God's Gift

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, weak, wounded, sick, sore. Come, ye weary, heavy laden, ruined by the fall, thirsty. See, it doesn't describe you. Are we actually coming as people broken who need help? Christianity is built on one clear, basic truth that we should all be able to observe and we all experience. This world's broken. We are broken. Now, everybody who is here probably fits one of these categories. There's a lot of different health issues. Some folks are facing very difficult diagnoses, concern, fear of their physical well-being. Some are exhausted spiritually, emotionally. Someone is tired. Everybody comes in with some kind of a problem. Now here's the real question. How are we going to seek a solution, a resolution to that problem? Some things are easy. You've got a money problem, you need to find a good investor, an accountant. You've got a problem with your house, you find a builder, an architect, somebody who's handy. You're physically sick, you need to go to a medical doctor. Today, we're talking about the real problem. Sin and death. We all have these two problems. We are all sinners who will die. That is the real problem. And here's the good news. we're gonna see God's answer. God alone, the Savior Jesus Christ, He is the one who can help us. He alone. Our passage this morning makes it clear. We all share in that universal problem, sin and death. Turn with me to Romans chapter five. because I see a lot of new faces. I want to make sure we know where we're at in the passage. We're in Romans 5, Romans 1. If you just want to see the most basic point of what Romans is about, you can see it in verses 16 and 17. Paul, he's proclaiming the gospel to the church. It is the power of God to save everyone. These problems, sin and death, you can be saved from them by believing in Jesus. We are unrighteous. That's what Paul establishes from 118 all the way through 320. No one is righteous. No one is good. We've all rejected God. We've all refused God. We will be held accountable for what we have said, what we have done. No one has an excuse before God. We'll be judged. God's wrath is revealed. And then we see that glorious truth in chapter three, verse 21, but now the righteousness of God, the God who redeems us, the God who sent his son to suffer the wrath of God for us, the God who has loved us and forgives us if we believe in Jesus. We saw in chapter four that faith is the central truth that has always been the way you receive the blessings of God. Last week, Chapter 5, we walked through a number of commands. But they're all based upon the fact that we're justified. Since therefore you're justified, we have peace. Rejoice in hope. Even rejoice in suffering since you've been justified. Since you've been justified, rejoice in reconciliation. And here's the key truth. Because we're sinners, we're enemies of God. God sent his son down to reconcile us, to draw us back to him so that we would not be enemies, but we'd be friends and even sons, beloved. This morning's text continues because you see there, we're in chapter five, verse 12. If you're using a pew vowel, page 942, please take that with you. You see, therefore, We're continuing that thought from verse 11. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Paul is going to explain why we were so far off and why we've been brought near. We were far off because we all, like Adam, are sinners. We all, like Adam, who we just read about, are dead in our sin. But by faith, we can be in Christ, who gives us life and forgiveness by His grace. Our text has two basic points, and it's these two things. I usually try to give you one sentence, but today, one just couldn't do it. There's the old humanity connected with Adam that is marked by sin, death, and condemnation. That old humanity marked by sin, death, and condemnation, that's who we all are by birth, born as sinners. But here's the good news. There's a new humanity. because of Jesus Christ as marked with life, justification, and grace. There's actually two humanities. There's two different kinds of people, dead in sin, condemned in Adam, alive, justified by grace in Christ. Now, as I read the passage, I want you to hear a few things. One of them, there's no imperatives. There's no commands. There's nothing to do from this passage. It's just simply truth. It all is calling from that call to rejoice and reconciliation. So we're gonna rejoice. But what he wants us to see is how much we should be rejoicing because we were once dead. condemned, but now we're alive and justified. I want to also help you see a few key words. We're looking at the contrast of life and death. We're going to continue to hear gift and grace. And there's some qualifiers there. The free gift, the abounding grace, the grace that's much more. That's why he's saying grace greater than our sin. where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. Grace is greater than our sin. The one sentence, in Christ, the head of a new human race, we have grace that justifies and gives life. That's wordy, but this is a thick passage. Our outline is this. The reign of sin and death, 12 through 14. The reign of sin and death, verses 12 to 14. The rescue of mankind, verses 14 to 19. The rescue of mankind, verses 14 to 19. The reign of grace and life. The reign of grace and life, verses 20 to 21. Listen to the contrast. 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 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 die 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 abound 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. 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 in 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 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. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you for this passage that helps us see there's death if we remain in the sin of Adam and condemnation, but there's life because of your grace if we believe in Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray that as we think about this as your new humanity, as your community of new creation, Lord, help us to realize who you've made us to be and who you've called us to be and how to live that new life out. Thank you that you reconcile enemies to yourself. You've not left us alone, but you've sent your son to save us. Help us to rejoice in your great salvation. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. First point, reign, the reign of sin and death. The reign of sin and death. This is verses 12 to 14. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, that is Adam, and death through sin, as we heard, or as God warned Adam, if you break this one rule, you will die, and so death spread to all men because all sin, For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigns. 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. Now we need to notice something that's very important to understand this world and the way we think of this world and God. God did not create the world with sin and death. Notice sin came into the world. God did not create this world with sin or death. That's easy for us to forget. I said last week we usually blame God for all the problems, but He didn't create this world with the problems. And we look at the news and we hear of the hurricane that could destroy Mexico. It sounds like it didn't. We hear of these natural disasters. We hear of murders. We hear of what sounds like this absolute meaningless suffering. Death, murder. We experience sin ourselves. Theft, deception, gossip, slander, hatred. We suffer sickness. We have trouble in pregnancy. We have chain and pain in childbearing. There's cancer. We all die. This world's bad. We have to ask ourselves, who would make a world like this? Us. We introduced sin, which causes the chaos, which causes the pain, which causes the sickness, which causes the pain and childbearing, which causes death. It's us. Sin and death, they're alien to this world. God designed it to be good. Now when I say alien, I want to make it clear, it didn't come in from a UFO and get dropped off. It's actually a much worse story than that. Sin and death and this chaos, it was an inside job. It was betrayal, it was treason. You see, Adam, who we just read about, he was the highest creation. The last day of creation is Adam, and he's given such power. He's given such authority. He's supposed to be controlling and exercising God's authority over all the things in creation. Adam has a lot of blessing. He's given a very unique, specific wife to be a blessing. He's given a great role with all of creation to manage it. He's given He's given the opportunity to walk and talk with God. And God said, don't do one thing. There's this one tree and it has this one fruit. Don't eat it. There's all the other trees. Look at all the other fruit. This wasn't the only fruit tree in the garden. There was the one tree that he was commanded not to eat of. And he was deceived. He looked at that tree and he said, what I want is more important than what God wants. My desire for what I see looks good and what my appetite wants and what says it's good is more worthy of God. He wanted what God said he could not have. It's actually pretty scary. He had a glorious life. And he lost it all because he was trying to attain a glory that was far from his reach. It's a very sad story. He listened to a lie. He had life, abundant life, life with God, life with his wife, life without sin. He traded all that for a lie. Because of that, we all are sinners. He's sin and he's not just a bad role model. In Adam, we have all now sin. He represents us and now we are all born as sinners. Now, we could try to throw this off and say, no, that's not me. That was Adam, not me. No, we're the clear truths here and it challenges us as Westerners. Adam is standing there before God representing every single human being. We try to pretend we're these isolated islands of individuals. Individualism is a lie. God did not create us to be individuals. We're supposed to have corporate community identity. See, what this passage says really threatens a key part of our Western identity. Adam sinned and died, and therefore we all are sinners. We're born as sinners, and therefore we sin, and therefore we will die and be condemned. This is a hard truth. Now, I don't wish to convince you that Adam represented you. I just want you to see it's what the text clearly says. If the text doesn't convince you, I'm not gonna convince you. In Adam, we all sinned. And because we're all born in sin, we actually do sin, which means we're sinners, which means we die, which means we'll be condemned. Some will say to err is human. That's not exactly true. The most human thing you can do is reflect the glory of God because that's what God designed humans to do. Sadly, because we have rejected God, this seems like our most natural tendency. Now, as you think about this, the way things were meant to be, the way things are now, and the way things God has saved them to be, I wanna challenge us as a church. The church, especially in America, has too often thrown up its arms and said, look how bad it is out there. We have a really strong tendency to want to look outside and say, look at this world. How could they? How could they? They're sinners. We as Christians should stop thinking that sinners aren't going to sin. That's what sinners do. Sinners sin. We're too focused on how bad it is out there. We don't actually focus on how bad it is in here sometimes. The church is actually called to be accountable and responsible for the sin that takes