Crouching Tigers, Hidden Dragons - [Romans 7]

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Well, it is good to be back here in my home church, Bethlehem Bible Church. I haven't preached a sermon for about three weeks, but I did preach a lot when
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I was over in Greece and in Turkey. Matter of fact, the last sermon I preached was a sermon in the old ruins of a public latrine in the city of Philippi.
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We would go see where their garrison was, where they took Paul, saw a little bema seat, and then the guide took us to the back in some ruins, and there's this public latrine for the men, and we just looked at it, and I thought,
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I said to the guide, now just stop right here for a minute, I'd like to preach a little mini devotional here in the latrine.
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And he said, okay. And he looked like you look right now. And I preached from Philippians 3,
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I count everything as lost because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my
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Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, our dung, our waste, our excrement, in order that I might gain
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Christ. I love to preach to Bethlehem Bible Church because you want the risen
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Christ preached. Let's turn our Bibles to Romans chapter 7. Romans chapter 7, we're going chapter by chapter.
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This is one of those chapters that you just have to get a grasp on to understand
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Christian sanctification. It's fast moving, it's a little difficult, but if you'll just be engaged with the
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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
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Lord. Just like we heard from Galatians chapter 6 today, boasting in the cross of Christ.
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If you'd like to live a more sanctified life, it can't happen through Moses. It cannot happen through any law, including
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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
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Lord who bought you and purchased you, Moses can't help. Civil law can't help you.
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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
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Deliverer who can help, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what's happened in Romans so far?
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Chapters 1, 2 and the first part of 3 basically says, there's no one righteous, there's no one good, we need righteousness.
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Whether you're Jew or Gentile, religious or not religious, to stand before a thrice holy God, you need righteousness.
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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
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God requires, God then provides in the person and work of Christ Jesus. The righteous one, remember
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God the Father says of the Son, He always does the things that please Me. And because Jesus Christ is man,
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He can be our representative because a man has to live the life that we should live. But since He's also
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God, He has an infinite amount of righteousness and He can bestow that on millions of people.
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All those who would believe, Jesus can bestow the righteousness that God requires through faith and through faith alone.
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And that's chapters 3, 4 and 5. God justifies. He declares not guilty based on the work of another.
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Even though we are guilty, Christ stands in our stead as representative and as substitute.
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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.
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Then in chapter 6 and 7, we move into the next phase. So we go from sin versus chapters 1 through 3a, then to salvation, 3b, 4 and 5.
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And now we move to the next step, sanctification, holy living, saying no to sin and yes to righteousness.
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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
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Lord? Not because it earns you favor, but because you've been favored. And that's where we come today.
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We come to this chapter that tries to drive out of us any kind of hope in self, works, or specifically, the law.
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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,
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On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand, All Other Ground is Sinking Sand. Moses is sinking.
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Law sinks. Self sinks. We need Christ Jesus. My hope is built on nothing less than the
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Ten Commandments, than Mosaic Law, than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
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I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus' name.
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Take a little sneak peek, if you would, in verse 25 of chapter 7.
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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,
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Romans 7 .24 summarizes all of 7. Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death?
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And then we get some good news there that leads us right into chapter 8. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our
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Lord. Deliverance is coming, but since we only have 50 minutes this morning,
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I can't get to chapter 8 yet. So throughout this sermon, because Romans 7 is such a weighty sermon,
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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.
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There's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus because Romans 7 is really tough.
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7 does this. It drives you to find a liberator, to be found by the liberator.
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It drives you to say, you know what, when I trust on myself, by myself, on myself, angst.
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When I trust with my accountability partners, law, Moses, it just drives me to despair.
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I want you to be free from the law regarding justification and free from Mosaic law when it comes to sanctification.
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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.
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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.
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The law came to show people sin never to justify and never does the law give power for you to say no to sin.
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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?
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Tied it into something previously stated. It connects. And what does it connect to?
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Romans 7 1 connects specifically to verse 14. For sin will have no dominion over you,
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Christian who's been justified, since you are not under law, but under grace.
