Royalty: Reigning In Life

So good to be back. I was here last Sunday, but some of you know, most of you know, we went to Argentina to celebrate our 30th anniversary. And it was amazing. And people were like, why Argentina?

And I was like, why not? I'm a meat eater, right? I'm not a vegetarian. I'll never pretend to be one.

And Argentina, like their claim to fame is beef. They raised a lot of beef. They raised, yeah. We had steak every single day for eight days in a row.

Like, I come back on a steak drunk. Like, I had to like, replant. I had to go back and eat vegetables just to catch up when I got home. It was so good, you can eat steak for like eight bucks.

Like, it's just everywhere. So really good, really good meat, really good time. We took our kids with us. And this sounded like a great idea six months ago.

They're like, hey, it's our 30th anniversary. Let's take all of our, hey, we have three kids. And I have a son-in-law. So let's take the four kids with us to celebrate our lives together.

Well, about three days in, I looked at her. I'm like, what were we thinking? Like, I said, it's hard enough. Me and you not arguing?

Just the two of us. But you throw the kids into me. Like, I had to become a pastor, a counselor. I had to become a referee, a disciplinarian.

Like, all the stuff that I don't want to do on vacation, I had to do all that while we were gone. But we made it. I got to see a lot of good sites. I think the most interesting thing I learned here after 30 years, I learned something about Kristen.

I know you guys want to know what it is. I learned something. I didn't know. You want to know.

Oh, this is great. So, you know, 30 years and the kids are like, you know, mom, dad, you guys have had your ups and downs. You've argued, you fought, you've been good. But mom, what is it that made you never get a divorce?

Like, why didn't you ever divorce dad? He's a knucklehead. And I'm like, I don't want to know this. Like, it's important.

And without missing a beat, Kristen says, well, to be honest with you kids, I was always afraid the judge would give me custody of you guys. And I didn't want to risk it. Yes. So that's what kept us together in the early years with her fear of custody.

What keeps us together today? The grace of God, I guess. Oh, I'd have to get the dogs now. That would be, yeah, I don't want the dogs.

Well, they can be all yours now. But now God's blessed us with 30 years from great. We're on too many more. And I've never even been married much longer than we have.

So good to be back. Good to set back into our series on royalty. I really wanted to touch today on the verse in Romans 5 17, which talks about reigning in life. And when I left, I told Seth, I said, I really want to seek the Lord on why.

Here's the question I posted myself. Is why do I see more Christians straining in life than raining in life? And if we are supposed to be reigning in life, bringing kingly influence to situations and circumstances, and why don't we see more of that? Where's the disconnect?

And so we're singing this song this morning. I don't know why we're singing it. But the first one, it says that I was a beggar. And now I'm royalty.

I was in bondage. I think it says, and now I'm running free. I wrote this down this morning. I felt like I never got an answer to the question.

But as I was just writing this morning, I felt like God just kind of gave me the answer. He says, because you're positionally kings, but you're practically slave. That positionally, people will say, oh, yes, we're royalty. We are kings on the earth.

Like, positionally, that's true. But practically, you're not living it out. That positionally, you're accepting it from a mental ascent. And you might believe it to a certain point.

But practically, we're not seeing the results of that. So I really want to look at this verse today. I want to just teach a little bit on Romans 5 17. And then I'm going to attempt to read verses 6 through 21 of Romans 5.

Because you need to hear the whole passage in context, at least to the best of my ability to explain it to you. So let's read this verse. We'll start. Let's just read it together.

Let me read it to you. And then I want to read it a second time. It says, if by one man's offense, now we're going to find out later this talking about Adam, if by one man's offense, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Christ Jesus. Let's read that together.

For if by the one man's offense, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. You see where it says much more? You ever heard the saying, there's only two certain tinties in life? Anybody know what they are?

Death and taxes. Who said that? Benjamin Franklin was credited with saying that. Matter of fact, in 1789, November of 1789, somebody asked him, hey, how do you think the Constitution will hold up?

And as one of our founding fathers, he writes out, he says, I believe we wrote a good draft. I believe the Constitution will be durable, and it'll stand the test of time. But there's nothing certain other than death and taxes. And five months later, he died.

So the reality of that, he died in April of 1890. So we say that a lot. There's nothing more certain. There's nothing certain except death and taxes.

