Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Who is the best leader you have ever known?

We held a funeral service for one of our elders, Ray Dodd, yesterday, and while it’s a time of grief because he is temporarily gone, it’s also a time of great joy because it causes us to reflect on death and more importantly how Jesus has conquered death by his resurrection from the dead.

-“I’m only human” - suggests humans are inherently bad, or at least limited

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-Odd question, but if you could select one person that you know to be the MOST REPRESENTATIVE of what it means to be human, who would it be?

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-This text we’re in today is a little bit heady, but I believe it will help us to recognize the goodness and majesty of Jesus in a better way today, which is really what this is all about

It’s extremely appropriate that we would be in today as Paul explores how our whole world has been subjected to death and how the only hope for us is Jesus.

To start out, let me ask you: how do you view death?

Do you fear it?

Does it cause you anxiety, stress, worry?

What do you think will happen after you die?

These are morbid questions, but here’s the good news; in the deep pit of the most heartbreaking and difficult issue to face humanity we find great hope and joy through Jesus.

That’s what is all about.

Notes: Odd grammar here: Paul starts a sentence that he doesn’t finish

“Just as sin came into the world through one man...” we would expect something like “righteousness came into the world through one man”

There is no question that Paul wants to compare Jesus with the first human being, Adam, whose story is recorded in .

But he also wants to make clear that while there are a couple of similarities between Adam and Jesus, they are NOT alike.

I. Death is brought to all humanity through Adam

Incomplete sentence - Paul wants to make a comparison between the work of Adam and the work of Jesus

Sin came into the world through Adam

Genesis 2:

Referring to - where Adam takes from the one tree in the garden that God told him not to; this was a symbol of Adam choosing independence and disobedience over relationship with God in obedience and dependence.

Adam’s decision was one to reject God’s definition of good and evil and instead supply his own definition of good and evil

So sin came into the world through Adam’s choice

Death came into the world through sin

The result of Adam’s sin was death

Some people try to point to an inconsistency in the Bible because Adam didn’t immediately die

Both

Both

We have a hard time actually defining death

Death is the antithesis of life

Biological and medical

In medieval Europe, people were often prematurely buried because they were believed to be dead, leading the development of safety coffins designed to allow a buried person to signal that they had been buried alive - “saved by the bell”