Gospel Course - We All Need the Gospel - Romans 5:12-15

Here at Portland Gospel, we exist as a church to help you

believe, live and share the good news.

And that's the current series that we're in right now.

What is the good news? So we have a message that we

want every person in our church to believe and then to figure

out how to apply that to their life and live it and then share

it with other people. The gospel is as we saw last

week, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And we started this new series called the Gospel Course and it

is overly simplified on purpose to help us understand exactly

what we need to know. What are the most important

truths in Christianity, what will save us.

And though we prayed for politicians tonight out of First

1 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

Timothy chapter 2, I believe we're we're told to do that man

praise God. I'm thankful for that.

We don't want to just be political.

We have a message that goes beyond politics.

We we want to see souls saved. So last week we began with what

the gospel is. We gave it a definition.

We landed in First Corinthians 15 and we saw that ultimately

it's a message about a death and a resurrection.

And that that is what saves us. But this week, we're going to

ask the question, why do I need the gospel?

I feel like maybe I'm doing just fine.

Or why does Portland need the gospel?

Or we could say what really will fix all of the world's problems?

So we get to ask why. And this is really important

because with the gospel, we're told to share it with everyone

we saw last week. It's called good news.

We have the best news on the planet, but the good news really

only matters to those that have first heard some bad news.

It's kind of like going to the doctor.

If you would go to the doctor and they would sit you down and

say good news, we have something for you.

You might feel like I don't know that I need anything.

No, we have this. It'll fix it.

Fix. Fix what?

I don't know that I have a problem.

I don't need your medicine. I'm fine.

And that is many of us as we try to share.

The good news is we're just sharing the best part, but we

don't have the why down. So today we're going to look at

the first. We're going to look at Romans

Romans 5 · chapter mention

chapter 5. So if you have a Bible, turn

your Bible to Romans chapter 5. Many of the verses will come up

Romans 5 · chapter mention

on the screen. And if you want to get real

creative and get 2 places in your Bible, you can go to

Genesis chapter 2 in one hand and Romans chapter 5 in the

Genesis 2 · chapter mention Romans 5 · chapter mention

other hand. The book of Romans is the first

at least three chapters, is somewhat of a gloomy outlook on

life. We see the sinfulness of man.

We see the holiness of God and this great separation between

them. And it seems like nothing will

save man. It's not the law, it's not moral

conduct. There's something wrong with us

and we need to be fixed. And ultimately what the book of

Romans tells us is that we have a sin problem.

And that's the part that we don't usually like sharing with

the good news. The word sin is simply means to

miss the mark. It's it's kind of an archery

term. I aim at a target and I miss.

And we all do that with our life.

We have a conscience that tells us do the right thing, and yet

we don't always do the right thing.

We have a standard of holiness for who God is.

And we, we try to achieve it, but we always miss it.

So today let's read Romans chapter 5 starting in verse #12

Romans 5 · chapter mention

to 15. Let's read together.

The Bible says, Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the

world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for

that all have 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 them that had not sinned.

After the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure

of him that was to come? But not as the offense, so also

is the free gift. For if through the offense of

one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by

grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ hath abounded unto

many. Let's pray God, we come before

your word tonight. We confess that your ways are

higher than our ways. God, we want to be good stewards

of the gospel. We need to understand how to

share it with people and how to lay out all the facts.

That man's greatest need truly is you.

Would you help us tonight? Give each of us understanding.

Open our eyes to behold wondrous things out of your word.

I pray in Jesus name, Amen. All right, well, if you're going

to follow along with the notes, point number one is we're going

to ask the question, where did sin come from?

Where did sin come from? We might think, well, who

started this whole thing? Where, where did morality really

come from in the 1st place? And a lot of religions have

different perspectives on that. Some would say we're good and

then we turn bad, or we're a blank slate and we get to choose

either. And we're going to see for

Christianity that it starts pretty grim all the way from the

beginning. But it says in Romans 5 and

verse 12, Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world,

ultimately there is a man responsible for all of the sin

in the world, and that man is the first man, the first man.

Does anyone know who the first man is?

Adam. That's right, the first man that

God created. And many would like to say that

God is the source of evil. He created the problem, it's his

fault. But really what we see is that's

not true. In Genesis chapter 2.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

If you have Genesis 2 in the one hand, we'll go over there to

verse 216 and we'll see what what, what began, what happened,

Where did this come from? Let's get an origin story for

the sin of the world. 216 And the Lord God commanded the man,

saying, of every tree of the garden, thou mayest freely eat.

