Sin Corrupts and Sedates | Romans 7:15-25

Intro - Don’t get put to sleep

Hey y’all y’all good?

Cool.

So have you ever seen these little monitors next to the smoke alarm in your house?

Do you know what it is?

It’s a Carbon Monoxide monitor.

Do you know what you have it?

Because Carbon Monoxide can kill you.

Not trying to make you paranoid, but my mom did when I was little. Basically if you have natural gas, CO3 can seep and kill you.

And what scared me the most was when mom was like, “yeah the whole house went to sleep and never woke up!” 6 year old me was now scared to go to sleep. It became like a thing where I didn’t want to go to sleep. It terrified me.

But what it did was, the CO# would seep out fro the gas line or where ever and it would slowly fill the house. And what it does is, it makes you sleepy.

You would just be sitting there and start to get sleepy, you don’t notice the gas. It’s oderless, colorless and tasteless. You have no idea it’s there.

It seeps in and slowly suffocates you. You go to sleep and you don’t wake up.

and idk if this is true, but mom made it seem like that, but the 90’s was the pinnacle of CO poisoning. I don’t think it happens all that often anymore because everyone has the monitors.

But this stuff seeps in a puts you to sleep, it creeps in and kills. But we also know that we have the asnwer, the CO monitor.

When that thing goes off, you open a window and let fresh air in, that’s all you gotta do, let some oxygen in.

But this is where we are tonight.

We talked about sin last week, how it pulls the rug out, and gives you what you want.

But tonight we are going to look at the fact that we still wage war against sin. We war against ourselves.

We need to be vigilant, and we need to have people in our lives who can be monitors for us. Who can see where we are and don’t mind sounding an alarm.

People we are vulnerable with who we empower to speak truth to us.

Not everyone wants to here from everyone. I know for me I have some guys that have asked to call things out they see in my life.

Sin is just around the corner, there is a leak in the gas line some where.

Don’t get put to sleep.

Context

But this stuff seeps in a puts you to sleep, it creeps in and kills. But we also know that we have the answer, the CO monitor.

So tonight we are going to be in Romans 7, looking at most of he whole chapter but mainly focusing on 15-25, so if you have a bible great if not throw a hand up and we will get you one.

Who needs a bible?

OKay cool, Romans 7:15-25

Paul is writing this with one goal in mind.

The holiness of the people of Rome.

Last week we looked at how sin in general operates in the world.

Paul was telling them, you have been freed from sin, you have been freed to follow Jesus. Jesus has freed you. Go and do that.

Follow Jesus, what ever you got going on, follow Jesus. What ever baggage you’ve got from your life, follow jesus. What ever anything you have, follow Jesus.

This is why you were saved. Follow Jesus.

SO then, Paul keeps going with sin, but also turns to the Law.

Saying you free from sin, which means you are freed from the law.

This was for both the Jewish people and the Roman people in the church at Rome. The Jewish people weren’t sure what to do with the Law, and the Romans were being told they probably needed to follow the law.

This makes sense, Jesus was Jewish, he would have followed the law, he would have seen the law as important.

Maybe the new converted Romans needed to follow the Law?

Paul is saying, no, the Law brings death. You only knew what sin was because of the Law, this is most of the message of Galatians, the law brings death, Christ brings freedom from the law.

The new law is to follow christ, not that the old law is worthless, but it doesn’t save, it only shows.

The old law points to christ because there is no way you can follow it. 636 something rules, you can’t do it. Follow Christ.

And then we get to the passage that we are going to focus on to night.

Paul is going to finish up his thoughts on how sin relates to us.

So let’s read this, pray with me for our time in the word.

pray

Okay, lets read this whole thing, then we’ll go through it.

Romans 7:15–25 ESV

15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 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. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 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.

Okay so right off the bat, Paul describes every single perso who has ever lived.

Verse 15, Rom7:15 “15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

We say this a lot, and it is true, scripture is not about me and you. but.

this is one of those verses where you can read it and think, man this dude knows.

This is all of us at one point in time or another.

Why am I the way I am? Why do I act like this? I don’t even understand what is going on, but i still act like a fool. why? Why is this the way it is?

Sin gets in

Paul is telling them, this is how sin works. Sin gets in.

Look at verse 16-17 Rom7:16-17 “16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”

Sin corrupts and gets in.

Like we had said with Romans 5, Adam opened gates and sin was let it.

And sin gets in and corrupts. Sin is like a cancer.

It eats away and leaves a shell.

Sin takes love and turns it to lust.

Sin takes ambition and creates greed.

Sin takes sex and creates adultery.

Sin takes and takes and takes until there is only destruction is desolation is left behind.

Sin works it’s way in and destroys.

When I lived in New Orleans, termites was a weird thing.

So they flew in New Orleans, I didn’t know they could fly until i moved down there and it was wild.

