ROMANS 5:12-21 GRACE ABOUNDS MUCH MORE2015 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Romans 5:12-21 Grace Abounds Much More

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2015. And we're here in Romans chapter 5. We doing good? Everybody can hear me okay? Good, good, good. Alright. Romans chapter 5, we'll be finishing up the chapter looking at verses 12 through 21. And so let's read through that passage together. Romans chapter 5 verse 12 says...

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam.

who is a type of him who was to come. Verse 15. But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation.

Verse 17, Verse 18,

Verse 20.

So here we are in Romans chapter 5 and we're finishing up the chapter looking at this powerful passage but also kind of complicated passage and

It's easy to kind of get lost because Paul is doing a lot of contrasting. He's looking at Adam and he's looking at Jesus and the result of their actions. As we begin to consider these things, I would ask you to consider this.

Was there ever a time, and if there was, it was probably when you were young, that you wished you had a different family? Did you ever wish that when you were a kid? Like, you know, so-and-so's family down the street, they had way cooler toys, way better TV channels. You know, you kind of wish you had a different family, perhaps, because they had a different curfew or different rules or whatever. Uh,

There's those times, probably not so much anymore, I would hope, right? But later on, you appreciate your family more. But early on, there's those like, oh, it'd be so much better, you know, if I had that family. Now, you don't get to choose that, right? You're born into the family, right?

And when you're born into a family, you know, you get the family that you got. And there's not any changing that. Your parents are your parents. Your siblings are your siblings. And they're going to be there. That's your family. You're born into that. But also, you don't just get those family members, but you inherit the traits of your family.

So whatever the characteristics of your family are, you inherit those from your parents. You begin to experience those things just like they did. Anytime I begin to think that I'm very unique,

Uh, that is like shattered whenever I hang around my dad because then I find out Oh, no, you know, he does the same things that I do I don't know when he started copying me, but you know, he eats his eggs the way I eat my eggs How did that happen? He checks his mail the way I check my mail like silly things, but it's amazing You know, there's just so many traits that i've inherited From my own dad. It's it's what I was born into now

I'm bringing all that up to say you were born not just into your own immediate family, but you were born into Adam's family, not the Adam's family.

I was waiting for somebody to do the music, but you were born into Adam's family. You are part of the lineage of Adam, and that means that you have inherited some traits. And you have inherited, and you belong to this family, and there's some things you may not like about that, but you were born into it. There's nothing you can do about it. You are part of his family. And so there is this issue of sin.

There is this inherited sinful nature. There is this inherited guilt that comes because you are part of Adam's family. Now the good news, as we go through this passage, Paul will be talking about that, but then he'll be contrasting that

Although, yes, you are part of Adam's family and therefore guilty and therefore deserving of death and you will die and judgment comes to you. But there is grace that comes through Jesus Christ. And so you're born into Adam's family, but you can be born again again.

into the family of Christ. And as you're born again into the family of Christ, then what Paul will say is that grace abounds much more. And so that's the title of the message tonight. Grace abounds much more because you're born into the family of Jesus Christ. There's four points I'd like to hit as we go through our passage together. The first one found in verses 12 through 14 is that sin and death entered through one man.

Look again at verse 12. It says, So here Paul starts talking about one man.

And he's going to be talking about two different people, referring to both as one man and one man. The first man here in verse 12 is Adam. So through one man, sin entered the world. He's looking back at the book of Genesis and he's saying Adam was the first man. He's that one man. And because of him, sin was brought into the world.

as he chose there in the garden to partake of the forbidden fruit. And so through this one man, Adam, sin entered the world. And along with that sin, death entered into the world. In Genesis chapter 2, God had warned Adam against eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

And he says, the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. And so there is this proclamation of death if Adam partakes. And so Adam sins, he partakes, and then death is the result. And so through this one man, through Adam, sin is introduced to the world and death is introduced to the world.

