So just because we've had a lot of things going on today and we have a funeral right after this, I might have to part two this one. Now this would be the second one in a year that I'll have to part two. So hey, I don't know what's happening. So don't worry, I'll make it up to you next week by going an extra hour. Let's go ahead and let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for today. We thank you for your love, your mercy, and your grace that you've lavished upon us in your son, Jesus. And we just ask that as we spend time in your word and think about this glorious concept of your word and how it reveals your character, but yet at the same time how our flesh misuses it, We just pray, Father, that you would be honored and glorified, that we would make much of Christ, and we would see your word correctly. We just thank you so much for sending him to come and die on the cross for our sins. We thank you and love you. In your son's name, amen. So a couple years ago, there was a pretty big kerfuffle in the pastor world. There was a particular guy who preached a series back east called Unhinged, and one of the things that he had suggested was that the Old Testament needs to be unhinged from the New Testament and that the church shouldn't even consider the Old Testament. Now, they asked this particular pastor again to clarify. He clarified that what he meant was he was talking about Acts 15, but then he goes on to deny the fact that the early church had even used the Old Testament in any really meaningful way. That's another discussion for another time. But what is interesting is how many people resonated with that, that the Old Testament shouldn't even be part of the mind of the believer, that the believer doesn't need the Old Testament, sever the Old Testament from our thinking, sever the Old Testament from how we understand. The Old Testament does nothing for us, and there's several that came out and said this. And our passage this morning in Romans chapter seven is going to demonstrate something quite different. Yes, we need the law. Yes, we need to understand the law. The law was given by God. The law is good. We need to realize that the law is not the problem. The problem is us. We're sinners, right? That's the problem. The problem is not the word. The problem is us. The problem is our misinterpretation of the word. Now, the reason that we're talking about this is because last week we discussed how we as believers are free from the law. Now, we talked about this law as being that law of We were under the control of that sinful nature before we were in Christ. We're free from that. We're free from the misinterpretation of the law that I need to do good in order to be right with God. The Bible teaches that it's on the base of Jesus Christ and faith in Jesus Christ alone that I'm declared righteous and not based off of the works of the law. So, in the midst of this discussion of law, faith, and works, And some of the things that Paul has said, you may walk away going, man, Paul hates the Old Testament. He just hates that. Today, we're going to see that Paul, in fact, does not think that the law is the problem. It's the sin nature and the misuse of it. So, our text today is Romans 7. By God's grace, we'll get through verse seven to chapter 12, and I wanna show you three reasons from this text of why the law is not the problem. First, in verse seven, the law is not the problem because it exposes and defines sin. We need that, right? It's not the problem because it just exposes that we're sinful and it defines sin. Reason number two, it's the sin nature that misuses it. So it's not that the law is bad, it's you and I misuse it in a way that's incorrect. And then lastly, we're gonna see in verse 12. It's not bad because it reflects and reveals God's character. It can't be bad because it's holy and it's good and it's righteous. It reflects who God is. So let's go to verse 7 and let's look at this first reason of why the law is not bad, even though we're free from The old nature, we don't have to keep the law in order to be righteous. It does expose sin and therefore it can't be the problem. So notice what Paul says in verse seven, he says, what then shall we say? Now Paul has used this particular question several times in the book of Romans. chapter two, chapter three, so on. And each time he has said, so what shall we say? It has always been that Paul has used this phrase to clarify the thing that was just said before, right? So he's clarifying the statement that we are free from the law and that it was the law working in us that caused sin. So Paul now goes, okay, I need to explain this because it is possible and plausible that people were saying Paul says no law. That's not what he's saying. He's never saying that. He's saying you've got to understand the law correctly. when you understand it correctly with the gospel, there are certain things that we don't have to do anymore because Jesus Christ fulfilled that, but there is still a lot in the Old Testament that is very important. So what shall we say then? This is a clarification, and this is probably the charge that is brought against Paul, that the law is sin, that the law is evil, that the law brings about sin. We don't need it anymore. Cut it off. Hitch yourself from the law. Is that what we're saying? And then notice this phrase again, by no means. Remember, we've seen this phrase as well. And this phrase, meganoita, right, means what? No, it is the strongest possible way to say no in the Greek, no way. We could say no way, Jose, which we