God gave Adam a really simple Bible.

Don't do the thing that I told you not to do.

Adam wasn't a sinful person until he had choose, chosen

along with his wife to do the thing he wasn't supposed to.

So if you're in Genesis, you can go to Genesis 3 and look at

verse 6. I think I have these on the

screen as well, It says. And when the woman saw that the

tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and

a tree to be desired to make one, as she took of the fruit

thereof, and did eat, and gave also under her husband with her,

and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were

opened, and they knew that they were naked.

And they sewed fig leaves to the together, and made themselves

aprons. Ultimately this is the origin

story for the sin of the world. It comes through one man, the

first man that God gave a a command to and he also missed

the mark. He sinned and and ate as it

says, but then through sin it says in Romans 512 and death by

sin. So sin brought with it death.

Death was not a part of the of God's created plan for man.

Man was going to live forever in unity with God.

The world also was different prior to sin entering into the

world. If you read Genesis chapter 3,

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

you see that there's a curse placed on the planet and now all

kinds of things have changed. If you look at Genesis chapter 2

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

and verse 17, they were told they were warned in the day that

thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

And This is why the death rate on the planet is 100%.

Every person will die. This is why we die a physical

death. And as we talked about last

week, there is something even worse than a physical death.

There is a second death and we'll get there also in a

moment. This means that because of Adam,

all die. In Adam all die.

You see sin. It always produces death, even

if it doesn't seem like it. To miss the mark is tempting

because we're all drawn away. We all are enticed.

It's pleasant. If we go back to Genesis chapter

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

3 and we see what happened in the fall, it says that it was

good for food, it was pleasant to the eyes, and it would make

one wise. So there's a lesson here that

sin always, always, always brings death.

We we tend to see the good in it.

Well, you know, there's a way that maybe over here, this

thing, it looks good, but the end result, just like with Adam,

is always way more than we could ever calculate.

We think I'll get, I can get away with it this time.

I can delete my browsing history.

I can get more money next month. I can do something else.

And it always produces something worse than we could imagine.

There's a famous preacher quote that says sin will take you

farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to

stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.

Just look at Adam. He brought death into the whole

world through 1 action. This is attributed to Adrian

Rogers. I think other people have said

it. There you go.

That's a good one. All right, so that was Adam.

But now we see that sin was also passed down to you.

Sin was also passed down to us, it says in verse 12.

So death passed upon all men. So now we're all going to die,

but also we have this sinful nature now that's a part of our

lives. If we go back to Genesis and

look at chapter 5, we look at chapter 2 and we see the God

made man and gave them a command.

Chapter 3, man falls by that command.

And then when we look at chapter 5, we now see continuation after

sin. And in Genesis 5 and verse 3,

the Bible says and Adam lived in 130 years and begat a son in his

own likeness after his image and called his name Seth.

You see, unfortunately God did make you in his image, but he

also allows Adam's image to be passed down from generation to

generation and generation. So I put it to you this way in

your notes, you have a sin nature and it's partially not

even your fault. Isn't that cute?

I mean, it's, it's kind of cute until you realize how real that

that is. But it's almost like whenever a

mother addicted to drugs uses drugs and the baby in the womb

also receives the substance and the baby is born with a chemical

dependency or the consequences of what the mother did to the

baby. Some of us, we have inherited

all kinds of things, perhaps from your physical family,

genetic traits, hereditary traits, sinful habits and

traits. Maybe you've never seen a good

family. You don't know what it's like to

worship God, never seen a good marriage.

In some ways, we have our parents and those before us that

we inherit some of their nature. At very least you inherit Adam's

nature because in Adam all die and death passed upon all men.

None are excluded. All men receive Adam's image.

And I don't know about you, but as a parent, for me, there's

some things in my life that I'm trying to not pass down to my

kids. I haven't seen some of the

things modelled that I'm trying to do in my life.

I've seen some of the opposite. And I have to be the one to say,

my family might have done that. We're not going to do that.

Hopefully my kids don't ever have to even know about that.

That's that's what we should aim to be doing.

But let's ask this question and point #2 what really is sin?

So you can thank Adam for it. We know that you're going to die

because of it. You know that you have it.

