Law & Gospel – Part II
Part 2 of the “Law & Gospel” sermon series. This week is an exegetical sermon on Romans 7:7-12 addressing the principle of the law and how the Apostle Paul’s experienced it. This sermon was originally preached by Pastor Duane Smets on February 25th, 2007 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
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:: The Resolved Church :: February 25, 2007
duane matthew smets
(pastor/overseer/evangelist)
Romans 7:7-12
7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
“Law and Gospel – Part II”
I. The Charge: “Law is Bad”
II. The Defense
1. Law Uncovers Sin
2. The Example of Coveting
3. Law as Opportunity
4. Sin’s Life and our Death
a. A Metaphor and Wordplay
b. Paul’s story
c. Spiritual Death
5. False Promises
6. Law as Deception
III. The Jesus
Introduction
Let’s begin in prayer: God, trying to navigate this life seems like a terrible mess, especially when we try to add religion into all that. And God I am asking that we would not only be able to really figure some things out about you for ourselves, which seems like an impossible task in itself, but I am also asking that you would fill us with passion and creativity to figure out how to spread the true message of your Son Jesus in a place that is filled with misunderstandings, mistreatments, and misuses of your Word. May how we deal with your Bible today be pleasing to you, may the attitude of our hearts be pleasing as we seek you in these moments, may today count for your kingdom and your glory I pray. Amen
The Charge: Law is Bad
The charge: law is bad. Same first point as last week, this is week 2 of a three part sermons series dealing with law and gospel from Romans 7:7-12. First let me bring us to speed, which means reminding us where we’re at and catcing some other up.
Paul is on a mission to show us the glory of Christ. The glorious thing he showed us in the first five chapters is the God is beautiful and His world is beautiful and that we as human beings have made a mess of it and are really messed up inside and Christ died and rose and that changes everything and now through faith, belief in Christ alone, things can change for us, really change…we can know God, be declared not guilty on the basis of Christ work on the cross, and we can be part of his coming kingdom when all the rest of the world will be re-born. That was the first five chapters.
But that message, that gospel, creates some problems. And so in chapter six he dealt with the problem of grace, how if we really believe all that stuff we have a tendency to just do whatever we want because God loves us so much and saves us no matter what we do. Now in chapter 7 he’s dealing with another side of that coin, the law…What God demands from us. Paul told us that law can’t save us or fix us and that because there is law, we break it and our sinful passion runs wild, we can’t escape it, we just seem to perpetually screw up, it’s like we’re held “captive” to it and so what we need is a whole new way of life and that is life in the Spirit following Jesus.
So here is where we are at, because Paul said all that, he anticipates a response. He’s writing to Jews and Greeks who both love their laws, and he said all this gnarly stuff about law and so he knows what his readers are going to say, what they are probably thinking…”Dude, are you saying the law is bad? Are you crazy? Lay off the drugs Paul.” And so Paul answers. Let’s read the text (read text).
The charge is that law is bad and Paul gives seven reasons why it’s not. Last week we looked at the first three. He said, no law just uncovers or exposes this bad thing inside of us called sin, then he used coveting as an example for how sin takes a law, like “don’t covet” and rather than being happy or satisfied in God, rather than love God and his creation, we want all kinds of other things, which leads to outward actions where we end up breaking more and more laws. That was the second reason, and the third reason was that word, “opportunity” which means a military base of operation. And we talked about how sin either takes the law as an opportunity for us to be self-indulgent, where we say “hell with it, I can’t keep all these commandments so screw it I might as well just live my life and have fun.” Or, if it doesn’t do that, sin takes the law as opportunity to be self-righteous where we say “I can do it, if I just work really hard.” And then you think you are great for doing it and you love to let everyone know it.
So that was his first three reasons or defenses and that bring us up to speed to this moring where we’re looking at the next reason which has three parts to it. Sorry, if that felt like a lot of review. That’s one of the reasons why we all need to be here each week, because God intends for us to study His word together and when you study it right each week builds on the week before. I’m not trying to be lame in mentioning it…I’m just trying to jab at you a little. J
It’s okay to miss every once in awhile, especially if you are sick or have to be out town or something…that why we record these sermons and put them on itunes, so you can download them and listen so you’re ready for the next week. Don’t worry, we don’t take attendance and I don’t keep some sort of checklist in my head if you are here or not. I’m not that OCD. J But I am driven, I am after this thing in this city, I’m giving my life to it and I need you guys, and right now at the size we’re at, this Sunday morning service is the main regular thing we got going on.
