All right, we're going to look
at the believer's state in this world. And you know, as I said,
Romans 6, 7, and 8, you know, it's kind of like when you, you
know, if you look at the book of Romans, as Paul introduces
it from Romans, in Romans 1, and as he brings about how the
gospel concerns the glorious person, the finished work of
Christ, summarized in that phrase in Romans 117, the righteousness
of God. Incidentally, I forgot to mention
last week that the new book is out, What is the Righteousness
of God? So if you want copies, just go
back and get them. But anyway, that phrase is a
phrase that involves both the person of Christ, Because the
righteousness of which he's speaking of is the righteousness of God.
And Christ is God in human flesh. He's God-man, God and man in
one person. Fully God, fully human, without
sin. And that's the righteousness
that we need in order to be justified before God, in order to be saved,
in order to have life. We don't need any righteousness
of man. And to prove that, look back at Adam before the fall.
Adam had a human righteousness before he fell. But it was always
volatile, it was always changeable. It wasn't an everlasting righteousness. That's proven, how do you know?
Because Adam fell. He fell into sin, he lost his
righteousness. Now what we need is a righteousness
that we cannot lose. A righteousness that cannot be
contaminated. And that's the righteousness
of God, the God man. And then that phrase involves
his finished work, what he did as our surety, our substitute,
and our redeemer on the cross. to save us from our sins, and
I always like to go back to the book of Daniel, chapter nine,
verse 24. It's got such a beautiful description
of what he accomplished on Calvary, when it says he finished the
transgression, he made an end of sin, he brought in everlasting
righteousness, and he sealed up the testimony, the prophecy,
all of that. It's so beautiful how the finished
work of Christ that all the righteousness that God requires and that we
need we find in him and it's his righteousness imputed to
us. That's what, that's how God justifies us. So Paul introduces
that. Then he goes into how we need
that righteousness. We're sinners, there's none righteous,
no not one, none good, no not one, by deeds of law shall no
flesh be justified. And then he defines it in He
capitalizes on that to define the righteousness of God from
Romans chapter 321 all the way down to Romans 521. And then
he gives us what I think are some of the most, I'll say, well,
two of the most fundamental truths of salvation. that's given for
our understanding, and it has to do with these two words, standing
and state. Remember those two words, standing
and state. And what he does in Romans six,
he starts off with showing what every believer, everyone who
is a sinner saved by grace, has a right standing before God. Now how can I, a sinner, have
a right standing before God? Only as I'm considered by God
in Christ, legally. That standing is a legal standing. Christ is my surety. My sins
were imputed, charged, accounted to Him. And His righteousness
is imputed, counted, charged to me. And I stand before God,
legally, in Christ, accepted, without sin being charged to
me, I stand before God righteous, not by my merits or my works
or my faith, but by what Christ did on the cross. That's my standing
before God. And that's real. Now a lot of
people will look at that and they say, well, that's kind of
like a fake or a fiction or something. No, it's real. And you know what? That one truth in and of itself
sets Christianity apart from all human religion. If you remove
that, You've removed the whole reason for a believer to exist. We are justified, we're forgiven. Our sins are washed away. What
does that mean? Well, that's metaphorical language.
I mean, God didn't say take a bath and the waters of baptism didn't
wash it away. It was washed away when Christ
paid the debt. That's what that means. He took
them away. How does he take them away? Does he put them in a big
basket and fly off into space? No. He took them away by paying
the debt. The debt is gone. See, we don't
owe a debt to God's law and justice. We're free, justified, forgiven,
righteous in God's sight. That's our standing. That never
changes. That never improves. There's
no progression to it. There's no growth to it. It's
a done deal. It's perfect. And anybody who
thinks they can add to that or diminish from that doesn't understand
it. And that's our standing. Now,
what is to our state? Now, Paul in Romans 6, 7, and
8, he goes on to say, now, what is our present state in this
world? How do we exist while we're,
as believers who have a right standing before God, who are
righteous in God's sight, how do we exist in this world, our
daily lives, our experience? Well, in that state, we are sinners
saved by the grace of God. That's what we're, but we're
still sinners. And this whole section here has been Paul showing
us by how God the Holy Spirit continually uses the law of God
to expose us as continual sinners and as continually needing the
grace of God in Christ for our whole complete salvation. In
other words, I have a right standing before God. I'm assured to be
glorified. But as I exist in this earth,
I'm still plagued with the presence, the contamination of sin. Now
sin cannot legally be charged to me. That's why David said,
blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. Why
did he see such a blessing there? Because he was a man who was
a sinner. Paul said, Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners of whom I am presently chief. We still fall short in our efforts
to be good, to be righteous, to be like Christ, And so right
now today, I'm just as much in need of God's grace based upon
the imputed righteousness of Christ as I ever was. And I see
