Why Have You Forsaken Me?

Romans 1:18-32 “Why Have You Forsaken Me?”

The world is broken. You may have heard the phrase “we live in a fallen world.” Sometimes when we hear this it is in the context of trying to explain why things don’t work out the way we would like them to, or to try to explain some kind of evil that we hear about that is hard to understand, and sometimes I think we even use it to explain away why we may have failed morally or ethically.

But this brokenness is real. We can see it if we look at the news. I personally try not to pay too much attention to the news because it really can be discouraging. And even so, not a day goes by when my soul is not assaulted with reports of some kind of horrific crime or injustice. Wars, violence, cruelty, hunger, poverty, disease, perversion…. The list goes on and on. As a Christian how can the knowledge of these things not break your heart? Some people would argue that the media only reports the unusual, and that there is a lot of good that happens that goes unnoticed because it is normal. I believe that this is absolutely true. But at the same time we have to acknowledge that those awful things we read and hear about are real. If God is a loving God, how can he allow such things to happen?

As we return to considering Paul’s letter to the Romans today we see that he begins his exposition of the Christian faith by considering just this problem. Understanding the Christian faith starts with the problem of sin. Let’s listen.

God’s Wrath Against Sinful Humanity

¹⁸ The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 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 people are without excuse.

²¹ 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. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

²⁸ Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ 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, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹ they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. ³² Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. (Romans 1:18-32 NIV)

Yikes! This doesn’t sound very happy. This seems to be a pretty negative outlook on things. All this talk of sin and perversion and wrath and death. I thought this was supposed to be about “good news.” Just hang in there with me as we go through some of this difficult stuff, and I think by the time we get to the end we’ll have a glimpse of the good news.

The first thing Paul tells us here is that God has already given everyone all of the information they need to understand what they must do in order to live a moral life in right relationship with him. This doesn’t mean just to Christians but to everyone. Paul tells us that God has clearly shown the world “his eternal power and divine nature.” I think in one sense you can say that God reveals himself through the beauty and the majesty and the awesome power of nature and you would not be wrong in this. I think this is one of the reasons that primitive cultures almost always develop some kind of nature worship. It is curious I think that no culture ever developed an atheistic and non-spiritual view of the world before the advent of the Western scientific worldview.

But there is more to God’s revelation of his nature than the warmth of the sunshine or the fury of the storm. It is that in every human being everywhere there is an innate sense of what is right and what is wrong. In different cultures we may see some slight differentiation in the details, but in the generality, and astonishingly so, there is a broad agreement on what is right and what is wrong. I found this argument about what is called the “Law of Nature” in C.S. Lewis’ classic book Mere Christianity:

There have been differences between … moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference. If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and to our own… [What would] a totally different morality … mean[?] Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him.

You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to—whether it was only your own family, or your fellow countrymen, or everyone. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired. Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or four. But they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked.

But the most remarkable thing is this. Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining "It's not fair" before you can say Jack Robinson. … [I]f there is no such thing as Right and Wrong … what is the difference between a fair [promise] and an unfair one? Have they not let the cat out of the bag and shown that, whatever they say, they really know the Law of Nature just like anyone else?[1]

So this is what Paul is leading us to when he writes that God has made himself known to all humanity. In theological terms this is called the General Revelation. The General Revelation is God’s revelation of himself to all of creation. It essentially equips all people with enough knowledge so that they know how they ought to act in their relations with God, nature, and each other. People know what they ought to do. But this knowledge does not equip people with the ability to do it. So, in a sense, the General Revelation only gives people enough rope to hang themselves with.

Now before you go off thinking how unfair that is, we have to think about where this first became a problem. And that was in the Garden of Eden, with Adam and Eve. You guys all remember that story and I’m not going to go through the whole thing today but I want to point out that it is not about snakes and apples, and certainly not about fig leaves, it is about failing to recognize the sovereignty of God. It is about Adam and Eve failing to trust that God had already given them everything they needed to live in perfect relationship with himself, nature, and each other. Instead of being content with what they had, they gave in to a longing to have more. They became convinced that the forbidden fruit would give them more than God was giving them. By breaking God’s commandment and eating the fruit they put the created thing – the fruit – ahead of God’s provision – ahead of God himself.

In biblical terms we can think of the General Revelation as God placing Adam and Eve in the Garden with everything they needed and a direct relationship with him. God created the universe in shalom, an unbroken relationship of peace and well-being. God gave Adam and Eve everything they needed in every respect, but Adam and Eve wanted more, and they tried to get it by eating the fruit that God had forbidden. The sin wasn’t about eating apples, it was about denying that God is God and instead thinking they could get something from the fruit, that God had created, that they could not get from God. That’s why Paul writes:

²¹For 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. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. (Romans 1:21-23)

It started with thinking that they could get more from the forbidden fruit than they could from God, and it went on from there to become full blown idol worship.

Ok, idol worship. Paul lived in a culture where worshipping idols was the norm. Idol worship was rampant in the pagan world, going back as far as we can remember. It was so common that God made it his number one concern to turn his people, the Israelites, away from the worship of idols. It is the first of the Ten Commandments. The great failure of the Israelites, the sin that led to their conquest and exile, was failure to end idol worship.

