If you would turn with me to
Romans chapter 7. Romans chapter 7. This week as I was reading again
the words of the Apostle Paul from this part of his letter
to the church at Rome, And in doing so, I'm always reminded
as to why I must have Christ. Why must I have Jesus Christ? Ask yourself that question. Why
must I have Jesus Christ? Well, there are many answers
to that question. However, they all lead back to
just one. Look at verse 24. Here in Romans
7, Paul declares what every saved sinner confesses concerning themselves. Oh, wretched man, oh, wretched
woman that I am. Has God shown you that about
yourself? And then Paul asked, who shall? He doesn't ask now,
not what can, it's never what we can do that saves us, but
a who that saves us. Salvation is in a person. What must I do to be saved? Well,
you can't do anything to be saved, but believe and you can't do
that unless God gives you life. Only Christ can save you. Salvation's
of the Lord. It always comes back to that.
We can't believe unless God gives us life. Who shall deliver me
from the body of this death? Within our bodies, there's nothing
but death. And then he answers that question
in verse 25, and he says, I thank God through Jesus Christ, our
Lord. Jesus Christ is the who, and
that's why you and I must possess Jesus Christ. He's the only one
that can save us. And he does so for God's glory
and for our good and for Christ's sake. I usually say that at the
end of every message. That's why God blesses his word. That's why God saves sinners,
for his own glory, for the sinner's good, and for Christ's sake. The Lord hath forgiven you, dear
sinner, for Christ's sake, no other reason. It pleased the
Lord to make you his people. Why? For his great name's sake. for his own glory, for his own
honor. Moses pleaded with the Lord to
do something for him. And Moses said, Lord, I beseech
thee. That word beseech means I beg
you, I plead with you. Show me your glory. And the Lord
said, Moses, I'm gonna do three things for you. Three things. First, I'm gonna make my goodness
to pass before you. That word goodness in the Hebrew
means beauty. I'm gonna make my beauty. pass
before you. I'm gonna make my majesty, my
uprightness, my dignity, my integrity to pass before you. That word
means virtue, trustworthiness, pureness, justice. I'm gonna
make all these things pass before you. It means charity. It means love, graciousness,
forgiveness. How much of God's goodness was
he gonna show Moses? All of it. All of it. And you might say, well, I would
have loved to seen that. In Jesus Christ, you have. That's
where it is. Jesus Christ is all of God's
goodness. Jesus Christ is all in all, Paul
wrote in Colossians 3, verse 11. Now, if you and I are to
ever see any of these good things of God, especially for and toward
ourselves, it will be in Jesus Christ. No other place. He doesn't do that for everyone. That's not shocking to you, is
it? It is to some folks. He passes before and right on
by some. Many were saying to me in that
day, Lord, Lord, and He replies, I never knew you. But God continues and says, that's
not all I'm gonna do for you, Moses. Secondly, I'm going to
also proclaim the name of the Lord before you. God preached to Moses. God said, I'm gonna show you,
I'm gonna reveal to you His name, His nature, His perfections,
His righteousness, which means His equity. I'm gonna proclaim
it aloud before you, and you're gonna hear. I'm gonna make you
to see it clearly, and you'll see it clearly. because it's
my glory as God to do so. You wanna see my glory? I'm gonna
proclaim the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to you. But that's
not all. And that brings us to the third
thing that God did for Moses. Thirdly, God told Moses, I will
be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I'll show mercy
on whom I'll show mercy. In other words, I will save whom
I will save. And every one of them will be
saved, every one that He determines to save, every single one, not
a one will be lost. And He said, that's my glory,
and it's for your good, and it's for my son's sake. You know,
everything that God does is, everything. Salvation's of the
Lord, and salvation is for the Lord, and Jesus Christ is God's
goodness. To proclaim the name of the Lord
is to proclaim, declare, and preach God's love, mercy, grace
that's found only in Jesus Christ. That's why you and I must have
Jesus Christ. That's why we must have Him.
Neither is there salvation in any other. That's pretty plain,
isn't it? There is neither salvation in
any other, for there is none other name under heaven given
among men whereby we must be saved." The salvation of the
righteous is of the Lord. For God so loved that He gave.
