SPEAKER_00: Good morning, church.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'm going to invite you to take your copy of God's Word and turn with me to the book of Romans, chapter seven.
SPEAKER_00: This is the second week in the series.
SPEAKER_00: We're calling it What Would Jesus Post?
SPEAKER_00: Answering the question, what would Jesus say about the major cultural moments of our society today?
SPEAKER_00: The main reason for this series, I'll just remind you, is twofold.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, I want you to see that in a world where a sovereign, omnipresent God exists, he cannot be hit.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to see throughout this series that people who would never attempt to present some biblical truth find themselves doing that very thing because there is no way of getting away from a God who is everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And secondly, accompanied with that is the fact that since that is the case, since, well, there's there's no way to hide God, there are always everywhere opportunities for you and I to engage people with gospel conversations.
SPEAKER_00: There's just no excuse for the times when we are silent, whenever there is such opportunity for us to tell people about the living God who answers questions like the one that we're going to address this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you don't know the name Ella Langley, it's because probably you're not a country star andor you've been living under a rock.
SPEAKER_00: This individual is incredibly famous, uh, has just shot up through the stratosphere.
SPEAKER_00: If you uh were watched the ACM Awards last week, you know she won seven trophies, which is an all-time high for anyone.
SPEAKER_00: Now just take that in for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: That means she has won more trophies in a single night than Taylor Swift.
SPEAKER_00: And Taylor Swift is a pretty big deal, right?
SPEAKER_00: She has the makings, at least at this point, to have that kind of career.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and another highlight of her budding career is that she is the first female artist to have two songs, one in number one and one at number two in history.
SPEAKER_00: Not Beyoncé, not Taylor Swift, nobody else.
SPEAKER_00: It's Ella Langley.
SPEAKER_00: The song that's currently at the number one spot is a song about losing love, because nobody, I mean, nobody could be a country star without singing a song about, you know, your significant other moving away to Texas or something like that.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what the song is about.
SPEAKER_00: The song that was number two, I think it just fell to number five this past week, is a song called Being Her.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're familiar with the song, the popular interpretation is it's about Ella Langley.
SPEAKER_00: She apparently wrote the song, probably with someone in a cubicle in Des Moines, but she helped her write the song.
SPEAKER_00: And the song is supposed to be about this envy that she has for this other person, this woman who seems to have it all together.
SPEAKER_00: But in a recent interview, Langley said, actually, that's not what the song's about at all.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about me envying someone else who has a better life or is more perfect or has it together more than I do.
SPEAKER_00: She said, it's about me envying the person that I want to be.
SPEAKER_00: She's looking at her life, which by the way is probably pretty good, I'm imagining, in many ways, but she's recognizing that there are things about her existence that she's just not satisfied with, areas of her life where she wants to be more disciplined, she wants to have it together.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just read you a few lyrics from the song.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to sing these, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So uh mostly because I just can't hit her octave level, because I'm, I'm telling you could probably tell.
SPEAKER_00: Like if I were, if I were quoting some Garth Brooks up here, we would just sing that.
SPEAKER_00: Like I could do some Garth Brooks, but Ellen Langley, forget about it.
SPEAKER_00: Here it is, a couple of quotes from the song.
SPEAKER_00: She says, talking about this version of herself that she images and envies and desires.
SPEAKER_00: She says, She's a lover, she's a mother, a sister, a wife.
SPEAKER_00: She rolls over in the morning and sees the love of her life.
SPEAKER_00: Only smokes on one vacation, says just the right things, uh and wants, she says just what she thinks.
SPEAKER_00: She don't need validation or much of anything.
SPEAKER_00: She knows being rich is just a state of mind.
SPEAKER_00: She stays talking to Jesus, calls her mom all the time.
SPEAKER_00: She don't ever embellish.
SPEAKER_00: If she says it, it's true.
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean to sound jealous, but what could I do?
SPEAKER_00: Cause I just want to be her so bad.
SPEAKER_00: It hurts so bad.
