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As mentioned, we're in a series within the Book of Romans, or rather, we're in a series looking at a letter that was written in the first century to a church in Rome by a guy named Paul. We are still in the first chapter and so if you're new with us, we're only a few weeks in. We put this slide up every Sunday to let you know. Romans can be a thick book, a heavy book, and so we have a lot of resources that we want to put in front of you. We've got our app in which you can listen to messages. We have a podcast that that is led from our senior pastor Steve Trichler. He's been studying and digging into Romans for the better part of 25 years. And he's got some things to say. Imagine that. And so Romans untangled. You can look for that wherever you get your podcasts. And then we do have scripture journals. This is the Esv journal where it's like the words on one side and then just a blank page on the other. So as we're motoring through, you can jot down notes, questions, things like that. They're out in the lobby. And so if you want to go get one, feel free. So where we're going this week, we are actually going to be in the same exact passage that Jared, one of the other elders, preached through last week. In fact, we're going to be here again this week and then for two more weeks, just because there's a lot to unpack in this passage. Last week, Jared talked about wrath and the combination of God's wrath and his love that they're not exclusive, but they're actually conjoined. We'll look a little bit at that for those of you that like taking notes and you need a title, I don't write it down, but the good news found in the great exchange, I guess, is where we're going. So if you want to open your Bibles again, romans, chapter one. This is our passage for today we'll begin. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made so they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him. But they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen. So as I mentioned, the focal points we'll be getting to is this idea of exchange. But what we'll do is we'll just go top down, make some comments, make some connection points. My prayer, ultimately is that as heavy as this passage might be, that this would actually be a blessing to us this morning. So, again, starting at the top, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness by men who, by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth. Jared had this picture. It's kind of hard to see. It's this polar bear, like, pushing down a ball in the water. And I thought this was a really apt picture, just suppressing the truth in case we're the polar bear and the ball is the truth. Like, everyone gets it, right? I think it can be tempting, though, just with like a cursory read through of this verse, those we might misunderstand it with. It kind of feeling more like this. We're just like we're suppressing a Ruth playing with the truth or whatever. And it's fun when it like, entertains me, but when I don't want it, I'll just like, push it away. I think the sense that Paul is getting at, though, is this is a very active, intentional sense of negative suppression. So it looks more like that. Funny enough, I don't even think that's a polar bear. I think that's just a dock. But it gets at this sense of like no, it's like suppression. We are pushing it under the water actively in a negative way. And that's hard. That's hard for me to hear that this might be something that I'm doing. So really commend you to go back, listen to what Jared had to say in regards to RAF. What I want to focus on, though, is this idea of, like, what is this truth? What is this truth that we're suppressing? What is the beach ball for us today? And we get this from just continuing to read on. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made. So they're without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks. So this idea of truth, what is this truth? It is at least the idea of understanding something about something about God. His eternal power, his divine nature, his created order, something about of what is around us. We should be able to perceive that and understand something about God, that he is powerful, he is divine. So much so that he's due honor, he's due recognition that we should give thanks to him. By looking at mountains, by looking at trees, rivers, valleys. By looking at oceans and beaches, by looking at all of the different animals that have been created, the birds that soar in the sky and the creatures that swim in the depths. The complexity of the human body, but also the complexity of human relationships in human communities. All of this should point us back to something about who God is. I think this is fascinated for me. I know the guy who took this picture. This picture was taken by a friend of mine in his backyard in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin. This is Bode's galaxy bodies. Galaxy. I'm not super into space stuff, and I put the equipment for all you photography nerds that want it. But this was a picture taken in the backyard of someone who's like super close. And something about this something about this swirling mass of stars and things right. Already said, I don't know a lot about space stuff, but this exposes us to something about who God is. And I think I think it tells us that there is there's a God of order, that he is a God who not only sets it up for creation to survive, but thrive. That