Either the First or the Last Adam

Transcript

. Brothers and sisters, I have the great honor and privilege of introducing to you this morning pastor Cody Cannon. He is a pastor at Life Point Church in Woodland, California. All right. There you go. And he’s blessing us greatly by coming and preaching for us. And we say it over and over again, it is a true blessing to have you with us this morning. Thank you for giving of your time on Father’s Day to come and be with us and service in this way. I love to sit under your preaching, brother, so. Praise God. Can I pray for you? I would love that. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word and your truth which guides us and directs us. Would you equip our brother Cody to preach faithfully your word this morning? Would your Holy Spirit speak through him your words of truth? Would you remove any confusion, any doubt, any anxiety, any worry? Lord, help him to preach powerfully for us this morning. Lord, would you help us to sit under it, faithfully listening and hearing what you would have to say to us. Lord Jesus, we love you so much in your name we pray. Amen. Amen and amen. Thanks, Josh. That was a way nicer introduction than what Thomas gave last time. If you don’t remember, if you don’t remember, Thomas called me weird uncle Bob last time. Still that relationship. Last time. Still I really haven’t gotten over that. But it really is an honor to be with you, Trinity Church. If you would open in your Bibles to Romans chapter 5. Romans 5. We’ll begin in verse 12 and we’ll read through verse 17 here shortly. I am honored to be here. I was just trying to think of my first time visiting Trinity just as a seminary student. I came. The first service that was in this building was my first service attending Trinity Church. And there was no air conditioning and it was really hot and there were swamp fans like at each door and it was really loud and come a long way. It is an honor, honor to be here with all of you as it always is. If you’re able to do so, would you stand for the reading of God’s word as we open Romans 5 starting in verse 12. And ending with verse 17. Hear the word of the Lord. Therefore just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin and so death spread to all men because all sinned for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given but sin is not counted where there is no law yet death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass for if many died through one man’s trespass much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many and the free gift is not like the result of the one man’s sin for the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification for if because of one man’s trespass death reigned through that one man much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. This is God’s word. What a paragraph. Let’s pray. Our father in heaven please God we ask would you by your spirit carry us along as we attempt to unravel your word here and understand what it is you would have for your people to know. Father my prayer is that you would glorify Christ in our time exalt Jesus deepen and grow and expand our knowledge of you God as we attempt to understand what is laid out here before us and we pray above all father that you would be glorified in this time I pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. Now there is a part of this passage that I think is difficult for 21st century Americans to receive. People in our day and in our culture hate things that are black and white. All or nothing. We’re just not into that. We love nuance. We love gray areas. We love questions often far more than we like clear put answers. And the Bible does have some of that. The Bible does have mystery. It does have nuance and gray areas. It does have clarity. It does have nuance and gray areas. But when it comes to the teachings of the new testament the Bible draws a thick line down the middle of all humanity right down the middle and all of humanity is on one side of that line or the other. What we’re going to see in this passage is that all people in all places at all times belong to either Adam or Jesus. All people in all places at all times belong to either Adam or Jesus. All of humanity is on one side of that line. We either belong to Adam, the first Adam, or we are on the other side of that line in Christ. And this is made so plain and this is made so plain in our passage. But this passage, as we can all agree, is a tangled up group of complex sentences, isn’t it? A passage like this shows that a church is very committed to expository preaching. Because if you were not you would be like you would read through it like four or five times not understand it and be like all right we’re going to move on. Nobody is going to understand that. And we are. We are swimming in the deep end this morning, Trinity Church, and I hope you’re ready for that. And we are going to do our best. But I need you to know something. Martin Lloyd-Jones preached, if my count is correct, 14 sermons