Know Your Weakness

[MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Well, good morning, would you help me welcome all our campuses who are worshiping with us today? [APPLAUSE] So good to be with you. I wanted you to know whether you've been with us a long time or you're visiting with us. The most important meeting that we do every single month is on the first Tuesday of every month. We call it first Tuesdays. We gather as a church to seek the face of the Lord and prayer. And if you've never been, I encourage you to come. We seek God's face. There are certain things God only does in community. He does not do individually. Yes, we're called to pray by ourselves. But we're also called to pray as the body of Christ. We're called to pray as the family of God. So I want to invite you to come and do that. And then starting a week from Monday, we have our 21 days of prayer. We spend 21 days of prayer to start our year.

We do 21 days of prayer and fasting in January every year. We meet in person every single day. We gather. When we do this in the fall, we really target the lost. And we pray in our cadre, in our families, in our marriages, with different people. So encourage you on your way out today. Make sure you pick up one of these books so that a week from Monday, you're ready to journey with us. And it's called one by one. And the reason it's called one by one is that God wins souls one at a time. You know that, right? God usually uses one witness to win that soul. And God himself is the one that saves people. We don't have to save anybody. Isn't that good news? And during this journal this year, I'm going to have you write the name down of the same person every single day. Ask yourself those questions. When's the last time you wrote somebody's name down for 21 days in a row you were praying to come to Christ? I think it's going to be very powerful for us to do that this year. We also have some wristbands. If you like that, just to remind you to continue to pray. But we're a praying church. We don't just say we like to pray.

We pray. We go after it. So starting August 10th, the week for Monday, you can be a part of this. So pick up one of these books on the way out. And with that, let's continue our worship this morning as we go before the Lord and get ready to hear his living and active word among us. Would you pray with me? Our Father in heaven, we do. We give you glory, honor, praise. What a privilege it is to gather in your house, to sing praises with your people, to worship you, to seek you in prayer. And then also, Lord, to get you your living and active word among us because we as a people believe, Lord, every time your word is faithfully and accurately proclaimed that it is you who are speaking. So our prayer this morning is speak, Lord, for we are ready to hear. And so now for everyone who has gathered, who desires to hear the Lord, Jesus Christ, who will believe what he tells you, and who will by faith put into practice what he shows you, will you agree with me very loudly this morning by saying the word, amen, amen. We've been in this series called No Mercy. And we've been talking about how we need to be merciless with our sin. We show mercy to one another as God shows mercy.

God is a great compassionate God. But that's what this series has been about. And we started this series by saying, know your enemy. It's important to know that you have an enemy. We really have three. We talked about the devil, the world, and our sinful self. But we spend a lot of time talking about the sin that is still resonant in us after we give our lives to the Lord, Jesus Christ. It's important, we know that the devil's real. We talk about him a lot. It's important to know that the world can entice us to sin. But it's really important for us to know we have an enemy that actually lives inside of us. That's how we started the series. And then we said, if you're going to defeat that, you need to know your identity. Because when you become a born-again believer, you're a new creation, old things have passed away, all things have been made new. You are not the same as what you were. Everything on the inside got recreated. You have a new identity. God calls you by a new name. You're not just sinner, you're saint, you're holy, you're righteous, you're good, not because of anything you did, but because of all that Christ did. And we have to put on the mind of Christ. We have to stay in Christ and live out our God-centered identity.

Then last week, we talked about know your master. Even as the believer, we get to choose who we're going to present ourselves to. We can present ourselves to the Lord as instruments of righteousness, or we can present ourselves to the enemy. And he can play us. And so we talked about how important it is when we make choices, Today I want to talk about this. I want you to know your weakness. I want you to know your weakness. It's important that everyone knows their weakness. Even superheroes had weakness. Superman had a weakness. What was his weakness? It's Kryptonite. Kryptonite was Superman's weakness. Achilles' weakness was his heel, the wicked witch of the west and the withered of eyes. What was what? It's water, right? Even Samson, Biblically, he had his hair, and when he got his haircut, he lost all of his. Power, we have a weakness too. And our weakness is after we're born again, misunderstanding how to use the law of God in our lives. And if you don't understand that, it's gonna set you up for a trap that is deadly. And when traps happen, you can't wiggle your way out.

It's kinda like one of those green strips you put in your house or your garage for mice. They don't make it across very far. And the harder they try to get off, they get even more stuck. And the same comes true if you don't understand the purpose of God's law and what he's trying to do with it in the life of a believer. And because we have a weakness and proclivity to not use God's law as he intended, it sets us up for some different traps. And that's what I wanna talk to you about today. So if you open your Bible up to the book of Romans chapter seven, Romans chapter seven, we'll be in the first 13 verses together as we unpack this today. And it's important that you listen because this whole series is so practical. You're living this every day, whether you realize it or not. Paul's gonna be very clear with us as to how this is gonna work out in our lives. And I think there's great fruit for you today in understanding this. But if you don't know your weakness, there's a trap. And I'll give you four today. And the first trap is this. You have the trap of returning to the law in abandoning grace. There's a trap that's been set for you to return to the law in abandoned grace. Notice what the apostle says through the Holy Spirit.

