Intentional Design: Finding Purpose in a Chaotic World

• Human Identity and Creation [00:01:15 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that human identity is rooted in being a deliberate, good creation of God, explicitly rejecting myths of accident, random chance, or demonic origin.
• The Problem of Suffering and Brokenness [00:03:28 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor introduces the tension between a good Creator and the reality of pain, suffering, and mental health struggles, questioning why a good creation experiences such brokenness.
• Human Self-Perception vs. Reality [00:05:20 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor discusses the psychological irony where individuals want to think highly of themselves (citing statistics on self-rating) while simultaneously knowing they are flawed, leading to a state of confusion and anxiety.
• Cultural Philosophies (Postmodernism/Meta-modernism) [00:10:45 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor critiques cultural mindsets that deny absolute truth or oscillate between objective and subjective truth, linking these philosophies to increased uncertainty, anxiety, and hopelessness.
• Free Will and Divine Choice [00:12:55 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explains that God did not create robots but gave humanity a choice (the tree), allowing for genuine love and worship rather than forced compliance.
• The Nature of Sin and Temptation [00:15:15 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor analyzes Genesis 3, identifying sin as pride and the rejection of God's good commands, where Satan tempts humanity to believe they can be like God and know better than Him.
• The Fall and Human Pride [00:17:13 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor analyzes Genesis 3, highlighting how Eve added to God's commands and Satan tempted them with the pride of becoming like God and rejecting the Creator's design.
• Universal Knowledge of God and Rebellion [00:20:25 ▶️ 📄]
  > Using Romans 1, the pastor argues that all people have an innate understanding of God's existence but suppress this truth through pride and a desire to control their own lives.
• The Progression of Sin [00:25:57 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor details how God 'gives people up' to their lusts, leading to a list of specific sins in Romans 1:29-31, including envy, strife, deceit, and insolence, to show that sin is internal and comprehensive.
• Cultural Normalization of Sin [00:33:21 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explains that as people fall deeper into sin, they seek validation from others who are 'just like us' to convince themselves that their brokenness is normal.
• The Gospel as Hope [00:36:07 ▶️ 📄]
  > The segment concludes by pointing back to Romans 1:16, identifying the Gospel as 'good news' and the solution to the problem of sin, setting up future teaching on redemption.
• Human Sin and Self-Deception [00:33:42 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor describes how people try to normalize sin by surrounding themselves with like-minded individuals and inventing new evils, rejecting God's design.
• Root Cause of Suffering [00:34:43 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that while external factors like trauma or economics have impact, the biblical root of issues like addiction, war, and family fights is human sin.
• The Gospel and Salvation [00:36:07 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor defines the gospel as 'good news' and the 'power of God for salvation,' emphasizing that humans cannot save themselves and must rely on faith in Jesus Christ.
• Human Identity and Purpose [00:37:51 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor asserts that humans are intentionally created by a good God for a purpose, not accidents, but suffer consequences due to choosing sin.

• Sermon Illustration [00:01:30 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses a 'bait-and-switch' rhetorical device to debunk secular and mythological origins of humanity. He vividly describes absurd scenarios—such as a mad scientist knocking over a beaker of primordial soup, or being the offspring of a random demigod—to contrast these false premises with the biblical truth that humans are the beloved, intentional creation of a good God.
• Sermon Illustration [00:06:28 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor cites statistical surveys to illustrate human cognitive bias and self-deception, noting that 98% of people believe they are smarter than average, 95% better looking, and 98% nicer than average, highlighting the impossibility of these statistics and the irony of human self-perception.
• Sermon Illustration [00:08:19 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor lists famous individuals (Anthony Bourdain, Kate Spade, Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe) who struggled with mental health issues, suicide, and addiction to illustrate that brokenness and suffering are not limited to the 'downtrodden' but affect everyone, regardless of status or success.
• Sermon Illustration [00:31:41 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses the story of Aladdin and the lamp, specifically Jafar's wish to become a genie to gain power, only to be imprisoned in a lamp, to illustrate that everything we think we want comes with attached consequences.
