Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Welcome to our program. Today
I want to talk to you about the subject, newness of life. Newness of life, I'll be teaching
from the book of Romans chapter 7, where the Apostle Paul, in
speaking of the believer's union with Christ, makes this statement
in verse 4, which I dealt with last week. He says, wherefore,
my brethren, you also are become dead to the law by the body of
Christ. Now, understand that being dead
to the law means the law cannot condemn a person. If the person is dead to the
law, there is no condemnation, there's no guilt. That person
is justified before God. And the law pronounces that person
not guilty. In fact, it goes further than
that. The law pronounces that person righteous before God. That person has a right relationship
with God. And all of that came about, it
says here, by the body of Christ. That's his death on the cross,
the giving of his humanity on that cross. He died, the God-man
died. and he paid the debt. Remember
back in Romans 6, 23, for the wages of sin is debt. That's
what we earn in our lives. but the gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So Christ, by His body,
His death on the cross, brought eternal life to His people, and
He said that you should be married to another, that is a marriage
union of faith in Christ, united to Christ, even to Him who is
raised from the dead. The resurrection speaks of His
success, his victory, how death has no hold upon him, has no
dominion upon him, and therefore upon his people, that we should
bring forth fruit unto God. And that fruit unto God is the
fruit of faith, the fruit of repentance, the fruit of obedience,
the fruit of perseverance. It's all the fruit. And that's
a very, very important truth that we have to understand. in
the Gospel and in the whole Bible is that the believer's life as
a Christian in obedience in all ways, is not the source of salvation,
not the cause of salvation, and not the ground of salvation.
It's the fruit of what Christ did. Christ's righteousness,
imputed, accounted, charged, is the ground of salvation. The
love and power of God, the grace of God, is the source of salvation. But Christ's obedience unto death
for his people, his church, God's elect, is the ground of salvation. And everything that a believer
experiences in the new birth, in faith, in repentance, in obedience,
is the fruit. That's fruit unto God. You see,
Ephesians 2, 8 through 10 says it very succinctly. When it says,
for by grace are you saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves,
it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
And then verse 10 says, for we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto, not because of, but unto good works, which
God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. So don't
get that order mixed up. And he says, for when we were
in the flesh, when we were unregenerate, the motions or passions of sin
which were by the law did work in our members to bring forth
fruit unto death. Now that describes an unbeliever.
All that unbeliever can do, can bring forth, at his worst or
at his best, is fruit unto death. He may be like Cain, trying to
work his way into God's favor, trying to be the best he can
be, But my friend, that's not how salvation is attained or
even maintained. That's not how righteousness
comes about. It comes about by the grace of
God in Christ. Anything else is fruit unto death.
But look at verse six. He says, but now we are delivered
from the law. That's a sinner saved by grace,
married to Christ, bringing forth fruit unto God, delivered from
the law. Now again, that means to be dead
to the law. It means the law cannot condemn
us or the law can require no obedience from us in order to
attain or maintain salvation. Christ already did that. He says,
but now we're delivered from the law that being dead wherein
we were held, that is we were dead being held bondage and captive
by the law. And he says the reason we're
delivered from that bondage, from that law, is that we should
serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
Now newness of the spirit, newness of life is what I entitled the
message. The newness of the spirit, that's
a new spirit that God has given to His people. Some say this
is the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit works all of this as He
comes forth from the Father and the Son to apply life, to impart
spiritual life to His people. But this newness of the Spirit,
what is that? Well, that's serving God as we
are motivated by grace, gratitude, and love. It's the opposite of
the oldness of the letter. The letter refers to the written
law. Now what he's talking about here is the difference between
legalism and liberty. Now back up in Romans chapter
six, he talked about how when you're brought to faith in Christ
by the Holy Spirit in the new birth, you are liberated from
sin. sin's dominion, sin's deception. In what sense? Does that mean
I'm no longer a sinner? Does that mean I no longer have
sinful thoughts and sinful passions and sinful motives and goals?
No. Those are still around. That's the flesh. That's why
we who are saved are in a warfare of the flesh and the spirit.
