Alright brethren, let's go back
to Romans 7. Believers will tell you, this
is something we know, that for all the trials that we have,
and we do have lots of different kind of trials in life, but the
greatest trial we have is this warfare between our old man of
sin and the new man that Christ has created within us. More than anything else, this
is what we struggle with constantly. I hope today this will be a comfort
to you. Because this is a comforting
message showing us, brethren, what it is to walk and to serve
in newness of spirit. Paul spoke about before the law,
our old man of sin is dead. That's before the law. He's dead. And before the law,
we're dead. So we're dead to the law. and
we're married to Christ that we should bring forth fruit by
Christ and that we should walk in newness of life and serve
in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
And Paul showed us what oldness of the letter was. He said, I
was alive without the law once. I thought I was keeping it. I
was going to the law and I was in my flesh and I thought I was
keeping the law. But when the commandment came,
Sin revived and I died. I saw what I am. So now Paul
is speaking to us as a regenerated believer. This is a regenerated
man speaking in our text. And he's telling us just as a
sinner cannot justify ourselves by the works of the law, he's
saying neither can we sanctify ourselves by the works of the
law. This is by the Spirit of Christ
dwelling in us. And this work's not done through
the hearing of the works of the law. Remember Paul said in Galatians
3, this is done through the hearing of the faithfulness of Christ
Jesus. And that's what he's declaring
to us now, the faithfulness of Christ Jesus. To mortify our
flesh and keep us looking only to Him. Crying out to Him. Now, I want to show you this. Our subject is sanctification
by the Spirit. And we'll see here that the believer
has an inward man and an old man. This old man is our sinful
nature, our sinful flesh. This inward man is the new man,
the new spirit, the new nature created by Christ within us. And these two are in a warfare.
They are in a warfare. But two things the Spirit does
in regeneration. He shows us, brethren, that if
it was left to us, we could not deliver ourselves from our sinful
flesh. We would not be able to. And
so He causes us to cry out to God and confess our sin, and
confess our need for Him to come and deliver us. And then secondly,
by leaving us in this body of death, He keeps us always looking
to Christ only. Because we see we can't go back
to our flesh, we can't go back to the law, because we see what's
in us. We see that we can't overcome
that old man. And so He keeps us looking only
to Christ. Now the first thing that the
Spirit uses the law to do is to teach us that we're sinners
and keep us and make us take sides with God against ourselves. That's the first thing that the
Spirit does. He says in verse 14, We know
that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. See, Paul is speaking in the
present tense, and he is saying, I am. This is what I am. Right
now, as a regenerated believer, I am sold under sin. And he says, for that which I
do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that do I. If
then I do that which I would not, I consent, I confess unto
the law that it is good. He says here, we know. And only
we who are born of God know this. But we who are born of God, we
do know this. We know, brethren, we started
when the Lord regenerated us, we began to know that the law
is spiritual. That's what Paul was saying when
the commandment came. When God regenerated me and He
made me hear the law, now I realize the law is spiritual. The law
reaches to the inward thoughts and intents of my heart. It's
not just outward. It reaches to the base, to the
fountain, to the very nature. And the law is spiritual. So
when that commandment came, sin revived, sin became alive, and
all my self-righteous works and everything I thought I had accomplished
died. And so now the law makes me see
that I see the law is spiritual, it demands perfection, it demands
perfect righteousness, it reaches to my heart and it tells me what
I am. And so I see now that in my flesh,
I am carnal, sold under sin. The law teaches me that because
my flesh is sinful, I can never keep the law in perfection. Now
this is what you learn when God regenerates you. You learn that
you cannot keep the law in perfection. There's no way. There's no way. Now there's a new man within,
a new spirit, a new nature, and that new man does not condone
sin. at all. He says verse 15, that
which I do I allow not. Now that's a phrase that means
a couple of things. One, it means I don't excuse
my sin. I don't approve of my sin. And
it also means that which I do I know not. He's saying sin is
in my thoughts before I know it. It comes up in my thoughts
before I even know what's going on. So that what I would, that
do I not, but what I hate, that do I. In our new man, we would
do the righteousness of the law. In our new inward man, we would
keep the law and do so without sin. That's what we would do. We're willing to do that. But
our old man prevents us from doing what we would. Our old
man of sin mixes sin with all we do, so that what I would do,
that do I not, and what I hate, that do I. Now it's important
to understand here, especially for new believers, that though
we do sin outwardly, now there's no doubt about that. You can
go through the Old Testament, you can see where faithful men
sinned outwardly, grievous sin. But by the power of Christ, brethren,
our outward sinful behavior doesn't dominate our lives like it did
before. Now that's just so in a believer.
