Two Journeys

Please, if you would take your scriptures and open to Romans 8. And we're going to be looking this morning, at verses 5-8. Romans 8:5-8.

Do you enjoy a good stew? Do you like stew? Think about it. Did you have something hot on Thursday? You know what I'm talking about, maybe some beef stew, or with some kind of chunks of potato, or something steaming, something thick. You need something thick and hot on a day like that. Do you like a good stew? I love a good stew, but I wouldn't trade Heaven for a good stew. And it's shocking to me, that the Bible records the story of a man who did, in effect, just that. I'm talking, of course, about Esau. Now, we're preaching in Romans 8, but you know the story about Esau. And there was a day, in which he came in from the open country. He was a hunter. I am not a hunter, but he was a hunter. And I guess, when you've been hunting all day long, and came up empty, you come home hungry, and you want something to eat. And Jacob was making a stew that day, and it smelled so good. It smelled delicious. And Esau said to Jacob, "Give me some of that stew. It smells good." And Jacob said in response, "First, sell me your birthright."

Now, what is the significance of that birthright? Well, you remember that we've been learning in Romans chapter 4, that the moment that Abraham was justified was the moment that God made a promise to him. You remember what I'm talking about? God took Abraham out and had him look up at the stars. He had promised him a child, a child of promise. He had already said earlier, "Through your offspring, through your seed, all peoples on Earth will be blessed." Well, Abraham continued to move on, year after year, his wife Sarah continued to get older. She was still barren, and it seemed like the promise was fruitless, just like her womb. And so, at one point, in Genesis 15, he said, "Lord, what can you give me, since I remain childless? You haven't given me a child." And so He took Abraham out, and had him look at the stars, and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars, if indeed you can count them... So shall your offspring be." That's a promise. He made him a promise, "So shall your offspring be." You'll have as many descendants as there are stars. And one of those descendants would be the blessing to every people, and tribe, and language, and nation on Earth." Abraham heard that promise. He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.

Well, Abraham had a son, Isaac, and Isaac had twin sons, Jacob and Esau. And you know that Isaac explained all this to those boys, you know he did, from when they were early enough to understand the significance of why they were living in tents, wandering around in a country not their own. And there was a promise that they would inherit that land, but the Amorites still lived there, and Isaac continued to tell the twins, Jacob and Esau, it wouldn't be theirs, but it would belong to their descendants after them, after they had sojourned in a country not their own for a long time.

And so, one day, Esau came in, and he was hungry. His tummy was empty, he wanted something to eat. And Jacob said to the firstborn, Esau... He was the firstborn... "Sell me your birthright." And do you remember what Esau said? He said, "What good a birthright to me?" "I'm about to die from hunger. Give me some of that stew. You can have the birthright. It means nothing to me." That is about the opposite, as opposite as you can get from, "Abraham believed God and He credited it him as righteousness." This promise meant nothing to Esau, if only he could have a bowl of stew. And so, we have displayed before us, in living form, the doctrine that Paul is going to teach us today, concerning the mind of the flesh.

Look at it again in verse 5,  "Those who are, " literally, it says, "In the flesh, have their mind set on the flesh, but those who live in the Spirit, have their mind set on what the Spirit desires." So we have before us two different ways of looking at life, two different minds, as it were: The carnal mind, the fleshly mind, the mind controlled by the sinful nature. And then you have the spiritual mind, the mind controlled by the Spirit, by the promise of God. And so, therefore, we have a radical transformation that's been described, because all of us were born into Esau-ishness. Is that a word?

We were born like Esau, whose god was their stomach. I have a little five-month-old, whose god is his stomach right now, if he has a god. He lives for feeding that desire. We are born into that, aren't we? And at some point, a transformation occurs, where we would not sell our birthright, any longer, for a bowl of stew, a radical transformation.

Now, in Romans chapter 8, Paul is laboring to prove his original premise, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." And so, all of chapter 8, he's going to be laying out proofs that that is true. That is unspeakably precious to people who are of Jacob's mind, who hear the Word of God and believe it. A promise from God means everything, and so he's trying to prove it. And now, in the verses we're looking at this morning, Paul is going to pick up on what he said at the end, in verse 4. He's describing who it is true for, that there is no condemnation. It's not true of everybody. As a matter of fact, Jesus said that most are on the road to destruction. It's true, of only a certain category of people, that there's no condemnation, and so he's describing it. He said in verse 4, "In order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature, but according to the Spirit, for those who live according to the flesh, [this sinful nature] have their mind set on what that nature desires."

He's describing the category of people, that it's true of them, that there is no condemnation. On Judgment Day, they will be acquitted, they will go to Heaven when they die, they are saved. Who is it true of? It’s true of those who do not have the carnal mind, the fleshly mind, but those who have the mind of the Spirit. And so he gives us Romans chapter 8, either that we may be assured of our salvation, because we look inward, and we see that that new mind has come to us. We have been transformed from the carnal mind to the spiritual mind, that we may be assured that we may have joy of our salvation. And from that joy, we may have power to serve Him, to put sin to death, to grow. From that fruit, comes eternal life, from all of that. That we may be assured or that we may be warned, that we are still under condemnation, because we are characterized by the fleshly minds. He's giving us either assurance or warning here.

Paul is Describing All Christians

Now, I want to make two key assertions, as we look at this text. First of all, I'm asserting that Paul is describing here all Christians, when he talks about those who are controlled by the Spirit. What do I mean by that? There's not, I don't believe, a special class or category of Christian, halfway between converted and unconverted, that we would call the carnal Christian, that you have the unconverted, the carnal Christian, and then the spiritual Christian. I am denying that. I believe that He's talking here about all Christians, and about all non-Christians, and he's making a big cleaving and a dividing of the human race into these two categories, as he's done all the way through, from Romans 5, into 6 and 7, and now 8. You're either in Adam or you're in Christ. You're either under the law or you're in the Spirit. You're either saved or you're not. And so that's what you do.

I don't believe he's talking about a special category or class called the spiritual Christians, the Holy Spirit-filled Christian. He's going to say, very plainly, "If you don't have the Spirit, you're not a Christian." We'll get to that, God-willing, next time. There's not a special category, nor is there a second blessing needed, so that you need to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, not having had the Spirit, but you're already justified. That's impossible. If you are justified, you have received the indwelling Holy Spirit. That's the first assertion that I want to make. The distinction here is between Christian and non-Christian, not between immature Christian and mature Christian, or between somebody living right at that moment, and somebody who's not living right at that moment.

Total Transformation is Absolutely Essential to Salvation

Secondly, I want to say that this total transformation, from the carnal mindset to the spiritual mindset, is absolutely essential to salvation. If it hasn't happened in you, you're not saved. You have not been justified. You are still in your sins, you're still under condemnation. Those are the two assertions that I want to make. Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it this way, "Christianity involves a complete radical change in the nature of the human being. A radical change in your mind, in your heart, from within. Something that is supernatural, something that can only be done by God, a radical change in your nature."

Now, as we come to this text, and as we continue on in Romans 8, we're coming to the issue of the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has been mentioned four times in the first seven chapters of Romans. He is going to be mentioned over 20 times in this chapter. This is the chapter of the Spirit, the indwelling Holy Spirit. John MacArthur put it this way, "The Spirit is to a believer, what God, the Creator, is to the physical world. Without God, the physical world would not exist. Without the Spirit, a Christian would not be a Christian." And so we have the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The Gift Promised

Now, the gift was promised. It is the promised gift. You remember Joel chapter 2, "And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days." This is the promise of Joel. And so Paul, in Ephesians 1:13, says, "He is the Spirit of promise." He is the promised Holy Spirit. He's been promised to us. Just like God made a promise to Abraham, so this promise has been given to us.

The Promise Fulfilled: Peter’s Sermon

And so, on the Day of Pentecost, it came true. God poured out His Holy Spirit on all who believed, all who were assembled there. And so Peter, by the power of the Spirit, stood up, and preached a great Pentecostal message, and people who heard it in Jerusalem were cut to their heart, and they said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" And Peter answered, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord, your God, will call." Who are the ones who are far off, is it not us? Durham is a long way from Jerusalem, isn't it? The year 2002 is a long way from the time that Peter preached that sermon. "For all who are far off, for all whom the Lord God will call." The promise is for you. The gift of the Holy Spirit is yours. We're talking about this promised Holy Spirit.

The Gift From Above

Well, what is this gift? How shall we describe the gift of the Holy Spirit? What is the power of the Spirit? Is it some impersonal force, like electricity that comes out of an outlet, and you take an extension cord, and plug it in, and you've got this power flowing through you? And if you unplug the cord, the machine stops, but if you plug it back in, it starts going, is that what it is? Is it kind of like, "Use the force, Luke"? Is that what it is?  Absolutely not. He is not electricity and he is not the force of Star Wars. He is the third person of the Trinity. He is a person. He has a will. He has an intellect. He has passions and desires. He has a plan. He has a personality. And if you're a believer, He lives inside of you today, the indwelling Holy Spirit. Look at verse 9 in our text. I know that we're not covering it today, but look at it. "You, however, are not controlled by the sinful nature, but by the Spirit," or controlled by the Spirit, "if the Spirit of God," look at this, "lives in you." If He dwells, if He has taken up residence within you. And he says, "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ." Do you see that? It's very plain. If you're a Christian, the Spirit lives in you, He dwells in you. It's the very promise that Jesus had made in John 14 about the Comforter, "Another Comforter, whom the world cannot receive, but you can receive Him, for He lives with you," Jesus said, "And will be in you," the indwelling Holy Spirit.

And so Paul is going to talk about the activity of the gift of the Spirit, in Romans chapter 8. He's very active. He is not passive in your life. He basically comes in like a King, and takes over, and He controls, and He moves, and He works, and He does not take sin lightly. He is the Holy Spirit, and so He works in you. He works in you to put sin to death. We'll talk about that, God willing. He works in you to testify to your Spirit, that you're a child of God. He works in you, so that you go through Christ's sufferings with Him. He works in you, so that you can pray effectively and powerfully. He is active, He is working, He is assuring, He is comforting, He's convicting, He's moving, He's indwelling, the indwelling Spirit.

Now, in verse five, we talk about the carnally-minded person. Now, we've got two categories. The carnally or the sinfully-minded person does not have the indwelling Spirit, and so he's got a mind of the flesh. He's got the carnal mind. Look again at verse Five, "Those who live according to the sinful nature, have their minds set on what that nature desires. But those who live in accordance with the Spirit, have their mind set on what the Spirit desires." We have two different categories of people that we're comparing. We have the carnal, fleshly mindset, and we have the Spirit-controlled mindset. Two different categories.

And may I say that these two types of people that live in this world, just simply do not understand each other? They don't. The Spirit-filled person makes no sense at all to the carnally-minded person, "Why in the world would you live the way you do, suffering, making sacrifices, and for what? When you could have it all. When you could have it all." And meanwhile, the spiritually-minded person looks at the carnally-minded, and says, "What are you thinking? This is all temporary. In a flash, your life will be over, and then you're gonna stand before God, and give an account on Judgment Day. What will you do then?" And so we make no sense to each other, but we make up the whole population of the world: The carnally-minded and the spiritually-minded, the non-Christian and the Christian.

Under (Therefore After) the Flesh: Position, Desire, and Lifestyle

Well, let's try to understand this carnal mind. First, "Of this person, they are under the flesh." That's what the text literally says. The NIV does not do a great job here. Literally, "This person is under or in the flesh, and therefore, they are after the flesh." That's the point. It's a matter of position first, mindset or desire second, lifestyle third. Do you understand how that works? What kingdom are you a member of? What kingdom are you part of? How do you think in that kingdom, and out of that, how do you live your life? Position, desire or mindset lifestyle.

Well, what is the position of the carnally-minded person? They are enslaved to sin. They are in Adam. They are under the law. They are under condemnation. They have no power to refuse sin. Sin has authority over them. They are enslaved to sin. Alright, well, what of their mind? They desire, or yearn for, or think about the things of the flesh, the things of the world, and as a result, they live out a lifestyle accordingly.

Now, what is the carnal mind? If you were to say... Maybe you don't say it anymore... But when I was a child, I had an older sister. And from time to time, I would tell her to mind her own business. Now, when you say to somebody, "Mind your own business," what are we saying? "Be busy with, be active in, be engaged in your own affairs, and let me do that for myself." So when we use the word 'mind,' you're talking about being busy. Or if you leave somebody to "mind the store." We don't really talk that way anymore, but that's how it used to mean... Look after the store, tend the customers that come in, sweep the floors, make it look nice, mind the store. And so this carnally minded person is minding the things of the flesh, the things of the world. They're thinking about them. They're passionate over them.

Now, look back at Romans 1:28, and this mind has already been described to us, but it's been so long ago, since I preached on this, that I think it would be worth looking at again. Romans 1:28, this is describing those people apart from God, under the wrath of God, probably Gentiles in context. He's going to get to the Jews in chapter 2, but in verse 28, he says, "Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, He gave them over [look] "to a depraved mind." Do you see that? "To do what ought not to be done." That is the carnal mind I'm describing, the mind, the desire, the way of thinking. It's a worldview. And out of that, comes everything that follows, "To a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done," Verse 29, "They become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent ways of doing evil. They disobey their parents. They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless." This is the carnal mind, and then the lifestyle that flows from it. Do you see it? "He gave them over to a depraved mind, to do," it says, "What ought not to be done." It's a yearning after those things.

Now, when you think about the sins of the flesh, you tend to think of, perhaps, sexual sins, or addictive-type sins, like alcohol, or drugs, that kind of thing, but it extends to a bigger area than that. In First John 2:15-17, John lists the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life, as being those things in the world. These are the worldly things. This is what the devil has to offer. Imagine the devil, like a waiter, coming to your table and say, "Well, today, we have three things on the menu. We're going to offer the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life." He's been offering the same menu for 2,000 years. It never changes. It's always the same stuff, and so he's offering that.

John Bunyan, in his brilliant "Pilgrim's Progress," talked about it in terms of Vanity Fair. You remember Vanity Fair? And Bunyan described the world this way, "At this fair, are all such merchandise sold, as houses, lands, trades, places, honors, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures, and delights of all sorts, as harlots, wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls, precious stones, and whatnot." You can put anything you want in 'whatnot.' Now, we have DVDs, and computers, and four-wheel drive automobiles, whatever. 'Whatnot' is what he called it. "And moreover, at this fair, there is at all times to be seen jugglings, cheats, games, plays, fools, apes, knaves, and rogues, and that of every kind. Here are to be seen too, and that for nothing, thefts, murders, adulteries, false swearers, and that of a blood red color. Now, as I said, the way to the celestial city lies just through this town, where this lusty fair is kept. And he that will go to the celestial city, and yet, not go through this town, must needs leave this world." You got to go through Vanity Fair. You've got to walk through this Vanity Fair. And the carnally-minded man looks at that, and says, "Wow, what an exciting place. What a great thing this is." A spiritually minded man says, "Lord, deliver me from this place. What a weird world we live in."

But it extends beyond, just what we call the sins of the flesh. Trench put it this way, "It's the floating mass of thought, opinions, maxims, speculations, hopes, impulses, aims, and aspirations, at any time current in the world." Do you know what I'm talking about, worldview? You just listen to a talk radio station, read an op-ed, an editorial page in a newspaper, listen to the news, and see if you can see any bias there at all. Just listen and take in. You know what I'm talking about. It's the mind of the flesh, and it extends even to the greatest accomplishments of the human race: Political interests apart from God, social causes apart from God, cultural achievements apart from God, human philosophies, human art, human culture, human music, human literature, all of them done apart from God.

An illustration of this is Ludwig von Beethoven, the composer. A young composer that he was teaching sent him one of his works, and at the bottom, he said, "With God's help, I will try to improve this piece." And he crossed out the words, "With God's help," and scrawled below it, "O man, help thyself." I think Beethoven drank a little too much of that Enlightenment philosophy, and as he lay on his deathbed... I'm talking about Beethoven now... I think it was in Vienna. There was a weird storm. The sky was odd looking. There was thunder, and there was lightning, and it rained. And Beethoven looked out, bitter, probably because of his deafness, and he shook his fist at the sky. And shortly thereafter, he died.

Even the highest and best that we achieve, apart from God, that's what I'm talking about when I talk about the carnal mind. Psalm 10:4 puts it this way, "In his pride, the wicked does not seek God. In all his thoughts, there is no room for God." There's no room for God. We talk at Christmas time about there being no room at the inn for Jesus Christ. In the carnal mind, there's no place for God. And so it is, therefore, a life bounded by the body. The five sense world is everything: What you can smell, what you can taste, what you can touch, what you can feel, what you can see. Paul talked about it in Philippians Three, "For as I've often told you before, and now, say again, even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things, but our citizenship is in Heaven." And there's the contrast between Esau and Jacob. There's the contrast between a carnal mind and a spiritual mind. And Esau is the poster child for that, living for the flesh, living for the stomach.

Now, in verse 6, it says of this carnally-minded person, "The carnal mindedness is spiritual death." Look at verse 6, it says, "The mind of the flesh [or the mind controlled by the flesh] is death." It's not nearly that it leads to death, it is death, dead already. Ephesians 2 says, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world." Dead already, dead to spiritual things, have no interest. John MacArthur talks about a tragic funeral that he went to, or actually, officiated at, a funeral for a baby girl killed in a traffic accident. And he remembers distinctly, the mother kept picking up the lifeless body of this little infant, and crying over it, and holding it, and talking to it, speaking to it, singing to it, but there was no response, and there never would be a response. The baby's dead. And so it is for the carnally-minded person with spiritual things. It doesn't matter how you say it. It doesn't matter how you preach it. It doesn't matter how it's presented. The person is dead. They will never understand it. They will never relate to it. They're dead in transgressions and sins.

William Wilberforce and William Pitt

In the early 1800s, in England, there was a man named William Wilberforce. He led England out of slavery, he and a group of other people. England was in the slave trade. And William Wilberforce said, "This is sin. It is wrong." This is way before the American Civil War. And so he was a godly man, a committed Christian. He had a best friend named William Pitt. William Pitt was Prime Minister of England. Pitt was a nominal Anglican, nominally went to church, but really wasn't all that interested in these things. And William Wilberforce was very concerned about the spiritual life of his friend. And so he invited him, again and again, to hear one particular preacher that he loved to hear, Richard Cecil, in London. He was a fiery, passionate Evangelical preacher. William Pitt really didn't have the time, wasn't interested, but finally, one day, he said, "You know, Wilberforce, I'd like to come with you and hear this guy."

And so, they went, and listened, and Cecil was at his best. He was preaching. He was empowered by the Spirit. He was speaking of things to come. He was speaking of the Heavenly realms, and he was speaking of the promises that we have laid before us in Romans. He was talking about these things, and Wilberforce, for a time, just forgot that his friend was there, and was just, himself, caught up in these things. They were delightful to him. But then, toward the end, he began to wonder what his friend Pitt was thinking about. Well, he didn't have to wait long, because as the two of them walked out, Pitt looked over to Wilberforce and said, "You know, Wilberforce, I have not the slightest idea what that man was talking about."

That is the carnal mind. That's somebody who's spiritually dead. And somebody's sitting right next to him, whose ear drums are vibrating the exact same way, heard in those words, life itself, the promise of eternal life. "You know, Wilberforce, I have not the slightest idea what that man is talking about." That's the carnal mind. That man was bored by it, couldn't be bothered, wasn't interested in it, couldn't figure it out.

The Hostility of the Sinful Mind Toward God

1 Corinthians 2:14 says, "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned," and so they are spiritually dead, and as a result of this, they're at war with God. In verse seven, "The sinful mind," it says, "Is hostile to God," at enmity or hostility to God. This is either a settled rebellion against the Word of God, or is a sense of passive indifference, a sense in which we don't really care about the things of God. "Well, we're going to craft God in our own image." We're going to say, "I like to think of God as a good friend." "I like to think of God as a gentle breeze on a summer day." "I like to think of God as a buddy, who comes alongside when I need Him." "But I sure don't like to think about the God of the Bible, the God who is the Holy Judge of the world, a God who can do what He wants with what He's made, without asking us, a God who dwells in unapproachable light, a God who reveals His wrath and His justice everyday, a God who has the right to make laws and enforce them." This is the God they do not love.

And so Existentialist French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre said, "Even if such a God existed, we would have to pretend He did not exist, so that we could live our lives." That is that carnal mindset, a desire to be free from the God of the Bible. And as a result, it's rebellious against God's love. Verse 7, "It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so." When I was up in New England, I frequently saw pro-abortion bumper stickers, one that would say, "Keep your laws off my body." Have you ever seen that? "Keep your laws off my body." Well, that itself, just even apart from the abortion issue, that is representative of this attitude here. "I don't want God's laws on me. I don't want His laws on me." But you know something? God's laws are all over your body. As a matter of fact, God's law has actually crawled into your brain and say, "You shall not covet your neighbor's goods." "Coveting? That's an attitude of the mind, that's wanting something." That's right and it's forbidden in the 10 Commandments. God's laws are all over you and the carnal mind says, "I don't want God's laws on me. Keep your laws off me." There's a hostility and rebellion against God's laws.

And so how will they live? Well, they'll live their way. Frank Sinatra sang it, didn't he? "I did it my way." And so they make their way through the world the way they see best. They construct their own morality, and live up to it, and they do it their way. That is the carnal mindset. And as a result, verse 8, "It is impossible for them to please God." Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. It is impossible for them to please God. There is nothing in them at all that pleases God. And so people who think that they're going to stand before God, and give good works for their sin, they don't understand. They don't have any. It's not that they don't have enough, it's that they don't have any. There are no good works, because none of it was done to please God, none of it done to glorify Him. All of it, just a testimony to human arrogance and pride.

Summary of the Carnal Mindset

Position, they are under the flesh. They are in Adam. They are apart from the life of God. As a result, they have a mind, a desire after the flesh. They have a taste for the things of this world, and as a result of that, they live a certain kind of lifestyle. Well, that is the carnal mind.

Under (Therefore After) the Spirit: Position, Desire, and Lifestyle

What of the spiritual mind? Well, it's exactly the opposite. Look again at verse 5, "Those in the Spirit," it says, "set their minds on the things of the Spirit." This person is under, and therefore, after the Spirit. They're after the things of the Spirit. They used to be in Adam, and now they are in Christ. They have been transformed. There's a radical transformation that's occurred in their minds, in their whole way of thinking. What they used to hate, they now love, and what they used to love, they now hate. There's been a change in them by the power of the Spirit.

Now, the spiritual mind minds the things of the Spirit. It's like minding the store, you remember that? Being active or busy about the spiritual things. The gravitational center of your existence are the things of the Spirit, just like the sun is the gravitational center of the solar system. This is what you want, the things of the Spirit.

What ARE the “things of the Spirit?”

Now, what are the things of the Spirit? Well, first, I would say, I've given you this list at the bottom, in 'Applications,' that you are intensely concerned about the soul. You see yourself, not as a body, primarily, but as a soul, a soul that can never die, an eternal soul, a soul that will come before God on Judgment Day. After death, comes judgment, and you see yourself in that light. We must all appear before the Judgment Seat of God, that we may receive the things we did while in the body. You will say, "While my soul was in that home called the body... " A spiritually-minded person thinks about the soul, they think of themselves as a soul.

Secondly, they're intensely aware of personal sinfulness. There's a sense of sin before a Holy God. Not dodging it or avoiding it, but saying, "I am a sinner. I need a Savior, and I see it more clearly, the more I go on. I see myself that way, as a sinner."

Thirdly, they are totally consumed, therefore, with the person of Jesus Christ. They can't think about Him too much, they can't love Him too much, they can't say thank you enough to Jesus for what He did. There would be no hope, were it not for Jesus. And so they are consumed by the person of Jesus. They see Him to be the most delightful person that ever lived. They are thrilled with the stories of His control over the wind and the waves, ability to walk on water, His miracles. The words He spoke are precious. The fact that He eternally existed as God, the Son, these things are precious to a spiritually-minded person.

Fourthly, they are deeply absorbed in the way of salvation. Terms like justification, regeneration, sanctification, glorification, they're theological terms, but the ideas behind them are delightful to a spiritually-minded person. They love the idea that God has declared them not guilty of all their sins. They're delighted with the fact that God is working holiness within them. They're happy to learn about these things. They have a taste for them, they're interested in them, and so they can't wait to hear about the glory that's going to be revealed in us. That's what they live for, the way of salvation.

Fifthly, they have a yearning for a growth in prayer. They want to talk to God. They've got a hunger for it. They want to have communication with God. They talk to Him privately, not so everybody can see. There might be time for public prayer, but that's not the point. The point is, through the day, they want to talk to God. They speak to Him and they call Him 'Abba Father.'

And sixthly, there's a hunger for true Christian fellowship. When you are like this, you like being with other people who are like this. Isn't that true? You delight in Christian fellowship. And when we're talking about the things of the Spirit, there's a joy that comes. It's like everybody brings a log to the fire, and it just gets bigger and bigger. We have delightful fellowship and you have a taste for it.

Seventhly, passionately concerned about evangelism and missions. You want to hear about the advance of the Gospel. How is it going on those frontier missions? You already know that the Lord's not coming back, 'til the work's done. "Well, how's the work going? How can I advance it? Have I shared the Gospel? Am I concerned about these things?" Evangelism and missions.

More than anything, number eight, you're concerned about the things in this book. They're not dry, boring things to you. You want to know what's in there. This is the mind of the Spirit. This is what you are interested in. If anybody can explain it or make it clear to you, you are delighted in it. You love the things of the book.

Now, it says in verse 6 that the spiritual mind is life and peace. In other words, this is the essence of the life that God gives. Jesus says in John 10 that he, "came that you might have life and have it abundantly." The spiritual mind is the life He came to give, and if you don't have this mind, if you don't have this yearning, this desire, this hunger, you're not a Christian. You have not been converted, because this is the life that He came to give. This is the life He came to give and there's a fruit that flows from it.

Now, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. This is the life that He came to give, and if you are justified, you have received that life. Look at Romans 5:18. "Consequently, just as the result of one trespass, was condemnation for all men," remember that word 'condemnation.' "There is, therefore," what? "No condemnation." We're talking about condemnation. The result of Adam's sin was condemnation. Look at, "So also, the result of one act of righteousness, was justification that brings life." Do you understand what I'm saying? If you are justified, you have life, spiritual life. You have this life that I'm describing today. This is what salvation is. It's not just that your sins are written off, and then you can live whatever way you want. It's that He transforms you from within, by the power of the Spirit. You are a spiritually-minded person. This mind of the Spirit is life. And, the mind of the Spirit is peace. You know the Hebrew word is 'shalom,' a sense of deep rich fellowship with the eternal God. Everything is right, things are put in their right place, God is at peace with you, and you are at peace with God. Oh, how precious is that.

Romans 5:1, "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Where you were at enmity with God, now you're at peace, and He with you. And there's a status of peace, He's at peace with you, though you may not always feel the peace in your feelings. There is peace with God, and then there is the peace of God. We've talked about this before. Sometimes you feel that peace. You experience it, even in the midst of difficult times. Philippians 4:6-7, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, through prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God," and what happens? "The peace of God, which transcends all understanding," will do what? "Guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." The Christian mind, guarded and protected in Christ Jesus. That's what prayer does for you, among other things.

The spiritual mind is life and it is peace. And though it's not mentioned in the text, this minded person is very pleasing to God, very pleasing to God. This is what pleases Him, that you be this way, that you have this mind given you as a gift. At His baptism, Jesus Christ stood in the waters. After his baptism, and you remember a voice came down from the Father, saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am," what? "Well pleased." If you have this spiritual mind, you are well pleasing to God, well pleasing to God. And as a result, you live for that, don't you? You yearn to please God. You yearn for it. Every day, you want to search out and find out what is pleasing to God. Second Corinthians 5:9, "So we make it our goal," to what? "Please Him, whether at home in the body or away from it." We want to please God and that includes the law.

1 John 3:22-23, "We obey His commands, and we do what pleases Him, and this is His command: To believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another, as He has commanded us."

Now, what is the application that we can take from this? As you look at these verses, do you see any commands in here? Something to obey? Is there something that you should do, as a result of it? Look at it. Or is there only spiritual description of what is true of you, if you're a Christian? Look at it. It's only description. You're not commanded to do anything. You're described or you are not described, do you understand what I'm saying? Either this is true of you, what I've been saying to you today, or it is not. Either you are controlled by the Spirit, you have the mind of the Spirit, or you don't. And if you do not have the mind of the Spirit, you have the carnal mind, and therefore, you're in Adam, under judgment still, and Romans 8:1 does not apply to you. There is condemnation for you.

Basically, the application here, is for you to diagnose yourself. And I would suggest you go backwards, start with your lifestyle, go back to your mind, your desires, and then what does it say about your position? As you look at your lifestyle, how do you live? How do you invest your resources? How do you act? What do you do in reference to the commands of God? How are you living? Trace that back to your mindset. How do you look at the world? What are your ambitions, your goals, your desires, your hungers? What do you want? What is of value to you? What do you think about? Look at those things that I've listed there. Are you intensely concerned about your soul? Do you see yourself as a soul? Are you aware of your personal sinfulness? Not dodging it or hiding it, but knowing that you need a Savior? Are you consumed with the person of Jesus Christ, who is that Savior? Are you absorbed in the way of salvation? Are you yearning for growth in prayer? Are you hungry for true Christian fellowship? Are you passionately concerned about evangelism and missions? And are you hungry for the Bible, the Word of God? And if so, what is your position? Diagnose yourself.

Lloyd-Jones, this is Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the Welsh preacher, after he got done with the sermon on this text, said, "May I be so bold as to say, how have you thought of this sermon?" Now, he had preached for 40 years before he said that. And I'm not going to do it, I'm going to quote him. I'm going to step aside and let him say it, "Were you interested in these things or was it boring? Was it dry? Was it dusty to you? Another sermon, more text, more doctrine. Or was it engaging, exciting? Did it entice you? Did it make you want to say, 'Do I have the spiritual mind? What has God done in me? Is it true of me, that there's no condemnation? Am I hungry and thirsty for righteousness?'" That's how Lloyd-Jones ended his sermon. I'm not going to end mine that way, but that's how he ended his. Investigate yourself. Diagnose yourself. Think about these things and apply it.

