Here, all right, so we’re on session number 6. I believe. Yep, session 6. But Romans 7. Uh, it only covers part of it, but we’re going to go ahead and read 4 through 25. Well, we aren’t going to skip the, uh, in-between verses, so starting in verse 4, chapter 7 of Romans. “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you also were put to death in relation to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another. You belong to him who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions aroused us. Through the law, we’re working in us.” Uh, okay. I thought someone was in the hallway talking to us.
“For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions aroused through the law were working in us to bear fruit for death. But now we’ve been released from the law since we have died to what held us so that we may serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the old letter of the law.”
What should we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not. But I would not have known sin if I were… if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” And sin—this is verse 8, so that’s the gap, uh—and, uh, sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment produced in me coveting of every kind, for apart from the sin, the law, sin is dead.
Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprained to life again, and I died. The commandment that was meant for life resulted in death for me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me.
So then the law is holy and the commandment is holy and just and good. Therefore, did what is good become death to me? Absolutely not. But sin, in order to be recognized as sin, was producing death in me through what is good so that through the commandment, sin might become sinful beyond measure. Verse 14, Quarterly picks up here. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I’m of the flesh, sold as a slave under sin.
Verse 18. Verse 18.
For I know that nothing good lives in me that is in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. Now, if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one who does it, but it is the sin that lives in me.
So I discovered this law. When I want to do what is good, evil is present with me. For my inner self, I delight in God’s law, but I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. What a wretched man am I. Who will rescue me from this body of death?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, with my mind, I myself am serving the law of God, but with my flesh, the law of sin. Okay. Chapter 7 is wordy. You know, this gets into where Paul’s trying… I would argue he’s trying to explain something that’s enormously difficult to explain. Like, I thought about this yesterday for way too long. Clara was out of town, so I had more time alone to wrestle through thoughts. So…
We genuinely were looking at this passage, and it’s in context of Romans that the first few chapters of Romans, like we talked about 2 weeks ago, are trying to make the case of why we need Jesus. I wish I had copied it over. Somewhere I said…
It’s so good. So that’s not. But the first 4 chapters are this whole idea of what is judgment? What is sin? Why do we need a savior? Then I think at chapter 5, which was 2 weeks ago, it pivots and it starts to make the case or Paul’s making the case of what a restored relationship looks like.
And he’s trying to help us understand, hey, I’ve explained to you, this is why you’re broken. This is how you’re sinful. This is what it looks like when you accept Jesus. And then last week was Romans 6, which kind of opens up this idea of this is what freedom really looks like.
This is living in the spirit. You are now free from the power of sin. And then Romans 7, which we’re in now, is when Paul, although wordy, tries to unfold this idea of why is it then that we still struggle with sin? If we’ve been set free, why do I still struggle? And then chapter 8, which is next week, is the how we have victory. Like where does that victory come from and how do we go about having it? So in the context of Romans 7,
This chapter, isolated, feels a little confusing. But when we look at it that way, Paul’s trying to help us understand, okay? If you’ve been set free from bondage to sin, why do you still sin? What does this freedom equate to if you still struggle? And so it’s such a, I mean, chapter 7 is really great. I thought about this a lot yesterday, which is why Jeanette got her email, she didn’t like from me.
You said you didn’t like it. Oh. I’m sorry for interrupting your day. You didn’t have to do it. I mean, there wasn’t a pop quiz. I mean, did you do it? If you read, I’m proud of you. If you did not read, that’s between you and Jesus. Oh, absolutely. I mean, absolutely.
I mean, my children and my high schoolers obey me 0%. So you just kind of assume it translates to… Plus, it wasn’t that… Anyway, it’s fine. It was a nice suggestion. So if you did read this yesterday…
I genuinely read it through a few different versions just because the CSB, which is what Quarterly uses, it does a good job. I tend to study out of New American, which is very wooden and literal at times, which made it even more legally sounding. So then I kind of went and read it in a few that were more thought for thought. But what struck me more than anything is this. There’s so many cool ideas, but
I’m probably also – so teaching Wednesday night with Ezra and Nehemiah and then now in Romans, the idea of sin is like right at the front of my head all the time. And it’s – so it’s hard to get out of that mindset. But the world we live in is a world where people do not understand their sins.
Indeed, like many people. I was literally listening to a song the other day that I heard probably back in high school, and it just happened to pop up. And one of the lines in the song was, “I have a really good heart, but I just can’t catch a break.” Do you know who doesn’t have a good heart? All of us. Like, all of us. But it hit me when I was listening to that. I was like, wow, that’s a really pervasive thought.
