Thank you, Jane, it’d be great if you could have your bibles open with you. If anybody needs a Bible, could you stick your hand up and I’m sure we can get you one? I’ll look down here. Be wonderful to be able to follow along. Should we pray as we come to this passage? Father, I pray that you would speak to us this morning. We pray, Lord, that we wouldn’t be hearing just man’s words or reflections, but that we would hear your voice, that you would speak to our hearts, that you would change us, that we might know you better. In Jesus name, amen. While we think a lot about families, don’t we, on this mothering Sunday, we get all sorts of things from our families, don’t we? We get mannerisms, we get family stories, we get our language, our accents. I inherited from my family, I suppose, from my mother, a short a when I was younger, grass. I don’t know if there are any short a people here. Yeah, that’s right. So my family’s northern, but, you know, growing up in Essex, I was probably the only one I knew with a short a. I defended it to the hilt. Remember in year four, my teacher telling me, it’s actually grass? Remember saying, well, actually, miss has got no r in it, so it’s grass. We inherit things from our parents, don’t we? I will confess I’ve given it up now. I’ve given it up, changed to a long a, I’m afraid, for the sake of the children, so they don’t get confused. But if I’m really tired, maybe you’ll hear some grass occasionally, or a bath. But we inherit all sorts of things from our parents, don’t we? And actually, we don’t just inherit them. Actually, our parents represent us, don’t they? Often, mums particularly often represent their children. They advocate for them on their behalf, then they often, at school, you’ll need to go in and say, actually, I think such and such needs to happen, or such and such happened. They represent their children, don’t they? And this theme of representation really takes us to our passage today, because Paul is thinking all about how all people, all human beings are represented either by Adam or by Christ. Everyone has a representative acting on their behalf. Is it Adam or is it Christ? And we’re drawing to a close of this section in Romans. We’re going to have a few weeks break before we start again in chapter six. And Paul is sort of finishing a section at the end of chapter five. If you’ve been with us, you will remember the journey we’ve been on, where we had three chapters of sin. Well done for hanging on there. But it was important, wasn’t it, at the beginning of Romans to tell us, actually no one is righteous. Every single one of us is a sinner. And then that set us up to hear in chapter four that the answer to the problem of sin the way, was the old way of faith. Abraham of old had followed this way of faith, of trusting in God. And then God would give us his righteousness. That brought us to chapter five last week, the first half. And chapter five, verse one, had this wonderful phrase that Helen’s already mentioned. Therefore, we have peace with God. Therefore, by the way of faith, we have peace with God. And we heard last week how Christ’s death in the past helps us to persevere in the present because of the future hope of glory. But there’s one question that remains, really, before we finish this section. And it’s how does that work? How is it that Christ’s righteousness can become ours? How is it that something someone else has done can be counted mine? Isn’t that his? And how does that work? And this is the question on Paul’s lips today. This is how Christ’s righteousness becomes ours. Well, look with me in the scriptures, because in the first paragraph, the first three, verses, twelve to 14, we have Paul talking about how Adam is the representative of the human race. And this is, if you like the diagnosis. Again, this is the way of Romans diagnosis, then cure. We have the diagnosis first. Adam, representing all people, verse twelve. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men. Because all Sin dot, dot, dot. Okay, let’s just think what he’s talking about. Just as sin came into the world through one man. Who’s that? Yes. Adam. Right. We’re thinking about Adam in the garden, aren’t we? Where God made man upright, he made Adam upright. And he and he gave him one law, didn’t he? It was one law. Genesis two, verse 17, said, you shall not eat from the tree that’s in the middle of the garden. For on the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. Just one law, didn’t he? To Adam. We all know the end of the story, that Adam turned his back on God’s law and he broke it. So Adam brought sin into the world. That was the first sin. And the consequences of that. What was the consequence? On the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Death is the