Session 4 – Romans; The Wrath of God: Mark Lanier, 04/27/25

AI Edits from Session 4 - Romans; The Wrath of God Mark Lanier, 04 27 25
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Bernard: [00:00:00] How many of you have ever gone to a movie? How many of you have ever watched a show on tv? How many of you find it entertaining? Okay. Back at the time of Paul, they didn't have movies, not even black and white. They didn't have tv. They didn't have radio, but they did have theater. They had plays. They would even have play competitions in Athens.

Going back hundreds [00:01:00] of years before Paul, and one of the most famous plays ever written in that time was written by a fellow named Soles. It was a play called Oedipus Rex. He wrote three plays that dealt with Oedipus. Oedipus was a mythological figure. ~Uh, uh, ~not ~a ~an actual real person, but there was ~a, ~a lot of myth surrounding the individual Oedipus.

And so, ~uh, ~soles wrote for competition purposes in Athens, Oedipus Rex, which by the way, was a winner and became such a prominent play that it took on a life of its own in a sense. Now Oedipus Rex, ~uh, ~was written soles himself, lived in the 400 BC era, and this is a, a bust that's [00:02:00] attributed to, to be a representation of him, an ancient marble bust.

But AI is able to take that and turn him into a real person instead of something stone, cold metal. So in modern clothes, this would've been soles if he'd had a blue shirt and a blue blazer. He writes it and he writes it for performance purposes in one of the theaters there in Athens. Now the story of Oedipus Rex is a disturbing one, even as it's one that's very insightful.

It's insightful because it's got certain themes that were common in Greek theater. ~And in Greek fought. ~So the story of Oedipus is one that's told. It opens up, ~uh, uh, ~I first, by the way, was exposed to Oedipus because I grew up in Lubbock, Texas, where of course all things cultural occur. [00:03:00] Now we spell culture with a capital K, but it's still very cultural.

And in Terry Mars class in Coronado High School, we were required, ~uh uh, uh, ~every month or six weeks, I think, to read a play and do a report on the play. And that's where I first became familiar with this play. Oedipus Rex, ~uh, uh, ~and ~uh, ~there are actually two others that he wound up writing about the same character, Oedipus and Colonus and Antigone.

But, but Soles wrote this play. It's winning the Athens competition. And back then you would have a chorus of 12 to 15 people that kind of narrate the story and you would have two. Ultimately, ~uh, ~esophagus brought a third actors who would wear different masks and play all the roles. So this story starts out with the chorus and Oedipus, the king limps in, he's got ~a, a, a, ~a slight [00:04:00] limp, ~or, ~or as we would say in Lubbock, a hitch in his giddy up.

And so he's got this slight limp and he comes onto the stage and he has become the king of thieves. Now thieves had been a city under a curse by a sphinx, and while the curse by the Sphinx is going on, ~uh uh, ~ed, that's Louis Mere who just called me. Now, he needs to be at church and he needs to understand I'm at church.

~What that technically means is I'm on, I'm on his thing, and, and he's just sat down and it's called, uh, butt dial, where you're, you know, you hit that number. He doesn't know. He dialed me, but excuse me, for looking at my watch, like I'm already bored. Um,~

so Oedipus. ~Uh, ~becomes the king of thieves because the king that they had, LAIs is dead. He's be sought upon on the road and dead, but he, ~uh, uh, ~Oedipus becomes king 'cause the sphinx had thieves under a curse. And Oedipus was able to solve the, the curse by answering the riddle of the, the hinx. You may remember the riddle, what walks on four legs.

Then walks on two legs, then walks on three legs, and the [00:05:00] answer was a human. Because as a baby you crawl on four. As an adult, you walk on two, and as an older person you might use a cane, you have three, and the sphinx goes away. The city's out from under the curse. They make, ~uh, um, uh, uh, ~Oedipus the king and life is dandy for a while.