Like the world we live in, that is the genuine consensus or genuine general consensus. Is that like, oh yeah, like the good outweighs the bad for sure. It doesn’t really matter. And we live in… So like I wrote this down because I needed to make sure I didn’t totally rabbit trail. We live in a world where people do not understand their sin, but they think they have a good heart. They don’t. I don’t have a good heart. You don’t have a good heart. They don’t have a good heart. The only hope for us is Jesus. On our own, we do not… But…
The world we live in is very convinced, and there’s a lot of reasons. I did not write them down. I just wrote for a lot of reasons. It’s very convinced, like, their sin’s not that big of a deal. Or they don’t really, like, how was I sinful? Like, they just cannot fathom that. They cannot accept the fact that they sin. Every single one of us still sins.
We have to remember that. Otherwise, we’re going to fail to remember how important it was that Jesus died and that we have freedom from sin. What do I need freedom from sin for if I don’t sin? Why do I need the good news if I don’t sin? Why do I need to read my Bible if I don’t sin? That is a big problem in our world.
You’re not under the law. Mm-hmm. Now, these people, they were legalists to the… Nth degree, yeah. Old Testament legalists. Yep. That was this group. Yep. You’re not under the law anymore. Yep. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Right. Right. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Yep.
Let that go. It doesn’t mean, it doesn’t go away. It’s not anarchy. Let me get out of jail free guard. But just trying to explain this, I think is part of his very wordy. Yes, because he almost over, not over explains it, but he says the same thing multiple times, which is not a terrible strategy when you’re trying to explain something that’s hard to understand.
Get your human head wrapped around. It’s like you use a couple of analogies and some metaphors, and you re-explain it again, and then you have a couple bullet points, and in the end you’re like, I said the same thing 8 times. Did anyone actually resonate with any of those 8 things? I thought that too. And that’s probably why it is a bit wordy, because he’s really trying, because it is so dramatically important. It wasn’t just given a passing sentence or a couple of, like a paragraph. It was an entire chapter, a large section of this book.
Yeah. Yeah. Pretty short. Yeah.
I mean, if you’re a high schooler looking for a book of the Bible to read, you go pick Jude real quick. Yeah. People say, well, Paul wrote two-thirds of the New Testament. Yeah. No, he didn’t. Yeah. He wrote two-thirds of the books in the New Testament. Right. Not two-thirds of the New Testament. Right. His books are so short. Yeah, but Romans, I guess Corinthians. Romans and Corinthians are the hefty ones that take up a lot of space.
Right, right. Mm-hmm.
And I genuinely think, and I don’t remember exactly where, but when Paul’s talking about the thorn in his side and he’s so frustrated that God will not remove that from him, we don’t know what it is. It’s ambiguous on purpose, but you can’t help but look back and go, it’s because God wanted him to remember he was still a human being, that he was still, he needed to be humbled because he could not be perfect like Jesus this side of eternity and certainly could not have any hope without actually living through Jesus.
So as frustrated and our, uh, our sins should still frustrate us. We should, we should sin. And then there should be grief in our heart, but also we should understand that, uh, that we can still approach the throne and, uh, and repent. That’s the beauty of this, but our sins should still grieve us. We should still be bothered by it because I think that keeps us humbled and turning back to Jesus over and over again. And we don’t get so puffed up in the crowd. Uh,
Let’s look. So there’s a question on 55, and it says, what is your favorite rescue story? Who comes to mind when you’re asked to name the first person who ever rescued you? I don’t know. Does anyone have a good rescue story? Or a favorite movie that’s like a rescue story?
Well, I thought about the news story when they found Ben Owenby. Yes. Yes. We literally, that just came up in school the other day because the kids were like, what’s that story we heard? It’s like an anniversary of something. And we’re like, oof. Like, that’s a doozy. That’s a great one. The rescue story there. I mean, that still creeps me out to this day. It’s been, I don’t know, this is ’26. It’s been 15 years maybe, maybe more. I mean, he’s a grown man. Like, it’s…
Unfathomable. Uh, it’s a great rescue story. Any other ones that you just love? The Quarterly kind of goes into this. Uh, you know that one’s a pretty big story. Uh, but there’s a million little ways that God provides and rescues, uh, daily, you know? The Quarterly makes this comment, you know, someone’s tutoring kids who are struggling.
