Thanks, Adam (Romans 5:12-21) | Louis Azuma

Speaker: the worse you understand our problem to be, right?

The, the you're like, man, our situation as people, our sin is so bad.

We're in such a bad situation.

The more clearly you see that, the more reason you have to worship God.

If you're, if you start realizing, man, we, I'm in such a bad situation,

it makes salvation such a big deal.

But if you don't really think you, you need much saving.

Salvation isn't a big deal.

You're like, whatever, that's fine.

That happened.

Great.

That's what we're talking about here in Romans five.

Alright, so before we, we start reading, what we're gonna hear

about is, is two people we're gonna hear about Adam and Jesus, right?

Not this Adam, but we're gonna be hearing about Adam.

And Jesus, right?

Adam, the first person who ever lived and something happened with Adam that put

all of us in this really bad situation.

Okay?

So look with me at verse 12, these first few words.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through.

So death spread to all people, all men, because all sin.

So it's this problem, right?

Sin came into the world through one man, and then because of

that, that's why people die.

That's why the world is messed up because something happened, right?

Adam keeps sinned.

Him and Eve in the garden, right?

They disobeyed God.

And because of that, everything got messed up, right?

Everything got messed up.

Sin came into the world.

Death came into the world, and now we're all infected.

We all, we all have this same problem.

Every single one of you is going to die, right?

Death is batting almost a thousand, right?

If you don't count Elijah and Enoch right from the Bible, but death is, is

pretty much batting a thousand, right?

All of us are going to die, and that's because all of us are infected

with the consequences of Adam's sin.

All of us are in the same situation.

We're all going to die because all of us.

Have, have been infected with this, this thing called sin.

That's our biggest problem is we can't do anything about it.

We're all going die.

You can try as hard as you want.

And what our culture does is they say, you should ignore that.

Right?

You should just have as much fun as you want right now.

Don't worry about, don't think about dying.

You notice in our culture, we've kind of taken death and put

it way off to the side, right?

You, we've, we've taken, right?

You, you used to, people used to be around death all the time.

People would die.

A lot and a lot faster.

Right now we put all of our old dying people over in separate locations.

Right.

We, we send them off to the retirement home or we have

'em go over to the hospital.

It used to be you had to walk through the cemetery, the graveyard to go to church.

Now the graveyard is, you don't even know where the graveyard is, right here.

There's one right across the street.

But um, when was the last time you actually went to a graveyard?

Right.

You have to go on purpose to a graveyard.

It used to be you just walk through one every day or walk by one every day.

We've tried to ignore death because it's this unavoidable problem, and

so our first point tonight is I want you to face your biggest problem.

We're all going to die because we are all infected by sin.

We're all going to die because we've all been infected by the

consequences of Adam's sin.

All right.

These are the verses that we, we just looked at verses 12, and then it

goes on verses 12, 13, and 14, right?

This, this paragraph where it's talking about sin came into the world.

Right?

And what it, what it says is really interesting.

Sin came into the world and because of that it it kind of per, you know

what personification is, right?

Like when you have an animal that's talking, that's personification.

It's, we're almost personifying death here.

It says death reigned.

Here's what I want you to see.

Sin came into the world, death spread to all people.

And so it's almost like now death is in control.

We're all like under the rule of death.

Death is running the world.

Death reigned

every single person.

All right, all people, every single person is in this same situation.

We are all related to Adam, and therefore we are all unable to escape

the power of sin and death on our own.

We're all stuck.

That's the problem, and that's the biggest problem that we all face, and

that that's also something that maybe.

You might not agree with, right?

If I asked you what's the biggest problem in your life?

What's the biggest problem in the world right now?

A lot of people might not say, oh yeah, everyone dies.

That might not be their, their biggest problem.

They might say, maybe it's world hunger.

They might say, maybe it's racism.

They might say, maybe it's injustice.

They might say whatever, right?

They, they might say a lot of different things about the

biggest problem in the world.

