Why God Delivered Us From the Law

Anyway, let me, let me have you turn in your Bibles this morning to Romans chapter 7. Romans chapter 7 for our time of study in the word this morning. we're doing a verse by verse study through, Romans 5 through 8. This is a journey, we're calling it To the Heart of the Gospel, and, what a, what a wonderful journey it has been, thus far.

And we have studied Romans 5, we have studied through the length of Romans 6, and we come this morning, for the very first time to Romans chapter 7. Yippee, right? You excited?, unfortunately, Romans 7 of the four chapters, Romans 5, Romans 6, Romans 7, Romans 8, it's probably the chapter that people tend to be the least excited, about. but as I have spent time in this chapter in recent weeks, I have, realize that, how wrong that perspective would be.

Romans 7 is going to surprise you. and I think you'll be richly blessed by what we find here, in this, chapter. There is no chapter in the Bible that says more to us about sin than this chapter in terms of the operations of sin. There's no more introspective, detailed glimpse at just how sin works and how it operates in the life of a person than this chapter, and one of the things as believers that we have to deal with each day is temptations to sin and just indwelling sin, sin within, sin from without, and chapter 7 is a chapter that we're going to want to understand in doing battle with that.

There's also no chapter in the Bible. that says more about the law than this chapter. In fact, from chapter 7, verse 1 through chapter 8, verse 4, there are 35 references to the law. Either the word law or the word commandment or some other synonym for the law.

And basically, it talks a lot about sin, it talks a lot about the law. What this chapter does is it explains the symbiotic relationship between the law and sin, and how those operate together, conspire together. in the human person to create problems and difficulties. And this is the most exciting thing about Romans 7 to me.

Paul is screaming a message in Romans 7, and that is that as believers in Jesus, part of the gospel is that we have been delivered from the law. We've been delivered from sin. He has made that clear in Romans 6, and then in Romans 6:14, he hints at the fact that we've been delivered from the law. He says in verse 14 of Romans 6, sin shall not be master over you, for you are not.

Under law, but under grace, and now coming into Romans 7:1 and following, Paul's agenda is to unpack that and to explain to us that we are delivered from the law. In fact, let me give you the title for the message this morning. It would be why God Delivered us from the law. Paul's gonna explain that in verses 1 through 6, which is about maybe as far as we'll get this morning.

If you're still not thinking you're interested or as interested in Romans 7 as you were in Romans 5 and 6 and will be in Romans 8, maybe you're thinking is, man, I hope we can just get through Romans 7 in a week or two. Maybe Pastor Milton can preach from Romans 7:1-25 today, and we could say we covered it and then we can jump into Romans 8. If you're still thinking that, listen to what Martin Lloyd Jones says. This is a pastor, a man who was a pastor to thousands, and who spent a lot of time with believers and helping them with their problems.

And listen to what he says. He says, I would venture to say that many, not to say most of our troubles in the Christian In life are due to our failure to grasp the teaching of this 7th chapter of the epistle to the Romans. I don't know that we would have given people that diagnosis, but apparently Martin Lloyd Jones understands something about what this chapter teaches and he's saying actually you can trace most of a believer's problems to a failure to understand the teaching of Romans 7.

Now, let me start off by just trying to help you understand why the news that were delivered from the law is so, so practical.

one of the problems that we all have, I would confess to this, and I think if all of us were honest, we would have to confess to this, each one of us. And that is that before a person is saved, they are under the law, right? Paul has made that clear, in chapters 12, and 3, and how that the law shuts us all up, under sin and binds us to sin and sins condemnation and sins guilt. Every person is under the law before he comes to faith in Christ.

On the day of a person's conversion, He's delivered though, not only from sin, but he's delivered from the law. However, here's the problem. Many of us, we, we came to Jesus for salvation, and we were de facto delivered from the law. But what we do is we continue relating to the law as believers, the old way, allowing the law to rule over us.

And we're going to see even this morning and even more so next week, that even as a believer, though you're technically free from the law, if you continue as a believer in Jesus relating to the law, the old way, you're going to be extremely frustrated in dealing with indwelling sin, sin from without and sin from within. And so Paul is gonna take the scalpel out in verses 1 through 6, and he's gonna start doing surgery. He's like, I, I really want you to get this. This is part of the good news of the gospel, and that is that you have been delivered from the law.

