Romans 7

Free from the Law and Sin...

Good morning my friends, I hope you are well today.

I want to say thank you for helping send Marci and I on a little get away. We appreciate your generosity, love and support. the next few days will be a blessing to just rest.

I will see you all next Sunday to continue our series of messages from the Book of Romans

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Here we are, the best day of the week. It’s the Lord’s day.

The Lord’s day ( Sunday ) is the first day of every week reminding us to start the week with Him. Our focus for every moment of the week should be the Lord.

So think of this, if we begin the week with our Lord, then we are to begin each day with Him, Our lives were created by and for Him according to the Scriptures. So it’s only fitting that our days, our weeks, and truly everything begin with him.

And here is what I think… If you make Jesus that type of focus, give him that daily priority, I think you will be blessed and you will have peace.

Try it and find out...

Now we come back to the Book of Romans. And today we come to chapter 7

Now Paul tells us here in this chapter that if you are in Christ, you have been released from the obligation of the law. But we cannot lose sight of the fact that while not responsible to the law, we are responsible to live in from of Christ correctly, not engaging willfully in sin.

Now I am going to walk us through the whole chapter this week, it’s not a large chapter so I think we can do it effectively and not loose anything.

So lets look at this what Paul is teaching those believers at Rome and us as well....

1. Free from the Law...

A truth we must hold onto is that even while the law is important, it is part of the word of God to us. We are free from the law in Christ Jesus.

Paul wants those reading His letter to see that truth and never forget it.

So lets look at verses Romans 7:1-4

Romans 7:1–4 ESV

1 Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. 4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.

So opening that text, Paul is talking about the law and the power it can have over people, but in Christ you are free from the law.

So look at what he says,.....

Paul says I’m speaking to those who know the law. There were really two types of people who know the law. The Jews were familiar, but there were Gentiles as well, those who knew the Scriptures. Remember there were Gentiles who were close to the household of faith, they worshipped the Lord.

And while a vast majority of people knew the law. Paul relates three points right here in these passages.

A. The Law is only in force when a person is alive.., v1b.... So what does he mean by this?

Well to get his point across Paul talkes about marriage. Paul says that a woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive under the law. But when her husband dies, she is released from him, she is free under the law to find a new husband if she so wishes, and the same analogy could be applied to husbands.

The law my friends, regulated the activities of the living, not the dead.

So, you are only bound to the law, when you are alive to the law.

But if that woman’s spouse were alive, then you were guilty under the law if you left and took another husband or lived with another man or vice versa, if the man did this, that person would be guilty, they would be an adulterer.

So the truth in point says the law is only in force when a person is alive.

B. You have died to the Law.... This truth is set in motion in a person’s life because of Christ....

Look again to Paul’s words in Romans 7:4

Romans 7:4 ESV

4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.

The law my friends, was like a spouse to us, we were responsible to the law. We were in a sense connected to it like a marriage. But death came.

The believer has died to the law the moment they came to faith in Christ.

Jesus death to sin became our death to sin as well.... Gal 2:19-20

Galatians 2:19–20 ESV

19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

So we died to the law the moment we stepped into a relationship with Jesus Christ.

So a new phase of life has come, death came but we were made alive in Christ Jesus. That relationship has forever changed who we are and how we live in front of a holy God.

But then, because of Christ, the fruit of our labor changes as well..

C. The Fruit of our Labor Changes....

The end of verse 4, Paul says Christ resurrection, that action enables us to bear fruit for God. You see remember we have always bore fruit, under the law and sin, we bore fruit in accordance with our life, that fruit was dead. It was dead because death rained in our mortal lives. The law told us we were alive it , but dead before God.

But now, that has changed as well… Look at verses 5-6 Romans 7:5-6

Romans 7:5–6 ESV

5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

You see being in Christ and dead to the law, dead to sin, enables us to serve, live in a new way. We work, we serve because of the new life we have from God, and that is a work that brings life and not death.

We have changed, passed from death unto life no longer under the law, no longer under death, because we have been made alive in Christ Jesus.

Praise the Lord that the former ways no longer controls us, effects us or condemns us.

Paul says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Romans 8:1.

To be in Christ is life… and life is Christ!

