Let's open our Bibles today to
Romans chapter 5. Romans chapter 5, beginning in
verse 12. Wherefore, Romans 5 verse 12. as by one man sin entered into
the world, and death by sin. And so death passed upon all
men, for that all have sinned. For until the law, sin was in
the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless,
death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned
after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure
of him that was to come. But not as the offense, so also
is the free gift. For if through the offense of
one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by
grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that
sinned, so is the gift. For the judgment was by one to
condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For if by one man's offense death
reign by one, Much more, they which receive abundance of grace
and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus
Christ. Therefore, as by the offense
of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so
by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men
unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, So by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered that
the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. My text today is going to be
verse 17. For by one man's offense, death
hath reigned by one. Much more, they which receive
abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign
in life by one, Jesus Christ. Now last week, I spoke to us
on the subject of the amazing grace of God in the salvation
of a sinner. The amazing grace of God in the
salvation of our sinner. I want you to notice this morning
that in our text, verse 17, that the apostle connects these two
words with God's grace much more, much more. What a wonderful description
of God's grace in these two words, much more. It is much more than
a person in this life is capable of fully comprehending. God's
marvelous, wonderful, infinite grace. The word that I used last time, grace,
God's riches at Christ's expense. God's grace is much more than
the conversion experience because God's grace includes all of our
experience as we go through this world. God's amazing grace. I want you to notice in verse
17 in our text that the apostle tells us that there are those
which receive abundance of grace. There are people, many of you
here today, There are those in this world, the apostle tells
us, that receive abundance of grace. And that begs the question,
what kind of persons are these who receive abundance of grace? Well, they are sinners, because
he tells us that they're under the reign of death. And everyone
who is under the reign of death, and no one can deny that reign
is a mighty monarch. He's reigned over all men and
women from the time of Adam until today. You'll never visit a city
where there's not a cemetery. You'll never be in a family where
there are not some who are missing. Death reigned, and yet there
are those who receive abundance of grace. What kind of people
are they? Who are they? They're sinners. Because you
see, grace is for sinners. Grace cannot be deserved. It
cannot be earned. The moment grace is deserved,
the moment grace is earned, it's no longer grace. Grace, that's
what is so amazing about God's grace. For by grace are you saved
through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of
God, not of works, lest any man should boast. So first of all,
we see Paul tells us there are those in this world who were
under the sentence of death, so they were sinners, and yet
they receive an abundance of grace. But notice number two,
at the same time, that's not all he tells us that these people
receive. They receive the gift of righteousness. The gift of righteousness. Now
that righteousness, which is a gift, is the righteousness
of Jesus Christ. It's called the righteousness
of God because He is God. And it is the righteousness that
He earned. By his obedience, by his absolute
perfect obedience to God's perfect law, he earned this righteousness
and not only his obedience but his suffering at the hands of
God's broken law that those he represented have broken. The gift of righteousness. But
notice that's not all. Notice the third thing the apostle
tells us. The same ones, now get this,
the same ones, the very same ones that receive an abundance
of grace, the very same ones that receive the gift of righteousness
shall reign in life by one. By one. That is Jesus Christ. The abundance of grace the gift
of righteousness, and to reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. If you think about the abundance
of grace, it is in Jesus Christ. John tells us in his gospel,
in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. We know that's the eternal Son
of God. And then he tells us the word
became flesh and dwelt among us. Now listen, full of grace. An abundance of grace in Jesus
Christ. He's full of grace. But notice
something else here, the gift of righteousness. The apostle
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 30, but of him is
he made unto us. wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. And then third, to reign in life
by Jesus Christ. The apostle was told by God,
my grace, as he was in this world, my grace is sufficient for thee. I want us to think this morning
about those who receive an abundance of grace, which enables us to
live or to reign in life by Jesus Christ. Let that sink in. Those who receive
an abundance of grace, those of us who know Christ as our
Lord and Savior today, who've been saved by the grace of God.
We have received an abundance of grace. We have received the
gift of righteousness that we might reign in life by one Jesus
Christ. Now, of course, we think of reigning
in eternity. Well, that's certainly true.
