Romans 5:18–21Scripture
We're closing out chapter 5 of Romans, and we've been here for some time, actually. This chapter seemed to move a little bit quicker. I think it's probably broken up in the same amount of divisions as the other chapters, it just gave us a break from the immense pounding that seems to happen from chapters 1 through 3, and when we begin to really take a look at the depravity of man, the intention of man's hearts, our natural inclination to turn to sin, to live in sin, to be sinful, our natural proclivity to long for things that God does not long for. And so we've begun to really just peer into who God is, and that's exciting. Chapter 5, and there's a movement that happens from the end of chapter 5, which we're going to look at right now, 5:18–21. There's a movement that happens into chapter 6 that gets me really excited, probably out of the entire book of Romans. Oh, it's also important, but I love chapter 6. My heart really rings when I read that, like the bell in our square. As a matter of fact, who doesn't like the bells ringing in the square? Do you, everybody, like the bells ringing? Now, it makes me feel like, I don't know, good. Most things that are noisy annoy me, but when I'm outside and the bell rings in the square, that just takes me somewhere, and I love it. I really don't know where it takes me, to a good place. So, but I love that. Romans 5:18–21.
Let's read that together. I definitely want to extrapolate some things out of here that maybe at first glance we might not consider, but I think have and carry immense weight, not only what Paul is saying, but I think what he will say in the remainder of Romans. So let's read it together, Romans 5:18–21. I'll say this: oftentimes, because of the previous verses we did, 12 through 17, we can feel as if what is being said here is redundant and unnecessary to say again. Paul has a way of repeating things to drive home points that he is trying to make, and there is no better way for us to get an understanding than to have things repeated to us.
Correct? So don't just turn yourself into that Charlie Brown listening, where your teacher's speaking and you don't hear anything but garble.
Point 1One sin brought death to all
Try to let this speak to your heart anew and afresh. Romans 5:18 says this: "Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men." One trespass. Listen to the gravity, the weight of sin. It doesn't even clarify what sin, just merely a sin. In other words, telling a little white lie one time, just one sin, just one little white lie led to death for everyone. That's important today, because we live in a time where people feel that sin is just not that bad, that actually there are people who will, in passing conversation, imply that sin can actually be private.
We talk about private sin, or sin that doesn't affect someone else, sin that does not perpetrate some kind of horrible consequence or results to someone else, that really the sin that I commit only hurts me. Ladies and gentlemen, what we learn from here is that sin, even sin that may seem to only affect you, brings death to all men. Not just certain sins, just one sin. In other words, we learned that
Just Adam's sin brought death to all men. Just Adam's one sin brought death to all men. What does that mean for your sin?
Pastor Shawn Gray · 4:55
Do you really believe that your sin does not have some reverberating effect for your family, for your relationships, with your husband or your wife, for your church, for your workplace, for your city, for the world? Do you believe that your sin stays with you? "Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men." Here's the good news: no matter how powerful sin seems to be in the life, in your life, in the life of
Point 2Christ's act of righteousness is greater still
A believer, in the life of someone who is not a believer, just out in the world out there, God's act of righteousness is more powerful than any sin. Now, if you can think for a second, think of any sin out there that could be committed. Think of the most egregious, most horrible, most despicable, most disgusting, most make-you-want-to-close-your-eyes-and-run-away type of sin. Think of it, dwell on it.
Christ's act of righteousness is greater still.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 6:16
And we live in a world where, quite honestly, if you look at the news any amount of time, if you think about the world any amount of time, if you hang out with young people in high school any amount of time, specifically beyond the walls of school, if you hang out with your friends any amount of time, you begin to realize that sin seems to have power. The kind of power that changes the world, the kind of power that changes the school, the kind of power that affects the church, the kind of power that seems to seep into and destroy everything. Yet Paul says here Jesus' act of righteousness obliterates it. It takes the dead things, the things that were dead, the things that were hopeless, the things that were rotting, the things that stunk, and it turns it and makes it come to life. This is the hope of the gospel, that regardless of where you are today, regardless of where you have been, regardless of the things you've done, regardless of the sin you've committed,
His act of righteousness is greater than your sin, than any sin.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 7:29
Even just a lie can bring death, but he saves. And for those who have faith in Christ, what was added to your account, what you perpetrated against the world, what you did wrong, he wipes clean.
This is the hope. Now, there are today people in churches across America, people that I've entered into conversations with around the world, tables I've sat at with people who've perpetrated many great acts against others, who think that their sin is too great for God to forgive. It is here that we see that Paul says, wrong.
