We are in Romans chapter 7, and I want to remind you of what preceded this morning's study. In Romans chapter 6, we are told to consider ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. In verse 22 of chapter 6, we read, But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Do you not know, brothers... This is how he begins chapter 7. Do you not know, brothers, for I am speaking to men who know the law, that the law has authority over man only as long as he lives. For example, by law, a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive. But if her husband dies, she's released from the law of marriage. So then if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she's called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she's released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man. So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ so that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, The sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not. Indeed, I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, Do not covet. But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from the law, sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me and through the commandment put me to death. So then the law is holy and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good. Did that which is good then become death to me? By no means. But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me. through what was good, so that through the commandment, sin might become utterly sinful. We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do, no, the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work. When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being, I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature, a slave to the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Because through Christ Jesus, the law of the spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin and sinful man in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us who do not live according to the sinful nature, but according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires. But those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death. The mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature, but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who lives in you. Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation, but it's not to the sinful nature to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. Because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. May God add his blessing to this reading from his holy and inspired word. Pastor Wood, I noticed that when you read the text this morning, you kept on reading into chapter 8. Was there a reason for that? Yes. Because if I had been making the chapter divisions instead of Bishop Usher, I wouldn't have ended where he did. Even though the beginning of Romans 8 is a glorious place to start, the end of chapter 7 is an inappropriate place to stop. Okay? If you read Romans 7 without reading Romans 6 and Romans 8, you will misunderstand Romans chapter 7. So I would encourage you, again, as you're studying this book with me, keep reading the whole thing. Go back and read the whole thing. It's a letter. It's a letter. And as we've said before, the best way to read a letter is not, Dear Jim, I love the fact that I'm called dear. You know, that's just not the way to read. Just read the letter, get the message. Okay? Now that doesn't mean you don't go through and later dwell on individual parts like we've been doing. But folks, you could dwell on these individual parts for years. And in fact, some famous preachers have done so. You could spend a lifetime just in the book of Romans. But if you do that, you might actually miss the message of the book of Romans. There are folks who do that, unfortunately. So, in chapter 7, Paul uses an illustration from marriage to make the point that he was making back in chapter 6. In chapter 6, he says, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid you died to sin. How can you live in it any longer? And then he takes that further in chapter 7 to say, you realize, of course, that when a marriage is inaugurated, it's intended to be till death do us part. You're supposed to be faithful to each other. It's an exclusive commitment. This person committed to this person and to the exclusion of all others. That's why adultery is such a grievous thing. This is an exclusive commitment for the rest of our lives. For the rest of our lives. But if your mate dies, you're not still married to them. When I was a kid growing up in Montreat, there were a couple of missionaries who lived down the hill. Well, there were lots of missionaries who lived down the hill from us in Montreat. But one particular couple that I did some yard work for and a few other things over the years had on the mantle in the home, they were a sweet older couple, they had on the mantle in their home these lovely framed photographs that looked like the two of them when they were younger. Um, looked like maybe the pictures had been taken 20, 30 years earlier. And so I was in their home one day and I said to them, those are nice. Is, is that the two of you some years ago? And they said, Oh no, those are our first spouses. He had a picture of his former wife on the mantle. She had a picture of her former husband right next to him. Right next to her. I mean, there, there were the two pictures of the people they'd been married to before their previous spouses had died. They had all served on the mission field together. They had all been good friends and eventually one of them died. Some years later, the other one died. And so these two got married. And they loved each other. They clearly loved each other. You could tell they really loved each other and they were happy together. But they also had fond memories of their first marriages to their wonderful mates that they had gone to the mission field with. And so they decided to honor their original spouses with pictures on the mantle. That's the only couple I've ever known to do that. And I would submit to you that it is only appropriate if both of you have a previous spouse. It would not have been good if