The Book of Romans, Part 3

Appreciate everybody coming out tonight. We will... we got this book now next month, this place. Oh, well, I think the consensus last time was to be here, wasn't it? Or was it the other? I don't know. I think we did. This is fine with me. Yeah, I know it is. It's fine for me, too. It's closer to home. I only put pins in a map! If we came back here next time... We'll have to see if it's available. Yeah, we'll see if it's available. That will determine it, won't it? And we're also restricting you to only have it three times in a row. Well, we didn't have it last time. We weren't here last time. And so... Well, see what's available, and we've got two holes to fall into. And, you know, it's not that much further up the road if we go to Clop and Science. It's a little smaller up there. Smaller room. Okay. All right. Any other questions or issues or thoughts? We're in the Book of Romans. Again, I appreciate everybody coming out. I do... You don't know how much that means to come up on a Wednesday night, two and a half hours, and find a room full of people who want to sit out and talk about and study God's Word in the middle of the week. So I appreciate very much the fact that you guys make the effort after work or whatever other hectic activity we are involved with through the day to come out and do this. As I said last time, we'll have next month, and I think we'll do October, and we'll look at it after that. Maybe November, or they will break for the hard winter months, and December, January, February, and then probably pick it up in the early spring. That's my idea. So we'll not try to do this. It's hard enough to get saddle surfaces in through the winter up here, much less midweek Bible study when it gets dark, cold, gloomy, and everything else here in Indiana. So we'll go with that plan at this point. We've been going through the book of Romans. This is, in one sense, a very deep book with lots of heavy material. I've not been trying to go into all the detail that one can as you go through this book, but I want to try to keep it simple, hitting the high points, and covering this. As we said, we ended with chapter 5. Let me just give a quick hit to chapter 5, and I want to try to get through 6 and 7 tonight. I've been having a given sermon on chapter 8 that gets us ready for 9, 10, and 11, and we've made some progress through here. Chapter 5 starts off as the last verse of chapter 4 was talking about this issue of justification. Verse 25 of chapter 4 speaks of Christ who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification.

Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, which is verse 1 of chapter 5. Justification is one of these terms that you should understand to understand the book of Romans. It's very simple. When you are made just, you are brought into a relationship with God through the forgiveness of your sins, where you are made righteous. You are made right before God. You are justified before God. You ever tried to justify yourself, your actions when you got caught? You said, well, I didn't feel good.

Or I thought everybody else was doing it. Or we try to justify ourselves when we are caught in something perhaps we shouldn't be doing. We've all done it. Our kids have done it. It's our effort to make ourselves right, to make ourselves blameless. And we know that usually if we get caught, then we have to try to justify ourselves.

Many times we're already guilty, but we just don't want to admit it. Justification in a spiritual sense before God is being made right before God where we are blameless, where we are in a relationship with God where there's no guilt, there's no sin, there is nothing held over us, held against us in terms of sin, righteousness, and our behavior before God. It's a state that we cannot get to by ourselves. There's no word, phrase, effort, work, nothing we can do on our own to make ourselves just before God. It just can't be done in a spiritual sense.

It has to be done in faith through Christ's sacrifice and that sacrifice being applied to us. And that is what Paul is going through Romans showing. In the earlier chapters where he emphasized he talks about the contrast between the Jew and the Gentile. He shows that just being a Jew by itself was not enough, where the Jews in his days should have been more righteous, they should have been better than they were. He shows that you can't just rely upon your heritage, your pedigree, your bloodline.

You can't rely on that. That doesn't make you any better than someone who is a Gentile, a non-Israelite. Nor is a Gentile any better or any less guilty because they were apart from the covenant with God through Israel. They're just as unrighteous as a Jew. And so he builds that case. He shows in chapter 1 that everyone has sinned before God and mankind is in a state where they have rejected the knowledge of God.

They did not like to have God in their knowledge, but in essence just removed Him from their knowledge and gave themselves over to their own human nature. And then he begins to build the case through chapter by chapter through this point where essentially you come to a point where you recognize that the only way we are justified, the only way we are made righteous, the only way we have a relationship with God is through faith.