But this verse of scripture is also speaking of our life in
this world. We are to reign by one. Reign over what? reign over sin,
reign over Satan, reign over this present evil world. We are to reign in one by Jesus
Christ. Now I want to point out some
things that we are given that enables us to reign. You see,
we're more than conquerors through Jesus Christ, our Lord. We're
not just conquerors, we're more than conquerors. We are to reign
in life. Here's four things that we're
given. First of all, God is the God
of all grace. Our God is the God of all grace. No way we could reign in life
if we do not have the God of grace as our God. Remember, this
is one of the promises of the New Covenant. I will be unto
them a God, and they shall be my people. Look with me in 1
Peter chapter 5 and verse 10. We are to reign in life by one,
by Jesus Christ, first of all because God Our Father is the
God of all grace. In 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 10, the apostle says,
But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal
glory by Christ Jesus, He's called us to His eternal glory. That's what we would call heaven.
That's our destination. Everyone who is called by the
grace of God, everyone who is saved by the grace of God, our
destination, our eternal home, is that place that the Lord Jesus
Christ has prepared for us. How is it that we may reign in
life by one? Because our Father is the God
of all grace. He's called us, as the apostle
tells us here, unto eternal glory, but notice after that. Now, when a person is saved,
he's not immediately, she's not immediately taken into the presence
of God. Now we know for one, the one
the Lord saved that day that was hanging on the cross, He
was taken to glory that very day because our Lord told him,
today thou shalt be with me in paradise. But for most of God's
children, most who are saved, He doesn't immediately translate
us into the kingdom of glory to which we've been called. But
notice what Peter tells us. After that you have suffered
a while. He leaves us here in this world,
and because we are not in our eternal home, we suffer. We suffer. Now I know when we
use the word suffer, we usually think of suffering physically,
and many of God's people do. And there's all kinds of suffering
that God's children go through in this world. But after that,
we have suffered a while. In other words, until it's God's
time and He takes us home to be with Him, as long as we are
in this world, we are in a place described as a place of suffering. We suffer, why? Because we still
have that old nature, for one reason, we suffer. There's that
ongoing warfare in every believer between the spirit and the flesh.
We suffer. We want to be home. We look forward
to the fight being over and being at peace with God Almighty in
heaven. We suffer a while. And notice
during this time of suffering, we are told that by His grace,
We're to reign by one, even Jesus Christ, after that you had suffered
a while, make you perfect. You say, well preacher, I thought
we were already perfect. We are in Christ. He is our perfection. But this word perfect is a word
which actually means mature. When we are born again, come
into the family of God. We're not born full grown. We're
not. We learn. We grow in the grace,
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so during this time that
we remain here, our God is the God of all grace, and He leaves
us here that we may mature, that we may grow. And that's not all. That we may be established by
His grace. He will establish us. He will
stabilize our walk. This word that is translated
here, establish, is the same word that is translated concerning
the Lord Jesus Christ. He set his face like a flint
to go to Jerusalem. The same word, establish us. You know, as a child, and Paul
deals with this in Ephesians, As a child of God, many times
they're blown about by every wind of doctrine. When first
converted, you know, you hear something and someone said, well,
you can lose your salvation. People, you know, are kind of
upset about that. Naturally so. Many different things to discourage
a child of God when we begin our Christian walk. But God leaves
us here to establish us, establish our walk. And then notice, strengthen
us. When we start off, we think,
boy, this is going to be easy. This is going to be easy. Living
for Christ, serving Him in this world, this is going to be an
easy road. But God strengthens us by showing
us that in ourselves we have no strength. We have no strength. And we soon learn, and we continue
to learn, that our strength is Christ. He's our strength. We have no strength in ourselves
to live for Him, to serve Him. He leaves us here as a God of
all grace to perfect, that is to mature us, to establish us,
to strengthen us, and also to settle us. Settle us, as he says. But the God of all grace who
hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after
that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish,
strengthen, settle you. as we grow. Remember our Lord
in Mark chapter 4. He talked about the seed that
is sown. First it springs up, it's a blade. Then it's an ear. Then it's the
corn in the ear. And the Apostle John in his first
epistle, he speaks to us as little children, as young men, and as
fathers. All of this showing us that we
grow because God is the God of all grace and he leaves us here
in this world that we may grow in grace and in the knowledge
of Christ. And we become rooted, rooted
and grounded in love. We don't start off that way.