consequence, isn’t it. And so Adam brought death into the world. There was no death before then. Death was brought into the world, so death spread, says paul, to all men, because all sinned. Now here’s the thing. When Paul says that all sinned, he’s not talking about our actual sins. He’s actually saying that we’re all implicated in Adam’s sin. He’s saying that Adam acted as our representative and his sin counts as ours. You may think that’s not really what it says, ben, is it says that all sinned, and that surely means that we all actually sinned. Well, that’s true. We have all actually sinned. But follow Paul’s argument with me. See verse 13. Paul says, sin was in the world before the law was given. But sin is not counted where there’s no law. In other words, everybody after Adam did sin. That’s true. Everyone after Adam committed actual sins, but there was no law, was there because the law was given by Moses. So in between all of that time when there was no law, how can somebody be guilty? You can’t be guilty of a law that you didn’t have, can you? Someone comes up to you and says you’re guilty of such and such a law, but that law didn’t exist. That would be unfair, wouldn’t it? Okay, so he says sin was there. That’s true. But there was no law. And if there’s no law to break, there’s no consequence for breaking the law, right? You can’t sort of read it backwards. Imagine. Imagine that all of your speed in your car was measured. I’m sure that’s not a problem for anybody here, but just imagine that you went close to the speed limit, but never over it. You went 70, 68, whatever, okay? And then next year the government say, well, actually we’re going to change the speed limit to 60. And then we all get letters saying, last year you went over 60, but the law is 60. You’d say, hang on a minute, it doesn’t work like that. You can’t bring in a law and then can’t be responsible for something afterwards. That’s not fair, is it? Where there’s no law, you can’t be condemned. So Paul says, okay, if death is the consequence of breaking the law, but there was no law, whose sin is the death in consequence of? This is his question in verse 14. Yet he kind of thinks the puzzle on his mind. Yet death reigned. From Adam to Moses, there was a punishment for sin, but there was no law. Even over those, his sinning was not like the transgression of Adam. It’s because of Adam’s sin. You see, Adam’s sin is counter to each one of us, because he’s our representative. He stood in the place for all of us, he acted for all of us. And so in Adam’s sin, we’re all implicated in the consequences of death. It’s a terrible, terrible news, really. And this is. How are we to understand this? We do see this in the world about us. I don’t know if anybody remembers the euros 1996. Does anyone remember this? Anyone into football? I’ve got some nods, at least. Thank you. Someone’s with me. I tried this with the youth group and they all said, I wasn’t born in 1996. And I was like, oh, that makes me feel really old. Anyone born after 2000, it just seems wrong. But anyway, euro 1996 was. It was a big year, if you remember it, if you’re a football fan. If you’re not, I’ll explain why it was. You see, we hadn’t won the World cup for ages, have we? In 96, we got to the final. It was England v Germany. We believe football was going to come home finally, since, what was it, 1966, was it? I don’t know. Some of you were there, maybe I wasn’t there, but football was going to come home finally, we thought, okay, so here we did. We played Germany. We got to the end. It was a tie, okay? Extra time. Okay? The tension was building. It was extra time. Still a tie. We got to penalties. I know everyone’s reliving it now. We’re getting nervous again, aren’t we? Penalties were coming. I reckon someone challenged me on this, but I think there were ten penalties on each side. I think it was the 10th penalty when it finished. Any nods? Yeah, it was a nod. Good, all right. And we’d had all our best strikers go. We were just one kick away from victory. A young 25 year old lad called Gareth Southgate stepped up. Can just imagine him being like, I’ll do it, I’ll win, I’ll be a legend. Stepped up to the plate, didn’t he? Oh, we thought, yeah, maybe he’s going to do it. There he is. Gareth Sasgate. Walked up to the ball, ran to it. Football’s about to come home. We’re going to win. Kicked and he missed. Oh, it was a terrible moment. It was a really terrible moment in sport, because we all just put our head in our hands. Those of us who cared about such things, England had lost, but who’d actually kicked that ball, who’d actually lost the game was Gareth Southgate. Right. Apologies if he’s watching, just to bring it up. Gareth, you’re doing a sterling effort now on the. You know, he kicked