And you might say, well, I, I don't think I believe I'm under the law. By the way, let me define law. By the way, there's notes that are in your bulletin this week, free of charge. Have you seen those?

OK. Did a little extra work this week. Trying to help you guys out. We got some complaints from people over 12, saying that they, One of the notes, so who knows if we'll do it next week, but doing it this week.

All right. What is the law, and I think this definition is on your handout. When we say law, we're speaking of the written commandments of God, couched within a system of promise, blessings and cursings based on one's performance. That's what we mean and I believe what Paul means when he talks about the law.

And you might say, well, I don't, I don't know that I'm relating to the law in a way that is a problem. so let me, let me ask you a series of diag diagnostic questions, OK? Listen to these questions and see if you can say yes to any of them. And this will tell you whether you're still relating to law the old way.

When you sin in some significant way as a believer, do you labor under feelings that you are condemned by God? When you sin in some significant way as a believer, do you believe you've lost your favored status with God? When you fail God in some significant way, are you afraid to come into his presence thinking he doesn't want to see you? When you fail to do right things and something bad happens to you, do you think that God is punishing you for some sin?

In your life. When you are being really righteous and obedient, do you feel pride that you are somehow more deserving a blessing from God because you've been doing well lately? Like, something good happens and you're like, yep, that figures. I've been, look at what I've been doing.

And this is, this is blessing coming my way and you feel deserving of that. How about this, when you're being really righteous and obedient, do you get angry when things don't go your way, thinking that you deserve better treatment from God? Like I can't believe this is happening to me. I, I've done this and I do this, and God, I've, I've done so much for you and I've sac, sacrificed so much for you and I've sought to obey you, and this is what I get, and you get angry.

because you think you deserve better treatment from God because you've been performing? How about this, when you're doing well spiritually, do you compare yourself to other people and feel superior to those who are less righteous than you? How about this, when you see God blessing someone who is not quite as righteous as you are, does it bother you? Especially if God seems to be blessing them more than he's blessed you.

You're like, I'm a really good parent. And I've done this and this and this with my kids, and look at that parent over there. They're, they're nowhere near the parent that I am. And their kids are turning out better than my kids.

And you get angry with God thinking you deserve something more from God because you're more righteous than some other person. How about this, when someone less righteous than you is highly esteemed or praised by others, does that bother you? especially if they're highly esteemed or praised in an area where you are more spiritual than they are. And tied to that, do you feel the urge in such situations to fill people in on the shortcomings of others, so that they will see that the people less righteous than you are not quite so worthy of praise.

And a final question is, when someone feels morally or in some significant way, do you find yourself secretly feeling better about yourself? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then you're not practically speaking, completely weaned from the law. And where did I get these questions from? From the depravity of my own heart.

Because there have been times where I would answer yes to every single one. of these questions. Paul is taking out the scalpel and he's, he's trying to uncover this and he said, listen, if you live under the law in this way, the law's gonna aggravate and spawn all of these kinds of thoughts and, and sins. You're gonna find yourself just cycling back and forth from pride when you're doing well, performing well to condemnation when you're not performing well, you're gonna It'll be spawning resentment and envy and jealousy and self-absorption, anger, seasons of splurging and sin.

I'm already condemned by God. He's already kicked at me. He's angry with me. He doesn't want me to come into his presence.

I might as well go whole hog into this sin for a spell. And then seasons of resolving to do better, performing OK for a while before you mess up enough times to where you're just, the cycle. I'm talking about. We don't want to live under the law because this is the stuff that it produces in us.

And Paul is trying to say to us in Romans 7 that part of the good news of the gospel is that we have been indeed delivered from the law and delivered from having to live this way with this vicious and ugly cycle. The way we're gonna frame things this morning is we're gonna look at 4 purposes in verses 1 through 64 purposes of God in delivering us from the law. It's almost as if 4 times Paul's gonna say you were delivered from the law, delivered from the law, delivered from the law, delivered from the law, and here's why you were delivered from, the law.