It is a rescue story. The person who swoops in and helps when there’s a need for someone else is a rescue story. There’s examples of big and small. But when we look at this idea of today’s lesson, this idea of struggle, sometimes the struggle is genuinely meant to push us back to the fact that we need rescue, that we need a savior. So let’s go ahead and reread 4 through 6.
4 through 6, because this is the part that I will probably accidentally hover on too long. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you also were put to death in relation to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another. You belong to him who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. For when we were in the flesh, sinful passions aroused through the law were working in us to bear fruit for death. But now we’ve been released from the law.
And since we have died to what held us so that we may serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the old letter of the law. There’s some really good stuff in between, but the Quarterly skips down to 14. So we’ll stick with that for the sake of time. Have you ever planted seeds? Do you remember as a kid, like getting the cup at school and like you stick your apple seeds in there and like you get really excited when it kind of sprouts up? And then what typically happens?
You forget to water, it dies. I mean, I have a plant in my office. My office is downstairs, and 2 plants are thriving, and the other one, I don’t know what I’ve done wrong, but it’s just like 90% dead. It’s a little fern, a little bit of green on the side. I don’t know what I’ve done, but nevertheless. Planting seeds, we typically expect when we plant seeds a lot of growth.
Especially kids. I will say this. We have the front porch that’s new in the house. Between the sidewalk where it comes up from the driveway and then the porch itself, there was like, I don’t know, 3 or 4 feet of dirt that was in between the two. And with the porch.
And I had a student who’s a good buddy that graduated 5 years ago, and he’s really into regenerative farming. So like, you know, moving animals around pastures and planting the right, it’s really interesting. And he had a bunch of extra seeds that he had bought for his family had some land out around Troy that no one used. So he had been kind of playing with it. And he had a bunch of extra seeds, wildflowers, native things. And he was like, if you want them, they’re yours. So we did like we, uh, you know, got a bunch of topsoil and manure and spread it out and
put all these seeds in. I mean, the kids have been excited about it since we did it in March. I mean, they still go out and water it a couple times a week. We didn’t have, we were really hoping for like, you know, it was huge. But all we got were black-eyed seasons that actually bloomed.
But next year, some of those flowers take a couple years before they actually bloom. But what’s neat about that, especially for kids, is they genuinely pushed the seeds in themselves, covered them back up, and then as little green sprouts came out, that was almost better than TV most days because they knew something’s happening under there and I’m excited. And then as it grew and started blooming and then birds start showing up and bumblebees and butterflies, they’ve been thrilled to pieces. So
typically when we plant seeds we expect some kind of growth. We expect something to come of planting the seeds because reality is why would we plant seeds if we don’t expect something good to happen? That’s silly. It’s a waste like we plant seeds because we want something good or plant trees or bushes. So with that idea,
Paul is really trying to help. These are probably very new Christians he’s writing to, and he’s trying to help them understand the new relationship because of Jesus. The Holy Spirit has planted into their lives, and when freedom actually comes, the fruit should switch. The seed has been planted now of Jesus and newness, not death. And when newness and life change,
Christ has been planted, we should expect fruit that reflects a changed life, not fruit that is death. So there’s a question there on 58. It says, and this is a more profound question than it at first glance looks. It says, what practical difference should it make that a believer belongs to Christ? And part 2, it says, in what ways does it change your identity and purpose? So
We talk a lot in church world about our identity in Christ. We say it a lot. We say it at school. We say it at church. Like our identity should be in Christ. What does that actually mean? What does it actually mean for our identity to be in Christ? If we say it, what does it mean? Our behavior and action should be Christ-like. Yeah. Like my identity is now rooted in living out his word. What else does that look like?
Having our identity rooted in Christ. Yeah. Yeah.
My heart changed to where I don’t want to disobey the law. I want to obey the law. The law is holy. That’s part of what Satan said that Adam was. He said you couldn’t eat. He said you couldn’t eat. He made a law that said you couldn’t eat. That law is terrible. It is terrible.
When God made the law, and in effect, obeying the law was what was going to keep Adam holy. He chose not to do it, just like I did before I got saved. And just like I still do sometimes.
Somebody aggravates me. I’ll give you one rule. The law was very simple in the beginning. We said, we can’t keep all these laws. I gave you one, and you didn’t keep it. So how are you going to keep it? How do I expect you to keep any of the rest of it?
Then he goes to 10, and we can’t keep playing. And now we get hundreds more. Yeah. That’s a good thought because the reality of having our identity rooted in Christ means that we’re living in the fact that Jesus died for us. And as a result, we’re not living in what we must do to be saved. We’re living in effect. It should reshape our life because it’s no longer I must do these things to be saved. I do these things because I’m saved.