If you have not come to Christ, please come today. Come and talk to me. If you're concerned about your soul, if you don't know whether you're a Christian or not, you don't know whether you've given your life to Christ, don't let another day go by. Come and talk to me. Don't let your pride stand in the way. We're going to have a closing hymn in a minute. It'd be a good chance for you to come and talk to me. After the service, you can do the same.

I’d like to ask that you take your Bibles and open to the passage that Herb just read. We are going to be looking at Hebrews 1 and 2, and we are going to be trying to understand again and anew the person of Jesus Christ. I’d like to begin twelve centuries ago, Christmas Day, 800. For that day, Charlemagne visited Rome and went to pray at the tomb of the Apostle Peter. Charlemagne was the King of the Franks, and up to that point, from the fall of the Roman Empire around the year 400 or 430 or so, until that time, chaos had reigned. The barbarian tribes had swept across Europe. Even more, there was a great threat that Islam would become the religion of Europe as Muslims swept up through Spain and were finally stopped by Charles Martel, Charlemagne’s father. So he had been turned back but Europe and the continent was in chaos until Charlemagne took control, and he began to organize not only his own people, but all of the continent of Europe.

And he went there on Christmas Day to worship and to pray and to meet with the pope, the bishop of Rome. And then Charlemagne knelt in that immense basilica of St. Peter, he was surrounded by lofty colors of multi-colored marble and the light strained in through the magnificent stained-glass windows, and he was praying to God. And at that moment, the pope tiptoed behind him, everyone around knew what was happening, but he had not been warned and he placed a crown, the pope placed a crown on Charlemagne’s head. And this is what he said, the pope declared: “To Charles August, now crowned by God, great and peaceful emperor of the Romans, long life and victory.” And thus, at that moment, he crowned the first Holy Roman Emperor. Now, the crown that was placed on his head that day was made of gold and had sparkling precious stones, ornate cameos, and delicate filigree work of gold. It was the best that the crown jeweler could make, the best work available. Two centuries later, they decided to improve on it, and they made an eight-sided crown, which was reminiscent, as far as they were concerned, of the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.

Now, you will remember from Revelation, the description of the new Jerusalem, and this is what it says, it says, “The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst” (Rev 21:18-20). These are beautiful, sparkling jewels and they represent colors from all the hues in the rainbow. And so, they also were represented in the crown that had been made two centuries later for the Holy Roman Emperor. What’s interesting though about each of those stones is that each one was bought at the price of blood. Each one cost lives. They were stolen or they were fought over or warred over, had been captured, brought from mines one or another, to be placed in the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor. And after they were set into that crown, the fighting continued for centuries over who would be the Holy Roman Emperor, who would wear that crown.

And it got me to thinking about that Christmas Day, the way it all began in 800, the crowning of the first Holy Roman Emperor and the earthly crowns that are bestowed on kings like Charlemagne, and I thought to myself: It might be better for us to make a different kind of crown today, a crown for Jesus Christ, not made of earthly materials, not mined up out of mines but instead, just like the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, beautiful for the king. And the only place we can find for materials like that is the word of God, is it not? And so, we have to go to the word of God and find what kind of jewels should be fit in Jesus’s crown.

I’d like us to do the work of a crown jeweler this morning. I’d like us to focus in on the person of Jesus Christ, on who he is and what he came to do. I would like to make a crown, but not as idolaters would, imagining, thinking about what we would ascribe to Jesus, but rather reading in Hebrews 1 and 2, what is ascribed to him there, and then placing it in a crown. And then I’d like us figuratively and in our hearts with worship to lay that crown at the feet of Jesus. He’s the only one that’s fit to put it on his own head, we’ll let him do that. But we’re going to construct a crown spiritually from the words of Scripture.

Now, as we do, we have to do it by faith, don’t we? We think about Christmas being a season of light, and we’re going to talk about that tonight, the glory that is Christmas, the lights that come in and it’s really spectacular and enjoyable. And if you had looked at that majestic crown that was set on Charlemagne’s head or even better, that eight-sided crown that was made two centuries later, it would have dazzled your eyes. But the eye can deceive, isn’t it true? And we walk by faith, not by sight. And so if you want to see Jesus, you have to see him by faith. Look at Hebrews 2:9, in our text this morning. It says in Hebrews 2:9, “We see,” who? “Jesus.” We see Jesus. Do you see him today? Well, you can’t see him with the eye and you sure won’t see his crown today, you only have to see him by faith. Look at Hebrews 12:2, it says in Hebrews 12:2, “Let us fix our eyes on,” who? “Jesus.” Hebrews 12:2, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus.” And what does it call him there? “The author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” This is our savior.

And so by faith and by the word of God, we’re going to set Jesus before us today. And it couldn’t come a moment too soon, at least for me. What do you think about Christmas? What do you think about December? Now, Christy warned me, she said, “Now, don’t be Scrooge today, we know what you think about the busyness of December.” But this has been a busy month for us. My wife broke her shoulder, and I just praise God for the help we’ve received from so many of you. But it’s been a busy month, and it would have been busy even if she hadn’t broken her shoulder. You all know what I’m talking about, you’re all American. Think what you’ve done in the last three weeks. Has not your energy output increased some? Is Christmas not an exhausting holiday? I think we need this. We’ve got Christmas cards to write. Hope they’re already in the mail by now, because if not, they’re going to be late. And we’ve got to keep in touch with hundreds of people, people that we’ve lost touch with. We’ve got to buy gifts for our friends and family, and relatives and neighbors, and mailman, and hairdressers, and who knows what. There’s no limit to it, it’s just your imagination, and you’re wallowed in your generosity.

And then you have to package them up and mail them, be sure that they’re in the mail on time. You gotta put your Christmas decorations up, you’ve gotta decorate your tree, you gotta put all those little colored lights up or the candles in the windows. You gotta put that floodlight in the front of your house, if you have one of those houses that you wanna put the floodlight up. We were driving through Treyburn the other night, and they have homes like that, we don’t so we just put the little candles in the window, and that’s sufficient for us. But you’ve got decorations to put up, and then there’s Christmas food to be baked and boiled and ladled and sliced and served and reheated and who knows what. Christmas food, and then Christmas guests, Christmas parties, and Christmas services. Special services at church, perhaps you even participate in one, you’ve got to practice and practice and practice hours on end. And then at the end of it all, there are Christmas bills to be paid. Not in December, but in January.

And what’s the point of all this? Is it total exhaustion? Well, I’m not so sure, but I think the point of it all is to focus and fix our minds on Jesus Christ, that we should by faith, renew our vision of who he is and worship him that we should fashion a crown and lay it at his feet, understand who he is and by faith, worship him.

We should follow the example of the angels. Look at Hebrews 1:6. In Hebrews 1:6, what did the angels do? It says, When God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels,” what? “Worship him.” Isn’t that the point? That we should worship him. And what is worship? It’s feeling the worth of someone, it’s worth-ship that we’re doing. We’re going to feel the weight of each of these jewels, each of these twelve jewels. And we’re going to feel the weight, we’re going to look at it. Mary is saying in her song, The Magnificat, it means to magnify. My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit exalts. And God might say, “How can you magnify the Lord? Is he not immense? Does he not fill heaven and earth? How do you magnify an immense God like that?”

Well, the point is, he’s not magnificent to you until you reflect on him by faith. Your soul must magnify the Lord by faith, by meditation, by thinking. Isn’t that what Mary did? She took these things and pondered them carefully in her heart, and in this way, she magnified the Lord. So must it be for us. So, what I proposed to do is that we look through Hebrews 1 and 2 and draw out these twelve gems, and look at them and feel their weight, gaze at them, and try to understand who it is that came to earth to save us.

Now, I’m going to break these jewels down into three categories. First, those that talk about Christ’s person. Who is he eternally? Christ’s eternal glory. Secondly, we’re going to talk about what he achieved, the works he did, Christ’s earthly mission. And then finally, what honor has come to him, Christ’s endless kingdom.

First, Christ’s eternal glory. And the first thing we need to talk about is his deity, Christ’s eternal deity. Look at verses 1 and 2, and 3. “In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days, he,” namely God, “has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory, and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” The deity of Jesus Christ should be the centerpiece of his crown.

If you had the Cullinan Diamond and the Koh-i-Noor Diamond, you’d put it right in the center because it’s just perfect, it’s flawless, it’s spectacular. And so the deity of Christ should be first and foremost. He is God from God, light from light, very God from very God. He was begotten, not made. Being of one substance with the Father through whom all things were made. So, the creed goes, and it comes right from Hebrews 1:3, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory.” You almost see a gem, don’t you? The light flowing from that gem, the radiance of God’s glory.

I like to think better of the Father being like the Sun of our solar system, the center of our solar system, and Jesus is the light beams that comes off of the Sun to our eyes. It’s through those light beams and that warmth that we experience the Son. All the experience you have of God the Father has come to you through God the Son. In the past, God spoke through the prophets. Now, he communicates his nature to us by his Son, Jesus Christ.

Now, Christ’s glory was brilliant, eternally brilliant before the foundation of the world. It says in 1 Timothy 6, “God is the blessed and only ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one ever has seen or can see.” This is God, the King of kings. And so, the full glory of Jesus says, “Eternal God would be impossible for us to bear.” And so, as Charles Wesley put it, “Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die.” We couldn’t handle the glory of the eternal deity of Jesus Christ and so he lays his glory down. And he comes to earth so that we might know who the Father is, so that we might see the Father, that we might understand who he is. He is the radiance of God’s glory. And so, Philip says after Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” And Philip says, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”

And Jesus says, “Philip, have I been with you so long and you don’t know me? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ’Show us the Father?’ Don’t you know that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” And so the centerpiece of this crown is the eternal deity of Jesus Christ. He is eternally Son. He is the firstborn son.

Look at verse 6 again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him,” the firstborn, that is a position of honor, a position of prestige and privilege. He will inherit all of the Father’s things. He is the heir of all things, the heir of the universe. He is the firstborn over the Father’s household. It says in Hebrews 3:6, “Christ is faithful as a Son over God’s house.” “And he is also faithful as firstborn over all creation,” it says in Colossians 1:15. And so the deity of Jesus Christ, that he is God, he is eternal God, begotten not made is the centerpiece and the first jewel.

The second jewel was also found in verse 3, “He is the creator and the sustainer of the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” And it was also through whom in verse 2 that God made the universe. So he is the creator, and he is also the sustainer. It was through Jesus Christ that God made all things. And it is by Jesus’s powerful word that he sustains all things. Nothing exists except through Jesus Christ. John 1:3, “Through him, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made.”

So every feature of the night sky, did you see the sky last night, wasn’t it beautiful? I just love looking at a cold night sky, and all of those stars were spoken into being by Jesus Christ, all of them, and all of the wandering planets from massive Jupiter to distant Pluto, fiery Mercury, red Mars, all of them spoken into existence by the eternal Word of God, Jesus Christ. And every mountain rose up and every valley was lowered through the word of Jesus Christ and the water filled in at his word.

He created it all, and then all of the living beings that move on this earth, all of the beasts, birds of the air, the fish of the sea, all of those things created, they passed through Jesus’s mind and then out of his mouth as it were. God spoke all of those things into existence through the Son. He’s the creator of all things. He knit Mary’s body together in her mother’s womb, and then he prepared a body for himself as well. Is that not mystery?

Athanasius, who wrote about this on why the word became flesh, said this, “He, the Mighty One, Artificer of all, himself prepared this body inside the virgin as a temple for himself, and he took it for his very own, as the instrument through which he was known and in which he dwelt. He fashioned his own body, and thus, he could say to Pontius Pilate, ‘For this reason, I came into the world that I might testify to the truth.’” Can you say that? Why did you choose to be born? What was your goal in coming into the world? Why did you take on a human body? You can’t speak like this. You had no choice in the matter.

But the second person of the Trinity did, and he fashioned his own body inside Mary and then took it as his own. But he’s not only the creator, he’s also the sustainer. He upholds all things by his powerful word. He holds all the atoms and the molecules of the universe together by his powerful word. As he continues to speak them, they continue to exist. In Him, you live and move and have your being. You would not exist for a moment if Jesus didn’t say so.

The implications are staggering, are they not? That little baby in the manger was holding his own body together, sustaining his own body. He was holding Mary’s body together as she held him, as he was hungering for milk, he was holding the whole thing physically together, sustaining all things by his powerful word. He was holding Pontius Pilate’s body together as Pilate sat in judgment over him. The hand that stretched out and said, “Crucify him,” made the final decision, it was Jesus that was holding that hand together. And the hands also of the Romans that nailed him to the cross, he was holding it all together; sustaining all things by his powerful word. He kept himself up on the cross as he died in our place, sustaining all things by his powerful word. This is Jesus Christ. Not only the creator but also the sustainer of all things.

The third jewel is that Jesus is the center of angelic worship. Verse 6, “When God brings his firstborn into the world, God says, ’Let all God’s angels worship him.’” Was there ever a command given that was so gladly obeyed as that one? Do you think there was any reluctance among the angels to make their appearance to the shepherds that night? Glorifying and praising God, they ran to do it, they’ve been doing it from eternity past. Isaiah 6, “The seraphs were flying with six wings, two wings they cover their faces, with two they cover their feet, with two they’re flying, and they are crying out about the holiness and the majesty of Jesus Christ.” It’s Christ’s glory, it says in John 12:41, “Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’s glory and spoke about him.” It was Jesus that the angels were worshipping from eternity past. And so when God brought his firstborn into the world, they just did in the physical realm what they’ve been doing from eternity past, worshipping the Son. He is the center of angelic worship.

Now, the angels have been very active in redemptive history, they’re always there doing things, announcing things, active. It was an angel that stood and protected the way to the tree of life after the fall with the flashing sword that went back and forth, and from that moment on, they’ve been carefully watching the unfolding history of redemption, carefully watching. And it says in 1 Peter 1:12, “Even angels long to look into these things.” They’ve been staring into this trying to figure it out, and at last the moment has come. But Jesus is the center of angelic worship. And by the way, this should settle forever any problems we might have with Jehovah’s Witnesses. Why in the world would God the Father say to the angels, “Go worship him”? Did Jesus not say, “Worship the Lord your God and serve him only”? Worship belongs to God alone, and that God the Father says, “Worship the Son.” He is deity and always has been. Eternal deity, the center of angelic worship.

So that is Christ’s eternal nature, his eternal glory, his person, he is God, he is creator and sustainer of all things, and the center of heavenly or evangelic worship. But then we get to his earthly mission, the fourth jewel, he is the author of salvation.

Look at Hebrews 2:10. In Hebrews 2:10, it says, “In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists should make the author,” or another translation has, “Captain of their salvation perfect through suffering.”

You know something, we could easily spend the rest of the time just on Hebrews 2:10. In bringing many sons to glory. If you’re a child of God, you’re being brought where? You’re being brought to glory. That’s what the mission was for. He lays his glory by so that you can be brought to glory. In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God through whom and for whom everything exists, you exist for God, everything exists for God. Should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.

Now, the word author or captain, I love the word. It’s a deep and a rich word. The KJV has beautifully, the captain of our salvation, the implication, they’re going in one way on the Greek word that could mean pioneer, someone who moves out, the trailblazers. You get a picture almost of Daniel Boone going through the Cumberland Gap and leading settlers into the Kentucky territory, blazing the trail. Or Lewis and Clark going out and exploring the Louisiana Purchase. They’re just going out to see the new territory, and they’re saying, “Follow me, this is the way.” The pioneer of our salvation. I like that, but I like author even better because the same word is used in Hebrews 12:2, which we read earlier, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our salvation.” So, the idea is that Jesus wrote the plan, he wrote the music that he’d be singing from, he wrote the blueprint that he would design that he would build the building to, he made the blueprint and then he effected it. He is the author and the perfecter of our salvation, and he entered the world that he might complete the very thing that he had drawn up.

And then fifthly, he is God’s final word. Look at verses 1 and 2. In the past, it says, “God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways.” It’s enough to just get out of that, that God spoke. It was God who spoke through the prophets. That’s the center of my faith. I believe in the word of the prophets. I believe in the prophetic word that God can speak and he did speak through the prophets, but that’s in the past. In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son.

Now, when we say that someone has spoken the final word, it means that they’ve said everything that needs to be said about the topic, the whole matter has been summed up, it’s all been spoken. Jesus Christ is God’s final word to the human race. That’s not to say that the apostles didn’t receive inspiration and write the New Testament after, I’m not saying that. But Jesus Christ is the focus and the final word that God has to speak to us, he has spoken. And so when Jesus took on a body and began his ministry, he spoke the words of God. No one has ever spoken the way this man did. He spoke the word of God, and people heard this great salvation through him. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near. You can enter the kingdom of heaven. This is the gospel message that Jesus proclaimed and announced, he spoke it and many other things besides. But just by being here, word of God in the flesh, he is God’s final word to the human race.

The sixth jewel is that Jesus is perfect, flesh and blood. Look at 2:11 and 2:14. Jesus took on a human body. 2:11 says, “Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family.” So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. Is that not staggering? Have you ever been tempted to be ashamed of Jesus? Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” But the world wants us to be ashamed of Christ. The staggering thing is that Jesus isn’t ashamed of us. He’s not ashamed to call us brothers, he’s not ashamed to be in the very family with us, and so he showed that by taking on a human body, he took on fresh and blood, and he’s not ashamed to own you, and he will own you on Judgment Day, if you’re a child of God, he would say, “She is mine. He is mine, flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone, they are mine, they are kin and are family.” He’s not ashamed to call us brother.

Look at verse 14, “Since the children have,” what? “Flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity.” We had flesh and blood, and so he took on a body, and in so doing, he took on the limitations that we face, the limitations of hunger and of thirst, of fatigue and weariness; the limitations of rejection and abuse from a world that is saturated with sin. He also took on temptation, and he drank the cup of temptation, yet without sin. So he’s perfect flesh and blood.

Look at 2:17 and 18. “For this reason, Jesus had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and a faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.” Verse 18, “Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” Some people think Jesus had no sin nature so temptation’s easy for him. The verse says, he suffered when he was tempted. There is a great deal of suffering involved in Jesus’s life on earth. He was indeed a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. The Greeks had this strange idea of God, that he was impassive, he could not suffer anything. Jesus’s incarnation disproved that forever. He came and shared our sufferings. He was perfect flesh and blood. And yes, he was tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin. He was without sin, so he’s perfect flesh and blood.

The seventh jewel is that Jesus is a merciful and sympathetic high priest. Look again at verses 17 and 18: “For this reason, he had to be made like his brothers in every way.” Why? Why did he have to be made like us? Well, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest for us, that we have a high priest that says in 4:15, “Do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are.” And so, he’s doing this priestly ministry from an understanding point of view.

Are you weak today? Are you tempted? Are you struggling with temptation? Are you struggling with bodily infirmities and with pain and with rejection and disappointment? Jesus can say, “I know how you feel, I was through it.” And so he’s sympathetic. That means he feels what you feel. Merciful and sympathetic high priest. I believe that Jesus was the most tempted man that ever lived. He’s the most tempted man that ever lived, that means that he felt every single temptation to 100.

He was, number eight, our suffering servant. “In bringing many sons to glory,” verses 10-11, “it was fitting that God for whom and through whom everything exists should make the author of those salvation perfect through suffering.”

Now what does this mean, perfect through suffering? Don’t think that Jesus was imperfect before he went through suffering, it just means that he was therefore fit to be our high priest. And what suffering did he have in mind? Well, certainly the suffering, the physical earth that he took on, the physical body, the suffering of temptation and struggles, but even more the suffering of death on the cross.

And so Jesus is, number nine, our propitiation for sin. Now, it says in Hebrews 5:1, “Every high priest is selected from among men and is appointed to represent them in matters related to God and to offer gifts and sacrifices for sin.” 8:3 says, “Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary also for this one to have something to offer.” Well, what did Jesus offer? What did he have to offer? His own body. And so I would urge you, when you’re looking at that little baby in the manger, you’re thinking about Jesus, think he took on a human body that he might lay down that body on the cross, that he might bleed and die. He was our propitiation.

It says in Hebrews 1:4, “When he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.” And then look at 2:17 with me, if you would. Hebrews 2:17, “For this reason, he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God.” Look at the next phrase, “And that he might make atonement.” See that? Make atonement for the sins of the people. That word is propitiate, that he might be our propitiation.

We’ve already talked about that in Romans, he was the one that stood in our place and took the wrath of God. He came to earth to take your wrath that he might suffer on the cross and die and rise again. How many of you have seen these before? Maybe you’ve seen these at a Christian bookstore. I got these recently. It’s a nail, is what it is, it’s a Christmas nail, it’s a big piece of iron with a hole in it and a pretty red ribbon. Of course, when Jesus died, there was no pretty red ribbon in it, but the purpose is to remind us that there’s a link between Christmas and Easter, or specifically between Christmas and Good Friday, that as we think about the birth of Jesus, we think also about the death of Jesus. He came to earth that he might die on the cross, and so someone has made this as a reminder, and so we hang this on our Christmas tree that we might remember the cost of our salvation.

Jesus Christ came to be the propitiation for our sins to offer sacrifice, that we might have eternal life, and that is the ninth jewel in his crown.

The tenth is that Jesus not only died, but he is also the courageous death conqueror. Amen! Courageous death conqueror. Look at 2:14 and 15: “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death, he might destroy him who holds the power of death,” that is the devil, “And free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” Is this not applicable?

A little while ago, I prayed for people who at Christmas time are feeling acutely the loss of loved ones, they think about them, they miss them. This is our first Christmas without Dad or Mom. First Christmas without a husband or a wife or a loved one, they feel it, perhaps even a baby they lost. They feel the weight of that. But because of Jesus coming to earth, living a sinless life, dying as our propitiation and even more, rising from the dead on the third day, he has become for us a victory over death. He is our death conqueror.

In this way, he is our pioneer, our trailblazer, he is the first fruit from among the dead, so that we might all share his eternal resurrection. He is our death conquer, and not only does he conquered death but he conquered him who held the power of death. Who’s that? The devil. And so, Christmas is really an act of warfare between heaven and the devil. It’s an act of peace for those who trust in him, peace between us and God. And so Jesus is our courageous death conqueror.

Well, that was his earthly mission. What a mission. All of those things that he has accomplished. But what glory and honor should come to him? Well, how about a throne? How about an eternal throne? It says in verse 4 of chapter 1, “When he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.” And so, it says in verse 13, “To which of the angels did God ever say, ’Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’” So, we see Jesus seated at the right hand of God, seated on a throne of which the Father speaks. Your throne O God will last forever and ever. We see him with righteousness and justice as the foundation and the scepter of his throne.

We see Jesus exalted who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and bore the very work of a servant, even death on a cross. Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

And so we see by faith Jesus seated at the right hand of God, that’s his present position, but we only see it by faith. You know why? Because he hasn’t come back in this glory yet. Someday he’s going to come back and he’s going to sit on a throne eternally, endlessly in open glory. And that is the twelfth jewel, the future and permanent throne of glory: “Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.” In verses 10-12, “In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain. They will all wear out like a garment, you will wear them up like a robe, like a garment, they will be changed, but you remain the same and your years will never end.” Jesus will have a throne in a new heaven and a new earth in the center of that new Jerusalem that will last forever and ever. And what glory will there be at that point, an eternal throne of glory for Jesus Christ.

And so there you have twelve jewels laid out, each one we’ve looked at just briefly, I would suggest that you magnify them. You know, a jeweler, if he wants to look at a jewel, he gets out his magnifying glass and he stares at it, he looks at the features and the facets; take each one and gaze at it, and look at it. Look at Hebrews 2:1, what does it say? “We must pay more careful attention therefore, to what we have heard.”

That’s my application today. Pay more careful attention to the gospel that we have heard. Pay more careful attention to these twelve jewels that I’ve laid out today. Take each one and look at them and realize what it says about Jesus that he is eternally God, very God, a very God; that he is the creator and the sustainer of all things. That he’s the center of angelic worship, and that all of those things were true of him before he took on a human body, and then he had a mission into the earth. He is the author, it says, of salvation. He is the author of our salvation, the pioneer but also the writer of it, and he came to earth to achieve it.

He is God’s final Word. He has spoken to us through the prophets, but now in these last days spoken through his Son. And he is a perfect flesh and blood. He took on a body so that we might be kindred with him; kinfolk, that we might be related to him, and yet perfect without sin. And therefore, he can be our merciful and sympathetic high priest, having been made perfect through suffering, anything you suffer he can say, “I know what you feel.” And he is our propitiation for sin. He’s taken away our punishment. He’s taken away our wrath by dying on the cross, and he is a courageous death conqueror, risen from the dead on the third day. Therefore, he presently sits at the right hand of God, and will come again in glory to live for ever and ever.

What’s the application? Make this crown in your mind, in your heart, and lay it down at his feet and worship. Won’t you join with me in prayer?

Would you take your Bibles and open them to Romans Chapter 8, we're going to be looking this morning at the first four verses of this magnificent chapter. We had an overview last week, but now we're going to dig in and look at a little more detail in Romans Chapter 8, verses 1-4. What happens to an individual soul when that person comes to faith in Jesus Christ? Well, a number of things happen, but I want to talk about some writing that occurs. Do you know that the moment you come to faith in Jesus Christ, your name is written in indelible ink the Lamb's Book of Life?  And you will suffer no condemnation for your sins, for your name has been written there in the Lamb's Book of Life. That is one writing that occurs when you come to faith in Christ, but there's another writing that occurs as well.

At the moment that you come to faith in Christ, God's law is written on your hearts with flaming letters, and the indwelling Spirit will compel you to walk in those ways the rest of your life. And that is the power of the text that we're going to look at today. God has given us a full and complete salvation from sin. When the angel appeared to Joseph, he said, "You will give him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins." Not merely from the penalty of sin, as we discussed last time, and we'll continue thinking about. "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." But from the power and the daily practice of sin. "In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us," it says, "Who do not live according to this sinful nature, but according to the Spirit." It's a full and complete salvation that we have, and that's what we're going to contemplate today. Now, we're looking at the idea or the concept of assurance of salvation.

Is it really possible that sinners can be fully assured on earth that they are going to Heaven when they die? Is that possible? I think it is, and I believe that's the whole reason that Romans 8 was given, that we might have a full assurance, all the way from no condemnation in Christ Jesus to no separation from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. A full assurance. But some people do not believe that assurance is possible, and some people do not believe that assurance is even beneficial to the Christian life. I was raised myself in the Catholic church. The Roman Catholic church denies the doctrine of assurance of salvation. In the Council of Trent, January 13, 1547, the sixth session on justification, they said this, "No one can know with a certainty of faith which cannot be subject to error, that he has obtained the grace of God." I grew up under that bondage, and praise God, He delivered me from it. That I might know that it is possible to know for sure and for certain that we have eternal life now.

"And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life." Assurance of salvation, I believe, therefore, is your birth right as a Christian. You should have a full and healthy assurance. Now, when I was in seminary up in the Boston area, around Christmas time, and especially during the winter, some friends of mine and I would go into the inner city, and we would minister to street people. But the mentor who has started this ministry and taught us about it said, that you never want to give money to street people because you're not really quite sure what their situation is going to be. They may be in bondage to some kind of substance, maybe to alcohol or to drugs. And if you give them money directly, they may use it for that. It may end up being the very thing that you intended for life might bring destruction through them. Instead, what you want to do is find out what their needs are and meet the needs directly. And so if they needed work boots, because they had a job opportunity, if they just needed food, if they needed a place to stay, meet the need directly.

Well, I think that the Catholic church and others believe that that's what happens with assurance. It's like giving a $20 bill to an alcoholic. If God gives us assurance, we're going to take it and squander it on sin. That is not the case at all, and I think this whole concept is going to come together in the four verses that we're looking at today.

Let's look again at Verse 1. It says, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

Now, the context here is that Paul has been unfolding the grace of God that is given us as a free gift, salvation through faith in Christ. And so, we have this magnificent sense of the power of the grace of God. If God's grace has taken hold of you, He's going to get you to Heaven. "And where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. So that just as sin reigned in death, so also, grace might reign like a king through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." So we have this solid sense of the grace of God, which opens us up to that very question. If we have this solid sense of assurance, aren't we just going to squander it in a life of sin? Doesn't matter how we live, and he's been dealing with that. Romans 6 and 7. And then he sums the whole thing up, and says, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." So the context is this whole unfolding argument of the powerful grace of God, justification through faith in Christ alone.

But the greater context is Judgment Day. Someday, every single one of us is going to face the Judgment Seat of God. We must face it, and we must understand that death comes without an announcement, and we must be ready. And Jesus Christ came into this world. He came from Heaven into that manger, not so that we might have kind of glowing Christmas celebrations every year, that's wonderful, but that we might have eternal life, that we might face judgment unafraid, that there might be no condemnation for those who have faith in Jesus Christ. And the greater context of Christmas and of our text here is the Judgment Day that we're going to face someday. Revelation 20, "And I saw a great white throne and Him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from His presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead great and small standing before the throne and books were open. Another book was open which is the Book of Life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone's name was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire."

And so therefore, the most important thing that could be said of you this morning is that your name is written in the Book of Life, through faith in Jesus Christ. And that's exactly what He's saying; in other words here, in verse 1, "There is therefore now, no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." How sweet is that, that even now, not there will be no condemnation. That is true as well. But now, today, we can experience and enjoy a full assurance that there's no condemnation for us in Christ Jesus. What does this mean? It means the full record of all of your sins has been thrown into the depths of the sea. Psalm 103:12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us." Micah 7:19, "You will again have compassion on us. You will tread our sins under foot and you will hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea." Have you ever imagined all of your sins, all of your transgressions bundled up in one place and hurled into the depths of the sea, to be seen no more?

That's what these words mean. No condemnation, and why? Because that babe in the manger grew up to be your atoning sacrifice for sin. And also, the New Covenant promise in Jeremiah 31:34, "For I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more." And so He's seeking to give us this assurance. There is no condemnation, but then it's so stupendous, it's so astounding that He's got to prove it to us. We need to be assured, don't we? We need to be told again and again. Can it really be true? It is really possible for us to have assurance?

