Paul begins the book of Romans by clearly spelling out that all of humankind is dead in sin.  “The wrath of God,” he writes, “is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”  God is angry with our unrighteousness because people in an effort to feel good about themselves suppress the truth.  Interesting thought.  Mankind in its desire to bolster its ego, self-esteem, to feel good about itself refuses to face the truth and that has set off the wrath of God against all ungodliness.

Paul’s premise and it must be ours in this apparent godless city that we live in, is that what can be known about God is plan to all because God has revealed himself to all.  We are a people of revelation.  We don’t take people at their word, but rather we take God at his.  People claim to be atheists and there is a big uproar throughout the city, atheists have taken to run ads on buses about their belief system and remember everybody has one.  Paul is telling us that God has made himself plan to everyone.  We can’t know everything about God because he is beyond our understanding, but what we can know about God, what he has reveled about himself, he has reveled to everyone.  The problem with God lies with us and not him.

What has God reveled to all people?  He has reveled, “his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature,” and these things, “have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.”  God’s eternal power and divine nature are shown to all human beings in the created order.  Everyone has access to this reality, everyone.  This is the truth.  Everyone sitting in this room and everyone you know has access to this clear revelation of God.  Paul’s conclusion, everyone is without excuse.  Do you believe that?  We speak as if people have no clue about God when in fact everyone has access to the truth about him.

What is the problem with the world, the people we live and work with, the people we pass on the street, some of us possible that are gathered here this morning?  “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.”  The given in this sentence is that everyone knows about God.  Why do you think there is so much talk about spirituality?  Everyone, these days, is talking about their spiritual journey.  God is our reality, everyone’s.  So what is the problem?  People know God but they do not honor him; knowledge but no worship, no recognition of him.  God is removed from his place of honor in our lives and relegated to become something of our own making.  God is no longer god in their lives.  God is not thanked for being who he is.

We are told that the wrath of God has been poured out on all ungodliness and the question is how.  I haven’t seen lightning fall from the sky and wipe out large sections of the population.  Nay-Sayers like to look at natural disaster and see the hand of God in judgment, but I don’t think it is always legitimate to go there.  We don’t have to look far to see the answer to our question Paul answers it right away.  God allows the futility of their thinking and darkens their hearts.  The claim to be wise, isn’t that what this bus campaign is all about?  But in fact they are foolish.  The result is that they replace God with a god of their own making.  All people long for God, they either submit to the God of the Bible or they make one up.  It could be false idol or it could be our stuff as we looked at last week, but a god will always arise in the hearts of men.

We are told that God gives them up in the lusts of their own hearts, to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because and here in lies the issue, they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.  How are people experiencing the wrath of God?  God has given them over to their own way of thinking.  Paul goes on to put some meat on his argument and you can look at Romans 1 and 2 on your own time.

Paul argues that no one is righteous, that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, everyone.  The law was given to convince us of our sin.  The law is apart form ourselves, it comes from God.  Our thinking is off.  The wrath of God is poured out and though God’s internal attributes are clearly reveled in creation, people reject the truth and go after the lie.  The law is set down to make righteousness plan to all.  God, in the law tells us what right behavior looks like.

The thing about the law is that we have no desire or ability to keep it.  We have died to sin and have the ability, as Luther writes in The Bondage of the Will, to freely pursue a path that leads to death.  We make death decisions everyday as to the people all around us.  They look alive but in fact are spiritually dead.  The world because of sin, and left to itself is a hopeless mess.  Again Paul is quite clear.  “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.”  God gave the law to shut everyone’s mouth.  The idea that all the people are by nature good, the innocence of children, to goodness of man is all hogwash.  It is all a lie and the law declares it to be so.  The role of the law is to silence all the chatter.  The conclusion is simple, we are all accountable be for God for our actions and we haven’t fared well at all.  “For by the works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.”  The purpose of the law is not to be the means by which we or anyone comes to God.  The purpose of the law is so that we come to understand that we are sinners, separated from God and without excuse and with no way out.  To understand the law is to understand one’s helplessness.  This understanding is the precursor for coming to Christ.

To summarize the condition of mankind: God took action and reveled himself, his eternal attributes, to all human beings in and through the creation.  Everyone is without excuse when it comes to knowing God.  Doesn’t matter what people say to you this is the truth as God has declared it to us.  People have refused to honor and thank God for who he is and what he has done.  This rebellion against God has led to God pouring out his wrath upon all of mankind and that is understood best by the fact that everyone has turned against God and replaced him with god’s of their own making.  To seal the deal and shut everyone’s mouth about the god’s of their own making and the inherent goodness of man, God gave the law and it leaves us all speechless and without hope in ourselves.  Paul takes 2 ½ chapters of Romans to lay out this picture for us.  This is an important foundational truth we must all understand if we are going to understand the grace of God.  It was in reading the book of Romans that Luther came to understand grace and to turn the world right side up with the protestant reformation.

Unless you have followed the argument to this point you will not fully grasp what Paul has to say.  It is only when you get the sinfulness of man do you come to understand the grace of God.

“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law…”  The righteousness of God, the thing that makes us right before God, the reality that we can enter into fellowship once again with the Father springs not from within us or in our ability to do anything towards our salvation; we were dead in our sin.  This righteousness comes not through obedience to the law but from God as a gift of grace.  The righteousness that comes from God is not tied to the law in any way.  The law is death because of our inability to obey it.  The law cuts through our arrogance and pride and leaves us dead, without an excuse.  God’s righteousness comes to us through faith in Jesus Christ and him alone.

Get it clear, there is no exception, no distinction, all have fallen short of the glory of God.  All, on the other hand, who are saved, are justified by God’s grace which comes as a gift, through the redemption bought for us by Jesus Christ on the cross of ..Calvary...  His shed blood is received by faith.  It leaves God as the just one and the justifier of those who believe in Jesus.

Grace frees us from bondage.  The hope of the Christian faith is that we are no longer bound under the law.  The law was never given to lead us to God.  The law could never do that it is not what laws do.  If we were righteous then the law would guide us on how to walk.  But we are sinners and sinners from before the law was given.  The law was handed down to make that clear for us.  Once convicted of sin a better way appeared.  We were than given the opportunity to receive the gift of God that comes through faith in Jesus.

All that we do each Sunday is done to remind us of the fact that we are saved by grace and not be works.  No boasting here.  We gather and confess our sins at the start of the service and we hear with our ears once again the truth that the Father has had mercy upon us and has sent his Son to pay for our sins so our sins can and are forgiven if we accept that truth in faith.  We sing of the mercy of God and Luther points out that we sing and declare the truth of God to one another.  The singing of God’s truth helps us to remember it.  The word of God is read and preached to remind us of God’s grace and we end at the table taking in the body and blood of Christ that we might continue to experience his grace.