Romans Chapter 1 (part 9)

If this is your first time receiving Covered in His Dust, welcome.

I’d love to hear where you’re reading from. Just reply and let me know.

Before diving into my notes, I encourage you to read Chapter 1 first. Specifically verses 19-21.

I’ve included all the Scripture below, but there’s something different about sitting with the whole chapter first and letting yourself slow down. Let your mind wander a bit. Let yourself be curious.

What catches you off guard?
What doesn't make sense?
Where is that?
Who's that?
Why?

Those questions will make everything that follows land in a deeper place.

"When disciples followed a rabbi, they followed him closely so they would never be out of his sight, never be someplace where they couldn’t hear him speak. They followed him so closely that his sandals often kicked up dust."

May you be covered in His dust.

Good morning Saints! ☀️

Before we keep moving through Romans, we need to remember the ground Paul’s already covered. He didn’t stroll into this letter. He arrived carrying something heavy and alive in his hands.

A servant.
Called.
Set apart.
A man who aches to get to Rome because of one thing.

The gospel.

A promise spoken long before Paul ever breathed his first breath.

A Messiah who came.
Who lived.
Who died.
Who rose.

Witnesses saw Him.
Paul saw Him.

And then Paul gives us the line that sits over the whole letter like thunder:

I’m not ashamed of the gospel.

Why?
Because this news isn’t up for debate.
It’s not inspiration.
It’s not spiritual caffeine.

It’s power.
The power of God to save anyone who believes.

Then verse 17 lifts us up to the ridge line.
The righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.
A gift no human could ever earn.
The only way someone like me or you could stand clean before a holy God.

But once you step past verse 17?

The climb ends.
The descent begins.

Verse 18 pulls us straight into the valley.
The deep scan.
The part of the exam no patient wants.
The moment the Doctor looks up from the image and says the words nobody wants to hear.

God’s wrath.

Not later.
Now.
Not distant.
Present.
Active in a world cracking under the weight of its own rebellion.

Romans 1:18 to 3:20 is Paul telling the truth about the human heart. Not to shame us. To save us.
To make sure we understand why the cure in verses 16 and 17 is the only cure there is.

If verse 17 showed us the gift, verse 18 shows us why we need it.

They don’t reject God because they can’t see Him.
They reject Him because they love something else more than Him.
It’s misplaced desire. Desire aimed at self. Desire guarding sin.

Creation screams His name.
Our hearts know He’s real.
Our lives carry His fingerprints.

And still… we push Him away.

This is where Paul shows us why the whole world is guilty.
Where he shines the light on something none of us want to admit.

We knew Him… but we didn’t want Him.

Let’s slow down and let Paul speak.

Romans 1:18 isn’t saying God is pouring out His wrath on everyone.
Paul’s being precise.

It’s against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth.

Meaning:

It’s aimed at a certain posture.
A certain resistance.
A certain heart.

He’s describing people who see enough of God to be accountable… but press the truth down anyway.

They don’t want Him.

They don’t honor Him, they don’t thank Him, and then they trade Him for lesser gods.

That’s who’s under wrath in verse 18.

For the unbeliever: wrath is revealed.
For the believer: wrath is removed.

And that raises the question we all feel when we read verse 18.

What about the people who have never heard?
What about the ones without a Bible?
Without a preacher?
Without a missionary?

It’s one of the most common questions Christians get asked, and it’s a fair one.

And Paul answers it before we can even finish forming it.

Do you feel the weight of that?

Verse 19 is Paul saying, “You’re asking the wrong question.”

Not… What about the people who never heard?
But… What did they do with the light they already had?

Paul isn’t talking about saving knowledge here.
He’s talking about real knowledge.
The kind every human being carries in their bones.
The kind creation shouts every time the sun rises or the ocean breathes or a newborn arrives trembling and alive.

God made Himself knowable.
Not fully.
Not intimately.
But clearly.

Enough to reveal His existence.

That’s why verse 18 leads straight into verse 19.
Wrath isn’t poured out on people who never had a chance.
It’s poured out on people who took the chance they had,
and buried it.