But then the gods curse thieves and the women are barren. And the famines on the crops and the wild, ~uh, ~the livestock are dying and the people of thieves come to Oedipus and say, please deliver us from the curse. And he says, well, fancy, you should ask. I've sent my buddy to go check with the, ~uh, ~Oracle to tell me what's going on and why the gods of cursed thief so I can fix it.

They said, well, that's fantastic news. He says, in fact, here he comes now. And onto the stage comes his buddy and his buddy says to him, look, ~uh, ~[00:06:00] king LAIs, the preceding king was basically murdered and nobody ever did anything to capture the rogue that killed him. So if you want the city out from under the curse, you gotta capture the rogue.

Well, EDUs says, well, how on earth am I gonna solve a cold crime like that? I guess I gotta do something. So he gets another seer to come in and give him some insight. The other seer comes in and says, well, look, I can tell you what happened, ~but, ~but the drama and the tension builds. Because ~the, the, ~the story of what happened is one ~that, ~that tragically unfolds ~and, and, ~and it's got layer upon layer upon layer.

So I've gotta reduce this down or I can't get to Romans. Here's the bottom line. When Oedipus was made King of Thieves. Because Oedipus freed them from the Sphinxes [00:07:00] Curse. He was given the widow, the Queen Tocoa. So he's given the Queen. And ~uh, ~you've got King Oedipus and Queen Joe Costa, and they have kids.

And all of this starts to unfold after those events have taken place and Oedipus is told that. The person who killed the king is alive still and actually living in thieves. So he sets to figure out who it is, and these clues get revealed along the way. And as these clues get revealed, Oedipus starts getting a little bit concerned.

And what we come to find out toward the end, and it all builds up in this incredible dramatic fashion, [00:08:00] is that the king was not killed by a band of robbers, like had initially been told, but actually by an individual. The king had had, ~uh, ~some of his help, ~uh, ~his attendance, and they had been outside the city where these three roads cross each other and he was killed there.

And Oedipus starts worrying a little bit because Oedipus says, wait a minute. When I was coming into thieves, I was at where these three roads meet, and there were these fellas there with an old man, and they were insulting me and pushed me to the side of the road. And in my anger, I killed them.

~This, ~this becomes very problematic because Oedipus is like already declared, whoever killed the king is going to suffer gravely at my hands. And so Oedipus is thinking mercy. I hope that wasn't me. [00:09:00] So he goes to Queen Joe Castro and she says, what are you concerned about? And he says, I'm concerned because.

I, I don't want that to have been me. And she says, oh, don't worry about that. First of all, prophecies never come true. ~She said, the, the, the Oracles, they're, they're fake. ~She said, in fact, let me give you an example. I was married to that guy. Remember, I, I'm the queen you inherited when you became king. I was married to LAIs and a prophecy came to us.

That he would get killed by his own kid. So when I had a kid, we sent the kid out to be killed. So that kid couldn't kill him. And he wasn't killed by a kid. He was killed by a rob. And edifice says, well, I do feel better 'cause I grew up in Corinth, which by the way is where Paul's writing his letter from.

I grew up in Corinth and I was the son of King Polyus. But there was a prophecy [00:10:00] on me that I would kill my father. And so ~I, I, ~I left Corinth for that reason. I didn't want to kill my dad. So he's sending out all these people to figure out who did it, who did it, who was the robber, who was the, ~the thi and, ~and finally ~this, this, ~this other prophet comes in and prophet says, look, I know stuff, but I'm not gonna tell you.

And EDUs says, well, you better tell me. And he says, I'm not gonna tell you. ~And EDA says, you better tell me. And he says, I'm not going to. ~And Eda says, what are you doing? You're trying to take my throne. You're trying to give it to my, my buddy, my cousin, my brother-in-law, whatever he is you're trying to give it to.

And, ~and, and, uh, ~finally the prophet just says to him, okay, look, bozo, you want to know, I'm gonna tell you. And as the story unfolds, you realize that Oedipus was never born to the king of Corinth. Oedipus was the baby of King LAIs and Queen Joe Costa. Can you say [00:11:00] incest? His mother is his wife and the mother of their children because he did kill his own father, he was taken out to be killed as a baby, but Oedipus wasn't killed as a baby.

