Our scripture this morning is taken from Romans chapter 1. We will be talking this morning about a world view for Christians. Paul lays out a global framework for our perspective on this world and on history in general. Romans chapter 1, verse 18 to 32. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity, for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lusts for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, He gave them over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent ways of doing evil. They disobey their parents. They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do the very things, but also approve. Of those who practice them. If you want to keep your Bibles open, we will be referring to various verses in this passage. The bombardment in our day continues against biblical Christianity in spite of the fact that it has become more entertaining. The series of Star Wars, sorry for all you Star Wars fans, was written, as George Lucas himself states, to introduce Buddhism to the West. And, you know, I'm not against watching Star Wars, but many times we Christians are very naive. And we are not recognizing that there is an evangelization going on in very good, good ways, for instance, like movies. In a survey done in England some years ago, asking people's religious affiliation, those who considered themselves Jedi were outnumbered Jews. In the recent movie Avatar, all the kids are going to go home and complain to their parents that the preacher just talked about all their favorite movies. In the recent movie Avatar, through great technical video, There's a message. There's a message that there is no transcendent God. Interestingly, they make Mother Earth personal, which in true paganism can't be. Ewa is sort of personal. Connect with your antennas and everything. But there is a denial of the personal transcendent God and that through Ewa we are all interconnected and we can be our own saviors. And in a website just talking about Avatar, we read Ewa is the guiding force and deity of Pandora and the Na'vi believe that Ewa acts to keep the ecosystem of Pandora in perfect equilibrium. And we Christians poo-poo all this and we say, oh well, you know, we can look the other way. However, do you know what it is being... I challenge you to go on the internet, just plug in, I only spent five minutes, and these are the sort of blogs that are being written about Avatar. Awa never takes sides. She only watches the balance of things and the comment. Why do we fight whose prophet got the message right? You know, Muhammad, Jesus Christ, Buddha. Why do we fight about this? Why don't we just listen to Mother Earth what she has to say about the balance of things? People of God. for many people in our culture, these sorts of movies depict perfectly their spirituality. And the mass media, increasingly our universities, and our culture is promoting the lie that Satan whispered in the Garden of Eden. Your eyes will be opened and you shall be as God. Gods! That's it! Gods! That's what we want to be. God's with the capacity to save ourselves, our way. And this message of self-salvation spreads. And the biblical message of self-damnation and the need for God's salvation is pushed further and further out of acceptable discourse in our country. President Obama has proclaimed the month of June to be LGBT Pride Month. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transvestite Pride Month. And in a presidential decree, he has promised to decriminalize homosexualism. I didn't know homosexualism was even a crime anymore. But you see, that's code language to mean criminalize any talk or behavior against homosexualism. And he has pledged to work with both the U.S. government and the U.N. to promote homosexualism. So, our culture and our country has now officially decided that it will define our own sexuality. It will define its own agenda. It will define its own society apart from and even contrary to the Scriptures. Parents, mother, father, if you have small children in your house still, you need to realize that you are raising your children more and more in a culture that has raised its fist in the face of God and is desiring to build its own Tower of Babel. But, there's always a but, isn't there? God has something to say about this situation. And we know that God will have the last word. And God wants His people to see the world, to see history the way He sees it. And that's necessary for our own personal lives. It's necessary for our children. It's necessary for our church's mission. And so first of all, according to our passage, God says that He has given clear evidence of His existence and His power in this world. People are without excuse. They are rebelling against a Creator who has made Himself known. Verse 19, Paul says, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. Now, how are God's invisible attributes seen? Paul says, by the things that were created. Now, we mustn't be confused here because Paul is not talking about the contemplation of a grand mountain. You know, that sense of awe when we contemplate things of nature, the Grand Canyon, the immense sea, a sunset, that does inspire something in us. But Paul is not talking here about a mystical sense of awe when we contemplate certain aspects of creation. That's not what he's talking about. Look what Paul says. He says in verse 20 that God made Himself known by the things created. He doesn't say, by some things, the mountains, or the sea, or the sunset. He says, the things created. What things? Everything! I believe Paul has in mind Genesis 1-3 in this whole passage. And what does God emphasize in Genesis 1? He emphasizes distinctions. The term separated is repeated several times in Genesis 1. The whole work of that first week is a work of separating. God emphasizes that He creates the plants, many varieties of plants, each according to its own species and its own kind. And He creates the animals. Again, it is emphasized according to their own species and their own kind. And it is these distinctions in creation that God has left an indelible mark right in our creation of the great distinction. The distinction between the Creator and the creature. Why didn't God create just one kind of plant? Why didn't God create