on this section of scripture. You’re going to get two. I’m going to preach part of it this Sunday and then next Sunday Pastor Samuel is going to preach the end. So we’ll do our best. But understand this is a lot. So I’m going to do it. And I’m not looking to preach this piece of scripture. And yet I want you to understand the main point of this passage is actually very clear. It’s actually very straightforward. The main point of this passage is we die in Adam. We live in Christ. There is death in Adam. There is life in Christ. And if you walk out of this room with simply that and that understanding of Romans chapter five I think you will understand what Paul is getting at here. But let’s get into some of these details. The first point that I want you to see this morning is this. All men will die because of the sin of one man, Adam. We need to understand that. All men will die because of the sin of one man, Adam. Now you understand, I know I don’t need to say it, but I’m going to say it anyway. When I say all men, that means all humans, all people everywhere. But I kept it in the outline because it sounds cool, right? Like, and I know that your pastor would appreciate the rhyme and symmetry of the statement. So I had to leave it that way. But when we say all men will die because of the sin of one man, we mean everybody, anybody, all people in all places at all times will die because of the sin of one man. That is plain here in Romans 5.12. And we’re going to follow Paul’s argument pretty closely, I think, today. But I want you to understand something from the beginning. This sermon is going to feel a bit lopsided. I’m going to spend probably two thirds of the sermon talking about Adam and the effects of the first Adam. We will get in to the second and final Adam in Christ about one third, the end of the sermon today. But before we get into the argument, let’s observe at least three things from this lofty statement in verse 12. Look again at verse 12 with me. It says, Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, that’s Adam, and death through sin, and so death spread to all people because all sinned. So a few things that we need to observe here. There is some, we get some big doctrines from this little sentence here. The first thing that I want you to see is that Adam here is treated as a literal, historical person. He is not treated as a mythical character who sort of figuratively represents all humans. He is treated as the first person, historical Adam. And so I want to say just pastorally, be cautious and even skeptical of any teaching or teacher that speaks of Adam as something less than historical and literal because to do so would be to swim against the clear teaching that Apostle Paul is laying out here. Here, Adam is treated as a real individual person who really sinned against God. And as we’ll see, this must be true because if Jesus is a real savior who really died to pay for our real sins, he is contrasted with this historical Adam. The second thing that we need to observe from verse 12, this verse and the following verses are where we get our doctrine of original sin or inherited sin. There is no clearer teaching of original sin in all of the Bible than this very straightforward statement. So let’s define for a minute real quick what I mean by original sin. I think a lot of definitions sort of float out there. Our definition of original sin looks like this. The inherent, inherited corruption of human nature that results from Adam’s fall. And what does that mean? What does that look like? Well, it’s the universal condition, all humans, all places, all time that affects all humanity, creating a natural tendency and proneness to sin. So this is what we mean by original sin. And this is where we really get clear, straightforward teaching on it from verse 12. So this is where we see original sin. But let’s anchor that to some scripture. Okay, let’s make sure that we see that actually in the Bible and maybe even throughout the Bible if we’re going to make such a lofty claim. So here’s a handful of verses. There could be a lot more, but Genesis 8, verse 21 says, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. So not just the actions, but the intentions deep in the heart of young people is evil. Psalm 51.5, behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Psalm 58.3, the wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray from birth. Or Ephesians 2.3, very, very helpful statement. We were by nature, not accident, not once we actually did actions, we were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. It would seem that the Apostle Paul held to the doctrine of original sin, which is why he can write a statement like this where it is the most plain in all of the New Testament. Just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned. That’s where we get this teaching from. Pastor Mark Jones writes in his book on sin. He says in Romans 5, Paul states rather plainly that sin passed from Adam to all men, which led to death. The answer to the