And so He gives us one proof after another, and we're going to look at the first today in verses 2-4, deliverance through a union with Christ. The fact that there is no condemnation is true only of one category of people; those who are in Christ Jesus. Did you see that? There is therefore now, no condemnation for who? For everybody? No. For those who are in Christ Jesus. What does this mean to be in Christ Jesus? Well, it means to be spiritually one with Him; to be united with Him by faith; to have trusted in Him as your Lord and Savior; to be one with Jesus Christ. It is for those who are in Christ Jesus. Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms is given to you only in one place, in Christ Jesus. I want to put an image in front of you, and it's the image of Noah's Ark.

Whenever you think of that, you think of the little children's story, right? That tiny little boat with the huge giraffes sticking their heads out through. You know what I'm talking about. It wasn't tiny. It was massive, and God ordained that it be the vessel of salvation through eight souls that He had chosen. Now, let me ask you a question. How important was it to be in the Ark of Noah? Is that important? When the rain started coming down, did that matter whether you were in the Ark or not in the Ark? Did location make a difference at that point? Oh, yes, it made all the difference in the world. In the Ark, there is salvation from the wrath and the judgment of God. Outside the Ark, there is none. And so it meant everything whether you were in the Ark or not. And so also, it means spiritually for us, everything, whether we are in Christ Jesus or not. If you are in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation, but if you are not in Christ Jesus, you are under the wrath and the condemnation of God. Look at the very end of Romans 8, the chapter we're looking at this morning.

It says there so beautifully, "I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is, [where?] in Christ Jesus." Is this an accident? No. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and there's no separation for those that are in Christ Jesus. That's where the love is found, and there is no other place. Look back at Romans 6:23, back a page or two. It says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus." Do you see that? That's the only place to be. It's the only safe place. I don't care if it's Christmas time or the middle of the summer. In Christ Jesus is the place of safety, spiritually. It is the place of union. Now, this is what's being taught here, union with Jesus Christ. While you're in Romans 6, look at verses 4-5. It says, "We were therefore buried with Christ through baptism and a death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too, may walk in newness of life. If we are then united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection."

So, in Christ Jesus is the same as being united with Jesus spiritually. And what it means is that when Jesus died on the cross, you were one with Him spiritually. His death was your death, spiritually. And when He rose again from the dead, through the glory of the Father, by the power of the Spirit, His new life is your new life. And you're going to walk in newness of life if you are one with Christ. That's the basic message we're trying to get through in Romans 8:1-4. "His death is your death. His life is your life." Paul put it this way, "I have been crucified with Christ," that's union, "And I no longer live but Christ lives in me." So not only am I in Christ Jesus, but Christ Jesus is what? In me. There's a complete union spiritually between me and Jesus Christ. Now, why is this important? Well, we were born originally, spiritually, in Adam. Every single person on the face of the earth born in Adam.

What does that mean? It means you're under law. You're under condemnation. You're under judgment. That's where you were born, in Adam. At the moment of faith in Jesus Christ, you get transferred, you get rescued from that whole realm, that whole dominion, and brought into the new dominion of faith in Jesus Christ, of Christ, the dominion of Grace, the dominion of the law, of the spirit of life. You've been moved, you've been transferred from the law of sin and death to the law, the spirit of life. You were in Adam, and now you are in Christ. He puts it this way in 1 Corinthians 15:22, "As in Adam, all die. So in Christ, all are made alive." So, there's all kinds of categorizations that people do. If you're a poll-taker, you can categorize people by race, ethnic origin, by gender, by location, by educational status, by social status. Basically, God looks at the world and sees two categories of people: Those who are in Adam, and those who are in Christ Jesus. There's no third category. You're either in Adam, therefore, under law and under condemnation, or you're in Christ Jesus, therefore, free from law, free from condemnation, and under the leadership and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now, the reason that there's no condemnation is given in verse 2, we already alluded to it, but it says, "The law of the spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death." There is a realm that we have been moved into. It is called the law of the spirit of life. Basically, you are under the law of the spirit of life if you're a Christian. What does that mean? It means you're not just going to sin all you want. It means that you are living by the power of the Spirit under Jesus Christ. The law of the spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death. Look back again at Romans 6:18. It says, "You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness." That's a deliverance, isn't it? Set free from sin. And have become slaves to righteousness, Romans 6:22, "But now that you've been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life." Twice he tells us in that passage that we have been set free. We're no longer slaves to sin. We've been rescued. It says in Colossians Chapter 1, "From the dominion of darkness and brought over into the kingdom of the Son that He loves."

You've been delivered. Well, how was the deliverance made? It was done by the cross of Jesus Christ. Colossians 2:13 and 14, "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature," it says, "God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code with its regulations that was against us and that stood opposed to us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross." What does that mean? The law, the law of God stood opposed to you. Every line testified to your sinfulness and your condemnation. God took that written code and nailed it to the cross through the body of Jesus Christ. And you are under it no longer. Somebody say amen. Let's celebrate this. You're not under law anymore. You're not under condemnation. You're free forever from that. You're free from the condemning power of the law through the body of Jesus Christ.

Now, here, I want to make a key distinction. We are talking about justification here, not sanctification. We'll get to that in a minute. Why is that important? I will tell you why. I was raised as Roman Catholic. Justification is the declaration of God that I am not guilty for my sins. It's the admission into Heaven, the declaration from God that I'm righteous in standing before Him. Sanctification is the gradual working out of righteousness into my life so that my habit patterns and my life style become more and more conformed to Christ. Now, we understand from scripture that justification comes first, and then, sanctification follows as a result. That is exactly what Paul is teaching here. The Catholic church reverses them. The sanctification comes first, the holy life, the holy living. And then, as a result of that comes the justification on Judgment Day.

Does that make a difference? A world of difference, because that is bondage. Every moment you're never sure. Am I going to go to Heaven or hell? You never know for sure. Am I holy enough? Have I prayed enough? Have I gone to church enough? Have I given enough money? Is it enough? Let me ask you a question, is it ever enough? When do you know for sure that you've ever really made it? If you reverse sanctification and justification, you're under bondage. And that's what Martin Luther found. He said that it's never enough. I'm never free. My conscience is never free. I'll never know for sure. Now, the Christian doctrine is justification comes first, apart from works of the law, simply by faith in Jesus Christ and then comes the gradual working out of that through sanctification.

Now, why was the deliverance necessary? Look what is says in Verse 3, "For what the law was powerless to do, in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so, He condemned sin in sinful man." The reason that the deliverance by Jesus Christ was necessary is that the law was weak through your flesh. The law couldn't save you, it was powerless to get you to Heaven. All the law could ever do is stand over you and tell you right from wrong, tell you what you needed to do, but it couldn't make you do it. Hebrews Chapter 7 is even stronger, it says, "The former regulation [the law] is set aside because it was [listen to this] weak and useless, for the law made nothing perfect." The law can't make you perfect, and so the law is powerless to get you to Heaven, because you must be perfect to go to Heaven.

I think a great illustration of this is the that the law is like a shiny steel shovel, a beautiful shovel like the kind they use for breaking the ground in a new building or something like that, a beautiful shovel with a rotten handle. See what I'm talking about? There's nothing wrong with the law, there's something wrong with the way it attaches to us, our flesh. The law is perfect but we cannot live it out, and it's only ever going to condemn us. It was weakened by the flesh, that's the whole point of Romans Chapter 7, we want to do it but we can't. And so therefore, we cannot deliver ourselves, we must be delivered.

Well, how is the deliverance achieved? Look again at Verse 3, "What the law was powerless to do, in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending His Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering for us." That is the Christmas message. You know something, when we look at that little baby in the manger, we should worship and we should praise God as the angels did, and we should give glory to God that our salvation has come to earth and praise Him for it. But we should also be humbled by it. Why should we be humbled by the giving of God's own Son?

Because there was no other way to get you to Heaven. And so that is God's testimony to the human race's ability to get itself to Heaven by works of the law. Answer: You can't do it. "I have been crucified with Christ," Paul said, "And I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." Galatians 2:21: "I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could come by the law, Christ died for nothing." You understand? If righteousness could come by the law, if you could climb the ladder of law up to Heaven, why did Jesus need to come down from Heaven to earth? He didn't, but He did, because we can't climb the ladder of law to Heaven. And so this deliverance was achieved by God. God sent His Son, it says, "In the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering."

Now, this is interesting. It says that He sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, this is very troublesome to some people. In the ancient church, a man named Marcian represented a group of people that were called the Docetics, what they believed is that Jesus was not really a human being. He only seemed to be a human being because the world, the physical world, was considered evil by this group, material stuff was evil. Furthermore, God could not suffer at all. A God that suffers is no god at all, so they believed. And so for these two reasons, Jesus could not truly have been man. And they pointed to this first, it says, "Likeness" of sinful flesh.

What is Paul doing, though, by putting this word "likeness" in here? Likeness of sinful flesh, the word sinful is in there. Jesus Christ came and looked like a sinner, just like the rest of us, didn't He? But He wasn't, He was a human being, "in the likeness of sinful flesh." He came to earth. Paul's being very careful to establish the humanity of Christ, but to separate Him from what? The sin of the human race. And so God sent His Son. It says, "In the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering." Jesus Christ was truly human. If you had been able to stand with Him on the hill that overlooked Jerusalem, and heard Him and seen Him cry, you could have taken your hand and wiped the tears off His cheeks and your fingers would have felt wet. If you could have walked along the roads with Him into Samaria, where He was about to have an evangelistic encounter with a Samaritan woman, you would have seen Him sit down tired by a well. He wouldn't have just appeared to be tired, He would have been tired.

If you'd been in the boat with Him during the storm and seen Him asleep with His head, it says, "on a cushion." Why do you think He put His head on a cushion? Why do you put your head on a cushion? Because the bench is hard, and so you put a folded up cloak or something because the bench is hard. He was fully man. If you had been with Him out in the desert and watched Him not eat for 40 days, at the end of that time you'd have seen Him hunger. If you had stood at the foot of the cross and heard Him cry out, "I thirst," you would have seen that He needed something to drink. He was fully human, yet was without sin. That's the point. And if He had not been without sin, He could not have been our sin offering. He could not have died in your place, but He did.

He took on a human body and He died in your place to be a sin offering, and in so doing He condemned sin forever. That is the sin condemnation, not on you. You're going to go free through faith in Jesus Christ. Isn't that beautiful? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, that He took on a human body and the likeness of a human being, walked along those roads for 33 years and died in your place that you might have eternal life.

Well, what does this deliverance accomplish in us? This is the point. Look again at verses 3-4. It says, "And so He condemned sin in sinful man in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." This is sanctification. This is sanctification. Jesus did all that for a purpose. Why? Because He wanted God's law to be met in your life. And so there are two great aspects of the new covenant that He brings.

Please take a minute, put your finger in Romans 8 and go over to Hebrews 8:12. There it says, in the middle of an Old Testament quote from Jeremiah, it says, "I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." What is that? Is that not justification? God declaring that you are forgiven of all your sins. No condemnation through faith in Christ Jesus for those who are in Christ Jesus. Look back two verses to Verse 10. "This is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel after that time," declares the Lord. "I will put my laws in their minds and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people." Do you know if you're a Christian God did that the moment you came to faith in Christ, He took his law, all of it, and wrote it on your heart, and in your mind.

Shall we sin all the more that grace may increase? May it never be. If you're a Christian, you've got the law of God written in your heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. It's written inside you and it changes the way you live, doesn't it? We don't walk according to the flesh. We walk according to the Spirit, along the tracks of the law. "You have set me in the path of your commands, and therefore my heart is set free. I run in the path of your commands for you have set my heart free." Psalm 1:19.

Now, what law has He written in the heart? Well, look at it this way, when Jesus Christ, it says, came into the world, He said, "Here I am. Your law is written on my heart, I have come to do your will, O God." That's the Christ who's living inside you and He delights to obey his Heavenly Father moment by moment in the tracks of the law. And what law? Jesus summed up all the law in two great commandments. You remember what they are. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind. And secondly, love your neighbor as yourself. This is what you'll be working on the rest of your life. By the power of the Spirit He's going to say, "Love me, love me all the time. Love me with all you are and all you have. Love me now. Love me in the moment of temptation. Love me in the moment of sorrow. Love me in the moment of grief. Love Me." He's going to be saying that, and by the Spirit you will love Him.

When you come in here on Sunday morning to worship, you're not going to be worshipping in the flesh, not at all. You're going to be worshipping in the power of the Spirit. He's going to be saying, "Love me. Worship me. Sing these songs to me. Pray these prayers to me. Love me with all you have." The Holy Spirit has been put inside you, that you might fulfill the righteous requirements of the law, that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in you who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. And when you see your neighbor, He's going to say, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." And that goes from little things all the way to big things. Do to others what you'd have them do to you. Love them the way you'd want to be loved in that situation. That's what the Holy Spirit is going to be doing in you, if you're a child of God.

And so this is genuine Christianity, no condemnation, and yet a powerful drive toward holiness in your life. I just want to conclude this morning by asking, do you have that? Do you know for sure, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that your sins are forgiven through faith in Jesus Christ? And at the same time, do you feel a relentless drive toward holiness inside you? That's what the Holy Spirit does in you. It's not a license to sin, rather it's the testimony of the Spirit. You're a child of God, and also a pressing of the Spirit to keep running the race with endurance; a testimony that when you die, you're going to Heaven, along with a pressure, put that sin to death. And I believe that the two of them coming together are the surest testimony to us that we have come to faith in Christ; a full assurance of salvation and a constant yearning after holiness. Do you have that in your heart today?

Would you take your Bibles and open to Romans Chapter 8. This morning, we're going to deviate a little from our ordinary procedure. We're going to look over the entire chapter to get an overview of this majestic chapter, Scripture in Romans, Romans Chapter 8. And the question that we ask as we come to this chapter is, is it possible for a sinner on earth to have a full assurance that when they die they're going to go to heaven? Is it possible to know for sure that you're going to heaven? That is a weighty matter, is it not? Is it possible that you can have a full assurance that you can know today that when you die, you're going to be with God forever in heaven?

I think it is and I think it's more than just possible. I think it's a birthright of a Christian. It is the logical extension of our faith in Jesus Christ, that that very thing he came to do in our lives, he will complete right to its end. God does not speak a word from heaven to earth and have it come back empty. That is true of the written word, it is true of the spoken word through the prophets and it is all the more true of the incarnate Word Jesus Christ. He sent him to earth for a purpose and he will accomplish that purpose, salvation.

And so we come to Romans 8, for me personally, with great expectation, what a chapter, what an incredible chapter of Scripture and what a joy it's going to be to just look over this chapter today. I hope you look on it like a feast the way I do. Is it possible to know that we have eternal life? Thomas Brooks wrote a book called "Heaven on Earth." He was a Puritan pastor and he wrote a book called "Heaven on Earth" and it's about assurance of salvation. This is what he said, he's talking about salvation itself, he said, "To be in a state of true grace" (that is to be saved),  "to be in a state of true grace, is to be miserable no more. It is to be happy forever. A soul in this state is a soul near and dear to God. It is a soul much beloved and very highly valued by God. It is a soul housed in God. It is a soul safe in everlasting arms. It is a soul fully and imminently interested in all the highest and noblest privileges. The being in a state of grace makes a man's condition happy, safe and secure, but the seeing and knowing of himself to be in such a state, as that, is what renders his life sweet and comfortable."

What is he saying? It's possible to be saved and not have a full assurance, but when you have a full assurance of salvation, then is your life sweet and comfortable.  "The being in a state of grace will yield a man a heaven hereafter, but seeing and knowing of himself in this state will yield him both a heaven here and a heaven hereafter. It will render him therefore doubly blessed, blessed in heaven and blessed in his own conscience." Full assurance of salvation, therefore, is an enjoyment of heaven on earth. It is the birthrights of every child of God to enjoy this assurance of salvation. And that's the purpose of Romans Chapter 8.

Brooks wrote this: "It is the very drift and design of Scripture first to bring you to an acquaintance with Christ, then to an acceptance of Christ, and then to a full assurance in Chris."  Acquaintance, acceptance, assurance, that's the purpose of Scripture and so I think it's the purpose of Romans Chapter 8. For this reason Luther said, "I would not trade for all the riches and treasures of the world one page of Holy Writ." That's the value of the promises that we have in Jesus Christ. And many of them are right here in Romans Chapter 8. Now, a life without assurance is a bleak and difficult life, you can be saved and not have assurance.

But I want to ask you this, what good would it be for you to know that there is a promised land, if you did not have an inherited share in that promised land? What good would it be for you to know that there was a remedy to your disease, if you did not or were not able to partake in that remedy? What good would it be for you to know that there are mines of gold, mountains of pearls, a land of milk and honey, and to not know that you could share in those? What good would it be for you to smell the rich aroma coming from a lavish banquet if you're not permitted to sit at the feast and partake of its delicacies? No good at all and actually the knowledge of all those things would be more of a torment than anything. To know that they were out here and you could not partake, you had no share, they were not yours. It would really be a form of torment.

I think it's the assurance therefore that I have a place at the table. The confidence that I have a share in the inheritance, that I can partake in the remedy, that I have a piece of the promised land that makes my life sweet and secure and from that base I do all of my ministry, and that's the purpose I believe of Romans Chapter 8, to give you a full assurance of salvation. "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." no condemnation. We're going to plumb the depths of that today. In 1987, as I've mentioned before, I was a missionary in Pakistan, I had a summer there, and I had the privilege of going to one of the most beautiful parts of the world. It's right around where the war is being fought right now, northwest frontier province of Pakistan.

And we were supposed to fly in there and so we were on a small plane and we flew over the Karakoram mountains to get into Gilgit, this little town in the northwest frontier province. And as we're flying over the Karakorams, we flew over Mount Godwin-Austen also known as K2, the second highest mountain in the world. And what a majestic scene it was, this mountain just towers over all of the other surrounding mountains. It's over 28,000 feet high. And to see it from the air, to see all of its majesty, to see how it towers, to see the austerity of it. The fact that it's so far from everything, you have to climb three or four mountains just to get to that mountain, and it's majestic.

And that's about what we're going to do with Romans 8, today, we're going to fly over it and we are just going to look at it and see just the promises and the majesty of this chapter.

I believe what Paul is doing here is he's making a basic proposition right from the start, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." And then he gives a series, manifold proofs, of why this is true, and how you can know for sure that this is true of you personally. I think really in the flow, in context, he's reverting to his argument of Romans Chapter 5. Some have said that Romans 8 is the greatest chapter in the whole Bible. I think the greatest chapter in the whole Bible is whatever one I'm reading at that present time, but I think Romans 8 is a great chapter. I don't know that it is the greatest chapter of the Bible, but it is certainly maybe one of the most assuring and one of the most comforting.

And I actually don't think that there's anything doctrinally that's brought up in Romans 8 that the foundation wasn't already laid in Romans 5. It really is just an extension of the things that we have already covered in Romans Chapter 5. There's a relationship therefore between Romans 5 and Romans 8, but what does that make Romans 6 and 7? I think it's a little bit of a parenthesis in which in Romans 6 and 7, he's dealing with an issue he must deal with. He has been talking about salvation by grace through faith alone. Grace, the certainty of grace, the fact that where sin abounds, grace is going to abound all the more. Gives you total assurance, a total sense of security.

But it (grace) brings up a question, doesn't it? If salvation is all by grace, if it's a work of God, and if nothing that we contribute to our salvation other than the sin that makes it necessary, then can't we just sin to beat the band? Aren't we totally secure? Can't we live whatever way we want? He's dealing with the relationship between sin and the justified Christian in Romans 6 and 7. But having completed that, I think that therefore connects back to that theme that he was dealing with earlier. We're back now to understanding salvation or justification by grace alone, and the certainty of our salvation. He goes back to Romans 5:1. Flip back with me if you will, look at Romans 5:1, and there's a connection between Romans 5:1 and Romans 8:1.

Romans 5:1 says, "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and access by faith into this grace in which we now stand." You see the word "now" there, isn't that strong? In Romans 5:2, there's this grace in which we now stand, we're standing in grace. It's the thing that Brooks was talking about, a state of grace, it's like a nation of grace that we live in now. It's a kingdom of grace, the place where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more, a place of security, a place where we're at peace with God. We're justified. We've been declared not guilty. And I think he's just saying the same thing in slightly different words. There is in Romans 8:1, "Therefore," because of justification by faith, "therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

So that's the context in Romans, but there is a greater context. To go back to Romans 8, there is a greater context overall, and that's the entire biblical issue of the relationship between sinful man and a holy God. The real context of Romans 8:1 is Judgment Day, is it not? Condemnation is a strong word, and it brings up the image of Judgment Day. You remember when we were studying in the Book of Daniel, Daniel Chapter 7, Daniel said this, he saw a vision, "As I looked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow, the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire and its wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him. Ten thousands times the thousand stood before him. The court was seated and books were opened."

What an awesome picture. The court was seated and the books were opened. And what are in those books? The record of everything that we've ever said, everything we've ever done, everything we ever thought. Jesus said, "I tell you, that men will have to give an account on Judgment Day for every careless word they have spoken." Judgment Day is the backdrop, the context here. Paul had already alluded to this in Romans 2:5 and 6, it says, "There because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God will give to each person according to what he has done." What is this day of wrath in Romans 2? It is Judgment Day. And what is this recompense, this paying back for every careless word, everything we've ever done? It is judgment, it is condemnation, it is the pouring out of wrath on sinners that deserve it.

But there's a deeper context here, isn't there? And that is the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, the finished work of Jesus Christ in our place. In Romans Chapter 3, Paul talks about that. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, a propitiation through faith in his blood." God presented him, that's a Christmas verse, isn't it? God sent him into the world to be our atoning sacrifice, he presented him on the cross in our place. He stood in our place at the cross and took the wrath that we deserve, the condemnation. He took the judgment that we deserve. He drank it down like a cup full of bitter wine until it was gone, to the dregs he drank that cup. And he extinguished the wrath of God on our behalf.

And so therefore, in Romans 4, if we simply have faith, the faith of Abraham, the faith to just look at a promise and believe it, that anyone that believes in Jesus Christ will have eternal life. Just a simple promise from God. And then in the heart of God's people, springs faith, to believe the promise they respond, they repent, they come and simply believe and trust. And at that moment, they're declared not guilty. And as a result of that, there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. That is the context of this statement. And as a result of that, we have total and complete forgiveness. How sweet is that? Now, what is condemnation? Well, we have to understand there's both a present condemnation and there is a yet future condemnation.

According to Romans Chapter 5, We are born into a present condemnation in Adam. We're born in Adam, aren't we? Naturally. We are the natural man, the natural woman, and that person, Adam sinned for the whole human race. And so we're born into condemnation.

 And unless we come into the kingdom of Christ through faith, we will continue in that condemnation the rest of our lives. John put it this way in John 3:18, "Whoever believes in Christ is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of God's only begotten son." Already condemned. Condemn now, condemn today. I'm speaking now to my brothers and sisters in Christ. Do you realize that you're walking around people all the time that are under the condemnation of God, because they've not come to faith in Christ. What is your responsibility to them? Have you spoken the Gospel message? It's the only message of salvation. There is no other salvation. There's no other hope. But the people that we're living with they look so healthy, they're busy about their lives, but they're walking under condemnation if they've not come to faith in Christ. They're dead even while they live. Ephesians 2, calls them "dead in their transgressions and sins"  and therefore they're under the wrath of God.

Romans 1:18, "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness." The wrath of God's already on them. That's condemnation now. What is condemnation in the future? Well, Revelation 20:15 talks about the lake of fire, which is the second death. It says, "If anyone's name is not found written in the Book of Life, is thrown into the lake of fire." Revelation 14:10 and following, "He too," it says, "Will drink the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the lamb and the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever, there is no rest day or night from the wrath of God."

How sweet therefore is this promise, in Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." We were liable and subject to this. We deserved it. And if you don't think so, I've great fear for your soul, because the work of the Holy Spirit and conviction hasn't happened to you yet. But if you know I deserve this and Jesus took my place, and I'm free, free forever from condemnation. That's what no condemnation means. I'm not going to suffer hell. I'm not going to be condemned on Judgment Day and not because of any works I've done, but because of the work that Jesus did in my place. A future, no condemnation. And presently, now we walk in it, don't we?

The record of our sins has been thrown into the depths of the sea. Micah 7 talks about that, "who is a God like you who pardons sin and forgives the transgressions of the remnant of his inheritance. You do not stay angry forever, but delight to show mercy. Our God is a God who delights in showing mercy." It brings him great pleasure to give us the kingdom. It brings him great joy to declare to us today there is therefore now no condemnation for you, if you're in Christ Jesus. So that brings him joy. It brought Jesus joy, didn't it? For the joy set before him to bring this message, he endured the cross despising its shame. And so now he stands and proclaims to you with joy. There's no condemnation for you, because of what I did in your place. No condemnation, no condemnation now, and no condemnation in the future.

Look at verses 33-34 of Romans 8, "Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns?" We'll get to that later. February, I'm guessing. "Who is he that condemns?" I would almost want to say, "Who cares who condemns when God justifies?" Does it really matter? If Satan's there accusing you on Judgment Day. Does it matter if your conscience would stand and accuse you of wrongdoing? God has justified you through the blood of his son. Who cares who's left to condemn?

And so we're free, we're free from condemnation. We're free from the wrath of God. We're free from it all. We're free now, and we'll be free forever. And why? Because we believe the Gospel, that's all. We simply heard a message and believed it. Jesus said this, John 5:24, "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life." You've moved from death to life. That was a great moving day, the day that you came to faith in Christ. You moved it all over into eternal life. That's the weight of the word now, there is now no condemnation. There's been a great change in you, a change in your state from death to life through faith in Jesus Christ. Does this not get you excited? What a joy! I feel like I just want to shout, because I feel myself, I feel the weight of my sins.

And if I have to give an account on Judgment Day for every careless word, who can stand under that? But Jesus stood and took my punishment for me and there's no condemnation for me. Praise God.

But he doesn't stop there. He wants you to understand it, doesn't he? And so he gives you the rest of Romans 8. He gives you the whole chapter to prove it to you. He unfolds proof after proof after proof of why you can be fully assured as a Christian. He's laboring in your soul. He wants you to be assured. And so he brings out these proofs.

First proof in Verse 2-4 is union with Christ. He's speaking of those who are in Christ Jesus. Let's be very clear now. There is condemnation for a world of people who are not in Christ Jesus. We know that. We're not universalists. We're not saying that everybody gets saved. There will be some people in the lake of fire. But not those who are in Christ Jesus. That's for whom we can say this to be true. There's no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus. And so therefore, we're talking about union in Jesus Christ, right? Those that are one with Christ spiritually.

Now, the union with Christ, we've already talked about in Romans 5. Remember, we were one spiritually with Adam, and now we are one spiritually with Christ. He is our head now. He is our representative. That person we were in Adam is dead forever. We'll never go back there again. And we're not under Adam's condemnation. But then, it's taught more explicitly in Romans 6:4, look at that, turn back just one page, probably in Romans 6:4. "We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life." So, there's this union. We died with Christ and now we're alive with Christ. Dead with Christ spiritually at the cross, alive when he rose from the dead. That's us. Union with Christ. And so he's talking about that.

Now, he dealt with it in Romans 7:6, he says, "We serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code." He picks it up here in Verse 2, Romans 8:2, it says, "Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death." You're free from condemnation because you have a new principle in you. The law of the spirit of life. We'll talk about that God willing next time. And so therefore, union with Christ gives you a certain guarantee and assurance. Nobody who is one with Christ will be condemned. It's impossible. The payment cannot be paid twice. He already paid once and it's sufficient.

The second proof in verses 5-13, is the Holy Spirit's sanctifying work in you, if you're a Christian. Romans 8:5-13. The Holy Spirit comes into the moment you come to faith in Christ. He gives you a new mind, not the mind of the flesh or the sinful nature, but the mind of the spirit. And so your mind is changed so also your heart. You'll love what you used to hate. And you hate what you used to love. And thus begins the war against sin. And the Holy Spirit is the general in that war and he's leading you to put sin to death. And step by step by step, you will slay sin. You will put it to death. The Holy Spirit moving powerfully in you. Put it to death, I hate it. You hate it, too. You put it to death.

And so the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit is what it means to be a son or a daughter of God. We keep in step with the Spirit. We follow the leadership of the spirit. Look at verse 9, Romans 8:9, "You, however," in contrast to the people we just talked about, "You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature, [the flesh], but by the Spirit, if the Spirit lives in you." In other words, if you have the indwelling Holy Spirit in you, he's not going to take a backseat to the flesh. He's not a loser, let's put it that way. He's a winner. He's more than a conqueror. And so if the Spirit's in you, he is going to win in the battle with sin.

"You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature." Who's in charge of you now? The Holy Spirit, if the Spirit lives in you. Look what he says in Verse 13, "If, by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live." The sanctifying work of the Spirit in you is a great assurance. You see yourself putting sin to death, resisting temptation, growing in holiness. And this is a great assurance, this is the very work that the Holy Spirit was given to do.

The third proof is in verses 14-17. The Holy Spirit's internal testimony to you that you are a child of God. Have you ever felt that? The Spirit testifying with your spirit? That you are a child of God? The spirit within you crying out, "Abba Father." "Daddy?" There's a sense in which God is your father. And he never was before. That sense was never there before you came to Christ. But now, you have an internal beacon, like a homing beacon, pulling you back to God, crying out, "Abba Father." Speaking to you of your adoption, your changed state. And adoption, what a sweet word. How could a child of God be condemned? Is it even possible? We are children of God, we're adopted into his own family. There's one first born son, Jesus Christ, and then he will be first born among many brethren.

And so we are children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. How sweet is that? And so "The Spirit himself testifies with our spirits that we are children of God." Isn't that sweet? Romans 8:16. He talks to you. He testifies to you. He speaks to you within. And he says, "You're a child of God and you always will be. I will never leave you and I will never forsake you."