just one kind of dog? One kind of bird? Why so many distinctions? The distinctions are seemingly infinite. Paul says, these are evidence. The things, things created. are evidence of God's power and His deity. His existence, His separate existence as a personal, separate, transcendent Creator. Verse 20, For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. Of course, in this context, we can see why the theory of evolution is a particular enemy to the biblical witness. Evolution is founded upon the denial of distinctions because for evolution, ultimate reality comes from some form of undifferentiated matter. Darwin didn't invent evolution. He simply sought to give a biological foundation for it. Evolution is ancient. The ancient Greeks believed in evolution. Ancient Hinduism is evolutionistic. And you see, the essence of sinful rebellion against God leads us naturally to deny the evidence of God in creation. This great distinction of the personal Creator and the creation who has left His mark in creation by all the distinctions, sinful hearts necessarily seek to erase those evidences. And so, today, they don't call themselves New Agers anymore. New Age spiritualists now call themselves what they really are, ancient pagans. And that's the term that they use for themselves. Pagans today know that they are promoting an age-old religion that is contrary and contradictory to Christianity. And so, all the various religions, Pachamama in South America, Madre Tierra, Mother Earth, the Earth Soul, Nirvana, Ewa, whatever you have it, there are not many religions. There are only two. There's the religion that says there is no personal creator. That the Earth is all there is. The universe is all there is. There is a divine character, a divine soul in the universe. Or the biblical religion which says there is a Creator, a personal Creator God and all the rest is creation of Him. Paul says in verse 23 and 25 that sinners have exchanged and denied the glory of the immortal God and worship the Creator. The glory of God is a vast concept but certainly in its most profound sense God's glory has to do with His transcendence, His otherness as Creator. And it is closely tied to His holiness, which again emphasizes God's separateness. And so the first point, people of God, for a biblical worldview is to recognize what sinners have done inspired by the original lie of Satan in the Garden of Eden. Sinners attempt to deny God's power and His deity, His nature as personal creator distinct from this world. Paul gives us this orientation because as Christians in this world, we need to know the essence of sinful thinking. We need to know and understand the root of sinful thinking. We need to know it for ourselves. We need to know where that impulse comes from to rebel against God. It is that desire to deny His right as Creator. And we need to know it for our mission in this world because we might be addressing issues that are peripheral to the fundamental essence of man's problem. We might think we can pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps with just a little bit of education or a little bit of help. That is not the case. And so we turn to the second point in a biblical worldview. Verse 22, Paul says, although they claimed to be wise, they became fools. And exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man, birds, animals, and reptiles. Satan promised Eve her eyes would be open. That's wisdom, illumination, knowledge. And we know the consequences. Adam and Eve did not become wiser. We are all familiar with the arrogance of our own generation as well. We've just been through the whole global warming fiasco. We were told, surely, that cars and houses and even cows were creating global warming. Did New York ever actually levy a tax on cows? I think they were going to. We think we are wise so often and we are shown to be foolish. But Paul is speaking religiously, which is much more crucial, of course, than being duped by the scientific community as arrogant and as know-it-all as they would appear. What is even worse, people of God, is exchanging the glory of the immortal God to worship the things that the immortal God created, including ourselves. Worship of the creature, verse 25, they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served created things or the creature rather than the Creator who is forever praised. We got it backwards. The creature must worship the Creator. Not the other way around. And all the forms of creature worship, humanism, a major force still in our time. But call it what you might and be what it may. Animism, atheism, Hinduism, evolution. No matter what, the essence is the same. All false religions remove honor to the Creator to exalt that which is created. There are not many religions. There are only two. And without doubt, this is a horrendous offense. The very purpose of our creation was to honor, adore, and glorify our Creator, not ourselves. And this has brought, verse 18, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all godlessness. And so thirdly, the consequences of denying and dishonoring the Creator is wrath poured out upon humanity. This is also necessary for a biblical worldview people of God. My job is to talk with people about God. I do that a lot. And unfortunately, the church has participated in creating many false gods with Bible in hand. And in churches such as this one, and many people think they believe in God, their God is not the God of the Bible. How many people say to me, frankly, God is not a God who would punish us. God is not a God who would pour out wrath. God is a God of love. For a biblical worldview, it is necessary for us also to embrace verse 18. Because God is not a little Santa Claus sitting up there in heaven just rubbing His hands together wondering why people do what they do and hoping they'll believe in Him. In verse 19, Paul reminds us that God has made plain to him His existence, His power, His nature, and He also says that they are without excuse. Paul's message to the Romans, people of God, is to help all Christians know how to present the biblical message to our world and this is part of it. And we must resist being muzzled, being pushed into a corner in silence, even though that's how we feel. The consequences