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The River ChurchSermons

Righteousness

The Power of One

Randy Johnson · Sunday, 29 June 2025 · Romans 5:12-21 · 36:53 · 5,671 words

Romans S10 · 5:12-21

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In the series on Romans, the pastor examines the “Power of One,” showing how one man, Adam, brought sin and death to all, and how one man, Jesus, brings salvation. He stresses that everyone is born with a sin nature and needs a Savior, and that belief plus repentance receives the free gift of eternal life. The sermon invites those who have not trusted Christ to accept His gift today, and encourages believers to live thankfully, using communion and baptism as reminders of Christ’s work.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

adam 26 gift 27 tense 10 virgin 5 offer 14 tree 11 genesis 9 death 20 sin 45 martin 5 free 15 memorize 5

Topics

Sin 6 Salvation 5 Grace 3 The Gospel 2 Prayer 2 Baptism 1 Faith 1

Scripture referenced 25

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 5 2:18 Romans 8 4:13 Romans 8 4:18 Romans 5 4:59 Romans 5:12-14 5:47 Genesis 2:16 6:59 Genesis 2 7:13 Genesis 3:6 8:11 Genesis 3 8:45 Genesis 3 9:32 Romans 3:23 12:15 Romans 6:23 13:14 Romans 7:13 13:30 Romans 5 15:44 Romans 5:15-17 17:12 Romans 5 17:19 Romans 5:15-17 17:19 Matthew 26:36-46 18:45 Matthew 26:36-46 19:11 Matthew 26:36-46 19:28 Matthew 26:36-46 20:01 Ephesians 2:8 25:54 Romans 6:23 26:26 Romans 5:18-19 27:47 1 Corinthians 15:22 28:49

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

All right. Amen. Well, good morning. Good, good. I am Pastor Randy, or just Doc, or I think this

week it was often just Coach. It was in the kids area and doing games, and it was just,

this is Coach. All right. I can take that. We'll do that. You may have called me that before also,

right? Coach, yes. Thank you. So thank you for being here. It's hot in here, so I brought a

hanky in case my eyes start sweating. It's exciting to be here, by the way, and it's been

exciting to be here for the last two years. Right now we're in a series, the Book of Romans. We're

in week 10 of 32. I do want to follow up on Pastor Caleb's statement about the fair.

How cool is it that the Oakland County Fair reaches out to a church and says, would you be

willing to share the gospel at the fair? And I will tell you from being on the elder team before,

they contacted a couple other churches, and we've reached out to other churches, so we're not the only

one. And I've heard churches say, well, but you don't take offering there. And we're like, no,

we share the gospel. But you're giving up a Sunday of not getting offering. We think God will take

care of that. What do you think? You want to be on that? And so I highly encourage you to come on

out. There are people who are afraid to come into a church building, which, as Caleb mentioned,

could be a garage, right? They're afraid to come in, but the fair they'll go to. And with parking

being free, and they're going to get a ticket for the ride, and they can see all the baby animals and

all those kinds of things. So I encourage you to go there. And it's also cool because, as has been

stated before, you're going to see a lot of believers together with the nine locations, and

people that your kids may know from being at camp together or an all-nighter or whatever,

the interaction, those kinds of things. And so I encourage you to mark down the fair. There will not

be a gathering here that Sunday.

So again, we're in Romans. We're going to be in Romans chapter 5 today. And again, this is week 10

of 32. When it comes to the book of Romans, and just revisiting it again, I want to set the stage

one more time with it. The great preacher, Martin Lloyd-Jones, called the book of Romans

of first importance. And I'd love to have that conversation with you guys, like in a growth

community or something, in a small group, and just say, which book of the Bible do you think

is most important? And I'd love to have that conversation with you guys, like in a growth

community or something, and just say, which book of the Bible do you think is most important?

And where would you go? And, you know, for some, it may be, well, the Gospel of John, you know,

and then others will be, well, everything's stated to start off with in Genesis. And, you know,

you have to, Genesis for everything else, but Martin Lloyd-Jones says it is the book of Romans.