this is a God that in response, we should worship, we should honor, we should give thanks, but we don't. We suppress the truth. We choose to suppress the truth, and that means consequences, namely his wrath. The irony is we think we're smart when we're doing this. Continue on. They became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools in exchange the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things, things that move along the ground. The irony is that we believe this is our best thinking when we are suppressing the truth. But in reality, we're actually foolish. And it is out of this place of foolishness that we then say we're to exchange the glory of the immortal God. Some of your translations might say incorruptible God for images resembling corruptible man and birds and animals and creeping things. I thought about this verse for a while and I kind of landed on I'm exchanging the glory of the immortal God. What's this glory? Charles Ryrie, who is a theologian, basically lived to like 93 or something, basically throughout all of the 20th century, says that the glory of God is the manifestation of any or all of his attributes. In other words, it is the displaying of God to the world. Thus, things which glorify God are things which show the characteristics of his being to the world. So we have this available to us, and we're going to exchange that for things that are actually created by this God. A really notable example of this in our own Bible is when the Israelites had been delivered out of Egypt, you know, from Pharaoh's hands. If you remember, the Israelites had been enslaved for 400 years, they had cried out to God for deliverance. And God said, yeah, I hear you. I'm going to send Moses there's. The ten plagues. Finally, Pharaoh releases the Israelites, allows them to go free and out of Egypt. They're actually allowed to plunder the Egyptians. You know, they take gold, silver, other precious things. So there's the there's the whole chase scene, crossing the Red Sea on dry land. Well, the Israelites have now traveled like they're on the other side, and they've traveled to a place called Mount Sinai or Mount Horub. Moses commanded to go up the mountain, talk to God, and while Moses is up on top of the mountain, the Israelites get antsy. And this is where we pick it up in Exodus chapter 32. When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron. Aaron's, like Moses number two guy, said to him, up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. So Aaron said to them, take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them to me. So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Friends, it has literally been weeks since everything went down in Egypt. They've been led out of Egypt by a pillar of smoke and fire, experienced God's power with the ten plagues, and and experienced his authority over creation with, like, the separating the waters and, like, crossing over dry land. They had the literal definition of experiencing and perceiving god's eternal power and divine nature. And they still made a golden calf. They still looked elsewhere to worship something. It's like, we need something. I think what's really interesting about this is they took the plunder, the blessing, the things that God said, I'm going to provide for you on your way out of slavery, as a way to say it's like, look how much your God is providing for you the blessing. And they used those gifts to turn it into an idol. Psalm 106. This is really fun. Scripture actually gives commentary on Scripture, which is always great. Psalm 106 says it this way. They made a calf in Horub and worshipped a metal image. They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. You wonder where Paul gets his language from. They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in egypt wondrous works in the land of Ham and awesome deeds by the Red Sea. Therefore, he said he would destroy them had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him to turn away his wrath from destroying them. This last part, Moses still up on the mountain, and God said to Moses, like, hey, yeah, the people have rebelled and I think I'm done, I'm done. I'm going to destroy them. My wrath, which is perfectly justified, I'm going to start over. And Moses, standing in the breach in this case, says, hey, remember your covenant to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and says, later on in existence, God actually relented. God said, okay, I won't do it. So this is what this last verse is getting at. I think this highlights that this goes beyond just like a correct moral decision, just making a choice between what's right and wrong, but rather that this is an internal heart condition in which if we're not going to worship the true God, we're going to worship something else. There's going to be that void and we're going to say we're going to fill it. We're going to make an idol, we're going to have our own version of a golden calf. Tim Keller says it this way we must worship something. We were created to worship the Creator, so if we reject him, we will worship something else. We are telic creatures, purposed people. We have to live for something. There has to be something which captures our imagination and our allegiance, which is the resting place of our deepest hopes and which we look to to calm our deepest fears. Whatever that thing is, we worship it and so we serve it. It becomes our bottom line, the thing we cannot live without defining and validating everything we do. To put it another way, John Kelvin famously said that our hearts are idle factories, just pumping out new idols like a conveyor belt. And idolatry is the very thing that's happened in Egypt, and idolatry is the very thing that Paul is talking about in this Romans one passage, and he summarizes it all as we finish up. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. Some of your translations might say worshiped and served created things. So it doesn't have to be an actual animal or anything like that, just anything that's been created. We choose like, no, my focus is going to be on something else. And with that, I offer this simple summary definition of sin. Exchanging the truth about God for a lie. It's not just a moral choice, but it's an internal condition of the heart in which this exchange has taken place. Now, if we just ended the service here, this would be pretty depressing. If it's truly like this internal heart condition, if it's truly this cancer inside of us, that we are just always going to be bent away. I'm going to choose to worship an idol. What's the cure? What's the cure for this cancer? Because it certainly can't come from within myself if I think that I'm actually foolish thinking they became wise, they've become fool, so it can't come from within us. So what God does, God saying is like, all right, I got you. Here's the cure. I will make a greater exchange. I will send my son Jesus and exchange his life for those that I love. On the cross, the wrath is poured out again. Going back to what Jared spoke about last week, wrath and God and love are actually intertwined within the good news, the gospel message on the cross. God's wrath is poured out and Jesus became a sacrifice, an atoning sacrifice. And what is a sacrifice if it's not an exchange? His death for my life, his death for your life. One John four nine through ten says it this way. This is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. This is love. Not that we loved God, not that we had anything to do with it, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. So if the great exchange is our exchanging the truth of God for a lie, making idols within our hearts and worshipping those things instead of God, the greater exchange is Jesus sacrifice for our behalf. The greater exchange is Jesus being the better Moses, standing in the breach between God and man, taking the onslaught of himself so that it doesn't fall to us. The greater exchange then provides a way for our hearts to be turned and tuned back to God in a process called repentance. But first we need to recognize that we're even in need. First we need to recognize that our hearts are bent towards this exchange of truth for lie, this creation and worship of idols. And idols. Just so we're clear, they don't have to be birds or fish or voodoo dolls or whatever. It's like most of our idols actually look like this. I don't want to be uncomfortable, so I'm going to pursue that which is comfortable. I just want control. I need to be the one that's in control. And I will lose my mind if I feel out of control. I'm just going to pursue whatever is going to make me happy. We're exchanging the truth of God for a lie, for the things that these things promise and say. Fulfillment is found in these things, not God. But if sin is exchanging the truth for a lie, repentance, then is exchanging lies for the truth. If sin is exchanging truth for lie, then repentance is exchanging lies for the truth. I'm going to exchange whatever those idols are trying to sell me, asked me to commit to. I'm going to exchange that for the truth of God's promises. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth of life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 1010 says jesus says, I have come that they may have life in life abundant, more abundant than the than the Israelites coming out of Egypt and being able to plunder more abundant than that. John Three says jesus says, I've come not to condemn the world, but to save it. There's so many truths that we then gets to hold on to and say whatever our idols are, it's like, no, you are selling me a lie. I'm going to exchange that for a truth. And in fact, I'm going to change that for Jesus. I'm going to change those lies for Jesus. With February being Black History Month at Heights, we like to take time to learn to honor and highlight those that have come before us in the faith that are of African heritage. And today I'd like to read an excerpt from John Perkins. John Perkins was a pioneer in the civil rights movement in the what I'd like to read is actually his conversion story in his own words. So listen, listen for the exchange. When I was 27 years old, I was a young husband and father living in Monrovia, California. We had moved to Southern California to escape the racism and segregation that was smothering us in Mississippi. At that time, most of the people in my family were not attending church regularly. My son Spencer, however, had started attending a neighborhood Good News club where kids learned about the Bible while playing games and having fun. It was connected to a local church. One day, Spencer came home and began to share with me what he had been learning about Jesus. He learned that Jesus was God's son who had come to earth to die in our place so that we could be forgiven of sins. Before that, I had never heard the good News of God's love in such a clear way. So when he asked me to go to Sunday school with him at