He was instead given to the king of Corinth to raise. So he winds up killing his own father, unknowingly marrying his own mother and his kids, or his siblings. And when it all unfolds, Joe Costa is so upset. She goes and kills herself. She hangs herself, ~elf ~and Oedipus, who's running through the palace with a sword.

Going after Joe Costa, ~uh, ~he sees that she's done that, so he takes the broaches off of her gown and he gouges his eyes out and becomes blind blood dripping down his eyes. By the way, this would not be [00:12:00] rated G

and ultimately Oedipus is banished and blinded. He doesn't want to behold the world and he lives every day in misery. ~Now ~this play was huge, so huge that a contemporary of Paul's, Seneca, a Roman, rewrote it into Latin and it was so popular that soles in, in Germany, they were able to find a mosaic floor.

300 years later that was laid, that gave him as one of the wisest of the ancients. And you read this and you hear this and you understand this, and now we're starting to get a glimpse of what Paul's audience that's reading the Roman letter already knew and had been just part of their [00:13:00] cultural fabric.

This is a common story, but it's a story that illustrates. The wrath of the God's small G as we look at this class on the wrath of God. If we were to divide Romans into seven sections, which it's easy to do, the first section has the introduction, the greetings, and the overarching theme. We've dealt with that in the previous three classes.

The second section that we're starting with today deals with the reign and condemnation of sin over Jew and Gentile. I probably should have written that over Gentile and Jew because Paul deals with the Gentiles first. So I wanna use that backdrop. Of the the theater, ancient theater, and shine some light on three topics.

First, let's understand that ancient Greco Roman fought because we can't understand [00:14:00] how those people were reading Paul's letter. If we can't climb into their mind a little bit. ~It. ~And then after we do that, we'll shed the light ~on ~on Paul's specific text and how it would contrast in their mind with what they had thought in their old self.

That will allow us to do some points for home that we'll look at through Paul's text. So with that, let's go back for a moment to that ancient Greco-Roman thought, and this is all part of that ~uh, uh, ~picture I stole from Jarret, pastor Jarret that. First, you wanna put yourself in the ancient mindset.

Understand culture, language, time, situation, covenant before you can then principally and apply something to us today. Now, how many of you are familiar with Star Wars? Star Wars? The first one came out when I was in high school and ~um, uh, ~I heard so many [00:15:00] classes. Where people would talk about the similarities and the differences between the fourth and Christian thought between Star Wars and reality.

It's just part of our fabric. ~Uh, ~may the fourth is Star Wars Day, because May the fourth be with you. ~I mean, ~this is the extent of permeation. ~You, you, ~you can remember that ~it's, ~it's coming up. ~May the fourth be with you. Um, ~the point is we naturally use culturally appropriate reference points, tie-ins to help us.

And analyze our faith to help us distinguish our faith. We can find points of similarity, we can find points of contrast, and if we do that with something that's culturally relevant, it helps us learn and understand better. Paul did that. [00:16:00] Paul was deeply aware of Greco-Roman thought. ~Last or two weeks ago, we didn't have class last week, but ~two weeks ago I used this slide and talked about how where you live forms, who you are, how you think, and what you know.

And Paul was from Tarsus. Tarsus was by a contemporary of Paul writing at the time of Paul Strau. The geographer said that the people of Tarsus have devoted themselves so zealously to philosophy. By the way, even Greek drama at the time was considered philosophy. ~Uh, ~Oedipus, ~uh, Rex, ~the Play by Soles is quoted over and over by Aristotle.

Because Aristotle considered it ~a, a, ~a masterpiece of what it had to say. The people of Tarsus have devoted themselves so zealously to philosophy, to the whole and cyclical curriculum [00:17:00] and to whatever other studies you might name that they have surpassed Athens, which is where Oedipus was first performed.

