(Text Only)
Title: Adam and Christ
Intro:
This church and its ministry have a long standing history of expository preaching. This tradition is no coincidental or arbitrary, but rather a very thoughtful, well researched, and well implemented plan that stands upon the belief that expository preaching is the cornerstone of a well educated, Biblical, New Testament Church.
Expository sermons are not easy on a pastor. The pastor does not have the luxury of skirting issues or ignoring troubling texts. The pastor must deal with confusing text, troublesome messages, and controversial doctrines of faith.
Yet expository sermons are the most rewarding sermons, because they place the highest standard imaginable not upon the preacher’s skill or eloquence, but rather where it should be, upon the sovereign inerrant word of God.
One of the challenges in being a good expositor of the word is knowing when stop when preparing a message. The single biggest mistake most young preachers make is trying to preach too many verses in one sermon.
To adequately deal with all that is being said in a six or seven verse passage, the sermon often runs close to an hour, and the average attention span of the human adult is 17 seconds. Do the math.
Today, I am going to preach too many verses to you in one sitting. I was very pleased with the progress we made last week in tackling verses 12-14. Paul not only completes his thought, but draws to some very powerful conclusions in verses 15-21 and I think it would benefit us greatly to take all of these verses in today.
With that in mind, I beg your attention and your patience. I believe there are some great truths and powerful thoughts we can examine this morning. Let us turn to Romans.
V15/16 (read)
a. Adam’s offense results in judgment coming to all men, because all sinned in Adam
b. Jesus’ righteous act results in justification, for all who receive the free gift
v16 compare:
“One offense resulted in condemnation but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification.”
Do you see how much greater the result of Christ’s work was than Adam’s work?
One offense created a race of humans that did nothing but sin, and the door to that sin was slammed shut again by one man’s sacrifice.
Read v. 17-19
The Common Objection:
What of the objection, “But I don’t want to be represented by Adam or Christ; I would like to fend for myself”? First of all, you can’t – you did not make the rules! Secondly, your personal righteousness before God is as filthy rags(Isaiah 64:6); it is an offensive counterfeit , so standing for yourself insures your damnation!
And How does the Law figure into the equation?
a. If the Law did not make men sinners, then what good is it? The Law made sin abound; it made man’s sin clearer and greater by clearly contrasting it with God’s holy standard
I. The flaws in a precious stone abound when contrasted with a perfect stone, or when put against a contrasting backdrop
b. So, the law does not make us sinners (our heritage from Adam does that), instead, it exposes our inherent sinfulness
Conclusions:
1. Adam’s choice, and the consequences of that choice, defined human history
2. The Law was given as a gift to show God’s people the vast difference between God’s Holy standard and the way they were living.
3. Christ changed history by providing the opportunity to those who would believe to literally change their destiny.
I have one concluding hope as we move toward chapter five next week. And it’s a hope that Paul never directly says here but it’s a massive key in unlocking the literal mystery of Jesus Christ.
In seeing how Adam and Christ were similar initially with vastly different results, do you see more clearly now how Christ is both fully man and fully God?
Man in the flesh with Godly results.
If God’s standard wasn’t so high, Christ’s sacrifice wouldn’t be needed because the consequences for Adam’s sin wouldn’t have been so severe.
But friends, never forget this, we serve a perfect God. His demand upon us is perfection. And therefore, the result of man’s sin is death, and the only thing that can pay that penalty is perfect death. And Christ’s death was so utterly perfect, that all who would believe, accept, and submit to it are made perfect by it.