But this verse actually disagrees with that. Is death a certainty? If Jesus does not return and rapture the bride, we will die. You will physically die.

That's a certainty. Whether you pay taxes or not, I try to pay as few as possible, but somehow I always pay. So that's a certainty too, to some degree. But death is a certainty.

But here's what the apostle Paul says. He says, if by one man's offense, Adam, because of Adam's sin, if because of one man's offense, death reign, how effective is death's reign in the life of people in the earth? It's certain. He says, if by one man's offense, death reign, what are those two next words?

Much more to a greater degree. It's even more of a certainty. So here's something more certain than dying. That you should be reigning in life is more certain than death.

Wow. Like if that doesn't excite you, here's something more certain than death. It's that you will reign in life. It says, but what do you have to do in order to reign in life?

It says much more of those who receive. You have to receive two things. I want to talk to you about those two things today. It says much more of those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one capital O, Jesus Christ.

So that through Jesus, because of what he has done, you can actually reign in life to a degree that's more certain that one day you're going to die. And so I pose a question to myself. Then why, if God's word says it's true, why do I see more people straining in life than reigning in life? And so I believe when you leave here today, this one's truth.

I told Seth this before church today. This truth has so changed my life. It has been the one thing in the last 10 years, maybe 15 years, that has radically changed my walk with the Lord. It has radically changed how I face situations, how I deal with things, how I approach issues in life.

This does not say that you're not going to have problems. It doesn't say that. The word reign, if we go to the next slide, the word reign means to be king. It means to exercise Kingly power or to exercise Kingly influence.

So here's what happens is every issue and every situation in life is one or two things is happening. Either it's influencing you or you're influencing it. And I think more times than not, we let circumstances and situations and people and attitudes and sin and issues and habits influence us. But God's word says we should be influencing them.

We should be bringing a royalty, a kingship, an authority, an influence that's otherworldly and releasing it into the situations or here on earth. Tell him I said hello. Oh, that's okay. That might be God, you might want to answer that.

He might be saying, hey, I want you to listen to this. I want you to listen even more. So here this isn't amplified. Let me read the student amplified.

The next slide says this. It says if because of one man's trespass, laughs or offense, death reign through that one. Much, here's that much more purely, more surely, more certain than death. Well, those who receive God's overflowing grace on Meredith's favor, the free gift of righteousness and the free gift of righteousness, putting them into right standing with himself, reign as kings in life.

I like that. The other one says reign in life. This one says reign as kings in life because to reign means to exercise Kingly influence, to bring the influence of a king into a situation of life through the one man, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one. So to reign in life is this.

To reign in life means that you bring Kingly influence over sin and bad habits. To reign in life brings that you bring Kingly influence to sickness and disease. That you bring Kingly influence to condemnation and depression. That you bring Kingly influence to fear and doubt.

That you bring Kingly influence to situations of poverty and lack. See, it doesn't mean that those things won't occur. It doesn't mean that you're not going to have seasons in life where you deal with things. That you go through sickness.

That you go through times of lack. That happens. I love that a teacher that I really love, his name's Bill Johnson. He says it this way.

He says, faith does not deny the existence of a problem. But faith does deny the problem to have influence in my life. See, a lot of times we go around and we might hear a teaching that says, oh, don't say cancer. If you say cancer, you might get cancer.

Don't say it. If you speak it, it'll happen. No, I buy that too. I believe words have power.

I believe all that. But here's the thing. A lot of times we take that so far afield that we are afraid to admit what reality is. If I'm sick, I tell my wife, hey, you know what?

I feel a certain way. I feel depressed. I feel sick. I have a situation at work where I don't have enough to do what we need to do.

Now, faith is not like it's not showing a lack of faith to admit that. But what I don't do is I don't allow that situation to influence me. See, if I allow the enemy to influence me, then who's actually setting my agenda? He is.

And so what we do, we do the opposite. We bring the reality of his world into the situation. And we bring heavenly solutions, heavenly answers, heavenly results not only into our own lives, but also into the lives of other people. So it says this.

It says that you'll reign in life. Those who receive will reign. So two things I want to talk about quickly this morning. The abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness.

And after we just talk about these for a few minutes, I want to read Romans 5 and its entire context. So the abundance of grace. So let's just stay here for a minute. The abundance of grace.

