Who Do You Identify With?
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12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—
13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law.
14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.
15 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 many!
16 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.
17 For if, by the trespass 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!
Today, we begin a new section of Romans chapter 5. In the first 11 verse Paul was telling us about the blessings that come to those who are justified by faith in Jesus Christ. Paul concluded that section by assuring us that God keeps those that are justified. Paul essentially said, that because God the Father went to all this expense of saving you, by the sacrifice of His son Jesus Christ on the cross, surely he will keep you as His and carry you through to glory.
Last week Paul gave us assurance that God will take care of His people. Paul argued from logic-Since God the Father, went to all this expense of saving of you, won’t he hold on to you?
Up to Chapter 5 Paul was talking about becoming justified by faith, now from chapter 5 onward Paul is talking about what happens to those who are already justified by fiath, or the christian
life. He started with the blessings, and now he begins a new section.
Now Paul is going to begin to move on. In this section coming up down the road Paul will be talking about the Christian life. So now here for the rest of chapter 5, Paul is going to prepare us by going over issues of identity. And that is what i want to talk about today, who are you?
Back in chapter 2, and chapter 3 Paul has been arguing that one thing that the whole human race has in common is this universal problem of sin. Right?
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
I’m not going to make that case again, I’m just going to proceed as if we all agree with statement- All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God-Now since all have sinned, that makes all of us sinners. We are sinners, that is who we are it is part of our identity. So as we begin, I want to talk a little bit about identity.
We all have various traits that make up our identity, and that make us who we are. We may be caucasian, or African, or Native American, or Asian, or another race. We are a men or women. We may be a wife or a husband, or a loyal friend, or an aunt, or an uncle. We may be an athlete or a scholar, or a crafter. There are carpenters and truck drivers, and nurses, and computer programmers, and executives. We have all theses different things that make up our identity.
Some of these traits we choose. We say, I would like to be nurse, so we head off to nursing school and study to become a nurse, or I like sports, I want to be Athlete so we go into training. However, there are some aspects of our identity which we do not have a choice over.
Thisis really important as kids go through middle school and especially high school. They look for the group they identify with and form a friend group. Wether it is the farm kids or the football palyers. The cheerleaders, or the band kids. We relate to people becasue we share common interests, and we can understand thier struggles and what they are striving for.
It is sort of the first step. To become a football player, you join the team and you hang out with the football players. Practice spills into free team, and pretty soon your identity is that you are a football player.
This works really wel for things we have control over. In other words I wanted to be a football player, so I joined up with the football team. Or you maybe wanted to be part of that particular crowd.
For instance, we do not get to decide what race we are born into. We do not get to decide if we are going to be tall or short. Certain diseases are genetic, and we do not get to decide if we will have that disease or not.
But what happens when we do not have a choice. In other words there are certain things that I’m just not going to have, gifts that i don;t posses, and no matter what i do I will never be able to idnify with a certain groups. I may not be rich enough to hang out with rich people or smart enough to be a memeber of mensa. SOmetimes ther is a certain quality that I do not posees that I can’ tget it is just not in my identity .
Sometimes this feels unfair to us. I was born this way it is unfair that i cannot be a member of the club, or I did not casue this it is so unfiar that I am part of this group.
What happens when we consider this aspect of our identity, our spirituality. If we are all sinners, how dod that come about? Did we simply all choose to be sinners, like one chooses to be a nurse or a factory worker? Well, there certainly is that aspect of it. At some point I choose to sin. At some point I think we can agree we all choose to sin.
What people think, what psychologist, and philosophers tell us is that we choose to sin, so we just have to choose what is right. We can change that aspect of our identity. We do not have to be a sinner, just choose to do right. Most religious systems in the world teach this as well. Judaism teaches this. Isalm teaches this.
The truth is that the enemy attacks our identity. It is the oldest trick in his book. When he approached Eve in the garden what did he say?
5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
for when you eat it you will be like God-Go ahead Eve you can change your identity-You do not have to Eve anymore-You can be like God. So what the enemy does is there are these lies and deceptions that are spread throughout the secular world, that says, here is your identity-you are basically good. Right and wrong is determined by the society you live in. If this society at this point in time decides this is wrong, then it is but if society changes and says this is ok, now it is.
This has even infiltrated the religious community. People think that you are a sinner because you choose sin, and what is sin anyway. Jesus was all about love, and as long as you aren;t hurting anyone, you can do as you want.
Now, that we are-justified through faith, what happens to us and our view of sin? How does
SO even within that framework, we could still say true, but uimtaley we all choose to sin, even within our framework.
Up to this point what Paul has not addressed is where sin comes from. where did it originate from? How did it get here? How is it that we all have this universal problem of sin.
SO Paul is going to tell us where sin originated from.