the ball, didn’t he? He missed that and England lost. I didn’t kick the ball. I’d have definitely lost. But he lost it on our behalf, didn’t he? He was our representative, and so his ball meant that England lost. Well, this is how it is, as we watch on, as if from the sidelines, that Adam’s sinning and he’s broke God’s law. He’s bringing in sin as our representative, as our behalf. And death then reigns for all of us. Because in Adam, we’ll die. Now, we might say, this is grossly unfair, isn’t it? Surely that would be hugely unfair. I mean, it wasn’t my sin. I mean, the first thing we can say is that none of us is actually innocent of actual sins, are we? So it’s not as if the innocent are punished for this. But more importantly, God set it up this way, because though Adam represented us in Eden, Christ is going to represent us, as we’ll see in a moment. And so we have to just hold any thoughts and fears of unfairness till we get to this next section. Because, look with me, in verses 18 to 21, the third paragraph, the parallel becomes really important. Verse 18, therefore, as one trespass, that’s Adam’s trespass, led to condemnation for all men. So one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. Just as Adam, so Christ, the parallel is important. We have to understand what’s happened in Adam, how Adam represents us before we can understand what’s happened with Christ and how he represents us. Right? In the same way. This was Paul’s thought right back in verse twelve, you notice he started, didn’t he? Therefore, just as dot, dot, dot. But he never gave the comparison because he started talking about something else. And he picks up the thought again in verse 18. So just as. So, one as Adam, so, Christ. I’ve got a little table for you, actually, for the next three verses, because there’s lots of parallels that Paul draws out. Hold the applause of my artistic skills here on this table. But hopefully this is helpful because we can see through our verses what Paul is getting at. He says, verse 18, adam’s trespass on the one hand, christ’s acts of righteousness on the other. Verse 19, adam’s disobedience on the one hand, christ’s obedience on the other hand, verse 21, sin through Adam, grace through Christ, death through Adam. Life through Christ. You see, there’s this parallel that Paul is setting up. Either you’re in Adam or you’re in Christ. We receive either all that Adam is and has done for us, or all that Christ is and all he has done for us. So as Adam’sin is imputed to us, the great news is that so Christ’s righteousness is imputed, counted to us, counted to our account, even though it’s not really mine, it’s not something I’ve done. Christ hasn’t come and made me good so that I could earn that salvation. He’s come and know I can clothe you in my righteousness. You’re actually still a sinner on the inside, but you’re dressed in my righteousness because I represent you. This is the very heartbeat of the gospel. Christ doesn’t help us along our way, but he does it for know, Christ isn’t just an example for us to follow. He’s our champion. We can take that off the screen now. Thank you. You see, if we think of Jesus as just an example or just someone who’s helping us on our way, we really cut Christ out of Christianity because it becomes us earning our way up. And maybe Christ helps us along the way, but it’s still us. But actually the truth is, it’s Christ has done everything. Christ is our representative. Don’t know if you watched the rugby yesterday. Did anyone watch the rugby yesterday? It was a great match. It was a happy day, wasn’t it? I’m sorry, if there’s anyone irish here. Yes, sorry about that. It’s a great day for England. You’re going to have to relive it for the benefit of everyone else who’s English here. If you didn’t watch it and maybe you’re planning on watching it later, I’m sorry, I’m going to give a spoiler here. It was a great game. It was a really, really close game. England and Ireland played. It was so tight. England with the underdogs. We won. Spoiler. But anyway, we were playing and as we got to the end of the game, Ireland were up by two points, which meant that if England could score a drop goal, we would win by one. The clock was running out. England had a line out about a minute and a half before the end. That meant if play would end, the game would end and Ireland would win. But if we could keep going and we could just get that drop goal or get a try, then we would win. It was an incredibly tense moment. We played really well. We kept playing got right to their line. A couple of tries were nearly scored. It was really, really close. And then Marcus Smish got the ball. Who’d come on? He did. He came right below the goal. Yeah, sure. Yes, if you’re watching. Well done. He came, didn’t he? Got the ball and he was just under the goal, just under the post. He kicked it and it went through. And we knew it was amazing, wasn’t it? Was a great moment. 