place within a body. Because the name of Christ is connected to a body. We should be concerned about the name of Christ being defamed, not what the world's doing. The truth is, as we can see also from Psalm 51, we're born in sin. We are born as sinners. This is a universal, difficult, but clear truth. Because of sin, we die. Now let's get to the good news. The rescue of mankind, verses 14 to 19. I want you to hear that in 15, 16, and 17, Adam and Jesus are being contrasted, right? Look at verse 15, not like. Verse 16, not like. Verse 17, much more. There's a difference. Death and life. Trespass, obedience. that there's a contrast, verse 18 and 19, there's similarity. As one trespass, so one act of righteousness. As by one man's disobedience, so by one man's obedience. We see here Adam, and Jesus being set side by side as the two heads of the human race, we're either represented by Adam in our sin and we die, or we're represented in Jesus Christ and we receive his righteousness and live by grace. Here are the contrast between Adam and Jesus and the similarity between Adam and Jesus in 14 through 19. 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 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 in life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners. So by the one man's disobedience, the many were made righteous. Now to get this, let's go back to verse 14 and let's look at that last phrase. Adam, who was a type of the one to come. Adam was a type of the one to come. There's something very similar with Adam and Jesus. Adam is a type. Now, kind of a fancier word here, typology. What we see is that in the Old Testament, God was putting little signs, little markers that foreshadowed who Jesus would be. And this is really good news because if we look at these types, these figures or offices that point towards Jesus, we see that in the midst of our sin and shame, which is our world that we created, God's hand is sovereignly controlling it. He is putting little glimpses of the gospel throughout our history, which is scandalous. Just read Genesis. It's scandalous. Right after chapter three, there's a murder. The book of Genesis is full of murder and rape and hatred and animosity. Our history is scandalous, but God has had his sovereign hand on it, giving little representations of the great salvation we'll receive in Jesus Christ. That's what it means to be a type. It foreshadows Christ. Adam is a type of Christ. He has a similar purpose, function, and authority. Adam stood as the representative of a human race. Jesus Christ stands as a representative of a new, human race. Adams is dead in sin. Jesus is alive by faith. Adam stands as the head of the human race that is sinful and dead. Jesus stands as the head of the human race that is declared righteous and alive. Now here's what's going to upset us. We do believe in representation at some level. That's our form of government. But what we won't like about this passage is we didn't choose Adam, did we? We didn't elect him. How dare he try to represent us when we did not cast our vote for Adam? Now, this may seem unfair. It seems unfair that we would suffer for this one guy we never met, we never chose, we never elected, that he would represent us. Now, here's just the clearest answer from Scripture. Based on Scripture, it is clearly God's plan and design. That is the clearest answer from Scripture, and therefore it must be sufficient. Faith in what God says that this is simply His design will lead to understanding. If we try to understand this, we're not. That's all Scripture actually says about it. In many ways, we have to realize this is written for a different kind of people, a different worldview that we should seek to be formed into rather than fight against. Now you may not have had a choice, you know, I want Adam to represent me. You don't have that choice. You do have a choice right now today though. You may think it's unfair that you're a sinner and therefore you're going to die and be condemned because of what Adam did. That may sound like an unfair decision that you didn't choose, but here's a choice you have. You can choose to remain in death Or you can choose to believe in Jesus Christ. If you want a choice, here's a choice. You can choose to remain in the death and the condemnation that we have because we have actually sinned. Or you can choose. You can say, I believe that Jesus Christ came and he lived the life I cannot live. You can say Jesus Christ was crushed You can believe He was crushed for my sin. Therefore, God's wrath is satisfied. I am forgiven. Now I have new life. You can believe that. That's the one choice God is putting before you today. See, Jesus is a new Adam. He didn't leave us dead. He called us to new life. This is why Paul calls the church and Christians new creations. It's actually a whole new start. It's a whole new life. In Christ, we begin a new humanity. We were dead and now we're alive. Let's look at the particulars of this. Verse 15, the free gift is not like the trespass. The free gift is not like the trespass. Well, one level we could see Adam's action was against God. Jesus' action was in obedience to God. At one level we could say these two actions are different because Adam acted against God and Jesus acted for God. But I think there's actually something more in this passage. Adam acted for himself. Jesus acted for others. You see, the trespass, that was selfish. I want what I want and I don't care what God says. Jesus' act was a free gift for others. His act of obedience was something he did in obedience to God for others. So if we wanna make a clear contrast between Adam and Jesus, Adam said, I'm going to act however I want to act. I'm going to do whatever I want to do. I don't care what God says. And Jesus says, I'm going