Adam & Christ Part 1

I'm going to read this passage, I'd like you to think for a minute before I do. This is really at the heart of the book of Romans. This is one of the most, you could say, theologically dense passages in the Bible. In the sense that it is so thick with the truth and the assurance about Christ's ability to justify us before God. In this passage, Paul, what he does, he paints with a very broad brush, a bird's eye picture of the history of redemption. The canvas is sort of human history as a whole.

And the scope that he is covering is really universal. It touches every human being on the face of the earth who's ever lived or ever will live. The topic of this section is the reign of grace and life. We've been talking about guilt and condemnation and justification in Christ.

But now we're talking about death and life. And this is a transitional, central place in the book and it's transitional because we're going to begin to look at the implications for our daily life in the book of Romans of these great and awesome truths that are so big and so large. But as I read through this, this is a difficult passage to understand because there's so much here and sometimes you get lost in it.

But listen carefully as I read through Romans chapter 5 beginning in verse 12. 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 is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those who 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. 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 unto all men or for all men.

For 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 in 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. May the Lord bless the reading of his word. You and I desperately need a rock solid foundation as Christians living in a world where our nation has basically lost its rudder. We've forgotten who we are and where we have come from and we have to go back to the scriptures to discover that to find God's perspective of who we are. What he says is true we are committed to that.

We're committed to the fact that this Bible is a God breathed book that God has given to us to understand all of reality and this foundation that we need is a truth of God and this passage here is like the semen in that foundation. This is foundational truth that we really need to understand in order to live the Christian life in today's world and so we're going to spend some time on this more than one week I don't know how long exactly but looking at the wonderful implications of this passage. How does this passage unfold because it's very difficult when you first get exposed to it to figure out what's going on here. The first thing to remember is there's only two men being spoken of here Christ Adam and Christ the first Adam and the last Adam.

One way to make sense of this passage is kind of what we did in the first 11 verses and the first 11 verses you had the main verb was repeated three times and those repetitions in that word was boast we boast and Paul said we boast in three things he begins chapter five with we boast in hope of the glory of God and then he says the second section begins with and we boast intribulations and then the third section ends with we boast in God well that cuts the passage up in a sense it shows us what the shape of the text is and here we have a verb that is repeated

in fact it's repeated five times but in three clusters and it tells us how this passage is unfold to us in fact I would suggest that you actually underlined this verb that I'm going to tell you in a moment and we'll look at it that this is really the key to understanding the flow of this text and that is the word rain to rain the verb rain it appears in verse 14 in verse 17 twice in fact in verse 17 and then twice in verse 21 what that does and it's important where it's found where this word is found

because it's it's significant placement is that it is the summary verse the summary verses of each of these sections has this word rain in it because that's the point of the text so if you underline the word rain in verse 14 twice in verse 17 and twice in verse 21 you'll kind of have a picture that this is the end of each major section of this entire portion of scripture we're looking at in verses 12 through 14 what Paul is doing is he's recounting the universal rain of death the rain of sin and death from Adam onward

let me get some help here first of all in verse 12 through 14 he speaks of the universal rain of sin and death this is from Adam onward he this section ends with this word rain regarding the rain of death over all men non-escape I was I did a funeral in Lodi some months ago and the funeral director said I we were talking and and they have this this funeral home is in a converted house it's a large house what they've been there for years and years and years and we were just talking and and he was mentioning to me how they were having they

were doing fewer funerals he said the death rate has gone down I said well that's an amazing thing I thought the death rate was 100 percent didn't you I don't know anybody except the Lord Jesus Christ who who didn't have a funeral Jesus came out of the grave but the death rate is 100 percent you are going to die I am going to die except for that one generation that's going to be transformed through the coming of Jesus Christ those who are believing in Him but death is inevitable for us apart from that it rains and

in fact that rain of death over us it hovers over our head the Bible says we live in that without Christ we live in fear of death our whole lives and you don't have to be old to die very first funeral I did was a 16 year old and the last funeral I did the other day was a 15 year old those are hard things to take