But now we see more than ever our sin. Because now we see the
sin in our heart, the sin in our thoughts. We see that law
spiritually reaching to the inward man. And now we see sin we didn't
see before. So we actually see more sin now
than we did before. Because we thought before sin
was just outward. So Paul, he wasn't an outward
immoral man before God regenerated him. He wasn't outwardly immoral
after God regenerated him. The sin he's talking about here,
that which I do, the thoughts of our hearts is as much doing
and breaking the law as is the outward act. Now I'm not saying
we don't sin outwardly, we do. But this is what we see now. We see the corruption of that
fleshly heart in us. So the law makes us take sides
with God against ourselves. He says in verse 16, If then
I do that which I would not, I consent, the word is I confess,
unto the law that it's good. The law makes me, before When
I began to be regenerated and God began to show me the law,
the law teaches me I'm a sinner. But if you go back to the law,
and we hear the law this morning, we heard the law. The law never
stops telling us we're sinners. The law still tells us in our
flesh we're sinners. That's all we are. We've never
kept it. We've never obeyed it. We still
see how perfect the law is as believers. And it still tells
us that in our flesh we're sinners. So it's teaching us, brethren,
we cannot justify ourselves, we cannot sanctify ourselves
by the works of the law. And we take sides with God in
that and say, yes, that's true. I consent. It's good. I can't
do that. I can't do that. Now here's the second thing.
The Spirit of God reveals this good news to us. And this really
dawned on me as I was preparing this message. That, you know,
you and I wouldn't say this, that Paul says, if we were just
speaking of ourselves without the Spirit of God. We wouldn't
say, start talking about, it's no more I that do it, but sin
that dwells in me. This is the Spirit of God speaking
to Paul, through Paul. And God's telling you and me
how God sees it, and how it really is before God. That's what He's
telling us here. And so He tells us, brethren,
that before God, my flesh is not the real me. Before God,
in the sight of God, the inward man is the real me. That's who God looks on. Look
here in verse 17. Now then it's no more I that
do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me,
that is in my flesh, in that old, sinful, wretched, fleshly
nature dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me,
but that's in the new man. I still don't have a willingness
to please God in my sin nature. Just the opposite. but this willingness
is in my new man. The will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the
good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not,
that I do. Now if I do that I would not,
it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. Our
flesh can never contribute to our salvation in any way ever. Never. Never. Our flesh is of
Adam. It hasn't been refined. It hasn't
been purified. It has not been made better.
It's only sin and it only does sin. That's in us constantly. He calls it in verse 17, sin
that dwelleth in me. It lives in my flesh. He says
in verse 18, I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth
no good thing. There's nothing good in our sin
nature. Nothing at all. The only thing
you and I can see is our sin nature. Isn't that right? When
you look at you, all you can see is your sin. That's all I
can see in me is sin. I don't see a new nature in me. And I think left to himself,
Paul wouldn't have said this, but the Spirit of God is speaking
through Paul, and God's telling us, this is the comforting message,
God's telling us how He sees it, and how it really is. And God declares through Paul
that He looks on the inward man, that man that He created, and
so He says to each believer, now then it's no more I that
do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. In my inward man, to will
is present with me. But it's due to my sinful flesh
how to perform that which is good I find not. In my inner
man, verse 19, the good that I would. There's good that I'm
willing to do in my inward man, but due to my sinful flesh, I
do not. I don't do that, I would. In
the inner man, there is the evil I would not. In my inward man,
I hate evil and I would not do it. I'm not willing to do it.