OK?

The first purpose for which we were delivered from the law is to free us up to be married to Jesus Christ. There's a lot of legalese in these early verses of Romans 7, but you need to, so you need to put on your thinking caps, but Paul is, it's gonna pay you off in the end. Paul is leading us to something very beautiful. through all of this legalese, we end up wading through it and we find ourselves in an amazing wedding scene where we get to enjoy a love relationship with the second person of the Trinity.

Now look at how he explains this. This is inspired scripture, so put your thinking caps on and try to follow Paul's line of thought. Look what he says in verse one. He says, do you not know, brethren, for I am speaking to those who know the law, that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives.

Everyone understand that? laws apply to you. the laws of the land apply to you as long as you're alive. When you're dead, the law has no more jurisdiction over you.

even in normal law, like here in the United States, if I commit a crime and I'm sentenced to serve an 80-year, prison sentence, and 5 years into my sentence, I die, no one can make me serve the remaining 75 years of my sentence, right? Because I'm dead. I am now out from the jurisdiction. Of the law.

When Paul speaks of the law here, certainly he would probably include general law, Roman law, Greek law, and the law of the United States, but most specifically what he's referring to is the Mosaic law, which is included in that, and that is that the law has jurisdiction over a person as. As long as that person lives and for no longer. When a person dies, he is removed out from underneath the jurisdiction of the law. Now Paul says, let me take this thought further.

I've, I've just basically implied the fact that death ends a person's relationship with the law and delivers him out from underneath that jurisdiction of the law. Let me illustrate this, and he uses the illustration of marriage. And in using the example of marriage, Paul is not just picking out some, illustration willy-nilly. Just let me see, yeah, I'll use the marriage analogy.

No, he's being very specific because he's heading somewhere. Look what he says in verse two. He says, for the married woman is bound by law to her husband, while he is living. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning her husband.

Now, in strictly legal terms, this is what Paul is saying. When a woman is married to a man, as long as her husband is alive, she's wed to her husband and bound by the mosaic law to her husband. However, if her husband dies, he's not only dying legally and he's out from the jurisdiction of the law, but the woman, the wife in this situation undergoes a death also. She dies legally as a wife.

She might emotionally love her husband and want to cherish his memory for the rest of her life, and she may decide to never remarry, but technically, legally, when her husband dies, she undergoes a legal death. She's now released from the law concerning her husband. Here's the, what this ends up meaning, verse 3. So then, If while her husband is living, she's joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress.

But if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so he dies and she undergoes a death as it were. she dies as a wife, as it were. She's free from the law so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man. Here's the picture.

As long as her husband is alive, if that woman leaves her husband and becomes joined to another man, In the eyes of the law, she is an adulteress. However, if her husband were to pass away, she undergoes that legal death, as it were. She's no longer bound by the law concerning her husband. If she were to join herself to another man.

At that point, according to the law, she would not be an adulteress. It's like the law, when her husband dies, releases her to marry another man if that's what she wanted to choose to do. But death is the key here. It is death that frees, that brings that freedom from the law.

Now, look at what he says in verse 4. He says, therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead. This raises a, a practical, like an interpretive question that I don't entirely know how to answer, and that is commentators debate, what is it that we were married to before we came to faith in Christ? And some say, well, what we were married to was the law, and then others would say, no, what we were married to was sin.

just like the woman is married to her husband, so she's bound to her husband, but also bound to the law concerning her husband. To keep that analogy correct, we would say that before we came to faith in Christ, we were married to sin. So we were bound to sin and also bound to the law concerning sin. The law was as it were, holding sin and us, and holding us together, especially the condemnation of sin, and the guilt of sin.

We learned in Galatians that we were locked up in sin, under the law. And I like what Dodd, one commentator says where he just kinda takes the best of both worlds. He says what seems to be in Paul's mind is the idea that a man was wedded to law, which means wedded to sin. I, I agree with that.

That's my view. Between law and sin, let's say that it's both. We're bound to sin and bound to the law. So here we are married to sin, bound to sin and bound to the law regarding sin.