But what really is it? I mean, compared to Adam, I

don't know that I've really done anything like blow up the whole

world, right? Let's look at verse 13 in in

Romans chapter 5, the Bible says for until the law, sin was in

Romans 5 · chapter mention

the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

So what what the Bible's saying here is that the law, we're

going to find out. It is what reveals to us what

sin is. But there was a time from Adam

to Moses when there was no law. God's word was not revealed to

us yet. So even then, when there was no

law, people died. Generation after generation,

from Adam to Moses, people died. And now the law has come and God

has given us His word, and it makes things really, really

clear. So I put it to you this way in

your notes, Our standard of morality is defined by God and

not by the world or our feelings.

It may be tempting to find a particular sin that we don't

like and judge that one and somehow justify our own.

Well, I'm doing it like this and they're doing it like that, and

mine's not as bad as theirs. That's politics.

That's our preference. That's just how we are.

But we don't get to choose. We don't get to let society be

the ones to dictate what's good and evil.

We know around here that's pretty jacked up, and we don't

get to let our feelings be the ones that determine what's true

and what's right. We have an objective moral

standard. As the Bible says in the book of

Romans, by the law is the knowledge of sin.

So, yeah, you haven't done what Adam has done, but let's just

back up just a second and figure out what you have done.

If we take the basic fundamentals of the law, Exodus

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

chapter 20, the 10 commandments, and we just start with #1 no

other gods before me, man. We all have a time in our life

when it was true that we did not worship the Lord, something else

was our God or distracted us. No idols.

You know, maybe you've got you're OK with that one about no

lying, committing murder. Maybe you haven't killed anyone.

Jesus raises the bar to hatred is murder.

Jesus raises the bar that lusting with your eyes and your

heart is adultery. We all, by the standard of only

the 10 commandments have missed the mark.

We've all fallen short. So what we learned here with

evangelism in sharing the gospel is that we use the law to help

people see their need for Christ.

Without the law, I don't really need to be saved.

I'm fine, I'm good, I'm justifying my actions.

But the law flattens all of us to have the same need.

The Bible says in First Timothy chapter one that the law is not

made for a righteous man, but for the lawless.

So the book of Romans is really clear.

We're not subject to the law. I don't have to keep all of the

commandments. It's it'll actually only reveal

that I am a Sinner. What saves me is something

greater than the law, someone who has fulfilled the law.

But nevertheless, we use this for the lawless man to let him

know, hey, you need to be saved. We see this also in Galatians.

The law was our schoolmaster. It was like a tutor that brought

us to the ultimate conclusion to bring us to Christ, that we

might be justified by faith. We can't be justified by the

law. The law only lets us know we're

sinners. We're justified by faith.

But this is probably the part that we struggle with the most,

isn't it? Hey, Jesus died for you, man.

He loves you. God loves you.

That's true, but how about you're a Sinner?

How about helping someone pin down the fact that you're not

going to go to heaven when you die?

You have a nature that you can't fix or change or do enough good

to overcome. And this is so true.

It's just in us, we don't want to have to confront people.

No one wants to do that. This is also true in the world

of physicians. According to a study in 2017,

fifty, 1% of physicians that were pulled delayed giving bad

news to their patients. That's half of the doctors that

were pulled. I don't know who these ones are

of of this poll would say I struggled to tell my patients

the bad news. And one of them, if you read

this article in particular, says the patient was going to get a

terminal diagnosis and they were going on a vacation like right

after this doctor's appointment. And they said they didn't want

to ruin the vacation. But is that not how we are in

evangelism sometimes? Oh, God loves you.

Just go along your merry little way.

Nevertheless, you have a terminal condition.

Sin always brings death. We can be just like these

physicians. It's in our nature.

We don't want. I don't want to have to offend

you, but I have to for you to have the solution.

I mean, really, would you want to go to the doctor and leave it

up to them? How do I feel like telling you

that you have bad news? Maybe I'll wait at some point.

You could. This is malpractice.

We have the information, we have the science, and we withhold it

from you because of feeling. We do the same thing with the

gospel. We withhold the good news or we

withhold the bad news and we just want to get to the good

news. Let's not do that.

Let's look at point #3 you might ask, but what have I done

really? I don't feel like I have a

terminal diagnosis as many people don't that receive a, a,

a poor diagnosis. And verse 14 in Romans chapter

Romans 5 · chapter mention

5. The Bible says nevertheless

death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not

sinned. After the similitude of Adam's

transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come?