There is no sin, there is nothing you have done, could do, will do, could imagine you could do, that is too strong, too powerful for God to forgive,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 8:23
because Jesus' act of righteousness is greater than what you could even conjure up and do with your worst thoughts. That's good news.
That's good news. All right, that's one verse. Verse 19: "For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners."
Let me just stop here for a second. Men, husbands, fathers, if you think your sin does not affect those in your home, you are wrong. It does.
And instead of pastors and churches tiptoeing around it and not calling men to righteousness and to holiness, without which, in fact, no one will see the Lord, we fail men, and we not only fail men, in homes we fail wives, and we fail mothers, and we fail children, and we fail society, and we fail the church by not calling men to value and care about the fact that they continue on in sin. It is not okay, and it doesn't stay with you.
It doesn't only affect you, it affects generations to come. Your sin has a reverberating effect, and to the hearts and lives of everyone you touch. If ever there was a generation for men to rise up and begin to lead their homes, and to live righteous lives, and to care about the choices they make, and to not hide behind their wife's decision, and be men, this is the time. "Oh, Shawn, you're being too hard on men."
I'm not being hard enough on men. Our society has so softened what a man should be that men don't even know how to be men.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 10:32
Are you with me today? And what we need is we need an echoing sound in the world that calls men to fulfill the role, to actually step into the role that God has called them to. "For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners," men, you need to know your sin reverberates to those around you. "So by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous." If I could just introduce you to this man.
It is not that by your own sheer will you pick yourself up by your bootstraps and you begin to live differently. That is not what I'm saying.
What I am saying is I would like to introduce you to the man, and his name is Jesus, and if you could just meet this man, then you would be able to follow this man, to walk in the footsteps of this man, to actually learn from this man. If you would know this man, maybe you could be a man like him. But the reality is, men have become busy at their workplace, they've become busy in their homes, they've become busy with their hobbies. Some men are so busy with hobbies, they have punted on their role to be a father of the house, and because they have sacrificed their children on the altar of their pleasure. In case you don't know what punting on your role is, it's deciding, I better punt this down the field and let somebody else have the ball. There are men in homes who would rather sit on a lounge chair and veg out than fulfill their role. But if I could introduce you to a man who didn't live like that, if I could introduce you to a different way of living, if I could introduce you to someone like Christ, maybe you could be like that man instead of the other men that you live your life by.
And this is, I want to go down on the first row and clap, not for what I'm saying, not for me, but this is important in our society. It's important. Verse 20: "Now the law came in to increase the trespass." I don't have time to talk about that. I really want to talk about that, this would be a really great theological conversation, but you're going to have to go talk about that. I have other things to talk about, but that's interesting. "But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more." In other words, there is no height which sin can reach that grace cannot supersede.
That's good news. "So that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Now i'm going to go through this quite expediently, and I'm going to move with great intent, but I'll start out with this: I don't want to offend anyone today.
I specifically don't want to offend those who are adulterers, those who are abusive, those who beat their wives and cheat on their wives, who've forsaken them. I want this place to be a safe place for you, where you do not feel guilty for living that kind of life. I want this to be a place where you come and you can lie and we're okay with it, because this is a place where all people are welcome and should feel accepted.
I want this to be a place where you can steal cars from other people right out of the parking lot and it doesn't matter, because we want you to feel welcome here.
This is the way we start a lot of sermons, and we talk about sin, when we talk about specific sins like homosexuality, or maybe, for instance, like wives submitting to their husbands. Women, I don't want to offend you, and I'm going to say this carefully, and know that we love you.
We have been ashamed to preach the gospel with boldness.
We, as leaders in the church and just in church in general, have acquiesced to the culture, to what culture says is okay, so we then, if we're going to love, have to be okay with it. As a matter of fact, we have to tell you it's okay for you to stay in your sin, as crazy as it is. Some faces were made today like this, but if I were talking about women submitting to their husbands, no faces like that would be made. Women, you'd be grateful.
You'd be like, "I know you're going to start with us, but you're really going to end up beating up on men, so preach it, because I know you're scared of us." We'll take you out in the parking lot. When I talk about men, we want you to feel comfortable to cheat on your wife, we don't want you to feel guilty for continuing to do that. That's crazy to you. But if I call people out of homosexuality, that makes people uncomfortable. Why? I'll tell you why. The culture is winning, and it seems as if sin is more powerful than Christ's righteousness. And the reality is, unless the pastor realizes that his righteousness is more powerful than sin, then we will continue to preach sermons where we apologize for the Bible and we make room for sin, and it comes from a place where we don't believe what Paul is saying here. I do.
