SIN IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD
Romans 1:18–25
Mt. Pisgah Presbyterian Church
January 15, 2012
Roslyn, WA
Dr. James D. Berkley
You’re all a pack of miserable sinning dogs!” That was what Holy Hubert bellowed at UW students years ago, while standing on a ledge in front of the Husky Union Building. “You’re sinners and you’re going to burn in hell!” Holy Hubert was an itinerant preacher who made a circuit of college campuses, and he didn’t mince his words for the hippies and radicals and student libertines of the day. He always drew a crowd, but no love. Come to think of it, however, he was mostly right, if not subtle. We were sinners!
Preachers like Holy Hubert tend to give nice, mellow pastors like me a bad name. People expect preachers to be solemn, stern, and condemning—or maybe stupid, bumbling, and ineffectual. So I just go right on acting as if I’m not.
I was once given a tongue-in-cheek satire on church life, titled How to Become a Bishop Without Being Religious. The object of the church game, according to that book, was to cultivate a parson-like image, while all the time earning more money. One of the book’s suggestions was about preaching on sin. The idea was to be general enough that everyone can get all worked up about sin in general or about somebody else’s sin, without listeners once thinking that they themselves might be the miserable sinners. That way, everybody goes away feeling righteously indignant, without having to change their ways. Churches love it.
Well, that kind of “churchmanship” is not for me. I promise not to look down my nose at you today, nor to act as if somehow I am personally excluded from the ranks of sinners. However, since I am not excluded, then neither are you, for we are all implicated together in this sin business.
If anyone goes away today somehow thinking that I was talking to the sinners and not to him or her, I have miscommunicated. You may not “enjoy” this sermon, you may feel indignant, you may not be comforted this week, but you will hear God’s Word to us about sin. Okay, maybe I should quit right here, while you will still look me in the eye!
In the early part of Romans, we encounter Paul the prosecutor. Paul methodically and convincingly stalks his prey and leaves little doubt about human sinfulness. Today we look at Paul’s opening remarks, where he tells the Romans how humankind has evaded creation’s evidence, eliminated the Creator’s esteem, and established the creature’s eminence.
People have evaded creation’s evidence
First, Paul tells how humankind has evaded creation’s evidence. God designed creation to point us toward himself—our Creator. Our universe is just too wonderful, too intricate, too splendorous to have happened by chance. Some summer, if you were walking way off the trail up in the Enchantments and found a watch at your feet, ticking away and keeping perfect time, would you have any doubt that someone had dropped it there? Can you imagine assuming that somehow the right minerals got together in precisely the right way to form that watch in its perfection! Yet how many people are willing to posit that this whole universe—in which each cell exceeds the watch in perfection—is the product of just time and chance. Not a chance! If there were no Creator making this universe, there would be no universe. Creation speaks volumes about the Creator.
According to Paul, the truth about God is known within a person, and it is also seen from without. God has made his presence evident to us. He has not remained a hidden mystery, an absent God. And not only is God known in general; his attributes also can be known. Creation tells us of two of these attributes: his eternal power and his divine nature. These are clearly seen in what God has created.
God’s eternal power is evident in the powers of the universe. Just as water cannot rise higher than its source, created powers logically cannot be more magnificent than the power of their Creator. If you think the wind is strong or earthquakes devastating or tides powerful or volcanoes awesome, remember that they are but slight traces of the power of the One who set them in motion. God’s power is really beyond our ability to comprehend, but that power is displayed for all to see in creation. Only the true and living God, the one who is God, can create and sustain the universe.
Thus we have a Creator, but not all affirm that Creator as God. Why? It’s not because we can’t observe God in nature. Paul says that all are without excuse in that matter. The problem is that we have deliberately suppressed the truth because of our unrighteousness. You see, God is clearly evident in our hearts, as well as in creation. Thus, nobody can excuse themselves with the lame reasoning that they have never heard of God. God is plainly evident to anyone willing to see God. But in sin, we humans have deliberately evaded creation’s evidence that God indeed exists.
People have eliminated the Creator’s esteem
And in evading Creation’s evidence, we humans have also eliminated the Creator’s esteem. Paul writes, “For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude.” Living in God’s creation, we can’t help but know God, but we humans have as a whole purposefully denied God the esteem that is his due. We don’t honor God as God ought to be honored. We don’t give God the thanks God ought to receive.
A couple of years ago, Debbie and I hosted our daughter’s wedding reception. We invited people we knew well, gave them great service and a wonderful meal, and provided beautiful and comfortable surroundings. So, what if every guest just went home from the reception without ever bothering to talk with us or thank us? How would we have felt?
