We Need a Little Christmas | Week 1 | Bill Bush

Why do we need Christmas? What's all about? And that and then in the book of Romans, Paul just starts off it's it's it's a different letter for him. He writes it to the church in Rome. He always wanted to go there because, you know, all all roads lead to Rome. That means all roads lead out of Rome. And he knew if you could establish the church there, they could help support him in the missionary endeavors because he gave his life to the gospel, the good news. The good news is Christmas because Christmas and Easter are the same story. He the good news was Jesus came, and he gave his life to that because of how powerful it is. And he wanted them to be ready. He wanted them to understand. So when he writes the book of Romans, he's not addressing interpersonal

issues in a church. He's actually writing his most theological laid out. This is who Jesus is. This is why we need Jesus. In other words, this is why we all need Christmas. And so when we look at it,

it it it I'm just gonna tell you, we're gonna be in chapter one today, and he starts off, which you can go read this. We're gonna jump into verse 18. But he starts off with introducing himself because back then letter writers were smarter. They told you who they were before you started reading the letter. And then he says, this is in this is what I'm writing about. Jesus came. It's buzzer. This is Christmas. I'm writing about Christmas.

And then he starts to talk about that, but then he has to jump right into the deep end of of how bad it is. Because I think you'll never get the joy of why you need Jesus. You will never understand how awesome the good news is if you do not understand how bad the news was.

In other words, you know, a lot of people died on the Titanic that didn't have to. You know why? You say, well, they didn't have enough boats for everyone. True. But the first half of the boats, a bunch of them went out. When they said we need to load in these boats, they went out not even a third full.

You know why? People didn't wanna get on the lifeboats. She's like, why would I get on that? I gotta go out into the cold. I'm here. It's warm. There's the food. There's the dancing. There's the music. The lights are on. Everything seems fine. While the ship was taking on water, it was already sinking.

It was already doomed. It was not gonna stay afloat. And they didn't realize that till it's too late when it started lurching, and then the ship breaks apart, and and and and and a lot of people died that didn't have to. And here's the thing. A lot of us

are never gonna understand what it means to trust in Jesus because you see it like a lifeboat that's taking you away from your cruise ship. And if you don't understand, that's not true. Your cruise ship is sinking. So in other words, it jumps in and it gets throat punchy

really, really, really fast. To be honest, I wanna show you a picture of here's what we almost branded this sermon series as, throat punch Christmas edition. Now I know what you're thinking. Someone's like, can you at least still make that shirt? I don't know. Maybe we will because it's fun. But

people go, what is that all about? Oh, that's our Christmas series, but we're sticking with we all need a little Christmas. Okay? But but that was fun to to to look at. But I this has set us up. This is gonna get throw punchy, but I hope we see the why here. Because what happens is he jumps right in,

and starting in verse 18, he has to jump into this is why. The the the ship is sinking, and you understand the bad news. And and you can read this section. It reads more like a court case, even the words he uses. It's kind of like a court case. God's the judge. He's passing sentence.

And and basically, in this section, verse 18 through 32 that we're gonna look at, God God puts two we get two charges against us. Two charges against. We're gonna take that apart. But the summary of the case is verse 18

when it says this, but God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. Merry Christmas. And and and he says he shows his anger. And what did he say? Against all sinful wicked people. So he talks about this. There's this sinfulness or or or godlessness

because they suppress the truth. There's godlessness and wickedness in there. We'll hold on to that. And he says, God is showing his anger. That's that word for anger there literally means a punishment from a judge. It's a controlled anger.

See, so when you read that, you that if you don't understand, we like to imprint our versions of it. There's a Greek word for anger, thermos. You know, you get a thermos. You got a thermometer.

That that's when we think of anger because that's way we usually express anger. Even if it's for the right reason. Even if we have a righteous reason to be angry, we we go thermos on the situation, which is it's a it's a it's a violent outburst, a passionate outburst

of feeling and emotion. And that even for the right reasons, we get mad. So if you read this wrong,

whenever you read in the Bible, that other word it uses translates is is wrath. So whenever you read the wrath of God, the anger of God, if you apply that to thermo, you think it's the way we think of anger? You really think God's sitting there going, that's it.

God isn't happy. Jesus, where'd you put my lightning bolts? Some people are about to get hit on the head. That's not what it means. It means it's like a judge that is righteous, holy, passing sentence. It's a controlled response.

And here's what's crazy. You understand? That word in Greek, you can you things are in the tenses, even as mood. It's a very precise language. It's in the present tense, which means he is already pouring out the judgment. Right now, there's a final judgment,

but we are already living in the judgment. You're like, what is it? We'll see. We'll see in a moment. We'll look at it. I'll tell you what it is. Just hold on. You gotta pay attention. So then so, basically, there are these two charges.

Charge number one, which he goes on to talk about next, was godlessness. And what godlessness means is we live like God does not exist. Now before I read the next few verses, you gotta understand this is important. Did it say we don't believe God exists?