As I said just a few minutes ago, Paul said there are people
who are waiting. They're waiting to distract and
discourage and to cause a believer to sway away, to turn away from
the truth. That's the reason he's given
us ministers, that we may be rooted and grounded in love,
in the faith. So one reason that we reign in
this life, by one, is because we have the God of all grace
as our Father. Now second, not only do we have
the God of all grace as our Father, but those who receive abundance
of grace, we have God the Holy Spirit living in us. And this
is what confuses some young believers. They hear someone come along
and say, well, you've got to be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
You don't have the Holy Spirit. Well, no one has ever been saved
apart from God the Holy Spirit. Our Lord Jesus said, no man can
come to me except the Father which has sent me draw him. And
it is the office work of God the Holy Spirit who draws men
to Christ. When a person trust in the Lord
Jesus Christ, the work of sanctification, that is the new birth, the Holy
Spirit comes to live in us. That assures us that we will
reign in life by one, by Jesus Christ. Why? Because not only
do we have God as our Father, the God of all grace, but we
also have God the Holy Spirit who lives in us. Look with me
in 2 Thessalonians 2, just a moment. Turn back a few pages to 2 Thessalonians
2. Verse 13. But we are bound to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth. God chose his people from the
beginning. That is, from eternity He has
chosen His people, chosen us to salvation. But notice that
it is through sanctification of the Spirit
and belief of the truth. That sanctification of the Spirit
is being born again of the Spirit of God, set apart by the Spirit
of God And we believe the gospel. We receive the Lord Jesus Christ
as our Lord and Savior. Several years ago, someone accosted
me, I guess you'd say, and they were all caught up in this matter
of we were saved at the cross when the Lord Jesus Christ died.
Well, that's true. We were saved in eternity. The
scripture says, who has saved you? And we were saved at the
cross. But we're also saved when we
believe, when we're sanctified by the Spirit and believe the
truth. You say, well, how can that be?
It's all part of God's work. It's all part of salvation. But
anyway, this person said, well, surely, David, you don't believe
we're saved when we believe, when we have faith. And I said,
well, surely you don't believe that people are saved who don't
have faith. Yes, faith. Faith is not our
savior, but no one is saved apart from the belief of the truth. Sanctification of the spirit
and belief of the truth. And notice the next verse. Whereunto
He called you by our gospel. This is one reason that we preach
the gospel. And we preach to men, lost men
and women, as though they were alive. Someone said, well, why
do you call upon men that you know who are dead in trespasses
and sins, why do you call upon men and women to believe? Because
God commanded us to. He said, well, I just, why don't
you go out here to the cemetery and command those people whose
bodies are buried away, why don't you go out there and command
them to live? Because God hasn't told us to.
He hasn't told us to do that. But what He has told us to do
is to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Whosoever believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. Whosoever believeth not shall
be damned. God the Holy Spirit, He's the
one who comes to live in every believer. In 1 Corinthians 12
and verse 13, Paul says, for by one spirit are we all baptized
into one body, whether Jew or Greek or Gentiles, whether we
be bond or free, we have all been made to drink into one spirit. And that one spirit is God the
Holy Spirit. Every believer drinks into him. We're brought, what am I saying? We're brought into a vital union
with Christ. We were chosen in Him before
the foundation of the world. But in time, we hear the gospel,
and we believe, and that's what is called a vital union. In other words, we are in Him
by faith, and He is in us by His Holy Spirit. He lives in
us. And every child of God, there's
no way that we could reign in life apart from God the Holy
Spirit. Remember, he said, without me,
you can do nothing. The Holy Spirit, he directs us,
he influences us to daily draw out of the fullness that is in
Christ. I pointed out to us that this
fullness is in Christ, the fullness of grace and the grace that we
need day by day. And we need it every day. When we're saved, we experience
the grace of God, but God doesn't just load us down with a bundle
of grace and say, well now, you've got it all in yourself now. No, the Holy Spirit lives in
us and causes us and leads us to continue to look to Jesus
Christ. For in Him is the fullness of
grace. and the grace that we need, we
receive from Him. Grace to reign in life by one,
Jesus Christ. Third, not only do we have the
God of all graces, our Father, not only do we have God the Holy
Spirit living in us, but we have the word of grace. Look with
me to Acts, if you will, Acts chapter 20. Acts chapter 20. In this place,
the apostle Paul is meeting with the elders of the church at Ephesus,
knowing that this would be the last time that they would see
each other in this world. And if you notice in verse 32,
he said, And now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of
His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance
among all them which are sanctified. Paul could do nothing better,
nothing more for these believers, leaving them for the last time,
than to commend them to God and to the word of His grace. This book is a word of His grace,
isn't it? I mean, you begin in the very
beginning and you see the grace of God. When Adam sinned, why
was he not immediately cast into hell? Because of the grace of
God. And you just run all through
the Bible and you see time after time, person after person, that
experience the grace of God. Look with me in Titus just a