but death is sure it rains and it rains because of Adam's sin Paul says and then in verses 15 through 17 he contrasts the reign of Christ free gift called grace with the reign of sin and death there's this contrast whereas sin reigned this way the free gift of Christ that is grace reigns this way and he ends this section verses 15 through 17 with a contrast of the reign of death and the reign of life for those who accept the grace of Christ this free gift of his righteousness it's interesting in that section he says death reigned over us

but when we enter into life with Christ we reign in life death is a task master but the life that Jesus Christ gives allows us to reign in life with Jesus Christ and then in verses 18 through 21 he compares the consequences of the act of Adam with the act of Jesus Christ he pictures this one act of Adam his disobedience his rebellion against God in the garden with the one act of Jesus Christ absolute obedience in the worst of circumstances those of you who have seen the Passion of Christ what you were seeing there was depicted in an art form and it was worse than what you saw on the screen

but recognize this and what Jesus was doing was an act of obedience to his Father it wasn't defeat it looked like defeat it looked like the weakness of God the Bible says but it was the strength of God it was the power of God it looked like the foolishness of God but it was the wisdom of God because Jesus Christ was acting in obedience to his Father under the worst of circumstances when you compare that to the act and his sin in the garden it's amazing

because Adam was in a perfect environment he didn't have a mother-in-law he didn't have a father that he could blame everything on he was created by the hand of God he had a wife that was perfect because she was created by the hand of God he couldn't blame it on his environment he couldn't blame it on his parents or his grandparents or his genetic structure he did it openly and freely rebelled against Almighty God and led this race into this ruin that Paul is describing here

but notice at the end of verses 18 through 21 and making this comparison he speaks of the reign of grace and life that it supersedes it's far greater than the reign of sin and death because grace results in eternal life that breaks the back of death death has no sting for the believer the reason death has no sting for the believer is because the sting of sin is the sting of death is sin it's the law it is the law it is a broken law that makes death so bad

because death is a penalty but now for the believer it's simply a means of transformation into the very presence of God it's a passageway and that's what Paul is telling us here in this passage and you can see this by following this main verb reign and as you read this this week and I really hope that you do I hope that you will spend some time meditating on this passage and thinking about the implications of it every issue in life that you are facing today flows out of the truth of this passage and we need to be gripped by it I want to point out

just four things in this passage is kind of an introduction to Romans 5 verses 12 through 21 as we go through and the first is that Christ is far greater than Adam there is a comparison being made here between Adam and Christ and one of the things that Paul makes clear as Christ is far greater than Adam what Christ has done for all who are in him is far greater than what has happened to those who are in Adam what Adam did for all who were in him the obedience of Christ is parallel with the disobedience of Adam

but it is far superior to the disobedience of Adam that's what Paul keeps pressing home to our hearts the righteousness imputed to those who are in Christ is parallel but it's vastly superior to the sin imputed to those who are in Adam imputation is a word that you may not use all the time some of you do if you're an accountant or a banker

but the word to impute means to reckon something to a person's account when you go to the bank and you make a deposit you may give them a hundred dollar bills a hundred one hundred dollar bills and you say put this in my account and of course they don't have a little box back there that has your name on it but they reckon it to you it's reckoned to you it's imputed to you it's yours and this sin that is imputed to us through Adam and the righteousness is imputed that is imputed to those who are in Christ is very real it is an imputation that puts it on your account it is

now yours so the life that comes to us those of us who are in Christ through the imputed righteousness is parallel but it is vastly superior to what is imputed to all through Adam so the point of these verses is that the obedience of Christ the obedience of Christ and Paul calls us in Philippians chapter 2 the obedience unto death I've tried to be obedient to the Lord in my life I've walked with him for many years but I can tell you I haven't always been successful and neither of you we've all failed to obey him in different ways

but we want to grow we want to become more obedient but Jesus was obedient unto death unto laying down his own life the ultimate test of obedience and that's why Jesus tells us if you've gonna follow me you must take up your cross the implement of your own death and follow me