• Sermon Illustration [00:33:48 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses the analogy of gathering a crowd of people 'just like us or worse' to normalize sin, and references the cultural buzzword 'gospel' to explain its deeper theological meaning as good news.

• Pastoral Charge [00:14:38 ▶️ 📄]
  > Bring the Bible to the service for reading along with the sermon.
• Pastoral Charge [00:36:07 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor instructs the congregation to physically turn their Bibles back to Romans 1:16.
• Pastoral Charge [00:35:55 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor invites the congregation to return next week for a deeper study on God's redemption.
• Pastoral Charge [00:39:44 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explicitly calls the congregation to return next week to study God's redeeming love.

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:00] My name is Tom Wiggs and I'm the pastor here at Eastside and I want to say that I'm so glad you clicked on this video.
[00:00:08] We have prayed that it would be a blessing and a help to you as you grow spiritually. I also want to remind you that part of our heart here at Eastside is that you would be growing in connection
[00:00:22] with a local gathering of believers. Don't let this video be a replacement for a local church.
[00:00:30] If you're in the Mooresville area, you would be so welcome to come worship with us.
[00:00:36] And now, here's the message.
[00:00:38] If you were with us last week, I don't need to re-preach the whole message from last Sunday, but let me back up and review, just to make sure that we're all on the same page,
[00:00:50] we're all going the same direction as we continue in this Who Am I series.
[00:00:56] For us to understand human identity, for us to understand ourselves, for us to understand the people around us, for us to truly understand we have to go back to the beginning. The beginning of humanity, the beginning of life, the beginning. And we see that
[00:01:15] in God's word in the book of Genesis. And last week we spent time in Genesis chapter 1 as we see that God created. This is very important because you are not an accident. You're not some outcast
[00:01:30] from the stars. You're not, you didn't get knocked over by some like bigger than life, mad scientist. And he had this beaker on his shelf, some primordial soup. And when it got knocked over, it kind of poofed a little bit. Maybe it exploded and out popped you. That's
[00:01:49] not how it happened. You walk back through mythology. You're not the offspring of some random demigod who came and raped an unsuspecting woman. You're, you're none of these things, but rather scripture shows us that you are the beloved creation of a good God. You're not an
[00:02:19] accident. You're not the result of some horrific, traumatic oppression. You were created by God.
[00:02:32] Guys, can we put that first slide up?
[00:02:34] In fact, God created everything to be good.
[00:02:40] He created you to be the living, breathing representative of a good God.
[00:02:44] So a good God created you to be good and to work for good and to enjoy good.
[00:02:51] And it was all beautiful and perfect and good.
[00:02:55] And that's where we finished last week.
[00:02:59] But last week, as we were finishing, I said, I acknowledged that as we live life, we understand that everything we experience is not always good. So how does God, how does scripture, how does the Bible put together these things that if this is true, that if God created
[00:03:28] me, I'm not an accident. I'm not an outcast from the stars. Somebody didn't knock over a beaker somewhere. There wasn't a big bang and out popped Tom. If I was created on purpose for a purpose and
[00:03:38] it was good, why is it that there's so much pain and suffering in the world? What does the Bible say? Why do I have inside of me those irrational thoughts, those dark urgings? Where does that
[00:04:01] come from? God's Word gives us an incredible answer. In fact, Scripture, God, gives us the only answer that does true justice to both our amazing creation and yet the suffering that surrounds us. It brings us to see God. It brings us to see ourselves. And this morning,
[00:04:31] my desire is that we would walk from here saddened, encouraged, and seeing who am I as we look at our God. But if I was to sit and talk with you, if I was to pause everything right
[00:04:54] now, if I had that cool remote where I could just pause life and walk up and just talk to you for a moment. And if I was going to ask you the question, how are we doing? What is the state
[00:05:07] of humanity? I would get a bunch of different answers. In fact, depending on who I talk to and perhaps even on when I talk to you, I would get different answers because we all want to think
[00:05:20] well of ourselves, but at the same time, I know myself, you know yourself intimately better than anyone else does. So we have this, we have this quandary, we have this wrestling where I want to
[00:05:33] think good of myself. In fact, I think really highly of myself. I think I'm pretty awesome and I can think I can do a whole lot of stuff, but I also know myself well enough to know
[00:05:42] that I'm not really awesome, right? And so depending on the day, depending on who I'm talking to, depending on what's happened around us, I might get a really encouraging answer.