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. It's making a general statement to start off. He's talking about the law of God. It only has jurisdiction over you as long as you live. If you're dead, you're not under the law. I mean, it would apply to us in our society too. Dead people don't get speeding tickets. Dead people don't get in trouble for not paying their taxes. The law doesn't apply to dead people. That's his point that he's making. And he's gonna give an illustration as to how this works. He says then, "For the married woman is bound by law "to her husband while he is living. "But if her husband dies, she is released from the law "concerning the husband." She's not released from the law. But if a husband and wife are married and the husband dies, the wife is no longer bound to her husband. If you bend to a wedding, whoever's officiating at the front usually says something like this. What God has joined together may keep them 'til death do you part, right? So we understand, God's understanding marriage is permanence between a man and a woman who have made a vow before the Lord 'til death do they part.

When one or the other dies, the permanence is over. You're not married anymore once the person, once the spouse is dead. So that's the covenant, that's how it works. And he's gonna go on to explain this even further in verse three. So then if while her husband is living, she is joined to another man. She shall be called an adulterous, but if her husband dies, she is free from the law so that she is not an adulterous though she is joined to another man. Here's the point. The point is if there's a married couple and that during the time of their marriage, that woman during their marriage goes out and is intimate with another man, that is called adultery. Therefore, she would be called an adulterous. However, if her husband dies, there is no more marriage. If she goes out and she gets married to another man, she's not committing adultery. She's not doing anything wrong because she is no longer bound to her husband who is now dead. That's the point he's trying to make. He's making the point, the law has a jurisdiction, only over a person as long as they live, that's it. And if they're dead, it doesn't work. So he's using the marriage analogy to make the point

that people are bound to one another in a marriage, but if one or the other of the spouses die, they can get remarried. They're not bound anymore once the person dies. But if during that marriage, while they're both alive, one of the other one engages sexually with someone outside the marriage, they're called an adulterous and adulterous, right? He continues. Now he's gonna make it practical. 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 to him who was raised from the dead. Who's the one who was raised from the dead? Jesus Christ, the God-man Jesus. So here's what he's saying. He's talking to those who have been born again that you were made to die to the law through the body of Christ. When you become a believer, we talked about this. You've died in Christ, you've been risen with Christ, you are free in Christ, you belong to Christ. But when you are born again, meaning you were dead in your sins, you know that you're guilty, you know Jesus is the only way, you've turned to Jesus Christ, the God-man for forgiveness, through his death on the cross and resurrection from the dead, you're dependent of your sins, you're trusted in Jesus, you're new.

When you become new, you were made to die to the law. And we're gonna take a look at why, we're gonna take a look at the law's purpose today. And so because you're dead to the law, it's for one purpose. He really gives us two. So that you may be joined to another Jesus Christ, right? So you don't die to the law, so you can, I can go do anything I want now. I'm a Christian, I'm forgiven, I'm done with that law, I can go sin all I want, no, no, no. You were made to die to the law, so that you could be united with Christ. In order to that, you might do what, bear fruit, right? And what's God's designed for us? That we would bear fruit, more fruit and much fruit. And how do we bear fruit? What does the Bible teach us in John 15? By abiding in Christ. Fruitfulness does not come through your own efforts to be good or commit or make things right. Fruitfulness comes from your abiding in Christ and he does a work in and through you that you can't do by yourself, right? That's what you were made to do. Now here's the trap, here's the trick. The trap is returning to the law and abandoning grace. You did not get saved because you kept the 10 commandments. You did not stay saved because you do better. You got saved because you couldn't keep any of the 10 commandments. You got saved because you couldn't make yourself right, right?

The law's purpose, I'm gonna talk about over and over today. You're gonna hear this over and over. The law's purpose is to show God's holiness, to show your sinfulness and to point you to Jesus Christ. That's the law's purpose. You're gonna see it spelled out over and over in different ways as he tries to spell this out for us. But what's he trying to say? Once the law has done its purpose in your life and shown you the holiness of God and shown you that you're wicked and pointed you to Jesus, here's the purpose of all that. So that you'd remain with Jesus. So you'd stay with him. Here's the trap, here's the trap. Listen, the trap is the law always inviting you back. Oh, you got to prove why you're doing good. You know, you got to be a really good Christian. You got to prove to people you're doing a good job. You got to really, really dive into this, really get it right, really, and you can't. You can't commit your way to holiness. You can't commit your way to righteousness. You can't do enough good things. Only Jesus can do that in and through you. And when you're with Christ and you're in Christ and you're pursuing Christ and you desire Christ and you love Christ, God is doing a work through His Holy Spirit because He deposits His Holy Spirit in every single person who is born again.