question, why did we become sinners? May be summed up in two words, original sin. The doctrine is, listen to this. This is G.K. Chesterton’s joke that Mark Jones kind of takes. The original sin, the doctrine is the only empirically verifiable Christian doctrine. Even though it may be empirically verifiable, it is highly offensive to many. Even strangely to some in the church. Do you hear what he’s saying? No one had to teach you to be a sinner. When I say that, hey, we are by nature sinners, you don’t need me to turn to a Bible verse. Just find a kid, any random kid, and be like, hey, did anybody teach you to sin? Are you learning that at home? It’s like, no, they’re trying to teach me the opposite and failing real bad. Right? It’s empirically verifiable. You watch. We know how to sin. And yet, sometimes people try really hard to deny it. And they want to say that at some point you start sinning. And they want to say that because it’s not fair. Right? Why am I held accountable for the sin of Adam? Why did he ruin everything? And so let’s deal with that question really briefly here. Is inherited original sin fair? I think this is a good question to ask, and I think it provides a lot of helpful answers. First, it’s kind of a silly question because everyone who questions original sin has already sinned. And they’re already guilty. It’s like, who are they defending? Right? Like, you are already guilty even as you question it. So you are not defending yourself. It’s somebody else. Right? And when you sinned the first time and ended up guilty, that was like a long time ago. Right? Like, it wasn’t just yesterday. Oh, man, I did it. Darn. Right? That was a long time ago. We’ve been guilty for a long time of sin. The second way to answer this, and I don’t know if this is convincing. It’s just a good point to make. Everyone who questions original sin would have made the same decision. So when you’re like, Adam, you ruined everything. I can’t believe you did that. Well, if you just swap places with him, you would have done the exact same thing. I probably would have done it quicker. You know? He had a whole conversation. I’ve been like, that looks great. Right? And so we need to understand. Anybody that questions it would have done the exact same thing. But the third and most important reason that we need to understand if we claim that original sin is unfair is that everyone who questions it actually needs it to be true. If there is a solution to the sin problem, not out there, in my heart, if there is a solution, I need some unfairness to take place. In other words, if it is unfair that Adam passed his unrighteousness, then I have to do the same thing with the righteousness that I received from Jesus. It is, in fact, unfair. I didn’t do anything to earn it, deserve it, or become worthy of it. He gives it. And so as I question original sin, I need to also understand that I am questioning my very means of salvation. I need it to be true. Wayne Grudem summed it up this way. He said, Adam, our first representative, sinned, and God counted us guilty. But Christ, the representative of all who believe in him, obeyed God perfectly, and God counted us righteous. Amen. In a sense, it isn’t fair, but we need it to not be. But the last thing that I want to see here is a really important point, is these first words, verse 12, just as sin came into the world, just as sin and death entered the world. What we need to gather from this and what we need to understand is that sin and death here don’t belong here. They’re not supposed to be here. Sin and death through Adam were imported into the ecosystem that God created in the beginning that was good. It was supposed to be good. It was really, really good. And sin and death were imported into it and made this place that we live in now toxic and uninhabitable. It broke everything. But what this teaches us is that sin and death don’t belong here. And you know that already. Even if you’re in this room and you’re not a Christian, you know that already. You have this, we all have this sort of innate feeling that sin and death are wrong. They’re not supposed to be here. We feel it in our bones every time we think to ourselves, it’s not supposed to be that way. It’s not supposed to be that way. When you look and you see tragedy, when you witness something awful, you feel it in your bones. That’s not, that’s not supposed to be like that. I know that. But the problem with that thinking is, where did we even get that idea from? This is all we know. Like, this is this broken, messed up, dark planet is the only thing we have ever known. And yet, inherently, we feel something has gone wrong. And we know it not just like generally, not just theologically. I mean, like specifically. Over the last couple of weeks, our church has been caring for a young woman and her family. She just finished her junior year of high school. And her dad had wrestled a lot with, she had been involved in our youth group. And her dad was struggling and suffering from cancer for a pretty long time. And