Dead To The Law Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: March 8, 2012

Date Preached: March 11, 2012

Where Preached: OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Series Title: A Journey thru Romans

Sermon Title: Dead to the Law!

Sermon Text: Romans 7:1-6 [ESV]

Introduction:

Now we have learned a lot so far in Romans. In Rom 3-5 we learned about justification and what that means for the believer. We learned that through faith in Christ Jesus we have been declared NOT GUILTY in the courtroom of God!

This means that ‘in Christ’ we stand blameless before God and he does NOT hold our sin against us, but instead it is purged and the penalty of that sin is forever taken away from us…

We have also learned that when we come in faith to Christ that we are freed FROM sin… we learned that freedom FROM sin does not mean that we live sinLESS lives, but what it means is that the bondage of sin no longer has its hold on us… we have been freed to serve Christ!

Paul was sharing this with the Roman believers, but was dealing with two ends of the spectrum in his travels and he wanted the Roman believers to understand things from BOTH ends…

ON one hand Paul had people teaching that because of the ALL powerful grace of God that they could live their lives ANYWAY they wanted and God’s grace would abound more and more…

They believed that because they had been freed from the power of sin, and the grace of God covered them, that they could live as they chose… Paul’s answer… and the truthful answer to this teaching is ABSOLUTELY NOT!

We ARE freed by the grace of God, but we are not freed to live as WE choose, but we are freed to serve the One who has freed us… we are freed FROM sin… we are shown grace and mercy so that we can live FOR Him, not for ourselves!

This is a lot like the liberal society we live in today. If it feels good, God surely would not want to cramp your style, he is a loving God and he won’t want you to be unhappy… so do what you want, in the end God’s love is going to make all things right!

To this we have to stand up and say… ABSOLUTELY NOT! God is loving, but God’s saves us to live FOR Him and not for ourselves, and if we are seeking to live for ourselves and as we choose…

then have we really made a profession of Jesus as LORD of our lives OR have we simply professed a decision we made on our own power!

For those professing faith in Christ and living a changed life… it is NOT done under their own power, but they are changed through the blood of Christ! Only thru Him can we know salvation, mercy and grace…

Paul dealt with the liberals… but Paul also had to deal with the legalists as well as there were many who were teaching that faith in Christ was only the 1st step to salvation…

For all who came to Christ, they must then begin to adhere to and perform under the law of Moses… for them it was Jesus AND the Law that made people Christians.

The problem with this is that when the law is NOT upheld or observed properly, they would teach that one could fall away from God because of their failure in the law!

Peter addressed the Jerusalem counsel about this very matter by basically telling them how dare they tie such a heavy burden around the necks of the Gentiles when the Jews had not been able to bear the burden of the law themselves…

These people were teaching that Christ alone was NOT enough, but you had to faithfully observe the law of Moses… many of them were heavy supporters of all male Gentiles new believers be circumcised as part of the Law of Moses…

Paul knew that salvation in Christ did NOT require the keeping of the Law… this is because Christ Himself had said that He had come to be the fulfillment OF the law! God had shown Paul that living in accordance with the Law as the Jews had tried to do (and failed miserably) for generations was NO longer the case, but this was a hard message to get across…

This “Law” was the centerpiece of the Jewish life and it was going to be hard for Paul to teach them to believe that Christ alone, WITHOUT obligation to the law was enough to save…so Paul uses a logical argument to get across this teaching to those who are opposing him on this matter!

So this morning, I want us to look at Romans 7:1-6 and see how Paul unfolds how that ‘in Christ’ we are no longer under the power of the Law!