Thank you, Brad. Thank you, Phil.
You can keep your Bible opened to Romans 7 there. I'm taking
what may seem like a detour from John chapter 8, but really it's
not. It's kind of laying the groundwork
for what we read in John 8. where the Lord tells us that
he who is the Son can set us free, and that by the truth,
he does set us free. So really, Romans 7 is about
that. What we just heard Brad read teaches us many fundamental
lessons, and as Brad said, it provides us comfort under the
greatest grief and affliction. and provides us also a fulfillment
of the promise under that same great affliction. and I've entitled
today's message Strength Against Sin. Strength Against Sin. I've been thinking about these
topics for quite a long time now because of our looking at
John chapter eight where the woman who was guilty and taken
in her sin by the Pharisees who wanted to accuse her in order
that they might destroy Christ and all that that included. It's
interesting that when you look at that account of this woman
who was silent before her accusers, silent before the law of God
and guilty in her sin, that the great sin of that chapter is
not her adultery, but rather it is the self-righteousness
of those who accused her. And the great victory in that
chapter is the Lord Jesus' word to her that neither do I condemn
thee, go and sin no more. Now, self-righteousness is the
sin that is most spoken against. in the Gospels. If you notice
that the Pharisee in Luke chapter 18 was set up as the contrast
between those who are God's people and those who are not. He is
the one who was not the Lord's people. And you see the evidence
of that in the way he behaved and what he said. He held in
his own heart a trust in his own righteousness. And he also
despised the publican and said so publicly. He also was very
happy to perform the duties of religion. He talked about his
prayer, he talked about his fasting, he talked about his tithing.
And he also talked about himself in comparison, by contrast, to
the sins of the publican. He claimed not to have those
sins and accused the publican of being someone who embezzled
and tricked people out of their money, cheated. So we see that
in the Pharisee, the Lord holds up self-righteousness as a most
condemnable sin. Not only there, but throughout
the New Testament Gospels, we see the Lord Jesus Christ speaking
against this particular sin and focusing on it. It was the sin
of self-righteousness that Jesus was addressing when the Pharisees
said, he eats and drinks with sinners, with publicans and sinners
and harlots. And Jesus then told them, It's
not the healthy who need a physician, it's the sick. So self-righteousness
is a most grievous problem because it leaves us without a need for
Christ. We're content with our own works. And it is pride, it is inward
pride. Because in our blind pride, we
think that we ourselves have a reason for confidence
that we have secured ourselves with eternal life, God's favor,
God's blessings. We've kept ourselves from the
punishment of our sin by what we are, by what we do. Now, most
people in religion today would say, oh, of course, self-righteousness
is a horrible thing. But strangely enough, self-righteousness
is a sin that causes us to be blind to our self-righteousness.
And that seems ironic. And so much that when Jesus healed
the blind man in chapter 9, John chapter 9, who was blind from
birth, and the disciples asked, Lord, who sinned? Was it this
man or was it his parents? He said, it wasn't this man or
his parents. But that the works of God would
be made manifest in him. And in contrast to that blind
man in whom the works of God were made manifest, the Lord
Jesus spoke at the end of that chapter in John chapter 9 and
verse 39. He says, for judgment I am come
into this world, that they which see not might see. That would
correspond to the blind man and to those who are publicans and
sinners. But to those, he said, but to
those who see that they might be made blind. And that corresponds
to the Pharisees, to the self-righteous who in their blind pride think
they see. There's no greater blindness
than the blindness that can't see our blindness. And so self-righteousness
is a pride that's most detestable because it deceives us. It deceives
us into thinking that we are well when we're the most sick
of all. It deceives us in thinking that
we've kept God's law when we've broken it in the worst possible
way. The heart of man, according to
Jeremiah 17, is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. And this is that sin that God
is speaking about in that text of Scripture. It's that sin of
self-righteousness that deceives us and that makes us think that
we're well when we're not well at all. And this is also the
same sin that leads to all kind of perverseness, perversity as
a result of it. In Genesis 6, 5 it says, the
Lord looked down on the children of men and he saw that the imaginations
of their heart was only evil continually. Imaginations are
things that are not true, but we think are true. But we've
created that deception of truth. It's false and so it's called
an imagination. It's like when you dream and
you think something is real, but you wake up and you realize
that's foolish. That's what a vain imagination is and we have that
continually because we hold ourselves in this self-righteous pride
as being capable or improving or moving closer in holiness
or making it possible for us in some way to contribute in
some small part at least to our own salvation. The problem is
that if there's anything in our salvation, even the smallest
thing, which we in the smallest way contribute to, because we're
sinful, we will make that thing fail. We will ruin ourselves
in the thing that depends upon us. Whatever is made to depend
on us must fail. Not only that, but if anything
depends on us, what we find is to the measure that we assess
ourselves in that thing, we will covet, idolatrously lust after
honor to ourselves because of our performance in that thing.
