“You Must Choose – But Choose Wisely”
Romans 5:12-21
4-24-16
Whether we know it or not, or try not to believe it, our bodies are dying from the
moment of our birth. In the average human adult, 50-70 billion of your cells die each
day! Most of them are also replaced each day. And as we get older less and less of those
cells are replaced and eventually the machinery shuts down all together. Worldwide, 60
million people die, each year. And Romans 5 tells us why. Romans 5 is all about life
and death, and life OR death. This chapter could very easily be called, “Paradise Lost,
Paradise Regained.”
Up to Romans 12 Paul has been talking about the state of ALL mankind without Jesus.
They/we, are living in God’s wrath, his death wielding anger. Then, when we accept
God’s grace by faith, His anger is turned away, never to be brought on us again. We
now have life, a new life, abundant life! We are literally reconciled to God, having lost
the ability to have a relationship with Him, thanks to Adam. BUT GOD!!! Paul shares
those most needed words in Romans 5:8 But God showed his great love for us by
sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. God’s love was expressed FOR
US personally. Christ died FOR US personally so that WE could once again have a
loving, ongoing, never-ending relationship with the God who loves us the most!
Now, in verses 12-21 Paul paints a picture showing us exactly where death and life
came from. This is a clarification point made by Paul. He does it by contrasting – he
contrasts two men, Adam and Jesus – one brought death, the other offers life. He
contrasts judgement with justification – without Jesus we are already judged guilty –
with Jesus we are judged completely innocent, justification. He also contrasts death and
life – again, Adam brought death and Jesus offers life.
As we read Romans 5 we must also understand that two different deaths are being
talked about, and they are sometimes quite difficult to distinguish between the two.
There is physical death, (thanks to Adam) and a spiritual “death” (eternal separation
from God) again, thanks to Adam. Adam brought us “both.” We all are still cursed with
physical death; that is 100% guaranteed for every one of us. BUT GOD!!! Jesus is the
key to the restoration of the spiritual life.
Here’s how Paul describes this whole scenario. This is from the New Century Version,
a very reliable but easy to read version of the Bible: Sin came into the world because of
what one man did, and with sin came death. This is why everyone must die—because
everyone sinned. 13 Sin was in the world before the law of Moses, but sin is not counted
against us as breaking a command when there is no law. 14 But from the time of Adam to
the time of Moses, everyone had to die, even those who had not sinned by breaking a
command, as Adam had.
Adam was like the One who was coming in the future. 15 But God’s free gift is not like
Adam’s sin. Many people died because of the sin of that one man. But the grace from
God was much greater; many people received God’s gift of life by the grace of the one
man, Jesus Christ. 16 After Adam sinned once, he was judged guilty. But the gift of God
is different. God’s free gift came after many sins, and it makes people right with God.
17
One man sinned, and so death ruled all people because of that one man. But now
those people who accept God’s full grace and the great gift of being made right with
him will surely have true life and rule through the one man, Jesus Christ.
18
So as one sin of Adam brought the punishment of death to all people, one good act
that Christ did makes all people right with God. And that brings true life for all. 19 One
man disobeyed God, and many became sinners. In the same way, one man obeyed God,
and many will be made right. 20 The law came to make sin worse. But when sin grew
worse, God’s grace increased. 21 Sin once used death to rule us, but God gave people
more of his grace so that grace could rule by making people right with him. And this
brings life forever through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Paul is very clearly explaining that we don’t become sinners when we sin – we sin
because we’re born sinners. Every human on the face of the planet willfully disobeys
God. That’s what Paul means when he says, “for all have sinned and fallen short of the
glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) So for this section of Romans 5, allow me to summarize
the picture Paul is painting – Adam brought death to everyone – physical AND spiritual
separation from God. Jesus offers spiritual “life” to anyone who will accept God’s
forgiveness, grace, and mercy! I believe Paul is reemphasizing this to cement the point
he made back in Romans 1:20 when he said: ever since the world was created, people
have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his
invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not
knowing God. There is not a person on the face of the planet who hasn’t been shown the
power and divine nature of God and yet many of mankind turn a blind eye to Him. So if
Adam brought sin, death and separation from God to mankind, and Jesus offers life,
hope, and salvation, what then is our response? And even further than that, what is our
responsibility?
