A. One day, a mother explained to her five-year-old daughter that if she chose to disobey her, she would have to live with the consequences.
1. “Oh, Mommy!” the little girl said with a terrified look on her face. “Please don’t make me live with the Consequences. I want to live here with you!”
B. In some respects it is impossible to escape the consequences of our sin.
1. As we have learned in our series from Romans, Paul declares “For the wages of sin is death!” (Rom. 6:23).
2. But the good news of the gospel is that God has provided a way for the consequences of our sins to be done away with.
3. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (6:23)
4. Here’s how Paul explained it to the Corinthians in his second letter to them: “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them…” (2 Cor. 5:19).
C. But for our sin to be dealt with appropriately, it must be acknowledged and brought under the grace of Jesus Christ.
1. And that is part of the problem in our world today – people refuse to acknowledge that sin is sin.
2. Almost 50 years ago, back in 1973, the famous psychiatrist, Dr. Karl Menninger wrote a book titled “Whatever Became of Sin?”
a. In that book, he documents the disappearance of the notion of sin from American society.
b. He basically argues that in place of the historic concept of sin, we now speak of crime and symptoms.
c. I would add disease and mistakes to Menninger’s new ways of talking about sin.
D. So, whatever became of sin?
1. We may have stopped talking about sin and calling it sin, but we haven’t stopped sinning.
2. Ultimately, we have turned away from the concept of sin, because we have turned away from the concept of God and God’s moral law.
3. In order to talk about sin, you have to have two things:
a. First, you have to have an objective standard against which all human behavior can be measured, that is, you have to have an absolute standard of right and wrong.
b. Second, you have to have a person against whom sin is committed.
4. Because our society has taken both God and God’s Word out of societies’ consciousness, then we no longer have the absolute standard of right and wrong, and we no longer have the person against whom the sin is committed.
5. But neither of these actions on the part of our society – ignoring God and ignoring God’s standards, makes either of them disappear.
6. God is still God and God’s standards are still God’s standards.
7. Sin is still sin and the consequences of sin are still death.
E. This long introduction leads us right into our verses from Romans 7 that we want to explore today.
1. In our sermon last week, we examined Paul’s explanation and illustration of the fact that we are no longer under the law of Moses.
2. We are no longer under the law, or married to the law.
3. Paul explained that we died to all that so that we might enter into an exciting new relationship.
4. In today’s section, Paul wants us to understand that the real enemy isn’t the law, but is sin.
F. In today’s section from Romans 7, I want us to see how Paul explains that the real battle we face is with sin and is in the weakness of our flesh, and that it is a battle that will continue even after we come to Christ.
1. Paul began verse 7 with a question that he knew his readers would ask: What should we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” (Romans 7:7)
2. The Jews reading this letter would inevitably ask the questions: Since we died to sin and we died to the Law, is the Law then to be classified with sin? Since the law arouses our sinful passions, is it therefore inherently sinful?
3. Paul’s answer is, “Of course not.” - The law exposes my sin, and anything that exposes sin is not itself sinful.
G. Paul then chose one of the Ten Commandments (the last one) to illustrate his point – “Do not covet.”
1. To covet is to want something intensely that somebody else has, to long for it.
2. The law says that we are not supposed to covet our neighbor's house, his wife, his servants, his animals, or anything else that is his (Exodus 20:17).
3. That would include his BMW, his boat, his camper, his cottage on the beach, or anything else he might have.
4. Let's talk about his BMW – BMW’s are very nice automobiles, which cost considerably more than the average car - I can’t afford one.
a. So I look at my neighbor’s and I think, “It sure would be nice to have a car like that. Boy, I'd like to have that car. I’d give almost anything to be able to have one.”
b. I could think that way, and maybe even feel a little uneasy about it, but it isn’t until I read God’s law that I realize that way of thinking is sinful.
c. The BMW itself is not sin, but my attitude is sin.
d. To want that thing so intensely is to elevate me and my wishes to a supreme place, and that is the height of egotism and pride.
e. Additionally, it places my love for myself, my comfort and my pleasure, above my love for God, and that’s idolatry.
f. God’s law takes my covetous attitude, which didn’t bother me all that much, and exposes it for what it is: it is sin.