So what God calls you to, and what he brings you from death to life, I believe is true.
So there is no sin that has brought you to death that righteousness is not powerful enough to not only save you from the penalty of that sin, but the power of that sin over your life. I believe that. I'm crazy enough to believe the Bible.
And I'm tired, I'm exhausted. Young people are tired and they're exhausted. They don't know what to believe, because we, as the church, have stood in the middle and we've acquiesced to sin and we said it's not a big deal. It is the big deal. It kills, and he is greater than your lust. He's greater. Do you know him? There's a lot of spit on the pulpit.
I've been trying to be calm about it. How can, and let me just say
Point 3Sin entered through one man, so men must lead
Without apology, sin, point one: sin entered by one man.
And all the women said amen. That was one. But all of you said in your head, "One man, oh, Shawn, he meant all men."
And then say, "All men, he meant mankind," so he was rolled up in there. Wrong.
One man. One man, one leader of a relationship, a marriage, a covenant, one man brought it to all.
Man, if you think you standing back behind your wife and eating what she passes to you is acceptable in your home, wrong.
We need some men, we need some men who don't use their wife as an excuse to do what they really want to do anyway. "Well, this woman you gave me." No, you wanted to eat that fruit.
You wanted to eat that fruit. One man. Listen, there is a, there's an order to things. In case you didn't know, Eve was deceived and Adam wasn't.
Sin is a willful act against God, and I came here today to tell you it wasn't Eve that caused the problem, it was Adam that caused the problem. It was one man who knew what he was doing. Listen to this, Genesis 3:6: "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate." Now, if you go back and you read just the beginning of that, from verse 1 all the way through verse 6, Satan shows up on the scene as a serpent, and he begins to ask questions. He begins to ask her about, you know, what can you eat, what can you not eat. But he never asked her to eat from the tree that she eats from. He never even tells her she should.
Read it. He never asked her, he never invites her to do it. Interestingly enough, the serpent never invited the woman to eat the fruit. It is enough that the serpent had already created doubt. He simply left her to what she wanted anyway. It was her desires and her physical appetite that did it. Why is this important, Shawn? It is important because you need to understand your natural inclinations and desires, and
You've got to get to a place where you stop blaming the devil for your problems,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 22:27
because at the end of the day, it isn't the devil and you who stand before God. It's you who stands before God, and it is your sin, and it is your desires, and it is your choices that you will give an account for. That's important. Amen. Amen. Because we live in a world where we try to create an opportunity to blame everyone else. "Well, my father, you don't know what I dealt with because of my daddy. You don't know what kind of house I was raised up in. Well, I had a mom that was, my home life was," when you get to heaven, you stand before God, just try to say, "Well, my dad," see how that works for you. See if he doesn't just sit there, "Oh, yes, oh, yes, you're right, I forgot. Come on in. You dealt with an idiot dad, I mean, so all your choices must have been his fault in the end. Come on in, good and faithful servant." No, he'll be like, "I don't care about your dad. Let me run a reel for you of the choices you made when your dad wasn't there, and you're going to have to give an account for that." Are you with me today? This is important today, because we want to blame society, we want to blame our president.
I'm not sure any president's actually a real person, and I mean, I am, I know I'm not a conspiracy person, I just don't think it matters, because God's sovereign, so you could put Elmo in the office and God's still going to get what he wants in the end. Are you with me? That's the way I feel, because either I put my faith in the government or I put my Elmo. That was funny. That was funny, right? That was funny. Okay. I put my faith in the government or I put my faith in God. He is sovereign or he is not. I'm yelling a lot today, I hadn't done that in a while, but I'm hyped up.
James 1:13–15 says this: "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God.'" In other words, you don't get to blame this on God. Some of you, some of you don't blame the devil, some of you blame God. You say, "Well, if God doesn't want sin, why'd he let me do it?" Try that one when you get to heaven, stand before him, see how that one works for you. You don't get to do that either. You don't get to blame the devil, you don't get to blame God, you don't get to blame your mama, you don't get to blame your daddy, you don't get to blame your uncle, and your auntie, you don't get to blame anybody. It's you.
"For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each one," notice where temptation comes from here, notice the turn, notice the shift, "each one is tempted," it's going to say the devil, right? It's going to say God, right? "When he is lured and enticed by his own desire."
See, your culture, your president, your home life, your past, your situation is not the problem. You are the problem.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 26:11
Your dad's lust, your mom's lust, your brother's lust, your sister's lust, the world's lust, media's lust is not the problem. Your lust is the problem, and until you see you as the problem, you won't turn to the solution for the problem. That's why I am a large advocate of, we have in the church got to stop telling people, we have got to start, stop telling people you're good just like you are.