And so this trap, because our weakness is to prove that we want to do something, it's how every cult forms, how every religion forms, because we in our sin nature think we need to have something to show to God why we're good. That's why most people will tell you they're good outweighs they're bad. Even though every single human being, they're bad massively outweighs they're good every single one of us. But there's something in us that even after grace, after we know we didn't do anything to deserve it, well, from now on, I'm gonna show God that I'm really good. And so we go running back to the law to kind of prove that we're really, really good. It doesn't work. The law cannot do for you only what Jesus can do. And you're gonna see it spelled out different ways today. And here's the truth. Paul says in Galatians 2 19, through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. And he doesn't say I died to the law so I don't keep any of the rules anymore. He didn't say I died to the law, so I can do whatever I want and I'm forgiven. He said I died to the law so that I might live for God. Galatians 5 1 says it's for freedom that you have been set free. Keep standing firm and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery. And Galatians 2, around verses 13 and 14,

I'm paraphrasing here, he canceled out the certificate of debt, nailing it to the cross. And even the apostle Paul, when he was writing about his life and how if anybody had a right to talk about how they were good enough for God, it was him. He was of the tribe of Benjamin. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews. He was a Pharisee as to the law. He was zealous, all these wonderful things. And he counts it all lost to the surpassing knowledge of knowing Jesus. But here's what he says. He says not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law. The law does not make anybody righteous. All the law does is point out that God's holy, you're not, you need Jesus. That's all that the law does. That's its purpose. And once you have something that's so good, why do you wanna go back to what point is in the right direction in the first place? I mean, let me ask you a question. Anybody here looking to get more dial up internet at their house? (audience laughs) Or maybe you're gonna go shopping today for like a 25 inch zenith console made of wood

that you can set in your family room with 13 channels that turns off at 11 o'clock at night and puts an American flag that's skewed. You guys don't even know what I'm talking about, some of you, I mean, we've come a long way, baby. Listen, once you have something that's better, you don't go back. And yet, we've been given Christ, we have everything we need in Christ. He tells us to remain in Christ. And what we do is we run back to the law and say, what am I missing? What am I missing? I'm gonna be really good now. I'm gonna do all this stuff now. And when you do that, it creates legalism. And some of you grew up in it. It's where people think they're keeping the law, but they're really not. And they cherry pick like three or four that they think they're doing well, but they have no heart for the law. They're not even doing what God wants, but they want everybody to be just like them. And they ostracize everybody that's not, that's legalism. That's missing the mark of what Jesus Christ set you free to do. He set you free because you're bound to him so that he can bear fruit in and through you. Here's what he says.

Verse five, for while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. So he says this, before you were a believer while you were living in your flesh, these sinful passions, they were actually aroused by the law. They're actually stirred by the law. And we're gonna talk about that throughout today, but when people say, don't you say why? You can't, I bet I can, right? There's something, it's the sinful nature in you that says these things. And so what happens is, it's stirred by that. And when you were living according to the flesh, you demonstrated you were living according to the flesh. Like you'll hear non-Christians say things like this. I would never want to become a Christian. You guys have all the rules. I'm free to do whatever I want. The reality is they're not free at all. The reality is they're totally in bondage. The reality is they're living out all their sinful desires. And here's the truth. What judges people on judgment day, the law of God, every single person that ever lived, his holiness, perfect, every time exposing that you're not, which is why Romans 3.19 says that the law of God will shut the mouth of every person.

You think you're going to heaven 'cause you're good outweighs your bad, it will shut your mouth when you're standing in front of the holiest God in the universe. There is no other God. And you're standing before him saying, here's what I'm bringing to the table. Listen, if you've never trusted in Jesus Christ, the only thing that you want to make sure you've done before you die is trust Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. That's it. (congregation applauding) Because on that day for each and every one of us, when we stand before him, the only thing you want to say is I'm not presenting anything. The only thing I'm presenting is the fact I had faith in you to forgive all my sins. And that's why I'm here 'cause I don't deserve anything. There's nothing good that dwells in me other than you. That's the gospel. Amen. (congregation applauding) And do you remember what it was like when you first got saved? You're like, I'm so free, I'm so loved. This is so incredible. But then the law invites us back. Now I gotta go do this. I gotta have my quiet time like this.

I gotta drink coffee when I have my quiet time. I gotta get up at five in the morning. I gotta do it this way. This is what everybody else does. What the Christians do 'cause this is the law. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. Remaining with Jesus and abiding in him and desiring what he wants does. But notice what he says in verse six. But now we have been released from the law. Why? Because we've died to the law. We've been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound so that we may serve in newness of the spirit, not in the oldness of the letter, right? The purpose of the law is to show us God's holiness, show you that you're not and point you to Jesus. Jesus' purpose of the law and the life of the believer is not that you would live out the legalistic requirements. It's so you live out what the spirit requires of them. Do you remember in the sermon on the Mount Jesus said, I did not come to abolish the law. I'm not taking it anywhere. He's what he said I came to do. I came to fulfill it. Jesus Christ, the God man, is the only one who's ever fulfilled the law. He never ever sinned.

