Come on, somebody, let's give God a hand clap of praise. Nah, it's all good. It's all women. I'm not going to make y'all bring out my stand. You know, when I. Isaiah's up here, I feel okay about him bringing it up. Girl. Do it for me. They can. I'm not saying they're not strong enough to live up and stand. Y'all chill out now. I'm not trying to sugar any more people in this room today. I've been triggered all week. I'm just kidding. I started strong today. We're going to be in Romans chapter one, but we're starting a new series called Real Depth. Real Depth. One of the reasons we started this church is because I had heard this metaphor, given that there's deep and wide, right? Like when you're starting a church, when you're at a church, the ideas that you want to reach a lot of people wide and you want to take them deep in their faith. And so that was kind of the metaphor that I, I'd operated on. That's what a lot of churches work on. There are books written literally called Deep and Wide. The idea of growing a large church and helping people go deep in their faith. And I've learned over the years that sometimes metaphors like sticking to our brains and actually cause us problems. Anyone ever experienced that? Like there was an image you saw when you were a kid, and now it's still an image. But that image, because it's impossible for an image itself to hold the complete nature of who our God is, we find ourselves like frustrated in certain seasons, limited. And when we get older, we realize no metaphor can hold the truth of God fully. No image, no illustration, no specific teaching. There's a. There's got to be a different metaphor. And I preached a sermon a long time ago. Not here, but I called it change Your Metaphor. And the reason we started this church is because God helped me change my metaphor again. If you've never heard this before, you're about to. If you've been to one of our new here dinners, you've heard it. If you haven't and you're new here, come to one of our dinners, grab a couple Costco meals, make it look like real meals, and we hang out over a table. It's a fun time. You should totally come to it. But the metaphor? I don't know if Elon Musk could just shot up a rocket or something like that. The metaphor was right instead of deep and wide. What if what if my job as a pastor is to help other people be so equipped in their faith that they get into orbit and their walk with God? Kind of like those booster rockets, you know, that fall off once you get out of the atmosphere and into this place where you can get into some sort of orbital trajectory. That was the image that came to my mind. And I know some of y'all are like, that was weird, bro, I don't care. It's just it was a different metaphor and it helped me because it's not about going deep into this theological hole that if you hear something interesting or if it vibes super well, and if you feel more deeply connected with this homogenous group of people than this diverse group of people like depth to people, it means different things to different people. And it's so, oh, I love it because I always want to go deep, right? Because you find you find gold and diamonds deep in the earth, right? I mean, most of y'all ain't willing to mine for it, but I'm sorry, but you want deep. And so as a preacher, as a pastor, I'm called to equip you for the work of the ministry. My job is not to stand up here and be the most eloquent communicator. I mean, I would take that job if I was good enough to do it. No, my job is to equip you for the work of the ministry, not to sound cool and give you a lot of good golden nuggets of wisdom, that you can leave the sermon and think that would be okay. Diamonds and gold today it was good. And then you start searching for your church based on whether the pastor gave you something that was unique or interesting, and you call that depth when you've never been inspired to do something for the Lord has always been something that's I want to say, it's infuriated me because I don't want you to feel bad. I love you, I love you deeply. But man, there's something way better. Like real depth ends in obedience. Real depth ends in you keeping in step with God's Spirit. Real depth understands that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Real depth also understands that we're not to operate according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. Real depth understands that no matter how eloquent I am before the Lord, the spirit is still more eloquent, speaking with groanings that I don't currently understand. Real depth understands that God is the one transforming me from the inside out. It's not me doing cool stuff, adhering to some interesting information, going to the right church where the right people say the right theological terms. Not real depth. Is this place in your walk with God? We're even if you're not in a if you're still imperfect, which, by the way, we all are, you can still whether it's openness, talk to God, beat your chest like that man that Jesus spoke of in a parable for godless, of how intelligent, capable or experienced you are in this real depth is choosing to put God first in your life and trusting that that