Romans Chapter 1:28-32

When you're left to your own devices, it's not going to go well. It's not going to go well.

You're going to wind up in a dark place. But if you'll allow the light of God to lead you towards Him in repentance, asking His forgiveness, asking for His grace, asking for His strength, He'll do incredible things in your life. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Many times we think we know what's best, that we have the perfect plan for our life. But there's a lot of freedom in knowing that God has the best plan for our life and that we can trust Him. Find out more about this as David McGee continues in the book of Romans chapter 1. But before we get into today's teaching, from beginning to end, the Bible shows the special nature of God's relationship with the nation of Israel.

But what does that have to do with you today? Romans chapter 11 tells us that God's covenant relationship with Israel has huge implications for you. To help you understand more, Pastor David wants to send you his teaching video recorded in the Holy Land called Israel, the Bible and You. This powerful resource will encourage and strengthen you as you learn how connected you are with God's chosen people. Israel, the Bible and You is our gift to thank you for your donation to help more people on this station and beyond cross the bridge from death to life. So visit crossthebridge.com to request your copy.

Again, that's crossthebridge.com. Now here's David McGee with part two of his teaching, God is God. Romans chapter 1 verse 28. It says, even as they did not like to retain God and their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting.

Again, there we have another, uh, gave them over to things which are not fitting. And Paul has gone through and it's done a wonderful job because he says, look, you see it outwardly in nature. You see inwardly in conscious that we, that there is a God and, and all these things are pointing to him.

And then we have to make the decision on whether we're going to follow him and hear him and listen to his truths. So where is the battleground? You know, I've heard people say, well, the battleground is in the body.

It's not in the body friend. The battleground is in the mind because you make a decision to engage in sin in your mind long before your body follows. If you're sitting in here this morning, say you struggle with alcohol and you're sitting here this morning, you're going, well, you know what? When I leave here, I'm going to, um, I'm going to go get a six pack.

And, uh, now where's that? Is that, are you already engaged in drunkenness? No, your mind is already plotting what you're going to do. And so you're already planning it out.

So by the time you get to the register with your now two cases of beer, you've already stumbled. You've already felt you did it in your mind before your body engaged in the activity. You need to understand that's where the, there's this battle going on in your mind. Paul points to this in the letter to the Corinthians, second Corinthians chapter 10. He says this for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Listen to the language use casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalt itself against the knowledge of God and bringing in the captivity, every thought to the obedience of Christ. So you've got imaginations, you've got knowledge and you've got thought what area of the body does that have to do with has to do with the mind has to do with the mind. That's where the battle origin and early church father had some weird views on some stuff, but he, he, he thought he struggled with lust. So he thought he would fix it and castrate himself. I'm thinking he was fairly disappointed a couple of weeks later when he realized that the battle was in his brain was in his mind.

That's the life lesson here. There is a battle for your mind. There is a battle for your mind. It was interesting in that movie. I don't usually like promote movies, but it was interesting in this movie, uh, expelled that, um, two of the people who were evolutionists Darwinians, they, they said that the moment they really fully accepted the theory is when they walked away from their faith in God. And I thought that was very interesting. Do you understand that 75% of kids that go into college will abandon their Christian faith? 75%. Why is that?

They will lose the battle for their mind. Now I'm, I appreciate science. I love science. I happen to again, believe that science indicates rationally that there was some type of intelligent design involved with our creation. But again, if you're an evolutionist, I'm glad you're here.

We're not going to, I'm not going to, we're not going to fight about that. I would ask you to really research that and to look into it, because just the DNA evidence, there's just, there's no way there's scientifically no way that that could have happened. The odds against that happening are like somebody pulling a slot machine and winning 250 times in a row to construct one strand of DNA.

That's, that's pretty stiff odds. So there's a battle for your mind. So what do we do?

How do you fix it? Romans 12, two tells us and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. You want to know the will of God for your life. And according to this passage, what you want to do is do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. I mean, God's at work in your mind, changing your mind, changing your thinking. Cause every one of us, no matter what your background, when you come to God, even this morning, you're sitting here and you've got what I would consider thinking, thinking you've got things that you think that are wrong and God needs to change your mind.

He needs to transform your mind. Otherwise that passage wouldn't be, it's an interesting word transform here in the Greeks of metamorpho. It's where we get our word for metamorphosis or metamorphosis that process, which takes a caterpillar into a butterfly. See, God wants us to be butterflies.