And that's why this is such an insidious an insidious sin, the
sin of self-righteousness, because it seeks and it also prefers
our own obedience to the righteousness of Christ. In Romans 9, verse
31 through 33, it says that Israel did not receive, they were not
justified, they did not receive the righteousness of Christ because
they had this inner pride that refuse to allow them willingly
to submit to the righteousness of God, which Christ is the fulfillment
of for his people, for all those who believe him. And so we see
that this sin of self-righteousness is the worst sin of all. In Proverbs chapter 6, it says
that these six things that the Lord hate, and the first one
in the list is pride. It was for pride that God cast
Satan out of heaven when he said in his heart, I will be like
the Most High. And self-righteous pride is that
attitude that we hold in the blindness of our self-deception
that we can achieve what is necessary to be a Christian. And I know
this by experience and I'm sure that you do too, but perhaps
not nearly as much as I do. And I remember when I was afraid
because I had heard that I would spend eternity in hell if I was
lost in my sins. And I was afraid and I wanted
to become a Christian. And so I began to do what a Christian
must do and must be. And I deprived myself of things
and I performed what Christians were supposed to do. Pray, praise,
speak of Christ, and give whatever it was. Deny myself. And I found that the more I improved,
here's the irony and the deception of sin, the more that I thought
I was gaining, I was conforming more closely to what was required
to be a Christian, the more my spiritual pride arose. So the very thing that I was
trying to be in that attempt to be a Christian actually proved
me to be the worst of all. And the Apostle Paul was just
like that. In Philippians chapter three,
he says, I was a Hebrew of the Hebrew concerning a Pharisee
of the Pharisees concerning the righteousness which is in the
law. I was blameless, blameless. It wasn't that Paul was out committing
adultery, and theft, and lying, and cheating, and embezzling,
and all the things that the publican was accused of. He was not in
that. You could say, no, he wasn't
guilty of that at all. Look, he had kept himself from
offending God by his obedience to the law, and he trusted in
that. He said, I'm blameless by the law. Now, it was the same
Apostle Paul who said, but what I counted gain, what I thought
was my gain, that I refused. I now count it as dung that I
might win Christ, that I might be found in him, not having my
own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness
which is of God, the righteousness by the faith of Christ. So that
was Paul, and that was me. And what hurts the most to a
self-righteous, proud, arrogant Pharisee who's blinded by their
sin is when someone says, you are self-righteous. You see,
this sin of self-righteousness causes us to actually thrive
under religious duty because we can perform it. Obviously,
others can't, and it makes us feel better about ourselves,
and we expect people to respect that. And when someone points
out the root cause of our problem, it withers us because we're so
arrogant. We're ignorant of God's righteousness
and His holiness, and we refuse to bow to Him. And in the vain
imagination of our idolatrous heart, We lift ourselves up in
this covetous idolatry, and we expect God to recognize us, and
we expect others to recognize us, and that is the furthest
thing from a sinner saved by grace. And that's what Romans
7, Romans 6 and 7 are talking about here. It helps us to ground
ourselves in this, because the apostle Paul in 1 Timothy chapter
1 said, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of
whom I am chief. And the next verse, he says that
the Lord Jesus Christ set him up as a pattern for those who
should after believe on Christ. The pattern of someone who was
proud and coveting Christ's glory and breaking every commandment
in the law, spiritual adultery, and dishonoring his father by
his own self-righteous pride and lust for the glory that belongs
to Christ only. That's the sin we're talking
about here. That's what we are by nature. And that is what God
describes when he says that the heart of man, above everything
else, is deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it? And
that's why in the book of Romans, the first three chapters at least,
and even further, are devoted to this issue of our sin against
God. Because until we are sinners,
until we have sinned against God who is holy, and we have
no strength to change either our record before God or our
inner self that has this inner pride and covetousness in our
self-righteousness. Until we see that, we don't need
a savior. We won't look to Christ. We will
consider ourselves as part of the equation, as the last piece
in that puzzle of a thousand pieces that make up our salvation.