So a lot of times when we think of grace, we think of unmerited favor, undeserved favor. We read the amplified version and even said, I think it said undeserved or unearned favor. That is the correct definition of grace, but it's limited. Because grace is not just undeserved favor.

Grace is, you can't earn it, you don't deserve it. It's God giving you something that you don't deserve. Opposite of mercy, mercy is God withholding something bad that we do deserve. A lot of times people get those confused, but grace is God's pre-gift.

It's unearned, undeserved, divine favor of God where he's giving you something. And a lot of times we will limit grace to just the forgiveness of sin. And why that's important because we're going to talk about it today, it doesn't just only apply to forgiveness of sin. That grace actually enables me to not only live right, but it enables me to reign in life and enables me to actually bring these solutions and influence into situations beyond the fact that I've been forgiven.

And so what happens is if you don't get the foundation right, if I don't understand grace as it pertains to my forgiveness, I can't actually receive the abundance, that word abundance, means overflow or beyond a fixed measure. So there's actually grace that goes beyond whatever needs you're ever going to have. It's beyond fixed measure. It exceeds anything you could ever try to put against it.

It's always got more to give. And so that there's more grace available as we step into things. But here's the thing, that word received, it's a continual. We have to continually be receiving this.

Like what happens a lot of times? Oh yeah, I know that. We move on and we forget about it. And we forget that God has more grace and more grace.

Like it's unending. And then he says the abundance of grace and also the gift, what do you do to get a gift? Well, if you're my wife, she'd drop hints. She says I've got more lives when I preach.

I'm like, it's being evangelistically expanded. I think we'll call it that. But when God has a gift for us, in this case, the gift, the right. The gift, the word gift, actually, it means free gift.

It's the word that means free. It's gratuitous in nature. And that he gives it to us. And so when I give me a gift, what I do?

Receive it. And once I receive it, what do I have to do to hold on to it? This isn't a trick question. Evie, would you give me a gift of what do you got?

I look in your purse. I'm just getting out of looking. That's a dangerous place. Any of you men ever look in your wife's purse?

I don't know how you find anything in there. It's just like this big mess. There's no little flots and shelves. It's just a big pocket.

But if Evie gives me this clicker as a gift, and she says, I want you to have this, and I receive it, what do I have to do to hold on to it? I don't have to go. Are you sure I can have this? Can I keep this?

Can I still have that? Can I do something to keep? What happens a lot of times is when we receive the gift of righteousness, we try to maintain righteousness. And what happens when you try to maintain something, you actually lose the thing that God has given you?

I'm going to show you a scripture on that. So a couple of things on grace are this. It says in Ephesians 1 verse 7. I'm going to give you a few verses.

Write these down, study them out. It says, in him we have redemption through his blood. Now it tells us what redemption means to buy back or to purchase. In him we have redemption through his blood, and he spells it out, the forgiveness of what?

Since. It says, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of his sins, according to, in proportion to, what? The riches of his grace. So when we think about grace as it pertains to the forgiveness of sins, how much forgiveness do we have?

Okay, let me ask you a different way. How much grace does God have? A bunch. Yeah, he's got a whole bunch of grace.

We said it was the what? Abundance of grace. It exceeds a fixed measure. All going to say in Romans 5 verse 20, he says that, where sin abounded grace abounded more.

And so there's never a draw on grace that actually ever leaves it empty. So he says that we have forgiveness according to, in proportion to, equal to, the riches, the depths, or the wealth of his grace. So what happens a lot of times is, and this is like the ground floor, because if I don't understand how forgiven I am, I'm always going to go back and try to get reforgiven. And it's actually a trick of the enemy.

Like if the enemy cannot keep you from accepting Jesus, his next attack is going to be to keep you ineffective. And if I spend my entire life trying to get forgiven and stay forgiven, I'll never actually be effective for the King of the God. Because I'm going to be consumed with trying to get forgiven. So here's what the grace of God does.

Think about this. Anybody ever gone to God and said, God, I messed up again. I did it again. And you know what he says?

Again. I don't even know what you're talking about. Because I have no record of it. Like we remember the sin we committed five days ago, five years ago, or even 20 years ago.

And we're like, God, I did it again. He's like, did what again? Because I don't know what you're talking about. He says, under the new covenant, I will be merciful to your unrighteousness and your trespasses and sins, I will remember no more.