The cocoons got to go and you need to let go of that. God wants to transform you and that power, that resurrection power that brought Lazarus back to life is available for each and every one of us today to be overcomers, whatever trial, whatever tribulation, whatever temptation, whatever you're going through, that resurrection power is available to you to transform you. That's kind of interesting. That word only occurs one other place in the Greek that I found. And that's Matthew 17, two, it's a transfiguration. And it says, and talking about Jesus and was transfigured before them and his face did shine as the sun and his raiment was white as the light. Isn't that a beautiful thing? God wants to transform us, transfigure us. He wants us to shine as Daniel talks about like the stars in the heaven. Hmm.

Good stuff. But are you open to the transformation? I mean, friend, would it make much sense for that caterpillar to go?

No, not going to do it. Not going to go in that cocoon. Saw what happened to that last caterpillar. It didn't like it.

He flew off. Is that what you want to do? I understand a lot of times because we attend church, we think we've arrived, but this is something I tell staff all the time. You know, you don't become a member of church staff because you've arrived. You understand that you're always going to be learning and you need to stay teachable because God is molding us. And the Hebrew scriptures were likened to a piece of clay that the Potter is at work molding and forming. And it says the clay can't look up at the Potter and say, what are you doing?

You don't know what you're doing. God created us. We're fearfully and wonderfully made. And now he's transforming us. That's what he desires to do.

But are you allowing him to do that? Jesus looked over Jerusalem before he was going in there and being executed. He looked at Jerusalem and he said, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I would have gathered you under my wings. I loved you like a mother loves her chicks, but you wouldn't do it. You wouldn't do it. God desires to transform us, transform our mind, our heart, the way we think, the way we act. But you have, you're an agent of free will. You have the choice of saying, no, I don't, I'm not doing that.

But if you say, yes, God, I desire that you change me. One thing I always want to be that open fool. Now fool in English, we just pretty much have the one, but in the Hebrew, there's at least four different versions of this word.

We're going to, we're going to hold it to two this morning that I want to talk about. One is the open fool and the other is the closed fool. Now let me describe what those are. The open fool is somebody who doesn't know something, but they know they don't know something. And their teachable are open to learning.

Now the Bible seems to indicate that if there is such a thing as a good fool, that's a good fool, an open fool. And of course, you know, at one point in my life, I thought I was going to in my life. I thought I knew everything. And my father was very passionate and saying, well, if you know everything, then you're not going to learn anything else for the rest of your life. And then I began to understand that, um, really, well, there's a plaque on my desk and caro and paro, which is to say, it means always learning Michelangelo, uh, said that did a quote was like 87 years old, always learning, always learning.

So it reminds me I'm always learning. The other is the closed fool who doesn't know, doesn't want to be, doesn't want to know, doesn't want to be taught, doesn't want to be instructed. Now the Bible seems to indicate in Proverbs that when you come to somebody and you try to correct them or tell them something, you quickly find out which kind of fool they are. If they're a closed fool or if they're an open fool, an open fool hears correction. He applies it to his life or her life and continues to grow in the Lord.

The closed fool disregards it continues on in their way of folly. You're listening to pastor David McGee on cross the bridge. He'll be back with more powerful insight from God's word in just a moment. But first God's grace and mercy is greater than any of us could ever fathom. That's why he's been so faithful to the nation of Israel throughout the ages.

And he's not finished. He's promised to remain true to them to the end. We want to show you what God's faithfulness toward Israel says about his relationship with you by sending you pastor David's teaching video, Israel, the Bible and You. In this exciting teaching recorded in the heart of the Holy Land, pastor David unpacks important truths from God's relationships with Israel that impact your life today. Israel, the Bible and You is our gift to thank you for your donation to help more people on this station and beyond cross the bridge from death to life. So visit crossthebridge.com to request yours.

Again, that website is crossthebridge.com. Now back to today's teaching. This chapter deals with a couple of different difficult subjects. One of them is creationism. And I know that, you know, some of you sitting in here today probably believe in the theory of evolution. And I'm glad you're here.

You're welcome. I'm not going to name call or anything like like that. But the Bible says in the beginning, God created heavens and earth. So I take that as God created the heavens and the earth. And to me that there is evidence, scientific evidence of intelligent design, a.k.a. creationism. And there is a serious lack of evidence in the evolutionary community. Now, guys, the scientific community is kind of built on the fact that somebody comes up with all kinds of theories which are then discussed and debated. So it's kind of very it's very strange to me that all of a sudden this culture, the society is saying, you know what, we're not even open to discussing this theory of intelligent design.