[00:05:57] and I also might get a really discouraging answer.
[00:06:05] Isn't that such an irony?
[00:06:06] The people who know you the best, you.
[00:06:13] You want to think well of yourself.
[00:06:16] And yet in those quiet moments, you know that there's problems.
[00:06:24] There's surveys that have been done.
[00:06:28] They say that 98% of people think that they're smarter than average.
[00:06:38] Enough of you are laughing to help me realize that you got that too. Average would be 50%. So if 98% are better than average, something's wrong.
[00:06:47] That's statistically impossible. But 98% of us think we're smarter than average. 95% of us think we're better looking than average. And 98% of us are nicer than average. As I was reading this, I really, this is honest, I really wanted to find that 2% that were either self-aware enough
[00:07:07] or too depressed to put themselves in the other category. Just to be like, hey man, what's going on? Like, but isn't that funny? Like, we see ourselves and we see, okay, yeah, she's not as
[00:07:24] good looking as I am, but I'm doing okay. And she's sitting over thinking like, yeah, he's got some issues, but I'm okay. Doesn't this explain, well, describe, doesn't this describe our human existence. But let me go a little bit deeper. One out of seven children between the ages of six
[00:07:48] and 17 struggle with a mental health disorder. An estimated 26 percent, about one in four adults, have suffered from mental health issues. And it's estimated that more than 42 million adults just in North America struggle with anxiety disorders. And it's not just the small people,
[00:08:19] the downtrodden, the poor people, right? But if you go and if you read, if you look at the statistics, it's everyone. The rich, the famous, the successful, the people who you might say, they've got it all. Or maybe there's some in this room that you would say, I got everything I wanted
[00:08:39] but no one's exempt. People like Anthony Bourdain, a famous chef, Kate Spade, model, a designer, Kurt Cobain, a musician, Marilyn Monroe, an actor, classmates, family members, co-workers. They struggle with depression. They commit suicide. They dive deeper into drugs
[00:09:10] and alcohol. The list goes on. Something, something's not working. We want to think well of ourselves. And last Sunday, we looked at Genesis 1 and 2, and we saw that God created humanity. God created you. God created men and women unique and beautiful, and he created you
[00:09:37] on purpose for a purpose. You're not an accident. Your personality, your talent, your hair color, your body, it's all created by God and it was created good. But what is going on? Something's broken. Something's not working. What is it? Slogans like be true to yourself are trumpeted
[00:10:03] as a way to find truth or direction in the midst of the chaos. So you see the struggle around you.
[00:10:08] Really, you just need to look deeper inside and find what fulfills you or find what you really are passionate about and go after that. Yet, as we look at the results, the chaos and the
[00:10:22] dysfunction is only getting deeper. Postmodernism, if you've spent any time reading about culture or listening or thinking about culture and its changes, postmodernism was our mindset as a culture these last 10, 15, 20, 30 years. And that is that there is no absolute truth. What's true
[00:10:45] for you might not necessarily be true for me, but we all have a truth. It just might be different.
[00:10:51] If you read cultural commentators, they say we've moved beyond that. And now it's something called meta-modernism, which is that I can oscillate back and forth between there is objective truth and it has to match with mine, but then like it doesn't necessarily have to match. And so you get
[00:11:07] these crazy, these crazy swings where people are thinking and then they don't necessarily line up with what they said is truth, but it's okay. And are you confused yet? And the deeper we push into these ideas, the more the uncertainty grows, the more the anxiety becomes an epidemic,
[00:11:40] the more the depression, the more it's almost like we've lost our way and we're hopeless.
[00:11:50] I want us to come and see what God has to say because his design for life is powerful.