Proof number four, verses 18-25. Is the plane moving too fast over the mountain? I can't wait to go through each one of these. They're so precious, every one of them. But this is the jet tour. Actually, it was a propeller driven plane I took, so I had a little bit of a chance to look at the mountain as we flew over. But we don't get the depths of it. You have to meditate on each one of these sections. Proof number four, the fact that we are groaning under burdens and yet hopeful of final victory. Groaning under a weight. We feel the groaning. Do you feel it? Some of you groaning more than others. I'm groaning now, more than I used to. Groaning, why? Because this physical world is in bondage to decay. And we have suffering in our life. We have struggles, outwardly we're wasting away. And yet, inwardly, we're renewed day by day, and that gives us assurance, doesn't it?

The fact is, our hope is stronger and surer now than when we first began. We have a growing hope, a sense of confidence that God is working in us, and that someday we will lose these mortal bodies, these bodies of decay, and we will have a resurrection body that will be so glorious. There's a sense of hope, a building hope, and that hope is a strong form of assurance. Look at verses 23-25. It says, "Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit…" What a great phrase that is. Firstfruits implies a later harvest of the Spirit. We'll talk about that in due time. "Firstfruits of the Spirit, we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."

And so, there's this sense of building hope and confidence. Perseverance. Endurance. And that gives us a greater assurance as well. We already dealt with this in Romans 5:5. It says, "Hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." Context is of suffering. It's of trial. And yet, despite the trials, persecution, outward persecution, temptations within, the decay of our bodies, weakening, despite all of that, we have this hope that no one can steal from us. And it's a sure and certain hope.

Proof number five, the Holy Spirit's intercession with us and for us. The Holy Spirit prays with us, and he prays for us. Verse 26-27, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will." The spirit's powerful help extends to our prayer life. He cries out, "Abba, Father," within us. We cry with him, but he motivates us to pray. He moves us to pray.

It wasn't long after I became a Christian, just a few weeks, I think, I was on the road, and I was in a darkened hotel room, and suddenly I woke. I don't know what time it was, but I felt a presence in my life that I had never felt before. And I had already come to Christ, but there was something there. And that presence moved me to get out of bed and get down on my knees and just pray. I literally didn't know where I was. I remembered once I was up and a little more alert that I was in a hotel room. But I knew whose I was. That I belonged to Jesus Christ. And the Spirit of Christ within me got me out of bed and down on my knees, praying. The spirit was helping me in my weakness. What weakness? I don't want to pray at that hour. There's nothing in me that wants to do that, but then the Spirit moves and we pray. The Spirit commands and we respond. And he helps us in our weakness. And not only that, but he tells us here in this verse that he's praying for us, on our behalf. He's interceding for us constantly with groans that words cannot express. The Spirit's prayer life in us and for us is a great form of assurance.

And then finally, proof number six. God's character invested in his eternal plan to get each and every one of you saved. All of you who are children of God, he's invested his name. He's linked his very promises to the fact that not one of you will be lost if you're a child of God. God has an eternal plan. Our God is a planning God. He's a meticulous planner, we saw that in the Book of Daniel. And that plan extends to salvation. As a matter of fact, it's centered on salvation. Our God is a planning God.

Look at verses 28-30. "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." That's a key phrase, his purpose. Well, what is his purpose? His purpose is salvation. That's his purpose. Those who have been called according to his purpose.

"For those whom God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified." Now, I hope you were reading that in your Bible open on your lap. I want you to see that word, predestined. It's not something your pastor made up. It's something I delight in and rejoice in, but it's printed on the page. If your grandmother gave you a Bible, the day that you were baptized, it's in there. Open it up and look. Romans 8:28-30. And it's sweet. Why is it sweet? Well, think of it this way. When you get on a train, the train has a destination, doesn't it? A destination.

Now, you'll pass many stops along the way, but you're not at your destination until the train stops and you're urged to get off. What is the destination that God has worked out ahead of time for the children of God? Well, look at it. "Those he predestined, he also called." These are stops along the way. "Those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified." That's the terminal stop. That's where you're going to get off. You're going to get off in glory. And I would take this phrase, "those he" and put instead the words "everyone he". Let's just try that. Even though it's not biblical, but try it out.

It says, "Those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son," that's glory by the way, "that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified." Isn't this sweet? Jesus put it this way. John 6:38 and 39, "For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." We'll talk more about that in due time.

But God has staked his reputation through this. The Son has staked his reputation to being sure that none gets lost. And that gives us great assurance. Look at verse 31 and follow. "What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?" That's the message of Christmas too, isn't it? God for us. He's on our side. He's put the whole weight of his person and all of his power, and his regal authority and majesty on the side of getting you saved. Who cares who's fighting against that? "If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?" Oh, I hate to go over everyone of these phrases. We'll get to them in due time. They're so sweet.

"If God is for us, who can be against us? Who will bring any charge against us? Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus who died more than that was raised to life, is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us." Do you have a sense of just a lavish, like an extra double helping? It's Jesus lavishing assurance on us. One verse after another. The Holy Spirit interceding for us. Jesus interceding for us. God himself planned that we have eternal life. He's not adversarial to the intercessions of the Son and the Spirit. He's eager to hear them.

You're going to heaven if you're a child of God. That's the point. We get nothing else, that's the point. If you're a child of God, you're going to heaven. And nothing can stop it. Look at how he finishes here in verses 35-39. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: 'For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Do you get Paul's point? Is he not searching for language at the end to say, you should be assured of your salvation. I'm putting it mildly. We go from no condemnation to no separation without a break. If you're a child of God, you cannot be separated from the love of God. And why do we need all that? Because you know something, you are considered sheep to be slaughtered. He's going to put you out in the middle of wolves. He's going to surround you by world that hates your faith. And he's going to try to tear you down and attack you, day after day, after day. He's going to put you out there and then he's going to display his power in you. In your weakness, in your frailty, in your death, the way he did in the Son. The way he did in so many martyrs, the way he did in the apostle Paul and Peter, and so many others. He's going to display his glory in you as you die.

And out of that will come a harvest of more people who love Jesus Christ. And the cycle continues until it's all finished. How glorious is it? So in the context of conflict and suffering and trouble, you are more than a conqueror and nothing can stop you.

Well, what applications can we take from this? If you're a Christian, first, just rejoice in God's forgiveness. You're forgiven. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from every sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And be assured by God's sovereignty. He works everything for your good. He's a ruler over all things. And the weight of his scepter is thrown toward your salvation. His sovereignty is moving in your salvation. Be humbled by God's grace.

What do you contribute to this? Those whom he foreknew, he predestined. Those whom he predestined, he called. Those whom he called, he justified. Those whom he justified, he glorified. You get the point there too? He is the actor. He is the mover. Salvation is from the Lord, be humbled by that. Be humbled by it. Be assured, be comforted but also be humbled.

And fourthly, be realistic about the world you live in. This is not a gravy train up to heaven. It's not some party, one day after other. We are considered sheep to be slaughtered and we have a job to do. We have a mission. Lottie Moon and sacrificial giving is only part of it. We're supposed to be missionaries day after day for Jesus. That's point seven but let's get to it. Zealous to proclaim God's salvation. We have a job to do. We have to proclaim the gospel. Now when you go out to you neighbors, you're standing at the... I was at a checkout line the other day and I started talking about the gospel, and other people started to come and I started to feel that tendency toward that shame reaction. You know what I'm talking about? Are we willing to pay the price in a situation like that? Go on and speak the gospel.

Be zealous to proclaim this gospel message because it's the only one there is in the world for salvation. Be hungry for Christ's holiness, follow the leadership of the Spirit today. When he tells you to put sin to death, do it. Be hungry for his holiness. Be reliant in God's Spirit. Realize when you do put sin to death, you can't boast, the Spirit did it in you. He's powerful and strong.

For the unbeliever, if you've never come to faith in Christ, do you see what you're missing? I want you to be hungry for it. I want you to feel an attraction, a pull. I want you to hear his voice. I want you to hear the Spirit calling you, "Come." "The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’" And let him who hears come, come to Christ today. Come to faith in Christ. Christ's blood is sufficient to cover all your sins. His invitation is wide enough for people from every tribe and language, and people and nation. His power is sufficient enough to transform you from a lost sinner, to a righteous child of God. And his Holy Spirit is ready to come in your life right now, and today. Let today be the day of salvation for you.

When I was a child, my parents paid for me to have art lessons. I don't know if you remember taking art lessons, but I know this, that I learned how to paint with watercolors and oils. I learned how to make ceramics, and I'd fashion things and I'd put them in the kiln and out they'd come. Or I would paint something. And I noticed a phenomenon early on, and that was that I was not a talented artist, and I'm still not a talented artist. And so, therefore, the vision that I would have, something that I would see, would be far greater than that which I could actually perform with my hands. Some of you know what I'm talking about. Have you ever tried to draw a portrait of your spouse, and once they see it, they ask you never to do it again? Because what it is you have drawn does not line up with the reality, doesn't line up with what the eye has seen. Or perhaps you've seen a beautiful valley filled with foliage and you want to draw it and color it, or paint it, and when you get done, the painting that you've made does not even come close to lining up with the vision and the reality that you have.

And so it is with the Christian life. It's the very thing that Paul talks about here in Romans 7. In his inner being, he delights in God's law, but he just can't live it out. He has a better vision of the Christian life than what he actually performs. And I think all of us who are mature Christians who know and have been walking with the Lord for a long time, we start to realize that there is this principle within us, this gravitational pull that pulls us away from what is pure and best and right. And yet, in our mind, we have a vision of the Christian life, don't we? We can imagine what it could be like if only we could be free of sin. And so, therefore, we always, day by day, live less than we should, less than the internal vision that we have of the pure and right and true Christian life. And it's frustrating, isn't it? And it's the very phenomenon that Paul is dealing with here, for he's wrestling with the force, the power, the destructive power of sin.

He begins at Verse 13. Now he's talking about the law, and he's talking about the effect of law in him. And he asked the question, "Did that which is good produce death in me? By no means," it says, "but in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment, sin might become utterly sinful." In other words, the good, the righteous, the holy law of God actually had a deadly effect on Paul. He did not find it producing life and health in him, but rather death. And so, we see the destructive power of sin, and sin is a destructive force. It is the destructive force in this world. It's destructive to individual people. Each one of you knows what I'm talking about. You can see the devastation, the destruction of sin in your own spiritual life. You can see the effects of it. You can see it in your bodies, you can see it in your spirits, you can see it yourself personally. And so, sin is destructive to people. It's also destructive to families. Families are made up of individual sinners. And so, to some degree, a family is like a little garden of Eden and in comes sin, and poisons and ruins relationships.

How many days have been spoiled in your own family through selfishness, through arguing, through conflicts? Sin is destructive to families. Sin is destructive to churches, because churches are made up of sinners. Non-Christians talk about how the church is full of hypocrites. Well, it's true, isn't it? Isn't it true? What is a hypocrite but somebody who has a standard, sees a standard up there, espouses the standard, loves the standard, but doesn't live up to it? Do you know anyone who is not a hypocrite by that definition? You ask a non-Christian, "Give me 10 principles to live by and then check yourself over a course of a year and see if you live by your own standards and your own principles." But the fact of the matter is that church is filled with sinners, and therefore churches feel the destructive force and power of sin.

Sin is also destructive to whole nations. All you have to do is read in the history of Israel and see what sin did to the nation of Israel. The beauty and the purity of their worship destroyed by sin. The excitement of being led into the promised land and all of their military victories under the hand of the Lord, all of it dissipated by sin and the period of judges when every man did what was right in his own eyes. Sin is destructive to whole nations. Sin is destructive to our nation as well. And sin is ultimately destructive to all of creation. All of creation (we're going to learn in Romans 8) groans under the weight of sin. "Subjected to futility," it says, and ultimately, God is going to take this sin-infested creation and roll it up like a garment, and throw it away. Gladly, that's not the end of it, for there will be a new creation. There will be a new heavens, and a new earth in its place, but sin is destructive to creation.

Now, the question is, if sin is so utterly wicked, if sin is so evil, and if it's true what we already learned in Romans 6, that we are free from the authority and power of sin, that we never need to sin again, that we have our emancipation proclamation, then the question that remains is, why do we sin? Why do we do the very thing that we resolved never to do again? And I believe that's the issue that Paul was raising and dealing with here, in the second half of Romans 7.

Now, we've seen that Romans 7, second half, verse 13-25, is perhaps one of the most difficult passages in the Bible to interpret properly, and we've seen why that is. Why is this passage so difficult? The passage is difficult because on the one hand it either seems to say too much (positively) about non-Christians, but on the other hand presents too negative a picture about Christians. We might assume that Paul is speaking about himself when he says, "I am unspiritual." When he's speaking about, "in me, there lives this sin," etcetera. So, he's speaking about himself. The word "I" or "me," or my appears 47 times in this section. So Paul is talking about himself. But I think we all know that he is using himself as a representation of the human race. Well, is he speaking as a non-Christian, or is he speaking as a Christian? Can a Christian really say in 7:14, "I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin."

And yet also say, look back at Romans 6:14. In Romans 6:14, it says, "Sin shall not be your master for you're not under law, but under grace." Is it possible for those two to go together? And so therefore, we might think that Paul is speaking as a non-Christian. Before he came to faith in Christ, he felt like a slave to sin, but now the chains have been broken. The problem with that though is he says here in 7:22, "In my inner being, I delight in God's law." Well, that's something a non-Christian simply cannot do. A non-Christian does not have an internal yearning in the light after God's law. It says in Romans 8:7, "The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so."

So it's impossible for the unregenerate, the unsaved mind to delight in and submit to and follow the law of God. And so we have a problem. Paul, are you speaking as a Christian? Or are you speaking as a non-Christian? Therefore, one commentator said, "We may never know." It's so difficult to resolve this thing that it's possible to be entirely wrong about Romans 7 and yet entirely right about the Christian life. And what do we mean by that? Well, we know this, that we are going to struggle with sin and we read it off the pages of the text and we read it off the pages of our lives. Is it not true? And so we feel the wrestling, the struggling with sin.

And so either way we know that we're going to struggle with sin. We also have come to understand that we are free forever from the authority, the bonding power of sin. That we are dead to sin and we should "recon" or "count" ourselves dead to sin. That sin has no authority over us whatsoever. We see therefore in this passage the limitations of the law versus the power of the Spirit. What do we mean by that? Well, there's a limit to what the law can do.

What the Law Can and Cannot Do

What is the law? It's a written word from God. It's the 10 Commandments, or the two great commandments, or the 679 other commandments. It's a bunch of rules and regulations coming down from God.

Now what can the law do? The law can show you the right way, but the law can't make you live the right way. The law can point out what righteousness is, but it cannot make you righteous. And therefore the law has a second work and that is to condemn you when you do not live up to its standard. The law, therefore, cannot justify. You can't get saved by obeying a law, by being a good person, by doing good works. By the works of the law shall no flesh, no man, be justified, declared righteous before God. The law cannot justify but neither can the law sanctify. Once you've come to faith in Jesus Christ, the law is not going to take you one step in your Christian life. Having begun by the Spirit, you're not going to be completed by the flesh. The law cannot sanctify you either. The law has limitations. Human effort to keep the law cannot advance you one step in your Christian life. You must have a savior, and you must have a complete salvation, and you must have the indwelling Holy Spirit, or you will not make any progress in the Christian life.

So the Holy Spirit is the key to the Christian life. Do you notice in reference to the Holy Spirit that he's not mentioned at all in Romans 7:13-25? Is that not significant? As Paul is wrestling, whether as a Christian or non-Christian, the Holy Spirit's not to be found. And we're going to find out more when we get in to Romans 8 about the incredible, I would say invincible, invincible power of the Holy Spirit over sin. Paul says in Galatians 5:16, "So I say, live or walk daily by the power of the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature."

Galatians 5:18, "If you are led by the Spirit, you're not in the law." Galatians 5:25, "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." We're going to find all about that. The Spirit can make progress within you in the Christian life, but not the law. There's limitations to what the law can do. And so therefore we have a sense of what we already have as Christians and what we don't have yet. The already and the not yet. We have some things now and we're going to get some things later. We have some things now. We have forgiveness of sins, we're justified through faith in Jesus Christ. We have no condemnation for our sins. Is that not sweet?

I can't wait to talk about that next. Romans 8:1, "There is therefore, now, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Isn’t that wonderful. No condemnation. We also have the indwelling Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit leads us in a powerful new spirit filled fruitful life. A life of victory over sin, but those victories are not perfect and they're not complete. The Holy Spirit is a downpayment to deposit guaranteeing our future inheritance. Ephesians 1:13, "Having believed, you're marked in him with the seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance."

So you have in yourself a kind of a downpayment or deposit, a partial experience with God. Not a face-to-face full fellowship with him. You still struggle with sin. And so we see the struggle with sin depicted here. And when will we be free from it? Well, when we're free forever from the body of sin. We've got this body, don't we? This body that pulls us down. When we get the full amount, it says in Romans 8:23, "Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."

The Old Self is Crucified, Yet the Body of Death Remains

Don't you groan for that? Can't you wait? Oh, isn't that gonna be sweet to be free forever from temptation, free from the corruption of this physical body that surrounds us all the time. And we have the firstfruits of the Spirit. It says in Romans 8:23. What does that imply? Full harvest later. We're not at the full amount. And so we wrestle and struggle with sin. And so we've got this thing called the body of death. Look at Verses 21-24, in our text today, 7:21-24, "So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this [look what it says], body of death?"

Body of death? That is very significant, isn't it? Look back at Romans 6:6 as we did last week but look at it. It's right there on the page. Romans 6:6 teaches the same thing. Romans 6:6 says, "We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin." Okay, this is very significant. We've got to rightly divide these things. The old self or the old man is who were positionally in Adam when were born. It's original sin. We're born in Adam, physically and spiritually. And God sees us in Adam, that's Romans 5. We went through all that. The moment we have faith in Christ, that old person died forever and will never come to life again. God will never see you in Adam again. He sees you in Christ. And how sweet is that? That's the basis of our freedom from condemnation.

The old self was crucified with Christ. He's dead. You don't have to crucify him. You shouldn't crucify. You don't need to. He's dead if you're a Christian. But you've got this body of sin, still, don't you? The old self is crucified so that the body of sin might be, Romans 6:6, "Rendered null and void gradually." You see that's the power of the Greek word there. Little by little rendered powerless. That's sanctification. Do you ever wonder why God did it that way. Wouldn't you love to jump from justification to glorification without the sanctification in the middle? Why do we have to struggle with sin? But who are we to question God. But isn't it beautiful in Romans, Chapter 8, he does precisely that. Those whom he justified, he also glorified. He goes right straight to it. It's a guarantee that if you're justified, you're going to be glorified. But, meanwhile, we've got this thing called sanctification and how bitter is it and how much of a struggle.

And I think God's purpose, just aside, I think God's purpose is that we might truly realize how much we needed a savior. That we might day by day, by day, feel the sting of sin because we didn't feel it when we're non-Christians, did we? We just moved in like a fish in water. We never really felt it. And then to go right on into glorification, we would not really understand fully what Jesus did for us if we didn't have to fight this battle, day after day, after day. And so it is God's will that we go through these things. It is God's will that he tells us what is true about us. We never need to sin again and then be there when we do, and confess our sins to him and feel again the forgiveness and confess it again and again, and how bitter is it and yet how sweet. And that's where we are right now in our Christian lives.

So we've got this body of death or this body of sin. Also, Romans 6:12, it says "Do not let sin reign in your mortal body." That's the physical body you have, that's the battlefields that you're fighting over. Don't let sin reign there, it says, but rather give yourselves to God and so this consistent teaching from Paul is that you got a new creation person inside yourself. If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. And that new creation identity, that new person is going to survive Judgment Day and on into the new heaven and new earth. Nothing can defeat it. It's undefeatable. But you have that treasure in a jar of clay, don't you? And that jar of clay is your body of sin or body of death and it drags you down all the time. And that's what Paul's teaching.

Now, we've seen in Romans 14-25, these cycles of lamentation, and he's going through basically the same thing, three times. And then there's a fourth lamentation that's a little different than the other three. And we've seen the repeated pattern of condition, conflict, and cause. Paul talks about his condition. He talks about the conflict that the condition produces. And he gets to the root cause of it, namely sin. What is his condition? He's mixed. He's partly spiritual and partly fleshly. He's not 100% anything. And, as a result, there's a conflict, there's a constant struggle between sin and righteousness, between what we should do and what we really do. And the cause of it is this indwelling sin. And we've seen that in the first cycle, in 14-17, he says, "We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin." I'm a divided person. I argue with myself back and forth.

Now I like military history and I was reading yesterday about a commander in the Civil War, Braxton Bragg. He was the commander of the Army of Tennessee. And at one point he was stationed at a post and in charge of several companies and he himself was commanding one of the companies but at the same time out of necessity, he was acting as the post quarter master and also the commissary. So he was wearing a number of hats all at once. He was first lieutenant at the time but his captain was detached on other duty it says. And as a commander of the company, he made a requisition upon the quarter master, who was himself.

So he made a requisition of the quarter master. The quarter master declined to fill the requisition and wrote out on it what his reasons for declining it. As company commander he looked at that and he wrote back that it is right for me to have these materials and I must have them. And as quarter master, he made one more case that he needed to retain these things for the good of the whole company. And then finally as the corps commander, he made the final command that he release these materials. Hearing about this, somebody else... His superior office said, "My goodness, Mr. Bragg, you've quarreled with every officer in the army and now you're quarreling with yourself." Have you ever felt that inside yourself? It's almost like we've got seats of Congress and half of them go to one party and half of them go to the other. Who's got the upper hand and it's a struggle, isn't it?

The Condition

And we quarrel with ourselves, and my guess is that this man quarreled with the rest of the army and because he also quarreled with himself, and there was an internal struggle. Our problems with others really stem with a problem that we have internally with ourselves. And so we've got this condition and it leads to a conflict. Verse 15-16, he says, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good."

Why do you do what you hate? What would you call somebody who does what they hate? Insane, right? How many of you are insane? I feel that. I feel that insanity, that sense of why do I do this? The very thing I said I would never do again. And here it is. Sin is essentially, therefore, a form of insanity doing what we hate; resisting, even defying the God of the universe who made those supernova and the sun that burns day after day, and who made the earth and everything in it. And we are going to take him on? We're going to defy him or as children of God, we're going to invite him to discipline us? Do you realize how scary that is? Do you realize what tools he has at his disposal?

You do, but you sin anyway. That's the whole thing. We've got the automobile, for example. He's got your car in his hand. Do you know how expensive it is to fix a car? Alright. He's got that right in his hand. Or you've got important things at the office or things that you really care about. Those things are in his hand. Your relationships, your physical health. All of those things are fair game for discipline, and we take God on? We're willing to risk being disciplined in sin? That's insane. And we're willing to turn our back on God's holy and righteous and pure law and say I don't want that. "Sin is lawlessness," John tells us in 1 John. The law is a tether that holds us to a right life in God. It keeps us where we need to be, and sin wants to cut that tether. I think about... Remember the astronauts when they used to go out on those space walks? Remember those tethers that would go out with them? Did you ever think what would happen if that thing got cut? What a nightmare? And the person goes flying off into space and no one to rescue.

Isn't that what we do when we cut the tether from God, when we break God's law? It's insanity. And why do we do it? Well, because of this indwelling sin. Verse 17, "As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin alive in me." You have this sin that's alive in you. It's eating inside you like a tumor of some sort. It's taken up residence in you, and it's destroying your spiritual life. That's what sin does.

Well, then Paul goes through a second cycle of laments. Verses 18-20 talks about the pull of the flesh. First the condition. Verse 18, "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature." Now, I've told you before that this is a key clarification. When he says, "Nothing good lives in me, that is I mean, in my flesh." Why is it important that he clarifies? Because I think he's speaking as a Christian, and he knows that in his new creation as there's nothing but good. It's created by God directly. As an act of God, you're a new creation person, but then you've got this flesh, and that's what he's referring to. "Nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh." That's what he's talking about.

Now, the word flesh, in the Bible, sometimes just means things like meat that you can eat; the flesh of animals or just flesh and blood talking about your human body. That's all. It could refer to perhaps physical descent or ancestry that talking about Jesus' ancestors in the flesh. It's talking about his physical ancestry. There's nothing about sin with any of those or in the King James version, it says, "The glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh together will see it." That just means human beings, humanity, but here it takes on a spiritual meaning. It's got to do with, the NIV translate, the "sinful nature," that pull, that bent, that bias that you have towards sin, and it resides in your physical body.

I think about if you were the pilot of an airplane, maybe a 747 or even a small craft, and let's say one of the wings in the ailerons was damaged, and one of the engines was damaged, and there was a constant pull left. What would you have to do just to fly straight? You'd have to exert constant effort to fly straight or land the plane, and that's what it's like to lead a holy, godly, and upright life in this world with the flesh. You can't just let it go, because you're going to veer off. That's just the way that the flesh is, and so he's got this condition, that sinful nature and that leads to a conflict.

The Conflict

Verse 18-19, "I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing." Now, here he talks about the desire. He wants to do good. He has a yearning to do good. Do you ever feel that way? Gee, I'd like to write more letters to people, or gee, I'd like to stop procrastinating. I'd like to be a better person, or I'd like to watch what I eat, or I'd like to exercise more. We're getting near to resolution time. Do you make New Year's resolutions? You know what I'm talking about. It's the desire to do what is good. It's what you might call a good intention. Have you ever heard of good intentions? The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

You know, you have a desire, but you don't carry it out and so you kind of say, "Well, at least I thought about it. At least I intended to do good. I always wanted to help the poor more than I do." Good intentions, but nothing ever comes of it. Your vision of the Christian life far outstrips your actual performance, and so we are all like that mediocre artist that's talking to you right now. I really like to draw pictures. I just don't like to show them to people.

And so you've got a vision of what the life could be like, but you can't carry it out. You've got good intentions, but you can't live it. The Christian life is basically saying "Here's my hand. You are the master artist. You're better than Michelangelo. Draw the picture through me. And every day is like a picture, isn't it? And your life is like a gallery of those pictures, 365 of them a day or a year. And some of them look really, really good, don't they? And some of them don't. And so your Christian life you're basically saying, "Please paint the picture through me, by the power of the Spirit today. The vision of the Christian life, live it out in my relationship with my spouse and in the way I work, and the way I go to church, in the way I witness, in the way I pray and everything I do, draw the picture through me. Paint through me." That's the spiritual life. Without the power of Christ's Spirit you can do nothing. Jesus said "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do [what?] nothing." Nothing.

But Paul refers to here in verse 19, "no, the evil I do... This I keep on doing." The word literally means habit. I have a habit of doing it. Sin works along lines of habit. Once you've done something once, the water can flow that way again. Wherever the water has flowed before, it will flow that way again. And once you've done something once, you build up a habit and it just keeps on doing it. So the flesh is well trained in sin, just like a basketball player wants to practice the free throw, right? And how does he do it so that he knows that he can hit the free throw at the end of the game? He shoots a thousand a day, right? Well, let's turn the whole thing around and make it negative. How is it you know you're going to give a snappish, irritable response in a situation like that? Because you've done it before, many times. We're trained in sin, we've got this habit and it builds up and there's nothing we can do in the flesh.

The Cause

And so he talks about this, the cause, verse 20, "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 realize this amazing statement. A non-Christian could never say this, "It is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me." He makes a distinction then between I and sin living in me. Who can do that, but a Christian. Only a Christian can make that distinction and so Paul does make that distinction. It is no longer I who do it, it's the sin in me. And now I want it gone. I wish it were out but that's what's going on. There's a distinction, so the word no longer points to the fact that he is speaking, I believe, as a Christian. And by the way, I think that this is exactly why Christian sin to some degree is worse than a non-Christian sin. We don't need to sin. We're free from the bondage of sin. We've got a loving Lord who lives within us and yet we sin anyway. But where sin abounds grace abounds all the more. Praise God.

The third lament verse 21-23, he talks about a clear and present evil. "So I find this law at work:" verse 21, "When I want to do good, evil is right there with me." He calls it a law and unbreakable principle of life, almost as certain as a law of gravity or the law of aerodynamics. Pulling that plane away from straight and true. Now pretty soon we're going to be celebrating Christmas, and you know the word, the significance of the word Emmanuel. What does Emmanuel mean? What does it mean? God with us. Isn't that sweet? The idea that God is right there with us. Paul talks about it in 2 Timothy 4:16-17, "At my first defense, before Caesar, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them." How gracious is that?

"But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it." So he has a sense of Jesus standing right by him, side by side. Isn’t that wonderful? You're saying, why are you talking about that now? Well, now I'm going to turn it around. What else does he have a sense stands right by him at all times? When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. It's not just Jesus, it's evil too, right there with us and will be till we die. And how sweet will it be to be free forever from that. I would love to just feel 12 hours without the evil right there with me. What would you do with the 12 hours? Would you witness, would you pray? What would you do? Sing praise songs, a little of everything. Oh my goodness, to be free from the evil that's right there with us. That's what Paul talks about here in Verse 21.

So we are divided people and we have this problem, and the result is a conflict Verse 22-23, "In my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind." So there is a kind of a subversive war going on like a terrorism or guerilla conflict. And I think that's exactly what it is. Whenever one army senses it cannot win direct conflict but wants to continue the fight, what does it do? It goes underground. It goes to terrorism. It goes to guerilla warfare, and that's what sin is doing in your life. It's subversive. It comes around different ways because sin can't come directly to us. It has no authority to do that. And so instead, it works like a terrorist kind of agency or kind of a guerilla warfare. And that's the very thing that's happening daily in your life. There's this war. I see another war, a law at work, in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind. And then as a result, cause, Verse 23, "making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members."

So we've seen these three cycles of laments: Condition, Conflict, and Cause. And then he gets to his fourth lament, verse 24-25, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin." So first, Paul talks about his condition, he calls himself a wretched man. This word literally means utterly miserable or tormented, or devastated. And what it means that he has no confidence in himself. He does not believe that he can save himself. He is not basically a good person. As we've talked about before, when you witness to people and say, "I think I'll be alright on Judgment Day." I'm basically a good person. Is there any such person as basically a good person? Absolutely not. What a wretched man. You know the definition of a Christian? I think, Philippians 3:3, "for we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh."