What did He give? He gave His only begotten Son.
Now, I suppose if you were to ask 10 strangers on the street
to give you a scripture that they could recite from memory.
I wonder how many of them would choose John 3.16. When confronted with the doctrine
of election, I've had many quote John 3.16 to me, and they stop
after the first six words. They say, for God so loved the
world, And then they stop. You tell sinners that God chose
a people before the foundation of the world and gave them to
Christ, and only those that God the Father gave to God the Son
will be saved. And they'll say, now wait a minute,
preacher, for God so loved the world. They read those six words and
immediately come to the conclusion that God loves everyone in the
world. but they haven't read the scriptures
in its entirety. Because there in John, just a
little further on in the book, it says, I pray not for the world.
I pray for those that thou hast given me before the foundation
of the world. That's what he's talking about. No need to be concerned, no need
to worry. And Fred, everyone in the world's gonna be just
fine. Just do the best you can. How many times you heard that?
Just do the best you can. That's all that God expects. After all, everybody's going
to heaven. He loves everybody too much to send anyone to hell.
God's not willing that any should perish. Have you ever heard that
one? You need to look at that epistle and see who it's written
to. It's written to the elect of God, and He's not willing
that any of them should perish. So they're right about that.
None that God gave to Christ will perish, not a single one.
And they believe that everyone is gonna walk through the pearly
gates and on the streets of gold to their deluxe apartment in
the sky. Why do they think that? Because
God loves everyone in the world, they say. But that's not what
John 3.16 says. John 3.16 says, for God so loved
the world, and this is why, because He gave His only begotten Son. Who did God give His Son to? Not the whole world, but it says,
to whosoever believeth in Him. Whosoever believes in Christ.
If they believe in Him, they shall not perish, but have everlasting
life. You can't stop right in the middle
of a letter. We've got to read the letter
all the way through. You can't stop in the middle of John 3.16,
for God so loved the world, when it tells us right there who He
loves in this world, those that believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Since this is Christ who makes
this statement, isn't it reasonable to believe that God does not
love those who do not believe in and on the Son? If God loves
everyone, then why would Christ himself make a distinction between
the whole world and those who believe? It says very plainly,
who God gave his son to and for, whosoever believed. Do you believe? So what about those that don't
believe? What does the scripture say about them? It addresses
them too. In John 3, 18, it says, there
our Lord said, he that believeth not, on him, or he that believeth
on him, is not condemned, but he that believeth not is what? Condemned already. And this is
why, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten
Son of God. This is so plain and so simple. According to the words of Christ
Himself, God loves those who believe on His Son, and God doesn't
love those who don't. Now in verse 14 of that same
chapter, the Lord said, and as Moses lifted up the serpent,
I didn't turn you to John 3, 16, but you know the passage
well. In verse 14, the Lord said, and
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up. Why must the Son of Man be lifted
up? He tells us that whosoever believeth in him, should not
perish, but have everlasting life. God loves those who believe
in and on Jesus Christ, and their believing is not the cause of
God's love for them. Their faith is not the reason
that God loves them. Actually, it's just the opposite.
His love for them is why they believe. Now stay with me, this
is important. And this is why you and I need
Jesus Christ. Their faith is not the reason
God loves them. We didn't choose Him, He chose
us. We love Him because He first loved us. Do you see the order
of things here? That's what our Lord clearly
said in John 15, 16. He said, you haven't chosen me. I hear
people say all the time, I gave Jesus my heart. I chose to make
Jesus Lord. No, you didn't choose Him. He
said, I've chosen you and ordained you. You see, friends, God does
the choosing, the ordaining, according to His own purpose
and grace. Christ went on to say that you
should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain.
Now, how are we gonna do that? It's God who does the choosing.
It's God who ordains and purposes. It's God who causes us to bring
forth fruit It's God who saves us, preserves us, and keeps us,
and it's God who causes our fruit to remain. And that's the reason
that we love Him, because He first loved us. Now, please allow
me to clarify. Don't shut me off. We didn't
choose Christ and then receive His life and His love. God loved
us and gave us life, making Christ our only hope of eternal redemption. And that's why we must have him.