He never did anything wrong. And even when he's talking about the law, it's so interesting because he talks about the spirit of the law. In Matthew 5, 21, he said, you have heard the ancient said, you shall not commit murder, and whoever commits murder, she'll be liable to the court. But I say to you that everyone who is angry "and whoever says to his brother you good for nothing, "she'll be guilty before the Supreme Court, "and whoever says you fool, "she'll be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell." So what's the spirit of the law? I mean, we here do not murder, and for many of us, we're like, oh, shh. Skate that one. And Jesus said, "Yeah, but you're missing the spirit "of the law," and here's the spirit of the law, that you wouldn't even have hatred in your heart towards another. That there would never be a slanderous thought you'd have towards another. There'd never be an angry thought you'd have towards another. That you would be pure even in your thought life, not just in your actions, because even same things coming out of your mouth, you can commit murder from your heart. That's why he goes on to say, therefore, if you're offering your gift at the altar

and you realize your brother has something against you, first go be reconciled your brother, then bring the gift, right? Because the spirit of the law is not, God, I pass, I didn't kill anybody. The spirit of the law is, I want to be the kind of person that represents Christ that doesn't even have an evil thing to think or say about somebody else. Right, that's the spirit of the law. You can't do that apart from Jesus. He goes on to talk about lust. He says, you've heard it said, do not commit adultery. And many of us would say, shoo, I pass that, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And then he goes on to make some incredible statements. So if your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It'd be better to enter heaven without a right eye and right hand than it would to spend eternity in hell. Now, what's the point of the message? He's not saying all of us should be called patch or lefty. What, what, the point of the message is, you can't even change your behavior by gouging out your eye or your hand. You need a heart transformation. And the only one that can change your heart is the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the spirit of the law. So if you leave church today and say,

I want to brave and pastor Jeff said, well, I'm dead to the law. I mean, need the law anymore. You missed the whole point. The law's great. The law's good at doing the three things we talked about, showing you the God's holy and that you're not, you need Jesus. That's great, but it can't fix you. It can't change you. It can't do things for you that only Christ can do. And it's like this. I mean, if you think for somebody that's been a prisoner for a long period of time that has a certain time to go to bed and a certain time to eat meals and a certain protocol to ask if they can go to the bathroom and a certain protocol for all these different things, once they're out of prison, they're free from all of that. And yet there's this internal clock inside of them and said, yeah, but this is the way it's supposed to be done. Is it okay if I don't do it this way anymore? The same thing happens with the law. You are free, here's how free you are. You're free to serve Jesus Christ in any way that brings him glory. You're totally free to do that. You don't have to ask permission to serve the Lord. You don't have to ask, is this what I need to do? But there's this trap that said, if we don't know our weakness and our weakness is always,

I gotta prove myself, I wanna make sure that God knows and I'm doing really good to get sucked back into the law and be put back into bondage rather than just remaining with Jesus Christ and his abundant grace. Let me give you a second trap. Second trap, if you misunderstand your weakness and you don't know your weakness, is the trap of misunderstanding the purpose of the law, which we've been describing, but let's do it a little more detail here. Here's what Paul says, what then shall we say? Is the law sin? Is this a bad thing? Is a law a bad thing? I mean, the law is doing all this bad stuff for us as Christians, is the law sin? And he gives the same words he's given on every question he's asked. May it never be, no way. It's out of the question, never even think like that. On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the law. I would not have known about coveting if the law had not said, you shall not covet. Paul said, the law's good. I didn't even know what God's standard was. I didn't even know what coveting was. And then when God said, do not covet. And I understood coveting meant being jealous for what everybody else has.

As soon as I knew that was a law, I wanted what everybody else had. I was envious of them. I was jealous of them. I wanted their shirt. I wanted their clothes. I wanted their car. I wanted their house. But I didn't know that. That was even wrong until it said, do not covet. Now it says do not covet. And I want to do the very thing it says don't do. So is the law sin? No, there's nothing wrong with the law. It's doing its job and the purpose of law is to show you God's holy and to show you that you're not and that you're in need of a savior. That's its job. Paul says this in Romans, in Romans 3, 20, through the law comes the knowledge of sin. How would you even know if you're guilty if there's no law? It's the law that tells us we're guilty. It's a law that shows us what God's standard is. Galatians 3, 24, I've talked about it already. Psalm 19, seven through 11 talks about all sorts of things about the law of the Lord and all the good things about the law of the Lord, a couple of things it says, is the law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. The law of the Lord is good and lightening the eyes. I mean, there's so many good things about the law,

but we need to use the law the way that God intended. When Paul was writing to Timothy in his first letter to him in chapter one and verse eight, here's what he says, but we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully. So you got to use it the right way, realizing the fact that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, so who's the law made for? Are we righteous in Christ from the time that we come to Christ? Okay, let me ask again, it's not rhetorical. Are we righteous in Christ when we are born again? Yeah, so the law is not for us, it's not for the righteous. The law is for the unrighteous and rebellious. The law is for those who don't want anything to do with God. The law is to be a school master to point them to Jesus. So it's good if we use it lawfully, but we have to know that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and purgers and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted. What's the purpose of the law? To show you God's good and you're not. To show you that you need a savior, right? And there's nothing wrong with the law.

It's a good thing. I mean, it's a fantastic thing that we have. I mean, think about this, a mirror. What's a mirror's job? A mirror's job is just simply to reflect what you are. That's all a mirror does. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? It's a good thing, right? Now, I have a different view of mirrors over the years as I've aged. I approach them differently now than I did when I was 22. I mean, there was a time where I would see a mirror and I would look at it and gaze at it and, you know, kind of flex or do some different things. Now, when I look in a mirror, I'm like, who in the world is that? And the longer you gaze at a mirror, it doesn't help. It's why, for many of us, the longer you gaze at the mirror, there's probably more stuff you're putting on yourself so you don't have to see the reflection you're looking at. I mean, that's what a mirror's job is. There's nothing wrong with the mirror. You don't throw out the mirror. You don't tell the mirror, bad mirror. All you're doing is saying, I'm just seeing what you're putting out there, but it can't do the work that you want the mirror to do. It's just showing you you have a problem. It's the same thing as a scale. When you stand on a scale, it measures your weight.

That's all it does. It doesn't help you lose or gain any of it. I've tried. (audience laughs) All it does is reflect. This is what you weigh. Well, I don't like that. Well, you can't do anything for me. The scale doesn't change my dynamic. All it does is show me. If you get an MRI or a CAT scan, it may show you a tumor, but it doesn't fix any of it. All the law does is highlight that God's holy and you're not and that you need Jesus, that's all it does. So is it good? Yes, if you use it lawfully. Is it wrong for me to step on a scale if I'm trying to lose weight? No. Is it wrong for me to look in the mirror if I want to look okay for going out? No, there's nothing wrong with it. Is it wrong for me to study God's law and to understand what He requires in me? No, that's a good thing. As long as I understand that the very thing the law is showing me, it can't do for me. As long as I understand the law is just showing me, God's good, you're not and you need Jesus to help you with this.

But if I'm looking at the law saying God's good and you're not and I'm gonna try a lot harder to be good, it will never work. And our flesh is always saying, no, I'm gonna commit. I'm gonna get better. I'm gonna do, you can't. I mean, let me just save you the trouble. You just think rhetorically, just for a minute. Any sin in your life that you've committed to to get rid of that's not quite gone yet? Three of us, okay. Listen. (congregation laughing) Sometimes that happens to me. It happens to everybody. And the way that we tend to pray if we're in the law is, Lord, I'm gonna try harder. I promise this time going forward. I'm never gonna do this again. I'm serious this time. I mean, look at these tears. I hate my sin. I'm gonna work at it. And you might not even make it to your car or to your home or to school next day and you've already sinned it again. See, a better way to pray is this. Lord, I'm aware that you call that sin and I know that the law can't fix me and I know my sinful self can't fix me. But Jesus, will you fix me?

Will you show me in the word different decisions I need to make? Will you show me who I need to hang out with? Will you show me what I can do differently? 'Cause I don't even know. And sometimes I even like doing the thing that I'm telling you that I don't wanna do but I really don't wanna do it even though I like it. So help, Lord, I just wanna be authentic with you. You already know all this about me. That kind of prayer, friends, changes everything. [BLANK_AUDIO] and I need you and Jesus is saying, I've been waiting for you to say that. I'm really, really good. I can handle your problems. I can handle your sin. I can handle it all. Amen? (congregation applauding) And too often what we do especially in church, right? Especially in church. We're aware of the sin. We studied the law. We know what's wrong and then what we covered up. You can't know about this in my life. And so you don't know about it. I'm gonna work even harder so you never see it. And it only makes it worse. That's why the Bible even in James says,

confess your sins one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed. Why? Because we all have sin in our lives. We already talked about knowing our enemy. That was the first talk we had. We have it. Well, I don't wanna tell anybody I have sinned. They're gonna think less of me. Everybody knows that you have sinned in your life. It's a theological truth. I mean, look at the person next to him and say, I see yours, I see it. I mean, it's there. We all know it, right? And so at the end of the day, the purpose of the law is just to show you God's holiness, to have you desire that, to show you you're not measuring up so that you can run to the one who can help. But the law can't fix what it shows you. I mean, we know this in everything. I mean, you know, you have a smoke detector in your house. Chances are, but you understand the smoke detector is just alarming you to get out of the house. It's not gonna save the house. It's not gonna shoot water out of it. It's not gonna be like, hey, go back to sleep. We got this, right? All it's doing is showing you the problem. That's all the law does.

So is the law good? Yeah, it shows me what's wrong with me. Shows me how holy God is. It shows me that I need to have Jesus. So what am I gonna do when I'm reading the law? I'm gonna hang out with Jesus and read it with the one who's already fulfilled it all. 'Cause in Christ is the end of the law so that I can live freely with Christ, amen? So the first trap is returning to the law and abandoning the grace that saved you and the grace that's growing you. The second trap is misunderstanding the purpose of the law. Let me give you the third trap. This is what we're really driving at home. It's the trap of blaming the law instead of your flesh. There's this trap that's set for you to start blaming the law instead of your sinful flesh. Notice what he goes on to say. But sin, notice how he's talking about sin now, that sin inside of us, taking opportunity through the commandment, so through the good commands of God, sin took an opportunity, produced in me coveting of every kind for apart from the law, sin is dead. Why? Because the law agitates the sin nature inside of you. The law just brings it out. You need to be better, you need to be more holy. You need to be, I mean, every man of environments where you're hearing all that,