So having our identity rooted in Christ takes us out of this works mentality and instead puts us in the fruit mentality. Is there actual fruit coming out of my life that reflects a changed heart? And really, that’s the benchmark we have to look to. These are super broad, but I made a tiny list in a little circle here because my notes, again, were just, you know. They make paper. I own paper. I just, when I start, and it’s fine.
Uh, quiet faithfulness, people who just show up and serve and they don’t look for, you know, applause or accolade, uh, people that are quick to repent. Like, I mean, everybody knows somebody who’s like getting them to like actually tell you they were wrong and then repent from it is like herding cats across the desert. Uh, gentle speech. Like we can say hard things with a kind tone.
Love that actually sacrifices. We quote this at home a lot with the kids. I mean, not only treat others how you want to be treated, but oh gosh, why am I blanking on the verse? We literally read it last night. Consider others more important than yourself. That verse gets thrown around the house a lot because we struggle with that one. Having integrity. C.S. Lewis called integrity doing the right thing when no one’s watching.
Like still being about the right things, even when someone’s not keeping you accountable. Being quick to forgive. Looking to find joy in trials. And then living lives that are evangelistic, just as we go. Like spreading the gospel as we go. So living in what Jesus did for us should change us. And things like that should be the fruit that shows a changed life. Again, not to gain approval, but because of the love and obedience we have for Jesus.
So when we look at this passage, though, because we just have to dig into it. Gosh, it’s already 4:45. 4:46. But when we look at verse 5, I love verse 5. It’s such a depressing verse. So it says, but it’s good depressing. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions aroused through the law were working in us to bear fruit for death.
Oof. I mean, think about that. We live very weirdly in this, like, the world around us. Like I talked at the beginning about how we struggle so much to actually believe we are sinful people and the world does not believe that they do things that are wrong.
Uh, but there’s one of two options. We live thinking there’s a whole lot of gray. It’s like, well, like I’m more on the good side. Like, and we’ve seen too many Disney cartoons where they have the little scale thing and it’s like, well, I have more good things over here. Or like, I listened to the good angel on my shoulder more than the bad. You’re like, that’s not how that works. Like it’s, it’s probably very destructive that so many have grown up thinking that because if I am living in the flesh.
and I am under the law and I am slave to sin, then I am bearing fruit for death. We could translate that, I am bearing fruit for evil. I am bearing the fruit of the kingdom of the air, not the kingdom of God. There’s not an in-between. It’s one or the other. And Paul, which then, verse 6 starts much more hopeful than verse 5 did, but now we have been released from the law since we have died to what held us
so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the old letter of the law. It’s such a cool contrast. Because on one hand, you have bearing fruit for death and evil. On the other, you have bearing fruit so that we can serve in the newness of the Spirit.
I don’t know about you, but I think most people, if they were confronted with that choice and a gun was held to their head, they’d probably pick the newness of the spirit, not the path that leads to death. I would hope. But if people don’t know that, if people don’t understand that, how can they choose? How can they actually be confronted with that? There’s so many cool things, but verse, where is it? Verse 4. Oh, we’ll get into it. Okay.
We’ll get into it. It’s in the middle section. Yeah. Yeah.
And again, I go back to this. There’s only one way for a person not to have to pay that. And that is to surrender to Christ and accept the payment that he made in account that you died in 24. He says, unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sin. Yep, yep.
You know, when we, this is where like, I know I say it all the time, but it’s important to say all the time, still keeps being true. That’s why we have to study the whole of Scripture. Because when I read stuff like this, it brings to my mind really quick. That’s right.
The only atonement for sin is the shedding of blood. Why Jesus and I can look back in the temple era of like them trying to atone for sins and they had there were all these different atonements in the temple um guilt offerings and sin offerings and and all of those things were to atone for what they themselves could not do because they knew they were going to sin they didn’t want to sin but they knew they would i mean there were some who wanted to um but they they continually atoned and when we really read the whole of scripture
All of these things make a lot more sense because we start to see why Jesus did these things, why the law needed to come, why it needed to expose our sin so that it would point us back to the one who could actually save us because we can’t save ourselves. Things we know, but when you read it all together often and regularly, the web gets connected better and we understand and the richness of it is much more full.