And chapter 4, he contrasts Abraham and David. He shows where Abraham was and how he was justified even in advance in that sense, not by his obedience or through the law but by the righteousness of faith in verse 13 of chapter 4. And he shows how that Abraham was made just but it was done by faith. And that is what we get into here with chapter 5 where we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And that's where you have peace because of repentance. You look in chapter 8 and verse 6, which we won't get to tonight, but that matches up with chapter 5 and verse 1, to be spiritually minded, his life, and peace. He goes on then to continue to build this case for being justified through Christ's sacrifice. Verse 6, he says back in chapter 5 and verse 6, when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet for adventure for a good man some would even dare to die.

But God commends his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us, showing that he had died while we were still in our sins. And we are then justified by his blood and saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life.

Chapter 5 and verse 10 is a very key phrase to understand that we are not saved by Christ's death, we are saved by his life. We are reconciled to God by the death of his son. We are made just in that sense by the blood of Christ, but we are saved by his life. If Christ had not been resurrected, we would not have that spiritual life today. In one sense it's the take off from the law of biogenesis where it says that life can only come from life.

Spiritual life can only come from a previous spiritual life. We have the hope of salvation because Christ was resurrected. We commemorate that every year when we observe the Days of Unleavened Bread for seven days as we observe that festival during that period. We are picturing Christ's resurrected life in us by His Spirit as an unleavened life within us as we eat the unleavened bread that we have that hope of life. Verse 11 says, and not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the atonement.

And then beginning in verse 12, he goes into a description, in a contrast between Adam and Jesus. What happened with the difference in the two lives? Adam being the first man, first human, and Christ of course being in a sense the first of the first fruits and the first of the spiritual line of God. He says in verse 12, by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin. And so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned.

So we can understand this way that because of Adam's sin, we all are going to die physically.

Not that we wouldn't have died anyway. You could get into the theological argument of if Adam had not sinned, what then would have been God's plan? And we're not told that. We don't know.

The human family would have continued to grow. Would someone else have sinned?

Would sin have entered through somebody else? It's a question that you can argue endlessly about.

And the fact is that the Scripture shows us the example. The history is there that it entered by one man. The fact of Paul referring to Adam here as he does shows that Adam was a real man. He was not a metaphor for the human family and however that came to be. He was indeed at that point in time. Adam was the first man that God created in his image. And because of his disobedience, we die physically. And spiritually, because of that, we're all tuned into Satan's wavelength.

That attitude, that spirit, permeates mankind. And so all have sinned and follow along in that way.

For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Sin is a transgression of the law, so you have to have law for sin to be there. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that is to come. So, death reigned from Adam to Moses. In one sense, you could say from the statement that before the law was given as it was through Moses at Mount Sinai, the law was still in effect because, as we will read over in chapter 7, verse 14, the law is spiritual. The law is not tied to a tablet of stone. The law was in effect, but we seem to be told here in chapter 5 and verse 14 that between Adam and Moses, mankind died and they suffered the results of transgressions, but they perhaps didn't know why. And with the clarification by the giving of the law, at least to Israel, then there was an explanation as to why death, more clearly understood, at least through the fact that when you sin and you live that way, why death comes. So, he says, but not is the offense, so also is the free gift. Through the offense of one, many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace, which is by one, man, Jesus Christ has abounded unto many. And so, this shows the difference between what Adam did and what Jesus did and the impact upon human beings. Adam's offense was responsible for the death of mankind in the sense of being cut off from God until Christ came. And with Christ coming, then there is the gift of grace through that one man and that abounds to the many as well. We are connected to spiritual life by God's Holy Spirit at that time. And not as it was by one that sinned, so was the gift. For the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For by one man's offense death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. So there then is introduced the concept of righteousness that is made possible by the obedience of one man many be made righteous. Now, we could stop there just for a moment and make sure that we understand that Christ's righteousness doesn't take away from us the responsibility to live righteously and to make wise choices and to decide to obey God. We still do. And that is going to be explained over in chapter 8, which I've already done in an earlier sermon, but I'll refer to it. We just want to connect verse 19 of chapter 5 with verse 4 of chapter 8, which shows us that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. As we walk after the Spirit, in other words, as God's Spirit is in us and leads us and we live by the direction of that Spirit, Christ's life is within us, and the righteousness of the law then is fulfilled within us. That's essentially what is being said back in chapter 5 in verse 19, by the obedience of one man of one shall many be made righteous.

The only way we're made righteous is by God's Spirit in us, by Jesus Christ living His life within us. That's how we're made righteous. After we are justified before God, the righteousness of the law then begins to be fulfilled within us. That shows the, going back to chapter 5 then, this section here where Adam and Moses or Adam and Christ are being contrasted shows the both ends of God's plan. And that's important to understand.