But we're liberated from sin in the sense, number one, that
sin cannot condemn us and sin cannot deceive us so as to keep
us in the bondage of legalism and guilt. You see, legalism
is not, what is legalism? It's trying to earn our salvation,
trying to earn our blessings and rewards from God based on
our obedience to the law. And the motivation of legalism
is twofold. It's legal threats of punishment. That's one thing, you know, that
we have by nature. Or, and, and, I won't say or
because they come together. Or, and mercenary promises of
earned reward. That's legalism. Are you trying
to earn your rewards in heaven? Well, that's legalism, my friend.
You're serving God for what you can get out of Him, not because
of His intrinsic value and glory, and not because He's freely given
you all things in Christ. The newness of the Spirit is
serving God because of His grace. And I don't earn or deserve grace.
The nature of grace is that sinners cannot earn their way into God's
favor and rewards. We don't deserve it, we don't
earn it. You say, well, grace has to come through righteousness.
Exactly. But not ours, because we don't
have any. It comes through Christ's righteousness. You see, Christ
earned all that I have. The Bible says that. It says
that in Ephesians 1-3, Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. The benefits and blessings
of salvation that come to sinners through Christ is called an inheritance. And it's called an incorruptible
inheritance that cannot fade away. Now, if any of that inheritance
is based on my obedience, I'm gonna tell you something right
now, it is corrupted and it can fade away. But if it's based
on Christ's obedience, it's incorruptible and it cannot fade away. So,
and as I said last week and the week before, people will conclude,
well, if that's true, then why should I obey anything? Why should
I do anything good? Why should I try to be good?
Because grace, salvation by grace, is not only what Christ has done
for us, it also involves what Christ does in us by the Spirit
in giving us newness of the Spirit. He gives us a new heart. A new
mind. A new mind to think differently.
I don't think like I used to. I used to think that God would
bless me if I did my part. Don't think like that anymore.
Now I know that my part is nothing. It's all Christ. I used to think
that God would bless me if I would do this, do that. God would save
me. God would smile upon me. All of these things that I thought
I was earning from God, I don't think like that anymore. I used
to think that even though I'm a sinner, I have some good in
me. Don't think like that anymore. There's nothing good in me. I
have the Holy Spirit. I have a new spirit now created
in me by the Holy Spirit. But my friend, that's not my
righteousness before God. That's what I'm saying. My righteousness
before God is not within me and it's not what I do. My righteousness
before God is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He's given me
a new heart, new mind. We have the mind of Christ. We
receive Him. And then, He's given me a new
set of affections. Now, I still have the old set
of affections, that's the flesh, I still have evil desires, sinful
desires, I have to fight them, have to repent of them, but I
have a desire to glorify God, to honor Christ, the desire to
love God and to love Him, that's put there by the Holy Spirit.
That didn't come naturally for me. The natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them.
You see, that's a gift of God's grace. And it's not a perfection
in me, because I'm still having to fight. Even my good desires
are contaminated with my evil desires. But you see, I look
to Christ as the author and finisher of my faith. He's given me a
new will. Before, I didn't have a will
to believe God or to come to Him. But He made me willing in
the day of His power. So you see, we who are saved
serve God in newness of spirit. Now let me show you what Paul
writes here in these next few verses. And what he's gonna do,
he's gonna show you how in the past he was brought to this place. He was brought to this place
to serve God in newness of spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
And it has to do with the issue of the law and sin. And so listen to what he says
in verse seven. He says, what shall we say then? What are we
gonna conclude about this? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but
by the law. For I had not known lust. Now
in your concordance, if you have a biblical concordance, it might
say the word concupiscence. And that word is spelled out
in verse eight by the King James translators. And that word, it's
a big word, we don't use it today, but we do use the word lust.
And it's an unlawful desire. And so Paul says, for I had not
known lust, concupiscence, unlawful desires, except the law had said,
thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt not covet. Now, think
about what he's saying. He had already said, he said,
now the law cannot save me. The law cannot make me righteous. The law cannot wash away my sins. The law cannot give me life.
All those things, the law can't do it. The law is inadequate,
the law is impotent to do that for a sinner. Well, what's the
problem then? Is the law sinful? You see, all
the law can do for a sinner is expose our sin, our unrighteousness. Over in the book of Romans chapter
three, let me show you that. Listen to what he says here.
The apostle Paul writing here about the sinfulness and depravity
of both Jew and Gentile. And he says in verse nine of
Romans three, what then, are we better than they? That is,
are we Jews better than the Gentiles? We Jews have the law. We were
the chosen people of God under the old covenant for 1500 years
from Sinai to the cross. We were the people through whom
God brought the Messiah. We were the people by whom God
preserved the scriptures. Incidentally, he did it in spite
of them. It wasn't because of their goodness.
Not saying that we're any better because we're not. Are we better
than they? Paul's saying, are we Jews better
than the Gentiles? Could we Gentiles say we're any
better than the Jews? And the answer is no, in no wise,
in no way. For we have before proved both
Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin. The law pronounces
them guilty And he says, as it is written, there's none righteous,
no not one. There's none that understandeth.
There's none that seeketh after God. They're all gone out of
the way. They're together become unprofitable. There's none that
doeth good, no not one. That's the total depravity of
man. I've often described total depravity this way. You may have
heard that term, total depravity. All men and women by nature,
as born into this world are totally depraved. What does that mean? Does that mean that we're all
raving lunatics or raving perverts? No. Does that mean that we're
all as bad as we could be? Absolutely not. But it means
three things. Here's the total depravity of
man as taught in the Bible. You say, well, I don't believe
in total depravity. I do, because the Bible teaches it. And here's
what it says. Number one, we are not righteous
in ourselves. We're born sinners. We're born
dead in trespasses and sin. I've heard people say, well,
we're born innocent. And then when we make the first
choice to sin, then we become sinners. Let me ask you a question.
Is there, has there ever been a human being born on this planet
in the history of mankind who did not make the choice to sin? I mean, a mere human being. I'm not talking about Christ,
the God-man. He didn't make any choice to sin. He's not a sinner.
But I'm talking about among us, fallen in Adam, ruined by the
fall. There has never been one individual
in the history of the whole human race who it can be said of, well
they didn't make the choice to sin, therefore they're not a
sinner. Now why is that? It's because of total depravity.
We're born dead in trespasses and sin. We have that fallen
human nature. Now we can talk about the innocent
children and all that another way, but here's what, listen,
spiritual death is the absence of spiritual life. And even one
who's spiritually dead can be moral and religious in the eyes
of men. But when it comes to salvation
and a right relationship with God, there's none righteous.
No, not one. That's what it says there in
Romans 3.10. Don't think yourself to be the exception. We don't
have righteousness. We're not righteous. Here's the
second thing about depravity. Number one, we're not righteous.
Number two, we cannot make ourselves righteous. Not even by our best
efforts to obey the law. If we could, then we'd have to
say salvation is by works. But we can't. It's not of works. Salvation's by grace. So number
one, we're not righteous. Number two, we can't make ourselves
righteous. And number three, here's the
kicker, we do not want righteousness God's way. Now understand what
I'm saying now. Don't confuse this. I didn't
say man does not want righteousness. He does. But here's the thing. He wants righteousness his way,
not God's way. You see, righteousness man's
way will leave man room to boast. I make the difference between
saved and lost. I make the difference between
heaven and hell. Righteousness God's way gives
God all the glory in Christ and leaves us no room to boast. Glory
in the Lord. God forbid that I should glory,
boast, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then righteousness
man's way always brings the standard of righteousness down to his
level. So that's total depravity right there. Man has no, we don't
have righteousness, we can't work one, and we don't want one
God's way. We want it our way, like Cain,
by our works. And if we're ever brought to
want righteousness God's way, here's what Paul's saying here.
