Romans 5:12-21

Hey Y’all, how is it going? Everyone good?

So Y’all ever have a buddy who you don’t want to be the guy in a clutch situation?

When i was in youth group, it was our buddy Ethan, like when we played softball you didn’t want the game to come down to him, or really anything come down to him, he couldn’t handle the pressure. We had bases loaded 2 outs, tied last inning, we need a hit, Ethan who was not a big dude, is thinking grand-slam, when really he should be thinking, linedrive up the middle. What does ethan do? Pops up to the pitcher,

one time we just needed him to lock the door before we left to go dome where, so he runs to lock it, trips falls and shatters the glass. He’s just not that guy. You don’t want him in the clutch with anything.

anyone relate to that?

Thats where we are gonna be tonight, one guy ha ruined everything for us, now what do we do about it? How does this happen, and what is the good news?

So if you have a bible, great, charle,

we are going to be in Romans 5 tonight, 12-21

everyone there?

Let’s pray for our time in the word to night.

pray

Romans 5:12-21

Romans 5:12–21 ESV

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So let’s look at what’s going on here, and, there is a lot going on in this passage, so we may pause some to look at a few things a little more in depth here in there,

SO here is a recap, I know we weren’t together last week in here we had ash Wednesday.

But Paul is writing this letter to the church in Rome. He’s writing this letter for two reasons. The first one is: He is trying to sort out some disagreements and address somethings specific to the church at Rome. Some of these things are, how the law is to be observed? Does the law still apply toady? What does sin have to do with the law?

The other reason is, Paul was going through the redemptive history of the Jewish people.

How the whole story of the Bible is God rescuing and redeeMing His people.

So the Book’s central theme revolves around this idea of God judging and saving His people.

This idea of judgment and salvation is evident in the Cross. So lets think about what that means, lets really think about the cross for a second.

Crucifixion, in Paul’s day had been around for a while.

I looked to see who first came up with crucifixion and it was the Persians. They had been crucifying people for around 500 years before the birth of Christ.

And it was a brutal death, that involves nailing a person on to two pieces of wood. Two big nails in to the hands of a person and one really big nail through the feet. Basically the person would be beaten almost too death, then nailed to this crude looking tree.

BUT even though it had been around for 500 years, it was the Romans who perfected crucifixion. The Romans kind of put this brutal method execution on the map. They made it in to an art form almost.

It’s almost like college football, the north might have invented it, but we took it to new heights here in the south.

Anyways, the Romans did best.

So the church in Paul’s day would not have seen the cross like we do.

They wouldn’t have glossed over the cross like we may sometimes do.

No, they would have seen the cross as this, brutal— hopeless— symbol of death and Roman rule.—

Quick poll, who has a cross related jewelry item on? Necklace?

Do you know how weird that would look to people in Paul’s day?

Honestly if a first century Christian saw us wearing a cross necklace it would be weird for them, it would have been as strange and foreign as a person today wearing an electric chair around their neck.

BUT in this text we see that the Cross is the instrument by which God judged all sin and redeemed all sin through Christ who was Crucified.

God took this symbol of death, this symbol of hopelessness and turned it in to a symbol of salvation. So the people Paul was writing this to would have seen this passage as both horrific and wonderful.

So church, the main theme of this text we are reading today is, WE WERE DEAD IN SIN BECAUSE OF ADAM, BUT MADE ALIVE THROUGH CHRIST ON THE CROSS. This is the big picture of the text, if you don’t remember anything from today, remember that.

So lets look at the first part of this. ALL MEN WERE DEAD IN SIN BECAUSE OF THE DISOBEDIENCE OF ADAM.

Thanks Adam, what a guy...

The text here gives us some information about Adam. Adam was the first man, the first man created by God. And Adam was not given a huge set of laws to follow,— he wasn’t tasked with anything boring,— he got to live in a sweet garden designed by God, and was put in charge of it. He got to name all of the animals,— Adam’s life was fairly simple.

The only rule God gave him was don’t eat the fruit of this one tree.... THAT’S IT.

God literally walked up to Adam and was like

“Hey Adam, so I’ve created this whole garden, pretty awesome right? Yeah, so you can pretty much do what ever you want. The only thing is, and this is my one rule,— and I cannot stress this enough,— you see that tree over there with that fruit on it? Alright, just don’t eat that fruit. Oh, and I’m gonna make you a wife, which you don’t know what that is but you’ll like it. It’s gonna be awesome.”

So naturally... what does Adam do 13 verse later? He eats the fruit! He does the one thing God said not to do. Boom.— This dooms us all!

And just a side bar, Eve always gets the bad rap in the creation story. I’ve heard people say some mean things about Eve because she ate of the fruit first. BUT, look at this passage here in Romans 5, you know what is missing?— EVE,— Eve is missing.

