Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Starting a sermon series today on the Christian struggle against sin.
[00:00:12] If we're going to live strong Christian lives, we have to.
[00:00:19] We have to come to terms with sin and temptation.
[00:00:23] And we're going to study Romans chapter seven together. But before we do, invite the Holy Spirit to speak to our hearts.
[00:00:33] Our dear Heavenly Father, the Apostle Paul, reminds us that even though we have a strong desire to do what is right and good, we find another law at work in us.
[00:00:55] And we want to live lives that are pleasing to you.
[00:00:59] We want to be noble souls.
[00:01:04] We want the beauty of Jesus Christ to be seen in us.
[00:01:09] And we want to resist the unholy one until he flees from us.
[00:01:14] So we pray that your spirit would teach us and empower us, and we would be more and more skilled at putting to death the old man.
[00:01:27] And I ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:01:38] So here's the paradox.
[00:01:43] Paul says in Romans chapter 7.
[00:01:48] Here's the paradox of life.
[00:01:51] I recognize in myself the genuine longing to be a good man.
[00:01:59] I recognize in myself a desire to be pleasing to God.
[00:02:07] I recognize in myself I'm just tired of sin.
[00:02:12] I'm just tired of it.
[00:02:15] I'm tired of remorse and everything that goes with that.
[00:02:21] And Paul says, I recognize that in myself.
[00:02:25] He said, the problem is, I also recognize that no matter how hard I try, I mess up.
[00:02:36] No matter.
[00:02:38] No matter how diligently I pray in the morning, that doesn't make the rest of my day easy to live.
[00:02:47] And so Paul is teaching us in Romans chapter seven and the first paragraph of chapter eight, how we live with this paradox.
[00:02:59] And because it's an abstract idea, he starts out with a tangible illustration.
[00:03:07] He says, marriage is more than just.
[00:03:13] Marriage is more than just an emotional relationship.
[00:03:19] Marriage has a legal status.
[00:03:25] And he says, because marriage has legal status, if a lady is not faithful to her husband, then the law calls her an adulteress, okay?
[00:03:43] No matter what excuses, no matter what circumstances, the law says, as long as your spouse is alive, you are obligated to be faithful to them. All right?
[00:03:56] Now, this isn't a teaching about marriage. This is using marriage as an illustration.
[00:04:02] And what Paul is trying to say is we need to stop seeing sin as losing our temper and giving somebody the finger.
[00:04:15] Is that wrong? Yes. Is that sin? Yeah. We ought not to do that. Okay?
[00:04:20] But sin is not the event.
[00:04:25] Sin is a law within my nature.
[00:04:30] I. If I do that, I do that because I am obeying the law of sin.
[00:04:38] Do you see?
[00:04:40] Ah.
[00:04:41] Every time I sin, I am simply obeying the law of Sin.
[00:04:49] Ah.
[00:04:50] And. And Paul says we have to come to terms with. With this idea of the law of sin.
[00:04:58] So let's start by saying, what do we mean by sin?
[00:05:03] When we use the word sin, what do we mean?
[00:05:06] All right, we start out by saying the church robbed it from society.
[00:05:14] The Greeks used this word before they translated it as sin.
[00:05:20] And it was an archery term that you shot at the target and missed.
[00:05:27] So sin meant missing the target.
[00:05:31] Okay? So we drag that idea over into Christianity, and we say, our target is to live pleasing to God.
[00:05:40] Our target is to do the right thing.
[00:05:43] Our target is to be noble souls.
[00:05:47] But then we live the way we live, and we end up missing the mark.
[00:05:52] All right, In a more simple way, the word sin means to fail.
[00:05:59] I have a code I want to live by, and when I sin, I fail to live by that code.
[00:06:08] All right?
[00:06:09] And then at the most basic terms, it just means to do the. To do or to think the wrong thing. All right, one more time.
[00:06:18] I have to start defining the law of sin for what it is.
[00:06:24] Sin is not just me doing the wrong thing.
[00:06:31] I do the wrong thing because there is a law of sin, and I'm obeying that law.
[00:06:40] I'm going to repeat this a dozen times so it sticks, all right?
[00:06:47] I. I don't.
[00:06:49] I do the wrong thing because I have a default setting in my soul to do wrong.
