Romans Chapter 5:10-13

Friend, it doesn't matter how bad your day is. If you've asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins, you can have a good day understanding of it. And if you're having a good day, remembering that your sins have been forgiven turns it into a great day. And if you're having a great day and you think of the fact that you've been forgiven of your sins, you better hold the ground and keep them flying. God, thank you that my sins are forgiven.

My past is parting. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. Though the world may struggle with sadness, we should have great joy because we have been forgiven. Celebrate the joy we have in Christ today as Pastor David continues in Romans 5. With his teaching, one life can change the world.

Here's David. So we're in the book of Romans and Paul is the writer of the book of Romans. He's writing to the church actually before he's ever visited there. So we see him visiting in the book of Acts. So we know that he wrote this book before the close of the book of Acts. I understand in the book it comes after the book of Acts, but time-wise it came during the book of Acts. So we looked at chapter 5 and last week we looked at, got down to verse 10, but for context's sake, let's start with verse 10.

Romans chapter 5, verse 10. For if we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

So we've talked about reconciliation a little bit and being reconciled. And, um, you know, there were, we were enemies with God and the fact that he died on the cross makes it available to us to be reconciled with him, uh, through his grace, through his blood. Now reconciliation here actually is an atonement in the King James. And understand the word atonement as it appears in the New Testament, New Testament being written in Greek, the word there is kind of lodged, but it has a Old Testament picture if you will, but it's a little different. See the Hebrew word for atonement is kefar. It's actually where we get our word for cover means to cover over sin. So we have the picture that in the Hebrew scriptures, our sins were covered over by these sacrifices that we see and whatnot. Had you been living in the Hebrew scripture times, the Greek word is a little different in the sense that it doesn't mean the cover over.

It means to make one. It's kind of interesting to me to make one is what atonement means. Actually, there's a little play on words that atonement, if you look at the word, you can cut it up into at one meant atonement at one meant at one with God to be reconciled with the Lord. In other words, we were apart from God, our sins dividing. We couldn't do anything about our sins because even if you could be sinless from now to the rest of your life, you still have your past sins that you need forgiveness of.

You still have the fact that you were born in the sin, which is part of what this chapter talks about. I love the New Living Translation. It says, making us friends of God. Isn't that amazing?

I mean, the good news is incredible news. It's not just that you can be forgiven of everything that you've ever done, but from here, you better never make them another mistake. No, the grace is sufficient for the rest of your life. And while you used to be enemies with God, now not only can you be forgiven, you can be friends with God. Isn't that amazing?

This is good stuff. So we all have our choice. You can be at one with God, or you can be at war with God. You can be at one with God, or you can be at war with God.

What's the difference? Accepting Jesus as your Savior. If you've not accepted Jesus as your Savior, no matter if you're a good person or a religious person or a spiritual person, you're still apart from God. You're still at war with God.

But if you've accepted Jesus as your Savior, you are now at one with God. This world is interesting and sometimes it can be very tender, but very often this world is a hard place and we live in a hard world. Hard things go on.

You watch the news and newspapers and CNN or Fox News or whatever online, and there's a lot of hard things going on. We live in a hard world, but we don't have to be hard-hearted. And it all comes down to this, friend. We either say, yes, I want to be friends with God through Jesus Christ and his sacrifice on the cross.

Or you say, you know what? I reject that. And I want to be at war with God and unforgiven. As crazy as that sounds, there's some people in the world, there's some people in this room who are making that decision because they're still rejecting Jesus Christ, or maybe they're still trying to earn it in their own works. The New Living Translation of this verse reads like this. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God, all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God. This is God's plan.

God doesn't say, Hey, you know, I know you're a sinner, but here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to leave the back door of heaven open at about 10 PM. And just, just slip in here. Don't tell anybody your name when you get in. Okay.

But just slip in the back door and just kind of try to blend in. God doesn't do that. God doesn't look at us and go, well, I know you're a sinner, but here's what I'll do.

I'll, I'll, I'll lower the standard for a moment. God doesn't say, well, I'll tell you what, you know, when you get up to heaven, you know, you're a sinner, I'll shut my eyes and I'll look the other way. And when I do that, that's your cue run in.

He doesn't do any of that. God says, yes, you're a sinner. And then credibly, God says, I will sentence myself for your sins so that you can come into heaven. In other words, Jesus said, you know what?

I would rather go through hell for you than go to heaven without you. That's what he does. That's the offer that's being made. And sometimes we go, well, I want it like this. I want to earn my way. I want to be religious. I want to think that, you know, me doing this, me doing that, me doing this, that, and the other, I want to, I want to feel like I've earned my salvation friend.

