
BIG Idea: When people suppress the truth of God, they don’t eliminate it—they replace it with lies. God’s wrath is His righteous response to rebellion, but His grace remains available to all who turn back to Him.
Application: We must reject the world’s lies, embrace God’s truth, and respond in repentance—not only recognizing sin in the world but acknowledging our own need for grace and transformation through Christ.
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Romans 1:18-32 (NLT) God’s Anger at Sin
18 But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. 20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. 22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. 23 And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. 25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. 26 That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. 27 And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.
28 Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. 29 Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. 30 They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. 31 They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. 32 They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.
“God’s righteousness includes the visitation of wrath on all who are impious and unrighteous, without regard to the cultural and ethnic context from which they come. We can only appreciate the aspect of his righteousness that leads to the salvation of everyone who believes if we also appreciate the aspects of his righteousness that leads to condemnation of everyone who sins.” —Frank Thielman
God’s wrath isn’t an outburst – it’s a
The single sin that provokes God’s wrath against the whole human race is the sin of
Suppressing the truth doesn’t
“Those who reject God always think they are wise, and that their rejection of God is the highest evidence of that fact. They always think they are wiser than believers. They consider believers to be naïve, gullible, foolish, illogical, and full of wishful thinking. They consider themselves to be sophisticated, unbiased, very intelligent, and guided by critical thinking. It is the nature of worldly wisdom to confuse real foolishness with real wisdom, and vice versa (1 Cor. 1:18-28).” —Jack Cottrell
When we push God away, He lets us go – but never without
Sin is never just breaking a rule – it’s rejecting a
“The Bible is clear, both in the Old and New Testaments, that active homosexual sex as a settled, unrepentant pattern of behavior is indicative of an attitude of rejection of Jesus’ lordship, and leaves people outside his Kingdom (see 1 Corinthians 6:9-10), though never outside his reach (v11).” —Tim Keller
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (NLT)
9 Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, 10 or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.11 Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
1 Timothy 1:15 (NLT)
15 This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all.
No one is beyond God’s
We must read 1:18-32 in light of 1:16-17:
16 For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile. 17 This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.