But it didn't just happen to Adam. Death spread to all men, verse 12 says. Death spread to all men, he says, because all sinned. And what Paul is talking about here is not just that you have sinned in your life, but that you were represented by Adam. And so when Adam sinned, you're guilty because, well, he's your representative, right?

He represents you. He represents me. He was that first man. And so when he sinned, we all sinned. And we inherited that guilt. We inherited his nature, but we also inherited the guilt for that original sin. David Guzik puts it this way.

Every human who has ever lived was in Adam's genetic makeup. Therefore, all mankind actually sinned in Adam. So just as you might, you know, have characteristics, the color of your eyes, the color of your hair, the amount of your hair perhaps, you know, that are inherited from your family.

In the same way, we have things that are inherited from Adam. Now you get those things, those characteristics, because of the genes...

The genetic makeup of your family, your parents. Well, we were all genetically part of Adam because we have all descended from Adam. And so he represented us in that way that we have descended from him and we are part of Adam in his original state. Now, he's our representative. And so because he sinned, death spread to all men because we're all his descendants, right?

Not everybody likes this idea, right? You read through this, you start thinking about what Paul says, and you think, I don't want Adam to represent me. I don't want to be guilty because of what he did. But when we do that, we kind of think that we would have done better if we were in Adam's shoes, right? So if I was there, I wouldn't have partaken. It's kind of the thought. I don't want Adam to represent me because I could do better than he could do. But

That's not accurate. Think about it this way. Adam was perfect without sin in a perfect environment in the Garden of Eden, and he chose to sin. Now here, you and I are sinful, and we do sin already, but

And we look back and we think, oh, I could have done a better job. Like we're starting from a worse off condition and thinking that we could do better than Adam. It wouldn't be any better. If it was Jerry and Kim in the Garden of Eden, we would have had the same effect. In fact, maybe we wouldn't have held out as long as they did. We, you know, we would have had the same issue. We would have turned against God and disobeyed. But there's a second thing to consider. If

you're not a fan of this idea of Adam representing you. Well, understand that if Adam doesn't represent you or can't represent you, then Jesus can't represent you either. And that's what Paul is going to be going through in this passage.

That we have two representatives, one man, Adam, and then the next one man, which is Jesus. And if Adam represents you, then Jesus also can represent you and he can give you life because of what he did upon the cross. So death spread to all men because we were all included there with Adam when he sinned. We're in Romans chapter 5, guys.

So verse 13 now says, So,

As I said, this passage can be a little bit difficult because Paul is throwing in a lot of detail here and a lot of technicalities. So he says, until the law, sin was in the world. The law came through Moses. So Adam was in the beginning, there in the garden. Moses is quite a bit of time later.

And so until the law, he says sin was in the world, but sin was not imputed when there was no law. So God hadn't clearly given people the law as he did at Mount Sinai with Moses. But Paul's point in verse 14 is nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses. So even though the law hadn't been given, people still died.

And the point that Paul is making is that people still died because they were sinful. Because we inherited this sinful nature from Adam. That we inherited, we're part of Adam's family. We were born into this family. We inherited those traits and characteristics. And so even when the law was not clearly given like it was at Mount Sinai, there was still death.

Sin was introduced by Adam. That brought death. And that death reigned from Adam all the way to Moses. And he says, So this idea of they sinned, but it was different than what Adam's sin was. Because Adam had a clear command from God.

like this direct communication from God, you are not to partake of this forbidden fruit. He had that clear instruction from God, but he disobeyed and partook of the fruit anyways. Now he's saying everybody after him didn't have that same kind of clear command from God, and yet they still died because Adam is our representative. And so we received his sinful nature.

And so another way to look at this is that death is the proof that a sinful nature was passed on. Death is the proof that you and I are all descendants of Adam because every single one of us will die. And everybody who dies proves that we inherited Adam's sinful nature. We were born into his family. And so sin and death entered through one man.

Adam, our representative there in the Garden of Eden, sinned against God and he brought sin into the world and to all humanity. And he brought death into the world and to all humanity. But that's not the end of the story. So he ends verse 14 saying, who is a type of him who was to come? And so he says, Adam...

not just represents us in the garden, but Adam was also a type. Now the word type, it means like a picture or a symbol. Adam was a picture of Jesus, the one who was to come.