moment, thinking about the word of his grace. If you turn to
Titus chapter 2, beginning in verse 11, for the grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us. Now the grace, notice this, the
grace that brings salvation teaches. It teaches us. The gospel does not promote licentiousness. We're saved fully, completely,
absolutely by the grace of God apart from our works. But the
grace of God does not lead men and women to live wicked lives. Like, that's what they accused
Paul of teaching. Let us sin that grace may abound. No, Paul said, God forbid. You've
misunderstood grace altogether if you think that is true about
grace. Grace that brings salvation,
he says, teaches us. And notice what he says, it teaches
us. Denying ungodliness. That's the
first thing it teaches us, that we deny ungodliness. Our life,
it's not perfect, and it's not like we would want it to be by
any means. But it's different from what
it was. Now, we want to live for the
glory of God. The grace of God that brings
salvation teaches us, first of all, to deny ungodliness, those
things that that dishonor God. That's not the way we want to
live. We want to live in such a way as to bring honor and glory
to our God and Father. Having experienced His wonderful
grace, the very last thing we want to do is to bring reproach
and dishonor upon Him who's done so much for us. Not only does it teach us to
deny ungodliness, but worldly lust. Those are negatives, but
also positive that we should live soberly. Soberly. You know, some people go through
this world and they just think it's all a big joke. That life
is a big joke. We live soberly. We recognize
that we have a soul. We have an eternity to spend
somewhere. We live soberly, righteously. We try to and attempt to do justly
to other people, not to fraud and defraud and take advantage
of other people. Live righteously and godly in
this present world, looking for the blessed hope and glorious
appearing of the great God and our Savior. Jesus Christ who
gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and
purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. God's people are peculiar, not
that they dress different from everyone else or anything like
that, but the peculiarity about God's people is they love God
and they want to serve him and serve others. It's not all about
me. By nature, all of us are selfish. And it starts when a baby first
comes into this world, you see that nature that is in them,
the selfishness. It's all about me, what you can
do for me, how you can please me. But the grace of God teaches
us. to live in an unselfish manner,
to live for others, how we may serve others and do good unto
others. You know, one area of conduct
in which we especially need His grace is our speech. our speech. And I say this because the Apostle
James tells us, if any offend not in word, the same is a perfect
man, that is a mature man and able to bribe the whole body. To bridle this tongue, we need
grace. Where's that grace going to come
from? It's going to come from him in whom there is a fullness
of grace. And as I thought about this this
past week, I thought, I wonder why it is that we do not see
Paul's exhortation. Now listen, why is it that believers
do not see Paul's exhortation to speak evil of no man and believe
that just as much as his exhortation, be not drunk with wine wherein
is excess? Why is it that we do not see
that these two exhortations are equal? We need God's grace, do we not? We need God's grace, and God's
grace is available. The grace of God that bring us
salvation teaches us. And then here's the last thing
I want to mention. Not only do we have the God of
all graces, our Father, God the Holy Spirit living in us, and
the word of his grace given to us in the scriptures. But number
four, we have an excellent pattern, an excellent pattern given to
us. If you will, in 1 Timothy chapter
one, just back a page or two from Titus in 1 Timothy chapter
one, this is what Paul tells us. 1 Timothy chapter 1, beginning
in verse 13, he tells us what he was. He was a blasphemer. He was a persecutor. He was insolent,
injurious. But I obtained mercy because
I did it ignorantly in unbelief. Now notice, and the grace of
our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love, which is
in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners of whom I am chief, albeit for this cause
I obtain mercy. Now notice that in me first,
Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering for a pattern
to them which should hereafter believe on him to life eternal. He was a blasphemer, he was a
persecutor, he was injurious to the children of God. But he
experienced God's mercy in not giving him what he deserved.
If God had given Saul of Tarsus what he deserved, he would have
given him hell. But rather than that, he experienced
God's mercy and he experienced God's grace. And God's grace
is God giving us what we don't deserve, the unmerited favor
of God. He had been before a man of religious
works, but God's abundant grace turned him into a man of faith. He had been a man who was guilty
of hatred and prejudice, but God's grace turned him into a
man of love. For in Christ Jesus, he said,
neither circumcision or uncircumcision availeth anything but faith working
through love. What a pattern are we given when
we think of Saul of Tarsus and what God's grace did for him
and in him. So much so that he said this,
by the grace of God, By the grace of God, I am what
I am. That's true of every child of
God. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. Well, I pray that the Lord would
bless this word to all of us here this morning and help us
to realize that God's grace Yes, it's amazing grace. We never
get over that and saving a wretch like me, a sinner like we are.
But God's grace is not just that initial conversion experience. God's grace is all through this
life, looking unto Christ and receiving from him the grace
that we need to live for him and to honor and glorify him.
I'm going to ask Bill