March 17, 2013
Morning Worship
Text: Romans 3:21-24
Subject: Sin and Salvation
Title: What We Believe Part 4 – Sin and Salvation
We continue our series “What We Believe” today. We started the series out with the very foundation of whom we are. 2 Timothy 3:16-17, 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
I believe this is God's Word…
I believe it is for me…
I accept it as mine…
And I appropriate it to my life today…
Have you ever had anyone tell you that you look like one of your parents or another relative? I think that when people say that they mean it as a compliment – not always! Many family members will look like one another. The girls in Charlotte’s family have a strong resemblance. Who is it in your family that you resemble? Each of you could name someone. Also, we often tend to take on some of the characteristics of family members – some good and some not so good. It’s all part of your inheritance handed down to you from those who came before you.
I have never known my biological father. I don’t know anything about him except where he lives, or lived. I’ve done an Internet search for him and have found two people by that name – one died in 1995; the other is still alive in Oklahoma. My point is this – from a natural standpoint I do not know what tendencies may have been handed down to me. I can’t say what physical traits I have received. I don’t know what personality traits I might have inherited. But I do know this – there are things that have been passed to me by my bloodline.
Turn to Romans 3.
I want to show you that each of us have been in the same boat that I just shared about my own life. Every one of us has had things handed down from our ancestors that we are still responsible for dealing with. I am talking about a sin nature that has been passed down to you throughout all generations from your father Adam.
23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…
This is a good place to start. Every one of us has failed to meet the standards that God has set for us – that we be like God.
Turn over to Genesis 1. In the beginning God created… He created the heavens and the earth. He created the sun and the moon and the stars and the planets. He created the atmosphere… he created the land and the seas and the fish and the birds and the insects and the land animals great and small… then in verse 26 and 27 God did something really special, 26Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
Now there is a great theological discussion to be had here that we won’t go into much. We know that we are a tripartite being – body, soul and spirit… If Adam and Eve were created in God’s image then which of these areas is it referring to?
1. Body? The bible says that God is Spirit… Yes, but the bible also tells us that Jesus, the Son, the second Person of the trinity, became man. We also see in the Old Testament how “the angel of the Lord” came to earth in bodily form. This is a pre-incarnate visitation of the Son to earth. Has Jesus always had a physical body? I don’t know for certain, but if we are a three - part person, then shouldn’t we think that man’s physical body is somehow created in God’s image?
2. Soul – this is the non – physical part of your natural man… your thoughts, your emotions, your personality, your creativity… again, the first man was created to in God’s image to think like God, to act like God, to be creative like God… Apart from Jesus, Adam was likely the smartest man that ever walked the face of the earth, because for a time he thought and acted just like God did.
3. Spirit – This is probably the one area where we can come into the most agreement. Since God is Spirit and since it tells us in Genesis 2 and verse 7, the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being, then we see that Adam’s spirit-man was created to be like God – eternal and pure and holy and righteous and every other attribute that you can think of Adam was meant to be.
So Adam and Eve were perfect… at least for a time.
So now we come to chapter 3 in Genesis…
1Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made.
6When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
17To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
We have to stop here and look at the degree of separation that took place when Adam sinned.
They used to walk in the garden with God – now they are banned from the garden.
They used to have dominion over creation – now creation is cursed because of sin.
Their bodies were meant to be forever – now life becomes death…
Romans 5:12, sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned…
Verse 14, 14Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command…
Verse 15, …many died by the trespass of the one man…
Verse 16, The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation…
Verse 19, .through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners…
6:23, For the wages of sin is death…
In the same way that we have inherited certain things from our immediate ancestors, we all have inherited a sin nature and condemnation and death from our first father, Adam.
So mankind is eternally lost to sin… Right? Sickness and death has permeated our being and there is nothing we can do about it?
No, let’s go back and read in Romans 3 again… While you are turning there let me add this… Secular Humanism is considered by many to be a philosophy of life by which mankind, if given enough information, will eventually evolve to perfection and thus save itself. This is the major influence behind every world religion except Christianity. Muslims believe you can save yourself, Buddhists believe you can save yourself… Hindus believe you can save yourself – it may take a few lifetimes, but eventually you will get it right.
But Christianity deals with our sin problem in the only way it can really be dealt with.
20Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.
21But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Romans 10:9-11,13
That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”
3for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Romans 5:8, But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Ephesians 2:8-9, 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9not by works, so that no one can boast.
These are all verses that are the foundation of Christianity. Just an in Adam’s sin all three parts of man have been affected (We stopped thinking like God, we stopped living in our bodies for God, we stopped the spiritual connection with God) in the same way salvation brings a restoration of all three parts of man.
1. When we repent of our sins we turn away from them, but the word repent means not just to turn away, but also to change the way we think… We have the mind of Christ. When you are truly born again you will begin to think like God thinks and begin to believe what He says about who you are. 2 Corinthians 5:17, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
2. When we ask Jesus to be the Lord of our lives and save us from our sin our spirit man is transformed. Romans 8:16, 16The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. We are being transformed into His image from glory to glory. 2 Corinthians 3:18, And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
3. With our salvation comes the promise of eternal life in a new and improved physical body. 1 Corinthians 15:45-49, 45So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being” ; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. 48As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.
There is only one way for you to be restored to the righteousness that Adam had before he sinned and that comes through faith in Christ.
Last week I told you about how Jesus was fully man and yet fully God. Jesus came to be the perfect sacrifice that was required to pay the price for your sin. Only God could provide that perfection required. And God came to earth as a human, sinless with no sin nature because He received His nature from the seed of His Father. And He never sinned while He was on earth though tempted in every way. He and He alone qualified to be the sinless Lamb of God for the salvation of all mankind.
And God so loved the world…
This is the central message of the whole bible. God desires to restore relationship with sinful man, and He did that through His Son. That restoration comes through repentance and by faith.
Are you saved? Have you been restored to a right relationship with God? Do you have a life changing relationship with the Creator of all things?
Is your testimony more than how long you have been in church, how many Sunday School classes you have taught, how many people you have helped?
Your testimony must include evidence of a changed life.
I am not the same… I have been bought with a price. I have turned away from my former life. I think like God thinks. I act like God acts. I believe what God says…
I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus…