that more and more. And I think that's the essence
of growth in grace. And I'll show you that in just
a moment. But that's what Paul's talking about here. He's talking
about our state, our experience in this world. And it's the Spirit's
work to show us that at all times, And when I say that, I'm talking
about our worst times. You've had some bad times, haven't
you? I've had some bad times. And I'm not just talking about
the tragedies of this world. Yes, we've gone through some
tragedies, sorrows and pains, but I'm talking about in ourselves,
in our Christian life. I've had some bad times. I've
had some times that if you'd seen me, you'd wonder how in
the world I could be a Christian. How about you, you ever had any
of those times? Catch you at those times, worst times. Well, it's the Holy Spirit's
work to show us at those worst times that God, by his grace
in Christ, does not impute sin to us and give us the comfort
and joy of salvation. But let's talk about our best
times. You had some best times, you
know, in prayer. Comforted in prayer, preaching. I'm standing here preaching,
we're worshiping. When you say this is one of our best times,
well if your mind's on the word it is. You may be somewhere else
today, I don't know. I can be somewhere else too,
even while I'm talking, you know, that's me. I hope not though,
but this is one of our best times. Well right now, just as in my
worst times, I'm in just as much need. of the mercy and grace
of God based upon Christ's righteousness imputed as in my worst times. And that's what this is all about
here. And this is what Paul's saying here. Look at verse 21.
He says, I find then a law that when I would do good, evil is
present with me. Now, a law that he's talking
about is something that has the force of law. In other words,
this is a powerful principle here. This is something that's
powerful. In other words, this is not just a notion. This is
not just a glitch in my matrix, as we might say. This is not
just a slip up in time. This is an ever-abiding present
law that abides within us, and it's the law of the flesh. Somebody
accused me one time of saying, and of course, you know now,
people get into all kinds of silly arguments over this thing
of the two natures in a believer. And you know, I don't like the
language, but I don't, as long as you don't take it too far,
I won't part with you over it. But people talk about, and somebody
accused me of saying, well, I believe that the Holy Spirit does nothing
but improve the flesh. Well now, what is the flesh?
The flesh is sin. Ain't that right? Now you can,
I mean, you can tweak it and you can draw different branches
of it and all that, but the flesh basically that Paul's using here,
the flesh is still with us, is sin. Now, the Holy Spirit cannot
improve sin. Nobody can improve sin. Sin is
sin, and the only thing you can do with it is kill it. And that's
why it says Christ condemned sin. In other words, the only
thing you can do is pay the penalty of the law and vanquish it. And that's all you can do. You
can't improve it. There's no improvement of the flesh in that
sense. Now as far as flesh, if you're
talking about physical flesh, A person can use their hand to
open a Bible and use their eyes to read the Bible, or they can
use their hand to wield a knife and kill somebody. They can do
one or the other. If you open the Bible with your
hand, you're doing it for a good purpose. If you wield a knife
and kill somebody, you're doing it for an evil purpose. But that's
no improvement of the flesh. That's just sinful flesh showing
itself through this physical body and whatever. What Paul's
saying here is this, he said, there is an ever-present, abiding,
powerful force. Here I stand before you righteous
in God's sight. Now how do I look to you? You say, well, you look righteous
to me. Well, if you say that, you don't know what righteousness
is. Because nobody can look righteous. Righteous is the standard of
perfection that's only found in Christ according to the law. And when they looked at him,
when we by nature look to Christ, what did we see? A man of sorrows,
acquainted with grief, we esteemed him not. Blasphemer, criminal. So see, the looks has nothing
to do with it here. But here I stand before you,
righteous, truly righteous, really righteous, legally righteous,
before God in Christ, but I have within me an ever-abiding, present,
powerful principle of sin. And he calls it a law. I find
then a law. And notice something here now.
There's something important here that I think people miss. Listen
to what he says. That when I would do good, evil
is present with me. Now think about this. When is
evil present with us? When we would do good. Now think
about that. That's pretty powerful, isn't
it? You'd say, well now certainly when you wanna do evil, if you
have it in your mind to do evil, evil's present with you, isn't
it? There's no argument there, isn't it? I mean, if you put
it in your mind to go out and hurt somebody, none of us would
say, well, that's a good thing to do. But Paul says this, it's not
just when I have it in my mind to do evil, it's when I have
it in my mind to do good that evil's present with me. Well,
what's wrong with you, Paul? What, have you got a drinking
problem? Are you a druggie? Do you have
a sexual problem? My problem is that powerful principle
that abides within me that keeps me from doing the good that I
desire to do as measured by God. Now we can do good things as
men and women naturally measure them. We can give to charity. We can give to the community.
raise our families, we can be faithful wives and faithful husbands,
we can do all of that. But here's what I'm saying. Does
that goodness that men measure and that we measure, does it
measure up to the standard of goodness that God has displayed?