Martin Luther said Romans is really the chief part of the New Testament, and is truly the purest

gospel. It is really not only that every Christian should know it word for word by heart, but also

that he should occupy himself with it every day as a daily bread of the Spirit. And I think that's

soul. We can never read it or ponder over it too much, for the more we deal with it, the more

precious it becomes and the better it tastes. When I first saw that quote, it really jumped out at me

because it's like, yeah, of course you all should have it memorized, is what Martin Luther said. You

know, it's the book of Romans. It's not that long, right? You should all have it memorized, but not

only should you have it memorized, and as I'm reading, I'm like, oh wow, guilty, I don't have

it memorized. But you should read from it every day. And as I'm going through this every day in

Romans, and just realizing how rich it is, I was even in a counseling session this week, and talking

with someone who didn't feel like they deserve God's love. You know people like that? Amazed that

God is willing to love them. I said, why don't you spend some time this week in Romans chapter 8,

and just continue going through Romans 8. So he's saying, Martin Luther's saying, memorize it, spend

time in it every day. John Calvin, when anyone understands this epistle, he has a passage open

to him, to the understanding of the whole scripture. Understand Romans, you'll understand

the Bible. J.I. Packer, all rules in the Bible lead to Romans, and all views afforded by the Bible

are seen most clearly from Romans. And when the message of Romans gets into a person's heart,

there is no telling what may happen. And then John Piper, Romans is the most important theological

Christian work ever written. And so here we're going to go into Romans. Again, I told you it

would be chapter 5, and Pastor Patrick took the first half of the chapter last week, and he said,

and so I'll pick up in verses 12 through 14. I have a three-point outline, just so you're ready

where we're going with it. The title of my message is The Power of One, and the influence that one

can have. And as we go through these verses today, you're getting about eight verses, you're going to

find that the power of one is first an illustration of a negative, of the power of one being Adam,

and the influence he has on all of us because of his sin. But fortunately, he goes into a section

where he's going to talk about the power of one, and he's going to talk about the power of one,

being positive, and that being Jesus, who puts an offering out to all of us of salvation, and that

he's the only one who can do that. And then there'll be a summary of those two going back and

forth, and a little bit of parallelism. So let's start off with Romans 5, 12 through 14.

Therefore, just as sin, and the verses should be up on the screen for you,

or there's Bibles in front of you in those chairs. But therefore, just as sin came into

the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, and death

because all sinned. For sin, indeed, was in the world before the law was given. But sin is not

counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning

was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. I really want

to focus on like two things right here in those first three verses. The idea of one man, and that

word type. That one man, Adam, brought sin into the world.

And we've all sinned because of what happened there. For some of you, this is going to be a

little bit of a review. But for others, maybe the first time you've heard this. And for those who

it's been a review, stay with us, because often as we go to a passage we know very well, it's amazing

how God pulls something out again for us. And so I'm going back to Genesis chapter 2, verses 16 and

17. In Genesis chapters 1 and 2, we have God creating all of earth, the animals, everything.

And then he creates man, and then woman. And right at the start there in Genesis chapter 2,

the very start of the Bible, he puts a command out to Adam. He says,

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying,

You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil

you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Right from

the start, we find out that the consequence of sin, the consequence of not obeying God is death.

And so we see that later and highlighted in Romans. You're going to realize it goes all

the way back to Genesis. And I think about with like the Ten Commandments. And if we really

evaluate our own lives, have we kept the Ten Commandments? And then how we slip with ten.

You know what? Even if it was one commandment, we would fall, right? And that's what happens with Adam

and Eve. They have one, one rule, and they break it. And we see that in Genesis chapter 3, verse 6.

So the woman, Eve, saw the tree was good for food, a delight to the eyes. The tree was desired to make

one wise, and took of its fruit and ate. My grandson is FaceTiming me. How's that for timing?

If anybody should know that I'm in, sorry about that. I don't have my phone with me, but I have

my watch, and that does it to me. I'm going to start back at Genesis 3.