[00:12:02] It's beautiful.
[00:12:04] It brings light.
[00:12:05] It brings purpose.
[00:12:07] It brings freedom.
[00:12:10] So let's look at it.
[00:12:14] God created us on purpose for purpose.
[00:12:19] Humanity was designed to be beautifully good representatives of an infinitely good God.
[00:12:26] but something broke. We're going to see it here in Genesis chapter three in just a moment as we start working our way through God's word. But I want us to see that God, God did all of this
[00:12:40] on purpose, but he also, as he created me, as he created you, as he made us, he didn't just put us inside of a box and create robots. He didn't say this is how it has to be,
[00:12:55] but even last week as we were reading through Genesis 1 and 2 and that creation story, God put in the midst of his creation a choice. He gave the tree and said, okay, don't eat of this
[00:13:07] tree. You can have anything you want. There is all of this good creation, all of these good trees, all of these good fruits, all of these good animals, all of this beauty. And there's this
[00:13:15] one thing which I love and we've spoken of before, but so sometimes we get this idea of God that he's a cosmic killjoy. And maybe he created me, maybe not. I don't want to find out because if I do,
[00:13:28] it's going to be miserable. And yet when we walk through God's word, even from the beginning of creation, God gives us everything to enjoy. And it's all beautiful. It's all good. It's all amazing. But he allows us to have a choice. And so in Genesis, he puts a tree and he says,
[00:13:52] don't eat of this one tree. All the others you can have, but just this one. And in Genesis 3, we're going to see what happens as Adam and Eve are tempted to eat of the tree. But God desires
[00:14:09] for us to love, worship, and follow him. He doesn't force us. He doesn't mind control you.
[00:14:19] He doesn't twist your arm, but he does say, here I am. Here's truth. Here's brokenness.
[00:14:31] Here's beauty and here's chaos. And then he comes and reveals himself. Let's look at it together.
[00:14:38] Genesis chapter three. If you have your Bible, I hope you do. I encourage you to bring God's word.
[00:14:43] And as Adam and Eve, as we step here, they're going to see God. They're going to see this fruit and they're going to break the commands of God. They're going to ignore the commands of God. And
[00:14:53] this rebellion, this rejection, this pride, scripture calls sin. Genesis 3 verse 1. Now the serpent, this is Satan, it describes him as a snake. The serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. And he, Satan, the serpent, said to the woman,
[00:15:15] did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you should not eat of
[00:15:29] the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it lest you die.
[00:15:36] But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. We walk here into Genesis
[00:15:56] 3 and this is the moment. Genesis 1 and 2, you have got breathing out creation. It's good. It's beautiful. You were created on purpose, for a purpose, uniquely, exactly the way you are. Male, female, different skin colors, hair colors. You were created beautifully by God. And then Genesis
[00:16:17] 3, the serpent shows up. He says, did God actually say this? And throughout history, throughout human existence, this is the wrestling. Are my ideas better than God's ideas? Does God really know what he's talking about? Does God really have my best interest in mind? Are all these other
[00:16:58] things truly better than what God says no to? And so Adam and Eve, as they stood there with the serpent and the serpent looks at them and he says, did God really say this? And then you may have
[00:17:13] noticed it when Eve responds, she says, yes, God said, don't eat of this tree. But then she begins to add on to what God said, because we never do that. We never take God's clear commands and add
[00:17:24] to them. But she says, did God really say you can't eat of this tree? Eve says, yeah. He said I couldn't eat it. He said I couldn't even touch it. I probably shouldn't even look at it because
[00:17:35] that would be horrible. And Satan goes, you're not going to die. In fact, God's tricking you.
[00:17:49] All of this good stuff that's around you, that's all second best.
[00:17:53] In fact, you can be God yourself.
[00:18:01] You just take a bite and you will become like God.
[00:18:10] Do you hear the pride?
[00:18:14] Do you hear the call to reject a good creator God who's given beyond all that they need to feed our own selfishness?
[00:18:29] So in Genesis 3, Satan shows up and he says, did God say, you're not going to die?