because that's ultimately what it's gonna cost you it's gonna cost you everything to follow Jesus Christ it's why people abandon Christ is because it cost you everything to follow Jesus Christ even relationships so that's the point of these verses that the obedience of Christ is the foundation of the doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ in this act of justification when we say that we are justified before God we mean that God we mean that God has declared us to be righteous

because he has imputed the righteousness of Christ to our account and when he looks at me he sees his son some years ago my son applied at master's seminary he had to have his transcripts sent and one of the transcripts he graduated from Hayward State

but he went to Western Baptist College in Oregon for a year and so he had to have his transcripts sent from there and I graduated from Western Baptist so they sent my transcripts because we have the same name and they were really confused how could this boy have graduated from college when he was one they just couldn't figure that out they were trying they got us mixed up the case of your identity before God and the Lord Jesus Christ God himself has put the record of Jesus Christ upon you in order to declare you righteous to make you right with him and justification means this

it means that God has received you as righteous declared you as righteous and treats you as righteous and he treats you like his own son that's why he disciplines his sons he disciplines his children if you if you sin against God and you rebel against him and you never experience any discipline if he doesn't turn you away from that disobedience then Hebrew says you're a bastard and not a true son you're not a legitimate child because every legitimate child of God God successfully disciplines his children

now it's true in very very rare cases there is a sin unto death but you see all that has to do with the fact in other words that sometimes God will take the life of one of his children for a purpose because they refuse to repent you have that case with anionis and so far but it's a very unusual case John says if you see a brother sin a sin unto death I don't tell you to pray for his life to be extended you just step back and

let me deal with them that's very rare in the reason it's very rare is it only happens when God uses that for a purpose not only in that person's life but in other people's life but God is a very good parent he knows how to discipline his children and because he has declared you to be righteous and there's no question in his mind that you are right with him and you're standing and your identity of who you are his own child and he is free to discipline you I never spank anybody else's children I don't even I rare I think I may have paddled one of my grandchildren

but it was very light it wasn't like when I spank my own children very different I feel a certain ownership of my grandkids but my own children I freely disciplined them because my I'd love for them they were really my children I knew they were not bastards they were my legitimate children and if you're a legitimate child of God if you've been born again if you've been declared righteous by the righteousness of Christ and count on it you're going to stay in that position through all eternity

because God knows how to discipline his children now the bigger context of this passage in the book of Romans is that the overarching theme of the letter since chapter 1 verse 17 onward has been the doctrine of justification by faith apart from works believers are declared to have a right standing with God not on the basis of their inherent righteousness not because they are inherently righteous but because of the righteousness of Christ that they have received by faith alone we always want to keep these true true true separate and sometimes they're very closely related

but we need to be clear every believer has an absolute righteous standing before God that's unassailable because of his identity with Christ that's his standing but his state there is great variation some of you are much more holy and mature in your life than others

because you're at different places in your life but God is at work in you and you know what he's going to do he's going to bring this all the way up to here when you enter into his presence but he's committed to that God is committed to bringing you up to here so that you are what he has declared you to be he's going to do that some of you are wondering if he ever will but he will believe me he's going to we are declared right in our standing with God on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus Christ

now in this paragraph what Paul is doing is drawing the same teaching to a climax by explaining it more fully through the comparison of Adam and Christ he's putting it in the bigger context he wants us to see why he is so absolutely sure that God's going to complete his work in you that he is truly going to justify all those who come to faith in Christ

now the second thing I want you to notice in this passage is that Adam is a type of Christ we get that from verse 14 at the end of verse 14 Adam who was a type of the one who was to come the NIV if you have an NIV it translates that a pattern he is the pattern of the one who is to come that is Adam is a type or pattern of Jesus Christ who was to come in in other words Adam is an example a foreshadowing a prefiguring of Christ he is a type of Christ we can understand Christ better by looking at the comparison between Adam and Christ

