Romans 7 (Part 1)

Romans chapter 7. It's very possible that the church in Rome, which Paul, by the way, had not visited up to this point, was one that had just really not received a great deal of teaching as it relates to understanding the salvation that is ours in Jesus. Paul felt it needful to write a letter to these people and just instruct them on salvation. What is our salvation all about? And this is important for us to learn from. This is an amazing letter in the Book of Romans is just - we call it a book, and remember it was a letter. It was a letter to the church. But this is really, truly an amazing letter because we gain so much understanding that goes beyond the surface of things. And Christians, can I just exhort you and say that we need to move past the surface of things. We desperately need to move past the surface because there's a world out there that's lost and dying and they need the hope that is only found in Jesus Christ. And they're looking for answers that makes sense and the Scriptures give us those answers. And they help us to be able to respond to this generation of people and the Book of Romans is one such book that is just wonderful to get into and understand more about who we are in Christ. Now, you'll remember when we got into the 6th chapter of Romans Paul began talking about the fact that you're not only saved from the penalty of sin, but you're also saved from the power of sin. And he started that, and chapter 7 is the continuation of that. Remember when you come to a chapter division in your Bible that doesn't mean there's a new thought going on. Chapter divisions weren't put into place till like about the 15th century. It was a long, long, long time between just the writing and when those chapter and verse divisions were added. You’ve got to be careful not thinking we're starting a new chapter so it’s a brand-new thought. This is really a continuation of what Paul has been saying in chapter 6. And again, what he's been saying is, you and I, when we came to Jesus, we were rescued from the power of sin to dictate our lives. And he's been using several different examples to make that point that we've been rescued from the power of sin, not just the penalty. Usually as Christians, we're happy. We're just happy as a lark to find out that we've been rescued from the penalty of sin and it's like, wow, I’m going to go be with the Lord when I die because the penalty of sin for me, it's been paid. Praise the Lord. Jesus paid my penalty, and we just do a little happy dance because we've been saved from the penalty of our sin. And then we start getting into the Word and we start learning and we realize, wow, he saved me from way more than the penalty, He saved me from the power of sin. The power of sin to rule my life to say to me, do this and I was forced to do it. He saved me from that too. What a wonderful thing. Well, he's going to finish those thoughts and if you're looking at your text right there in Romans chapter 7. Take note of the first 6 verses of Romans chapter 7 as you look at your Bible. The reason I want you to take note of that is because it is in those 6 verses that Paul is going to finish his thoughts from Romans chapter 6. And then beginning in verse 7, he's going to begin to talk about something else, but something related. But what he is dealing with here and let me just give you an overview very quickly. He's first of all, he's going to finish his thoughts on the believer’s new relationship to sin. Again, he started it last chapter. He's saying that you and I once had a relationship with sin that was defined that way. Now we have a relationship with sin that is defined a new way. We'll review that in just a moment. But when he gets into verses 7 and toward the end of the chapter, he's going to talk about our relationship to the Law. What is the believer’s relationship to the Law of Moses, particularly the 10 Commandments? Because that's changed, too since you came to Jesus. Those are the things he's going to deal with. All right. Let's take a moment here and let's review what he started in chapter 6 about our new relationship with sin. And I'm so visual. I've got to make notes. I have to make notes for myself, and I thought, well, since I made notes for myself, I'll show you what I wrote. And you can just look at it yourself. Here's what it is. Before receiving Christ—our previous relationship to sin: ENSLAVED (Sin was literally our Master)

Before receiving Jesus Christ as your Savior, your previous relationship to sin was this. You had a big fat stamp on your forehead that said slave. And you and I were enslaved by sin. He spent a lot of Chapter 6 repeating this fact over and over again, that once you were a slave to sin. You were literally, and what does that mean to be in slavery? Well, a slave has no rights. A slave only does one thing, he or she obeys. That's all they can do. They have no option. That is what Paul said was your relationship to sin prior to coming to Jesus. You were a slave, and you obeyed sin. It was your master. Think of it like a slave master standing over you with a whip and just telling you what you're going to do, and you obeyed, and so did I before we knew Jesus Christ. Now, everything's changed since you came to the Lord. Now that you've received Jesus Christ as your Savior, our current relationship to sin is that we've been set free. Set free from what? Well, we've been set free from our obligation and our slavery to sin. Before receiving Christ—our previous relationship to sin: ENSLAVED (Sin was literally our Master) After receiving Christ—our current relationship to sin: SET FREE (Our obligation and slavery to sin is broken) How was that accomplished? Do you remember he talked about it in Romans chapter 6? Let me put this verse up here so we can just go back and look at it together. Romans 6:6-7 (ESV)