to do what God's told me to do and I'm going to do it for you. Adam is selfish. Jesus is sacrificial. He sacrifices himself for others. We can see this in the two different temptation accounts. We didn't read the temptation account of Jesus, which is very similar. The serpent of Satan, he comes and he tempts Jesus the same way he tempts Adam because he knows this is the new Adam. This is the guy who's supposed to crush me to start a new beginning and give new life. And so as Adam was tempted, He rejected God's word. When Jesus is tempted, he quotes God's word. He trusts it. When Adam is tempted, he seeks a position that God did not desire for him. When Jesus is tempted, he said, it's not my father's will. I will not bow down to you to gain authority over the city. My authority is only given to me by the father. See, Jesus is faithful where Adam failed. That's why he stands as a new Adam with new life. Notice it is the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ. We sing Joy to the World today, and you may think, that was a little early for Joy to the World. It was because of the lyrics. The blessing flows as far as the curse is found. The blessing flows as far as the curse is found. It's actually not a Christmas song. We just sing it at Christmas. But we're actually thinking about a Christmas verse here. The one man Jesus Christ. God came down to be like us in every way but sin so that He could remove our sin and our death. The gift is not like the trespass because the trespass was selfish. The gift is sacrificial. The second, contrast. The free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. Notice here, verse 16, the focus isn't on the act itself, but on the result. Judgment follows the one trespass that brings condemnation. The free gift following many trespasses, it brings justification. Adam's action brings condemnation. Jesus' action brings justification. Again, we see justification is that backbone of salvation. Justification is merely this. When we stand before God, we will have all our unrighteousness. He will be able to see our sin, but whenever he sees Christ and our faith in Christ and Christ's death for us, he's going to look at us and he's gonna say, not guilty. He's actually already said that about anyone who believes in him. Instead of seeing our sin, which is real, he declares not guilty, we're justified. the word of God that changes our status. Judgment follows the one trespass which brings condemnation. Here's something scary about Adam, he lost his right standing before God. He had a right standing before God and he lost it. Because he lost it, he gained a new standing before God, it's condemned. When we're born in sin, when we act as sinners, when we participate in sin, we have the standing before God as condemned. We need to lose that status. That's why Christ came to take it away. And here's the good news. When God declares us not guilty, we can't lose that status. Adam lost his right standing because it's based upon his works. We can't lose our right standing because it's based upon Jesus Christ's work and what he says about us. The free gift following all those many trespasses brings justification. The result of Adam is condemnation. The result of Jesus is justification. Now look at verse three. Death reigned because of Adam. Those who believe reign in Jesus. For if because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man. Death reigns. Everybody in this room has lost a loved one. It's painful. Death is painful. sad because we're faced with reality. It's not the way it's supposed to be. We hear of death everywhere. We hear of death in the news. We hear of death of our loved ones. We hear of death of war. We hear of death of Christians being martyred. I want to challenge you to something. How do you think about the death of any kind of individual? You see, every human death should bring us a sense of sadness. There is no death that we only rejoice in. Osama bin Laden's death, that was actually sad because he died in the same way we die because of his sin. Death is not something to rejoice in, no matter who it is, because every human life has dignity and worth. Every human life was created by God for worship and every death is not the way it's supposed to be. Every death should remind us death is reigning over us. Death rules us and it overpowers us unless, unless we have someone who will save us. Death reigns. Notice the language here. I want you to notice something. Death reigning is contrasted with those who believe reigning. We get to reign in life. Christ purchased us to actually have a reign, to share in his kingdom, to share in his new creation reality, much more because of the abundance of grace and the free gift. We reign in life, not our own, through Jesus Christ. In Christ, we get to have a new life. Death isn't just something we don't fear anymore. Death is done and a new life is ours. We're supposed to be living a new life. Let's continue to look at the similarities now, verses 18 and 19. Now, I want to make one clear comment. The all sometimes confuses people. Is this saying that all men will actually be justified? I believe the best way to interpret this is as follows. As one trespass led to condemnation for all the descendants of Adam, so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all the descendants of Jesus. Not all are condemned and all are justified. That doesn't make any sense. The point being that whoever your head is, you get the consequence or the benefits of their action. All doesn't mean universal humanity. All means whoever you're connected with. Adam in sin or Jesus by faith. As one led to condemnation by his trespass, Adam, so one act of righteousness leads to justification. For as by one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, So