Amen. Find Romans 5. I think we're going to put a
cap on Romans 5 tonight. It might be one more sermon that
I might deal with semi-topically next week, but that's to be determined. Listen to the Word of the Lord
in Romans 5, 12 through verse 21. 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 was 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 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. Now I want to give a recap
of this entire chapter tonight. And I'll give us a recap by just
going through verse 21. Because verse 21 takes every
theme of chapter 5 and it puts it back into our minds as we
move into the question that Paul asks in chapter 6. So if we look
at verse 21, it says, "...so that, as sin reigned in death,
grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. We see the comparison several
times throughout chapter 5 where Paul states that there is one
man who calls the death of all men and in the same way there
is one man who can give life to all men. I won't repeat myself
over the last few months, but I will say that when it comes
to understanding this idea of all men, we need to understand
several things. First, we need to understand
the context in which Paul is preaching and teaching through
his words and through his letter. He's already given a clear indicator
that all men are not justified because of the work of Jesus,
but only those men who believe in the finished work of Jesus
Christ by faith. We see in Romans 3 that all have sinned. We see
that God's righteousness is manifested apart from the law through the
death of Jesus Christ whom God put forward in order to be propitiation
for all who have faith in Christ Jesus. So that God is the just
and the justifier of only and always those who have faith in
Jesus. So when we take the context of
a particular sentence or three, and we begin to pit it against
the clear teaching of other things, it's because we and our culture
don't understand the value of good literature. Literature as
it's written, either in prose or poetry, maybe it's written
in all sorts of different ways, but Paul is no different. And
he is very poetic in Romans. As a matter of fact, there are
a lot of commentators and theologians through the day that have even
taken Romans 5 and created poems out of the context of Romans
5. Paul is using deep imagery, deep contrasts. So as we see
the righteousness of Jesus Christ in the comparison to the wickedness
of Adam, we see the wickedness of Adam causing death by one
sin. Yet how much more has one sacrifice
of the Lamb of God taken away the sins of all who believe.
So when we come to verse 21, we need to understand that Paul
is about to change gears just a little bit because the gospel
is so powerful, the grace of God is so unmerited, and it is
so sufficient, and it is so effectual, that it's very easy for us to
hear the gospel and in turn have a knee-jerk reaction that would
say that there is no sin that we can commit before God. But
Paul will deal with that. Are we to continue in sin that
grace may abound? Absolutely not. But I'll remind us what
Paul has already taught us thus far. That no matter how good
we are in our obedience to the Word, no matter how moral we
walk before men, even those moral acts, even that goodness, and
even that obedience is considered filthiness in the eyes of God. Why? Because we have already
violated the Law by being existing, by being in existence, by sinning,
and rebelling willfully against the Law of God by our flesh,
tempting us. And then that temptation gives
birth to sin, and as James says, then sin gives birth to death
when it is full grown. So as we look now at verse 21,
that's where I'll spend the rest of my time tonight. In verse
21 we see, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign
through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord. So look at the comparisons that Paul uses. How
can two things reign? See, it's a contradiction. But
Paul is showing his readers, he's showing the Roman Christians,
both Jew and Gentile, that there is a thing that reigns. And as we'll see tonight, sin
reigns justly. Death reigns justly. But God's
grace is far more abundant in that respect. So let's take this
one word at a time, if we can. So we look at this first word,
sin, and we're reminded that what we've already learned throughout
this entire chapter, indeed throughout this entire letter, is that Adam
first sinned against God. He sinned against God, and then
to all of us, his guilt is ours to bear. Not only are we guilty
of the sin of Adam, but we're also guilty of the sin of our
own, the sins that we've committed. So we're doubly guilty of sinning
against God because we have a Father who is a sinner, then we also
in our own flesh sin. There is therefore no way to
expressly work an out from judgment. We cannot work ourself out of
judgment. We cannot plead ourself out of
judgment. We are guilty. The verdict is
true and the judgment is right. We are guilty of sinning against
a pure and a perfect and a glorious God. So therefore, all humanity
reveals the nature of the strength of the sin of Adam. That when
one who represents the whole sins against the totality of
the holiness of God with one infraction, the whole human race,
therefore, is worthy of condemnation because of one. Because of one. If we look at verse 12, it says,
"...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." Look at verse 15, "...but the free gift is not
like the trespass. For if many die through one man's
trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift
of the grace of that one man Jesus abounded for many. So you
see this contrast and comparison that Paul is continuing to give.
