PEACE WITH MYSELF by Pastor Shah, Clearview, Henderson
Romans 5:12-16 12Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned— 13(For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. 15But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. 16And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification.
How many of ya’ll would honestly say right now—“I’m lost.” “What is Paul talking about?” Why does God have to make things so difficult to understand? Listen carefully. There is a verse in the Old Testament – Proverbs 25:2 “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter.” Some things in the Bible are very simple and easy to understand. They are like rain water or river water. If you are thirsty, you can easily collect it or scoop it up and drink it. But imagine if you were thirsty for cool, clean, fresh water from an underground spring, then you will have to do some work—You will have to locate the patch of ground that is greener than the rest; you will have to clean away all debris, leaves, and sticks; you will have to roll up your sleeves and then you will have to dig and dig until you strike water.
The passage before us is like that underground spring. God has placed it there for us but it is concealed and He wants us to dig it out. Those who are thirsty enough will dig; and that’s what we will do today.
Prayer
Overall Background: In the first half of Romans 5, Paul has been talking about how we can have peace with God. He says in Romans 5:1 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” Meaning: By faith in Jesus Christ, we are justified—declared righteous. In an instant, God takes our sin nature and applies it to Christ and He takes the righteousness of Christ and applies it to us. Now when God sees us, He sees Christ. We are no longer enemies of God but we have peace with God.
Application: By the way, if you have never received Christ as your Savior, you do not have peace with God. In fact, you are an enemy of God. You can take care of that right now.
But after going over the joy of having peace with God, Paul opens the subject of sin once again. That seems strange. Why bring sin back up? Aren’t we done with it? Isn’t God no longer angry with us?
Listen carefully—As wonderful as it is to have peace with God, sin in our life does not seem to go away. We still seem to have the sin problem. We still seem to do things that we used to do before we got saved. We still seem to have the issues that we used to have before we prayed to receive Christ. We still seem to get angry, lust, envy, boast, etc. We are at peace with God but we are not at peace with ourselves. There is still turmoil in our lives; there is still unrest inside of us; Me and God—things are fine; me and myself—things are not fine. So starting in verse 12 of chapter 5 until verse 39 of chapter 8, Paul is going to deal with this matter of sin in the believer’s life.
Application: This morning – ask the Holy Spirit of God to open your eyes to the truth of your salvation so you can have peace with yourself; so you can have a handle over sin.
The way Paul is going to help us in this matter is by showing us that we have been taken out of one race and place into another. By the way – There are only 2 races in the world – the Race of Adam and the Race of Christ.
I. THE RACE OF ADAM
12Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—
Background: In order to get a handle on sin in the Christian life, Paul explains what happened in the first race. How did sin get here? Listen again to verse 12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world,
1. ORIGINAL SIN – WHO STARTED IT?
Sin came in because of the choice that Adam—the father of our race—made when he was in the Garden of Eden. He chose to disobey God and eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, when God had expressly warned him not to and he sinned. When he sinned, a fundamental change came into his character and he became a sinner. Because of his disobedience, it says, “sin entered the world.” By the way, did you notice that Paul is not talking about sins plural but sin singular?
In the previous chapters, Paul was talking about sins plural.
- In chapter 1 he talks about the sins of the ungodly and the unrighteous—how they suppress the truth of God; how they worship creation; and how they worship idols. So God gave them over to more sins—sins of sexual immorality and sins of homosexuality, followed by a litany of sins—covetousness, maliciousness, envy, strife, deceit, pride, boasting, disobedience to parents, etc.
- In chapter 2 he talks about the sins of the self-righteous who judge the ungodly but do the same sins. They are also filled with the sins of envy, strife, covetousness, pride, deceit and on and on. God’s wrath is upon both the ungodly and the self-righteousness because of what they do.
Now Paul is not talking about sins plural but sin singular. What is this sin singular? It is a fundamental change came into his character.
2. PENALTY OF SIN – WHAT IS THE PUNISHMENT?
It did not stop there. “sin entered the world, and death through sin,” What is the result of Adam’s sin? Physical Death. Adam died and then the rest of humanity also died.
Genesis 2:17 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
3. IMPUTED SIN – WHY AM I BEING BLAMED?
What else? and thus death spread to all men,
Physical death came to all of us as well. Why? Because we were in Adam.
For e.g. My grandfather was the Commissioner of Police. He had to fight many times against uprisings. What if he had died? Where would I be right now? There would be no me at all.
4. INHERITED SIN – WHY DO I SIN?
12Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—
Background: Some people read that to mean that we all do sinful things and hence we die just like Adam died. Keep in mind that even babies die. What have they done wrong?
Romans 5:13-14 13(For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.
Meaning:Sin was passed down by Adam to everybody in the race. Sin is hereditary.Now we are infected by the same. Our problem is not in what we are doing—sins plural. Our problem is in who we are—sin singular. Because we have sin singular we do sins plural. We are not sinners because we do sinful things. We do sinful things because we are sinners. This problem does not go away just because you are saved – our status is changed before God but the condition of sin remains.
Application: Would you agree that as a Christian?
– You try to please the Lord and something in you does not want to.
– You try to be humble and pride begins to rise up in you.
– You try to be gentle and you get angry.
– You try to be encouraging and you do just the opposite.
– You try to smile and be loving but, instead, you are hateful.
By the way, the longer you are a Christian, the more you will come to realize that even though you have peace with God, you do not have peace with yourself. Something is fundamentally wrong with you. You will look back and re-evaluate everything that you believed about yourself. The longer people are saved, the more they begin to despise themselves when they come face-to-face with this sin (singular).
In the race of Adam all of us sinned and have become sinners.
II. THE RACE OF CHRIST
1. ENTRY IS A GIFT OF GRACE
Romans 5:15-21 15But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.
Cannot bring your works.
2. IMPUTED SIN IS REPLACED
16And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification.
3. PHYSICAL DEATH IS NOT THE END
17For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.) 18Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.
4. WE WILL BE MADE RIGHTEOUS
19For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.
In his death, we died; in his resurrection, we live.
20Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, 21so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Plenty of grace for us.
Now we can be at peace with ourselves.
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