However, here's what Paul is saying in verse 4. Christ came and Christ was crucified on the cross, and through the body of Christ, through his death on the cross, we were reckoned to be dead. Christ, when he died on the cross, did not just die as our substitute. He took our name tag off of ourselves legally.

He took our name tag and put it on Himself to where when he died on the cross, his death got reckoned to us to where now we legally are dead in Christ, to where when the law comes to lay claim upon us who are believers in Jesus, when sin comes to lay claim upon us, God opens up the record books of heaven, and there's my name, Milton Vincent, and right by my name, it says already died. Already died because the death of Christ. is attributed to me. And so I'm legally dead, and it's almost like God is divorcing me from sin through my having died in Christ when he was on the cross.

Paul then says, through the body of Christ that we might be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead. And here's the beautiful thing, God raises Jesus from the dead. We're Legally dead. The law has no more claim upon us, sin has no more claim upon us, and we are now free to be joined to Jesus in an intimate loving relationship with him.

And here's sin, the scorned ex-lover. The scorned ex-husband that we were wed to, that was our head, as it were, that had dominion over us, and God has broken that. God has divorced us from sin through death, and we are now free to marry Jesus. And sin is left moping around the empty tomb as the last spot where it had ownership.

Of us. Sin is the scorned lover. Sin is the scorned ex in our lives. That should be, by the way we live, enjoying a relationship with Jesus should just be fuming if we personalize sin and imagining sin, looking at us in our relationship with Jesus.

Sin ought to just feel utterly scorned by us, as we're now walking in this relationship, this marriage relationship, as it were, to Jesus, walking in intimacy with him. And no longer sin. One commentator says a death has occurred. The one in whom we died becomes the very one in whom we find our new life, our savior becomes our new husband.

This is like crazy to me. the human race rebels against God and deserves to be wiped out. What God does is he sets in motion a chain of events to where today and forever there's a human being in the Trinity. The God man who is forever.

The god man. Human beings have a representative in the Trinity. And not only that, but this second member of the Trinity wants a love relationship with us. And God, set in motion this chain of events that ultimately delivered us from the law.

We were reckoned to be dead, so we were out of the jurisdiction of the law so that he can then raise his son and then raise us up to be married to his son. And be able to walk with his son in an intimate and a loving relationship with him day by day. So there is a God man, there's a human being in the Trinity, and we are married to that second member of the Trinity. That's amazing.

Here's Jesus saying, I, I, I want to be to you what a husband is to his wife. If you're a believer this morning, that's what Jesus is saying, I wanna be to you everything that a husband is to his wife. I wanna love on you, I wanna take care of you, I wanna assume responsibility for you. I wanna nourish you, I wanna cherish you like the very best of husbands would ever want to do.

For his wife. I want, I, I, I, I want the opportunity to walk with you day by day and care for you day by day and nourish you day by day with my infinite love. And that's why I set this up to where you could be married to me. You cannot be married to the law and to me at the same time.

You cannot have allegiance to the law and to me at the same time. So my father worked this out. That I died, my death got attributed to you, you're now out of the jurisdiction of the law. You are now divorced from sin through death, and God raised me from the dead, and you can now be married to me and I get to have with you now the relationship that I want, so that you can walk with me as a wife would walk with her husband.

That leads to a second reason that God delivered us. From the law, and that is to render us able to bear fruit for Himself from that union with Christ. He says in verse 4, therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ so that you might be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. See, as long as we were married to sin, as long as we were married to the law, there was no fruit for God that was being produced, anything that was pleasing to God.

So God broke us away from the law and from sin, and he married us to Jesus with the intention that out of the union that we are now experiencing with Christ, that fruit would as a byproduct of that relationship, be found to be produced in our character and in our lives from day to day. What we observe here is that fruit for God, the fruit of holiness and righteousness, it's not so much something you go after. please guys, don't walk out of here this morning and say, I'm gonna bear fruit for God.

If it kills me, I'm gonna bear fruit for God.

I'm gonna be a fruitful Christian. Don't walk out of here resolving to be fruitful, just walk out of here resolving. To walk with Jesus, and to let him love on you, and to enjoy intimacy with Jesus. And as a byproduct of that loving union that you enjoy with Jesus, you will find fruit being produced.