You can't earn your salvation. The plan of God, it has to be given to you. And it's interesting as you see humanism and, and the center, you know, man being at the center of things, which is humanism. And, and then we have our spirituality where we want God at the center and somehow we try to blend them. Well, let's, let's kind of have us and God at the center.

That doesn't work. We try to come up with our own ways. We even try to be in charge of our own days, but how often things happen in our day that we're not in control of that all of a sudden we're surprised at stuff that didn't surprise God. God's in control.

You can trust it. It's good to trust him and let God have his own way. There's a story in the new Testament where the mother of James and John went to Jesus. You know, they were James, John, and the mother were all concerned that James and John wouldn't be given a prominent place in this new kingdom. Jesus was establishing. So, you know, not only did James and John go to him, but then their mother went to him and said, Hey, I want to talk to you about them being the greatest in the kingdom. And she said, I, you know, I want you to put one on the right hand and one on the left. This is my wisdom. And Jesus says, you know what?

You, you don't know what you're asking. What he was saying was my plan is better than your plan. Days later, I wonder if it occurred to the mother of James and John, what she really asked Jesus for as on Calvary's hill. He stood on the cross dying with somebody on his left and somebody on his right, hanging on a cross as well. See God's plan is always better than your plan for him.

It's always better than my plan. Notice this too, in verse 11, not only that, but we also rejoice in God, rejoice in God. So does that mean, what does that mean? Does it mean rejoice literally?

Does it mean be happy? Certainly not. We're supposed to have long faced religion. Don't smile.

Don't laugh. I've met Christians like that. I've met believers like that, that, you know, man, it's like, they've been baptized in vinegar and they're pickled or something.

Their faces just look pickled. It's like, man, do you have the joy of the Lord? Because the Bible says the joy of the Lord is our strength. And if you don't have the joy of the Lord, that means that you're weak. We're supposed to be happy. It's talking about the joy of the Lord.

So what happened? Friend, when you stop and think, I've been forgiven of everyone, stop and think I've been forgiven of every wrong thing that I've ever done. What happens in your heart? Does it make you angry? Does it make you mad? Does it make you sad? Or does it make you filled with joy? If it makes you filled with joy, let your face know that you've been forgiven when you walk around and present yourself to people and talk to people. Matthew chapter nine, verse two.

It's interesting. If you grew up in church, maybe you remember the story. It says, then behold, they brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed, meaning he couldn't move. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, son, be of good cheer. Your sins are forgiven you.

This is an amazing story for a couple of reasons. Number one, if friends so love this guy, they tore off the roof to let this guy down, which shows you that sometimes church is a messy place and that's okay. But Jesus looks at him and the first thing he doesn't, he doesn't say, Hey, get up and walk.

His priority is to address the sins of the guy. And while the guy is still paralyzed lying on the bed, he says, be of good cheer. How could Jesus say be of good cheer to a man that's lying on a bed and can't move because your sins are forgiven you friend.

It doesn't matter how bad your day is. If you've asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins, you can have a good day understanding of it. And if you're having a good day, remembering that your sins have been forgiven, turns it into a great day. And if you're having a great day and you think of fact that you've been forgiven of your sins, you better hold the ground and keep from flying because the joy will warm your heart. Psalm 32, one says, and what joy for those whose rebellion is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight. What joy. So as we gather together, you can have this joy of God, thank you that my sins are forgiven.

My past is pardoned. And because of that, I can have a great day in you because this is the day that you have made. I will rejoice and I will be glad in it. Friends, sometimes that's a decision to have a good day to rejoice in the Lord. The life lesson here, we should have great joy because we are forgiven. We should have great joy because we are forgiven. See if everything that you feel or think depends on what's going on around you, then you're going to live a pretty up and down life.

But if you base it on God and God's forgiveness, then even in the midst of a hard day or a long day or a long day or whatever, you can have a great day, reminding yourself simply that your sins have been forgiven. Thank you for listening to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. We'll return to David's teaching in just a moment. The tragedy in Benghazi, the bombings in Boston, and the current unrest in Egypt are all vivid accounts of terrorism. Each time an event like this occurs, it often causes us to respond with fear. But it doesn't have to because God knows your future, and you can too. With David McGee's teaching entitled, Know Your Future, Be Immune to Terrorism, you'll come to understand the realities of radical Islam while rejoicing in God's promises for your future. Don't allow fear to consume your life. Instead, find hope with this month's special offer, Know Your Future, Be Immune to Terrorism. Know Your Future is available as a CD or DVD and is our gift to you when you call today with a donation to Cross the Bridge Ministries. It's because of your continued faithful support that we're able to broadcast across the nation with the life-changing Word of God.