And so in the same way that Adam represented all humanity, Jesus is going to represent all humanity. And so as he goes now in these next few verses, he's going to be building this contrast between Adam and Jesus. And essentially what he's saying is this, only two men have ever really existed before.

Rick and Harvey, only two men who ever, no, no, no. There's only two men who have ever really existed. Adam first, because Adam existed for some period of time in the condition that God intended. He existed in that perfection. He existed in that perfect, you know, without sin nature. The only other person to exist in that way was Jesus, right?

And so you have Adam and you have Jesus really being the only two men as far as what God intended when he created humanity, those who were without sin. And so these two men, Adam in the beginning was perfect. He was without sin. And then Jesus lived without sin all the way until the end.

And so you have these two men, this contrast between Adam and Jesus that Paul is dealing with here in Romans chapter 5. So sin and death entered through one man. Now the second point going on into verse 15 through 17 is that grace and life entered through one man. So here's the contrast. One man brought sin and death and then one man brought grace and life.

Look at verse 15. So as Paul's beginning this contrast, he says, okay, here's how it's different. The free gift is not like the offense.

The offense is Adam's sin in the garden, his disobedience to God. So he's comparing these two men. They're similar in that they represent humanity. Adam represents all of humanity and Jesus represents all of humanity. But the results of these two men are way different. And so the free gift is not like the offense.

The free gift is the salvation that's offered by Jesus Christ. And so he says, by the one man's offense, many died. So in Adam, he sinned, he offended, he brought sin, he brought death, and so many died. Paul established that in those previous verses.

But now the contrast here in verse 15, he says, So you have the one man who caused many to die or all humanity to die. And then you have the one man, Jesus, who brought grace to many, who extends grace to all humanity.

And so this is the contrast. One man offended and it caused all humanity to die. One man was obedient. He gave the gift of life and it brought this grace to all humanity. Now I'd like you to pay attention here in verse 15. He says, if by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God

abounded to many. Much more. And he's going to say that a couple times here in this passage that we're looking at. Much more, much more, much more. Every time he's talking about grace, he's contrasting what we have as a result of Adam, and he's saying what we have in Christ, the grace, it's much more. And so Paul is making the point here that grace is a big deal.

That grace is really important, that there's more grace than there is death. Now, I'm sure you've heard the statistics on death, right? It's 100%. Every person dies. There's no exceptions to that. Every person dies. We know that to be true. If you take a survey of 100 people, all 100 people will die at some point. That's just the given.

There's nothing certain in life, but death and taxes, right? So death is certain, but as prevalent as death is, Paul is saying here that grace abounds much more. There's more grace than there is death. There's more grace than there is sin. Paul will go on to share in a couple more verses following. So much more. He's saying grace is a big deal.

We can be very intimidated by death, but there's much more grace. We can be very intimidated by all kinds of devastation, but there's much more grace. We need to know the grace of God abounds to many by the work of Jesus Christ. Going on into verse 16, he says, And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation.

but the free gift, which came from many offenses, resulted in justification. So he continues to talk about the gift, this free gift of salvation. Again, you have two men that are similar in that they represent humanity, but the results are very different. And so through the one man who sinned, well,

This brought judgment. It resulted in condemnation for all. Everybody is condemned. Everybody deserves the wrath of God. And that's different because, well, the free gift came from many offenses and it resulted in justification. So one offense brought condemnation to everybody.

It brought this sinful nature on all humanity by one offense, by Adam partaking of that forbidden fruit. But the free gift came by many offenses.

That is that God saw all of those sinful behaviors and actions and activities for all of humanity, for all of history, you know, and the future and everything. God saw all of the offenses that would result from this. And so he provided a savior.