[00:18:39] And then as the story continues on, you see Adam and Eve, they listen, they wonder, they eat of the fruit and there's a shattering.
[00:18:55] There's a shattering of God's perfect creation as Adam and Eve decide that I'm going to do this my way.
[00:19:03] I think I know better than God does. And we still do this today. In fact, I don't know every one of you in here. I'm glad that you're here. And those that are visiting, I hope that you come back and
[00:19:20] continue to learn and grow with us. But I don't know everyone here. I know that if you have not placed your faith and trust in Jesus, if you haven't admitted your own sinfulness and received
[00:19:31] his forgiveness, then you're still fighting against God. You are in outright rebellion against the good creator of the universe. But isn't it true that sometimes we can do this even as Christians? You can show up every Sunday, you can sing the songs, thank you Jesus for the blood,
[00:19:50] and then you can walk out and live life my way. I did it my way. Some of you might know this song.
[00:20:03] And so we can say all the right things.
[00:20:07] And yet when life becomes all about me, everything breaks.
[00:20:18] Join me in Romans chapter one.
[00:20:20] This is where Craig was reading just a little bit ago.
[00:20:22] And so we're going to continue moving on.
[00:20:25] God exists, but I want to do life my way.
[00:20:28] So here's what it looks like.
[00:20:31] Romans one shows us as God really just walks through the progression.
[00:20:37] of sin. He looks at who humanity is and truly he lets them have everything they think they want.
[00:20:45] Romans 1, starting in verse number 19, 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. You see
[00:21:05] these things in what has been made. So that they, all creation, all people of every nation, all across this planet, every person is without excuse. I want you to understand that there is an understanding of the existence of God all around this world. In fact, consider this with me.
[00:21:29] Why are atheists and agnostics? Agnostics would say that maybe there's a God. I can't be sure.
[00:21:35] atheists would vehemently say there is no God. But if God truly is a fairy tale, why are they so opposed to the idea? Why do they fight it so loudly and so firmly? If God's not real,
[00:21:53] just let us be crazy. We're not. I'm kind of biased. You probably know that. That's the reason and I'm here. But if God's not real, let us be crazy. But Romans 1, and that's not the only
[00:22:10] place in scripture, but Romans 1 makes it clear that we all have an understanding of the existence of God. And yet in our pride and our rebellion and our sinfulness, we want to push back on that.
[00:22:24] We don't like the fact that someone bigger than me can come and tell me how to live life, because what if I don't like it? But we can't get away from it. They're without excuse. Verse 21,
[00:22:42] 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. They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal
[00:23:05] man. Birds, animals, creeping things. So we're walking through this progression.
[00:23:15] Adam and Eve are in the garden. Satan comes, tempts them, twists God's words, makes them doubt God. Maybe I can know more. Maybe I can become God. Maybe I can make it up there to overthrow
[00:23:28] God. I want to be the God of my own life. I just want to live life my way. Don't tell me what to do because it's my life, right? My body, my choice. I can do what I want. I'm an adult now. I've got
[00:23:41] the money. Does any of that ring a bell? So Genesis chapter 1, Adam and Eve, they choose.
[00:23:51] And then throughout history, we've been suffering the consequences. And Romans 1 says that we all know that there's a God. It's been created inside of us and we see it all around us. There's no way
[00:24:03] that we would exist apart from God. We're the perfect distance from the sun. If we were further away, we would freeze. If we were a little bit closer, we would burn up. We're this unique planet
[00:24:14] that we have oxygen that we can breathe and we have weather patterns. And it's almost like God did this on purpose. You walk back through the supposed narrative of life that our culture likes to teach, that somehow there was a poof and we just popped out. And yet it's not observable
[00:24:34] or repeatable. And anytime something explodes, chaos comes, not order, not beautiful people.
[00:24:46] And then there's like the whole like evolutionary chain and there's missing links. And wait, but we're just trying to explain away God. Why? Because maybe he doesn't know what he's talking about. So claiming to be wise, they became fools. And they exchanged an almighty, sovereign,
[00:25:18] wise, loving, good God for images that look a lot like you and I. And on a good day, I'm okay.
