“How Much More”
Romans 5:6-21
Who understood all that?
This morning we are continuing our Sermon Series on Paul’s Letter to the Romans.
This letter to the early Church in Rome contains some of the Church’s most important theological writings.
At the same time, they can be challenging to understand and preach, so I will try and make them as accessible as possible.
It is important to get a grasp of Romans because much of our understanding of salvation by grace through faith alone is contained here.
(pause)
We have all been asked to clean up someone else’s mess from time to time.
Sometimes those messes are small, like a child spilling a glass of milk, but sometimes the messes are big and take lots of time and energy to clean up.
Messes can happen anytime and anywhere, and we all make them, do we not?
In our lesson for this morning, Paul makes references to Adam.
And it’s the Adam as in Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
And Adam made the enormous mess of all time when he and his wife disobeyed God.
Adam’s mess was so big that all his descendants, and all of us this morning, have been tragically affected by it.
We are all born into a sinful situation, with our relationship with God broken and blurred.
And this isn’t how it is supposed to be.
Jesus came to clean up the mess that Adam made.
If we were to put this thought into one sentence and say it much more succinctly, we could look and see that Paul did just that in another of his letters.
In 1st Corinthians 15:21-22 Paul writes: “For since death came through a man, the resurrection from the dead comes also through a man.
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”
Paul is saying this same thing in Romans, but he goes even further, and it’s exciting.
In our passage for this morning Paul uses a rabbinical teaching tool that Jesus used Himself; it refers to the principle of lesser and greater.
You see, a rabbi will sometimes use this to make his point—it’s a compare and contrast.
The idea is to point out that a principle is universally true by showing its truth in the simplest of situations.
The teacher then proclaims that if such a truth is true in that situation how much more will it be true in other situations.
A great example is in Jesus’ teaching about the persistent widow found in Luke 18.
This widow bugs the corrupt judge long enough that he gives in to her demand.
Jesus is not saying that the judge allegorically represents God.
Jesus is saying if a corrupt judge would give in to this widow’s persistent requests, HOW MUCH MORE would God, Who loves and cares for us?
Another example can be found in Luke 11:11-13 as well as many other teachings of Jesus.
We will focus on the phrase HOW MUCH MORE this morning.
Let’s look again at Romans 5:15.
Paul writes, “But the gift is not like the trespass.
For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, HOW MUCH MORE did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!”
In other words, if sin was able to come through Adam, if sin has that much power over us to haunt us, to curse us, to destroy our relationship with God…
…If sin has that much power that death came through the sin of one man, HOW MUCH MORE, HOW MUCH GREATER is the gift, the grace, the freedom that comes through Jesus?
Paul is trying to say, “Sin is a big deal, but it ain’t got nothing on what Jesus did!”
He goes on in verses 18 and 19, “Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.
For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.”
So, on one side we have one act and one man, and on the other side we have one act and one man.
Through the one act and one man (Adam) comes death, the curse, and through one act of one man (Jesus Christ) comes life, liberty, freedom, and salvation.
And Paul says both are “one acts.”
Both of them come through one man, and yet HOW MUCH BETTER is goodness and truth than falsehood?
HOW MUCH BETTER is light than darkness?
You might think sin is something wonderful, but salvation—and the goodness and the freedom, and the joy, and the fullness of life that comes from it is SO MUCH MORE—SO MUCH BETTER!!!
In verses 20-21 Paul writes: “The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase.
But where sin increased grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
So, what?
God gave the law, in part, so that yes—we would understand even more about our sin.
But the more we understand our sin, the more we understand grace and God’s love.
So God’s love always increases at a greater rate than our knowledge of sin, and our awareness of sin.
Paul’s point is that sin has nothing on grace.
“You think sin is a big deal? Grace is a bigger deal!”
You think Adam messed up the world?
HOW MUCH MORE did Jesus put it back together?
You think death can spread through our mistakes?
Life can spread through grace and forgiveness much more rampantly.
A trespass can’t hold a candle to the gift of God in Jesus Christ our Lord!
The failure of Adam is knocked out by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ!
The moment the bell rings—it’s not even a fair fight!
HOW MUCH MORE?
HOW MUCH MORE!!!
Paul is saying you can point out sin all day long, but grace outdoes it.
So the more sin you point out, the bigger grace gets because grace is greater than sin!
We sin because we are afraid.
We sin because of insecurity.
We sin because we think we aren’t good enough.
We think there is not enough to go around, so we take from other people.
But if we were to understand how big God’s love is…
…If we were to understand how big God’s grace is…
…If we understand how much greater grace and the love of God is to sin, then we are going to die to that terrible way of thinking.
We are going to die with Christ and live with God!
When we truly come to grasp and embrace this Gospel of love and acceptance--that is when we die to that former way of life, that former way of thought, that former way of acting out of fear, acting out of preservation of self, acting out of our unharnessed desires—all those things are REPLACED with a Spirit of peace, of life…
…and a new life of self-sacrifice.
And we are born anew.
Because Jesus is SO MUCH MORE, SO MUCH MORE than anything the world has to offer…
…SO MUCH MORE!!!
A mess has been made—a BIG mess.
But God so loved the world—that’s you and that’s me—that He sent His One and Only Son into the world to clean up the mess…
…and oh, the clean up is SO MUCH MORE than the mess…
…it’s so much better…
…it’s God’s lifeline thrown out to you and me by God.
Have you reached for the lifeline thrown out to you by God?
The legacy of Christ—the Second Adam, is the legacy that will begin in this life and last into Paradise forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.
“For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.”
Because of sin, this world is a mess, but God’s grace and love is SO MUCH MORE!
Praise God.
Amen.