there's something inside of you that's like, I'm gonna do, just the opposite to prove them wrong. Hey, you can't listen to that kind of music, bet. You can't drink that, bet. I mean, there's something in our sin nature that doesn't respond well to the law because that's our sin being the problem. He says in verse nine, I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died. And this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me. Why? For sin taking an opportunity through the commandment deceived me and through it, killed me, through it, killed me. So what's he saying? He's saying, here's the problem. The problem's not the law. The problem's the sin nature inside of you and it gets stirred up by the law. And that's why you can't just give people the rules and expect them to live it out. You can't just get, well, this is what God wants. I mean, even as a born-again believer, how many times you prayed, like, "Shoulda, coulda, woulda, woulda, coulda, shoulda," how come I didn't? I know better than that. I shouldn't have said that, shouldn't have done that.

I should have refrained, I should have stepped forward, I should have had more. I mean, how many times do we do that? And the law's like, yep, that's right. You were totally wrong. You messed up again and again and that's what the law does. But when you come to Christ, he's like, yeah, I saw that. We can work on that. Would you let me help with that? Would you let me fix that? Would you let me speak to you about that? I can show you my word how we can do that and I'll let my spirit work in and through you so that you can accomplish that. There's a big difference. But we tend to run back to the law and get shamed by the law when Jesus wants us to just remain with him. I mean, think about even how our Bible opens. You have this incredible picture of the eternal God of the universe who's creating everything out of nothing in six days and then rests on the seventh. And what we learn about humankind being the crown of his creation, image bearers of that God who get to spend time with him every day in the garden as he walks with him. And he tells them they can do whatever they want. There's no bad thought that they're gonna have 'cause they don't have sin inside of them. There's no bad choices they can make.

Everything's good except God tells them you can only not do one thing. Do not eat off the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the day you eat off that tree you will surely die. Where does the devil tempt them? Was it a, would it have been good, had they not even enough to treat the knowledge of good and evil? It would have been phenomenal, but what did the devil do? He tempted them, and what did he tell them? Hey, God's holding out on you. He knows that this fruit, it's, I mean, you can eat all the other fruit, that's cool, but this fruit is way better. And this fruit not only will nourish you, this fruit will make you be like God. And God doesn't want you to be like him, 'cause then you're gonna be co-equal with God, and don't you wanna be like that? And he was like, that is awesome. She's like, here, Adam, you eat some too. And that's how sin entered the world. So we have sin in our heredity, and then we have sin in our practice, because the very thing they were told not to do is the very thing they did. And I've listened to Christian Save. I was there, I would have never done that. Yes, you would. Yes, you wouldn't. Your whole life is a sign that you would have done it.

I mean, have you ever been to like a gas station or something where it says, wet paint? (congregation laughing) Like I was filling up the other day, it said wet paint. I didn't even know that it had been painted, but when it said wet paint, there's part of me, it's like, I wonder how wet it is. (congregation laughing) Do you know what I'm talking about? (congregation laughing) I mean, that's the sin nature in me. And we all have it. I mean, it's just pervasive in our life, or I mean, our neighbors were getting concrete done for their new driveway the other day, and they put out the concrete sign. And every part of me was thinking, I think if I put my hand print there forever, that would look so good for them. (congregation laughing) Even though it said keep off and don't. But why is that? 'Cause I have a sin nature in me that when the world says don't, everything in me says, why not, right? Or you've been to a museum where they have those velvet things hanging. I went and saw ice sculptures at the Gaylord last Christmas and these things said don't touch the ice sculptures. And I was like, well, I wonder how cold they really are.

(congregation laughing) And I wonder if the paint will really bleed if I touch it, will it get on my, I mean, I had to touch it. But I wouldn't have even thought about touching it if it hadn't have said don't touch it. And I proved when I touched it that I have a sin nature inside of me, right? And we love to be pious as Christians. Like, I can't believe our pastors like that. I'm gonna go to another church. We're all like that. Every single one of us is like that, right? I mean, it's how we parent, don't put your finger in the light socket. Oh, that stove's hot, don't touch. How well is that worked as a general rule over the years? Not well, I mean, kids go to the emergency room with burned fingers all the time, but you told them not to touch it and you knew it was good if they didn't touch it, but something inside of them said, I want to. And you know what that is? That's a sin nature that they got from you, right? And we all have it and we can't escape it. And that's what Paul is pointing out about this trap of the law is that when it happens, then what do we do? Well, that was a stupid rule anyway. That was so dumb. We blame the law rather than the sin nature inside of us

that's risen up to do the very thing we weren't supposed to do and say, you know what? I'm the problem, that sin in me. I should have done what God wanted to do. All I did was prove again that I'm a sinner, right? I mean, 1 Corinthians 15, 56 says that the power of the law is sin and Jeremiah 17, 9 says, the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick who can understand it. I mean, the comfort in this should be for us that we don't have to go back to the law to prove that we're good enough. And yet every cult and every religion is formed by people who think if they do enough good, then God's really gonna be pleased. I grew up in Midwest, most of the people I hung out with were Roman Catholic, they believed. I went to confession. I went to mass more times. I took my first baptism or my first communion. I did this and the more communion I take and the more confession I go to and the more, it's garbage. There's one thing that makes you right with God and it's repenting of your sin and trusting in Jesus Christ alone and that's it, it's done, right? (congregation applauding) You study any world religion, I promise you, you can study Islam, you can study Hinduism, you can study Confucius's sayings,

you can study any cult that's out there and that group will tell you there are certain things that you can do and God will be pleased. You do this list. Christianity is the only one that said you could try for the rest of your life and you ain't making it. But Jesus, the God man, the second person who turned he died on the cross and said it is finished and he paid for all sin in full. (congregation applauding) And if you bank your entire eternity on him and in him alone, you're in good stead, amen? And so that's the thing because everything in us, even after becoming a Christian, we wanna prove that we're a good one. We see other people in our cadre and they do things this way and I wanna do it like that. You don't have to do it like everybody else does it. Certain people think you need to, certain people think you need to pray a certain way, and certain people think you need to read a certain version of the Bible, and certain people, no, no, not necessarily. I mean, learn from people and follow and model people that have Christ-like character for sure, but God made you unique. And here's what God's looking for, not for you just to follow somebody else. What does He want? Follow me. Spend time with Jesus.

Become the fullness of what He wants you to be for Him. And quit running back to the law. You've died to the law. Can you study the law? Yes, should you know the Ten Commandments? Yes, should you know the moral law? Yeah, that's great. Do you need to go back and keep it perfectly? No, it's the way the whole book of Galatians was written to a group of people who had come to Christ, and they're finding out, I'm a Christian now, but now I gotta keep all the Jewish rituals and all the old laws. No, you don't. You have to remain with Christ. Just remain with Jesus. Just abide in Him, and serve Him, and love Him. And our flesh says, there's gotta be more than that. There's not. There's not. I promise you, there's not. Everything was taken care of by the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Isn't that good news? (congregation applauding) Let me give you a final one here. And the final trap is this, if you don't know your weakness, it's expecting the law to do what only Christ can do. We've already alluded to this throughout the message, but here what God says.

He says, so then the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. So He wants to make it clear. I'm not downplaying the law. I'm not saying get rid of the law. I'm not saying the law is over. I'm saying you've died to the law, and the purpose of the law as a believer, purpose as a non-believer is to show you God's holy, show you're not, point you to Jesus. What's the purpose of the law and the life of the believer? You're already righteous. You can study the law to see where you're not measuring up, but when you study the law, study in the presence of Jesus. Study with Him so He can tell you about you, so that you can grow in the moral laws that God wants you to have, so you can have a desire for the obedience and not just legalistic righteousness. 'Cause if you try to form it out of the law, you'll become a Pharisee. And Jesus was the harshest with that group of people. And outwardly, they look great. Outwardly, they were telling her, I tithe. I give 10% of all my spices. I'm good, I'm in the synagogue, I do all these things. And He's like, yeah, but here's what you don't realize. You're whitewashed tombs. You look good on the outside, but inside you're full of dead man's bones.

You proselyte, you travel the world over to win a single convert, and when you do, you make Him twice as much of a son of hell as you. I mean, read Matthew 23. Wode you, wode you, wode you. I think six different times. I mean, He's not nice to people who think, well, I have the law, I'm doing all this good stuff. I'm telling you, for your own soul, for your own conscience, do not die thinking that you did a good job with the law. Do not be one of those people. I've tried to keep the 10 commandments. Don't be one of those people. Because when you stand before the glorious Lord Jesus Christ, the law will shut your mouth. And there's evidence from every single day that you lived, you didn't keep any of it, right? Be the person that says, I'm guilty. I need a savior. I'm running to the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm done with my sin. I need someone that can change me. That's the gospel of Jesus Christ, amen? And so this is what He's saying. This is how He's concluding this section. He's talking about the fact only Jesus can do this. There's nothing wrong with the law. Law's good, it's holy, it's righteous. The law will be there on judgment day and you'll see it. It just can't do anything for you.

The beauty of the law. One day when you meet Jesus as a born-again believer and you're transformed into glory and presented faultless before the Father, you'll look at the law and be like, that's awesome. And in the millennial reign, you'll say, we can do that. I can keep it all now 'cause I don't have a sin nature inside of me anymore. The law's good, the law's holy, the law's righteous. Nothing wrong with the law, we love the law. It just can't do for us what only Jesus can do. The law cannot fix your marriage. It can show you you have a jacked up one, but it can't fix it. The law can show you that you're not walking righteously, but it can't fix you. The law can show you that you're living a moral, but it can't fix you. The law can show you that you have a filthy mouth, but it can't fix you. Law can show you you have a lust problem, but it can't fix you. Law can show you that you're a very prideful person. It can't fix you. It can just show you things about you. And it's not a bad thing that you see all those things, right? But it's good if you understand only Christ can change those things in me. He ends by saying this, therefore, did that which is good become a cause of death for me?