We'll consider ourselves critical and crucial and necessary to
perform whatever religion tells us is necessary for us to be
saved. We will not rejoice in God's
electing grace because that takes all of it out of our hands and
places it in the hands of the all-wise and holy God. We won't. We won't trust Christ's righteousness
alone because we hold close to ourselves this adoring, admiring
of our own performance, especially compared to others. We will not
depend on the sovereign work of the Spirit of God. We won't
cry to God because we see ourselves as already having enough. without
Christ. What a wickedness. And that's
the reason the first three chapters of Romans are given, is to shut
our mouths and to prove us without strength, and then to lift up
the Lord Jesus Christ and teach us with that condemning sense
of our own filthiness in our wretched righteousness that God
justifies us freely by His grace, through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be the propitiation
through faith in His blood. Now that is the truth of the
gospel. What Christ has done, Christ's
faith that moved Him in love to obey all that God gave Him
to do for sinners, That love and that faith is the righteousness
of God, which is given to us by grace, so that God looks upon
Christ and receives us for His sake alone. He does not and cannot
consider anything of us, or He would damn us. And so the gospel
is meant to convince us of this, it's given to us like that. And
in Romans chapter 5, this is brought to another viewpoint.
Because in Romans 5 and verse 12 and following, he tells us
that we sinned in Adam. When Adam disobeyed the law that
God had given to him, don't eat or you shall die in that day.
then when He did that, we did it in Him. And Romans 5, 12 through
19 is meant to teach us this as the foundation for what follows,
that we were sinners, we sinned in Adam. And therefore, in the
last part of that chapter, in Romans 5, 21, He teaches us that
Christ, in the same way, is in relation to His people, so that
what He did, we did in Him. And this blows our mind. This
is beyond wonderful. that we could have ever imagined,
and it casts to the ground our own self-righteousness and glory,
and it exalts Christ alone in all of His goodness, in His saving
power and grace. And so in the last verse, he
says of Romans 5, as sin reigned unto death, as a tyrant, a mighty
tyrant, Unstoppable. We had no strength over it. That
sin reigned as a tyrant, a sovereign tyrant over us to bring us to
death. Our sin. Even so, he says, might
grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. You see, it's grace that reigns
not apart from, but because of the fulfillment of righteousness
and that by the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Our righteousness,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Our life, the Lord Jesus Christ. You see the two here set right
beside each other? Life because of righteousness. Righteousness in Christ. Life
and righteousness in Christ, our last Adam. And that's why
Romans 6 begins with this, don't you know? There's an objection
raised at the very first of Romans 6 that says, well then, shall
we continue in sin that grace may abound? Because God's grace
abounded even though our sin abounded under the law. Shall
we continue in that sin then? No, no. And he goes through Romans
6 and he says the reason why That can't be, is because when
Christ died, we were with Him in His death and we died. We
died to sin. And not only that, but He was
buried and we were buried with Him. But most importantly, not
only did our sins die in His death and were buried and put
away, but when He rose, we rose with Him. So in verse 11 of Romans
6 he says, Reckon ye also yourselves, listen, to be dead indeed unto
sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Here we
have both things again set side by side. First, our sins were
put to death. Second, we were given life. Righteousness
reigns. Christ fulfilled all righteousness
in putting away our sins. And then, because we were with
Him in His death and burial, also with Him in His resurrection,
we then are raised to life. We were justified with a justification
because of His righteousness that God would give us life because
of that righteousness. And that righteousness is in
Christ. I mean, that righteousness and life are in Christ. So that
when God gives us life because of righteousness, that same life
that he gives us is the life of Christ in us. And he says
in verse 14 of Romans 6, for sin shall not have dominion over
you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. This is
why sin won't have dominion. You're not under the law, you're
under grace. Now that's a promise, isn't it?
That's a statement of fact. But the problem is, Romans 7
begins this way, that as long as we're alive, we're under the
law. How can we be not under the law,
but under grace, if we're under the shackles of the law, And
all of that, all of that includes as long as we're alive, because
we seem to be alive. And the answer is given by the
law itself. The law itself says that in marriage,
a man and a woman are married as long as they both shall live.