Because the reality is, and I know that I won’t say it well, and I hope at some point I say it well. My brain tornado yesterday, I know, theologically I know, the law is meant to reveal sin. Like it’s all over scripture. It’s said like the law was given to show you your sin. We know that in our heads. I think my brain tornado yesterday was without the law, we fail to understand the depth and brokenness and desperate need we have.
The law, and this is a terrible, terrible analogy, but it’s the best I’ve got. I legitimately prayed about this last night because I was trying so hard to come up with a good one. It’s not unlike a flashlight that reveals what’s hidden in the dark. The law, again, not a great metaphor because the law is much better than a flashlight, although I have a couple of flashlights that I’m a big fan of. Man, like, they’re really cool flashlights. But…
The law being the light that clicks on and it reveals the truth of what’s hidden in the darkness. So bear with that analogy for a second. When the law exposes what’s hidden in the dark, the brokenness, the sin, the lust and greed and pride and ego and, I don’t know, name all the things, when the law exposes all of that,
Then I understand how sinful and… I mean, imagine all of the times in Scripture where sin is exposed publicly.
The shame that one feels. Like you have secondhand shame when the woman is caught in adultery. Remember the Sadducees and Pharisees are trying to trip up Jesus and they expose the woman who’s caught in adultery that they obviously plotted this whole thing. You have secondhand shame, or we should, when we read those passages because you’re like, oh, like I can only imagine how horrible I would feel if my worst sins were exposed.
Good. The law should expose those things so that it drives us back to every single day how much I am dependent on Jesus, not myself. So I’m not doing it justice. But like I was studying this yesterday. The kids were playing their game after soccer.
They had this cute little video game thing. It’s like a box, and it sits in front of the TV. It has a little camera. And all the games, they have to move and do stuff. So it’s like if it’s whack-a-mole, they have to whack the moles on the screen. Or if it’s like How to Train Your Dragon, they’re out there doing… It’s great because I don’t really… If they need to play a game or something, it’s like, great, go play the one that makes you move the whole time. And then you have to take showers later because they’re so sweaty. But nevertheless…
When I was reading through this, that struck me more than it ever has before. And my prayer going to sleep last night was that it would strike all of us more than it has before. We know that. We’ve read it before. The law reveals sin. The law shows us the sin. But without the law, without understanding the law, without reading the law, without meditating on the law, which we read in Psalms over and over again, how much David, you know, I meditate on your word. I ponder your word. I read your word. I study your word.
The law every single time helps us understand the great brokenness and the desperate need we have. That’s amazing. Again, we have to actually read it for it to expose those things. We have to know it. We have to speak about it. We have to study it like we do every Sunday.
The hope would be like it unravels the lies and sin that have entangled us for so long. It’s just like when we were reading Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy and Moses and Aaron and Joshua trying to help the people pull out of the slavery and sinful mindset you lived in and now live as God’s holy set apart people. Don’t live in that. But that’s all they knew.
Much like sin is the world that we live in. It’s the water that our tea leaves are steeped in. Weird analogy. Okay. But sometimes you need a weird one. So, oh, I’m trying to look at all my notes and make sure I didn’t miss anything I really cared about. I got another comment. Yeah, go for it.
I feel like the more we focus on the law,
it tends to lead to self-righteousness. Because it’s so easy to look at the law and go, well, yeah, I’m so good. I don’t kill anybody. I don’t steal from anybody. I don’t lie about anybody. And you focus on all that and say, boy, what a good person I am. And to me, in Jesus Christ, fortunately we’ve got the New Testament, his life, which tells all about his life.
And what he did. What he said, what he did. And to me, Jesus Christ coming into my life is focusing on what did he do? What did he say? How did he live? And am I in that? Yeah. As opposed to, you know, the law is important, but I think it’s been used through history to hate and kill other people because they…
They didn’t conform to my set of rules. They were different from me. I think if we… We’ve killed so many people in the world, in the history of the world. It’s crazy. But Jesus Christ, I think, saved us from that. Matt. So, when a person says, I didn’t kill anybody… Are you going to the Beatitudes? Yeah, well…
Yeah. Amen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And you can drink a cup of it and it will kill you. Or you can take a little bitty drop of it. Yeah. Yeah. So a person can say they do all this stuff, obey the law, obey the law. Yeah. But they’re not. Yeah. Well, and so I agree and disagree. I think when the law is taken with a self-righteous heart, yes, it leads to that. When the law is taken with a heart of,
Seeing the two sets of commandments, because if you remember, the first tablet was this is how we worship God rightly, and this is how we love others rightly. When it’s taken with that heart and attitude, like Matthew 22, 37-ish, when it’s like the greatest commands are loving God and loving others. When it’s taken with a heart of I want to obey because of the goodness of God, I think the law is beautiful.
