All right, so as I mentioned,
I can maybe turn this a little bit, hopefully it doesn't fall.
I'm gonna use my computer today, so I don't have to print anything,
but our text is Romans 7, verses 14 through 25. And Paul has been declaring in
this chapter that having been made alive by the Spirit, he
was convicted. He heard the law then. Before
this, he didn't hear the law. When he was a Pharisee, and working
under the law, doing that which was prescribed in the law for
him to do, he was confident. He was comfortable with what
he had achieved. He was proud of the things that
he had achieved in the flesh as a Pharisee. But when the Spirit
came and made him to hear that law, so that he said, he worded
it, when the law came, sin was pricked in him. Sin came alive
and he died. So that the letter of the law
became a ministration of death to him. And what the Spirit is
teaching us, the reason why Paul, by the Spirit, is revealing this
to us and giving this word to us is so that we see and understand
that left to ourselves, we cannot save ourselves by this flesh,
by the works of this flesh. And by the Spirit, when we see
our sin, just how deep our sin is and the root of the matter
and what we are in ourselves, When we see that, it causes us,
by the Spirit, to cry out to God our Father, to beg Him for
mercy and forgiveness, and to seek His salvation through His
Son, Jesus Christ. We are brought to confess our
need, being stripped and withered. It's like a cold wind coming
over a field of flowers. which is what flesh is. It's
nothing but grass and a flower at best, and when that cold,
harsh wind comes, it kills, it wilts the flower, it strips us
of our glory and our beauty, and we're brought to shame and
nothing in ourselves. And that's where we've got to
be brought, that we would hear the gospel, that we will hear
Christ, that we will hear our need of him and believe God.
And so Paul now details his experience as a believer This is a believer,
he's speaking now as a regenerated believer whose hope is fixed
in the salvation that God has provided in his son, Jesus Christ. And so, we're thankful for this. We're thankful because we see
how the Spirit sweetly and faithfully teaches us and brings us to see
our need of Christ. And so the other thing that the
Spirit teaches us here in this is that we can't ever go back
to the flesh. The believers are never turned
back to the law for righteousness. In the beginning of our salvation,
our justification is through Christ. So it is in our sanctification. We continue to live upon Jesus
Christ and need him. That never changes. The spirit
teaching us will never turn back to the flesh. We'll see what's
in us. but is in this flesh, now this
does not change, this flesh is still dead and weak, but rather
the new man, that creation of Christ in us, he must be born
again, that creation of Christ in us, ever keeps looking to
the righteousness of Jesus Christ and ever keeps resting in and
believing in the person of Jesus Christ. So that's where we're
gonna stay. Our title is called Kept Looking to Christ. We're kept looking to Christ. So let's look at this now. We'll
go into this now and break these verses down because they can
be confusing. And certainly there's a lot of
confusion about this text and religion. There's differences
of opinion, but I'm gonna preach to you today the gospel, what
the Lord is revealing to us that this is a regenerate man professing
his experience and what he sees by the Spirit in himself according
to the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, Paul here in verse 14, Romans
7, 14, he comes back to this familiar phrasing which he uses
in this chapter concerning the law. And he says here, for we
know. We know. And we learned a couple
weeks ago that when he says that, he's speaking to brethren. These aren't Pharisees that he's
calling brethren. These aren't Pharisees who know
the law because they don't know the law. They think that righteousness
isn't something they do by the law. But Paul says, we know. We know, brethren. We know by
the revelation and regeneration of the Spirit of God, we know. And so Paul says, for we know
that the law is spiritual, but me, I, I'm carnal, sold under
sin. And what Paul is speaking of
there, when he speaks of him being carnal, it's more than
just this outward flesh, but what he's speaking about is what
I am in Adam, what I've inherited in Adam, from my father Adam,
we all descended from Adam in the flesh, according to the flesh,
and when he sinned, we sinned. When he became corrupted, we
being yet in his loins, like the children of Abraham were
in his loins when he tithed. Same thing with us, we were in
Adam's loins, and when he sinned, we all sinned. And when he became
corrupt, we all were corrupted. When he died, we died in him. That means spiritually, that
fellowship with God, that love of God, that friendship with
God was severed and destroyed. And we didn't believe God. If you notice, Adam hid. He became
suspect of God, afraid of God, fearful because he saw his nakedness,
so he ran and hid. And that's what the scriptures
teach us. Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians
2, verse 14, he tells us about the natural man, what we are
apart from the spirit of Christ. He says, the natural man receiveth
not the things of the spirit of God. Why not? Because they're
foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned. And this is why our Lord Jesus
Christ tells us, ye must be born again. You can't know these things
except God the Spirit first give you life to hear it. Because
apart from the Spirit giving you life, you don't know them.
