Sermon Tone Analysis
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Text: Romans 7:7-12
Review Sermon Series - “You Can’t Do It!” – The Impossibility of Following God’s Law Flawlessly!
Review last week’s passage - Romans 7:1-6
Review last week’s sermon in a sentence - Main Idea - You Are Freed from The Law’s Demands to Serve in the New Way!
ENGAGE
Grab attention to set the stage for the encounter of the text
ENCOUNTER
Using something odd to get a stain out of your favorite shirt.
Like peanut butter to get out a paint stain.
We ought not be surprised when this is ineffective.
Stupid peanut butter!
That stuff is worthless!
Main Idea - Three Beautiful Benefits of the Law!
Three Benefits!
The Law is Not Sin!
The Law Awakens Sin!
The Law Reflects God!
1.
The Law is Not Sin (vs.
7)
Explain -
A rhetorical question to people who understood the law (vs.
1).
A familiar response.
“By no means!” a response that Paul uses a total of 10 times in this letter.
“May it never be!”
Paul begins to make the case that the law is not only not sin, but it makes clear what actually is sin.
An illustration on how the law revealed Paul’s covetous heart.
Our hearts are not basically good.
Especially the pre-conversion or unregenerate heart.
It wasn’t until the law came along and woke up the heart to sin, that we would know there was a problem.
Friends, this is the kind of “wokeness” we should pursue.
Helping people wake up to their own sin.
This is Ray Comfort’s approach to sharing the gospel.
He starts with the law to reveal sin.
And He uses an Old Testament Psalm to prove his point.
The Law is not sin, it is the tool God uses to wake us up to our sin.
As the Psalmist says, it revives the soul.
Every one of us, if we are born-again, had to come to terms with the fact that we are sinful creatures.
You cannot just add Jesus to your life and “be saved.”
No!
You must understand something about yourself.
You must understand that you have broken God’s law over and over again and that you are in significant trouble with God as a result.
The law, God’s law is definitely not sin.
Instead it is a tool in the hands of God to wake up people regarding their sin.
Illustrate - Story of how God used His law to help me see my sin pre-conversion as well as in my sanctification.
Apply - While this is not the main thrust of this passage, we would do well to help our unconverted friends understand the law and its purpose.
It is effective to help them see their need for a savior.
Review - Three Beautiful Benefits of the Law!
The Law is Not Sin!
Transition (use good transitions) –
2. The Law Awakens Sin (vs. vs. 8-11)
Explain - So, the Law is not sinful, but it is purposeful in God’s hand.
How so? Paul tells us in verse 8...
Paul personifies sin and makes is sound like it has a visceral response to its confrontation with the law of God.
Sin seizes and opportunity and uses the commandment of God to overwhelm the sinner with the reality of their sin.
In this case, covetousness.
The contrast here is, without the law, sin is dead.
Another way to think about this is without the stimulus of the law, ignorance is bliss.
This is Paul’s point in verse 9...
I was alive in the sense that nothing mattered to me.
I didn’t care about sin.
I didn’t give it a second thought.
It frankly didn’t bother me - until I was confronted by God’s law.
It was then that I realized that I was in trouble with the Creator God of the universe.
When the commandment came, sin was aroused and everything changed.
I was no longer alive in my ignorance.
I had died because the reality of sin overwhelmed my heart.
Look at verse 10...
What does this mean?
The law, in an of itself, while it appears to promise life cannot because you do not have the wherewithal to perform with the law demands.
In this sense, the law cannot save you from death.
All the law can do is stand by and watch while you die from sin’s poisonous bite.
This is what Paul says in verse 11...
Here is this personification language again!
Sin, now alive and well, grabs at the opportunity presented it through the law!
It is this opportunity that sin deceives the person.
By the way, this is what sin does.
Sin is a murderer!
This is the harsh reality all people must and ultimately will come to terms with.
It is not God’s law that kills but the sin that dwells within each person that has ever lived!
It is sin that is this deadly killer.
Illustrate - Lactose intolerance is an allergy to milk.
The problem with this condition lies not in the milk but in the biochemical makeup of a person.
The flaw lies with the person who ingests the milk.
The milk only reveals that fact; it doesn’t cause it.
The law of God is perfect in every detail.
Nothing’s wrong with it, but there’s something wrong with us.542
Tony Evans, Tony Evans’ Book of Illustrations: Stories, Quotes, and Anecdotes from More than 30 Years of Preaching and Public Speaking (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2009), 183.
Apply - So, the law isn’t our problem.
Not at all.
The law merely points out our problem.
Sin is our biggest problem.
The sin that lives in us is a killer.
For the unbeliever - Sin is the cause for your dead spiritual life today and your eternal spiritual death.
You cannot recover from your sin sick condition by following the law.
any Law.
The mosaic law, the civil law, even the moral law.
Not one of these iterations of the law are capable of making you right with God.
There is only one solution for your sin sick soul - Jesus Christ.
For the believer - after all, believers are Paul’s intended audience for this letter.
Sin’s sting of eternal death was removed at the cross of Christ, there is still a deadly sting for those Christians who want to play with it.
Sin is still a murderer.
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