[00:06:58] Listen, when God created us, he created us good. Read Genesis, chapter one. God created us good. All right. The natural encoding of my soul was to do good.
[00:07:13] But then Adam sinned, and we call that the Fall.
[00:07:18] Why do we call that the Fall? Because the encoding of the human soul fell from doing good into original sin.
[00:07:30] So the default setting is to do wrong.
[00:07:34] All right, I know some of you have enlightenment educations and you think mankind is naturally good. No, we're not.
[00:07:42] Just start looking around.
[00:07:47] I have a. I have a darling little person in my life that I love more than life itself.
[00:07:54] But nobody taught her not to share.
[00:07:58] It came naturally to her.
[00:08:02] You start sneaking over to take a little something, she's going to move it and you're going to get the luck.
[00:08:09] All right?
[00:08:11] Nobody taught her that.
[00:08:14] That's encoded in her. So her mom and dad are saying you have to share.
[00:08:21] Sharing is a good thing.
[00:08:24] Okay?
[00:08:26] The law of sin is an encoding in my soul that inclines me by nature to do the wrong thing.
[00:08:39] And if I'm going to overcome sin, that law of sin has to be confronted.
[00:08:46] All right, now let's talk about the law of sin.
[00:08:52] What Is what is a law. It is binding rules and principles that govern your daily life.
[00:08:59] All right, here's an example.
[00:09:01] Gravity works whether you are thinking about it or not.
[00:09:08] You don't have to think about gravity for it to work.
[00:09:11] It's a law and it works. All right?
[00:09:17] If you're speeding and the police pull you over and the officer says, do you know how fast you were going?
[00:09:26] And you say, no, I was daydreaming and not thinking about you don't get off for speeding because you weren't thinking about it. That's not.
[00:09:39] Unless you meet a nice cop and he might let you off. All right, all right.
[00:09:45] The law of sin is the same way. The law of sin is like the law of gravity. It works with whether I am aware of it or not.
[00:09:55] It has a power and a binding principle whether I'm thinking about it or not.
[00:10:02] It's an inner rule.
[00:10:04] The law of sin is an inner rule that causes me to fail.
[00:10:12] It is an inner governing principle that compels us to do wrong.
[00:10:18] Sin is compulsive.
[00:10:20] Have you ever noticed this? The more you give into a sin, the more it wants you to give in to the sin, right?
[00:10:29] You don't get just a little angry. If you give in to a little angry, then it becomes a medium sized angry. And if you give in to a medium sized angry, it becomes a real, real angry. Sin is compulsive. It's obeying an inner rule and pushing you farther and farther.
[00:10:55] The law of sin is a wicked encoding of the soul that inclines us to do wrong.
[00:11:04] And listen what Paul says.
[00:11:07] I am speaking to those who know the law.
[00:11:11] If you will pay attention, if you'll be self aware, your soul will help you to see the law of sin and your soul will help you to see the law of Christ.
[00:11:25] But you have to be self aware.
[00:11:27] You can't be living on autopilot.
[00:11:32] All right, let me make this practical, okay?
[00:11:39] In all of our lives, because sin is a law, there are things that trigger sin.
[00:11:53] There are life events and they're like triggers that trigger sin.
[00:12:03] Tailgating me and honking the horn at me triggers sin in my life.
[00:12:15] Hey, I'm doing the best I can. Do you really have to honk? All right, so in each one of us, there are things in life that trigger the sin. But listen, the problem is not out there. The problem is in here.
[00:12:35] Because many of you, if somebody tailgates you and honks at you, ah, you just turn the radio up more or it doesn't bother you. At all. So sin is not what's happening out there.
[00:12:51] Sin is what's happening in the encoding of my soul.
[00:12:57] It's what's going on in here.
[00:13:01] And if I will be aware, I will start to recognize I am inclined to sin in these ways.
[00:13:10] And it gets triggered in these ways, because sin is a law.
[00:13:17] It has recognizable patterns and recognizable triggers. All right? The law of Christ is the same way.
[00:13:26] If I will pay attention and if I will draw near to Christ in my inner self, I will begin to recognize that the law of Christ has a healing and improving effect upon me.
[00:13:44] The law of Christ heals what is broken in my soul.
[00:13:51] The law of Christ strengthens what is better in my soul.
[00:13:57] And Paul says, we are aware of this, but we have to think about it and we have to be sensitive to it.