Just to finish off here in verse 20 of chapter 5, More over the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Where sin is, there's going to be ultimately the only answer to sin is grace, God's forgiveness. And you can make the argument Paul is not going to be trapped into thinking that the more sin, the more grace, therefore the more God is glorified. He's going to counter that argument even as it's being set up here or as it could run through a human mind. Verse 21 says, As sin has reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. And so, you know, there was a school of thought that would say, well, it's okay to sin because the more you sin, the more God's grace is shown, therefore God is glorified. And he counters that in chapter 6 and verse 1 when he says, Shall we say then, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. Verse 2, How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? So he knocks that argument in the head. And really when you read through Romans just as a letter, you see that Paul goes to great lengths to explain that we are justified by faith.

We live by grace. He shows the work of God's Spirit within us, the life of Christ within us.

He shows the role of the law. He shows, is going to say, that the law is holy, just, and good. The law is spiritual. He is not against the law. He's not doing away with the law. He's not advocating sin, which is the transgression of the law. He's not advocating a life that justifies wrong behavior in any way. He is showing what is. And always keep that in mind when you read Paul, especially here in Romans, he is showing what is. And what is, he makes very clear through all these technical arguments or explanations, what is, is that no human being from Adam forward can ever be made just by themselves, not even Abraham. You have to be justified by faith. You have to be forgiven by grace. And that's not of ourselves. We've all sinned. The only way to get to a right relationship with God, whether you're a Roman, a Jew, a Gentile, whatever your race, whatever your ethnicity, the only way, according to God's plan as it was set up, to come to justification, to come to a relationship with God is by faith. And it's not by works. You can't do any amount of good works and be made just before God. The law, as it was given within the Old Covenant, was never intended to do that. Even though the law is spiritual, it's holy, it's righteous, it's just, and it's good, under the Old Covenant, there was something missing. There was a very key component that was missing.

Even though had people lived by the Covenant, they would have been blessed, they would have had a high life, a good life, Israel would have, they would have reaped the blessings of God for their obedience. In a spiritual sense, they would never have made it to that point where spiritual salvation could be given to them because of their killing of goats or bulls or good works.

That's what is. That is what Paul is showing in Romans. That element was provided through Jesus Christ. That element is there, and by doing so, the law is still there. That defines what is righteousness. Paul goes to great lengths to make sure that he should not be interpreted as being against the law. The technical term for that is being an antinomian.

Nomos is the Greek word for law. Antinomian, if you ever see that word, antinomian, it means you're against law. In a theological sense, you teach or believe that we don't have to keep the law. That is as far from Paul's teachings when you really break it down.

What is is also the positive side, and he begins now to show that in chapter 6, is that we must be baptized and we must then be dead to sin. That brings us into a new life, and we should become a different person. Up to chapter 6, he's covered what Peter had said in his sermon on Acts 2, verse 38, where he said, Repent and believe, and then be baptized. Do you remember that formula in Acts 2, 38? Well, up through chapter 5, Paul has basically been talking about repentance and belief.

To get to a point of now, he's going to talk about baptism.

That's what he begins to go into here in chapter 6. He says in verse 2, How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? No, you not, that so many of us, as we're baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death.

So repentance is what we come to here when we come to a point, as verse 2 shows, that we become dead to sin. It's kind of repentance you have to understand is like a spiritual suicide. You know, a suicide is where a person, as we know, makes a decision to end their life physically on the overdose. They put a gun to their head. They jump off of a bridge.

They decide to end their life. Spiritual suicide is when we decide to stop sinning.

We decide to put ourselves to death spiritually through Christ. That's what you did when you decided and came to the conviction that you needed to be baptized. You committed spiritual suicide to your sins, in that sense. And you recognize that spiritually you must die to sin and make a decision that we're not going to live any longer in that way. That's what verse 2 is saying. We will no longer live in this way of life. And we come to that conviction, as the people in front of Peter on that day of Pentecost did, where they said, what shall we do? They were convicted of their sins and they said, what shall we do? Peter said, repent, be baptized, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. So Paul then here really goes into it deeper. He says, do you not know that so many of us, as we're baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death? When we are baptized, we go into a watery grave. The biblical examples of baptism are of full immersion into water. All of you around the table tonight that were baptized, you were put into a watery grave. Whether it was a tub in the basement of Jerry Headinger's, or your bathtub, or one of the portable tubs that we've used, or whatever it is, you were put under water to symbolize a death and a burial. And you were baptized into Christ's death. This is by what Paul has said in a spiritual, literal sense. And that act unites us to Christ's death and begins to put us into His body.