But we're all in the same boat.

We're all related to Adam.

When you think about this, it actually puts everyone on the

same playing field, right?

There's no other alternatives to this problem.

We're gonna see, there's only one way outta this problem.

Uh, there's no favoritism, right?

Everyone dies.

There's no advantages, right?

Some people die sooner or later, but everyone's gonna,

it's gonna happen to everyone.

Um.

You don't get any extra credit, right?

It's like, well, you're gonna get some extra credit before God because

you're part of this group when you die.

That doesn't happen either, right?

We all have this same situation and

we all try to find different ways to get out of it, and.

What I want you to see, just to start off with, with this unique problem

or this, it's not a unique problem.

It's opposite of a unique problem, right?

It's a universal problem is I hope for you, maybe you're a Christian and, and

you've had this problem dealt with.

You're not scared of death anymore.

I hope for you.

You can see, man, that has nothing to do with with me.

It's not because I was so smart that I got this problem solved.

It's not because I was so good that I got this problem solved.

It's not because.

Who my parents were that got this problem solved, right?

I was in the same situation as every single other person.

We are all on the same level playing field before God.

We all sinned.

We all deserved to die.

We all were under the, the reign of death.

And maybe you're out there and you're, you're not a Christian, and for you.

You don't feel like you're on a level playing field because you

feel like there's reasons that maybe God will be nicer to you.

Maybe you're thinking, well, I, I go to church.

I'm not as bad as those people at school.

Why don't do those sins that those people do?

Everyone has the same problem.

Every single person has sinned.

Every single person is in this, this control of sin and death.

And rather than try to avoid it or try to make the problem not as big of

a deal, I want you to, to face it and say, okay, there's only one solution

to this problem, and I, I need to, to figure that out rather than ignore it,

rather than push it off, rather than to just make it not as bad because,

well, I'm not as bad as that person.

We all need to address this one problem.

And we see that even more of that right here.

And, and you might think, well, I didn't cause this problem.

Maybe you're, maybe that's what you're thinking.

Maybe it's, it's not fair.

Right?

Um, because how is it fair?

And you, maybe you read this passage later on in verses 18 and 19 of

Romans five, one trespass, right?

One sin led to condemnation guilt for all people.

One person disobeyed.

Many people were infected with sin.

Many people suffer the consequences of this problem.

How is that fair?

Maybe that's what you're thinking.

How is that fair?

Adam's sinned.

Why now do I die?

That's what this passage is gonna dive into is how is that, okay?

Everyone suffers the consequences for one person's sin, and that's

really interesting, right?

Helpful way maybe to think about it.

I was gonna talk about kind of, you know, and David and Goliath, when

they're, when they're fighting, it's the Philistines versus the

Israelites, and they send out like their champion to like represent them.

So what they do is, right, there's the Philistines, they're

fighting the Israelites, right?

And um, the Philistines, they send out Goliath, you know, he's eight feet tall

or whatever, and he's got all his cool armor and he's scaring the Israelites.

And what's gonna happen is now Israel has to send out their champion,

their person to go fight Goliath, and then whoever wins is gonna decide

the battle for everyone, right?

So if Goliath wins, Philistines win, if David wins, then Israel wins.

Right?

That's kind of, it's you're representing your whole team.

Kind of like in our game, right?

One junior high boy tried to cheat and then all of them got disqualified.

You see that?

Mm-hmm.

Okay, well you guys are way overlo.

Same thing, right?

The whole team, right?

Ezekiel didn't cheat, but Ezekiel was suffering the consequences for

his teammates disobedience, right?

If you will.

Um, or right.

Jackson didn't play the game, but Weston lost rock, paper, scissors.

So now Jackson.

It doesn't look like Jackson's getting any candy 'cause it looks like junior high

girls are gonna run away with this thing.

Right?

Speaker 2: We were, you should just give both.

Speaker: That's not how we do things, man.

You know that all you had to do is win rock, hyper scissors.