That sounds great. The problem, and then he also
says, he goes on in Romans 7, the first three verses, to say
that as long as a woman is alive, she's married to her husband,
she can't be married to another. And the woman, in those three,
four verses, are clearly the believer because he says in verse
four, wherefore my brethren, you also are going to be married
to Christ. Now this marriage to Christ is
an open, public, experience in the time of our life that he's
speaking about this marriage even though we were wedded to
Christ from eternity. Here he's talking about an open
marriage which occurs when Christ reveals himself in us and he
makes the gospel known to us. But he's saying that marriage
to Christ is not valid unless our marriage to the law is broken. The law is like the husband,
we were like the spouse, the wife. Someone had to die in order
to break that. Who died? Well, he says in verse
four, my brethren, you also are become dead to the law by the
body of Christ. So we died to the law. But also
notice this, that the law became dead to us. In our death with
Christ, the law, our husband, also died. He says in Colossians
chapter 2 and verse 14, notice these words. He says, that the
Lord Jesus Christ, in verse 13, you being dead in your sins and
the uncircumcision of your flesh, that describes us before we have
been born of God, hath he quickened, given life, together with Christ,
having forgiven you all your trespasses. Can you see the relationship
between life and forgiveness here? Because we are forgiven,
we're given life with Christ. God forgave us all of our sins
for Christ's sake. When Christ rose from the dead,
it proved our forgiveness, our justification, and God has forgiven
us and therefore given us life. He quickened us together with
him. That's verse 13. Now look at 14. blotting out
the handwriting of ordinances that was against us. What is
that? That's the law of God. The handwriting
of ordinances that was against us, it condemned us, which was
contrary to us, it required our death, and He took it out of
the way, nailing it to His cross. That's the law of God. He answered
God's law with himself in sacrifice of love and humility and righteousness. He who knew no sin was made sin
for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
That's the declaration of 2 Corinthians 5.21. Therefore, his assuming
our sin, his bearing our sins in his own body up to the tree
is our righteousness. It established our righteousness
as the righteousness of God and God gifted to us by his grace
by what Christ did because he had before joined us to Christ
in order that what he did would be counted ours. So that back
in Romans 7 here, he shows that because the law is dead to us,
that relationship to the law is broken now, therefore we're
free to be publicly married to another who is Christ. And then
in verse 4 of Romans 7, notice he says this, that we should
bring forth fruit unto God. Now, how can we bring forth fruit
to God? Well, he's going to describe that in the next verses that
follow. Remember now, this is the Apostle Paul. He's telling
us about his own experience. The Apostle was a very self-righteous,
proud Pharisee. The sin that was in his heart
made him do things and trusted himself that he was righteous.
It was the same sin that compelled the rich young ruler to come
to Christ and say, good master, what must I do to have eternal
life? Remember in Matthew 19, and the
Lord said, well, you know the commandments. And he listed some
of them, all of them in the second table. Don't steal, don't lie,
honor your father and mother, and don't commit adultery. And
he says, I've done all that from my youth up. That was the Apostle
Paul. Not that the rich young ruler
was necessarily the Apostle Paul, but he could have been. Whether
he was or not isn't important. The point is that he had the
same thinking, the same attitude, the same sin as self-righteous
Paul had also. He thought himself blameless.
But what the Lord did in that account of the rich young ruler
is he swept away his complete the worst kind of sin that resides
in the human heart that actually failed to keep the whole law.
He had broken the whole law. He swept all away what he was
holding as the covering for his own self-righteousness to present
it to Christ and to present it before men, and he trusted in
himself. And the Lord swept it all away and exposed his heart
when he says, okay, Well, then go sell everything you have and
give it to the poor and come follow me and you shall have
eternal life. And the rich young ruler went
away miserable, despondent, because he trusted in himself and when
Christ exposed what he was, he was in total despair. Despair
is a result of unbelief. Cain had the same example, had
the same reaction when the Lord refused his offering and refused
him, had no respect to Cain or to his offering. Cain rears back
on his hind legs in his self-righteous arrogance and he says, My offering
is at least as good as Abel's. He preferred what he could do
by his works to what God required and God provided. This is that
lust, that covetous idolatry that resides in our heart and
is fueled by our pride that leads us to prefer our own obedience
to Christ's righteousness, our own honor to his glory. So this
was working in the heart of the apostle when he writes these
things and he tells us about his own personal experience under
the law of God. Notice in verse 5, for when we
were in the flesh, this is Romans chapter 7 verse 5, he's going
to explain now how we bring forth fruit to God. This is what the
chapter is about. For when we were in the flesh,
that means when we were only flesh, Jesus told Nicodemus,
that which is born of the flesh is flesh. That's what the apostle
and we are until the Lord births us by His Spirit, creates Christ
in us, raises us from the spiritual death that we are in, our sins,
and gives us the life of Christ in us. When Christ is formed
in us, when Christ lives in us, then we are not in the flesh.