Paul now will talk a little more about this All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
That is what he writes next.
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—
He starts with a therefore again-What is the therefore therefore.
SOmetimes, we gravitate toward people that we identify with. We find people with smilar notions or interests as us, and we like them, we hang around them.
Thisis really important as kids go through middle school and especially high school. They look for the group they identify with and form a friend group. Wether it is the farm kids or the football palyers. The cheerleaders, or the band kids. We relate to people becasue we share common interests, and we can understand thier struggles and what they are striving for.
Othertim
It is sort of the first step. To become a football player, you join the team and you hang out with the football players. Practice spills into free team, and pretty soon your identity is that you are a football player.
This works really wel for things we have control over. In other words I wanted to be a football player, so I joined up with the football team. Or you maybe wanted to be part of that particular crowd.
Let’s look 2 verses back at verse 10.
But what happens when we do not have a choice. In other words there are certain things that I’m just not going to have, gifts that i don;t posses, and no matter what i do I will never be able to idnify with a certain groups. I may not be rich enough to hang out with rich people or smart enough to be a memeber of mensa. SOmetimes ther is a certain quality that I do not posees that I can’ tget it is just not in my identity .
11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
Sometimes this feels unfair to us. I was born this way it is unfair that i cannot be a member of the club, or I did not casue this it is so unfiar that I am part of this group.
Paul ends this verse with Shall we be saved through His-That is Christ’s life- We are going to be looking at Christ’s life. Remember we said that this section of Romans is about living the Christian life, right? We have to look at Christ’s life in order to do that, and the first place to start with that is our identity.
RIht did you ever have that happen? That seems unfair, doesn;t it, it doesn;t seem right Why should my identity be determined by something I didn’t do?
Just because you became a Christian, doesn’t mean you are taken out of the world, you have to live in this world of sin. You have to live hear, with the lies the enemy is perpetuating, and those lies often center around your identity. SO you have to get that right.
\Now that you have been justified through faith and you are made aware of the blessings, the enemy will challange you by saying no-you do not have the righteousness of Christ, you have to change your identity yourself. He did not do anything for you.
Therefore, since you have been reconciled to God the Father, Since you have Christ’s righteousness imputed to you, you better know your identity. So that is what the therefore, is therefore.
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—
Back to 5.12
Most of us, when taking a serois inventory of our lives, and if we hold our behavior up to the 10 commandmenst or if we look carefully at Jesus’s teaching we would have no problem saying that we sin.
Now the question is why? DO we sin . The common view of today is that society determines what sin is. The may modern philosophy ogoes is that society sets the standards determines what is right and wrong and when you do not go along with that standard you are sinful,
In other words sin is just a socail construct, and whatever group your in, determines what is right and wrong. Let’s take a silly example. You group up halfway around the world. Before the group that you are born in, had any contact with the outside world they set the standard for right and wrong. Another group o the other side of the world sets thier own standard for right which may be totally different from my standard . WHat is right for you may be wrong for me, and what is wrong fro you may be right for me. None of us is inheritanlty worng and noe if us in inherenantly right. We just are.
The behaviors acssociated with being a member of the football team is accpetable for that group and being a member of the cheer squad has its own set of rules, and it may be apporpriate for them. You then choose whatever group, and set of social rues apply.
They then look at the Bible, and they say those may be sins to you who have grown up in the juseo-christian contstruct. Thise may be sins for you, but they are not sins for me.
Now, peopl
Paul has been arguing the universality of sin-All sin- SO even within that framework, we could still say true, but uimtaley we all choose to sin, even within our framework.
SO Paul is going to tell us where sin originated from.
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—
Paul says sin entered the world. At one time sin was not in the world-then sin entered in. God is not the author of evil, God did not create evil. Sin was not here in the world originally, it entered and through one man, we know that he is talking about Adam.
We can pinpoint the origin, sin was not here, then it came into the world because of Adam. Right away this is different then what the world says. The world will tell you there is no such thing, or it depends on society. There was no society, and there is such a thing. But now sin is here, and not just sin---Paul now makes the connection to death. Philosophers, and psychologists and the rest of the secular world cannot deny death, death is very real. And universal. And Paul has connected the two.
You see the world Adam and Eve were living in did not have death. We forget about that sometimes. In the garden there was no death. Remember there were two significant trees in the garden. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil and tree of life. As long as Adam and Eve were in the garden they were free to eat from the tree of life. As long as they were in the garden they would be immortal. But when they chose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, when they tried to choose a new identity, when they chose to go against the command of God, they sinned. Because they sinned, they were expelled from the garden, they could no longer have access to the tree of life, and therefore died. When sin entered the world so did death. From that point onward everyone was born outside of the garden. Everyone had no choice about there birth they were simply born without access to the tree of life. It is like being born as a specific race, you do not have any choice.