So death reigned even over those had that have not done the same

thing as Adam. Similitude means in the likeness

of so you haven't done what Adam has done, but yet if you look at

Romans 5 and you look at verse #12 it says all have sinned and

so you have still sinned, you just didn't blow it as big as

Adam. Isaiah says Romans also says in

chapter 3 all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

I told you chapters one through three are pretty rough sled and

they let us know who we really are.

But Isaiah says that all we, like sheep, have gone astray.

It doesn't matter how far you stray off target.

If you missed the mark, you missed the mark.

No, nobody's hitting the target. It doesn't matter how far away

you go. This reminds me of this week.

My dad and I ran an errand and walked out of the store and we

had a guy ask us for a ride. And normally I don't answer

people like this, but he I was like, where?

Where are you trying to go, man? It's just me and my dad.

We didn't have the kids. And so I was like, you know, we

can, we can probably take this guy if we need to.

So we give guy a ride down the road and I'm just going to ask

him some questions. Hey, you're in the car now with

a pastor, man. Tell me, what's your faith like?

And I never know whether to believe people or not, But I

think this passed the, the, the test that he's probably telling

the truth. But he said, I only have two

months to live. I'm just going to go back to my

apartment and drink some beer and we're all going to die.

And I was like, Oh my gosh, man. I mean, what kind of a moment

are we in right now? And so I, he, he had some other

thoughts, but I kind of force injected some of the gospel to

say, I don't know if I'll ever see you again, but you need to

know Jesus died on the cross for you.

You can call him Lord up to your last waking breath.

You can still be saved. And after we dropped this guy

off, we got in the car. My my dad and I were going home

and talking and I said how merciful is God?

That we can live a lifetime of sin and in our very last breath

we can be saved just like any other Christian.

How merciful? According to our standard, we

would say that's not fair. I would say, man, how much did

that guy miss out on? If you live your whole life in

sin, you really can't enjoy it and you can't do anything for

the Lord. But how merciful.

It doesn't matter how far we stray.

All have sinned. We all come short in the book of

James in chapter 1, it's it tells us about being enticed

into sin and the Bible says every man is tempted when he is

drawn away of his own lust and enticed.

We all have a responsibility in the permission that we give our

will to do things we know we're not supposed to do.

So you did not sin, as the Bible says, after the similitude of

Adam's transgression, but you still blown it.

And so it's in your notes like this.

We all have to face our wrongdoings with no excuses.

You can try to blame Adam, it's not my fault I inherited his

nature. You can try to blame your

parents maybe, but you're the only one who gets to choose for

you, and we've all chosen the wrong thing.

Ultimately, we have to come to this point before we can be

saved. If we're making excuses, maybe

we think we hear the diagnosis. Hey, your terminal.

And we walk away from the Doctor Who says I have a cure.

But we say, I think I might be able to find a different way.

I don't want your cure. And the doctor says, no, we've

we have the science. It's the only way for you to be

cured. But you would say, I think I'll

find a different way. This is what we do with our

excuses, by not taking responsibility and accepting

that we need the solution. We're desperate for the

solution. Let's look lastly then at what

is the solution? What's the solution to all the

world's problems? What's the solution to death?

Romans 5 and verse 15 says, but not as the offense, so also is

the free gift. For if through the offense of

one many be dead, much more by the grace of God, and the gift

by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ hath abounded unto

many. The solution here is called a

free gift. It's also called the grace of

God and the gift by grace. And So what we learn about God's

solution for sin is not that we can just do more things to outdo

the other things. We must accept the free gift and

being by grace. Grace means it's undeserved,

just like the Sinner on his deathbed that still God

withholds judgment and waits for repentance.

It's grace. Grace is something you do not

deserve. So let's look at a few verses

here. First Corinthians chapter 15 and

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

verse 22. For as in Adam, all die, Even so

in Christ shall all be made alive.

There is a solution. It's in Christ.

Romans chapter 5 and verse 19 says For as by one man's

Romans 5 · chapter mention

disobedience, that's Adam, many were made sinners, so by the

obedience of one, many shall be made righteous.

You see the solution is in another man.

The first man brought death. The second man will make you

righteous, as he's called in First Corinthians 15.

The last Adam, the first man he was made a living soul, but the

last Adam, he was made a quickening spirit.

He will give you life. Quickening is to make a life.

Only Jesus Christ can bring life from the dead, and unfortunately

for us, that means that we are spiritually dead.

