Summer of Romans 2018 (Part 12): Crouching Tiger (Part 1)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures verse by verse with No Compromise.

Romans 7 and the Need for Sanctification

Let's turn our Bibles to Romans chapter 7. Romans chapter 7, we're going chapter by chapter. This is one of those chapters that you just have to get a grasp on to understand Christian sanctification. It's fast moving, it's a little difficult, but if you'll just be engaged with the Bible in front of you, the Spirit of God indwelling you, I think it's going to help you realize that your only hope, not just for justification, but for sanctification, your only hope is the Lord.

Just like we heard from Galatians chapter 6 today, boasting in the cross of Christ. If you'd like to live a more sanctified life, it can't happen through Moses. It cannot happen through any law, including Old Testament law, as good as the law was.

If you'd like to walk in such a manner where you're progressively sanctified, being more conformed to the image of Christ Jesus, the Lord who bought you and purchased you, Moses can't help. Civil law can't help you, ceremony law can't help you, moral law can't help you.

What can help? We're going to find out today that there's a Deliverer who can help, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what's happened in Romans so far? Chapters 1, 2 and the first part of 3 basically says there's no one righteous, there's no one good, we need righteousness.

Whether you're Jew or Gentile, religious or not religious, to stand before a thrice holy God, you need righteousness. You don't have any righteousness. I have no righteousness. And so Paul says what we don't have and what we can't earn, but what God requires, God then provides in the person and work of Christ Jesus.

The righteous one, remember God the Father says of the Son, He always does the things that please me. And because Jesus Christ is man, He can be our representative because a man has to live the life that we should live.

But since He's also God, He has an infinite amount of righteousness and He can bestow that on millions of people, all those who would believe Jesus can bestow the righteousness that God requires through faith and through faith alone.

And that's chapters 3, 4 and 5. God justifies. He declares not guilty based on the work of another. Even though we are guilty, Christ stands in our stead as representative and as substitute. We get all kinds of blessings, don't we, in Romans chapter 5?

Peace with God, access to God, hope of eternal life, assurance of salvation. Then in chapters 6 and 7, we move into the next phase. So we go from sin, verses chapters 1 through 3a, then to salvation, 3b, 4 and 5, and now we move to the next step, sanctification, holy living, saying no to sin and yes to righteousness.

How do we do this? How do we live a holy life? And isn't that the heart cry of every Christian? Don't you want to live a life that pleases the Lord? Not because it earns you favor, but because you've been favored.

And that's where we come today. We come to this chapter that tries to drive out of us any kind of hope in self, works, or specifically the law. By the end of chapter 7, I want you to experience what Edward Mote experienced, who was a pastor at Rehoboth Baptist Church in England, when he wrote his most well-known hymn, On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand, All Other Ground is Sinking Sand, Moses is Sinking, Law Sinks, Self Sinks, We Need Christ Jesus.

My hope is built on nothing less than the Ten Commandments, than Mosaic Law, no, than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus' name. Take a little sneak peek, if you would, in verse 25 of chapter 7.

Oh, let's look at verse 24. As you know, we're going chapter by chapter through this book. I usually slow down a little bit, but for this series, especially chapter by chapter, Romans 7, 24 summarizes all of 7.

Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death? And then we get some good news there that leads us right into chapter 8, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Deliverance is coming, but since we only have 50 minutes this morning, I can't get to chapter 8 yet.

So throughout this sermon, because Romans 7 is such a weighty sermon, I'm going to have to give you a little bit of good news throughout, tipping my hand to you that chapter 8 is around the corner. There's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because Romans 7 is really tough.

7 does this. It drives you to find a liberator, to be found by the liberator. It drives you to say, you know what, when I trust on myself, by myself, on myself, angst. When I trust with my accountability partners, law, Moses, it just drives me to despair.

I want you to be free from the law regarding justification and free from Mosaic law when it comes to sanctification. The divine law is not good news for the sinners. It's not good news. I want to give you good news, but 7 so far doesn't give us tons of good news.

It's more bad news. So the good news is better when we get to chapter 8. Justification is not by our law keeping, and neither is sanctification. The law came to show people sin, never to justify, and never does the law give power for you to say no to sin.