Paul doesn’t say, “Death reigned from Eve to Moses” no, Paul says “death reigned from Adam to Moses.” You know what is interesting about that. When you read the creation account you see that Genesis says, Eve was deceived by the serpent.

BUT ADAM, wasn’t deceived!

He freely chose to do what God said to not do! He knew better, there was no excuse for Adam. He chose to eat of the fruit.

Doomed us all!

This reminds me of when I used to play soccer in high school, and some of you who have played sports at a higher level my share with me in this. My Junior year we had a couple guys who were constantly late to practice, and not like 15-20 minuets late, but usually maybe 5 mins. Doesn’t seem like a big deal. But our coach hated that, we needed to start at 4:00, but we couldn’t do that because people are late.

And you may ask, why does 5 minuets matter? Our coach believed if you have rules you gotta follow them. This was his rule, and he also knew we would practice better if we started as a team on time. BUT, one day, coach had enough. He was fed up. So he told us, at the end of practice that he had a new rule.

Going forward, if any single one of us were late, the whole team would be running sprints for the first hour of practice. So, the next day comes,— and everyone is there,— BUT— naturally, guess what, the same guy who was late the day before, he rolled in to practice about 5 minuets late, he didn’t even have his cleats on, and coach said “alright boys, get on the line.” And we ran sprints for an hour and then did a full two hour practice. And you know what, you may be thinking about this and I was surely thinking this, Why is that fair that I have to run sprints when I wasn’t even late? Good question.

And lets take it one strep further, because I get asked this question a lot too, why is it fair that God condemns people to hell or why does God condemn people to eternally went their sin was not eternal. Well I have two things to say about this, one, lets say I throw a shoe at you, we get in to a fight and I take my shoe off and smack you in the head. What’s going to happen to me? Nothing much. Like I’m probably not getting invited to your birthday. Okay— Well lets say I get mad at the president, and he comes to town and I get mad and smack him upside the head with my shoe. What’s going to happen to me? A whole lot! The secret service is gonna have something to say, they are probably gonna beat me, then I’m gonna go to jail for a while for assault.

Now, lets say we substitute in sin for the shoe, and we sin against a Holy and Eternal God. What’s going to happen then? We are condemned.— The sin may be a finite sin, but it’s not the sin, it is who we are sinning against— who we ultimately sin against when we sin. We are sinning against, is an Eternal,— Holy— God.

Also, we need to read this the way the church at Rome would have read this. The church Paul was writing to would have seen this very differently than we would as 21st century western readers.

When this was written, it was written to a shame/honor based culture. We as westerners live in a innocent/guilt based culture, but the first century readers would have seen this as shame and had no problem with Adam ruining it for the rest of us. Adam brought shame— Adam brought sin in to the world.—

You have shamed the family, you have brought dishonor.

— So back to the text,

Through this one man, Adam, we are all living under the penalty of sin and death. The text says in verse 12, sin came through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.

Now this carries some implications, and some say this sin is a genetic, or a hereditary passing of sin. I don’t believe this is truly what Paul is getting at here.

What the original readers of this letter would have seen here, and what I think Paul is getting at is, through this one man Adam, the gates have been opened...— Sin has entered the world— Sin has invaded the world.—

Much like the Roman army when they sack a city,— Sin and Death have come in. The walls have been breached and now, Sin and Death are reigning.

All men who come after Adam are born under the penalty, because sin has come and seeped into the lives of every man, we all bear the mark,—yes you and I— we— all bear the penalty.

It’s like you are on a boat, and the driver crashes, you are all going in the water, all of you are getting wet, all of you might drown.

But this text comes with some veiled good news.

The text says, Adam was a type of one to come.

So, lets look at this good news. JUSTIFICATION THROUGH FAITH IS THE FREE GIFT OF GOD. The one who was to come is Christ. As sin entered through one man, Justification enters though one man, that man being Christ on the cross.

Verse 16— Christ justified us on the cross.

We didn’t justify ourselves, but Christ did.

You’ve got a huge debt you can’t pay, Christ paid it for you.

You don’t even have to pay him back.

The text goes to say that Justification is a free gift. JUSTIFICATION THROUGH FAITH IS THE FREE GIFT OF GOD.

So, this comes with some implications. First, there is is nothing any of us can do to be justified before God. Nothing.

Christ did the work for us. Our faith in Christ gives access to the Father..... Christ has come and pulled us out of the reign of Sin and has closed the gates on death....

On the cross Jesus died for the many.

Verse 15 here states “much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.” What this tell us is, who so ever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved....