He sent his only begotten son. So the free gift, which came from many offenses, resulted in justification. And so because of the many offenses, that is your sin, my sin, as a result of being part of Adam's family, the result then, God sent his son and it provided justification. We've been talking about the word justified for several weeks. It means to be declared not guilty.

as well as to be declared righteous. And so Jesus Christ is given. He dies upon the cross because of our many offenses, and the result is we are declared not guilty for our sin. Verse 17, For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one,

Much more, those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. So he says, for if. And you can tell Paul here is being very logical here. He's building this logical argument. So if by the one man's offense death reigned, well then, since that's the case,

Then also, he says, much more those who receive abundance of grace, well, the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. And so he's contrasting these two again. By the one man's offense, death reigned. And so here he's focusing on the reign of death, contrasted with the reign of life. The reign of death and the reign of life. Now, the reign of death...

exists because of Adam's sin. And again, it reigns over all. There's nobody who is excluded from that. Death reigns over all. We will all die. But if that's the case...

then the opportunity then, because Adam represented us, well, we can have Jesus represent us. And he says much more. So if it's the case that death reigns over all, which I think we would understand and agree that's the case, well, then much more those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, they will reign in life through Jesus Christ.

So again, much more grace is a big deal. There's more grace than there is death, even though death reigns over all. God is much more willing to give grace than to give judgment. If you give God the option, he'll give grace. If he gets to choose, he chooses to give grace, his goodness that we do not deserve. Much more, he'd rather give grace. Much more, he's willing to give grace than death.

But death reigns over all. Grace and life entered through one man, Jesus Christ. And this gives God the option, the opportunity to extend grace. To give grace, to bring salvation. Notice it says there in verse 17, those who receive abundance of grace.

You're born into Adam's family. There's no choice about that. You can't change it. You can't go back and wish you had, you know, a different representative there in the garden. He was the only one. You are part of Adam's family. That's it. There's nothing you can do about it. But you have the opportunity. I have the opportunity to change families. I was born into Adam's family, but I'm born again into Jesus's family.

And you are born again into Jesus' family when you receive the abundance of grace. Grace can only be received. That's the only way to access this grace. He says those who receive the abundance of grace are going to reign in life through Jesus Christ. And so instead of being reigned by death, you can be reigned by life. You can experience life. But the only way to experience that, to have that life, is

is to receive it. You can't earn it. You can't work for it. You can't deserve it. You can't be religious enough. You can't do anything except accept it, receive. And so if you receive it, then you escape the reign of death and you enter in to the family of Christ. You're born again and you get to experience life through Jesus Christ. And so he says, much more.

So if death reigns over all, which it does, much more if you receive God's grace, you will have life through Jesus Christ. So even more certain than death is life for those who receive God's grace. So the statistics on death is 100%. If you receive God's grace...

The statistics on life are 150%. That's not really true, but the math doesn't work. You can't really state that statistically, but that's the emphasis here is that even more certain than death is life to those who receive the grace of God. Well, going on in verse 18 and 19, we have the third point, and that is that judgment and justification resulted. So the result of Adam is,

The result of Jesus for those who receive, it's extended to all humanity, but those who receive the grace that's offered, justification results for those who receive the grace. Verse 18.

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 life. So Paul says, therefore, he's continuing or rather concluding his logical argument. He says, okay, so one man's offense brought judgment to all men and that resulted in condemnation.

So Adam's sin in the garden results in judgment and all men are judged. All men, all humanity is condemned. That is deserving of death, deserving the wrath of God. So one man's offense brought judgment, but then even so through one man's righteous act, the free gift came to all men resulting in justification of life. So Adam did one thing, essentially, he sinned.

The free gift is offered to all, but the grace must be received.

And that's what Paul said in the previous verse. Those who receive the grace, those who receive abundance of grace. Notice as he talks about grace, he makes sure to point out there's a lot of grace. There's an abundance of grace. It's much more. It's much more. There's an abundance. Grace is offered to all and those who receive grace are justified. Those who receive grace are declared not guilty.