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Freed from sin, you need to be free from servitude of the law.
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Free from the mastery of the law. Jesus Christ died not only to sin, but he also died to the law.
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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. They'd put a little tick mark on how many times
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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
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God enough times and Christ enough times. What's the sermon about today? I don't know if these are single words, but the law isn't your friend.
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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.
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He sent them to Abraham. The law is not the solution.
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Oh, it's good, it's holy, it's righteous, but it is not the solution for sanctification. Only the risen
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Christ is. If you want to live a Christian life to please the Lord, then you don't need
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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.
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Then we think, you know what, here's the rule. Okay, fine. Even if there are our own rules.
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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.
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By the way, I 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.
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And Paul writes, Romans 7, specifically for people like us. If we're not under the law, then what is our relationship to it?
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Romans 7 answers that. So let me give you five sanctification facts this morning.
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I wasn't going to give any outline, but some maybe in the choir loft would be yelling for outline.
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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.
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Number one, Christian, you are dead to the law. You're dead to the law, verses one through six.
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Here's a principle. Death liberates from the law. If you die, the
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IRS cannot come calling. Can it? I guess they can, but they can't exact any money.
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Death liberates from the law. And remember Romans 6? When Jesus died, you died.
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When Christ was raised from the dead, you, by union with Christ, by divine decree, you were raised with Christ.
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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.
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You are dead to the law, if Christ save you. Verse one. Do you not know brothers?
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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, death in an article, he's talking about Moses.
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The law is binding on a person only as long as he lives. Whether that's
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Mosaic or any other law, if you live in society, the law only is binding on you as long as you are alive.
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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.
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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,
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I have had people at this church try to put me and put you back under Moses, back under Mosaic law.
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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.
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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.
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I'm going to smile and say, no thank you, I'm already married. No thank you,
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I'm already married. Because that old life that I was married to, living under the law, both for justification and sanctification,
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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
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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
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I'll say it. I am not going to go back and commit adultery with the law because I'm married to Christ.
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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.
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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.
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2 Corinthians calls Moses, calls the Ten Commandments a ministry of what? Death. Of course we'll see
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Moses shows us our sin, but it doesn't save and it doesn't sanctify.
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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?
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And so he's talking to these Christians, many of them were Jewish Christians, inclined to legalism, inclined to Moses.
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He says you're free from the law because you're dead. You died in Christ, Romans 6.
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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.
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You will get angst and depression and down. We can't measure our spirituality by these things.
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We're dead to these things. Paul illustrates, verse 2, for a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives.
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But if her husband dies, she's released from the law of marriage. If I die,
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Kim's released. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive.
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But friends mark this, death changes everything. The cross changed everything.
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Old covenant, new covenant. Death changed everything. If her husband dies, she is free from that law.
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He's making the point, Christians, you're not under Moses. People say, well, you know, but this is moral, civil, ceremonial.
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There's no trifurcation like that found in the Bible at all. Oh, there's a special place for the
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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
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Sabbath. You're a Christian. You're free from the law. It has no authority over you.
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You're dead. Death changes everything. And if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress.
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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.
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Likewise, my brothers. Okay, here's the point. This is a theological point. He's tying it together. Likewise, my brothers.
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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,
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Mosaic law, through the body of Christ. This is not Christian assembly. This is the real body of Christ.
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He was our representative. Remember chapter 5? So that you may belong to another. I'm already married.
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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.
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Husbands and wives get together and regularly, not always, but most of the time, there's fruit bearing, children.
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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.
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And when Jesus rose from the dead, sin, death and the law had no claim on him and we are united in Christ Jesus.
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Free from sin's dominion, chapter 6. Free from the law, chapter 7. You know the song, don't you?
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Free from the law, oh happy condition. Jesus has bled and there is remission.
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The death of Christ is the basis for our justification and it's the basis of our sanctification.
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You are dead to Torah. You are dead to Mosaic law. You are dead to Sinai. Jesus is our representative.