But here he says, when we were in the flesh, before the Spirit
of God gave us birth as children of God, and when the seed of
God, the divine nature was given to us. That's what he's talking
about. Before that, Then he says, the
motions of sins which were by the law did work in our members
to bring forth fruit unto death. That describes what goes on in
the heart of a self-righteous Pharisee, doesn't it? The motions
of sins, that's what happens within me. That's my thoughts,
my attitudes, my desires, the intentions, the motives of my
heart. When the law came, it excited that. Because of that
inner pride and covetousness and all that goes with it, when
the law came, I latched onto it. I took pride in it. I tried
to make myself what the law required. The law says, do and live. The law says, curse it is the
one who doesn't continually do all that is in the law. And I
said, no problem, no problem, I can handle that. There's gotta
be something in me that God will look at and consider and say,
yeah, he really means it. That is the foolishness, the
blindness of our pride, that God's holiness is so small that
I can fulfill it, I can make myself righteous, or I can make
myself holy by what I do according to God's requirements. That's
what self-righteousness is. That's the heart of the lust,
covetous man. And so he says, those motions
of sins, which were by the law, because the law excited it, it
was there all along, it was latent though. He couldn't see it, you
didn't know it was there until the law came and when Jesus spoke
to that rich young ruler, go sell everything, give it to the
poor and come follow me, suddenly what he truly was and his absolute
helplessness to change his pride and his lust were exposed. And
the law now came down and condemned him to death, with the lowest
kind of death. He says, the motions of sins
which were, I mean, 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. The law says, the soul that sinneth,
it must die, you die. He says, but verse six, but now
we are delivered from the law that being dead, meaning the
law is dead to us. And we're dead to the law. What
does that mean? It means our relationship to the law is the
same relationship that a man, a man who is dead has to his
surroundings. He's not interested. He's not
afraid. He has no relationship. Sunlight
doesn't affect me. Darkness doesn't affect me. Food,
not interested. Water, I don't need it. Pain,
can't feel it. Bombs, I don't worry about them.
Death, I'm already dead. So all these things have no effect
on a dead man. The promises of the law that
if I do and live, no effect when I'm dead to the law. The threatenings
of the law that I'm cursed if I don't do, no effect on a dead
man. You see, the law is dead to me,
and I'm dead to the law. That marriage is broken and now
I can be married to Christ by the operations of the Spirit
of God when He comes to me and shows me, you are a sinner and
you have no power over your inner sin and no power to remove your
guilt before God. You are justly condemned and
you are worthy of hell. Yes, yes, it's true. And Christ
is the righteousness of His people. God justifies us for what He
finds in Him. Yes, yes. and by the Spirit of
God given to us in that new birth, the life of Christ, we live to
God. Yes. You see, that's the transformation. Now we are delivered from the
law that the law itself, and we also dead wherein we were
held, that we should serve, notice, how do we serve? In newness of
spirit. He's describing the work of God
that creates Christ in us. Christ in you, the hope of glory. I live, but it's not I that live,
it's Christ that lives in me, Galatians 2.20. I, through the
law, am dead to the law, that I might," how's it go in Galatians
2, verse 19? Let me read it. He says, I, through
the law, am dead to the law, that I might live to God. A death
had to occur for me to live to God. That death to the law had
to happen. My death to sin and the condemnation
that my sins bring, that death had to occur. And it occurred
in the body of Christ. He says in verse 20 of Galatians
2, I am crucified with Christ. There's that union. By virtue
of his death, I died. By virtue of his burial, my sins
are remembered no more. By virtue of his resurrection,
I now live to God. I was raised with him. I was
quickened because God forgave me my sins for Christ's sake.
That's what he's speaking about here in Galatians 2 and in Romans
7. The life which I now live in
the flesh, I live Because of Christ in me, I live how? By
the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for
me. You see what he's saying here? The whole focus of my life
while I was in the flesh only and under the law was me. It was me. I had both thumbs
pointed at myself in my heart. On the outside, I looked very
humble. On the outside, people would praise you. You're such
a fine young man. All such praise is the worst
kind of thing you can do for a person. Because notice back
in Romans chapter six. Romans chapter six and verse
17. Notice who gets the glory in salvation that is by grace
and not by the law. Notice verse 17. God be thanked. You see it? God be thanked. You were the servants of sin,
but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which
was delivered to you. Where did that heart to obey
come from? through the resurrection of Christ. Christ, by His Spirit,
came to dwell in me, Christ was revealed in me, and the result
of that life of Christ is that I now live by the faith of the
Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. And that we thank
God for. Only God can perform this salvation
from first to last. And the thanksgiving here, that
he's giving God for this, is not only that he has this obedience
that came from him, this faith in Christ, from the heart, this
newness of life, but he thanks God for this because, as Robert
Hawker said, I heard this in a sermon by Don Fortner, he said,
Robert Hawker said about this verse, that he thanks God that
he now, knowing Christ, is all of his righteousness and all
of his life, that he even prefers knowing this and holding this
fast to have never sinned himself. If he could choose between having
never sinned and having fallen into sin and now knowing his
righteousness and his life for only Christ, He would much, much
more thank God for that. You see what he's saying? And
this is the experience of Romans 7. So back in verse 6, he says,
now we serve in newness of life, not in the oldness of the letter. The Spirit of God in us causes
us to look to Christ and not to look to ourselves. The law
directs us, because of our sin, to ourselves alone, two thumbs. But the Spirit of God directs
us to Christ alone. That's the operation. That's
walking by the Spirit. That's faith. We live by faith,
we walk by faith. As we receive Christ the Lord,
so we walk in him. Then in Romans 7, he goes on,
not in the oldness, but in the newness of the spirit. Not the
letter of the law, but the spirit in us with the gospel written
on our hearts. He says in verse 7, what shall
we say then? Is the law sin? He would ask
that question because the law had, I had to die to the law,
the law had to die to me. And I had to be married to another.
And when I was under the law, it seemed like all I did was
sin. It seemed like sin was like an explosion. It just went off
in me because the law came along and exposed it and excited all
of that sinful unrighteousness that was in me to lust and take
arrogant pride to myself. So he says, is the law sin? No,
it's nothing wrong with the law. The problem is, he says, God
forbid, nay, I had not known sin, but by the law, for I had
not known lust, that's covetousness, except the law had said, thou
shalt not covet. In Colossians it says, covetousness
is idolatry. And now I see the heinousness,
the horrible nature of that attitude that I can make myself what I
need to be under the principle of do and live, or don't do what
is prohibited in order to avoid the punishment, the curse of
the law. We're always motivated under the law because of our
sin by this thinking that we can avoid the punishment and
we can obtain life by what we become in ourselves. And the
answer of the gospel is absolutely not. That demeans the holiness
of God. I don't even know if that's the
right word. It disparages the holiness of God. It thinks so
low of it that it makes you, a worm, a sinful man, capable
of keeping that holiness and coming to God and to be accepted
by God in all of his holiness. Nothing could be further from
the truth. Okay, so he says then in verse eight, but sin, it wasn't
the law's fault, it was my sin's fault. But sin, taking occasion
by the commandment, wrought in me, made this happen, it worked it
out in me, all manner of concupiscence, evil desire, this evil desire
that's way beyond any fornication in the world today, this desire
to have what belongs to Christ and to prefer my own righteousness
to His, that is concupiscence. For without the law, sin was
dead." I didn't know I was a sinner. I thought I could get by. But
when the law came, as Jesus told the rich young ruler, go sell
all you have, give it to the poor, come follow me. When the
law came, then he says, Let's see, where is it? I lost
my place. For without the law, sin was dead. For I was alive
without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived. I thought I was dead. I was living
happily under the delusion of my sinful heart. But when God
brought the truth of the law to me, then I died. Because my sin reared up under
that law, and I died. And the commandment which was
ordained to life, I thought I could obtain life by the commandment.