God purposed and determined our believing, our faith, before
the world was ever made. We can't take any credit for
it. Before you and I were ever born, before we had ever done
any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election,
might stand. It's of God, but God, who's rich
in mercy, where with his great love, he loved us. And that's
why we must have Christ. Now, I want to briefly touch
on several reasons why you and I need the Lord Jesus. And here
in Romans chapter seven, Paul refers to the moral law. That's what he's talking about.
When he talks about law, he's not talking about the ceremonial
law. He's talking about the moral
law. He's talking about a universal
law of obedience. The first covenant was a covenant
of works. It was a law of doing and a law
of not doing. It was life conditioned upon
what man did. That's what God gave to Adam
and bound him to, obedience. All men and women were placed
under the law of obedience. God said, you can eat of every
tree, but not this one. Eat from the fruit of every other
tree and live, but you eat of the fruit of this tree and you'll
die. Adam's life was dependent upon
his obedience. Do you see that? That's important. Well, preacher, isn't it the
same today? Yes, but it's not based on our obedience. It's
based on the obedience of another, and that is the obedience of
Jesus Christ. Galatians 3.10, for as many as
are of the works of the law are under the curse. For it is written,
cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified
by the law in the sight of God, it is evident that just shall
live by faith. We live by trusting in what Christ
has done for us. In verse one here of Romans 7,
Paul writes, know ye not brethren, for I speak to them that know
the law, how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as
he lives. Death frees a sinner from any
obligation of the law. We've talked about this before.
If you get a speeding ticket and are fined and you die before
your court date or die before you pay the ticket, then your
death has made you free from that fine. The moral law of obedience
has dominion over a man and woman as long as they live. But by
union with Christ and His death and His, burial and His resurrection,
that sinner becomes dead as far as the law is concerned. Now
this is really not hard. Romans 6, 7 tells us just that. For he that is dead is freed
from sin. The wages of sin is death. The
law is what declares that. And if we're dead, you're freed
from sin. Romans 6.10, for in that he died,
he died unto sin. And if you're dead unto sin,
then sin and the law no longer has dominion over you. Can you
imagine going up to a corpse and saying, don't you speed anymore?
Don't you steal anything? Well, he's dead. He's dead to
the law. The law doesn't have any dominion
over him. Then here in verses two and three
of Romans 7, Paul gives us an illustration of just that. Look
at it. In verse two he says, for the woman which hath a husband
is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth. But if
the husband be dead, she's loosed from the law of her husband.
So then, If, while her husband liveth, she be married to another
man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband be dead, she's
free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she
be married to another man. Now, if a woman is bound to her
husband and he dies, she's loose from the law of her husband,
not by her own death, but by his. And if her husband dies,
she's no longer bound to him in any way, and she's free to
marry whomsoever she will. Verse four, wherefore, and that
simply means because of this, my brethren, ye also are become
dead to the law, how? By the body of Christ. that you
should be married to another, even to him who is raised from
the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Now, I
want you to get this. This is set a sinner free. Our freedom from the law is a
rule of life and death. Our freedom from the law is a
principle of salvation or condemnation. Our freedom from the law is to
being saved by any obedience of doing or not doing is as complete
as a dead man is free from the law of the state, or a woman
is free from the law of a dead husband. This freedom from God's
law is not by our death, but by the death of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And that's why we so desperately
need Him. The death of Christ was a death
that answered all the law's demands. Every single one of them. Every
one of them. Just as the law has no demand
on Christ, it can have no demand on us. And the next chapter tells us
that. Romans 8, verse 1. It says, There is therefore now
no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. And we're dead. We don't walk after the flesh,
we walk after the Spirit. In chapter 8, verse 33 and 34,
the question is asked, who shall lay anything to the charge of
God's elect? It's God that justifies. Clayton,
who is going to charge you with sin when it's God that justifies
you? Verse 34, who is he that condemneth? It's Christ that died, yea, brethren,
that is risen again, who's even at the right hand of God, who
also maketh intercession for us. Jeff, who's going to condemn
you of your sin? It's Christ that died, rose,
and at the right hand of God making intercession for you.