That it wasn't that God forgot about them, because he remembered every one the day that Jesus got crucified. He took every one of your sins. So here's the thing. He knew all the sins you'd ever commit.

Does anybody in here know all the sins they're ever going to commit? Because you haven't committed them all yet, right? Because we're all going to probably mess up. I'll probably tell another lie before I'm done preaching today.

But see, God knew about it. Let me just pause and say, grace does not give you a liberatory to license you to sin. Actually, grace gives you the power to not sin. Who was I saying?

Huh? Yeah. I just lost my friend's thought. I hate to be at 53.

Now, there's another lie. OK. Yeah, you can't. So when you go to God, and he says, you know, he's like, I don't know what you're talking about.

Because he actually knew outside of space and time, he knew every sin, not only, see, we remember backwards forward. He remembers eternity forward to eternity backward. And so he actually knew every sin your ever would commit, are committing right now, or ever will commit. And he took that and punished Jesus for that.

And so there's no sin not only that he doesn't know about, but there's no sin that you haven't already been forgiven of. He actually forgave your future sin. John says this in John chapter 2. He says, my little children, so he's writing to believers.

He says, my little children, I write this so that you sin not. So grace is never an excuse to sin. He says, I write this so you don't sin. But if you do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Christ Jesus, the right.

It says that he is the propitiation, which means complete satisfaction. He's the propitiation for our sin, but not our sin only, but for the sins of the entire world. And so even when people go to hell because they don't receive Jesus, they go to hell with their sins forgiven, because he's already paid for them. But they haven't received it.

The transaction's not finalized, but the payment has been made. And so that we have the forgiveness of sins according to the riches, the abundance, the overflow, the wealth, and the grace. The second thing is, on the next slide, it says in 1 Peter 4, 10, it says, as each one has received a gift. So minister, oh, this says, employ it, and serving one another as good stewards of the multi-faceted.

Multi-faceted, multi-faceted grace of God. So grace is not just for the forgiveness of sins. Grace actually gives you the ability that God says, as each one has received a gift. That's a grace gift.

So minister to one another, or this word says, employ it to serve one another. So minister to one another as good stewards, not just of grace, but of the manifold or multi-faceted. Anybody have a diamond ring on? Anybody want to give that to me for a gift?

OK. But if you give me a gift, I paid for that one. That's the thing. But if you look at a diamond ring, what do you see as you look into that diamond?

Fascists. And so a lot of times we see the very top of the diamond, which is just one cut. But he's saying the cut of God's grace, like this gem, has faceted upon, faceted upon, faceted upon, faceted. And the reason that's interesting, because you remember the verse in James 1, 2, it says, count it all joy when you fall into manifold or diverse trial.

Manifold or diverse trials is the same word here that talks about manifold grace. And do you realize that God has actually given some of us a gift or all of us a gift? He has given every single person that has accepted him a gift to be used as a good steward in somebody else's life, that he has a multi-faceted grace in you to take care of a multi-faceted trial in somebody else's life. There's grace in Eevee.

I know it's hard to believe. You might look at Eevee and say, there's no grace there. I'm just going to do lots of grace. I'm just going to say, well, hey, I've got a shift from Christim.

But you put yourself in. You might look at them. You're like, oh, that person. But no, you need to look at them that they might have the grace that you need for what you're going through.

Because God has equipped the body that way. We all need each other. And if I don't learn how to operate like a king and bring the influence and grace in my life to you, you might be stuck on an island when I'm holding the answer to your situation. The last thing that says in this, the next slide, it says that I like the New King James.

It says, great grace and great power. It says in great, what's this one say? I put it in NASB. In great power, the apostles were getting testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And great grace, this says abundant grace was where? Upon them. Do you realize that when we operate, that word great power is Dunamis, miracle working power, that the fact that we have been enabled, God has equipped us with miracle working power, that's grace. And it says that the apostles, their testimony, they gave witness.

They witnessed about Jesus being resurrection, and they did it with miracle. And the reason they did it with great miracles is because they were equipped with what? Great grace. Do you think you could bring Kingly influence into a situation in life if you learned how to operate in the miraculous?

First, you've got to believe it's still for today. If God's grace changed in the last 2,000 years. So if God's grace was demonstrated in great miracles, then why can't his grace be demonstrated in great miracles today? It's the same grace.

