alfred Kinsey somebody guys may have heard his name he was a guy who supposedly began a sexual revolution and he tested sexual morality to its limits and then he was known to be a homosexual himself and he said from his study he says that he encountered about 10% of the population being gay so since then that term 10% has been thrown around 10% is gay 10% is gay well in 2000 US census and this is us and this is not a Christian study a US census says that less than 1% of Americans identified that they came from homosexual families now that is not an accurate number because they're talking about households and there's a lot of people who may be gay in closet and they're not coming out and saying it so that may not be an accurate number but the more accurate number comes from family research report and they found that two to three percent of men have declared that they have homosexual tendencies and about 2% of females identified as homosexual tendencies and that's a big drop in number from 10 that more to 2 to 2 to 3 percent in fact I found other surveys where it was actually one or less than 1% now we don't know for sure what percent is accurate but what's interesting is they the Gallup poll again this has nothing to do with Christian Christian agenda it wasn't done by a Christian group a Gallup poll who takes surveys of politicians and and it's their whole business is just take surveys they went out and surveyed Americans of what they thought today number of people who claim to be gay average estimate was 21% to 22% average estimate okay a fourth of the people who are interviewed surveyed that they believe 20 that 25% or more of the population is gay so the actual number and the number that people generally think are gay in society is off by 20 some percent that's a huge margin now why is that because of propaganda because the media and the politicians and the sitcoms and the entertainers have deliberately pushed this agenda to normalize homosexuality in our culture and so you have a generation who thinks that we're surrounded everybody is this way but in reality we're not even close in fact I actually saw a survey of an interviewer going out on the streets and they went and interviewed a bunch of people who attended a gay pride parade and they asked them and if you ask them some of them went as high as 40 50 60 percent and they weren't joking I mean to them maybe that's their reality because that's their culture the reason why I bring this up is because you and I have been bombarded with billions of dollars with entertainment and songs and politicians to bash anybody who says that this is wrong and some of you have been affected by it and so whenever you hear any argument about this there's a knee-jerk reaction that this is ancient this is what the Nazis did to the Jews this is what the slave owners did to slavery slaves long time ago and so we need to liberate when the scripture makes it absolutely crystal clear that this was a result of God letting go God letting go if this if you want to keep running this way I'm gonna let you go in Romans chapter 1 28 through 32 it describes a third letting go and he bombards us with all of these things and and again I want to conclude with this since they did not see fit to acknowledge God God gave him up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done so once that floodgates been open right once that's been challenged and there's no boundaries and just kind of do whatever you think is right he said once the mind has been debased he said they are filled with the manner of all manners of unrighteousness evil covetousness malice they are full of envy murder strife deceit maliciousness there are gossips slanderers haters of God insolent haughty boastful inventors of evil disobedient to parents foolish faithless heartless ruthless of all the list of sins in the New Testament this is the longest and the reason why Paul goes to this length to almost redundantly talk about these issues he's trying to make a point that when God releases his restraining power that this is what it leads to now here's the conclusion here's a point that I want to get at if you hear all of this at the end of the sermon all that happened to you was sitting there thinking yeah those people those people I knew it you know I've been discussing with my friends and yeah that's that's that's perversion that is not right thank God I'm not like them this passage was written to the church he's reminding the church that this is who we were this is what he saved us from so here's the mistake that we make whenever we read passes like especially in this context of homosexuality because it is so prevalent in our culture that we can make the mistake on this end we say you know what because you can no longer be in between anymore if if you've been trying to be a cool Christian where you're cool in the world and and godly in that church you can no longer do that because they drew the line in fact God drew the line long time ago but you can no longer be too because you can't say that this is what you believe you believe in the Bible and you believe that homosexuality is wrong immediately you can be the nicest person in the world but they will cut you off for that purpose alone so the mistake that we can make is to become timid or maybe just kind of buy into it because he's easier because there's definitely more pressure in the world than you might feel pressure in the church for holding this view in the church is kind of let's be gracious and you may hold on to this view but definitely you'll be bombarded in the world so the mistake that we can make is to kind of like you haven't really made a decision but you kind of you know fall on this I don't want to be judgmental who am I to judge and that's the mistake that we make and our witness doesn't be isn't clear and we're compromising the standard of God but here's the other mistake that we make that's that in the other mistake that we make is that we hear this and we say yeah that's that's disgusting you know those sinners thank God I'm not like them and the problem that you and I need to confess the mistake that you and I again including us is that the sinners the homosexual the prostitute whoever they may be all they heard from us was how disgusted we are with their sin and I'm not saying you did it I'm not saying I did it but as a community and it is a mistake for us to read this and say thank God I'm not like them because he's writing this to us that this description that he gives about slanderers gossiper haters of God haughty boastful inventors of evil disobedient to parents foolish faithless