Do you have a relative or an ancestor that you’re proud of? I think we all have that. Most of us do. I do. I have people in my family tree that I like to name drop. You know, by the way. I've even done that in interviews. That's terrible. And I'd like to share them if I could. Could I share with you some of my family just so I can boost myself up a little bit here. Feel better.
The first one that I’d like to tell you about is one that we just discovered. I'm very proud of this fact. Laura Ingalls Wilder. Isn't that cool? The kids are nodding. I'm related to Laura Ingalls Wilder. She's my ninth cousin. Which means most of you are more closely related to her than I am. But I can trace it, right? Another one. Patrick Henry. I discovered that I'm related to somebody in this church by doing this sermon, so this was interesting. Somebody else is related to Patrick Henry in our church. Supposedly, I guess, through my great grandma. Patrick Henry. She's a Henry. So I'm very proud of that fact as well. He died penniless, so that does nothing for me financially. But I'm related. Also, this is like my favorite one. Ellen White. I'm very proud of this fact. I've had the privilege of going to White family reunions, and sitting at the feet of my, I guess, my great aunt or whoever who knew Ellen White. And my grandparents used to live at her house in Elmshaven. And I’ve slept just inches away from where all of her writings used to be kept in a vault. And I've explored through the secret passage ways in Elmshaven. And my grandmother even one time took me, and she took me right to the place next to Ellen White’s bed where supposedly Jesus stood in vision to her. Isn't that cool? I was pretty proud of that. I am so proud of that.
But the truth is, as in every family tree, there are a few crooks. Sorry, Crook family. And my family tree is the same. The funny thing is, is the good people seem to be on my mom's side, and the bad ones on my dad’s side. I'm not sure how that turned out, but supposedly we’re descended from pirates. And for some of the kids that would be really cool. I'm not so sure if it's that cool.
One thing I do know is that dysfunction has seemed to be passed on from generation to generation in my dad’s side. You know what dysfunction is, right? ‘Dys’ means pain, ‘function’, operating. My family has been operating in pain for generations.
And, for instance, my great-grandfather was shot. He was killed at the hands of an angry husband, along with that angry husband’s wife. And his son, my grandfather, followed in his footsteps in many ways. My grandfather... I need to tell you this. This last weekend I spent with my whole family on my dad’s side at my grandmother's memorial service. This is a picture of her here, with my grandfather. My grandmother died a few weeks ago, and I had the privilege of staying in her trailer for the last time with my mom and my dad and my two sisters. We had all the same sibling rivalries, everything. It was great. And we pulled out some old family albums, and especially one, that we had not been allowed to look at by my grandmother. And the reason why we were not allowed to look at it is because of all the pain I think, that it reminded her of. And it's the family album, the pictures of her and of my grandfather when they were first married. As we went through the album, we saw different pictures of my grandfather. And then pictures of him when he went off to the war. And then the album ends in a very sudden and terrible way. The last page of my grandfather's album has four pictures. My grandmother's album, sorry. Four pictures. In each and every picture there is another woman with him. And he's either holding her hand or has his arm around them. And we talked about our anger at my grandfather for what he did to my grandmother, and to my dad. We talked about why in the world would he send those pictures to her, and why in the world would she put them in her album. You know? But that's where it ends. Their marriage dissolved five years later, but the picture album about their marriage ends right there. Done.
Well, the thing about dysfunction, is this. It seems like, every now and then, somebody comes along who says, "I will not be like that." And they end the family cycle of dysfunction. And my father was that man. And I praise God for my dad. My dad, he saw what kind of a wreck of their lives my grandpa made, and he decided to be different. He's a successful minister, married to my mother, faithful for 37 years. I praise God for allowing me to be able to be born into that family, and to be able to have a different path to go down. My dad's given us a different way.
There's just one problem. My dad cannot stop the fact of who his ancestors are and what they've done.
Remember Exodus 20? "Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me." Whether I like it or not, and whether my dad likes it or not, he has passed on certain gifts. Thank you very much. Merry Christmas. That I can’t get away from and he can’t get away from. These gifts come, not just from my grandfather, but they come from his father, and his father, and his father and mother and father and mother, all the way back to good old grandpa Adam. And I'd like to talk about those a little bit today.
Dad's gifts. It’s a good Christmas topic, right? Sin. Death. And condemnation. Thanks dad. You know, he has done such an awesome job of being an awesome dad and of changing the course of our family history, and yet, no matter what he’s done, he still passes on, and I still have the blood of my grandpa coursing through my veins. My grandpa, and my grandpa Adam. I need a new dad. Okay? Plain and simple, I need a new dad. And something tells me that you do too. Because all of us have this lineage. No matter how good your parents were before you, no matter how good you’ve been, we all have this history given to us, thanks to grandpa Adam.
Well praise the Lord, He's provided a new Dad. And this is what we're talking about today. And if you look in Romans, chapter 5. Romans, chapter 5. Now while you're turning there, I need to say, Romans is not the easiest book in the Bible. Paul is not the easiest writer. Peter even says so. Paul writes many confusing things. And Romans five tends to be a harder one. I'm going to do my best, okay? You may vigorously disagree with me. That's fine. We're all learning and growing together and trying to understand the Bible more and more. This is my understanding of it. I hope it can bless you, and I hope it can help in your journey to escape the gifts that Adam gave.