None. It will not bring us to heaven. You can't get saved through your own efforts, your own energy, your own drive, your own trying to be good. It will never save you. Paul puts no confidence in the flesh, he calls himself a wretched man. "What a wretched man I am!" And then he cries for deliverance. "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" I believe this is a call for, or cry for, full salvation. He's not calling simply for justification here. Who will rescue me from being condemned for my sin? He's not calling for that. What is he calling for? Who will rescue me from this body of death? I want the full salvation. I don't just want part of the salvation, I want it all. I don't ever want to sin again. I don't just want to be free from condemnation, I don't just want to be free from the law. I want to be free from sin itself forever.

And so, he cries out, "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" I believe this may be one of the best examples of a true sinner's prayer in the Bible. This is a sinner crying out for help to God. Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And I believe we make this cry the rest of our lives. Are you free yet from your body of death? Can't you cry this cry day after day, after day? Deliver me Jesus. Deliver me Lord. Free me. And in this hope we were saved. Hope we have is no hope at all, that someday we're going to get it. Deliver me Lord, free me from this body of death. Save me Lord, save me. Day after day. And so Martin Luther, 95 Theses. The first thesis, the beginning of the reformation. Thesis number one: when the Lord Jesus Christ called on us to repent, he meant that the entire Christian life should be one of repentance. Not just one time but every day. Day after day, crying out against our sin for a savior. Day after day.

And so, he confesses his faith in Jesus Christ. "Thanks be to God for our Lord Jesus Christ." And notice that he doesn't just say "thanks be to Christ," he says, "thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ." It is God the Father that's heard our cry. Just as it was Yahweh that heard the cry of Israel. In Exodus Chapter 2, the Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out. And they cried for help, because of their slavery. Went up to God and God heard their groaning. And he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them. So it is with us. He's heard your cry. Who will rescue me? Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

God has sent you a deliverer. He sent you a redeemer and his name is Jesus Christ. His only begotten Son. He sent him into the world that we might have a full salvation from sin. Not merely from the penalty of sin. Not merely from the power and practice of sin but from the very presence of sin itself. A full salvation through Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God that Jesus Christ died in our place. Thanks be to God that all of our sins have been forgiven by his blood. Thanks be to God that through Jesus Christ we have the indwelling Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God that someday we'll have redemption for our bodies, the full salvation that he's promised. Thanks be to God.

I wish I could stop there, wouldn't it be great? But there is one more part of the verse, isn't there? He sums up the struggle. So then I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law. But in a sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. This is very strong language. He said, "I'm a slave in my mind to God. But this sinful nature just seems enslaved to sin." And so therefore I'm going to have a continuous struggle. This verse argues against the idea of coming over into Romans 8 from Romans 7. As though somehow statically you can move from seven to eight and never go back to seven. I wish it were true. But Paul says, it's not. After his thanks God for full salvation he then says, "So then, this is where I'm at. In my mind I love God but in my flesh I seem to serve sin." And that's the struggle that we have.

Well, what application can we take from this? Well, first, I want you to know yourself. And through knowing yourself, I want you to know other Christians. What do I mean by that? Well, know yourself as a sinner, know yourself as forgiven, and know yourself as gradually progressively sanctified. And then through that, know other Christians the same way. Know that they are sinners. Know that they are forgiven. And know that they are being gradually progressively sanctified too.

You think that would affect your relationship with other people? Other Christians? I think it should. Jonathan Edwards, when he made a resolution, he made a series of resolutions. He said in one of his resolutions at age 19, the wisdom, he said that he would resolve never to see something as sin in another brother or sister in Christ without reflecting back on himself and finding the same roots of it in his own heart. It'll cause us to be very gracious to one another. But how can you know yourself in other Christians as a sinner? Well first, sin affects absolutely everything you do. You're never free from it. And therefore, you're never going to 100% do anything. You're never going to 100% pray and never going to 100% sin. You have no pure motives, no pure actions, no 100% undivided moments. You're going to run your Christian race as though you are dragging weights behind you.

Now, I know that Hebrews 12 says that we should lay aside every weight. You know what I'm talking about? But every time you sin, guess what you just hooked on your belt? Another weight, right? Make it harder to run your Christian life. And you're going to, and you're going be struggling with that. Or another image I use with my children is that sin is like a viper living inside us, and every time we indulge it, we've given it another meal and it just grew a little bigger. How do we kill that snake? Death by starvation. That's how we kill it. Stop feeding the snake. Stop giving in, and it gets weaker and weaker. That's the way it is. We're going to struggle, we're sinners, and we will always be able to imagine a better Christian life than we can live.

You'll imagine yourself praying for two hours a day, starting at 4:30 in the morning until 6:30, and then shower and get yourself ready and go to work. Can you imagine that? Two hours a day. Can you do it? Maybe. Nothing physically stopping you. You can imagine yourself witnessing to every stranger you meet, every non-Christian in your office, every neighbor, every friend, every acquaintance, every opportunity. Never missing one. You can imagine that, can't you?

Can you actually live it? Well, you can imagine yourself given totally in consecration to God. Can you really live it? You can imagine yourself worshipping God perfectly in spirit and truth here every Sunday. Can you really do it? So you can imagine the Christian life more than you can really live, therefore you must be, I believe, constantly a spiritual beggar, yearning for these things that God has called you to do and asking him for it and realizing you're never going to do it perfectly.

Second, know yourself as forgiven. Realize that every time you fall short, every time you commit a sin, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from all unrighteousness. Realize how dependent you are on him. And then finally, know yourself as progressively sanctified by the Spirit. You are not a slave to sin, but you're going to sin. Little by little though, you're going to see victories. You're going to start to see things dropping out of your Christian life. You're going to see yourself growing in the image of Jesus Christ. So know yourself and know other Christians that way.

And finally, know God. Know that he is holy, perfectly holy. That every sin that you commit grieves him deeply. Christ will not allow his bride to be filthy, and so he's going to continue sanctifying us. He's going to work with us. The Holy Spirit will not allow you to sink into a lifestyle of sin, so he's going to work on you. And the Holy Spirit will discipline us if we sin. That's the negative side. The positive side is, he has provided for you a complete and total salvation. He knows your need. He knows what you need, and he knows where you're at in your Christian life, and he has had made full provision. He has justified you through the blood of Jesus Christ, all sins forgiven. He is sanctifying you now by the power of the Holy Spirit, little by little, and someday he will glorify you. He will give you a new body and nothing can stop that. Won't you join with me in prayer?

Father, we thank you for the time that we've had to look at your word and at very deep and important passage of Scripture. Father, I pray that if there are any here that have never given their lives to Jesus Christ, who do not know him as Lord and Savior, who do not know the forgiveness of sin that he alone offers, who do not understand until today that Jesus died in our place under the wrath of God for the forgiveness of sins, that they would today cry out, what a wretched man or wretched woman I am, who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our lord. And Father, for the rest of us who have trust in you already but are struggling with sin as Paul, Father I pray in Jesus' name, that you would please enable us to continue walking by the power of the Spirit, putting sin to death and growing in every good work. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on 1 Peter 2, Romans 12, and Romans 15 with a focus on what these holy texts say about spiritual gifts.

We have to study spiritual gifts for a while. We're going into December, and you know what that means? So we'll be taking a break from spiritual gifts, but I'd like to make the most of it tonight and try to look at some things. We've been talking about how to discover and to develop and use your gifts. But before we do that, I want to give you an incentive from the Word to use your gifts. So let's start tonight in a familiar place, 1 Peter chapter 2. We're going to talk again about the priesthood of believers and specifically what it is that we are supposed to be offering to God as priests. We know that if we're priests that we have an offering to offer to God. We are to lift up a sacrifice to him, and I want to talk some about that. There's really a remarkable train of thought in scripture on this topic.

But let's start with 1 Peter 2:4. It says there, "As you come to him, the living stone rejected by men, but chosen by God, and precious to him. You also like living stones are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." So the image here is of a holy temple rising to completion, and we've talked about this before. The same image as pictured in Ephesians chapter 2, the idea of a holy temple, a spiritual building rising to completion in the Lord. We know that it's not complete yet. We've got the sense of an ongoing building project here. It says, "As you come to him, the living stones.” So the fact is that these living stones are presently coming to Christ, aren't they? And they've been coming to Christ for 2000 years, and Jesus said, "Anyone who comes to me, I will in no wise cast him out." So anyone who comes to Christ, he's going to welcome them and going to receive them, and they are according to this passage, living stones. So they're going to go right into the wall. There's a place for them, and each one of you have already been built into a place in the wall that only you can occupy. I like to think of it in terms of a jigsaw puzzle. You had to fit in that place that was for you and for no one other than you, and you were fit in there at the right time when you came to faith in Jesus Christ. So you have come to the living stone. You've come to Jesus Christ. At just the right time, you came to him and you were put into your place in the wall. So you are like it says, "Living stones being built into a spiritual house."

Now the difference between a living stone and the dead stone is that a living stone bears fruit and takes in nourishment, and there's a principle of activity. There's a principle of growth. Good things are happening with that living stone. So it's like you're in the wall and then you pop down out of the wall and perform the duty of a priest and then you're back in the wall again. It's a little complicated image. "Am I in the wall or am I a priest in the building?" Well, according to this passage, you're both, because it says that you are a living stone being built into a spiritual house. Another word for a spiritual house is a temple. So we are the temple of Jesus Christ. We the worldwide church of Jesus Christ. We are the temple of Christ. We are the place where he is honored and worship- the place where he dwells. We are a spiritual, spiritual house to be a holy priesthood. So we are both the temple and we are also the priest in the temple. The purpose of that is that we may offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. So we are all, every one of us, called to be offering up daily spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Now, what I'm contending right now is that the way we do that primarily as gifted people is through our spiritual gifts. As we use our spiritual gifts, we are in an ongoing sense just going to be offering up spiritual sacrifices to God acceptable to him. Everything you do to serve and to build up the church of Jesus Christ is an offering acceptable to Jesus Christ. If you keep reading in the passage, I'll read the intervening verses just because they're so magnificent. I don't want to skip them, but I'm not going to comment on them. I'm going to get down a little further.  In verse 6, For in scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone,” and, “A stone that causes men to stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message- which is also what they were destined for.

But now look at verse 9, "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood," a royal priesthood. Isn't that marvelous? There's a blending of king and priest in each one of us as children of Jesus Christ. We are a royal priesthood, but not individually, together; collectively, we are a royal priesthood, "a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God," and here's this word ‘that’, "that [or for the purpose that] you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." Is that not one of those sacrifices that we should be offering, that as we declare the praises of him who brought us out of darkness into light, we are offering up sacrifices to God acceptable to God through Jesus Christ? So when we come in here on Sundays, as we should be doing day after day, we are offering up the fruit of lips as sacrifice that praise his name. We're giving thanks to him. We are a royal priesthood together and that's how we worship. All of us worship together. I know that Bill’s passion is that we not be an audience, but rather those that are offering up together, collectively a sacrifice of praise, and we should be doing it day after day. Isn't that right? Not just on Sundays.

So we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation that we may offer up these sacrifices of praise, “declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people...” Fascinating. “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you have not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." Who is he talking to there? What category of people could he say truthfully, "Once you were not a people," who is he talking to? Gentiles. At one point you were not a people. Now you're the people of God. He's using Jewish language here to speak to Gentiles, strangers in the world scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. They're gentiles just like you and me, but he's using sacrificial temple language here in reference to what we could and should be doing: we are to be offering up sacrifices to him. Isn't that fantastic?

Well, look with me back at Romans chapter 12, and then Romans 15, we're going to see how this whole thing came about. Now in Romans chapter 12, Paul urges the Romans, who are themselves Gentiles, or I think there are Jews amongst them, that they should, in Romans 12:1, "I urge you brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship." So not only are the Gentiles to be offering up praises, to declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light… By the way, there's just power to that, isn't there? Just say, “Praise you and thank you, Jesus, for saving me. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Is that not honoring to him? Isn't that what our mouths were for instead of some of the things we use our mouths for? Isn't it better to fill them with praises to God and say, “Thanks be to God, that he saved me, that he took me out of darkness into his wonderful light.” But now we're going beyond that, not just our mouth, but our whole bodies. Every part of us offered to God as a living sacrifice, holy, and pleasing to him. This is our spiritual act of worship. So as we just present ourselves to him, we are pleasing to him. We are like a sacrifice. We are an aroma, but we're a living sacrifice. We're not once for all a dead sacrifice, but a living sacrifice.

Now we're going to come back to here. But go over to Romans chapter 15 and beginning at verse 14. This is a wonderful verse, this section in here, and it just gives us such an insight into the mind of the Apostle Paul. Look at 15:14, beginning there, "I myself am convinced, my brothers that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete a knowledge and competent to instruct one another." That's quite a high opinion he has of the Roman church. Isn't that true? Romans 15, about when do you think we'll get there? We're in chapter 7 right now. At our present rate, we're looking at what? Sometime in January. What? Four years, Tom? Okay, well, we'll see. But we're going to take a break after Romans 8, and so it may lengthen out a bit. At verse 15, it says, "I have written you quite boldly on some points, as if to remind you of them again,” now listen here, why does he write them? “Because of the grace God gave me.” Now what does that mean when Paul talks about the grace God gave me? We've learned about this. What is he referring to? It's his what? Well, I don't think it's salvation. It's a specific thing that God gave him. What is it? His spiritual gift, "by the grace God gave me, I've got a role to play in building the body,” “the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles." He knows his place. He knows what he's called to do. He's got a role to play. He's got a job to do, and he is the minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, and look what he says, "with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God." Isn't that interesting? He calls it a priestly duty. What does that mean that his proclamation of the gospel is a priestly duty? How does he see it? Well, it means that he is seeing himself in that spiritual temple offering up sacrifices as he goes from town to town to town preaching the gospel. He is offering up a sacrifice to God. He's offering up himself. He's presenting himself to God as a living sacrifice; all day long he's considered sheep for the slaughter, right? He's willing to die in any town, every town, willing to die for Christ, literally. But he has something more than that. He just doesn't have a desire that he pour out his life. But more than that, he says, "with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit." The Gentiles are his offering. He's offering the Gentiles up to God. Well, what does that mean? It means they hear the gospel that he preaches, they come to faith in Christ and they are an offering, an aroma/fragrance acceptable to God. It's priestly language. So he sees himself in the spiritual temple, and as each of those living stones get put in place, that's an aroma going up to God. It's that Jewish sacrificial language, that's his ministry as one of the priests of God. He's offering up the Gentiles. "The priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit." So much we could say about that.

But look over with me to Isaiah chapter 66, and here we see the same idea. I don't even know if this is where Paul got this idea, but I think it's so marvelous at the end of one of the greatest books in the Bible, Isaiah… Which is the book that isn't the greatest? They're all great, but I just love the richness and the beauty of the visions of Isaiah. At the end of Isaiah in 66:18, beginning at verse 18, there's so much we could say about this chapter, but this is how he begins Isaiah 66:18, "And I, because of their actions and their imaginations, am about to come and gather all nations and tongues, and they will come and see my glory." What does it mean that he's going to gather all nations and tongues to come and see God's glory? Well, I think this is a foretaste of the great commission work of the church. That the Word is going to go out to the ends of the earth, and people from every tribe and language and people and nation are going to come and see God's glory. They're going to come and see his glory, keep reading, "And I will set a sign among them, and I'll send some of those who survive [that's the remnant] to the nations. I'm going to send them out to the nations, to Tarshish, to the Libyans and Lydians (famous as archers), to Tubal and Greece and to the distant islands." Who is he talking about? There's a remnant of Jews he's going to send out to Greece. Can you think of a Jew that went to Greece and proclaimed the glory of God? Could it be the apostle Paul? He said, "I'm going to send him to Greece and other places,” “and to the distant islands that have not heard of my fame, or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory among the nations." That's a great way of speaking of the great commission. We're there to proclaim the glory of God to the nations. How glorious is he, how majestic and how wonderful. "They will proclaim my glory among the nations, and they will bring all your brothers from all the nations." He's calling Gentile converts brothers to the Jews.

We're one family, one tree, we're grafted into the same olive tree, uses the image in Romans 11, we're one family through faith in Jesus Christ. He says, "They're going to bring all your brothers from all the nations to my holy mountain in Jerusalem as an offering to the Lord." Do you see that? They're going to bring these gentile converts to Jerusalem and to the Holy Mountain as an offering to God, “‘to the Lord- on horses, in chariots and wagons and on mules and camels,’ says the Lord. ‘They will bring them as the Israelites bring their grain offerings to the temple of the Lord and ceremonially clean vessels.’" Isn't that amazing? So the Gentile converts are going to be an offering to God, acceptable, purified by the Holy Spirit. Now keep reading, look at verse 21, "‘And I will select some of them also to be priests and Levites,’ says the Lord." Isn't that amazing? So not only are the Gentile converts themselves in offering to the Lord, but what are they going to be, also themselves priests and Levites to the Lord. That's the very thing that Peter talks about in 1 Timothy 2. Do you realize that this Bible is written by one author, God, and that there is one story and it unifies so beautifully. There's a thousand details that could tie it together. But what I want you all to think of yourself as is Gentile converts who are yourselves an offering up to God, but also priests in the temple of God, that you have a priestly duty, and your priestly duty is your spiritual gift ministry, whatever it is, and that day after day, as you offer up your gifts, you're offering them up to God.

Look with me at Philippians, chapter 4, it doesn't really matter what it is, whatever your gift is, it's a spiritual offering acceptable to God. Look what he says here in Philippians 4, well, start at verse 18, 4:18. It says, "I have received full payment and even more; I am amply supplied, now that I've received from a Epaphroditus the gifts you sent." He's talking about money. Apparently, the Philippians sent some money to Paul to help him in his ministry. So it could be that some people with the spiritual gift of giving, of generosity gave some money to help Paul in his ministry, right? And this is what he says, "They [namely the gifts] are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God." Isn't that beautiful? So just the fact that they gave the money is an aroma, an acceptable sacrifice pleasing to God. Just as when Paul leads somebody to Christ, it's an aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God, or when someone else gets on their knees and prays for a period of time for the advance of the gospel, it's an aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God, for we are a kingdom of priests. We have a ministry to do. And there's not one of you that's excluded. All of you have a ministry. Every last one of you has a calling, something to offer to God. Nobody comes empty-handed to the Lord. We all have an offering. And so, I would contend that you should discover and develop and use your spiritual gifts so that you can be priests in his house offering up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God.

So what do I mean by discover your spiritual gifts? Go back to where we started in Romans 12 and we'll talk more about that. How do we discover the spiritual gifts? God willing, if we return to this topic in January, as I hope we will, I will present to you a list of spiritual gifts as they're listed in the... Where's Romans? There it is. Does it ever move on you? It's always in the same place. But no excuses, Romans 12. There it is, a listing of the gifts as they are printed in the Bible. But what I would say to you is that these gift lists are not meant to be exhaustive or complete. Do you notice that every single last one of the listings is different from all the others? They're all different. They're all meant to be suggestive, I believe. But I still think it's good to get them all compiled in one place, so you can see at least some of those things that are suggested. But we are to discover our gifts. And so it says here in verse 2, Romans 12:2, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good pleasing and perfect will, for by the grace given me," There's that language again as code language, "For by the spiritual gift ministry, I got. I'm going to tell you something. I'm an apostle and a teacher to the Gentiles. I'm going to tell you how to use your gifts.” “For by the grace given me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you are, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function. So in Christ we though, many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others." We have different gifts according to the grace given us. So the fact is, you're supposed to think of yourself. Okay, that much is clear, “do not think of yourself more highly than you are, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.” So we just take all those words away and just say, you need to think of yourself. Think about who you are. How has God made you? This is an important step in discovering what your spiritual gift is. Think about yourself, but think of yourself in proper proportion to the rest of the body, not more highly than you ought as though, you're absolutely indispensable to the body or something like that or more lowly than you ought as though you had nothing to contribute or your ministry is not important, but think of yourself rightly in connection with the body in conjunction with the faith that God has given you.

So as we sum all that up, we already covered this last time, if you want to discover your gift, you present your body to God as living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to him, a daily willingness to serve him in any way, then you renew and transform your mind by the word of God day after day, and then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is. “For by the grace given me, I'm going to tell you how to use your gift.” You see how it works. That's how you discover your gift. Me, giving you a list of the spiritual gifts is really only, I think, just ancillary to this part. This is how you do it. It's this spiritual process as a priest before God to present yourself and say, "What can I do?"

Well, then the next step is developing the gift. Now, why would we need to develop our gifts? Don't they come fully formed? Well, I don't know of very much that comes fully formed in God's universe. All things grow. All living things grow. Isn't that true? Is there not a principle of growth always in the kingdom of God? Isn't the kingdom of God like yeast that a woman took and mixed in a large amount of flour until it permeated through the whole dough? Isn't the kingdom of God like a mustard seed, which grew until it became a large plant, so that the birds came and nested in its branches? Isn't there a principle of growth in the kingdom of God always? Doesn't it say in Mark chapter 4:26 and following, “Jesus said, ‘This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how all by itself. The soil produces grain. First the stock, then the head, then the full kernel in the head, and as soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.’" So, in other words, there's a principle of growth in the kingdom of God. It starts out as a seed, grows up into the stock, and then there's the leaves and the head, and then harvest time comes. So it is with our spiritual gifts. We have to develop them. And I know that there is a clear teaching on this if you look at Paul's admonitions to Timothy.

Take a minute, and look over at 2 Timothy 2:15. 2 Timothy 2:15, this should be very familiar to those of you that are coming on Wednesday evening, and if you're able to make the time, I think you'll enjoy it. We're talking there about rightly dividing the word of truth. Here's the verse that it comes from, 2 Timothy 2:15. It says there, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing..." I think is a better translation the NIV, "rightly dividing the word of truth." Now, we've focused on Wednesday evening on how that we should rightly divide the word of truth. But I want you to understand, not all of us are called to be teachers. It says in the book of James, "Let not many of you presume to be teachers." So most of us actually are not teachers, and those of you that are not teachers according to James should be relieved because those who are teachers are held to a higher standard. You have to give a more severe account on judgment day because it's just so important that the teaching be right and the life behind it be right, too. But some are called to be teachers, and so you can't hide your talent in the ground because the master's a harsh master- he's not harsh. We need to use our gifts. All of us need to learn, as best we can, rightly to divide the word of truth. But Timothy, I believe, was called to be a pastor-teacher. So therefore he had a special calling concerning the word of God; did he not? So he had to be especially diligent in this matter of the Word. 2 Timothy 2:15, "Do your best," that means labor, be diligent, work hard. "To what end should I work? Paul, what do you want me to do?" "So that you can present yourself to God." Does that sound familiar? Romans 12, "That we are to present ourselves to God as living sacrifice?" Well, day after day you're to present yourself to God. What he's saying is get to the point where you can present yourself to God as a fully formed workman. A craftsman, really. I think Paul's using craftsman language here. Do you remember reading in the Middle Ages, they had these things called trade guilds? You know what I'm talking about, about a trade guild? If you were, for example, a carpenter or a worker in metal, goldsmith, or a silversmith, maybe. If you wanted to be part of that guild, you had to present to them a masterpiece, and until you did the masterpiece, and it was accredited by the guild, you were not a master. So that's the language that Paul's using here. Now Paul was a tent maker, of course, and so maybe there was this kind of an arrangement with tent makers. If you want to be a master tent maker, you had to make a good tent, and when you presented your masterpiece, they would inspect the seams, and they'd look at the proportions and how it was cut and all of this, and see if you'd done it well. So in effect, he's saying, “Go present yourself to the real master, God himself, and say, ‘Am I rightly dividing the word of truth? Am I cutting it straight? How am I doing?’" And what he says is, you have to do your best to present yourself as a master craftsman. Somebody who handles the craft. Well, that takes labor, doesn't it? There's a development, then, in the spiritual gift for Timothy.

He's better at the end than he was at the beginning, or should be. He knows more of the scripture. He is more able to divide the scripture rightly at the end of his life than he was at the beginning. Look over at 1 Timothy 4. He says the same thing there. 1 Timothy 4:13, and following. 1 Timothy 4:13, says, "Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture." By the way, I really enjoy the public reading of scripture in our church. Isn't that wonderful, to stand up and listen to the verses read? I really enjoy that, there's something powerful about hearing the word of God read. So it says it right here in 1 Timothy 4:13, "devote yourself [or give yourself] to the public reading of scripture." By the way, that was very important for them. Why was it more important for them than it is for us? They didn't have the Bible. Do you realize what kind of blessing we just take for granted? How many Bibles do you have at your home? I mean, these folks didn't have anything. They had to listen to it read, that developed good listening skills. Sit forward with your hands folded in your lap, attentive. We're going to pay attention. It's good listening skills because if you didn't have good listening skills back then, you missed it. You didn't get the word of God. So you had to listen. Well, also, then there's a certain craft, I think, to reading the Scripture, putting the right emphasis on the right syllable so that you are emphasizing the right words, and there's a right way to read Scripture, too. That's why anyone who reads Scripture, we ask them that they would read it over four or five times first. You know when somebody's reading it for the first time, can you tell? So there's a craft to reading Scripture. It should be read with power. It should be read in a certain way. It should be read with understanding. So he says, "give yourself [or devote yourself] to the public reading of Scripture,” Not only that it be done, but that it be done well, and it'd be done often, much, “to preaching and to teaching.” he says. “Devote yourself to these things.” Then he says in verse 14, very interestingly, "Do not neglect your gift," Wow. "Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders lay their hands on you." Verse 15, "Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress." Is this not the development of a spiritual gift? "Work at it," he's saying. "Get better at it than you were before. Everybody should see how you're doing. They should see your progress. They should see that you're better at preaching and teaching in the public reading of scripture at the end than you were at the beginning, and the only way, Timothy, that you're going to do it is if you devote yourself to it. Be diligent to do this, work at it and develop it." Well, I'm taking this one spiritual gift and I'm applying it to all of them. I think you can do it with any spiritual gift, that if your gift is the gift of giving, for example, you can devote yourself to it, be diligent at it and develop ways to give, if that's your gift. If your gift is encouragement, that you should consider how to spur one on toward love and good deeds. There's a considering that goes into it, a development of the gift so that you're better as an encourager 10 years down the road than you are now. There's a development to the gift. I think it's just the same principle you get of the talents, the five talents, and then five more. There's a multiplication of it, a growth.

And so, I'm urging you, not just to discover your gifts, but to develop your gifts. Be diligent to grow in what you are good at, what you're called to do. “Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them,” isn't that beautiful? Be at them is a better translation, be in them. Remember how Jesus as a boy, when he was separated from his parents for a while, age 12, and then they found him. You remember what he said? He said, "Why were you looking for me everywhere didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" Well, it's the same Greek construction we get here, be in them. Kind of dwell in your spiritual gift. Be at it all the time. That's how you develop it. Just do it and study how you can do it better. “Be in it, give yourself wholly to your gift, so that everyone may see your progress.” Watch your life and your doctrine closely. Wow, that is true of us all, isn't it? Those are the key matters of the Christian life. That is sanctification. Watch your life closely. Watch how you live and watch your doctrine, too. I believe this is the primary job of a pastor, is to look over the life and doctrine closely of the church. So, he says, "Watch your life and your doctrine closely. Persevere in them because if you do, you'll save both yourself and your hearers." So there's a perseverance in the spiritual gift. You're going to be better at it at the end than you were at the beginning. You're going to have to labor at it. You're going to have to be diligent, and you're just going to have to do it. So there's a cycle. You're discovering your gift, you're developing it, and you're just going to be using your gift on and on as the church grows.

One last verse I'd like to look at with you this evening, in 2 Timothy 1:6. There it says, again, similar advice, "For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands." Isn't that a marvelous verse? “Take that gift that you have and fan it into a flame.” Isn't that growth? Isn't that a matter of growth that we are more? I think this is a picture of zeal here, isn't it, a fire, a zeal, a burning desire to please the Lord? It says in Romans 12:11, "Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord." There should be a fire to it. So if your spiritual gift is a glowing ember right now, blow on it, add some tinder to it, get it into a little flame. If it's a little flame, then get it into a little crackling fire. Just add some larger log and on and on until it's a roaring bonfire, right?

"Don't neglect your gift," he said, but actually, on the converse fan, your gift into flame. Let it get bigger and stronger. Our church needs that from all of you, all of you who are members of First Baptist regular attenders, too. We need you to use your gifts. We need you to use what you have to offer and fan those gifts into flames so that we grow and we are offering a sacrifice to God, pleasing to him as well. We grow together corporately. One last thing I want to share with you. You need to talk about Paul. He said, "I have the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God." He said that we should present our bodies as living sacrifice. That's the spiritual gift. That's the priestly image. At the very end of his life, in 2 Timothy 4:6, Paul says, "I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure." So Paul went out as a spiritual sacrifice, the way he lived his life. He was a spiritual sacrifice every day of his life. And then God poured him out to the very end. And so, that's the way I want you to see yourself. You have something to give. God put it in you by grace. Pour it out day after day after day, offer your spiritual gift. Discover what it is, develop it, and then use it for the health of the church.

Turn in your Bibles, if you would to Romans Chapter 7. We're going to be continuing our look at Roman 7:13-25. This is a very vital passage for us to understand. The wrestling and the struggling I believe that all of us have with sin. In the year 1665, the Black Death, the bubonic plague, came to London. Now earlier in the history of Europe, the bubonic plague, the Black Death had swept through destroying whole villages, wiping them out. Nobody really understood it, they turned to superstition and to other things. They did not realize what was going on medically or physically with people. All they knew is that entire villages and whole regions would be wiped out in the 14th Century with the Black Death, bubonic plague.

Well, that came to London in the year 1665, and there seemed to be scarcely a house without someone dead. And so, death was right there. And the connection between sin and death was never more obvious as the people recognized and realized that it was through the sin of one man that death entered the world and they felt the tyranny, the power of sin and death, the reign of sin and death as it were. Now, we know as Christians from Romans Chapter 5, that just as sin reigned in death, so also, grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And so we have this seemingly unbreakable reign of sin and death, this unbeatable foe of death.