[00:14:06] Can you relate to being aware of the law of sin in you and the law of Christ in you? Can you relate to that?
[00:14:15] All right.
[00:14:17] Ah, we will, we will live by one of these two codes.
[00:14:26] Nobody, everybody lives by one of these two codes. You can't escape it.
[00:14:31] You are either living under the encoding of sin or you're living under the encoding of Christ.
[00:14:38] The problem is, for a lot of us, we switch back and forth.
[00:14:43] I'm living in the encoding of Christ for a while.
[00:14:47] Then I flip to the encoding of sin for a while, and then the Holy Spirit shows up and says, what are you doing?
[00:14:55] And I say, oh, dear God, I'm sorry. Help me be a better man. I'm back under the encoding of Christ. All right?
[00:15:06] Verse four.
[00:15:09] 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 to God.
[00:15:27] In the very same way, if your spouse dies, you are not under the law of marriage anymore.
[00:15:36] Ah, Paul is saying, that is an illustration of what needs to happen in our inner self.
[00:15:43] In Christ Jesus. I die to the law of sin.
[00:15:49] It doesn't have authority over me anymore.
[00:15:53] It can't compel me the way it used to compel me, because I'm living under a different code.
[00:16:04] In God's idea of justice. When Christ died on the cross, he represented every single one of us.
[00:16:12] Listen what Paul said. I am crucified with Christ.
[00:16:17] Nevertheless, I live.
[00:16:19] Yet not I, but Christ lives in me. All right. When Christ died on the cross in the divine justice of God, God saw you die there with Christ.
[00:16:33] And because you have died with Christ and been raised with him in the Resurrection. Listen.
[00:16:39] The law of Christ sets you free from the law of sin.
[00:16:45] We're going to read in chapter 8.
[00:16:49] There is therefore no condemnation to them that be in Christ Jesus. Listen, for the law of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.
[00:17:04] Ah.
[00:17:07] The law of Christ is an encoding of the soul, just like the law of sin is.
[00:17:14] The law of sin is an encoding of my soul that makes it easy for me to do the wrong thing.
[00:17:23] The law of Christ is an encoding of my soul that gives me strength to say no to sin and gives me a longing and a desire to say yes to the things of God.
[00:17:39] Ah, I have been raised to a new life.
[00:17:46] When I'm living under the code of sin, I produce a, a a.
[00:17:59] A sinful life that's the product of my life.
[00:18:04] When I'm living under the code of Christ, I'm going to produce a different kind of fruit. Look what he says. In order that we may bear fruit for God.
[00:18:14] When my soul is being guided by the principles of Jesus Christ, my life results are going to be different than when my soul is being guided by sin. Don't you know that to be true?
[00:18:28] When Christ is having influence in you? When, when, when, when prayer is meaningful, when the Holy Spirit is prompting you, the life you produce is infinitely better then when you're living under the code of sin and you're grouchy with everybody and nothing's going right and you're blaming everybody around you and it's ugly.
[00:18:54] The law Paul says in verse five.
[00:18:59] For while we were living in the flesh, in our sinful passions aroused by the law, they were at work in our members to bear fruit unto death.
[00:19:12] I can say this in easier way.
[00:19:14] The law of sin focuses on the material world.
[00:19:20] For example, the law of sin is always saying, what do I have? What do I have? What do I have?
[00:19:31] Do I have what I want?
[00:19:33] We just did this on. Ah, enough. How do I get more? That's the law of sin.
[00:19:40] The law of sin is focused on the external stuff you have. And when you're living under that encoding, your attention is fixated on the material things of the world.
[00:19:55] The law of sin says, what do I look like?
[00:20:00] Am I looking good?
[00:20:03] Am I impressive?
[00:20:06] Will people around me think I'm cool?
[00:20:11] That's the law of sin.
[00:20:13] It's fixated on the material.
[00:20:17] The law of sin says, does this please me?
[00:20:25] The law of sin is fixated on I think life should please me. So I'm judging everything by does this please me? Or not.
[00:20:37] And finally, the law of sin is fixated on the material things of life.
[00:20:44] And it is most evident in selfishness.
[00:20:49] The law of sin makes itself most evident when I'm living in a selfish way. I'm thinking selfish thoughts.
[00:20:58] I'm acting in a selfish way.