You can't know them. They're spiritual. You can't
understand that which is spiritual because all we are in Adam is
a corrupt, carnal, sinful lump of flesh. That's all we are. We're wicked in ourselves. We're
dead in ourselves. We're sinners in ourselves. Now the natural man may look
upon the law of Moses, and he may be comforted by what he can
do, outwardly conforming himself to what he thinks the law of
Moses is saying. And in doing that, it never will
prick or awaken the sin which is in his flesh. It never awakens
sin in his members. And that's what Paul was saying.
Without the law, sin was dead. Sin was unawakened. That's in
Romans 7 verse 8. Sin was dead. It wasn't awakened.
It wasn't provoked in his flesh because he thought what he was
doing was good and acceptable and pleasing to God. And that's
where all of us are apart from the Spirit of Christ. It hasn't
reached our heart yet. Until the Spirit makes us to
hear it, we don't know just how desperate of sinners we are before
God. And this is why no man, no one
left in the flesh can perfect themselves in looking to the
law and doing their best to keep the law. No one's going to perfect
themselves. Salvation will never be attributed
to man because man doesn't know God. He's not spiritual. He doesn't
know how to worship God. He doesn't know what pleases
God. He thinks it's in his works that please God. In him stopping
certain things and starting other things, he thinks God is pleased
with that. And so he'll never hear and rest
in and believe Jesus Christ unto salvation except the Spirit of
God give it to him. And this is why the scriptures
declare to us plainly that salvation is a sovereign choice of God. God sovereignly chooses those
whom He will. Our God elects those that please
Him. Or rather, how it pleases Him
is how I should say that. has sovereignly chosen a people
for himself apart from any works that they do. In Ephesians chapter
1, I'll read it, verse 4, that it's according as he hath chosen
us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be
holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself Why? How did he do this choosing?
Well, it's according to the good pleasure of his will. So that's just a little taste
of the many scriptures that declare to us that our God is sovereign
in his choice. He chooses whom he will, as it
pleases him. Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. Now, to whom he chooses, we're
told in Hebrews, if you wanna turn there, Hebrews 8, verses
10 through 11, that our God makes a covenant of grace. If it came down to something
we have to do, it wouldn't be called a covenant of grace. It
would be what the Jews were given under Moses, a covenant of law,
a covenant of works, whereby no one was saved by that. All
who are saved were saved by Christ, looking to and believing God
concerning his promise given in the garden, that the woman
should bring forth a seed, which is of God, conceived of the Lord,
that would crush the serpent's head and deliver us from the
bondage that we came into in Adam. So in Hebrews 8, verse
10, this is the covenant that I will make with the house of
Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws
into their mind and write them in their hearts, and I will be
to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. and they shall
not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying,
Know the Lord, for all shall know me from the least to the
greatest. How is it that all, all his people
shall know him? How is it those that are least
are weak and those that are seemingly great or mighty, how do they
know? Because it's the spirit of God
that teaches them. And we see it, it's revealed,
those to whom Christ laid down his life for, because he reveals
it with the fruit of righteousness, the fruit of faith, which he
gives to his people and bears in them. So when the commandment
comes to a sinner, and we're all sinners, we're all dead in
trespasses and sins and Adam, But when the commandment comes
as it did to Paul, our fleshly works are condemned. They're
brought down to what they are, nothing in the sight of God.