I think the problem is the law has been used by people who are self-righteous legalists who will use it and twist it to work a certain angle versus conform us to the image of Jesus. And I think that’s a dangerous spot because I’ll never concede that the law isn’t beautiful and good because the law shows me my broken heart. And I need that. I need the law to show me my broken heart. Yeah, Matt. I’ll give you a couple…
Paul said, if you want to look at somebody to get the law, there’s nobody to get the law better than I do. Right. And I count, and this is what this goes into, legalism, it’s worse. Yeah. I count all of that as rubbish. Yeah. When I look at the cross. Right. Why? Because Paul knew on the inside, he just gave him the law, but on the inside he was still a sinner. Yeah. I don’t think it’s in the quarterly, but it was in my notes somewhere. I don’t totally want to steal from the end.
But when Jesus says in Matthew that he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law. We’ll get to that. Put a pin in that thought, because that’s a really important part of this completion of how he does this. Okay, we have to keep moving, because I just realized it’s 10 o’clock. Let’s go ahead and read 14 through 23. 14 through 23. Okay.
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold as a slave under sin. For I do, I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate. Now if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good. So I am no longer living, I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin.
For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my flesh, for the desire to do what is good is with me, but there’s no ability to do it. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do.
Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one who does it, but it is the sin that lives in me. So I discover this law. When I want to do what is good, evil is present with me. For in my inner self, I delight in God’s law. But I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. Okay, this is where Paul gets very…
I mean, clear as mud. Like, man. I mean, it is. So the quarterly, I’m just going to read some of its blurbs because it does a decent job of trying to summarize what paul’s getting at so the first few verses 7 through 13 um paul says that the law was not sinful in itself without the law we can’t recognize our sin um and he uses the example i read it earlier like um i did not know that i was coveting until the law told me i was coveting um and that was helpful but then we see this in verses 14 starts up um through 16 and that Paul explains that the problem is not with the law, but with our own broken human nature. As evidence, he points to his own battles in life. And it’s that confusing part where it’s like…
I do what I don’t want to do, and I want to do the thing that I end up not. And it’s this back and forth. It says at times he did what he knew was wrong. Other times he failed to do what he knew was right. He consistently made wrong choices. And even Paul, the quarterly says this, Paul did not understand why he continued to be enslaved to sin when he had trusted Christ to die for sin. Like that’s the conflict that we see. That even Paul, Paul is smarter than I am.
A lot. Paul does not understand why sin still gets at him when he’s trusted his life to Jesus. That should be enormously comforting. I’m not saying be okay with our sin, but comforting that this is confusing and wordy, that Paul is trying to explain something that human brains, including his, have a hard time wrapping ourselves around. And it says…
Paul found himself, it might say this in your book too, Paul found himself battling between the new nature and the old nature. As believers, we still battle the power of sin even though Jesus has set us free from it. It’s the new versus old. I think the Israelites are a good example of this when they left Egypt. They had a really hard time unraveling from the way they had watched life be lived for 400 years. I mean, it’s not unlike someone who’s breaking free from addiction. They don’t want it.
But because they’ve been engrossed or enmeshed in it for so long, it’s really hard to break that habit. I mean, even diets. If you’ve like every day of your life eaten ice cream and all of a sudden you’re like, nope, cutting out dairy and sugar, I’m not doing it anymore. That is really hard. You might want to cut it out, which you really don’t, but you might want the effects of cutting it out. But actually living in that tension is very hard. Everybody knows that.
And that’s what Paul’s trying to help us understand. He says, because of the Holy Spirit in his life, he still had the desire to do good. I’ve said this phrase a few times. I like this one. Wanting to want the things of God is a really good sign.
want i’m in a struggle but the fact that i want to want the things of god matters enormously because it means the holy spirit is still working in me there’s a desire for the things of god again there’s sin and there’s struggle and there’s ugliness and brokenness but there’s a desire and that’s what we read paul literally talking about now if i see you
When I want to do what is good, evil is present with me. For my inner self, I delight in God’s law, but I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin. Like he is living in that tension. That’s the same tension. If Paul wants to delight in the law, verse 22, in my inner self, I delight, but he still delights.
struggles with the fighting of sin in his life? We do too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
It is not unlike very silly example. Risa does girls on the run every year, which is when they go to the park and they do that. They train all year or all fall and then they go do a five K in the park. Well, last year, dad, I mean, I think I might’ve run a mile and a half max in preparation for this. I have not been a runner since like probably my twenties, maybe early thirties, but it’s been a while. My body wanted to keep up with Risa during the race.