And the answer's no. We'll always fall short. So much
so that when we do good, when we would do good, desire to do
good, and we should desire to do good, This is not Paul saying
now let's just give it up to the evil. This is not Paul saying
let's just quit because we can't reach that goal, no. We're to
keep trying and trying and trying not to be saved, we're already
righteous in God's sight based upon Christ's righteousness imputed.
Not to be rewarded, not to be given a dog biscuit or even a
mansion. It's like the fellow said, I
don't want to live in a cabin, I want a mansion in. Well, too
bad. You're not earning your keep. See, you're not earning
your salvation. You're not earning salvation's
blessings and benefits. That's all in Christ. He earned
everything. We didn't earn anything. If God
were to give me right now what I've earned and deserve, what
would it be? Damnation. And so, what's he saying? When
I want to do the good, that is measuring up to what God has
displayed in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, evil's always present
with me. It always contaminates everything
I do. And think about that. Mark that
down now. That's important. When I would do good, evil's
present with me. Well, look at verse 22. He says,
for I delight in the law of God after the inward man. Now, to
delight in the law of God is to rejoice in it. Well, how in
the world can I delight in something that continually shows me my
sin and my deservedness of condemnation? How can I delight in something
like that? Pharisees delighted in it, didn't they? Yes, self-righteously,
hypocritically, they did. They imagined they kept it. They
were proud of their works. But the very law that they rejoiced
in would be their condemnation. Christ said that. Moses, in whom
you rejoice, in whom you trust, condemn you. So how can I rejoice
in something, in something that continually shows me my sin? There's only one way. There's
got to be in my mind and my heart That he who which satisfies perfectly
every jot and tittle of that law. And that's why Paul says
here it's after the inward man. Now what is the inward man? The
inward man is some little righteous holy angel inside of me running
around doing something that I can't do. No. The inward man is not
someone inside me other than me. who does nothing but righteous. Paul's referring to the very
center of his being, the heart, is the inward man, the spiritual
man, okay, the spiritual entity that we are. I was a natural
man, I've been born again by the Spirit, now I'm a spiritual
man. Do I always act in a spiritual way? No. Sometimes I act according
to the flesh. Sometimes I act in a spiritual
way. You know what they call that in the Bible? The warfare
of the flesh and the spirit. It's a war. It's a daily war,
but we have the inward man, and the inward man there is the hidden
man of the heart. That's what Peter called him,
1 Peter 3, 4, which is the new heart. It was, if you will, the
real Paul. or the reality of who Paul really
was and is. Now, what do I mean by that?
Well, go back to what I've been saying about standing and state. All right, here I stand before
God, righteous, as righteous as I'll ever be. As righteous
as I'll ever be. But all you can see of me And
all that I experience every day is the plague of being unrighteous
in myself. In other words, I don't measure
up in anything I think, say, and do because of the powerful
principle, that law of sin, the law of the flesh. Now, so all
we see is sinfulness, you see, Now that's why we don't look
to ourselves or within ourselves to find peace, comfort, assurance. Who do we look to? We look to
Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. We walk by faith,
not by sight. So in other words, I'm a sinner. But just being a sinner doesn't
define me. It doesn't tell you the whole
story about me. Doesn't tell me, it doesn't define
the real you if you're a believer. It doesn't tell you the whole
story. But what does? The inward man, the hidden man
of the heart, which does what? That causes us to look to Christ
for all salvation. That's the real me. I'm still
a sinner now. I'm not saying that sin is not
a reality for me. It is, it's an everyday reality.
But sin doesn't define who I really am and who I will be. I'm a sinner
saved by grace. That's the real me. Only a sinner,
that's the real you. And that's the inward man. In
other words, that's the thoughts, the leanings of my heart. Even as a person who falls short
in this world, who can't get away from impure thoughts and
impure motives. What is my hope? My hope is Christ. And so that's what he's talking
about. And see, I delight in the law because I look to Christ
who is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that
believe. But he says in verse 23, but I see another law in
my members. That is in my physical makeup,
mental makeup too. Warring against the law of my
mind. In other words, the things I
know better. You know, when I sin, I know
better. And I've heard people say, well,
believers will never justify their sins. Yes, we will, but
we know better. We do, we know better. We know
that we have nothing to brag about, all of that. But the law
of my mind is being accosted, you might say, by the law of
the flesh. You say, I have a desire to be
like Christ. Yes, but I have a desire to fulfill
my own appetites too. And they're at war with one another.