But having been slain by the law there, we're made alive by
the Spirit looking unto Christ, Him giving us faith and showing
us that we are in Christ, we're in Him when He was crucified
and died. And that's what Paul was saying
in 2 Corinthians 3 verse 6, the letter killeth. The letter killeth. He uses the, when we hear the
law, it kills us. When we hear it in truth, it
kills us. It cuts down our works and our boasting. but the Spirit
giveth life, right? The Spirit of God gives life,
all right? So the law is spiritual. That's what Paul's saying, the
law is spiritual. Man didn't invent it, it's of
the Lord. It reveals the perfection of
our God. And so this law reaches much
deeper than what we can understand it in Adam, in our natural flesh. And so, The law we see is discerning. It cuts right to the thoughts
and intents of our hearts, the spiritual law. It's the word
and it exposes us and shows us what we are in ourselves. And the law is made, when we
hear it by the spirit, the law is made to go to the root of
the matter. It goes and reveals to us what
we are in Adam, that we rebelled in Adam, that we sinned in Adam,
that we're all that we're all condemned in Adam and lost that
fellowship with him. We died spiritually. And so if
we try now to please God by keeping the letter of the law and trusting
our ability to outwardly reform ourselves. You can make yourself
appear, right, to a degree, you can make yourself appear to others
that you're keeping the law and that you're a good person. And
maybe person to person comparisons, we would appear, someone might
appear better than others. But before God, we're all sinners,
all worthy and just of hell and condemnation and the wrath of
God, but if you continue now trying to work a righteousness
for yourselves, you're going to die in trespasses and sins,
except the Lord give you mercy, except the Lord be gracious to
you and stop you in your trusting your own works on your way to
hell. The Lord has to save us in grace, so we depend upon the
Lord ever. From the beginning to the end,
we always depend upon the Lord to save us. So it's the spirit
that we must have. If we're to know and worship
God, we've got to have the spirit. And this is what Paul is saying
when he says, the law is spiritual, but me, myself, I'm carnal, sold
under sin. All right, so Paul's saying,
if you look up in Romans 7, verse 12 there, And you look at what he's saying
in verse 14 then, but let's start with 12. He says, the law, which
is holy, and the commandment, that is holy, and just and good,
he's saying here in verse 14, it's spiritual. This law is spiritual. The problem is me. I'm the one
who's carnal. I'm the one in Adam who's dead
in trespasses and sins, sold under sin, right? We all, when
Adam fell, that was it. We all fell into sin. We all became dead sinners. And
so Paul now is saying here that even now, I'm yet weak in this
flesh. and this flesh is incapable of
producing any spiritual obedience to the law. And so all the inclinations
of my flesh and your flesh, the lusts that we have, the passions,
right, just even the desires that we have, right, to protect
ourselves, to care for ourselves, to do those things that we personally
like to do, they're all yet present in this sinful flesh, even as
a believer. This flesh isn't improved. It's not now that we've been
saved by Christ that we can turn back to the law and start doing
the law perfectly in this flesh as though this flesh gets any
better. It doesn't. Anyone who thinks that it does
is only kidding themselves and they haven't yet heard the law. And the reality is that a man
in the flesh, whether he believes or not, can only go so far in
loving God and loving his neighbor as himself. There's only so far
that we can go. Some might go a little further
than others, but it still comes short of the glory of God. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. And the reason why this is so
is because this flesh died in Adam. That's why our salvation
is of faith, because we don't yet see what we shall be. We
yet see the weakness and the infirmity of this flesh. Our
Lord even said in Matthew 26 verse 41, He said, pray that you not come
into temptation. Pray and watch. Pray that you
be delivered from temptation because the spirit is willing,
but the flesh is weak. And we see that, we feel that
burden and that war in our flesh. And so Paul says, I'm carnal,
and he's saying this old man of sin yet in me, that which
was inherited by me in Adam, that which is mine through Adam,
this flesh, yet living, it's yet here, it still has those
passions and lusts and desires, likes the things that it likes
and dislikes the things that it dislikes, but that's all yet
in this flesh. and it's according to the deceitful
lusts, which the apostles throughout are telling us, put off those
things, abstain from fleshly lusts. Don't do those things
because they're yet present in us. That's why they have to say
those things to us, because they're yet there in us. Just like the
apostle John said in 1 John 1.8, if we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves. The truth is not in us. So seeing
this fact of the Spirit's revelation, Paul now begins to trace out
for us the experience of regenerated persons, believers, those whose
hope is fixed in the Lord Jesus Christ, rather than in the works
that they do or don't do. We don't ever trust in what we're
doing or not doing. We don't look to this flesh. We don't feel proud of this flesh.