by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. He's focused here on obedience now of Christ. I think he's thinking of the cross, because that is where our death was destroyed. Our death is dead in the death of Christ. Sin loses his power in the death of Christ. We're gonna see that next chapter of Romans. We're now free from the enslaving power of sin. We're now free from this absolute declaration of death because he died for us. We're now looking at the cross. It is because of what Christ has done that we have new life from sin and death. If you're not a Christian this morning, hear the gospel. It begins with your debt and your sin. That is the first and hardest truth you have to believe. Because we sin, we're dead, and we deserve condemnation. But I want you to hear the words of this passage, the free gift, the free gift, the abounding grace, the much more grace. God has sent his son so that you will not die and be condemned. He sent his son so that you believe in him and you can be forgiven and alive. God will condemn every sin. It will be when we face him and our sin is still with us or it was when Christ died and he was crushed on our behalf. If you're not a Christian this morning, do not leave without talking this morning about that. You must believe in what Jesus has done to be freed from sin and death. If you're a Christian, are you reigning in life through Jesus Christ? Do you have a different kind of life because of Jesus Christ. We're not talking about, you know, a fresh start. He has become the head of a new human race, a new way of living. Are we actually living differently? Do we have new life? Are we listening to Christ's word? Are we still listening to the deception that tells us to treat God's word and his people as optional? Here's a real key question to ask what kind of life you're actually living. Are you walking dead or are you walking in the life of Christ? Are we marked by the selfishness of Adam or the sacrificial love of Jesus? Are we marked more by the selfishness of Adam or more by the sacrificial love of Jesus? Now, I said more. We're all selfish. Let's just not pretend. The universal truth we establish in 12 through 14, we are sinners. It's universal, it's clear, it's absolute. Let's just quit pretending we're not. We are selfish. But here's the beauty of the gospel. We're supposed to be putting off more and more of that selfishness and more and more of that sacrificial love. We're supposed to be putting it on. If you're satisfied with where you are in Christ, you may not be in Him. If you're satisfied and content with where you think you are in your life with Christ, you're probably dead in Adam. Because sin makes us discontent and uncomfortable. Sin is something we're supposed to be hating and trying to get away from and putting off. So we can live more of that life that Christ purchased us for. We're not supposed to be miserable as Christians. We're supposed to be really uncomfortable in sin. We're supposed to be disgusted by how constantly we're tempted in sin, but we're supposed to be rejoicing in Jesus Christ and pursuing victory. One of the beautiful things about Christ and what he's done is he's made us a new creation. He created us for good works. This is what the church is. This is the gathering of a new humanity. A whole new humanity right here gathered. So the church is where we learn to think differently, right? Because you've got to start thinking differently if you were once thinking like Adam and now you've got to think like Jesus. You've got to talk differently. You've got to behave differently. The church is supposed to be the training ground for what it means to be a new creation in Christ. to be born again, the same language, a new life given to us. And this is what we're supposed to be doing. We're supposed to be singing these truths that remind us of that new life. I bring in the church because it's important to remember, Paul is writing to a divided church. The Jews and the Gentiles, they didn't get along. And Paul's trying to help them see, you're thinking about race the wrong way. Your key identifying marker isn't that you're a Jew or a Gentile. You're either alive in Christ or you're dead in Adam. Christians were alive in Christ. Everything else that we try to boast of doesn't matter anymore. That's it. That's what unifies us. That's what makes the church such a beautiful place because it's all kinds of people. all kinds of different nationalities, all kinds of different skin colors, all kinds of different personalities, all kinds of different social classes. And we're supposed to be all together in that one life of Christ committed. So the world says, what in the world is going on over there? Why are all those different kinds of people? There's old people and young people. There's different kinds of races and nationalities. Why are they so happy together? That's evangelism 101, folks. For the world to see there's all kinds of different rascals coming together and being united in the life of Christ. I'll introduce the word rascal because I think that's why we don't like to be united. God invites a bunch of rascals, doesn't he? Those rascals, they're kind of annoying sometimes. Kind of difficult. There's all kinds of different rascals in the church. I'm one of them, you're one of them. We were all enemies. God said, I love you. We're all enemies, and God said, I'm going to give you new life. We're all enemies, and God said, no, you're going to love one another, not because you're lovely or lovable. We're gonna love each other because I said I love you, and I called you to love one another. We forget that in the church. It's not about how much we think we like someone because we get along with them. No, it's because Christ said, I gave you all new life. Live together. That's