So when the woman saw the tree was good for food, and it was delight to the eyes, and the tree was

to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. And she also gave some to her

husband who was with her, and he ate. She looks at the tree, and we know the serpent's involved

with this. Satan's involved in tempting. And she looks at the tree, and that whole conversation's

one of like questioning. Did God really say? And then she even adds to it. I'm not even allowed to

say. She takes it, and she gives to her husband who's with her, and he willingly, knowing what's

happening, partakes. It's not like, oh, I didn't know it was from that tree. You know, he has no

excuse with it. He knew the command. He broke the command, and the consequence for the command

comes about being death. And in Genesis 3, still in that chapter, if we were to continue on and go

to verses like 14 and 15, we would see that God talks with them and says on how he's going to

provide a Savior. And as we go through the Old Testament, something called,

messianic prophecy, a fancy phrase for saying that a Savior, a Messiah, the Christ, is going to come.

It's prophesied. It's promised ahead of time. It's foretold that he'll come. And we know that

Jesus, who came to earth, lived a perfect life so he could die for our sin. And yes,

they buried him, but he rose again as alive, willing to offer us eternal life. Timothy Keller

says, what does Paul mean by, because all sinned? The Greek verb here for sinned is in the

aorist tense. And I know for most of us, I know a number of you speak other languages too, but for

English, we're basically, what, perfect tense, but you have past tense, present tense, future tense,

and that's all we have. And if you've spent time studying German or something, I'm sure they have

other tenses, of the language would have some other things to talk about. And so the aorist tense that

Timothy Keller's talking about here, he says, the aorist always points to a single past action. So

by using the aorist tense, the aorist always points to a single past action. So by using the aorist

tense, Paul is saying that the whole world, the whole race sinned in one single past action. And so

when Adam and Eve sinned, we actually were there with them sinning, is the way Romans describes it.

We were actually there. But I think it's also fair to say that we are born with sin nature.

And I think in scripture, you've probably heard about the virgin birth and the birth of Jesus,

and that Mary, who, and I want to be careful to understand,

she wasn't a virgin who got pregnant the very first time, you know, being with a man. No,

she was a virgin who, after she was pregnant, was still a virgin. And then after Jesus was born,

her and Joseph then have children together. But the virgin birth is such an important theological

truth because it means Jesus was not born with a sin nature because he was not born of man. He's

not born of sin nature. So then he doesn't sin because if he sinned, then he would have to die

for his own sin. He couldn't die for our sin. And so we do know from scripture, if I were to go to

Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. David even references that

from his mother's womb, he was a sinner. And that we would all, you know, agree with that,

that we know that is true. And if you don't agree with me, you have the right to be wrong. No,

if you don't agree.

Sorry. If you don't agree with me, we do have a sign up for working in the nursery.

And I know those beautiful little ones. I've got to be careful what I say because I have some young

parents here. But you don't have to. And if you, I guess this way, if you don't agree with me and

you have a child, then why did you teach them to sin? Why would you do that as a parent? Why did

you teach them to be so selfish? Why did you teach them for their first word to be mine? Right? We

know they're born. We all have been born with sin. We all have been born with sin. We all have been

born with sin nature. And therefore we need a savior. Romans 6, 23, for the wages of sin is

death. And we have the good part too, right? But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ

Jesus our Lord. But the wages, what we've worked for, we've earned, what we've deserved because

of sin is death. Romans 7, 13 says it this way. Did that which is good then bring death to me?

By no means. It was sin producing death. It's sin that brought death. And that's why we have death

in the world. I saw some lines from Horatius Bonner, the 19th century hymn writer. He says,

"'Twas I that shed the sacred blood. I nailed him to the tree. I crucified the Christ of God.

I joined the mockery." I just thought that was so rich to think through it. I know there's a debate,

you know, did the Romans, did the Jews, who killed Jesus? I did. I did. I did because without him dying,

I don't have the offer of heaven. Anybody else with me? Guilty? A couple of you? Three? Four? Okay,

the rest of you are perfect. Nice. Nice having you here. We are honored to have you with us,

right? No, we know we've all sinned. You know, you may be in here and you've come here for the

reason, whatever the reason is. And as you're processing things, you're like, you know, it's

kind of like the Gandhi statement. If it weren't for Christians, I would become a Christian. You

that Christians think they're better than everybody else. If people have come across that

way to you, I want to apologize because for someone who's truly a Christian, it's the opposite. We

don't feel we're better than anybody else. We know we're not and that we need a Savior who is Jesus