It's not that hard.

I actually told Jacob to go.

I,

all I had to say right, is one person represents the group.

Right.

In our game, we had one person or two people representing the group.

Right.

Um, David versus Goliath, right?

It's one person representing their country.

And if David wins, his whole country wins.

If Goliath wins, his whole country wins.

That's kind of how it is with Adam.

And our sin Adam represents every single person in the garden.

And if Adam fails, then we all fail, right?

If, if Adam gives in a temptation, we all give in a temptation.

And we all suffer the consequences for that.

And now maybe you're thinking, right, how is that fair?

How, how does that work?

Speaker 3: Well,

Speaker: first of all, right, um, if you were there, you

would've done the same thing.

So let's not be like, oh, Adam, you're the worst, right?

It was, if we were there, we would've done the same thing.

If I was there, I would've done the same thing.

Um, but this idea of one person representing everyone.

That's how salvation works too, right?

Adam represents everyone.

And so then everyone is a sinner to get saved.

It's not based on what you do, right?

It's based on what someone else does.

Your representative, Jesus, your representative.

So becoming a Christian also has nothing to do with you either.

If, if so, if you're frustrated about, man, how come Adam

sinned and I receive his guilt?

That's not fair.

Well, are you frustrated that if you trust Jesus, you get

to receive his righteousness?

It's the same process, right?

If you receive, if you wanna receive Jesus as your representative, then it's the same

process of how Adam is our representative.

Now, that's an illustration of how it works, but the, the point

of that, right, is God has set up the world to work this way.

Right.

One person representing everyone, right Adam?

Representing everyone.

Jesus representing his people, right?

Those who trust in him, right?

Jesus righteousness, Jesus.

Instead of trespassing, he obeyed.

Right?

And that can get credited to you.

Just like Adam sin the consequences come to all of us.

Um,

yeah.

There's two main consequences to Adam's sin.

Are actually right here in these verses.

Okay.

And, um,

what happens is we're all guilty and we're all not just guilty by association, but we

all end up participating in what Adam did.

So before we get there, let's get to our second point is

recognize your sinful state.

So because of what Adam did, our condition is messed up.

Because of what Adam did, our whole condition is, is changed.

So

let's just start with one of those, one of those things.

Um, so 0.2

is recognize your sinful state.

So what what's happening here is every single person after Adam is born guilty.

Which again has to do with the fact that we're represented by him.

We're on his team, we're on the human team, right?

He's our representative, right?

He's, he's our, he's our Goliath, right?

We, he's the representative and he sinned, and so we suffer the

consequences, so every single person starts off separated from God.

This is the opposite actually.

What our, a lot of our culture will tell you, right?

There's that.

You guys probably, I'm realizing now that I'm kind of old compared to you guys.

Um, there's that country song, right?

I believe most people are good, right?

By Luke Bryan.

That's not what the Bible says, right?

So this song, this country song, the chorus is I believe

that most people are good.

That's actually not what the Bible says.

The Bible says that actually people start off.

Separated from God, people start off naturally opposed to God.

Everyone doesn't start off innocent, right?

You don't start off innocent as a baby and then you do some

sins and then now you're guilty.

You actually start off guilty and then you just keep getting more and more and

more guilty throughout your whole life.

That's how people work and if you're not sure about that.

Just hang out with like an eight month year old kid.

You don't have to teach that kid how to lie there.

You don't have to teach that kid how to be selfish.

You don't have to teach that kid how to get angry.

You don't have to teach that kid how to be impatient.

Right?

You don't have to teach that kid anything about how to sin, right?

You don't have to teach the kid how to steal things.

You, you don't have to teach that kid anything about sin.

They do it on their own.

People start off separated from God, and that kind of leads into that second part,

made sinners, people naturally oppose God.

Sinful desires come naturally to us because we're born into this problem.

We're born into this problem of Adam sin, and now everything's messed up.

We're born into this sinful state.