are necessary to tell people for their own good out of love. Because Romans doesn't stop here. Romans talks very frankly about sin, but it goes on to show salvation. But where does Paul begin? He begins with a severe warning. And it is not of love, people of God, to deny people the knowledge of what God has revealed to us plainly. We read not once, not twice, but three times. The consequences of denying the Creator is then God giving them over. And you know, that's sad. If you've ever worked with a loved one or a friend who possibly is following a course of addiction in their life or a destructive behavior to themselves and to come to the point of saying, I give up. I'm giving up. I'm giving them over. That's a sad, that is a sad moment. Paul says, God gave them over. What did He give them over to? It's not pretty. Verse 24, the degrading of their bodies. Verse 26, shameful, shameful lusts. Unnatural relations, Things that do not become the human being created in the image of God. Verse 28, a depraved and reprobate mind. Now, none of this is virtuous. None of this is pretty. Many times, God in history, throughout the Bible we see it, God restrained man's sin. Israel's sin. When Moses went up Sinai and Israel exchanged the glory of the invisible God for a cow, they made that golden calf. And when Moses came down from the mountain, yes, many were punished, but God restrained their sin. In punishing them, He restrained that tendency to idolatry. And many times in the world, God restrains sin. However, there comes a point as mankind continues to rebel against our Creator when God gives men and women over to their own desire as the very form of punishment. And when men and women blot out the Creator, when they confuse the Creator for the creature, then all the other aspects of our life fall into confusion, distortion, and perversion. Now, the first thing that is affected upon denying the Creator is our very identity as human beings. Genesis 1 states that God created man in His image, male and female. But when we cut off the first part God created, when we no longer have the personal Creator who created us, the second part also falls apart, male and female. And mass confusion has reigned in the whole realm of human beings as male and female throughout history. Our identity as humans made in God's image cannot be separated from being made as male and female. So how do we explain homosexualism in Paul's day? How do we explain its rapid growth today? Lesbianism, transvestites, operations to change one's sex. We explain it on the basis of Romans 1. In our society's desire to obliterate the God of the Bible, we need to obliterate everything that reminds us of the Bible. And the first and most profound thing that reminds everyone of the Bible and of Christianity, of the very first chapter of the Bible, is our sexuality. as male and female. It was God who created mankind as male and female to live in monogamous, heterosexual marriage. And when we deny, especially when we deny consciously the Bible, there is an impulse to erase those reminders about the Bible and about our Creator. It's important for us to know that those who are steering the anti-God project today. Some call it paganism. They themselves call it paganism. These people understand very clearly what Romans 1 is talking about. Pagan leaders today know that paganism has frequently, virtually always, had homosexual shaman priests throughout history. And that can be documented. Not very long ago, I was reading one of the authors who writes for us. And he was doing work in Colombia and he went to the National University and was rooting through the ancient documents of the first Spaniards who came to Colombia and found that the Inca kings who were also the priests of society would allow homosexual relationships with the elite and the rich of that society throughout history. And across the board, the shaman, the pagan shaman priests have been homosexual. Today, the homosexual movement should not simply be seen as some social aberration, dear friends in Christ. It is part and parcel of a new religion bound and determined to deny everything the Bible says about the Creator. pagans today state specifically that we must do away with the idea of a personal God, a personal creator, and get back to the idea that all is one. Fundamental unity of reality. And we do this through homosexual behavior because it defies the distinctions that biblical spirituality exalts. And unfortunately, many I feel many young people are being used by a movement a very sinister and pagan movement and as homosexuality has been promoted as a fad it's promoted as good both here and in Costa Rica as well unfortunately young people do not understand that they are being used to break apart Christianity a Christian sense of culture and society in order to supplant that with something that is not going to help us in the least. And we'll talk about that in a moment. Biblical sexuality in marriage reflects something essential about our creation. And when God saves us in Christ, Paul says that the marriage relationship is once again a reflection of God's relationship to us in Christ. You see, when God created Adam, two distinct parties, two distinct beings related together in a covenant relationship of love and fidelity and commitment. And when God saves us in Jesus Christ, once again, two distinct persons, Jesus Christ, God, the Christians save, but join together in love, a covenantal commitment with distinct roles. And Paul says marriage is a reflection of that. God created marriage to reflect that relationship between the Creator and now the Redeemer and us. Distinct persons, distinct things, male and female, joined together in a covenant relationship. And when a sinful heart rebels against God, it rebels against the evidence of God. And all throughout history, the normal relationship of husband and wife has been distorted, perverted, and now contradicted in the presidential decree of June as LGBT month. After our basic identity before God of male and female becomes distorted, as I said, it's all downhill. Take a look at verse 29 onward. The future of society that abandons biblical spirituality is not bright. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, depravity, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, boastful. They invent ways of doing evil. They disobey their parents, senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Do we need to say more? The future is not bright. When we consciously expel God, the Creator, from our minds and from our society. What are the implications for us? What are the implications for our own worldview? Well, first of all, it's necessary to realize personally as well as corporately that neither our personal lives nor our society will get any better unless we are clear about one thing. God's nature and right as Creator and my place as creature. For us, June and the year 2010 and all the rest of the years that come, for us, it should be the month and the year of the Creator because that's how it is. As Christians, we should not focus merely upon the symptoms. We see the symptoms of this rejection of God, violence, abandonment, abuse, etc. But we must treat the problems of sin at the root. And the root cause of the world's problems is rebellion against our Creator. By nature, we do not want to serve and to worship the Creator, but rather ourselves. And God will not allow this to go unpunished. He is already pouring out His wrath on society. And nothing will get any better until we correctly diagnose the problem. And so, people of God, our message must be bold. Our message must be clear. Our message must be thorough. Now, when God saves us in Christ, there is a profound reorientation in our hearts. God places in our hearts the desire to honor and serve the Creator, not the creature. The church plays a crucial role here. Because the church, as Christ's redeemed people, we gather corporately to express this. And that nurtures this desire, it matures this desire, and it strengthens this desire. You see, here together we come and we express our praise to the Creator. We say it, we sing it, we pray it, we hear about it in God's Word. The sacraments remind us of the price paid by Jesus Christ to earn the right to glorify God as His children. And so today, people of God, God calls us through His Word to renew our faith in Jesus Christ. to renew once again our love for Jesus Christ and to once again renew our commitment to His church to ensure that we are ever and anew forming a church committed to this testimony of God as Creator and Redeemer. We also must remember to glorify God as men and women created male and female. Every person together here this morning is a man or a woman and you were created as such in God's image. And each of us has a calling to reflect God's image as male or female. If you are not married, you must remember that your sexuality is not what you see in the movies or hear on the street. That perverse game that non-Christians play with something very wonderful that God has given us. You are a Christian man or you are a Christian woman and God calls you to glorify Him as a Christian man or a Christian woman. Your thoughts should be holy. Your conduct as well. If you are married, besides being a Christian, you are a husband or you are a wife our relationship in marriage reflects the relationship of our covenant God in Christ and His church and when we give ourselves to one another in the marriage relationship in love, in commitment in mutual service as well as respecting the particular roles that God has given husbands and wives then we give a powerful testimony to a sad and tired world. We give a testimony that there is a Creator who renews, converts people who can rejoice in Him. I'm going to talk after the service, Lord willing, at the Sunday School about our mission work in Costa Rica. But just briefly, as your church thinks of its mission endeavors, both supporting us in Costa Rica as well as your other mission efforts. Let us remember that more and more our task and our testimony as the church is counterculture. We haven't been counterculture in past years. But more and more, we must become counterculture. And there's always a cost when you are counterculture. And as we think about what the future might hold, I don't think you need to be a prophet to predict that those churches that are going to stand on the worldview of Romans 1, there's going to be a lot of pressure put on them. Are you willing to stand for Christ? Are we willing to stand for Christ? I want to speak to any who feel the Lord is calling you to specific missions, possibly a young person here. Know that you need to count the cost. But count the cost and follow Jesus. And if God has laid upon your heart to the task of mission specifically, church planting, foreign missions, heed the call and follow the Master. Paul began his letter to the Romans with a panoramic view of God's relationship to His world. God has explained to us clearly the root of the world's problems. the root of society's problems, the root of our own personal problems. But we see that in spite of man's rebellion against God, God is still in control. And the good news of the book of Romans and the good news of the Gospel is that in spite of God's wrath poured out upon sinful mankind, God gave His Son a Savior. And He calls men and women who are tired of running from their Creator to find forgiveness, to find reconciliation, to find peace, to find rest in Jesus Christ. Not only will we find redemption, but God has promised even more. You see, when we seek our own glory, we will only find destruction. But when we seek only God's glory, He then shares His glory with His people. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3.18 that through the Spirit in Christ we are transformed from glory to glory. Sin will only take us from disgrace to greater disgrace. People need to hear that. It's part of the Gospel message. But people need to hear also that those who recognize and honor the Creator coming humbly to Him through faith in Jesus Christ, the perfect Mediator, they will be redeemed for glory unto greater glory. Hallelujah. Amen. Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word. It is clear. It is powerful. It is frightening. But as we stand today before the majestic Creator, we pray that Your Word take control of our thoughts, of our minds, of our hearts, of our desires, our will, O Lord, so that You will receive glory through us. In Christ's name. Amen.