Christ. And therefore, I love the illustration I've read that it was like, we are beggars who

found food going looking for other beggars to tell them where the source is. It's not that we're better

than anyone else or even become better than everybody else. We're people who know that we

need a Savior. In those opening verses, it also talked about Adam as being a type in Romans 5,

12 through 14. Michael Van Lanningham in his commentary said, Paul demonstrates the similarities

between Jesus and Adam. Those similarities being found in the comprehensiveness of the consequences

of the acts of the first and second Adam. When I hear of first Adam and second Adam, I cringe a

little bit because anyone compared to Christ loses, right? And to think of Adam, when I think

of Adam, I think of the sin. I mean, it's just what happened there. So he's the first Adam and

Jesus is the second Adam. I know he's called that. I don't like the phrase, but it's the whole

concept that the comprehensiveness, that Adam's action, and again, the aorist tense, we were there

in essence doing the same action, so we're sinners also. But it affects everyone. And then what Jesus

has done has the opportunity to affect everyone. And we'll get into that moment with that idea

of a gift being offered to us. Evans in his commentary said, we got our physical life from

Adam and we get our spiritual life from the second Adam, Christ. Both Adams give life, but only the

second Adam can give us life that never ends. And that's the one we love, right? Second point goes

from Romans 5, 15 through 17. Again, the power of one and being a positive illustration being of Jesus.

Verses 15 through 17, Romans 5 read,

For if because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will also

receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man,

Jesus Christ. I know there's a lot there, and I'm trying to read it through it, and I'm realizing

for you to try to process that, just maybe catching it for the very first time. And so you need to take

time with scripture and just chew on it for a while. But there's a couple of phrases that jump

out for me in this passage. The first one is one man. That one man is used six times. And then in a

few verses, it's five times. And just those three verses. But talking about one man and the power of

one and what they can do. And here he's telling us that although one man and Adam can bring sin,

and in essence, death, one man, Jesus, brings the opportunity for salvation for all of us.

Matthew 26, verses 36 through 46. When I was talking about Adam, I thought, okay, if we're

talking about Adam bringing that sin into the world, we should look at the passage for that.

But I also want to go to the passage,

about Jesus. Once he leaves from, actually, the Last Supper, the communion table, he goes to a

garden, Garden of Gethsemane, to pray and takes his disciples with him. And I want to read these

11 verses. Again, Matthew 26, verses 36 through 46.

And I want to read these 11 verses. Again, Matthew 26, verses 36 through 46.

And I want to read these 11 verses. Again, Matthew 26, verses 36 through 46.

Realize that Jesus always was, is, and forever will be God. And when he came to earth, he became

100% man while still being 100% God. And I'm okay not fully understanding that, because I'm not God,

nor will I ever be God. And so God being greater than all of us, I don't expect to fully understand

him. How did Jesus come and be 100% man, 100% God? I'm just accepting that as scripture, by faith.

He is God. And so you look at this passage, and you're wondering, what is he struggling here?

And we have a lot of questions here. And we have a lot of questions here. And we have a lot of questions

about him struggling, about going to the cross. And I don't go there. I understand if you do,

and I won't have a debate over this, because it won't be meaningful. I view this as Jesus who came

to earth always knowing his mission, realizing that every morning Jesus woke up saying, today

I'm going to be perfect. I'm not going to say anything wrong, do anything wrong, or even think

anything wrong. Because if I do, I'm then a sinner who can't save the world. So every day he chooses

to be perfect. And I'm not going to say anything wrong, do anything wrong, or even think anything

wrong. So every day he chooses to be perfect. And I'm not going to say anything wrong, do anything wrong,

He has a mission in place. He's come. It's been talked about for thousands of years that this

Messiah will come. So I see him going to the garden, and he has the disciples. One, the betrayer

is away, right? And so he tells some to stay here. He takes three with him over here. And he says,

watch, watch. I'm going to go over there and pray. And I've been in the garden of Gethsemane. It's

not that large. And so you're talking the size of this room, right? And so he comes off to the side

over here, and he starts praying. He says, I'm going to go over there and pray. And I've been

Is there any way for mankind to be saved other than me going to the cross? No. So I'm going to

do that. And he goes back, and he's like, guys, wake up and watch. Watch what I'm talking about.