But due to my sinful flesh, that's what I do. But here's the good
news. This is how God sees it. This
is what God says to you, believer, and to me. God says, if I do
that, I would not. It's no more I that do it. That's not the real me before
God. That sin that's still in my flesh. Now, you remember what
God said about our flesh back in Romans 6? He said, when we
were crucified with Christ, the body of our sin was destroyed. Now, that's before the law, and
that means it's before God. That body of flesh that you and
I see, that sin nature you and I see, and all the sin we commit,
it all died, was destroyed when Christ was crucified. And so
before the law, that body is dead. That body is dead before
the law. And now God has created an inward
man in the regenerated believer. And that inward man is a new
creation. It's a new creation. It's made
by God. It's to be born of incorruptible
seed by the Word of God. To be born of Him. And in that
new man, there is no sin. The incorruptible seed does not
create corruptible man. It creates an incorruptible man. That's what we've been seeing
in 1 John 3. Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin. For
his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he's born
of God. That new man doesn't sin at all,
period. But what we've been seeing in
1 John 3 is because that's the fact, The believer never can
apostatize. We can't walk away from Christ.
We can't stop believing Christ ever because Christ's seed remains
in us and we cannot do that. We are born of God. This new
man is created after Christ's image, after God. Go to Ephesians
4 and look at this. Ephesians 4, and look at verse
24. The old man's after Adam, corrupt,
born of corrupt seed, so he's nothing but sin. But look at
what the new man is. Ephesians 4, 24. Put on the new
man which after God, you see that? It's after God. It's after
God's image. It's created in righteousness
and true holiness. Some like to say, well, that's
Christ. Christ is not created, brethren. Christ was not created. This is talking about the new
man that's created within us. Go over to Colossians 3 and look
at verse 10. It says, you've put on the new
man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created
him. That's Christ that created the
new man. And so that new man is after
the image of Christ that created him. You remember Romans 8 says
that God predestinated us to be conformed to the image of
His Son. That Christ might be the firstborn
among many brethren. He's already done that work in
our spirit. After we die, He's going to do
that work in our flesh. But right now he's done it in
the Spirit. That's why Paul made the qualification
and said, I know that in me that is in my flesh dwells no good
thing. Because he's not going to attribute
that new creation that Christ has made. He's not going to say
that's anything that's corrupt. Because it's not. It's not. Now, who is it the Lord looks
on? What does the Lord look upon?
We're told Remember whenever Samuel went to ordain David,
and Samuel was looking at the outward appearance, and he was
wanting to pick all these big, tall, strong boys, and David,
this little scrawny fellow out there in the field keeping sheep,
and the Lord said, ìThe Lord seeth not as man seeth. Man looks
on the outward appearance. The Lord looketh on the heart.
The Lord looks on the inward man.î He says in 2 Chronicles
6.30, Hear thou from heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive and
render unto every man according unto all his ways, whose heart
thou knowest. He's speaking to God. He says,
God, you know the heart, for thou only knowest the hearts
of the children of men. David cried to God in Psalm 51
and said, You desire truth in the inward parts. In the inward
parts. Look at 1 Peter chapter 3. Whenever Peter talks here about
us having a meek and quiet spirit, look where he says it's at. He speaks of a woman with a meek
and quiet spirit. He says it's not outwardly. It's
this, verse 4. Let it be the hidden man of the
heart in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and
quiet spirit which in the sight of God is of great price. See, God's looking on that inward
man. It's the man He's created. That's
the new man in which Christ dwells. And so we have communion with
God. It's that new man in which we worship God in spirit and
in truth. In the new man. And so God says,
now if I do that, I would not. It's no more I that do it, but
sin that dwells in my flesh. Before the law, that body of
sin is dead. Now I heard somebody recently
say, I'm not worried, I don't have an old man anymore because
he died before the law. That's not so. You and I, if
you're born of God, you know you've got an old man of sin
that dwells with you. Because he wars against you constantly. But before the law, that old
man of sin has been destroyed. So that we're not guilty anymore,
we're justified before the law. There's no condemnation. And
the Lord said that His Spirit was going to dwell in us so that
now our sin doesn't have dominion over us anymore. And He said
we're dead to the law now. So we're dead to sin and we're
dead to the law. But we still have sin's presence
with us. But Christ has dominion in our
new man. He's raised us to newness of
spirit. So we're walking in newness of
spirit. We're serving in newness of spirit,
not in the oldness of the letter. This is all the work of Christ.