As a matter of fact, if you discuss it, it can be detrimental to your career. It's kind of interesting. Perhaps you're sitting there and you go, but but Pastor David, I grew up in school and I was taught about all these missing links and that they actually existed and and how they fell into that evolutionary scale and whatnot. Let's go through a couple of those that were big discoveries that, you know, when they came out as, boom, oh, this is this is definitely the deal.

This is definitely points towards the missing link that we've been trying to find. Lucy, you probably all heard of Lucy big discovery a few years ago. Now they discovered and experts agree was a three foot tall chimp, not a person, no missing link there. Of course, when they made that discovery and examining things, they didn't come out with the same fanfare that they did when they first discovered Lucy.

Let's go through a few of them. Heidelberg Man was built from a jawbone, meaning they had a jawbone built the rest of the person from that that was conceded by many to be, quote unquote, quite human. Nebraska Man was built up from one tooth, which was later found to be the tooth of an extinct pig. Piltdown Man, this jawbone that he was completely built out of, ended up to be that of a modern ape. Peking Man, discovered in China, they said he's 500,000 years old. When the scientists said, this is great, we want to examine it, guess what?

All remains went missing and they were unable to examine the remains. Neanderthal Man was examined to be determined to be an old man who suffered from arthritis, 100 to 200 years old. And Cro-Magnon Man, one of the best established finds, is equal to us in brain capacity and physique. It would seem the scientists know all about the missing link except that it's missing. Even Darwin himself said if his theory was true, that we wouldn't have dozens, wouldn't have hundreds, wouldn't have thousands, that we would have millions of examples of this missing link.

And yet, here, 100 plus years later, we still don't have those. You also need to understand human history and what's happened in the last 150 years since the book came out. And understand, I believe in what would be called microevolution in the sense that you do see some small changes in some species. But Darwin didn't write a book called Small Changes in the Species. He wrote a book that said the origin of the species. Now, where did that lead us? What bright and shining light did that lead us to?

Well, if, and again, don't take my word for it. Go out, do some research. That led to the practice in this country, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, to what was called eugenics, E-U-G-E-N-I-C-S. You can do a Google on it and find out. And what we were doing in this country is we were doing selective breeding of humans. We were making people be sterilized. If we thought that they had some type of birth defect, if we thought they were mentally as not as sharp as we like, they even started doing it as opposed in regards to physique, physical features, facial features. Making people be sterilized.

Why? Because it was a selective breeding process that Darwin introduced to us. And guys, you would not have had a Hitler who thought he was all about breeding the master race without the theories of Darwin.

You can argue that until you're blue in the face. But guys, there is just a line between that type of thinking and that thinking, okay, we went from being the goo to the zoo to you kind of thing, that leaves us in a place of darkness with no hope, no purpose. And there's very little scientific evidence.

And whenever you have somebody that's clinging to a theory that will not even entertain alternate theories, it's no longer science, friend. Let's continue on because we're all about to be convicted. Or you're going to reject the truth of God. One of the things, here's verse 29, being filled with all unrighteousness.

Most of this is self-explanatory. Unrighteousness we've been talking about, wrong relationships with other people, sexual immorality, kind of self-explanatory, wickedness, just bad things, covetousness, wanting something that you don't own or have, maliciousness, just being hateful, bitter, full of envy, again, desiring stuff that you shouldn't have, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness, there are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things. Disobedient to parents is kind of an interesting thing that's inserted in there, isn't it? It's not a very good list to have that in there, but apparently that's what Paul put in there. So disobedience to parents is a serious thing to the Lord.

And also it makes it much more serious as a parent that we're teaching them the right thing. 31, undiscerning, untrustworthy, breaking your word, unloving is in this list. If you're unloving to God, unloving to people, this is not a good list to find an unforgiving, unmerciful, what a list. I don't think any, if you're honest this morning, I don't think anybody can look at this list and go, oh, I'm good. I'm okay. Oh, hate it for you, but I'm good.

Guy behind me, oh, he's in trouble. No, every one of us has done these things in one way or another, breaking your covenant. Ever broke your covenant? Ever not kept your word to somebody? You're in this list.

Were you ever disobedient to parents? You're in this list. Now we look at this and we go, well, man, this is tough. I understand what Paul is doing masterfully here and will continue to do for the next couple of chapters. He's saying, look, when you're left to your own devices, it's not going to go well.