Father, is there any way for people to be saved? Is there any way for someone to have a relationship

with you outside of me going to the cross? Is there any way for someone to get to heaven? Is

there any other way? No, there's not. So I will take this and continue this. And he comes back,

guys. So a third time, I don't think he's trying to change God's mind. I don't think he's trying to

say, wow, it's been a rough 33 years, and now I'm down to this last hours. I don't know if I want to

do this. I don't. And again, if you're saying, well, he was 100% man, I'm not getting that argument.

He's God came for a mission to save us. And he comes back. He goes back and prays a third time,

and it says the same words. He's praying the same thing again, hoping that we would realize it. It's

there is no other way for salvation, no other way to be with God, no other way to get to heaven

other than through the death of Jesus Christ. And I know, spoiler alert, he comes back to life.

He is alive. That was VBS for Thursday, right? He comes back to life. Jesus comes back to life.

And then he talks about the free gift. So not only does Jesus come and die for us,

he offers the free gift. I'm always baffled by that phrase. I've looked into the Greek with it

and how they grab the free gift. It seems redundant to me. If you receive a gift from

Angela and I, and like it's in a gift bag and tissues thrown on, it might be from me.

If it's wrapped and nice, it's from her. She did the work, right? I don't have to tell you that,

do I? You already knew that about both of us. I'm the one who would wrap the present and then be

like, the price tag off. Because I don't want the price tag on there, because I'm not expecting

them to pay me. It's a gift. It's free. If it's free, it's a gift. So why would God say

the free gift? Why would he say it five times in three verses of it's a free gift? Because I'm slow.

Redundancy is good for me. Repeat something, maybe it will sink in that what God is offering us

is a free gift. It cost him a lot, but it's free to us. Ephesians 2, 8, 9 talks about this gift.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. It's not your own doing, it's a gift of God,

not as a result of works so no one can boast. He's kind of calling it a free gift even there,

that it's not your own doing, it's a gift, it's not the result of works, repeating itself again,

that the salvation through Jesus Christ is a gift, bless you. Romans 6, 23, I referenced earlier

with the four wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.

Our Lord. I hope you understand what the saying there, that what God has done, he wants relationship

with us so much that he sent his son, you know, for God so loved the world that he gave his only

begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. As a pastor who

wants to be true to the Lord and to his word, I do have to let you know there's that aspect of perish.

There are two destinations. There is a hell. Not everybody's going to heaven. Actually, as I look

through scripture, it seems like there's a hell. There's a hell. There's a hell. There's a hell.

And our world, it seems like the majority are not going to heaven. And I take no joy or pride in that

because I didn't do anything for me to get to heaven. Jesus did it all. And so I look to you

and I just say, have you received that gift? Have you opened up your heart to Jesus saying,

I give you my life? Let's go ahead and look at the last two verses for today. Romans 5, 18 and 19.

It's the power of one. It gives a summary. He says,

I love the parallelism he goes through here with talking about Adam bringing sin comes death,

but with Jesus bringing in life for us. He talks about the forbidden tree,

as you look at the one side and the cross being the other. The one that we saw was pleasant to the

eyes and the one that is grotesque. The one man, one trespass, you have one act of righteousness

from condemnation, being guilty to justification, being innocent for all men and Adam and all men

who are in Christ. And just the bringing the two together of that one man. 1 Corinthians 15, 22 says,

I want to be careful because it'd be very easy to pull a verse out of context and try to

teach universalism. To take that verse and say, oh, wow, everybody goes to heaven. That's not what

scripture says. I want you to realize that Jesus is the ultimate gentleman. You don't want to be

in heaven with him. He won't make you. He just puts the offer out there for you. He puts the

offer out there. Where death is a consequence as a result of sin, there is no choice there.

But when it comes to salvation, it's always referenced as a gift.