In the Greco-Roman world the worship of idols was very sophisticated and complex. There were idols for almost every human desire. Gods of war, peace, justice, fertility, abundance, wantonness, even “just in case” gods that covered anything that might have been overlooked by worshipping the other gods. (Acts 17:22-23) All of these gods were worshipped by revering statues of various forms. These are the idols Paul is referring to in today’s reading. All of these things amount to exchanging “the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.”

And so we might say “yes but we don’t worship idols like that anymore.” And that’s pretty much a true statement. It isn’t all that common to find people who will prostrate themselves before a tiki god, although it does still happen. We find in some cultures right here in our midst the practice of bowing before idols or offering food to idols, etc. But we really have to consider idolatry in a more general sense to see how this applies to us.

An idol is anything we put our trust in other than God. Adam and Eve’s idol was the forbidden fruit. The ancient Israelites’ idols were Golden Calves and Asherah Poles and Ba’als and things like that. The Greeks’ and Romans’ idols were elaborate shrines and statues. Very few or none of us would think of worshipping things like this today.

But I think if we are honest with ourselves we have to admit that we too are idolaters. Even though we don’t bow down to statues, we do put our trust in other things ahead of God. We put our trust in money, in positions, in possessions, and in ideas. We all like to think of ourselves as having faith, but how much faith do we really have in God?

How many of us would give up a prosperous life in a sophisticated place to go into an unknown land based on only a vague promise? That’s what Abraham did. How many of us would give up a powerful position at court and risk a horrible death to remain true to God? That’s what Daniel did. How many of us would give up a successful business to follow an itinerant counter-cultural preacher? That’s what Peter and the other apostles did.

How many of us when we think about that kind of faith, the faith that is willing to give up everything for Jesus, the scary faith we talked about a couple weeks ago that puts trust in a story that doesn’t make sense, when we hear about that faith we also hear that other voice that says, “That’s just crazy. You can’t do that. You’ll never make any money as a musician, or an artist, or whatever. You can’t go off and be a missionary. How will you make a living? How will you support your family? Or, you can’t risk your standing to witness to Jesus. Everyone will turn their back on you. You’ll be left all alone while everyone else is having fun.” And when we follow that voice, and I think we all do, aren’t we putting “common sense” ahead of trust in God? Aren’t we making “common sense” our idol?

So this is why what Paul is writing to the Romans applies to us. We are in the same boat as these pagans Paul is writing about in these verses. Really I think the point of all this is that this is the inevitable result of the fall that was brought about as the consequence of the sin of Adam and Eve. You might say that it is unfair that we are being punished for the sin of these people who lived so long ago, but in reality we are being punished for our own sins. When we consider the rest of today’s reading we see Paul describing the depravity of life without God. He gives us lists of sins (as he does in other letters), like sexual sins and

every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity… 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 have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. (Romans 1:29-31 NIV)

I don’t want to depress you but I guarantee you that if you picked up today’s newspaper you would easily be able to find reports about every one of these things and probably many times over. Paul tells us this is the result of putting our trust in other things ahead of trust in God. It is the result of the sin of Adam and Eve.

Now I know some of you are thinking, “Well that just doesn’t fit me. I’m not that bad. In fact, I’m pretty good. I read the Bible and I pray and I’m honest and I obey my mother and father etc.” And trust me I know that we all do our best and we’re not as depraved as we could be, as the people Paul describes here are. But the point is that no matter how hard we try we’re still going to fall short of God’s mark. We’re still going to do things we know we shouldn’t. We’re still going to screw things up. We’re still going to fail. And, I think, we all have to admit that we are going to put other things ahead of God. Let me give you a way you can figure this out on your own.

We know we are all called to love. Jesus tells us that the way we can be identified with him is by love and he commands us to love in John Chapter 13 ^“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35 NIV) What does that look like? You’re probably familiar with 1 Corinthians 13 that is the so-called “love chapter.” Let’s look at how love is described there:

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. (1 Cor. 13:4-8 NIV)

Now let’s replace that word love with our own names: Keith is patient, Keith is kind, does not envy, does not boast… well, most of the time. I’m pretty good with not dishonoring others, have to pray not to be self-seeking. I do in fact find myself angry at times, especially on the freeway…. Here’s where it gets hard, Keith always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres, never fails. I hate to say it my brothers and sisters but I have failed this test. How did you do?

Paul’s point here is that because of the brokenness of the world we will all fail the test.

Here’s the part we don’t want to hear, but we have to hear it or there will be no hope for us. How does Paul begin this part of the letter? He writes “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people…” (Romans 1:18 NIV) The wrath of God. The wrath of God is what Adam and Eve received as the consequence of their disobedience. The wrath of God is what all of creation experienced as a result of that fall. The wrath of God is what we all deserve as a consequence of our own idolatry. What does that wrath look like?