Who's going to condemn you? None can. No condemnation to
them which are in Christ Jesus. Are you in Christ? No condemnation. None. Best news this sinner ever
heard. We're no longer married to the
law. We're married to the Lord Jesus Christ. Our dependence
is upon Him. Our happiness is wearing His
name. Now listen, a wife that will
not take her husband's name to me is a wife that's ashamed of
her husband. I don't care what you say, that's
just a fact. Our joy is taking Christ's name
as our own. Our joy is sharing His love and
His companionship. We're free from the law, blamelessly
free, as if we had never been under the law. Christ took our
sin and He put it away and He gave us His perfect righteousness
and we have it forever. Why wouldn't I want to take His
name? The law cannot make an evil man
good, and the law cannot make a saved man holy, but Jesus Christ
can do both. And that's why we must have Him. And I proudly take the name Christian. Christ like. Our sins are no
longer, God laid them on Him. And on the other hand, Christ's
righteousness is ours. We who were once alienated and
enemies of God, yet now have He reconciled in the body of
His flesh through death to present you. Take this for yourself,
child of God, to present you holy, unblameable, and unreprovable
in His sight. I'm proud to take His name. Look
at verse 5, Romans 7. For when we were in the flesh,
the motions of sins which were by the law did work in our members
to bring forth fruit unto death. Before we were in Christ and
we were still in the flesh under the law, did the law make us
holy? No, it didn't. The law didn't
subdue our sinful passions and lust. All it did was irritate
them. It made us hate the law and the
law give her more. Verse six, but now we are delivered
from the law that being dead wherein we were hailed, that
we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness
of the letter. Now again, hear me on this. Now
that a believer is in Christ, dead with Christ, risen with
Christ, they're discharged from the law that requires perfection
from them, since Christ perfectly fulfilled all the law's requirements. God cannot require payment at
Christ's hand and then again at ours. That's why we must have
Jesus Christ. Having died with and in Christ,
the law that once restrained us and kept us captive had to
release us. Had to let us go. Ed Hill wrote that old song, Mercy
Said, Let That Sinner Go Free. And he did. The law did. You know, forced obedience by
a man under the law is the obedience of a slave. You do this, do that,
you better do it. But the obedience of a free man,
that's the obedience of a son. Like the obedience of a wife,
it's an obedience of love. We strive to obey Christ, not
out of merit or reward, but out of love and willful obedience. If a man forces his wife to love
him, it becomes a slavish law to her. If she loves him freely,
that's true love. I can honestly tell you this
morning that I believe that my wife loves me. You know why?
Because she does so in spite of me. She sees me at my worst
every day, and yet, She loves me. Now that's love. That's love. Then in verse seven, Paul asked
this question, what shall we say then? 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 covenant. That's just another way of asking
this. Is God's law the cause of our
sin? God forbid. Is the law at fault
because it exposes our sin? God forbid. Would we have known
what sin really is without the law of God? That's what Paul's
saying. The law reveals the sin of thoughts
and attitude and desire and nature and the will. The law says thou
shalt not covet. Not only are we not to do evil,
we're not even to think evil. God requires perfection. We can't
provide what God requires. You know, in Matthew chapter
five, verse one, the Lord said, you've heard it said by them
of old time, thou shall not kill and whosoever shall kill shall
be in danger of the judgment. God said in the 10 commandments,
thou shall not kill. But the Lord said, I say unto
you that whosoever is angry with his brother, without a cause,
shall be in danger of the judgment. It's not just the act of killing
someone, but the desire in the heart to kill someone. A moment
later, the Lord Jesus said, you've heard that it was said by them
of old, thou shall not commit adultery. But I say unto you
that whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed
adultery with her already, where? In his heart. Sin is a heart thing. Christ
said it's out of the heart that precede evil thoughts and murders,
adulteries, fornications, theft, false witness, lying, blasphemies. These are the things which defile
a man. These are the things that defile
a woman. But to eat with unwashing hands doesn't defile a man, doesn't
