Bible Passage: Romans 1:18-25
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: July 19, 2026

Bulletin – July 19, 2026

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

Have you ever made a bad trade?  Generally when making a trade you want to come out feeling like you got the better end of the deal.  You trade something of lesser value for something you feel has greater value.  The Milwaukee Bucks just traded away the franchise player Giannis Antetokounmpo (and Bobby Portis) to the Miami Heat for four players and five future draft picks.  Both the Bucks and the Heat feel like they got the better end of the trade.  Time will tell if this was a good trade or a bad trade for the Bucks.

Our text today puts before us a bad trade.  It is not debatable if it is a bad trade.  It is not just a little bad.  It is so immense in scale and so huge in significance it can only be called A Cosmically Bad Trade.  Just what is this cosmically bad trade?  It is what much of humanity has done.  Much of humanity has traded away God.

Paul states the nature of this trade in verse 25:  People have traded the truth about God for the lie.  So, there is truth about God all people possess.  What truth about God do all people possess?  Paul says, …what can be known about God is evident among them, because God made it evident among them.  In fact, his invisible characteristics – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, because they are understood from the things he made. (v. 19-20)

Quite simply the existence of God is written all over this created world!  God has left his fingerprints everywhere!  David declared in Psalm 19, The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. (Psalm 19:1)  The theory of evolution does not come naturally to people.  People do not naturally look at a beautiful new home and conclude, “Wow!  Look at the new home that evolved on the end of the street!”  No!  The order and beauty suggest there was a designer and a builder who possess wisdom and skill.  So also a glance at our universe proclaims to people, “There is Designer of all this!  There is a Builder of all this!  He is wise!  He is powerful!  He is different from us!  He is God!”

So obvious is this truth from creation that Paul says, As a result, people are without excuse. (v. 20)  Just think for a moment about the ramifications of this!  There is no excuse for “missing” God in this world!  No one will ever appear before God’s throne and say, “Well, God, I’ve got to be honest with you.  This is a complete surprise!  I had no idea you existed!”  The honest answer, the TRUTH is this, “Yes, God, I knew you were here all along.”

But Paul says people suppress the truth by unrighteousness. (v. 18)  They press that knowledge of God deep down.  They ignore what they know to be true.  They don’t want to be limited by God!  They want to sin!  And sin a bunch!  They don’t want to answer to a God!  They don’t want to be troubled with thoughts of being judged by the Creator!  Secretly, they are afraid of the God they know is out there.  And, double secretly, they hate him.  So some hypocritically claim for themselves the label “atheist.”  A disingenuous title to be sure!  And some make a cosmically bad trade.

Although they claim to be wise, they have become fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human, or like birds, four-footed animals, and crawling things…such people have traded the truth about God for the lie, worshipping and serving the creation rather than the Creator. (v. 22-23, 25)  They trade out God for something a little “less.”  A little less powerful.  A little less holy.  A little less “divine.”  “Let’s give our god a crocodile head and call him Sobek!”  So said the Egyptians.  “Let’s give our god the head of a snake…or a cow…or a rat.”  Imagine, trading the immortal Creator God for a rat.  They have become fools [literally “morons”]. (v. 22)  A cosmically bad trade!  The god of our culture has a different head.  It has the head of George Washington.  The dollar has become god for many.

This bad trade has not gone unnoticed in heaven.  Paul says, God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who try to suppress the truth…(v. 18)  Right now, God’s displeasure over all this is being revealed.  In verse 24 Paul tells us, So, as they followed the sinful desires of their hearts, God handed them over to the impurity of degrading their own bodies among themselves. (v. 24)  God sometimes “hands people over” to their sins.  People who pull away and pull away and pull away from God may experience God saying, “You don’t want me?  You want to act like a moron?  Go for it!”  Men degrade their bodies.  “Degrade.”  Instead of getting an A+, man flunks out.  He gets an “F”.  Failure.  We need not spend too much time thinking about the ways humanity degrades their bodies with one another.

What a messed up world!  And yet God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. (John 3:16)  God loves this world!  And God made a cosmically gracious trade!  He would trade out the world for his only Son.  God did not have billions of crosses put in the ground at Calvary, one for each of us.  He determined there would be just one.  For Jesus.  It was Jesus dying for the sins of us all.  This cosmic transaction on the cross has been described as the “Great Exchange.”  Paul wrote about it to the Corinthians:  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

This is the exchange God did for you.  This is the exchange God made for the entire world.  God still wants to be the God of those who would rather have a pig or rat for their god!  What mercy!  For a world that continues to make a cosmically bad trade there is still this hope:  Jesus Christ and the Great Exchange of the cross!

Amen.