In your life. We learned back in chapter 6 verse 22, where Paul says, but now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive literally in the Greek text, your fruit into sanctification and the outcome eternal life. Sanctification isn't so much something you go after. It's the byproduct of surrendering to God and surrendering to the righteousness as we saw in the latter verses of that chapter.

Fruit is a byproduct, and here it's a byproduct of our relationship with Jesus, where we're married, that marriage can never be broken, and Jesus day by day is caring for us, cherishing us, nourishing us the way a husband. In the best of circumstances would his wife. And the fruit of that union, the fruit of that relationship is holiness and righteousness of life. Something the law could never produce.

And that leads to a third purpose of God that we observe in this passage for why God delivered us from the law. And that is this, he delivered us from the law in order to remove a major aggravation to our sin problem. He delivered us from the law in order to remove a major aggravation to our sin problem. Look what Paul says.

He says, now that we're walking under grace in this relationship with Jesus, being married to him. the fruit of holiness and righteousness is being produced in our life. But before we came to faith in Christ, when we were married to sin and married to the law, look what he says. For a while we were in the flesh, in other words, before we were saved, the sinful passions, that's indwelling sin, sinful.

desires that we had and our members that are profoundly affiliated with our physiology and our sin memory and so forth. The sinful passions inside of us, which were aroused by the law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. Paul says, before he himself was saved. Living under the law and looking at the commandments of God.

He'll explain this more in the later verses in chapter 7. We'll get into that next week, but he's like the law, the rabbi is always taught that the purpose of the law was to quench the evil within us. He says, but the law did not have that effect. The law actually aroused the evil that is within us and made the sin problem worse, and of course that's all by divine design.

While we were in the flesh, those sinful passions that were inside of us were excited. They were aroused by the law. And they worked in the members of our body bearing fruit for death. The law was utterly impotent to solve our sin problem.

In fact, the law had an aggravating effect upon our sin problem, making it worse. You guys understand that? You understand how the law works to do this. Let, let me take just one example to help us out this morning.

Take, take the command, for example, you shall not steal. There's two ways that that command, couched within a system of promise, blessings and cursings. Based on one's performance, can excite or arouse sin. One of those ways is it can actually make stealing more desirable.

Again, the he's gonna say in verses 7 to 12, the problem here is not the law, all right? the problem is the human material that the law operates on, OK? so God says you shall not steal. There are some people who respond to a command like that, and it actually, the command don't steal, actually makes stealing more desirable, right?

We've used the analogy before that if I went into one of the kids' Sunday school rooms and let's say there was a box in the corner, and I never said anything about it, they probably would leave that box alone. But if I went in there one day and I said, kids, all adults are leaving the room for the next 5 minutes, there's a box right there in the corner, you see that? Do not touch that box. Do not open that box.

Do not come within 5 ft of that box. Do you understand me? Yes, we understand. And then we all adults left the room.

What do you think would happen? The mere fact, again, this is the problem with the human, there's nothing wrong with the instructions I gave, the problem is the human material upon which those instructions will operate. And that is the mere fact that they were told not to open the box, touch the box, come near the box, suddenly makes that box very interesting to them, right? And that's exactly the way it works with the law.

For some, the command you shall not steal actually arouses the desire to steal. Augustine, Saint Augustine tells a story about before he was saved, he and his friends stole pears from a pear tree, and, That was near his property, and he says the pears weren't even good. I had plenty of pears on my own. I had no desire to even eat the pears.

He says, I had no wish to enjoy the things I coveted by stealing, but only to enjoy the theft itself and the sin. I think all of us as we look at our lives could say, yeah, that there have been times where that's actually happened. With me, where the prohibition, the command actually made us or caused us to want to do the very thing that we were forbidden to do. But you say, well, Pastor Milton, not everyone looks at that command that way.