They have surpassed Alexandria, the place of the largest library known to man. And any other place that can be named where there are schools and lectures of philosophers. And that's why when Paul goes to Athens, Paul is able to stand on the opus. ~Uh, Aries is, is uh, uh, the Latin name of, he's the God of war.~

~The Latin name is, um, Mars. And, uh, Pagus is a hill. ~So the Areopagus is also known if we look at it from a Latin perspective as Mars Hill. And so he stands on Mars Hill and we have the story and Acts. And in Acts it says, so Paul standing in the midst of the Areopagus Mars Hill said, men of Athens, I perceive.

In every way you're very religious. For. As I [00:18:00] passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription to the unknown God. What? Therefore you worship as unknown. This I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and Earth doesn't live in temples made by man.

He's not served by human hands as though he needed anything. Since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods, the boundaries of their dwelling place that they should seek.

God, perhaps feel their way toward him and find him, but he's not far [00:19:00] from us. He's not far from each one of us. For quote. In him. We live and move and have our being. Paul's quoting epi amenities of Rete. Paul is able to just quote their philosophers, freelancing extemporaneously as even son of your own poets have said quote, we are indeed his offspring and he's quoting erota there.

Paul knew this mindset and Paul knew that the people believed, by and large, in a concept known by the Greek word, ate,

ate. And you find it in Oedipus. You find it in numerable, ancient [00:20:00] Greek tragedies because it was just a mindset that the people had ate. Here is the cycle. This is what Greco-Roman people thought was true. The gods get angry. ~Sometimes they're angry because they're in a bad mood. ~Sometimes they're angry because a person exhibits hubris, pride, arrogance, and yet is successful.

But the gods get angry for whatever reason they decide, and then as a result, they find that person that they're angry with and they cloud that person's judgment. They start jacking with their mind, the gods start tinkering and cause confusion, darkness in thought, [00:21:00] and then as a result, the person starts making poor decisions and it ultimately leads to disaster.

That's the story of Oedipus. Edifice was a haughty person, a short tempered person, but he is someone that Gods are angry with. So when you hear the story ~and, ~and as the story is unfolding before you are, ~uh, ~given ~the, the, ~the truth about the relationships and what went on, you see these things. You hear Oedipus cursing the murderer.

Oedipus not realizing that LAIs the king had been his real father. Oedipus is saying things like, I will fight for LAIs the dead king as if he were my own father. See [00:22:00] his whole judgments clouded. He is his father.

Oedipus says, let that man that killed King LAIs drag out his life in agony. Step by painful step. Well, that curse comes true. He's gouged his eyes out.

Oedipus adds that even if the murderer ends up being a member of his own family, he or she should receive the same harsh punishment. And banishment

and all of that comes true. This Greek concept of ate is moral, blindness and error, and it's the work of the gods.

Got it. Then let's look at how Paul writes [00:23:00] about such things. Because his audience, his Greek audience here, his Roman Greco-Roman audience is acutely aware of this. This is how they were brought up. This is what they were taught. ~I, I'll, I'll use another example. You rip.~

Rees wrote, he was a contemporary. He died a couple of years before, even though he was younger, he was a contemporary of soles. ~Didn't win near as many of the contests, but he, he did plays as well. ~Rees, such that this statue of him is from the Roman time. It's the time of Paul. They're still honoring these Greek playwrights at the time of Paul.

~Uh, ~that's him with modern ai. He's looking kind of cool, but he wrote this, ~uh, ~the Bach High, and it's, it's the same concept. I mean, you've got this same idea of ate, it plays out in all of these different Greek plays, and here's what he has to say. When the anger of the [00:24:00] gods would harm someone first. This very thing occurs.

The Gods strip away good sense from their mind, turns their judgment towards the worse. So they don't know anything about their errors and that leads to disaster and the gods get to visit their wrath. Now, I would suggest to you that Paul is very different from this Greek tragic concept. But as we read it, we will see echoes of the Greek thought, because that's what Paul is wanting, that that's the language, that's the mindset.