Now look at it, verse seven of Romans seven. Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known
sin but by the law, for I had not known lust, except the law
had said, Thou shalt not covet. Covetousness is totally a sin
of the heart. Covetousness is wanting things
in an evil way, wanting evil things, but it's totally a sin
of the heart. You can talk about adultery,
that's an act a person commits. You can talk about murder, killing,
that's an act a person commits. You can talk about stealing,
that's an act a person commits. Now, those things begin in the
heart. Christ taught that in the Sermon
on the Mount. It's not only a sin to commit the act, but it's a
sin to think the thought. but covetousness is totally a
sin of the heart. And here's what Paul writes,
verse eight, but sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought or
worked in me all manner of concupiscence, all manner of lust, for without
the law, sin was dead. Now Paul's talking about his
life as a Pharisee, trying to keep the law, trying to establish
a righteousness of his own. And he didn't see that as evil,
but it is. Cain came to God pleading his
own works, the works of his hands. Not the blood of the Lamb, like
Abel, but the works of his hands. That's evil. Those in Matthew
7, 21 through 23, Lord, haven't we preached in your name? Haven't
we cast out demons? Haven't we done many wonderful
works? Is that what they plead before God at judgment? Is that
their righteousness before God? Is that what establishes their
right relationship with God? No, he said, depart from me,
you that work iniquity. Doesn't measure up. I never knew
you. And Paul says here, for without
the law sin was dead. When I didn't see the extent
of the law, how the law reaches the heart, I didn't understand. the issue of sin. I thought it
was dead. I thought I wasn't a sinner.
And he says in verse nine, for I was alive without the law once.
When I didn't understand the reality, the exceeding how the
law reaches the heart, I thought I was alive. That means I thought
I was saved. I thought I was right with God.
But when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. When
the Holy Spirit showed Saul of Tarsus who he really was, He
says, sin revived, I saw myself as a sinner without hope, without
righteousness, and I died. The law condemned me to death.
The wages of sin is death. And the commandment which was
ordained to life, I found to be unto death. When God gave
the commandment, you talk about the 10 commandments or whatever,
when he gave it to Adam, He said it was ordained to life. In other
words, the law wasn't just given for that reason, but he says,
I found it for me as a sinner, it condemned me to death. Verse
11, for sin taking occasion by the commandment deceived me and
by it slew me. How was Saul of Tarsus deceived? Was he some raving lunatic or
pervert? No, he was a religious man. He
was a Hebrew of Hebrews. Read Philippians 3 sometime.
He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He was of the tribe of Benjamin.
He was circumcised the eighth day. He was trying to keep the
law. He was trying to make himself righteous by his works. And he
said that was a deception. My friend, if you're trying to
make yourself right with God based on your works, you're deceived. You don't know the exceeding
sinfulness of sin. Look at verse 12. He says, wherefore
the law is holy, the commandment holy, just and good, was then
that which is good made death unto me, God forbid, but sin,
that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is
good, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
Now what he's simply saying here is this, I was deceived. I thought
I had some spark of good, good enough that I could earn my way
into God's favor, that I could earn my blessings from God, that
I could do something to make myself righteous and accepted
before God. But when that law came, and show
me by the Holy Spirit, convince me of sin. You know, John 16,
verse nine says, Christ said, the Holy Spirit will convict
of sin because they believe not on me. Without Christ. That's
all I can do is bring forth fruit unto death. Without Christ, all
I do is sin. You may look at me and you say,
there's a moral man. He's trying to do well. He's
trying to do his best. Without Christ in the eyes of
God, it's all sin. It's all iniquity. It's all unrighteousness
without Christ. You see, in order to have a right
relationship with God, you have to be washed in the blood of
Christ. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
You see that? This is all my hope and peace,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my righteousness,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. We sing that, that's what it
means. So in order to be right with
God, my sins must be washed away. What's gonna do that? My works,
my efforts? No. the blood of Christ, the
body of Christ. In order to be right with God,
I have to have a righteousness that answers the demands and
requirements of God's law. Where am I gonna find such a
righteousness? In my works? In my efforts? In my faith? Absolutely not. The only place, the only person
that I can find righteousness is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Back in the Old Testament, Jeremiah
mentioned this twice, that the Messiah who was to come would
establish judgment and justice and His name shall be the Lord
our righteousness, Jehovah Sid Canu. Romans 10 and verse 4,
Paul wrote, for Christ is the end, the fulfillment, completion,
perfection, finishing of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believe it. Must I believe? Yes, I must believe
that Christ is my remedy for sin, my righteousness before
God. Well, I hope this message has been helpful to you and I
hope you'll join us next week for another message from God's
Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. 317-07. Contact us by
phone at 229-432-6969 or email us through our website at www.theletterofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.