You're not good. You're the problem, and you need help, and his name is Jesus.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 26:50
All right, that's good. All right, husbands, I believe that the breaking down of households and homes and the turning of society is from each man not doing what God called him to do. The destruction of a society starts in a home, but specifically working its way, it works its way all the way to the men, because
Where men check out, the world breaks down.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 27:32
Listen to me. Why do you think that Jesus never healed a blind woman? Because he hates women? No. Because it's important that men see clearly, because society and churches and cities and countries need men who can see clearly.
That's important. I believe that we should have some men serving in key roles in the church. I have found over the last 10 years that I can find 10 women for every man who wants to serve. Listen to me today, listen to me today, where are the men? I believe that the lack of men showing up in the church makes women feel like sin is more powerful than what Jesus accomplished on the cross. But that's not true, because Paul says that what he accomplished on the cross is greater still than the problems we see in the world. Man, let me, let me heed this call from Christ. Ephesians 5:23: "For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior." Notice this, notice everything flows from the top down, and there is a right position. Women, when you move out from under the headship, or the appointed headship by God, by Christ, in your home, you move out from safety.
"Well, why should women submit to a man?" That's an excuse. Just the question's an excuse. "Well, you don't know how he is." Excuse. That's an excuse for you not to have to obey. Let me tell you what
Excuse is. Excuse is gasoline dumped on a fire. Excuses are accelerant to sin.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 30:05
You want sin to grow all the more in your life? Just keep making excuses. See where that takes you. I found people who can't get out of a cycle of sin in their life, and the reason is because they can justify it and make an excuse for it so they can stay in it. The reality is, we know what God wants us to stop,
We refuse to do it, because we'd rather be God than be his child.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 30:34
It's real clear.
Men, you need your children to turn from sin, you need your wife to turn from sin, you turn from sin.
Simple. Lead your home. We need some men who will lead their homes. First Corinthians, but I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of every wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. You have a headship responsibility. Man, step up into it.
Colossians, "Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord." I will not make an apology for that. It's his order. It's his order. Ephesians 6:4: "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." Some of you want to think about all kinds of things about how you might, or how people provoke their children to anger. Let me tell you how you provoke your children to anger: not disciplining them and bringing them up in the instruction of the Lord. Anything that doesn't fall in that purview is stirring them to anger. Simple.
Men are important. Headship is important. God's order is important. Men's leadership is important, not just in the home but in the church. It's important. This is order. I'm not going to get in a conversation with how God uses women. He uses women mightily. Women prophesy, men and women do many things. He shows up to women first. God loves and cares for women, but there is an order. When he establishes his church, he doesn't call ten men disciples and two women. Are you with me today? I'm not making a statement about what kind of service women can do or can't do inside the church. I'm saying there's an order. In other words, it's important that men lead. And we can't, listen, in a society where it's like women's rights and we got to value women and everything, you know, it's a tactic of the enemy for us to never really care about God's order, because just even talking about God's order makes women get all prickly and men scared. I mean, you know why you're scared? Because you're not leading.
You're a coward. You don't have to be mean, but I guarantee you, I don't know women who would have a hard time submitting to a man who will lay his life down and die for the family in a moment's notice, who will show up, who will wake up early and make breakfast. I'm not saying you have to do that, because I don't know that I'm going to do that, I'd really have to pray through on that, I really, I don't know, but I'm just saying maybe God's leading you to do that. Be kind, be gracious, vacuum, and don't expect a kiss, "Did you see the floor?" Do it because you love her, not because you want her to see it. If a man would live like Christ in the home, see, that's why it starts with men. See the problem. Listen, let me hear this, you're going to love this: the problem with women not submitting starts with men. That's the breakdown. Because Christ did his role, men aren't doing theirs. But if you would do yours and you would lay your life down, we could get women in position. But see, we want women to submit before we lead, but it don't work that way. That don't work that way. It don't work that way in business, it don't work that way in the church. And listen, how long do you think, like, if a pastor's out sinning, acting crazy, running a fool, you're going to have a mature church that's more mature than the pastor leading the pastor? That's not going to happen. The pastor has to care, and the people who care more than the pastor won't stay there long. It's time for us to lead, men.
If you have a hard time with women submitting, it's because you have a hard time doing your role as a man of the house the way God called you to. It's real simple. You don't get to sit and blame your wife like Adam blamed Eve. He didn't do his role, he didn't have to take a bite of that.