know is the strongest way of saying no way, right? No way, Jose, no way. That's the Caleb Hilbert translation, by the way. No way, Jose, all right? No, we can't see the law as being sin. We can't see the law as being bad. We're freed from it. We're declared righteous apart from it. because of what Jesus Christ has done. Jesus Christ has fulfilled it and imputed that righteousness to us. The law is not this problem. The law is not sinful. So notice what he then says. He says, this is one of the reasons why we know it's not. Here's the first reason. For if it had not been for the law, now I know before Paul was talking about the law in a general sense of any standard that we thought before we were in Christ of right and wrong and any type of way of thinking that I was right with God on the basis of what I've done, right? So we talked about that last week. Here, I think Paul is now talking about himself and his particular situation. And he's then going to quote from the Ten Commandments. So when Paul says, if it had not been for the law, he is now switching from that general idea of the law that we've seen throughout the Book of Romans to now narrowing down to very specifically the Old Testament law, right? So he said, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. So here is the very first reason. Why is the Old Testament law important to the believer? It helps us to find sin, right? Helps us to find those things that go against the character of God. Helps us to find those things that we ought not to do. Some of those things that are a front to God, that they are evil to Him. That's what the law does. The law gives us that definition. It exposes that definition. It exposes me to my own sinfulness. It's likely and it's possible that if somebody doesn't pick up the Bible and they live life, they generally view themselves as a good person, right? I haven't murdered anybody. I don't do weird stuff, right? I pay my taxes. I don't speed, whatever other thing. But it's not until you get exposed to the Old Testament law and to God's word that you immediately start seeing what? Oh, I'm not as good. as I thought I was, right? The law then acts as a mirror. And notice the example that Paul gives. He says, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said you shall not covet." So in a sense, Paul's saying, if I didn't have the Old Testament, if I didn't have the law, it would be very easy for him to go through life not knowing that it's wrong to covet, to desire something that someone else has. and seeking to possess it for themselves, to become jealous of someone because of that thing, that heart issue, right? It would have been easy for him to say, well, I haven't done, I haven't broken the law, the law of man, as I murdered somebody. He goes, yeah, I guess it would have been good, but once I found out that the law said you shall not covet, I know that any time I then covet after that, It's sin, right? So it defines sin. In a sense, we could say, not only does it define sin, but then in a sense, doesn't it kind of expand our understanding of what sin is? And then we see how sinful we are. So it doesn't just define it. It exposes our own sinfulness. Just think about this. How many times this past week have we coveted something? Every time we've done that, that is a sin. Desiring to possess something that doesn't belong to me but want to have it as my own or jealous that someone else has that particular thing. Like Penn State not being in the national championship. I know we're all really upset about that and coveting that position. No. Every time we do that, don't we see the scope of our sin? We're exposed to our own heart. In a sense, it kind of acts like a mirror, doesn't it? We kind of see ourselves for who we really are. If it hadn't been for the law, I wouldn't have known what sin is. So therefore, is sin the problem? It can't be the problem. The law cannot be evil because it exposes evil. I'm free from it, I'm free from the condemnation of the law. I get righteousness apart from the deeds of the law, but that doesn't mean I jettison the law because it exposes and defines sin. Now, there's another thing if we go to the next verse. Reason two, the law's not bad and it's not the problem, it's not evil, it's because it's the sin nature that misuses it. So notice then what he says. He says, but sin, Kind of interesting, he kind of makes sin here to be like a person, right? It's almost as if sin is personified. But sin seizing an opportunity. The idea here of seizing an opportunity is that it's like an aggressor. It's like somebody who's looking at someone else's life to see if there's any area in which they can exploit. So it's almost as if the sin nature inside of us is always looking for opportunities to thrive, right? And to do what it does, right? It's always looking for an opportunity. And so it's like a predator, right? It's like a scam artist. It's looking for any kind of weakness. So here's sin, as Paul's talking about him reading the law. Sin seizes the opportunity through the commandment. So it looks at the commandment and it seizes the opportunity, commandment, to produce in me all kinds of covetousness. So in a sense, it's sin that looks at the commandment and says, how can I continue to covet? How can I continue to do this thing? Or it may say, I don't care what it says, I'm going to continue to do the thing that I'm doing. And it may appeal to the things that I like. So for example, I might find it abhorrent to covet one thing, but okay to covet another thing. Maybe like what I said last