Romans 1:24-32
Sin may be fun, but watching it is excruciating. Vince Gilligan created a show in 2008 called Breaking Bad. In that show, a mild-mannered chemistry teacher slips into villainy to make sure his family was taken care of after his expected death due to cancer. It began quirky and funny, but as the show progressed, darkness reigned as Walter got deeper and deeper into the world of crystal meth. By the end, it was really, really ugly. This is what happens when desire is perverted.
What you desire is what you get. If God is not your focus, then something else will be. Since God is the only Creator, that means, if your desire isn’t God, then it is something He made, part of creation. Last week, we warned that those desires would take you down a dark path. This week, we will look at that path’s endpoint, and much like Walter White, it gets ugly.
Worshipping Creation Perverts a Good Thing (v24-25)
Scripture is definitively clear that God is the Creator who made everything. Everything we see, we have, we need, we use is created by Him. Like the Rend Co song: Apple juice, sunflowers, penguins, and rhinos. Pineapples, Jupiter, elbows, and geckos…to name a few. These are all great things! All great and healthy in their place. However, if God is not our chief desire, then some aspect of creation takes over. Greed, pride, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth are all ways of desiring the creation over the Creator.
These are perversions. Good in their proper place, but when they become the chief desire, they become twisted (a drink is fine, but getting drunk is bad; sex is good, but outside of God’s boundary of marriage is bad). When creation takes over as our object of worship, its rightful role in our lives becomes automatically perverted. Once that happens, whatever it is becomes bad. And bad things become a difficult trap to escape.
Perverted Desire is Highly Addictive (v26-27)
Preservatives are an interesting part of our lives today. Food wasn’t meant to sit in our pantries for a month, but we didn’t want to go shopping every day, so we created preservatives. Coffee doesn’t work fast enough, so we created caffeine pills. Technology has developed many modern marvels for us, all in an effort so that we can work easier and more efficiently, yet it also makes us move a lot less. These are what the post-war boon gave us! Since WW2 American innovation has been all about turning the vegetable garden into McDonald’s. While all are tasty, good, and give us that kick, those are perversions of what it should be. There’s a reason cancer has become so prevalent so fast. Perversion of desire takes healthy and makes it unhealthy, and those preservatives are what’s killing us. But we won’t stop consuming!
We don’t stop because we’ve become addicted to the unhealthy. And in truth, we’re even ok with the cancer. Notice the research that’s going into treating cancer vs preventing it. Tobacco is a huge carcinogen and yet it is still a growth industry! Did you know cigarettes are a $300M industry in US (www.statista.com)?
Evil’s Proof is in the Pudding (v28-32)
We know, but we don’t care. This is the trapping of sin. It’s desire placed in the wrong priority. Christian author James Bryan Smith talked about a man he knew. James met Ben at age 75. A filthy rich success story from wall street, he had gotten everything and was living in hell, abandoned by everyone he loved. He was angry and alone. Many people become just like Walter White, so sunken into their own sin that they can’t see or want anything else. They ultimately double-down on their own sin and die reveling in, even celebrating the sin of others. This was Ben.
Whether it’s the pride movement, or the pro-choice crowd, or even social media where people glorify their sin and encourage others to try it, this reveling is obvious; and ugly. Breaking Bad became ugly and very difficult to watch. Ben’s life had become ugly–after losing his wife to affairs and his daughter to hatred, no amount of money he had sitting in the bank could console him. He would never spend it all and he hated it for that fact. But Ben realized he was trapped and opened his heart to Jesus. Don’t be a story of a ruined life (don’t be a Walter White), be a Ben. Break FREE in Christ.
Next Steps
What you desire most is the reward you will get. If that desire is a part of creation, sin is your master. Make sure your desire is for God alone and above all else. Jesus is the answer to fulfillment and joy above all else!
- Accept God’s gift of freedom/salvation through Christ.
- Work daily to give Christ your attention and desire.
- Seek the abundant life through Spiritual disciplines (we will explore this next).
Jesus came to give us life to its fullest. Sitting alone, wrapped in sin and trapped in your own anger, mistrust, or greed isn’t abundant or fulfilling. Give your life to Christ and experience the ultimate in true living!
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