Sermon Tone Analysis

Our call to worship comes from Psalm 9:

 

*1 **I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart; *

*I will tell of all your wonders.

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*2 **I will be glad and rejoice in you; *

*I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

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*Silent Prayer*:  Let’s take a moment as we continue to prepare ourselves for this morning’s church service.

Let us come before our Lord God in silent and individual prayer, silent and individually, and yet as the many members of Christ’s one body….

Let’s pray:

 

Lord God, may what we say and do and think, be to your glory,

In Jesus name we pray,

Amen

 

*Greeting*: Congregation of the Jesus our Saviour, our help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.

Amen

Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father, and Jesus the Christ

Amen

 

*Singing: *Let’s sing as we praise our Lord

 

Hymn

 

*Confession~/Assurance*

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*Please turn with me to Psalm 103 as we take time to admit to our sinfulness before God, and express our thankfulness for His amazing grace in granting us forgiveness through Jesus..*

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1 Praise the Lord, O my soul;

all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

2 Praise the Lord, O my soul,

and forget not all his benefits—

3 who forgives all your sins

and heals all your diseases,

4 who redeems your life from the pit

and crowns you with love and compassion,

5 who satisfies your desires with good things

so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

6 The Lord works righteousness

and justice for all the oppressed.

7 He made known his ways to Moses,

his deeds to the people of Israel:

8 The Lord is compassionate and gracious,

slow to anger, abounding in love.

9 He will not always accuse,

nor will he harbor his anger forever;

10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve

or repay us according to our iniquities.

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his love for those who fear him;

12 as far as the east is from the west,

so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

13 As a father has compassion on his children,

so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;

14 for he knows how we are formed,

he remembers that we are dust.

15 As for man, his days are like grass,

he flourishes like a flower of the field;

16 the wind blows over it and it is gone,

and its place remembers it no more.

17 But from everlasting to everlasting

the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,

and his righteousness with their children’s children—

18 with those who keep his covenant

and remember to obey his precepts.

19 The Lord has established his throne in heaven,

and his kingdom rules over all.

Brothers and sisters, let’s respond in song.

Let’s sing ReJoySing II No 319

 

*Just before we call on Ben to lead us in pastoral and offertory prayer, lets take time for the offering this morning, for the local church*

*Offering*

*Bible reading:  (Tom Houweling)*

 

Lets sing again, this time BoW 295 (Christ the life of all living)

 

 

Brothers and Sisters,

 

When someone, or an organisation, asks someone else to represent them, to be their representative, it is no small thing.

And we run into people representing others in many spheres of life.

The Prime Minister, for instance, represents the people of Australia.

When the Wallabies travel to South Africa, to play the Springboks, and they get beaten, they represent the people of Australia.

If they win, they do, too, of course!

Which of course points to another dimension of representation – the deed, or deeds, of the representative reflect back on the person or persons the representative, represents, and as such, the consequences of the deed or deeds of the representative, are counted to those represented as much as it is on the representative himself.

What the representative does, whether good or bad, reflects on those he represents,

and if there are consequences, those represented, suffer or gain, as much from it as the representative him or herself.

It is as if the two are really one and the same!

This has practical implications: it means that representation works in two directions:

 

It means that what the representative does, reflects on the people or person he represents, just as he carries in himself the reflection of the people he represents.

And so we may say that Adam, as we will find him in our text carries in him the characteristics of humankind – because he was the fits human being; and we, because we are represented by Adam, carry in us, the characteristics of Adam…

 

You will see where this leads too…

 

Brothers and sisters I have spent a bit of time explaining this, because it seems to me this is what Paul is getting at here in Romans 5 from verse 12 onwards.

What Paul is doing here in Romans 5, is pointing out that we as human beings, over the ages, have had basically two representatives

-         Adam, and Jesus,

and that both have had a profound impact on the lives of every man women and child.

And now, here in Romans, he is about to compare them and, more importantly, spell out what it means for us as human beings throughout the ages – certainly even today!

And so, in verse 12, Paul goes and finds man’s first representative – Adam.

God made man and placed him on the earth, to represent Him, Paul is saying.

And because Adam was the first man, the first human being, he represents all those who would spring from him.

That’s easy to understand, isn’t it?

But, maybe we should test this first statement, with its two parts:

Was Adam’ God’s representative?

And while we are on the topic, did Adam even ever actually really exist?

Isn’t he just a mythical figure to try and explain the un-explainable (as some say)?

You see, if he was just a mythical figure, that would mean he is not really our representative – after all, we cannot spring from a mythical figure; we have to be the off spring of someone!

Nothing can only beget…nothing!

And we are not nothing, so we come from someone – and as Christians, we believe we are the creation of God…just like Adam was, except Adam came first, so he is our representative.

Brothers and sisters, the bible… and Paul …has no problem portraying Adam as a real person, an historical figure.

It is a modern phenomenon to discount Adam as an historical figure.

Not a biblical one!

In fact, this very passage we are considering, is built on the assumption that Adam was a real person, created by God in a time and place as the Genesis story portrays it.

Why else would Paul compare Adam and Christ in this passage, with the one person being a mythical figure, the other a real person (Jesus).

And, by the way, proof that this so, is readily available: