EPIC: High-Impact Truths in the New Testament – Part 6

All right, we are continuing our series called Epic. It's all about the high-impact truths in the New Testament. One of the things I love about this series is that every single passage is never gonna lag. It's always gonna give you something power-packed. There's always something to consider or reconsider wrestling with the truths of the gospel in the New Testament. So today we're gonna look at Romans chapter seven, a portion of Romans seven. That's where Paul eventually gets to that, I'm doing the very thing that I don't wanna do. Who's gonna rescue me? How did I get in this predicament? I'm doing what I don't wanna do. And so we start in verse one of Romans seven today. And we're gonna be asking this question, is this Paul as a believer? Is it Paul as an unbeliever? Does it matter? Either way, the law is not going to bring victory. Here we start in verse one. He says, or do you not know, brethren, for I am speaking to those who know the law, that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives. Now, what law is he talking about here? Paul is talking either about Hebrew law, Jewish law, or he's talking about Roman law. It doesn't really matter because either way,

law has jurisdiction over you if you're alive. Now, if you're dead, nobody cares about you, all right? There you are going 140 miles an hour down America's highways. You get pulled over by a police officer. And by the time he reaches your car door, you're dead. Guess what? You're not getting the ticket. The law has jurisdiction over you as long as you're alive. But if you die to the law, nobody cares. And that's what Paul is saying. The law has jurisdiction over humanity, calling them to the carpet 613 ways, saying you're dead, and you're dead, and you're dead, and you're spiritually dead, and none of us can crank out righteousness. But guess what? That law calling us to the carpet means nothing when we get life in Jesus. We die to the law so that we get life in Jesus. We disconnect from Moses so that we connect with Christ. This is about marriage. And so that's why Paul is gonna get us to the point of saying ultimately that flirting with Moses is cheating on Jesus. Because we're married to Christ, the risen Christ, what are we doing playing around with Moses? You know what? Someone once said the law is a widower, and he easily finds a girlfriend in church.

Now that is some pretty serious truth because today in the Bible Belt, we've got all kinds of sales pitches about how you just need a little bit of Moses in your life. Jesus is fantastic, but you need a little bit of Moses in your life, and then you'll have a balance of victory. Well, let me tell you, the only thing you're balancing at that point is victory and failure. You're balancing victory and failure when you balance grace and law. The law is like saying, yeah, I'd like a little ounce of poison in my lemonade. 99% lemonade, just 1% poison to give me a balance. That seems to be the theology of today, and it'll kill, the law kills. So Paul is on a rant here in Romans 1. He's calling them to the carpet, and he's basically saying, Romans, do you not know how free you are? Do you not know that when you died with Christ, you died to Moses, you died to the law, you died to rule keeping, you died to self-improvement because now God has made you new, and he loves you, and he accepts you, and he embraces you, and he doesn't have you on a treadmill. So we continue his thought here in verse two. He says, for the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living.

But if her husband dies, she's released from the law concerning the husband. Now, I've been in many Bible studies where people try to figure out, okay, I love this analogy, but who's the husband, and who's the wife, and then, wait a minute, we see here, start out, we're the ones who die, so maybe we're the husband, then wait a minute, then we're the bride of Christ, so were we the husband, and now we're the, what's going, don't do that. Don't do any of that. Don't try to put yourself in the middle of the analogy. The analogy is this, you're under the jurisdiction of the law, the law counts and matters if you're alive. But if you die and resurrect, you're not under that law. Period. The law is a law of marriage. Anybody could be the adulterer, the law is a system that calls this person an adulterer if they're with two people. The concept is don't be with two people. Don't try to be with Jesus and Moses, because if you're with Jesus, you've died to Moses. That's the point. So you can put yourself in there if you want to, definitely you've died, you've died with Christ, but here's the issue. If you died and were the husband, well look, now you're the bride of Jesus married to him.

Either way you look at it, the point is, oh my goodness, I shouldn't be mixing oil and water, I shouldn't be mixing law and grace, I shouldn't be mixing the old covenant and the new covenant. So if her husband dies, the law, all bets are off, she's free to remarry and go enjoy a new relationship, which is exactly what we've done in Christ. All right, so verse three, he says this, so then if while her husband is living, she's joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. Now this says a lot about people who teach two natures. Have you ever thought about this? People who teach that the believer has two hearts, or two spirits, or two natures, or two selves, Paul is saying, uh-uh, not gonna happen. You're either married to sin, or you're married to Jesus, but you can't be married to both. You're not two people, and so there is no dichotomy of good you and a bad you, a right you and a wrong you. It's not feed the white dog and starve the black dog, it's not some sort of middle of the road, 50-50 shot, you know, like in the cartoons, when we got the angel on one shoulder, you know, and then the demon on the other, and you got a 50-50 chance at living righteously. What are we doing teaching Christians that they're two people? You're either married to sin, or you're married to Jesus. So then, if the old husband is still alive,

and she's joined to a new guy, she'll be an adulteress. God didn't make you an adulteress. God made you the bride of Christ. You're joined to him. So we see in verse four, but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man. Who's that other man now for us? The God man, Jesus Christ, we're joined to him. Vine branches relationship with him, we're one with Christ, and we're not to be flirting with Moses, because we got a whole new thing with Jesus Christ. And so we've died to the law, so that we can be married to Jesus. Now I want you to think about what that means then. We got a lot of people married to Jesus running around trying to get close to God. We got a lot of people married to Jesus trying to inch closer to God through their Bible study, and their quiet time, and their church attendance, and their giving. Maybe if I just give enough, and do enough, and love enough, and volunteer enough, and be enough, then I will get closer to God. No, you're married to Jesus. You've got a vine branches relationship with him. What if there are no conditions? What if you start every single day, one spirit with the Lord? You know, you don't have to imagine that,

that's the reality. Now you can act all anxious, and you can believe a bunch of lies about how you need to get close and stay close, or you can relax into the truth that you're one with him in a marriage relationship, him and you, and you and him. Now that produces two kinds of people. You got the person trying to get close, and he or she is ready to tell you the formula for how you could get close, and usually it ends up, hey, you should be like me, do what I'm doing, right? I got three things I'm doing, and I'll kind of hint at all the stuff I'm doing, and then you need to be doing what I'm doing. You know, I'm part of it. of this mission, I'm part of this program, I'm part of this class, I'm a member here, I'm a this, I'm a that, I got this gift, I'm doing the, and by the way, you really ought to be doing what I'm doing. Because if you're doing what I'm doing, I'm getting close and you can get close. Now what happens in that formula? Individuality is out. I mean, suddenly we're clones, we're all, we all gotta get out there and be door-to-door salesmen for Jesus in order to get close.

What does that do to the guy who will never, ever be a door-to-door salesman? It's not in him. He has no desire, no passion like that, no personality like that. He cringes as he tells people hello. There's no way he's selling Jesus on the street corner. And so we try to fabricate sort of a Christian cookie cutter formula for every Christian and then we all measure ourselves, how close are you? And we ask, well, what have I done for him lately to determine how close we are? When you think about closeness to God, think about all the emails, all the sermons, all the videos that you've received about here's how to get close to God. Here's three ways to get close to God. Here's how to be on the journey. Yeah, tell you it's a journey of getting, there's God, often you can see him over the horizon there if you look carefully, you can see him. You're on a journey of getting closer to God. What if the gospel is better than that? What if the gospel is that you're one with Christ right here, right now, you're as close to God as anybody on the planet, there's no competition, you're one with Jesus and he did it. When God does it, he does it perfectly. When God puts you in union, you're in perfect union. When God forgives you, he forgives you perfectly.

When God makes you righteous, he makes you perfectly righteous. Nobody in this room, if you're in Christ, nobody in this room is a seven out of 10. Nobody's on a journey of getting close. Nobody's on a journey of impressing God. God delights in you, God dances over you, he thinks the world of you, I'm not even trying to make you feel good, I'm just stating facts. If you're the righteousness of God, God really likes that. God loves his own righteousness, you know that? And he should. And he's made you the righteousness of God. So suddenly I start my day, moment one, I'm in Christ, I'm clean, I'm close, I'm good to go, I'm at peace with him, now I have a foundation from which to live. But you get me in that other philosophy, remember, there's two kinds of people. The first kind was the one trying to get close, filled with anxiety, always on a journey, never quite there, intimacy is around the corner, who's the second person? The second person is giving thanks for the finished work of Christ. Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, that you've made me one. It was your prayer in the garden