So if I could just hold your place there and turn over to 1 Corinthians 12.

Just to pick up one other thought. Verse 13. 1 Corinthians 12 verse 13. For by one Spirit, are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. So regardless of our background, our physical descent, when you're baptized, you're baptized into one body, and we drink of one Spirit. That body is the spiritual body of Christ, which is why we always emphasize that your baptism was not into a denomination of men, not into an organization. It was into the spiritual body of Jesus Christ. Don't ever forget that.

As much as we value an organization or an organized form for preaching the gospel and protecting the spiritual and physical resources of the church and for the need for a level of organization, don't ever forget that you were baptized into a spiritual body. And that organization, be it the United Church of God or anything else, to be a part of the body of Christ must live up to all of the scriptural definitions of the body of Christ, the Church of God.

But you were baptized into a spiritual organism, if you will, into a spiritual relationship.

And that is something to never, ever forget, because that's what is. That's what the scripture shows. And we were baptized into his death. Therefore, we are buried with him, verse 4, by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. So we go underwater after the minister says, you know, the things over you, asking if you've repented of your sins. You come back up, gasping for breath, for air, thinking you're going to drown or die, whatever. And you stand up out of that watery grave and you begin to literally walk with a newness of life.

This is one of the most profound chapters in the Bible. It's a beautiful chapter because it shows us what we are. I'm going to talk a little bit about what is. This chapter shows us what we are.

Okay? So if you want to write yourself a little note there in your notebook or in the origins of your Bible or whatever, you know, you're a Johnson or Herman. You're a Dickey. You're a McNeely. You're a Hancock. You ever had your parents jerk you up at some point in your childhood when you did something wrong and say, now listen here, you know, you're a Johnson. You're a Hancock. You don't do that. Okay? And say the family name, the family name is that important.

I was telling Peggy that before that I'd had some words with my brother. I'll tell you this story. Let's get up close and personal here for a minute. About three years ago, my older brother and I had had a conversation and rather heated conversation because without going into details, some of his actions, he was about to let something happen that would have besmirched the McNeely name in our hometown. I found out about it beforehand and I had the ability to stop it.

And I said, you know, I confronted him with it and he seemed to have kind of a cavalier approach to it and didn't, you know, and I just flew off the handle and got mad. And I said, you're not going to let McNeely name be drugged through the streets of our hometown where our aunts and uncles and cousins live and be befouled and besmirched and denigrated in this fashion. It's not going to happen. Our dad would never, you know, I didn't say it, but, you know, he would roll over in his grave.

But I said, you know, he worked hard. He paid his, you know, he paid his bills. He didn't, you know, he was a proud man and in that sense he didn't do anything to cause the name to be drugged like that. And ours was about to. And so, you know, I had to personally take some actions to keep it from happening.

So anyway, that, you know, was an episode where I was not going to stand by and let our name be put in the newspaper and drugged through like that. Nobody wants to see those things, especially in my hometown.

My hometown newspaper, and it's still to this day, the hometown newspaper puts in every DUI, every infraction that some 18-year-old is going to do. They've always done it. I mean, if you got pulled over for DUI in my hometown, it was in the next day's paper.

Okay. And everybody read those things. They still read those things. I go online to read my hometown newspaper today and they still have that. They wrote it just like they did 40 years ago. I don't know where they get these people. Times have changed, but they still get people to write the way they wrote that paper 40 years ago. And everybody reads it and they know so-and-so's kid got in trouble last night, or, you know, spent a night in jail or whatever. And so it's just that way. And I said, no, you're not with our name.

You want to keep your family name good. Well, God wants us to keep His family name good. And so in chapter 6, He's showing us who we are. And this is how Paul writes. He begins to show us who we are as we describe this newness of life. And what we have become after we're baptized, we take on the name of the family of God. We've become Christian. We become a part of the Church of God. We become, you know, taking on the glory of the Father. He says in verse 5, if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.

I should mention I'm making an effort to reconcile with my brother. So we have words, period of time, no talk. We're making our... I'm going to go visit with him in a couple of weeks. You ever see that movie the old guy got on his... He wanted to make up with his brother, and he didn't have a car, but he had a lawn tractor, and he drove miles across the country.