My, I’m sorry, my mind, sorry, backwards. My mind really wanted to keep up with Rissa during the race and like never be the one who asked for a break. My body was like, Rissa, please, please take a break. Like, please take a walking break. I just want to, I didn’t say it, but my body really wanted a break. That’s the reality that we live in. The mind, the spirit may be going toward the things of God, but our body is still being broken.
unraveled from the sin that’s entangled us for so long, which is really cool because if we can’t do it on our own, who can? Jesus, a Sunday school answer. I mean, recognizing sin’s presence in our lives, even when we’ve trusted Jesus, even when we’ve, we have been made new, we do see good fruit in our lives because
in the sinful, frustrating moments, that should push us right back to the throne. And it keeps us from the self-righteousness. It keeps us from seeing it as, well, I kept all the rules. It’s like, no, I can’t keep all the rules. Matt? Yeah, I’m very hesitant to disagree with the point of this comment where he says Paul did not understand. I think he did understand. He understood this more than anybody except for Jesus. Because of his experience…
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Saying he didn’t understand, we sort of understand it, and you just gave the answer. It pushes us through the throne and the cross. That’s why God chose to do it this way. That’s the part maybe we… And maybe that’s… Yeah.
That’s probably a, there’s probably, understand is probably a poor word choice. Paul probably, like us, why is this the way that you chose to do this, God? Like, why exactly is this the, yeah, because Paul probably didn’t understand. I mean, he will understand better than I likely ever will this side of eternity. And I think that’s a fair question for everybody. Like, that’s the question we get from other people. Like, well, why is this the way God did it? I actually don’t know. I got an idea. I’ve got to work this out. That, uh,
God created us in his own image, and he can create a robot. And I think we’re in fellowship with his creation. We see that in Genesis. And you can’t have much fellowship with a robot. So he created us with a free will, and that separates us, I think, from about everything except God, that we have a choice.
And we make bad choices. Yeah. But we’re supposed to not use those human characteristics all the time. But they do happen. We all sin. So that’s what I think. There’s a poem with free will and the fact that we have free will. We can’t take a bite of that apple. And we do sometimes.
but we can also have fellowship. And that’s what we need to get away from, bite the apple and have fellowship with God. Well, I don’t remember what old church father it was, but the quote is, always be crucifying sin. I’m going to say it was John Owen. That could be wrong. It’ll come to me at a really weird time, I’m sure. And that’s the reality of living in a world where we have chosen, we are born into sin.
We are born into sin. There was some political debate years ago. I remember studying it in school, 70s or 80s, and the debate was like, are people born good or bad? Well, I can’t believe that debate even existed. Like, they’re born evil. Like, it’s very obvious. Have you met an infant? Have you met a toddler? Like, they’re evil. Like, they’re lovely, but they’re… Exactly. You know why? It manifests itself about the age of two.
You know why they say the terrible two? That’s when the little child realizes they’re an independent person. And that’s the reality. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, and we can be two things at once. We can be fearfully and wonderfully made and really dumb and simple. And we don’t live in a world that likes to admit there’s two things. We don’t like to admit that you can have sorrow and joy at the same time, or evil and…
lovely and wonderfully made um but we do like that is the uniqueness of of being physical and spiritual we are embodied souls um gosh it’s 10 10 okay um let’s read the last couple verses and then we will have to wrap up somehow um verse 24 what a wretched man am i who will rescue me from this body of death
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then with my mind, I myself am serving the law of God, but with my flesh, the law of sin. So Paul, if Paul can call himself a wretched man, so should we. So should we. For all the good things we think that we do. If Paul can call himself a wretched man because of the brokenness and sin that still exists, we should too. But it’s not without hope.
Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So we’re not without hope. Man, there’s so many things to wrap up that we don’t have. We have to continually trust Jesus to manage that inner conflict of sin because we can’t do it on our own.
We will choose sin. We will choose evil. We will choose the apple over and over again. But we genuinely, our hearts and minds have to continually be reformed to God’s word. It’s the only hope we have because God gave us a gift in his word that helps us understand Jesus, helps us understand the way that our flesh nudges us towards obeying the law or the sin versus trusting Jesus to redeem.