that we would be one just as you are one with the Father. Thank you, Lord, for that prayer and the answer to that prayer, which is the gospel. Thank you that I'm one with you, alive with Christ, you in me and I in you. No process there. Oh, I know there's a process, Lord. I'm learning, I'm growing. I submit to your counsel and your comfort. I submit to that process, but it starts with your finished work, that I am one with you, perfectly forgiven, perfectly right, perfectly clean, and perfectly close. If you start with any other foundation, folks, it is no foundation at all. You will spend your life trying to get what you've already got. And I don't care how it's dressed up. If it's dressed up in sign up for this program or you need this gift or you need another blessing or you need another baptism or you need, and you can fill in the blank anywhere you want there, you need something. And Colossians 2 says we're complete in him. We lack nothing. The New Testament says we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing. We have everything we need for life and godliness. So if her husband dies, she's free from the law so that she is not an adulteress,

though she is joined to another man. And that's exactly what we've done. We've joined ourselves to Jesus. The old relationship is dead, buried, and gone. Verse 4, he says, therefore, here's the application, if you wondered where he was going, therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ so that you might be joined to another. So who did it? You were made to die. Who did it? God did it. What did he do? He killed you. He killed you so you would die to the law. Anybody here dying to the law? Nope, you can't do that to yourself. You were made to die to the law. God disconnected you. God severed that tie. God made you die to the law. You're not dying to the law. And get this, we learned it last time, you're not dying to sin. You're not dying to the law, and you're not dying to sin. This is a really big deal. I mean, you know, I was told

if you just finish this workbook, if you just join this accountability group, you'll die to sin. You'll learn to say no. Here's the answer to sin. You need to memorize these four verses and declare them in the moment. You need more classes, more workbooks, more church attendance, more activity, more effort. Did you know that you don't die to sin through effort? Do you hear this? You don't die to sin through effort. You die to sin when Jesus made you die so that you were born again. So count yourself dead to sin and alive to God. Sound like you need to die? Nope, it's not that you're mostly dead. No Monty Python theology here. You're not mostly dead, you're not almost dead, and you're not dying, you died to sin. He who has died is freed from sin, Romans 6 says. So here comes temptation marching down the hallway of my mind. Call it anything you like. Is it acting out in anger? Is it revenge? Is it lust? Is it some criticism of other people? Is it spreading rumors? Is it, what is it?

The sinful thought is marching down the hallway of my mind and in that moment, I don't say, well gee, I hope that I am mature enough to say no to this, but I might not be grown up enough yet. This might be, this is a work in progress. As soon as you say this is a work in progress, you've already lost. This is not a work in progress. You're dead to sin right now. You can say no to that thought right now. No waiting. Jesus died once for all to sin. In the same way, consider yourselves dead to sin. It's not a process. Now, your performance and your learning and your growing throughout life, that's a process, but I'm saying in the moment of temptation, there's no process. You're dead to sin and you can say no to it. Now, I've heard all kinds of methods and I've lived a life just like you and I'm telling you, this is it. This is it. To know that in the moment, you are 100% dead to the power of sin and you can say no to it because Jesus lives in you and he is teaching you what you really want when nobody's looking, when you could do whatever you want,

you're learning what you really want. And you know what? I think you're surprised by what you want. I think you're surprised that you're a slave of righteousness. I'm surprised by that. I'm surprised that there's an undeniable, unshakable desire to express Jesus. Can't get away from it. God put it there. Verse five, in just a minute, this is verse four, to him, look who you were joined to, to him who was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God. So, everybody is teaching the opposite today, it seems like. There's a lot of teaching out there that says, oh, you want to bear fruit for God? Well, let me tell you how it is. See, yeah, you died, yeah, but you died to some of the law. You died to the ceremonial law, so you don't have to worry about animals in your backyard. Yeah, you died to some of the law. The sacrificial law is fulfilled. Jesus fulfilled the sacrificial law. He fulfilled all of that. But the moral law, see, if you want to be moral, you.

still need the Ten Commandments, right? Is that what Paul is saying? Paul is saying you have been fused and bonded to the resurrected Jesus, and as a result, you can bear fruit for God. You know what it is when you try to impress God with the Ten Commandments? You know what it is? He's gonna tell us. You're bearing fruit for death. Yeah, it's dead fruit. You ever had wax fruit? I tried it once, no good. It looked so real. It was sitting right there on my mother's coffee table, and I mean, there were apples and pear. It looked amazing, so authentic. Took one bite and realized, yeah, I'm going for plan B at this point. Wax fruit, dead fruit, fruit for death. Paul is saying there's an illusion there that if I use the law to do the right thing, I actually have nothing but dead works. You wanna bear fruit, let go of Moses. Now you're talking faith. It takes no faith. Hear me. Paul says it, not my idea. He says in Galatians, the law is not of faith. It takes no faith to keep Ten Commandments.

Anybody can keep them, and you know what? When you're under that and you try to keep it, it's just effort and fruit for death. What you want is an expression of God's Holy Spirit, and then you're bearing fruit for God. All right, verse five, he says, because while we were in the flesh, that's an unsaved person, while we were in the flesh, not in the spirit, but in the flesh, the sinful passions were aroused by the law. Look at that. Aroused by the law, and they were at work in the members of our body to do what? To bear fruit for death. We see a couple of amazing truths here. First, this is definitely an unsaved person. Now that calls into question later when Paul gives his example. You know his example's coming up in about half a dozen verses. I'm just gonna say, I think his example of his struggle is when he was in the flesh. Here he's talking about people when they were in the flesh, unsaved, under the law, devout Jews, we were in the flesh, and the sinful passions, what happens? They're aroused by the law. You wanna sin more?

Put yourself under the Ten Commandments and you'll sin more. You wanna sin less? Put yourself under grace and you'll sin less. This is the mystery, which candidly is not really much of a mystery. It's plastered all over the New Testament. I say it's a mystery only because the majority don't seem to embrace it. But it's common sense. Am I really gonna trust that Jesus died for 89% of the law? That's foolishness. Am I gonna say that Jesus fulfilled and died to 89% of the law or 92% of the law and then left us 10 to kinda deal with morality? Jesus is our morality. Jesus is our life. You got a stealing problem. Trust Jesus with your stealing. Not Moses. You got a coveting problem? Trust Jesus with your coveting problem. Not Moses. How about lying or cheating? You got a cheating problem? Trust Jesus with your cheating problem. Not Moses. Are we gonna say thank you, Lord, that I don't have to offer animal sacrifices

but I still need Moses daily for living? Flirting with Moses, cheating on Jesus. We see it again and again plastered all over the New Testament. And here he says in verse six, but now we have been released from the law having died to that which we were bound. Notice this is all past tense. Released from the law, you've died to the law. It's not happening. It's happened. You want more sin? You're under Moses. You want less sin? You're under grace. All right, so he says we serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. There's still some serving. Did you notice that? There's serving, but it's a new way. It's not about one hour on Sunday. It's really not. It's not about defined programs that you gotta be a part of. It's not about 613. ways to serve God. It's not about some legislated or mandated program you got to be in. Suddenly I serve through a smile and a hug and a handshake. I smile through love. I serve through love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. I'm serving Jesus as I express Jesus. I'm serving the Spirit as I express the Spirit. Suddenly my service is all over the place in every avenue of my life. It's not about

something I do on Wednesday night at 730. It's not about some program I joined or somewhere I volunteer. It could include that, but it's ginormous. It's everywhere. It's every avenue. Everything I do is spiritual and I serve in newness of God's Spirit, not in the old way where they were looking at the letter. If I just do one and two and three and I'm working on seven, but if I could just do six and then next week I'll get seven. Sound familiar? Three ways to live and five principles and ten keys to a better marriage and then next week it's two steps to it and we're working and we're working and we're working. We serve in the new way of the Spirit and that means everything is spiritual. Everything can be an expression of Jesus except sin. So what shall we say then? Are we law bashers? Are we law haters? Is the law bad? Is the law sin? No, may it never be. The law is not bad. Paul's clearing this up. The law is not bad, but you put me under the law and it's a nightmare. In fact, the problem is the law is so good. The law is so perfect. The law is so impossible. It's a perfectionist. The law is a perfectionist and you know what it's like to be around a perfectionist, right? Think of that person in your life. Maybe it was a parent, maybe it was somebody in school, maybe it was a teacher, someone. You can never get it right. They're never satisfied. Well, imagine the law, a perfectionist. 613 demands, fingers in your face. You can never get it right. You're walking on eggshells. So the law is good. It's holy, it's perfect, it's right, it's good, but you put me under it. It's a nightmare. Alright, so, on the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the law, for I would not have known about coveting if the law had not said, you shall not covet. Okay, so what's the law doing? The law is showing me sin. That's what the law is doing perfectly. You sinned, it's been five seconds, you sinned again. Oh, it's been a little bit now, it's been a quarter of an hour, you sinned again. 613 ways that you sin. Pointing its finger, the law shows you sin. Now, I want you to notice one particular law. What is it? Coveting. Thou shall not covet. Look at what's in focus. Where does this come from? Is coveting one of the ceremonial laws? Is coveting one of the sacrificial laws? Is coveting one of those 600 out there, you know, all those wardrobe restrictions, and

