What is Your Problem

Text Facing - Christ died for undeserving sinners to give us eternal life

Audience Facing - Because Christ died for undeserving sinners we can rejoice in secure salvation.

Gospel connection - Our assurance rests not in our worthiness, but in Christ’s death, life, and reigning grace.

Houston we have a problem...

Has anyone ever given you a call and said, so I have a problem but in that sentence even you are very much understating the problem. I have a tendency to be accident prone, orclumsy, I am not sure which. when I was in my early 20’s I was hanging out with some friends playing with a knife I had. The knife blade was about 12 inches long. I was doing foolish things with it, twirling it around (which I do not reccomend). It was all fun and games till the knife slipped somehow and hit my lleg. I thought nothing of it, no pain or anything. I thought I got lucky. I was not quite aware though how bad the problem really was. I felt something warm on my leg and I got scared so I looked and there was blood running down my leg. So I dropped the knife and went and got my friend and said “I think I need to go to the hospital”

At the hospital I found out a few things. The knife went into my leg about 3-4” enough to bend the tip of the blade on something, likely bone. I needed stiches obviously andf I could not walk properly on that leg for a number of weeks. I learned valuable lesson that day, but another thing that I learned was that sometimes you do not know the extent of the problem you have till it is to late, or you spend some time digging into it.

we all have a problem we are all undeserving, we are all lost as we have learned but not without hope.

Christ died for undeserving sinners to give us eternal life

What we are going to see today is the problem we all have and where it traces back to, but more then that we have the undeserving offer of eternal life through the grace of God by the blood of Jesus. This is what we are going to dig into today.

(vv. 6-11) Christ died for undeserving sinners

The first thing we look into is something we looked into last week. Our problem is not the type of sins that we commit or how many sins we commit, but the fact that we are all alientated from God, enemies of God. Because of the sin of one man we are all dead.

Romans 5:6–11 CSB

For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. How much more then, since we have now been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. And not only that, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.

This begins to highlight the problem that we have, Houston we have a problem is a popular saying that fits well.

We were not good people needing a bit of help, we where ungodly we were told. We are sinners, without the strength to help ourselves. I wont get into this to much as we went through it last week already. But what this shows us is that we where the worst of the worst. We were Barabbas, the one that desereved to die and Jesus took his place.

This puts new perspective on Christ dying for the ungodly.

This should affect our worship though. We are or maybe we were the ungodly, with nothing in ourselves worthy of the salvation that is offered in Jesus and He died for us to set us free, if we trust in him in faith. Our response is to be of rejoicing and gratitude that the Lord Jesus would save a wretch like us.

do you feel unworthy?

When we remember that Condemnation comes with our own sin sometimes we feel unworthy or insecure in our salvation. What I am trying to get accross though is that though we may have not been worthy we can be secure. Our former state of sin has been changed and the other half of Paul’s argument is that by grace through face we can rest secure in the promise of God. We may have been unworthy but our salvation is secure.

Apply to non-Christians: Christ came for the weak, ungodly, sinners, and enemies.

(vv. 12-17) Adam brought death, but Christ brings greater grace.

Now we move onto a bit of anthropology, to learn where exactly this all started. We learn that Sin entered the world through one man but eternal life entered the world through someone much greater. We have all become sinners because of one man who started it all. But all is not lost.

Romans 5:12 CSB

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned.

It all starts with Adam. Sin entered the world through Him and death also the consequence of sin.

Mike Winger uses the illustration of a big Car wreck. When you are driving through the city and a car wreck happens, it is not just the people in the cars that deal with it, the after effects of it go to all the people travelling down the same road until such a time as the wreck is cleared up.

Like this the Garden of Eden is like that Big car wreck. We did not cause the wreck, but we are dealing with the consequences of it. Adam and Eve had a choice to make, free will to eat of all the good fruit but one, and they fell to temptation. Because of that we all deal with the consequences, we all sin. We are all under the consequences of deeath because of the choice they made.

But we are not innocent in all of this, it is not like we are the soptless lamb, all cute and innocent, rather we are lost. We do not suffer for their guilt, we suffer for our own guilt. We are under the consequences, and when we first sin we are under our own guilt. Death has spread to us because we have sinned.

Romans 5:13–14 CSB

In fact, sin was in the world before the law, but sin is not charged to a person’s account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam’s transgression. He is a type of the Coming One.