H. So, is the law bad because it exposes our sin? Absolutely not!
1. Then what is the real culprit?
2. Here’s the real culprit, Paul wrote: 8 And sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. . (Rom. 7:8a)
3. Isn’t that interesting? Paul here pictures sin not as something we do, but as something that itself acts in us and against us.
a. When Paul uses the word “sin” like this - a singular noun - he is often referring to our sinful human nature/flesh.
b. And this sin does something. What does it do? It seizes the opportunity afforded it by the commandment not to covet, and produces in us all kinds of coveting.
c. See that word “opportunity.” It’s a military word that refers to a base of operations, a springboard for offensive action.
d. Our sinful human flesh is pictured as a powerful enemy who takes God’s holy law and uses it as a military base from which it launches powerful and devastating attacks on us that stir us up to sin.
f. Here's the real enemy: our own sinful human nature – our sinful flesh.
4. I wouldn’t put much stock in Mark Twain’s theology, but he did have a good deal of insight into human nature.
a. He insisted that one feature of the human make-up is plain mulishness.
b. If a mule thinks he knows what you want him to do, he’ll do the very opposite.
c. And Twain admitted that he was the same way, along with most others.
d. “The point of it all is that until the command not to do an evil thing comes we may not feel much urge to do it, but when we hear the command our native mulishness takes over. But the fault is not in the command. It is in the mulishness, in the sinner” (Morris, p. 280).
I. Paul goes on to explain how this sin principle operates in our lives: For apart from the law sin is dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life again 10 and I died. The commandment that was meant for life resulted in death for me. (7:8b-10)
1. By being alive, Paul didn’t mean he was spiritually alive, but only that he was living his life totally oblivious to his guilt before God and his separation from God.
2. But then he became aware of God’s law – this may be a reference to his own Bar Mitzvah, when at age 13 he became a “son of the commandment” and promised to obey the law.
3. No sooner had he made the promise, than he realized how impossible it was to keep, how sinful and guilty he was before God, and how worthy of God’s punishment, which is death.
4. In other words, when he confronted God’s law, sin sprang to life, and the result was death.
J. In verse 11, Paul then repeated the real culprit and the result: 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me.
1. There’s the real culprit again, sin, our sinful human flesh, doing what it does best: using God's holy law as a “base of operations” (same word as verse 8) from which to launch a powerful military attack against us.
2. And notice the weapon it uses: deceit (“deceived me”).
3. That’s the same word that occurs in two other places in the New Testament to describe what the serpent did to Eve (2 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 2:14) - he deceived her.
4. How did Satan deceive her? He made her believe that God's command was intended to keep her from enjoying something wonderful, never reminding her of the horrible consequences of disobedience.
a. Satan convinces us that God doesn’t want us to have any fun and that’s why He gives us all those commands. He’s just a cranky old cosmic kill-joy.
b. We are deceived into thinking that we’re missing something good, that is actually bad.
c. Sin never reminds us of the misery which our disobedience will bring us, and the ultimate consequence we will suffer: death.
5. If you or I don’t hear anything in this sermon today, I hope we will hear and heed this truth: Sin Deceives.
a. Sin deceives us by promising what it can never deliver.
b. Sin deceives us by convincing us that what happens to others as a result of sin won’t happen to us.
c. Sin deceives us by creating in us a desire for that which we know can only hurt us.
K. And so, it’s the same old story, over and over again for humans throughout history.
1. We want to do what we’re not supposed to do.
a. There’s a fascination and allure in what is prohibited.
b. Forbidden fruit tastes sweeter.
2. What happens when we see the sign on the fence that says, “Wet Paint! Do Not Touch!”?
a. Many people see the sign and they just have to touch the fence – now you have wet paint on your finger and you don’t know where to wipe it.
b. We probably wouldn’t have touched the fence if it were not for the sign telling us not to.
3. The same is true with the sign “keep off the grass” or the speed limit signs.
4. I heard about a hotel in Galveston, Texas called “The Flagship Hotel” and it’s built right next to the water.
a. Unfortunately, some guests would fish from the balconies of their rooms.
1. The problem that created was the fact that located on the lowest level of the hotel was a restaurant, adorned with large plate-glass windows overlooking the water.
2. Sometimes a guest’s fishing line would be a little too short, and when he would cast it out, the heavy sinker would come crashing back on restaurant window.
3. And you can imagine how the unsuspecting diners would react to that.
b. The management finally discovered how to solve the problem.
1. They removed the “NO FISHING FROM BALCONY” signs from the rooms and the fishing stopped.
2. You see, the sign was the thing that put the idea in their mind; it lured them to do the thing they shouldn’t do.
c. There was nothing wrong with the command not to fish from the balcony.