This is where the scan goes deeper.
This is where Paul starts tracing the shadow on the image back to its source.

I’ve read this chapter a hundred times, but this time, verse 20 felt different.

It felt like God leaned in and said, “Pay attention to this.”

He says God has invisible attributes… and yet we see them.

Think about that for a second.
How do you see what can’t be seen?
How do you look at a physical world and somehow walk away knowing the character of a God your eyes have never touched?

But Paul’s not confused.
He’s telling us something we all know deep down.

His invisible attributes.
The things about God that won’t show up under a microscope or in a telescope.
The things you can’t hold in your hands.
And somehow those very things are right in front of us every day.

His eternal power.

Just step outside for a minute.
Look at a volcano.
Look at the ocean when a storm is building.
Look at the Milky Way on a night where the stars don’t hide behind city lights.
Watch a hurricane forming a thousand miles away and somehow pulling an entire coastline into fear.
Watch a baby’s chest rise and fall with a breath that no human taught them to take.

Power like that doesn’t stumble in by accident.
It doesn’t evolve out of dust and luck.
It doesn’t build itself, sustain itself, or explain itself.
Everything around us is humming with the strength of Someone who’s been here…
forever.

His divine nature.

The world feels personal, doesn’t it?
Not random.
Not chaotic.
Not directionless.

You watch seasons shift without your permission and you start to realize there’s a mind behind it. You watch order hold the universe together and you know in your bones this didn’t come from blind chance or cosmic dice rolls.

Nothing in creation points to human greatness.
Everything in creation points to God.

And here’s where Paul takes away every excuse…

Ever since the creation of the world, God has been showing Himself… in the things that have been made.

That word “made” is poiēma, the root of our word poem.

A poem doesn’t appear out of nowhere.
A poem tells you something about the poet.
A poem has structure and intention woven into every line.
A poem isn’t a mistake.
It’s a message.

Creation is God’s poiēma.

His workmanship.
His craft.
His art.

When you look at the world, you’re not staring into emptiness.
You’re reading a poem written in mountains and oceans and blood cells and galaxies and sunsets and the way your lungs fill with air every morning without you reminding them how.

You can ignore the poem if you want.
You can pretend it’s not saying anything.
But you can’t honestly say it isn’t there.

And that’s why Paul ends the verse with a sentence that hits like a verdict:

“So they are without excuse.”

Not because they knew the gospel.
Not because they grew up in church.
Not because they had a Bible on their shelf.

But because the world itself is enough to show you that you didn’t create yourself, that you’re not the center of the story, and that Someone infinitely powerful and infinitely divine stands behind everything you see.

Creation holds out the evidence.
The heart pushes it down.

So much is happening in that one verse.

It’s like Paul pulls you into the operating room and quietly says, “Watch this,” and there, with the heart wide open, you see it responding to God… alive, aware, beating… and then tightening, shrinking, and turning away.

They knew God.
Which means this isn’t ignorance and it isn’t confusion.
It’s recognition without surrender.
Truth without obedience.
A heart seeing clearly and choosing not to care.

They didn’t honor Him as God.

And the way Paul writes it is almost eerie.

They didn’t shake their fists.
They didn’t scream into the sky.
They didn’t build idols or write manifestos.

They just refused.

Refused to give Him the place that already belonged to Him.
Refused to bow.
Refused to say, “You’re the center. I’m not.”

It’s quiet rebellion.

The kind that hides behind normal life.
The kind that feels harmless.
The kind that rots a soul from the inside out.

Because when a heart won’t honor God, it will honor something else.

And that’s where the spiral begins.

And right here Paul names the quietest rebellion of all.

They didn’t give thanks.

It hits harder than we think because gratitude is the simplest form of worship. It is the heart saying, “I’m not self made.”
Every breath.
Every sunrise.
Every heartbeat.
Everything in your life that isn’t judgment is mercy.

But when a heart doesn’t want God, even gratitude feels like surrender.
Thanking Him means admitting dependence.
And most people would rather break themselves than bow.

And Paul shows you exactly where that road leads.

“They became futile in their thinking.”