22 21. England wins. Ireland did. You did play really well. But we won. We won. And there I am on the sofa. We won. Even the kids are joining in. They’re getting all excited, of course. Again, who actually won? Marcus Smith kicked this one ball, didn’t he? And then England won. I didn’t do anything unless he was really helpful. Am I lying on the sofa shouting at the television? I really don’t think that helped very much. That was my role in the operation. He won, though. We won. He did it on our behalf. It’s our victory, isn’t it? And it’s like this as we watch on at the cross as Jesus comes and he takes our sin on himself and he takes the punishment and he says, it is finished. We say, we’ve won. We’ve won. It’s finished. I mean, I really did nothing. I just watched on my part was nothing in this. I had nothing to bring, even less than I could bring to the England rugby team, which is very little, even less than that. We watch on at the cross and Jesus does it for us. Our champion wins on our behalf. This is really what Paul is wanting us to grasp. It’s a tale of two adams. Either we are in sin in Adam, the first Adam, or in Christ, his righteousness becomes ours. It’s an amazing thing for us. Now, if you’re wondering why we haven’t mentioned verses 15 to 17, we haven’t. Here, Paul really says, actually, I will admit that it’s not entirely parallel, because the first and last paragraph are talking about the parallels in the middle. He says, well, actually, the parallel isn’t quite fit because Adam did one thing wrong and brought sin to everybody. Christ actually corrected a multitude of wrongs, didn’t he? He did so much more. But the basic outline of the passage is that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us. It’s counted to us. It becomes ours. This is true freedom. This is true freedom because it doesn’t lie in ourselves, but it lies in another. It’s objectively something someone else has done for us. And there may be some people here this morning who have come to church for many, many years. And if we’ve been christians for a long time, we know that things go up and down, don’t they? Our spiritual lives go up and down as much as everything else. And you may look back on times and you think, man, I remember times in the past where I just really enjoyed praying much more than I do now. Really remember just loving reading my scriptures. I remember serving in a way I don’t really do now you think, what’s happened? You worry, does this mean my faith has gone off? Am I still know? This could be a real worry, couldn’t it? But actually for you, the word here this morning from God is Christ has done it for you. It’s not because of a faith you’re working up that’s your own work. It’s because Christ put his righteousness on you. We may look back on hard times, but Christ has still got us. In fact, this applies to many of us, perhaps when we’ll be in situations where maybe we’re even forgetting our faith. What if we get dementia and we can’t even remember all that’s gone on? Is our faith in weak? Is that it? Does Christ say, well, no, you’ve forgotten me? No. No. Because it’s Christ’s righteousness won for you as your representative, still clothed in his righteousness. Even if our mind goes and we forget him. Why? Because he’s our champion. There may be others of us who are very practical people and we just sort of think we love goals and targets and we want the take home. That’s great, isn’t it? That’s a great thing. It’s very english spirit, isn’t it, to be practical. But there’s a temptation there sometimes that we end up making faith into a work where we say, actually, I’m going to read more bible than I did last year. I’m going to pray more hours. Those are great things. There’s nothing wrong with discipline, but we can end up thinking that actually Christ is helping me on this journey I’m doing and actually he’s the champion who’s done it for us. So I wonder whatever situation we’re in. And there’ll be all sorts of different situations here today. Do we think of Christ more as our example or as our champion? He can of course be both. But the gospel is that Christ is our champion first because he’s won the righteousness that he’s given to us. That is how his righteousness becomes ours. Let’s pray. Father, I thank you so much that though we were dead in sin, though we were represented by Adam, that you sent Christ. You sent Christ as the second Adam, as our new head. The one that can represent us, to be our champion, to give his righteousness to us. Pray that we would know that because of that, we would know the true peace we have in you. Amen.