Classic Christianity – Book of Romans P28 (01-13-19)
Synopsis
Continuing on in Romans, Paul explains how the law stirs up sin. He used the example of coveting, because that gets us all. He would not have known what coveting was if the law had not said “do not covet”. But he found that when he tried not to covet, he coveted all the more. He found he could not carry out the law, even though the law is holy, righteous and good. So the problem is not in the law, but in himself. The problem of mankind is sin. In the flesh is sin. The law, which is intended to bring life, actually brought about his death, that he would come to say, “What a wretched man I am”. The purpose of the law is so that you come to the end of the law for righteousness, and in your wretched condition, you turn to the only one who can give you life, the resurrected life of Christ Jesus.
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So the law brought about our death. That is, we thought we thought we were okay, basically a good person, until the law told us what sin is, and we found ourselves unable to obey the law, so we came to understand we are a sinner, and as a sinner, we are dead. Then we accepted the offer of eternal life in Christ Jesus.
But what do we, as Christians, try to do? We try to live the Christian life in the energy of the flesh. So, whether we are lost, still under the law, or a Christian, putting ourselves back under the law, Paul described this predicament of man this way.
Romans 7:15-19
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So we still have sin-indwelling flesh. The lost person has no choice, and is enslaved in sin. The Christian, however, has the privilege of participating in the divine nature. He has the Holy Spirit of God living in him, to instruct him and lead him internally. So why does the Christian try to live in the energy of the flesh, living as someone under the law? Because they are afraid of freedom. Why do not people want to die to the law? They do not want to die to the law because they do not know they are indwelt by the Spirit of God living in them. We have someone living in us, not something to obey, but someone living in us, to lead and guide us into all truth. If you have never experienced trusting Jesus with your day to day life, instead of looking for principles to live by, or laws to live by, or promises to live by, then we got all this criteria that we go out and live by and instead of by living by a life.
See, the real battle is in the mind. The Lord speaks to our mind, to lead us in the paths of righteousness. Satan also attacks our mind, trying to deceive us. We have the flesh, the devil and the world all attacking our mind. But God wants to guide us into all truth, so we can demolish strongholds.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5
3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
So what are some of the common arguments of the world that keep us bound? A psychologist tells us we have a syndrome or a sickness. Why are you depressed, anxious, or angry? Is it because you have a syndrome or a sickness, such as bipolar or schizophrenia? No. Is depression, anxiety, and anger unusual? No. They are common to man. Why does God say not to be anxious? Or not to be angry? Or not to worry about tomorrow? What causes depression is you are thinking depressing thoughts. What causes anger is you have thought angry thoughts. The reason you are anxious or depressed is because you are not trusting Christ. You are thinking about all the bad things that have happened and are projecting what bad things will happen tomorrow. So the real problem is a thinking problem. That is where the devil or the world’s has got you bound, and your flesh is buying into it. Your sin-indwelling flesh is inclined to that natural way of thinking. Your flesh is where sin dwells, and the law stirs it up.
But God put His Spirit in your heart, by which he says, “do not fear for I have overcome the world.” If He, who overcame the world, is living in you, then you too can overcome by the same Spirit. Your mind is being renewed. You stop believing the lie that says, “Did God really say?” to “I am trusting God and His word”. His word is true. Jesus said that the truth shall set you free.
Another teaching that has hindered people from walking in freedom is the teaching that you need to die to yourself. The self is alive. You cannot die to self. The scripture instructs us to die to the law so as to led by Christ Jesus. When you die to the law, you have freed yourself from the power of sin that is in the law so that you can walk in the newness of life in Christ Jesus. Do you see now how the truth will set you free?
How does God lead us? As Satan tries to deceive you through the mind, God gives truth to your mind. The battle is in the mind. Which voice will you choose to listen to and trust? You, who are in Christ Jesus, God speaks to you. How does He do that? In the inner quiet voice of God Himself. Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. He does it through your desires. You know when God has given you His desires, and when your flesh desires are there, don’t you? You know the difference in the two. He leads you. He guides you. He loves you. He is always there for you.