The problem is we'd rather use women as an excuse to do and live how we really want to anyway. That's good stuff. That's good stuff. I'm going to move on.
Point 4There is no such thing as private sin
Second point, and I'm going to do this in two minutes: the effects of sin for all men. Sin does not affect you alone. There's no such thing as private sin. There is no such thing as private sin. As a matter of fact, the Bible promises that sin will find you out. And in case you didn't know, you want to, you want to regard and classify sin as being private because you don't understand that everything you do, every moment, every thought, every meditation of the heart is seen clearly by the Lord. So there is no such thing as private sin, hidden sin. It is all seen by God. And the problem with this is that we are more concerned about what people know regarding our sinful state than God. It is almost as if we would rather live more holy for people than God.
If somebody were to take a megaphone, if a person was assigned to you, if they had a megaphone, and if that person was able to know every little detail of your life, what you did in the private moments of your home, what you did in your bedroom, what you did in your closet, what you did when you were out of town traveling, what you thought, the intentions of your heart, and he walked around with you every moment of the day with a megaphone shouting out everything you thought and did the day before, would you be comfortable with that?
The reality is that is what your life is like to God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 36:54
He knows everything you do. You do not hide who you truly are in his sight, and it is high time that we're more concerned about how we're seen in the eyes of God rather than the eyes of men. How many of you have ever just about got caught doing something, and then you realize that you weren't caught, the fear that went into your heart? Why do we not feel that fear with God? The reality is God is not as real to us as the people in our home, and until he is, fear will reign in your life. "John, how does he become more real to me?" You've got to get in his word and you've got to get to know him. How many of you know the sin never stays where it starts?
Excuses are accelerants. Men, you are teaching your children, listen to me, men, listen to me, men, you are teaching your children to embrace what you make excuses for, and you will find that your children carry on the same way, and the things that you hate about you, you are producing in your children, and the accelerant to that is your excuses for your sin. It is time you stop making excuses, man, because your wife and your children and your home depend on you. Stop making excuses. That's not a good
Point 5Grace saves from sin's power, not just its penalty
Sentence, but you get it. Do you believe, listen, do you believe that you hide who you are from God? Number three, last one: grace saves.
Notice here, it does not give, I did not give, I'll go ahead and break this down. Grace saves completely. I'll say it this way: grace does not just save from the penalty of sin, but it saves completely from the power of sin as well. We hold tightly to grace saves us from the penalty of sin. We shout it, we repeat it, we say no longer are you condemned, and we celebrate and we cheer, because there is no longer any condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and we celebrate and we make songs about it. But some of us use that Scripture, those melodies that we created in our heart from that Scripture, where there is no condemnation, as an excuse to continue in sin. But when he saves, he doesn't do it halfway.
When he saves, he does it completely, and if he can save from the penalty of sin, he can save you from the power of sin over your life.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 40:18
I came here today to tell you what he does completely. Some of you right now, you are saved, some of you are a Christian, some of you have placed your faith in Christ, some of you are still struggling with sin. I came here today to give you hope, because he doesn't just save from the penalty, he saves you from the power of that sin, who has its fingers around your neck, and he can release you.
You are no longer a prisoner to that which used to hold you in chains.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 40:50
This is good news. Why do we hold less tightly to grace saving us from the power of sin than the penalty? If grace frees us from the penalty of sin, do you believe it also saves us from the power of sin? Which seems more powerful to you in your life, grace or sin? Notice that in the kingdom, things are not as they seem, for we don't live by sight, but we live by his word, and regardless of how it seems, this is the truth. So you can trust in this or you can trust in what you see. I came here today to tell you his grace is powerful enough to set you free from that sin.
If grace always wins, then is it winning in your life?
Pastor Shawn Gray · 42:03
And if it's not winning in your life, is it grace that you have received? Are you with me today? Because there is no middle ground here when it comes to the kingdom. It is black and it is white, it is light and it is dark, it is knowledge and it is ignorance, it is wisdom and it is stupidity. We've created a gray area, and we've left this generation of young people hopeless, being tossed to and fro by waves and wind and every storm that comes our way. And I came here today to tell you there must be clarity in the house of God when it comes to these things, because this generation needs to stand firmly on truth, not some gray concoction we've created for our own emotional state of being. You're washing and diluting truth so you can feel comfortable with your life has made this generation miserable, and this generation is turning from God in numbers that we have never seen, and you are responsible. Ultimately, men, you are responsible. Pastors of churches, you are responsible.
Where are all the good men?
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