This is a confrontational text, challenging a common attitude
that giving attention to God is one possible option among many, or that God
is simply too mysterious and too removed to be known. The apostle asserts
in no uncertain terms that there really is no excuse for keeping God at arm’s
length. The reason there is no excuse is because who God is and what God has
done has been fully revealed to us. For example, God has revealed himself
in creation itself. The whole world speaks to us every day of the character
of God, if only we will see it. God also makes himself known to us in the
very depths of our own spirit. But here’s the problem: Paul says correctly
that for some reason people have refused to acknowledge all of that as God.
We chalk it up to the human spirit or some vague sense of the divine that
is in all of us. It comes down to the idea that there exists within me enough
wisdom, grace, and love that I can be my own god. But if even recent history
has taught us anything it ought to be the truth that human beings are not
able to bear the weight of trying to be their own gods. In verse 25 Paul calls
this, “exchanging the truth of God for a lie.”
Paul opens this passage by saying that because of all that the
wrath of God is being revealed. We don’t much like talking about the
wrath of God. It conjures all kinds of tyrannical images. However, God’s
wrath as Paul is talking about it is not temperamental. Quite simply, God’s
wrath is revealed when He lets us go our own way. If we insist, God will allow
us to turn in on ourselves and spiritually implode. And there is a description
of our deepest need.
The gospel is implicit in the text and explicit in the context.
The text makes it clear that God’s desire and intention is to make himself
known to us. This is good news indeed. And this revelation is made explicit
in the context of our verses, in the truth about Jesus Christ through whom
“and for his name’s sake, we received grace” (v. 5). Through
Him we can be made righteous by faith (v. 17).
By faith in Christ we are made new. And God has already given
us all the grace we need to live the life we were meant to live. What we need
to do is use the grace given to live in total obedience to God. And that’s
why so many of us settle for less. For most of us full obedience to Christ
would mean significant change in our lives. This can be frightening, but it
carries the promise of a level of freedom and joy that can never be known
if we keep trying to get there on our own. So we are called to stop exchanging
the truth of God for the lies of our culture. We are called to trust and surrender,
in which we find the life we were truly meant to live.
(For the full manuscript
of this sermon go to www.preachersmagazine.org and click on “Sermons”)
The sermon begins by painting a picture of what would be included in the “life we were truly meant to live.” I began with well-known images of how society portrays that life, having to do with health, wealth, and its allegedly attendant advantages. Then I moved quickly to a description of the kind of spiritual vitality and real connection with God for which most people have a longing. After painting that picture carefully, a penetrating question rises: why is there often such a gap between the life we long for and the life we actually experience? The balance of the message tries to help us see how Paul’s point in the text about “exchanging the truth of God for a lie” is a very contemporary problem for which we need God’s help and deliverance.