It's just flowing through different people. See, the grace that God has for you is so that you know you're completely forgiven. He has grace for you that somebody else needs in their life. He's got grace for you to operate and bear witness to his name and witness and demonstrate it with miracle working power.

That's all grace. He says, you can operate in life if you receive the abundance of grace. We're just scratching the surface. The other part it says and the gift of righteousness.

Here's what happens a lot of times with grace. Remember I said if Edie gives me that thing? Can I go back after I have it? And I'm start like, let's give it to me again.

Oh, I still have it. Edie, will you please give this to me? He gave it to me. But we do this with God.

That song said that I was a beggar and now I'm royalty. But what happens is once we become royalty, we go back to being beggars. You remember the story of Moses when he leads the children out of Egypt? You remember that story, right?

They leave, they go several days out of Egypt. And all of a sudden the chariots are coming and they're back to other stuck at where. The Red Sea. And here they are.

Here comes the Egyptians and there at the Red Sea and the children of Israel are freaking out. And what's Moses saying? He says, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. The Lord will fight for you.

That's all true. And then what's he do after that? You can read this in Exodus chapter 14 verses 15 and 16. The next verse says, the Lord says to Moses, why are you crying to me?

So here's what he does. He makes this prophetic declaration. The Lord will fight for you. Stand and see the salvation of the Lord.

And what must have happened? Oh God, what am I going to do? Please help me, please help me Lord. And God's saying, why are you crying to me?

He says, go tell the people to march forward. Take the rod that I gave you, stretch your hand over the water and walk. See so often we have what God's giving us and we're waiting on God to move and God's saying, shut up and do it because I've already given it to you. See, we're, we have it, but then we revert back to not realizing what we have and we're asking God to do what he's equipped us to do and he's saying, quick crying, open your mouth, stretch out your rod, use your authority, say something, do something, walk in the authority I've given you, quit crying.

Like there's no participation trophies. You gotta do something. Oh, I actually wanted to ask Evie, like when you were comparing Fort Hill and Allegheny to Heaven and Hell, I just wanna clarify that Fort Hill is Heaven and Allegheny is Hell. Is that what you were, you're not, well you said we're gonna like rock the gates of Hell just like Fort Hill, oh okay.

Side bar, swirl. So here's what happens. When you receive the gift of righteousness, it's a gift, right? What did you do to receive it?

Nothing. But what happens when you try to maintain what you were given by grace, you actually lose the thing that you were given. Do you remember, if the sass said last week about the kingdom of God kind of being an upside down backwards kingdom that you become first by going last, that you go up by going down, that you only keep what you can give away? Look at this verse.

Now we probably should read all of the Ephesians 5, but it says this and verse 5, where it says he's talking about believers that are going back under the law and doing things by effort to maintain their righteousness. He's not talking about people that are receiving righteousness for the first time because they're already believers. He says this, you've become estranged. Now you might look at your, that's not strange.

They're not weird, they're estranged. What does that mean? As strange as like if Chris and I are married and I leave the house, are we still married? Guess what I'm not enjoying the benefits of marriage.

I can only enjoy benefits of marriage when I'm living in the house. And he says that you have become estranged from, separated from, severed from, the Greek word there actually means that you have literally unemployed Christ. You actually put Christ on the unemployment line. Because you have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by the law, you have fallen from grace.

See, falling from grace is not falling back into sin or falling into sin for the first time. Falling from grace is actually trying to maintain the very thing that God's already given you by your own effort. And when you do that, you actually eliminate and separate yourself from the life source that you need to bring influence into the world. You guys ever hear Solomon?

Solomon's name meant peace. Solomon's father was King David. King David wanted to build a temple, but King David couldn't because he was a man of bloodshed. God says you're not gonna be able to temple, but your son Solomon will.

And after Solomon becomes king, he has an encounter with God. And he says, I want wisdom. And God says, because you ask for wisdom and not riches and wealth and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I'm gonna give you all that too. First Kings chapter five, Solomon says this.

He says, God has given me rest on every side. Solomon actually, because of the wisdom that God gave him had kings from other countries coming to him to hear his wisdom. We know the story of the Queen of Sheba, the King. She said, everything I heard about you, the half of it's only true because words fail to describe.