choice will bear much fruit. Now we got eight more sermons in this series, so there's a lot more to this. And today we're going to be in Romans chapter one. And my sermon title for today is going to be it's not that deep, it's not that deep. I think I hear Brechlin say that a lot when I'm thinking about something. And she's like, it's not that deep. And I'm like, how dare you tell me it's not that deep. You don't even know I'm I'm 11, 12 years older than you. What do you know? All these young people. It's not that deep. It's not that deep. Well, the truth is about the scriptures. What the Scripture says here is there are certain things you've been searching for in the depths, trying to find all these answers in the book of revelation, looking into the apocalyptic literature, the prophecies that you've heard of, trying to find someone who can talk to you about the Greek, and going on to ChatGPT or clod or cursor or whichever one you're using and saying, I wonder why he uses this term? And then you grab a term and you build your entire theology off of that term because you looked at one Greek word. We say there's nothing more dangerous than a first year Greek student. That's what we say. It's because they think everything is the biggest theological thing. And I'm not trying to make fun of you. I'm not trying to be negative. I'm saying, man, if you're if you're digging for the truth of God super deep, I'm here to tell you that it's been made plain right in front of us. You have to dig deep to get the truth of God. In fact, that's my first point. The truth. The God isn't that deep. Now, are there debts to go into when you walk with God? Say yes or no. Yeah, there's nothing inherently wrong with depth, but a lot of time we're looking for information rather than inspiration. And if you're looking for information and all of these different things that make you feel a little bit more like you can argue against somebody else if they were to say something that's not depth, that's knowledge. But knowledge puffs up. Paul would even say, here's a different metric that builds up. And it's it's not that deep. If you go to Romans chapter one, we're going to be starting in verse 18. And I love I love this passage, but I also get very fearful of this passage. And I do think there's something interesting that many of you might not have heard this passage preached in this way. And I want to tell you, it's not depth, it's actually really obvious, and it's right in front of you if you're reading it and it says this starting in verse 18, it says, Paul writing to the Roman Church, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. Now here this verse 19, since what may be known about God is plain to them, in the Greek the word is funny, Ron, which essentially it means it's like plain. It's evident. It's right in front of you. There's no secret here. This isn't one of these, right? There was this idea that there was a secret knowledge or gnosis in the ancient world that if you could discover that knowledge, then you were special. And the only way to apprehend God was to get some of that secret knowledge. But Paul saying, hey, hey, everybody, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth of God in exchange for a lie there, suppressing the truth. But since the creation of the world, it's all been right there in front of you. Look at your neighbor and tell them it's plain as day. Something I think I might be deaf in my right ear because during rally I didn't hear anyone over here and right here. I didn't hear it. I heard you, sweetie. I heard you so beautiful. It's plain to me how amazing you are. Super obvious. But I'm talking about them. It's not that deep, you know? Look at your other neighbor. I want you. I want you to tell. Just like that movie. I forgot what movie it is, but it's like it's right there in front of you. You can do it that way if you want to. You don't have to. It's. He says it two times. He uses that Greek word. Finally. It means it's right there. It is evident, though. The wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness. Because what it can be known about God, what is true about God is right there. It is available right in front of you. And he says that it's creation. Now, the way that you read it, you can adjust it further because we are a part of creation. The syntax, it's it says that it's. It's in creation. But then it kind of gives this implication that is in its, in us. It was plain to them is what he says. But you can read it, it was plain in them or with them. What is Paul trying to tell us? He's saying that the fact that you exist, the fact that this world exists, all the intricacies of creation, all of the intricacies of humanity, how we think that we have a brain that has a prefrontal cortex, but also an amygdala. The fact that I've got a liver to process certain things, I don't know, I'm not a doctor. Right. And the fact that I got two kidneys to process other things that I've got certain body, body like parts and women have different ones, you know what I'm saying? I want you talking about that. I was thinking about people that have babies. I should say some people can have babies, some people