We're Walking Dead man. Ephesians 2 says that we had a

past, a history, dead in our trespasses and sins.

But Jesus brings life from the dead.

That's what we celebrate on Easter.

He did that for himself and He can do that for you.

But this solution, just like in the doctor's office receiving

the treatment, has to be accepted.

It's a gift by grace are you saved through faith and that not

of yourselves. It is the gift of God, so we

cannot atone for our wrongdoings, no matter how far

we've strayed off of the path. We can't recorrect and align

ourselves. We have to simply accept the

gift. It is as if you receive a

terminal diagnosis. The solution is infinitely more

money than you can pay. You can't sell enough.

You can't do enough to obtain the solution, but somebody gives

you the solution through no merit of your own.

That is salvation, that is the gospel, and that is how God asks

us to accept and receive it for ourselves.

By grace. You didn't deserve it through

faith. I simply believe that Jesus was

crucified, buried, and rose again.

I call him Lord, and all of my sin was placed on him and I'm

going to follow him. That's the gift of God, eternal

life. If you're here today and there's

not been a time in your life that you've chosen to receive

the solution for your sin, it can happen today.

The Bible says today is the day of salvation and it's as simple

as Romans says. I must not have put the rest of

these verses in there. Romans goes on to say that

whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Salvation is not through a baptism or a church membership

or through your family. It's through a decision that you

make to accept the solution, Jesus Christ and call on Him to

save you. I know most of us, though, we've

already done this, and in this gospel course, my hope is to

equip us that as we prepare for the summer, moments like this

will make us consider, I have to tell people the sin problem.

But if you're saved, you still have Adam's nature living inside

of your body. Paul says in Romans 7 that he

saw another law warring inside of him and his members, that sin

is still physically in our bodies because of Adam.

We have this dichotomy of two natures.

When we're saved, we accept the gift of God.

God gives us His Holy Spirit, He seals and indwells us, and he is

contrary, or rather the flesh, the old nature is contrary to

the Spirit of God. So you can be saved and still

wrestle with what Adam did in your life.

But Romans chapter 6 tells us, shall we continue in sin?

Romans 6 · chapter mention

God forbid, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer

therein? And so we as witnesses with the

solution, we're going to go out on the street, we're going to

tell people, hey, you need to be saved, you're a Sinner.

Here's how to be saved. We of all people ought to be

living the solution. I mean, we don't want to say

don't look at my life, just believe the Bible.

We don't want to do that because Romans goes on to say that sin

shall not have dominion over you.

We don't have to be subject to it.

God's Spirit and His word equip us to overcome what the Bible

calls the natural man. The old man.

Romans 6 tells us he's crucified.

That man is dead. You are a new creature.

Old things are passed away. All things are become new.

So perhaps today is a time to reconcile with God and say, man,

I need to, I need to crucify the old man.

I can't be living like this. I know it's not true.

It ain't right. Jesus died for more than this in

my life. So in, in a moment, we'll have a

time to respond and, and pray. And maybe that's a way that you

want to pray today. But thirdly, for us to get you

equipped, I said last week, we want to set everyone up for

success. And I, I told you in our

introduction that we want to help you share the gospel.

We have a Gospel training April 1st at 6:30 in this room where

we will help you. We'll teach you how to use one

of our tracks. It's super simple.

It says what is the gospel? And on the back, the back it has

just a couple of verses. And we want to help you be able

to share this with other people. You probably won't do it

perfectly and neither will I. You probably won't have answers

to every question that somebody has, but you can point to the

solution. And if people will buy faith,

believe they're a Sinner, and confess Christ as their Lord,

they'll be saved. And it's that simple.

It's the gift of God and we'll rejoice to see sinners born

again. Praise God, man, that'll be so

exciting. I'm looking forward to that.

So plan to come April 1st and we'll, we'll have a workshop

super simple and teach you how to share the gospel.

But for today, we had those three things at the end.

If you haven't accepted Christ, we can do that now.

We're going to have a moment to pray.

If sin has been taking hold of you, let's ask for the Lord to

crucify that and get some victory.

And perhaps you struggle with sharing the bad news.

Or maybe you can think of people in your life that you just would

beg God for mercy, that they would be saved.

I want to give us a moment to pray.

I'll give us a minute of silence and then I'll come back up and

lead us in a prayer and we'll have a final song.

So let's, let's pray.