heartless ruthless our mind becoming debased that all of this is what God had mercy on us he saved us from this this is who we would have been and so when we look at the world when we look at homosexuality and the homosexuals that our responses and disgust but compassion is when we point out sins of others and and not even a little bit broken for our own sins where you're gonna get a reaction from the world see body odor always we can always tolerate our body odor more than someone else's true how many of you is like I'm okay with other people I just can't stand my body odor my body odor is it is particularly pungent you know you know most people will even though they may stink they may well and play basketball all day and you stink but you live with this you get in the car and your friend play basketball too and then he gets into the car oh my gosh you stink yeah get out right but then you were fine when you smelled your stink see that's us that's a sinner you know we're disgusted with the sins of the world and we don't recognize a sin that is so close to us all have sin and fall short of the glory of God instead of phone pointing fingers and fighting the world and being disgusted that we would have compassion for them because we were saved from our sins from our sexual impurity from our greed from our maliciousness from our hatred from our debased mind God saved us from that so when we see them that we don't get in this gear to fight up with them but to have compassion and mercy I don't know about you but the few homosexuals that I've come into count to contact with are broken and lonely people but they're broken and lonely because they're isolated from God you know I had a friend that I really respected about two months ago shared with me that his son came out to him confessed him that he had gay attraction that he'd been struggling with it and since junior high school and they asked him it's like so what happened he said he was going over to his friend's house and he got over at his friend's house and this is a pastor friend and it was his friend's house and and his friend started to watch pornography and so every time he go to his friend's house because he couldn't watch it at his home he would be exposed to pornography and then this exposure to pornography eventually got more heavy stuff and eventually when it got to more heavy stuff the the homosexual you know the pornography started opening up and eventually he got desensitized and that's how he described it and then that kind of stuck in and then he'd been wrestling with it inside and he wasn't saying he wasn't fighting with his dad saying like you know I want you to accept me he was just confessing how lonely he was and he asked me what should I do it's like I don't have a lot of experience in this but the few experiences that I did have is that the danger is there are plenty of wolves out there who are going to meet your son and they're gonna tell him it's okay that it is not God that's angry with them it's it's these fundamental Christians and they're gonna embrace them into their liberal church and he's gonna find love and acceptance in there and then once you get there it's hard to get him out so I instructed him make sure that he doesn't meet these people but the church that he's in that they make a strong stance that they don't compromise the Word of God and yet don't make him feel like that he's a freak because that sin is in all of us not maybe not the homosexual sin but the sexual perversion every single one of us was born with that that his struggle is the struggle that you and I have it just that it's expressed in that way and that he recognizes he's in a community of people who are struggling with different sexual perversions and that the grace of God will forgive him and just like it changed me it can change him and can change you so my encouragement to you I know we don't we didn't have time to go in through to this extensively but because it is a prevalent issue and it is an issue that I'm pretty sure that most of you if you're going to work or on campus that you've been faced with already that we don't err in compromise and we don't err in being insensitive that we take on the love of Christ the whole world is in need of grace the whole world and that you and I would take up that cross and go to people that are that we are uncomfortable with and tell them that we are not ashamed the gospel for it is a power of God unto salvation amen let's take a few minutes to pray and ask God if any of you here are struggling with this whether it's pornography or maybe even same-sex attraction you you know certain things have been embedded into your heart and your psyche and you've been struggling and wrestling with that I want to encourage you you have there is freedom in Christ there is freedom in Christ that if the gospel is just words and there really isn't any power we wouldn't be here the only reason why the church lasted as long as it is because he said my church I will build and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it and so I encourage you to come to the Lord come to us come to somebody a more mature Christian and confess that you may find this freedom that Christ delivers to that you may finally find this rest those of you who are wrestling and struggling again with pornography God forgives you think God is looking at you and saying oh you know what I'm so shocked by what this guy is doing or what she's doing you know our God is a sovereign God he came and died for us on the cross because he knew how weak we are without him you can't conquer this by yourself come to the throne of grace with confidence he is not shocked by your sins ask for forgiveness and receive forgiveness says if you confess your sins he is faithful and just to forgive you of all your unrighteousness so maybe you've been you've kind of justified and it's not it you know that maybe it's not okay maybe that's how you've been adjusting but in the deep part of your heart you know that that's not true I want to invite you to come and receive forgiveness and receive deliverance get together with other brothers and sisters pray be honest confess your sins with one another that as a community that we would become a community that we're not faking our righteousness that we're honestly openly humbly pursuing Christ together so let's take this time to come before the Lord in prayer either you or you know somebody was wrestling with with with these things that you would come before the Lord and ask for the Holy Spirit to do what only the Holy Spirit is able to do so let's take some time to pray before God.