In Romans 1:18-20 the apostle Paul has made a very important point regarding the gospel. No one has an excuse before God. There is no one in the world that can say on the day of judgment that they are excused from knowing God. Why? The reason why all are without excuse is because God has revealed himself to everyone through the creation. We are to look at the things that have been made and see God. Psalm 19 begins by proclaiming that the creation shouts the glory of God day after day and night after night. The creation is supposed to cause all people to seek God and learn what this God wants them to do. The problem, according to the apostle Paul, is that we suppress the truth. We suppress this truth because we love the darkness rather than the light. We suppress the truth because we want to do what we want to do rather than listen to what God is telling us to do. I want to say something challenging as we start this lesson. I want to call every person to be intellectually honest. The reason a person does not follow God, seek him, or obey God is not because they are unsure if there is a God. The creation clearly shows us that there is a God. The reason a person questions the existence of God is because if you admit there is God who made you and the world, then you can no longer do what you want to do. You must seek God and do what he says. The problem is as simple as this. This is what Paul is saying. People are not ignorant of this truth. They are suppressing this truth. Jesus said the same thing in John 3:17-20. So at the end of the day, the failure of every person is that they did not honor God or give him thanks (Romans 1:21). When we do not honor God or give him thanks, we are suppressing the truth about who God is and what are right response should be to him.
Failing To Honor God (Romans 1:21-22)
Now to us, we think our failure to respond to God is really not a big deal. What does it matter if we do not honor God? What does it matter if we do not give him thanks? The apostle Paul comes in and says that this is a very real problem for us. Look at the rest of Romans 1:21. Notice in verse 21 what happens when we fail to honor God and give him thanks. We become futile in our thinking and our foolish hearts become darkened. Look at verse 22. We become fools. We think we are wise. We claim to be wise. But we actually are becoming fools. The apostle Paul is not being slanderous or rude. He is just stating the truth. The suppressing of the truth about God causes us to be useless and worthless in our thinking and causes our hearts to be darkened. Our hearts lack light and lack understanding.
What Paul is saying is that when we remove God from the equation, then the way we look at the world, the way we look at culture, the way we look at relationships, the way we look at other people, the way we look at ourselves, and the way we see anything in life is broken. You are looking at the world through broken glasses. Our way of thinking is broken because we are starting with a false premise. Any worldview that does not start with God as Creator leaves us with a broken, incorrect, and futile view of the world and self. There is a fundamental flaw with every explanation given about the origin of the world today if that explanation does not begin with God. Whatever you say is how the world came into existence starts with something. The old view was that there was a big bang that exploded the universe into existence. The problem is where did the gas or carbon or elements need for life come from so that the explosion could happen? Spontaneous generation does not make sense because we have a law of the universe that says something cannot come from nothing. Energy cannot come from nothing. Matter cannot come from nothing. But we claim to be wise as we say foolish things about the world.
But there is another important point I want to make here. What Paul is telling us is that the way people think without God is not going to make sense. We are not going to make sense to them and their arguments will not make sense to us. They are darkened in their understanding because they have suppressed the truth about God. Our thinking will become worthless and senseless if we stop worshiping God and giving him glory and gratitude. God is telling us that we are only hurting ourselves when we ignore him. We are not becoming wise. We are becoming foolish.
The Exchange (Romans 1:23-25)
Notice in verse 23 what is happening when we suppress the truth about God. We are exchanging the glory of the immortal God for images that resemble mortals, birds, animals, and creeping things. I want us to think about this. Does this sound like a good trade? You are exchanging God for animals. You are exchanging the immortal God for mortal, corruptible creation. You are exchanging true glory for emptiness. Sin is to trade what is true glory for what is not glorious at all. Sin is to trade what is permanent and immortal for what is temporary and corruptible. Sin is to trade the Almighty God for what is not almighty and not a god at all. This is a horrible exchange. We are making a terrible trade. We are trading gold treasure for a rotten banana.
When I was in elementary school I tried to make bad trades to my friends. My mom would not buy Chips Ahoy cookies. I know those are not great cookies. But as a kid in the 80s, that was a good as you could do for prepackaged cookies. My mom sent me to school with a rice cake. Now back then rice cakes were large. They looked good. But it tasted like styrofoam. They were flavorless and dry. So I would try to trade my rice cake for someone’s cookies. Sometimes I could make the trade by the rice cake was so much larger than the cookie. But it was a trade that they never made again because it was a terrible trade and after one bit the kid realized it. Satan is holding out a terrible trade and we make the exchange. We trade the immoral God for temporary, created things. Listen to how verse 25 describes the exchange.