It says we live like God doesn't exist. So you think, well, that's just people that don't believe in Jesus. They no. We can still be guilty of this sitting in church every week. We can believe God's there, but then go out there and live our life as if he isn't.

It's a great comparison if you wanna read this these verses. Go home and and and read the parable of the prodigal son because there's a there's a there's kind of a correlation here. Because it says, what did the son wanna do? He wanted his inheritance from his father so he could go live his wickedness, and his gods and then in that culture, you didn't get the inheritance till the dad died. So when he said, dad, give me my inheritance, he was saying, I want to live

like you don't exist. I know you do. You're right there. But I wanna live my life like you're not there. And so that's what we often do. We live our lives. You can be in church and still be doing this.

You can be living like God doesn't exist. And then he goes on to explain what that looks like. He kinda lays out this charge and explains it. Because because look in where I'm at. Verse 19.

He says, they know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. Forever since the world was created, people have seen earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities, his eternal power, and divine nature, so they have no excuse for not knowing. So stop right there. So the first thing he's saying about this is is is is he's sitting there and saying, the first thing that you gotta live, you live like God doesn't exist, but you know he does.

You're without excuse. And then he uses nature. He says, if you look at creation look at how complex creation is. Just looking at how organized the world is in nature should tell you there is a God. We believe that things happen on accident, and we think that's scientific. Seriously.

The complexity of the human eye on accident? And they go, how would that ever happen? So the answer in science is we just need more time. So it's been longer. It's longer. Like, as if you give it enough time, everything will get organized. Okay. How's that work with you and your kids in their room?

If we just wait long enough or how about you, wives? If you just wait long enough, your husband's underwear and socks will magically get picked up. If you wait long enough, the lid will get put back down. It

doesn't matter how much time you give it. He says, look at creation. Matter of fact, in the the space race, the first cosmonaut went into space, came down, was an atheist, and said, I looked everywhere, forgot I didn't see him. John Glenn from The US goes up a little while later. He's a Christian, comes down. He says, I saw God everywhere.

It's all a matter of we're without excuse because that then going on. It says,

yes, they knew God, but they wouldn't worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think of foolish ideas of what God was like. So now since you didn't you knew there was a God, but you wouldn't worship him or even give him thanks, You gave credit for the things he did to something else.

And because of that, your minds become dark and confused. We start to get twisted thinking. And it says, claiming to be wise. So what we think is smart is actually not smart. What we think is wisdom and facts is not facts.

It says, they instead became utter fools. Instead of worshiping the glorious ever present God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles. So right there, he says three things in those those couple verses. He's basically he he describes what is the pathway.

What's the pathway to living like God doesn't exist? And how do we get down there? And it's these three things. You start by repressing the truth. That's the first thing. Yeah. You know there's God, but you know what? We're just gonna kinda

pretend like we're gonna act like, you know, that your two year old when they're doing something that they shouldn't do, and you're like, hey. Don't do that. Don't do that. Never watch them. They'll turn away from you

and and and and and and and still do it and and won't listen to you. They literally act like if I ignore you, you're not there. That's what we do. I'll just act like he's not there. But then, also, that ultimately leads us rejecting God outright. He says, now we just outright reject, and and we go down that road.

And then what that lands in is finally, after we've rejected it, he says, you end up replacing God. If you do that long enough, you're still gonna replace God. You know why? Because God made us, and we are built to worship. We will worship something.

You never are truly godless. You just worship a god that's not god. That's what idolatry is. We will worship something. You realize archaeologists and anthropologists is one thing they've never found in unearthing every culture that's ever existed? There's never been a truly atheist society.

There's never been one culture that didn't worship something ever. There's been cultures they found they go don't even build homes for themselves. They they don't really build buildings, but yet they built a temple. The only thing they would build is a temple.

And that's interesting because it's the truth of what God says is true. People say, well, we have to evolve to the point where you don't need to no. We actually are built to worship. So if you start to reject God, you will replace him. You'll find something to worship. But what we go for is what's called idolatry.

And the reason God hates idolatry is idolatry is a dead end that leads us to more death but makes us think we're doing something right. And and and the problem with idolatry is it's really ultimately a form of worshiping ourselves.

Because when we pick an idol, we say, okay. I pray to this. We don't really do pray to our idols as much because we have more what's called cultured idolatry.

We pick a set of things that we believe in more than God, and we pay the but we'll still put our money towards it. We'll still put our time towards it. And so we will basically do our sacrifice for it. And that's the problem with an idol. An idol is, yeah, you pray, you do some whatever, you give it something.

But when you give it something, you know how the system works. I'm giving it something so I get what I want. I'm really in control. Idolatry is like a vending machine.

I'm worshiping you say you're worshiping the vending machine because, you know, you come up and, hey, I gotta put it used to be put in quarters. Now you gotta put in dollar bills, and then it's never right that one look come on. Accept my worship and give me what I want. You know?