SPEAKER_00: It hurts so I just want to be her.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to be her.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you are humming that song in your head right now?
SPEAKER_00: Like you know the tune.
SPEAKER_00: And I think part of what has made that song so popular, I mean, the Texas song is just what it is.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, who doesn't love a good song about, you know, you someone you love leaving and going to Texas?
SPEAKER_00: But the this song, what makes it so gripping is that it is something that we can all identify with.
SPEAKER_00: Like there's a version of me out there that, like, whenever I was 30, I thought by 50 I would have it.
SPEAKER_00: Like there are there are aspects of my life and things that I wrestle with and discipline that I wish I had that I thought by now I would have it together.
SPEAKER_00: Am I alone?
SPEAKER_00: Are you all with me on that?
SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, I'm just gonna be real.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't want to be her so bad, but I do want to be him so bad.
SPEAKER_00: Like that's what I'm after.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be that version of him.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not alone.
SPEAKER_00: Like, that is a part of the fallen human condition.
SPEAKER_00: There is something inside of us that tells us we are not what we could be, and that we are not what we are supposed to be.
SPEAKER_00: One of those individuals who experienced this early in Christianity was a man named Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Now, whenever I think about the apostles, I think about individuals who surely had it all together.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, these, of course, were superstars.
SPEAKER_00: They were superheroes of the faith, empowered, enlightened in ways that we could not possibly be.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, whenever we open up Romans chapter seven, we don't find a guy who has it all together.
SPEAKER_00: We don't find a guy who has arrived.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Paul says as much in his letter to the church at Galatia.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I don't, I don't, or Philippians, he says, I don't, I don't pretend as though I have arrived.
SPEAKER_00: I haven't reached that place yet.
SPEAKER_00: He's pursuing something.
SPEAKER_00: And in Romans chapter seven, he really lays that out in great agonizing verbiage.
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm just going to tell you, if you're not familiar with Romans chapter seven, I'm about to hand you something that is going to be so liberating, so freeing, so it so spiritually empowering.
SPEAKER_00: This particular passage spoke to me so much.
SPEAKER_00: Do y'all mind it's just us in the room?
SPEAKER_00: There's just a few of us here, and never how many people are watching online.
SPEAKER_00: Can I just be honest with you for a minute?
SPEAKER_00: Whenever I was a young man wrestling with the things that young men wrestle with, I found Romans chapter 7 an incredibly liberating and empowering passage of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: I read it every day.
SPEAKER_00: That's how important this passage is.
SPEAKER_00: Now here's what Paul is going to do.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is going to basically walk us through three laws.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to look at them individually this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The first law we're going to look at is the law of God, which we're all familiar with, the command of God.
SPEAKER_00: The second one is the law of sin, which we may not name it, but we're all very familiar with that one too, right?
SPEAKER_00: And then the third one is the law of life, or as he says it, the law of the spirit of life.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at the law of God together.
SPEAKER_00: What does Paul say about the law of God?
SPEAKER_00: Now, the law of God is the highest standard that we can pursue.
SPEAKER_00: It is the version of us that we want to be.
SPEAKER_00: The version that loves our neighbor as ourself, the version that loves God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
SPEAKER_00: The law is good.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, Paul in Romans chapter 6 and 7 has just said, the law hasn't worked for us.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we we necessarily died to the law in the same way that a when a married person's spouse dies, they are freed from that relationship.
SPEAKER_00: The law has died to us.
SPEAKER_00: We are dead to the law.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, that might have raised some questions in people's minds because the law was the rule book for them.
SPEAKER_00: And if without the rule book, won't people just go crazy and do just all kinds of wild things?
SPEAKER_00: But Paul, well, Paul has some stuff to say about the law.
SPEAKER_00: What he's essentially going to say is that the high standard of the law is not the problem.
SPEAKER_00: We must continue to pursue the high standard of righteousness in our life as a reflection of who Jesus is and what he has done for us.
