Sermon Tone Analysis

Prayer

School starts Tuesday, for some school has already begun.Soon kids will have assignments, and one of those assignments will surely be an essay.

Maybe some of you here loved writing essays, others possible dreaded it.

One important essay most students will have to write is an essay comparing and contrasting two different subjects.

It is important because it builds critical thinking skills, and forces you to look at both subjects more in depth and from different perspectives, thus increasing your understanding of each subject.

This section of Romans chapter 5, starting at verse 12, and continuing to the end of the chapter is very similar to a compare and contrast essay.

Paul is comparing and contrasting Adam and Christ.

Specifically, what Adam did in original sin, and what Christ did at the cross.

As followers of Christ we should compare and contrast Christ with Adam.This helps us understand better what Christ did for us, who we are were, and who we are,

Two weeks ago we were studying verses 15-17.

In that passage, Paul was contrasting what Adam with Christ.

Paul used phrases like the gift is not like the trespass, in verse 15, and again in verse 16 the gift is not like the result.

He ends the contrasting section in verse 17.

Through Adam’s sin death reigns-That means rule over, have dominion over.

Death has the authority over us.

but how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace reign in life.

Sin and death reigning are contrasted with life and grace reigning by God’s gift of grace/

Up until now, those were contrasts, now Paul is going to begin comparing.

Now, in each verse Paul will begin showing us comparisons.

really parallels of one thing and then the other.

Our careful understanding of these, allows us to live as Christ would intend us to live.

Paul starts with this important transition word, consequently, it could just as well be therefore, or just as.

This is as a result of what he was explaining before.

That is Adam brought sin and death into the world-Adam plunged the whole human race into this state of sin.

Placing the human race under condemnation, the whole human race is then sinners, and as such subject to death.

Christ, was the way that brought God’s grace into the world-that is the way that sinners became righteous by faith in Him.

Just as that happened as complete opposites, in those two different things there are also similarities.

Consequently, we have our first comparison.

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One transgression-the one sin of Adam, is compared to the one Righteous act of Christ.

We know about the sin of Adam.

Simple don’t eat from the tree.

Yet he was tempted, and he allowed that temptation to rule over Him instead of the word of God, and gave in, and sinned.

That one sin.

Even one sin has power-Adam had just one sin-think of the power of that one sin.

It was enough power to plunge the whole human race into sin.

One sin caused death to enter the world.

Even, aside from Adam’s sin-we have all sinned.

Our sin has power too, Our sin is not much different than Adam We knowingly, violate God’s law-daily.

Either explicitly, intentionally and overtly, or covertly or in our hearts.

Sometimes we may be even unaware that we are sinning, perhaps our sins are reactionary to a situation outside of our control, but however we do it, we sin, daily.Those sins have power just as Adam’s sin had power.

They have power in our life.

They cause death.

We die because we sin- The wages of sin is death, romans 6.23.

We with Adam stand condemned on the basis of our sins.

Similarly, Jesus’s act of going to the cross also had power.

Like Adam’s one act caused death to come to all, similarly Jesus’s one act of righteousness, HIs sacrifice at the cross, resulted in Justification and LIFE to all who believe-Life-That is eternal life-life without end-that is the abundant life.

Jesus talked about in the gospel of John.

And this was the plan from the before the beginning.

As the Godhead-three in one-God the Father, God the son-Jesus Christ and God the Holy Spirit-Being of one mind and purpose set out before the foundation of the world the purpose to rescue us from sin.

In our first reading Isiah the prophet describes Jesus’s specific role in securing for us eternal life.

The prophet is talking about Jesus, and he describes Jesus’s work on the cross.

And then the prophet goes on

My righteous servant will justify many-Jesus’s righteous act of suffering, of being an offering for sin at the cross--results in our justification—he bears our iniquities.

One act of sin resulted in condemnation and death, 1 righteous act resulted in justification, and life.

The next verse romans 5.19, has our next comparison

Next comparison is that Disobedience of one man many were made sinners, obedience of one man many were made righteous.

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Adam disobeyed God’s word as it was declared to Him, by God Himself.

When we sin we disobey God’s word as it has been declared to us.

We disobey God’s word as it is written in the Bible.

God’s command declared to Adam was direct, God directly spoke to Adam.

But are the commands any less direct to us?

We have God’s written word the Bible.

God’s word says what it says.

We read it, and we are expected to obey what it says.

It is plain in a sense.

I know the prophecy portions, and stories about this king and that king can get confusing, I’m not saying it doesn’t.

But the commands are pretty plain.

Like do not commit adultery, or do not kill, or you should have no false God’s before me, or God loves a cheerful giver, these things are plain.

If we don’t do them, it is because we disregard it, or haven’t lived up to our responsibility to KNOW what His word says.

The truth is we do not want to obey.

We do not want to obey because it is hard, or we don’t like it.

We want our way so we don’t read it, or we change it or we disregard it.

It was hard for Christ to die on the cross.

Obeying God’s commands means we die to our own desires.

Jesus, while doing exactly what the Father wanted, at all time, always, still did not always find obeying easy it was a battle for him also.

In Hebrews 4:15 the writer of Hebrews says Jesus was tempted in every way as we are tempted, yet Jesus was without sin.

In Luke we read this passage.

A quick side note-Jesus is about to crucified, the soldiers are going to arrest Him and flog Him, and crucify him, and does he tell the disciples to pray that they won’t be arrested?

Does he tell them to pray that they will be protected and safe?

Does he tell them to pray that God will be with them, or that they will be blessed.

No, what does he tell them to pray?

Pray that you will not fall into temptation-Church pray that you will be able to avoid the power sin has over lives.

and then Jesus says

Yet not my will…but yours be done.

Jesus prayed that He would do the will of Father Jesus prayed that he would obey the Father.

Jesus’s one act of obedience secured for us what our disobedience lost.

This is why we read Philippians also this morning.

Jesus was obedient to death death.

which one of us has resisted sin to the point of death?

Therefore through his obedience, he was able to secure righteousness for us.

Comparison 2-Disobedience of one 1 man led to many made sinners-Obedience of one led to may being made righteous.

Your obedience has power as well.

As Jesus’s obedience secured our righteousness, our acts of obedience lead us closer to Christ.

We identify with Him more and more, and become more and more like him.

The next comparison is found in the next verse, verse 20.

The next comparison is between sin and grace.

or between law and gospel, and it goes like this.

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