So a few things. Gosh, I hate this part of the day. Okay. We see these things that are worth pondering. We see Paul talk about the goodness of the law. We see him talk about the ugliness of sin. He doesn’t say this, but I think he alludes to our blindness, spiritual blindness without the word of God. He very much talks about the spirit’s awakening power. And he talks about Christ being sufficient. So we see a few of those things.
which I think helps us understand that the power of the law is there to reveal our sin and deepen our gratitude for Jesus. Think about like this is showing up more and more today. Secular psychology has shown now what the Bible has told us forever, that gratitude is incredibly good for us.
You can go on Amazon, and there are thousands of gratitude journals, which is funny. You don’t need a separate journal. You can use regular paper. It doesn’t have to say gratitude journal in the front, but Amazon will sell you one. Because you can see on Instagram and Facebook and all those little short-form videos, practicing gratitude changes everything. It does.
But the gratitude for a believer should be for what Jesus has done for us. And we’ve seen it for thousands of years, that gratitude and trusting God the Father and now Jesus through his work changes us. It helps us understand. And with the power of law reveals sin, that should make us grateful. Because if the law reveals how ugly and broken I am, then knowing what Jesus did for me
should overwhelm me with gratitude. And then that gratitude should manifest itself in wanting to obey, wanting to be more like Jesus. So think about where you have seen the law expose sin in your heart. Your heart. If you want to raise your hand. I’m not making you raise your hand. But think about where you’ve seen the law expose sin in your heart. Does it lead you back to Jesus eventually? Hopefully.
I know too many people that the sin in their heart actually overwhelms them because they don’t understand the sacrifice of Jesus. So the sin in their heart, they’re so overcome by their own ugliness and wretchedness that they just can’t imagine. You’ve heard people say, well, I can’t do church because I’ve got to get my stuff in order first. Really quickly, we should break down that lie they believed. None of us have it together.
It’s literally what Jesus died for. It was because we can’t get it together. Right. Right. Right. I’ve heard that one. Like, I’m not going to the gym until I lose weight. And you’re like, well, good luck. It’s the only hope. But unfortunately, there are too many who reject that beautiful gift. So.
Romans 7, so reframe is a marketing word these days. It’s existed before marketing stole it. But Romans 7 helps reframe the exposure of sin as an act of grace. Think about that. The exposure of our sin, the revealing of the wretched brokenness that we are, is an act of grace. Because if I don’t understand my wretched sinfulness, how can I possibly surrender to a savior? How can I possibly run back to the cross over and over and over again?
It not only points us back to Jesus, but that grace helps us accept our identity being in him. That it’s about what he did, not what I can do. Yeah, Bill. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, it’s a profound, when you really, when you can reframe the exposing of the worst parts of me as an act of grace, that’s pretty incredible. And that changes everything. Nobody, even the redeemed, don’t really want their sin exposed and laid out bare. But it’s an act of grace because it pushes me back to Jesus. So why is it so good? This is our parting question to ponder it.
Why is it good that the law exposes sin, but it can’t save us? The law can’t save me. The law cannot save me. Only Jesus can. But why is it so good that it exposes sin? How does it draw our hearts back to Jesus’ work on the cross? I wrote down, the law shows us our sin, but Christ shows us our hope. Think about that. The law shows us our sin, but Jesus shows us our hope.
And that should lead us, if we understand it, it should lead us to honest repentance, a deep gratitude, like we talked about, and actual freedom. Not bondage, actual freedom. Because again, Jesus came to fulfill the law. I said I wasn’t going to come back to that.
Barely um, Jesus came to fulfill the law. He did not come to abolish the law. He was not like New Testament did not overrule the law, but it fulfilled it. Because now we understand through Jesus the law was meant to point us to him. The law was meant to point us to our need. So there’s more we could talk about, but we’re a couple minutes over, so we have to, we have to wrap up.
Any last thoughts before we pray? Okay, let’s pray. Father God, thank you. Thank you for really hard truth. Thank you for confronting us with the reality that we can’t do this on our own, that the law was a gift. The law was a gift of grace to show us how much we needed you. Jesus, we cannot do this without you. Help us to live in that. Help our wretched brokenness to show us we need you.
And I’m not living now to gain your approval. I’m living out of the love and sacrifice on the cross. I’m living out of love and obedience, not out of duty. Jesus, we love you. We’re thankful for our class, and we ask all these things in your name. Amen. All right, next week, number 7.
Number 7, chapter 8. Oh, my book’s already falling apart. These are not built to last. These are not Brian proof books.