let me put it to you this way we used to have six horses on our place we only have one left but we had these four horses that we owned one of them was named Dipsy and one of them was named CB and if I were to show you if I were to compare these two horses and say here is a Dipsy as a type of CB the difference is this when you looked at Dipsy look like a horse he was built like a horse had a face like a horse a little Palomino long tail eight hey did all the other things horses do that

you have to clean up all those things he was a real horse but when you put him next to CB you could see the difference these two horses were clearly alike but very different Dipsy was five hands little short horse didn't even come up with my waist full grown CB was almost 15 hands one of them weighed maybe 350 pounds the other weighed about 2000 pounds one was nuts the little one absolutely crazy this this horse CB was a well bred horse a gentle horse a horse that was a wonderful horse my daughter's barrel racing horse powerful very different

but I could show you this and say here's a horse CB is like Dipsy but when you saw them together you would see this great distinction when we look at Adam we say Christ is the second Adam but there is a massive difference there is a huge difference so one way to see something better is to see the long side of something that is different that's what Paul's doing in this paragraph he is comparing Adam with Christ in verse 14 he says he's going to view Christ in comparison and in contrast with Adam that's why he calls Adam the type of Christ that makes him

Adam a pattern a type that points us to Christ the aim is to see more clearly and more fully and more deeply the work of Jesus Christ and how he became the foundation of our justification that is the purpose of Paul the purpose of Paul is not simply look at the sin problem

but it is to look at the solution to the sin problem in the person of Jesus Christ we want to see Christ so when we come to this text as you read it this week and think about it meditate upon it ask God to open your eyes to what this text says about the Lord Jesus Christ as our righteousness what does he take this approach you know he could have done it differently he could have just used another way to explain justification by faith in a more full way what is he use this comparison what is he point to Adam the

first man who's affected the whole race why is he done it this way well notice this Adam is pictured as the father of us all the father of us all all here in this particular context means absolutely all all people on the face of the earth there is no people group no individual no nation no tongue no one who is a descendant of Adam no living human being ever except the Lord Jesus Christ and he took it upon himself our father is Adam now why does Paul do it this way

well first of all he explains it this way explaining the obedience of Christ is a remedy of the damage that it was done by our ultimate father Adam the disobedience of Adam he does this because he wants us to see that the doctrine of justification by grace or faith is not limited to anyone people anyone individual

but it is toward all without exception there is no one on the face of this earth that is beyond the reach of the gospel and justification by faith any person that you ever come in contact with is a candidate of the gospel if they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that person who has the sin of Adam upon him and the and the reign of death over him if he will turn to Christ in faith the remedy that Christ has brought is fit for him so wherever there are descendants of Adam there is a need for the truth of justification by faith so you can't

go any place where there are no descendants of Adam this is why we don't believe this is one of the main reasons that we believe that the teaching of evolution isn't a small deal it's a big deal because the Bible teaches very clearly that we all came from one father Adam and we are all sinners

because of that connection the damage done by Adam sin affects every human being in every place at all times that's why when a baby is born that beautiful little baby who seems so innocent and beautiful we know is in Adam and therefore has the curse of death upon them apart from the intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ the damage done by Adam sin affects every single one of us and that leads us to the glorious truth at the obedience of Jesus Christ and the imputing of that obedience to those who come to faith in him is the remedy for this damage for all human beings

everywhere and at all times this is the solution think of that you have the solution to the greatest problem that man faces the damage done by Adam the condemnation that came about through Adam no other salvation for this fatal damage in the human race apart from the Lord Jesus Christ now this has staggering implications about how we do the work of the gospel and the advance of the kingdom we do the work of the kingdom staggering implications when you compare when Paul compares Christ with Adam

first of all is that Jesus Christ is worthy of our greatest admiration and trust and love and praise he is he is great great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsurchable and he alone has lived and died in such a way that it is fit for every single descendant of Adam the deepest problem of sin for any human being anywhere it's solved when they trust in the Lord Jesus Christ you want to go to the mission field pick a place you can go anywhere you can go to Canada you can go to South America you can go to any