Even a free gift. And when it comes to a gift, somebody can offer you a gift and you can say,

you know, white elephant gifts. Are you familiar with that kind of phrase? We can say,

that's okay. You can keep that gift, right? The gift's being offered. You actually can

refuse it. You can say, I don't want that gift of salvation. And I really appreciate,

in fact, even somebody who is attending here, we were talking about this. He's like,

I'm going to have to change the way I live. And I'm like, thank you. Because let me think about

this some more. I want to change the way I live. And I'm like, thank you. Because let me think about

this. I want to, you know, we call it count the cost of what that would mean. Everett Harrison

says, clearly the gist of his teaching is that just as mankind has become involved in sin and

death through Adam, it has the remedy of righteousness and life only in Christ. So the

power of one. We started this, for me, this series, you know, the week one hour and week 10.

And I know you'll continue through to 32. But we've spent some time in Romans 116. For I am

not ashamed of the gospel, for it's the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes.

Jew first, also to the Greek. The offerings out there, the last two years, every week I've shared

that, right? Every week I've shared who Jesus is. And the offer that he puts out for us of being

salvation. That we've all sinned and deserve hell. But God sent his son who lived the perfect life

so he could die for our sin. Although he buried him, he rose again. And he is alive. And the

phrase is just the two words, if you think through these two words today, of believe and repent.

Believe that Jesus is the Christ. That he died for your sins, but he also rose again. And then

repent. It's giving your life to the Lord. It's believing. But just to believe something is not

enough. We act upon it. And so I turn from serving myself to strive to please him. I do good works

not in order to get to heaven, but because he has saved me. I do good works not in order to get to

do good works. It's a thank you that I am going to heaven. We're going to be having communion in a

moment. There's going to be a baptism today. Those are pictures of what Jesus has done for us. And we

call those the two ordinances of the church. When it comes to communion, it's his body being broken

for us. His blood being shed for us. Because without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of

sin. And so it's a reminder of what Jesus has done. And when it comes to baptism, we'll see the guys up there at the end.

We'll see the guys up there at the end of the gathering. But it's the idea of you're buried in likeness of his death and raised in newness of life. And so it's that picture. Neither of these get you saved. These are for people who have already given their life to the Lord. It's the idea of I want to serve him and live for him. The water, although it's very warm, is not holy water. The cracker and juice are not

here to like whet your appetite. They're not very flavorable. Let's put it that way. Right? But that's not the goal of them. And so if you have not given your life to the Lord, or if you have questions about that, I would love for you to ask one of us on just how can I know from Scripture that when I die, I'm going to heaven? BBS, not here, but a week ago, I believe it was in Lake Orion, the gospel was shared. And a kid was contemplating it and saying, I think I want to be saved. But let me

think about it. And as the student director, the family director over there was talking to this

child, the kid said, okay, I'm ready. I'm ready to die. He's like, no, no, you misunderstood me.

It's not go to heaven right now. But how sincere a faith, right? We don't know if we have tomorrow

promised to us, correct? So don't put off the decision. How can I know from Scripture that when

I die, I am going to heaven? For those of you who have given your life to the Lord, make a difference.

I tell you every week, I love you.

You've gotten inside me. So thank you. For a number of you, I know you. I believe in you.

As Christians, please continue to make a difference. Please remind yourself, I can't do

everything, but I can do something. And with God's help, I'll do that. Shall we pray? Good morning,

Father. Thank you for never leaving us or forsaking us. Thank you for being here with us. I thank you

for the Holy Spirit being present. I thank you for raising up this church some 190 years ago.

Your faithfulness, even when we were not faithful. For your love for this community and your

willingness to use us to reach out into this community. I do pray for Pastor Patrick and then

for Jasmine and for the church here. They would continue to make a difference for you. That you

would continue to bless the individuals in this church as a whole. Father, I pray if somebody here

who doesn't know you, that today would be a day of salvation. Today would be the day they give

their life to you. For those of us who do, that we would be continually thankful.

For changing our lives. We love you, but we know it's because you first loved us.

And I pray this in my Savior's name, in Jesus' name. Amen.

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