You move on down to 17, for if because of one man's trespass,
death reigned through that one man, much more will those who
receive the abundance of grace. Notice the language there. Who
receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness,
they shall reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. So
even though we see the terms like, all have sinned, and all
are made alive, all have died, and Christ makes all alive, all
are guilty, and Christ makes all innocent, it does not anywhere
in the syntax of this text tell us that Paul is teaching a universal
salvation. It doesn't tell us anywhere that
Paul is teaching that there is a salvation that is possible
for every human being. There is not a salvation that
God has sat down before creation and said, I pray that people
come and eat of the banquet. No, God gives and God saves through
the work of Jesus Christ. What we see here and what we're
reminded of in this 21st verse is that sin is powerful and the
wages of sin is death and we are all due death. Where do you
get that? Well, look at the very thing,
"...as sin reigned in death." What does it mean to reign? What
does it mean to reign? It means to rule. It means to
govern. It means to hold supreme authority over. So sin holds
complete and supreme authority over humanity. Sin is what we
are. We are sinners, and because we're
sinners, we will sin against God. So we're guilty in essence. We're guilty because of our father
Adam, and we're guilty because of our own heart that desires
to sin against God. Reigning means that sin destroys
us. Sin builds a case against all
humanity and is triumphantly, listen to this word, sin triumphantly
reigns over all men, further sealing our judicial guilt before
God. Sin reigns, but that's not the
totality of it, is it? Sin reigns, but grace overcomes. Grace overcomes the reign of
sin. Grace overcomes with great power.
For Paul exclaims in the introduction to this letter, For I am not
ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto
salvation. So that the good news of what
God has done, is the power to raise the dead. It's the power
to give life. It's the power to overcome the
reign of sin in this world, and more specifically and explicitly,
the reign of sin in our lives, beloved. So we stand here this
afternoon, this evening. What time is it? We stand here
this evening because grace overcomes in power. We sit here in these
chairs and we hear this voice that you probably would not want
to hear, but you hear what I'm saying. And we do so not because
we're worried, but we rejoice in knowing that the grace of
God overcomes. God overcomes the victory of sin through His
mercy. God overcomes the reign of sin
through His power. God overcomes the reign of sin
through His gospel of grace. Sin reigns, but grace wins. The free gift is not like the
trespass, where the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded
for many. See, I want you to grasp the
reality of what grace does. I want you to grasp the reality
of what grace does, and in doing so, we must reflect on what the
power of sin looks like. Sin reigns. Look at this next
thing. How does sin reign? Sin reigns
in death. Death. You know what death is?
A justice. Death is justice. When we sin,
we deserve to die, so the justice of God, we can also equate that
and call it the righteousness of God, is manifested in the
judgment of men. The judgment of God is glorious
and holy and righteous, so in death, justice prevails. We've got to keep this in mind.
I think that's why Paul said it over and over and over again,
the same thing in chapter 5, and then recapitulates it again
in the sentence right before he asks the next question. So
what are we to do? What shall we say? Are we to
continue in sin that grace may abound? Because grace abounds
victoriously over the power of sin and over the wage of sin.
And grace abounds victoriously with great, divine, and sublime
intervention. The work of God over the justice
of God. so that he might forgive sinners. And you think, well, that doesn't
make sense. That sounds contradictory. It is contradictory. It is a
contradiction to say that God's mercy overcomes His justice. But that's what happens, because
the mercy of God is an act of justice in itself. That's the
whole argument of 321 through 24. that it's not about the law
anymore, but it's about the grace of God and the mercy that Jesus
was put forth to propitiate, to be, as a noun, propitiation. That means that Jesus' death
and His consequence of no sin, of sinlessness, Jesus took on
the consequence of sinners so that God would be righteous and
just and forgiving sinners. Death prevails over sin. I mean,
excuse me, grace prevails over sin and over the justice of God
in death. Friends, it is good that we as
sinners die. It is good when we are judged.