continent on the face of the earth you can go to the most pagan areas of the world or the most Christianized places in the world and the need is the same there is a need for what Jesus Christ has accomplished the second thing the

second implication of this is that Jesus Christ is not a tribal deity he's not a tribal deity this is really significant for missions it's significant for evangelism around the world as people go into different places Christ is not a Christian God with a little G alongside of the gods of the Muslims and the gods of the pagans of different kind he is the God of the universe he is the only solution there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved he is the one and only and this is what is so offensive about Christianity of course is

because we're saying yes this is the only way to God through the Lord Jesus Christ now the point of comparison with Adam is to show that there is one fundamental problem that all men have all people have without exception and it began with Adam and it began with his sin in the garden that's the burden of this text is the problem with humanity is not at its deepest level our individual sinning

but the connection that we have to Adam sin now your individual sinning is bad and it's going to be judged if you do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ a person who sins a lot is going to be judged more according the Bible apart from faith in Jesus Christ at the great white throne judgment when the Lord Jesus Christ the risen Christ the Son of God sits on the throne of judgment and all unbelievers are brought before him that judgment we are told in the

first two chapters of Romans is going to be a judgment of their works what they actually did and the secrets of their hearts what their motivation was it's an awesome thought but the bigger problem is their connection with Adam this condemnation that is upon the whole race

notice this as you go through these verses notice in verse 15 he's notice the words by the transgression of the one that is Adam the many died verse 16 the judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation verse 17 by the transgression of the one death reign through the one verse 18 through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men verse 19 through the one man's disobedience the many were made are constituted sinners now this is really important it's hard to take I can tell you that most of us don't have the categories to take this in sometimes we think

well you can't teach this stuff in other cultures because they couldn't understand this oh they can understand it much more easily than Americans can we're the ones who have the problem with it to think that God has brought condemnation on the world because of the sin of one man is absolutely offensive to us why should I be guilty about him sin well we're going to find out as we go through this text and all I'm asking you to do is to trust the word of God and

notice what it says as we go through it now it's important the problems with the human race is not mostly everybody's sins those sins are very real they're significant and they have to be dealt with but Paul and Paul's concerned about them by the way he deals with our personal sins but in this context the deepest problem is that behind all our depravity and all our guilt and all our sinning there is this deep mysterious connection with Adam and his sin and it became our sin the sin of Adam became my sin and his judgment became my judgment and the savior from this condition and this damage is one savior

because we all have this one problem there is one savior who can save us he stands in Adam's place as a kind of second Adam he's called the last Adam he stands in our place and through his one act just like Adam's one act plunge us into condemnation the reason that this isn't all that hard to understand in other cultures

because they understand that the head of a clan the head of a family affects that entire family and that's what's happened with Adam Adam because of his rebellion took his entire posterity into a place of rebellion against the living God and Jesus Christ came to undo that work and to reconcile us to God so an Adam all men are appointed sinners verse 19 but all who are in Christ are appointed righteous they are declared righteous in Adam all receive condemnation verse 18 but in Christ all receive justification

now there are some today who are saying in the world in the church world that the doctor of justification by grace based on the imputation of the obedience of Jesus Christ to our lives is a product of Western European white male internal struggles Martin Luther had a huge problem with his own conscience

and so he developed this doctorate of justification by faith alone now that isn't true and it ought to be apparent to you that it's not true because we haven't been reading Martin Luther have we I rarely quote Martin Luther it's the apostle Paul that I've been quoting it's Jesus that we've been quoting it's the Bible that we have been quoting it's the Bible that tells us the justification is by grace through faith alone in Christ alone if Paul had merely said