It actually leaves me breathless when I see the display of God's grace and wisdom on your life in action. And it's, but so Solomon, because of his wisdom, the grace, the favor that God put on him, actually had rest on every side, no fighting, no attacks, nothing. But what was Solomon's downfall? It said women, man, it always is women.

It says that Solomon loved many women. Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines, or vice versa, I don't remember which, but he has 1,000 women, I mean, wives. And it says that he married women from all of the countries that God told him not to. And it says, in first Kings chapter 11, it says when he was old, those women that he married actually drew him away from his love of the Lord and he built high places and he even worshiped other gods because of the women he had married.

Here's what's happened. Why did kings marry daughters of other kings to make a confederacy, right, for protection? They actually would marry a daughter of another king here and a daughter of another king there and they would come into agreement, hey, we're never gonna go to war. But guess what Solomon didn't have?

He didn't have any wars. He was at rest on every side. And what happened, Solomon tried to maintain by effort what he already had by grace. And God actually took the kingdom from him.

And he said, but because of your father, David, I won't take it from you, but I'm gonna take it from your son. We do the exact same thing. We have all these things that Jesus has paid for that we have by grace. And actually when we go out and try to maintain by effort, Solomon's marrying, marrying, marrying, marrying, to actually hold onto what God had already favored him with.

And when we try to hold onto and maintain righteousness by effort, we actually separate ourselves from the very one that gives us the ability to bring those wisdom and creative ideas and solutions and miracles into a situation. Relations five one says, stand fast, therefore, in the liberty in which Christ has made you free. Be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage. Like don't go back into the thing that you came out of.

You're already here, stand here, stay here. Righteousness is not effort, righteousness is right, standing. It's the ability to stand before a holy God, innocent, guilt, as fall as like, as if he never sinned. Grace does this, grace gives me the ability to see my past the way God sees.

I should be able to walk into a room and no matter who comes in, I should never experience shame. If you stand in front of anybody and experience shame, you haven't received the abundance of grace. You may be of received grace for forgiveness, but you've not let the grace of God take that shame over because he's already declared you not guilty. He's already forgiven you of that.

So there should never be shame for anything you've ever done if you've already received the abundance of grace. But the enemy will use that thing to keep you trapped where you're at, instead of bringing kingly influence and reigning in life. All right, we're gonna go through this quick. You guys okay?

For when we were without strength and due time Christ died for the ungodly, for scarcely will a righteous man with, for scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man, when somebody even dared to die. But God demonstrates his love toward us in that why we were still sinners Christ died for us. So it says that maybe somebody would die for a good person, but God demonstrated the fact that he loved you, that he died for you when you were what? Not a sinner, what to say?

Still a sinner. Now if I said to you, I was over here yesterday and I'm looking at four, I'll graduate from four till 1988 and I said, hey, when I was still in high school, what does that imply? I'm not where? I'm not in high school when?

Today. Or if I said, hey, when I was still single, what does that apply? It applies, I've been married, I am married. If I said, hey, when I was still a virgin, I was kidding.

But it would imply what? If I said, hey, when I was still a virgin, it'd mean I'm not one now. And hopefully not, I'm married. We have kids, yeah, I had three times.

At least, still, why did I say that? Abundance of grace, abundance of grace. If this says, when we were still sinners, what does that have to mean? We're no longer sinners once we receive what Jesus did.

See, I talk to so many people, and I'm obsessed with that. He's not even going to survey lately. Like if you ask people, hey, are you a sinner, right away they'll say, yeah. Don't say, well, then you're not saying.

Because your individual actions of sin are not what made you a sinner or make you a sinner. And we're going to see the answer to that in a few more verses. He says that God died for you when you were a sinner. Well, if I were a sinner, what am I now?

Well, not a sinner, yeah. The next verse gives us the answer. Next slide. It says much more, having now been what?

So I were as that English. I were a sinner, but now I am justified. Justified means declared righteous. So when I was a sinner, Jesus died for me.

But once I received what He gave me, I am now justified. See, sinner means I have a sentence. Justified means I don't. Like I've got no damnatory sentence on my life anymore because Jesus took it.

And God said, you're completely sin free. He says much more now having been justified in his blood, by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. Or if we, when we were enemies, which means what? We're not now.