[00:25:32] And on a bad day, let's not talk about that. Romans continues. Therefore, verse 24, God gave them up in the lusts of their heart. Lusts we often use in our culture today to speak of sexual desires, which that is included here. But lust is truly, if you go look it up in the
[00:25:57] dictionary, it's truly just an uncontrolled desire. I want something so much that I'll do anything to get it. So God gave them up in these desires, these lusts of their hearts to impurity. God says,
[00:26:11] if this is what you want, I'll let you have it. 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
[00:26:24] than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. The men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another. Men
[00:26:41] committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
[00:26:46] And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, notice here that God's not gone. We may not acknowledge God, but God is not gone. God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not
[00:27:01] to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness. And here you're going to see a list. Sometimes in our minds, maybe you're a church person or maybe you're not a church person, but you feel like you're mostly good, you're pretty good. We're going to walk through God's
[00:27:18] word here. And God gives us a list of what he deems to be horrific sin against almighty, good, holy creator, God. And it's not genocide. That's horrible and wrong, but I don't think anybody in
[00:27:35] here has committed genocide. It's not, it's not just like raping women. It's, it's, well, let's, let's look at it. Helvetiousness. Wanting something that's not yours. Malice. I desire to hurt someone. They're full of envy. I wish I had what they had. Murder is in here. Notice that envy and
[00:28:04] murder are on the same list. Strife, that conflict that so often flows through our lives and our relationships. Deceit, it's just a little white lie. I mean, it's not a big deal. Maliciousness, man, that's a big word. My personality, my heartbeat, my mindset is I want to push you
[00:28:34] down. I want to hurt you so that I can move forward. They're gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent. You know, you despise it when your kids talk back to you. How does God feel when you,
[00:29:11] as his beloved creation that's rebelled and walked away, when the insolence comes pouring out of your heart and mind and mouth. Maybe it's verbal. Maybe it's simply inside. Haughty. There's that proud, I can do this. I don't need you. Life's about me. Boastful. Inventors of evil. Disobedient
[00:29:41] to parents. I love this. This list is not exhaustive, but I love the fact that the things that you and I would say, that's horrible.
[00:29:50] Murder is bad.
[00:29:55] Disobedient to parents, insolent, envious, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
[00:30:15] God's word shows us that this is not the way God created life to be.
[00:30:21] It's not what he designed.
[00:30:23] It's not what he intended.
[00:30:25] But when we begin believing, I can do life better.
[00:30:29] when we listen to the lie that God doesn't love you, God doesn't have good in store for you.
[00:30:37] In fact, God's just tricking you. God put the tree here, but he really doesn't want you to have it because it'll make you better. It'll actually make you like, God, does God really know what
[00:30:56] he's talking about? Romans 1 continues on, verse 32, though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. So we see that God judges sin and he also lets us experience what we think we
[00:31:22] want and everything that goes with it. I've used this illustration before, but it just sticks in my mind. If you remember back to the Aladdin story, Aladdin and the lamp, maybe you watched the Disney version. Maybe you've actually read the original story, but at the end there, Jafar,
[00:31:41] the bad guy, he's the wizard and he wants to have all power. And so at the very end, he finally realizes I need to become a genie. So he says, my last wish is to become a genie. And so he becomes
[00:31:54] this all powerful, magical being. But the problem is there's consequences that come along with it.
[00:32:01] and he's imprisoned in a lamp. It's a fun little story that, whatever, who cares about that?
[00:32:12] Do you realize in life, everything you think you want comes with stuff attached. Everything.
[00:32:25] Scripture guides us through. It shows us God's path. It says, okay, here's how I design life.
[00:32:30] Here's how it should work. Here's the path I call for you to follow. This is good and beautiful, and look what's attached to it.
[00:32:36] And then we look over here and we listen to Satan say, is God really looking out for you?
[00:32:42] Is that really what God said?
[00:32:43] And so we think we want this and everything is attached to it, all the consequences.