SPEAKER_00: Watch what Paul says here in verse number seven.
SPEAKER_00: We're just going to walk through these verses together and just kind of lift up out of it the encouragement that he lays down for us.
SPEAKER_00: He says, What then shall we say?
SPEAKER_00: That the law is sin?
SPEAKER_00: I like how Paul just throws these questions out without abandon.
SPEAKER_00: Of course not.
SPEAKER_00: By no means, he says.
SPEAKER_00: Yet it has not been for the yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have numbed sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's interesting, but it's true, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: If I didn't know that covetousness was wrong, Paul is about to say, then I I wouldn't have had a problem with covetousness.
SPEAKER_00: That wouldn't be a sin to me.
SPEAKER_00: But there's something about the law that is written in God's word and that is written on our heart and is testified in creation that informs us that that thing that you're wrestling with is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's not the law's fault, is it?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not the it's not the speed limit sign's fault that you got a ticket because you drove faster than the speed limit sign.
SPEAKER_00: It's just telling you the truth.
SPEAKER_00: There's just a set of rules, normally, whereby the state or the federal government will set the speed in a certain area because the curve goes this way at this angle, the speed only needs to be this, or there's a school zone.
SPEAKER_00: But there's some reason, some concern for your life or for the life of people who are around you that necessarily tells us that we can't drive faster than this.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the same thing is true of God's law.
SPEAKER_00: God's law necessarily tells us the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And as it does, there's something supernatural that happens that makes sin for us.
SPEAKER_00: Look at how Paul says this in verse number eight.
SPEAKER_00: He says, But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness.
SPEAKER_00: This is how it worked for him.
SPEAKER_00: That the word seizing there in verse number eight, the opening part of verse number eight, is a military term.
SPEAKER_00: It has the idea of an enemy laying in wait in an ambush.
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty appropriate, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know about you, but like I don't sat, I sat out on Tuesday morning or Thursday morning thinking, I'm gonna, here's the list of sins that I'm going to commit today.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm only gonna do those, but I am going to do, I am gonna do these.
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's not how my to-doist, my to-do list works.
SPEAKER_00: No, that the truth is sin seizes an opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: There's some curve that I'm coming around in life, some problem I didn't know I was going to face.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul is treating sin as though it is a force all by itself and says, it lies in wait for you.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's exactly what Cain experienced, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: That's what God said.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever Cain presented his offering before the Lord, and it was rejected, and Abel's was received, and there's a lot to be questioned and wonder about that, but this is just it's just what it is.
SPEAKER_00: Cain's offering was rejected.
SPEAKER_00: He became angry, and God approached him in a redemptive prop posture, saying, Hey, listen, why are you angry?
SPEAKER_00: If you do well, you'll be accepted too.
SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Just do well, just do the right thing.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't do that, the Spirit of God says to Cain, sin crouches at the door.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Paul recognizes this, so this is why he continues, he summarizes in the back half of verse number eight and verse number nine.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For apart from the law, sin is sin lies dead.
SPEAKER_00: It's just in the background.
SPEAKER_00: There's something that awakens sin in us because we are aware of the law.
SPEAKER_00: Now stay with me for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of you need to highlight that verse because you have asked questions or wondered about the age of accountability, the old phrase that we used to use concerning, okay, at what age does a child need to be confronted with the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: At what age can a child actually pray to receive Christ and seek forgiveness of their sin?
SPEAKER_00: At what age does that occur?
SPEAKER_00: And there's not a designated age given in Scripture, but I do think this is the closest thing that we have in Scripture concerning an age of accountability, that when the awareness of the law arises, sin becomes alive.
SPEAKER_00: When Kim and I served in another church and I was children's pastor there, we had about a hundred kids who were running around, and occasionally we would have one or two who would want to make a profession of faith.
SPEAKER_00: And like I never wanted to create in a child's heart a false conversion experience, but I never wanted to also discourage them from making a move towards God.
SPEAKER_00: And so I wanted to help diagnose or understand and help their parents understand what's going on in their child's heart.