that local church, I agreed. And in that Sunday school, I finally met Jesus. I discovered that joy is the fulfillment of longing, longing for love. I was seeing it in Spencer, but I'd never really had it myself. And I had heard a verse that sealed the deal. Galatians 220 paul, who had once been a murderer, had been touched by the love of God. He had once hated Christians, but now he was one of them. He explained that the love of God was the reason he was behaving the way he was. He said, I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. When I heard that verse, I said to myself that if there's a God in heaven who loved me enough to send his only son into the world to die for me, I want to know that God. I want to know him. And I came to know him. I believe the purpose of man is to know that God the God of the universe who made everything and holds everything together, that big God, that all encompassing God, the God who makes himself known to humanity. I came to know that God and I believe the purpose of us knowing that God is to love him back and make him known to others. Almost immediately, God began to do something radical in my heart. He began to challenge my prejudices and my hatred towards others. I had learned to hate the white people of Mississippi. I hated their control over our lives. I hated for what they had done to my brother Clyde. I hated them for refusing to see me as a person deserving of respect just because I was a human being. I had so much hate. And if I had not met Jesus, I would have died carrying that heavy burden of hate to my grave. But he began to strip it away, layer by layer. He reminded me again and again that I could not hoard his love and I could not be selective about who I would share it with. The love he had shed abroad in my heart was meant to be shared with others, regardless of their color. My good friend Judah Smith says, you cannot exaggerate God's love. Just try to do it. I agree with him. God intends for us to be extravagant and free in our love for one another. Mr. Perkins being influenced and changed by the love of God, recognizing that someone else, Jesus would be willing to die for him he exchanged what he was holding on to, admitting that if he didn't, he was going to take it to his grave. What I appreciate about John Perkins is that this enlightenment to the gospel actually then fueled and impassioned him to move into the civil rights movement. But it was no longer motivated by hate, but rather the love he received and now for love that he has towards even his oppressors. I hope the story encourages you, challenges you, challenges you to think through. What are your idols, what am I holding on to? Like to invite the worship team. You all can come on forward. A few questions for us. As I mentioned, what are your idols? What things are you exchanging the truth of God for? Maybe it's one of those things that was on the screen. Maybe it's something else, but it opened up your heart to say, I have an idol that God needs to do something with. Because I want to pursue Jesus. I don't want to pursue comfort. I don't want to pursue entertainment. I don't want to pursue whatever else that thing may be. I want to exchange that for Jesus with that, then what truths of Jesus do you need to hear this week that are going to help you combat that saying jesus is going to take everything. And then who might you know that needs to hear the good news of the greater exchange this week? Who in your life can you encourage that this greater exchange has happened on their behalf? Our service is meant to crescendo to the point where we get the opportunity to respond few ways. Communion, the bread and the cup. Think of this as like you're sitting down at the table with Jesus, the juice representing his blood that was shed for you, the cracker representing his body that was broken for you, being reminded of that truth. Communions in the back, in the lobby. You don't have to be a member here at Hope, you don't have to be a member of any church, but we would ask that you would be a follower of Jesus to take communion. The worship team is going to play a few songs. You can sing, you can reflect on the words that are on the screen. If you'd like prayer, we'll have people in the back to pray for you. Even if it's just like, I just need prayer, you can say that and then if you felt led to give to respond in that way, hopecc.com give, you can do that. Friends, I hope that this was encouraging that we see in light of some really bad news, there's some really, really great news for us that's found in the truths of Jesus and his sacrifice on our behalf. I'm going to pray and then we'll let the worship team do their thing. So Jesus, we are grateful that you are the greater exchange. That as much as we have this cancer called sin inside of us that is just continually pushing us towards our idols, that a greater exchange has happened. And by that, by your life, your death, your resurrection, you've overcome that. You said, I will stand in the breach. For that. We're just so thankful that we have that hope, that truth to hold on to, especially in the midst of hard things, living in a broken world, living in a world where our idols are just constantly calling out for our attention. Jesus, we are just so grateful for your work done 2000 years ago, but your work being done now in our hearts and in this church today. So pray that you are with us as we continue to sing. Sing your truths over us and amongst us. We pray. Amen.