Aren’t you glad you have Christ today? Now moving on....

This truth brings us to our second thought for today.. Paul would tell us.....

2. Don’t Lose Sight of the Law.

Now we have just established that we are no longer under the control of the law.

We have died to it and have been found in Christ.

So wait, why is the law still important, and why shouldn’t we just abandon it? We have died to it and are alive in Christ....

Why not just let it go.....Well here is the reason.....

Look at verse Romans 7:7-12

Romans 7:7–12 ESV

7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Look at Paul’s question… Is the law sin?

Paul says by no means… Why? Because without it, I wouldn’t have known what sin was.... God’s law tells us what sin is, it tells us stay on the alert..

So the law is good. It revealed the truth of God’s standard for humanity.

The law is like a plumbline, it tells us if we are leaning to far one way or the other and the Word, the law is the standard.

So the law does a couple inportant things in our life....

A. The law laid out God’s standard for Humanity as we lived first in front of Him.

We are to worship Him and Him alone, We are to have no graven images, do not take the Lord’s name in vain and remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy… Those commands dealt explicitly with how we lived in front of Him, our relationship to Him

And secondly, How to live in front of each other.

B. Also, without the law, we couldn’t have understood why humanity was guilty in front of God and each other.

The last 6 commands tells us to: Honor mom and dad, don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t bear false witness and do not covet.

So the law was important, it truly is…

In fact, as you look at verse 12, Paul says the law is holy, righteous and good.

How? How can the law be these things, in truth because of whose it is!

Remember it isn’t our law, it’s God’s law. The law is a natural reflection of who God is… His character is…good, righteous and holy, so that which He gives to man bears the same characteristics...

So we cannot loose sight of it, there is a purpose for it, still today and God was at work in us, allowing the law to reveal our need of the Savior,

Remember you have heard me say time and time again, the law is like a mirror. It points out those two things we just mentioned:....

A. It lays out God’s standard and B. It shows us our sin.... that we are guilty before God.

So the law, while we are not alive to it any longer since we are alive to Christ, we can never loose sight of it. it still helps us every day as we live.

Never loose sight of anything that is God’s…

People say owe we are New Testament, so we don’t need the Old Testament… NO… the Old Testament is important. it tells us of how God worked to bring Jesus. So many important lessons of faith, trust, obedience. It tells of of creation and how sin came into the world and so much more..

It is God’s word, we cannot let go of it, it is just as important as the New Testament.

It’s God’s Word

Now this brings me to my very last thought for the day.

Are you ready this morning....

We all know that life is a struggle, every day we face challenges my friends. So this 3rd point reflects that thought...

3. The Battle is Real and Daily.....

As we open this last section, Paul is going to share a little about his struggles living for Christ each day.

It is kind of hard for us to see that, but remember Paul while we could consider him the greatest of the Apostles.. There were times he struggled… Why? Life is a struggle, it is a real and daily battle

He was a man, just like us my friends, and he struggled at times like us.

Look at me at verse 23 toward the end of the chapter.. Romans 7:23-24

Romans 7:23–24 ESV

23 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. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Yes, as a child of God we are free from the law, but only in the sense that we are no longer headed toward death and hell.

In our former ways, we were disobedient, and while we are in Christ, that sin nature is still there and the war is real my friends.

We struggle with that which is good and right at times… not I am not saying we have reverted back to our former ways of living. But at times a person can fall back to sin, or struggles with disobedience.

They can struggle to overcome some things.

Paul hated the struggle and so should we… We are called to be like Christ

So lets include verse 25 to the text, the last verse of this chapter.

Romans 7:23–25 ESV

23 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. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 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.

Paul knew that this ‘body of death” was like a corpse that hung on him and from which he was unable to free himself. This is an aspect of spiritual warfare.

Paul knew people (like him) desired to obey God, to live rightly as he should with this new nature of the new life in Christ.

Who could help him, Paul says Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ.

Through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has provided the power to live in freedom of the Spirit.

Listen my friends, is life a struggle at times, living correctly in front of God, avoiding sin a struggle at times, … Yes, it can and will be a struggle, but you have been empowered to be different.

God has given you the power if you want to walk in victory to do just that

You can will because you have Jesus, and His Spirit walking with you, you are free