Look at Romans chapter 6 verse 14, because it's tied in with 7. Chapter 7 verse 1 leads with, or do you not know brothers, tied it into something previously stated. It connects, and what does it connect to?

Romans 7, 1 connects specifically to verse 14. For sin will have no dominion over you, Christian who's been justified, since you are not under law but under grace. Freed from sin, you need to be free from servitude of the law, free from the mastery of the law.

Jesus Christ died not only to sin, but he also died to the law. I'm going to say it over and over and over. I remember back in the old days, kids would listen to me preach sermons, and they'd put a little tick mark on how many times I said a word.

Some people would email me and say, what are the three special words in this sermon so my kids can mark them down because I've said God enough times and Christ enough times. So what's the sermon about today?

I don't know if these are single words, but the law isn't your friend. Moses can't help you. There's a little hint of that here in the text too, because Paul doesn't send them to Moses in chapter 4, he sent them to Abraham.

The law is not the solution. Oh, it's good, it's holy, it's righteous, but it is not the solution for sanctification. Only the risen Christ is. If you want to live a Christian life to please the Lord, then you don't need Mosaic Law.

Even though our tendency is, we like laws, we like rules, because then when we do the law or do the rule, then we feel good, then we have progress, then we think, you know what, here's the rule, okay, fine.

Even if there are our own rules, let's see, for my sanctification, if I get up early, if I have my accountability partner, if I do my daily devotions, if I do all these other things, by the way, I'd like you to read your Bible.

But if you think that all these things that you do, even your own imposed laws besides Moses, somehow makes you more pleasing to God, you've missed it. And Paul writes, Romans 7, specifically for people like us.

If we're not under the law, then what is our relationship to it? Romans 7 answers that. So let me give you five sanctification facts this morning. I wasn't even going to give any outline, but some maybe in the choir loft would be yelling for outline, so it's almost un-outlineable, but I'm going to give you my outline.

How's that sound? Five sanctification facts, related to the law, of course. Number one, Christian, you are dead to the law. You're dead to the law, verses 1 through 6. Here's a principle, death liberates from the law.

If you die, the IRS cannot come calling, can it? I guess they can, but they can't exact any money. Death liberates from the law. And remember Romans 6? When Jesus died, you died. When Christ was raised from the dead, you, by union with Christ, by divine decree, you were raised with Christ.

If Jesus died to the law and the law holds no more power over Jesus, you died in Christ and you have no more reporting to the law. You are dead to the law if Christ saved you, verse 1. Or do you not know, brothers?

I'm speaking to those who know the law. Most of the time when you see Paul talk in Romans 6 and 7 about the law, definite article, he's talking about Moses, that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives.

Whether that's Mosaic or any other law, if you live in society, the law only is binding on you as long as you are alive. Remember chapter 6, the whole point is you've died with Christ, you've been raised with Christ, so here he's going to try to make the point through a neat illustration, you've died to the law, you're free, you belong to Christ.

Some of you are kind of looking at me like, what are you saying? So let me make it a little simpler. I have people in my life, I have had people at this church try to put me and put you back under Moses, back under Mosaic law.

I have a new way to respond to those kind of people, and here's my response when they want to try to get me to put you under Mosaic law. Here's what I'm going to say from now on, I'm going to smile, too bad you can't see smiling on the radio, I'm going to smile and say, no thank you, I'm already married.

No thank you, I'm already married. Because that old life that I was married to, living under the law, both for justification and sanctification, I'm dead to that law, and I have a new spouse, as it were, I'm married to God.

I'm married to the Lord. I'm not going to go back there. Now if you want me to have less than a smile on my face and say it this way, but for pungency I'll say it. I am not going to go back and commit adultery with the law because I'm married to Christ.

Sorry, I'm married. I'm not under Moses anymore. Moses was good and holy and right, but Moses can't save and Moses, friends, mark this, can't sanctify. You're dead to the law. Show me a person who gets jammed under Moses and I'll show you somebody that's crabby, mean, hypercritical, and judgmental, because friends, you don't need to be put under the law of Moses, and if you're put under something you're not supposed to be under, it's just more weight.

Second Corinthians calls Moses, calls the Ten Commandments, a ministry of what? Death. Of course we'll see Moses shows us our sin, but it doesn't save and it doesn't sanctify. Paul is trying to support this idea.

