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Romans chapter 5.
Let me just ask this question
before we read this particular passage,
have you ever read a passage of scripture, and
after reading it, just kind of stepped back
scratched your head, and thought, "that just doesn't seem
"fair. Just doesn't seem right."
Maybe you've done that with some
of the Old Testament passages where you see God saying,
you know, 'kill 'em all'. And you think, that's just not fair,
that's just not right.
But we're saying that based on our human perspective.
Based on what seems fair and right to us.
We kinda miss what's fair and right as far as God is concerned.
We try to bring it down to our level.
Well, Romans 5: 12 through 26
I think is one of those passages.
You read through and you ask the question,
"Is this really fair?"
How this has worked out? Well, let's jump in and read.
I'm just going to read this for us this morning,
"Therefore, just as sin
"entered the world through one man, and death through
"through sin, and in this way death came to all people,
"because all sinned." To be sure
"sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin
"is not charged anyone's account, because there is no law.
"Nevertheless, death reigned
"From the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even
"over those who did no sin by breaking a command, as did Adam,
"who is a pattern of the one to come.
"But the gift is not like the trespass.
"For if the many died by the trespass of the one man,
"how much more did God's grace and the gift that came
"by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow
"to the man! Nor can the gift of God be compared with the
"result of one man's sin: The judgment
"followed one sin and brought condemnation,
"but the gift followed many trespasses
"and brought justification. For if
"by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one
"one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant
"provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign
"in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!
"Consequently, just as one trespass resulted
"in condemnation for all people,
"so also one righteous act
"resulted in justification and life for all people.
"For just as through the disobedience of the one man
"the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience
"of the one man the many will be made righteous.
"The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase.
"But where sin increased, grace increased
"all the more, so that just as sin reigned in death,
"so also grace might reign
"through righteousness to bring eternal life through
"Jesus Christ our Lord."
Theologians look at this and say, "this may be one of the most
"difficult passages to fully comprehend that there is
in the entire word of God."
So, we're wrestling, tackling with some very difficult
concepts here. But I think if we
extract just a few, this passage
really will start taking shape in our minds
as to what it truly means. So, are you ready
to dive in? I've called this, a "Two
'Two Act Play" When you look at
Romans chapter 5, verses 12 through
21, you see two acts.
It is a two act play.
Now we're not going to have an intermission between the acts, we're just going to
move right through. okay?
So this is a two act play.
Act 1 called, "The Trespass"
First act in this play
is the trespass. It is
one act of disobedience
performed by one person.
One act of disobedience performed by one person.
The first person. His name was Adam.
So, first act in this
play is the trespass, it's one act of disobedience.
Now, in verse 18, it says,
"Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation,
"for all men."
One act of disobedience
with profound implications for all.
Adam's sin and his sin
led to what, according to that verse right there?
Condemnation...for who?
For all of us!
So you mean to tell me, that Adam's
sin brought me under condemnation?
Why in the world
am I being judged for what Adam did?
Why are you being judged
for what Adam did? Is that fair?
Why didn't I get my
chance to not eat of the fruit
tree of good and evil? Boy, I know
I would've done it differently.
Right? Aren't you thinking
the same thing? Oh, I
would never sin like Adam! Really?
What makes you think that?
I mean Adam just
think about the Garden.
Think about the wonder of that place, and think
about the opportunity to walk with God
early in the morning and commune with God, and communicate
with God, and to be loved by God in such an intimate
personal way. I mean think
about that, and then to have a soul mate with you that
you could enjoy that fellowship and relationship with God
together with.
Then to have everything that you need right there,
given to you; provided for you.
Dominion over the animal kingdom, where
there was total harmony within God's creation.
That was what Adam had.
That's what he enjoyed.
He had never known sin, never known
what evil was. He didn't know any of that.
Yet, when it knocked on his door,
guess what? He ate of the fruit
of the tree of knowledge
of good and evil. So, if he did that,
what makes us think we wouldn't make the same
choice? We're just like Adam.
I mean, we're human just like he was.
We were created to live in dependence just like he was,
We would have made the same choice.
So, it may not seem fair,
but it's actually fair, isn't it?
What does he say?
"Therefore, just as sin entered the world through
"one man, and death through sin,
Again, this just doesn't seem fair.
It just entered through one man,
sin came into through that one man,
and sin, and in this way, death came to all men.
Not only were we condemned, we're condemned to death!
Death came to us.
Then he says, 'because all have sinned"
Adam sinned. Guess what?
I sinned. Guess what?
You've sinned.
Part of being human.
