Romans Series: Romans 1:18-25

Romans Series: The Great Exchange

June 21st, 2026/Seventh Day Adventist

Intro:

Everywhere you look there is a debate. Someone disagreeing with someone else on what’s wrong with the world. But one thing that everyone can agree on today is that something isn't right with the world. Something feels fractured, broken, and less than what it was meant to be.

What's fascinating is that while almost everyone agrees something is wrong, very few people agree on why. Everyone has a theory about what's wrong and everyone has a solution for how to fix it.

Hook:

The reality is that most of us spend our lives treating symptoms without ever addressing the source.

It's a little like walking into your basement and discovering water on the floor. One person grabs a towel. Another grabs a mop. Another turns on a fan. Everybody starts cleaning up the mess. But eventually someone has to ask a more important question: "Where is the water coming from?" Because until you identify the source, you’re only treating the symptom.

That's exactly what Paul begins doing in Romans 1.

For seventeen verses he has been talking about the beauty of the Gospel. He's talked about grace, faith, righteousness, and the power of God, then suddenly the tone changes. Romans 1:17 ends with the righteousness of God being revealed, and Romans 1:18 begins with the wrath of God being revealed. It's one of the sharpest transitions in the entire book.

You'll never appreciate the cure until you understand the disease. You'll never celebrate salvation until you understand what you're being saved from. And you'll never fully appreciate God's grace until you understand the depth of humanity's problem.

Story:

Did anybody else ever make a trade as a kid that felt like the deal of a lifetime, only to realize later that you got completely ripped off? Maybe it was a baseball card. Maybe it was a video game. Maybe it was some collectible that seemed incredibly valuable in the moment. At the time you thought you were winning. Then a few days later you realized you had badly misjudged the value of what you gave away.

The funny thing is that those childhood trades usually didn't cost us very much. We lost a toy. We lost a card. We lost a few dollars. Life moved on.

As adults, however, the exchanges become much more significant. People trade integrity for success. People trade character for opportunity. People trade their families for a career. People trade peace for control. People trade purpose for approval. People trade what matters most for what matters now. The longer I live, the more convinced I become that the direction of our lives is largely determined by the exchanges we choose to make.

Connection To The Text:

What Paul is about to tell us is that humanity has made the worst exchange in history.

Humanity was offered something infinitely valuable and chose something infinitely less. According to Paul, humanity exchanged the glory of God, truth of God, and the worship of God. In other words, God offered humanity Himself, and humanity traded Him for lesser things. That's the tragedy of Romans 1.

And if we're honest, it's still the tragedy of humanity today. And before we dismiss this as a message for somebody else, Paul wants us to understand that Romans 1 is a mirror before it's a microscope. Before it exposes the world around us, it exposes something inside us. It reveals a tendency that exists in every human heart, including ours.

That's why I've titled today's message:

The Great Exchange

Scripture Creed:

This is my Bible.

It is God-breathed and true.

It tells me who I am
And how He calls me to live.

It is alive and active.

It never returns empty,
But accomplishes its purpose.

It is a lamp to my feet
And a light to my path.

Heaven and earth will pass away,
But His Word will remain forever.

I will hide His Word in my heart,
So I might not sin against Him.

I will meditate on it day and night,
So my life will be fruitful.

So today,

I will receive it with humility.

I will believe it with faith.

I will obey it with courage.

My mind is ready.

My heart is open.

My life will never be the same.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

Passage: Romans 1:18-25 CSB

18 For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, 19 since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made.

As a result, people are without excuse. 21 For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.

24 Therefore God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie,and worshiped and served what has been created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen.

Pray:

Main Points:

1. We Suppress The Truth

   1. 18 For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, 19 since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made.
   2. Explanation: One of the most surprising things about this passage is where Paul begins. He doesn't say humanity lacks truth. He doesn't say humanity is desperately searching for God but can't find Him. He says humanity suppresses the truth. That word is important because it changes the entire conversation. The picture Paul paints is not of someone who has never encountered evidence of God. The picture is of someone who keeps pushing away what God has already revealed.
   3. Paul says God's eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen since the creation of the world. In other words, creation itself is constantly pointing beyond itself. The stars point somewhere. The mountains point somewhere. The complexity of the human body points somewhere. Every sunrise is preaching a sermon. Paul is arguing that God has not hidden Himself. He has made Himself known.
   4. That's why Paul says people are "without excuse." Not because they know everything about God, but because they know enough to respond to Him. Creation cannot tell us everything we need to know about salvation, but it can tell us there is a Creator worthy of worship. The problem isn't that God has remained silent. The problem is that humanity keeps hitting the mute button.
   5. One pastor said it this way: "The issue is not that God is absent. The issue is that we are distracted." That's a pretty accurate description of modern life. We are surrounded by evidence of God while simultaneously finding endless ways to avoid Him.
   6. Illustration:
   7. Imagine someone standing right beside me trying to have a conversation. At first I can hear every word they're saying. But then I take a few steps away. They're still speaking, but their voice becomes harder to hear. Then I keep moving. They haven't changed. They haven't stopped talking. I've simply created distance.
   8. Eventually I put on headphones. Now I can barely hear them at all. The person never moved. The voice never changed. The truth was still being spoken. I just kept creating more distance between myself and it.
   9. Isn't that often how sin works?
   10. People rarely wake up one morning and decide to abandon God. They slowly drift. They stop returning phone calls from the people who know them best. They stop showing up consistently in church. They stop putting themselves around people who challenge them spiritually. They begin prioritizing other things. They create distance. Then they create distractions. Eventually they find themselves isolated with nothing but their own desires.
   11. The truth didn't move. They moved.
   12. Application: Before we start thinking about everybody else, Paul wants us to look inward. Where might we be suppressing truth in our own lives? Is there an area where God has already spoken but we keep asking for another answer? Is there a place where we are seeking more information when what we really need is quicker obedience?
   13. One of the easiest ways to suppress truth is distractions. We fill every quiet moment with noise. Podcasts. Music. Social media. Notifications. Streaming. Constant activity. Then we wonder why we struggle to hear God. Sometimes God isn't hiding. Sometimes we're simply distracted.
   14. The other is distance. Removing ourselves from people and places where God is moving. When we pull away from the body of Christ, we are suppressing truth, and exchanging it for our own personal desires.
   15. Here's the question I want you to wrestle with: What truth has God already shown you that you've been avoiding? Because spiritual maturity isn't merely learning new truth. Spiritual maturity is responding to the truth God has already revealed.
   16. The greatest barrier to hearing God is not ignorance. It's resistance.

2. We Exchange The Glory

   1. As a result, people are without excuse. 21 For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.
   2. Explanation: Paul now moves from suppressing truth to exchanging glory. He says, "For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude." That verse may be one of the most important verses in the entire passage because it reveals where the decline begins. Humanity's problem doesn't start with behavior. It starts with worship.
   3. Notice the progression. They knew God, but they did not honor God. They knew God, but they did not thank God. The drift begins when worship disappears and gratitude fades.
   4. This gets even more uncomfortable when we remember who Paul is describing. He's describing humanity as a whole, people who knew God from creation. People who understood enough about God to honor Him. And those of us who know far more than creation shows have even less excuse.
   5. That's what makes this passage so sobering. Paul isn't describing ignorance. He's describing ingratitude. He's describing people who knew enough about God to worship Him but slowly stopped honoring Him as God.
   6. Illustration: Created things make terrible gods because they were never designed to carry the weight we put on them.

   7. Imagine putting a cheap folding chair in the middle of this room and asking it to hold a truck. Nobody would do that. We all know exactly what's going to happen. The chair will collapse because it wasn't built to carry that kind of weight.

      1. Yet that's exactly what we do every day.
      2. We ask careers to carry the weight of our identity.
      3. We ask relationships to carry the weight of our happiness.
      4. We ask money to carry the weight of our security.
      5. We ask success to carry the weight of our purpose.
      6. Then we're surprised when those things eventually disappoint us.
         8. The problem isn't always the thing itself. The problem is the weight we're asking it to carry. Created things make terrible gods because they were never designed to hold the weight of a human soul.
         9. Application:
         10. Maybe the question isn't, "Do I have an idol?"
         11. Maybe the better question is, "What am I asking to do what only God can do?"
         12. Because whatever sits on the throne of your heart will eventually shape your life.

3. We Believe The Lie

   1. 24 Therefore God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie,and worshiped and served what has been created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen.
   2. Explanation: By the time Paul reaches verses 24 and 25, we begin seeing the consequences of these exchanges. Three times in Romans 1, Paul uses the phrase "God delivered them over." This is one of the most sobering ideas in Scripture. God's judgment is not always lightning from heaven. Sometimes God's judgment is allowing people to pursue the very things they insist will satisfy them. Or more simply put… sometimes judgment looks like God giving you what you want.