To help support Cross the Bridge and receive your CD or DVD copy of Know Your Future, call 877-458-5508 or go online to crossthebridge.com. Now let's return to Pastor David's verse by verse teaching in the book of Romans. Verse 12 of Romans chapter 5 says this, Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all have sinned. So there's this thing going around called sin, and this is how death is spread. And see, through Adam sin entered into the world. Now, we'll probably spend more time on this next week, but I want you to notice what it says in this chapter in, well, we'll get to that in a minute. It's a rabbit trail.

We'll get there in a second. But through Adam sin entered in the world. Now, a lot of times, especially as a young Christian, you know, I thought Adam blew it. I can't believe Adam blew it. I wish I would have been in the garden.

I wouldn't have blown it. And then as I've grown in the Lord, I realize, you know what? I wouldn't have fared any better than Adam.

It's interesting. It doesn't say how long Adam was there before he fell, before they entered into sin. We don't know if it was hours, if it was minutes, if it was days.

You know, the more I grow in the Lord, the closer I get to the Lord, the more I think, you know, for me, it'd probably been like 60 seconds or something. And Adam, I mean, it's like the exchange God say, okay, you can eat everything in the garden, but this one tree don't eat it. Which tree? That tree.

Okay. Hey God, I'm going to come stand under this tree. And when are you leaving?

I'm just going to hang out here. What's interesting in that exchange that we find in Genesis is it doesn't say that they walked over to the tree. You know what that means? They were standing under the tree. God said, don't eat the fruit from this tree.

That tree. Okay. All right. We won't eat it. We're just going to look.

Look at the shiny fruit. Oh my goodness. And then the serpent comes twist the simple truce they've heard and all their unborn children bow down and die to Satan's hand at that point. And the disease of sin became rampant on this planet earth. See, friend, we have this thing called a sin nature that's been handed to us. And if you think that you can go through life, even as a believer, it never said, you know, theologically, yes, God gives you the power to be an overcomer over all sin. The reality is we still sin while we place ourselves back on the throne. So my decision, not yours. I want to handle this my way, not your way, but understand every one of us would have fallen in the garden.

Every one of us. And we're not just, when we talk about sin, we're not just talking about what you do wrong. We're talking about also doing everything right. In other words, you go through a day, you love everybody in the way you're supposed to love them.

You tell everybody you see about Jesus doing everything right, doing nothing wrong. That would make you sinless. Well, we've been handed this thing and, you know, it's interesting every now and again, somebody will say, well, pastor David, are you, are you saying that there's original sin that we've been, you know, handed this, this disease of sin down?

Absolutely. And occasionally I'll come up and somebody will go, well, you know, I don't believe in original sin. And you know, my first question is, do you have children?

Because if you got children, there's no doubt about this concept of original sin, because you know, you have your first child and then what happens? You have that moment in time where your beautiful little loved one with the angelic face comes up, looks you in the eye and lies to you. Did you teach them to lie?

Hopefully not. Hopefully you didn't say, Hey, Johnny, look, here's the truth. Here's a lie. And you can tell the truth sometimes, but when it's convenient or you need a way out, you just tell a lie. And that's the way we get out of things. Hopefully as a parent, you didn't teach your child that one.

How did they know that it was born into them? If I went out to the garden, I grow vegetables and stuff. It went out there and let's say, you know, ran the teller and then just walked away. You know, what's going to happen that space of ground in a couple of weeks, it can be a bunch of weeds there. There's, there's a saying, uh, one year seed, seven years weed. You let a weed go to seed for seven years. You're going to be weeding that weed out of your garden. Well, life was kind of like that. There's some weeds and you got to weed the garden of your heart and weed your mind.

And, but why? Because this sin through Adam entered into the world. A lot of times we look at this world and I've heard people say, well, you know, it's hard to look at this world and, and, and, and all the things that are going wrong and stuff that's messed up and, and really, you know, believe that there's a God friend. When you look in the world and you see how messed it up, messed up, messed it up.

There's an echo in here. It's not a reflection of God. It's a reflection of us. It's a reflection of the condition of our heart and our fallen nature. We tend to think, well, all the problems in the world are God's fault.

