Bible Teaching

You know that's what's behind the whole welfare mentality? I deserve this! I don't want to get off course on this, but we have generations who somehow think that they are worth; Something, and I want you to understand something tonight: we are worthless! Mankind is worthless without, without the realization of the worth that's put on us by the love of God and the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. One thing gives worth to man, and that's God's pursuit of us. Think about it. Yet in arrogance today, the central theme of all of humanity is man. The secular humanists deifying men and human rights and all of these things in our generation are just flagrant, flying in the face of God, denial of what the word of God says we really are. Humanists will always take this position, they'll always take the high ground, and they'll argue that man is basically good, and what's contributed to man's inhumanity to man is the environment; and if not the environment then of course it has to do with either sociological or some form of genetic malfunction, because this is an abnormal behavior because man would normally perform properly unless there was some kind of physical, sociological, defect. God's word speaks contrary, and I don't want to get off totally on the depravity of man, but I want you to see how God views us as the children of Adam.

Verse 12 says, "Wherefore, as by one man [Adam] sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, [say it with me] for that [what?] all have sinned:" I don't want to go into the lists tonight and begin to ask you to identify yourself. I thought it was interesting, as we taught on "Grace" a number of months back, someone in the congregation came to me and said, "You know, this teaching really helped me, because it really…" This is a really nice person that's here among us. I mean, they are really a nice person, a sweet person, a person that's loving and helpful to other people; and they said, "You know, I really never saw myself as a sinner in the way that I now do. Oh, I knew that I needed to be saved, but I never realized in God's eyes and in reality how vile I was." And that's a dangerous place to be. As Paul speaks to us here, and talks about the federal head¾ now I want to use that term so that you can grab a hold of it in case you ever hear it used¾ but the federal head of the human race, Adam, the one who was representative¾ Now a lot of the theologians will argue and they'll say, "Well, you know these statements that were made, they don't really relate to all of humanity, they really just relate to Adam. Adam was not a federal head, Adam was an individual and the consequences effected Adam." Well, if the negative consequences effected Adam, if this is going to be an argument that you are going to make, you're going to have to understand that the positives were only to him too. So when God spoke and said to Adam, "Be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:22), Adam was the only guy that was going to be capable of doing that; everyone else would just have to be mules. All of the blessings that were spoken upon Adam weren't going to be for his children, it was just going to be for Adam. If we're going to look at the natural consequences of sin, when it was spoken to Adam the judgments that came upon him and that he would live by the sweat of his brow, how many of you have been living by the sweat of your brow? I thought that just applied to Adam. Any of you ladies experienced child-birth pangs? Or was that just for Eve? You can't have it both ways! And yet so many humanists want to argue about how good we are in and of ourselves and that it's not right for God to somehow hold us responsible for what our father did. How many of you know that throughout Scripture families were held responsible for what their fathers did? Whole families judged and destroyed.

Now, lest you begin to exalt yourself and judge God and say, "That just doesn't seem fair to me," maybe you’d better put your hand over your mouth, back up, and ask yourself how fair it seems for you to be made righteous with Jesus' righteousness. What we have to understand is that in the wisdom of God, and the economy of God, with His eternal perspective, with His omniscience, and via His sovereignty, He chose to establish the federal headship of Adam. It doesn't matter whether you think he was a good representative or not. We can't step back and say, "We want to vote Adam out. We'd like another representative." God chose him, God placed him in as a perfect, innocent man, into a perfect environment and communed with him every day, and gave him all of the blessings that a man could have, and asked him to hold back and restrain from one aspect: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. "The reason I'm wanting you to do this is for your own good." And whatever it is that was in man¾ I can't explain, I don't know what caused the original sin. I can't understand how a perfect creature, like Lucifer, could have pride found in him. How did the original sin occur? Nobody knows. What caused it? We know what it was, but we don't know what caused it. He was created perfect. Adam was created perfect. What is this force? What is this power called pride that brought down Lucifer and Adam? I don't think we can identify its cause, but we know it's effect. God, in His great infinite wisdom, having known the fall of Lucifer and the fall of His greatest of all creation, man, in His wisdom and His sovereignty, put these things into motion and we find ourselves here today, the children of Adam under the judgment of death because of sin. Death by sin. "The day that you rebel, the day that you disobey, the day that you exalt yourself against me, the day that you would receive wisdom from another source other than myself, the day that you choose to be self-sufficient and become as gods, the day that you partake of that, you will die." Sin is self-reliance. Sin is self-reliance. Separating ourselves from dependence upon God, making ourselves His equal; and all of men are born into that condition. Every day you and I, with sin in our members, still fight against that power within us to make our own decisions, to set our own course, to somehow satisfy our own lusts and our own image of ourselves as we think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, as we want to position ourselves above others instead of serve, all of these things that are natural, now, to the Adamic family. It's who man is, and it was brought to them through their father, Adam. By one man sin, self-reliance, independence from God, entered into the world and death passed upon all men, for all have sinned.