defile a woman. We got serious heart problems. We sure do. Heart problems and
medicine won't help. We need a heart transplant. You
know, only the most skilled surgeons can do a physical heart transplant. But a spiritual heart transplant
can only be performed and accomplished by the great physician. He's
the only one that can do it, spiritually speaking. And that
is why we need Jesus Christ. He's the great physician. Those that are well don't need
him. But those who are sick, bad sick, certainly do. And for lack of time, look down
at verse 14. Paul shows us here something
of our disease of sin. Notice his words, he said, I'm
carnal, I'm fleshly, I'm sold under sin. You know, Adam sold
me under sin and I sold myself under sin. And what are the symptoms
of our sin? Paul tells us in verse 15, for
that which I do, I allow not, or I approve not. For what I
would, that do I not, but what I hate, that do I, that's what
I do. Verse 16, if then I do that which
I would not, I consent unto the law that it's good. Now that
word allow there means approve. There's not a single one of us
here this morning who does not all too often do or think things
of which we do not approve. How many times have I said, I
am not gonna say that anymore and have said it? sometimes in
the very next breath. How many times have I said to
myself, oh, David, you can't think that way. Don't think that
way anymore. To only think that way immediately. I don't approve
of it. And Paul is saying here that
this is proof that we acknowledge and agree that the law is good.
That's what a believer does. We take sides with God against
ourselves. We take sides with the law of
God, condemning our own evil ways and we mourn over our transgressions. Job said, I abhor myself. I hate
myself because of my sin. And then look what Paul says
in verse 17. Now then, it's no more I that
do it, but sin that dwells within me. Now, Paul's not excusing
his sin here. Paul's not denying his responsibility
for sin. Paul's not laying the blame somewhere
else. We're real good at that. We're
real good at it. The woman thou gavest me. If
it hadn't been for that serpent, Lord. What Paul is saying here is that
the old man, the old nature, whatever you want to call it,
you know what I call it? I call it the evil within us. Though
it's not dominant, it's still present, and it influences us
to sin. Now let me try to give you an
example from Scripture. When Paul spoke of his labor
for Christ, he said, not I, but the grace of God, which was with
me. He was not saying that he didn't
perform the labor, he did. He said, I labored more than
they all, than all the other apostles. He was saying that
the labor he performed was under the influence of the Spirit of
God. That's what Paul meant when he
said, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. He was not
saying that he didn't live. He was saying that he was indebted
to Christ alone for his new life. The life that he now lived. He
lived by faith in the Son of God who loved him and gave himself
for him. Even so, sin cannot act. The sinner acts out in sin. But sin is the influence that
motivates the action. And here's our issue. Paul knew,
and I hope we do. Verse 18, in me dwelleth no good
thing. For to will is present with me,
to will to do good 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." Does that sound
like you? Now if I do that, I would not, it's no more I that do it,
but sin that dwelleth in me. And I find in the 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, O wretched man that I am." Nothing good dwells in
our flesh. We say things like so-and-so
is a good man, not so in the eyes of a holy and perfect God.
We can will to be perfect, but we can't perform it. I would
say every one of you here wants to do what's right, but how to
perform it, you don't find it. Not within, is it? You can intend
to be perfect, but you don't have any power to carry it out. What a struggle. It's a struggle. We need help. And that's why we need the Lord
Jesus Christ. Back to what I said that Paul
said in the beginning, no wretched men and women that we are. Do
you see that you're wretched? Paul speaks of the two wills
in every believer here. One wills to be holy and the
other wills to sin. It's a war. It's a war going
on. Who is going to release us from
the shackles of this body of death? There's only one that
can. And that's why we desperately,
desperately need Him. He can do for us what we cannot
do for ourselves. He can and He will deliver us.
Our deliverance, as Paul said here, came through Jesus Christ,
the Anointed One. And that's why we need Him. That's why we need him. May God
be pleased to make it so. For his glory are good.