Phil: How many of you think that God shows us our hearts again to discourage us, to make us feel hopeless, worthless? You’re just under my condemnation. You just keep trying. But I know you’re such a terrible person. Just, you know, my God, that’s miserable. That’s not what God wants. But God has to take us down. God has to take us through the cross.
I said earlier, there’s so many versions of the so-called gospel that miss the cross. You just come and believe in Jesus. Thank God for wiping out my mistakes and giving me a ticket to heaven. And they’re never willing to come to the cross and say, that’s the reason why I need a savior. He died because of my condition. I have got to fully embrace. I’ve got to fully identify myself with the one who died there, that I deserve that. This is really my need and I embrace Him.
I am one with Him in laying down my life, in rejecting renouncing this world, its values, the life that He gave me, and what it’s about. I am willing to lay that down. If someone puts a gun to my head today, praise God that sets me free. But I absolutely am embracing Christ, I’m embracing the cross, because there’s no way to get to the empty tomb without the cross.
People try to sidestep that and they jump right into the tomb and say, oh, praise God, I’m a Christian. I wanna see the whole gospel come alive in me and in you. And I believe, isn’t that what God wants? Does He wanna leave us in the condition that we found us? Or does He wanna bring us into a place of the victory we were singing about this morning? I believe with all my heart, that’s what He longs to do.
But I don’t wanna sidestep any of this. And God would not let Paul have a real genuine understanding of the gospel without Paul himself having to go through this place where he came to the end of himself and he realized, oh, now I get it. Now, I understand why I need a savior. Now, I can go out there and I can stand side by side with people and realize we are all in the same boat. We need the same savior. We have zero hope in ourselves. Praise God!
That’s the message. You see what God was doing for Paul and Paul was sharing it with us because we have the same need. May God not let anybody here fool themselves and bypass any of this because there’s no way to get to the good stuff, all right?
For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. So it’s a statement of inability, isn’t it? For I do not do the good that I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
Now, I got to comment on this. I have heard this used almost to paint a picture of what the Christian life is like. And the point being made was, we’re not perfect here. Well, guess what? Of course not. The whole point of the gospel is to bring us to a place of forgiveness, then give us life and set before us a hope of the glory of God. But now we got this time period between being born of His Spirit, and growing up, and being presented before God as one of his children, grown up, clothed with glory. So what’s that about?
And of course, you do have some people out there, there are some religious groups that actually teach that you can have an experience that will make you sinless. It’ll still set you apart. You don’t sin anymore. So a lot of times this is thrown out there as a rebuttal to that idea.
Well, of course, we still need Him. John the apostle, late in his life said, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us, but thank God, he goes right straight to the cross, That we can confess our sins and be forgiven, be cleansed from all unrighteousness. See, we go right back to the cross when we do come short.
So, there’s God, this was not for the purpose of painting a picture of the Christian life. Now it is, if all you’re gonna do is you and your own strength trying to obey the law, yeah, this is a pretty good picture. That’s one way people try to serve God.
How many of you remember several years ago we heard a message that some of us had heard live by Carter Conlon. And he was talking about his own ministry in the past. Now he had actually, you know, in his particular group, a successful evangelist is somebody who goes into a church and typically preaches against some sin and is so forceful that he gets people to come down and repent of that sin.
And over time he discovered that this was just a fruitless thing kind of thing. ‘Cause he’d go back to the same church a year later and the same people were down here repenting and promising to do better, so something’s wrong. And the wrong thing is if we just present what’s right, and what’s wrong and just dump it on you, and demand that you live up to that, that’s not the gospel.
Praise God! I don’t have the ability to do that either. I can repent and promise God I’ll do all kinds of stuff. That’s not the gospel. God gave us a new way to live, a new way to power and to produce what is right in His eyes. That’s what He wants us to learn, how to come into possession of in a practical way. But Paul still had to go through this, didn’t he? Okay?
Now, if I do, and he comes back to this, Now, if I do, what I do not want to do it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So at least at this point, he was in a point where he agreed with the law of God, but still found out he was powerless to do anything about it. Anybody, you know what that’s about? You wanna do what’s right and you find out you can’t. Yeah. Alright, well, Paul wants to get us to the answer and the Lord does.
But here’s where I believe the Lord helped me with a little bit of insight back then because I basically made the point in that class that this is not about whether he was saved or lost. This is a matter of understanding human nature. And there are four laws that Paul enumerates here that are in effect, four laws. What are they?
One of them is the law of God, where God tells me what’s right and wrong. One law is the law of my mind, which in this instance Paul is saying, the law of my mind is, yes, I agree with you God, and I want to do what you want me to do. Okay? So those are two of the laws.
But what’s the deal here? But verse 23, I see another law at work in me. You could call it the law of the flesh. That’s the third law. And it’s waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. So you have four laws, the law of God, the law of my mind, it wants to do what’s right, it has the best intentions, but there’s a law in this flesh that is absolutely married to the law of sin that reigns in this world, makes it impossible for the person with the best of intentions to actually serve God. If that’s all you’ve got is your human ability, you will fail every single time.