So then it's no more I that do it, it's my sinful flesh. Go over to Romans 8. in verse
9. I want you to, when you go home,
just read the end of chapter 7 and read over into verse 9
and see how he's still speaking on the same subject. Look here
in verse 9. Here's what he's saying. You are not in the flesh,
but in the Spirit. You see that? Before God, we're
not in the flesh, we're in the Spirit. If so be that the Spirit
of God is in you. If He dwells in you, then you're
in the Spirit. And if any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the
body is dead because of sin. That means three things. My body is dead so that all it
can do is sin. In my flesh dwells no good thing. But it also means my body is
dead before the law of God. because my body of sin was destroyed
when Christ was crucified. And it means my body of sin is
dead to the law because the law has already been executed on
me. So then, the spirit is life because of righteousness. You
see that? Life and righteousness are synonymous. If you have life, it can only
be righteous. And if you are righteous, then
you have life. They're synonymous. Sin didn't enter and death didn't
enter until we became unrighteous. Righteousness is life. And the
spirit that's in us is life because Christ has worked out a righteousness
for us and it's through that righteousness that we receive
the spirit of adoption so that we have a new man created in
the righteousness of Christ and the holiness of Christ. But look,
if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells
in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken
your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you. Does that
mean that one day He's going to resurrect me? Yes. But in
the context He's saying, it's not going to be your flesh that's
going to mortify your flesh and mortify that nature so that in
your members you can work that which is righteous. It's going
to be the Holy Spirit of God that's going to do it. He's going
to put down that... He's going to mortify the deeds
of your flesh and bring forth fruit of Christ to cause you
to do what God would have you to do. That's how it's going
to be done. Look at it. It says there, Therefore
brethren, we're debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh.
For if you live after the flesh, you shall die. If you go back
to the law and you try to do it yourself, you're going to
die. You become a legalist. You've fallen from grace. You're
deader to do the whole law. Christ becomes of no effect to
you. But if you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body,
you shall live. That's what he's talking about.
That's what he's talking about. And he goes on to say there,
it's not a spirit of bondage. He hasn't caused us to run back
to the law. and be fearful, it's the spirit
of adoption. It causes us to cry out to God
and cry out Abba Father. And that's why He's left us with
this old man of sin. He's left us with this old man
of sin to war against our new man to keep us looking and crying
only to Christ to show us we can't mortify this old man. Now look here in verse 21, Romans
7, 21. I find then a law that when I would do good, evil
is present with me. For I delight in the law of God
after the inward man, but I see another law in my members warring
against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to
the law of sin which is in my members. It actually, this sin
nature dominates me and brings me into captivity. makes me sin. And he says, O wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank
God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I
myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of
sin. Now, this is a standing law, brethren. This is a standing
rule that will always be as long as we live until we die. When I would do good, evil will
always be present with me. When you would do good, believer,
sin is going to always be present with you. That's just the case. Now we delight in the law of
God after the inward man, but our sinful flesh is sinful and
that's all it does is sin. So evil is going to be present
with us constantly. And it even overcomes us. This
sinful flesh, this nature overcomes us and brings us into captivity.
