The Believer And Sin Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: March 24, 2012

Date Preached: March 25, 2012

Where Preached: OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Series Title: A Journey thru Romans

Sermon Title: The Law & the Believer

Sermon Text: Romans 7:13-25 [ESV]

Introduction:

Well we have come a long way here in the book of Romans. We have learned where Paul shared that if you believe and have faith in Christ Jesus that you are justified before God… this means you have been declared NOT GUILTY in his sight and the penalty of sin has been removed from your life!

We have also learned how that when we come to know Christ Jesus we are freed from the power of sin… and that God has delivered us from the bondage that has kept us separated from God… we have been restored to the created order in direct communion with God.

Over the past 2 weeks we have learned that in Christ we have also been freed from the Law that the Jews believed to be the only way to know God and experience God.

We have learned that we are not in a ‘performance based’ relationship! But that we are bathed in the absolutely rich and forgiving grace of God… given freely thru His Son Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary.

We have now come to the final section of this chapter… and it speaks to an even MORE intimate level of how we, as believers, can and should deal with the issue of the Law in our lives!

Last week we saw how Paul established that the Law was NOT evil but it was good and holy – Paul NOW moves logically to the next question to be asked and we find it listed in v.13… let’s look at these verses…

[show verses here]

13Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

So in v.13 we find Paul asking the question: “Did that which is good (the good and holy Law) then bring death to me? In other words, what Paul is asking is a question in response to what he had written in v.10 of this same chapter, when he wrote: “…the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me…”

Did the law bring death to Paul? Paul states later in v.13 with the same emphatic NO… just as he had in 6:1, 6:15, and & 7:1… NO WAY! Paul says…

NO it was NOT the law that brought death… Paul says, “It was sin!” Here Paul is personalizing what he had been put forth in v.11 where he wrote, “…for SIN, seizing an opportunity thru the commandment (Law), deceived me and thru it killed me…” (brought me death)

The statement by Paul here in v.13, “…it was SIN, producing death in me thru that which was good…” This clarifies what Paul had laid out at the end of chapter 6 when he wrote, “…for the wages of sin is death…” or the only result that comes from sin is death! Sin has deceived him & dragged him into transgression and had brought death along to place it upon Paul…