You're not under the law, 614. Well he's trying to explain how are we not under the law? And so he's talking to these Christians, many of them were Jewish Christians, inclined to legalism, inclined to Moses.

He says you're free from the law because you're dead. You died in Christ, Romans chapter 6. Go back to the cross. Go back to Calvary. And if you don't believe me, I guess you could even though I don't recommend it, go back and try to live under Moses.

You will get angst and oppression and down. We can't measure our spirituality by these things. We're dead to these things. Paul illustrates verse 2, for a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives.

But if her husband dies, she's released from the law of marriage. If I die, Kim's released. Accordingly she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But friends mark this, death changes everything.

The cross changed everything. Old covenant, new covenant. Death changed everything. If her husband dies, she is free from that law. He's making the point, Christians, you're not under Moses. People say, well, you know, but this is moral, civil, ceremonial.

There's no trifurcation like that found in the Bible at all. Oh, there's a special place for the Ten Commandments and we're going to see what happens with those Ten Commandments soon. But Moses has a code signed and sealed by the Sabbath.

You're a Christian. You're free from the law. It has no authority over you. You're dead. Death changes everything. And if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress. Woman's bound to her husband by the law as long as he lives.

He dies. Paul gives a little application of his illustration found in verse 4 through 6. Likewise, my brothers, oh, okay, here's the point. This is a theological point. And he's tying it together. Likewise, my brothers, you can hear his pastoral heart.

Remember, there's lots of Jews that he's writing to besides Gentiles. You have also died to the law, Mosaic law, through the body of Christ. This is not Christian assembly. This is the real body of Christ who's our representative.

Remember chapter 5? So that you may belong to another. I'm already married. My first spouse died and now I'm remarried. So that you may belong to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may do what families do.

Husbands and wives get together and regularly, not always, but most of the time there's fruit-bearing children. And here it's the same thing. We've been married to another in order that we may bear fruit for God.

We died to the law in Christ and we died to its dominion over us and we died because our sin-bearer died to sin and to the law. And when Jesus rose from the dead, sin, death, and the law had no claim on Him.

And we are united in Christ Jesus. Free from sin's dominion, chapter 6. Free from the law, chapter 7. You know the song, don't you? Free from the law, oh, happy condition. Jesus has bled and there is remission.

The death of Christ is the basis for our justification and it's the basis of our sanctification. You are dead to Torah. You are dead to Mosaic law. You are dead to Sinai. Jesus is our representative. We died with Him so we no longer live according to Moses.

That's what Paul's trying to say. There's been a radical change. When you see yourself as a Christian who is in Christ, in the glorious risen Savior who has fulfilled the law and died to the law and died to sin, that's the day of maybe your second blessing.

For while we were living in the flesh, verse 5, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, exacerbated by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now, I love it when Paul says that.

He says it over and over. But now, we are released from the law, Moses, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit. See, everything is getting us ready for chapter 8.

Led by the Spirit, led by the Spirit, not by Moses. We serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. The law is not the solution. It doesn't bring life. It doesn't bring sanctification.

It just excites things in our hearts, our depraved passions. You're released from it. This is a new era. Death changes everything. I'm going to boast in the cross of Christ. So live like it. Live like Christ's death as representative and substitution.

Change your relationship to your old life and to the law. Christ did die. We have been released. Law of Moses, oh sure, it defines righteous conduct. It gives us the standard. It shows God's holy standards.

But we can't live it out. We need the Spirit of God, chapter 8. Isn't it foolish to say you're saved by righteousness, but you're sanctified by Mosaic law-keeping? The cross forbids that. And notice how Paul's language is here.

This is a side note, but this one is important. This one is for free. Some people say, oh, when you become a Christian, you've got to give up all your old fun. When Paul looks at his old life, he doesn't say, oh, that's my old fun.

He's glad to get rid of that old life of sin and destruction. It's negative for him. We're on the path to death. He wasn't rejoicing in what? In Christ, in Christ, in Christ. What's the function of the law before and after justification?

To reveal and condemn sin. Sanctification fact number two. The law simply shows sin. That's all it can do, verses 7 -12. The law shows sin. And Paul's going to talk a little bit about how when he was unconverted, this is what happened.