Okay, enough of that, now that I made everyone mad at me again. Let’s look at these next three reasons.
Sin’s Life and Our Death
a. a metaphor and wordplay
Reason number four, sin’s life and our death. Look at verse 8, in the middle of it…For sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an oppurtunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.” Sin came alive, I died, life proved death to me, and it killed me. Death, death, and killing. Fun stuff.
So check it out…what we got going on is a word play and a metaphor here. Sin came alive…so he almost gives sin this sort of personality…like it is this sleeping dog or something lying dormant or dead inside each one us, until it is awakened by law, by commands. But here is the word play, sin comes alive in his life, by either that self-indugent or self-righteous abuse of the law, and what happens is that he dies. So he’s not talking about physical death here…a different kind of death. He’s using death as a metaphor for what happens to him spiritually…because of the law, sin springs to life and it kills him. Inside, death and darkness fills him and his spirit is crushed.
Do you see it? Do you follow what he is saying? Maybe, you are like…“well, yeah, I get the logic of it but what does that mean experientially? How does that happen? What does that look like in a person’s life to die spiritually when sin comes alive?
Keep that thought, that question in your head…We’ll talk about it a little more directly in a moment but first maybe we can get some clues from Paul’s life, because he uses the words “I” and “me” here a bunch right? “I died.” “Death to me.” “Deceived me.” Now this is going to become a really big deal when get to verse 13-25 and I’ll preach a whole sermon asking who the “I” is in those verses. So I don’t want to get ahead of myself here because it is really better to talk about that then because of what is in those verses. But it does have some bearing on how we understand what it means for us to die spiritually when sin comes alive from hearing the law. Here’e the deal, some people say it doesn’t refer to Paul’s life at all, and then of those people who say it does refer to Paul’s life argue about when or what part of his life.
Sin’s Life and Our Death
b. Paul’s Story
Maybe Paul is doing something weird with his use of “I” and “me.” We’ll talk about what that could be but first, let’s just assume he is talking about his own personal life, I mean we have to at least consider it right…because it sure sound like he is talking about himself and there would have to be a lot of overwhelming evidence to show us that he isn’t. So let’s consider his life and see if it fits at all (story taken from Philippians 3:4-7, Acts 7, 9).
Paul, his name wasn’t always Paul, it used to be Saul…that’s what his parents named him. His family was of the tribe of Benjamin. Saul, was the name of the first king of Israel, he was from the tribe of Benjamin too. His family was devoted. They made sure Saul was circumcised on the 8th day and from that day on began to groom him in Judaism…training him up as a Jewish lawyer, a Pharisee. There is no doubt, Saul had the first five books of the Bible memorized in Hebrew, word for word by the time he was thirteen. He was an expert. He studied under the well known rabbi Gamaliel and was a prize student. And not only that, he wasn’t a stuffed up academic, but he was passionate…he was one who they said had zeal. He loved the Jewish law, and the Jewish system…he followed it perfectly, blameless.
On the sabbath day, they were not supposed to take more than one-hundred steps. Saul always counted. And he was passionate about the Jewish law taking back its rightful place in the political government and didn’t want anything to stand in the way of that. So he hears about this guy Jesus and this new religion called Christianity, so he sets out to destroy it. In the passionate dedication to the law, he stands by and has a guy named Stephen killed for saying Jesus fulfilled the law. After that he’s on a trip to Damascus, to go snuff out more of this Christian crap and have some people arrested but then something happens.
On his way to Damascus, all of the sudden there is this bright light that shines down out of heaven, leaving him blind for three days…and in that moment when this blinding light falls down all around him and he goes blind, he hears a voice saying, “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And Saul’s like “What the F!? Who the hell are you?” And the voice answers and says, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” And from that moment on Saul was a changed man. He saw the glory of Christ, he was cut to the heart, he changes his name to Paul and makes the mission of his life to bring glory to Christ, so he ends up planting all these churches in a bunch of different cities and then writes half the New Testament.
It’s a pretty great story. It tells you about the kind of stuff that happens when a person’s heart gets gripped with the glory of God and His gospel. It makes me wonder about the gospel in our day and time and in this city and what could happen if our hearts where that gripped with glory.