~But Paul's gonna do it with some distinction. ~He's going to help modify the way they think about these things. So if we look at Romans one 18, the Wrath of God. Orga is the word for wrath. The wrath of God [00:25:00] is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness. His readers think, well, yeah, yeah, that's true. And unrighteousness of men who by their uprightness, suppress the truth.

Now all of a sudden there's a little bit of a shift there. These are people who are suppressing the truth. It's not the God suppressing the truth. They're suppressing their own truth. And so as he starts this out, for the wrath of God. And that's an NIV word, ~uh, ~the way they've translated it. But it's really good for the wrath of God.

And the four links this up to the theme that we've already had, and I'll come back to that in a little bit. But it's the verses before, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, the cross of Christ, because it, ~the, ~the Death Bureau and resurrection of Christ is the power of God to save [00:26:00] everyone who has faith. In it, in the cross, the righteousness of God is revealed.

From faith to faith as it's written in Habakkuk, the righteous will live by faith for the wrath of God is revealed. I mean it, it is revealed and this is God's wrath. We don't like to talk about God's wrath much. ~We, we, look, I'm a kid from the sixties. All we are saying is give peace a chance. Don't go and talk about my father.~

~God is my friend. ~God is love and and we want the world to hear that. But the reason God's love is so important is because the wrath of God is also genuine. Remember John three 16, that marvelous passage. God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life That chapter ends with, but those who don't believe on Jesus, in Jesus on them, the wrath of God [00:27:00] remains.

God's wrath is very real. But Paul says this wrath of God is not something that's just. Pal Mel Willy-nilly dispensed, but the wrath of God's revealed against ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness have suppressed the truth. It's what Pastor Jarret was saying this morning from Ephesians four, that, that we have a darkened mind because we're, we're reinforcing that with darkened actions and hardness of heart.

~So here we've got a root cause and that cause is one where according to Uip and, and soles and others, they say that the gods can be arbitrary and capricious just, ah, it kind of ticks me off in Lubbock speak that chops my lips. So we're gonna fix that. But ~Paul is saying something's very different. He says, destruction is sins natural consequence.

If you walk in sin and unrighteousness, your unrighteousness will suppress the truth. That's the cause. Paul continues [00:28:00] because what can be known about God is plain to them. God's shown it to them. God's not blinding them. He's revealed himself to them.

God is not blinding. God is revealing. If you go back by the way to, ~uh, ~pastor Jarret referenced two Corinthians four, four, look. ~I wasn't wise enough to put it into the lesson. The, I thought when he said it, I thought, wow, I, that fits in. Look at this. Paul says it this way to the Corinthians. He says, um,~

the God of this world

has blinded the minds of the unbelievers. He's talking about Satan. That's the work of Satan to blind people. God has shown it to them.

Our knowledge is different than what the Greco-Roman thought was ies. The person knows nothing of their [00:29:00] errors. Paul teaches that people know God's righteous decree, but they suppress the knowledge. We inherently know what's right and wrong. Oh, we may grow so callous to it, but everybody's got a moral compass built into them.

And when we suppress that knowledge, that's when we don't see God. ~That's when our hearts are darkened by the God of this world. ~So Paul says that God's invisible attributes, his eternal power, his divine nature, which is built into us. We don't have his eternal power, but the nature of God is the hardwired blueprint that those who are made in his image have.

And it's why our hearts and our minds and our consciences cry out that there's right and wrong. That there's good and evil, because we're [00:30:00] hardwired to understand that. But God's invisible attributes, his eternal power is divine nature. They've been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made, so there's no excuse.

~I mean, think about this world. ~Think about Psalm eight when I consider, oh Lord our Lord, how majestic is thy name and all the earth, when I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars, which you've established, what is man? Oh, that you are mindful of them, yet you are. You made us. A little lower than the angels.

You crown us with glory and strength to rule over your creation. Oh Lord, our Lord. How majestic is your name in all the earth? ~Nobody's got an excuse. Everyone should be aware of this. ~I'm reminded of when CS Lewis spoke, ~uh, ~with ~uh, ~JRR Tolkien and Tolkien was. ~I ~trying to bring CS Lewis to Faith. CS Lewis was an [00:31:00] atheist, and CS Lewis said, ~uh, ~I could never be a Christian because you guys are so arrogant.