BUt when they cchose to eat from the tree of the jnwoledge of good and evil that was sinful on thier part, they comitted the first sin and sin entered into the picture.
They were expelled from the garden, cpould no longer have access to the tree of life, and therefore died. SWith sin enetering the world death aslo entered.
We may not like it, we want to change our race, we may make up lies that say we are all born good, and there is no such thing as sin-but the truth is death is in our DNA. We are all dying-just some sooner than others.
Death now came to all people-since all sinned.
SInce all people were now born outside of the garden, without acess to the tree of life,
Death now came to all people-since all sinned.
I remember as a kid, and maybe this was just my school, but sometimes, 1 kid or a small group in the class would misbehave, or do something wrong. Then the teacher would hold the whole group responsible. The military often does this. Or a football team. I remember our football coach making the whole team run extra laps because one guy was not following instructions. That seemed so unfair, why should the whole team identify with that one guy.
RIht did you ever have that happen? That seems unfair, doesn;t it, it doesn;t seem right Why should my identity be determined by something I didn’t do?
Then Paul is going to take on the lie that sin is dependent on society or having a law.
13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law.
14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.
Up unto this point in ROmans Paul has been telling us that we are guilty, we are sinners, all have sinned and fallen short, we are all underr the wrat of God-.
13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law.
14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.
Most of us, when taking a serois inventory of our lives, and if we hold our behavior up to the 10 commandmenst or if we look carefully at Jesus’s teaching we would have no problem saying that we sin.
In the next verse Paul is
Now the question is why? DO we sin . The common view of today is that society determines what sin is. The may modern philosophy ogoes is that society sets the standards determines what is right and wrong and when you do not go along with that standard you are sinful,
In other words sin is just a socail construct, and whatever group your in, determines what is right and wrong. Let’s take a silly example. You group up halfway around the world. Before the group that you are born in, had any contact with the outside world they set the standard for right and wrong. Another group o the other side of the world sets thier own standard for right which may be totally different from my standard . WHat is right for you may be wrong for me, and what is wrong fro you may be right for me. None of us is inheritanlty worng and noe if us in inherenantly right. We just are.
Adam had a direct command from God. God spoke to Adam and said-do not eat from the tree- After Adam there were many people. Generation upon generation. Not all of these people heard a direct command from God. And not only that, but the law did not even exist yet. The law was not given until Moses so all the people who lived from the time of Adam to the time of Moses did not even have a law to go by-yet they all died.
The behaviors acssociated with being a member of the football team is accpetable for that group and being a member of the cheer squad has its own set of rules, and it may be apporpriate for them. You then choose whatever group, and set of social rues apply.
Even before rules, people died. Even before society could say this right or this is wrong-people died. Even in absence of a direct command fro God, people died. Something about sin and death must be hardwired into our DNA.
They then look at the Bible, and they say those may be sins to you who have grown up in the juseo-christian contstruct. Thise may be sins for you, but they are not sins for me.
Sin must be a part of our identity, and not the part that we can change, but the part we cannot change since no one would choose that. This is called original sin. We cannot help it. We are all born in sin. Even a little tiny newborn innocent baby is born into the world with original sin. Now the child does not know any better about societal rules or God’s laws or even basic conscience yet that baby is still subject to death because when sin entered the world death entered the world.
Paul says yeah that can’t be it either becasue people have always died.
13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law.
To be sure-just we are on the right page original sin is independent of social laws or norms. In fact, it
Even before we have that set of rules, sin was ther how do we know that?
14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.
becasue even before we had the law of God, people still died. Adam recieved a very specific message- do not eat from the tree, and he violated it very clear. But after Adam and before the 10 commandments were given to Moses, all kinds of people lived. They did not all have a specific word from God saying do this or don;t do that. Yet even without a specific rule they all died, therefore since they all died, there must be something really unique about this universality of sin.
It isn;t a socail construct as some people say it is soething that is common to all of us. We are all in the pattern of Adam Pual is saying.
This is called original sin. We cannot help it. We are all born in sin. Even a little tiny newborn innocent baby is born into the world with original sin. Now the child does not know any better about societal rules or God’s laws or even basic conscience yet that baby is still subject to death becasue when sin entered the world death entered the world.
We are born into this world, with sin and death as our identity every one of us. We can’t help it. We may not like it. We may wish we could change it, but this is way the Bible says it it is.
Adam was the representative of the human race. He was chosen as the head of the race by a perfect, all-knowing, infallible God. Adam was the one chosen as the person to be placed in the garden, and he sinned, sin entered the world and death came in, and like it or not we all bear that responsibility. Although the world bristles against that, people don’t like it, Paul is saying that it is the way that it is. Sin and death are universal, and all of mankind is under it.