Sin was in the world before the law was. This continues on with the idea that we are all born sin stained and the consequences of that. This is true from the beginning before the law. Death reigned from the beginning even before the law was there to clarify it. Just because there was no law at the time does not mean they could not be penalized for what they had done.

But what does it mean about it not being charged to their account?

They were held guilty for their own sins—the actual wrong thoughts, attitudes, and actions they committed against the moral knowledge God had given them through conscience and creation. The absence of the Mosaic Law meant those sins were not formally “imputed” in the same statutory way, but it did not erase personal moral responsibility or the real consequences (including death) that flowed from Adam’s introduction of sin into the world.

Romans 5:14 CSB

Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam’s transgression. He is a type of the Coming One.

You see that, He is a type. Jesus then Is what you would call the Antitype. The shadow and the reality.

Romans 5:15–17 CSB

But the gift is not like the trespass. For if by the one man’s trespass the many died, how much more have the grace of God and the gift which comes through the grace of the one man Jesus Christ overflowed to the many. And the gift is not like the one man’s sin, because from one sin came the judgment, resulting in condemnation, but from many trespasses came the gift, resulting in justification. If by the one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive the overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

What we see is the contrast between the two and the superiority of Jesus.

We start under the headship of Adam, sin stained and ungodly. Adam’s decision affected all and under that headship we are worthy of death. Death came to all through the one man.

Just as people must “ratify” or appropriate Christ’s work by faith to receive justification, they ratify Adam’s effects through their own sin (once morally accountable). The representative pattern still holds: one man affects many. The type points forward to the greater Head who reverses and far surpasses the damage done by the first.

Do not minimize sin, But also do not minimize Grace

our problem is deeper than individual bad choices; we are under sin and death in Adam.

do not minimize sin we all sin, all sin is bad, we all fall short. but do not minimize grace either. for God’s grace extends to all no matter what they have done. We have a big problem but we have a bigger God.

We go from our unworthyness to the grace of God in spite of it all. That we all start out sin stained and are guilty because of our own sin we move on to a bit of a comparison. The branch of theology that people call this is typology. It is interesting if you ever want to delve into it. Think of it like a shadow. you have the main object, and the shadow of it. Adam was a shadow Jesus was the main thing. You see a version of the object from the shadow, but it only ever points to the main thing.

(vv. 18-21) Life in Christ is eternal

In the last few verses we are brought back to the main argument. Rejoice! for we were once under the headship of sin now we are under the headship of Jesus. We no longer need to stress, we do not need to fear but we can rejoice because life in Christ is eternal.

Romans 5:18–21 CSB

So then, as through one trespass there is condemnation for everyone, so also through one righteous act there is justification leading to life for everyone. For just as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. The law came along to multiply the trespass. But where sin multiplied, grace multiplied even more so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness, resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

As we have been learning, Adam’s sin made us all sinners. we are born sin stained and are guilty based on our own sin that we commit. We do not inherit the guilt of Adam, merely the sin nature we are born with. But we are able to align ourselves under a new master by faith. Christobedience and our faith in him make many righteous. So then the question remains, who is your master. We know the problem, we have the solution but first we need a new Master, a new Lord and saviour.

And this is why we rehoice, because though sin regined in our lives and made us worthy of death, God’s love for us can make us alive in Him. the solution in Christ far exceeds the problem originating with Adam, applied personally through faith

Rejoice in our eternal salvation

Apply to Christians: rejoice in secure salvation because grace reigns to eternal life. You do not have to worry, as a child of God if you have given your life to Jesus in Faith then your eternal salvation is secure. So live for the Lord and rejoice! Apply to non-Christians: there are only two realms — Adam or Christ, death or life.

So What?

We have seen the point here I think.

Because Christ died for undeserving sinners we can rejoice in secure salvation.

Our assurance rests not in our worthiness, but in Christ’s death, life, and reigning grace.

This is what I want you guys to understand today,

Our problem is that we are undeserving enemies of God and because of that we can sometimes fear losing God’s love or doing something to bad to be saved. After all we are all sinners and guilty and without excuse. But through Jesus sacrifice and our faith in Him, we will be saved eternally. We cannot save ourselves, but we can trust in the God who can save us and rest assured in the fact that it will never fail. The passage shows the depth of the human problem (weak, ungodly, sinners under death’s reign via Adam’s introduction of sin and inherited nature/consequences) and the greater solution in Christ (love demonstrated in death for sinners, justification, reconciliation, overflowing grace, righteousness, life).

What is your problem? you problem is sin and the remedy is faith in jesus. Rejoice in the eternal life he has promised.