And so when we stop trying to earn it, stop trying to deserve it, we acknowledge our sinfulness and we receive God's goodness towards us and what he did upon the cross, well, then there's an abundance of grace. There's an abundance of God's goodness that is given to us and that we are declared not guilty. Verse 19 says,

For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one man's obedience many will be made righteous. So he's been contrasting Adam and Jesus and how the results are different, how the things are different between them. They both represent all humanity. But here he says, Adam was disobedient and Jesus was obedient. And Adam's one disobedient act...

there in the garden made many sinners. That is, well, you and I, all of humanity, inherit from Adam his sinful nature because we're born into Adam's family. And because we are born into Adam's family, we inherit the sinful nature. We all are made sinners. But Jesus's obedience, in contrast, makes many righteous.

And so being born again, being born into Jesus's family, you get to receive the abundance of grace and you get to be made righteous. Now, notice that he says you're made righteous. So you're made sinners by Adam. That is, you're not a sinner because you sin. You're already a sinner before you sin because you have the sinful nature. And that's why you sin, because you're a sinner.

You're made a sinner by Adam. So automatically, by default, every human being is a sinner. Whether or not you can point to one specific thing that they've done wrong. Of course, everybody has done things wrong because they are sinful. So you're made sinners in the same way you are made righteous. This goes back to the idea of, you know, we talked about being imputed righteousness, right?

That is, you're accounted righteous. That God accounts you as righteous as a believer in Jesus Christ. You're not righteous. You're a sinner. That's already been established. And you cannot become righteous by being good or by trying hard or being religious or doing enough good works or sacrificing greatly. You cannot become righteous, but you can be made righteous by one man's obedience.

That is by the obedience of Jesus Christ. And so humanity will experience judgment unless each person is made righteous by receiving the grace that's offered through Jesus Christ. Well, the final point found in verse 20 and 21 is that grace abounds more than offenses. Check out verse 20. Moreover, the law entered that offense might abound.

But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. So he says the law entered for what reason? That offense may abound. God brought the law through Moses at Mount Sinai. And what was the purpose? Well, we saw earlier in Romans chapter 3 verse 20, Paul said, no one will be justified by the deeds of the law because by the law is the knowledge of sin.

The purpose of the law was to reveal, to help people see, to help people know about sin. And so Paul says here, the law entered that offense might abound. God brought the law to show us how sinful we are, how much offense there is. And so the law helps us to see that offenses abound.

because we know clearly what is right and what is wrong and we can see clearly that we do an abundance of wrong. That's the purpose of the law. You could also look at it in another way. The law helps us to see what God has forbidden and then we desire to do what God has forbidden. There's this attraction that we have to, you know, doing what we're not supposed to do. And so the law also does that.

It reveals this abundance of sinfulness within us. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. Now, where there's an abundance of sin, you and I might think, well, then there will also be an abundance of wrath.

We talked about the wrath of God in the first few chapters of Romans, how the wrath of God is being revealed against all these ungodly activities. And so if there's an abundance of all these ungodly activities, we could think, well, there's going to be an abundance of God's wrath. As we look at our own nation, we can look at the abundance of wickedness and we could think about the abundance of wrath that is the result of all of that wickedness.

But notice what Paul says. He doesn't say where sin abounded, wrath abounded. He says where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. And that's something I'd like to kind of camp out on for a few moments. But I want to hit verse 21 and then I'll come back to that. Grace abounds much more than sin. Verse 21. Verse 21.

So sin reigns, death reigns, we're all subject to sin and death, but he says, even so, grace might reign through righteousness.

So one man, Adam, sinned, subjected all of us to the reign of sin and death. But then the one man, Jesus Christ, came on the scene and his righteous act and his free gift towards us, grace now can reign. And you can be under the authority, under the rulership of grace to eternal life through Jesus Christ. Sin's reign brings death.

But the reign of grace brings eternal life. The reign of grace brings eternal life. And again, the good news is that grace abounds more than offenses. Grace abounds more than sin. How much do you sin? Have you thought about that lately? How many times have you fallen short of the glory of God today? Stand up if it's more than five times. No, I'm just kidding. How much do you sin?