[00:32:54] God says, sorry, I'll let you have that too.
[00:33:03] But then to try to convince ourselves that I'm okay, we find other people that look like me and we start cheering each other on.
[00:33:21] Romans 1.32 says that.
[00:33:24] It says, we get so deep down the rabbit hole and we realize that we're broken.
[00:33:28] We realize it's disgusting.
[00:33:30] We realize we're hopeless, but we don't know what else to do.
[00:33:34] So to try to convince ourselves, to try to brainwash ourselves into thinking, this is fine, this is normal.
[00:33:42] We go gather around us a crowd of people that are just like us or worse.
[00:33:48] And then we start saying, hey guys this is normal hey don't don't worry about it everybody's doing it hey did you hear what they came up with they invented some new evil oh good for them and we can walk through
[00:34:08] our culture we can walk through our homes we can walk through our own hearts and see the sinful pride, rebellion, and chaos that comes when we reject God. The problem is not financial inequity. The problem is not government regulation or lack of regulation. The problem is not your
[00:34:43] family of origin or a traumatic experience further back in your life. Any of those things might have impact on your life and on what you experience and live. But can I be biblically clear? The Bible says that you and your sin are the problem. Suicide, addictions, anxiety,
[00:35:20] depression, wars, assassinations, political turmoil, the fights that go on in your house, it all flows out of us biblical story is sobering but it also gives us some hope let's look at this briefly but then next week we're going to dive deeper into this as we see
[00:35:55] god's good love and redemption next sunday but let's back up if you're in romans 1 go back to verse number 16 with me i started in 19 but let's go back to 16 paul here is he he's writing this
[00:36:07] letter to people in Rome. And he says, I am not ashamed of the gospel. The gospel is a word that we find here in scripture. It literally could be translated good news. And we use it in church a
[00:36:22] lot. Here in the South, you probably heard it before. It's kind of a buzzword. We throw it around. Sometimes we know what it means. Sometimes we don't. We get confused. The good news, this gospel that Paul talks about that he's not ashamed of. In fact, he says, it's the power of God for
[00:36:39] salvation. This good news is the message of scripture. It's the good news of Jesus and salvation through Jesus Christ. You can't save yourself. You can't be good enough. You can't make it up to God. You can't bring God down to you. Really, it's hopeless, but there is good news.
[00:36:58] It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, the Jew first, also the Greek, for it is the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. As it is written, the
[00:37:12] righteous shall live by faith. Romans 1.18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven.
[00:37:19] He will judge sin. He is a holy God. He cannot ignore sin. It's revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
[00:37:33] So let me pull all of this together. Who are you? Who am I? He put both of these things together.
[00:37:51] You were created by a perfectly good, perfectly wise. He knew exactly what he was doing. All powerful God. He knew what he was doing and he could do it. And it was good. He created you on
[00:38:08] purpose for a purpose. You were created by a grand God for a grand purpose. You're not a failure.
[00:38:16] You're not an accident. You're not some insignificant moat on a ball that's spinning through the universe. God knows you. And we looked at Psalm 139 and said, his thoughts for you are as many as the sand on the seashore. But you and I chose sin and we're suffering consequences.
[00:38:46] I should say, I do need to say that not every suffering in your life is brought about by your own sin. People around us sin. And as we look around, my sin and their sin, it becomes this
[00:39:06] tangled web. And we keep thinking we're going to find a way out. And it keeps drawing us further away from God. And can I call us to see what God says? Who am I? I'm a beautiful creation of God.
[00:39:28] But when I choose sin and walk from him, it brings all the consequences with it. I'm going to pray in just a moment. We're going to be done. I want to call you back next week. Next week, we're going
[00:39:44] to dive deep and see the love of God as he comes to redeem us. His creation is shattered. We ran away. In fact, we ran away shaking our fist at God, taking pot shots back as we moved further
[00:39:58] and further from him. But did God step back and say, fine, you can do whatever you want and leave us? Or does he have a plan for redemption, for restoration? Next Sunday, join us as we continue to see. Let's pray together.