just a couple of weeks ago, he passed away. So she starts her senior year of high school without her dad. No one needs to convince anybody that it’s not supposed to be that way. That 17-year-olds need their dad. And 17-year-olds aren’t supposed to walk through all of high school without their dad. I don’t need to take you to a chapter and a verse for you to feel in your bones it’s not supposed to be that way. Well, that’s what Paul is teaching us. When we ask ourselves, well, why did that happen then? It’s because in Adam, sin and death entered into the world. And it broke everything. Ultimately, that is our answer to the question, why is it this way? It’s because Adam sinned. And in Adam, all sinned. And death and sin entered through Adam. And then after verse 12, the super important verse, Paul does something strange. If you’re reading through it and you’re like, where did he go? Why did he? He took me somewhere else. Well, he does, actually. He just sort of interrupts his thought. So he says in the beginning of verse 15, just as. And after just as, you expect there to be a so also. But he doesn’t even do that. Most of our Bibles throw a little dash in there in our versions of our Bible just to say, like, I don’t know. Like, he’s taking an aside right here. He’s just doing his own thing real quick. And that’s what he does. He takes a bit of an aside. And even though his language is dense and the sentences are complex, he is essentially making one point in these first couple of verses. And he’s saying this. It is far better to be in the second Adam than it is to be in the first. It is far better to be in Christ than it is to be in Adam. The results are better. The promises are better. Eternity is better. Life is better, and he is pleading with his readers, receive the grace of God that is offered to you in Jesus Christ. But he’s gonna talk about the consequences, the warnings of being in Adam, and we need him to do that. I heard one preacher put it this way, like when you have a diamond, something super beautiful, what do they put that up against in order for you to see how beautiful it is, how perfect it is? It’s like a black sheet, right? So you can see that diamond pop. That’s what he does by focusing on Adam, and that’s what I’m trying to do for the rest of our time, is to show you how bleak the circumstances are in Adam that you might receive Jesus, and that’s what we’re going to look at for the rest of the time. He needs to warn us about the results of belonging to Adam, but then he needs to prove that it’s actually true of us, that you are, apart from Jesus, you are in Adam, and he’s gonna prove that to us. So the first thing we’re gonna see, verse 12, all of us will die because all of us have sinned, and that’s what we see in verse 12. Death spread to all people because all sinned, but what does that mean? What does it mean? Sinned in what way and to die in what way? What does he mean by that? Well, first, let’s think about how did all sin when he said all sinned, what does he mean by that? Now, there’s so much discussion. Oh man, I read, out of love for you, Trinity, I read through a lot of commentaries and a lot of people arguing and discussing whether Paul means either we all individually committed personal sins, when he says all sinned, that we committed personal sins, or that in some way, we all sinned in Adam, as Adam sinned, so I sinned, so we sinned, so all humans sinned, and linguistically, a case can be made for both. In the context of Romans, we all did sin, individual sins, that’s easy to prove, right? Romans 3.23, for all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. What are we talking about there? Individual sins. You have personally and individually committed specific sins against God. So in that case, all have sinned. But in the context of this passage, all sinned in Adam, as though I sinned when Adam sinned. And here’s the thing, that’s Paul’s entire argument in this passage. We are given either Adam’s guilt or we are given Christ’s righteousness. In Christ, we live, or in Adam, we die. So I think both are true, you have sinned individually and personally, but I think here, when he says all sinned, he means that in the same way we receive righteousness from Christ, we have sinned in Adam in that first sin. Listen to Pastor John Piper try to make sense of this. He said, the problem with the human race is not most deeply that everybody does various kinds of sins. Those sins are real, they are huge, and they are enough to condemn us. Paul is very concerned about them. But the deepest problem is that behind all our depravity and all our guilt and all our sinning, there is a deep, mysterious connection with Adam, whose sin became our sin and whose judgment became our judgment. And that judgment, according to Paul here, is death. But then we gotta ask, okay, but death in what way? Death in what way? And it’s both a physical death and it is certainly a spiritual death. So we will physically die, no one’s arguing with that, but we are also born