I found that very commandment that I trusted to be the reason
I must die. Now, do you sense here in all
of this that we've gone through so far, the horrible depression
that would come upon a man to find everything stripped away
that he trusted in, and him standing naked and exposed before God. Can you see that? There's nothing
more unsettling. than knowing I stand guilty before
God that I have done what He most strenuously forbids and
that I have failed to do what He says is the greatest commandment
of all. I have broken the whole law in
the very core of my being. You see the sense of that? That's
what Romans is teaching us. In order that we might not trust
our own law-keeping to make ourselves holy. If you go into any self-professing
Christian church today, they'll tell you the way that you're
sanctified is by keeping what God commands you. You'll get
holy if you be holy. That's the way it's going to
be. You have to do holy things in order to be holy. That's trusting
in ourselves. Galatians completely squashes
that when he says, did you receive the spirit of God by keeping
the law? No. Then why do you think you're
going to be perfected by keeping the law? Galatians chapter three. No, it has to be by Christ alone.
And that's why what we read here is so helpful and comforting,
while at the same time, it's so discouraging to us. It discourages our old man, but
it encourages our new man, you see. When the law completely
sends us away like the rich young ruler, his sin really sent him
away when Christ Put before him the requirement for eternal life
that depended upon him. I can't do it. He went away discouraged
depressed and despondent Kicking himself and probably also hostile
towards God now because he won't accept me. He's too rigorous. He's too stern. He's too austere
How can how can I love a god that's like that? You can't That's
the problem Under the law, you can't love God. But remember
the woman in Luke chapter seven, brought to the Lord Jesus Christ,
she comes weeping and pouring out an alabaster box and wiping
his feet or washing his feet with her tears and drying them
with her hair and doing all this to Christ. And the Pharisee standing
off named Simon, he says, if Jesus knew her, he would not
let her touch him. And Jesus said, Simon, I have
something to say to you. He said, Lord, say on. He said,
now there were the two debtors, one owed 50, one owed 500. And when they had nothing to
pay, their creditor frankly forgave them both. Now, which of those
do you think is going to love the most? And Simon says, well,
I suppose to him who was forgiven the most. You're right. You see this woman, since I came
in, she has not stopped washing my feet and kissing my feet with
her tears and her hair. But she loves much because she
was forgiven much. Simon loves little because he
was forgiven nothing. You see? That's the reason here. He's describing this so that
we would see that the pain to our old man of being exposed
as a self-righteous hypocrite, that pain that sends us away
when we can't keep the law, we can't remove our pride or our
lust, and we can't do what's required for eternal life, that
discouragement of the old man is actually good news to the
new man. Why? Because when I decrease,
then Christ increases. When I'm weak, then He is strong. In all of my infirmities, then
Christ alone and His grace are all sufficient. And I find it
to be that way, just like Romans began. convincing us of sin and
convincing us, declaring to us the greatness of God's mercy
and grace to give us righteousness and justify us for Christ's sake. So here, God gives us life, Christ
in you, the hope of glory. And Christ in us causes us to
look again to Christ for us. And that's what he's saying here.
He says, In verse 9, I was alive without the law once, but when
the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment
which was ordained to life, I thought it would give me life, I found
it be unto death. In theory, the law says, do this
and you live. But the problem is, in reality,
no one keeps it because we're all sinners in Adam. But in Christ,
being born of God now, we have the Spirit of God, we have the
seed of God, and guess what? In that new nature, we actually
love the Lord Jesus Christ for all that He's done for us. We
thank God from our heart. We cannot sin. We trust Christ
only. And even though there's this
battle going on inside of us, we see that battle as a good
thing. Why? because it brings us low
in our old man and in our new man it lifts us up because we
see by faith Christ is all. You see that? So let's read through
more of this. He says, Wherefore the law is
holy and the commandment holy and just and good. Was then that
which is good made death to me? No, no, God forbid, but sin. my sin, that it might appear
sin, working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the
commandment might become exceedingly sinful." That's the issue here. My sin had to be exposed for
what it truly is. For I know, it says, for we know
that the law is spiritual. But I, in myself, without Christ,
am carnal, sold under sin, Not only that, he goes on in verse
15, in my present experience, notice this, for that which I
do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that do I. What he's saying? What's he saying?
He's saying that I want to do good, but I don't do the good
that I want to do. I want to avoid doing what I
hate, but I do what I hate. What a miserable person, right?
But that misery is the misery of a new man because he's shackled
to an old man, and this shackling that we remain in now, this inward
sin that is still in us, causes us to say what we read in Romans
6, 17, God be thanked. He left this sin in me. that
I might trust Christ only." You see, the children of Israel when
they came out of Egypt were in bondage to Pharaoh and the Egyptians
and they were under the misery and the death of that bondage.