And and the reality is when you go up, yeah, you do have to give it something. But when you give a vending machine something, what do you expect in return? What you asked for. So you look and I go, I gave it the money, but I want f two. Why is it giving me e three? I don't like e three. That's the grossest thing ever.

I don't want that. And then what do you do if it's a and then it doesn't drop? But I gave you what you said. Start hitting it when it falls on you. And you know what? We can do that as Christians. That's called legalism. That's why the Bible talks about this theology of legalism,

where you think I do the things that God said, and then I get what I want. Well, when you go to a vending machine, who's really in charge? You or the vending machine? You are.

You're the one that's making the decisions. You just need the machine to work like it's supposed to work. And if it doesn't give you what you want, the vending machine's broke. That's the problem with idolatry. You've replaced God with something that's more to your liking,

something that you have some control over. But then you feel like you're being righteous because you put the money in it. You did the act. But you really it's about you.

And God says that leads to death. And you know what? And I've watched it. I've seen it happen. Like, in in our culture now where we've gone is is you know, I started preaching thirty one years ago. I was I became a pastor, and and it was when I was two years old, by the way. And and I have watched

a slow change where you might not even realize it. And in thirty one years is kind of a long time, but in the span of history, it's really not that long that that we have come to this point where where I would talk about truth

and this absolute truth, and and and we've shifted to where the culture now doesn't agree with that. We we have we we we talk about my truth,

and and we act like, well, that may be your truth, but this is my truth. In other words, it's a rejection of there's absolute truth. But the weird thing when it says it clouds your mind and you don't think clearly, let's use actual logic and definitions of terms. Truth, by the very definition, is not subjective.

Something's either right or wrong. So if I say this is the way something is, and you say, no. It's this way, there's only a couple options. Either we're both wrong or only one of us is right. There is no way we're both right.

Yet now we live in a world that's like we we we kinda have some things we know they're still truth, like math. Although even that sometimes, I'm not sure anymore. The math doesn't seem to check out anymore.

But yet, we we we say this, and now it's about my truth. And you know what? I used to when I started ministry, that was started becoming a thing out there. There's no absolute truth,

and that's just your diddly. And culture decides what's absolute truth is, and we're trying to say all that. So the Bible, you know, it it changes. And then you know? But now, thirty one years later, I can't believe that I have to argue that within the church.

That a lot of us sitting out there, a lot of you sitting out there have this view that, well, I gotta understand if that's my truth. And what you end up doing is you come in here and you listen to me preaching, and you're deciding, am I gonna accept that or not?

When, biblically, what you should be asking is, is he preaching the word right? Is that accurate? And if I accurately taught the word right, you don't get an option of whether it's truth or your truth. You're either gonna listen to truth or you're gonna ignore truth, and that's the truth.

But that's become a thing. And if you wanna pray for someone, pray for pastor Clayton or young adults because we have a a generation that is so raised in this culture that it's infected them even at Christian colleges,

even at that where they will they basically will start, well, I don't think. I think to be relevant, we need to not worry. God didn't really mean that. And and we get this woke theology that starts twisting things, and we live in a world that starts to say, right is wrong and wrong is right.

And we think the only way we're gonna love people, and then we do it on the guys that we need to be loving. Yeah. You know, at the end of this passage, it answers the reason. We don't wanna be self righteous. We can be jerks. We'll get there.

But the truth is you're never gonna lead people to Jesus and lead people to the path of life by saying love means accepting what they think is truth. It's never gonna work to say, okay. This is the dot where you believe and what you live. Let's draw a circle around it and say, that's your bull's eye. That's not gonna work.

Because you know what? We are supposed to speak the truth in love. What's the emphasis on that? What's the action word in that? Truth. We are supposed to bring truth to people. The delivery system is being loving,

to be kind, to actually come out and say, you realize I'm in the same boat as you, to not be self righteous, to not say, I'm just better than you, and you should get your act together, but say, I'm just like you. We're all in this together, and we all need a little Christmas.

And to explain things. But out of fear to say, well, culture's so strong. Let's just say that's okay so we can get people in the door will never work

because it's empty of anything. It's no different than the world. And at that point, people are like, well, this is just another club to join. Why would I go join this one? And here's the bottom line too. The

Bible says to many people who just can't see the truth, the most offensive thing they're ever gonna see is the gospel itself. So if you're gonna try to be lenient on these outside things because you're afraid of offending people, at some point, what's gonna happen when you get to the gospel?

And the gospel is you gotta understand the bad news before you can accept the good news. And if you soft sell the bad news, what Jesus are you leading someone to?

You're leading them to an idolatry version of Jesus. And Tozer was right when he said, how you view God is the most important thing about you because it'll determine how you view everything else.

And so that's what so this godlessness leads us down this road that becomes really confusing. Our cloud our minds get clouded. We all and then you know what? And now I've turned into my father because he would look at the world out there, read the newspaper, which I do now, watch news, look at social media. He didn't do that. But and and and what you want what he used to say is, pardon his French, what the hell is wrong with people?

