Sermon Tone Analysis

*Pentecost 5 June 27 1999*

*Grace Overflows*

*Romans 5:12-15*

 

            Dark and light, night and day, looser and winner, law and gospel, sin and righteousness; all contrasts which consume our very existence.

But, there is one superior contrast that for each one of us means eternal damnation or eternal glory.

That contrast is between Adam, the first man, and Jesus Christ, who is fully and completely God and man.

In our meditation today we will understand how Grace Overflows into our very being to fill our life with present and eternal blessing and glory.

May God the Holy Spirit work faith in our hearts to believe and know that this grace is for each and every one of us.

Unfortunately, to understand this grace, we must first understand who and what we are as human beings.

Someone recently asked me if I really believed that God holds everybody accountable for the sin of one man.

My answer to their query was this: *Yes!

I do believe it, indeed.

*I believe it because apart from it there is no contrast between myself and God and I truly become the “captain of my soul.”

That is not a safe place to be with respect to The God who created us.

We must let this frightening reality of what Jesus teaches touch our hearts and minds: */“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.

Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both body and soul in hell.”/*

Where must those be who think they can escape the reality of judgment through suicide?

*/“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.

Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both body and soul in hell.”/*

The reality of our humanity exists exactly in the sin of the first man Adam.

Yes, it is easy for me to believe that God holds every one of us accountable for the sin of the one man.

Because there is death, I trust the words that speak of our accountability most forcefully.

*/“ just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.”/*

The nature of the first sinner reins in the soul of every man woman and child conceived in the womb of humanity.

The works of this nature are very clear.

Paul gives us a glimpse of it in Galatians 5: */“sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.

I warn you as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”/*

This is enough to convince me because I see these things in my own flesh.

And, I know that to one degree or another they exist in you as well.

What, then, must we do to be saved from this wicked and fruitless life?

The answer is simple.

We must be born again!

*/“born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”/*

And thank God, that is what we have been, all by the great mercy and Amazing Grace of God.

Peter says it this way concerning those who believe: */“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”/*

My dearest friends in Christ, it is not for the human nature that we are born again.

It is for Christ Jesus that we are born again.

He is the true and eternal captain of our soul.

He is the one who takes our guilt upon himself and nails it to the cross.

Yes!

It is just as Scripture says: */“When you were dead in your sins … of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ.”/*

Isn’t that the most wonderful news?!

The word even tells us how he did this.

*/“He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.”/*

Because he did this, in our place, we are now enabled by His Holy Spirit to experience the most wonderful things of our humanity, */“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”/*

None of this, however, would be the least bit possible if the gift was like the trespass.

They stand in stark contrast to one another.

That is why those born of the Spirit of the living God have no fear when it comes to what humanity can do to the body.

The One who can destroy both body and soul in hell has become the captain of their soul.

You see! It’s just as the word says: */“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!”/*

 

Dear fellow Redeemed, it is Christ himself who overflows to fill us with the delight of God’s Amazing Grace.

Because God’s Amazing Grace Overflows into our hearts, we now stand in stark contrast to those whose captain of the soul is still Adam, not Christ.

It is all the difference that matters.

No wonder the prophet of God, even in his depressed dismay, is able to say, */“the Lord is with me like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.

They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced; their dishonor will never be forgotten.

… Sing to the Lord!

Give praise to the Lord!

He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked.”/*

Yes.

He has come as our rescuer from hell.

Amen.