SPEAKER_00: And the question I would always ask was this why do you want to be saved?
SPEAKER_00: Why do you need a savior?
SPEAKER_00: And if there isn't somewhere in that answer, if there's not something about sin, an awareness of sin, an awareness of unrighteousness, an awareness of being separated from God because of what's inside of me, then I was very, very cautious about moving forward with that child and a posture of salvation, because according to this verse and many others, it is an awareness of our sin being provoked by the commandment, by the law that makes sin come alive, and whenever that happens, I die.
SPEAKER_00: Look at how Paul concludes this in verse number 10.
SPEAKER_00: He says, The very commandment that promised life proved death to me.
SPEAKER_00: That's interesting, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, after all, when you open up Psalm chapter 1 and 2, what you read is that the law is perfect, and those who pursue it are like trees planted by the river and they flourish, or you turn to Psalm chapter 119, and you find out that those who pursue God's law are just, I mean, they're richly blessed.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, what Paul, Paul comes to a place where he says that this thing that was supposed to produce life in me actually produced death.
SPEAKER_00: It's a great paradox of the faith, but it is necessary.
SPEAKER_00: You'll see why in a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Paul explains first, though, he says, For sin, again, seizing an opportunity through the commandment deceived me and through it killed me, so that the law, so he notice, notes here, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, there's nothing wrong with the law.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with the high standard.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with looking at the the being her image that represents the law, that represents the highest standards that Jesus Christ has laid for us, and to recognize that's the goal.
SPEAKER_00: That's the objective.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with the goal.
SPEAKER_00: There are two ways to address the gap that we experience whenever we see who we are and compare that to who we're supposed to be.
SPEAKER_00: We can either lower the standard, which some are tempted to do, and say, oh, it's just not that big of a deal.
SPEAKER_00: You can do that, you can say that, you can smoke that.
SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus is going to love you anyways.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus love and Jesus does love you anyways, but he loves you enough not to allow you to lower the bar to make passing the test easy.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't allow us to fake life that way.
SPEAKER_00: The standard is high.
SPEAKER_00: Can't do anything about the standard.
SPEAKER_00: There's an another problem that another way that this gets addressed.
SPEAKER_00: We can, if we can't lower the standard, maybe we can lift ourselves up to achieve the standard.
SPEAKER_00: That sooner or later, if we just keep trying, if we just keep pushing, if we just keep working, we can be her.
SPEAKER_00: We can be him.
SPEAKER_00: Can I just tell you like that?
SPEAKER_00: That is very frustrating.
SPEAKER_00: Because I have I have read more than one self-help book, some of them written by Christian authors, well-meaning, long enough to find out that I will never be him, that image of myself that I want to be.
SPEAKER_00: You will never be her, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
SPEAKER_00: See, the problem isn't that the law is is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is that I'm wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm called to pursue that law, which brings us down to the second law, which is the law of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Look at with me, if you will, at verse number 14.
SPEAKER_00: And we looked at the law of God, sets the high standard, can't be Lord, creates the gap for us, this image that we want to see, someone who calls their mama when they're supposed to, who helps, who loves, who's confident, who talks to Jesus all the time.
SPEAKER_00: And yet we can't pursue that with perfection.
SPEAKER_00: We struggle with it.
SPEAKER_00: This is where Paul is in verse number 14.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the agony in this man's voice.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, For we know that the law is spiritual, like it's of it's of the it's of the other reality, the other world.
SPEAKER_00: But I am fleshly.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a totally different category, a different thing.
SPEAKER_00: I exist here and fallen flesh, and the law is perfect.
SPEAKER_00: So the problem's not the law, the problem is my flesh.
SPEAKER_00: What do we do about my flesh?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that flesh has been, according to Paul, here at the end of this verse, sold under sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's slavery language, which Paul has already used in the book of Romans.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to use it again in a few minutes.
SPEAKER_00: It's the idea that you have been sold into slavery in your flesh.