Because of sin-indwelling flesh, our tendencies to not trust God, a tendency to not depend on Him, there are trials and tribulations of life that we go through that requires of us to depend on God. Remember when Paul asked the Lord to remove this “thorn” in his flesh, and God replied by saying that His grace is sufficient for him. So Paul boasted all the more in his weakness so the grace of God should rest on him; for when he is weak, then He is strong. Now these trials and tribulations come in many ways because we live in a fallen world. As we discussed God’s choice in creation of free will earlier, these trials and tribulations will come, but God has promised that He will cause all things to happen for our good. It is in these trials and tribulations that we grow the most, where we grow in grace and love. We have come to know the unconditional love and acceptance of God, and that He will never leave us or forsake us.
Transcript
Paul uses coveting. That gets us all.
Romans 7:8
8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment,
Sin seizing the opportunity afforded by the law.
Romans 7:8-9
produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law;
Apart from the law, sin is dead. He is talking about the fact that prior to the law being taught to me, I was free from that. But when the commandment came, when I learned the law, sin sprang to life and I died. I found out I was dead.
Romans 7:9-10
but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.
I thought the commandment was going to bring life, but it actually brought death.
Romans 7:11
11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.
I finally understood this was something I could not do. I finally comprehended that the wages of sin is death. I finally comprehended that, therefore, I am dead, And so is everybody else, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Is that true or not?
Romans 7:12
12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
So where is the problem? If the law is good, where is the problem? Us. God forbid, not us? Yes, us. Sin seizing that opportunity afforded by the commandment brought death to me. I understood my death.
Romans 7:13
13 Did that which is good, then, [the law] become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
It did not become death. It produced death. It showed me I am dead. It was not that I became dead when I saw the commandment. It showed me my death. It produced the death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment, sin might be utterly sinful. Through the commandment of God, you and I see that we are perfectly sinful;. No man will ever be declared righteous through obedience to the law for it is through the law we are conscious of sin.
Romans 3:20
20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
We are going to see an interesting passage. We are going to see in this passage, the problem with the Christian life today, and that is people going out trying to live the Christian life in the energy of the flesh. You are going to see something here. Mark these things in your bible as you go along. Bob marked 51 circles around the “I”s and the “my”s in this short passage.
Romans 7:14
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
The first time I read these passages, I thought somebody had been peeking on me, for this was my life. Folks, people ask if Paul was lost or if he was under the law? It makes no difference. If he was lost, he was under the law. If he was saved, and put himself under the law, this is your lifestyle. It does not make any difference whether lost under the law or saved, but kept yourself under the law, for you will experience the same results in your life. Your pastor said, “You will still be under the law and you have to keep the big ten. We are not under the ceremonial law but we are under the ten commandments.” No, you are not under any of them. You do not go under Mt. Sinai when you are saved. So this is a passage for those lost under the law or saved under the law. This is your lifestyle.
Romans 7:15-19
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
This almost sounds like a cop out. Do not blame me. It is sin. If you want to blame somebody, blame what he did. For he said it is living in me. Sin is being fanned by who? Satan. Satan using what? Satan is using the law to fan it.
Romans 7:21
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
How many of you are relating to this? Is anyone saying, “I wonder what he is talking about?”
Romans 7:22
22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law;
I understand it is right, good and holy.
Romans 7:23
23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.
Where is the war raged? In your mind. As a man thinks, so is he.
Proverbs 23:7
7 For as he thinks in his heart, so is he:
What is one of the ways Satan deceives us? He tries to say, “No. No. It is in your feelings.” That is why we talk about our feelings all the time. How do you feel about this? I feel and I feel and I feel. God says, “Look, I designed you in such a way, whereby, your emotions are going to predictably respond to whatever you are thinking.” You are designed that way. When you are thinking about the things you have done in the past, your emotions do not know whether that is happening or whether that has happened or whether you think it is going to happen. They are just predictably responding to what you are putting in your mind.
Romans 12:2
2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.
So when you are sitting around thinking and beating yourself up over all the bad things going in the past, or yesterday or today, and you are beating yourself over those things, your emotions do not know whether that is going on right now or whether you just think they are going on. You do not know. Emotions are dumb. They only respond to what you are thinking. If it is not bad enough if we are beating ourselves up what happened in the past, either of yourself or others, that is never good enough for us. We then start thinking about what is going to happen tomorrow. Right?