And you went a whole two weeks with termites flying everywhere and they would bite, sounds like nightmare, because it was. ]

But the sinister thing was the old homes in New Orleans were made of untreated wood. The new construction stuff was pretty termite proof.

But on St Charles street, it was full of al these million dollar old historic homes. Made with wood.

termites love wood.

So after termite season ever year, you would ride by a house that had gotten a termite infestation. And you know this because they had these big blow up looking tarps over the house, where they had to fumigate the house with bug killer and you couldn’t go in it for like a month of something.

So a termite wasn’t very big, one was not a problem. But two was.

They would get the in attic and lay eggs. The eggs would hatch and what do babies do?

They eat. they get after it.

Sin at first doesn’t seem like a big deal, but slowly sin grows and grows until there is nothing left.

We wage war with the flesh

So what do we do?

Look what Paul is telling them?

Romans 7:18–20 ESV

18 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. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

He doubles down on what he said a second ago.

So what what does this tell us about ourselves?

It tells us we don’t know best.

Look around at the culture we live in.

Look at the world that we live in. Look at everything going on.

On of the main things we are told by the world to do is do you. trust your gut. Follow your heart.

Self-determination is like the most American thing I can think of. You make your own go of it. You make your way. you find what makes you happy. You get what makes you tick.

We need to remove this thinking, we don’t know what’s best.

This is what got us in this mess in the first place.

Adam thought it’d be a great idea to eat the fruit.

We want to follow our hearts, when Paul here is say, our hearts don’t know nothing.

You heart is the last thing to follow because it want to do what you don’t want to do.

Jeremiah says the hear is nothing but a factory for idols.

So what do we do ?

We have to wage war with sin.

I love how Matt Chandler, a pastor in Texas uses this phrase to about what we are talking.

We need to get up and be ready to punch the devil in the mouth.

Wake up ready to wage war. Wake up ready to dish out the righteousness of God.

So how do we wage war? By being in the presence of Jesus.

We do it by recognizing that we don’t know nothing, and we need all of Christ in our life.

We sit in the presence by getting still. How do we wage war? By not giving in to sin, by saying, no I want Jesus, I’m following Him.

I know I’m dumb Jesus is what I need.

The presence of Jesus is the only place that redemption happens and sin is driven out.

Evil is there

Why do we need this?

Because Evil is there. Look at the rest of this passage

Romans 7:21–25 ESV

21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 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.

Evil lies close at hand, Thanks be to Go through Jesus Christ.

We must wage war because evil is there.

Paul is writing to them using metaphors of battle and combat, because he means it.

Rome was a city built with blood and death, there pretty much was never a time Rome wasn’t fighting someone.

And the Romans they had a phrase called Bellum Romana, war the way the Romans wage war.

This was scorched earth. Nothing left. The romans would destroy a place and then put salt in the ground so nothing else would grow, everything gone.

That is the sort of war we have to wage, we can’t let sin gain a foot hold

Evil is out there.

We have the hope that drives out darkness.

But there is some good news,

The kingdom is at hand.

Jesus when he came, came announcing the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Came saying

Get ready, the Kingdom of God is here.

That’s the Gospel, the Kingdom is here and God is restoring all things through Jesus, this is the good news.

Jesus would go around preaching and doing miracles

and every time Jesus does a miracle, we see the kingdom. We see what it’s going to be like when the kingdom come. He was giving them a look at how God was restoring and making all things new.

Jesus is going around preaching the kingdom is at hand, and then shows them what it will be like in the kingdom.

When he heals we see that we won’t have to worry with sickness. When Jesus heals the blind man, our eyes are open to the glory of God.

When jesus turns water into wine, our cups will always be full. When Jesus heals the 5000, we will never hunger again.

When Jesus heals the cripple, we will walk with him, and he will be our God.

When Jesus says Lazarus come out, we know death will be no more because He has power of death.

This is the beauty of the kingdom. This should give us a since of wonder, that no matter what we have Christ. This is our hope, this is what we look forward to.

But we still exist here in this already but not yet. we are still here. The kingdom is here but not yet fully come. But we have glimpse of the kingdom to come.

We have to be the people who wage war, because the kingdom is here.

We have the hope that drives out darkness.

We have the restores.

We have Jesus. Jesus has come. Jesus is redeeming and calling.

So what I want you to hear is that, if you are a follower Christ, this text is calling you to take serious the call to holiness by being in the presence of Jesus. To take the step and follow him. Not trying to be a good person but trying to be a follower of Jesus.

If you are not a follower of Christ, or don’t know what that even means. The kingdom is at hand, God is moving through the world redeeming and restoring it, and He wants to restore you. He wants to make you new. SO if you want to follow Jesus, come talk to me. Come talk to one of the adults, talk to a friend, talk to some one.

Evil and sin will destroy you and make. Evil and sin lead to death.

Come see Christ as Lord, come see Christ as King, y’all pray with me.