[00:21:03] The law of sin is at its strength, you see?
[00:21:07] So if I'm going to live the Christian life, I need a red flag waving when I recognize that I'm too fixated on material things.
[00:21:23] On the other hand, the law of Christ is fixated on spiritual things, and we'll get to that in a minute.
[00:21:34] Ah.
[00:21:36] And when I fixate on material things, it triggers the law of sin, and my sinful desires become stronger.
[00:21:50] Our sinful passions are aroused by the law of sin.
[00:21:55] Okay, be concrete.
[00:22:01] Be absolutely concrete. All right?
[00:22:04] I'm living under the law of sin.
[00:22:08] Somebody pulls into the church parking lot in a little silver car, and the law of sin says, ooh, that's nice. I should have one of those.
[00:22:20] Ah.
[00:22:21] Ah.
[00:22:22] And then the law of sin says, yeah, you should have one of those. It's not right.
[00:22:33] Then the passions get triggered. Why does somebody else have one of those and I don't?
[00:22:38] Now the law of sin is triggering more and more wrong in me. Do you see?
[00:22:49] I get fixated on the material, and as I stay fixated on that, the law of sin triggers more and more of that wrong passion, all right?
[00:23:02] And all this works out to what Paul calls it bears the fruit of death.
[00:23:08] It just kills what is beautiful and best in our lives.
[00:23:12] Do you see this? If I'm living in a selfish world and I'm giving into my selfishness, and selfishness is triggering more selfishness, it kills what is beautiful and best in my life.
[00:23:27] The law of sin kills what is most beautiful and best.
[00:23:34] Verse 6. But now we are released from the law of sin, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in a new way of the Spirit, not in the old way of the written code.
[00:23:50] It is Christ's desire to release every single one of us from the law of sin.
[00:23:58] It's his desire. He died on the cross to do it. He sent us his Holy Spirit to abide in us, so that day by day we can be free from the law of sin.
[00:24:10] Ah.
[00:24:12] As the law of sin is fixated on material life, so the law of Christ fixates on a spiritual life so that we serve in a new way of the Spirit.
[00:24:28] Paul goes on to explain this more clearly in chapter eight. So I'm just going to read you this one paragraph from chapter eight.
[00:24:36] For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.
[00:24:42] But those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
[00:24:48] That's pretty clear, isn't it?
[00:24:50] If you're living under the code of the law, you are thinking all the time. I mean, if.
[00:24:58] If you're living under the law of sin, you are thinking all the time about material things, you're fixated on it. That's where your mind goes. All right, if you're living under the law of Christ, you get a breath of fresh air away from that, and you are. You start to sink and your mind is interested in spiritual things.
[00:25:22] You stop looking at a little car and saying, I should own that. And you start. Your soul starts looking in the face of Christ and you start saying, I find Christ altogether beautiful. I want to think about him more often.
[00:25:40] I find Christ interesting. I want to. I want to know more stories from the gospel.
[00:25:49] I find Christ compelling. I want to be more like him.
[00:25:55] You see what's happening when, when I'm living under the encoding of sin, I'm fixated on material things.
[00:26:03] When I am free from that, my mind lifts above the rust bucket earth and my mind starts getting interested in. And I'm drawn to. And I want to think more and more about the reality of Christ and who he is and what he's doing and what it means to be like him and how to live in an enriched relationship to him, how to help other people see how cool he really is. Do you see?
[00:26:35] Then Paul goes on, for to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.
[00:26:46] For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.
[00:26:54] Indeed it cannot.
[00:26:56] Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
[00:27:00] All right, this is pretty clear.
[00:27:03] If I'm living under the law of sin, my mind is fixated on material things and I'm not able to please God.
[00:27:19] In fact, I get feelings like God is too intrusive in my life.
[00:27:27] God is butting in places in my life where I'm not sure I want him butting in.
[00:27:33] God has too many rules.
[00:27:35] That's what the law of sin says.
[00:27:38] All right, now I'm setting my mind on the law of Christ.
[00:27:43] I think, how, how absolutely wonderful is Jesus Christ.
[00:27:51] What an amazing thing it is that he bothers with me.
[00:27:56] I don't think Christ is intruding in my life. I'm saying I want you to have more of my life.
[00:28:04] I'm saying I want you to have greater influence in my life.
