New Identity: Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ - Romans: Book of Revolution

Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.

I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.

Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

So, we're a word and spirit church.

And what we mean by that is that we love God's Word, we're built on God's Word, we're rooted in God's Word.

But we also believe in the life and the power of the Holy Spirit.

So we're word-rooted, we're spirit alive, but we're also culturally engaged.

So there's so many segments to that sentence.

Word-rooted, spirit alive, culturally engaged.

Because word-rooted means that this is our basis for what we believe.

This is what we hold to.

We try as best we can to go through the scriptures verse by verse so that we're getting equipped in God's word.

Now, why is that important?

That's important because culture is always going to be antithetical to God's word.

So if you don't understand what you believe, if you don't understand what truth really is, you're just going to be on a, you're going to be tossed and turned and upset by the journey of culture like all the time.

But we're also spirit alive.

And so if you're, if you're word only and no spirit, you dry up.

You become a Pharisee.

But if you're all spirit and no word, you blow up.

And you become a nut.

And you start handling snakes and stuff.

Okay?

But when you're word and spirit, you grow up.

That's how we get equipped.

So sometimes, because of the nature of the road at Chapel Hills, we are in this uncomfortable middle.

I always look at the aisle because it's the best description for me.

We're kind of in this uncomfortable middle where sometimes we are really, really focused on some word stuff, and then sometimes we're really, really focused on the spirit stuff, but we always gravitate back to the middle because we know that the wholeness of both is key.

And you know that as a parent, if you're a parent here, sometimes you've got to bring more of the rod, and then sometimes you need to bring more of a pillow.

I mean, to cry on.

So we we walk that all the time.

And the tendency in the Christian church is to fall into one camp or the other, and then when you do that, you become sort of fossilized.

So you're fossilized in Pentecostalism, or you're fossilized in fundamentalism.

And yet God says that maturity, because Jesus was hard to figure out for the Pharisees, because he wasn't word enough.

He wasn't law enough, right?

And yet the Sadducees had trouble, more the liberal side with Jesus, because he talked about the resurrection.

And they didn't believe in the resurrection.

So, how many have been uncomfortable in your faith, let's say, since COVID?

Raise your hand if you've been a little uncomfortable in your faith and what you believe since COVID.

Alright, not many of you.

I have, so I'm you guys can come up here and teach the word today.

Because, here's why.

Because there's an atomic nature and there's a Holy Spirit nature.

You have two natures.

And the Adamic nature is what you're born with.

You're naturally born with Adam being the king over your life.

And if you listen too much to the voice of Adam in your life, then you'll become very comfortable in this world.

But if you become habitually committed to and addicted to the voice of God and hearing Jesus in your life, you'll find yourself antithetical to a lot of what you hear and see in the culture.

That's uncomfortable.

So I've been uncomfortable, and I'm regularly uncomfortable, because I tend to take stands that are not super popular.

They're not popular with pastors, they're not popular with churches, and they're not popular with the culture.

Now I'm learning to live in the realm of unpopularity.

And so should you.

And so in Romans 5, we're talking about Adam as a type of Christ, and then the new king, Christ, the second Adam, his life.

So just so we're clear here, when Adam was created, he was created to be a king.

He was created to rule over the earth, to have control over the earth, to be a representative, as it were, of God on the earth.

So the first command in Scripture to man is Genesis 1, 26 through 28.

Then God said, Let us make man in our own image.

According to our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

Verse 27, so God created man in his own image.

In the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them.

Then God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.

Have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

So, right out of the shoot, with the creation of man was a mandate to rule over creation, to have rulership with his love and his grace and his power over the earth, to have dominion.

Now, Paul called that being ambassadors for Christ, because when Christ came, he restored in the Jesus follower, not in everybody, but in the Jesus follower, those who chose to follow him, the ability to have dominion over the culture, to have dominion over your circumstances.

So now we're in Romans 5, second half, we're talking about these two kings.