We don't have confidence. that this flesh can save us or
contribute to our salvation. We trust with a single eye to
Jesus Christ and him only. So Paul begins speaking here
in the present tense. He's speaking of himself right
now as a regenerated believer. Even as an apostle, this is what
he is in the flesh. And so he stops talking about
the past there when he was a Pharisee, right? He's no longer looking
back to what he was before Christ came, right? Because back when
he was a Pharisee, he said things like, touching the righteousness
which is in the law, I was blameless, right? He said that in Philippians
3.6. I was blameless before the law. As a Pharisee, I didn't
hear the law. I thought I was good. I thought
I was doing what I was supposed to do. But now I see there's
nothing good in me. Well, unregenerate people don't
talk like that. They don't know the truth. Even
if they see some faults in themselves and are honest about that, they
still don't know and believe that they are worthy of eternal
condemnation before holy God. So, knowing the law now, that
it is spiritual, and that all his fleshly confidence has been
ruined and stripped away by God, he says, well, he confesses it
here in verse 15, for that which I do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not,
but what I hate, that do I. All right, now that word allow
there can be translated to know. And Paul's saying, I don't agree
with what I'm doing. I don't recognize what I'm doing
in the sense of I don't love it. I don't like what I'm doing.
I don't approve of it. I don't agree with it being in
me. I don't want it. I don't want it here in my flesh. But the reality is it's still
in my flesh. And every one of us still knows
that there's sin in us. We still know it. We get angry,
or we say foolish things, or we do things that we know we
ought not to do, and yet we do them. And those that are kidding
themselves about it being sin, they will usually justify it.
They'll find a reason to say, well, they provoked me, or there
was some reason why I do the things that I do. That doesn't
make it right. Just because we can justify ourselves
in the flesh does not mean that the Lord is in agreement with
our justification. So there's yet sin in us. And though we sin, the regenerated
man, the new man in us, the seed of Christ, which he's put into
us to give us life in himself, That new man does not sin, and
that new man hates sin. I remember one pastor, he put
it this way, he said, A believer can do every sin that an unbeliever
can do, except one thing, apostatize from Christ and hate the brethren. The one thing that we can't do
is leave Christ and abandon Christ and abandon His sheep. We love
Christ. That's the only sin that believers
don't do, but everything else, you can read the Old Testament,
you see the horrible, grievous sins that believers did. That
doesn't mean we should feel justified or right in doing them. Not at
all. We don't walk like that. We don't look to walk like that
or find justifications for a sin like that. But it happened. That sin, that wickedness is
still in this flesh. But our hope and confidence isn't
in what we're doing or not doing. it's fixed in the Lord Jesus
Christ. So he hates sin, he hates his
sin, and that's a work of the spirit in us. We read in Psalm
97, ye that love the Lord, hate evil. Hate evil, he tells us
that. And so he's gonna work that in
us, that we hate evil, we hate sin in us. Proverbs 8, 13, the
fear of the Lord is to hate evil. We hate evil. So we don't approve
of our sin, right? The unregenerate man, the unregenerate
approves of the sin that he commits. He does that which he loves.
He loves to do these things, and he justifies them and finds
excuses why he can do those things, and that's not so bad, and well,
so-and-so does this, so it's okay if I do that. That's the
unregenerate man talking like that. The regenerate man hates
his sin. Insofar as he sees it, he hates
it, abhors it, and is not pleased with the sin that he commits.