That describes us when we were in the flesh. And then they were
brought out of Egypt by the redeeming blood of the Passover land Lamb,
that describes us being justified in Christ. But they were in the
wilderness, and all the time they were in the wilderness,
they were suffering all of the hardships of the wilderness,
and even enemies would come after them. But God had given him a
promise. You have this inheritance. I'm
going to give it to you. I'm going to bring you into it.
I'm going to subdue all your enemies. And then when they came
into Canaan, guess what? Those enemies that God said he
would subdue, some of them were still there. And some of them
even brought the children of Israel into bondage, into captivity
there. The Assyrians, the Babylonians,
and many others. So he's telling us that God's
people in this life, as long as we are in this life or under
this constant warfare and affliction because of our inward sin that's
still with us, and yet because the new man now has the ascendancy
by God's grace, that sin will not have dominion because in
that very warfare we will be given the grace to look to Christ
only. You see? The law is spiritual,
but I am a mighty sinner. So like John Newton said at the
end of his life, I've forgotten everything that I learned except
this. I know I'm a great sinner, and
I know Christ is a great savior. You see, that's the result. That's
the conclusion here. He goes on. For what I would,
that which I do, I allow not. Neither I don't do the good,
and I do do the things I hate. So in doing that, I agree God's
law is good. I come to the light. I walk in
the light. I'm a sinner. I confess my sins,
but I also live on Christ the propitiation for my sins and
as my advocate. So verse 17, now then, it is
no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. Now we know
the enemy, it's me, but it's the sinful me, it's not Christ.
For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good
thing, for to will is present with me, but how to perform that
which is good I find not. I can't do, I can't overcome
my sin, I have no power to do the righteous thing. I can't
even believe. Without me, Jesus said, you can
do nothing, nothing. The spirit is willing, but the
flesh is weak. He goes on. For the good that
I would, I do not. But the evil which I would not,
that I do. If then I do that, I would not. It is no more I
that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. And guess what? It's me.
That sin that dwelleth in me, it's me. He says, I am carnal,
sold under sin. I find then a law that when I
would do good, evil is present with me. And this is that thing
that I was describing with the Israelites. God set it up this
way so that we might know He is our Savior and look to Him.
For I delight in the law of God after the inward. The law makes
me know my sin. That's a good thing. I delight
in that. The law tells me what Christ has done to fulfill it.
That's a good thing. I delight in that. The law says,
to love God with all my heart, mind, and soul, and strength.
I want to do that. I mean, in the new man, I do.
But in the old man, he fights against that all the time. 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. God allows in the walk of a believer that we would
be brought under the captivity of sin in thought, even in action. And yet, he says in this confession,
now notice, oh, wretched man that I am. That's the first lesson.
Who shall deliver me? I can't deliver myself from the
body of this death. It's gonna go on with me as long
as I'm in this body. And here's the promise, I thank
God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then, with the mind,
Christ in me, that mind that has been given to know the things
freely given to us of God, I myself serve the law of God, but with
the flesh, the law of sin. I serve the law of God in believing
Christ, because faith establishes the law, saying Christ has fulfilled
it, and Christ alone is good, which the rich young ruler couldn't
understand. And the next four verses of Romans
8 explain the conclusion of all this. Let's pray. Father, thank
you that our strength against sin is not in ourselves, but
it's in the Lord Jesus Christ. But thank you through his righteousness
and through his life and death and his resurrection, he now
lives in us. And this life of Christ in us
certainly does love God's law, certainly does keep it. And he
enables us to live by faith on him, knowing that he actually
did fulfill the law and that our holiness and our righteousness
are Christ himself. We have nothing we can call our
own. We cannot boast in anything of ourselves. Anything that we
do was by your will and your work, by your grace in us. And
even in the best of what we do, we find sin. And so we're humbled,
and yet we're also encouraged. because Christ is all, and knowing
that he is all, knowing that you have provided him and accepted
him for us, and that he will finish the work that he started,
we have absolute confidence and assurance in him, unlike what
we had before, which was a complete despondency, because we knew
that in ourselves we had no power over our sin. We thank you for
this salvation. Thank you, Lord, that if we had
our choice, we would prefer to know Christ as all of our righteousness
and Christ to have all of the glory even though it costs us
this painful experience of living with this sinful nature. Thank
you for your grace and your wisdom and your power. In Jesus' name
we pray, amen.