And on the other hand, we have the promise of eternal life and grace in Jesus Christ. Well, there was a puritan pastor who lived at that time named Ralph Venning, and he wrote a book shortly thereafter in 1669 entitled the Plague of Plagues. What is the true plague that troubles the human race? It is not disease, it is not the bubonic plague, the Black Death, it is in fact sin. And that's what this book was about, The Plague of Plagues is sin. And he took as his starting point for his meditation, Romans 7:13, look down at the text with me if you would, Roman 7:13 it says, "Did that which is good," mainly the law, he's referring to the law, he just got done saying that the law is holy and righteous and good. "Did that which is good then become death to me by no means or may it never be, but in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good so that through the commandment, sin might become utterly sinful." That sin might become utterly sinful, that we might actually see sin for what it really is. And that's what Ralph Venning sought to do, and he made seven major observations.

Seven Observations of the Law from Ralph Vennin

1) The law of God as a whole is good in each of its parts. The law is good, A to Z.

2) This good law, when transgressed, hands a man over to death. It makes him over to death.

3) Though the law condemns man's fault and man for his fault yet the law is still good and not to be blamed. It's not the law's fault, there's nothing wrong with the law.

4) It is not the law, therefore, but sin itself, that works man's death and ruin.

5) Sin works man's death and destruction by that which is good, by that which is good and holy and righteous, namely the law.

6) Sin is exceedingly wicked and detestable.

This is what Ralph Venning said, "Sin is most immeasurably spiteful, poisonous and pernicious, because it kills men and not only so, but it kills them by that which is good and what was appointed to man for life. Therefore it turns food into poison." It turns food into poison.

7) Sin by the commandment, therefore appears to be excessively sinful.

Venning wrote this, "If we look on this through the microscope glass of the law, take sin and put it under the microscope and look at it. It will appear a most hideous devilish and hellish thing. The most wicked mischievous villainous and deadly thing that ever was, sinful sin, worse than the devil."

What is Sin?

It's quite a claim, sinful sin worse than the devil. Why so evil? Well, it is one thing to do wrong, unknowingly. But how much more evil to know the mind of our good and holy and righteous creator and defy Him, and rebel Him against Him anyway? And that's why the law was given in order that we might see sin for what it really is, as excessively sinful. The law produced death in us through this sin. Now what is sin? Venning gives this definition. "Sin is transgression of God's good law." Now the law not only forbids the doing of evil, whether by far to word or deed, but also commands the doing of good. So to omit the good commanded is sin and as well as the doing of the evil that is forbidden. There is therefore a negative and a positive side. If you don't do certain things, you sin. If those things are commanded by the law of God, and if you do certain things that are forbidden by the law, you have sinned.

Why is Sin So Wicked?

Well, why is sin so wicked? First of all, sin is wicked because it is contrary to God. It is contrary to his holy nature. Habakkuk at 1:13 says, "Your eyes are too pure to look on evil, you cannot tolerate sin." This is the purity of God, He can't even look at evil, He can't even look at what is wicked. He can't even look at it.

It is written in 1st John 1:5, "God is light," and in Him there is no darkness at all." Venning said this, "As God is holy, all holy, only holy, all together holy, and always holy, so therefore sin is sinful, all sinful, only sinful, altogether sinful, and always sinful. As in God, there is no evil. So in sin, there is no good. God is the chiefest of goods, and sin is the chiefest of evils. As no good can be compared with God for goodness, so no evil can be compared with sin for evil."

So why is sin so wicked? It is contrary to the very nature of God, and is also contrary to the individual attributes of God. Sin deposes God's sovereignty. It says with Pharaoh, "who is the Lord that I should obey Him?" It makes us the king or queen. Right? Who is the Lord that I should obey? It denies God's all sufficiency. Why did the prodigal son leave home? Because there wasn't enough in his father's home to keep him there. He wasn't satisfied. He had to roam, he had to wander. He wanted something other than the will of God for him. And so, it denies God's all sufficiency. It defies God's justice. Either it says on the one hand God is unjust for bringing His condemnation on us or unjust for writing the law, or on the other side, it says God has no justice and will not act against sin. Therefore it denies God's justice or it defies God's justice.

It disowns God's omniscience. It says, "Does God really see what I do in darkness? What I do alone? Could it be He doesn't know?" It denies the omniscience of God. And it despises the riches of God's goodness, not realizing that the riches of God's goodness, kindness, tolerance, and patience are to lead us to repentance. Instead we presume on God day after day after day. And it defiles God's grace by turning the beautiful grace of God into a license for immorality and for sin. This is the wickedness of sin. Sin is also contrary to God's plan. Sin is like friction. I'm speaking as a mechanical engineer. What does friction do, but oppose motion in any direction? You're looking puzzled, I know, I can tell. What are you talking about? Friction opposes whatever motion you... So it is with sin. Whatever motion, whatever direction God wants to move, sin stands to oppose and resist the plan of God. So therefore, sin is wicked because it is contrary to God, in His very nature, in His individual attributes, and in His plan.

Sin is also contrary to man. God is the highest good of man. God is delightful to us, at least he should be. "Whom have I in Heaven, but You God? And Earth has nothing I desire besides You." I need nothing else. God said to Abraham, "Don't be afraid oh Abraham, I am your shield. I am your very great reward. I'm what you get at the end of your life. You get me." What does sin do, but separate us from the very thing that is our highest good, mainly God, and therefore, sin is contrary to man as well.

Sin is therefore the ultimate enemy of everything that you hold dear and precious. There is not a day that goes by that we do not feel the sting of its whip, like a scorpion across our back. Every little Eden that God has ever created, sin has crept in to ruin it to some degree. From the original Eden to the Eden of a family, a husband and wife, or of a church, or of a nation. Every good thing that comes, sin creeps in to pollute and to defile. Sin brought the worldwide flood. Sin built the tower of Babel. It was sin that enticed Solomon to turn his back against God. It was sin that brought down the temple that he built. Sin has resisted and destroyed every good thing in this world, except for the blessings of the Gospel. The blessings of the Gospel cannot be destroyed by sin. Where sin abounds, what? Grace abounds all the more, so that just as sin reigns in death, so also, grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Sin cannot defeat grace. Isn't that wonderful news? That grace is more powerful than sin.

Well then, Paul has to deal with a problem, doesn't he? If grace is so powerful and can defeat sin, then what does it matter how much we sin? Right? Why don't we sin all the more so that grace might increase? And so in Romans 6 and 7, he deals with the topic, I believe, of sin in the justified man and woman's life. You've been justified through faith in Jesus Christ. What is justification? It means that your guilt, all of your sin, has been laid on Jesus Christ, and He died under the wrath of God. He shed his blood on the cross, that you might have eternal life. He shed his blood, that His righteousness might be yours on Judgment Day, and that your sin is His at the cross in exchange. That's justification. And so, God will simply declare not guilty anyone who trusts in Jesus Christ. That's the simple Gospel.

Well then, why don't we sin all the more? And he says, "may it never be. Don't you understand who you are as a Christian?" And he goes on through that in discussing sanctification in Romans 6. And then he goes into the topic of the law. Now in Romans 6:14 he says, "Sin shall not be your master because you're not under law, but under grace." What does that mean? That's your emancipation proclamation from sin's authority to rule. You can tell sin to take a hike any time you want, if you're a child of God. Sin has no power over you. You can say no, and make it stick. You have the authority to command sin be gone from you. Any temptation that comes, you can resist, you can rebel, you can say no. I'm not under sin any more. And I'm not under law, I've just been moved from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. I've been moved from under sin and death to eternal life. I've been moved from under the law to under grace. I'm in a whole new realm now. Sin has no authority in this realm, I don't recognize your authority over me.

Well, if that's the case then we have a problem with the law, was there something wrong with the law and he's dealing with that, we're not under law now, but under grace is there something wrong with the law? And he says "May it never be, there's nothing wrong with the law, the law is holy and righteous and good."  Well then, how is it that law produces death? That's what he's answering in the second half of Romans 7. There's nothing wrong with the law, there's something wrong with me says Paul, and he speaks for all of us, doesn't he? Law cannot justify and neither can law sanctify, it cannot finish the salvation work in you, and so, that's the context. He's dealing with us. Now last week we began looking at Romans 7, didn't we? And I said that this is the hardest chapter in the book and many of you walked in not thinking it was the hardest chapter of the book and after you listened to me then you realized how hard it was and you said "Thank you pastor, you now confused me. I didn't have a problem with this before, I read Romans 7 and never had a problem and now I see that it's a difficult passage."

I think you need to see that it's a difficult passage if you understand the radical transformation that happens to a person when they become a Christian. It's not a small thing to become a Christian. Before you were a Christian, you were under wrath, you were under condemnation and there was nothing inside you that sought God. There is no one who seeks God. No, not one. Also it says in Romans Chapter 8, that there's nothing inside you that yearns for or resonates with God's law. Your sinful mind is hostile to God, it does not submit to God's law nor can it do so. That's what you were, but by faith in Jesus Christ, you've been transformed. You're not under the authority of sin anymore, sin shall not be your master, you're not enslaved to sin, right? You're free from it and you've got the indwelling Holy Spirit and you've got the power for a free life, free from sin.

Well then what's the problem? The problem is the individual Verses. In Romans 7:14, Paul says on one side, "I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin." Can a Christian say that? I thought you just got done telling us in Romans 6:14 that we are not enslaved to sin. How can you say this? Therefore Paul must be speaking as a non-Christian in Verse 14 of Chapter 7, right? But then in Verse 22 he says, "In my inner being, I delight in God's law." Can a non-Christian say that? It's the very thing he said they can't say. So what is it Paul? Are you speaking as a Christian or are you speaking as a non-Christian? And that's the issue.

Paul Speaks as Christian in Romans 7

Now I believe that Paul is speaking here as a Christian for a number of reasons. One is that he keeps clarifying what he means. He keeps clarifying "That is in my flesh, in my flesh I can't do these things." He keeps clarifying that and he also says "no longer" as though there's been a transformation. But I believe that Paul is speaking as a Christian and he's speaking about the limitations of the law versus the power of the Spirit. Do you notice here in the second half of Romans 7 that the Holy Spirit isn't mentioned at all? Have you noticed that? The Holy Spirit isn't mentioned and what we're seeing here is the limitations of the law. You can't get justified, that is declared not guilty by the works of the law. You can't be sanctified, that is made holy gradually by the works of the law either. You can't begin with the Spirit and finish with the flesh. You can't, you must have the power of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is not mentioned, now some people say this proves that Paul is speaking as a non-Christian, but I don't think so. I think what it's proving is that the Holy Spirit cannot be mentioned here because the Holy Spirit has never lost a battle against sin when you submit to His leading.

If you follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit, you will not sin. That's the freedom of Galatians Chapter 5. Listen, "So I say, live or walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. You won't. The Holy Spirit is undefeated, verse 18 in Galatians 5 says, "if you are led by the Spirit you're not under law." And Galatians 5:25 says, "since we live by the spirit let us keep in step with the spirit." So there's a leading of the Spirit in this matter of sanctification, of growing in holiness and we must keep in step with Him as we follow. So I think in Romans 7, the Holy Spirit doesn't show up because he is not battling by the power of the Spirit.

The False Notion of the “Carnal Christian”

Now here's something I want to say, in Romans Chapter 7, some people say that this declares a certain state that you can be in as a Christian, it's called the carnal Christian. Have you heard this before? The idea that you don't understand the power of the Holy Spirit and you need to come on over into Romans Chapter 8 to enter your full inheritance as a Christian into the Spirit filled life. Have you heard this teaching before? You've got the higher blessing, the higher life. The problem with that is that it's too static, too state-like, you're in the state of Romans 7 or in the state of Romans 8 and you need to move over into Romans 8 out of the state of Romans 7.

This is totally false, I believe that we'll be dealing with Romans 7 and Romans 8 the rest of our lives. I think that's about what Paul is saying here, we're wrestling and struggling with a power that we are going to face the rest of our lives. And the problem is that holiness teaching that says we need to go over to Romans 8 leads to tremendous discouragement in the lives of people who continue to struggle with sin. And then they begin to think the Gospel doesn't work. "There's something wrong with me, maybe I'm not a Christian," when instead they're just feeling the bitterness of struggle with sin. I think we need to understand also the "already" and "not yet" aspects of our inheritance, we already have don't we? But we don't have the full amount do we? We don't have it all. Are you in face-to-face perfect fellowship with God right now? No. But you have, it says in Ephesians 1, a deposit, a down payment, the Holy Spirit, indwelling Spirit, guaranteeing the full amount. And we have the full amount when everybody gets saved, when all of God's people are brought into the kingdom, when all of that happens, we get the full amount. Until the redemption of those who are God's possessions, to the praise of His glory. When we get that, when all that happens, that's when we get the full amount, face-to-face fellowship with God.

Now we've got a down payment, the indwelling Spirit, we don't have the full amount, and therefore we wrestle and struggle with sin. But more than anything, you must understand the power of this body of death. It's powerful, isn't it? It's strong. Look at verses 21-24, "So I find this law…" Paul calls it, "this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me." We're going to talk more about that, God willing, next time. "For in my inner being I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members." Look at verse 24, "What a wretched man I am. Who will deliver me or rescue me from this," look what he says, "body of death?"

Now, what is that body of death? Well, look back at Romans 6:6. Romans 6:6, that's the sanctification chapter, and in Romans 6:6 he says, "For we know that our old self was crucified with Him, so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin." Now our old self was the person we were positionally in Adam. It's kind of like your identity under the wrath of God in Adam. The moment you trust in Christ, you just simply believe in Jesus, that person's dead forever. Remember we talked about the witness protection program, you get a whole new identity? That old person's dead, gone. And can't be raised again. The person you were in Adam is gone. But that doesn't mean the fight's over yet. Look at verse 6 again, Romans 6:6, "We know that our old self was crucified with Him…" so that as a result, this thing called the body of sin might be gradually rendered, null and void, is the Greek. Little by little we're going to feel its whip, its power, its strength less and less. So that the body of sin... I believe body of death and body of sin are the same thing.

Now look at Verse 12 of Romans 6, Romans 6:12. "Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body." Do you see it, it's the same thing. It's the thing that we all look at, that you get ready, and get it looking pretty or handsome on Sunday morning. You know what I'm talking about? You clothe it, you look at it in the mirror and all that, and you pay great attention to it, and so you should. No one hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it. So we do care for this body, but it drags us down doesn't it? It's got drives, it's got passions, it's got lusts, it's got interest that are contrary to the will of God. And those have all been honed to a science, haven't they? Through past temptations and failures. As I've said before, I hate to say it again, we are good at sin. We are well practiced at it. And so our body is programmed for it. We've got this body of sin, body of death, mortal body. And we need to be delivered from it, but we're not delivered yet, not yet. Someday we will be. Amen. Someday we'll be free, and we'll have a resurrection body. And we will not struggle anymore. But right now we struggle, and we will.

The consistent teaching of the Apostle Paul is that we have this treasure, this new creation, a new creation in Christ. And we have this in jars of what? Clay. Isn't that wild to have the light of the glory of the knowledge of God in the face of Christ in a vessel of clay? But that's what we have. And that clay has a downward pull, doesn't it? Gravitational downward pull towards sin. And we've got to fight it. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9, "I beat my body and make it my slave, lest after I have preached to others, I myself may be disqualified for the prize." I've got to keep myself under. I've got to put to death sin in the members of my body, so that I don't follow their evil desires. That's what he's getting at, that's the struggle.

Now let's look a little more carefully at the cycles of Lamentation. We're only going to look at the first one. But all three cycles, and then there's a fourth one that's a little different, follow a similar pattern. And the pattern is condition, conflict, cause. First, Paul describes his condition. Secondly, he describes the resulting conflict because of that condition. And third, he gets to the root cause. What is the condition? He's mixed. He's both spiritual and he is fleshly, flesh-like. He's mixed. Secondly, conflict is proof of this condition. There's a struggle between what he wants and what he doesn't want. What he loves and what he hates. There's a battle going on. And the root cause is sin in his members, sin in the flesh.

That's what he does. Look at it in verse 14. "We know that the law is spiritual." This is condition now, "but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin." That's his condition. The conflicts in verse 15-16. "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good." So there is this conflict between him. Part of him loves the law and part of him hates it and resists. And then thirdly the cause, verse 17. "As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me." See, that's the first cycle.

The second lament, Verse 18-20. Condition, Verse 18. "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature." Well, the resulting conflict in verses 18-19, "For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing." And then what is the cause? Verse 20, "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." You see that now. Condition, conflict, cause. Three times.

You get the third one in Verse 21-23, conditions, "So I find this law at work when I want to do good, evil is right there with me." Conflict, "For in my inner being, I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body and I be," he says, "waging war." Is that not a conflict? Do you feel that conflict inside? The warfare against sin inside your members? It's there, isn't it? It's real. There's a war going on inside you. Waging war against the law of my mind. And then cause in Verse 23, "And making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members."

And then he finishes with a final lament. Verse 24, and then a proclamation of Thanksgiving. By the way, you can't do any better on Thanksgiving Day than to go to Romans 7, and say what Paul says here, "Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." Is there any higher way to celebrate Thanksgiving than Romans 7:24-25? Isn't that great? That should be the centerpiece of your Thanksgiving on Thursday. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. I get saved. I'm free from this body of death. I'm going to go to heaven. I'm going to win in the end. I'm going to be more than a conqueror. I get to see Jesus. It's all ahead of me and nothing can take it from me. Thanks be to God. Despite the bitterness of the struggle I'm going through right now.

Now let's look a little more carefully at that first lament.

First, condition. Verse 14, "We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin." This is tough. Isn't it? Now, I'm not going to tell you I'm 100% sure about my interpretation on this. How can we be unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin and yet be a child of God?  But I think he keeps adjusting himself, doesn't he? Keeps correcting. "I know that nothing good is in me, that is, in my flesh." Doesn't he keep doing that? He keeps clarifying what he means. He does it at the end in Verse 25. "So then I myself in my mind, am a slave to God's law. But in the flesh, in the sinful nature, a slave to the law of sin." He keeps clarifying. Why does he do that? Because he's not completely whole, is he? And he's clarifying what he means by that, he's a slave to sin. He in his new creation could never be a slave to sin. But in the flesh, he feels it. Sold as a slave. Paul's true identity comes out. His true identity is that of a child of God, but he still has a conflict.

So you look at conflict, verse 1516, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good." Remember we've said that sin is essentially insanity. Can you answer the why question on sin? Why did you do it? What benefit did you reap from that? Have you had no experience with it before? Did it not produce bitterness in your life before? Yes? Well, why'd you do it? Does somebody have an answer? Is there any answer? Any benefit to sin? Did you ever look back on a sin and say, "Boy, I'm glad I did that. I know it says it's wrong in the Bible, but I'm just glad I did that." Or have you not lamented your sins and wish you had never done it? There's an insanity. "I don't understand why I do what I do." There's a conflict inside. And so, therefore you will not be, sadly ever, 100% anything the rest of your life. You're not going to be, until you're delivered from the body of death. You're not going to be 100% listening to a sermon. And you're not going to be 100% daydreaming either. Part of you is pulling at different direction, no matter what you're doing. Isn't that true? If you give yourself over to sin, are you thoroughly into that sin or is there a part of you saying, "What in the world are you doing?" So you're not 100% sinning. If you are in prayer, worshipping God, seeking His face in the morning, having your quiet time, are you 100% there? No. Part of you pulling away saying, "What are you doing?" Right? There's a struggle.

Galatians 5:17, "The sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They're in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want." Both the flesh and the spirit yearn. Both the flesh and the spirit desire. Both the flesh and the Spirit want, but they're at conflict with each other, aren't they? So we're not 100%. And so, we delight in God's law. We rejoice in it. We say with the Psalmist in Psalm 1:19, "I rejoice in following Your statutes as one rejoices with great riches." We say, "Yes, I love God's Law. I just can't seem to follow it. My reach exceeds my grasp. I can envision or imagine more in the Christian life than I can really do." And that's going to be your constant experience.

And what is the cause? In verse 17, "As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me." There's a sense in which he personifies sin now. It's like a parasite flowing through your spiritual bloodstream. I've seen a scanning electron microscope picture of the parasite that causes malaria. A disgusting little parasite. And you look at it and you say, "There it is." And, "How ugly is that?"

And that's about what Paul's doing here. Under the microscope, we're looking at sin and we're seeing it for what it really is. An ugly parasite that destroys us. And were it not for the grace of God, it would lead us to hell. But because of the grace of God, even that cannot conquer. We are more than conquerors through the grace of God, but yet we've got this sin living in me. And so, he personifies it. Now realize that he says, "As it is," Verse 17, "it is no longer I myself who do it." That word "no longer" is sweet, isn't it? Doesn't it imply a transformation, a change, it's, "I'm not what I used to be. I am no longer the man or woman I used to be. I'm different now. It is no longer I who do it, but it is this thing called sin in me that does it." I love that "no longer." Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." Has that "no longer" happened to you? Are you a different person because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Have you been transformed? Are you a new creation in Jesus Christ? Can you say this "no longer"? It is no longer I who do it, but it is this vile thing inside me called sin.

I believe Paul must be speaking as a Christian. "It's no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me" that does it. So we have this condition. We are mixed. We're not 100%. And we have therefore a conflict within us, a war going on all the time. And what is the cause? It is sin living in us. This does not mean we're clear of responsibility. Paul doesn't deny responsibility, he just says it's sin living in me.

 How can we apply this? Well, I'm going to take the application I used last week and enhance it a little bit. The first three have to do... If I could just sum it up with this. Be a spiritual beggar who laments and mourns over sin, but who rejoices in deliverance through Jesus Christ. So therefore be warned, everything that we do is tainted with sin. All of it. There's nothing we ever do free from sin. Be humbled therefore and realize, you can't save yourself and you can't sanctify yourself. You can't do anything apart from Jesus Christ.

You can't make a single step toward God, unless God moves you in it by His grace. Therefore be humbled and realize that the sins you despise in others, you've got them in yourself. Have you ever seen any sin in somebody else and you didn't see any connection or root in yourself? It's all there, isn't it? Shouldn't that make us love one another more? Shouldn't that make us gracious to one another more? I think it should. And be grieved over your sin. Don't treat it lightly, it's not a small thing. It is sin that nailed Jesus Christ to the cross. That's what God thinks of sin. You want to know what God thinks of sin? Look at the cross. Look at Jesus bloody and dead on the cross and you'll understand what God thinks of sin. Therefore be grieved over it. And repent, turn away from sin. Hate it, reject it, fight it, be its bitter foe. Never, never, never, never surrender to sin. Never. You may stumble, but you will not fall into sin. Sin shall not be your master.

And be instructed. The law cannot sanctify you. You must, by the Spirit, put to death the misdeeds of the body. And be assured, as you look at yourself, realize the struggle that you have with sin is no evidence that you're not a Christian, rather it's evidence that the Spirit is putting to death sin within you and that you are in fact a child of God. Because you hate sin and you're fighting against it by the power of the Spirit. That's what it means to be a child of God. And the final one is, be thankful. Be thankful. Thanksgiving's coming up. Rejoice that you have in Jesus Christ, full deliverance from sin, through faith in Him. Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Be thankful through Jesus Christ.

Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Romans 12. The focus of this sermon is spiritual gifts.

We've looked in a pretty quick way at 1 Corinthians 12-14, and there's always more we could do. We've certainly begun with Ephesians 4. We've seen the two different analogies that are really teaching the same thing, namely of a spiritual temple that rises up to completion in the Lord. You know, it talks about living stones in 1 Peter and it talks about that foundation built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him, the whole building is rising together and becomes a holy temple in which we are built together to live by the Spirit. And so there's that temple analogy, and we are the temple. We are the temple. The physical temple has been removed, hasn't it? In history, God removed it and it's been destroyed. We are the temple now. We are the Spirit temple where he lives and each one of us is a living stone and we also have priestly duties of ministration in that temple too. So it's a complex image, but it's taking that whole Old Covenant analogy of a temple and sacrifices and all that and it applies it to us. But the picture is of an incomplete work. Isn't that right? Not that Christ's work is incomplete, not at all, but that the church is incomplete. The church should grow therefore, shouldn't it? It should grow in number, through outreach, through evangelism. It should grow in spiritual maturity, through discipleship, through sanctification. Step-by-step we're going to grow. And so the church is rising to become a temple in which God lives by his spirit. The other analogy is what? We had the building analogy. What was the other one?

[Audience speaks] 

The body, that's right, with Jesus as the head and the whole body beautifully integrated, functioning together so that we need each other. The eye can't say to the mouth, "I don't need you." The hand can't say to the head or feet, "I don't need you." We need each other. There's a beautiful interdependence, isn't there? And so God has given us these spiritual gifts and every single one of you who's a Christian has some kind of gift from the Lord, has a gift package or an arrangement from God and he expects you to use it. He wants you to use it. And so we've talked about how the gifts are to be used. We talked about 1 Corinthians 13 and love and that you can use your gifts, but if you don't do it in love, you've accomplished nothing. So, there really is that need to use the gifts and love to build up the body. But there it is. We've got this idea of the spiritual temple or of the body growing up or rising up to completion and step-by-step, week-by-week, worldwide that invisible body of Christ is growing, isn't it? And then it's exciting. That is the story of the world, isn't it? All the other stuff you read in the New York Times or that you see in the news, that is not the ultimate story. That's just stuff that comes and goes. "Nation will rise against nation," Jesus said, "kingdom against kingdom. There'll be wars and rumors and wars, famines and earthquakes in various places, these are just the beginning of birth pains," said Jesus. The real thing is the building of the church of Jesus Christ. And we get to be part of it. We are given spiritual gifts so that our time on earth can be spent in deeds and actions of eternal consequence. Isn't that wonderful? You don't have to be locked into a worthless, useless life. Quite the opposite. You're actually expected not to be useless. You're expected to use your gifts to build the body. Well, it probably has left you a question saying, "How do I find out what my gifts are? What do I do now? How do we get practical?" And so I'm going to urge on us as a body, a three-step process that we are to discover, to develop and to use our spiritual gifts. We are to discover them, we are to develop them, and we are to use them.

Now, you might say, "Why are we called to discover our gifts? There's no real command anywhere that you should discover your gift." But you have to understand, when it says in 1 Peter 4, for example, "Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others," doesn't that imply you know what your gift is that you've received, and what gift you have in your hand? And so it would make sense that you would discover or determine what your gifts are. And I find that it's very common that church people will ask that question once we get into this topic, "How can I know what my gifts are?" And so we're going to talk tonight about how to discover your spiritual gift. We're also going to talk about, in the future, not tonight, but how to develop your spiritual gift. We get that mostly from Paul's admonitions to Timothy, to not be neglectful of the gift that is in him and through the laying on of hands. In other words, you're supposed to be developing your gift. If you have a gift of teaching, you can't just assume that it's fully formed, but you have to grow in your knowledge of Scripture and you have to grow through reading the works of others and through use of the gift. You just are a better teacher 20 years down the line than you were when you started. And so it is with all the other gifts. There's a development of the gifts. We're going to be developing them. And that goes on side-by-side with the third step, which is using the gift that we actually develop while we use. And I actually would say that we also discover a lot while we work, too, don't we? As we do things in the church, you start to see the ways that you are blessing the body and the body confirms to you those gifts or urges you to look in a different direction. That's okay. I mean, that's fine. We need to speak the truth to each other and that's fine. But there is this process.

Now, I want to begin with Romans 12, but I just can't start at Romans 12. I have to start at Romans 11:33. Any chance I get to read this doxology I love to read. Now, we are going step-by-step through Romans, aren't we? And we have learned a lot, but there's just so much more that we could have learned in the passages we've already looked at. And there's so much more yet to learn. We still have mysteries to go through, Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 and 10 and on into 11. And at the end of all of that doctrine, 11 chapters of doctrine, what can Paul do, but take a moment and just worship God? Isn't that wonderful? When you get done with doctrine just to worship God! And I think that actually listening to the word of God and meditating on it, and rejoicing over it, and allowing it to transform you is one of the highest forms of worship there is. It really is a form of worship. What is worship, but worth-ship? We're appraising the worth of God, aren't we? And we're sensing how much God is worth to us and what are his plans and purposes worth to us? And we say, "Oh, they are the highest and greatest value in this world." And so Paul just stops at the end of all this theology. Was there a time when you looked on that as a dry and boring word? Theology? Who would ever want to do that? But theology, I think, is the most exciting study there is, studying the eternal God, theology. We're going to study God and so Paul after 11 chapters of his own theology in which he just puts the pen down, is just astonished at what he's written. Do you think he fully understood it all? I don't think he fully understood all of it, but I think he's amazed. And so he says in verse 33, "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and his paths, beyond tracing out." I can't get past that word, oh. I've talked about it so many times before. Has there been an oh in you today? I hope so. The only function of that word is worship, isn't it? There's a sense of emotion, and glee, and joy at the richness of God. "Oh," says Paul, "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and his paths, beyond tracing out." You can't figure out what God is doing. His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his thoughts higher than our thoughts and his ways higher than our ways. And Paul says they're beyond tracing out. You can't figure out what God's doing. You can't trace out his paths. “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay him?” Will God ever owe you anything? And when you use your spiritual gifts, you may be tempted by the devil to think that God is in some position of debtor to you. You owe him everything. All the things you have, have come to you from grace. God never owes anyone anything. “Who has ever given to God that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things.” Does that include you? Are you from him? Do you exist from him? Were you not created? Were you not knit together in your mother's womb by the hand of God? Did he not breathe your soul into that unformed substance so that you became a living being? And did he not redeem you also by the gospel? Did he not create you out of nothing spiritually as well? From him, you are, “from him and through him and to him are all things.” That's a kind of emotion verse, isn't it? It comes from him, it operates through him and it goes back to him. Isn't that wonderful? “From him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

Okay, well that amen means I'm at the end of my doctrinal section. Now, I'm going to get to practical application. We're at the application part of the sermon. But you notice how Paul is he always gives you doctrine first before he tells you how you should live, right? And so he gives you 11 chapters of solid doctrine and now he's going to tell you how you should live. And so he does, in 12:1-8. Let's read it together and look at it.

Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will. For by the grace given me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ, we who are many form one body. And each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve. If it is teaching, let him teach. If it is encouraging, let him encourage. If it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously. If it is leadership, let him govern diligently. If it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

So this passage is about spiritual gifts, isn't it? And I include the famous first two verses here, and I really do connect the two. So this is, I believe, the best section or the best passage in the whole New Testament on how we discover our spiritual gifts. How do we find out what our gifts are? Paul is answering that question among other things in this passage. And he's telling us how we should discover, and then secondly, how we should use our gifts.

Let's begin in Verse 1. It says, "Therefore," now, the word therefore connects what he's about to say to all the doctrine that we have learned up to this point. And what is that doctrine? Well, we review it every Sunday morning, that we were sinners saved by grace, that we had no hope of salvation. And that if God had not moved, we would be lost. We would be dead in transgressions, and sins it says in Ephesians. Romans 3 is very graphic about how all of us have sinned and lacked the glory of God. And so based on all of that, the whole salvation plan in all of its glory in its majesty based on all of that, "Therefore, in view of God's mercy, I urge you..." There's an urging here. There's a sense of obligation, a sense of debt. Now, I don't want you to think of debt, because we already said that, in effect, if we have a debt mentality there's a sense of transaction between us and God, which is totally apart from grace. It's something that we would not want to understand that God doesn't owe us anything and that we cannot pay God back for what he's done. We have to get away from thinking that, that we're going to use our spiritual gifts to pay God back for what he did for us in Christ. Can you pay God back? Is it not an insult to him to try to pay it? We absolutely must not pay God back. But yet, that does not mean there's not a sense of obligation. And Paul uses this frequently, doesn't he? “Therefore, brothers," he says in Romans 8, "we have an obligation, but it is not to the sinful nature to live according to it." So there is a sense of obligation. We should live a certain way. That's what he's saying, “I urge you in view of all of what God has done to live a certain way.” And what does he say? Well, you should offer your body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.

Now, this is very similar to Roman 6, isn't it? "Do not present the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness." Is this not the same teaching? It's the exact same teaching. Romans 6 and Romans 12 teach the same thing, you are to present the members of your body to God as instruments of his work. Your hands, your feet, your eyes, your brain, your mouth, all the parts of you are tools for the advancement of the kingdom of God. And he's going to use you in a mighty way. He's going to use you in a powerful way as you have presented yourself to God and as you present the parts of your body to him. So he's saying you're going to offer your bodies as living sacrifices.

Now, this is very different than the Old Covenant, isn't it? What's the difference between this and the Old Covenant? What was offered in the Old Covenant? 

[Audience speaks}

Sacrifices that were dead, once for all. They're dead and there's nothing else. But you are alive forever. You are eternally alive. And so therefore, you can be constantly offered up to God. Look back if you would for a few moments at Romans Chapter 8. Toward the end of Romans 8, we see some marvelous things beginning in verse 31, "What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?" One time I was at a funeral and there was a listing of verses to be read and it said, Romans 8:28-35, and 37-39. And I said, "Wait a minute, one verse was left out. What verse is it?" Well, it's that one in the middle, that one about being a sheep for the slaughter all day long, right? Well, that's what it says,

What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all- how will he not also, along with him graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus who died- more than that, who was raised to life -is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble, or hardship, or persecution of famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

 So in all that he's giving a sense of assurance, that nothing can separate you. I think you could sum up the whole message of Romans 8 from no condemnation at the beginning to no separation at the end. That's the whole message. It's a message of total assurance.

But then he says, in the middle of this message of total assurance, "As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’" Well, whoever chose the verses for that funeral thought that was inappropriate and a little negative, but I think you can't understand these verses unless you understand that one. There is a context for the secure power and strength and keeping of God. And that is that we are in a hostile world that hates our faith and that we're going to be out on the front lines, aren't we? We're going to be doing things for God and that we're going to be facing death all day long. We're considered sheep for the slaughter and not just by the world, but by God himself. He's going to be pouring us out. Like Paul said, "I'm already being poured out like a drink offering and the time has come for my departure." God is going to use you. He's even going to use you up on earth. Why? Because he knows you have eternal life. And so he's going to take you and he's going to use you every day. And if you don't have this mentality of, “all day long I'm like a sheep for the slaughter," you will do less for the Lord than you should. You'll hold back from things that God wants you to do, say, "That's too hard. That would mean this. Or somebody won't like me," or some other thing. You're going to hold back. God says, "Think of your life on earth as a life of sacrifice, a life of taking up your cross and being willing to die. And if you do, you will accomplish all these things."

So go back to Romans 12. There's that picture of all day long we're considered sheep to be slaughtered. What does it mean all day long? Well, it's the same thing as being a living sacrifice. All day long you're sacrificed. You die and you die again. Paul says, "I die daily. I die every day. And guess what? Behold I live, I'm alive again to give again. Day after day I'm alive and I keep dying." So he's saying we're a living sacrifice, “holy and pleasing to God- this is your spiritual act of worship.” Is this not your highest form of worship to God? To present yourself fully and say, “I am yours to command and everything you say I will do." And so that word, offer that we already looked at, we saw it earlier in Roman 6, remember? We're going to offer, we're going to present the parts of our body to him as instruments of righteousness. Do you remember where we saw that in terms of the statement made by Jesus the night that he was arrested, you remember? Simon Peter pulled his sword, I've talked about this before, and he wanted to save Jesus from being arrested. He wanted to save Jesus from going to the cross. If he had saved Jesus from going to the cross, he would be eternally condemned. We don't know what God's doing do we? We don't understand God's ways. His ways are so much higher than ours. So he pulls his sword and Jesus tells him, "Put your sword back in its place for all who draw the sword will die by the sword." He said, "Do you think I cannot call on my father and he will at once put at my disposal more than 12 legions of angels?" That's the same Greek word as offer here in Romans 12 and in Romans 6, "Put at my disposal." Well, you have to imagine, use your imagination, with what attitude would the angels come and present themselves to Jesus? What do they say to their commanding officer? They are ready to do anything, anytime, any place. Anything he commands, they will do. “600 Roman soldiers? No problem, Lord, no problem.” Anything that he commands, they will do. Well, that's the same concept here. You are presenting yourself to him the way an angel would and is this not the fulfillment of the Lord's prayer, "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven"? “I want your will to be done in my life the way it is in heaven, and I'm going to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. I'm not going to be a rebel anymore. I'm presenting myself to you. You tell me what to do and I will do it.” So you're going to present your body to him as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. And this is worship. This is worship, not merely the singing of hymns or merely the reading of Scripture, but deeper than that, it is a full-blooded response to God saying, "I want you to rule over me and I'm yours to command."

All right, well that's important. You say, “What does that have to do with discovering your spiritual gift?” Well, it has everything to do with it. If you don't do that, then you cannot serve God. You cannot use your spiritual gift. You'll be an autonomous king or queen in the body of Christ and we don't need that. We need somebody who's under the headship of Christ, submitted to his leadership, using your spiritual gifts in submission to his leadership so that the gifts are used to build up the body and not to destroy the body. So you're going to present yourself. This is your spiritual act of worship. And then in verse 2 it says, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Very important, and we've talked about it before, and I just want to keep focused on spiritual gifts. What this means is you're not going to think of your spiritual gifts the way a worldly person would. You're not going to be conformed to thinking about yourself and what you get out of it, but rather you are coming to serve. You're presenting yourself to God and to his body, and you're going to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. But I'm going to get outside of just spiritual gifts to just doctrine, just the Christian life. You need to take the word of God in daily. You just need to read it. You need to just saturate your mind with the word of God. You just need to read through the whole Book of Job, all those chapters. You just need to go through all the genealogies and chronicles. Just let it wash through you. You need to think about it. You just need to take the word of God in as it's written and just daily, just take it in. Have that daily quiet time. Make it the most important thing you do so that you're transformed moment-by-moment by the renewing of your mind. Every day you're learning a little more about Scripture. Every day you're learning more. And so that way you're not going to be thinking the world does. You're going to be thinking like a Christian. Why is that important? Well, I don't think you can discover what your spiritual gifts are among many other things if you don't do that. You've got to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then, then you'll be able, you see? You see how it works?

People ask, "Well, how do you know what God's will is? How can you know what God's will is for your life?" Wouldn't you say the question of, “What is God's will for my life?” is the same kind of question as what are my spiritual gifts? I mean, they're related. What are my spiritual gifts would be a question like what is God's will for my life? How should I serve in the body? They are related. Well, Paul says, "If you want to know the answer to that question, you have to do some other things first. Present your body to God as willing to serve and then just start renewing and transform your mind, just walking moment-by-moment as a holy servant of God. Then you will be able", it says. You see the connection there? You will be able to test and approve. You see those two things? You are testing the will of God. It's not that you're testing God. You're determining, what is God's will? And that's a challenging thing, isn't it? Because there are, especially when it comes to spiritual gifts, any of them could be God's will for you. How do you know which ones are? And so you are testing what God's will is. You are trying it and testing it. And as a result of that, you're saying, "Yes, this is the will of God." And I think, all of us, you just have to get the big picture in place first, namely, what is God doing in the world? He is building his church in the world. "I will build my church," said Jesus, "and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." That is his work in the world. So therefore, what is your business on a Monday morning as you wake up? What is your business on a Tuesday afternoon? What is your business on a Saturday? Building the church of Jesus Christ in some way. That should be your mentality. You've got a new way of thinking. You'll be able to test and approve of God's will, you see? What it means is you say, "I think it's delightful. I think it's good.” It says, “test and approve what's God's will is, his good pleasing and perfect will."

Now, here's the beauty of it, okay? God's will is already good to God. God's will is already pleasing to God. God's will is already perfect to God. Is it to you? Is it good to you? Does it seem good to you? Does it seem pleasing to you? Does it seem perfect to you? Well, that's where the transforming of your mind happens, that as you're renewed, you're transforming, you're testing, you're saying, "I just want what God wants. That's all I want. I want God's will for my life. I want God's will for his church. I want God's will to be done." Okay, so if you do all that, you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is. People say to me, "How do I know what God's will is for my life? How do I know?" I believe that you prepare today for important decisions you'll make 10 years from now. Prepare today by habits you're in today, specifically in prayer and Bible intake. You prepare today for important decisions you'll have to make down the road. It doesn't happen all at once. It does not happen in a hurry. You can't hurry and store up the wisdom from God. It takes time, doesn't it? There's only so much you can take in every day. And so, “give us today our daily bread.” There's a sense of daily intake of the word. Don't miss a day. Get ready today for something you'll have to do down the road, 10 years down the road. Do you think Philip was ready when the angel came and told him to go to the desert road? Was he ready to interpret Isaiah 53? He was ready. He was ready. So you be ready, too.

Now, here comes the most important word for why it is we're talking about this tonight. See it in 12:3? How does verse 3 begin? For! We're learning not to skip those little words. For, that's a connection. And what it's saying is what I'm about to tell you relates to what I just told you, you see? There's a connection between verse 1 and 2 and the rest of this section that I read. You want to know what your spiritual gifts are? Do verse 1 and 2. There, we already got it. That's how you find out what your spiritual gifts are. Do verse 1 and 2. But he's going to go on beyond that, "For by the grace given to me..." And by the way, what did Paul mean when he talks about the grace given to me? What's he referring to? 

[Audience speaks]

His spiritual gifts, "By my spiritual gift package, I'm going to say some things to you. I was given to be an apostle to the Gentiles and to write these things. I'm a scripture writer. Not most of your scripture writers, but I am a scripture writer and that's my gift. And so by the gift given to me, I'm going to tell you about your gifts." You see how the body builds the body up? "For by the grace given to me, I say to every one of you..." Do you see how it works? He's very careful that every one of us knows we have a gift. We have a place. We have something important to be done. "For by the grace given to me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought." Isn't that good? He's keeping us humble. Don't think of yourself as absolutely indispensable to the body of Christ. But I would urge you from other scriptures not to think too lowly of yourself either. Now, you would say, "Why should I think of myself at all? Shouldn't I just be other-centered or be thinking only about Jesus?" Well, no, Paul actually tells you to think of yourself, "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment." You see? He's commanding you to think about yourself. And I think in terms of the spiritual gifts, he wants you to look inward with the light of the Scripture and the Holy Spirit and that wisdom that we get, good, pleasing and perfect will, we look inward and say, "What have you put here, God? What's in there? What did you give me?" So think of yourself, but always with a view toward humility, you see? Don't think of yourself too highly. Don't be pulled toward thinking, "I am so great or I'm so indispensable," whatever, but always have that humble mindset of servanthood, “I'm going to use whatever I find within to serve the body.” "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment." Isn't that right? Assessing and thinking properly with a sense of sobriety, a sense of seriousness, sober judgment. You're testing yourself, “sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.” Now, again, we get this word measure. This is the same thing we got in Ephesians 4. In Ephesians 4, Paul says that, "Each of us has a measure as the gifts are apportioned out, according to the metron," it says in Greek, in Ephesians 4, "... according to the measure of Christ," we get these spiritual gifts. Here we have that measurement language again. We have some things measured to us, you see? And it's a proper scale and scope for the work he has in mind for you to do.

Some things we get without measure, like grace for salvation and forgiveness comes without measure. The Holy Spirit, it says in John 3, comes "without measure." There's no measure to the Holy Spirit. But the gifts are not without measure. There's a limit to it. There's a proper scope for yourself in the body of Christ. So according to the measure. And why does he say the measure of faith? Because isn't all of this stuff only perceivable by faith? We're talking about stuff you can't see. You can't see your spiritual gift. You can't take it off like a holster or something at the end of the day and put it on a table. You'll never do that. It's within you and it's spiritual, you see? And so according to the measure of faith, you're going to think of yourself with sober judgment. You see how it works? So the first comes with a sense of self-assessment of what God has put in you.

"Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ, we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others." So, I guess, what he's saying here is the same body analogy we got in Corinthians. You remember that? So there's a sense of diversity in unity, a sense that each of us has a different function. Because we've covered that before, I'm not going to put any more time to it tonight, except to say one thing. It says, "Each member belongs to all the others." Take the word member out and put the word gift in. You see what I'm saying? Each gift, each capability belongs to everybody else. What does that mean? It means your gift belongs to us all. Isn't that beautiful? Doesn't that give you a sense of belonging, a sense that you are vital and important? Now, we're not going to thank too highly of ourselves, but not too lowly either. Each of our gifts belongs to the whole group, and we need them, don't we? We need you to use your gifts. I'm imploring you. Paul urges us, in view of God's mercy, to use our gifts. He's urging us to bring that gift that doesn't just belong to you, but it belongs to everybody. Use it. Each member belongs to all the others. And then he says very plainly in Verse 6, "We have different gifts according to the grace given us." That's about the plainest language you can get. We are talking about spiritual gifts. And we just have different gifts according to grace.

Now, he just gives us a list at this point and just tells them how they should be using their gifts. Isn't it interesting how every single list of spiritual gifts is different than every other list? I think they're only ever meant to be suggestive. I don't really know what they all are. But this is the process that we go through theologically to discover what our gifts are. It really is a very spiritual process of presenting ourself to God in a transforming, a renewing of the mind, reading over 1 Corinthians 12-14, reading over Ephesians 4, reading over 1 Peter 4, reading over Romans 12. And as you read them over, you start saying, "God, what have you put in me? What did you do? I want to do it. I want to use my gifts." And then he starts saying, "All right, get busy. Use your gift." He says, "If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith." I think a better translation would be, in proportion to the faith. In other words, prophecy had to come in and line up with what we already had. It couldn't contradict or also it would be one of those false spirits. And so as you prophesy, be sure it comes down in proportion to the faith that we already have. Let them do it in proportion to what we've already received from God.

“If it is serving, let him serve.” What serving means, specifically, is just taking your gifts and just presenting them in a marvelous way. And so many of you, I think, probably have this gift, among others, the gift of servanthood, the ability to take yourself, all of your things in a very humble way and just present them to the body and to other individuals. And it really relates in so many different minute ways that we couldn't even go into it. It's so broad. But this word here proves that the spiritual gifts, there's a great deal of overlap with what's required of all Christians, right? Aren't we all to serve one another?

And then as he keeps going, "If it is teaching, let him teach.” We need the teachers to teach. “If it is encouraging, let him encourage.” We need the encourages to encourage. “If it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give," and he adds the word, “generously.” And here we get a little bit of that 1 Corinthians 13 flavor, right? It's how you do your gift, not just that you do it. Give lavishly, give generously as to the Lord. And then he says, "If it is leadership, let him govern diligently. If it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully." What a great word, cheerfully, gladly, a sense of gladness. Well, there's a lot more we could say about that at the end, and I'm going to talk more about those verses specifically in the future. But this section right here, I'm pointing your attention to Romans 12:1-8 on the how-to in terms of discovering your gifts, how do you do it? Romans 12:1-8 gives you insight. I want to urge you, discover your gifts, develop your gifts, and use your gifts for the body of Christ.

We are continuing our study in Romans and we come to a challenging passage, but one that I think will bear good fruit in our lives and our hearts as we understand it. Today is Veterans Day, it's November 11th, the year 2001. Veterans Day was designated in honor of the original Armistice at the end of World War I. On November 11th, 1918 World War I came to an end. Now, we tend to know more about and study more about World War II than World War I, but I think that World War I may be the greatest tragedy in the history of the human race. It's something that I just don't understand, how it ever came about, how the assassination of one man and one leader led to the deaths of almost 9 million men on the battlefields of Europe and around the world. That war, World War I, was called "the war to end all wars," but it did not do that, not at all. The ceasefire was set after all that carnage, 8.6 million men died. After all of that death, the ceasefire was set for the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 1918, November 11th. At a small village in France, Ville-sur-Haine, a Canadian soldier named Private George Price was awaiting, as were millions of other fellow soldiers, the end to the bloodiest and most confusing war in human history up to that point.

It was two minutes to 11. At that moment a German sniper bullet ran out and Price was killed, perhaps the last casualty of World War I. The Central powers that lost the war also lost 3.5 million men, the Allied powers that won the war lost 5.1 million men, and Thomas Hardy wrote a poem to mark the Armistice, and it strikes to the core of the confusion and the mystery of what happened concerning that war. This is what he wrote.

There had been years of passion—scorching, cold

And much Despair, and Anger heaving high

Care whitely watching, Sorrows manifold

Among the young, among the weak and old

And the pensive Spirit of Pity whispered ‘Why?’

Men had not paused to answer. Foes distraught

Pierced the thinned peoples in brute-like blindness,

Philosophies that sages long had taught,

And Selflessness, were an unknown thought,

And ‘Hell!’ and ‘Shell!’ were yapped at Lovingkindness

Calm fell. From heaven distilled a clemency;

There was peace on earth, and silence in the sky;

Some could, some could not, shake off misery:

The Sinister Spirit sneered: ‘It had to be!’

And again the Spirit of Pity whispered ‘Why?’

Why indeed. Why 8.6 million people died in a war to end all wars, which laid the groundwork for the greatest war this history has ever seen, World War II? Nothing came of it, just millions dead. And as I look at it, I think the root of it all is sin, it's just sin. And it points to a far deeper and a far more significant battle that's going on today, even now. And I don't refer to the military struggle that faces us as a nation, I refer to the struggle inside the hearts of every one of us as Christians, the struggle over sin. And as we struggle with sin, aren't we tempted and aren't we led and don't we even cry out to ask that same question, why? Why after all this? Why after what Jesus Christ did for me on the cross? Why after the indwelling Holy Spirit? Why after the teaching that I've received? Why after even my own experience, for I've already spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do, why do I still sin? Why? And I believe that's the very question that Paul was seeking to answer here in Romans 7:13-25, which Tony read for us. And don't you sense as you listen to Paul wrestling through it for himself that he would ask the same question when he says, "I do not understand what I do." Can't you resonate with that? Isn't that crying out, saying, "Why do I act the way I do?"

Why is it that the very good thing that I want to do I cannot do? And the very evil thing that I've rejected forever that I swore I would never do again, I find myself doing it again? Why is it? What is this thing, this vicious enemy called sin. And Paul is bringing it out for us, it's almost like for a moment the dust, and the steam, and smoke of the battlefield just clears for just a moment and you can look out and for the first time see very clearly the enemy, sin. And as you look through the letters on the page to the reality and then into your own heart, you realize it's the same struggle that you have as well, the struggle with sin.

Now, as we come to Romans 7:13-25 we come to a very difficult passage, it may be the hardest passage in the Bible, it's hard to interpret and hard to understand. Now, as you read through it you may not see why it's difficult, but the more you think about what's been taught about the Christian life, the more you see that this is a difficult passage.

I've thought a lot about this passage, I've probably studied more about it than any other passage I've ever preached on and I'm still not quite sure what it means. You say, "Well, why are you preaching?" Well, there's some things I am sure about and those things that I am sure I will tell you I'm sure about, but then there are some things I'm not quite sure. Have you ever been driving a car and you have a Coke can rolling around in the backseat and when you turn right the thing rolls over and hits one side of the car, and then when you turn left it rolls over and hits the other side? Do you know what I'm talking about? Are you the kind of person to pull over and get it? Or are you the kind of person that's going to ignore it and just live with it? See, I'm the kind... That kind of stuff drives me crazy. I've got to have things battened down inside the car.

Well, that's the way my mind has been whenever I read a good commentator on Romans 7. I listen to what they say and I roll over and hit that side. And then I listen to the next person, I roll over and hit that side. Now, what are the issues? What makes this difficult? Well, it has to do with the nature of the Christian life and what God has done in us and what we've already learned in Romans compared to the things that Paul says about himself here in Romans 7. That's what makes it difficult.

A Review of the Gospel in Romans

Now, let's understand the context. Paul has been unfolding for us the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In Romans 1:16, he says, "I'm not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the Gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is from faith to faith, just as it is written the just shall live by faith."

And so there is this Gospel message of a righteousness that comes down from Heaven as a gift from God. It's an imputed righteousness, it's given just as a gift to those who simply believe. And then we've seen in Romans 1, 2 and 3 how Paul unfolds the need that we all have for it. Every last one of us needs this righteousness, because all of us have sinned and lack the glory of God. Every last one of us has exchanged the glory of God for something man-made, something sinful and wicked. And we continue to do this and we continue to live out this sin and we struggle with it, whether Jew or Gentile. Jew and Gentile alike struggle with sin. Everybody's locked under sin and we need a savior. And so God provides a savior in Jesus Christ, and what a salvation it is. And we need that salvation because we are threatened with eternal wrath. We're threatened with punishment because of our sin. "The wages of sin is death," that is eternal wrath under the judgment of God. But God presented Jesus Christ, it says, in Romans 3, as a sacrifice of atonement, a propitiation for us. Jesus stood in our place and absorbed the wrath of God on the cross. That's what was going on when He cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He was absorbing the wrath and punishment of our sins, our crimes against God.

Justification by Faith

Well, how can that righteousness of Jesus Christ be given to me? And how can my sins be given to Him? How does that transfer occur? Well, Romans 4 teaches it's simply by faith, apart from works of the law, apart from anything that you can do, no good works will ever be accepted on your behalf for your sins. Your good works cannot pay for your sins, because as we're going to find out, the more we study on Romans 7, even your best works are tainted deeply with sin. We can never get away from it. And so, how is it we receive this free gift just by faith? Like Abraham, who looked up at the stars and believed the promise from God, "So shall your offspring be," so it is with us. We hear a message, a simple message of freedom from sin through Jesus Christ and we believe it and we are justified. We're declared not guilty by the judge of all the universe. Amen, hallelujah. We're free forever. We are justified by faith. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. I can't wait to preach on that, so I'll do a little this morning.

Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." What a glorious message. And so, we're justified, but then a question comes. If it's true that we're simply justified by grace, by grace alone and that the law comes in just to increase sin, but where sin increased grace increased all the more, so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign even more powerfully in life. If sin can't beat grace and grace always trumps sin and grace is always greater than sin and overwhelms it, if all of that's true, then why don't we just sin all the more? Why don't we just sin and sin and sin? Romans 6:1, "What then shall we say, shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound?"

Our Present Christian Life

So Paul in Romans 6 and 7 is dealing with the question of our present Christian life, now that we're justified and how it relates to sin. That context is very important. And then in Romans 6 we've learned that we are united with Christ, aren't we? By faith. We've become one with Him. Jesus Christ died and we died in Him and Jesus Christ rose and we rose in Him, and water baptism is a picture of that. We were buried with Him through baptism and death, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life. So we're united with Jesus Christ and that gives us a complete assurance. And therefore, Romans 6:14 says, "sin shall not be your master, because you're not under law, but under grace." You've come to a whole new realm of existence. You're a new person in Christ and sin cannot rule over that new creation, that new person that you are. Sin is not your master. Sin does not call the shots in your life. You can say no to sin anytime wickedness, but rather present ourselves to God as those who've been brought from death to life and present the parts of your body, your hands, your feet, your eyes, your mouth, all the parts of you to God as instruments of righteousness.

Is There Something Wrong with the Law?

And then in Romans 7 he talks about the problem of the law. Well, is there something wrong with the law, then? Did that which is good produce death in me, he's asking? Is there something broken or wrong with the law? Could God have written a better law? If it only ever seems to produce death everywhere it goes, is there something wrong with the law? He answers that, "May it never be." Rather, he says, in order that sin might become utterly sinful, it produced death in me through what was good. There's nothing wrong with the law, the law is holy and righteous and just and good. It's wonderful, you can't do any better. The problem is me, I'm the problem, and you too. We are the problem. The law's got lousy material to work with. It's us. We're sinners.

Is Paul Speaking as a Christian or as an Unbeliever?

And so Paul is going to delve into that here. Now, what is the mystery about this passage? Well, on the one hand is Paul speaking as a Christian? Paul is using very personal language here, isn't he? He says, "I" and "me" and "my" 46 times in the NASB, 46 times in Romans 7. He says, "I" and "me" and "my." He's talking intensely about himself, it seems. Well, then, Paul, are you speaking as a Christian or are you speaking about your experiences before you were a Christian? That's the issue. Now we get the Coke can rolling from side to side. Is Paul speaking as a Christian? Well, if he is speaking as a Christian and we read it, it resonates. We say, "I understand what he's talking about," don't we? You read it and you say, "This is me. This is my struggle. I do struggle with sin like that. I do the very thing I wish I didn't do. And I can't seem to stop the very thing I don't want to do." And I relate to that and I can do what Paul did.

I can cry out against myself. I can say, "What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body of death?" This is me. And so it resonates. The problem is the verses itself. They seem to say things that Paul told us would never be true about us again. Look at verse 14, "we know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual…" Well, wait a minute. What is that? What do you mean I'm unspiritual? I thought I have the indwelling Holy Spirit. I thought I am now newly created and will be that way for all eternity. What do you mean I am unspiritual? And then he goes on and says, "Sold as a slave to sin." Oh, I thought we were done with that. I thought we were free. I thought we'd never be slaves to sin again. The pastor told me so. Romans Chapter 6 tells me so, even more importantly. "Sin shall not be your master, because you're not under law but under grace." And now literally a chapter later, that was 6:14, now we got 7:14 and he seems to be taking it back, at least for himself.

You see the problem. Well, if Paul is speaking as a Christian, how can he make this statement? One commentator said this is not the struggle with sin, this is defeat in sin. There's a difference. We all acknowledge that there's struggle with sin. Galatians 5 talks about that, doesn't it? Galatians 5 says very plainly that if we follow the spirit, we will not follow the flesh and there's going to be a struggle. There's no question at all he's writing to Christians. And he says that there is a conflict between the spirit and the flesh there. We know that, and we do experience it, right? And so, we struggle, the flesh wars against the spirit and the spirit wars against the flesh, so that we do not do what we want, or we do not want what we do. What does that mean? You are not pure people. You're never 100% doing anything. None of you are 100% listening to me right now. Maybe a few are. I mean, there's a pull inside, isn't there? Part of you wants to listen. Part of you doesn't want to listen. Part of you is tracking what I'm saying. Part of you is thinking about other things.

I won't guess at what they are, but they're out there. And so we're not pure beings. Do you realize how pure God is when it says, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." That means He never struggles the way we do. There's no locked up kind of grid lock inside Him. He always knows what to do. And there's no hesitation with Him about anything. But we're not like that, are we? We're divided beings, and so we struggle within ourselves all the time, don't we? I'm not questioning that. The question is, is Paul talking about that here in Romans 7, because his language seems to go too far, doesn't it? What do you mean, "sold as a slave to sin?" I don't like that. I thought I was free. I thought sin had no authority over me. I thought I'm not under sin anymore. What good news is that? Now you're taking it away from me.

You see the problem. He seems to say too much, if he is speaking as a Christian. Okay, the Coke can rolls to the other side. He must be a non-Christian. He's speaking as a non-Christian. Well, in order to see the problem there, you have to realize what Paul says is true of non-Christians. In Romans Chapter 8, he say, "The sinful mind," or the mind of natural man, "Is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God." They don't love God. They don't love His word. They fight against it. They're almost allergic to it. When it's preached faithfully, they get upset about it. They get angry about it. There's an allergy in the natural heart to the word of God. And yet Paul here in Romans 7 says in verse 22, "In my inner being, I delight in God's law." So now you're saying, "I see it, I see why the Coke can rolls from side to side. Are you speaking as a Christian or are you speaking as a non-Christian?"

Either Way, the Christian Life Involves a Deep Struggle Against Sin

And you're saying, "Thank you very much, Pastor. I never had a problem with Romans 7 until you came and told me today." But I want you to understand the Christian life. And if you truly understand the Christian life, Romans 7 gets harder and harder to understand. The more you understand how free you are from sin and the power of the Holy Spirit within you, and the more you understand just how dead you were apart from God and how you could not rejoice in God's law, and there was nothing inside you that resonated with that, the more you're going to see that Romans 7 is the hardest chapter in the Bible. And so I want to say before we continue and try to figure out what this is teaching, I want to tell you that it doesn't ultimately matter. Now, you may be surprised about that, but I believe it's possible to be wrong about this question in Romans 7 and still be completely right about the Christian life. So the pressure's off a little bit. Now, it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to figure it out, but the pressure's off. Either Paul is a Christian or he's a non-Christian, but either way, we understand the Christian life, don't we?