spiritually dead. So the consequences of death, the consequences of sin, the sin of Adam, is death in both senses. So we do slowly physically die. Paul says that in 2 Corinthians, right? In both four and five, our outer selves are wasting away, this body is a tent, it’s decaying, it’s ripping apart, it’s being destroyed. But listen to me, this is so important. Our physical death, our dying physically is meant to alert us to a much, much more significant problem. The undeniability of physical death is meant to be a parable to us. We are supposed to see that we are spiritually dead as well, that we are spiritually dying as well. And we need to understand this. Ephesians two makes this so plain, right? Verse one and five. You were dead in the trespasses and sins, and even when we were dead in our trespasses, this was the consequences of Adam’s sin. Not just that we would physically die. The physically dying part is meant to alert us that we need to be spiritually brought to life, made alive in Ephesians. And so here is the warning, okay? This is our most urgent need as humans. In Adam, we have been given an eternal death sentence because of our sin. That’s the warning. That’s the warning, and it is sure, and it is true. We all sinned in Adam, and therefore we received the death sentence in Adam. So how do we know if it’s true or not, right? How am I, like, how are you supposed to know as I’m saying, hey, you have been eternally sentenced to a spiritual death because of sin? How am I supposed to know that that’s true? Well, that’s where Adam goes, or that’s where Paul goes next in verse 13 and 14. What he is gonna teach here is death. Death, people dying, teaches us that everything that I just said is true, specifically that our own personal death. So if you are going to, if you are not going to die, if you were in here this morning and you’re like, hey, I’m not dying, well, then none of this has anything to do with you. Like, you’re fine, you’re good. Like, don’t even worry about anything else. But if you are very certain that at some point you are going to die, then you got a problem, okay? And here’s how Paul puts the problem. Look at verse 13. He said, sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law yet. Death reigned. We didn’t have a law, but death still killed people from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like Adam’s, who broke a specific law, he, Adam, was a type of the one who was to come. What we learn from these two verses is this. All of our death proves all of us sinned. All of our death proves all of us have sinned. Death is the greatest evidence of your sin. Not law, our dying is the greatest evidence that we belong to Adam. Brian Chappell said it like this. Human death in the world is both evidence and consequence of the spread of death. I mean, how do we know that sin spread? Well, we know in the same way that we know that any plague spreads, whether cholera or AIDS or Ebola. You see death spreading. If the death is spreading, it’s the evidence that the disease has infected all, all. When you see death, you are meant to see, oh, we have sinned, and when you know that you are going to die, you personalize that and say, I have sinned. Now listen, his point here is broken law is great evidence of sin, it really is, right? Like I did that, now I have sinned, right? It makes it obvious, it makes it clear. That’s what happened with Adam. That’s why he says the transgression is not like Adam. Adam was told, don’t eat that, and he did, and that was that, right, broken law. But what Paul is saying is even before the specifics of the law were broken by sinners, the death sentence of being in Adam was already being carried out, like the flood, right? Or the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. Not one of the people, maybe they did, I don’t know, but not one of them at least recorded, was caught saying, hey, I need to see this in writing of what I did specifically that was bad. Show me what I did that was wrong. No, it was the drowning that said you have sinned, right? The drowning is what taught them that they sinned. So this is the warning and the proof that the warning is for us. Listen to this, it goes like this. I belong to Adam if I sin and die. I sin and I am dying, therefore I belong to Adam. He’s trying to convince us that this problem is not just a universal problem, it’s your problem. It’s your problem personally. But there is good news. There is good news buried in this bleak and sobering warning of condemnation and death. Look what he says. He says Adam was a type of the one who was to come. The promise here is this. Someone is coming that would represent all of humanity just as Adam did and just as Adam unleashed sin and death into the world and into our own lives, this man would unleash justification and righteousness and life, all of which the Apostle Paul calls grace. Church, say grace. Grace. This is what we’re going to see in verses 15 and 17. It’s his summary statement of all that he’s saying. Look at verses 15 again. It