It is good that the wages of sin is death, both physically
and spiritually. See, as I've already referred
to James chapter 1, it says that we are not tempted by God, but
no one says he's tempted when he's tempted. God tempted me.
For God does not tempt. But we are tempted by our what? Our flesh, our own desires, the
things that entice us. When they lure before us, our
flesh wants them and we go after them because it's what we really
want in our flesh. And the things of the natural
man, the thoughts and the actions and the affections, we sang the
song tonight. We sang that song that if it
were left up to us and our affections, we would fall away. So it is
the power of God to seal us and preserve us, to turn our hearts
toward Him, even though the flesh that we live in continually fights
against the Spirit of grace, but the grace of God is more
powerful than the will of man, and it overcomes the carnal man
and brings him to righteousness through the person of Jesus Christ.
And that's what we see here. Paul will ask the question, who
shall rescue me from this body of death? And he answers it this
way, it is Christ, it is Christ, it is Christ. So that as sin
reigned in death, listen, grace also might reign through righteousness. grace also might reign through
righteousness." See, God defeats sin. God defeats death. Do you know how? In two ways.
Through the judgment of the reprobate and through the judgment of Jesus
Christ. God defeats death. So grace defeats
sin, therefore it has no hold over us. That's where Paul is
going in chapter 6. He's going to say that we're
no longer bound to sinfulness. We're no longer a slave to sin,
but we are a slave to righteousness in that context. And we'll explain
that very deeply when we get into chapter 6 as we begin to
go through it. Because God has satisfied His
justice Through His grace, He is able to forgive us because
He satisfied His justice through the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus
Christ took on humanity and obeyed perfectly and then took death
upon Himself which was not His to take. So therefore, God is
righteous in giving grace. I'll tell you, I thought about
that this afternoon and it really just shattered my soul. It shattered
my soul to think about the reality of the freedom that we have from
sin. To think about the reality of the grace of God and the abundance
of the love that God has for us. to think that no matter what
we strive for, or how we fight, or how hard it is to live this
life by faith, and the One who loves us and gave Himself for
us, even though we fail in our faithfulness, Christ will not
fail in His faithfulness, for He cannot deny Himself. He will
prevail. He has overcome sin. He has become
the victor over death. And God the Father is satisfied
and His righteousness with the sacrifice of Jesus the Son. So
therefore grace abounds over and over and over again. Look at verse 20. Now the law
came to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace
abounded all the more. so that as sin reigned in death,
grace might also reign through righteousness, leading to eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Do you understand the
simultaneous issue at stake here? That though we are guilty of
sin and our flesh continually fights the war, Christ and His
finished work on the cross continues to reign over the reign of sin
and death for His people, so that there is now, as Paul would
say in Romans 8, 1, therefore no condemnation for those who
are in Christ Jesus. We cannot be condemned by God
the Father because He is satisfied in His judgment. It has been
paid for. That is why the gospel must be
preached. That is why the Scriptures are
clear, as we see in Romans 10, that if any man is to believe
in the gospel of grace, that God supernaturally will give
him ears to hear only through the hearing of the natural words
of His own language through the text of Scripture. We must tell
the story of Christ. We must teach the story of Christ.
We must proclaim the story of Christ. Living out our faith
and sharing our faith is not calling people to make a choice
for Jesus. For a choice today for Jesus
could be just like a choice tomorrow for a salami sandwich. We may
enjoy it for years and then throw it away because we found the
meatball. Friends, we cannot. We cannot proselytize people.
We cannot purvey a false gospel of decisionism. We cannot purvey
a false gospel of free will. We cannot tell people to come
to a place where they're working for Christ while they hate Him
with the very core of their DNA because their flesh has not been
born again. We cannot call people and give them an assurance of
eternity when it is all on their shoulders. and all in their mouths,
and all in their minds. If we want to see people come
to faith in Jesus Christ, we must tell the story of Christ
as it is written in Scripture. We must tell people that God
is righteous in His judgment against humanity. We must tell
every person that we can that we are all sinners, ourselves
included. We don't stand before sinners
as as holy people, we stand before sinners justified as sinners
ourselves. So we tell people that we are
all sinners and worthy of death, because sin reigns, and the power
of sin reigns over us. And there is no hope at all in
anything that any man can do to escape the judgment of God.