Now Romans 7, 16, and 17. If then I do that which I would
not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then is no more
I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. And so think of it this
way. If Paul is doing that which he
hates, If he's doing that which he hates rather than loving it,
then he's taking sides with God against himself. He's saying
there's no excuse for what I'm doing. I see it in me. I can't
give an excuse for it. I abhor it. I hate it. God, you
are just and right. I hear your law, and it says
it's wicked, and I shouldn't be doing it. And so he doesn't
love it. He hates it. He abhors it. And so he sees how he's broken
the law and done that which is sinful, And so he consents unto
the law that it is good. And so this sin is arising out
of the indwelling sin nature in us, that old man of sin, yet
with us. Which is why we walk by faith,
because the Lord is showing to us, he's teaching us, that we
can never, ever ever look back to the law for righteousness,
not in justification nor in our sanctification. We died with
Christ. When Christ died, he died our
death. He took our place and justified
us by the shedding of his own blood and in that he lives We,
one, know that we too shall be raised again in the day when
he comes for us, that we shall rise again in this flesh with
a new body, but it also reveals to us that even now, the life
which he lives, we live by that very life, by the very power
of his resurrection. That same power that raised him
from the dead is the power that now works in us, giving us life
in Christ, so that the life we now live, we live by the faith
of the Son of God, the faithfulness of the Son of God, what He accomplished
in us by Himself, by His work. Alright, now Romans 7, 18. For I know, here he is again,
for I know, Paul knows this by revelation and painful experience
in the flesh. I know that in me, that is, in
my flesh dwelleth no good thing. And see, when he says, in my
flesh, we know again, ah, he's talking as a regenerate man. Because an unbeliever, all they
are is flesh. They don't have the Spirit of
God. They don't have the creation of Christ in them. And so when
Paul says, in my flesh, he's distinguishing that which is
the creation of Christ. In Adam, he's flesh. but he was
born again by the Spirit of Christ. That's the new man whereby he
believes God. This is why Christ said you must
be born again before you do anything. Before you can even know Christ,
you must be born of the Spirit, which is a work of God, not of
us. It's of His work. It's the work of the Lord. That's
another affirmation that this is a regenerate person speaking
here, that in my flesh dwelleth no good thing, all right? And so he says, for to will is
present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not,
right? So Paul now being alive in spirit
has a desire to do that which is good and right. He wants to
do those works that are pleasing to the Lord. He wants to serve
his brethren. He wants to serve the Lord and believe the Lord
and walk by the spirit continually rather than walking in the flesh
pleasing himself. He wants to do that which is
right before the Lord. But in the weakness of his flesh,
he finds no power in this flesh to perform that which is good.
He's reminded again and again that the power and the glory
of our salvation is of Christ. It's not by my goodness or what
I've done. We're always gonna see that this
flesh is but grass that's withering away, that can't do anything
profitable in the Lord, so that the works that we do bear, those
good works of our Savior, which he works in us, all the praise
and glory is his. I'll remind you of what it says
in Romans 7 verse 4 where he says, wherefore my brethren,
so he's speaking to regenerated believers by the power of God,
wherefore my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by
the body of Christ. Why? that ye should be married
to another, even to him who is raised from the dead." Listen,
that we should bring forth fruit unto God, meaning that it's not
our flesh that's bringing forth fruit unto God, it's of the spiritual
seed of our husband, Jesus Christ, that good works. which were ordained
of him are born in us. And to show you that, I can show
you verse five, the next verse. For when we were in the flesh,
when all we were was Adam, before we were born again, the motions
of sins which were by the law did work in our members to bring
forth fruit unto death. And so that's what the flesh
brings forth still to this day, fruits of death. When we sin
against our brethren, even as believers, they're not good works,
they're fruits of death. We don't glory in those things,
we glory in the fruit which our husband, Jesus Christ, brings
forth in us. All right, so let me just read
verses 19 and 20, Romans 7. 19, 20, 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. And so Paul, he had said that
earlier, he phrased it earlier in verses 16 and 17, but now
he comes to this conclusion in verse 21. He says, I find then
a law. He's talking about a principle,
a principle sin, it's a working of sin in me, in my flesh, that
when I would do good, right, there's a spirit willing to do
that which is good and right in the Lord, and only can do
that which is good and right, when I would do good, evil in
this flesh, this dead corrupt nature, is present with me. So there's this war in the flesh. There's a war in the believer. We're not of one mind given our
flesh which is still corrupt and dead and doesn't do that
which is right and pleasing to the Lord. It's what he said,
I like how Paul described it in Galatians 5 verse 17. He says, for the flesh lusteth
against the spirit and the spirit lusteth against the flesh. And
these are contrary the one to the other. There's no cooperation.