And I'm gonna call it a tale of two kings.

And in verse 12, it says, Therefore, just as, and I've got that circle in my Bible, just as, because he's gonna say, just as Adam was this way, Christ was this way.

And he's gonna make this comparison and contrast.

So let's pick it up.

I'm gonna just read the whole thing and then we'll go verse by verse.

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.

For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned, according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, and this is a key phrase here, who is a type of him who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the offense, for if by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.

And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned, for the judgment which came from the one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification.

For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as through one man's offense, judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so, through one man's righteous act, the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.

For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one man's obedience many will be made righteous.

Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.

So I've put together a graph.

And I think this graph helps us understand the contrast between King Adam and King Jesus.

This is what Paul is saying.

There's a King Adam, and through Adam, sin entered the world because he sinned.

Through Jesus, the second Adam, the gift of grace entered the world.

King Adam, all are declared sinners.

Under Jesus, the gift of justification is offered, not offended, offered to all.

Under Adam, judgment and condemnation.

Under King Jesus, grace and righteousness.

Under Adam, we're born a sinner.

Under King Jesus, we can be reborn in righteousness.

Under Adam, sins abounding in our life.

Under King Jesus, grace abounding over sin.

Under King Adam, sin leads to death.

And under King Jesus, grace leads to life.

We are in Adam by birth, and we are in Christ by the rebirth.

So God, in his glory, in helping us understand so that we can walk in the newness of life, is talking about who's going to be king over your life.

Now, many believers still have Adam on the throne of their life.

He's still ruling their life.

And thus they're a king.

Or they're, I'm going to say a queen.

They can be a queen or a king, but they're acting like paupers.

They don't either don't know that they're a king walking under the rubric of the power of Christ, or they've forgotten, or they're ignorant, or they're just willfully sinful.

So they're living in judgment and condemnation.

Their sins abounding in their life.

And they're living death.

They're living the death sentence when they've been offered life.

They can have life.

So let's look at verse 12, and we're just going to go through it and look at the specifics of what Paul's saying.

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sin.

Men and women, you were not created to die.

Originally, you were not created to die.

And yet, because of the sin of Adam, we now all die.

Now, death is not just physical death.

Death is spiritual separation from God.

So whenever we're living a life in which we're letting sins or a sin abound in an area of our daily life, you're headed to death.

And there's a lot of different areas of our life, right?

So we could be walking in the newness of life in our marriage.

We could be walking in the newness of our life in our moral life.

But there's another area where we're not.

And so, wherever we allow Jesus to be King, Jesus to be Lord, there's life.

There's abounding grace in him.

There is, what does he say there?

Let me look at my list again.

You're walking in justification, grace, and righteousness.

For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

Therefore, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned, according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who was a type of him who was to come.

Now I've underlined that Adam was a type of him to come.

So how was Adam a type of Christ?

I'm going to give you three things.

It's not in your notes.

This was something I was studying this morning before I came to church.

But three things that I think are a part of what makes Adam like Christ.

The first is kingship.

So Adam was the king, he was a ruler, he was to have dominion over the earth, and in God's perfect plan, he was going to be in constant fellowship, constant intimacy with the Father in the garden.

And there would have been joy.

There would have been intimacy between Adam and Eve.

There would have been power.

I mean, can you imagine?

Like, no sin.

Ladies.

No sin.

And I don't know what that means.

It's like when you got pregnant, man, just boom, just comes out.

Just like, wham.

Whoa, we got one.

I don't know.

But we know that the judgment of sin is the pain in childbearing.

So there was going to be no pain in childbearing.

I guess when Adam went to work, because it says he worked the garden before he sinned.

So it works a part of the grace of God, the goodness of God.

It's part of worship, actually.

I guess he could just plant stuff and whammo, man.

It just comes up.

That would have made Fauci a little upset, right?

But you know, you.

Sorry.

Sorry about that.

Just came out.

But I take, I'm not taking it back, okay?