But God in His mercy, God in His grace, God because of the
great love with which He loved us, He gave the only begotten
Son that He had, who is God Almighty, who came to earth, born of a
virgin, lived in perfect obedience, did the work of the Father, is
doing the work of the Father, completed the work of the Father,
and carries on the work of the Father in redemption this very
day by obeying God the Father, by dying on the cross in our
place, and by being raised to life to vindicate His righteousness
and to vindicate His throne, and now He's glorified and we
await that day. If you believe that God saves
sinners through the work of Jesus Christ, it may just be when you
say those words that God would grant repentance and faith to
the hearer and those people would become your brother and sister
in Christ. That is the only thing we have to do. We don't have
to have all the theological questions. It's not about getting people
to understand things because the Holy Spirit can allow a child
to believe. without even understanding how
to barely speak the language of their culture. So God can,
through the sharing of the gospel of Jesus, bring life, bring life
because of His grace. See, righteousness, righteousness,
grace reigns through righteousness. What does that really mean? You
know what it means? That grace is what reigns over
the victory of sin. Grace is what reigns over the
justice and of the deservedness of death and judgment. It's not
the obedience of man that matters, it's the obedience of Jesus the
Christ that matters. The God-man, He is the victor,
He is the winner, He is the king, and He is the effectual agent
of our salvation, and what He has accomplished is accomplished,
and we can stand in it so that grace reigns through righteousness. That means that grace reigns
through the righteousness who is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ,
the righteousness of God, so that by faith we also are the
righteousness of God. How? Because we don't have a
righteousness of our own, but the righteousness of Jesus is
imputed upon us. Not imparted, but imputed. We
get credit for who He is. We get credit for what He's done.
We get credit for His obedience. And we get credit for His sacrifice.
It's counted toward us. What do you mean? Well, God says
that all men should be holy, perfect, without any sin. None of us could ever match that. None of us could ever match that.
We've already seen that even in our birth, we're guilty before
God. None of us. So then the next
case against us is that God must exercise His judgment eternally
against us. We can never pay for our sin that way either.
That's why men have invented purgatory as a way of making
people feel better when their loved ones die in their sin without
faith in Jesus Christ. But Jesus paid for our sin. Jesus died, so we get credit
for His sacrifice. We get credit for His punishment.
So therefore, righteousness reigns. Grace reigns through the righteousness
of Christ. What is the outcome of this? Look at that last sentence. Leading
to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Leading to eternal
life. What is this eternal life? You
know, that's sort of the gospel, that's sort of the door-knocking
gospel of the 80s and 90s. Hello? Hey, I'm Billy Bob with
the Baptist Church and I'd like to ask you a couple of questions.
Do you need prayer? Is there anything we can do for
you? Do you need your yard raked,
by the way? And while we're here, if you died today, do you think
you would go to heaven? You think you would have eternal
life? Or we get very specific. What do you think it takes for
someone to have eternal life? You know what's really odd about
that question? It's a cultural phenomenon. How is it that anyone
should even understand that and have a bearing to grasp the reality
of what eternal life is when they don't even know or recognize
that they're walking dead, that they're living in eternal judgment,
that they're facing eternal death? You see, we've come to a place
to where we offer life without ever having anyone understand
death. We offer forgiveness when there's
nothing to be forgiven for or of. We look to try to tell people
that Jesus is a genie in a bottle, but to give them everything they
want, but what they want is sinful. What they want is fleshly. James
chapter 4. You pray and you ask for things that will appease
your flesh. You fight and quarrel. This is the context of Scripture. We think about eternal life.
Do we think about eternal life? What is it that we're looking
for in eternal life? Many people that I've talked to throughout
My weeks. They talk about eternity. I can't
wait for heaven. I can't wait to go see Jesus.
I can't wait. But it's not even usually Christ
that they're looking for. I can't wait to go see Granny.
I can't wait to go see Pawpaw. I can't wait to go see my kids.
I can't wait to go see my spouse. I can't wait to have a big mansion
without a light bill. I can't wait to never be hungry.
I can't wait to never be sick. What is that? Is that really
the crux? You know why we think that way
in our culture? Because nobody's preaching the
properties of the glorious truth of the divine Word of God. No
one preaches the context. No one preaches the fullness.