can't. That is complex life. The fact that that exists, and I'm not going to go into scientific evidence, I'm not going to go into all of this stuff. You've heard it from the preacher all the time. The fact that someone can be born and it's so complex shows us, it reveals to us it's right in front of us that God exists. But more than that, it's not just that God exists. It tells us about who our God is like. Creation tells you about our God. I started a little meditation journey and when I say meditation journey, that means I started prayer on like a Monday and I didn't finish it. So I went on a Tuesday and on a Wednesday, and it's probably going to turn into some bigger thing. But I have been processing through what it took from our God to create us, and I didn't assume all of the things that we say we know about God, that he's loving, that he's kind, that he leads us to repentance, that he sent his son. No, I went back to creation, and I wanted to do a thought experiment that says, the fact that I'm here and I've been created, what does that tell me? Not whether he exists, but what does that tell me about my God? It tells me that he's purposeful. It tells me that he's powerful. It tells me that he's creative. I've looked at some of your mugs. He's creative. You know what I'm saying? Like me, to me too. When I posted the video and advertising for this series, I sent it to young people, and when I was like, hey, we got to edit some of this because it makes you look older than you already are. And I was like. Shots fired. That's true. But you know, if I run, you know, it's right there in front of him. It's obvious. I'm 38 years old. I'm getting up there, man. But you God is creative. But he created man, and then he created woman because it wasn't good that man would be alone. And then he says he walked with them in the cool of the day. And one of the questions I was pondering through I was thought the cool of the day was like mid to late afternoon, but could have been early morning. Could have been both, Could have been both that that we serve a God who in the beginning with creation shows us that he's purposeful, powerful, creative, and he wants to show us something. It doesn't even mean he loves us, that we walk with us in the cool of the day. He could just be trying to treat me like a farmer and said, hey, don't eat from that tree, hang out with that tree. But in Genesis one and two, we see that our God is purposeful, powerful, creative, and he has a desire to ward something for us. It is evident, and if it's not evident through creation, it should be evident in you. Why? Because you wake up in the morning and you dream about more than you currently see. Why would you do that if God didn't exist? Why would you do that if you didn't think that something behind all of the things had intent and power and direction or desire for you to do something, I could go all day on talking about these things. But the truth of God is not that deep. It is right there in front of us. In verse 20 it says, for since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and his divine nature, you could also read that he's just his divinity or divine ness, his characteristics that make him separate from us. They have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Now here's where Paul is trying to build a longer argument in Romans, and we're going to spend the next eight weeks going over Paul's bigger picture arguments. We won't hit every text, but we're going to hit some key ones to help you understand. What is Paul trying to accomplish here? He's trying to write to a group of people, some essence of a systematic theology, to help them understand why are we in the state that we are? What did that problem ultimately cause? What is God's solution? And what after you found God's solution, should you do with your life? That's Romans one through 16. And in Romans one, he's going to tell us the problem. He already said, the wrath of God has been revealed. And he says the wrath of God is revealed against unrighteousness of men. And since you could have seen it, it's been made plain to you. It's evident in you. And through everything that has been made up to this point, you have no excuse if you are unrighteousness, if you are unrighteous in view of God's wrath. In other words. Because we are in the state that we're in, and because we have lived in unrighteousness, the wrath of God, it's fun. I'm not trying to be too deep here, but in the Greek it's not a past verb. It is present, active. It's indicative. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Don't know how many of you thought about the wrath of God is something that happens in eternity with hellfire and brimstone? No, that's the end result for those people who never have trusted in Jesus. It is a sad result and it is the separation from God. It is the complete separation from God. And you can consider that to an extent the wrath of God. But I want to give you a different definition of the wrath of God. It says the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, meaning God's love for you and his need for justice and righteousness within his own being causes him to act in a way that for you feels wrathful. And that's that's hard for me to understand, right? Because I serve a good God, a loving God, and it says he has wrath on me in the present if I do not know him and I'm living in unrighteousness, it's already happening. Now you can look around the world and you can see that something is happening. You can look in people's lives, you can look at our country, and you can see that something is happening. And you can you can call it whatever you want. But it is evident to me that we are living in unrighteousness, and that the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against ungodliness and unrighteousness. Now notice I didn't say that God is sending all of these floods to kill people. Notice I didn't say that these things are happening as a result of the wrath of God. Some things you got to hold in balance. Some things are above my pay grade. I don't know why God is doing that, but there is a wrath of God that you can understand and know. And this is what Paul is talking about here, and we'll get into that. But the problem that leads us to receive the wrath of God is our. I'm going to give you a word, depravity. Here's how you can remember it. Remember I said, it's not that deep. We're talking about real depth, deep privately. That's where you got, dude. That's where depth leads you. I appreciate you tomorrow. Nobody else likes my puns, but you know how to just, you know, make me feel better. Whether it's true or not, I don't care, I feel better. I appreciate you, but I'll give you depravity. Depravity is the epitome of your life that is filled with sin. Depravity has a few characteristics that are described right here in this passage. He says in verse 21, for although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God, nor gave thanks to him. But their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools. Now I want to divide that into four characteristics of our own depravity. And so if you'll go back to that first verse there, verse 21, the first one is this I am me centered. How many of you know you're me, sinner? Come on somebody, if you don't know you're me. Synod the go go look at your worship song playlist and tell me what songs they are. Lord, I need you, oh, I need you. I, I love that song. Such a good song. Right. What are your favorite worships? I'm trying to think of a good me centered one. You are my champion. And I've always been where we love this song. We love this song. But the imagery of it's kind of interesting. We'll probably never be able to do this song after I say this out loud in front of the entire room. But you are my champion. Champion. As someone who goes out to fight on behalf of somebody else. Now, God did that on our behalf, but I didn't send them, you know, I was hostile to him and he went out on his own. And so I think about it, it's like, I love a God that loves me. I struggle with the God who has wrath on me. I am me centered at the worst. When you open up your prayer. Lord help me. And he's probably sitting up there like, don't you want to know something about me? Because there's some things I've already disclosed to the world they're playing to you, evident right in front of you from the beginning. Since creation, you could have understood them. But because you're deep in your own self-focused, you're. You can ask me questions all you want, but you're going to miss it if you don't seek me first. I'm me centered. And since I'm me centered, I think about me. You want to know where fights come from and wars. James tells us that me you want to know where fights and wars come from. Among you. They come from your flesh, your desires. They war among your members, is what James says because of your self focus and mine. I'm not talking about us, about you. We're all in this deep state. I am so selfish. And my selfishness isn't just bad because selfishness is bad. My selfishness is bad because it prevents me. It inhibits me from seeing my creator face to face. Right now I see through a completely dim mirror. I think I know about God, but because I haven't asked him about who he is, because I haven't received disclosure from him, because I'm only asking him to heal me, to help me, to make me better, to do me, me, me, me me stuff. I'm missing him. And when I don't see him, I don't understand what I'm called to do. It's not bad for you to care about yourself. But it is bad if you miss him because of it. And I don't want to shake you too hard today. But if. I gotta get through this. But if I. If I can give you one thing, it is, man. Don't. Don't live in guilt. Don't live in shame. Don't live in condemnation. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. I keep quoting that all the time. I need you to understand that. But how you approach God really matters. And so if you go to try to pray and the entirety of your prayer is a is a 32nd or even 30 minute diatribe on what God needs to do for you, then you're missing an opportunity to experience him. He can use it. God is super powerful. What do we say? Nothing is wasted. That's a different song than they were saying. It's a difference. I love that song. Nothing is wasted. He can use it for our good and when we go diatribe toward him, he can figure out a way to delve into the depths with us. He can figure it out, and he does that kindly. That is how he operates with us. But if I can approach him and say, God, what do you want me to hear from you? God, I want to seek you where you can be found. God, I want to know the depths of your character. I want to understand you at a deeper level. God, I want to take this word that you made plain and evident right in front of me. And I'm going to read it. And when I read it, I'm going to ponder on it. I'm going to meditate on it. I'm going to trust it before I go. Trust my own emotions and vibes and feelings and whatever. Somebody else told me, I'm not going to be me centered. I'm going to be used centered. What is our vision? There's complete clarity all times. It's plain. It's evident right before you. It's not that deep, revolving everything around Jesus. That includes your thoughts, everything around Jesus. And he says here he says they neither glorified Him as God. What does that mean? It means that they were self-focused and lifted themselves up and others up above him. And then he says, nor did they give thanks to him. It's so interesting that he put that there as one of the main reasons we're depraved. I think it's a sign of our depravity, our lack of gratitude. How many of you struggle with gratitude? Yo, the rest of y'all are so good. Okay, maybe. Maybe you've got a impingement in your left or right shoulder, and it makes it hard to lift your arm up. I got you explains worship to a little bit. But those be real. Some of you feel like you need to raise your hand, but you don't raise your hand because you're self-focused. You think about what other people think about you rather than you serving and worshiping your creator. Right? I mean, that's what's happening with worship. If you don't feel led to raise your hand, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the ones who felt it a few minutes ago by the spirit. But they didn't do it because they were thinking about how they looked, you know? Anyway, so we'll move on from that. But we do struggle with gratitude, don't we? I struggle so hard. I wake up in the morning. My first thought is what next? I wake up in the morning. My first thought is, oh man, I wake up in the morning. My first thought is my kids are loud right now. I wake up in the morning. My first thought is a lack of gratitude, but my first thought should be the thing I did before I ever thought was I breathed. I breathed all night. The night before I laid down, I slept in a bed. I slept next to a wife and it was awesome. I just I have so many things to be grateful for, but I wake up and I think about what I lack. I'm ungrateful. That is a sign or a symptom of the depths of our depravity. We're deep in something, but it's not the Word of God. It is our own sin and our struggle. We are. We're ungrateful when we when we look at the book of Genesis, we see this lack of gratitude that God created them, walked with them in the cool of the day, and all it took is a little slithery snake. That's how I think of it, because he was just a little creature, a little slithery snake. You know what I'm talking about. He literally slithery serpent. And he says, he said, don't you understand that God put this tree in the midst of the garden because you would know good and evil, and you know the difference and, well, how dare he give us all of these trees? But then there's this one tree he wouldn't let us eat from. And, you know, maybe it's for our good. Maybe that's why the God who walks with us in the cool of the day would tell us not to eat from it. Maybe it's not because he's hiding something. Maybe it's just because he loves us deeply and we ate from it because we listen to a little slithery snake, right? That's us when we find ourselves ungrateful. Yeah, I said it the way it sounds on purpose. I want you to know how it is when we listen to creatures rather than our creator. For me, centered, ungrateful. And let's be real, we're kind of crazy. I mean, some of y'all for sure. Me too. You know, we're kind of crazy, he says. For all though, the new God, they never glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him. But their thinking became futile. Their thinking became futile. Now, the way that you would. I wanted to use my translation a little bit more, but I don't find myself confident enough to read this in front of all of you guys. Have the English translation right here in front of me. But the way that the Greek translates in the syntax there, it's like they're like internal thought process right there, self-talk, what was happening within their own minds. It wasn't just, you know, the thinking became futile and kind of pointless. No, it's what was happening in their minds. Was going in a direction of no value. Let me help you. You ever ruminated on something for a little too long? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, some people, I told them. Somebody had done too much research on other people's crime cases. You know what I'm saying? Way too much research. I told you I wouldn't bring it up, but. But it's true. You want to see the epitome of people's thoughts who are futile is get involved in somebody else's business. When you're not a prosecutor and post on Instagram and Facebook about it because you got an opinion. Goodness. Great. I see it on all sides. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going one side or another. I see dudes do it all the time. You see it? I mean, I'm a man. I'm going to talk about guns, money, money. It's like they do it all the time, dude. Feudal. If you thought posting that on Facebook was going to help anybody else but you, it made you feel a little bit better about yourself. How did you get there? You ever wonder how someone comments or says something and you're like, how did you think that was going to go? Well, depravity. And you know what's so funny? I'm gonna bring it home real quick. If you're married in the room, I have to talk about Facebook. I just got to talk about your most recent argument, don't I? It's like, did you think that was going to go well when you said that husband to your wife, do you think. Do you think telling them that they were stupid, but you didn't say the word stupid? No, but they heard it, you know, wise, did you think telling them they're not being a real man? You didn't say it. You didn't say real man. What you said was, man, you got to provide better. You need to lead me spiritually better. Yeah. That's what you said. It's like not a real man. It's like I don't feel safe in this home. You're dangerous now. Sometimes that's the case, and you need to. You need to figure that situation out. Maybe call the authorities if it gets that significant. But in most of your relationships, you making the other person feel that way stems from your depraved mine. Now God's trying to redeem that mind. But if you found yourself in that like just ever evolving thought process symptom of a depraved mind, and sometimes I find myself thinking, why would I say that? Why would I have done that? Any one of you know about the week that I trusted in Jesus? You know about the depraved mind, the crazy things that we've done. And if you look back on it with logic, but the love of Jesus in your life you like. That was crazy. We're all in that boat and you may think you're logical. I'll talk to you for a set. You might think you're logical. I think you're logical. A lot of people are logical. We live in a post humanist society, opposed enlightenment society in a lot of parts of our country, a post-Christian society. That means we prioritize empirical evidence and logic above all things. And I find myself wondering about the depravity of seeking empirical evidence. I was watching something the other day and it wasn't on Netflix. This was like legit science. I just look at space science for fun. I think it comes into my feed because, you know, orbit. And so I just see this stuff and I'm like, how? How did they know the planet has this much CO2 in it several light years away? Where did they get there? Oh, theoretical physics helped him. I'm not talking about it. I think it's super cool. You know, I read Feynman's lectures on physics like the rest of you. Actually did, though, so I'm such a weirdo. But I look at it and I'm like, how did they get that? Now I'm not going to jump in and start arguing with people. That would be me having a depraved mind. How dare you argue with the fact that I believe someone resurrected themselves from the grave 2000 years ago? You're crazy to to to not think that. No, I'm not going to argue with them. I know that there's a crazy aspect to our faith, but when I look at where they're living, I see the depravity, the crazy that we live in. It is crazy to me what we find ourselves dealing with today. And I'm not going to go all political with it. I've just seen enough this week to be like, I'm glad I'm preaching today. And here's the reality of it. And this is the fourth thing. It says. The second part of 21, it says, and their foolish hearts were darkened. And this is where I want you to breathe a sigh of relief. It's not good, but it's reality. Yes. Crazy? Yes. Me centered? Yes. Ungrateful. Ultimately, it stems from the reality. It says my heart was darkened. Yes, I miss God. I miss the truth of God, and I miss so much about him. But my heart was darkened because of the sin that's not inherently on you. We pay the price unless we've got Jesus in our life. But ultimately we inherited this depraved condition. Don't hear me say you don't have a part to play in all of the equation. But we have inherited this darkened heart characteristic, and so we claim wisdom yet look like fools. And the more you follow Jesus, the more you see it, and hopefully the more you follow Jesus, the more you see it, the more you pray about it, not talk. Mess about it on Facebook or judge people. I don't want to be a judge of church. This is the reality of our state. And my third point, and I've already mentioned this the wrath of God is already present. It is present in that very depravity. Because here's what it says in verse 23, because we exchange the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal human beings and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore everybody say, therefore, I need you to, I need you to. I