you know sin is like drowning in the ocean and salvation is like being pulled out of the water into a boat by a strong man then we could go all around the world and if they didn't have oceans we could say well sin is like sinking into this quicksand and salvation is like pulling the man out of the quicksand see those are analogies justification is not an analogy it's not a redemptive metaphor it is a redemptive truth it's based upon historical facts events persons realities it's really important the justification by faith alone is not an optional doctrine it's not one of those peripheral things like

do you believe that believers still speak in tongues today that's not a central issue that isn't a reason to divide over justification by faith alone through Christ alone is a central issue of the gospel it's the reason that the church did split over this at the Reformation it's

because this is one of those doctrines that if we don't have it we will perish we cannot preach the gospel without it this is central and we can't we come to this doctrine and we look at what Romans chapter 5 verses 12 through 21 actually say we know that we can no longer preach the gospel without this central truth being an understanding of ours as we take the gospel to the world and that is

because Paul connects it with Adam this historical ancestor of ours and the ancestor of every people the face of the earth that you will ever see regardless of what they look like they are descendants of Adam that is a historical fact it's not an analogy it's a historical fact Adam the

first human being sinned and in him all human beings sinned and all died and are condemned before God and so we need a remedy for this horrible situation it's as though the head of this human race this is what it is it's not as this is what happened the head of the human race rebelled against God and the whole human race is plunged into alienation from God and Jesus Christ came to make that right the remedy for that is another historical person the Lord Jesus Christ the God man who came in space and time 2000 years ago to undo what Adam had done Jesus Christ

what he did was he trusted and he obeyed God perfectly whereas Adam refused to trust God and refused to obey him and let us into this rebellion so that if you are in Christ by faith you are made right with God that's a glorious truth if you're in Christ Jesus his righteousness has been imputed to you and you are right with God and

notice this the last thing this text teaches us is that Christ is the righteousness that is fit for all of us this historical truth is relevant and applicable to every person and every people group on the face of the earth wherever you go whoever you work with whoever your neighbor is it's applicable to them and sometimes we think this we think well they can understand it you know and missionaries have thought this in the past how can we teach this kind of doctrine to a people who don't have any categories for understanding this

well the fact is we are that people group were the ones who have a problem understanding this this goes against all of our assumptions that God would reckon the entire human race and sin because of the act of the head of the race

now as we get into this you'll see that believe me he was the best representative we could have had except for Jesus Christ the perfect man the perfect environment the perfect wife the perfect setting and he failed you would have failed quicker it wouldn't have our our time in being right with God if you were the representative would have only lasted seconds Adam lasted a little while we don't know how long before he disobeyed and succumbed to the great Timter so this truth I just I I'm sure that some of us when we look at this text closer over the next few weeks some of us are going to be thinking

you know this is really hard to swallow I'm going to have a hard time with this that's okay be honest with the text don't be afraid to be confronted by truth it is hard to understand and hard to conceive of and hard to receive but don't just walk away from it come to it and ask yourself how could we sin in Adam how can we have guilt and condemnation because of him that doesn't seem fair somebody else can't obey obey for me and make me right with God

you see that's what Jesus Christ did somebody else obeyed for you in order to make you right with God and the same way Paul says someone else disobeyed and cast us into this condition we are in in such great need of salvation the Bible is the word of God and Paul says let God be found true in every man a liar one of the most comforting things to me is that no matter what the word of God says I have enough confidence in it that I will bow to it no matter what it says and sometimes it's very hard to understand and very hard to

receive it's impossible if you're living in disobedience I got to tell you you'll never understand this text if you're walking in darkness if you're living in disobedience to God right now as a believer you won't understand this text you will understand it as the spirit of God opens your eyes to it and you see it's powerful implications for your life and for your family and what we've been hearing this morning just this cursory little look at this passage is that the Bible says that your deepest problem is your connection with Adam, sin and condemnation that you share in it

because you're part of the human race and it we have also seen that the only remedy in all the universe for this condemnation that is upon this human race and every individual in it is justification that comes by the work of Jesus Christ who perfectly obeyed even unto death as your representative if you have believed upon him and we've also seen that faith in Christ is the one and only way to be united with Christ and therefore to be justified by before God the only way you can take hold of Christ the only way you can get credit for Christ's work on your behalf as