They go into the 12-page recipe and they pull out three ingredients
and then they say, stir it, stir it, stir it. Take it out of the
oven. And nobody knows what is going
on or what's being said. So people make up their own ideas.
When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there. Boy, you can hee-haw
and jaw harp that sucker right into heaven, can't you? You know
what a jaw harp is? We'll have to talk about those
another day. Well, friends, there ain't going to be no roll up
yonder. And I've said this in jest, but
I'll say it again, and I jest in some sense, but in the narrowness
of the Holy Spirit working in my mind, in the smallest vein
of gospel-centeredness that I can find here amidst all the flesh
that continues to crowd that out, I can honestly tell you
as much as I love anyone, if they're standing between me and
my Savior, they're going to get trampled. See, it's not the case,
is it? But if it were the case, I'm
not going to be polite. I'm cutting in line. Why? Because Christ is my prize. And beloved, the reason Christ
is in our prize, we sang it. What's it say? All I have is
Christ. I will be yours alone and live
so all might see. The strength to follow your commands can never
come from me. Use my ransom life in any way you choose. Let the
song forever be. My only boast is you. Is that true? It's funny
how sometimes I sing songs and I'm thinking, that ain't true
for me. I don't really believe that all the time. Like we sing,
I always love you, you know. You're my everything. All I have
is Christ, it's true. So thankfully, at least the words
get done well in some of these songs. So we don't have to lie
when we sing. But if we were measured, even
today as saints, redeemed people, if we were measured by our affections,
we would be waning in our focus of Christ. We would have a long
way to go before we could start identifying all the idols of
our lives. But I'll tell you what, eternal
life is not a presence. Eternal life is not an essence.
Eternal life is not a location. Eternal life is Jesus Christ.
Eternal life is forever in the presence of the divine glory
who is God Almighty, the Son of God, the Lamb who took away
our sins. Paul makes it very clear to the
church of Ephesus that the whole person, the whole point, excuse
me, and the whole purpose of God's salvation is that He's
glorified in the praise of His glorious grace with the people
that He saved. And so our heart fights that
here. That's why we assemble. That's
why we're commanded to assemble often. Not just twice a week,
as often as we can. I will submit to you that the
first church historically for a long time, 70, 80 years, probably
met every day of the week. Every day of the week. Circumstances
were different. But eternal life, is promised
to us. Eternal life is secure for us. Eternal life is promised and
secured through the righteous life and the death of Jesus Christ.
This is the good news of God. That salvation is ours. We have life in Christ. We are
covered in His righteousness. We are clothed in His righteousness. And this is a gift given to us
by God. This is not something that we
do on our own. This is a gift of God. Now there's
a lot of people who like to read application and life application
books and commentaries. A lot of folks who enjoy doing
a daily devotional with a little summary, and then at the end
of that, and nothing wrong with it. I mean, whatever you've got to
do to get the Word of God in you. If you want to read something somebody else
has written, that's fine. Do it. but be careful to not
pigeonhole yourself into this application, which might just
say, go be thankful and tell somebody you love them. Well,
great, but what if you're not in the mood to do that? Have
you misapplied the gospel? No, you know what the application
of the gospel then is? Rejoice. When the wall falls
on your head, rejoice. When publishers clear in-house,
remember they used to come to your house and you win a million
dollars, but you buy like 60 million dollars worth of books
to get in the drawing? That's how they get it. It's a legal
gambling for people who think they're gonna win. They ring
the doorbell, even if he rings the doorbell and you win the
billion, or the million. or whatever it might be, God
is to be praised. When you get the million and
then you go bankrupt next week because the taxes were more than
you could afford, God is to be praised. When you're in perfect
health, God is to be praised. And when you get the news that
you only have weeks to live, God is to be praised. It's not about
a fake face. It's not about a plastic mask. It's not about this pretending
and fake it till you make it garbage. It's about being sincere
and open and honest, but knowing that no matter how difficult
or how blessed it might feel in life, there is one standard
that never changes, and that's the immutable Savior, Jesus Christ
the righteous. and that He secured a salvation
for us, and that we are given this salvation as a gift from
our Father who loves us, and gave the Son for us, that we
might be His people. And we see it, that it's all
bound up in this, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also
might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life, and
eternal life is through, found in, and obtained and secured
by Jesus Christ, who is our Lord. You know, Christ is not His last
name. It means the Holy, Anointed One of God. It's an English translation
of Christos in the Greek, which means Messiah. Messiah. The Holy and Anointed
One of God. Jesus Christ our Lord. See, the gift of God is not just
possible, it's certain. How many times have I said this
in my lifetime? It's secured. It's finished. It's accomplished through the
work of Jesus Christ, who has all authority because He is the
Lord. Who is worthy of it all because He is the Christ. Why? Why was it necessary? You want the application here?
