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The Frustration of Doing Good
Romans 7:7-25
March 12, 2006
*/Focus:/*/ God hasn’t called us to set up laws for other people.
We are called to live by grace./
*Introduction: Change Anxiety*
Please open your Bibles to Romans and follow along as I read this wonderful passage from Chapter 7 – verses 7-13: /” Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is evil?
Of course not!
The law is not sinful, but it was the law that showed me my sin.
I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, "Do not covet."
\\ But sin took advantage of this law and aroused all kinds of forbidden desires within me!
If there were no law, sin would not have that power.
\\ I felt fine when I did not understand what the law demanded.
But when I learned the truth, I realized I had broken the law and was a sinner, doomed to die.
\\ So the good law, which was supposed to show me the way of life, instead gave me the death penalty.
\\ Sin took advantage of the law and fooled me; it took the good law and used it to make me guilty of death.
\\ But still, the law itself is holy and right and good.
\\ But how can that be?
Did the law, which is good, cause my doom?
Of course not!
Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation.
So we can see how terrible sin really is.
It uses God's good commandment for its own evil purposes.
\\ / \\ Most of us Canadians see ourselves as flexible, innovative, and open to change.
Contrary to the people who live in the Old World, we see ourselves as having a pioneering spirit.
If there’s a job out there that needs to be done, if there are changes that need to be made, we perceive ourselves as the kind of people who will do that.
Yet I find that even though we see ourselves as people of change, we are often resistant when change is imposed upon us.
If we are initiating it, if we are creating it, then we are for change.
But when someone else is imposing it, we tend to be a bit more rigid.
We resist change that is imposed because it implies that we are out of control.
Someone else has more power, more authority, more ability, and that person is creating changes we have to live by.
It is our nature to want to be in control of our lives.
This nature was given to Adam in the garden when God told him to fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over it (Genesis 1:28).
Through Adam to us comes the God-given desire to manage everything in our sphere of influence.
And part of our desire is to keep the status quo.
When it comes to the church, we are no different.
We have the idea that if God is eternal and his Word is eternal, then that which we have done in the past should continue on for eternity.
There is merit to this perception of what is eternal, for there is much which should never change: our seeking after God should be a constant.
Our seeking after purity should continue.
Our resistance to sin should never change.
These are among many unchangeables.
But that does not mean we resist all change, does it?
Would the human race be in its current technological age if we had resisted change?
Perhaps the biggest reason we resist change is that we see change as a commentary on the past.
If we are making a change in what we do in the church, we often assume that implies what we have done in the past is somehow inferior, inadequate, perhaps even wrong.
Most of us have committed our lives to serving Jesus Christ.
Some of us have been doing this for a lifetime.
Because someone suggests a “new, improved” way of doing things, we may feel our former service was inferior.
Sometimes that is true, but often it isn’t.
Many times changes come because the original idea, the original method, has met its purpose.
New purposes have arisen, new goals have come, and therefore changes must be made.
Change is not so much a commentary on the inferiority of the past; it’s just a matter of a different purpose.
*I.
Paul Makes a** Change: Law into Grace*
In the Book of Romans, Paul imposed upon other Christians a major change.
He told them they are to live by grace, not by the law.
For 1,500 years, from the time God had given the law to his nation, men and women of God assumed the way to live, the way to be holy, the way to serve God, was to keep the law.
Paul comes along and says, “Live by grace.”
That’s a major change.
Now what Paul is saying is crucial for us.
For 2,000 years the church has struggled with the change from law to grace Paul is suggesting.
We look at the Ten Commandments, we look at the law of God, and somehow we know that law is still good.
It’s still from God.
It should have a relationship to us today, if we are serving the same God, who is eternal.
Therefore, we often confuse the purpose for law, and wonder why Paul says in Romans, “Make a change.
No longer attempt to live holy lives by law; instead, live by grace.”
It’s imperative that we understand why God gave the law.
The law mirrors our sinfulness.
Paul wants to tell us that purpose, and then by way of illustration, point out that if we attempt to live holy lives by keeping the law, we will find we can’t be holy.
Instead, we will be frustrated.
Turn with me to Romans, chapter 7.
In verse 7 you can see that Paul anticipates resistance to change, because he raises a question: /“What shall we say, then?
Is the law sin?”/
Paul says, /“Certainly not.”/
In fact, in verse 12, he points out that the law is holy, righteous, and good.
Paul recognized the minute he said, /“Live by grace, not by law,”/ a whole group of Christians would say, “Paul, are you suggesting the law is inferior?
Are you suggesting that somehow it’s inadequate, perhaps even sinful or evil?”
Paul says, “No, that’s not what I’m suggesting.”
But he says, “What you do need to understand is why God gave the law.
What was God’s intent?”
So he says in the rest of verse 7, /“Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law.
For I would not have known what it was to covet if the law had not said, ‘Do not covet” /in Exodus 20:17.
Children, soon after they begin to grow up, get teeth, both upper and lower.
Once those teeth come, they begin to eat differently.
They begin to exercise certain muscles and use the teeth God has given them.
However, there is often that youngster playing in the sandbox with another, and right next to him is that nice, plump arm.
Or that nice, juicy leg.
And so the child reaches out and uses those new muscles and those new teeth.
He eats just like he has eaten before.
That’s when the mother comes along saying, “No, there’s a law I need to tell you about.
The law says you can bite your food, but you can’t bite Johnny.
Didn’t you notice how he cried when you bit him?”
So the mother comes to the child, who probably knows no better, and lays down a new law, an expanded law, a law for his good (and, of course, for his friend, Johnny’s, good as well.
Paul says that’s what God did.
God came to men who thought certain things they were doing were right or proper.
But Paul says, /“God’s law didn’t just deal with action.
It didn’t just deal with things like lying or stealing or committing adultery.
God’s law also dealt with desires and feelings, those things that cause people to lie, to steal, to commit adultery.”/
And Paul says that God comes to us and says, /“If you wonder what I’m like, if you want to know what pleases me, if you want to see a reflection of my character, don’t covet, don’t lie, don’t steal.
This is how you ought to live.”/
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