It is like the husband who is coming home. He is coming home late. When he is trying to get here, the wife has the meal cooked, and she is waiting and waiting and waiting and she is getting madder and madder and madder. “I wonder where he is? He is doing that to hurt me. If he was thinking about me, he would be here on time.” By the time the poor guy walks in the door at night, and he has been caught in traffic, she is irate. Not only is she irate but because of what she has been thinking in the past, but she is also going forward. “I bet the slob is going to be late tomorrow, too. As a matter of fact, if I live with him another 20 more years, he will be late every day.” So now you have 90 mads working. You have got the past working and you have the future working. So he comes in, and brother, he gets it. “What is wrong?” “What do you mean, what is wrong? You have been late for 50 years.” Is that the way things happen?
When I am thinking about what is happening in the past, my emotions just respond. There is only one time I can feel emotion and that is right now. I cannot feel yesterday. I cannot feel tomorrow. But I can think something yesterday and think something tomorrow. I can create something with my mind. I can create a song. I can create poetry. I can create literature in my mind. My emotions will predictably respond to what I am thinking. We are built that way. We are created that way.
Matthew 6:25-26
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”
God tells us to live one day at a time. If he was saying that in regard to the physical aspect that would be a dumb thing to say for as the only time I can live is right now. “In your mind, Bob, live a day at a time.” You cannot sit around in your mind thinking about what happened in the past because your emotions will respond as if it is going on right now. Amy can share her testimony about her life back in Russia and she will cry just as if it is going on. Why? Because your emotions do not know whether it is going on, or if you are thinking it is going on, or it has gone on. You are dragging back a past event that is sad and your emotions are predictably responding to them.
Yesterday, he said, forget yesterday. There is not a thing in the world you can do about yesterday. There is not a thing you can do about what you could have done or had done yesterday. It is done, isn’t it? It is over, isn’t it? It is past. It is history. But as long as you insist upon thinking about it, it is present. Is it not? The way you can keep your feelings from feeling something that has happened bad is to quit thinking about it.
How do you do that? You change your thoughts onto the things of God. Can you learn to thank God for all things?
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
I want to tell you something. If you want to grow in grace and grow in love, you have to grow in trials and tribulations. I do not know of any other way to grow, except through trials and tribulations.
James 1:2-4
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
You will not grow in good times. You will grow in the tough times. That is when you draw near to God. That is why a lot of people who have gone through serious illnesses, will say, “if I had to do it over again, I would do it over again, because of how close I have drawn to Jesus in the midst of the trials and tribulations”. So we learn to give thanks in all things.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
We have to learn to quit taking ourselves so seriously and realize the frailty of humanity. Paul said it is no longer I who do it, but sin living in me. Any sin living in you has been prompted by Satan. We just gave into it.
1 Peter 5:8-9
8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
So he says, live a day at a time.
Matthew 6:28-34
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
When you are over there thinking about all the bad things that will happen to you tomorrow, that is God’s country, isn’t it?
Isaiah 42:8-9
8 “I am the Lord; that is my name!
I will not yield my glory to another
or my praise to idols.
9 See, the former things have taken place,
and new things I declare;
before they spring into being
I announce them to you.”
Do you have a clue what is going to happen tomorrow? Do any of you know if you are going to be alive tomorrow? We do not know anything about tomorrow. The only thing I know about tomorrow is that the Jesus today is in my tomorrow.
Hebrews 13:5b
because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
That is why I do not have to fear tomorrow because I do not have to fear today. If I do not have to fear today, I do not have to fear tomorrow. But for me to be jumping up ahead, it is like thinking, “if you do this, then this is going to happen or that is going to happen”. Your emotions come up and say “this is happening”. There are a lot of people who are like that. They can never just say that this is the event. You got to have a scenario as to all the things this is going to bring about. Your mind has scenarios like, “You speed, you are going to get a ticket, then you are going to have to go court, and then you are going to jail”. You have got a whole scenario developed about all the bad things that are going to happen. Guess what? You are sitting there a nervous wreck. That is the way that people become basket cases, mental basket cases.
This all comes about because our minds are thinking back on all the bad things that have happened in the past, going forward to all the bad things that are going to happen in the future, and our emotions are sitting there being jarred by these thoughts. By being jarred by these thoughts, we ruined the only thing that we have available to us, and that is today. We ruin today through the preoccupation yesterday and the preoccupation with tomorrow.