We know (Paul wrote in the last chapter) that our old self (the old man, the old sinful nature) was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be (look at this) brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.” Now that last statement is an interesting one. What do you need to do to get free from slavery? You’ve got to die because your slave master can whip you all he wants once you're dead, you're not going to obey, right? Why? You're dead. But there's only one problem with dying. Now you're not alive to enjoy your freedom. The only thing that could set you free from slavery was death, right? You remember that comment we brought out a couple of weeks ago, how slaves, it's from that movie Gladiator. The comment was, “a slave doesn't fear death because it's his only path to freedom.” And that's true. The only way you're going to get free from slavery is by dying. But then you're dead. And then what are you going to enjoy? Zero. So, what does Jesus do? He says, all right, here's the deal. I'm going to let you enter into my death and you will be set free. You will no longer be a slave because once you're dead, that old relationship ends, but then I'm not going to leave you dead. I'm going to raise you up. And now you'll be able to enjoy and live out your freedom. Right? And that is our new relationship with sin. We're no longer slaves. Wouldn't it be nice if that meant, now we don't sin? I mean, wouldn't that just be a kick? But we learn something about this reality, don't we? And here's another note for you just in case you're taking them. Free from sin does not mean we are sin free. And this is something that Paul has been saying to us, but I wish it were the case that once we're set free from our slavery to sin, that now we're sin free. We could just do a little happy dance through the rest of life, and say, I don't sin anymore because I've been set free from it. Well, we realize very shortly after coming to Jesus that is in fact not the case. I still mess up, and so do you. In fact, we do it regularly. But we don't have to. We don't have to. So why is it that we do? Well think of it this way. You know that picture of that slave standing over you or that slave master rather standing over you with a whip telling you what to do, the one you used to have to obey? Well guess what guys? He hasn't gone away. You just are no longer any under any obligation to do what he says. But he's still there. He's still yelling and screaming and saying, do this, do that. You now, for the very first time in your life, have the right to look him in the eye and say, no. Fact of the matter is, sometimes we don't. And there are a couple of reasons for that. One is that, frankly, sin's fun and it's very enticing and sometimes we say, yes, because we simply want to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season and don't let anybody ever tell you that sin's not fun because it's a kick and you remember that, right? Yeah, that's a lot of fun. I remember back when I was, before I knew Jesus, I was having a blast. Sometimes we remember some of those memories and we go back because we want to, but there are other times that we obey our own slave master, even though we don't have to because we still believe the lie that we're still under his control. And that's just, and that's just flat out a lie. You are under no obligation any longer to obey sin, but sometimes we still do. In fact, when I talk to Christians about some area of sin in their life, often the way their communication comes across is very much like I'm still in slavery to this thing. I am still caught in slavery to this sin. And that is what is communicated pretty clearly so that's just believing a lie. Anyway, the fact of the matter is, we still sin. We still sin. The apostle John probably said it best. I love the fact that this is recorded for us in the Word of God. John writes, and you know, he was not one to mince words. He said,

That's just the fact of the matter. You and I live this paradox. If I took a coin out of my pocket, a big one, it would have to be a big one because there's a lot of writing on it. But it was the coin of our new relationship to sin as believers. On one side of that coin, it would say, set free from bondage to sin. And then flip that coin around to the other side and it would say, yeah, but we still sin. We still choose sometimes to go down that path. It really is a paradoxical existence that we have, but it is the fact of the matter. And whenever we talk about the issue of sin and the fact that we all sin, and we look at this passage from 1 John, chapter 1. The question often comes up to me from people, they'll say, pastor Paul, do you think it's possible that we will ever get to the point, this side of glory, this side of heaven where we will no longer sin? Well not if this is true. I mean, this flies in the face of that. I mean, John says very clearly, if we say we have no sin we're literally deceiving ourselves. And then he also, then he repeats again. If we say we have not sinned, we're actually making Him out to be a liar. If there, if people believe that you can come to a place of sinless perfection, you’ve got to deal with 1 John because John didn't say, unless you guys just work it through and your sanctification gets to the point where you're not sinning anymore. He didn't say that. He just made a blanket statement, so, the answer to that question is no, we're never going to get to a place of sinless perfection, this side of glory. I'm sorry what you might've heard before, but it's just not Biblical. But that doesn't mean that you and I haven't been set free from our bondage to sin. All right, we haven't even gotten into the chapter yet so, buckle up. Here we go. Paul is going to use now another illustration to show us that we have been set free from the power of sin. Verse 1, he's going to use the illustration of marriage.