Now these gifts that I’ve listed, I’ve listed in a certain order on purpose. It's chronological order, I believe. Romans gives it to us, and it's the same order in Romans as it is chronologically, I believe. Bear with me here.
Sin came first. "Through one man sin entered into the world." Romans 5:12. Same verse. Death. Death through sin and so death spread to all men." So sin comes, that brings death, okay? Is there something wrong here? Why in the world is condemnation, why did I put condemnation after death? Shouldn’t it be sin, condemnation and death, right? This is the crazy thing about what happened with Adam's sin. "For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam." In other words, Adam sinned, and his one sin created a whole bunch of sinners. The problem was, was that God had only given one commandment, and that one commandment was, “don’t eat of the fruit.” And so now you've got all these sinners who are doing other things that haven't been condemned by the law, so God can't justly condemn them, but they're going to have to die because they're sinners. So it's kind of this limbo land. And so God has to bring the law in, in order to condemn them. Isn't that funny. God's first act of salvation is to condemn. He’s got to find a way, because you can’t forgive something you can’t condemn. And so He brings in the law. The law came in so that transgression would increase. So now there's not just one sin, Adam’s sin. All of the sins that have ever been committed are now spelled out very clearly and pointed out by the law. And that is why condemnation came after death, because condemnation came when the law came in. So we’re going to deal with these.
Now the great thing about our Savior is that now that condemnation comes in, He comes in and He works through these things backwards, as they came in chronologically, to save us. Because He comes along and He says, “Okay, now there’s condemnation, now everybody has been condemned because they've sinned, and now I can forgive them. I can cleanse them of their sins, I can forgive them, deal with condemnation, now they're righteous, they can live so they don't have to die and then now that they are righteous and they can live, they can live without sin. And I can help them to be clean and free from the sinful acts.” So what our new Dad saves us from is condemnation, starting off from the very beginning. We're going backwards, back up the tree of sin here.
Condemnation. Let's go back to that Romans 5:14. "Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam." This is talking about that limbo land, that condemnation hasn't come yet. And then it says something that I think is the key verse to understanding Romans five. Let me back up a second. "Of the offense of Adam who is a type of Him who was to come." This, to me, helps me understand Romans five. Because of course Jesus is the one who comes and Adam is a type of Jesus.
Do you know what a type is? Type comes from Greek ‘tupaus’. It's like a mold, okay? Pretend like I have a cake pan in my hand, all right? I had a professor actually do this one time. He had a cake pan. The cake pan is the type. The cake is what it's typing. Okay? So there’s the mold and the cake. Adam is the cake pan, Jesus is the cake. Which is better? The cake. Jesus came out of Adam. But He looked a lot like the cake pan, right? He looks like Adam, in many ways. For one thing, what Adam did caused all the world to receive death. What Jesus did, caused all the world to receive something that was good.
You see back in Bible times. I'm trying to explain this, and please help me here. Please listen closely because I have a hard time explaining. Hebrews talks about this. This principle. In Bible times, they believed, or it appears that they believed, that whatever your father did, you did to. Okay? If your dad killed somebody you participated in it, because you're a part of him. This is very clear in Hebrews. And so to speak, "Through Abraham, even Levi who received tithes, paid tithes for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him." In other words it's saying, look at Levi. Levi, who was the one who was supposed to get tithes because he was the high priest, he actually paid tithes through Abraham because he was in Abraham when Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek.
And so this same principle applies here, I believe, to Adam, and to our new Adam, our new Dad, Jesus. Whatever Adam did, you and I are somehow responsible for. Adam broke the law. Adam disobeyed God. We are all participators in it. So now Jesus comes along, He replaces Adam, and now with this new Father that we have, this new Dad, Jesus, we participate in what He did. And He did everything perfect. And now we receive His righteousness. And now we receive His life. "So then," this is very clearly spelled out in Romans. "So then, as through one transgression that results in condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness that results in justification of life to all men." Adam gives us death. Jesus gives us life.
And the amazing thing is, that people don't realize, is that He’s already their Dad. Jesus stepped in to Adam's place, not just if we believe on Him. He did it no matter what you believe. For the Buddhist, for the pagan, for the Democrat. Okay? He did it. Jesus stepped in and took the place of Adam, and so we get everything that Jesus has whether we like it or not. The only thing that we can do is divorce our Dad. You know that kids can divorce their parents, right? It's a legal thing, I guess. If you don't like your, if your parents are treating you bad. But we have a whole room full of people who are divorcing their real Dad. Jesus is taking the place of Adam. He's provided righteousness and eternal life, and so many people are saying, “Ain’t no way. Don't want it. Take it back.”