We are conditioned to think of wrath in human terms. We think of it as unrestrained anger and violence. Sometimes we think of the biblical stories like Sodom and Gomorrah where we see God raining down fire and brimstone from heaven. And we sometimes wonder I think how a God of love can give himself over to wrath like that. But Paul is giving the Romans and us a very different picture of wrath. Let’s look at verse 24, “Therefore God gave them over.…” Verse 26, “Because of this, God gave them over.…” Verse 28, “Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over....” What does this mean “God gave them over?”

What it really means is that the sin is the punishment. God doesn’t have to throw rocks at us to punish us; the very fact that we turn or backs on him and put our trust in other things that have to fail us is already punishment. And God’s wrath is that he allows it. Another one of the quotes I like from C.S. Lewis goes like this:

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.

God’s wrath against sinful humanity is that he allows what we have chosen. He allows us to turn our backs on him and pursue our own foolish plans. When Adam and Eve sinned they broke the love relationship between humans and God, God’s wrath was that he allowed it. Whenever humans choose something ahead of God and they break the love relationship between man and God, God’s wrath is that he allows it. The death of this love relationship is the death that Paul refers to in verse 32, “Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death.” It is not a physical death, it is the death of being disconnected from God, the source of life, by our own choice. And it is in this state that all of us find ourselves in.

Now you’re probably thinking, “Hold on a minute there pastor I thought you said this eangelion of yours was supposed to be good news. This doesn’t sound like very good news. You build up our hopes by telling us about Christ’s victory over sin, corruption, and death, and now you just got through sending us all to hell. What gives?” Well I don’t blame you for that. There doesn’t seem to be very much good news in today’s scripture. And if this was the end of it you would this would be very bad news. But it isn’t. The good news is there. God is not in the business of sending people to Hell. God is in the business of rescuing people from Hell. Let me show it to you.

Do you guys remember the story of Jesus’ crucifixion? There was a part where he cried from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt. 27:46 NIV) You probably know that he was calling to mind Psalm 22, which predicts the suffering of the Messiah, and thus he was identifying his work on the cross with the work of the Messiah. But what was that cry about? It had to be more than a Bible lesson. What was the agony Jesus was feeling on the cross that he cried aloud to the Father about? It was that the Father had turned his back on him. He had “given him over,” not for his sins, but for ours.

Jesus death on the cross was the death that Paul writes about in verse 32. It was the death that is the consequence of putting other things ahead of God. It was not just or even primarily a physical death; it was the death of Jesus’ love relationship with the Father, which was like the love relationship between God and Adam and Eve in the Garden. It was the death that ended the shalom Jesus had experienced in relationship with the Trinity throughout eternity. It was that most agonizing death that is the consequence of sin. And the “good news” is that Jesus suffered that penalty not for his own sin but for ours. He did it for the sins of all humanity, and for all of our personal sins. He died for all of the sins we have ever committed, and for all of the sins we ever will commit. The price has been paid in full, once and for all, by Jesus on the cross.

Think of it like this. You are in the execution chamber and you are about to be put to death for crimes that you committed. You’re there because of your own actions and you know it. You deserve what you’re about to get, and you know it. Then suddenly out of the blue someone shows up and takes off your restraints and opens the door and tells you you’re off the hook, that the price has been paid. You’re free! And you walk out of the execution chamber a free person. Imagine the elation you would feel. That, my friends, would be good news. And that is the good news. Jesus paid it all.

Let us pray.

[A] Dear heavenly father we adore you for your greatness and goodness. We stand in awe of your great mercy and love that caused you to send your own son to suffer for our sins.

[C] We freely admit and confess that we do not deserve your mercy. We freely admit and confess that we have broken our covenant with you, that we have put our trust in other things ahead of trust in you, that we have failed to live up to your commandment to love, that we have failed to see you in our brothers and sisters.

[T] We thank you for your amazing grace. We thank you for the gift of your son Jesus. We thank you for the beauty and bounty of the earth. We thank you for the love relationships we are able to enjoy. We thank you for our freedom to come together and worship you without fear. We thank you that we can speak your name in public without fear and that you give us the opportunity to share in Jesus’ mission of restoring the earth.

[S] We pray that you will send your Holy Spirit to fill this congregation with your shalom. We pray that we will be filled with your Spirit to accomplish the tasks you have set before us in shining your love to our brothers and sisters, especially to those who do not yet know you. We pray that you would meet each person here today at the place of their greatest need. We pray for those who may be suffering from physical sickness, from anxieties about work and school and finances, from broken relationships, that you would touch us all and fill us with the assurance that you are in the midst of all of our trials and that we can accomplish all things through you. We pray for those we love who are far from us and who we miss that you might return them safely to us. We pray for our broken world that you would send your angels to cover the earth with your peace. We pray that you will bring about and end to war and violence and disease and poverty and that you would use us as your instruments to accomplish your purposes. We pray that you will send Jesus to us quickly. And we pray all of these things in the name of your beloved son and our savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

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[1] Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity: A Revised and Enlarged Edition, with a New Introduction, of the Three Books The Case For Christianity, Christian Behaviour, and Beyond Personality. Revised & Enlarged ed. New York: Macmillan Pub Co, 1952.