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We died with him so we no longer live according to Moses. That's what
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Paul's trying to say. There's been a radical change. When you see yourself as a
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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.
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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.
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But now, I love it when Paul says that. He says it over and over. But now, we are released from the law.
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Moses, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the
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Spirit. See, everything is getting us ready for chapter 8. Led by the Spirit. Led by the
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Spirit. Not by Moses. We serve in the new way of the
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Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. The law is not the solution. It doesn't bring life.
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It doesn't bring sanctification. It just excites things in our hearts, our depraved passions.
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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.
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Live like Christ's death as representative and substitution. Change your relationship to your old life and to the law.
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Christ did die. We have been released. Law of Moses, oh sure, it defines righteous conduct.
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It gives us the standard. It shows God's holy standards. But we can't live it out.
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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?
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The cross forbids that. And notice how Paul's language is here.
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This is a side note, but this one's for free. Some people say, oh, when you become a Christian, you've got to give up all your old fun.
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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.
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It's negative for him. We're on the path to death. He wasn't rejoicing in Christ, in Christ, in Christ.
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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.
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That's all it can do, verses 7 through 12. The law shows sin. And Paul's going to talk a little bit about how when he was unconverted, this is what happened.
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The law showed to Paul what sin was, what God's standards were, what
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God's standards are. It showed him he's spiritually dead.
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And he's going to try to differentiate here in these verses that the law and sin are associated, but they're different.
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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 save,
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I wonder if it's sinful. Paul answers the question. What then should we say? That the law is sin?
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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
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MRI, we're going to take a CT. We're sorry to say that you've got an aneurysm.
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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.
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Paul says, is the law sin? What? By no means. May it never be. Yet if it had not been for the law,
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I would not have known sin. See? We see sin because of the law.
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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.
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This blows away anybody's argument that says, well, you know what? Ceremonial, civil, but you're still under the mosaic.
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Here he's talking about, still under moral. He's talking about what we call a moral law of God. You shall not covet.
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You say, isn't coveting bad for today? It is, but I'm saying as a code, you're not under the mosaic code.
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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,
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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.
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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.
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And by the way, why do everybody who does that for a hobby, they all look the same? I don't know. They always kind of look the same.
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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.
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It doesn't sound exactly like that. That's a different frequency. They don't tell you in seminary that you have to do these things.
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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
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Mountain Dew can that they tore off in 1978. Remember those pop -tops we 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.
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I could never figure that out. The law just exposes and goes, something's wrong.
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You can't live up to it. It's a detector of sin. That's what the law's special ministry is.
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Oh, it's a good ministry. But you're a Christian now. The law is fulfilled by Christ for you.
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The law just stirs things up. One commentator said this, the law sees red.
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It's like a bull. It sees red. It charges ahead. Sin does.
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Spurgeon said something, boy, let this sink in. The Lord brings good out of evil, but sin brings evil out of good.
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That you can take something so good like the law and sin can misuse it and abuse it.
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Our indwelling sin, that principle of sin in us, grabs the good holy law, torques it.
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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.
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Stir it up. Paul says in verse 9, I was once alive apart from the law.
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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
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Spirit of God, energized by the Spirit of God, I really am a sinner. Think Damascus Road. Sin came alive and I died.
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I was just living my life. This is probably your Christian testimony as well. You're just living your life. Yeah, there's some commandments of God and there's the
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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
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Savior who was alive in the sense that sin within Him wasn't activated yet.
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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.
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He sprang into action, sin did, and He used the law, the ministry of death.
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Verse 10, the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.
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You keep the law, friends, if you're an unbeliever, you get to go to heaven. Perfectly keep the law, you get heaven.
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Remember what He said to that young man, do this and what? Live. Do this and live.
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What must I do to inherit eternal life? Just keep the commandments. You want to enter into life?
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Matthew 18. Keep the commandments. But of course we know because of the fall we can't do that.
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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.
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That's why when you insert Mosaic law back into a congregation, it stirs up all kinds of things.