The law showed to Paul what sin was, what God's standards were, what God's standards are. It showed him he's spiritually dead. And he's going to try to differentiate here in these verses that the law and sin are associated, but they're different.

It's not the law's problem. It's what sin does with the law. Is the law sin then? If this is what the law can't do, it can't say, I wonder if it's sinful. Paul answers the question. What then should we say?

That the law is sin? See, somebody's thinking like that. You know, you go to the doctor and they say, we're going to take an x-ray, we're going to take an MRI, we're going to take a CT. We're sorry to say that you've got an aneurysm.

It's not the x-ray's fault for showing that you've got an aneurysm. It's not the law's fault for showing. Paul says, is the law sin? What? By no means. May it never be. Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.

See, we see sin because of the law. For I would not have known what it is to... Here comes something from the Ten Commandments. To covet if the law said, you shall not covet. This blows away anybody's argument that says, well, you know what?

Ceremonial, civil, but you're still under the Mosaic. Here he's talking about... Still under moral. He's talking about what we call a moral law of God. You shall not covet. You say, isn't covening bad for today?

It is, but I'm saying as a code, you're not under the Mosaic code. What am I under? Well, we'll see that soon enough in chapters 12, 13, 14 and the following. If it hadn't been for the law, Mosaic law, I wouldn't have known what sin was.

But sin, look at verse 8. Seizing an opportunity through the commandment, thou shalt not covet, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. Ever seen those people at the beach and they've got one of those machines and they walk around and they're trying to find stuff buried in the sand?

You can't hear it because they usually have headphones on. And by the way, why does everybody who does that for a hobby, they all look the same? I don't know. They always kind of look the same. They have the same... just look.

And all of a sudden they're going like this and in their ears they hear... and they detect something. It doesn't sound exactly like that. It's a different frequency. They don't tell you in seminary that you have to do these things.

And then they dig and they sift and they dig down and they find their treasure. It's an old pop-top from an old Mountain Dew can that they tore off in 1978. Remember those pop-tops they used to have?

I never knew why you take the pop-top off and then jam it back into your drink can so then you can swallow it on the way down. I could never figure that out. The law just exposes and goes, something's wrong.

You can't live up to it. It's a detector of sin. That's what the law's special ministry is. Oh, it's a good ministry. But you're a Christian now. The law's fulfilled by Christ for you. The law just stirs things up.

One commentator said this, the law sees red. It's like a bull. It sees red. It charges ahead. Red, sin does. Spurgeon said something, boy, let this sink in. The Lord brings good out of evil, but sin brings evil out of good.

That you can take something so good like the law and sin can misuse it and abuse it. Our indwelling sin, that principle of sin in us, grabs the good holy law, torques it. Here's this personified sin like a crouching tiger in us and it gets a hold of something really good and sin is that bad it can take something good.

Stir it up. Paul says in verse 9, I was once alive apart from the law. Oh yeah, I was a Pharisee, but I really wasn't convicted. I was just living my life, but when the commandment came and it was illumined by the Spirit of God, energized by the Spirit of God, I really am a sinner.

Think Damascus Road, sin came alive and I died. I was just living my life. This is probably your Christian testimony as well. You just live in your life. Yeah, there's some commandments of God and there's ten commandments and this, that and the other, but one day your heart was just rocked and you realized you were a sinner and God was holy and you would stand before Him and you knew you needed a Savior who was alive in the sense that sin within Him wasn't activated yet.

He had no remorse, He was unconvicted, enjoying the unbelieving life. But when law came through the words of Christ Jesus, He didn't go on His merry way anymore. Sprang into action, sin did, and He used the law, the ministry of death.

Verse 10, the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. You keep the law, friends, if you're an unbeliever, you get to go to heaven. Perfectly keep the law, you get heaven. Remember what He said to that young man, do this and what?

Live, do this and live. What must I do to inherit eternal life? Just keep the commandments. You want to enter into life, Matthew 18, keep the commandments. But of course we know because of the fall we can't do that.

And the commandment that promised life, see the commandment's not wrong, the law's not wrong, but it proved to be death to me. That's why when you insert Mosaic Law back into a congregation, it stirs up all kinds of things.

Legalism at the first, and legalism leads to angst.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m. We're located on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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