It's not going to go well. You're going to wind up in a dark place, but if you allow the light of God to lead you towards him in repentance, asking his forgiveness, asking for his grace, asking for his strength, he'll do incredible things in your life. See, man, this is the conflict. Man is either, we're saying, oh, I don't want to think about God. I want God out of everything, so I don't have to think about it. That's why people protest the Ten Commandments in the Supreme Court. Is it really they have something against the Ten Commandments? No, they just don't want to be thinking about God. That's why people made the moves to get prayer out of school. Is it really prayer they hate? No, they just don't want to be thinking about God. Why?

Because it's convicting and convinces them of wrongdoing. But, friend, I've tried to run from God. There's nowhere you can go. Oh, you can pull the Ten Commandments out and you can take prayer out of school, but at night you're still going to have that gnawing, sinking feeling that there's more to life than this, that this is not all there is.

And what you do with that makes all the difference. This is the bad news, if you will. But there is good news. Let's look at verse 32. Who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same, but approve of those who practice them.

Wow. So let's just say you're sitting in here and somehow you think you just made it through that list and it didn't talk about you at all. According to this, if you've ever approved of those things, taken joy in those things, you're going down too. Let me put it in a modern day vernacular.

If you ever have turned on a TV set, you've enjoyed people doing these things. So if there was one or two people left... Now say that in love. I just want to sit up here and say the bad news. You have to understand that according to our own goodness and our own works, we stand condemned before God. That's the reality.

Not some of us, every one of us. You don't have a hope. If you're sitting here going, well, I'm just kind of hoping my good outweighs my bad, that's not going to work, friend. According to the Bible, if you broke the law in one place, you've broken in every place. There's no hope for you, except Jesus. You can't get there on your own good works.

That's the bad news. And see Paul, again, led by the Holy Spirit, balances these things in this book of Romans. He balances out faith and works. He balances out the law and grace. He balances out sin and righteousness. He balances out judgment and justification.

And justification. See, how long does it take to be forgiven of your sins? Like that. Like that? If you're sitting out there and go, well, you know, I don't know. I got to get cleaned up to come to God.

I got to quit doing this, quit doing that. So I'm coming to God. It's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches you come to God just as you are.

And the moment you come to him and say, Jesus, please forgive me of my sins, justification, just if I never did anything wrong. And then the process of sanctification, of beginning to remove those things from your life that don't glorify God, now begins. Some of you are feeling a tugging on your heart. And that's a good thing. By this book, by this law, we all stand condemned. But God graciously is reaching out to us this morning.

And you've heard this truth. And now the truth of God begs a response from you. See, the moment you realize that there's really no hope in your works and your activities to earn your way into heaven, then you want to hear what is the alternative. And according to the Lord, there's only one alternative.

There's only one way in that's through Jesus Christ. If you're in here this morning, perhaps you're already feeling a tugging on your heart. Let me help you friend.

The tugging is not enough. You have to respond to that and don't sit in here and think, well, but, but I felt the tugging and I'm going to walk out of here in a moment without praying this prayer. And I'm one step closer to pray in this prayer. Friend, you're not. You're one step further away.

And God forbid that at some point in your future, you could hear somebody share the love of God, the truth of God, the gospel of God, and not feel anything at all. This book seems to indicate that there's a line somewhere for each person. I don't know where that line is. I'm glad I don't know where that line is. Sometimes people ask me where that line is. They don't say, where's the line.

They, they ask questions like this. Can you be a Christian and do this? Can you do, can you be a Christian and do that? And really what they're saying is I want to figure out where the line is so I can creep right up on the edge of the line. Friend, apparently there's a line that if you step over, there's no coming back. I don't know where that line is for each person.

I don't believe it's tied to any certain thing or any certain activity. I wish I knew that, but, but God hasn't told me. God hasn't told you where your line is or where other people line, but just the fact that there is that sort of line to me. Well, it keeps me running back to daddy because I don't know best. Father knows best. I don't know what's best for me. God knows what's best for me.

I don't know what's going to happen in my life in the next year, two years, five years. God knows, and I can count on him. Friend, if you feel that tugging, that's God offering you the greatest gift he could offer you himself and forgiveness. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. teaching video recorded in the heart of the Holy Land called Israel, the Bible, and you. This encouraging look into the history of Israel and God's covenant faithfulness to his chosen people will help you take bold new steps in your relationship with God. Israel, the Bible, and you is our gift to thank you for your donation to help more people on this station and beyond cross the bridge from death to life. So visit crossthebridge.com now to request your copy and be sure to join us next time on cross the bridge with David McGee to hear more from the book of Romans. We'll see you then.