The unsaved have NO excuse for not receiving Christ’s offer. It’s free and open to all
and is constantly being shown and offered to all – no excuse. But we “Christians” or
Christ-followers would most likely say, “I’ve accepted God’s forgiveness!” To which
we can say GREAT! But, the fact that is THEN on the table is this – just as the unsaved
have no excuse for not receiving Christ’s offer, so the SAVED have no excuse for not
being Christ’s ambassadors of hope, His ministers of reconciliation, His sharers of the
promise of New Life!
Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17 anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new
person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! If we’ve trusted God for His
forgiveness through Jesus we have a new life! And interestingly, this new life is
described very clearly in the Bible as a life of ACTION! And please note that when the
Bible speaks of a life IN CHRIST as being a life of action, the Bible is NOT just
speaking to pastors, evangelists, Sunday School Teachers and Board Members. It
speaks directly into the heart of EVERY Christ-follower. He died FOR US – what then
is our responsibility? To live FOR Him, not just WITH Him.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us
back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to
him. 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting
people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.
20
So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak
for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”
Jesus put it this way in Acts 1:8 you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes
upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in
Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” To the very
earliest Christians, most of them converted Jews, these four places would have been the
LAST places on earth any of them would ever want to go. It often makes me wonder where, or to whom, does Jesus want me/you, to go and we’re saying to Him, not now,
I’m uncomfortable, what if ________ and we fill in the blank.
It may seem as though when we read Ephesians 2:10 when Paul says: we are
God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good
things he planned for us long ago; we’re telling God, no thanks, someone else can go to
my neighbor who lives RIGHT NEXT DOOR TO ME. Truly, I believe, to do any less
than doing the good things he planned for us long ago is to deny the power of God in
our lives. To do any less is to tell Jesus, You don’t have enough power to give me
THAT much of a new life. We may actually be working pretty hard at sharing Christ
with those with whom we come into contact – I must ask, is it ever enough? Does Jesus
ever want us to do more? Is there always someone with whom Christ is trying to
encourage us to share Him?
And maybe we ‘want’ to but don’t seem to know how. The answer to that is actually
quite easy, and yet it will cost us, always. We ‘choose’ to invest our lives into their
lives, whoever they are. I keep referring us all back to our “high 5” list – that list of five
people we want to accept Christ’s forgiveness. And I keep challenging us ALL to pray,
asking God to use YOU to speak into the lives of the five. So the question then is, if we
know they are already “dead” thanks to Adam, how are you choosing to invest in their
lives to bring them life and hope?
Paul’s letter to Romans offers a two-step program of life: Step 1 – follow the death
brought about by Adam, OR follow the life offered by Jesus. Step 2 - We then choose to
obey Jesus, OR knowingly disobey Him, because we have no excuse.
Paul explained this idea in Galatians 5:13: you have been called to live in freedom, my
brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead,
use your freedom to serve one another in love. Peter echoes that thought in 1 Peter 2:16
Live as free people, (free to live GOD’S way) but do not use your freedom as an excuse
to do evil. Live as servants of God. I want to challenge you to think of new, creative
ways of using just what GOD has given you as the key to reaching out to the people you
know who are cursed by Adam’s death. I personally have chosen lately to purposely
meet my neighbors at the fence. I will sometimes putter around in the back yard waiting
for them to come out to do some task in ‘their’ yard. I immediately go to the fence and
strike up a conversation with them. I ask them a few questions and then I just “shut-up”
and I have the joy of hearing “their” story. Maybe you enjoy going to coffee – find a
few unsaved friends, or maybe even just one of your “high 5” people and purposely
invite them to coffee, regularly. Maybe you like to bake, invite them into your home for
tea and cookies. Our responsibility as Christ followers is to figure out what works for
us, the God-given talents He has lavished upon us, then CHOOSE to act!
So from all of this I would have to say, here’s the Big Idea: someone we know is dead
(spiritually) thanks to Adam. Maybe it’s a child, a parent, a relative of any kind, maybe
a friend or co-worker or fellow game player, etc. We actually, amazingly, have the
ability to bring life to them thanks to Jesus – we are HIS ministers of reconciliation to
God. What is our/my choice? Do I allow them to ‘stay’ dead, or do “I” bring them life
in Christ? Do I choose to follow Jesus into the world, or do I choose to knowingly
disobey Him? And please remember – we have “no excuse.”