It's like the story of Lambert. Did you ever watch Lambert when you were a kid? We watched this movie. We rented it from the library. It was the actual reel, you know? And we watched it forward so many times, then backwards so many times, cause we were bored to tears in the islands. And Lambert, Lambert was a lion who was brought by the stork, and brought on accident to a herd of sheep. And his mom adopts him, this sheep adopts him, and he doesn't know who he is. He has an identity crisis obviously. And the sheep make fun of him, and they butt him. They have a lot harder heads than he does. And he's a ‘fraidy cat. And he's scared. And he feels not accepted. And he's always running to his mommy for comfort. The truth about Lambert was this. No matter what he could do, no matter how much he tried to baaaaaaaa like a sheep, Lambert was still a lion.
And it's the same way with so many of us. No matter how much we’ve sinned, no matter how bad you’ve been, no matter how much you think you’re a son of Adam, a child of sin, you are actually, truly, a child of God. A child of God, because Jesus made it so. And you can't change that fact. The question is whether you’re going to believe it or not, and wake up to it.
So once He's dealt with the condemnation, we go backwards, back up in time, now He can deal with death. He can crush death. Because we are no longer condemned. There's no need to die when you’re not condemned. For if by the transgression of the one, 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." We got death from Adam, we get life through Christ. I love that abundance of grace. Abundance of grace.
Reminds me of a story of a man named Sam. Sam Duncannon. Sam was a simple man. Didn’t have very many talents, but he wanted to do something to glorify God. And he’d heard this song that he really liked. It was about God's grace. It reminded him of Niagara Falls. And so he took a picture of Niagara Falls, and he wrote the words to the song below it. "Have you on the Lord believed? Still there's more to follow. Of His grace have you received? Still there's more to follow. Oh, the grace the father shows. Still there's more to follow. Freely He His grace bestowed. Still there's more to follow. More and more and more and more, always more to follow. Oh, His matchless boundless love. Still there's more to follow." The river of life is not a creek. It's a rushing torrent like the falls, the river that goes over the falls, Niagara Falls. More to follow. After writing that all out, he wrote at the top of that picture, the caption, More To Follow.
So, our new Dad saves us from condemnation, and then, since He saves us from condemnation, He saves us from death. And now He can deal with the sin problem.
I praise God that I don't have to deal with my sins first before I can be set free. Before I can be cleansed. Because if I have to get better and clean before I come to Jesus, it will never happen. But the truth is He's already made me clean. All I have to do is accept it and come to Him and He can help me to be righteous.
"What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?" We have all this grace that's coming to us now. And the more sin there is, the more grace there is, and Paul’s saying, “Wait a second. Do we continue in sin that grace may get bigger? No. "How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death. Therefore, we have been buried with Him through baptism into death so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father so we too might walk in the newness of life." And once we realize who we really are, that we’re a child of the new Adam, and we come to Him, and we connect with Him through baptism, through the born again experience, and now we can live the new life. Just as we have died with Him, we can live with Him as well.
No longer do we have to be trapped and living the old sheep life. Okay? We don’t have to be weak and scared, like Lambert had been. Lambert was scared. He was powerless. He thought he was a really poor excuse for a sheep. And then a big bad wolf came and dragged his mother away. As she was being dragged away she was yelling “Lambert, Lambert”, and he's trying to hide behind the other sheep. And he's putting his hands over his head. And finally he realizes, BOOM, as the movie says, something snapped inside of him and he realizes, “Wait a second.” And he lets out this deafening roar. ROWWWWR. And he tears up the hill. And he butts the wolf off the top of the cliff. He's still working on his identity there a little bit. But once he realizes who he really is, he begins to act like a brave lion.
And when we realize that we really are children of God, that we’re Gods true descendents, we have Jesus as our ancestor, we're going to start acting like Him.
What are the implications of all this? Have you ever felt like you couldn't be good enough to be God’s kid? God’s child? Too bad. It's already happened. The question is is whether you’re going to accept it. You're already His. Have you ever been tortured by your sins as a Christian. You say, “How can I really be called a Christian and look at all the things that I've done?” Too bad. You're still His. Just wake up to that fact, and He can help you to behave like you're supposed to. When you're tempted to do something that you know isn’t right, you can say to yourself, “I don't have to act that way. That's not who I really am. I do not have to be like that. I am a child of the King. And I can act like a prince.”
Scientists have discovered recently that when a baby is born, the blood of the fetus still circulates in the mother for quite awhile after the baby is born. I think it's the same way with Jesus. Jesus labored for us there on the cross. Jesus labored so that we can be freed from condemnation. He labored so that we can be free from death. Labored so that we can be free from sin. And He still has our blood in Him. We are still in His system. We are still a part of Him. And He wants so bad to make it a final and complete reality. And He wants to take His babies in His arms and take them home. And the thing I want to say to you today. Won't you accept your new Dad?
Let's look at hymn number 468.
Hymn of Praise: #462, Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine Scripture: Romans 5:18 Hymn of Response: #468, Wonderful Peace
Return to McDonald Road Sermons Index
Return to McDonald Road SDA Church Home Page
McDonald Road Sermon transcribed by Steve Foster 12/24/07.