When Adam fell, all of humanity fell.
The change that took place in Adam,
was passed on to every
single person. Just as he
became a sinner by nature, so too,
are we sinners by nature.
We were bound up in Adam, and whatever happened with Adam,
happened with us as well. That's just the way
God set it up. That's the way it works.
So, what we have
as individuals is a just wage.
We're not being treated unfairly
by God. Why? Because just as Adam sinned,
we've sinned. So all of those things
that apply to Adam,
apply to us. Just the way it is.
So, what we have is just
and fair, and right.
You want to go into God's court and plead your
case? You're going to walk away from
God's court with the same thing that
Adam had. He'll look at you and say,
"I'm not going to judge you on Adam's sin.
"Let's look at your life. Let's look to see
"how well you've done," And what's going
to come forth. Four things:
Here are the 4 things:
Under this reign of death that Adam
brought in. First: sin.
you go into the court,
God's court, first thing that's going to be
exposed, the first thing that's going to be revealed,
and this is if you're pleading your case.
If you're trying to make a case that
you're not like Adam, that you're different,
the first thing that's going to come out is your
sin. Not only the sins;
the actions, but 'the' sin
of unbelief in Jesus Christ. It's going to come out
It's going to be revealed, it's going to be laid
right there on the table for you to see.
Maybe you're blind to it.
But right there, it's going to come out.
You're going to see it for what it is. So, sin.
Now let's think about this just for a few minutes.
What is the good news? I'm going to sum it up in
3 words: God loves you.
That's good news, isn't it?
Now, how many of you learned
that good news when you were
in elementary school, kindergarten,
maybe even before that?
All of us? How many of you sang the song, "Jesus loves me, this I know
"for the Bible tells me so" We learned that
didn't we? That may have been the first song that we
actually learned to sing. Mom and Dad said, "You know, go sing
"that for...you know... your aunts and uncles," and all of that.
It's the first thing that we learn.
We believed it.
Didn't know really what it meant, but it was kind of nice to know
as a kid that God loves me, that Jesus loves me.
But, then we go to first grade,
and little Johnny tries to take my lunch.
And I get mad at little Johnny
and we get into a fight.
Sin.
I start wondering. I learned
that God loves me.
Jesus loves me this I know,
for the Bible tells me so. But is that
true, even when sins...
sin exists in me?
Is that true? We start to wonder.
Then we get a little older, and
there are more things that cross our paths,
more temptations,
believe what kids are exposed to today?
I mean, just watching television! Prime time television.
But, it's there.
And we respond to it,
we have flesh. Flesh has desires;
flesh wants to gratify those desires,
and we see those temptations and
it's kind of an opportunity. So we submit to
the desires of the flesh, then we see
some of the gross consequences of it, and we think,
"Gosh, I know I learned God loves me, I know
"I learned that Jesus loves me. We sang it, would love to sing it
"again today, but I don't know if that's true with
"my continual giving in to
"the desires of the flesh."
So we learned that we're sinners.
Even when we try to do good,
we learn that there's no good coming out of us.
So, we just conclude that we're sinners.
So sin is the first thing
that we see.
Well, what comes with sin?
Well there's a judgment that called it what it is.
You know we try to call sin anything else
but sin. Have you heard this one: "I just made a mistake"
Really?
A mistake is when you put a period
when it should have been a comma. I mean, that's a mistake.
Or, you wrote on your check, and
you just got the wrong number on the check. I mean that
may...that's a mistake. But sin is something different.
from that. There's a judgment that
says, 'this is what sin is,"
Paul said you know, where there's no
law, sin was in the world before the law
was given, but sin is not charged against anyone's account
where there is no law. So there was this law in the garden,
God said to Adam and Eve,
"Do not eat "of this tree,"
Now, as far as we know, there was no other law after that,
until Moses and the Ten Commandments.
But, sin was still in the world.
And death reigned from the time of Adam,
to the time of Moses. Why?
Because we were all by nature, sinners.
God brought the flood, why?
Because the heart, the intent of the heart of man was evil.
Always.
Sin reigned, death reigned.
But how are we going to know what it is
unless it's defined for us?
So there has to be something that tells us
what sin is.
That's the law. The law defines it.
Starts with commandment number 1.
"have no other gods before me"
Kind of a heart issue, isn't it?
So it shows us that sin begins in the heart.
Underscore that with the tenth: Don't covet.
It's a heart issue, isn't it.
But when we have other gods before us,
when we covet what others have,
then we're going to engage in all of the acts of sin .
