It's not me

Intro

Kanye’s Conversion

old identity

Taylor swift. byonce vma

being made a new creation

2 Cor 5:17

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

christians response.

Jonah 4:1-3

Jonah 4:1–3 ESV

1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

My goal tonight is to answer the question all of us at one point or another struggle with: who am I?

in order to do that we have to realize where we are in this book of doctrine. Paul has laid the foundation of justification in chapters 1-5 on how we were saved from the penalty of sin. chapters 6 and 7 are mainly focused on sanctification and being saved from the power of sin, but also touching on sanctification and chapter 8 is about glorification and the promise that one day we will be saved out of these bodies of sin and given a glorified body that is sin free.

Romans 7:1–25 (ESV)

Released from the Law

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. 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.

ch 6 made it clear that we are now slaves to righteousness not slaves to sin, and that is continued here.

i am a slave to righteousness

i have died to sin and therefore died to the law

The Law and Sin

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.

hearts bent away from God.

oh hey a new rule, lets break it

13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

sin was lying dormant so to speak.

if there were no written law, would we have an excuse

Romans 1

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.

do you feel the tension here?

is paul passing the buck? is he making an excuse for his actions?

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?

Pauls frustration with his sin is palpable.

have you ever felt this way?

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 completely understands where the credit belongs.

no longer does me sinning make me a sinner, but rather a saint who is continually being saved from the power of sin.

conclusion

If you have never had this kind of struggle over your sin, and you cant relate to puals frustration at all, please come talk to me. one of two things has happened, either you have gotten saved and never been discipled to see the areas of sin in your life, or you never were saved in the first place. come, and lets look at who we are in light of who God is and ask Him to crush us with the weight of our sin in light of His holiness.

if you are saved and this does resonate with you, lets look back at our question.

Who am I? if you are saved, who are you?

We are no longer slaves to sin, but rather saints who are still plagued by sinful bodies. We are children of the Most High God, and the Bride of the Lion of Judah. We are the temple of God and the Holy Spirt of God fills us. We were sinners who have been saved by His amazing Grace to be His Church.