So what this text is saying is, Christ meets us where we are at. He did all of the atoning work on the cross and we now have the free gift of Salvation through the justification on the cross. Through our faith in Christ Crucified we shall be saved.

The text is saying, that Christ is greater. No matter what sin we have committed, no matter the pain we have inflicted, no matter the suffering, no matter how bad we think we have been, Christ is greater. Our sin is great, but our Jesus is Greater.... Our sins they are many, His mercy is more....

Come all who are weary and I will give you rest. Take my burden.

You are struggling with addiction, come give to Him. Homelife isn’t great, come give it to Him. Overwhelmed by life, come give it to him. We are invited in. He is telling us, come on in. You’ve got a past leave it at the door that’s not you any more, you’ve got a right now, leave it at the door I define who you are now.

That’s the good news.

But, you may be asking yourself, okay awesome, but what about this law we have in the Old Testament? What do we do with that? And I would say great question, lets explore. Glad you asked it.

The text says, “Now the law came to increase the trespass.”

Okay, so this sounds a little strange,

why would we need something to make it worse for us, also, didn’t we just see that Christ justified us on the cross? He sure did. So let’s look at the true reason for the law.

The law in the Old Testament was given to the Hebrew people so they would follow it and be saved. BUT What they found out very quickly, was impossible, so they also had a whole sacrificial system set up in place to make up for the sin of breaking the law. So, why give the law? Why give the law if it is impossible to follow?

The law in the BIG PICTURE of scripture was not so the people would be saved by the law, because we see our favorite Old Testament people were saved by their faith in God, Abraham saved by faith.

It was given so that the Law would point us towards the need of a savior.

The law was given like a mirror. It showed that the people were full of sin, and there was nothing they could do, so they needed saving.

Enter Christ dying on the Cross and doing what we could not do.

GRACE ABOUNDED ALL THE MORE. Grace abounds. The text says “as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

This is the good news! We are no longer living under sin and death but under grace.

Not so we can sin all we want, but so we can repent and grow in Christ.

What it means is, If we are saved in Christ Jesus the righteousness given to us by God through Christ will grow us. Our spiritual life will grow as we are being made more like Christ, living under the reign of grace.

So last thing, what does this mean? What does this have to do with us? Well, OUR LIVES SHOULD REFLECT THE FREE GIFT OF Salvation.

OUR LIVES SHOULD REFLECT THE FREE GIFT OF JUSTIFICATION.

We should live as though Grace is abounding. Christ taking our place in the cross and justifying us, gives us access to God. Christ has repaired the relationship that was broken by Adam in the garden, Christ has closed the gates and expelled the rule of Death.

We have now access to God through Christ crucified. And this access we have is not like a servant to his master but as a child to their Father.

This year at Fuge, if you come in to my room and wake me up to tell me you need some water, we are probably going to have a problem.

But Price, when she’s able to, if she comes to my room needing water, she’s got it. I’ll get her a gallon if she wants.

And that is the sort of access we have to God, to the Father. We can come to Him for anything, we can bring our hurts and our pains to Him. He is the great healer and the great comforter. He is God the Father.

He is there with us. In the suffering He is right there with us. Because suffering is going to come.

Psalm 23:4 (ESV)

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

You’re gonna walk through valleys and suffering but you are going to have company.

Christ has made a way for us to have access to the father.

So what do we do with this?

-To the believer in the room today, Christ is calling us to live a life free from guilt, free from shame, free from the reign of sin. Christ is calling us to cling to him. As one author puts it, “relying on God has to begin all over again, everyday, a if nothing had yet been done.” We should run to Christ.

This should lead us from the guilt and shame we may feel when we sin or get caught in a pattern of sin.

Cling to Christ. He is calling you to confession, not as a judge, but as a loving father who already knows what has happened, who already sees your sin and wants to place you at His table anyways.

-To the church, Christ is calling us live in a way which is the fulfillment of the law, to love your neighbor as yourself. Church, we must go from here and be the church.

-To anyone in the room who may not know Christ; who may feel him pulling you toward Him, He is calling you to repent and believe in Him. There is nothing we can do on our own to get to Christ, but only what Christ has done to get to us. There is nothing that has happened in your life that Christ can not overcome. The burden of sin is heavy the burden of sin is wearisome, but Christ is call you saying, come all you weary, come gather round near me, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. Christ has died on the cross for your sin, he was buried and rose again. He is calling you to him. Trust in him and be saved. We were dead in Adam, we were dead in our sin but we have hope and we have life in Christ. Let us pray.

PRAYER: Father, thank you for your word. Allow us to see that Christ has done all the work and paid the penalty for our sins. Lord, let us live a life which runs from shame and guilt, but towards you. Let your will be our will. Give us hearts who follow after you. In your name, so that we know you hear us, amen.