[00:28:08] I need your partnership to become a better person.
[00:28:12] I'm setting my mind on the things of the spirit, and it's compelling me to love, value, and seek the things of Christ more than the things of this earth.
[00:28:26] I want you to know the law of Christ is not a written code. It is an encoding of the soul.
[00:28:35] So don't start thinking the law of Christ is a set of rules. The Ten Commandments.
[00:28:41] Don't start thinking that the law of Christ is a set of promises I make to do this and not do that. That is not the law of Christ. That's the law of Moses.
[00:28:58] Okay?
[00:29:01] And the law of Moses is a partner with the law of sin. They partner together. All right?
[00:29:08] The law of Christ is not a written code. It is an inner quality of the heart.
[00:29:16] It is a personal relationship with the living Christ.
[00:29:22] That's the law of Christ.
[00:29:24] Listen, the love of Christ will compel you to do things that you would never do just for the rules sake.
[00:29:37] Do you hear me?
[00:29:39] We will do things for love that rules can't ever make us do.
[00:29:47] My oldest daughter, when she was little, she was a royal spitter upper.
[00:30:01] I don't know if you ever saw Stand By Me, but she could compete in that contest.
[00:30:09] And I remember I would hold. I'd get dressed for church, I would hold a baby, and Sharon would get ready, and I would be holding her.
[00:30:18] And wouldn't you know it?
[00:30:25] Ah, okay.
[00:30:29] But I loved her more than I hated the spitting up.
[00:30:37] I didn't like it.
[00:30:38] I didn't want her to do it.
[00:30:41] And if I was fast enough, I'd hold her over the sink.
[00:30:46] All right?
[00:30:47] But I loved her more than I hated to spit up.
[00:30:53] And only thing that it was only love that prompted me to hold her like that. You get that, right? Your parents, all right?
[00:31:04] That's the law of Christ.
[00:31:08] Christ puts up with our spit up because he loves us.
[00:31:13] He partners with us in our battle against the law of sin because he loves us.
[00:31:21] And as we understand that more and more, then it's easier and easier for us to let Christ have his influence in us. To let Christ have his way in us. To let Christ prompt our lives to obey him More quickly.
[00:31:40] The law of Christ recreates the human soul into the image of Jesus Christ.
[00:31:47] All right, now we've got our first big idea for this series. Listen to this.
[00:31:52] The way I overcome sin is not by creating a whole bunch of structure in my life so that I don't do what I shouldn't do.
[00:32:02] The way that I overcome sin is I obey the law of Christ and out of love for Christ, it changes what I really want.
[00:32:15] You see, what happens is the law of Christ recreates me into the image of Christ.
[00:32:24] And so what I really want more and more is consistent with who Christ is and, and what he wants.
[00:32:33] I'm not white knuckling it. As I face temptation, I am soft hearting it. I'm saying, Christ, I love you and I want to be pleasing to you.
[00:32:47] And I pray that your grace would be sufficient that I can overcome this temptation and I can walk in the light as you are in the light. Because I just hate that feeling, feeling of being far from you.
[00:33:00] You see, now I am dealing with sin and temptation at the deepest spiritual level. I'm not dealing with it at a material level. My mind is not set on material things. I'm going to lose.
[00:33:15] My mind is set on spiritual things. My focus is on Christ.
[00:33:20] I'm feeling his compelling love.
[00:33:23] The love of Christ is pulling me.
[00:33:29] And greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.
[00:33:33] We're going to confront sin and temptation this week. But hopefully you understand now that what you're confronting is a law of sin. And it's only overcome by a greater law. And that is the law of Jesus Christ.
[00:33:49] And the law of Christ is based upon his great love for us and our great love for him. And it is the weapon that we have to overcome all sin and temptation.
[00:34:01] Our dear Heavenly Father, I pray that you would teach us.
[00:34:07] I pray that we could, we could absorb these divine ideas.
[00:34:12] And then I pray that as we absorb them, we could put them to work in our lives. This week I pray for each of us. When we are challenged this week, we'll see the challenge in a new way. And we'll turn to the law of Christ.
[00:34:30] And we'll seek you and we'll call upon your name.
[00:34:35] And we'll let your love call us away from the law of sin and call us into the wonder and the glory of your goodness. In Jesus name, amen.