My dad was so wise, he answered the question in his question. Hell, that's what's wrong with people.

We've bought a lie. He goes on here in a minute. He says, we listen to a lie. That lie is from Genesis three. And the lie of the devil was, God doesn't really know your best interest. You need to take what you want. In other words, I'm gonna decide my truth, and I'm gonna live my life. In other words, I'm gonna be God.

That's what he's trying to do, and he's still trying to do it to us even in the church. So we are convicted of godliness, living like God does not exist. But then charge two now is wickedness,

and that's without rules, meaning I make the rules. Which in other words, if I live like God doesn't exist, I will eventually live like I'm God. I become God. And look what he says. This is what happens when that happens. Starting in verse 24. So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired.

This word abandoned, he brings up three times. The word abandoned is also used to he gave them over in some translations. That is in the Greek. It's in the active tense. It's not a passive thing. You think it's just passive like, so God said, alright. Whatever. Go to hell. It's more like what the father did in the prodigal

parable of the prodigal son. Passive, the father would say, alright. Just leave. Live however you want. I'm not giving you your inheritance, but get out of here. He did something active. He not only let him go, he set him up. Okay. Fine. I'm giving you your inheritance. Go all in.

That's what he's saying. He says, alright. He's gonna go all in. We're gonna see in a moment. That's a heart. That's the heart of what the punishment, the judgment is right now. You'll see that here in a sec. Let's keep going. So he says, alright. I bend and do whatever the shameful things their hearts desire. So what he's saying is we had these shameful things in our hearts. Our hearts manipulates. We try to live like, gotta go with my heart. I go with my heart. If you understand scripture you believe yourself to be a Christian, don't listen to your heart.

That's a lie. Our hearts deceive us all the time.

And and so he goes, so we end up with these hearts desires. In other words, he's talking about about in verse 25, they traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worship and serve things God the things God created instead of the creator himself who is worthy of eternal praise. Amen. So he goes right there he goes, we have because of sin and this brokenness, every one of us has this longing to go towards immoral passions.

Our heart wants to take us to broken things.

We think the answer will be this. I'll find happiness in this. I'll find contentment in this. Every single one of us is drawn towards something immoral. And immoral just means God is morality. God says this is how he created it. This is how it's supposed to work, and every single one of us has something on our list that we are drawn to because of the brokenness.

And we feel it strongly. We feel like I'd be happier with it, and we feel like I have no joy, and I've lost my meaning in life without it. And what we're gonna see in a minute is we've actually circled some of those things in our society now and called it our identity. And that's where the devil got us to buy another lie.

That's who I am, and that's how I will be happy. That's who I am. That's how I'll have fulfillment. That's who I am. So then all of sudden, when God says, this isn't right, you're like, you hear I'm not right, and there's no way I can be who I'm supposed to be, and there's no way I can have joy or happiness or hope. Now

we've got an inception of lies we've bought into from the enemy just to set you up because he says, alright. So so you have these immoral passions. And what does that lead to? Verse 26, he starts talking about these indecent perversions. Indecent perversions.

And it says where's verse 26? That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulge with sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burn with lust for each other.

Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved. So there you go. He brings up an example, and he says, the immoral passions, that brokenness is gonna take us to where we're gonna be drawn to certain things

that are not the way God created it, the created order to be, and it's gonna turn into perversions. And you know when you hear perversions, our we put such a misnomer on saying pervert that it means pervert means perverted. It just means distorted. It means it's been twisted and turned inside out and upside down.

And so what he's saying is when we start to live like God doesn't exist, and then we start to live like we're God, we are gonna go after our heart's passions that come from our brokenness, and then we are gonna start distorting everything from the way God meant it to be.

And he goes for homosexuality because in the Roman culture at the time, that was a very common thing. Matter of fact, 14 of the first 15 Caesars practiced homosexuality. And so he's saying, look at homosexual man with man, women with women. That is so twisted on the created order. First, on a basic look at creation level.

God created the sexes, male and female. This sounds crass, but think about it. Just from a practical point of view, that plugs into that. It's a very common sense. I'm telling you, it's this is why we become so distorted that common sense seems stupid and wrong. It's very easy to look at creation. I created it for that.

Then the second problem is you get twisted, and we start worshiping the created things, which is ultimately worse from ourselves, which means it's all about pleasure. It's all about this. God did create sex, and sex is one of most pleasurable things. So all of a sudden, we start worshiping ourselves, sex gets perverted. We start involving sex. Why do think almost every religious system we find out there has some kind of sexual practice involved with worship?

Because if the highest order of things you're gonna worship is us, the creative thing, what do you think would be the greatest form of worship?

You're gonna go after sex. And what happens is it gets twisted. And the more you do it, the more and when you run after sex in the wrong way, you run after perversions of it. And you have to up the game. You have to up the game because you're not it's like eating junk food. You're never gonna get enough of the right thing. So you you keep expanding. You know what? Then then this is not limited to just homosexuality.