But but the reality is, God wanted us to have an agriculture and crops that would be bountiful in the awesome righteousness and grace of God.

So that's first, he's king.

Second, is that he had a bride.

So in the bride sense of what he had, you had Adam with Eve.

That was a type of bride.

And where did Eve come from?

Eve came from Adam's rib.

It came from his side.

As Christ was expired on the cross, they took a spear and they drove that spear into Jesus' side, and blood and water came forth, and guess how you're born again?

You're born again by the blood of Christ and by water.

It says that's in John 3.

By water and being reborn in Christ, we became the bride of Christ.

And then thirdly, under Adam was federal headship.

Some of you may not be familiar with that.

I don't use it a lot.

But the word I'm going to use here is federal headship.

So what that means is that you are given federal headship.

Now the reality is this, you guys, that Adam had federal headship over the garden, and he ruled that guard until he sinned.

And then they were kicked out.

The very first thing is they get they got booted out of what he was supposed to rule over.

But here's what's different.

The difference is that you have, according to Matthew 16, 18 through 20, 18 and 19, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

I give you the power of the keys of the kingdom to bind and loose.

So you what's bound in heaven is bound on earth.

What is loosed in earth is loosed in heaven.

So there's this binding and loosening.

So like last week, a lot of you came forward.

Some of you got prayer, and there were a couple people who received Christ for the first time.

So I wasn't with all of them, but I was with some of them.

But in one case, you know, because someone told me about it, you led that person to pray to receive Christ.

They received Christ, and you know what you did?

You bound Satan and you loosed God in their life.

You did that.

That's not a pastor's thing, that's every believer thing.

Because you're all kings.

You all have federal headship.

You're just doing what Jesus said.

Look, I'll build my church, gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and you're gonna bind and loose.

And so whenever you lead someone in the Lord, you bind and loose.

Every time you pray for healing and the person gets healed, that's binding and loosening.

When we prayed for a young lady here in our church who had some issues in her body, and at noonday prayer, they prayed specifically for her, and she went in for the surgery, and the doctor took one more check and said, You don't need any surgery, the whole thing's healed.

He probably didn't use the word healed, but he said, You're better, you're good.

And they went, Yeah, we've been healed.

That's because a group of people, about 20 people in noonday prayer, bound and loosed.

That's headship.

That's what it means.

You have you have the royal Adam, second Adam, living in you.

And you can rule over culture.

I hate to break it to some of you.

We can actually change culture.

Oh, it's all going to hell in a handbasket.

When's the rapture?

Come on, give me a break, man.

Jesus didn't even know when the rapture was.

And I don't think anybody here is smarter than Jesus.

Instead of looking for the rapture, why don't we be looking to make an impact in our city?

And when the rapture comes, man, you'll just be walking along and wham, you'll be out of here.

But we can overfocus on the non-essentials and miss the focus on the essentials, and that is thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

That's what we're commanded to do.

Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.

So that's it, that's that aspect of a type of Adam.

Verse 15.

Now he's gonna use this word free gift six times.

And he's gonna use grace six times over the next few verses.

Because not everybody gets this.

Everybody gets Adam's nature, but not everybody gets Jesus' nature.

It is a you have to receive the gift.

You've got to say, I receive the gift.

So if I take my watch off right now and I say, I want to give you this watch.

This watch is yours.

It's a really nice watch.

It's not, but I mean, I'm just saying it is.

It's a really nice watch, and I want you to have this watch.

But I want you to run around the church building five times, and I'm gonna time you.

And if you can do that in seven minutes, this watch is yours.

Is that a gift?

No.

You had to earn it, right?

So, a gift, what do you do to receive a gift?

You just receive it.

You just receive it.

But as many as received him, he gave the right to become children of God.

So, men and women, you don't receive the gift by being born into a Christian family.

You don't receive the gift by following the law.

You don't receive the gift by getting baptized.

You don't receive the gift by going to church every Sunday.