You ever see that movie? I forgot the name of it. Yeah, I watched a few years ago, and I sat there thinking, I don't want to have to get on the lawn mower and drive like that to see my brother. So a couple weeks, I'm going to go drive back to Missouri and see my brother, but I'll drive in a car, not on my lawn mower. Because I don't have a riding lawn mower, but that movie has kind of haunted me over the last few years.

I don't want to get to that point where I'm...

You know, to the point where I have nothing else other than a lawn tractor to ride across Illinois and Indiana to Missouri. Anyway, okay.

Verse 5, if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. So there's a similitude. It's a makeover. We are to look at baptism and coming up out of that watery grave as a makeover. Now, it's not a week at the spawn, coming back drop-dead gorgeous, 30 pounds lighter, rosy-cheeked, and all this stuff.

But we do enter into a spiritual makeover, and we've got to understand what that means.

We are in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed. That henceforth we should not serve sin.

We don't serve it. We walk away from it.

That's the, you know, our old body of sin is our old mental attitude and that way of life.

He that is dead is freed from sin. So our symbolic death and Christ's literal death frees us from the penalty of sin. When we accept that and we enter into that through baptism with Christ, we are freed from sin. Now, as we should all know, and as Paul will later say, that doesn't mean we're no longer subject to sin and that we won't sin, but we're freed from the penalty of sin. We are freed from the penalty of death. For if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. And that means living with his life within us and letting that be the dominant guide and force in our life. That's where he is taking all of this. Verse 9, knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more, death has no more dominion over him.

And so that is so true. Christ was resurrected, death has no more dominion over him. And the resurrection is at the central core of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That he was resurrected from the dead, that he lives forever at the right hand of God. And we take part in that death through baptism and all that that means. Verse 10 tells us that in that he died, he died to sin once. But in that he lives, he lives unto God. Hebrews tells us that that one death was once for all mankind.

It was a greater death than any other part of the sacrifices of the Old Testament. It was the only human life that was lived that fulfilled that purpose. He died once for all mankind, we're told in Hebrews chapter 10. And he died into sin one time. That's all he had to die.

And that death is valid forever. Likewise, he said, Reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed and to sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So we look at ourselves as being dead to sin.

By that work, we have a good, cold, hard look at what sin is. We understand it as we never have before. We've come to a point where we decided of our own will, the freedom of choice, to walk away from it, to begin to put that way of life to death. And never forget that nobody held a gun to your head when you were baptized. Nobody forced you to be put under water if they did or if you did because of some other pressure or guilt or something other than the correct scriptural reasons, then it's not valid. But if you did it of your own free will, your own choice, and you know what you were doing, then it is valid. And it's a compact. It's a contract. It is something that then changes our life. And that's why it says in verse 12, Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it and the lust thereof.

So sin should not reign over us in this physical life.

Which, again, you look at just the face value of verse 12. We still have a physical life.

The spiritual life we have is not one that is done apart from the body.

We are subject to the pulls of the flesh. And he says, don't let it reign in your body. In other words, don't let it rule. Don't let it dominate. Don't let it conquer and push out any spiritual thought. That we obey that, we obey it in the lust thereof. That's a daily fight. That's a daily challenge. We all should understand that. But to be spiritually minded is to no longer desire to go that way. And it means that we do make efforts and we do pull away from that over a period of time. And we grow in character. We change our nature with God's Spirit. We not only go through just the normal life maturation, but it's enhanced by God's Spirit, if you will, speed it along by God's Spirit being within us. And we mature quicker. And we mature deeper. We don't have to...

It means we could have the wisdom of a 60-year-old when we're 35 or 30, if we take the attitude here where we are alive into Christ and we don't want sin to rain in our lives. And dominate us and cause the heartache, the problems, the challenges of life that sin can create and can bring within us. So it doesn't rain in our mortal bodies. Neither yield you yourselves, your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves to God as those that are alive from the dead. And your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. So we choose to yield ourselves as, you know, put our life, our thoughts, our efforts, as instruments of righteousness and to live in that way. And God's law is what defines righteousness. All of God's commandments are righteous. Psalm 119 and verse 172 tells us all of the commandments are righteous. So we begin to live in that way. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but you are under grace. That's chapter 6.14 is a key verse, that we are not under the law, but we are under grace, which means that we are not under the penalty of the law. It doesn't mean we are apart from the law. It doesn't mean that we are no longer subject to the law. We're under grace. And that means, if you read ahead to chapter 8 verse 1, that there is no condemnation to them who are, which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. We don't walk in condemnation. That's what it means to not be under the law, but under grace. Paul uses that phrase. It means we're not under the penalty of the law. The penalty is defined as death. Sin is the transgression of the law. And, the wages of sin is death. All have sinned and come under that. All of those scriptures we know as well. We're not under the penalty of that law, which transgression of that law demands a death penalty. Christ paid that for us, so we're under grace. By that, then we take that when we do sin, we're not under any condemnation, which is what chapter 8 verse 1 tells us.