Those of you that are looking at porn all the time, just as guilty. You have perverted what sex is. Those of you that are living with your boyfriend or girlfriend and don't choose to get married first, you have perverted what sex was supposed to be. It's

the same thing. He just uses his example because that's the ultimate example of inverting everything because it denies the created order. It also denies what God created marriage to be. Because he says, it's not good for man to be alone. That wasn't just because men are irresponsible,

and and they won't do stuff. It meant that God made us image bearers, and there's something about the marriage that it's an illustration. He says in Ephesians of our relationship with Christ and how Christ works with us as the body of Christ. We work together in a marriage. There marriage is an illustration.

Marriage is something that God intended for us to make us more holy, not just happy. So when we twist the idea of what marriage is and we lose out, we're distorting the image of God. We're distorting the character of God. We're actually believing a lie that marriage is just about sexual fulfillment and finding a friend.

And so then when you distort that, you distort what sex is for, what that is for. And then the last twist is you make it about your identity.

When you make your sexuality, your gender about who you are, and then you misunderstand what the purpose of a relationship is, you're now trapped in a lie that says, I have to be this to be who I am, and this is the only way I can actually find happiness and fulfillment and contentment in my life. Now the devil's got us.

And that's why this is a battle even within the church and probably within this room. And let me tell you something. If you struggle with this yourself,

I love you. God loves you. This is not hate mongering. I am actually willing to let you be very frustrated with me because I need you to know the truth. And the truth is you're not gonna find what you think you're gonna find down that road because your sexuality and your gender is not your identity.

It's not who you are. Matter of fact, if you run down that road, you're gonna lose your identity, and you're never gonna find it. You're never going to find it. And I know how painful it feels because it's such a strong passion. It's such a strong desire. It it pulls you in.

And what you're struggling with. And those of us that are Christians that wanna make it okay, we've been so twisted because we're like, oh, we buy the same line. So then we feel like God wouldn't do that. Right? But God's saying, no. This isn't a front to the way I created. And the reason he gets so angry and judges it is because he knows when you run down this road, you're running away from life.

He knows we're running towards death. He's not trying to hold us back. He's trying to save us.

And so we we have to understand that that's what happens when we when we pervert it, when we distort it. And this is what he when he gave him gave it about over, you know what he meant the judgment is? The current judgment for sin

is more sin.

His current judgment being poured out right now before the final judgment when he ends it all is the current judgment is if you go down this road, you're gonna keep going down this road. You're gonna keep going further down this road.

Look. We're further down. We think, oh, Rome. Rome. And people try to to judge us. Like, they were so decadent. They were so stuff. Guys, we're worse without even knowing it. Because even the Romans dabbled with homosexuality, but they wouldn't call that a marriage. They knew that it took a man and a woman.

They still said the nuclear family was the core. They just dabbled. We're now saying, this is not only right. This is the way a marriage should be. You can be nice. You can be loving. You can have a great, you know, homosexual marriage, and you could probably get along better than most of us in this room.

Just because it works that way, it's working for what you think it's supposed to be, it's still not working for what it's supposed to be. And you're missing out on what God intended. And that's why he gets angry, because he loves us too much. And that's why I'm willing to say this to you, because I care more for you.

But we live in a world now that even people in the church are gonna say I'm a hate monger for saying this. And I'm just gonna say, please, just talk to God and say, why am I so emotional about this? And it's because you've tied your identity into it. But what if it's not your identity?

What if that's not who you're supposed to be? And what if the lie is that's not the only way you'll ever find fulfillment or goodness in a relationship? What if that's not the truth? I'm

not gonna say, you know, like, some church that's like, pray the gay away or pray this. It's like, really? Do we say that about any other thing we struggle with? Those passions, that brokenness is always gonna you're always gonna have desires that are contrary to what God's plan is. We're all in the same boat.

He just used this as a very clear example.

And he said the punishment for sin is more sin, and that confuses some of us. And if you say, why would the punishment for sin is to let people get away with more sin? That doesn't seem fair. Matter of fact, we look around and go, why are they living this way? And they seem to be happier and getting stuff, and I'm I'm doing the right thing. Well, here's the problem. If you don't understand that, that means you've actually believed a little bit of the lie. You are sipping on the world a little bit yourself,

and you've kinda taken this view as well. I'm doing the right thing because God said to. You're assuming that doing what God says doesn't really bring joy. It's like, that's actually fun, but I gotta do this because God said I'm in trouble if I don't. And you know what we act like as a church? We get very judgmental.

We yell at people who are different, and the one the sins that are ickier, like the, you know, the transgender, that seems to be ickier to us. So we yell it at the most and ignore our own stuff. We act like the kid in school when they said one cookie. And you see the kid that took two? Teacher, he took two.

Why do you think you get so mad about the unfairness of that? Because what do you really want? Do you really want him to only have one? No. You want two cookies as well.