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Legalism at the first. And legalism leads to angst. It leads to measuring people up.
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Verse 11, for sin. See, he's speaking figuratively here. Metonym.
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Referring to sin as its principle. Substituting a word to refer to an attribute that sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment deceived me.
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Through it killed me. See, sin so blinds people.
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Think about your unsaved friends. They are so blinded and deceived, they think they can get to heaven with their own righteousness.
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They think they can get to heaven with their parents' righteousness. They think they can get to heaven through circumcision or baptism.
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Blinds. Deceives. Kills. Makes you think you can live under the law.
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Paul affirms everything in verse 12. He sums everything up so no one thinks something's wrong with God's law.
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Law just reveals. Law just identifies. Law sets the standards.
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Law sets the penalty. But it can't justify and it can't sanctify. So the law is holy. It's not sinful.
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It comes from a holy God. And the commandment is holy. So is you shall not covet.
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That's holy and righteous and good. The difficulty lies elsewhere.
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The problem's someplace else. The law's just but it can't justify. The law's just but it can't sanctify.
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What's the problem? Sanctification fact number three. Sin is the problem. Is the law sinful?
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No. Law's good. What is the problem? If the law is holy and good, what's the ultimate source of death for me?
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Indwelling sin. Now we come to this section here where there's two camps in evangelicalism.
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I won't bog you down with all the details. You can study it if you want. Some people think this is a Christian person talking in this section.
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Some people think it's an unbeliever. And so let me just tell you why I think it's a believer talking here.
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Paul is a believer. He's regenerate. And this is not a weird view. This is Luther had the view.
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Calvin had the view. Hodge, John Owen, Bob Nick, F .F. Bruce. It's the common view.
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Number one, because it just fits the flow perfectly. Justification. Sanctification.
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This is in the sanctification section for Christians. That's the first reason why I believe it's for a Christian. Secondly, Paul, because of grammar, makes me think this is a
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Christian because he uses I and he uses present tense. He doesn't say past tense and Damascus Road kind of thing.
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It's all present tense, I. And thirdly, my last reason for this, we could give you more, but it's hard for me to think of an unbeliever talking the way
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Paul does about the laws being good, an analysis of sin properly, an analysis of God properly.
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Acknowledging the spirituality of God's law and his own carnality. I think that's probably a
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Christian talking, a mature Christian Stott and MacArthur thing. And before we dive into this any longer, let me try to give you a little pastoral encouragement and heads up.
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This is the kind of language that is good for you. And it's good for me, why? Because when you first get saved, oh, just think back for a second.
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I just think back to those days in 1989. My world comes to a screeching halt and then
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God, like he did with Lydia, in his great, providential, sovereign, distinguishing, gracious way, opens my heart to receive the things spoken by him through the
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Word. And you just think about that, you know, Paul is told, oh, don't go to Asia, go over there into Macedonia, and then
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Paul doesn't go to Asia, and he goes to Philippi, he goes into Macedonia to meet a lady from Asia, standing by the river.
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I thought I was supposed to go to Asia. No, go into Europe and meet a lady from Asia, and providentially, all worked out,
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God opens her heart, and then you know when that happened to you. I was going to go to hell if I died, and I get to go to heaven.
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I had to pay for my own sin. Heaven is forever, hell is forever, and God chose me in eternity past,
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Jesus died for me, the Spirit made me alive, and I get to go to heaven. I could not contain myself.
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Just think, heaven gained by the work of another. I didn't do anything, even my reception.
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I held out my hand so God would give it. I was dead, and God granted me faith, and He gave me salvation.
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He caused me to be born again. And you're on cloud nine. But what
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Paul does here is remind you of a very necessary fact. As good as it was, as pleasant as it was, as true as it was when you first experienced the joy of your salvation, you are now in, there's a battle going on.
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There's a battle of sin, and dwelling sin principle, even in a
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Christian, and it's of epic proportion. So friends, if you say to yourself, you know what,
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I'm really struggling with stuff. Be encouraged because before you were a Christian, no struggle.