You think you've got it right and everybody else has it wrong. And token's response was, ~uh, ~no. The atheist is the arrogant one. The atheist believes that the Muslims. The Buddhists, the Christians, the Jews, that everybody who believes in any type of divinity has it wrong, and only the atheist is right. A Christian believes that there is a seed of truth in everybody.

They just don't have enough of the truth to understand God's work in Jesus Christ. But the idea that there's no God, that's the arrogant one. They're without excuse. And so this knowledge is a contrast because you read Soly and Oedipus and you start feeling bad for the [00:32:00] guy, Hey, he's ~his, ~his, it's almost excusable.

~He killed King Lales because they were trying to kill him. ~He left Corinth because he didn't wanna kill his parents. And he'd been prophesied, he would. Hey, you just start feeling kind of bad. He didn't choose Queen Joe Costa. She came with the job,

but Paul says people have no excuse. See, he's adjusting their thinking.

Even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God. They didn't give thanks to him. They became futile in their thinking. Their foolish hearts were darkened. ~This happened, but it happened because of what choices they were making. ~God was obvious to them. They chose not to acknowledge that. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.

They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images [00:33:00] resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. They might be religious, but they didn't have the gospel. By the way, that can be a problem for people today. Even in churches, there's a big difference between religion and the gospel.

Let me explain it this way.

God is here.

You and I are here.

Oops. There we are. We're so far down. We didn't make the screen. ~Um, ~when we try to reach up to find God. That process of us trying to reach up to God, we can call religion. How do you try to reach up and [00:34:00] find God? But the truth of the matter is God has to reach down to us and that is the gospel, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

And that is how the relationship is established between us and God. And it doesn't mean we don't try our best to relate to him, but we should never confuse the two,

and Paul is making that point. So Paul says that God gave them up. Parado. God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity. He said, okay, you wanna go that way? Go that way. ~I was talking through this with Pastor Jarrett and he said, yeah, remember that quote? And neither one of us could remember it quite right, but there's a quote that, that some people play, pray to God thy will be done.~

~And everybody else that doesn't want God's will to be done. God says to 'em, okay, well your will be done. ~God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity you. You wanna be that [00:35:00] way, okay? To the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves to give up. Para is to convey something in which one has a relatively strong personal interest.

~Um, yeah, we may have time. ~Let me go to Acts 7 42 and show you how that word can be used. And it's used in the Ephesians passage, by the way, that that was referenced by Pastor Jarrett today. But if we go to the Acts 7 42 passage and see what it means to give them up, I think 7 42, Steven here. Is the subject, God

turned away and gave them over to the worship, to worship the host of heaven. As it's written in the book of prophecies, [00:36:00] he gave them over. It's to take something that you have a personal interest in and just let it go, and that's what God did. God gave them over. And so when we look at the agency, if you will, in U the God's activities strips away.

Good sense. They strip it away. But Paul, God's more passive. He just says, okay, your choice, you wanna make that choice? I'll let you go. I'll give you over to it. I'll let you pursue that. This is simple cause and effect. You wanna start those dominoes falling, you can just be careful because in the end they're gonna kill you.

See, God doesn't force us to faithful obedience. Why do a lot of the tragedies in this world happen? [00:37:00] Because people choose to do things that are wrong. This is not a world where we are. ~Uh, ~computer programs that God forces to do things.

~Paul says it. He continues. They exchanged. It was their exchange. ~They decided we'll exchange the truth about God For a lie, we'll worship and serve the creature rather than the creator who's blessed forever. Amen. This is their choice and that's why God gave them up. To their dishonorable passions. That's why God said you wanna go that route.