   3. The lie rarely sounds evil when it first arrives. The lie sounds reasonable.

      1. "It's fine if he isn't a believer. He's supportive of my faith."
      2. "It's not like we're living together. We just spend the night sometimes."
      3. "It's not like we're having an affair. We're just emotionally connected."
      4. "It's not pornography. It's just a show."
         4. That's how deception works. The enemy rarely starts with outright rebellion. Often he invites them into rationalization. He simply keeps moving the line and convincing us that obedience is unnecessary.
         5. We trade truth for lies because we think they'll make us happy. Instead, they leave us searching for more.
         6. Illustration: It's like drinking saltwater when you're thirsty. At the moment it feels like it's helping. You're drinking something. You're consuming something. Yet the very thing you think is satisfying your thirst is actually making your thirst worse.
         7. Sin works the same way. It promises relief but creates deeper cravings. It promises freedom but creates greater bondage. It promises satisfaction but leaves people wanting more.
         8. Sin will take you further than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you’re able to pay.
         9. Application: This is where Romans stops being about humanity in general and starts becoming personal. What lies are we tempted to believe? Where are we looking for life apart from God? What created thing have we convinced ourselves will finally satisfy us?
         10. The enemy's strategy has never really changed. He simply keeps repackaging the same lie. "You'll be happier this way." "You'll be freer this way." "You'll find life this way." Yet every false promise eventually leads people farther from the very thing they were created for.
         11. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus came to reverse every exchange humanity made. We exchanged truth for lies, and Jesus came as the Truth. We exchanged God's glory for idols, and Jesus came to reveal God's glory. We exchanged worship of the Creator for created things, and Jesus came to restore us to the One we were created to know.

Closing: Throughout this message we've seen the same pattern repeated over and over again. Humanity suppresses the truth. Humanity exchanges God's glory. Humanity believes the lie. At first glance, Romans 1 can feel like a passage about people making bad decisions, but it's much deeper than that. It's a passage about people making bad exchanges. It's a passage about people settling for less than what they were created for. The tragedy of Romans 1 isn't merely that humanity sinned. The tragedy is that humanity traded something infinitely valuable for something infinitely less. We traded the Creator for created things. We traded truth for lies. We traded worship for idols. And two thousand years later, we're still tempted to make the exact same exchange.

I think that's why this passage feels so personal. Every one of us knows what it's like to chase something that promised more than it delivered. Every one of us knows what it's like to believe that if we could just get the relationship, the promotion, the recognition, the success, the comfort, or the experience, then we'd finally be satisfied. Yet the human heart keeps discovering the same reality: created things make terrible gods. They were never designed to carry the weight of our identity, our purpose, or our worship. The good news of the Gospel is that God has not left us trapped in our exchanges. Through Jesus, He invites us back to the One we were created for. The truth we've been trading away is the very truth that can finally set us free.

Walking Points:

Think of the Unbeliever: If you're not following Jesus, the cost of continuing down your current path is far greater than you realize. Every idol eventually overpromises and underdelivers. Every substitute savior eventually disappoints. The danger isn't merely that you'll waste a few years chasing the wrong things. The danger is that you'll spend your life looking for meaning, purpose, forgiveness, and peace in places that can never provide them. But if you'll turn to Christ, you'll discover the One your heart has been searching for all along. You don't need a better idol. You need a Savior.

Think of the Lukewarm Believer: For some of us, the issue isn't that we've rejected God. It's that we've slowly replaced Him. We still attend church. We still know the songs. We still know the language of faith. Yet somewhere along the way, other things have quietly climbed onto the throne of our hearts. The cost of remaining there is spiritual drift. Worship becomes routine. Gratitude disappears. Joy fades. Conviction weakens. The invitation today is not condemnation but repentance. God is calling you back to first love. Back to wholehearted worship. Back to the place where He belongs.

Think of the Spirit-Filled Believer: If you're walking closely with Jesus, let this passage remind you that the world doesn't primarily need better arguments. It needs better worshippers. People are surrounded by broken cisterns that cannot satisfy. They're exhausted from chasing things that continually leave them empty. You have the privilege of pointing them toward living water. As you leave today, ask God to help you identify the idols competing for people's hearts and lovingly point them toward the only One who never disappoints. The world is full of people making bad exchanges. You know the One who offers a better way.

Invitation:

If you want to make a decision to follow Jesus. Then join me and everyone else in the building as we pray out loud together. It’s not the prayer that saves you, but your faith, making Jesus Lord of your life. We don’t let anyone go on the journey alone. If you have faith in Jesus, then let’s join together as we pray…

Prayer of Salvation:

Jesus, I acknowledge that I need you

I confess that I have sinned against you

I believe that God raised you from the dead

And right now, by faith, I say “Jesus is Lord”

Thank you for forgiving me

By your grace I am saved

And by your power I am set free