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Your only struggle was, well, why do I keep hitting the pulpit? Because some of you look like you're sleeping. Struggle is good.
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Before you were saved, I didn't want to get caught. Yeah, my conscience is a little bad.
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I'm sorry to hurt that person's feelings. I have to go to jail. There's a variety of reasons why unbelievers, but there's no struggle.
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When you're an unbeliever, you don't say, you know, I've offended a thrice holy God. But now there is a struggle.
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Friends, it's a sign of maturity to struggle. And you're going to see that right here with Paul. Paul, the apostle.
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And the difference between seven and eight, I want to make sure you see the connection there. Eight's all about the
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Spirit of God. And chapter seven's all about, I, I, I, I, law, law, law, law. We need to get to eight.
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But right now we're in seven. We need the Spirit's power. Because there's no deliverance found in ourselves.
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There's no deliverance found in the law. Sin's the problem, verse 13.
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But that which is good, then, bring death to me. Did that happen? The law's good.
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Did the law bring death? By no means. It was sin. By the way, for those of you who think Satan causes all your problems and gives you post -nasal drip and makes you eat lean cuisines or whatever it is,
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I don't know. This is all sin. It was sin producing death in me through what is good.
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God is holy. His law is holy. But law stirs up. Law reveals. Law doesn't sanctify.
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In order that sin might be shown to be sin. And through the commandment might become sinful beyond all measure.
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Only sin can pervert something so holy like the law. How sinful is sin?
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It's very sinful. Number four, sanctification fact. Number four, Christians are weak and can't live the
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Christian life on their own. Christians are weak and can't live the Christian life on their own.
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This is the main point today for the sermon. We are weak people. And we can't live our lives on our own.
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We can't live our lives through the law. We are utterly unable to do it.
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You're going to see Paul's cry right here. This is the struggle of every Christian. The struggle with sin.
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This is why you ought to sing that song, I Need Thee Every What. You can't save yourself with the law and you can't sanctify yourself with the law.
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You need the Lord. Verse 14, For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh sold under sin.
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You're going to see I. Notice all the I's there in this section. I, I, I, I, I, I. Let's make a teaching time out of this.
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When you see the word I, I want you to think of impotent. By myself,
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I can't do it. Now, of course, I want you to read your Bible and I want you to pray and I want you to do the spiritual disciplines.
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But if you think, by you doing those things, if I just get up early to read, if I just have an accountability partner, if I just read these chapters, if I just do this, if I just do that, if I just do the other, if I do this, if I do the next, if I do the following, friends, you're going to feel bad because it's not going to work.
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Of course, read your Bible. Of course, pray. With the mentality of, verse 8, chapter 8,
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I need the Spirit of God. I need you to do that. Lord, to help me. Lord, to give me mercy. I'm of the flesh sold under sin.
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See, new believers need to learn this lesson quicker than slower. There's still a battle with the evil sin principle.
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Call it an old nature if you want. I don't care what you call it as long as you recognize it. Luther said, this is the proof of the spiritual and wise man.
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He knows that he is, and he is displeased with himself.
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Indeed, he hates himself and praises the law of God, which he recognizes because he is spiritual.
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But the proof of a foolish man is this, that he regards himself as spiritual and is pleased with himself.
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Sin's crazy, verse 15, for I do not understand my own actions. I mean, how can it be that we could be at church serving and worshiping and then on the drive home, this kind of stuff happens.
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For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing
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I hate. See, this is what soul under bondage to slavery does.
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I can't do it. I want to do it, but I don't. We are powerless.
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The problem for Paul wasn't knowledge. The problem was he didn't have any power as a regenerate person to deliver himself from the law of sin and our members.
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Verse 16. This is how mature Christians think. Now, if I do what I do not want,
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I agree with the law that it is good. See, I understand. I just don't have the power to do it.
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I'm in a desperate struggle to be released from this. It's a life and death struggle.
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So now, verse 17, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. He's not absolving himself.