week, remember last week we talked about the law and how the law kind of energizes sin in the sense that the moment that we hear, don't do that thing, we then go, yeah, now I kind of want to do that thing, right? I used the example last week of a bench that says, don't touch wet paint. How many of us have went? Yeah, but I kind of want to touch the wet paint, right? Or here's another one. Wet cement, don't touch. How many of us would want to write our names in that wet cement, right? So the flesh does that too. It goes, you're telling me I can't do this thing? Hold my Mountain Dew and watch this. Okay? So that's what the flesh does. It's tricksty. It's looking for opportunities. And it's not appealing to something that we automatically go, oh, I don't want that. The flesh is appealing to the things that I already desire. So think about this. Before I was in Christ, I had no hope whatsoever of fighting the sin nature. I could fight behaviors, but not the sin nature, because it's already appealing to the things I desire and I want. Specifically, if we're talking about coveting, I desperately want that other thing. So sin goes, you want it? You want it? Let's go get it. It's exploiting. And then it says, then it has all kinds of covetousness, right? Not just a specific that's listed in the Ten Commandments, but all kinds of covetousness. And he says, for apart from the law, sin lies dead. Now, we may go, well, then just don't read your Bible and you won't sin because sin is dead if it doesn't know the law. That's not what he means. What he means is there is something with the flesh when it hears the word of God, it defines that sin, it energizes the flesh to do that sin. If there was no law, I'm doing things, I'm thinking I'm okay. I don't really know that what I'm doing is wrong. It still is wrong, right? Because it still breaks the character of God. People still died before the law. But once the law comes, there seems to be this energizing force of the sin nature that says, yeah, I want to do all of that kind of stuff. Notice what Paul says then next, as he continues to talk about the problem isn't with the law. Notice that the problem is with us, with our sin nature. He says, I once lived apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. So there's a lot of people that talk a lot about what Paul's talking about here. Some people think that Paul's going back and personifying Adam, right? As if there was a period of time before there was no commandment given, and then the commandment was given. And so when Paul says I, he doesn't really mean I, he means Adam. And by the way, since he never indicated that he switched to Adam, we're all supposed to kind of go, oh yeah, no, he's talking about Adam here. That doesn't seem to make sense to me. It seems to me that Paul's talking about himself because he uses the word, I, right? So let's take him at face value. So the question is, at what time did Paul live without the commandments? Well, there really wasn't a time, right? I mean, he was the Jew of Jew. He was circumcised on the eighth day. It's most likely what Paul means is there was a time where he lived not aware of what the commandments really said, right? Sometimes little kids are not aware of what the Bible really says. Sometimes it's easy for little kids to hear mom and dad talking at the kitchen table and then they just repeat those phrases without knowing what those phrases mean, right? Now, we might look at that as adults going, wow, these kids really understand a lot of things. They're really smart kids. No, they're just parenting what the parents say. Now, that's not a bad thing. I'm not saying that's terrible. I'm just saying that's the reality, right? And so it appears that there was a time in which Paul didn't really understand the commandments. He kind of just was living, just as little kids do or as young people do. But then he says, but when the commandment came, once he then heard the commandment, listened to the commandment, Notice what it says, it says, Sid came alive. There was something that happened in him that when he heard the commandment, he now knew that particular thing was a sin, it was wrong. He saw how much he did it, how great of an aggressor he was. Every time he did it, he knew that he was rebellious to God. And it's even possible that the sin nature inside of him said, man, we gotta get more of this stuff. So what is the result of that? Paul goes, then I realized I died, or he realized his spiritual deadness. He realized how bad of a state he was in. So notice what the law does. The law exposes sin, it defines sin, it shows you how sinful you are, so that you go, oh, I am bad. There's no way of saving me. And this is then why the gospel is so amazing and so awesome. Because Jesus came down and died on the cross for our sins. And then when I place my faith in him, I'm then what? Given the righteousness of Christ. I'm seen by God as righteous. I have that imputation of righteousness. Right? I mean, that's okay. You can say amen. Everybody should say amen. No. So then we have that imputation of righteousness, right? This is what the gospel is. The law could not impute to us righteousness even if we obeyed it. Plus it's impossible for us to do so. So then notice what Paul says in verse 10. He says, the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. We talked about this earlier in the book, remember? for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We talked about, I suppose, hypothetically speaking, if a person was born and they always did what was right and never