DEAD MAN WALKING: Dying with Christ is important because it means we’ve been freed.
- Romans 7:1-4a.
- Chapter 7 obviously flows from chapter 6. Last week in chapter 6 the big ideas we talked about were the (a) we are dead to sin and alive to Christ and (b) that we have to choose if we are going to live as slaves to sin or righteousness.
- In chapter 7, Paul continues his argument by first using an analogy from marriage to explain what situation we are in.
a. Marriage provides a practical example that death changes things.
- vv. 1-3.
- The example is a spouse who dies. If your spouse is alive and you go get married to someone else, that’s a big problem. On the other hand, if your spouse has died, then you are free to remarry and there is nothing wrong with that.
- The situation is different depending on whether a death has occurred.
- To go back to v. 1, the Law only has authority as long as that person is alive. When there is a death, things change.
b. The fact that we died to the Law means that the Law’s authority does not bind us anymore.
- v. 4a.
- Last week we discussed that we are “baptized into His death” (6:3), “buried with Him through baptism” (6:4), “crucified with Him” (6:6), and “died with Christ” (6:8). Those are not empty theoretical religious ideas but ones that speak to the reality of what Christ has done for us.
- Spiritually speaking, we died in Christ. To bring up a famous phrase from John 3, this is why we talk about being born again.
- We need to think of this as honest, accurate language about our spiritual reality. We are being instructed here by Paul on what the spiritual transformation is that has taken place.
- Verse 4 teaches us something else that happened in this transaction: we died to the Law.
- This is important to understand with regard to Law, grace, and the struggle that we continue to have.
- We often talk about how we can’t earn our salvation by works. We can’t follow the Law well enough to earn our relationship with God. This speaks to that. Those attempts to follow the Law to get close to God are dead. But because they are dead, it opens up a new opportunity.
WHERE THAT REBIRTH LEADS: Being freed means it is now possible we can bear fruit for God.
- Romans 7:4b-6.
a. The end of v. 4 tells us what opens up when we died to the Law: a chance for fruitfulness.
- We can now live lives that bear fruit for God. That’s an amazing change: we’ve got from not being able to connect with God to being able to live lives that honor Him.
- Unpack the idea of fruitfulness and that it is not optional for the Christian.
b. We used to bear “fruit” of death.
- v. 5.
- When we were in our natural state (before salvation), our lives bore “fruit” for death.
- That doesn’t mean we were out killing people or anything like that.
- No, it means that our lives were bearing sin and the result of that sin is death. See Romans 6:23. We see this in the news, with the unspeakable brokenness of the world we live in. We see this in the constant drama and problems in so many people’s lives. And we even see it when things are rather quiet in lives but the focus of that life is their own pleasure or mere entertainment or money or similar ends. Sometimes we just take all that to be just the way life is, but it’s really the way a fallen world is.
c. Our death to the Law opens up something new.
- v. 6.
- We were bound by the Law. But Jesus died in our place and freed us from that. Now we can serve in a new way that is characterized by grace and the Spirit.
- This is a way that isn’t just that we get justified so we can go to heaven.
- No, this is an open door to a new way of living. A life that allows us to bear fruit for God. A life that allows us to be close to God.
- The Spirit is crucially important to this new type of spiritual life because He is the one who will guide and direct. We will go into greater depths next week in chapter 8 about this, but the Spirit is directing, empowering, convicting, encouraging, and so much more in this new way of doing things.
DOES THAT MEAN THE LAW IS EVIL? No, the Law is good but rather than saving me it showed the evil in me.
- Romans 7:7-14.
a. What do we do with the Law then?
- v. 7a.
- It’s important to remember that Paul is writing to Jewish Christians for whom the Law had been paramount before their conversion. Now they are left with the question: what good was the Law?
- In fact, that question can be taken even a step farther: is the Law evil? Why is that a question? Well, if the Law didn’t end up helping people get to God and if (as Paul just argued) we need to die to the Law to open up something new, then is the Law sinful?
- We have to do something with it? How do we understand it?
b. The Law made me aware of what was sinful.
- v. 7b.
- The Law made people aware of a standard of right and wrong that was clear and from God. This is important because before that there was not as clear a line of right and wrong.
- We all know that people are really good at justifying their sins and excusing their behavior.
c. But that didn’t make most people want to do right but instead want to do wrong.
- v. 8a.
- It would have been nice if seeing the standard that the Law set we then said, “I’m going to live that way.” But the reality is that seeing the standard created a desire within us to step across that line.
- When a line is drawn we have something within us that makes us want to step across that line.
d. This isn’t a sign the Law is bad, but that I am.
- vv. 10-12, 14.
- It would be easy to say that the Law must be bad then, but that’s not true. The Law speaks what is right and true. So the Law isn’t bad.
- The problem is us. We have sin within us so that when the Law points out where the line of right and wrong is we don’t think I want to stay on the right side but instead how can I step across.
- v. 10 tells us that the commandment (read: Law) that was intended to bring life actually brought death. That’s not because it was bad but because we were.
- v. 11 mentions what sin did. This is a reference to the sin within us.
- v. 12 is clear: the Law is holy and the commandment holy, righteous, and good.
- v. 14 sums it up. The Law is spiritual but in my natural state I am not.
- Adding all this up, it’s essential that we get this point: the problem is inside me.
SO WHY DO I STRUGGLE? Even as a Christian, there is a battle going on inside me.
- Romans 7:15-25.
- This leads us right into the reality of struggle with sin in our lives. And how we struggle even when we are Christians.
a. Why do I do things I don’t want to do?
- v. 15.
- We do things that we know aren’t wise or right. And we look at ourselves and wonder, “Why did I long to do that?”
- We have all had those moments of wondering what is wrong with us in our desires.
b. This proves the earlier point about the Law.
- v. 16.
- To reiterate what we just discussed, when I wonder why I am like this, I am acknowledging that the problem is inside me and not with the Law.
c. As a Christian, I know that I am changed but I have a sinful nature still within me.
- v. 17.
- “As it is” refers to us as Christians. Our current situation is this: I have been changed into a new creation in Christ.
- At the moment of salvation, God transformed me into a new creation in Christ, capable of living for Him. At the same time, I unfortunately retain my sinful flesh. So now there is a war. I am a new creation but I have the sin living within me.
d. In my natural state, I cannot overcome the sinful nature.
- vv. 18-20.
- I can try but I continue to be a sinner doing sinful things.
e. So I am in a state of war.
- vv. 21-23.
- My sinful nature continues to have a pull on me.
f. What am I going to do about it? How is God going to help me?
- vv. 24-25a.
- God has a plan and a path to victory. But I need to understand it to be able to live it out.
- It’s not going to happen if I just live in my sinful desires.
HOW DO I WIN THAT? We are told in Romans 8.
- Romans 8:1-39.
- This is an essential question and we will spend all of the next sermon unpacking that. The quick preview is that it has to do with using the powerful resource of the Holy Spirit.
- Let me close with a point that leads into that: don’t think that because you have struggles that means (a) salvation is ineffective or (b) there is no hope.
- Our chapter for this morning is instructive on these points. Even Paul acknowledges the struggles he has. It’s not unusual or unprecedented. It’s part of the process.
- So don’t give up. Don’t quit. Don’t settle for less. This is part of the plan that God has, but it’s not the last step. It’s part of the “in-between” place that we find ourselves as redeemed people living in fallen bodies.