It’s like Paul lets you watch the mind come apart in slow motion. Just drifting… like a boat whose anchor slipped into the water without anyone noticing.

At first everything looks normal.

But something’s wrong.

You see it everywhere once you know what you’re looking at.
Brilliant people missing the most obvious thing in the room because the heart already said no.

And the world around them keeps telling the truth they refuse to hear.

Rain waking dead soil.
A newborn pulling in a breath no human taught it to take.
Sunlight showing up on schedule every single day.

Creation is standing there like a witness who refuses to lie.
The courtroom is silent.
Every piece of evidence sits on the table.

The fingerprints are everywhere.

Then you hear it.

Not a shout.
A whisper.

“I’m
right
here.”

And still… the mind drifts.
Not because it can’t think.
But because it doesn’t want the One holding the truth together.

That’s the tragedy Paul’s showing us.

“And their foolish hearts were darkened.”

Jesus is the Light.
The only Light.
He’s the reason any heart can see at all.

But when someone keeps pushing Him away, God does not chain them to the Light.
He lets go.

He lets go because He will not drag a soul that keeps ripping its hand out of His.

You want life on your terms?
Fine.
Take it.

But understand the trade.

God stops blocking the darkness you never realized was stalking you.
He lets it step inside.
And it starts turning you into the person your sin always wanted.

A heart without Christ never becomes neutral.
It becomes prey.

God will not break into a soul that keeps dead-bolting the door.
He’ll honor the lock.
He’ll honor the rejection.

And the person who demanded “freedom” eventually wakes up and realizes they weren’t freed at all.

They were handed over to what they worshiped.

This is where judgment begins.
Not with fire.
With God letting go.

And then you hear the sound no one forgets.

The sound of God stepping aside, and the darkness pouring into the space where His voice used to be.

A heart without Christ is like a room without windows.
If the Light doesn’t enter, it doesn’t brighten.
It stays dark.

Not someday.
Not eventually.

Right now.

The moment He steps back, the lights go out.

This is the tragedy Paul wants us to see.

Most people hear “God’s wrath” and picture explosions, lightning, plagues, something cinematic. But read the text again.

They became futile in their thinking.
Their foolish hearts were darkened.

That’s wrath too.

Not the final wrath of judgment but the present wrath of God handing the human heart the keys to its own prison and watching it lock itself inside.

Wrath isn’t always God striking someone down.
Sometimes wrath is quieter.
Sometimes wrath is God letting someone walk away.

This is the form of wrath already at work in the world.
The kind that hides in the thoughts no one sees.
The cravings no one questions.
The idols people polish while insisting they’re free.

Paul isn’t describing ancient history.
He’s describing the street outside your house.

We
see
it
every
single
day.

People brilliant in everything except the only thing that matters.
People proud of being enlightened while their hearts grow darker by the hour.

This is wrath revealed.
And it’s meant to shake us awake.

No Jesus, no light.

And before we close, hear this clearly.

Paul’s not describing Christians who stumble and repent. He’s not talking about believers fighting their sin.

He’s talking about the person who knows there’s a God and still says, “Not You.”
He’s talking about the one who breathes His air and refuses to bow.
He’s talking about the heart that rejects the Light on purpose.

That’s the heart under wrath in this passage.

But don’t tune it out like it’s someone else’s story. Every believer is capable of feeling the drift, the pull, the temptation to trade God for something smaller. We’re rescued from wrath… but we still need the warning.

Because next Paul exposes the great trade every unbelieving heart makes.

The glory of God traded for the imitation of a god.

It’s not just sad.
It’s terrifying.
And it explains everything happening in the world right now.

Next week… we walk into verse 22.

I love you,

George
Uncovering Scripture

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George Sisneros is a full-time missionary in Guatemala and the founder of Ordinary Missionaries and the El Rosario Christian Academy for Boys.

He’s been married to his wife, Vonda, for 27 years. He’s a father to nine children, five adopted.

In 2024, George and his wife expanded to Cuba, joining forces with nine pastors committed to transforming lives through the gospel.

You can get George’s newest digital book, Uncovering Scripture: The Gospel of Luke HERE.