Because she's already been set free from the law of marriage is for life and that when marriage. Now, stop there for a moment. This is pretty basic stuff. Paul is simply making the point that marriage is for life. And when a married person is involved, and their spouse passes away, they are released from the law of marriage. They're now free to remarry and Paul is making that connection for you and I as it relates to sin. And here's what he says in verse 4, look in your Bibles. “Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong (or literally be married) to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.” Now, stop there. Do you see what Paul's doing? He's making the connection here using the illustration of marriage, and he's basically saying this. He's saying before you knew Christ, it was like you were married to sin.

Now he's not literally saying that you were married to sin and he's not dissing marriage. He's simply using an illustration that we can lay hold of. So, he says, it's like you were married to sin, and what a rotten marriage that would have been. And just as in any marriage relationship, there's children that are produced, or if you will, offspring. Okay. And what is our offspring when we're married to sin? Well, Paul's going to say it here in just a moment. He talked about it actually, in the last chapter. He made reference to it from Romans chapter 6, verse 21. He says, Romans 6:21 (ESV)

But what fruit were you getting at the time from the things of which you are now ashamed? (He says) What was the end of those things (Wasn’t it) is death. He's going to make that same point right now. Look at verse 5 here in chapter 7.

Isn't that crazy? I mean, what a weird thought, and again, as soon as we're done with this, just wipe this out of your mind because we're not trying to make a bad picture of marriage. We're simply using this illustration to help you understand. You were in a marriage relationship before Christ with sin and you had children with your spouse, and those children that you gave birth to, produced death. So, what does it take to get out of a marriage relationship? Takes death. You have to die. Once again, the problem is, how are you going to be able to enjoy your newfound freedom? Because you're dead. So, the Bible says that in Christ you died. You died. Marriage didn't die, or sin rather didn't die, you died. So that marriage union is broken, right? The old marriage union to sin, and now you're free to marry someone else. Jesus. And now that you're married to Him once again, this marriage will produce offspring and these children will be life, not death. I used to be married to sin. It gave birth to death. Now I'm married to Christ. I'm joined to Christ, and I give birth to life through Him. It really is an amazing picture, and it tells us a lot about how we have been set free from the power of sin. Look at verse 6. He's going to repeat these things,

Well, so there it is. Using the example of marriage Paul uses yet one more opportunity to share with you and I, that the power of sin over our life has been broken so that we can be in a new relationship to sin. And now sin no longer can say, do this and you have to obey because you're not in that relationship anymore. It's been broken. It's over. There's no obligation. Okay. Now that might end the conversation, but you might have noticed in the last several verses, Paul made reference to the Law, meaning the Law of Moses. Did you see what he said? Look with me back again. There's 3 things in verses 4, 5, and 6. First in verse 4, look what Paul said.

died to the law? Then in verse 5, he said,

Did you see what Paul just said there in verse 5? Our sinful passions were aroused by the Law. Do you understand the implications of what he's saying here? And then look at verse 6. He says,

Wow. Do you see what Paul is doing here in these last four or five and six of these verses? Now he wants to talk to you and I about our new relationship to the Law. We’ve discussed our old relationship to sin and our new relationship to sin. Now let's talk about our old relationship to the Law and our new relationship to the Law. All right? Sounds like he’s dissing the Law though, doesn't it? I mean he makes out the Law like it's our big problem. When you look at those 3 verses, 4, 5, and 6, it sounds like it’s public enemy number one to us so Paul has some explaining to do and he begins by asking another question.