You don't receive the gift by tithing.

I mean, whatever you want to put in front of it, that's not a gift.

You receive it by faith.

And when you receive it by faith, God imparts his righteousness into you, and you get saved, and that's called justification.

Okay?

And so he's gonna now talk about that, except in a different way than he's talked about it in the first part of Romans.

But the free gift is not like the offense, for by one man's offense many died.

Much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.

So just as sin abounded in our lives, we put our faith in Christ, we trust in him, Christ abounds.

So, how many of you abounded in sin at some point in your life?

Raise your hand if you've abounded in sin.

Okay, I know.

I abounded in sin too.

But when we take on the new Adam, Christ, just like, that's what he's saying, just like you abounded in sin, you can abound in, what does he say?

The grace of God.

The grace of one man means you can abound in grace.

So if you're not abounding in grace today, stop whatever you're doing and ask God to fill you with the Spirit because you're supposed to be abounding in grace.

That is your birthright.

You get that.

That's yours.

But if you're not experiencing it, and many believers are not, because it's a battle, and that's why he put it in here.

I mean, he's writing to Christians because we tend to go back to Athens.

We like Adam.

We want to hang out with Adam because we're familiar with Adam.

It's hard work to get sanctified.

Folks, this is all hard work.

This is not easy.

You receive it by grace, but you battle for grace.

So hear what I'm saying.

So you receive God's grace freely, but Dietrich Bonhopper called it costly grace.

Because most of the church today is into cheap grace.

Well, you got saved, so man, you got fire insurance, then just go.

And kind of, in a sense, kind of do whatever you want.

That's why we're not equipping the saints.

But sanctification is the part that comes after justification, by which, as we walk in that, it's hard work.

Because it's costly grace.

So he's explaining how to do that.

Verse 16, and the gift is not like that which came through the one, which sin, for the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation.

But the free gift, which you have to receive, which came from many offenses, resulted in justification.

So the result of the judgment of God on our lives is always condemnation.

If you've received Christ as your Lord and Savior, and you're attempting to walk in Him, when you feel condemnation come, and you do, we have that.

That old man comes, that old nature condemns us because of stuff we've done in the past or whatever, you've got to tell the devil to take a hike.

You gotta say, I'm not under condemnation anymore.

I can now walk in justification of life just as if I've never sinned.

Remember that?

Remember when I gave you that definition for justification?

Just as if I've never sinned.

So you start walking in the just as if I've never sinned scenario of the grace of God, then the condemnation will leave.

Maybe not immediately, but if you keep doing that, it won't come back as much.

That condemnation will find there's no host with you.

It doesn't have the velcro, it doesn't stick anymore.

Used to stick because you don't fight.

But you got to battle for grace.

You got to battle for it.

You've got to verbalize it and tell the devil to take a height, invite God's grace to come in, and it and he says it's gonna abound in your life.

It's gonna start abounding in ways that you never thought were possible.

For if by one man's offense, verse 17, death reigned through Adam, the one, much more.

Circle that, underline that, highlight that, put an asterisk by that.

Much more, those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.

Now that's that's just crazy to me.

You can reign, not just exist in this life, reigning in life.

This is what J.B.

Phillips says.

I love the Phillips translation, a paraphrase of Romans 5.17.

Listen to what he says.

For if one man's offense meant that men should be slaves to death all their lives, it is a far greater thing that through another man, Jesus Christ, men, by their acceptance of his more sufficient grace and righteousness, should live all their lives like kings.

What?

You're not a slave anymore.

We're not slaves anymore.

We have a kingship.

Paul calls us ambassadors in chains.

We are ambassadors, in the one sense, we are slaves unto God, but in another sense, we're kings on this earth.

So by slavery, isn't that interesting?

By enslaving ourselves to the king, we become free to the king to be his ambassadors.

That's pretty cool.

So there's an abounding into sin, which leads to condemnation.

That's the atomic nature.