So you're like, I've been holding out. I've been holding I've been living this horrible thing called the Christian life. I've been doing what God I've been serving, giving my I've been, like, trying to respect my spouse. I've tried to be a good parent, and they're off, woo hoo, having a good old time.

You don't even understand that he says that way of living is death. It doesn't give life. It doesn't bring hope. So no matter if it's homosexuality, gender, your porn addiction, whatever it is that's contrary to how God created sex, sexuality, and our lives to be,

you've got to understand that running down that road is not have fun, and now you're in trouble. It's not a fun road. It doesn't end where you think it's gonna end. It's a dead end. It's a dead end. And the frustrating thing I've had to live as a pastor is I get this fight within the church.

And my broken heart is how many people will not, says our minds are clouded, and you just won't see the truth.

And so right is wrong, and wrong is right. God says this is what happens in all culture. This is what happens when you start disconnecting from absolute real truth. You start fighting. You know what? I don't get political. I wanna preach the gospel.

But I think I can give you a reason why we are so fighting and why as Christians, are so confused on what it means in our political environment.

How do I stay a Christian yet still stand by what I believe politically? Because I think our faith should inform our voting. I think we're called to be good citizens. And if we're call and we are the government in this country, so we should be involved. We should have an opinion, and we can have a strong one. But why do we get so ornery and so mean? Why do we stop acting like Christians as we try to defend our values as Christians?

You're never supposed to stop acting like one. For example, stop name calling. We're not supposed to do that as Christians. Disagree all you want. But, no, let's go, Brandon. I'm sorry. That's ungodly. It started off funny. Now it's become a battle cry that's that's not the way to act as a Christian. Disagree all you want,

but you still gotta act like a Christian. You still gotta show love and respect. But why do we get so angry? You know why? Here's my theory. We are a country that was based, you know, our constitution, and our founding fathers were not all Christians.

If you believe the stories they all love Jesus and just came and tried to form another theocracy, you gotta learn something new about history. But the one thing they did agree on is they all agreed that the best way to run a government was Judeo Christian values.

Whether they believed in Christ, and these biblical Judeo Christian values is what our cons all of our founding documents are based on those values. Everyone agreed on those values. Well, now we live in a world that people have dismantled those values, but yet we still wanna cling to the constitution.

We and so now everyone's arguing because now we don't have this absolute truth, but we wanna argue that our side does have absolute truth, which makes no sense because you're saying there's not really it's my truth, your truth, but my truth is more truth than your truth. And and we argue because no one we don't agree on what those values are, but yet we wanna cling to that document. So now everyone's like, well, that document doesn't really mean that. It means this. And now we're trying to change the constitution. All of us are like, I'm a strict constitutionalist.

I think what those documents should be guiding us, we should live by this. Then now we're in world's like, really? Do we need to live by this? Why? Because we don't agree. And that's the same thing happened in church. With the Bible really being this and all that. So now as a Christian, you try to live out your faith, then you try to bring your faith into the into the world, and we look at what are and we are living on the last gas vapors

of a people that used to at least agree on these values, and we don't anymore. And you know what that does to us as Christians? It scares the hell out of us. And we're more afraid of losing the freedom and losing that, and we're so terrified we get mean instead of meek. Meek is controlled power,

and then we yell at everybody. We do the same thing with sins. We get so terrified by the way culture has changed that we think speaking the truth is to yell at everybody.

But the diff the thing for sin is more sin because we don't see that there's life on the other side, and we don't show people the life. We're just more angry.

My wife went and got one of those blood tests because she's having healthy, like, food. She finally thought, maybe it's food. So she paid the hundreds of dollars to get the food sensitivity thing and found out, you know, there's lots of stuff she's reacting to. She loves to eat. And maybe a lot of the tiredness, the bloaty, the achiness, some of the feeling sick was merely your your your food is poisoning you.

And so the answer is I watched her do it. And the answer is you gotta clear out everything you react to for six weeks, and then you can slowly add things back in. The problem is in our diet, the way we eat, we eat the same things. You're almost guaranteed that the things you eat the most are gonna show up on the test.

So I watched her do that and goes, this sounds terrible. But I watched her start feeling better.

So then I thought, you know, maybe I should check it out. So I go, I'm gonna go get are you really? And she tried to talk me out of because she's like, why are you gonna spend hundreds of dollars? Well, don't you want me to be healthy? You know what mean? And she she and so she finally says, okay. So I do it. And then I I get the call, the doctor, the results are in. I'm gonna go sit down with with with the doctor, and I'm sitting here with my wife, and I go, you know,

I don't know why I did this because I'm probably not gonna listen to whatever it says. And she goes, exactly. I knew it. That's why I told you not to do it. You just spent all these hundreds of dollars, and you weren't gonna do it. You were just curious. I go, yeah. I was just curious.

I was hoping. And I kind of in the back thought, wouldn't be great if I had no reactions? I could say, I can eat what I want. But nope. That wasn't true. And now I'm looking at it, and I'm like, if I do this, joy is gone.