Verse 7, look in your Bible. “What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have (even) known sin.” Paul is saying, listen, the Law is not the reason for your sin. You can't blame the Law. It almost sounded a little bit like he was saying, well, the Law is to blame. If it wasn't for the Law, we’d be doing a lot better. That's exactly what Sigmund Freud believed. I don't know if you're aware of that or not, but he literally believed that human beings created psychosis and problems in their mind because there were moral barriers to their behavior. And he believed if you just took away all those barriers, just stop calling things wrong, then we'll all be healthy people. He really, literally believed that. And this is the point. Paul saying, listen, it's not the Law's fault that I'm a sinner, but you know what? The Law does help me to understand what sin is. I've used some examples in the past to describe the likeness of the Law, but I wanted to use another one for you today. One that has been the bane of my existence for most of my years. And that is speed limit signs. I've made no mistake about the factor, or no secret of the fact that when I was young, I liked to go fast with my car. And I had muscle cars when I was a kid, and I really enjoyed driving very fast and some of you guys can relate. And so there, but there's this problem that comes up when you like to speed, and it's called a speed limit sign. And what Paul is saying here is that if you're driving down a road that has no speed limit sign, you might actually get the impression that you can go as fast as you want. It's what I always kind of assumed. But then you drive along long enough and pretty soon you come up to that speed limit sign. And what does it do? Suddenly it gives you information. It reveals to you just how fast you should be going, what the limit is to how fast you should be going, and it also communicates to you how much you're exceeding that limit, right? That's what the speed limit sign does. Now, the sign didn't make you speed. It just told you how badly you were speeding. And that's really what the Law does. It shows us how much we sin. It informs us about what we're doing, and that sort of thing. But you can't blame the Law just like you can't blame that speed limit sign. He continues on here in the middle of verse 7. Look with me there. He says, “...For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, (look at this) produced in me all kinds of covetousness...” All right now, Paul says something else here, pay attention. Now he's not just saying that the Law tells us what we're doing wrong. Now he's actually saying the Law stirs up feelings of rebellion in me to actually do wrong. And what Paul is actually admitting is something that every single one of us in this room knows. And that is, that when we see a rule, what do we do? We consider it one to be broken, right? Isn't that what we say? Don't we have a saying, rules were meant to be broken. That's a saying. What does that saying tell you about human beings? It tells you that it's hardwired in our DNA. We are rebellious people. The best way to get a kid to go into a room is to tell him, don't go in the room, right? The best way to get him to put his hand on a hot surface is say, don't touch that. It's hot. What is he going to do? I want to see. It's just, you don't train your kids to do that. I didn't train mine to do that. They just did it. It's in us. We want to rebel. So, Paul makes the point here that when I see a rule, I think to myself, you're not going to tell me what to do. I mean, what do you do when you see a speed limit sign? I've heard people talk about it. We always try to figure out how fast we can go without getting caught. And there's this saying that people like to say, well, three over three over that's where they won't get you for 3 over. Now if you go five over it, yeah, they may pull you up. 3 over they're probably not even going to bother you for 3 over, so just set your cruise. If it's 55, put her up to 58, you're good to go. What is that? We're just trying to break the law, right? It's just in me. And have you ever been driving down a road and you're like, the speed limit should be 65 here. It's only 55, but it should be 65. So, I'm going to go 65. And if I get pulled over, I'm going to tell the cop, this should be 65. I'm going to go 65. He's going to say, well, fine, here's a fine for you. Just going to pay it. But there's just something in us. It's like, yeah. My oldest daughter who's now in her 30s used to ask me from the back seat if I was obeying the speed limit. Problem is she couldn't pronounce speed limit. She called it the spimit leave. And so here she is like, 2 and a half, 3 years old sitting in the back seat. And she said, dad, are you going the spimit leave? No. And so that sign was bad enough. Now I got my daughter asking me the same thing, checking up on me to see if I just, it's like, I don't want to go the speed limit. This is stupid. Who drives 35 miles an hour on this road? There's no one here. Let's just go as fast, isn’t it weird, but it's in us and that is what Paul is saying in this passage. He's saying that when I saw in the Law, thou shalt not covet, it actually stirred up desires for coveting in my heart. I had a brother in the Lord years ago who told me that he got up into junior high. Had not at ever in his life up to that point experimented with illegal drugs and came to school one day and in health class, they decided they were going to show a movie, a film on why kids should stay away from illegal drugs. He told me, he said, that day I went out and started to experiment with drugs. That day. He said, I got done with school. I went out and I said, I'm going to find some drugs and I'm going to try it out for myself. I mean, there it is, right? Yeah. It's like, this is us. This is who we are, but we can't say it's the fault of the film. Just as you can't say it's the fault of the speed limit sign, or you can't say it's the fault of the Law. When God says, don't commit murder, it's not like it's, well, if they wouldn't have told me that, then I wouldn't have done it. Now, before we talk about what is to blame when we break the Law, there's still a statement that Paul made here at the end of verse eight that I want to cover because it might be confusing to some of you. Look at the end of verse 8 in your Bible. It says this, “…For apart from the law, sin lies dead.” What does that mean? Paul is simply saying that where sin, where there's no Law, sin isn't even considered. In other words, it's like he's saying, if you're driving on a road and you drive for 100 miles and there's never a speed limit sign. You don't consider the fact that you're speeding because there's nothing telling you how fast to go. You're not even thinking about speeding because no one ever said, don't speed, right? Or don't go any faster than this. There's no sign. So, you don't even take it into consideration. That's what Paul is saying here. Now he's going to say it in another way. In verse 9, look here with me. He says, “I was once alive apart from the law, (And that means I was living in my ignorance about what was right and wrong) but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.” Now this statement right here is very important that we understand it because it's going to keep us if we do understand it from ever getting involved in legalism. So, what is Paul saying here?