Or there's an abounding by the grace of God into righteousness, peace, and joy, that is Christ on the throne of our lives.

Working through you.

So God now has set you free.

Say, God has set me free.

I can abound in grace.

Say that.

I am a king.

Small K king.

Because when you make Jesus king, you become a son and a daughter of the king, and that means by your birthright, you're a king.

Or you're a queen.

That has that that's the image of the kingdom of God.

Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.

Search first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things should be added unto you.

Pray.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Then you can pray, give us this day our daily bread.

In other words, you can pray, give us this day our daily bread, because you're seeking the kingdom first.

Because when God finds a man or a woman that's seeking the kingdom first, he adds all things to that person because you're making the main thing the main thing.

The most noble cause, the most noble thing in the universe is the kingdom of God.

So when he says the most noble thing is seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then he says, All these things shall be added unto you, he's saying, if you'll make the primary the primary, I'll take care of the secondary.

But what we do, right, is we focus on the secondary and the secondary, and we're always struggling with the secondary, and then we don't understand why we're not experiencing the abundance of joy and the abundance of power in our life.

He says, forget that.

Don't worry about the secondary.

Make the primary, make the main thing the main thing, and if you'll do that, I'll take care of the primary.

I'll take care of the primary, and then I'll take care of all the other things that are secondary in your life.

That's abounding.

It's joy.

Verse 18, therefore, so therefore, it's therefore, as through one man's offense, judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation.

Even so, through one man's righteous act, again, here we go again, the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.

So we talked about justification in our salvation.

We talked about justification through the cross.

And now, for the first time, in chapter 5 in Romans, Paul is saying justification of life.

In other words, you've broken the power of death.

You can walk in newness of life.

You should be getting better.

You should be becoming healthier.

You should be lying less.

That's a big one for some of you.

You lie a lot.

Okay, quit lying.

It's dumb.

It's not good.

So you're lying less.

You're lusting less.

So I was with a young man in between services, and he said, you know, I came to this church, I was really messed up.

And a lot of people looked at me and they said, Man, that guy's really messed up.

And he said, Because I was.

And now I'm getting unmessed up.

I'm not as messed up as I was.

But then I realized actually the standards get higher as I go along, and it's really messing me up.

And I said, Yeah, man, because you're getting more life.

Are you more alive than you were?

He said, Yeah, man, absolutely.

Are you more aware of your circumstances more?

Yes.

Are you more aware that there's that if you do this, then this is gonna happen?

Oh, yeah, were you aware of that before?

No.

That's because the spirit of death was on you.

You were living death, and so you were blinded by life.

And now, if you start walking in life, you can be blinded from death, and you can walk without fear in Christ.

So by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, so also by one man's obedience, many will be made righteous.

Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace abounded even more.

So that as sin reigned in death, even so, grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So, why don't we put up that graph?

Let's put up the graph with the circles.

So, this on the on your left here is Adam as king.

That means basically self is on the throne of the life, self is reigning on your throne, sin is reigning on your throne, and there's discord in your life.

On the right is Jesus as king, Jesus reigning on the throne, grace and righteousness reigning through your life, and there's order.

So order doesn't happen overnight.

Order is a process.

Order is it's the road less travel.

So you could have order in these four areas, or maybe when you first came to know the Lord, lots of order in certain areas, but you still had disorder in other areas.

Because, in the one sense, Christ is on the throne of your life in that area, but self or Adam is on the throne in the other area.

So that's what that's what the whole process of what we call sanctification is all about.

It's the process of becoming more holy, it's a process of becoming more sanctified.

What helps that, according to this passage, is understanding that you walk with an abounding amount of, we're not even using all of the power and the grace that's available to those who put Christ on the throne of their life.

We have no idea what's happening sometimes.

And so we're still committed to the old atomic nature when we don't want to be, but you can be.

Thank you for listening to the Born for War podcast.

We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steve Holtonline.org.

God bless it.