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He's just saying sin's powerful and I still do it. Hopeless.
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We need the Spirit who dwells in us. Chapter 8. That's who we need. True or false?
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Apart from me, Jesus said you can do most things. Apart from me, you can be a good father.
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Apart from me, you can be a good husband. Apart from me, you can be a good wife. Apart from me, you can be a good ministry, a minded person.
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You can do nothing. We have a question to ask.
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I wonder if apart from Jesus I can even keep the law.
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Verse 18. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
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I know better. Don't you ever say that to a kid? Don't you know better? I'll say it to your kids.
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You should know better. Your dad should know better. I know better, but I can't do it. And if you can't do it, in justification, it's like the penitent thief, you know,
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Lord have mercy. Luther said,
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I cannot keep the birds from flying around my head, but by the grace of God, I can keep them from building their nests in my hair.
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I'll tell you what my problem is. My problem is this, self -sufficiency, self -reliance. I know what to do,
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I know how to do it, and I'm fairly good at it. That's my problem. Because the second you start thinking like that,
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I can navigate this at work, I can navigate this at home. That's when God, by His graciousness, gives us frustration, and despair, and angst, and futility.
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So we realize, you know what? I'm so sick and tired of being sick and tired. Lord, help me. That's Romans chapter 8.
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Now see, right now it's just the despair part. So I want to remind you of this. There's three kinds of people in the world as I see it.
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There are the Romans 8 people. Have you met them? There's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.
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There's like up on a cloud, they have harps. They're just like, no condemnation. Then there's
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Romans 7 people. Wretched man that I am. I'm a worm. I'm nothing.
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I can't stand myself. I'm sinful, and corrupt, and crooked.
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See? These kids listen. These kids listen. You're corrupt too. But friends,
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I can only preach 7 today, but 7 and 8 go together. If you're a chapter 8 person, don't forget about 7.
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And if you're a chapter 7 person, don't forget about 8. So the third person here involved is,
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I know both of those are true. I know I'm justified by the work of another, sanctified by the work of another.
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And I know there's no good thing in me, but I know it pleased God, the Heavenly Father, to love me enough to send
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His Son to die in my place. And you know what? I'm wrapping my arms around both
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Romans 7 and Romans 8. Both true. But here we're just in 7.
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He says in verse 19, I do not do the good thing I want, but the evil
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I do not want is what I keep on doing. Paul, a Christian, great inner struggle.
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He's powerless over the flesh. So what are you going to do? Insert the law to help you? Moses can't help you.
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Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it. He's still using the I. He's just trying to focus on how bad sin is.
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But the sin, literally, the sin principle, the root cause, still dwells in me.
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So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
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I want to do the right thing. You know what? I'm a pious Jew. Paul said I delight in the law of God.
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He loved God's law. He loved Moses. You can love Moses as long as you don't try to live under it as a
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Christian. I delight in the law of God and my inner being. But if I try to live and battle myself, in myself,
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I'm going to be defeated. I can't get rid of indwelling sin with Moses. But I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
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D .L. Moody was right. I have more trouble with D .L. Moody than with any other man
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I know. Isn't that true? I love to do premarital counseling and meet with the couples and they're all starry -eyed, rightfully so.
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And then I say, well, you've got to do some reading to get married here. And so, Wives to Be, I want you to read
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The Excellent Wife by Martha Peace. Husbands to Be, I want you to read The Exemplary Husband by Stuart Scott.
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I'd like you to read a really easy book, Christian Living in the Home by Jay Adams. And then I'd like you to read another book and it's called When Sinners Say I Do.
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If you're not married, you should read that book. If you are married, you should read that book. And it says early on in the book
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When Sinners Say I Do, every morning, if you're married, you wake up with the most sinful person in all the world.
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Yourself. That's what Paul saw. Because when you're not measuring other people, you realize how needy you are and you cry out to God for mercy.
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And he shows that mercy in chapter 8. I'm just happy that I've got this struggle, aren't you? That there is a struggle, shows maturity, shows salvation, shows that you're alive.