That's why you say things you wish you could take back. That's
why you do things you wish you could take back. You think things
you wish you could take back. And you can't control it. If
you get to thinking you can control it, when you lay down tonight,
instead of having some wicked, evil dream, make yourself have
a nice, pleasant dream. You can't. That's sin in you. And we can't control our thoughts,
just our thoughts. Anyway, it overcomes you. But
I thought in Romans 6, he said sin wouldn't have the dominion
over our persons anymore. Well, it's not going to have
dominion over you fully. But he does allow it to have
dominion over you temporarily. Occasionally, he will allow it
to have dominion over you to show you, brethren, that you
can't defeat it. This is two things He's going
to show us by that. One, He's going to show us that
left to ourselves, we cannot depend on our inward man to free
us from the dominion of sin. Folks are afraid to preach on
the inward man because they think it steals glory from God and
exalts the sinner. Nothing I'm talking about is
of the sinner. Everything I'm talking about
is of God, including what God works in us. And He's showing
us here, if it was left to that inward man, you still could not
overcome sin. There's no way you could do it.
He said there in verse 22, I delight in the law of God after the inward
man, but I see another law in my members warring against the
law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of
sin which is in my members. So just because I delight in
the law of God and the inward man, I can't overcome my sin
nature. So I can't live after the flesh.
I cannot of myself try to go back to the law and try to mortify
the deeds of my flesh by my works. I can't start preaching works
to you and expect that you're going to walk after those works
and mortify the deeds of your flesh. I can't make that happen. I have to preach Christ to you
because it's through this message that God's going to come and
mortify the deeds of the flesh in spirit. And that's the second
thing. He makes us continually cry out
to God, confessing our sin and our need for Christ to deliver
us. He says there, O wretched man
that I am. That's where He brings you. Isn't
it? You that know Him, you know what
I'm talking about. You've experienced this. He brings
you here. On a daily basis, He brings you
to the point where you just, oh, I hate what I am. I hate
the sin that I am. Lord, I can't deliver myself
from this sin. Who's going to deliver me from
it? And the Scripture says, if we
confess our sin, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to do what? Cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And that's what He's talking
about here. Not only does He come forth and purge your conscience
and make you know that there's no condemnation towards you,
but He also cleanses you and mortifies the deeds of the flesh
so that for a little while you can worship God and have communion
with God and that flesh is not reigning over you. But it won't
be long. It will reign over you again.
You'll be crying out to God. Just imagine if you could overcome
sin by your flesh, I mean by your inward man. If you could
put down and mortify the deeds of your flesh yourself, you know
what we'd do? We'd be so proud and puffed up
and so arrogant and we wouldn't call on Christ for anything.
We certainly wouldn't confess any sin. That's what would happen
if He could take you out of that body of sin in a heartbeat. He doesn't do that because you
would stop calling on Him. You would stop confessing your
sin. This makes us, as we go through this life, see we're
ever dependent on Christ. We can never cease looking to
Christ. That's opposite of what this
world is preaching. That's opposite of what these
Reformed fellows are saying when they're saying you can sanctify
your flesh and you can get more holy and more holy and more holy.
You're either holy or not holy. When God gives you a new heart,
there's a new heart created in true holiness. And now it's the
Spirit that's mortifying the deeds of the flesh through the
hearing of the faithfulness of Christ. He's doing it. He's doing
it. Go over to Galatians 5. I want
to show you something. In our text, Paul is saying that
we cannot overcome the deeds of our flesh, our sin nature,
ourselves, it takes dominion over us. But in Galatians 5,
did I say Galatians 6? Galatians 5 where I mean. What
Paul's doing here is, the context is he's telling these believers,
you don't have to go back to the law. You've been set free
from the law. Don't go back to that bondage.
He's saying to them, it's the Spirit that's going to mortify
the deeds of the flesh. So that that Spirit doesn't overcome
you permanently. Watch this, verse 16. This I
say then, walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the
lust of the flesh. Now that's the point of what
he's going to say next. Here he's saying the Spirit is
going to dominate the flesh. Romans 7 he's saying if we were
left to ourselves, our flesh dominates that new inward man.