if you believe upon him take hold of him by faith you may be saying I just don't understand this I don't think this way I don't have any categories in my brain for this kind of stuff then I would just say to you please embrace it as well as you see it at this point believe the word of God Jesus said if you obey you will understand isn't that strange if you obey you will understand if you will receive his word and obey his word your eyes will be open to his word it's like a little kid down the street and his mother's yelling for him to come home and when she starts when she

first gives the command he just doesn't understand what she's saying because he doesn't want to understand what she's saying and that's how we can be but if we come to this we come to the truth of the word of God and we say this is very difficult for me to understand and to take in but I want to I want to believe your word I want to understand your word I want what Paul promise is here now the reason I think this is so I'm acting as though this is so very vitally important is

because it is it's at the very center of Christian doctrine Christian theology Christian truth biblical teaching the gospel right here so that we see in this massive large picture the role of Jesus Christ our need Christ provision and the benefits and blessings of believing on this second Adam who has taken our place so I just want to encourage you as brothers and sisters in Christ that you meditate on this text that you think about it that you ask the Lord to open your eyes to it if you get really moved like our sister here she's moved to sneeze allergies

but if you but as you as you study this text and you come up against it ask the Lord you ever pray about understanding the Bible I have a friend Phil Howard he's going to speak at our retreat in May and his dad I knew and he wasn't an educated man I don't know if he got out of the eighth grade I doubt it I think I think he might have went through the seventh or eighth grade in school but he loved the word of God he read the word of God and he

in fact he used to say when we were in seminary together and we would talk to him about some of the stuff we were learning in all these high pollutant theological terms he would say boy I just love how you guys want this exact nasty you want to be so exact but the thing about him was he was so moved by the truth of scripture when he came on a text he didn't understand he would pray about it and literally this is true he might pray for weeks or months

because he wanted to understand what God was saying do you want it that bad you want to understand the truth of the gospel the heart of the gospel would you like to be would you like to be affected by the gospel the way the Apostle Paul was the love of Christ compels me that's what he said it drives me on you have in trouble staying motivated to obey Christ maybe it's because the cross isn't big enough in your eyes yet I love that movie picture that picture that the passion of Christ I think it's a great tool

but I can tell you being moved emotionally by the scenes of those crushing horrible sufferings won't be sustained in you it'll wear off you know what won't wear off is the word of the living God penetrating down to the heart of your being as a result of ministry the Holy Spirit you it will cause you to turn it will cause you to repent it will cause you to go down a different path it's so compelling and that's what I pray takes place in your life as we come to this scripture

now when you're teaching the Bible if it isn't clear to people it may be because you're just not a very good teacher or maybe because the text is very difficult I'm hoping that it's not because I'm a lousy teacher but I hope that you come to understand these truths as we begin to look at them let's stand together and pray we'll have a few minutes to fellowship before the pick up the kids our kind and loving Heavenly Father I thank you for your love for these people I thank you for the love you've put in my heart for them and Father I pray that your word not just passing emotions

but your word would penetrate to the very heart of us we all come here today with different things upon our hearts some just full of distractions some burden down with anxiety with fears maybe even plans that we know are not your will but I know that your desire is to give us the kingdom of God that's what Jesus told us disciples that you desire to give us all good things

and so I pray that we would take from your hand this good gift this unveiling of the truth of Christ and His great work on our behalf we pray that these things would fit together and we could come to understand them that they would grip us to think that every person I ever encounter in this world no matter where I'm at fits into this category and the work that Christ done has done fits their problem if they simply will turn and believe

and so we pray that you would use your word to minister to each one of us to bring about change repentance change of direction change of attitude dispensing of the wrong kind of anxieties all those kind of things Father we pray the word of God would just sweep us clean and draw us on towards you we pray that we might worship you in all of life you who are holy holy holy in Jesus name we pray amen amen you