I thank God that He’s taken us beyond living under God’s law. I need to know my, but you know, we have to understand this. You may not know, get the theology of it, but I’m praying that if there’s somebody here who doesn’t really get this about yourself, God’s never taken you down in this deep dive into what’s really wrong, that He’ll do it, and He’ll do it because He loves you from the depth of His being and He wants you to know.
And doesn’t this, you think, oh, this is such a downer, talking about sin and talking about the helpless human condition. But there’s another side to this. Doesn’t this elevate the cross? Doesn’t this exalt the mercy of God Who knows all about you? He knows things you don’t want to even face. He knows the things we don’t even want to begin to face about ourselves. And He loves us.
And with sacrificial love, He has opened a door of hope. Now, that door leads right through the cross. We don’t bypass that. We embrace everything that’s wrong with us, but we go all the way through that and we see that’s not the end because the tomb was not the end for our savior. He came forth with a life that cannot die. That’s what God wants to share with us.
But oh, does this not lift up the power and the grace of God into a place where we just need to bow down and say, wow, do we not need to be down in order to see what’s up? But God doesn’t do any of that to leave us there. He does it so that we will come with a full understanding of why we need a savior.
I don’t want anybody who comes to this church to ever say they didn’t know. There was a superficial gospel preached to where they just “accepted Jesus” and went on their merry way, lived their lives, and just tried to be a good person, and expected to go to heaven someday. The world is full of people like that.
Now, God knows His, there’s people in all kinds of places. I’m not doing away with that for one moment, but I’ll tell you the devil hates what we’re talking about this morning. It’s not just that we need to unpack all the theology involved in this, that God wants us to have a true picture of our need because only then can we come and truly find the life that he has given to us. Alright?
So, four laws. You have the law of God, you have the law of my mind, it wants to do right, but you got this law in my flesh that says uh uh, I’m in league with the law of sin and you can’t do it. And in that light, God had to bring Paul to that place.
Do you think Paul actually felt this or was he just writing a story? Paul had to come … have you ever been to this place? Yeah. What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
And, of course, that’s where he’s going with this. That’s why you can’t say, oh, was this a picture of Paul’s life as a Christian? No, this was a picture of God taking him through a dark place where he saw his need so that he could have a better understanding of the gospel that he was proclaiming so that others could learn how to be free.
‘Thanks be to God,’ he says, ‘who delivers me through Jesus Christ, our Lord.’ So he goes right from, Oh, what a wretched man I am, into the answer. And that’s what God wants for every one of us.
So, the conclusion of the four laws that we talked about, So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. And that’s when you come to chapter eight, and there’s a whole lot in here. I don’t know how far the Lord wants to take it today, but you’ve gotta at least take it past chapter seven, don’t we?
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There is a living, spiritual relationship, a heart-to-heart agreement with God, where I am totally aligned with him against my sin, against this world, against my life here, to the point that I’m willing to lay it down if that’s what it takes.
Who are those who overcome? How do they do that? The blood of the Lamb, that takes care of the sin problem. And as a word of my testimony, I’m willing to confess what God has said, what God has done. The truth about myself, the truth about what Jesus did.
Well, what’s the other one? That’s where the cross comes in. They love not their lives so much as to shrink from death. Folks, God is bringing us, bringing his children to a place where our life is not about this world, and what we do here, and what we achieve, and don’t achieve. Our life is pointed to something else. The promise that God is going to bring us to a place where we will reign with Him forever and ever and be totally set free from every taint of this world. Do you have that hope of glory in you? Praise God!
And that’s not just a “hope so,” that’s that expectation based upon the promise of God, thank God. All right?
So, there’s no condemnation because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit…. Now, you’ve got a fifth law, don’t you? You know, I’ve illustrated this in the past. This is not just some law that somebody passed. This is just the way it is. This is a law that governs the way things work.
And all of us are familiar with the law of gravity. But now suppose a law suddenly came to our attention from God that says, thou shalt fly. And I’m not talking about getting some mechanical device. I’m talking about thou shalt fly or be judged. Okay?
So what do I do? Do I go down and do I build up my muscles, first of all, so that I can carry my weight. And then do I bend over, assuming I can still touch my feet, grab hold of my shoes, and pick up with all of my might. Does that work? Why? ‘Cause I’m subject to another law. I need a different source of power if that’s going to happen. I have no power to pick myself up off the ground and fly.
And we are in exactly the same situation when it comes to salvation. I need His power. I need another law that’s actually stronger than the law of gravity in this case, The law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death for what the law was powerless to do…. Now, why was it powerless? Because it was weakened by the flesh. This was in charge, didn’t matter what God said, this was in charge.
… God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so He condemned sin in the flesh. Why? In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
See, now you’re getting back into some of the things He talked about in chapter six, where I have the power to say, no, now because I died with Him and I have the power to say, yes, because I was resurrected with Him.