When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God. That means made friends through the death of his son. Much more, there's that much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only that, but we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom now we have received the reconciliation.

So see what happened to Re 2 Corinthians 5. It says that God was in Jesus reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their sins unto them. Which means this, that when God sent Jesus, He put all the world sin on Jesus. He imputed it, put it on his account.

And it said that God was in Jesus, not imputing the sin to them, but putting it on Jesus so that He could restore mankind to friend relations with him. So that God has reconciled you. Like He's already made the reconciliation, but you still have to receive it. And He says that God's reconciled you, and much more than that, you've already received it.

He says therefore, verse 12, just as through one man, sin entered the world and death through sin. And thus, that's spread to all men because all sin. So because of Adam, Adam sinned, because of Adam sinned, death and death became terminal, it spread to all men. And how did Adam's sin and how did his death spread to you?

How did you receive it? Bloodline, be important. Like did you do anything to earn death? You were born that way because of what?

Adam did. Adam sinned, Adam died, and because Adam died, it was terminally spread to everybody. It was an epidemic. Every single person that was ever born, billions and billions and billions of people infected with death.

Not because of anything they did. They didn't do anything. They didn't deserve it, but they got it by birth. It says until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there's no law.

It just means that if there's no law, you can't get a ticket. If there's no speed sign, like a cop can't give me a ticket for speeding if there's no speed limit. Now, if I drive too fast, are there still consequences to driving too fast? Yes, there's consequences to sin, but sin is not imputed where there's no law.

So before the law came, the consequence was there. Death was there, but it wasn't put on people's account. Once the law came for 1,500 years, now it's put on people's individual accounts. Once Jesus came, he fulfilled the law, brings in grace, and now sin was imputed to him, and it's no longer put on your account again.

It's put on his. And the fact that it's put on his allows what's on his to be put on you. My sin on him, his righteousness on me. And God says, you're now justified.

And you're no longer a sinner. It says, nevertheless, death reigns. So here's the consequence. Nevertheless, death reign from Adam Moses, 1st 14, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who was a type of him who was to come.

But the free gift of him who was to come, I'm sorry, but the free gift is not like the offense. I've got so much writing in my Bible. I can't even see the word anymore. For if by one man's offense, many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, the bounded too many.

Here's what he started to tell. He started to draw this comparison. We have Adam, and then we have Jesus, who is the last Adam. Like there's no more.

And it says that if by one man's sin, death spread to all men, now by one man's obedience, life, and justification can come to all men. It's available to everybody. But you didn't do anything for the death. You didn't do anything for the life.

You have to be born that way. Verse 16, and the gift is not like that which came through the one you sin for judgment, which came from the offense, result in condemnation. Adam's sin brings judgment, brings condemnation. But the free gift, which came from many offenses, result in justification.

So the free gift results in justification. The offense results in condemnation. Verse 17, for if by one man's offense, death rained through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through one Jesus Christ. Therefore, as through one man's offense, judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one man's righteous act, the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of the life.

Man, there is so much in there. Like I could probably go in for hours. Because I won't. I promise you, I'm going to let you out here.

Because Adam, because Adam sinned, you were born with the effects of his sin. You didn't do anything to earn it. You can't do anything good enough to change the fact that you were born a sinner. Once you're reborn based on what one man Jesus did, and you receive now justification, not because of anything you did, but because of what he did, you can't do anything to change that.

You didn't earn it either way. You didn't deserve it either way. You got it by birth. Let me read you verse 19.

We'll probably wrap up with this. It says, by one man's disobedience, many were made what? So how were you made a sinner? Yeah, you were made a sinner because of what Adam did.

You're made righteous because of what Jesus did. I was watching my dog this week. Not that I liked dogs, but I put up with him. I was just thinking, how we house train these dogs.

Like we've got Grayson and Willow. And I can say, sit. And they sit. And I can say shake.

And they shake. I can say lay down. Lay down. When Willow needs to go to the bathroom, she goes and rings the bell.

We have a little bell on the door, and we let her out. And so we have these dogs that are house trained. And we actually teach them to do things just like humans do. But the minute you turn their back, they're sniffing each other's butt.

Now, we don't do that. But dogs do that. Why does Willow and Grayson go back to doing that? Because that's their nature.