It's a life that's going to be involving deep, bitter struggle with sin. And it's going to be with you as long as you're in this body of death. You're going to struggle. You're going to war. And the answers have to do with the Gospel message and the promises and the power of the Holy Spirit built in you. And we'll get to that in Romans 8. He already alluded to it in Romans 7. "We do not serve in the old way of the written code, but in the new way of the Spirit." The way of the Spirit, notice in all this discussion in Romans 7, he never once mentions the Holy Spirit. That's very, very significant, I think, to me. So, ultimately, we can understand the Christian life properly and not finally resolve whether Paul is speaking as a Christian or a non-Christian.

I say one more thing about it from the top. It could be that there is no resolution because sin itself is an unbelievable mystery. It is essentially insanity, isn't it? So whenever Paul sinned, even as an Apostle, it was insane for him to do so. It was a total denial and disavowal of everything God was doing in his life. And it could be we can't resolve this, because sin itself asks that question I asked at the beginning about that poem. Why? Why do we do it? There is no answer, is there? What benefit did you ever get from sin? And if the answer is none, it's only ever hurt me, it's only ever left my life devastated the way that it left the battlefields of World War I devastated, then why do you keep doing it? There is no answer, is there? It's essentially mysterious. It's the mystery of iniquity.

And that's why I think we won't be able ultimately to resolve this question. But let's try to look at the chapter and try to understand it. As we look in here, we are getting an unbelievable clear look into the depths of human personality, aren't we? We're getting a probing look into who we really are. Have you ever felt this before? I do not understand what I do. I would think, of any topic in the world that you'd be an expert on, it'd be yourself. Don't you think you would really know who you are and why you do what you do? But do you? Do you understand why you do what you do? Do you ever do something or say something and say, "Why did I say that? I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to say that." Romans 7 brings that light right into the core of who we are. Why do we struggle the way we do? Now, as we've looked across this thing, we've tried to understand the various views. We understand what we're struggling with.

Let's look across the text and try to see what Paul is saying. It's really broken into three cycles. You get cycle one in verses 14-17, cycle two in verses 18-20, and cycle three in verses 21-25. In effect, in each of these three cycles, he says the same thing, only a little bit deeper each time. Cycle one. "We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it but it is sin living in me." The first thing Paul does in this cycle is he states a problem with self. The problem's not the law. There's nothing wrong with the law. The problem is me. I am unspiritual. I've got a problem. And he states a division. There's a part of me that wants one thing and there's a part of me that wants something else. There's a war going on inside me. And then there's a statement of yearning or willingness to follow the law. There's a yearning after God, a wanting to do what God wants. And then there's a statement of powerless. But I can't do it. I see that it's good, I yearn for it, I want it but I can't do it. I just can't get there.

My reach escapes my grasp. I can reach for more than I can really get. Do you feel that way in the Christian life? You can imagine more in the Christian life than you really live. And so he states bad behavior in reference to himself. "Sin living in me corrupts me and causes me grief and harm." That's cycle one. We're going to go into these more carefully over the next few weeks, God willing.

Cycle two. "I know that nothing good lives in me…" It's verses 18-20. "I know that nothing good lives in me; that is in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do. No, 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." Again, he states a problem with himself. There's nothing good living in me that is in my flesh or in my sinful nature. And by the way, that slight correction there helps me to understand this whole thing. There's a slight correction which he's saying, "there's me" and then there's, "my flesh" that I'm dragging around all the time. And that helps me understand Paul speaking as a Christian. Doesn't make verse 14 any easier for me, but it does help me to understand it.

So also, by the way, brothers and sisters, the fact that he says "no longer.." "It is no longer I who do it but sin living in me." What does no longer mean? It means there was a change in my life, right? There was a time that I was nothing but sin all the time. Now, I see that there's something new in me, a new creation. I hate sin. I want something new. I want to walk with God, but I've still got this flesh. So there's that no longer and that gives indications that he's talking as a Christian. And so, he puts a statement of yearning or willingness. Again, part of me desiring to please God. I want to do what is good but I cannot carry it out. And therefore, sin lives in me and corrupts me.

Cycle three, verses 21-25. "So I find this law at work," he says it very strongly, this unbreakable, (it seems) or unshakable principle. "When I want to do good, evil is right there with me." Have you ever felt that? Me and my shadow, right? As soon as you want to do something good, evil's there holding you back. It makes it difficult. You don't actually do anything completely purely. That's why standing on good works will never work, because there are no perfectly good works. Evil is right there at all points. Evil is right there with me. "For in my inner being, I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body waging a war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members." So there's the third cycle.

And then, as though he just can't bear it anymore, he cries out, "What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body of death?" Can you make that cry today? Do you see it inside yourself? What would you give to be free forever from your sin nature? What would your marriage look like? What would your employment as an employee of a company or however you earn your money, what would it be like? What would your relationship, if you're a young person, with your parents be like if you never sinned again? What would it be like? What would your relationship with the world and all of its allurements be like if there was nothing within you that resonated at all with that wickedness? What would your life be like?  And so you cry out and say, I just look inward and I see wretchedness.

Who's going to rescue me from this body of death? And then, if you're a Christian, you move onto the second part. Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Somebody say amen. Somebody cheerful. Amen! Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He is our savior. And when we get to Heaven are you going to be talking about yourself and how great you were and how you made it through the life and all that? No. You're going to be saying, "Hallelujah! What a savior. Hallelujah! What a friend. Saving, helping, keeping, loving. He stays with me to the end." That is Jesus, our savior. We will discuss this more next week.

Let's get a little application, and then, God willing, if He gives us time next week, we'll look more carefully at these verses and try to understand ourselves. How can we apply this? First of all, be thankful if you're a Christian. Speak words of praise to Jesus all the time, because you can't save yourself. You prove it every day. Even now, even as a Christian, even with the scripture, and with the indwelling spirit and all of these things, there's still enough sin to condemn you every day.

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ. Thank Him often for your salvation. Thanksgiving's coming up; every day should be thanksgiving for a Christian. Every day you should be saying thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you.

Secondly, be warned. Sin is going to be with you until you are separated from the body in this world. Be warned. Be ready. Sin is there. Vicious, aggressive, more dangerous than the devil. Because even if there were no devil, you'd still have your sin nature, and it's enough to condemn, right? So you've got that vicious enemy, and it's an enemy within the walls. Be warned. Sin is there.

Be humbled, therefore, you cannot even control your own self. I do not understand what I do. I just can't seem to get the upper hand. And were it not for the indwelling spirit, what kind of life would you live? Even now, justified, believing in Christ, what would your life look like? You need Jesus Christ, don't you? And you need the power of the Holy Spirit, so let it humble you. Be humble. Don't think highly of yourself when you see progress in your Christian life, and you will. But realize, be humble, that something that God is working in you.

Be grieved also. Does Paul ever evade responsibility for his sin in here? Does he ever say, "Well, it's not my fault. I can't help myself." No, he takes full responsibility and he's grieved. It troubles him. So be grieved over your sin. Be instructed. The law cannot sanctify you. It couldn't justify you, and it cannot finish the work in you either. You don't go get justified through faith in Christ and then read the law and try to keep it as best you can. That is not Christianity. The law cannot sanctify you.

And then finally, be assured and encouraged. Have you ever wondered, "Am I a Christian?" Have you ever wondered... You look in and you see this sin and this struggle. Have you ever wondered, has it not slain you to the heart? You love Jesus Christ, you know He died in your place. You know you've trusted Him as Lord and savior, and yet you just can't seem to shake sin. I must not be a Christian. How vulnerable are we to that?

Be encouraged. If Paul is writing as a mature, godly Christian man here, you can't do much better than Paul, and he still wrestled with sin too. That doesn't mean be encouraged to sin. May it never be, but be encouraged as you wrestle with sin. I really believe only true Christians really wrestle with sin. They really wage war, and they're going to be doing it until the Lord comes back. So be encouraged and be assured, just because you have sin in your life, doesn't mean you're not a Christian.

We are looking today at Romans 7:7-12, as we continue in our study of the Book of Romans. Before you came to church this morning, did you check in the mirror? I think many of you did as I'm looking out at you. Most of you, I would say, checked in the mirror and looked a good long time. Be sure that every hair was in place and that you're wearing your best clothes. And as you looked in the mirror you expected (I would hope) that the mirror would tell you the truth. I know that's getting harder and harder for some of you. You don't want to hear the truth as you look in the mirror or see the truth. I know I'm not looking the same as I did before. And we change all the time. We look in the mirror and when we look in the mirror, we want the mirror to tell us the truth, even that wicked queen in Snow White, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" She wanted the truth, but she didn't like the truth when it came back, you remember. Didn't want to hear about it that there was one now fairer than she. Of course, that wicked queen's beauty was only skin deep or there's nothing beautiful about her internally. But she wanted the truth.

But what would you think of somebody that went to the mirror and looked at it, studied themselves in the mirror, didn't like what the mirror was telling them and in a rage, pulled the mirror down off the wall and hurled it across the room? That's a vain individual. They don't want to know the truth. But you know it is true that James tells us the law of God is a perfect mirror. It tells us the truth, doesn't it? And as we gaze intently into that mirror, we see who we really are. Not who we imagine ourselves to be. But who we really are.

Listen to the words of James, "Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word, but does not do what it says, is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does." Do you hear what James calls the law? It's like a mirror. It's the perfect law that gives freedom. And as you stare into the law, you see the truth about who you really are.

I was reading recently about a soldier in the imperial Japanese army who did not know 29 years after the war had ended that he was to lay down arms. I don't know if you've heard about this guy in the early 1970’s. He finally surrendered in 1974, 29 years after the war was over. Now, that's a soldier who's loyal to his last command from his commanding officer, at least that you can say. But the remarkable thing about this man is that he subsisted in the jungle for 29 years. And they did everything they could to get him out of the jungle, they coax him, and they brought some of his relatives from Japan to talk to him and to convince him that the war was over. He thought it was all a trick until his commanding officer came back and he was willing to meet with him to come out of the jungle. At a certain point, they would fly over in helicopters and use loud speakers and try to communicate with this guy. They didn't know where he was, just the general area of the Philippines. But when he heard the voice of his commanding officer, he was willing to meet with him and they met together and they took a photo of he and his officer, but then he still wasn't convinced and went back into the jungle.

And they got the photo to him a few days later and he was amazed. He looked at the picture and he couldn't believe how much he looked like his uncles. He hadn't seen himself in 29 years. He hadn't looked at himself. He didn't know what he looked like. I think there are many Christians like that. They never look intently into the law to know who they really are. Instead, they would rather through defiant pride, hurl the mirror, if it tells them even the slightest truth about themselves. Sinners, apart from the grace of God, do not want to hear the truth from the law of God. And that's because sin deceives us and tells us that we are better than we really are and that we don't need a savior, and that really it isn't as bad as we thought it was. Sin hates the truth and seeks to hurl the mirror away. And that's what Paul is dealing with here in this section of Scripture. If you look at verse 7, he says, "What shall we say then, is the law sin?" He's dealing with the question of the law. Is there something wrong with the law?

And the reason he's bringing this up…It seems throughout his teaching, throughout the Book of Romans, that he's been undermining the written law of God, the Mosaic Law. "Thou shalt" and "thou shalt not," the whole law given by God through Moses. He says in Romans 2 that Jews are not justified simply because they possess God's law. Does not prove justification simply because they have God's law. He says in Romans 2:13, "It is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous." And he actually tells us further on in Romans 3:20 that no one will be declared righteous by observing the law rather through the law, we become conscious of sin. It is actually impossible to be justified by law. The law will not declare you not guilty on Judgment Day, rather it will do the opposite. He says in the next verse, in Romans 3:20-21, he says, "But now, our righteousness from God apart from law has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ."

And that's what we've been looking at. This gift of righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ, not by works of the law, not by our private obedience. But rather because of Jesus Christ's obedience to the law. We'll talk about that more later this morning. And he summarizes this in Romans 3:28, "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith, apart from works of the law." Works of the law cannot justify you. You will not be able to stand before God on Judgment Day based on your law keeping. And then in Romans 4, he underscores this all the more by bringing out the father of the Jewish nation, Abraham. And he proves conclusively that Abraham was declared not guilty by God before he was circumcised. A good deal before he was circumcised.

He was declared not guilty simply by believing God's promise. He looked up at the stars. God had him look up at the stars and he said "Look Abraham, do you see all the stars? If you can count them, so shall your offspring be," and Abraham looked at the stars. He just looked and he heard the promise. And he believed the promise. He believed God, and at that moment, it was credited to him as righteousness. That was the righteousness he received simply as a gift, not by law keeping. It was later he received circumcision, kind of the first moving of the law. And so, as he's been moving through Paul, it seems that he's been undercutting the law, not at all, but it seems that way. And he says in Romans 5:20-21 the law came in alongside. "The law was added so that the trespass might increase. Where sin increased however, grace increased all the more."

So the law comes in and just has the effect of increasing sin. And he says in Romans 6:14, sin shall not be your master because you're not under law, but under grace. Last week we talked about how we as Christians, now that we have come into faith in Christ, we serve God in a whole new way don't we? We serve in the way of the Spirit, the new power of the Holy Spirit, not in the old way of the written code. So that brings us right up to the brink of the text we're looking at today. So he's got to deal with this question. Well, what about the law then? Is the law sin? Is there something wrong with the law? Maybe perhaps if God had written a better law it would've done a better job. Is there something wrong with the law? And that's what he's dealing with. And so, he has to give some clear teaching here in order to vindicate the law, and specifically to vindicate God's word, because was it not God who spoke the law? Did he not say thus says the Lord and then give the law to Israel? Has God's word failed? Did he give a bad law? Is there something wrong with it and he's got to vindicate that, and that's what he's doing in this section.

Look at it again beginning at Verse 7. "What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? May it never be!" You can't say it too weakly. "Certainly not!" in the NIV is a little weak actually. May it never be! It's impossible to think so! "Is the law sin? May it never be! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, 'Do not covet.'"

Paul says the law exposes or reveals sin. Now one of the challenging aspects of Romans 7 is Paul's use of the word I. He's speaking about himself. He's speaking autobiographically it seems. And that's a challenge and it's going to get even tougher as we go on in the chapter. But he says, "I would not have known what sin was…" So when he brings himself in here he's speaking it seems autobiographically. But I think it goes bigger and deeper than that. I think he's also speaking as a representative Jew. He's speaking somewhat as a man who is a Jew and who experienced the law as a Jew, and all the history of the Jewish people with the law. I think in that way he's speaking as a Jewish man, and the Jewish nation themselves I believe were representative of the human race as a whole.

Gentiles should not imagine they would've done any better if they had received the law. That the Jewish nation was somehow defective or there was something wrong with them. In effect, that was a little laboratory, an experiment on human nature wasn't it, as we look at the history of the Jews and what they did with the law. But Paul, when he says I here, I think he's really representing us all. He is speaking about himself autobiographically, he is speaking as a Jewish man, but he's also speaking as a human being and as a sinner. So Paul is I believe relating personal experience, but also representing us all. And he says that law reveals sin. It exposes sin. It actually defines sin. It helps us to know what sin is. He says, "I would not have known what sin was except through the law." If the law had never been given I wouldn't have understood sin and so therefore the law defines sin for us. And it does it negatively and it does it positively. Negatively, it puts kind of barriers around our life, like fences. And it says, live inside here. To jump the fence is to transgress. And as we jump the fence, we become sinners, transgressors. We break the law. And so we look at the representation of that in the 10 Commandments.

You look through. I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods besides me. That's a barrier. You're not permitted to have any other gods or worship any other gods. Secondly, you shall not make any idols or worship any idols or bow down to them in any way. That's a barrier. It's a boundary and you can't jump across it. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. Honor your father and mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal or bear false witness and you shall not covet. These are boundaries. These are fences, and if you jump over these you shall nots, you've become a transgressor. And so he's defining sin negatively. Also, sin could be defined positively. In terms of what you are expected to do, how you are expected to live. Therefore, Jesus when asked what is the greatest commandment in all the law, he said "the greatest commandment is this, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind."

Have you done that today? Think about that. Have you loved God with everything you have, every moment of this one day? It's still early. It's not yet one o'clock. I know, some of you are checking your watch, it's not yet noon. It's still early. And have you lived every moment for the glory of God? And Jesus said, there's a second command that's like it. It's not equal to it, but it's like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. So sin is defined positively. Negatively there's boundaries, and you're supposed to live in there, you're not supposed to jump the fence. Positively, you are supposed to be energetically powerfully every moment living for the glory of God to love him and for the benefit of your neighbor. That's what sin is. It's not doing what God expects and commands you to do, and doing those very things he commanded you not to do.

But actually these themselves are just summaries, aren't they? The 10 Commandments and the two great commandments. Actually Jewish rabbis went through and counted 613 commandments from God. 613. There are 248 mandates. That's thou shalt, you must, right? And then 365 prohibitions. Thou shalt not, you must not. The mandates, the you shalts included worship regulations, laws about the temple, sacrifices, vows and rituals, national regulations, rules about kings, wars, taxes, family duties, all kinds of things you're supposed to do as a Jew. And then there were prohibitions, including idolatry, blasphemy, worship prohibitions, sacrifice prohibitions, priesthood prohibitions, and diet regulations, things you couldn't eat, agriculture and loans, and personal property and justice. So, there's the positive and the negative, the things you're supposed to do and the things you're not supposed to do. And so, therefore this is what sin is. Sin is any lack of measuring up to what God wanted you to do and actively transgressing against the things he commanded you not to do.

Okay, so now because of the law, we have sin diagnosed. We understand what it is. But actually we have sins diagnosed. We'll talk about that more later, but there's a difference between sins and sin, as there is a difference between the fruit on the tree and the tree itself. So John says in 1 John 3:4, "everyone who sins breaks the law." In fact, "sin is lawlessness." Lawlessness. Well, Paul brings out a case study, doesn't he, in verse 7. He said, "I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, do not covet." Now, the Greek word is a deep desire for something unlawful. It's a yearning desire for something you must not have. Sometimes the word is translated lust, and relates to sexual desire. But I think here it just relates to the 10 Commandments and that desire for anything that God has said, you must not have it. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, you shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor. So he picks up on that coveting.

It's interesting to me, there's a movement, and I think it's well intentioned and it's a good movement, that we should get the 10 Commandments back up in schools and various things. The fact of the matter is, to look at the 10 Commandments, you realize that they are unenforceable by a human government. How could a human government enforce a commandment against coveting? But God can, because he sees your thoughts. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. And so Paul reads the 10 Commandments, and reads this commandment on coveting, and realize that God, the holy God is looking into his very heart, and he's looking at his desires. And is not desire the beginning of all sin? Doesn't it all start with something you want? And you're not supposed to have? So he goes right to the root when he brings up this issue of coveting. And here we get to the issue of sin. "Somebody who's convinced by the law would only be free from the pain of sin," said Stephen Charnock, "But somebody convinced by the Gospel wants to be rid of sin itself."

We want to be done with sin itself, not just the pain that sin causes, but sin itself. We want to be rid of the thing itself. Sin, therefore, is a deeper issue than the sins of our lives. It's got to do with a heart of rebellion against our Creator and our King. It's got to do with our very nature. Jesus said, "Make a tree good and its fruit will be good. Make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is known by its fruit." We go through our lives on these moral reformation projects. We start to change certain things. I'm not going to do that anymore, I am going to do this more. That kind of thing. All we're doing is dealing with the fruit. The Gospel gets to the root, the tree itself, the nature of the tree, what kind of tree is it? And so therefore, sin is this heart of rebellion against a creator. Against authority. Against God.

I think about it in terms of lightning. You know, lightning comes from clouds that bump into each other, right? They rub against each other and they build up static electricity. They build it up and they build it up, but it's not until they have a path to the Earth that they discharge, you see? That's a lightning bolt. And once there's a path, the static electricity can express itself. And that's the way it is with sins and sin. Sin is this attitude of rebellion against God, but until the commandment comes, you can't express it. But once the commandment comes, you can express it. I'm not gonna do the thing God commanded me to do, or I'm going to do the thing God told me not to do. And so it expresses itself like a lightning bolt.

And so therefore, the law actually stimulates sin. Look at verse 9 and follow me, it says, "But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death."

So basically what happened to Paul speaking autobiographically, is that when he read the Law of God, it actually excited or stimulated sin in him. It put ideas in his mind and then it gave him an opportunity to express his true heart relationship to Creator and King, God. And so what it says is that sin twisted the law. It was intended to bring life, but it actually in him produced death. Sin seized the opportunity, it says in the NIV, it actually, literally has to do with the military base of operation, that expression. We've got troops over there in Afghanistan right now, special ops troops. And when troops come into a foreign area, they're going to set up a base of operations. And from that base, they're going to do all of their work in that region. Well, that's about what the law does for sin, it gives sin a base of operations in our soul.

And from that base, it moves out to deceive us and put us to death. Paul says in his case it produced every kind of covetous desire, he started to yearn and want the things he shouldn't have. "And at that moment," he said, "I died." "Once I was alive," he said, "apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died."

Now, there's a question about what Paul means when he says, "Once I was alive apart from law," is this teaching that infants, that babies, are alive spiritually, but then the commandment comes, once you understand the laws of God, that you die? And I think there is an aspect of truth, it's very complicated to figure out, but there's an aspect of truth there. It's once you understand the commands, and that they're coming from God, that it's possible to sin against an eternal God. And at that moment, your relationship with God is severed and broken. We are "dead in our transgressions and sins, in which we used to live," Paul says in Ephesians.

But it's interesting how he says that sin sprang to life. Martyn Lloyd-Jones uses the illustration of a car idling. Imagine a car, a big powerful engine V8. And do they still make V8s? I don't know. Gas guzzlers. But a quiet, kind of purring engine just sitting there. Just there. It's powerful, it's not doing much, you can't even hear it. But then, at a certain moment, you touch the gas pedal, maybe even jam it down and the engine roars to life. That's the way it was for Paul. He is saying that, as soon as I read the law that sin that was just waiting, it roared to life and moved, and has been moving ever since.

And then the law comes and condemns. Verse 9, "Sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me." Oh, how deceitful is sin? How it deceives us and tricks us and tells us that we're better than we are, and that that isn't really sin. And that's really okay to do that. How it deceives us and kills us. This death is relational with God, I believe we can be living dead. We can be dead while we live. We were dead in our transgressions and sins in which we used to live. It's possible. But then along comes physical death. It is appointed unto man to die once physically, and then comes judgment, and then comes the real death, the second death, eternal death.

That is judgment. And what will happen to the sinner at that point, law will stand up and accuse. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 that "the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law." And so, it is sin and the law as it accuses, that makes us fear death, and we should. If we're not Christians, we should, because the law it says, brings wrath. The court will be seated and the books will be opened. The books of the law and the books of our own life and everything that we've done will be opened and everything will be laid bare. And at that moment, the law will stand to accuse any who have not been justified in Christ.

So Paul says, in Romans 3:20, "Therefore, no one will be justified or declared righteous in his sight by observing the law rather through the law, we become conscious of sin." Thomas Adams puts it this way, "The law may express sin, but it cannot suppress sin." Remember the illustration we got last week and we talked about it earlier about Buddhism, but better I think in relation to the law, that basically a sinner is drowning in rebellion. The law stands on the shore and calls out swimming instructions to the drowner. Instructing how to live, but grace through Jesus Christ dives in and saves that individual. It's the grace of God that actually saves. The law just stands and calls out instructions from the shore. And so therefore Paul is able to vindicate God's law.

Look at verse 12, "So then, as a result, the law's holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good." The law reflects God's character. God is holy and righteous and good, and therefore his law is holy and righteous and good. He couldn't have written a better law. There's nothing wrong with the Law of Moses. There's nothing wrong with the law at all, he's going to say the rest of the chapter, there's something wrong with us. It's sin. But there's nothing wrong with the law. Psalm 19 puts it this way, "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the Lord are sure and altogether righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb. By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward."

The law is beautiful, and holy and righteous and good. There's nothing wrong with the law. There's something wrong with us. And therefore the law humbles us and gets us ready for salvation. It gets us ready for a savior. Daniel Cawdray put it this way. "As a mirror, neither washes nor make someone beautiful who looks within it, but gives him occasion either to seek for water or something else that may make him attractive and clean. Even so the law shows to us our sins and makes known to us our miserable state and wretchedness. And how that there is nothing good in us. And that we are far off from all manner of righteousness. And so, it drives us of necessity to seek righteousness in Jesus Christ." That's what the law does.

And therefore, the Law and the Gospel are partners in bringing us to salvation. I fear for the evangelical church in America today, because we don't preach the law anymore. What do we tell people? "God loves you. He has wonderful things for you." That is true. But it's not the whole story, is it? We are sinners in sight. We are rebels. And the law is given to convince us of that. Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor but" who? It's "the sick."  It's not the living who need a resurrection, but the dead. It's not the sighted who need a miracle, but the blind. And so after Jesus healed the blind man in John 9, the Pharisees came in all their self-righteousness and religiosity. And they came to Jesus. And Jesus said, "For judgment, I have come into the world, that those who see may become blind and those who are blind may be able to see." The Pharisees and their self-righteousness hurled the mirror. They say, "What? Are we blind too?" Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin. But since you say, we see, your guilt remains."

Jesus didn't come to call the healthy. He came to call sinners to repentance. That's what he came for. And I believe all the miracles of Jesus testify to this. Look at the miracles. What is it but a picture of human weakness and inability. Can't see. Can't walk. Can't live. Can't recover. Can't stop bleeding for 12 years. Can't raise my daughter from death. Can't eat because we have no food out here in the desert. Can't walk on water. Can't use my right hand. Can't be rid of this demon. Can't hear. Can't, can't, can't. And then Jesus comes, and all of a sudden everything changes. By the power of Jesus, Jesus can. Jesus can make you see. He can make you walk. He can make you live, even if you're dead. He can recover you from any illness. He can stop the bleeding for 12 years, by the mere touch of his garment. He can raise his daughter from death. He can enable you to walk on water. He can give you food to eat out in the desert. Human weakness and inability, and Jesus' power and ability. And it's the law that gets you ready to hear that message. You understand what can't, can't, can't, can't means. Because you live it every day.

The law proves it to you day after day. You read the 10 Commandments and you say, "can't, can't, can't." I can't stop wanting things. Change my heart God. I can't love you with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Change my heart God. The law makes you a spiritual beggar, doesn't it? And it keeps you that way. And that's a good place to be. It banishes human arrogance and pride. The law is a cord of justice, but the Gospel is a throne of grace. Ready for any who are convinced that they need it. The law therefore has a saving purpose and it is to drive us to Christ. This is what Paul wrote in Galatians 2:19-21. "For through the law, I died to the law so that I might live for God."

Do you understand the meaning of that? Through the law I died and realized the law is not going to save me. And so now what's he ready for? He's ready for a savior. Galatians 2:19-21, "Through the law I died to the law, so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life, I now live in the body, I live by faith in the son of God who love me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness could come by the law, Christ died for nothing." What do you need Jesus to die on the cross if you can earn your way to salvation through good works and law keeping. But you can't. And so he came.

Martin Luther commenting on that passage said this,

"Although the law kills, yet God uses this effect of the law to a good end. That is to bring life. For God seeing that this universal plague of the whole world, namely 'man's opinion' of his own righteousness. His hypocrisy. His confidence in his own holiness could not be beaten down by any other means. He would that it be slain by the law. God must therefore have a mighty hammer to break the rocks and a hot burning fire in the midst of heaven to overthrow the mountains. That is to say to destroy this furious and obstinate beast of human pride, that when a man by this bruising and breaking has brought to nothing. He should despair of his own strength, righteousness, and works. And exceedingly quake before God. Being thus thoroughly terrified should thirst after mercy and the forgiveness of sins."

Does anybody preach the Gospel that way anymore? Paul does. We must be broken. We must be made to be spiritual beggars. We must see that we need a savior or else we will never be saved. And pride must be destroyed, and the Gospel does it. The laws on going work, therefore, is to make us spiritual beggars. Blessed are the spiritual beggars, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who continually mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied by grace, as a free gift, they will be satisfied. The law also reveals God's ongoing will, we'll talk more about this in the future. But William Secker put it this way, "The law by which God rules us is as dear to him as the Gospel by which he saves us."

Ezekiel Hopkins said this, "We find the same rules for our actions, the same duties required, the same sins forbidden, in the Gospel as in the law." And so therefore, he sent Jesus Christ to live righteously under the law, to die under the law's penalty, to win for us a righteousness, he is the fulfillment of the law, the perfect fulfillment. Romans 10:4 "Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for all who believe." And so, he walked perfectly 33 years under the law's requirements, never broke one. Never jumped the fence once. Never failed to love God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. Never failed to love his neighbor as himself. And won a righteousness in which you will be robed on Judgment Day, if you trust in him. Oh, is that not sweet?

And then he puts the spirit inside you, and compels you to walk in his ways. To keep the law, Romans 8:3 and 4 it says, "For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering," for us. That is to die on a cross. "And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit." The Spirit comes, and he moves you to obey the law.

What is the application of this? Well first, just acknowledge who you are. Stop saying, "We see." Come to him like a spiritual beggar. Come to him broken. Even now as a Christian. We'll get to that in the second half of Romans 7. But even now, we wrestle and struggle, don't we? We still need grace day, after day, after day. Acknowledge that sin is there, a deep-seated resistance, an allergic reaction to the words of God. And to his authority and power. Say it's there, tell the truth. Delight in God's law, it is holy and righteous and good. Don't accuse the law because you can't keep it. Don't hurl the mirror, but look into it, look deeply into it, and find out who you are, and who God is. And flee to Christ. Flee for salvation, flee for sanctification. Flee to Christ day, after day, after day. Let the law keep you continually humble, knowing that you didn't save yourself. And then ask God to fulfill his law in you, by the power of the Holy Spirit.