I will never enjoy eating again, and I will lose all taste for life. I'm really scared. So I was like, no, I'm just gonna blow it off. Then I said, no. I don't wanna blow it off. I looked at it. I go, I'll listen to most of these things, but I'm not giving up ham.

I'm not giving up ham. No way. You know, and I got a few things. I'm not giving up ham or steak. I will eat a meat plate. And then I started thinking about it. I go, what's the point of that? Because if I don't go all in, I'll never know.

If I don't go all in, I'll never experience the health on the other side of it like my wife is. I'm just too afraid of the pain of in the middle and the what I saw is hopelessness.

See, that's what a lot of us are like with some of the sin and some of this these things. It's like, I can't really trust God because you think there's no hope on the other side. You think it's it's hopeless, and it's gone, but it's not. It's not.

And the truth is we're all guilty of that. We're all guilty of it.

Because if you look here if you look here as he he he goes through this list,

he says in verse 28, since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking. He let them do things that would never should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip.

I mean, they are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. That disobey their parents one seems a little bit out of place to me, doesn't it? I feel like Paul walked away to get some food,

and a parent that was so mad that their kids wouldn't listen snuck in and went, and they disobey their parents. Wait till Timmy reads that. And then they slunk out of there. I don't know, but it is weird to me. I'm gonna ask God about that. But

but it says, they know God's justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyways. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them too. They applaud them. We live in a world that applauds. And even in the church now, we're starting to applaud things that God says, no.

That's the way of death. But when you look at this list, look at this list. Because look down in verse two. Chapter two, verse one. I'm just gonna eat. We're gonna look at this more next week, but I'm just gonna just peek into it. It says, you may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad,

and you have no excuse. When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things. Because look, we focus on the homosexuality. We focus on the gender thing. That was just a great example. But look at the rest of the list

and compare it to yourself. Look what it says. Their lives become full of every kind of wickedness. Sin. Alright. We all have sinned. We don't listen to God on everything. But then look at some of me. He said this. These are bad. Greed. Greed. Alright. Here comes a throw punch.

If I honor God like we talked about a few weeks ago and spent my money the way he said to, you would give.

About 60% of the people come to this church that say they're believers do not give. That means you're spending it on something else. And then you say, well, I don't make enough, and then you make all these excuses. The truth is you're greedy. You're greedy,

and that's on this list. This is the same list that talks about gender stuff, talks about sexual stuff. Hate. Some of you just added that to your list because I told you you're greedy.

And now you hate me for telling you that. Glad I could help. Envy. We don't struggle with that at all, do we? Envy is one of the reasons why we tend to be greedy. Murder. Maybe we don't physically murder people, but, man, we will murder them with our mouths. Correling,

that I've seen. I've seen your Facebook feeds. I've seen your Instagram stuff. Deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. Gossip is on this list. It's a natural byproduct.

You know, I always thought I was good with gossip because I don't pass it on. If you say, I'm gonna tell you something you can't tell anyone else. I do not tell anyone else. But I'm a cul de sac of gossip. I want you to come down my street. It'll stay in my street, but I wanna hear it. I'll be honest.

When I hear someone talking, they think, what are talking about? Oh, nobody knows. No. You gotta tell me. I wanna know. I gotta know. They're you know? And so you look at that list, and he what he says is we are just as guilty. We're all guilty. So we're gonna take this message one of two ways.

We're gonna look at some of those things that says, especially the gender stuff and all of that, and say, you know what? We gotta be nicer. You're stupid. That's outdated. Some of you are in here that I yeah. Sorry. I'm the grumpy old man. But the the the word of the lord says the word of the lord will stand forever.

Society's gonna change. Values are gonna change. Values are gonna go in and out. There was a time that if you tried to give a nine year old hormone therapy to make them stay a certain way, that would be called abuse.

And now it's called we have to free them up to be who they are because you buy the lie that what they say they are is what their identity needs to be, and they can't be happy without that. And that is a lie from the pit of hell. Society changes. God doesn't. And so we gotta make a decision. If you're gonna follow Christ,

do you believe him or not? You can't just believe in him. You have to believe him. And and otherwise, we're just gonna go down this road. And and and the truth is we'll either get woke and saying, well, I guess these things are okay because that's how we have to be relevant, Or we'll become self righteous,

and and we push people away because we just yell at them and say they're the problem with the world when we are the world. When I was 16,

wrap this up, we'll sing a song, go home. When I was 16, I I I won a regional term. I got to go to this elite tournament in Hawaii. I got a trip to Hawaii that was you had to win. You had to you had to qualify. There's only about a 100 people in the whole country that could qualify for this thing, And I was the only high schooler.

I was 16. Everyone else was collegiate bowlers. They were 18 to 21. So we went they only had one couple that was our, like, sponsor that brought us we had three floors of a hotel room, and yet there was one set of adults. And the problem is because they were all technically adults. I was the only one.