need you to think about this, because this is where Paul is giving us a really important point. He's articulated things up to this point, but right now he's trying to give you his main idea. Therefore, God, say this word with me gave pyridoxine. He handed them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity, for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchange the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than their creator who is forever praised. Amen. The wrath of God is not just some eternity in hell separate from God. The wrath of God is that he handed us over to our desires. I want you to get this image. He it is an active one like he he. He made the decision ultimately to to give us over to the desires of our flesh and the rest of the passage in chapter one. If you want to go read this says what that handing over process resulted in that we now live in the epitome of depravity that we now have. Foolish like we have sinful thoughts, we now have futile thoughts. We're ungrateful, we're selfish, we're adulterous. Adulterous. We're depraved. And that is the wrath of God. And it blew my mind one day when I realized that the wrath of God wasn't hellfire and damnation for all of eternity alone, that it was the fact that in the first place, at some point, he said, you can have it. And that ought to change your view of the character of God. If you came in here thinking that he wasn't loving, or that why would God allow bad things to happen to me? Now, what we look at in the wrath of God is him eventually. Just. You can have what you want. And it should be interesting to some of us in this room who keep fighting for what we want, because the reality of our depravity right now happened because ultimately we desired something outside of God. And in order to get there, we had to depart from God. And rather than holding us tight for all of creations existence, he said, okay, like, can I show you an example? Before I close, I need a dude who's a little more imposing than me. Can I get Anthony? Tony? Come on, come on. Yeah, yeah. Come on, give it up. I'm so excited about this. I've been excited for it all week. I'll be, I wouldn't be, I'd be lying if I told you I didn't think about you. All right. So who do you think he's going to be in this conversation? God. He's going to be God. Don't worry about it. We know you're not him. All right. And what I want you to do is I want you to pretend that you just created the world in your mind. And that I'm the pinnacle of your creation. Me? This guy right here just want you to pretend it. You don't have to move around and do anything like that. So what I want you to do is it's a little creepy, and I thought it would be. But if you just like you can put your hand right here on my shoulder, you can go all the way around if you want to. We'd feel like brothers. Okay. Walking with me. He's walking with me. And the coolest. If you guys post this or the wrong way, you're in trouble. He's walking with me in the cool of the day, and I'm like, tree, what's that? God. Animal. What's that for? Footed creatures. You're doing perfect, I love it. He's just showing me. And. And he has a deep love for me. Not anyways. He he loves me because it's his creation, right? He created it for a purpose. And then I look and I'm like, tree, I don't eat from that tree is what you say. And it's like, don't eat from that tree. And I'm like, okay, all right, all right. Now hang out for a second. Come over here. Reptile. What'd you say? Dude? Slithery snake. Just that tree is knowledge of good and evil, man. I'm just close to him, and I don't want to be far from him. What's good and evil? It's another scale. Another spectrum, another. Okay, another way to weigh things. Okay, cool. All right. Then Eve goes and eats. Adam eats with her, and they realize they're naked. This is our process. It would be as if all of you right here, you fallen into the same category. It would be as if God is telling me, hey, that's a road with traffic in it. It's a road. Don't go there. It's just it's a road with traffic. The snake told me I should, though. It's a good it's a good road. Now put your hand back right here. Actually, hold me here. I'll go to the road, though. It's like, no, don't go to the road. Good. I'm going to go to the road. He said it was good to go. Eve went, even went to the. She's going to, the body's going to the road. I'm going to go to the road. No, I'm going to go to the road. You must not love me or something. I'm tired. Me go to the. Go to the road, bro. No. Hand me over. Okay? That's what he does. And then I walk over to the road. This is us. I'm gonna stay in the light, but go over to the road. Oh, traffic. You didn't tell me. Are you going to help me? God's not good. Because I ran in front of traffic and it's coming head on, and it's going to hurt me. It's going to kill me. It's going to cause me pain. Maybe I got scraped by another car and I got traumatized by it. And I'm still standing here. It's like, Lord, if you love me, you can't help me. The law, the prophets, his word, his covenant, all of that stuff. But here's what's cool about our God. He didn't stop with that stuff. He robed himself