And that's what Paul says here. And he says, this law in my members,
this law of sin, this law of the flesh, warring against the
law of my mind, what I know best, I know that to be like Christ
is the only right way. And it brings me into captivity
to the law of sin which is in my members. In other words, it
keeps me from going the, it keeps me from being perfectly conformed
to the image of Christ. Now somebody said in line with
Galatians chapter five where it talks about the spirit against
the flesh and the flesh against the spirit. And they said this,
and there's truth to this. The Holy Spirit keeps us from
going the full swing of the law of the flesh. In other words,
from plunging completely into the depths of depravity. But
at the same time, the law of sin and the flesh keeps us from
going the full swing of perfection of righteousness that can only
be found in Christ. That's our state. That's our
experience. So it says, and Paul says, I'm
in captivity. Remember back in verse 14, he
said, I'm carnal, sold under sin. In other words, this is
my state in this world. I cannot rise above sin. I cannot,
in my person, in my works, I cannot attain the perfection of righteousness
that can only, and I can only, find in Christ. So where is my
hope? Where is my peace? Where is my
assurance? Where is my comfort? It's not
in looking at me. Even when I do my best, it's
not looking to me. It's not looking within myself
to find something. It's looking to Christ. Resting
in Christ. Believing in Christ. Following
Him. Yes, we're to be actively engaged
in this warfare, you see, but our hope is in Christ. That's
why Christ said he's overcome the world. Well, here's the conclusion. Verse 24. Here's real growth
in grace and knowledge. Oh, wretched man that I am. You know what wretched means,
don't you? It means troubled. That word wretched is troubled,
it means plagued, it means afflicted. That's our state in this world,
we're wretched people. You say, well, wait a minute,
we're blessed people. We're blessed to be wretched.
How about that? That doesn't sound right, does
it? It is right. You know, the natural man, he
may be a wretch, and he may be wretched, but not for this reason.
It could be for other reasons. You know, I'll never forget when
I was pastoring up in West Virginia, I had Brother Scott Richardson
preach for me. And he had a hard time finding
the churches in a little old town called Millsite, West Virginia.
And he's from West Virginia, but he's from the northern part.
And he was rolling all over there trying to find that little church.
Cottagefield, West Virginia, Millsite Baptist Church. But
anyway, when he found it, he came in a little bit late, but
he was going to preach. And he said he got behind a car
that he thought might be going the right way. And so he followed
that car, and it had a bumper sticker on the back. And I don't
want to offend anybody, but here's what the bumper sticker said.
It said, life's a bitch, then you die. Now, there are natural people
who feel that way, you know, wretched people. But this wretchedness
right here, it's a blessing. Why is it a blessing? Just to
be wretched? No, look at it. Verse 24, and
he said that from the pulpit, so I'm just repeating Scott. Verse 24, he said, O wretched
man that I am, and here comes the question, who shall deliver
me from the body of this death, or this body of death? Who's
gonna deliver us from this state? Now you know salvation, salvation
in the scripture, we're saved from sin, we're saved from death,
we're saved from hell. We've got to be saved from this
life, this existence. Final glory. Who's gonna deliver
us from this state of warfare? from this state, as Paul put
it in Philippians chapter three, that I've not yet already attained. You say, who's gonna deliver
us from this wretched state? Well, here's the answer, verse
25, look at it. I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord. That's why this wretchedness
is a blessing. Because we have Christ, who saves
us, who keeps us, and who will bring us to glory. And you know
what this shows us? That salvation, no part of salvation,
at no stage, to no degree, is ever conditioned on us. It's
all conditioned on Christ. It's his power and his goodness
and his faithfulness that saves us, that keeps us safe, preserves
us, and that will bring us to glory. I thank God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. So here's the conclusion. So
then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God. I have
it in my mind. My desire to serve the law of
God. But the flesh, the flesh, the
law of sin keeps me from attaining that perfection. That's what
it says. That's my state. My wretched
state in this world. This is not the way it's always
gonna be. This mortality will put on immortality. This corruption will put on incorruption. And even the consequences of
sin that we face today, they'll be gone. There'll be no tears,
no sorrow, no sickness, no death because of crime.