“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie” (Romans 1:25 ESV). When we do not honor God or give him thanks, we are making a terrible trade. We are trading truth for a lie. The world will tell you that God is the lie. But they are darkened in their understanding. We have the truth and we trade it away from a lie. We worship and serve the creature (the created) rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. We worship the made rather than the Maker. It is such a terrible trade for your life. The prophet Jeremiah tried to explain this terrible exchange to God’s people during his lifetime. We read about his illustration in Jeremiah 2:12-13.
Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the LORD, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:12-13 ESV)
Notice Jeremiah says that two evils have been committed. First, the people have forsaken the fountain of living waters. To help us understand the picture, I will use modern terms of how we get our water today. God is describing himself as this constant fountain of pure flowing water. So it would be like us in our thirst rejecting the cool, flowing water that comes from your refrigerator door or from the kitchen sink. You have constant access to flowing clean water. But you have forsaken it. So you would think that the exchange is a good exchange. What did the people exchanging the fountain of living waters for? This is the second evil. They cut out cisterns for themselves that are broken and cannot hold water. If you were in a place where there was not flowing water, you could work hard to dig a bowl into rock that would catch rain water from which you could drink. Now that is not very dependable because that only helped after the rains came. So God is describing to his people that when you leave him, you are leaving a fountain of flowing, clean, living waters to go dig a hole in the rock to try to catch undependable rain water. But here is the kicker to the image: the cistern is broken. It won’t work. So this is like us rejecting the flowing refrigerator water, digging a hole in the backyard and trying to catch rain water to drink from, only to find that the cistern leaks. It is a ridiculous trade and no one would ever do it. But this is what we are doing when we fail to honor God and give him thanks. When we fail to worship him, we are choosing a broken cistern rather than living, flowing waters. We are choosing the lie rather than the truth. We are choose the creature rather than the Creator. Please hear this message: SIN IS A TERRIBLE TRADE. Life without God is a terrible trade. So what does God do about this? What is God’s response when we make this trade? What will God do when we choose to sin rather than serve him? What does God do when we worship the created rather than the Creator? Look at verse 24.
God Gave Them Up (Romans 1:24,26,28)
“Therefore God gave them up…” (Romans 1:24 ESV). What I want you to notice is that we are told this three times. In verse 24 we read that God gave them up. Look at verse 26. “For this reason God gave them up….” Then look at verse 28. “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up….” God’s response to sin is not to kill people. God’s response to not acknowledging him, honoring him, or giving thanks to him is not immediate judgment on the person. Rather, God lets people go down the path they want to go. God gives us over to the lust of our hearts (Romans 1:24). God gives us up to our dishonorable passions (Romans 1:26). God gives us up to our debased and corrupt mind (Romans 1:28). God lets people go and follow the desires of their hearts. God does not force people to serve him. God does not make people honor him. God will let you go. God will let you make the terrible exchange. God will let you forsake the living waters for the broken cistern that cannot hold water.
Friends, there should be nothing more terrifying than the thought that God lets you go to follow your own heart and your own desires. God will let you leave him. God will let you follow futile thinking and darkened hearts. If you are a parent, you probably understand this problem. If you have a strong-willed child, then you can explain the consequences for an action and why they should do certain things and not other things. But the strong-willed child just has to find out for themselves. We have to go and find out the consequences for ourselves. It hurts as a parent to watch it happen but there is nothing you can do because you explicitly taught them. God lets us go to see what he said is true. God gives us over and we destroy our marriages. God gives us over and we experience the consequences of broken relationships and damaged families. God gives us over and we bear the guilt of what he have done against other people. We experience the consequences of our anger, malice, slander, sexual immorality, strife, quarreling, and so forth. God lets us make the terrible exchange of the gospel for sin and experience the consequences of our decision. Trading God is a disaster for your life.
Your Worship
I want to conclude by coming back to Romans 1:25. Paul points out that everyone is worshiping something or someone. We often do not think about our lives in this way. But every person is a worshiper. You worship something or someone. You either worship the Creator or you worship the created. You either worship the Maker or you worship what has been made. You either worship the eternal and immortal or you worship the temporary and mortal. When we fail to honor, worship, and give thanks to God, then we need to look at who or what worshiping. We worship ourselves, other people, our wealth, our possessions, our career, our reputation, our authority, our power, or something else in this world. But we are trading glory for rottenness when we do this. We are trading life for brokenness. We are trading truth for a lie. We are trading satisfaction for emptiness. When we do not pray, we are showing that we are worshiping something other than God. When we do not worship but do other things, we are showing that we are worshiping something other than God. When we do not spend time in God’s word, we are showing that we are worshiping something other than God. In short, we are making a trade. We are trading for God for ourselves and it is a terrible, regrettable, and sorrowful trade. Do not make a bad exchange. What is your soul worth to you? What is eternity worth to you?