You can go that route. Their women exchanged natural relations for those contrary to nature. The men likewise gave up natural relations with women, and were consumed with passion for one another, committing shameless acts with men, but they would receive in themselves the due penalty for their error. ~It does not lead.~

To the fulfilled, joyful life [00:38:00] that God has called us to since they didn't see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. Again, para docan is the form of the verb. ~He, he, ~he let 'em go. It's their choice. And they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness.

This isn't just about sexual morality, it's about uprightness evil coveting, Ooh, I want that malice thinking ill will of others. Murder doesn't have to be physical murder. A lot of people are really good killers with their words, strife.

Blessed are the peacemakers deceit. [00:39:00] Satan is the father of lies, maliciousness. We want what's best for people. Gossips. We wanna be people of truth, slanderers, we want to build people up. Haters of God. If we wanna be an embodiment of God's love, insolent, we want to be kind ~haughty. ~We want to be humble, ~boastful, ~humility, inventors of evil.

We want to be a pathway of good disobedient to parents. Honor thy father and mother. Foolish. We want wisdom Faithless. The righteous will live by faith heartless, creating me a clean heart. Oh God, [00:40:00] ruthless. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control. They knew God's righteous decree, that the people who practice such things deserve to die.

You and I have been given life unless you pass away today. Today you have 24 hours. Every one of your hours has 60 minutes in it. ~That's six times 220 plus four more. A hundred forty four, a hundred forty four, 1000, 440 minutes, some whatever it is. It is, and every one of those minutes has 60 seconds and whatever those are, they are.~

You've been given that, you've been given that as, as, as a steward. God says, I'm gonna give you 24 hours today. I'm gonna give you 60 minutes. In each of those hours, you get to choose how you're gonna spend it. You can choose to spend it in good, positive, great ways, or you can waste it and fritter it away, but you don't deserve to have it if you're gonna waste it.[00:41:00]

Those who are gonna do evil with that, they don't deserve to have that. And that's what Paul's saying. They don't deserve it, but they not only do these things, they approve the people who practice 'em, who do it all the time. Do you see the contrast between Paul's text and that Greek mindset? They would've had the Greco-Roman.

It's not just Greek, it's Roman. ~Alright, I'm doing the points for home differently today. I wanna spend a little bit more time here. Because I wanna talk a little bit more about the differences between Paul and their thought. ~The purpose is extremely important here in the Greco-Roman thought. The purpose is the inevitable doom of the person.

God, the Gods Do this to destroy the person at the end of Oedipus Rex. Esophagus ~is, ~is being, ~um, ~you know, the chorus is recounting with him. He's gouged his eyes out. He's blind. Why would you [00:42:00] do such a thing? Because I don't want to see, I don't deserve to see anything good in this world. And when I go to hell to Hades, I don't want to see my mother and father

doom of the person. Paul will tell us as we continue to read through Romans, or if we read through any of his other writings, that God does this to push people to redemption. God's looking to redeem those who are lost. God wants us who walk in darkness to crave the light. God wants to bring life where there is death, and this is why this whole section starts out with that Greek word, four, because Paul's referencing back Romans one, [00:43:00] 16 and 17, the theme.

I am not ashamed. Of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's what the good news is. ~That's the great news. It's the greatest news. ~It doesn't shame me that Jesus Christ had to die for me because I was due to die.

Death was my just reward. Those who do such things deserve to die. You say, well Mark, ~uh, ~you know, you don't have a problem, ~uh, ~in terms of homosexuality. Okay, fine. But what about the other things? Gossip. Raise your hand if you have never gossiped and be careful. 'cause lying is also bad.[00:44:00]

But I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It's the power of God to bring a wholeness and a healing, and remember salvation.

So terio, so Rios. Salvation is not just, oh, I'm gonna be with God eternally. Salvation's a here and now word as well. It's a wholeness. It's a peacefulness. ~It's a, ~it's a joy in life. It's an ability ~to, ~to stand in the face of storms and winds in the hurricanes with faithfulness to God and trust. It's that ability to put faith in the place of fear.