Let me ask you a question. How can it be God's fault when there's people that are starving to death in this world and yet there's billionaires. How's that God's fault. Now I'm an American. I'm not anti-capitalist.

I'm not going down that trail, but that equation is whacked out. When we look at the world and understand that in the next year, every person in the world could be fed and have healthcare and have clean water with the amount Americans spend on ice cream every year. How can that be God's fault that these other people aren't cared for? That's not a reflection of God. That's a reflection of the sinful nature of the world. A simple way to put this, the heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart. The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart. Now we could repair the world, tikkun olam is the Hebrew phrase there. We could repair the world if we accepted God's plan and loved God and loved one another, if we accepted his plan. But it's not, can we be good enough? That's not it at all. It's that the world is under a curse of sin. It's a disease. I love you guys more than you could ever realize, but the reality is you and I have this disease called sin and there is only one cure friend. It's not you trying harder.

It's not your promises. The only cure for sin is Jesus. That's the only cure and taken on his new nature. Imagine if you were, you know, we grew up with these little stories that were so meaningful. And you remember the story, the, uh, the sleeping princess under the curse, she ate the apple. And do you remember that the prince had to come kiss to lift the curse? That's such a beautiful picture.

Why? Because Jesus came to this earth, kissed the earth. In fact, to awaken us from the curse of sin.

And now we can go to the world and watch the curse be lifted from off of them. Or if you can imagine the story in the story, the prince sees the sleeping beauty or Snow White or whoever it sees them and goes, eh, I'm busy. I don't have time. And yet that's what we as Christians do a lot in it. I'm so busy. I don't have time friend. Many of you here today know Jesus as your savior. What if somebody had walked past you and thought those things?

I don't have time kind of busy. Well, they look a little different, a little rough. I'm not sure. And they walk past you instead of lifting the curse off of you. See, we have the power in us by knowing Jesus to see this world become a better place because when sin came in, death came in, there's only one cure for both. People can debate sin, psychology or psychiatry or whatever, you know, debate the sin, the guilt nature and all this stuff. And, but you know what? You can't debate death. I've never heard one person say, you know what? I don't believe in death because the undeniable fact is each and every one of us will die.

That's the reality. What happens after that depends on if you know Jesus as your savior. All of us are going to meet God for him. Every single person that's ever lived on the face of this planet will meet God. But if it's after you die, you're meeting him for the first time, it will not go well.

If you meet him here through Jesus Christ, it'll be a blessed reunion. Verse 13 says, for until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Death was still taking place even when the law hadn't been given in the fullest sense of the law through Moses.

The new living translation maybe adds clarity. It says, yes, people sinned even before the law was given and there was no law to break since it had not yet been given. See, even from Adam to Moses, even though there was no law given because the law was given through Moses, still death was raining.

Why? Because of the fall of Adam. Man fell and inherited this sinful nature and that was passed along like a disease, if you will. Death and sin still happened. It's an amazing thing, though, when we begin to take on the nature of Christ. See, you don't have to live under the curse, under the penalty, under the bondage, under the power of sin. That's what the gospel is all about.

You can live the new life. Let's read on. Verse 14, nevertheless, death rained from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of him who was to come. Through Adam, through his sin came death and physical death brought spiritual death.

Spiritual death. Now, understand, too, notice it's talking about the death rained from Adam to Moses. So it's dealing with that time when the law hadn't been given and yet sin was still there. Verse 15, but the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God than the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. So simply put, friend, through Adam came sin, came death.

Through Jesus comes grace and life. You don't have to make a decision about your Adamic nature is the word we use sometimes. That's already been given to you.

You already have that. You were born the first time with that Adamic nature, but there's a decision involved in being born again. That's being born that's being born of the spirit. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven and I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life and I've done wrong things. I have sinned and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days in Jesus name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If this was your first time praying that prayer with Pastor David, we would love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ. Also, if you've been blessed by Cross the Bridge Ministries, would you consider supporting us with a financial gift? When you call with your gift, make sure to ask them about this month's special offer entitled, Know Your Future, Be Immune to Terrorism.

This insightful teaching will fill you with hope and also help you understand the truth about Islam. Donate today and we'll send you a CD or DVD copy right away as a way of saying thank you for your support. Our number is 877-458-5508. That's 877-458-5508 or go online to CrossTheBridge.com. While there, take a moment to sign up for David's free email devotional or browse our large library of teachings. Again, our website is CrossTheBridge.com. Thank you for listening and we hope you'll join us again next time as we continue to Cross the Bridge.