Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard
Sermon, Romans 5:12-19, Original Sin
Eagle Rock Presbyterian Church
First Sunday of Lent,
This morning we have arrived at the first Sunday of Lent. Lent is an ancient practice of the church. Beginning in the 2nd century, Christians spent two or three days fasting in preparation for Easter. By the 4th century this had developed into a forty-day season remembering the 40 days of rain in Noah’s time, the 40 years the Israelites spent in the wilderness, and the 40 days of the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. This was a time of preparation for new Christians before baptism on Easter and it encouraged Christians to reflect on their own baptismal vows. In the centuries that followed Christians were encouraged during Lent to consider their sin and repentance in anticipation of Christ’s suffering on the cross. Will you pray with me?
Father in heaven we come to you this day with penitent hearts and a desire to repent. We ask that you forgive our sins and restore us to your presence. We pray this in the name of our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.
Romans 5:12-19 12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned-- 13 sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. 14 Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come. 15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man's trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. 16 And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. 17 If, because of the one man's trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. 18 Therefore just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. 19 For just as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.
We live in free country. Our freedom is given to us by God and protected by our Constitution and Bill of Rights. We have the freedom to speak our minds even if the government does not like what we say. We have the freedom to assemble without the government’s interference. And we have the freedom to worship God. We are free because our creator made us as free people. We were placed in a garden with freedom to go where we wanted and eat what we wanted. God created us, provided for us, cared for us, and loved us. In this paradise God intended that we live in the presence of the creator forever. Our freedom was almost unlimited
But did you ever wake up one morning and look in the mirror and realize that you were stuck with yourself? As a youth you had numerous options and things you wanted to do. Your potential was unlimited. But as you grew older you began to realize that the freedom you once had to be anything you wanted to be had turned into: you are what you are. Your freedom to marry anyone you want is now limited to the one you are married to. The freedom to do anything you want to do is now limited by the education and career choices you have made. The longer we live the more limited is our freedom.
One of our freedoms we enjoyed in the garden was that we could choose to eat from one of the trees in its center. Of course God told us don’t eat it, but we still have the choice. We don’t know much about this tree. We know it looked nice and it fruit was delicious. We also know that our creator warned us about this tree. God said that if we eat from this tree we will die.
We know that this tree was called “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. Now here is a question for you. What do you think it would mean to eat from a tree called “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”? I suspect that if someone chose to eat from a tree with that name that person would want to decide herself or himself what was good and what was evil. Eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil means that we, humanity, will decide for ourselves issues of right and wrong. Not eating from the tree means that we let God decide. Which will we choose? Would we want to decide for ourselves good and evil? Or would we let God make this decision for us? We know the decision all of humanity has made because the consequences are obvious. All of us have chosen to decide for ourselves what is good and what is evil. We know this because the consequence of our choice is death and all of us will die. Death is the proof that all of humanity has chosen to defy God and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Our attempt to get ourselves out of this mess is to do good and not do evil. But since our sin was deciding for ourselves what good is how could this help us? We simply set the bar low enough that anything we do is good. You can see this at work in our society today; fewer and fewer things are called evil. Today, the greatest virtue is to be tolerant of those practices which we once consider to be evil. And God does not figure in these debates at all.
Sometime humanity will eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil by forming a committee to study a problem and make a decision. Our colleges train people in ethics who sit on these committees and vote on whether something is good or evil. Some of the hot button ethical debates going on today deal with the war in
We can’t go back into the garden and let God decide the difference between good and evil for us. It is too late. The choice has already been made. Humanity has already eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We have tasted the fruit that is so pleasant to look at and so delicious to eat. The temptation to decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong is overwhelming. And therefore the consequences are assured. We will die. There is no going back.
Throughout history only one person even chose not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Only one person ever resisted the temptation to decide for himself what is right and what is wrong. Only one person allowed God to make these decisions. Only one person was fully obedient. That person was Jesus Christ.
Our creator God placed Jesus not in a garden but in a wilderness. There was nothing there to eat or drink for 40 days. Jesus was tempted to decide for himself whether turning stones into bread was good or evil. He was tempted to decide for himself whether jumping off the temple was right or wrong. And he was tempted to decide for himself whether or not worshiping Satan was good. Jesus responded to each of these temptations by saying that only God can decide what is right and what is wrong. Jesus refused to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because of this decision Jesus did not suffer the consequence that plagues the rest of humanity. Jesus Christ was not sentenced to everlasting death but was chosen by God for eternal life.
So is there any hope for us who have chosen to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Our only hope is that the obedience of one man, Jesus Christ, is greater than the disobedience of all of the rest of us combined. Here is the good new. It is! Jesus’ decision to allow God to determine what is right and what is wrong was sufficient to restore us to a right relationship with God and eliminate the calamitous consequence of our choice to make these decisions ourselves. By being obedient to God, Jesus reversed the effects of our disobedience and the condemnation of death has been abolished. We call this reversal “grace”. Grace means that God entered into the world to reverse the harmful effects of what we have done. The victory over death is won.
You see there was a second tree in garden. Presumably this tree was also beautiful to look at and its fruit was delicious to eat. The name of this tree was “the tree of life”. Anyone who eats of the tree of life will live forever. When we chose to eat from the other tree our pathway to the tree of life was blocked. And without the nourishing fruit of the tree of life we experience mortality and death. But in Jesus Christ the pathway to the tree of life was restored. This restoration was a free gift from our creator God who wants us, really wants us to live together with him forever.
By giving us access again to the tree of life God has given us freedom to choose. It is not the old freedom to choose what is right and what is wrong because that choice leads to death. The new freedom that we are given in Christ is to choose God. And we are free to choose God because God has chosen us first. God chose us to be the beneficiaries of Christ’s obedience. So even though we are disobedient and still eat from that other tree, Christ’s obedience to God is transferred to us as if we were the obedient ones. Christ is handing us the fruit of the tree of life as free gift.
So when you look in the mirror tomorrow morning remember that you are not stuck with yourself. You are not the product of all the choices you have made. Rather you have an unlimited potential with an infinite number of options for your life because in Christ your past choices are wiped clean and you can choose to follow him into eternal life. You are never stuck with yourself. Rather you are stuck on Christ who gives you the freedom to love and follow God forever.
Lord Jesus, you fasted forty days in the wilderness, and were tempted as we are but did not sin. Give us grace to direct our lives in obedience to your Spirit, amen.
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