Like it or not we all bear that responsibilty. ALthough the world bristles against that, people don;t like it, Paul is saying that it is the way that it is. Sin and death are universal, and all of mankind is under it.
That is the identity of the whole human race-We all identify with Adam. All of us here. Little tiny newborn babies. People who have heard God’s commands like the 10 commandments and those that even haven’t heard. We all identify with Adam.
Now, if you have been here at all this year, you are going to think this sounds familar. What are we going over it again, whay is Paul continuinally hammering on this? let’s keep reading we will be coming to that. Stay with me.
15 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 many!
It is a matter of our identity.
But the Gift- is not like the trespass. What is the gift- The gift is the gift we were talking about back in Romans 4.
15 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 many!
16 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.
17 For if, by the trespass 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!
4 Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation.
5 However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.
The gift is the gift of the grace available by faith to those who trust that the Lord Jesus Christ, has removed their sins, and credits to them the Righteousness of Jesus Christ.
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15 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 many!
The gift is not like Adam’s sin- Adam’s sin killed-Many died- The whole human race died. But the gift is not like the trespass. The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life Romans 6.23.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Adam’s sin brought death to all men, since the begiing of the world, even people who do not know about God’s law or Jesus. even babies who can;t understand are subject to death, and although we don;t like the fact that we who have no say in matter are subject to being rsponsible for Adam;’’s sin.
Now, we have a New representative, similar yet completely different. The new representative has come-the Lord Jesus. He was the one that did for us what we could not do-buy us out of this death problem.
You see, this is why the Lord Jesus needed be born of virgin. He needed to be born of a virgin, so that he could be conceived by the Holy Spirit so as to not be identified with Adam. He needed to be born without that stain of original sin. so that he could bring to us the righteousness that we do not posses. Jesus was not only born without sin but he remained sinless his whole life so as to finally conquered death.
But the gift is NOT like the trespass because by the one trespass ALL died. The trespass or the sin of Adam was universal. That means everyone-everywhere-forever-ALL people-No one escapes. But the gift only overflows to the MANY-Not the all.
While sin is universal-Salvation is not-Salvation is particular. Not all will receive the gift. Only those who are justified by faithSometimes the lie is that if all sinned-all are saved- Only the many will be saved.
Jesus not only was not under original sin, but he remained sinless hi whole life as well.
16 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.
romans 5.16
One sin-one sin is all it took for Adam to be cast out of the garden. One sin was all it took for Adam, and the human race to be sentenced to death. The judgement of death-followed that one single sin. But the gift! The gift covers over a multitude of sins. The gift followed many trespasses and STILL brought justification.
Through our faith in Him as our new representative his righteousness is available to us.
Some people are liable to think that the gospel only covers original sin. Now the rest of the Christian life involves your work. The enemy will try and tell you that gospel cannot cover all your sins. Or the gospel only makes it possible for you to do good. The Gospel covers the MANY trespasses. Jesus was without ANY sin or blemish so that he can pay for ALL your sin.
Now if you have been here at all through these messages you are probably thinking that this is familiar we are going over qa bit of the same things, why is that?
There is no limit.
17 For if, by the trespass 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!
That one sin caused death to be the victor, But now For those who receive God’s ABUNDANT provision that is more than enough grace, and gift of Righteousness reign in LIFE came by Jesus.
Brothers and sisters-when we receive God’s ABUNDANT provision of grace-Righteousness reign in our life-THROUGH Jesus Christ.
Our identity has been changed- We have faith in Christ- The identity that we could not change by OUR faith in Christ has been changed we have been transformed. We are not the same. For those who have faith in Christ for those who have been justified by faith-YOU ARE NOT THE SAME>
Have you ever heard of unlikely animal friends?
Here is dog, living with an Elephant, he thinks he is an elephant. There is a dachsund, and a Lion, and a chimp and a tiger. They are cute right? Oh look at that he thinks he is is an elephant. The bottom line is the dog is still a dog. He is hanging out with the elephants but he is still just a dog. These animals are struggeling with thier identity.
In the church there are people that be hanging around the church, but they still identify with Adam. They have not realized they cannot change their identity they think if they act like a christian they are a christian, yet they still identify with Adam. If that is you you need Christ. You need the gospel of Jesus Christ to transform you to impute his righteousness to you.
Then there those that have been transformed by the gospel, they no longer identify with Adam, yet they are running through the world identifying with the other Adams, working to transform their identity on their own. They have been saved by grace but they do not yet realize that their identity has been changed and they have Christs righteousness now.
When you place your faith in Jesus you know identify with Christ-stop running around like you are Adam. Take some time this week to spend time in God’s word looking for your identity in Christ. Pray, ask the Lord Jesus to show you your new identity in Christ, and live in his life.