~Uh, ~I don't know if you heard the video thought for the day that I did on Tuesday, but, ~uh, ~the Pope died, ~uh, uh, ~Monday morning and, ~uh, ~in his Easter homily, ~uh, ~his last ~uh, uh, ~[00:45:00] message, ~uh, ~he spoke and he said, don't give in. And I think he was especially talking to world leaders to the logic of fear. I really loved that phrase, logic of fear.

Because there is ~a, ~a certain logic to being scared, but we should never give into the logic of being scared if we're believers in God because we have faith that there is someone greater than whatever we fear. And that's all wrapped up in this idea of salvation. The death barrel and resurrection of Christ on our behalf allows us to be new creations, to be set free from the law of sin and death.

Paul will unfold all of this in the whole letter, ~but, ~but we're starting to see it unfold in this next passage. This is the power of God to save everyone who believes Jew first and also the Greek. ~We had a discussion, Carol Wilson asked about this, uh, over lunch last week or sometime. Uh. ~Paul's talking to a people where the church [00:46:00] started with Jews and then the Greeks came in.

The larger church started with the Jews and then the Gentiles came in. He's not talking about anything here other than that chronology. It's to everyone. ~Yeah. ~It may have gone to the Jew first chronologically, but it also went to the Greek and he'll ultimately point out there's no difference between those.

~You don't get a, a special trophy 'cause you came in first. ~In the death barrel and resurrection of Christ, we see God's righteousness and it's revealed from faith to faith. It's got the faithfulness of Christ. It comes to us through faith, and faith is at the very end of the journey. It's from faith first to last.

Including the faith of Christ. It was his faithfulness that took him to the cross.

The Righteous will live by faith. Leon Morris, one of my favorite. Writers, theologians [00:47:00] now dead the gospel, and when he's talking about the gospel, he's using it in a Pauline sense. The death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ is necessary. It's not an option because there is such a thing as the wrath of God.

And only the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ brings deliverance from that wrath. This is why Jesus is in the garden and Jesus prays Abba. Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. What cup is he talking about? He's not praying, Lord, don't send me to the cross.

He's accepted that. He knows he's going. He knows he will die. He's praying for his resurrection and he is so [00:48:00] faithful. He is even willing to say, I'm leaving this in your hands. ~For all that it entails all the unknowns. ~Remember what the cup is. Psalm 75, 8 gives you a good example. In the hand of the Lord, there's a cup with foaming wine, well mixed.

He pours out from it and all the wicked of the earth will drink it down to the dregs. The wrath of God is in that cup. Isaiah 51 17. Wake yourself. Wake yourself. Stand up Jerusalem. You who have drunk from the hand of the Lord, the cup of his wrath, drunk it to the dregs of the bowl, the cup of staggering.

This is the wrath of God. ~Jesus, praise God. Let your wrath pass from me. ~Jeremiah 25 15. Thus the Lord, the God of Israel said to me, take from my hand this cup, the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you. Drink it. Revelation 1410, he'll drink the wine of God's [00:49:00] wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger.

This is ~the ~the what Jesus prays. Jesus says, let this pass from me because he's drinking all of the wrath of God that all of us deserve. None of us need live under the wrath of God anymore, and that should transform the way we live. There's an awesome power in the cross, but don't ever think that the cross is just something Jesus did.

The grace of God that we have is nothing cheap. It costs God, everything. Bon ~uh, ~Leon Moore says, cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace. We must tell ourselves and our people, everything God did for them in the cross of Christ. That is the [00:50:00] message of Romans.

Can I bless you? In the name of Jesus father, in Jesus' name. We thank you for the cross. We thank you for the empty tomb. We thank you that your wrath has been fully satisfied. We thank you that we can walk in the righteousness that is Christ. We pray that you will help us put off our old self and choose the road before us, the path that Jesus.

Lays out for us. It is our desire to be more holy and to be more yours, to understand you better, and to walk in your grace and mercy in this world and shine your light so that those in darkness can see what they're missing. We pray all of these things because Jesus Christ died for us and was resurrected and entered the heaven lease.

So that we might pray to you directly. [00:51:00] Amen.