Because God, as we've learned in John, loves the Son without
measure, and gives Him the Spirit without measure. And our hope
is bound to the worthiness of God the Father's love to God
the Son, and then also God's love toward us. So that it's
not about how worthy we are to be loved, but it's about how
much God loved us in the giving of His Son. See, the love of
God for Jesus the Son, as I said Sunday, is the certainty for
God's love for us. The love that God has for the
church through Jesus Christ the Son, the Scripture says that
God loved the world in this way that He gave the only Son that
He had, that whoever is believing in Him would not perish but does
have eternal life. But whoever is not believing
in Him is condemned already because he is not believing in the Son
of God. That is the literal translation
of John 3, 16, 17. And people like to scream, well,
whosoever? Whosoever believeth? Yeah. Whoever so is believing. Whosoever is an older word for
whoever. Whoever believes in Christ. Because
whosoever believeth not, that means whoever is not believing,
is condemned already. God's love for His people is
really incomprehensible. So you want to worry? You want
a remedy for worry and doubt and frustration and fear? You
want to worry for addiction and compromise and sin? I mean, you
want a remedy? Focus on the love of God for
you. Because you'll never figure it out, and you'll never get
to the end of it, and you'll be, in what I have tried to figure
out how to explain, you'll be in an eternal frenzy of sublime
thinking about a divine love that you cannot comprehend. So
that's like a spiritual schizophrenia that you cannot escape from.
And when we're in that, nothing else matters. We go to the movies,
we watch a cool movie, and we don't think about anything until
the movie's over. We can escape in a good book.
We can go enjoy a fun game. We can go out to a nice dinner.
We can do all sorts of things. But when we're done with those
things, everything that bothers us in life is still crashing
down on our heads. It's still choking us by the
neck. And I know, by the love of God, if He would just do what
I pray, He would have caused us to escape it all. But see,
why pray against that which God has promised? God has promised
strife. suffering, persecution. He's
promised that we will struggle with the sinfulness of our flesh
so that in those moments we can deal with the application of
the gospel of grace is that God loved me in these problems, in
my doubt, in my wickedness, in my selfishness, in my addiction,
in my whatever evil that I could think of, whatever failing I
could comprehend. He loved me so that He gave the
one He loves without measure on my behalf and caused me to
be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead. And if there's anything else
we need, beloved, we better put it on the throne of heaven and
bow down to it today, because there's nothing greater than
that. Nothing. This is an effectual love. It's
an incomprehensible love. We cannot comprehend it. So when
we meditate on it, when we follow it, when we focus on it, we are
inundated with a barrage of divine affection as we focus on the
love of God for us. But we cannot be like the world.
We must understand the contextual expression of God's love, the
revelation of who God is and how He's done it and what He's
done for us. We must understand it through the Scripture, not
through our culture, not through our philosophy, not through our
creativity, not through our grandparents or parents or pastors even, but
through the Word of God that holds sovereign authority over
all humanity. In this very community, there
is an attack against the sovereignty of God from pulpits in this very
block. There's an attack against the
sovereignty of the Word of God. If I were on the top of our building
here, some 60 feet high, I could stand and show you place after
place after place where the Word of God is barely even used, much
less talk. And it's not except by the grace
of God that I don't do that. Because it would be so much easier
for me to see you leave out of here with a kick in your step,
and a hop, and you're like, woohoo, I think I just had a V8, or I
bought a Toyota, or whatever else we can think of in our culture
that we see people excited about. But when we focus on the effectual
love of God, we need to be reminded, listen to this church, Because
Jesus is Lord. He reigns. Grace reigns through
His righteousness. And He is the God over it all.