says the free gift isn’t like Adam’s sin. For if many died through Adam’s sin, much more the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded. What we see here is this. All men can live because of the grace of one man, Jesus. All men can live because of the grace of one man. And here’s the thing. There’s one little word in verse 17 that I want to point out to you that actually took me a while to catch and to think about. It is not assumed. So that line when it says all men can live because of the grace of one man, what I mean by that is it’s not assumed, even in this passage. There is no universalism in this passage. I think a quick little sort of surface-level reading will be like, well, all sinned, all saved in Jesus. But look at this little word in verse 17 when it says for if because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life. Meaning some receive it and some don’t. To receive this grace is the posture of people who belong to Jesus. That’s what it looks like to belong to Jesus, to come to him with open and empty hands to receive this grace. And that’s the invitation of this entire passage. He tries to convince us, don’t be an Adam. It is not good to be an Adam. You’re not safe in Adam. You will die in Adam. And so the invitation is receive the grace that is offered to you in Jesus. And he calls it a gift. What is this gift? He says in verse 17, right there in the middle of the passage, the free gift of righteousness through the one man Jesus Christ. Sinner in this room, meaning all of you in this room, you can be declared righteous in Jesus. You can be made right with God. You can be brought back into a relationship with God through Jesus. That’s true and that is the invitation of this passage. That you would know that you are right with God because you are in Jesus. So the choice is put before us. Will we belong to the first Adam who brought sin and death into the world or will we belong to Jesus who offers us righteousness? And Paul makes this plain in at least three contrasts that belonging to Jesus is better. Look at verse 15. He says there, and this is a weird sentence. Let me point out what’s weird. Verse 15 says, the free gift is not like the trespass for if many died, died, death, okay, note that, through one man’s trespass, much more have the, now you’d expect it here to say life, right? Contrast the dying, the died, with the living, the life. Instead he says grace. We all have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ. So what he says first is offered in Jesus. He says all of us get either penalty, death, in Adam, or we get grace. Let me say this as plainly as I can, friends. We either get what we deserve in Adam or we get what we don’t deserve in Jesus. And I know, I said at the beginning of this sermon, as 21st century Americans, that like hurt our ears, right? Because that’s a hard, thick line through the down the middle of all humanity. We either get what we deserve, death for our sin, or we get what we don’t deserve in Jesus. We get grace, we get life, we get righteousness in him. Paul says it plainly in the next chapter, Romans 6, 23. The wages of sin is death. That’s what we earn, that’s what we deserve. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. So we get penalty or we get grace. Verse 16 says that we get, all of us, are either condemned or we’re justified. We are either declared guilty because we are, that’s a short case, right? That’s a short court hearing. If you and I stood there before the judge, right? God who sees our hearts, God who sees our thoughts, God who has watched all of our actions. That ain’t gonna take long, right? He’s just gonna roll out like half a list, not even half a list, right? Post-it note, here’s the stuff they did. Guilty, right? There’s enough in us that we’ve done probably this morning to condemn us before a holy and righteous God. But the promise here is either we get that condemnation, which we have earned, the gavel slamming down, or we are justified in Jesus, declared not guilty by him earning our pardon for us. And third, in verse 17, the summary statement, it says that we either, verse 17, for if because of one man’s trespass, death reigned, meaning it rules over us, it kind of personifies death as a king. We either belong to the kingdom of death, or it says, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life. All of us belong to either death or we belong to life. So to sum this all up, the whole passage, nobody does that better than Paul himself to the Corinthian church. In 1 Corinthians 15, he writes this in verse 22. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. If you are in Christ, you are alive, and you are alive forever. So if all people in all places at all times belong to either Adam or Jesus, we must decide. I have three kind of practical conclusions I wanna get to, but I also wanna stop here at the conclusion of this passage. If you don’t know Jesus yet, if you have not trusted in Jesus, if you have not received the grace that is offered to you in Jesus, can you take this morning, let it be done, let it be so, let it be now, that you would come and trust in Jesus? You cannot save yourself, friend. I hope that has been proven to you today, but I will state it plainly. In Adam, according to your sin, you cannot save yourself. You cannot make yourself right with God. You never will. You never can. You will never turn a corner where you are somehow now worthy of forgiveness, worthy of righteousness. So give up, please. And God in his love sent Jesus to die in your place, to pay for your sins, to pay for your rebellion, because he loves you. By grace, he will save you. If you would trust in the finished work of Jesus, let it be done today. And then will you tell somebody, tell somebody that you’re around, every member of this church would love to talk to you about what it means to trust in Jesus and what that looks like in your life. Now, let me close just briefly with three conclusions from this passage, trying to be as practical as possible. We’ll see how practical it is. The first is we belong to Jesus. When we belong to Jesus, it is better not easy. And what I mean by that is we’re not done with the place yet that sin and death entered. That’s still here. That’s still the place where we live. We still live in the place where sin and death, evil and darkness wreak havoc. This place hurts us. And this place is gonna kill us should Jesus not return. He has promised in Revelation 7 and Revelation 21 that he is gonna wipe away every tear when he comes. And yet what that implies is until he comes, we have tears to cry. This place still hurts. We still live in the place where sin can ruin lives and marriages and churches if we don’t fight it like crazy. This place often reminds us that it is far more hell than it is heaven. And we need to understand that. When we belong to Jesus, we are not teleported to some other place. We come to a person, a person. We love him, we trust him, and he is the one that saves us. And we are in Christ. And what that means is the second thing. When we belong to Jesus, we are safe forever. When we come to Jesus, we are safe forever. Paul’s technical term for a Christian, that’s not a word he uses all that often. His technical term is it’s a person who is in Christ. And that’s Paul’s attempt to try to say how united to Jesus we actually are. Like we’re enveloped in Christ, like all of it. Like his righteousness, his actions, his life, his death, his resurrection, all of it. We are enveloped in Christ. You are in Christ. Therefore, you are as safe before the Father as Jesus is. Do you believe that? Last week, Pastor Andre said something in his sermon. He said, you will never be more justified than the moment you were saved. When I was listening to his sermon, I like was in my office and I just yelled amen. I text Andre, I was like, yes, tell him that. Tell him you cannot be more justified than you are justified in Jesus. It also means when you are justified by Christ, at the moment you are saved, then friend, brother, sister, you are safe forever. No one’s gonna snatch you out of his hand, ever. And we need to understand that. If we were as condemned as Adam was in his sin, then we are as accepted as Christ is forever in his righteousness. Believe that and trust that, Christian. Your one hope in living and dying is that you are not your own. You are Christ’s, and Christ, in Christ, you are safe. Lastly, when we belong to Jesus, we belong to each other. In Christ, we are a body. Paul says it this way in Romans 12, five. So we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Local churches, like Trinity, are meant to be a picture of one body in Christ, not in Adam. That’s the picture. In Adam, imagine what that body would look like as a local church. In Adam, that body would be dying, rotting, decaying. It would be divided, and it would be ugly. It would look like death. But in Christ, a local church would be a body that would be alive. It would be restored, it would be unified. It is beautifully full of life. And so as I close, church, even as you individually choose this morning to belong to Christ, I wanna close by saying, Trinity Church, please choose also, together, to be a church that belongs to Jesus. Be a church that is alive in Jesus. Be a church that beautifully portrays life in Christ. Would you guys pray with me? Father in heaven, thank you. Thank you for this wonderfully complex, dense, crazy paragraph from the Apostle Paul. Thank you for the lofty statements that it makes. And thank you for the absolute joy that it is to gather around it as your people today on the Lord’s day. Father, be glorified as we respond. I pray that there is someone here who responds by coming to faith in Jesus, that they would come to him and trust in him and be in him for the rest of all eternity. I pray for Trinity Church, Father, that they would be a body in Christ that beautifully displays the life that is available in Christ. All for your glory and in Jesus’ name, amen. All for your glory and in Jesus’ name, amen.