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And we just say, I'm unable. I have no abilities. I acknowledge it. Verse 24, if you want to look at I, me, wretched man that I am.
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Can you get farther in your Christian growth than saying, I'm wretched and needy and I'm going to have to look to the
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Spirit of God for help, not Moses. It's painful, but it's good.
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Who will deliver me from this body of death? You know how they used to charge murderers back in the
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Bible days, according to some manners in custom books. If you were a first degree murderer, they took the murdered body and put their back to your back and strapped that dead body onto your back.
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You were the murderer. The murderer E was strapped onto your back and you began to walk around with that thing on your back in the hot sun of the
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Middle East. And then the putrefaction and the smell and the bacteria that would come out of the body would kill you.
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And it's like Paul's like, this body of death that's on me, sin, which is stirred up by the law,
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I've got to get it off me. I'm exhausted. That's what the word means. Wretched through the exhaustion of hard labor.
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Why go back to Moses and be chained to some polluted corrupt course that stirs up your sin that Jesus has already paid for?
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And sanctification fact, finally number five and we're done. The best is yet to come.
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Look up. The best is yet to come. You got the partial first installment, but deliverance is also future.
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Jesus' deliverance is past, present, and future. Here we have Paul just blurting out, thanks be to God, is where we get the word grace.
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Chorus. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Oh, there's going to be a final deliverance.
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I'm going to tell you this right now. Moses can't deliver you. Civil law can't deliver you. Ceremonial law can't deliver you.
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Moral law can't deliver you. There's only one liberator. Law just makes you see what you do.
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Law just exposes sin. Jesus Christ delivers where Moses can't.
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And that's why he says in chapter 8, do you see it? Verse 1. There's no condemnation now for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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For the law of the spirit of life has set you free. From what in Christ Jesus? From the law of sin and death.
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2 Corinthians. Moses, you are free. Why run back? For God has done what the law,
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Mosaic law, weakened by the flesh could not do. By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemns sin in the flesh.
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And when you died, when Jesus died, you died with him. In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled.
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Why go back to a fulfilled law? In us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.
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And then Paul summarizes everything in Romans 7 .25, and we end here. I myself, so then, serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh
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I serve the law of sin. He's got to look outside of himself. He's got to long for heaven.
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Christian, be encouraged when you have a struggle. It shows you're growing. It shows you're saved.
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Contrary to health, wealth, blabbit and grabbit people on TV, there's a struggle. Opposition.
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Don't forget about Romans 8 when you're a Romans 7 person, and vice versa. D .L.
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Moody said, when I was converted, I made this mistake. I thought the battle was already mine. I thought the victory already was won.
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The crown already in my grasp. I thought the old things had passed away, that all things had become new, and that my old corrupt nature was gone.
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But I found out after serving Christ for a few months, that conversion was only like enlisting in the army, that there was a battle on hand.
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And what's your weapon? Moses? His oath, his covenant, his blood, support me in the whelming flood.
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When all around my soul gives way, Moses is all my hope and stay. I don't think so.
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On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. Let's pray.
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Father, if left to ourselves to obey Moses, to be saved, 613 or so laws, we could never do it.
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But to think that Jesus, even at his baptism, did these things to fulfill all righteousness. We praise you for Jesus, that he fulfilled the law.
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I pray for Bethlehem Bible Church, that you would not have us go back to Moses. Oh, certainly there are truths there that show up in other places of the
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New Testament. But Father, as a code, as a law, as a requirement for us as Christians, Father, help us to look to your
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Spirit, where there's liberty and freedom. Help us look to the cross, Christ Jesus, where that law was fulfilled, that law was taken care of, and we are now dead to the old things.
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And Father, give us a little bit of kind of a displeasure with the world so that we might anxiously, in a holy way, long for heaven.
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The best is yet to come, but we know when you start a good work, you're faithful to complete it. And Lord, may we work out our salvation, not with Moses, but with fear and trembling.