We don't get out from under that umbrella of grace, that condition of grace, as long as we repent, acknowledge our sin, our mistake, and we move on. Our way of life is not one that's defined by sin, but it's defined more by righteousness. That's the type of life that we find ourselves in.

Verse 15, he says, What then shall we sin because we're not under the law, but under grace?

God forbid. Keep in mind what the other scriptures that define what sin is, and you understand how to read these verses and to understand that we're not under the penalty of the law, but we are under the grace, the kindness, the mercy, the tenderness, the comfort, the encouragement that is grace. God forbid. Know you not that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey, whether of sin to death or of obedience unto righteousness. So we make that choice. When we yield, that is our choice.

We can make a choice to sin, to follow that lifestyle, to get as close to it as we might want, thinking that we can't be burnt, we can handle it, we can quit it anytime we want, we can go as far as we want, be in control or whatever type of justification we might use for ourselves. But it's a choice. Verse 16 talks about yielding. Either you choose to yield to obedience or disobedience, to righteousness or to sin. But when you yield or give yourself over, you make a choice. When you yield the right of way to somebody at a stop sign, you make a choice to give it to them. You know, sometimes we get in a hurry or we forget or we don't see the other car, we don't yield. And we choose to barge on through.

And we take to ourselves that moment of space, and because our time is more valuable or we thought we were there first or it's our time or that we make a choice and we choose not to yield to the other person. Or we've got plenty of time and we recognize that they may be on their cell phone, they don't see us, and so we yield to them. But you make a choice when you yield.

You make a choice to take it to yourself or to give it to someone else. We make a choice when we yield ourselves to God or we yield ourselves to sin. And we never lose that choice. Yielding implies that we are in control and we are in control of our life. We always have the chance to give ourselves over. Would God be thanked that you were the servants of sin, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you? God be thanked that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you.

Do you obey from the heart? Do you obey from a letter? Do you obey from some outward external impetus? Or do you obey from the heart? That's what defines a converted mind. That we come to obey God and all of His commandments from the heart, which is a spiritual place.

The doctrine that we live by, we know it for what it is. We've come to the point where we recognize that the Sabbath or lying or any other part of God's way of life, that form of doctrine that the Bible lays out for us, that we have obeyed it from the heart. And that is what we want to do. Just as much as we may have wanted to do something that was unrighteous or been caught up in and let that reign over us, we move away from that, we repent of it, we change, and we come to a point in our life where the obedience that we do have is internal.

We know the whys. That's why you would not be convinced of an argument to disobey or to throw out the Sabbath because you obey the Sabbath from your heart. You know what it is, why God gave it, what it is to do for us physically, and what it is to do for us in our relationship with God spiritually. You come to do that, know that by time, obedience, and internalizing it far beyond the written word, far beyond the command, far beyond the pressure of a family or being raised in the church or whatever, you obey it from your heart. And then you can move on to verse 18, where it says, being then made free from sin, you become the servants of righteousness.

That, as we obey from the heart, moves us to where we have a freedom, a true freedom from sin.

Verse 19 says, I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh, for as you have yielded your members' servants to uncleanness and to iniquity, even so now, yield your members' servants to righteousness unto holiness.

For when you were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness.

It didn't impact our life when you were a servant of sin. You were free from the benefit of righteous behavior, which is not a good place to be. But that's how he describes it.

What fruit had you then in these things, whereof you are now ashamed? For the end of these things those things is death. But now being made free from sin and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Nothing we've earned is a gift, freely given, freely desired by God's part to be given to us. The wages of sin is death, that's what we've earned.

That's what happens because of the transgression of the law that grace has removed us from.

We have been given the promise of eternal life through Christ.