And so I hope for you, I know a lot of this is just information, right?

I know a lot of this is just you're learning theology, which

is good, but the point, right?

Think about what I said at the beginning.

If you don't understand how bad your problem is, you don't understand

how good salvation is, right?

If you don't understand like, oh, I'm not just a like kind of good person,

that messes up sometimes, right?

You and I are thoroughly bad people who want bad things.

Who love wanting those bad things and actually are incapable of

wanting good things apart from Jesus.

That's what we're born into.

That's how bad the sin problem is, right?

People don't sin and then become sinners.

People sin because that's who they are.

They are sinners, right?

The reason.

That we're all separated from God is not just because you started

off with a blank slate and then did some sins down the line.

You actually started off opposing God, right?

You started off.

I started off selfish, right?

I started off wanting to worship things that aren't God.

I started off wanting to be impatient and angry.

I started off wanting to have impure thoughts.

I started off wanting.

To be greedy.

That's how I started living, because I wanted to, it came naturally to me.

And that's the same thing about you.

And that's the opposite of what the world will tell you.

The world will tell you, oh, there's good in everyone.

The world will tell you, you know, uh, well, people are just the,

it's just their circumstances.

People are the, the impact of how they're raised and, and who their friends are.

And that's, that's helpful, right?

That that's, that influences you.

Sin comes naturally to all people.

That's how bad we are.

And this isn't your, you know, encouraging youth message because

if you don't get this part salvation and Jesus and the gospel, and it's

not really that good news, right?

Jesus didn't just come to help you because you messed up a couple times.

Jesus didn't come because well.

You're, you're mostly a good person and you just need that extra boost

to, to get you to heaven, right?

Jesus didn't come because you're, you, like asked him to save you, and

you really, really, really wanted to.

You just needed, needed him to, to, to make it work, right?

Jesus came to save people who didn't want anything to do with Jesus.

Jesus came to save people who naturally oppose Jesus from birth.

That's how big of a deal salvation is.

And if you don't understand that all the, the stuff we just talked about,

right, of man, I naturally oppose God from birth and I'm born into this

human race of people who hate God.

And that's the environment I live in, and that's my natural.

Just my natural disposition, right?

My na, my na.

The thing that comes natural to me is worshiping things

that aren't God opposing.

God disobeying God that comes naturally to me.

That's who I am.

That's what you need to be saved from, right?

You don't just need to be saved from God's wrath.

That's the biggest thing, right?

You also need to be saved from the fact that you can't

stop sinning apart from God.

You can't do anything good for, for God apart from God.

And none of these things are gonna go on your Christmas card,

and none of these things are, are gonna get, you know, tweeted on

your inspirational Christian feed.

But this is what we do when we don't believe these things is

we actually make Jesus smaller.

We make Jesus not as big of a deal.

We turn into, we turn Jesus into life, coach Jesus.

He's here to help you reach your true potential.

And he's here to unlock what, what you know the the good that's

already in you and he's here to help you just reach that next level.

That's not what Jesus is about.

Jesus isn't here to take the good that's inside you and make it better.

Jesus actually came to die on the cross 'cause there was no good inside me.

I couldn't do anything to, to worship him.

That's why she just came.

He didn't come to improve me.

He came to change me.

Like from 0% to 100% changed me not from 52% to 65%.

Or maybe, you know, you, you end up with, instead of making Jesus smaller, you

make Jesus kind of just domesticated.

Right?

Jesus isn't here to save you here to just like comfort you and be your friend.

And just help you through life.

Be your, your emotional support, Jesus.

Right?

That's what a lot of atheists I, I have, I know people who say that to me, that

being a Christian is just your, just what makes you sleep better at night just

makes you feel better about the world.

'cause the world's terrible, right?

That's not what Jesus is, is for Jesus Isn't your emotional support

heady bear to, to help you out.

Jesus came to save you because you were a rebel.

You were opposing him.