SPEAKER_00: You've been sold under sin.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it is very, very true that Jesus Christ has paid the price, and if you have been freed by Jesus, you are free indeed.
SPEAKER_00: But how many of you know that there are there are bonds in life that don't have to be chains?
SPEAKER_00: There is confinement that doesn't have to be behind bars.
SPEAKER_00: There are locked doors that only exist in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus freed me from some stuff many, many years ago.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not bound by it anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Like I am freed from that.
SPEAKER_00: There are things in my past, like your past, people who once hurt me, who I mean, who wounded me deeply.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not held by them, but the echo of their words, the echo of their actions are pervasively in my mind.
SPEAKER_00: I've been freed from that slave owner, that master.
SPEAKER_00: And yet in my own heart I carry those wounds, those bonds, which still, which still hold me in place.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: This is Paul here.
SPEAKER_00: We've been free, but yet the echo of slavery is still in our heart and mind.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know when the children of Israel were freed from Egypt, they still acted like slaves?
SPEAKER_00: Many of them did.
SPEAKER_00: They longed for the days whenever all they had to do was to go and make a brick for somebody.
SPEAKER_00: That's something a slave would say.
SPEAKER_00: That's something a servant, that's someone that was being oppressed would say, and yet they are in the wilderness, gathered around a mountain where the Holy God is speaking to them, and yet in their hearts they're slaves.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is presenting this chasm, this tension.
SPEAKER_00: That that that inside of me now exists the spirit of the living God, and yet he has allowed me to continue to still be me.
SPEAKER_00: I wrestle with that, just like you do.
SPEAKER_00: Just like Paul did.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what he says.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For I love this man.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad that one of the individuals who wrote the bulk of the New Testament says these words.
SPEAKER_00: For I do not understand my own actions.
SPEAKER_00: You ever looked at your bank account and scratched your head and wondered?
SPEAKER_00: I don't get me.
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever look at on your phone where it tells you like how you spent your day or your week with your phone and think to yourself, I don't understand.
SPEAKER_00: Who would do that?
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever make your plans?
SPEAKER_00: Like we huge plans, huge plans yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: Um all the stuff I was going to get accomplished at the house.
SPEAKER_00: And I came to the end of the day, do you know what I got done?
SPEAKER_00: Virtually nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought to myself, I just I look down at it at 8 o'clock and I'm like, what?
SPEAKER_00: I don't understand what has happened.
SPEAKER_00: We we wrestle with the chasm, the gap between who we know we should be and who we actually are.
SPEAKER_00: For I do not know my own actions, I don't understand my own actions.
SPEAKER_00: For I do not do what I want, but I do what I don't want.
SPEAKER_00: I do the very thing that I hate.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Paul says, Now, if I do what I do not want, then in a very real way, I'm agreeing with the law.
SPEAKER_00: I'm recognizing that this is what I should do.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm agreeing with the law that it's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: So now it is no longer I who do it, but it's sin that dwells within me.
SPEAKER_00: That's a true but dangerous statement.
SPEAKER_00: Be a bad place to camp out on that verse and just say, well, that's just sin living within me.
SPEAKER_00: Just blame the devil for everything.
SPEAKER_00: Blame everything on demons, blame everything on sin.
SPEAKER_00: I've learned something in my 50 years of existence on this planet, and that is that I don't need the devil to sin.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need to be tempted.
SPEAKER_00: I can be drawn out by my own lust and tempted, as James teaches us.
SPEAKER_00: Noah's going to be back in that passage later today.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that book.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is the truth, that we each are tempted when we're drawn out by our own lust.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Paul's not excusing away his sin here.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying, okay, with my mind, everything's good.
SPEAKER_00: With my body, everything's not, and I'm cool with that.
SPEAKER_00: That's just how I'm going to live.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to think good thoughts and do bad things and know that my flesh is going to be shed one day, but my spirit's going to be saved, and Jesus doesn't care about what I do with my hands, my feet, my mouth, my mind.