just one of them had had their former spouse up there. When you are married, it's supposed to be till death do us part. But death does do you part if you think that you are marrying for all eternity because we were married in a celestial ceremony. Okay? Well, I'm sorry, that's just one of many false teachings in that cult. Okay? Jesus said that in marriage, the woman who is married to the different brothers is not going to be married to any of them in heaven because in heaven there's not going to be that kind of marriage. In heaven, we're all the bride and Jesus is the bridegroom. And you and I are not going to be walking hand in hand with our spouses down the street of gold. Oh, darling, take my hand. Look, over there is St. Paul still arguing. You know, we're not going to be doing that. In heaven, marriage, earthly marriage, the marriage to our spouse is ended. And Paul says, just as surely as that is so, just as surely as death releases you from the marriage obligation, when you are in Christ Jesus, you are to consider yourself dead to sin and no longer under the obligation of trying to fulfill the law in order to please God. Because you never could do that. You never did pull it off. And so you need to recognize that you also died to the law, verse 4, through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. Did you get that? In order that you might belong to another, Jesus. Him who was raised from the dead. Now, in light of that, this is the argument. For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. That's the way we used to live when we were controlled by the sinful nature. That's the way it used to be. And so we bore fruit for death, but verse six now by dying to what once bound us. We have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the spirit and not in the old way of the written code. That's the argument Paul's continuing to make. It's a continuation of what he was saying in chapter six, and that is you're to consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. You're not under law, you're under grace. You are now free from what once bound you and you are to live like it. Stop behaving as if you were still a slave to sin. You're not a slave to sin any longer. Well, what shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not. Paul goes into a treatise then defending the value of the law, but showing that what the law accomplished was not to set us free from sin, but rather that sin might become utterly sinful. Verse 13, it produced, it was so that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me so that Through the commandment, sin might become utterly sinful. I've told this story over and over and over, but I never tire of it. I don't care if you do. A little boy had been here just a short time. After devotions one morning, we were headed back up to Christopher House and he looked at me and he said, Pastor Wood, until I met you, I didn't know what sin was. I was a bit taken aback because that's not what I ever wanted as my epitaph. And I said, what do you mean, David? And he said, well, when I was growing up, I thought the things that happened to me and my family were just the way life is. But now that I've been hearing you teach from the Bible, I understand it's not supposed to be that way. Those things were sin. Well, praise the Lord indeed. You see, as he heard the Word of God, he began to recognize that what he had considered as just ordinary life is sin. Now there's a reason for that, and that is the way that we naturally live is sinful. Not just in his family, but in all families. We are by nature sinners. How many of you come from a dysfunctional family? Can I see your hands? If you don't have your hand up, let me try and explain what dysfunctional means. It means messed up. I don't want to say my family's messed up. All families are messed up. Okay? Adam and Eve had two boys. One of them killed the other. That's a dysfunctional family. Okay? Those are our great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents. And all the families on earth have been dysfunctional ever since. Okay? We all inherit a sin nature. We're all messed up from the get-go. I don't care what wonderful parents you had. I had wonderful parents. I had wonderful parents. That's great. but they were messed up, okay? One of the best things about my parents is they knew they needed a savior because they knew if they got what they deserved, they'd go to hell. And so they not only trusted in the savior, but they taught their children to trust in the savior and taught their children that we needed a savior by introducing us to the law, which shows us the sinfulness of sin and the sinfulness of our hearts. But thank God they didn't leave it at introducing us to the law. And thank God David didn't just discover that what had happened to him was sin, and that the people he'd been living with were sinners, but David came to realize that he, that little boy, was also a sinner, and that he needed a Savior, and God had provided one in the person of Jesus Christ. We all need a Savior. None of us is good enough to work our way into heaven. Paul's already established that, but then he says, I want you to understand then the law was not a bad thing. But the effect of the law was simply to expose my sinfulness. And then he begins to describe the frustration that comes when we try to keep the law. It's not a pretty sight. Verse 14, we know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. Now who's Paul talking about there? Theologians, Bible scholars, Romans, aficionados have debated for generations Is he talking there about the non-Christian or is he talking about the Christian? I don't propose to settle that this morning. I simply propose to contrast what he says in verse 14 with what he has already said back in chapter 6. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with that we should no longer be slaves to sin because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. I'll let you draw your own conclusions. But Paul, writing to Christians, says you're not a slave to sin any longer. The guy in verse 14 is unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. The guy in chapter 8 is a Christian. And in chapter 8, a Christian is described as one who does not live according to the sinful nature, but according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires, but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature, but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. Verse 14 of chapter 7, we know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. and if I do what I do not want to do I agree that the law is good in other words I'm now I've got this conflict going on within me because I've decided God's law is good God is right I need to do right but I don't have in and of my own human nature the ability to do what God says in my own natural self I am powerless to obey the law of God because I'm a sinner. And so there's this continual draw toward doing the wrong thing. And in and of myself, in my own power, I can't overcome it. Please notice the phrase, in my own power. I can't do it. Let me tell you something. If you think that after you become a Christian, you no longer have a sin nature, you're mistaken. You're in denial. After you are born again, and you have a new identity, and you have the Holy Spirit living within you, and you have the power now to say no to sin, you still have to die to sin daily. You have to crucify the flesh daily. It is an ongoing process until Jesus comes again and we are no longer in this body. You see, when I get my new body, it's not going to be subject to sickness. It's not going to be subject to decay. I won't make any mistakes in heaven between now and then I've got this one could be worse. Probably will, but I have this old sin nature that is constantly rising up and trying to get me to do the wrong thing. And in my own old self, I am powerless to resist. But, but, here's the key. I'm not supposed to resist in my own strength. I am supposed to believe what God says. I'm supposed to believe the gospel, and that is, I ain't married to you no more. You're dead. Okay? Wouldn't it be a sad thing to spend the rest of your life in the cemetery holding on to the hand of a corpse? How gross is that? I'm glad you responded like that. That's a gross image. It should be grotesque to us. Well, why in the world would you want to hold hands with a corpse in the way you behave? Why would you want to embrace desires that are pulling you toward death and destruction? when you have been set free through Jesus' atoning sacrifice. Because of what Jesus did, you are free now to do the right thing. But you have to daily die to self and say yes to Him and overcome through the power of the Spirit. You try to do it in yourself, Not going to work. So Paul describes what happens when we try to do it in ourself. He says, I know that nothing good lives in me that is in my sinful nature. And that's the truth. Even for a believer, there's nothing good in our sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out in my sinful nature. For what I do is not the good I want to do, no, the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing. If I do what I do not want to do, it's no longer I who do it, but it's sin living in me that does it. Paul says, what is this? Do you ever feel like your hand is just kind of out of control? I mean, I'm not talking physical spasticity. I'm talking about, I mean, there are sometimes athletes, you know, it's like I envision the perfect golf swing. I've rehearsed this a thousand times. And then somehow when I go like this, it all falls apart. I don't know what happens. Some of us feel that way when it comes to doing what God says. It's like I keep thinking, okay, this time I'm going to be kind. And then I hear that person's voice and instantly all the kindness just goes out of me. Okay. This time I'm going to be patient. This time I'm going to be honest. This time I'm going to be gentle. Boy, how does that person do that to me? They just have a way of pulling the plug on all my good intentions. Can anybody relate to that? Yeah. So, I find this law at work. When I want to do good, evil's right there with me. Evil is right there. Do you ever feel like evil's right there with you? I mean, you're wanting to do the right thing, and there's evil going, hey, hey, come here, hey, over here, look, hey, hey, hey. And it's just, it's like, oh, wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from the body of this death? If he stopped there, it would be tragic. The Christian life would be a joke. All of chapter six would be meaningless. But he doesn't stop there. And that's why we're not stopping there either. What he goes on to say is, hey, hey, listen, I know that's the way you feel, because in and of yourself, apart from the gospel and apart from the spirit of God, that's where you'd be. Powerless to do the right thing. Because in and of yourself, you can't. But you don't have to live in your own strength. You don't have to rely upon your own determination. It's not about just practice and you'll get it right eventually. It's about a new life in Christ Jesus. The solution to chapter 7's dilemma is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul answers his problem with the answer God has provided. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You see, God is not going to judge me with regard to eternity and heaven and hell based on whether or not I've done mostly good stuff or mostly bad stuff or did, you know, you have to get 70 or above in order to get in. It's not like that. I am counted righteous on the basis of what Jesus has done. And that's glorious news. But not only am I counted righteous, I am now in Christ Jesus given the power of the Holy Spirit to do the right thing. To say no to sinful desires and to have my focus on pleasing the Lord. Not by trying to keep the law, but simply a life of gratitude to the one who saved me. I want to please Him, not so that He'll love me, but because I love Him. And the reason I love Him is because He first loved me. That's what this is about. This is not about 16 rules, which if you follow them will give you an elevated lifestyle. This is about a relationship where your old life is considered your previous life. I'm dead to that. I now have a new mate. It's Jesus. I am His bride. He loves me and I want to please Him. That is what this is about. And that's why this is really good news.