If we would be honest with ourselves, we would recognize there's an abundance. There's an abundance on a daily basis. We sin. We fall short of God's standard of perfection. There's an abundance of sin in your life. Now, add all of us up here. How much sin is represented here in this patio? There's an abundance of sin. How much sin is represented, you know, throughout the whole world?

There's an abundance of sin. But where sin abounds, grace abounds much more. Think about that. There is much more grace than there is sin. There's much more grace than there is sin. I've experienced in my own life wondering, have I exhausted God's grace? He exhausted something, but I don't know if it was grace.

Have I exhausted, have I used up all of God's grace? I've talked to many people who have felt that they just can't come back to God. They just can't do what they know that God wants them to do, but they've messed up so bad. Sin has abounded. And so there's this hang-up that they have.

There's this hang-up that I've experienced where sin abounded. And I don't understand. I don't realize that grace abounds more than sin. If you sin a lot, grace abounds much more. Think about that. In your own life, as much as you sin, God has much more grace for you.

And so you never ever have to think about or stress over or worry about, can I come to God? Can I approach God? Can I pray to God? Does God have good things in store for me? Does God still love me? Will God give me everlasting life? We looked at on Sunday, you know, Jesus saying, I will not cast out any who come to me. We can always come to Jesus because grace abounds much more than sin. Whatever offenses it might be,

Whatever we might categorize as these are really bad sins and those are not so bad sins, it doesn't matter. Whether it's a lot or a little of any kind of sin, grace abounds much more. But also I want you to think about this, not only for your own life, that you receive the abundance of God's grace, but also think about this on behalf of others. Would you turn with me to 1 Timothy chapter 1? I want to take you here to consider something that Paul said earlier.

as he was thinking about his own life, his own history, as he writes to Timothy. And as we read through this passage here in 1 Timothy 1, I would ask you to consider, have you ever thought of someone as like too far gone? They're just unreachable with the gospel. They're unreachable with the good news of Jesus Christ. There's just no chance. Have you ever given up hope on someone who,

ever coming to Jesus Christ and receiving the grace that we've been talking about. Well, Paul was probably an example, actually definitely an example of someone that we could look at and think they're too far gone. But notice what Paul says here in 1 Timothy 1, verse 12. He says,

So Paul tells Timothy, I thank Jesus because, well, he enabled me. He counted me faithful. I wasn't faithful. I wasn't capable. But he took me and he put me into the ministry. Then verse 13. He says, He says,

I was a blasphemer. Jesus counted me faithful. He enabled me. He put me into the ministry. Although, even though I used to be a blasphemer. Now, we know Paul's history, right? He would go from place to place. He would put Christians into torture to try to get them to blaspheme Jesus, to renounce Jesus Christ. And so he was attacking the church. He was attacking the Christians and the saints, right?

He was a blasphemer. He was a persecutor. He was insolent. But he says, I obtained mercy. And verse 14, Sin abounded in Paul's life. But notice what he says about grace.

It was exceedingly abundant. It was super abundant. It was super duper abundant. It was overflowing. As much as Paul sinned, much more grace abounded. So that even Paul, then called Saul, you would have looked at him and thought, no way, no way is he ever going to get saved. But grace abounds much more where sin abounds.

He goes on in verse 15 to say, this is a faithful saying worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Now, this is the point of why I brought us here to 1 Timothy. Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And sometimes we forget this. It's kind of easy for us to forget.

get caught up in or maybe even build our own little bubble. And we forget that the whole point of Christ is to save sinners. And sometimes we try to build our world around, well, we just relate to one another as believers.

We only get involved in each other's lives. We only spend time with each other. And we don't hang out with unbelievers. We don't reach out to, we don't spend time to, we don't talk to unbelievers. But Jesus came to save sinners. Now we might think, you know, well, I don't want them to be a bad influence on my kids. Or I don't want them to, you know, have this or that. We might have all kinds of reasons and thoughts that are going through our heads.