for the church. Everything else that divides us, it's selfish. So I challenge you, Jefferson Park, are we rejoicing in the new life Christ purchased us for? Are we trying to figure out our little angles of our little lives? Are we acting in selfishness like Adam? Are we really looking out for our own self-interest? Are we acting like Christ and having his mind that says, I'm going to consider others more important than myself. I'm going to consider others' interests more important than my own. That's Philippians 2. We struggle with this because we're sinners and we're selfish. We struggle with this because we're sinners and we're selfish. Here's the one clear solution I wanna give us. Prayer. It's hard not to like somebody when you pray for them. It's hard not to feel united with somebody when you're praying with them and for them. This is why we've tried to create our Wednesday night prayer meeting, so that we're praying with one another. Nothing will unite you together in the life of Christ like praying together as a church. That's why it is so important. That's why we do need to sacrifice whatever time it is to be here to pray together as a church. Because this is the beauty of God's design. We'll sacrifice for those we like. We'll sacrifice for those who are related to us. Jesus said sacrifice for enemies. Sacrifice for those who are not like you. That's to be the church that's a constant reminder that I'm supposed to be living a different kind of life because of Jesus. Our final point. Reign, the reign of grace in life. The reign of grace in life. 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. Now the law came in to increase the trespass. I skipped a verse earlier about the law. For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, verse 13, but sin is not counted where there is no law. What Paul is getting at here is that the law reveals sin. Sin is transgressing God's law. As we saw in chapter one, God has put his fingerprint on creation so that we should see everywhere he's worthy of worship. He's written on our moral consciences, Romans 2, that we should know there's one who we're supposed to be worshiping. What he's referring to here is simply the law of Moses. Sin was in the world before the law of Moses because God has made it evident to all that we should be worshiping Him and we're not. Now verse 20, the law came in to increase the trespass. Now we need to make sure we're not saying something here. The law does not make us sin more. That would make the law sinful and God created the law and that would cause all kinds of problems. The law reveals how sinful we are. That's the point. We'll see that in Romans 7. The law, when we look at God's word, we see, I'm not actually as good as I think I am. I am not living the way God designed me to live. The law shows sin. The law demonstrates how sinful we are. And this is the beautiful point. Look at this. Where sin increased, Grace abounded all the more. Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. This is one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture. Many of you heard me quote it because sin's always abounding. We always must be reminded that grace abounds. It's easy to remember. You should memorize this one simple little phrase from Scripture. Where sin increases, grace abounds all the more. Friends, we've sung, and can it be, we need to realize something in this passage over and over again. The free gift is much more. The grace abounds much more. Go back and read this passage and listen how Paul is constantly trying to help us see abounding more is God's grace over our sin. If you're not a Christian this morning, you haven't out sinned God's grace. There's a real temptation for some to think, I could never be a Christian, you don't know what I've done. Grace abounds more than sin. God saved murderers, liars, rapists. Grace abounds where sin abounds. Quite frankly, the greatest sin we have all committed together is that we hated God and we decided we were gonna nail him to a cross rather than worship him. That's us. Grace abounds. We sung of that great grace. We're going to sing of how amazing that grace is, but I want us to be overwhelmed with we are all sinners. Grace abounds. We cannot out sin God's grace. Our sin is not more powerful than God's power to save us. Raise the bounds. This is the good news we have to remind ourselves of constantly. When we see our sin, when we see our sin, we usually want to say, you know what? This is an excusable sin. We've got ways of justifying what we do and what we think. You know it, I know it. We all do it. We look at ourselves and we might see our sin, but we're gonna say, I see somebody else who's more sinful. I know at least I'm better than that person. See, these are the two kind of temptations we're always going towards. We're either thinking I'm gonna figure out a way of giving me license to sin, or we're gonna think as long as I'm better than somebody else. No, what God's Word says is you're a sinner and God's grace abounds to your sin. Seeing our sin is supposed to make us humble to say, God, save me a sinner. Almighty Father, we thank you for the grace that abounds in Jesus Christ to save me from my sins. This is why as Christians, there's only one attitude to have towards God. It's thankful. It's thankful. because he has given us amazing grace. Will you pray with me? Father, we praise you for your word. We thank you that you've not left us and Adam to be dead in our sin and condemned. You've given us Jesus Christ to have life, to be declared righteous. We thank you, Lord, for your grace. We thank you, Lord, as we think about this passage and how much you have given us a gift we have not deserved. Help us to always be amazed by your gift of new life in Jesus Christ. In his name we pray, amen.