But here's why he doesn't dominate it permanently. Look, for the
flesh lusteth against God the Holy Spirit, but God the Holy
Spirit lusts against the flesh, and these are contrary the one
to the other, so that you cannot do the things that your sinful
flesh would do. The Spirit of God prevents it.
And if you're led of the Spirit, you're not under the law. That's
what He's going to show us in Romans 7. You're not condemned. You're not even under the law.
That old man's been crucified already. So now the Spirit is
the one that's going to keep you mortified. Not your inward
man. It's the Spirit. So God gives
us this resolve back in our text, Romans 7.25. We come to this realization.
We thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. He's going to be the
one. He has, is, and shall deliver
us. And the only one. So then, this
is how it's always going to be. With the mind, with the new man,
I myself serve the law of God. Newness of spirit. But with the
flesh, the law of sin. That's going to always be the
case for the rest of my life. But here's the good news. Our
sinful flesh has been crucified. It has been crucified before
God, before God's law. So that there's no condemnation. We're free from sin. We're justified
before the law. So he says in verse 1, there's
therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus
who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. He said,
I thank God through Jesus Christ. He's the one that has delivered
me. And he says, there is therefore then, now, no condemnation. He's delivered me from that.
And he goes on to show how the law was weak through our flesh.
We could not justify ourselves to our flesh. So God sent His
Son and condemned sin in our flesh. Made our body of sin to
be destroyed so that we might be made righteous by the works
of Christ. And that's what he's done. And
then secondly, he says this, by the Spirit dwelling in our
inward man, we're going to never be overcome permanently by that
flesh. Look, verse 2. For the law of
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the
law of sin and death. That law of sin and death is
no more going to have dominion over me. It's not going to have
dominion over me. I'm going to forever delight
in the law of God and the inward man. I'm not in the flesh, I'm
in the Spirit. He's going to always make me
cry out, Abba Father. And He's going to always come
and deliver me. The Spirit of life in Christ
delivers me from that law of sin and death. From that very
nature that's in me. So it will never have permanent
dominion over me. Do you see? How comforting that
is, brethren. If you know anything at all about
this warfare, you know you can't overcome that sinful man. You
know it. And sometimes this is what will
cause somebody to despair and think, am I a child of God or
not? I can't stop this. Well, here's
where God brings His child. He brings you to have this resolve.
It's going to always be this way. But I'm not to go back to my
flesh. I'm not to start looking at things I've done or things
I need to do or things I should do to mortify the deeds of the
flesh. He said, if you do that, you're going to die. That's what
Paul meant in Galatians when he said, if you're circumcised
or if there's one law you have to keep, you're a debtor to keep
the whole law. Christ is no... He has no effect
to you anymore. You have fallen completely. You
have gone away from grace and now you have gone back into legalism
and bondage. But He is telling us here, the
Holy Spirit of God dwells in His people. And He will not let
you fall away. He is not going to let that sin
have dominion over you so that you go back to the law or you
go back to your immorality or whatever. He is going to keep
mortifying that old man so that we are kept by the Spirit of
God. Isn't that good news? Isn't that comforting? I found
that very comforting. This is what it is, brethren,
to walk in newness of spirit. I said last week, walking in
newness of spirit is not something that you and I do. It's not really
something you and I do. And Paul shows us here in Romans
7 and 8. No, it's not really something you do. It's something
the Spirit does in you. Making you never be able to cease
believing on Christ. And the second part of that is
loving your brethren. Again, I'll say to you, if you
haven't been listening on Thursday nights, please listen to those
messages. Because that's what John's talking about all through
1 John 3. That's the sin a believer cannot commit. He cannot commit
apostasy. That's the one thing. A child
of God can do anything else a child of the devil can do. But the
one thing a child of God cannot do by the incorruptible seed
dwelling in us, one thing we cannot do that manifests the
difference between us and a child of the devil is this. We cannot
cease believing on Christ and loving our brethren. We can't. Because He won't let us. And
that's what He's saying here in Romans 7. I pray that's a
blessing to you.