He is the God who sits at the side of the Father that makes
God known. God's love did what it was supposed
to do. It saved us. And sometimes the only thing
we can do is sit in the bathroom with the lights off and just
weep into our hands. and just nod our head against any comprehension
of anything that might actually work for us in this temporal
phase of our life. But when we sit there and say,
Lord, what else am I supposed to do? But just consider the
fact that Christ took my sin and I'm alive today, eternally,
because of that. What else is there? Nothing but
that. That might be the only spot of
joy you have in life. But it's enough. It's enough.
So now, as we saw where sin increased, the grace of God increased more. Here, this is what hit me. Look
at this. Verse 20, now the law came in
to increase the trespass. We know what kind of sinner we
are. We know how vastly grotesque
our sin is. We know how much the righteous
judgment of God should pour His wrath upon us because of our
sin. But the more we know about our sin, the Scripture says,
for God's people, for we who are trusting in the finished
work of Jesus, grace abounded all the more. Christ abounded all the more.
So sin ruined humanity and we offended God. We are an affront
to Him. And then we were told we were
an affront to Him. And then the measure of our holiness
was given through the law of God where we saw just how bad
we were. And so then the grace of God
ruined, ruined, ruined our guilt. So our guilt ruined us and God's
grace ruined the offense. We offended God and then God
destroyed the offense by His grace. You see that? What does
that mean? That means we have joy. Sometimes
it's inexpressible, as Peter would say. What does it mean?
It means we have security when nothing else, when all other
foundations around us seem like they're sinking sand. We have
what? We have a love that we can look
at, we have a focus that we can point to, we have a Christ that
we can meditate on against all logical essences. Everything
that comes to our rational mind tells us, nope. But the grace
of God says, yes. No matter the pain. We have a
certain future, and that future is a future of amazing grace,
amazing grace, amazing grace. God's love for me is an amazing
grace. When we sing those songs in both
versions of that, when we sing, my chains are gone, when we sing,
I was blind, but now I see, when we sing those words, it is because
what the gospel has done has freed us from fear, freed us
from guilt, freed us from condemnation, freed us from failure, freed
us from the offense of God because the grace of God is sufficient.
Listen to me, the work of Jesus Christ effectually atoned for
His people, therefore the sins of God's people have been paid
for. You don't have to cash a spiritual
check. You don't have to deposit anything. It's been deposited.
It's been poured out through the body and the blood of Jesus
Christ. We have been justified by faith, therefore we have what?
What does Paul say? Peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ. The peace of God is God's love.
It is peace. It is calm. It is focus. It is conviction to know that
what God has done has effect for us. We know it. So therefore we rejoice in our
sufferings. Because Christ died for the ungodly. Because He had
love for us. That while we were what? Still
sinners, Christ died for us. Verses 6, 7, and 8 of chapter
5. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. A good person
probably would die for another good person, but God, who is
the greatest of all beings, died for wicked people. See, that's
the comparison. Much more, much, much, much,
much, much, much more than has the grace of God had full effect
over His people. Much, much more. If one sin from
one man condemned all humanity, how much more will the one act
of obedience and being justified by the work of Christ have full
effect if He's God, if He's Lord, if He's the Christ? See, that's
what Paul's arguing. That's what Paul wants us to
see. Beloved, do you read the Bible that way? You know what I think we do sometimes?
Myself included. I think we go into the Scripture
too much to try to get our theological pets to purr. When we ought to just fall on
our face and just read and let the glory and the power of Christ
work What is there to do but see God face-to-face through
the pages of Scripture? I beg of you, I beg of you, if
I had the money, I'd pay you to read your Bible. Because it
would be well-invested money. Read it and see the face of God
in His grace. Let's pray. There's just so much I wanted
to say. I didn't get time, Lord. I'm trying to do too much, but
Lord, You're faithful and You're sovereign in it all, and I thank
You for it. Help us to reflect and remember
these things as we move throughout the rest of our week, preparing
us already tonight for Sunday. Help us to not measure ourselves
by each other's zeal or passions, or ministry, or knowledge, but
Father, to measure ourselves by the love that You've given
us through Jesus Christ, the Son. Unworthy, but You love us. Worthy of death, but You saved
us. Guilty of sin, but You satisfied it. We praise You for it, in
Jesus' name.