Welcome to Waymaker Church! We are so excited to have you join us today! We exist to Encounter, Live for, and Advance the Kingdom of God!

Today we are going to look at God’s wrath on unrighteousness. Before we jump into the subject of wrath, I want to look at several foundational truths about the nature of God. Without a base concept of these truths, we will fail to understand the revelation of God’s wrath.

1. God is good. To understand this, we must recognize that God’s goodness is the perfection of his nature and moral excellence. The goodness of God is not determined by the good things that He does, goodness is an outflow of who he is. The good things He does are an outward revelation of who He is. He is not trying to become good through good works, He is good and therefore does good.

2. God is love. God’s love is the divine attribute that indicates God’s disposition to be self-giving and for the good of the other. His love is demonstrated in his goodness, mercy, grace, compassion, and faithfulness, but it is also demonstrated in His holiness, justice, jealousy, and wrath. His love is personal and relational, as He is a God who comes near to his creatures, seeking fellowship with them.

3. God is merciful. The mercy of God describes his focused disposition of compassionate forgiveness toward his people, especially in light of their distressful and dire circumstances. Mercy is a relational expression of God’s covenant relationship with His people.

4. God is gracious. God’s grace is unmerited divine favor, a favor from which comes many gifts. Even in humanity’s fallen state, God freely grants to his creatures’ good things they do not deserve. The greatest of these is Jesus Christ.

5. God is Holy. The holiness of God speaks to God’s existence as completely separate from his creation and, at the same time, to his pure and utterly incorruptible nature.

6. God is righteous. The righteousness of God speaks to God’s character, specifically in regard to the coherence between his revealed will and his actions on behalf of his people. The revealed attributes of God are rooted in His righteousness. His communicated goodness, love, and mercy to creation reveals his righteous worth to reign as king. His attributes also serve as the standard for how his people are to act.

7. God is truth. His identity is the source of all truth and the unfailing conformity of all divine action and revelation to this identity. God’s word is not true because it conforms to some external reality called truth. His word is an expression of the truth itself because it is an expression of his personal essence. God cannot lie because He would have to deny himself.

8. God is Wisdom. God’s wisdom is the perfect divine judgement and insight arising from his infinite knowing, and this wisdom is something he shares with his creatures according to their need for their good. His wisdom is evident in all his divine purposes and decrees. He doesn’t have wisdom, He is wisdom which causes his judgements to be pure and right.

9. God is Just. The perfection of his nature whereby he is infinitely righteous in himself and in all he does, the righteousness of the divine nature exercised in his moral government. The idea of justice is characterized by the rendering of what is due or merited. It is rooted in fairness and impartiality.

Now as we consider the wrath of God revealed in Romans 1 I want us to view it through the lens of the attributes of God. Many in the American Church struggle to understand the wrath of God because there is an internal picture that God is just an angry deity waiting for us to mess up. This morning my desire to help us understand the place of wrath within the attributes of God.

1. The first thing I want to point out about this passage of scripture is that the wrath of God is revealed. If something has to be revealed, it means that it was previously concealed.

2. Revelation of wrath was initiated by something. In this case it is against ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in un-righteousness. (Think about this in reference to the attributes of God. Who is truth? God himself.) Men are attempting to suppress God himself through unrighteousness.

3. God has revealed himself to the world since creation through his attributes, eternal power, and Godhead. This revelation leaves the world without excuse.

4. The revelation of wrath came because although they knew who he was, they made the conscience decision to reject him as God. This comes back to our understanding of desiring the throne.

Just like Satan, mankind professed to be wise apart from God.

Mankind was not intended for wrath, but in the exchange to deny God and take His place wrath was revealed. God’s wrath is his revulsion against evil, his settled displeasure with sin and sinners.

The result of rejecting the glory of the incorruptible God is uncleanness leading ultimately to wrath. Remember, Jesus first message was Matthew 4:17 “From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.””

This kingdom paradigm is rooted in the attributes of God I shared at the start of this message. His glory and the essence of His rule and reign is rooted in His goodness, love, mercy, grace, holiness, righteousness, truth, and wisdom. Rejection of his reign ultimately invites his righteous justice.

It would be one thing to reject a God who is evil and unkind. But when the revelation of that God is benevolent and kind beyond what we could ever imagine how can we escape wrath, if we neglect so great a salvation?

Romans 1:24-32 simply reveals the outward signs of people who reject the rule and reign of God in their lives and are unrepentant. This portion of scripture reveals the nature of those who choose to rule and reign in their own lives.

The revelation of God’s wrath is not because he enjoys it. It is the result of men and women who know the righteousness judgement of God and yet choose to practice and approve of things that are deserving of death (this is speaking of eternity). Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Instead of repentance and surrender, they willfully choose sin. The result of the decision is seen in Romans 2:1-12.

The revelation of wrath will come because God is just. Each one will be rewarded according to their deeds. The message of the kingdom is to bow the knee while we have the ability to make the choice of our own free will. For those who reject the truth and live their lives on the throne of their heart. There will come a day when the wrath they have stored up for themselves will be revealed.

It will not bring God pleasure to reveal His wrath.

2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

But because He is faithful and true it will be revealed.

My prayer today is that each of us choose the way of surrender in the kingdom.