1 to 13.
Romans 7
verses 1
to 32.
Or do you not know brothers
in the old way of the written code.
What then shall we say?
That the law is sin
by no means?
Yet, if it had not been for the
law,
I would not have known sin.
For apart from the law, sin lies dead.
I was once alive apart from the law.
But when the commandment came,
sin came alive
and died.
The very commandment upon this life
to be death to me.
For sin,
seizing an opportunity through the commandment,
to see me and through it, kill me.
So God is holy
and the commandment is holy
and righteous
and good.
Did that which is good then bring death
to me?
By no means,
it was sin
producing
death in me through what is good
to mankind and to society.
Indeed, it's a wonderful blessing
to all creation.
It is intended to be a source of
joy
for Mary Carver.
It is intended to be a source
of sanctification
as the Mary covered how to help, how
to comfort, and how to serve your life,
both in times of prosperity
and in times of adversity.
Of course,
when God so wills, marriage is the sacred
instrument
for the profane of children
and for their nurture
in the knowledge
and in the love
of the Lord.
So that's one of the most surprising to
us that in our rebellious world,
marriage and marriages
are under attack.
Society is literally
hell bent
serve,
and honor our spouses.
And we were weary of one another.
And we become vulnerable
to the Serpent's voice. So this was in
our ears,
has God said?
For the way which we have chosen to
lord over our spouse instead of honoring and
serving them,
we instead attempt
to look for excuses to end the marriage,
or we flat out the way they come
into marriage,
through adultery,
or through
abandonment.
Oh, we can look into the deepest recesses
of our hearts. We can realize
that it is only God's restraining
love
that not only prevents us from doing irreparable
damage in our marriage,
but also
makes
us makes this marriage, this covenant bond between
2 sinners,
amazingly,
it's worth a blessing
and joy
and sanctification.
Praise be to God that mercy triumphs our
judgment.
Praise be to God that love covers the
multitude of sin.
Christ is our perfect and longsuffering,
bright red.
And yet, in this morning text from Romans,
Paul tells us that there is a kind
of marriage
from which Christians have, thankfully,
been delivered.
Sin has a legal or covenantal
claim over every human being,
as a husband,
has over a wife.
But if you're a Christian,
Paul writes that you're no longer part of
that wretched meaning.
Your legal meaning to sin has been turning,
and therefore,
the law's relationship to you
has changed.
So let's
But if her husband dies, she is released
from the law of marriage.
Accordingly,
she will be called an adulteress
if she lives with another man while her
husband is alive. But if her husband dies,
she is freed from the law. And if
she
the
what therefore bodies will be together,
let it know and separate.
So because the characters intended by God to
be for life,
Paul knows that death, therefore,
legally and rightly,
is the avenue that releases a spouse from
the laws of the man upon him or
her
with respect
to marriage.
Paul knows that a woman's husband dies
and she marries another man, she's not in
notice because the death of her husband leaves
her from
the law fleeing
over her in regard
to marriage.
In verse 4, Paul interprets the marriage metaphor
as it relates to the laws power
over the Christian.
He writes,
likewise, my brothers, you also abide to the
law through the body of Christ.
Christ,
Christ
died, we died in Him.
Since therefore, a death has stayed in place.
Our covenantal union to sin our marriage to
sin, as it were,
has been broken
in full accordance
with the stipulations of the law.
And, we are free to marry another.
Namely,
we are free to marry he who has
been raised
from the dead.
This is a reminder to us of the
vital nature
of the deliverance from the law.
Christ was slain
and we were put to death in him.
Death,
He was taken and slain. And He kneel
it. And He gave Himself for the joy
that was set before
the law determined the conditions for your justification.
And the conditions could be summarized by 2
words,
perfect obedience.
Those were the conditions.
You wanna be justified
under that agreement?
You wanna be right under that agreement? Here's
what's the method. Simple two words, perfect
It was Christ's death on the cross that
liberated you from the law's demands.
Only when we realize how much our freedom
from sin costs
will we be driven to appreciate,
This means that your Lord and my room
has the power of life
and expects you to bear fruit that reflects
his character.
So it's good for us to always, especially,
be thinking about the nature of our fruit.
What does it look like?
So the fruit that you produce from that
union, I can eat like you.