1. But human nature used the command to prompt people to do what they weren’t supposed to do.
2. Human nature - sinful human nature – the flesh – that’s the real culprit and it is the enemy we struggle with day in and day out.
3. It just keeps using God’s law to lure us into sin, and then makes us pay the consequences.
4. We must not underestimate its power.
L. Paul finished up this section with these two verses: 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. 13 Therefore, did what is good become death to me? Absolutely not! On the contrary, sin, in order to be recognized as sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment, sin might become sinful beyond measure. (7:12-13)
1. Back in verse 7, at the beginning of this section, Paul asked the question: “Is the law sin?” and now he answers the question more directly.
2. “The law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.” (vs. 12)
a. The law is holy, just like the One who gave it is holy.
b. The law is just - it makes no unfair demands, and the punishment it prescribes is deserved.
c. And the law is good - it has our welfare as its aim, not our harm.
3. Paul then asked the question: “Therefore, did what is good become death to me?” His answer is “Absolutely not!”
a. Paul again points to what the real enemy is – it isn’t the law it is sin and our sinful flesh.
b. Sin is able to take God's good law, which reflects His awesome holiness and justice, and use it to produce death in us.
c. Sin prompts us, against our better judgment, to do what the law tells us not to do, and that demonstrates how utterly sinful and deserving of God’s judgment we really are.
M. So there’s nothing wrong with God’s law, rather the fault lies with us.
1. As the cartoon strip Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
2. We must not be like the criminal who was apprehended, tried, found guilty, sentenced to prison, and then sat around in his cell all day blaming the law for his plight (Stott, p. 69-70).
3. The criminal himself was to blame. He made his own choices. He was his own worst enemy.
4. We need to know who our true enemy is - not the law, but our own sinful human flesh.
5. We need to know that it is incredibly deceitful and extremely powerful.
6. Jeremiah said it: “The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9).
7. And one of the reasons we fall into sin is that we have not acknowledged how weak and sinful our human flesh really is.
8. We keep telling ourselves we can do it: “Tomorrow, I’ll start. And I’ll really do better. I can do it!”
9. But we can’t do it, because we have this powerful enemy that seeks to use God’s holy law to destroy us.
10. Not until we acknowledge it - admit it to be true - will we be willing to depend fully and completely upon the indwelling Spirit of God, lean upon Him, draw on His power, and allow Him to bring victory into our lives.
N. It begins by knowing our enemy.
1. Knowing our enemy is absolutely essential to a life that pleases God.
2. Do we understand how weak we really are?
3. Do we understand how powerful our sinful flesh is?
4. Do we understand how much we need to develop a relationship with the Lord Jesus, to learn to live in His fellowship, learn to consciously depend upon His power?
5. That’s the key to victory and we will look into this more next week, Lord willing.
O. In conclusion, let me say that God’s law establishes one fact indisputably: We are all sinners who deserve God’s wrath.
1. We cannot read the Bible and miss that.
2. Jesus summarized God’s commands by saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength; and your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt. 22:37-39)
3. There isn’t one of us who perfectly measures up to God’s commands.
4. We all stand guilty before God as sinners who deserve God’s punishment and wrath.
5. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:23).
P. And that’s why Jesus came to give His life as a ransom for many.
1. And on one occasion He said that He didn’t come to call the righteous to repentance, but sinners.
2. By saying that, He wasn’t implying that there were some people that didn’t need to repent, but He was simply saying, “If you think you're OK, and you don’t need God’s grace, you’ll never enjoy God's eternal salvation.”
3. In order for any of us to be saved, we must recognize our need and cast ourselves upon God’s mercy and His grace. And then He forgives and imparts His gift of eternal life.
R. I want to encourage anyone here today who has not repented and turned their life over to God to do so today.
1. Put your faith in Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection and be baptized into Him.
S. Those of us who have already been united with Christ in baptism, must continue to walk with Him.
1. We must never think we can continue in our Christian life in our own strength.
2. We must continue to acknowledge the power of our enemy and to be aware of his schemes.
3. We must daily and constantly depend on God’s love, power and grace.
4. Praise God, we don’t have to live with the consequences of our sin, we can be forgiven and live with God eternally.
Resources:
Romans, The NIV Application Commentary, by Douglas Moo
Whatever Became of Sin, Sermon by Ray Pritchard
Know Your Enemy, Sermon by Richard Strauss