See, we can train them to do all the right things, but eventually they'll go back to their nature. And I just felt like God telling me this week is that there are a lot of people in the church that are house trained sinners. That they've never actually received Jesus. They've never actually been declared righteous.

They still have the old nature. They've just been capital H, house trained. They know how to pray. They know how to read.

They know how to witness. They know all the right actions. But they haven't had a change of nature. And eventually they go back to the nature that's still in them.

This opposite's true is when you get a new nature, you have the DNA of Jesus in you. Like you have his blood lying in you. You have his righteousness in you. John says, it says, as he is, so are we in this world.

That the same way Jesus is right now, exalted, seated at the right hand of the foot, on that way, on the inside. And no matter what bad actions I do on the outside, I can't change the nature that's in me. See, the nature that's in me makes me want to live right. But John says this.

He says, everyone that has this hope in him purifies himself as he is pure. That the fact that I have the righteousness of God in me actually makes me want to live righteous. Like if you're living a certain way and you're living unrighteously and you're in that way for a long time, I beg to examine your life if you've ever had a nature change. Because if you truly had to change in nature, you wouldn't continue in the thing that you're in.

You might say, I was born that way. You were, you were born that way. That's why you need reborn. I don't care where you're at, I don't care what you're doing, what you've been in the middle of, you need a nature change.

You need to be reborn. Jesus said it says that which is born in flesh is flesh, that which is born in spirit of spirit. No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water, natural birth, and of the spirit, spiritual birth. Do not marvel to you that I say to you, you must be born again.

Like you've got to be born again. And when you're get born again, you actually have the thing in you that you need to live the way that you need to live. Man, but you got to receive it. I can't force it on you.

I'll tell you this, it's changed my life. When I realized that I am the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ, you can't take it from me. Like that's who I am. My actions, good or bad, do not determine my identity.

Like my identity is determined by my birth. I am born a new creation. How old things have passed away. Be old, all things are become new.

And all things are of God. Everything in me is God. And you're not gonna take that away from me. Well, I'm telling a fib, I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

If you're sleeping around, I challenge you to do this. When you hop in a sack with somebody you shouldn't be in a sack with, I want you to look at them and say, I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I guarantee you, it will change what you're doing. All of a sudden, you're gonna be like, you know what, this isn't who I am.

This isn't how God designed me. See people say, we need more preaching on sin. No, we need more preaching on righteousness. We need more preaching on telling people who you are in Christ.

Jesus says this, he says, when the Holy Spirit is come, he will convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment, of sin because they don't believe on me. The only sin that will send you to hell is the sin of unbelief. See, he's already paid for all of them. So the Holy Spirit convicts you, that word means to convince you that you need to believe on Jesus because if you don't believe on Jesus, you're gonna go to hell.

He says he'll convict the world of sin because they don't believe on me. He said he'll convict you of righteousness because I'm not with you any longer and of judgment because the prince of this world is judged. The Holy Spirit's job of convicting you is not of your sin but of your righteousness. He will convict you of righteousness because I, Jesus, am not with you anymore.

Jesus says I'm going away. See, Jesus could only physically be at one place at one time. He could only say to one woman, let me go over here. One woman caught in adultery, I don't condemn you, go and send no more.

But the Holy Spirit can tell a billion people simultaneously that you're not condemned. And he says, it's to your benefit that I go away because if I don't go away, he won't come. But when he comes, he will convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. And the Holy Spirit, when you're living in sin, if you're safe is whispering in your ear, you are righteous.

You're not like this, you're better than this. Get out of that mess. I've got a better plan for you. I've done.

Let's go. Let's pray. I know, I know there's some people here that need to reevaluate your nature. You had a new birth.

See, when you know you've been born again, no one will convince you otherwise. If you don't know, you need to know. Like you need to know beyond a shadow of a doubt. I have received Jesus.

He's made me new. I am the righteousness of God in Christ. Like, yeah, I mess up. But I didn't earn my righteousness.

I can't maintain it. When I try to maintain it, I forfeit it, separate myself from the very life that I need. And I can't bring solutions into the world that need to be brought. Like you need it.

You need to be saved. You need to be set free. You need to know that you know that your sin is forgiven once and for all time. Like quit looking at your path.

See your past the way God sees it. Don't ever let somebody walk in a room that makes you feel ashamed because God has paid for that thing.