He says, when the commandment came, and that means when I became aware of God's Law, when I saw the speed limit sign right there. I passed it. When that happened, right? He says sin came alive, and he means 2 things by that. First, he means first of all, I became aware that what I was doing was wrong I'm driving 65 and I see the sign. Oh, it's 55 here, oh, I better slow down. I became aware, right, that I was doing something wrong. That's what he means by, sin came alive. But he also means that something inside my heart was awakened to say, no, I'm not going to - that rebellious kind of an attitude that says, I'm not going to slow down, right? And then Paul gives the result in this verse. He says, I died because that's what happens when my rebellion meets up with the Law. The Law says, don't do this. And my rebellion says, you're not telling me what to do. And that produces death in me. The result is death. Why? Because the wages of sin is death. Always. Okay? Paul reiterates this in verse 10, look with me again in your Bible, it says, “The very commandment that promised life (actually) proved to be death to me.” So, the very promise that came from God’s Word that said, do this and you will live became death. Why? Because I couldn't do it. It's actually recorded. Let me show you this. In Leviticus. Chapter 18, where it actually reads,

“You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules. If a person does them, he shall live by them. I am the LORD.” And you look at it, you go, great, there's a promise there. I'm going to live if I do the statutes and commandments of the Lord. And then I go through my life, and I go, I can't do this. I broke the commandment. I broke the statute. I broke the speed limit. I got busted, right? And what does the Law say to you and I? Fail in one part of the Law, you failed in it all. There's no second chances. You're a lawbreaker. And so, Paul says, man, the promise that I got from God’s Word that said I would live actually became death to me because I wasn't able to do it.

Here's Paul's conclusion. Verse 11. “For sin, (and this is where he's calling it. Here's what's to blame for sin) seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.” Paul is placing the blame squarely on where it needs to be. It's on sin. He says, it deceived me, and it ultimately killed me. Verse 12. “So the law (oh) is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” Just because it produced death in me doesn't mean the law is bad. Just because you got a ticket for going 65 in a 55, doesn't mean the Law or the sign is bad. It means you're bad. Right? And that's the bottom line. It's you. It's you. I could have slowed down. Didn't want to. I was in a hurry. Besides, should be 65 here. Right? We're just such dope heads sometimes and we blame everything but what's really to blame? Me, I chose to do it anyway. Verse 13, look with me there. “Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin (This is where he says it. It was sin you guys) producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.” He's basically saying the Law shows us just how sinful we really are. The Law can't answer our problems. But this is why I was saying, if you really understand what Paul is saying here in this first part of Romans chapter 7, you'll stay away from legalism because you realize, you know what? Sin just isn't going to do it for you. Excuse me, the Law, keeping the Law, keeping rules isn't going to do it for you. It just can't because we can't keep rules. But boy, has the church tried to impose rules on people through the years or what? You know, women can only wear this. Your hair has to be this long. You have to, men have to do that. All of us have to do this. And then there's all these just, we've just rules and rules and it's just can't do it. It's not possible. I want to end this morning by showing you what Paul actually said when he wrote a lot of what he was saying here to the churches in Galatia. Because in Galatians chapter 3, Paul addresses this, but he addressed it in a way that might give some greater light to this. He basically said this, he says,

, Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise (would be) by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who (What? Keep the Law? No. Who) believe. Now (he says) before faith came, we were held captive under the law, (that was our previous relationship. We were) imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, The next time somebody comes up to you and asks you, do you keep the Sabbath? Why aren't you wearing those special clothes? Why aren't you doing this? Why aren't you keeping those rules? Why aren't you? Why aren't you? Why aren't you? Why aren't you? You can point to this and say, because I'm no longer under the guardianship of the law. That's what it says. I am no longer under the guardianship of the law. Well then what are you under anyway? We'll get into that as we keep going in Romans. Paul's going to talk about our guardianship of the Spirit, which makes legalistic people just really nervous. It just gives them the shakes, but we'll talk about it anyway, because that is the Covenant that you and I are under now. God has taken His Word, His Law, He’s written it on our hearts through His Holy Spirit. That's the beauty of what it means to walk in the Spirit and not according to the letter of the Law. What have we seen here today? First 6 verses of Romans, chapter 7, ended the discussion of the old relationship that you used to have to sin and now the new relationship that you have to sin. And we also dealt in verses 7 through 13 with your old relationship to the Law, and now your new relationship to the Law.