in flesh. And though he could have been annoyed as all. Get out! Come on, somebody. He could have been annoyed about our sin and our struggle and our hostility to him. He's like you futile thinking person. You crazy person. You selfish person. He didn't. He sent his son. No. Yeah. Father, son, Holy Spirit, Trinity type thing. I didn't think through the theology of this. It ain't that deep, people. It's just a metaphor. And he comes and he's like, right here. You should come with me. I'm actually incapable. My foolish heart has been darkened by sin, and I'm depraved, and this is going to hit me. And so what he does is he sends his son to bear the weight of the wrath of God. And. And I need you to understand this about our God from the beginning. His his wrath is his wrath on you is letting you do what you want to do. That traffic was always coming. It is us in our sin and depravity that jumped right in front of it. And so what Jesus does and his grace toward us is he stands back at first and he hands us over. And we look at that and we see God must not be good. God's just like, no, like, would you expect I told you, I told you in my word. I told you in my covenant. I told you with the the promise I made to Abraham, I told you all throughout I put a kingdom together so that they would be an example before everybody else. And you're still not tracking with it, because your foolish heart has been darkened. So what I have to do is I have to do something about it and stand in front of it. And what we see in Christ Jesus. Give it up for this guy. Thank you so much. You you played a good God. Well, we see with Jesus in bearing the cross for our transgressions. Jonathan Edwards puts it this way. He is standing up as in front of a damn that's about to break, and he holds the water back, which is the wrath of God. And he says, anyone who comes to me can find life abundantly, but you've got to choose him. And when you choose God, what happens is he sends His Holy Spirit to dwell in you. And it says he gives you a handshake and he walks you toward the father. Your foolish heart is no longer darkened. You've been made alive with Christ Jesus. You're less selfish. You find the humility of Christ Jesus. You are moving forward in faith in such a way that you are transformed by the renewing of your mind, and eventually you move away from flesh and into God's precious spirit. And what does the spirit provide? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faith, faithfulness, and self-control. Skip something. Sorry, I'm still being sanctified. That's the pathway. And so when when Paul talks about this, I need us to understand that the wrath of God is not his anger alone toward you, his justice must hold to a standard. But he broke the rule when he stood in front of traffic for you. So what should your response be in light of that? I think gratitude. We should offer our lives as a living sacrifice in praise of our creator. And so the big idea is this ultimately, God lets you do what you want. And he'll let you do what you want to do. But I need you to know that His son, Jesus, died on the cross 2000 years ago and rose from the grave so that you wouldn't have to. And he'll let you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the grave, and he'll let you choose him daily and offer yourself as a drink offering in service of your God. You're no longer worshiping and serving the creature, but the Creator God who is blessed forever. Amen. That is how Paul ends his passage. And I want to take a long time here. I've told you the gospel and the response to the gospel is this confess and believe that Jesus is Lord. It is that simple. It doesn't take a long prayer, says God, I believe what your son did. Forgive me of my sin. Take me forward in faith with you and transform me from the inside out. That's it. And if you're ready to do that, what I want you to do is take the next just moment while I pray in a second. I want you to ponder that with your creator. I want you to grab the card that's sitting on your seat, and I want you to fill that information out so that one of us can reach out to you and help you take your next step toward God. And if you're ready for it, I want you to come up here. The prayer team's actually walking up here right now. I want you to come up to the prayer team and receive prayer if you need to, let them know about your decision. We want to celebrate that with you. And then when you walk out of here, don't walk in front of traffic. Sometimes it's hard, but you gotta remember God is leading you in a different direction. Amen. Somebody. Heavenly father, we thank you for the new direction you've given us in Christ Jesus. God, I thank you for the wrath because it is your wrath that enabled me to understand the severity of my depravity. And thank you for letting me do what I desire to do. And but also thank you for sending your son to die on the cross so that I could follow you. God, I love you and I thank you for your son, Jesus. As we move forward and talk about what real depth is. I pray that you would inspire people in this room to give their entire life to you. It is in Jesus's name that we pray and God's people said Amen.