And so then as I hung out and we bowled, it was a two week trip, but the bowling was only five days. And that's if you made it all the way to end. I bowled terrible. I was cut after day two.

And so the problem was we had all these days, but everyone that was 18 what they did is every time we weren't bowling, they were drinking.

And, you know, I was a believer, and I didn't really wanna drink. It's not that I thought drinking was a sin. I was just like, you know, but I was 16. Drinking age was 18. But so I went over and I said, alright. You know what? What else am I gonna do? That's what everyone's doing. I don't wanna be left out. Even my friend who came in the room and these are so I'd go in and I'd sip. I would take a beer. I'd I'd drink a little bit, but I wasn't gonna get drunk. And as I sipped the alcohol, I would judge them for getting drunk.

But, technically, I'm the only one breaking a law. I'm the only one actually breaking the law, but I'm judging them.

And then the more I did it, the more I was around them, I felt like this is the only thing to do because I'm 16. What else am I gonna do? I wanna be I wanna fit in. I'll have fun. I started having more and more fun. I leaned in. Next thing, you know, I joined all in, and I just started getting plastered every day. And you know what? It seemed like it was fun at the time until I'd wake up every morning.

And one morning, I woke up after, like, five days of this, and I couldn't find my room key. And so I realized, where did I put that when I came in not knowing who I am. First, am I in the right room? You know? And then I pulled the drawer open, maybe I threw it in the drawer,

and they're staring me in face was my the Gideon International Bible. And see, when I left, I left my bible. I'm not gonna I'm be too busy. I'm not gonna I basically left and said, I'm gonna I'm gonna leave God behind on this trip. And it convicted me, and I started opening. I said, is this really fun?

Just breaking the law every day, drinking. Is this really is this really satisfying me? And I decided not. And then I said, well, I guess I'm just not gonna fit. I'm gonna be all by myself for another eight days.

So I said, well, I'll just go down to the beach and the pool. They had a pool looked right out over the ocean. I go, I'll just go hang out down there, be by myself. And I knew that sounded lonely. It sounded difficult,

but I did it. And I walked down there, but while I was in the lobby, ran this little group of guys that had bowled with one of them on one of the days.

And I go, what are you guys doing? They go, hey. We're gonna go snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. You wanna come with us? I'm like, really? I go, yeah. Come with us. And then as we're driving, they're like, yeah. Everyone just drinks all the time. That's stupid. We're in Hawaii. It's beautiful. Let's go do stuff. So I found a little group that I thought didn't exist. They actually didn't want to just party. They wanted to go experience

the place. And for the next week, we went snorkeling. I I water skied on the ocean, which was the most gloriously terrifying thing I've ever done in my life. And it made me really concentrate on not wiping out because I thought if I crash, Jaws is going to eat me. But I did some just

it was so fun. And when I think back, I barely remember the first week. I just remember I didn't feel good even though I was supposed to feel good. The second week is all I remember. I'm telling you, there is a hope,

especially even the the deepest thing I talked about. I want I don't wanna beat it to death, but if you struggle with your gender, you struggle with your sexuality, you struggle with that, You feel like if I do what God says,

I'm not gonna fit in. I'm gonna be alone my whole life, and there's no hope. But you're actually going to find life. It's gonna look different. You're always gonna maybe wanna go back,

but there's a hope. But also, for those of us that are like, amen to this sermon, this sermon is also directed at every one of us too. Because the thing we do not wanna do is a lot of us are sipping on the world and judging everyone who's drunk on the world. We're still drinking it. What are you sipping on?

Because you need Christmas too. We need a savior, not a season. And there is hope in that. Let me let me just let me let me I wanna jump back to verse sixteen and seventeen and close this out. Because sixteen and seventeen shows the hope.

For I'm not ashamed of this good news about Christ. It's the power of God at work saving everyone who believes, the Jew first and also the Gentile. This good news, Christ coming, Christmas,

tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. And scripture says it is through faith that the righteous person is life.

So Christmas is about a savior, and the joy we should have is on the other side of trusting him. Not finding our identity in something else, not finding our fulfillment in something else, not trying to find our joy in going around God. And every one of us needs to deal with that. Because every one of us is guilty.

But the hope, the joy, the joy to us, the joy to the world is Jesus.

That is the reason. That's what Christmas is. That's why we need it. That's what joy is, and that's the joy we should inhabit, and we should own, and we should express that to the rest of the world. If you're struggling with anything we said, I hope you remember this. There is a joy that is found only in Jesus that you're trying to find in whatever it is you're trying to find it in.

And Christmas is about the need that we all need that joy, and that's what we should declare to the world. And that's why we sing a dumb Christmas song called Joy to the World. So let's stand and close with the Christmas song. If you hate Christmas songs, maybe you can reconsider what this means. Because it means, I know the joy, and it is for the whole world. And that means me too, and we wanna sing that and express joy

to the world. Hoorah.

Amen, church. Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on rockpoint.io for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.