Okay, so you might think that story is whack and didn’t happen. That’s fine…you don’t have to believe that happened. But either way we do know there was this huge change in Paul’s life where he went from being a self-righteous religious rabbinic snob (sound familiar, like a lot of christians today?), to a broken, glory driven, Christ exalting, gospel lovin’ dude and now he’s got some things say about the law he spent 25-30 years studying before he completely flip-flopped and became convinced that Jesus is the Lord of Glory.
So, let’s go back to our text. Paul says, he was alive apart from the law but when the commandment came, sin came alive and he died. He says the commandment promised life but proved to be death. And he says that the commandment deceived him. Now, when we consider Paul’s life, what do you think? Do you think it fits? It sure sounds like it to me. Then there is this question, “Well okay, is he talking about his experience before or after a Christian?” Interesting. What do you guys think? He’s talking past tense so, it sounds like he could be talking about the law before he was a Christian…but…he’s talking about the law in a way that he would have only talked about it after becoming a Christian, huh. Because before he was a Christian he loved the law and thought he was blameless in regards to it.
So here is what I think. I think he is talking about both. I don’t think our experience with the law, when we hear a commandment, do this or don’t do that, whether it is in our conscience or when it is something somebody tells or whatever…I don’t think that changes a whole lot after we become a Christian. It’s still there. I think Paul is looking back on his life from the time he was a little kid and he is re-interpreting his experience to align it more with his current experience and beliefs.
You know you can do that right? You can become convinced of some new truth, or some significant experience can happen, and you can start to look at your life story and everything that has happened and re-interpret it. That’s a good thing. You can re-write the autobiography of your life. Some of you need to do that. You need a paradigm change and need to start thinking about some things differently and you need to look at your past differently.
Sin’s Life and Our Death
c. Spiritual Death
Alright. So I said we would talk about this experience a little more in depth. How our person hears “law” and sin comes alive and we die and experience spirtual death. I think this happens in one of two ways. We talked about it last week in terms of self-indulgence and self-righteousness. Today I want to probe a little bit deeper and talk about it in terms of the effects as crisis and ignorance.
First let’s talk about crisis. Crisis is the effect of self-indulgence. Sin lying dormant, hears the law and it gets discouraged, frustrated, or even mad after trying a little and failing, and so it says forget it…I can’t do it and so you go on just living life however you want to. You become your own God, the captain of your own soul, following your own religion and you do whatever seems right to you. What this looks like might be diffferent depending on the person. But it’s late nights with random people who only look good after your 5th gin and tonic. Or maybe it’s your sole devotion to that one person who you think will solve all your problems if he would just love your or treat you right…And you’re willing become a unic or shave your head if that will help. Or maybe it’s having it all and being able to buy whatever you want or maybe it’s having nothing and hating your job and never having enough…the American dream. Kill yourself working until you got it all or forget working because that means I have to get up before 12 in the morning and can’t play video games until 3 at night.
There’s ton of things it could be and I’m not clever enough to name them all. But here is what happens…you can only do that so long, before you realize you are dead inside. That’s crisis. It’s that moment when you’re by yourself and you finally stop for a second and you starting thinking and questing and saddness and regret overcomes you and you realize you have made a mess because you stopped caring. Crisis that hits because of your self-indulgence. Some of you need to have a crisis. Or some of you have them and you swear that things are going to change but you just enter the whole self-indulgent cycle all over again.
That’s one way. I think that one experience where the commandment comes, we know it and hear it, but it kills us. Here’s the other way, ignorance. Ignorance is the result of self-righteousness. Sin lying dormant, hears the law and it gets all riled up and excited and charges after the law giving it’s all, trying to do everything just right, and after a little success you start to feel pretty good about yourself…and before you know it you are just cruisin and everything is good and everyone else is just stupid because they’re not living like you. You become your own God, the law becomes yours and you wear it well, following it perfectly. It’s refusing to even think or talk about God, like he’s some coffee refill you don’t need because you’re all good. You got it down. Or it’s waving your Jesus flag like he’s some sort of brand to put on your t-shirts and jeans. Jesus wore a robe. So unless you’re gonna make Christian leisure suits for Playboy mansion, I think you’re out of luck. I’m sorry…it’s just that putting a metal fish or a “My boss is a Jewish Carpenter” bumper sticker on your BMW just makes it look trashy.