Then moving into chapter 7, Paul starts to talk a little bit more about the law here.

He's going to make some statements about the law and essentially come down to show that that it's impossible to keep the law without God's Spirit. That's one of the key points out of chapter 7. Just don't understand overall about everything that without God's Spirit, you cannot keep the law. He puts that in and shows the relationship there. Again, shows the problem with the Old Covenant and the way it works in the New Covenant.

Verse 1, he says, "'Know ye not, brethren, for I speak to them that know the law." How about a law? "'That the law has dominion over man as long as he lives.'" Law never goes out of form. The law in verse 14, he says, we know that the law is spiritual, which tells us that, couple that with verse 1, the law is not physical, it's spiritual. There is a spiritual dimension to it. It's not just something on tablets of stone.

It is a spiritual matter, which means it's always existed. It's defined by the commandments, but it's a spiritual entity. And he says that the law has dominion over man as long as he lives. He illustrates it by the way a man and a woman are in marriage bound by the law, as husband and wife. For the woman which has a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he lives. But if the husband be dead, she's loosed from the law of her husband.

So then, if while her husband lives, she be married to another, she shall be called an adulteress.

But if her husband be dead, she's free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, you also become dead to the law by the body of Christ, you should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, we should bring forth fruit unto God. So, he uses this law of marriage to make a larger spiritual point. And we don't, from this, we don't, from these few verses here, let me say, we don't get our full knowledge and understanding of how to administer marriage and divorce in the church. There are other scriptures, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, that we go to to make the judgments that we have to make within the church about people's marriages and the dissolution of those marriages. This is not the overall point that Paul is driving to here as he uses the relationship between a husband and wife and adultery in this. He's really talking about how it works in our relationship to God, to Christ. Verse 2 says, we're not bound by the law, which means the woman which has a husband is bound by the law. A woman is never bound to the law, the husband and wife are bound by the law of marriage to each other.

And, you know, that the conditions under normal situations, there is a case of adultery if there's a separation and remarriage apart from scriptural grounds and situations that even the Old Testament showed would release two people from that particular oath or the marriage relationship. He's using the higher purpose here to point the people to the intent of the spiritual relationship that we have with God. That's the point to understand here as he moves into this.

Verse 5, he says, for when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin which were by the law did work and our members to bring forth fruit to death. But now we are delivered from the law that being dead therein wherein we were held, that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Again, he again anticipates the flying off in one direction that some might take his writings. As he always does, he brings it back and says, the law is not sin, God forbid. I had not known sin but by the law.

What Paul is setting up is to show that it's humanly impossible to really keep a tenth commandment as he's talking here about coveting. I had not known lust except the law had said, thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, brought in me all manner of lustful desire. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. He came to understand the full depth of the law. In this case, he specifically is talking about coveting. And he comes to understand that and sees the power of it. And the commandment which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. Because coveting, as he's showing, is a principle or a law that you cannot keep it physically. You cannot humanly do it. You have to have spiritual help.

The commandment which was ordained to me, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. So again, he keeps the balance here so that you can't say that the law is not holy or that it is unjust. What Paul is saying is that the law wasn't wrong, he was wrong.

That's what he's saying. And the law helped him to understand that, deeper than he even knew as a good, obedient, observant Jew. Was then that which is good made death to me? God forbid.

But sin, that it might appear sin working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual.

But I am carnal, sold under sin. It's impossible to keep the law without the Holy Spirit.

This is what he comes down to conclude. The law is spiritual, but I'm carnal, I'm sold under sin.

For that which I do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not. For what I hate, that I do.

For what I want to do, I don't do. For what I hate to do, I do.

There's this, he's getting into this well-known section here that is showing the impossibility of keeping the law without the Holy Spirit. And then even as you have God's Spirit, there is effort that has to be made. If then I do that which I would not, I consent into the law that it is good. So if I do what I shouldn't do, I'm still aware by conviction that I've done something wrong and it shows that the law is good. Now then it is no more I that do it but sin that dwells in me.

For I know that in me that in my flesh dwells no good thing.

And by this, he is again speaking within the spiritual realm. There is no good thing. In other words, it's either God's Spirit is in him or it's not. And it is that Spirit that allows him to live the full righteousness of the law by Christ within him and to have it fulfilled within him in spite of the struggles that he has as a human being. That's what he's showing.

That's what he's showing. So again, don't look at verse 18.