But it’s that life that makes it possible for me to actually live. I can please God. I can do things that are right in His eyes. I can be the kind of person He wants me to be. How can I do that? Because He has come to live, praise God. Think about the miraculous power of a gospel that can take somebody like you and me, particularly, when we see ourselves the way Paul did. Have you ever seen that?
Does that not magnify a message that has the power to so cleanse somebody like me that a holy God … think of Isaiah’s vision just for one example, the holiness and the purity that he saw that. Somebody like that could come and find a home in me. Wow! Do we have something to rejoice in this morning? Praise God for the power of the gospel that has the power to come in.
And when He comes in, He brings His power with Him. He brings His faith with Him. He brings so many things that we need to learn how to lay hold of. That’s what Paul said. I haven’t arrived Paul said, we’ve said many times, but I am reaching, I’m pressing, I’m moving. There’s opposition. The devil doesn’t want this, but part of God’s plan is that I have to push against opposition to lay hold of something that Christ went to the cross so that I could possess. Praise God! That’s what God brings us to.
So, chapter, don’t ever reach chapter seven and say, that’s normal Christian life. I mean, I’ve seen that in the minds of some, well, that’s as good as it gets. Do you think God told us, unlock that truth so that we would say, well, there’s no real point in trying, is there? Do you think that’s what God was trying to communicate with that? No.
Well, there is if you’re gonna try it in your own strength, but that’s not meant to paint a picture of how life, what our life is supposed to look like, because then the devil takes that a step further. Well, in Christ you have liberty and suddenly liberty becomes a way for the flesh to have its way. Maybe we don’t go rob banks, but there’s all kinds of ways in which we indulge the flesh. And after all, God knows I’m not perfect and He loves me anyway. And there’s a whole lot of reasoning that goes on in people’s minds.
God didn’t save us to live for the flesh and to let it rule, He saved us so that we could learn to lay hold of a life that gives us the power to live a life pleasing to God. That’s what it’s about. And this is meant to work in our lives today, and tomorrow, and the next day.
This is not theology, folks, this is Christian life. This is the cross and the resurrection, and God wants you and me to be able to make so personal that we can read Paul’s words and see ourselves in there. Do you do that? Can you see yourself in this? I believe many can.
All I can do for everyone here is to just tell you the truth. Apart from Christ, this is your condition. The best you could possibly hope for is to say, yeah, I agree with you, but I’m powerless to do it. But God absolutely has made a way where you and I can serve God. The righteousness that was described in the law happens. It doesn’t happen because I do it myself. It happens because there’s another one living in me and by his strength I do it.
How did Jesus do what He did? We’ve made this point many times, ah, by myself, He said, I can do nothing, but it’s the Father living in me doing His work. How did He present Himself without spot? Hebrews says it’s, By the eternal Spirit He presented Himself without spot to God. That was divine power that enabled a human being to live a sinless life. And it’s that same power that, even though we’re not gonna get it right all the time, we could still, as I say, it’s not perfection, but it sure is direction.
If your heart is still married to your flesh and what it wants, you got a problem. We got some repenting to do. We gotta come to God and say, that’s not what life is about. It’s not about pleasing my flesh and seeking what the world offers. It’s about serving you.
Now, God can take us through, and give us things, and use us, and all of that, but it’s not about that. That never needs to possess our hearts. We need to be set free from that. And God has the power. He’s given us a Savior who is well able to save completely those who come to God by Him. Why? Because He ever lives.
And I just asked God to do whatever is right in His eyes, according to His purpose, the plan that He had before the foundation of the world to send His light into every single heart who hears this, put His finger on the need and then lift up the Savior and the provision. He’s never gonna leave you down in that hopeless place. He’s always gonna show you the need, but then lift up the Savior.
Praise God for a Savior who’s able to take us all the way home. Praise God! We have every reason to shout the victory today, not because we look inside but because we look up. That’s where our eyes need to be. And I’ll tell you the same one that took Paul through Romans 7 into Romans 8, is the One Who’s here this morning and wants us to get this maybe deeper than we’ve ever gotten it before.
I don’t think I’ve said anything I haven’t said before but don’t we need this? Don’t we need fresh reminders? I do. And God is so merciful and faithful. I just praise Him this morning for His strength ‘cause I sure didn’t have it. I barely felt like getting here this morning, but God is faithful. And I believe He’s born witness to His Word.
I like I say, I’ve struggled. Is this really you? Is this really you? And I have to keep coming back to, the devil hates this. The devil does not want the gospel unpacked so we get it because he knows it is his defeat. You remember the devil that Brother Thomas was dealing with at one time and was forced to tell what he was really most afraid of, and it was the blood of Christ and the cross. They know it spells their defeat.
Boy, we don’t have to let the devil win. Jesus won the victory at the cross, and He calls everyone that’s willing to turn from their own sin and hand their life over to Him. He promises a life you could never lose. Praise God! Praise God!