How do you get depressed? By thinking depressing thoughts. Anyone in here ever been depressed? Yes. If you have, you are thinking depressing thoughts. That is why you are depressed. You are not depressed because you are bipolar, unless you are a bear. You are not depressed because you are sick. You are depressed because you are thinking depressed thoughts. How many of you have ever felt the emotion of anger? What were you thinking? Nice, sweet thoughts? No. What were you thinking? Angry thoughts. That is why you were feeling angry. How many of you have ever thought anxious thoughts? Yes. What were you thinking? Anxious thoughts. That is why you are feeling anxiety.
I want to ask you a question. Is anxiety unusual? If it was unusual, why would Jesus say, “Do not be anxious?” It is not a syndrome. It is anxiety brought about by thinking anxious thoughts. Is there anything unusual about getting angry? Do you think that is an unusual behavior? Do you think any shrink never gets angry? You see there is not anybody sitting out there who can do the things they tell you that you should not be doing. All of those things are normal, otherwise why would He have to say that. Is getting fearful unusual, to be fearful about anything? How unusual is that for you to fear something? If it were unusual, why would He have to say, “Fear not. I have overcome the world”, if it were unusual to be fearful.
John 16:33
33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Folks, in things like depression, fear is one of the ingredients. Misplaced dependency is one of the ingredients. All of these things are ingredients, like a cake that makes up this thing called depression. It is not a sickness. It is not a syndrome. It is a thinking pattern.
1 John 5:3-5
3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
When you get your thinking changed, you are going to get your depression changed. I can get depressed real easy. Look in the mirror. If I want to concentrate on that, I will really get depressed. The issue is, as a man thinks, so is he (Proverbs 3:7).
Romans 7:21-25
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
What he is talking about here is that there is a law at work in the members of my body, waging war against my mind. That is where the war is, right up in the head. The war of the mind. We have everything in the world’s power, trying to convince us to not think about God. Do you know in Canada right now, they are trying to pass the law that the bible is a book of hate language. They are trying to ban it or rewrite it. I want to tell you something, folks. We are right on the tail of the caboose, following right into it. This country was founded on Christian Judaic principles. We have said other people can come and worship as they want to, but now we are letting those people come into worship saying you cannot worship Jesus anymore. In Alabama, the Supreme Court ruled you cannot put the ten commandments on a court house. What do you think a court house is? A court of law. Where do you think the laws came from? It came from God. We have a bunch of wimps sitting up in the political offices, who are scared to death telling these atheists and agnostics, to get lost. We are a Christian country. If you do not like it, move some place else. But you do not have the right to be telling Christians how to live.
God’s word provides instruction on the purpose of government.
Romans 13:1-5
1 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
Now if a government goes astray from God’s purpose, what instruction or example in God’s word do we have? Who is the higher authority, God or man?
Acts 5:28-30
28 “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.”29 Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings! 30 The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead – whom you killed by hanging him on a cross.
It is a tragedy what has happened to the backbone of people in politics today, who would rather be politically correct, than they would be godly. I hope that some day somebody will stand up in the offices of this land and get back to where we were, where we acknowledge the fact of our Creator. There is a war. We have enemies in this country. We have enemies in this world. There is a war that is fanned by Satan, waging war against the law of my mind, making me a prisoner of the law of sin that is at work within my members.
Romans 7:24
24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
Now, this tells us that we can become a prisoner to the law of sin. So he is saying to us, in verse 24, what a wretched man that I am. In Romans 7, as we read earlier, it tells us that the things that I want to do, I do not do, and the things I do not want to do, I do any way. If I keep on doing the things I want to do, it proves that it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me. He is talking that there is a war going on in my mind, making me a prisoner of the law of sin in my members. What a wretched man I am.
There again, I believe that with all my heart, that until we see our wretchedness, we are never going to enter into that new life that God gave to us in Christ Jesus. I believe that as long as we are thinking, and we buy this stuff, that basically that we are a good person. How many times have you heard that? “Basically, he is a good, good person”. Jesus said no one is good, except God, but we call ourselves good.
Mark 10:18
18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good – except God alone.”
Paul called himself wretched. I believe that until we see our own wretchedness, our own total inability, we will not come to Christ for life or be able to live in the newness of life God called us into. This is what Paul is addressing in this passage, which you see the ”I’s” and ”me’s”. We got fifty one of those in this short passage. That is fifty one ”I’s” and ”me’s”. What is this showing us? This is a man trying to live the Christian life in the energy of his own flesh. You cannot do it.