SPEAKER_00: That's not true.
SPEAKER_00: Nor could you ever believe it of a man who has just said in Romans chapter 6, Shall we continue in sin because grace abounds?
SPEAKER_00: How can we, Metanoia, let it never be?
SPEAKER_00: How can we, who have been brought to this kind of life, who've been raised to walk in newness of life, return to that way of life and be okay with it?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the apostle Paul, the guy who says to the church at Corinth, he says, I beat my body and I make it my slave.
SPEAKER_00: So after having preached to others, I don't find myself to be disqualified.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the voice of someone who says, Well, I'm going to sin.
SPEAKER_00: What do you do?
SPEAKER_00: He's recognizing the gap.
SPEAKER_00: He's recognizing that there's a very real call on his life to do the right thing, but a very real challenge to get it done.
SPEAKER_00: He's recognizing the gap.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he says here.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what is good, what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
SPEAKER_00: For I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that I hate.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I keep on doing.
SPEAKER_00: So, based on Paul's agonizing voice, he introduces this second law, the law of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
SPEAKER_00: For I find it to be another law, that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
SPEAKER_00: Your King James Version Bible says, evil is right there with me.
SPEAKER_00: And Cain knew that, didn't he?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know that whenever you want to do good, evil is not far away?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I've learned that.
SPEAKER_00: I've learned that, like Cain, that I could be worshiping, and yet when I want to do the good thing like worship, agony and anger lies right there at hand.
SPEAKER_00: Evil is right there.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like Abraham, who wanted to follow God, a good thing, and yet Abraham couldn't keep from being so afraid of the people who were around him that he was willing to sacrifice the purity of his own wife to protect his life.
SPEAKER_00: Or David, who wanted to do good, who wanted to rule well, but the night that he stood looking down off of that bluff into the city of David and saw that woman bathing, he he just, evil was right there present.
SPEAKER_00: I think of Peter, who wanted to do good.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted to fight.
SPEAKER_00: He thought for sure he had it all together.
SPEAKER_00: The night that Jesus told him that every single one of them was going to deny him and flee.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter, I imagine he smacked the table and said, The rest of these dead beats may run off and leave you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm never going to leave you.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, the night before the crucifixion, he stood warming his hands by the fire, and for fear of a little girl, denied that he even knew who Jesus was.
SPEAKER_00: There's a gap.
SPEAKER_00: There's agony there, which is why we, like Paul, filling that gap, filling that agony, cry out with him in verse number 24 Wretched man that I am.
SPEAKER_00: You ever want to say that about yourself?
SPEAKER_00: Wretched woman that I am, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the law of this body of death?
SPEAKER_00: Great phrase.
SPEAKER_00: Sark's body of death.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same idea of flesh.
SPEAKER_00: He's pointing to the weakness of the whole thing and the fact that he's never going to be able to accomplish in his flesh what can only be done in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: This is the law of sin.
SPEAKER_00: So what do we have so far?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we have the law of God, a high standard that cannot be changed, nor should it ever be changed.
SPEAKER_00: We don't lower the bar simply because we can't get to it.
SPEAKER_00: God does not grade on a curve downward.
SPEAKER_00: And then we have the truth of the law of sin, that because of our fallen condition, we can't escape the sin that is inside of us.
SPEAKER_00: What do we do about that?
SPEAKER_00: How do we cover the gap between these two things?
SPEAKER_00: How do we be her?
SPEAKER_00: How do we be him?
SPEAKER_00: Well, fortunately, Paul continues to write.
SPEAKER_00: He's introduced to us the law of God, and next he introduces to us the law of sin.
SPEAKER_00: And thirdly, he introduces to us the law of life.
SPEAKER_00: Look at Romans chapter 25.
SPEAKER_00: O wretched man that I am.
SPEAKER_00: He raises the question, who's going to rescue me from the body of this death?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer comes in the opening of the next verse.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks be to God through who, church?