They're contrary one to another, so that ye cannot do the things
that ye would. In an unregenerate person, there's
no conflict. They're going to do what they
want to do. But in the believer, our God, as it pleases Him, works
His grace in us, so that by His power, according to His fruit,
as it pleases Him, He works those good works in us, so that we
do bring forth good works. When we look at ourselves, all
we see is corruption. We're disappointed in ourselves. We always can see how we could
do better. We're never pleased with our works. We always think
we come up short, right? As our Lord gave an illustration
when the believer said, when Lord, when did we ever see you
in jail? and visit you. When were you
sick and did we come and visit you in your sickness? When did
we see you hungry or thirsty and give you food or drink?"
And he said, and as much as ye did it to the least of these
my brethren, you've done it unto me. And when we do those things
we don't even recognize him because we know in ourselves, I had mixed
motives, I did it in haste, I really didn't wanna go out of my way
to do that. And so there's nothing in the
flesh for us to glory. All we see is the wickedness.
But in that day, we shall see how the Lord by his spirit and
his power, yet worked those works in us, which he ordained for
the good of his people. and for their encouragement and
their help in the truth and what our Lord purposed for them. And
so, all right, he goes on to say now, verse 22, for I, right,
in the new man, I delight in the law of God after the inward
man, right? And so, That's never gonna be
said of a unbeliever. They don't have an inward man.
They don't have a spiritual creation of Christ in them. And an unbeliever
loves the law, the part of the law that he thinks he's doing
and that he thinks he's keeping. But insofar as he sees there's
a gap, I can't go above this line, I can't arise up to this
level, He hates it. He says, I don't think it really
means that, or he finds excuses, or just says, well, I don't believe
that part of it. So unregenerate man hates that which transcends
his power to do, whereas the believer says, Lord, you're right. I'm a sinner. I can't do it.
We don't try to bend it. or change it, we confess, I'm
a sinner, Lord, you're still righteous and perfect, forgive
me, have mercy upon me and your son, Jesus Christ. So believers
do want to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and
strength. But honestly, we know that we're
weak. And we can be lazy and we can do those things which
we want to do to please ourselves. And believers would want to love
their neighbors as themselves. They want to love their brethren
perfectly. And yet we are so, we feel and know the disappointment
of how we come up short so very often. But sin in the flesh doesn't
care. Sin in the flesh doesn't want
to please the Lord or others. Sin in the flesh wants to do
those things that advance itself and takes care of itself. There's
people that are very honest with their sin and wickedness and
they only associate and do things for people that they think will
be of a benefit and help to them in some other way. So they don't
even waste their time with people that they think are beneath them.
And so that's just being very honest with what we are in the
flesh because we're all like that to some degree or another. All right, now Paul circles back
to this here in verse 23. He says, 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."
And, you know, sin is a deceitful, wicked thing. And we're going
to be reminded of that. We're going to be shown throughout
our walk that sin is yet present in us. And there are times when
we are given over to the bondage of it, to the dominion of it.
But our Lord will deliver us from that. He won't leave us
there. He will deliver us from that bondage of sin. It's not
going to have the victory over Brethren, it's not gonna have
the victory over us in Christ. And so we're always gonna be
reminded and brought to know that it's Christ and all of him. It's not of me. And so seeing
that sin in us, seeing what we are by nature in Adam, it brings
us to the cry of the new man, that new creation in us. When
we cry out to the Lord, Again, confessing our sin, being regenerated
by the Spirit of Christ. Look at verse 24. Oh, wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? He's crying out to be delivered
from the works and the filth of this flesh, from that sin
which yet reigns in the flesh, that yet works in the flesh,
which is not yet transformed. to Christ. We haven't yet seen
him with the eye when we shall be made like him. This is the
old man still working in him and he wants to be delivered
from that old man and the works of the old man. Our ability to work a righteousness
by the law in our flesh, it's hopeless. It's not gonna happen.