Now, this sin is not the commission of sin, we're going to read in just a moment. This sin is the identification with sin through Adam, our federal head. These are not sins committed, but sin imputed. Okay? Sin, the power of sin, the nature of sin. Not the commission, the act, but the nature. Man is born with an independent spirit from God, and man does not seek God, God seeks man. The thing that makes man a sinner, and the fact that the statement can be made that all have sinned against God, is that independence. So Paul goes on and speaks concerning our condition, and this parenthetical statement is something that can try to benefit, but I usually like to go from verse 12 to verse 18 when I'm reading this. "For that all have sinned...Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience [Adam] many were made sinners [all were made sinners], so by the obedience of one [Jesus] shall many [all they who believe] be made righteous. Moreover the law entered [now we're going to talk about the law for just a moment, moreover the law entered], that the offence might abound...." (Romans 5:12, 18-20) In other words, men didn't see themselves as so bad until God held the law up against them and said, "Here's what I expect of you," and they said, "We can't do that!" He said, "I know. That's why you're guilty, and that's why you're in need of deliverance; but unless you can meet these standards, you can't be accepted into my presence." And they looked and they said, "There's no possible way I can meet these." Because James comes on and tells us that God's perception is not only do you have to meet these standards, but you have to meet them constantly, and the moment you commit one offense--guilty of one guilty of what? All! The law entered the offence might abound, that we could see clearly our hopelessness, that we could see clearly our depravity. The law came and showed us we're not such good people, we're God-haters, we're the enemy. While we were sinners, He loved us. We hate Him, He loves us; we're fleeing from Him, He's pursuing us; we try to kill Him, He dies for us. So as the Scripture speaks here, look what he goes on to say, "…the law entered, that the offence might abound…" or in other words, that we could realize, man could begin to see, his condition.

"Man's not that bad!" In Adam, we are. In Adam, we're guilty of every sin that Lucifer and Adam committed against God. The high treason of Lucifer and our father, we have partaken of, and it's within us, and we deal with it every day. The people that are truthful with themselves, once having been illuminated by the word of God and set free from fear by the blood of Jesus, can really come to grips with how ugly we are, and make us appreciate the mercy, and the grace, and the free gift of Jesus. So he goes on and he tells us here, he says look, "But where sin abounded [What?], grace did much more abound." In other words, when the word came and you said, "We are in bad shape; there's no hope for us!" The moment you realize there is no hope for me, what does the Scripture say is going to happen? The minute sin abounds, in your perception, "I am helpless, I am hopeless," then what's going to happen? Grace is going to abound; but until you come to that place in your life, the moment you hold out and say, "You know, I'm not that bad; I think I can do it," grace will not abound on your behalf; but once you've come and seen that you must empty yourself of all self-effort, all self-righteousness, that there is no value within yourself¾ "…in me (that is in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing…" Until that comes from the understanding of God's proclamation of who you are in Adam, you are not a candidate for the grace of God. "But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto death..." in your members, "I try, I try hard, I pray, I fast, and I keep failing, and I'm frustrated, and I don't have confidence that I'm right with God..." because grace is not abounding. You are still trusting in your works; you're still judging yourself by your performance and not Jesus. Sin reigning, dominating. Sin will always dominate your members without the presence of grace, without the mercy of God being drawn upon; but as sin used to dominate, and where sin did control your life, "…even so might grace reign through [rightstanding] unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 5:21).

So, Paul goes into this fifth chapter and he tells us, look, here's the condition you're in: born into Adam, you're an enemy of God; but God loved you while you were sinner, and He has now justified you, or pronounced you righteous, by the blood of Jesus Christ. He has fulfilled the appeasement factor, the atonement, and so now reconciliation has been provided for you back to the Father. Once this begins to be an understanding on our part, and we begin to understand the gospel message of Jesus becoming the propitiation for our sins, the sacrifice of God¾ once that's understood by the gospel, it illuminates our spirit, it illuminates our understanding¾ our need of a Savior, the provision of a Savior¾ and that it's freely by the grace of God, and not by anything we do in and of ourselves, and we understand our full dependence and depravity and we cry out to God to become recipients of this great gift, that, then, creates in us the first act of regeneration. That's the time we become born again, when we understand our position in our federal head, Adam, and we realize the provision of federal headship in Jesus; and God shows us and gives us the faith to accept, believe, and motivate us into the pursuit of this gift, that is what activates regeneration. So God's grace, His gift, illuminates us, empowers us to say, "Jesus, I understand it. I've never seen it before. I understand that I was a sinner in Adam I understand that I can only be made righteous in You, and I ask you, Lord, to become the dominant force, the Lord of my life. My Lord, my Savior, my God." At that moment, we are now regenerated. Old things pass away, all things become new. We become new creatures in Jesus Christ. We're born again and become candidates for the Kingdom of God, John three tells us.