SPEAKER_00: O wretched man that I am, who is going to rescue me from the body of this death?
SPEAKER_00: Thanks be to God through who?
SPEAKER_00: Our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I want to do.
SPEAKER_00: But with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Again, this does not mean that he bifurcates himself and with his mind he can be pure, and with his flesh, and with his flesh he can't be.
SPEAKER_00: He's simply recognizing the truth that whenever the spirit begins to work, it pulls from the mind and the flesh follows, but it follows imperfectly.
SPEAKER_00: Now let's just pause for a second and ask the question: why?
SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, why would God set up this system where after you're saved, you still wrestle with the brokenness in your heart, with the sinfulness, with the anger, with the stress?
SPEAKER_00: And I know for some of you, like you got miraculous stories about being delivered for something that you just that gripped you all your life.
SPEAKER_00: And man, I celebrate those stories, but for most of us, like we languish with this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: We grope for it, we agonize moving forward in the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: Why is it that God allows that thing to happen?
SPEAKER_00: Does he not have the power to change me immediately here in this life?
SPEAKER_00: Of course he does.
SPEAKER_00: But he chooses not to.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason he chooses not to, and please stay seated whenever I say this, the reason he chooses not to is because my problem, my major problem is not that I do things I should not do.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the apostle Paul knew this.
SPEAKER_00: If all that needed to happen was for the apostle Paul to do mostly good works and to avoid most of the bad works, he could have stayed a Pharisee.
SPEAKER_00: He said as much.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I was a Pharisee of a Pharisee.
SPEAKER_00: Like I was a I was a 10 guys.
SPEAKER_00: I had that thing nailed.
SPEAKER_00: There were few people who could be a better Pharisee, a better adherence to God's word than I could be.
SPEAKER_00: But the problem is not that we sin.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is that we are sinners.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a totally different thing.
SPEAKER_00: See, the truth is, you some of us we think that the objective is for us to do something or to not do something.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is the real problem of our heart isn't what we do, but it's who we worship.
SPEAKER_00: The problem in the garden wasn't that Eve bit into an apple that God told her not to bite into.
SPEAKER_00: The real problem behind that was in taking that apple, she assumed that she could be her own God.
SPEAKER_00: She could be the object of worship.
SPEAKER_00: She could be the object of power.
SPEAKER_00: She could be the object of pursuit in her own life.
SPEAKER_00: She could be her.
SPEAKER_00: That's the problem in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why Jesus in this life is never going to allow me to be Him.
SPEAKER_00: Because in pride, I know if I could ever be Him, if I could ever walk into you Sunday morning and say, ladies and gentlemen, I've nailed it.
SPEAKER_00: I am, I am, I've now reached a place of perfection where I'm disciplined and I'm controlled, and I never say or think or do anything that I shouldn't be doing.
SPEAKER_00: And I always do the right thing.
SPEAKER_00: I always call when I'm supposed to.
SPEAKER_00: I never forget an appointment, ever, ever, ever.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: If I did that, there's no way I speak those words in humility.
SPEAKER_00: I speak those words in pride.
SPEAKER_00: I speak those words as a man who's who would stand before you being his.
SPEAKER_00: I would stop relying on God.
SPEAKER_00: And above all, the one thing that we must have is a reliance on God.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we're allowed to live in this state where man, this agony, this angst, this pursuit of sanctification, where the Spirit keeps nudging us forward and moving us forward and chastening us whenever we do wrong, even though there is the power to change that comes after this life.
SPEAKER_00: And it's that power to change us that allows us to move from the agony of Romans chapter 7 into the joy of Romans chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are found in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That is rich stuff because whenever I evaluate the gap between where I am and where I know I should be, I know after 50 years, I keep telling myself that I'm going to get closer and I'm going to get better, but the reality is I know by now I'm never going to be Him.
SPEAKER_00: I'm never going to be able to accomplish that.
SPEAKER_00: And yet when I when I open up scripture, when I'm when I'm met with is this liberating truth that God never wanted me to be him.
