The Christian and a Rules Dominated Life (pt. 3)
1. The Law has limits
2. Sin uses the law against us
Romans 7:8 ESV
But sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law, sin lies dead.
Romans 7:11 ESV
For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
Romans 7:15b-19 ESV
For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For 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. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
Galatians 5:16 ESV
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
1st We cannot depend on our will to do what we know is right
1. You are enslaved to sin
Romans 7:14 ESV
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.
2. You don’t understand spiritual truth
Romans 7:15 ESV
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
1 Corinthians 2:14 NIV
The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Romans 7:16 ESV
Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.
3. You need a spiritual power greater than the power of sin
Romans 7:17 ESV
So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
Romans 7:18-20 ESV
For 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. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
2nd We cannot depend on the Law to do what we know is right
1. There is another law at work
Romans 7:21 ESV
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
2. Even if you love God’s Law the law of sin defeats you
Romans 7:22-23 ESV
For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but 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.
Romans 7:24 ESV
Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Romans 7:25 ESV
Thanks 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.
3rd We can only depend on Christ to do what we know is right
Romans 8:1-4 ESV
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
1. Christians are not under law we are under grace
2. The Law is good but it cannot save or sanctify us
3. Sin seizes an opportunity to attack us through the Law
4. The power of sin is great & only the power of the Spirit working us is greater