So, what the commandment did
was simply bring a judgment
It said, "This is what sin is,"
I mean, you buy a Ferrari, you buy a Porsche,
you buy one of those cars, and boy they're built for speed, aren't they?
They're not built to go 55 MPH.
on a high way. They were built for
something else. If you're a Ferrari,
you're just out doing what
your maker designed
you to do, and that's to drive fast
and give the driver the thrill of his life.
Right?
Going down,
and there's this sign: 55.
Hold up, Trigger, wait a minute!
I'm supposed to be going 55,
why? Because it might be dangerous.
I might put others in harm or jeopardy,
if I go faster.
Wait a minute, I'm built to go fast!
I'm a sinner by nature, I'm built
to sin! At least, Adam made it so.
So, a lot of times
we just do what's natural to us,
and we don't think any
thing of it. Until we see the law that judges that act
for what it is, and calls it sin.
So there's this judgment.
Well, sin has to have punishment
that comes with it,
and so there's this condemnation.
We've been judged to have committed sin,
we've been judged guilty, and now we're condemned.
We're under the condemnation of the law of sin and death.
That's us.
What is that? Death.
What is the condemnation
of sin? Death. What is the
wages of sin? Death.
So, if we've sinned,
what is our just reward?
Death. Is that
a fair wage, as far as God is concerned?
This guy that went in and shot the kids
in Newtown. The law
is judging that as an act of violence,
there's going to be evidence presented,
there's going to be a condemnation,
and then there's going to be a penalty.
Is that penalty going to be just,
based on the crime?
We don't know, but we hope so.
Then there's going to be the execution
of that penalty. Whatever it is, life in prison,
death, that's what the law
is going to say, and we all stand back
and we look at that, and say, 'That guy got his
"just rewards." That's the way
wage for his decision to act
out the sinful desires of his heart.
That's it... that's it.
Those Nazis were
brought to trial years and years after the
atrocities of World War II, and they
were given just punishment.
World looked at that and said, "we're glad"
Why? Because it seemed fair and right.
So, all of us, stand dead as a just position.
We earned it. We earned it.
Really?
Seems a little bleak, doesn't it?
You ever heard somebody say,
"I just feel dead inside"?
Ever talked to somebody that said that and just feel
dead inside? Guess what?
They are dead inside.
That's who they are.
So, sin, judgment, condemnation, death.
In Adam, there is no spiritual
life for man. He lost
it, we never had it.
So what's our condition? Dead.
Dead spiritually.
That's the first act.
It ends on a pretty dark
bleak note, doesn't it?
There is absolutely no hope for us
escaping act 1.
If Adam lost life,
there is no possible way for us to
gain it back through our efforts. Why?
Because we're dead.
At our very core is
sin, and whatever is going to flow from us,
is going to be more sin, more
judgment, more condemnation.
The hole gets deeper and deeper and deeper.
But that's act 1.
Trespass. What's act 2?
The gift. The gift.
What is this gift? It's based on 1
act of righteousness. There was one act
of disobedience, Adam did that.
His act of disobedience thrust the entire
world into the realm of death, and all of
us can say, "we were dead spiritually"
Dead in trespasses and sin.
But now, there's another
act. One act of righteousness.
So one act of righteousness leads to justification
and life for all men.
So who performed
this one act of righteousness?
Jesus did. When does this one act lead to?
Justification and life for
all men. Is that fair?
I mean, is that fair? Does that kind of
insult our human sensibilities, our
pride? Wait a minute, I worked harder than that guy!
I mean, I went to church 3 times a week, and he's only going 1
once. I mean, and you guys here could say,
"You know, at least we get up out of bed, and get dressed,
"and come to church. What about the Jammie Church people
just sittin' there drinking coffee!" No offense Jammie Church guys
So we should get more than they get.
That's how our minds work. That's why
this grace of God is so hard for us to grasp.
Because it truly is a gift.
It's not something we can earn,
sin has thrust us into that realm where earning
is the only way. We have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps
We have to do it.
But we can't. We can't.
If we're going to be made right, if we're
going to go from death to life,
somebody else had to act on our behalf.
Once that act was done and finished,
then this gift would flow from that. The gift
of God's grace flows from the work of Jesus Christ on
our behalf; that one act of righteousness.
Which leads to justification, the gift of grace,
and life. Gift of life for all
men. So let's look at these two.
The gift and the trespass. Well, they are different.
Night and Day difference, aren't they?
One brought sin, judgment, condemnation and death.
The other brought justification and life.
Adam's act of disobedience
brought sin, judgment, condemnation and death to all,
Jesus' act of righteousness brought justification
and life. One is based on law,
the other is based on grace.