It's just reflecting
you. Do your words encourage,
exhort,
excite,
Equip,
and Emile.
Do your works,
construct,
create,
connect,
correct,
and comfort.
So that we serve in the new way
of the Spirit and not in the old
way of what it was said.
Under the power of the law, in the
way the written codes, Paul puts it, the
Froomey Boar was only suitable
for death.
Paul's personification
of death here presents it as a deity
who receives authority.
Our former marriage to sin,
under the powerful binding of the law, bore
indulgeless
of our justification.
Remember, the terms for perfect obedience.
As for the loved man, who doesn't demand
that from us, anyone, not a business view
or anything. We abide in that arrangement. We
are free from that arrangement. We have to
contain that
by no spouse,
I didn't even know what coming was, Paul
says. Until I read the law, you shall
not know him. Perhaps remember a time when
you lived in blissful ignorance of God's
law. Or you have friends or family members
who are early living
That's the problem. That's the issue. That's what
disqualifies us.
What Paul says in verses 7:8
is not
that the law produces sin,
but that the law excites sin that is
already there.
That's the issue.
In this sense, sin
is like the electrons that have photoboltaic cells.
These are electron cells that activate
when there are stars to light.
When the light shines on them, the
light excites them into action and they get
to work.
So also, sin
is present in every human part.
And even if some symbol for Clippians lie
dormant
and undetected as if
dead, Paul writes that when the life of
the law shines on them,
sin is in silent action
and begins his destructive,
deadly work.
The idea that sin is not sin until
you act
is not a biblical
idea.
In fact,
in verse 8, when we read that sin
sees an opportunity through the law,
Again, the Greek word translated as opportunity there
means
starting point or
base of operations.
It's a sin the law, which comes from
God,
reminds the sinful heart that its rebellion is
coming,
causing the heart to activate its boundary and
to seize the base on which it can
launch and attacks.
Sin was already there.
It detestating
that comes from God.
That's not
happening.
But we have to curate what is that
we are consuming, what is coming into our
minds, what is coming into our eyes, what
is coming into our hearts.
We need to repent
our corrupt desires, even if we don't have
them. The God Almighty does not
the life of the law showed
on man, it killed his bride. Paul realized
that he was dead. And that realization actually
liberated Paul from his bondage to the laws
of the man
as he understood
that he would not be justified by the
works of the law.
This realization
produced
repentance in
him.
Okay. So what's the law's product?
First of all, before God gives us eyes
to see our own sinfulness,
the law produces rebellion, misery, and despair. Because
we're a rebellion, misery, and despair. Because we're
a rebellion,
and
So in the immigrant heart,
the law often produces more sin,
which only leads to greater rebellion,
to greater misery,
and to greater despair.
Law
Paul does any doubts
about the goodness of the law to rest
in verse 12, where he describes a lot
as holy,
righteous,
and good.
Those adjectives speak for themselves.
In Paul
through the law in order to expose the
sinfulness of sin
as a word.
Therefore, from our text this morning,
we learned that the law has various good
purposes
or applications
for the person whom the Lord calls.
First of all,
because the law of God reflects God's character,
it provides a path
for us to better understand God's willingness.
In a goal, joy, ours,
where ethics are malleable
and everything is permissible,
it is good to ascertain
the non negotiable
holiness
that God expects,
that God demands
from any person who would walk with Him
and enjoy communion with Him.
As we better understand God's holiness,
any misguided,
That gives us a clear
picture of our own sinfulness,
which sets us on a course toward repentance
and humility and ultimately allows us to apprehend
our great need for a saving. Do you
see what great mercy is? It's a painful
person.
A severe mercy.
To actually have something that pierces
to our very heart, that shows the state
of our soul, that shows our sin,
in building our defenses against
sin. Through our faithful participation in corporate worship,
in family worship,
through the diligent study of God's word,
the
That's essential.
The preaching of the law is essential, and
the gospel is the meaning to us.
How do we get the law preached? The
whole council of law has to be preached.
So it matters what is being preached for
the public. And we ought to demand that
the whole council of law has to be
preached.
God's Son, the faithful white womb of the
Church, promises to break the condemning power of
God's law over us.
He promises to produce the fruit of the
Spirit in our lives.