Now, at regeneration, at the moment of regeneration, sanctification is initiated, it begins to work. In God's eyes, in Christ we were legally justified, and now we become actually practically justified. God, by faith, God, through His declaration of the finished work of Jesus, saw all who believed in Him, justified already by faith. It's unto all, but upon all them that believe¾ at the moment of belief it now becomes a part of us, it was available to all, but it's partaken of all who believe, for there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, Romans three tells us. So here we are now, and we cry out and we say, "God, I'm in need," and we become now regenerated. At this point, we become, now, literal partakers of the justification. We are now right with God, we now have access boldly to the throne of God, we can come into His presence and fellowship with Him. The guilt, the condemnation, the power of conscience and guilt falls, the shackles of fear, of judgment, now fall off of us and we know we're right with God. Okay? That's what happens when you're born again. When you're born again, I'm telling you, the real act, it's amazing, the birds do sing better, the sky is bluer, old things have passed, all things are new, all is well with the world, praise God! Isn't it great? But the good news is, we can sustain that! When we lose that is when we begin to fall back into works, into another gospel, we begin to trust in our own efforts in this process of sanctification, because now that I'm born again, and I have a new heart, and the things I used to hate I now love; now I want to please God, so what do I do? I start trying to work to please God instead of rest to please God. It takes just as much faith, and more dependence, to be sanctified than it does to be regenerated or justified; but it's the same faith, and it has to be done the same way. You can no more sanctify yourself than you can justify yourself; and, of course, that's what Romans chapters six, and seven, and eight begin to talk about.

So, let's talk for just a second about the process and give you a few building blocks for this, as we talk about the first step of this process being the redemption, the work of Jesus on our behalf. The word, "redemption", literally means a ransom. When He redeemed us, He ransomed us. Have you ever noticed they don't kidnap people from Sterling Park? "Okay, we've got your kid, we want the pickup on blocks." I'm only picking on Sterling Park because they don't have the privilege of a home-owners committee, and freedom is still alive in Sterling Park. So the person's free, and next door he has pigs and pickups on blocks. West Virginia is alive in Sterling Park! So they kidnap the kid and they say, "We want that '73 Chevy on blocks, and you can't have your kid back until we get it." And now the parent has to make a decision. "Is my kid worth that rusted out truck?" And the guy responds and says, "Keep the kid." Right? And that's what ransom's all about. The ransom establishes the worth of the individual, doesn't it? So they go to people who have money, they take kids whose parents have money, and they say, "We want money in exchange for the kid." This is one of the beautiful things about redemption: our worth is established! What did it cost Father to get you home? Jesus! What do you think just naturally¾ I'm talking about natural, depraved sinners, selfish, lying, no-good dogs that you are (I separate myself from you right now because of my righteousness)¾ What if you were held captive and somebody came and put their life on the line for you? In the natural, I'm talking about. I saw two guys¾ there was a program on about survival, and these people had gotten lost in the jungle and what it took for this one guy to trek out and come back and find the other person who was in need, and there was no possible way this guy, they could survive this, but they did; and to see in their hearts the bond, where one man was literally laying his life down for another, and the bond that came between these two men; and as they looked in one another's eyes, the compassion, the emotion, the love, the oneness they had because of that experience; and what should be our response to He that died for us? We're talking about unregenerate men, and how there begins to be an obligatory relationship to one who saves your life. When you stop and think of what it cost and what the work really was that was accomplished in Jesus for us, our depraved condition, and yet God valuing us with the blood of His innocent Son, His holy spotless Son, God Himself, Jesus Christ, dying for us, establishes our worth in His sight; but we are worthless until we receive that gift by faith. We go to a devil's hell under the wrath of the same God who died for us until we accept the provision by faith. We'll talk about the justice part of it later. We're looking at God viewing us and what our worth is, this evening. How much more now shall we be justified freely by the blood of Him?