The rewards of that act of disobedience
are the rewards of law. That's what law
brings into play.
Justification and life, based on grace.
We don't deserve either one.
I don't deserve to be made right with God.
I don't deserve to have my sins
forgiven through the blood of Jesus.
I don't deserve to be made alive
just as Christ was made alive through His resurrection.
I don't deserve any of that. My just reward
is sin, judgment, condemnation and death.
But the gift of grace is something different.
One is earned,
the other is received.
This gift of grace
is a gift that's offered in Christ
and received by faith, by us.
That's what it is and it's
this gift that keeps on giving
as far as we're concerned. It's not a one
and done thing; we open it up, you know, unwrap
the paper, and throw that aside,
and dig into the box, and there it
is, and now we're waiting for another gift.
The gift of grace is it. It's eternal.
That's where we live today. We once lived in the
realm of sin and death.
We were under death's reign. But today in Christ, we're in grace.
We're reigning in life.
I love how verse 17 says, "For if by trespasses
"of the one man, death reigned
through that one man,
how much more will those
"who receive God's abundant provision of grace
"and of the gift of righteousness,
reign in life through the one man
"Jesus Christ. " Have you received
God's abundant provision of grace?
It's been offered. What is it?
Forgiveness, righteousness,
life. Have you received it?
If so, you are
going to reign in life through the one man
Jesus Christ.
Taken out of the realm of darkness, the reign of death.
You've been transferred into a new kingdom.
The kingdom of life.
Why? That's what you've received in Christ. Life.
You, who were dead, spiritually,
dead in sin, have been made alive together with Jesus.
So we have this reign of grace.
Now the law came into increase the trespass.
Doesn't make sense either, does it?
Wasn't there enough sin in the world already?
Why did we need more?
I think there's a couple of ways to look at that,
You know, when
I'm trying to produce righteous works through obedience
to the law, so I want to
clean up my act. You know, I'm--
my language is bad, I want to clean that up,
I want to get that better.
My attitude is bad, I need to get those better,
I'm just this you know, ignited stick of dynamite,
as far as my anger is concerned, I'm going to explode at any
minute and boy, I just need to get all that taken care of. So I'm
going to work hard to clean myself up.
When we start walking down that path,
we see that those sins that we're trying to control,
seem to expand, to get more intense, to
get more frequent. That's just the nature
of us trying through human effort, to make
ourselves holy and right. We just can't do it.
So, there's that aspect of it. But we also see
sin, I think in deeper levels.
We see the nature of sin as to what it truly is.
It's not just a mistake, it's not just
this act over here; it had a root cause.
That root cause brought
action and then those actions
brought consequences,
that hurt or harmed others.
I think we see it for what it really is.
So, the law was brought in
so the trespass might increase,
but where sin increased,
grace increased all the more.
I mean, we don't want to see ourselves as really bad.
We're afraid of that, aren't we?
We don't want to communicate what's really going on
inside of us to one another.
Why? Because that would be really bad.
But when we see that it's okay in light of God's grace.
God's grace becomes even more.
It increases
so that just as sin reigned in death so
also grace might reign through righteousness to bring
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
What's this reign of grace? It's a reign
that makes us right, it's a reign that makes
us alive. That was our need.
Sinners, by nature.
Separated from God. Not
right in his sight. Dead spiritually.
But then one man
acted on our behalf. His name
is Jesus. From that act,
flows this gift of grace that makes us right,
in the sight of God, and makes us alive together
with Him. That's good news, isn't it?
Well, let's pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, we
thank you for the reign of Grace.
It's not something that we could have brought
into being. We were trapped.
We were lost, we were dead.
There's nothing that we could do, so you acted
on our behalf, you
reversed all that Adam
thrust upon us. So that we could once again
be made right in your sight.
and could experience life.
Life that's abundant and free.
We thank you for this gift.
There may be some here,
or some listening who've never received.
Your abundant provision of grace.
if that's the case, I hope that today's the day
grace will enter in and that person
will be made alive together with Christ, through
your work Lord. We trust you to do so.
Maybe others here that have
never truly understood their condition,
yes, they've come to Christ
they've been made alive, they've received His grace, but
grace is just a word, just a thing, just
something as far as Christian vocabulary
is concerned. Today,
help make grace be everything in their hearts and lives.
so that they can truly reign
with the Lord Jesus Christ, in righteousness, and life.
Thank you that this is all tied to Jesus.
His death, his burial, his resurrection.
The act of righteousness,
that saved us, once and for all. It's in
his matchless name that we pray, amen.