In a far, far weightier way, we humans have treated God this poorly. We have basically ignored him. We have done our negligent best to eliminate the Creator’s esteem. What a shame!
We have done our own thing. Rather than esteeming God, humanity has for the most part speculated about gods of our own futile imagination. Out of darkened minds, people have become foolish. The world has never been at a loss for something to believe in. It has simply been foolish in what it chooses to believe.
This ignorance and foolishness must be so painful to God! Our God is solid gold, and we trade him away for tinny baubles. Our God is real and powerful, and yet humankind exchanges him for some sophomoric nonsense of our own dithering folly. Our God is to be loved and esteemed above all, and yet, people have tried to eliminate the Creator’s esteem.
People have established the creatures’ eminence
The next step is obvious: After we evade creation’s evidence and eliminate the Creator’s esteem, we naturally attempt to establish the creature’s eminence. Humans try to make themselves gods, and so the creature tries to replace the Creator. “Claiming to be wise [and trendy and progressive], they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man….”
We have always tried to take God’s place, to make ourselves first, when only God should be first. We try to replace God with ourselves and replace God’s Word with human invention. We become invested in our self-will, rather than in God’s will. This self-rule is the tragic phenomenon we call sin. It is putting ourselves where God is supposed to be. It is rebelling against God as God. It is the coup that places the pretender on the throne. It is ugly, despicable sin!
God delivered them over
Look now at verse 24 for some of the saddest words ever written: “Therefore God delivered them over….” God turned us over to ourselves, to our lusts, to our degrading passions, to our depraved minds. God delivered us over; God let us stew in our own juices. If we choose to elevate ourselves to godhood, then we are given over to the tragic consequences of our own incompetent reign.
These are sad, sad words, because it doesn’t have to be this way. Any person who chooses to see the God apparent in Creation, anyone who chooses to acknowledge him as God, anyone who chooses to lavish on God the worship that God alone is due—any such person could be protected under God’s benevolent reign. But mankind en masse hasn’t yet wakened to this wisdom. Therefore humanity reaps the ugly consequences of this sin.
There you have it: a condensed history of human religion given to us by Paul. Man’s religion has ignored God and made man supreme. People worship their own will; they worship themselves. Sin is a four-letter word spelled S-E-L-F.
It happens in us
So far, you may have felt able to sit back and say, “Right on, Paul! Give it to those non-Christians. Sure glad I’m not like them!” But you know, if Paul were writing Mt. Pisgah Church in Roslyn, I’m pretty sure he could speak to our particular manifestations of self-worship.
We may find it easy to evade creation’s evidence by elevating science as god. As modern man unlocks more and more of science’s mysteries, we can begin to believe modern human wisdom capable of explaining everything. Our science, which after millennia has finally unlocked some understanding of God’s miracle of Creation, sometimes is rudely audacious enough to believe that it has eliminated the need for God. By elevating science, which only explains Creation, mankind now evades the evidence for the Creator who put it all together.
And we moderns tend to eliminate the Creator’s esteem by doing a God make-over. We create a god of our own design, a handy, nonintrusive, manageable little god to mainly stay out of the way and allow us freedom. This little godlet is basically around to bless things that need blessing, to scare children into being good, and to call upon in really desperate straits. But fundamentally, this mush god exists to be conveniently ignored. This is the kind of god so many envision.
But in creating this little pet god, we exclude the real Savior who is God! Often, the Living God barely influences how we spend our time, what we choose as goals in life, what we do with our money. We don’t so much fight against God as we largely ignore him. Tragically, we may essentially no longer honor God or give him thanks.
Then, we, too, establish the creature’s eminence by emphasizing ourselves. We may not worship golden calves, but we worship golden egos! The transcendent God gets pushed into a religious corner of a life revolving mainly round me, so that we become more interested in pleasing ourselves than in serving God.
Yes, for us, and not only for some vague class of “sinners” out there, sin is a four-letter word spelled S-E-L-F. Where self is put in God’s place; where self-interest reigns; where God is neglected, bottled up, restricted, and replaced—there is sin.
So what do we do about that sin? We cannot gloss it over or deny it. We must own up to it, confess it, and turn from it. Only confession to God will take care of this sin problem of ours!
Last week I told you about Good News. This week the news is stark and painful: we’re sinners. Next week, we again hear Good News as Paul proclaims God’s plan. But we sorely need this week, which tells us that all is not right between God and us. We have sinned, and we must seek forgiveness.