SPEAKER_00: That ideal version of myself, God didn't, God didn't set that as the goal for me.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse number two.
SPEAKER_00: For the law of the Spirit of life has set us free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
SPEAKER_00: For God has done what the law in its weakness by the flesh could not do by sending his son in the likeness of sinful flesh.
SPEAKER_00: And for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: He did what we could not do, so that he alone gets the glory.
SPEAKER_00: And whenever I arrive in heaven, I'm not going to worship any aspect of what I did.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to praise any portion of what I was able to accomplish.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to pull, like you, my crown off my head, and I'm going to throw it at the feet of Jesus and say, You alone are the one who is worthy.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he says here.
SPEAKER_00: This is why God sets this thing up this way.
SPEAKER_00: Now, so this brings us to this question.
SPEAKER_00: We're almost done.
SPEAKER_00: So we have this gap.
SPEAKER_00: The bar can't be loaded.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, this is what we're supposed to be.
SPEAKER_00: That's the law of God.
SPEAKER_00: And yet we have the law of sin that's just not going to change.
SPEAKER_00: And by the power of God, by the foreknowledge of God, he's not going to allow it to be changed.
SPEAKER_00: It's just going to be what it is.
SPEAKER_00: And so now we turn to the law of life.
SPEAKER_00: It is through the law of the spirit of life that you and I find hope.
SPEAKER_00: So what would Jesus say if he was on his Instagram account, if he was on his ex account, or he was on his Facebook account?
SPEAKER_00: What would Jesus say to Langley about her pursuit of being her?
SPEAKER_00: I think Jesus would say this.
SPEAKER_00: He would say, You will never be her.
SPEAKER_00: But you can be mine.
SPEAKER_00: You will never be him.
SPEAKER_00: But you Jesus would say, But you can be mine.
SPEAKER_00: See, God never intended for you to be her.
SPEAKER_00: God never intended for you to be him.
SPEAKER_00: You know who God intended you to be?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know who God intended for you to be like?
SPEAKER_00: You know who the standard is?
SPEAKER_00: The standard is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Any pursuit to be her, that future version of yourself, to be him, that future image of yourself who has it all together is far lower than the actual standard because the standard is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And for this reason, we need grace.
SPEAKER_00: We need the law of sin and death to be overcome by the law of life.
SPEAKER_00: You know what this looks like?
SPEAKER_00: I was trying to think through like what this image would be like for us.
SPEAKER_00: And um it would it would be like so some of you like you you've been on a plane ride, most of you probably have, and and and you know, like as that plane is rolling down the tarmac, you could feel it and it starts to bobble a little bit, and then that awkward feeling, whenever the nose lifts up and the plane begins to take off.
SPEAKER_00: And at that moment, you realize that like you're doing something that you really should not be doing.
SPEAKER_00: Because all of our life we spend under the power of gravity, under the law of gravity.
SPEAKER_00: And it holds everything in place.
SPEAKER_00: And yet for that moment, there is another law.
SPEAKER_00: It's the law of aerodynamics, which lifts you up.
SPEAKER_00: And for that season, because of the wings and because of the engineering of that plane, the law of gravity has been made null and void for that season.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what has happened for us.
SPEAKER_00: The law of God hasn't gone anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: The law of sin and death hasn't gone anywhere, but the law of the spirit of life has lifted us up so that the law of the of gravity, which holds the rest of the world in despair, has been overridden by the work of Jesus Christ who carries us by himself.
SPEAKER_00: You will never be her, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: You'll languish and agonize, and there'll be subtle improvements, and you'll celebrate those things and recognize that that's the spirit of God in your life, but you'll never be her.
SPEAKER_00: You'll never be him.
SPEAKER_00: You know who you can be?
SPEAKER_00: You can be exactly what God has called you to be a person who is anguishing and languishing, and every day groping their way back to the glorious cross and finding there something that is far better than achieving being her or being him.
SPEAKER_00: The thing that's far better is being his.