There are people who say it says don't steal, and they actually don't steal. And so how does sin, how does the law have an arousing effect upon sin within them? Well, that's the second way that the law arouses sin. It can arouse sin by making stealing more desirable by the mere prohibition or command, but also it can arouse sin in a person.

in this way that a person's obedience to this command actually becomes a base of operations for other sins. You say, well, how does that work? Well, imagine somebody who says, I will not steal. And that's what the Bible says, and I, am never going to steal, and they become very strict in their understanding of stealing and And all the ways that stealing might manifest itself.

They're like, I won't even take a paper clip from my office at, at work, from off my desk and take it home. I'm very careful about that. When I'm, when I'm in the workplace and I clock in, I give my boss my very best, and to be lazy on the job or to do personal things on the job is stealing from my employer, and I'm not going to do that because that's theft, that's stealing. And so they actually do that and they live according to that.

And they come up with really, really high standards for stealing. In fact, I know a man, I know this guy, who had such high standards when it came to stealing that Let me think how to say this, he, he was on the job one day and using the restroom. And while using the restroom, he was thinking about things he needed to do when he got home from work that day and errands he needed to run. And so he pulled out, he wanted to remember them, so he pulled out some toilet paper, a few squares, and he made some notes to himself.

This is a true story, I know this guy. And put it in his pocket, and later that day became so seized with guilt and conviction for having stolen that toilet paper from his boss, that he went to his boss and confessed his theft. I'm not gonna say anything about that guy, that guy was heeding his conscience, and so forth, so I'm not, I'm not gonna knock him for that at all, but let's just say you just come up with this really similarly high standard. To where you, of no one who has as high of a standard when it comes to the command thou shalt not steal as you do.

And so you're living according to that, but then guess what comes squirting out of you? Pride. You also start comparing yourself to other people. You notice that not everyone else has that same standard.

You observe your employees in the workplace who obviously don't have that standard and they're being lazy on the job, they're doing personal things on the job, they're on the internet when they are clocked in on the job, and then you start feeling superior to, those other people. And then, and then get this. You receive word one day that one of these fellow employees who's less righteous than you in this area, is getting a raise, or getting a promotion, and you're not getting that raise or that promotion.

And now you're furious, you're angry, because they're being blessed and receiving some advantage.

Beyond what you are getting, and you become resentful, you become envious, and maybe even find yourself speaking against that person. I can't believe, look what they do. And, and you're talking to other people about that person gossiping, and you're angry at God. You see how the cycle works when you're on that performance treadmill.

So someone might look at the command, thou shalt not steal, and it makes stealing desirable, and then someone else may say, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep that to the letter of the law. And they do that, and therefore they're expecting blessing from God and so forth. They're Proud of themselves, comparing themselves to other people, feeling superior to other people, and they get angry and resentful and envious when people less righteous in that area are promoted or get some raise or seem to be blessed beyond what they themselves are experiencing.

Indeed, we see that it often happens that our obedience to a command in the law actually can become a base of operations for other sins.

And now this person who's trying to obey the law is, they're, they're finding 10 other sins coming out of them as a result of that. The law has an aggravating effect upon our sin problem. And Paul says, God delivered you from the law. He delivered you from this bondage to the dominion of the law in order to remove this aggravation.

Now let me say a couple of things here, and I want you to listen real carefully to what I'm saying. you may very well be saved, a born again child of God, and if you are, you are delivered from the dominion of law. But I'm gonna say this, even as a believer in Christ, if you are still relating to the law of the old way, the law will have an aggravating effect upon indwelling sin. Inside of you, you will find yourself experiencing the very kinds of things that I just described.

and you might even say, well, that's indwelling sin, and it is indwelling sin, but because you're operating under a law mentality, you're shooting steroids into that indwelling sin. And no matter what, you're going to have to deal with the reality of indwelling sin, this side of glory. But I think a lot of times our dealings with indwelling sin, we magnify, we intensify, we shoot our indwelling sin with steroids by operating under this law mentality. But the single most powerful way guys that we can mortify sin from without and sin from within is to operate under grace, all day.

Every day, we are no longer under law, but under grace. Christ has purchased for us justification. We are not condemned under the law of God. It is all of grace.