I know that in me that in my flesh dwells no good thing. Sometimes we beat ourselves up.

When we use verses like this to beat ourselves up, and in me dwells no good thing, well, there is a human goodness and when God's Spirit is added to us, there is a spiritual goodness as well. There are good people without God's Spirit.

Walking around the face of the earth.

And what Paul is doing is he's contrasting the high level of a life with God's Spirit as opposed to a life without the Spirit. And there is not enough goodness within him to live righteously is what he's really saying. And despite as good as he is, his best efforts, he can't live up to the fullness of the spiritual intent of the law, particularly the law of the 10th commandment against coveting, unless he truly yields himself to God and that righteousness is fulfilled within him through the Holy Spirit. Because he says, for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. There has to be higher help.

For the good that I would, I do not. But the evil which I would not, then I do.

Now if I do that, I would not. It's no more I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So he recognizes that sin is there and it can rear its head despite our efforts at times.

He's not describing something that reigns over him, but he's describing the struggle against our nature. It is that I then find a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me.

This law that he's speaking about is not the commandments. It's a natural law, a law of human nature that when I would do good, evil is present within me. Where does the evil come from? Well, in Ephesians 2, Paul talks about the prince of the power of the spirit of the air and Satan's attitude, Satan's wavelength that we all struggle with. Evil is present with us. Even when we desire to do what is good, we struggle with the pulls of our own flesh, of our own nature, and of the spirit and the attitude of the world in which we live. And there is evil as broadcast, if you will, continually, 24-7 on AM and FM, satellite radio, cable, and the internet.

And we're all tuned into it to one degree or the other, or we have to deal with it.

He goes on to say, I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members. And that's, again, speaking about his human nature, this law within his members warring against the law of my mind, which is really talking here about God's commandments, the law of my mind, the law that he wants to obey, the law that is being written there in his mind or his heart by the Spirit of God. That's warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members.

So, again, this law of sin and how sin works, which again we would define from other scriptures to show the prince of the power of the air, the spirit of the age, the spirit of this time, and put there by the God of this world. That's the law that is there, but it sets up this contention. And then he launches off into this poetic statement, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death.

How do we deal with that? How do we move away from the gravitational pull of this life and the pulls of our nature and of the flesh? He comes to the conclusion, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, with the flesh the law of sin.

So he has just set up and defined the conflict that we have here in chapter 7.

And that sets up for the answer in chapter 8, which is the spirit of God. As he goes into show then how that really works with us. So that brings us down to the end of chapter 7.

And if I could just leave you with one thought here tonight, which I mentioned as we were in chapter 6, that Paul shows us who we are through these verses. And we are children of God.

We are baptized into Christ. We have the likeness of the Father, the glory of the Father with us.

And that's how we are to live. And bringing honor, bringing glory, bringing good reputation to the name of Christ and to the Father. And that's how we are to walk. This is what he is showing here. And the only way we can do that is by yielding ourselves to the power of the Holy Spirit.

So we got through three chapters here tonight. If there's any questions or comments, take a minute or two here before we conclude. A lot of heavy stuff. Again, keep in mind that if you master some of these broad terms of justification and grace and are able to distinguish between the uses of the law here, Romans is not that difficult to understand. And you read it in one full reading. You see that Paul takes great pains to not be misinterpreted if you follow what he's saying. That he's not doing away with the law. He's upholding the law. He's just showing that under the Old Covenant and by ourselves without God's Spirit, it's impossible to keep the Spirit of the law. And even after we are baptized and receive that Holy Spirit, there is a struggle. There's a life to live that we will struggle continually. That's what the message is here at the end of chapter 7. He said, who will deliver us from the body of this death?

Well, the deliverance comes through Christ our Lord.

That's how it's done. And he moves into chapter 8 to show that.

Okay. Well, that's just a little over an hour from the time we started, so we'll finish it. We'll wrap it up there. Next month, we've already covered chapter 8 in the sermon that I gave earlier. We'll get into chapters 9, 10, and 11. And it'll be a good thing to cover that before the Feast of Tabernacles. And let me just say, if you want to read ahead, you cannot understand chapters 9, 10, and 11 of Romans unless you understand the meaning of the last great day, which I assume all of you here understand the meaning of the last great day of the Feast of Tabernacles. You cannot understand those three chapters in Romans unless you understand the meaning of that. So keep that in mind as you read ahead, and we'll go into that in a bit more detail later on.