Is the law the reason I died? He says the same thing. May it never be. Rather, it was sin. My sin in order that it might be shown to be sin by affecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful. Praise God for the law, 'cause it shows us how utterly sinful we are. I mean, praise God for his word. I remember after I became a believer, I think I've shared this story before. After I became a believer and I was reading the Bible and it was making sense to me, I didn't understand how the Holy Spirit wrote this book and how the Holy Spirit was inside of me. And when I was reading, I was feeling awful. I would read every day and be like, "I'm terrible. "I'm no good at the," I mean, this is convicting stuff. I got to a place one day, I was like, "I must not be a good Christian. "I shut my Bible. "I'm not doing quiet times anymore. "It's too hard." What I didn't realize is that was Jesus showing me what he was going to change in me that I can't change myself. I love when I read the word and I'm convicted. I'm still convicted 'cause the word of God's living and active

and there's still things in my life and there will always be things in my life that he's doing until I meet him face-to-face, right? I mean, it's like when the law's like, if you invite a home inspector into your house before you sell it, they're going to mark everything that's wrong with your house. Hey, you got termites in your basement. You won't take care of the termites, so I'll just tell you you have termites. You got a water problem over here. I'm not going to fix it forever. You paid me just to tell you what all the problems are. That's my job. That's the law's job. That's what it does, right? And so, when a doctor diagnoses you, you know, it can be accurate, complete and true in the cure and still can't cure the disease that it names, right? This is what you have. I don't even know how to fix that, right? So here's the point. The point is the law's good. It's holy, it's righteous, but only Jesus can change you. So I'm going to read verse 14. This is where we started. This is where we started this series. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of flesh sold into bondage to sin. So here's the point.

If sin is my enemy and my identity is the way out, and I got to present myself to my new master, but I know that I have this weakness of always wanting to go back to the law, then how do I continue to win? Like is there any hope for me to live the Christian life on this side of heaven? And the answer is yes. And when we're in Romans eight next week, we're going to see that, that what the Holy Spirit does in the life of a believer is help you to accomplish everything that Jesus Christ wants you to accomplish. Amen? And here's what I want you to see today. Well, it's good. The law can expose truth. It's why you can hear a message and be like, that's me, I'm a sinner, man, I'm not doing this right. This is messed up. That's good. That's not a bad thing, right? We live in a world that's afraid to tell you anybody that they've done anything wrong. It's not wrong to show you truth, but that alone can't help you. The same grace that saves somebody is the same grace you need to grow. I'm desperate for the same grace that Jesus saved me 37 years ago.

I'm desperate for that. Or I can't become what God wants. And here's the truth. I don't assume 'cause you come to brave or that you've been here many times, means that you're born again. 'Cause if you're born again, you've been transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's beloved son. You would know that you've been saved. It's not because you think you're a better person now. You're coming to church or you like the song. There's a moment in your life. You knew you were dead and now you're alive. If you haven't had that moment, make today that moment. And for many of us, we've had that moment where we know that we're in the Lord, but we've gone running back to the law. We think the law can fix me. The law can do this. I'm gonna commit harder. I'm gonna try better. I'm gonna, it won't work. That sin that you had yesterday is not going away by you trying harder. That sin that you had in your life is not gonna go away 'cause you committed better. That promise that you've made, it doesn't matter. What matters is when you get authentic before the Lord and say, I can't change me, but I know you can.

And I want everything you have for me, come Lord Jesus and help me. And that's the beauty of this. Being a Christian, you are free. Not to go do whatever you want. You're free to serve Christ so that you can bear much fruit for his name and bring the Father. Great, great, glory. He loves you. The gospel's clear, the gospel's simple. The gospel's freeing. It's nothing about what you do to get right with God. It's everything God did to make you right with himself by sending a son Jesus who died for you and rose. And he wants you to have that relationship and he wants you to know him personally and he wants you to grow in that grace. And there should be a desire for all of that. Amen. Would you stand with me? Our Father in heaven, we do give you glory, honor, and praise for who you are. And Lord, we know that you are a God who is always calling men and women and boys and girls into your presence. If you're here today and as you're listening to this message, you would say, I've never personally trusted God. I've never had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but I want that, I want what I'm hearing about. I believe you died on the cross for me, and I believe you rose from the dead.

Come into my life and make me new.'" Lord, I pray for everybody that prayed that today, that there would be tangible evidence this week of your spirit that they would see things different, hear things different, look at things different, experience things different, and say, 'I know God is here.' Say that the word would come alive to them. And then Lord, I also pray for many of us who know you personally, many of us who want to live different than how we're living, who have been exposed by the law, and it only has brought shame rather than pointing us to the one who can remove it. And Lord, today, we just confess our sin to you afresh. We thank you that it was complete at the cross. And Lord, we abide in you, we remain in you, we stay with you so that Lord, you can show us how to live obediently so we can experience your joy and your peace in your home. Lord, help each and every one of us to walk with you in the fullness of Christ, and we give you all the glory, all the honor, and all the praise in Jesus' name, amen, and amen. We give God praise for His word.