But I would call us back to this understanding that Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And where sin abounds, grace abounds much more. I think sometimes we try to save the good people. Let me find some nice, decent people. You know, let's do a flashlight fellowship at the park, right? Let me find some nice, decent people that I could pray for. And, you know, maybe they'll get saved. But I think we need to remember where sin abounds, grace abounds much more.

And I would ask you to consider that and start thinking about where does sin abound around you? And really start praying for those where you see that abundance of sin. Because God provided His grace in such a way that it abounds where sin abounds. And it abounds much more than the sin. And so those who sin a lot, those who sin, you know, in that open and blatant way, they

We would maybe tend to kind of write them off and not even bother trying to reach out to them. But the way that God has established it, there's an abundance of grace there. And Jesus came to save those sinners. And so start praying for those in your life where there is an abundance of sin.

where there's an outright rebellion, where there's, you know, those issues of life where they're just completely turning away from the things of God, disregarding the things of God, there's an abundance of grace for them. Don't lose hope for them, but be persistent in reaching out to them and loving them and praying for them. Finally, verse 16 here in 1 Timothy 1, Paul says, "'However, for this reason I obtained mercy.'"

that in me first, Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering as a pattern, notice, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on him for everlasting life. Paul says, I'm the pattern. I'm the proof that God's grace is so abundant that anybody can be saved. That God is so longsuffering. He is so merciful. He's so gracious that anybody can be saved.

God's grace abounds much more than any sin, than all sin. Wherever there's a lot of sin, there's even more grace. And so that's true in your own life. There's much more grace than you sin. And so you can continue to come to God and walk with God and trust him for life.

That's true in the life of the people around you. And so you can continue to pray for them and love them and reach out to them with the gospel because there's sufficient grace. There's more than sufficient. There's an overabundance of grace in their lives as well. And God desires to save them. But finally, let me ask you to consider our world. It's easy to look around and think, man, what is this world coming to?

It's easy to look at a city, at a nation, at a state. It's easy to look at the news and to just be kind of overwhelmed at the tragedy, at the devastation, at the rebellion, at the sin. There's an abundance of sin. And what God is saying here is that his grace abounds much more. There's more grace than there is sin in the whole world.

And where there's a people, so let's say ISIS, right? We could look at that and think, wow, that's an abundance of sin. I mean, they're beheading people. They're killing Christians. And again, we could easily think they're lost. Why even bother with the gospel? But where sin abounds, grace abounds much more. God is able to provide grace that's more than sufficient for members of ISIS.

Apply it to whatever people you want, whatever group you want, whatever location you want. There's more grace than there is sin. There's more grace than there is sin. And if you would think of it, think of it in a little bit like a missionary. If you were being sent out, where would you go? To the little town, you know, 90% Christian? Or would you go to Las Vegas? Would you go to that place that's known as Sin City?

Because where sin abounds, grace abounds much more. And God is able to work. God is able to work even in the midst of an abundance of sin. Because where sin abounds, grace abounds much more. And so you and I are born into Adam's family. All humanity born into Adam's family. He was our representative.

And because of him, we inherit a sinful nature. We inherit this guilt. We inherit judgment and condemnation. But we can be born again into the family of Jesus Christ. And there we experience grace that abounds much more than all the guilt, than all the judgment, than all the sin. It's grace that abounds much more so that we have everlasting life.

It's incredible what Christ has offered to us. It's incredible what he has done. Grace abounds much more. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your incredible goodness towards us that there's no time, there's no opportunity for us to come to a point where we are not accepted by you. But Lord, when we come to you by faith, when we receive your grace, Lord, there's more than enough grace

to supply for our every need. And so Lord, I pray that you would help us to come to you. Lord, not to shy away because of our sin, but to come to you because of our sin, because your grace abounds much more. Help us, Lord, not to shy away from others around us because of their sin, but to reach out to them because your grace abounds much more.

Thank you, Lord, for what you've done for us. Help us to believe it and to walk in it by receiving your grace. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of his word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.