We've been brought into relationship with God. We are in His presence. We learned this in Romans 5, and as a result of that, it's all of grace, so it's not based on our performance at all. And you might say, Pastor Mountain, you gotta be careful saying that, that's gonna make people feel free to go sin.

the worst thing I can say is no, you're under law. Be careful what you do because you're gonna get condemned by God. That, that aggravates and draws more sin out of people. Than the pure teaching of grace, which is what Paul is teaching in Romans 5.

A true believer who really lays hold of the fact that he's completely under unmitigated grace all day, every day, 24/7, good days and bad, waking and sleeping. A true believer laying hold of that, will experience a very profound mortification of sin within them. Paul says in Romans 6:14, sin shall not be master over you, for you're not under law, but you're under grace. You're under the grace of your justification.

Let me just give this last point to you. Paul's gonna unpack this more in this chapter and in Romans 8. there's a 4th reason that God has delivered us from the law, and that is to free us up to serve Him in the newness of the Spirit. Paul says, but now we've been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound so that we serve in newness of the spirit, not in oldness of the letter.

I, I remember talking to a, I've shared this with you before, talking to a married couple that labored under a spirit of condemnation. And sharing with them the truth of Romans 5 about their justification. And, and when I got done explaining it to them, I just asked them, I said, what do you think of this? And, and their response was, well, this is like too good to be true.

And they said, we're gonna, we're gonna have to pray about this. So I preached the gospel to them and they need to pray about whether to believe this or not. But I also, I understood their reluctance because it's crazy. This grace is crazy.

But I then asked this couple, I, I said, Before you leave, I just dream for a moment with me. Imagine you actually did believe what I'm saying. Imagine you believed it. How would you respond?

And the guy spoke up and with tears in his eyes, and he said, he said, if I really believe this, I would so love God. I'd go crazy for him. As his wife was nodding. Here, here's a couple reluctant to really believe in the fullness of God's grace.

But it's like, they see it enough to where if I really believe this, I would go crazy for God. That's what Paul is saying. You've been released from the law having died to that by which we were. So that we can now serve in a newness of the spirit.

And that word spirit could be Spirit, capital S, the Holy Spirit, or our own human spirit, or it can have the idea we serve in a spirited way, in an impassioned way, rather than from the outside in. external laws imposed upon us. We're now living just inwardly exploding out of this is an impassioned and a spirited and Holy Spirit produced obedience to God. See, all of the righteousness that the law was supposed to produce, it didn't produce righteousness in us, it only produced more sin.

God divorces us from the law through death, marries us to Jesus, and now out of that marital union with Jesus, guess what? The very righteousness that the law was intended to produce is produced in us. And we're not, we're now serving from the inside out, according to a new way, the newness of the spirit, not the oldness of the letter. You say, Pastor Milton, the way you're talking, I think I get it, but you're making the Old Testament law out to be a bad thing.

Is the law sin? Is the law bad? Well, if you're asking that, that tells me that I nailed it this morning because Paul's next question in verse 7 is, what shall we say then? Is the law sin?

Good question. Come back next week and we'll talk about. We'll talk about that. Let's pray together.

We're gonna take an offering in just a moment, we encourage you to give as the Lord leads you to give. Let's pray together. Lord, we, I'm so thankful that in these chapters Paul keeps coming around to the same thing and again and again and, and, and with different metaphors in Romans 6, he was talking about masters and slaves were enslaved to God. Now he's using marriage.

And this loving relationship that we have with Jesus, the second member of the Trinity. God, I don't know that any of us in this room are completely weaned from a law mentality. and, and I'm just thankful that you are so patient to, with us, to, to actually inspire Romans 7 to just get under the hood. Lord, and, and just do surgery with that bondage that is so natural and innate to us, to help us to see that we're totally under grace and no longer under law.

Open our eyes to see these things, give us a holy brazenness to dare to believe. The glory of these things that we're looking at in these chapters. If we, if we believe this, Lord, if we lay hold of this as a church, we're going to go crazy for you. And there's no telling what you can do in and through this church if we really believe the gospel.

Help us to believe it, Lord, receive our offerings that we give to you, we give to you in Christ's name. And for the glory of your kingdom. And we give ourselves to you in Jesus' name. Amen.