We're not gonna be perfected by the law. So what's our hope? Our hope is ever the Lord Jesus
Christ. Look at verse 25. 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. I see it's yet subjected to the
law of sin. It's no good thing. But I believe,
by faith, which my God has worked in me, I believe Christ and trust
Him and Him alone. And so the law will never affect
the righteousness in this flesh. We might do things in the flesh
out of fear, but it's not going to affect the righteousness before
God. It's no cover. We have one covering, the believer
has one covering, and that is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And so we're brought to see,
and we're thankful to see this, that all our salvation is fixed
in Jesus Christ alone. It's not because I did some good
work. It's not because God looks down and says, all right, they
seem to be trying now. I think I'll save them. Not at
all. It's not, we can't boast of anything
of our salvation. It's all the work of his grace,
which is revealed and given to his people freely in grace, apart
from any works that they have done or things that they didn't
do. It all comes down to Jesus Christ. Christ was given by the Father,
sent to the Father, taking upon Him the likeness of the sinful
flesh, yet He was without sin, that He might be the perfect
substitute, the sacrifice of His people, so that He worked
righteousness perfectly. He kept the law, because His
sin, or rather His flesh, wasn't of sinful Adam. How he was formed
was he was conceived in Mary's womb by the spirit. So he doesn't
have that carnal, that nature of Adam. He's of God, he's divine. He's the son of God. He never
was with God. He's the word of God made flesh. And so he is the perfect substitute
for his people. And he came and worked perfect
righteousness under the law, doing everything that we cannot
do, and He faithfully went to the cross, bearing His people
in Himself, bearing their sins, when He was made sin for us,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. That's our hope,
is that He, as our substitute, faithfully obeyed the Father,
even unto death, the death of the cross, and died our death
in our place. And He successfully, by the shedding
of His blood, When He died, He justified us. We died to the
law. We don't owe anything to the
law. We are fully justified before God. The wrath of God is satisfied,
being poured out upon Christ our substitute, the Lamb of God.
And so, we believe that. We're given that by the Spirit. That's how we know those that
are Christ's. That's how we know those that
are the people for whom Christ died. They hear the message. They're given the message. They
receive it and believe it because that's the work of the Spirit
in His people. That's the regenerative work
of the Spirit which looks to Christ and believes Him and Him
alone. And so it's by that power of
our God that laid down His life for us and that rose again, that
is now the very power by which we're made alive in Him and believe
Him and walk in Him in faith. So we don't look to the flesh.
We cry out seeing the deadness and the sinfulness of our flesh,
but we don't trust it. We believe our God and that he
has satisfied everything necessary that we now stand righteous and
faultless before the throne of God with nothing more to do. We trust and rest in him. And
so the conflict that we have with sin, the blessing is that
it shall not have dominion over us. It won't have the victory
over us. It's not going to win. It's been put away in Christ.
But the grace of our God, through Jesus Christ His Son, reigns
triumphantly in us. He which hath begun a good work
in you, justification, shall complete it. He shall complete
it unto the day of Christ. That's the sanctification. All
right, so that's our life. And so we'll know this. We'll know this to be so. Right
now it's by faith, but we shall see it and know it to be so when
he returns to claim his people. So I pray the Lord bless that
word to you, my brethren, and any, unbelievers who tuned in
to hear this message, I pray the Lord will bless that word,
that gospel word, that's the hope of our salvation, Jesus
Christ. All right, so let's pray and then we'll close. Our gracious
Lord, Father, we thank you for your grace, mercy, and love which
you have shown to your people and your son, Jesus Christ. Lord,
we confess that we are but sinners, that there is no righteousness
in us and that we can't even keep the law of our God. But
Lord, you've stripped us of a confidence in the flesh and trusting in
the works of our flesh. We see that it's not what we
do or don't do, it's what Christ has done. And Lord, you fix that
faith and that love and the hope of your people in your son, Jesus
Christ. Keep us ever looking to the Lord
Jesus Christ. Let us not trust this filthy
flesh. Let us not look to our works
and compare ourselves to others and see how we're doing. Lord,
those works are dead. Those works are filthy and vile
in your sight. Let them be vile and filthy in
our sight too. Let us see them, Lord, if we
try to hold on to them. Let us see them for what they
are, filthy rags of unrighteousness, Lord. They're not pleasing your
sight. But Lord, there is one that you
are pleased with, your son, Jesus Christ. Exalt him in our hearts
and in our minds. Let us trust in him and him alone. And Lord, we pray that you would
have mercy upon your people. And Lord, if there's any sin,
who's listening in, Lord, that you would convict them, that
you would cause them to hear the law and see that they are
sinners, that they might find their all in all in Jesus Christ
and in him alone. It's in the name of Christ that
we pray and give thanks, amen. All right.