all those washings, and all those ceremonies, is that what coveting is? Thou shall not covet one of those? No, it's one of the Ten Commandments. Hello, we should have alarms going off at this point. Paul's prime example of needing freedom from the law is one of the Ten Commandments. Do I need to say that again? Paul's primary example in this chapter of needing freedom from the law is one of the Ten Commandments, the moral law, the one that popular teaching says, oh, we still need, oh, we still need the Ten, we should still be under the... Is that what Paul is saying? In a minute, you're gonna see him say, apart from the law, sin is dead. So, sin shows me... the law shows me sin, it exposes sin, and furthermore, sin, taking opportunity through the commandment produced in me, coveting of every kind, for apart from the law, sin is dead. Wow. So, two main truths here. What do we see? Number one, sin gets a major opportunity through the commandment. You wanna covet, put yourself under thou shalt not covet, and you're gonna covet like crazy. You wanna steal, put yourself under a law, better not steal, better not steal, thou shalt not steal. If you start thinking I better not and I should not, guess what's gonna happen? You're gonna do the very thing you don't wanna do. And so Paul is teaching us something. Do not touch this painting, the museum plaque reads, and you look below it and there's fingerprints all over the wall, people have been leaning in, testing the paint, right? Do not touch this painting, and suddenly, your desire to get a little piece of Monet, all of a sudden it is thriving inside of you, a desire that was never there.

But you tell me not to do something, and wow, I wanna do the very thing I shouldn't do. So notice his solution, and we'll leave it here for today. Notice his solution. Apart from the law, sin is dead. Translation, apart from the covet law, coveting is dead. Apart from the 10 commandments, sin is dead. Apart from the law, sin is dead, period. No exceptions, no holdouts, no little addendums saying let's keep the 10 in the picture, no, no. His prime example is one of the 10. So suddenly, oh my goodness, this Christianity, it just got real, folks, because they told me the good book was about obeying all the good rules so that I could be a good person, and eventually become a good person for the good God in the sky. But now I'm seeing that the good book is really that God made me good at the outset through the cross and resurrection. He put me in his goodness and made me a good tree that does bear good fruit, so I don't need a bunch of good-looking rules that have the appearance of wisdom, but lack any value. Instead, I recognize the good God who made me good and caused me to want good, and then my life is a miracle because I'm one of the few that says, you know what, I am not a rule keeper.

I'm letting Christ rule. It's not about rules. It's about letting the resurrected Jesus rule in my heart by faith. You wanna know why I bear fruit? I'll tell you why. It's because Jesus rose from the dead, that's why. You could find millions of people who say, oh, I'm bearing fruit. You know why? I'm a good law keeper. I'm a good rule keeper. I'm religious. I've had people say, my religion is the strictest on the planet. Ooh, impressive. How does it stack up to the 613 commands of Judaism? Oh, well, I didn't think about that. Do you wanna be known as a rule keeper? Or do you wanna let Jesus Christ rule in your heart by faith? Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for this miracle life. This miracle life is Jesus. He is enough. Your life in us, enough, sufficient. We don't need any more. It's over the top. It's in abundance. We want love.

We got more love than we'll ever need in you. We want self-control. We got more self-control in you than we'll ever need. We're dead to sin. We're alive to you. We're connected, empowered by your spirit. We're not doing the rule keeping. We're not going with the flow. We're swimming upstream. We're going against the current. We got you. We're going in the opposite direction of the world. The world says, be a good person, try harder, do better, rededicate, recommit, keep your rules and keep your laws. And we're saying we function by a higher law, the law of the spirit of life in Jesus Christ. Father, we thank you for your life, for your spirit, for your son living in us. He is enough. In his name we pray, amen.