Sin is raging in your self-righteousness and you don’t even realize it. That’s Ignroance. Where you don’t even realize what a mess you are making for yourself and those around you and nobody can tell you and you won’t listen and if anyone says anything to you, you either tell them to leave you alone or to shut up or you just tell them they’re wrong. Ignorance is not listening to good advice and it’s like you’re a brainwashed zombie walking through life just eating everyone up and sapping the life out of them. You’ve gotta wake up. You’re a burden and nobody likes you and you’re giving Jesus a bad name if you’re the ignorant sort who claims him and if you’re not the kind who claims him then you’re surely the one who bags on him all the time and you just don’t know what you’re talking about.
I can’t tell you what it’s like for you. But I think everyone one of us falls into that. I’ve got my wounds. I’ve been been to both parties and both of them suck. And maybe this whole sermon sounds repetitive. It’s just that more than ever I really believe that this city needs the gospel, the real gospel. I hadn’t realized how deep the clutches of the self-righteous gospel and the self-indulgent gospel were in this city. And if that’s you, don’t think I’m coming down on you and trying to scare you off. We need you and you need us. But I also realize now more than ever that a weak willed, low morals, wishy washy Christianity isn’t going to win the city either.
And my goal isn’t to try and make perfect people. Yeah, I think getting drunk, having sex of any kind with people you’re not married to, using illegal drugs, or absuing legal ones, spending your money on all kinds of junk…yeah, I think that stuff is bad for you and isn’t going to make you happy. But I’m not just trying to make you look better and stop doing those things. Those things are just cosmetic and are easy to pick on as examples. But what I’m really trying to do is open up the glory of Christ to your soul. That’s my main goal. Those things are not the problem…they’re just symptoms of not seeing and savoring Christ. And sometimes you got a hit a few crisis first, you got to walk through some times of ignorance, I wish we didn’t…but its true that after you become a Christian you are not impervious to crisis and ignorance.
The Jesus
But here is why the gospel is good, Jesus. I said last week that the end of every one of these sermon in Romans 7 is Jesus because the whole chapter is building until this great climax at the end where Paul looks back on everything he just said about the law and sin and says, “Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 7:24-25).”
So let’s conclude today by just talking about Jesus for a couple minutes. Jesus delivers. How? This sermon has been about how because of sin, every human ends up taking the law and misusing it one way or another and regardless of which way it kills us inside. Spiritual death.
How does Jesus deliver us from crisis and ignorance? Last week I talked about how Jesus fulfilled the law for us. This week here’s how I want to answer that question, 2 Corinthians chapter 4. 2 Corinthians 4:4,6 “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we proclaim…for Jesus sake…God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
If you are in crisis, you feel the death and the meaninglessness of everything around you and it is dark…behold Christ. Infinite glory, incomparable excellency, who with the lowest humility possible suffered evil on a cross for you, so that you might know joy. He is compassionate and forgiving and he doesn’t just invite you to himself…he demands it. All else pales in comparison and it destroys us. Jesus says behold my glory, give up meaningless things, come and enter my rest and my joy by following me.
If you are in ignorance, you have thought you were fine, doing things right, when all along you’ve just been trying to convince yourself that you have it all together and that things are okay…behold Christ. Complete and true perfection of the one and only Son of God, who accomplished all things for you, his work for your joy. Christ came so that you wouldn’t have to bear the burden of trying to keep it all together. Jesus says, let the knowledge of my glory shine. Embrace unflinching trust in Christ alone and walk in humility and love for others who have yet to see.
I love the Paul’s story. He is a determined guy. He knows what he thinks about things. He is confident and passionate about his disbelief in Christ and about his own righteousness. But then he literally sees the light of God’s glory and hears the tender and powerful voice of Christ and he is changed. That is such a wonderful picture of the gospel. Where ignorance hits crisis and the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus shines into a person’s heart.
conclusion
Here is the conclusion for today. Christ is everything. Yes the law shows us the darkness of our sin and it kills us. But God has given us Christ who is shone in our hearts. And when that happens we trade self-indulgence for Christ indulgence and self-righteousness for Christ’s righteousness. Being a Christian is everything being about Christ because he is the most supreme knowledge, joy, and life.
So for application…indulge in Christ. Give up things that you know keep you from him. Let Christ be your righteousness and not your own ability to do things right or not. Trust and follow him.
Kids, follow Jesus. He is everything you could ever need and want. He is better than any toy, any game, or any ice cream. Rely on him to help you live the way your mom dad tell you that you should, because Jesus is perfect and does everything right.