Romans 7:25
25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
Then you get into chapter 8. Therefore. Here is what he wanted us to know all along.
Romans 8:1-17
1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
Again, I do not have words adequate to express enough what is in my heart to let people know that you have got to let go of the law. The bible is telling us to die to the law so that you can come alive to grace. Why do not people want to die to the law? Because they are afraid of freedom. They also do not want to die to the law because they do not know they are indwelt by the Spirit of God living in them.
Romans 8:11
11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
We have someone living in us, not something to obey, but someone living in us, to lead and guide us into all truth.
John 16:13
13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
If you have never experienced trusting Jesus with your day to day life, instead of looking for principles to live by, or laws to live by, or promises to live by, then we go into all these criteria to live by instead of by living by a life.
2 Corinthiasn 3:6
6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant – not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
A lady said the other day, “I live by the six books of the bible”. I wish I could have said, “You look like one”, but I did not know what she looked like. Again, that is what she said. I felt like saying, “It is too bad you do not live by a life because you missed the author. You are studying the books and you missed the author. You do not live by the bible. You live by Jesus”.
Recall what Jesus said to the Pharisees, those religious Jews, so hard of heart, that they wanted to kill Jesus, that grace teacher. They knew what the bible said and thought righteousness was by obedience to the law. What did Jesus say to them?
John 5:39-40
39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
Jesus is the one who is Spirit, who wrote the bible. That is how we know about Jesus. But the purpose of this bible, in reading it, is to get to know the author. So many times we become students of the book. We do not know the author.
John 17:3
3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
What this book is trying to tell us, guys, is that you cannot live up to the law.
Galatians 3:11
11 Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.”
When you are trying to live under the law, you are going to find yourself just like Romans 7. The things you do not want to do you do. The things you do not want to do you do anyway. Very soon you get to the point of giving up. How many people do you know who have given up? They have just walked away and they think they are walking away from God. Rebellion. How many of you rebelled in the period of your life? What were you rebelling from? Jesus? Law? Religion? Religion is what you were rebelling against. Not Jesus. There is not anything to rebel against Jesus. How can you rebel against somebody who loved you perfectly, died for you, and gave his life for you. He says come unto me whenever you have got a problem.
Hebrews 4:15-16
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Ellen gave Amy a little deal that at night you turn your problems over to God. He is not asleep anyway. What is there to rebel against Jesus? But we rebel against religion. Rebelling against the legalism of religion. It is killing people.
Paul was stringent in regard to his dissertations about law and grace.
Galatians 3:1-5 (TLB)
1 Oh, foolish Galatians! What magician has hypnotized you and cast an evil spell upon you? For you used to see the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death as clearly as though I had waved a placard before you with a picture on it of Christ dying on the cross. 2 Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by trying to keep the Jewish laws? Of course not, for the Holy Spirit came upon you only after you heard about Christ and trusted him to save you. 3 Then have you gone completely crazy? For if trying to obey the Jewish laws never gave you spiritual life in the first place, why do you think that trying to obey them now will make you stronger Christians? 4 You have suffered so much for the Gospel. Now are you going to just throw it all overboard? I can hardly believe it!5 I ask you again, does God give you the power of the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you as a result of your trying to obey the Jewish laws? No, of course not. It is when you believe in Christ and fully trust him.
I want to ask you a question. Did you receive Christ by faith or by obeying the law? If you started by faith, why are you now trying to perfect yourself by human effort?
He was adamant. You cannot live as God meant you to live when you are trying to obey the law that was not given to you for that purpose. It was given to show you that you are a sinner, so that you will turn to Christ to be led by the Lord Jesus Christ. How do you die to self? You get a lot of that teaching. “Die to self. Die to Self.” How do you die to self? You don’t. You die to the law. You cannot die to self. Self is alive. You die to the law. When you die to the law, you have freed yourself from the power of sin that is in the law, so that you can walk in the newness of life in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:4
4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
How does God lead us? The same way Satan leads us, through our minds. Satan deceives to bind us, but God brings truth that sets us free. God speaks to us. How does He do that? In the inner quiet voice of God Himself.
Psalm 37:4
4 Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. He does it through your desires. You know when God has given you His desires and when your flesh desires are there, don’t you? You know the difference in the two. He leads you. He guides you. He loves you. He is always there for you.