You hated him, and he loved you so much that he said, I'm not gonna

let that person do that anymore.

I'm gonna come and I'm gonna change their life, and they

need all of my righteousness.

They don't just need some of my righteousness.

They don't just need most of my righteousness.

They need all of it.

100% of a full perfect life.

That's what they need.

That's what you and I need.

Not just, not just some of it, right?

So.

This is, you know, maybe boring or hard for you to understand.

It's okay, right?

It's okay.

It's hard.

I know it's, it's dense, right?

But I want you to, to not be afraid of admitting how bad you are,

how bad we are, right?

Because the more honest you are about, about how sinful you are,

the more reason you have to worship God because you, man, God loved me.

That becomes a bigger deal, right?

For God so loved the world becomes a bigger deal when you realize that oh

yeah, God loved the world, who hated him.

God loved the world, who rejected him, becomes a much, much bigger deal.

So our third point, I'm sure you've, you've already heard half

of it, but trust Jesus as your only solution to this problem, right?

The, the problem of I'm naturally opposed to God.

I can't, I, I'm helpless, I'm stuck.

Sin, I'm going to die.

There's nothing I can do about it.

Right?

That's the problem.

It's a really, really bad problem.

And, and God is providing a free solution.

And we, we've talked about this before, right?

In Romans three we talked about this, Romans four, we talked

about this, how it's, it's free and that's what makes it hard.

To receive it because we are naturally, we want to work for it, we wanna earn it,

and that's what makes it so hard is to trust Jesus as the only solution, means

that I can't admit that, or I have to admit that I'm not part of the solution.

Right.

Me trusting Jesus to save me means admitting that I can't save me.

Jesus has to do it.

And that's, that's so hard

because.

Part of the problem of being a sinner is you don't wanna

admit that you're a sinner.

That's part of being a sinner is not wanting to admit it.

Right?

It's like you have a dis, imagine if you had a disease that part of

the symptoms was you don't like it, you don't think you have it.

Imagine you got a disease.

Um, this is because I, so I hate going to the doctor.

I'm one of these people that's like, I don't, I don't wanna go to the doctor.

I, I'm fine.

I'll figure it out.

I'll be okay.

I'm one of those people, you have to like, drag me into the doctor after

I'm like dying and like throwing up.

Um,

imagine that was like, part of the disease was like doctor phobia.

You're like, oh yeah, you're sick and you don't want, like, you see a doctor

and you like freak out and you run away.

Right.

I know it's not a real disease, but imagine like

that's what being a sinner is.

You have this disease of not wanting God, of not wanting God's help, of

not wanting to humble yourself before God and admit that you're a sinner.

And so

I hope that, right.

We didn't, I know we didn't go through this passage exactly

the way we normally do, right?

But when you read this passage, that's what I want you to look for, right?

When you read this passage, I want you to see, man, what does this say about me?

Well, it says that I'm separated from God from the start.

I'm naturally opposed to God.

Um, that's, that's the way I was born.

Um, but God did something about it.

Right?

Just like maybe 'cause maybe you feel like, man, it's so frustrating.

I'm so helpless in this situation.

I didn't, I didn't decide to be born a sinner.

I'm like, yes, that's the point.

You can't do anything about it, but God can, right?

And that's why you trust Jesus to do it and save you.

Let's pray and we'll go to small groups.

God, we are so grateful that you decided to save people.

You didn't have to.

Um, you have no obligation to save anyone.

Um, saving people was your idea.

In fact, we wouldn't even know who you are if you didn't show

us who you are through your word.

So I pray that, um, right now as we talk about, um, what sin really

is and, and who we really are, I pray that you help us to be honest.

I pray that you help us to ask questions if we're confused.

I pray that we wouldn't be scared, um, to ask questions.

I pray that we wouldn't be scared to, um, be serious and take things seriously.

Um, I pray that you would help us to have good conversations, to focus,

to respect each other, and to really talk about things that matter tonight.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.