did anything that was wrong, always had the right motivation and always did exactly what God desired and lived in a way that was exactly as God's righteousness, then by obedience through the law, I suppose you could be saved because you have God's righteousness. That's what it means then to fall short of the glory of God. You fall short of God's character. So I suppose that's possible, right? The commandments in the Old Testament says you do this and you'll live. Speaking of the Old Testament Israelites in the promised land. But really, what did it prove out to be? What did Paul find as he started to try to live out the law? It was the source of his death, right? He couldn't do it, it killed him. So, is law the problem? No, the law is not the problem. The problem is Paul. The problem is his own sinfulness. And then lastly, let's then go to verse 12. Oh, I'm sorry, I skipped verse 11. Let's not skip verse 11. As Paul summarizes, he says, So not only is it a predator, it's also very tricksty, it's a liar. The flesh, you will lie to yourself about your own righteousness, about your own sinfulness. The law says, nope. But is it possible for me to break the law and convince myself that I'm keeping the law and that I'm right with God? Of course it is. The problems end with me. And then, because of what sin is doing, and because I'm not keeping the law, what is the natural consequence of that? Death, right? The wages of sin is death. So then we get to then the next reason of why the law cannot be sin. He says, so the law is holy. Why is the law holy? The law is holy because it represents God, God's holiness. It reflects his holiness. When God gave the Old Testament, it still was a revealing of his character, revealing of who he is. Anytime that God reveals anything, like scripture, It can't be evil because it reveals a holy God. The Old Testament is vitally important for us as believers because it reflects the character of God and we can learn about the character of God. So when I read the Old Testament, even sometimes in some of those boring parts of Leviticus and Deuteronomy and some of those other parts, and we go, oh please, I don't, if I have to read one more thing about an entrail, Do you not realize that as we read those things that shows us the character of God, the holiness of God, the righteousness of God, don't you realize that teaches us something about how we relate to Him and our worship and the seriousness that worship should be taken? When we read the book of Deuteronomy, that reveals to us not only our sinfulness, but who God is. And that then forms a really important foundation for the New Testament, as we have the Holy Spirit and Christ, that we can then realize, oh, God is holy. This is what it says about his character and about his ways. So, the law is an accurate representation of God's holiness. It itself is holy. It comes from God's Word. It comes from Him. It's His Word. And then the individual command, even though I might misuse it, notice the command is holy. If the whole law is holy, then the individual command is holy. If the whole thing is good, then the individual part is good. And if it's holy, then it's also righteous. By the way, this word for holy means that it is set apart, consecrated for God's use. It not only reflects who God is, his otherness, it also shows us the way that we're supposed to act in a way that is special and consecrated for God and for his use. And then it's also then righteous, meaning that it adheres to the standard of God himself, of his own character. And then it's good, means it'll never lead us to something that is evil. So as believers, it's vitally important that we don't throw away the law and see the law as being the problem. Now, I will admit, It is very difficult for me as a New Testament believer, sometimes when I read the Old Testament, with some of the tension of some of the things that I see, right? There's a lot of things in the Old Testament, such as sacrifices, new moons, blowing a trumpet at the new moon. My neighbors don't appreciate that, so I don't do it. There's a lot of things, right? Particular types of ways I'm supposed to dress myself, particular types of food that I'm supposed to eat. There's all these regulations that are given. And a lot of these regulations have to do with Israel at a particular time. And while I might be able to somehow square with some of these things, this is not an easy issue. And this requires every believer to take serious time to think through the law, think through the gospel, think through the New Testament, right? So what I would say is this, is know this, first of all, as we're wandering through the Old Testament and this tension of how do I as a New Testament Christian understand the law, know this first of all, it cannot be the problem, that it itself exposes sin, that it exposes the character of God, right? I would also say this too, if we go to 1 Timothy, Paul says something very interesting, very important for us to remember as we read through the Old Testament. If we go to 1 Timothy chapter one. Let's just start in verse two, or verse three. He says, as I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor devote themselves to myth or endless genealogy which promotes speculation, rather than the stewardship from God that is of faith. The aim of our charge is love. that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. And then notice, certain persons by swerving from these have wandered away into vain discussions, desiring to be teachers of the law. So notice, these false teachers misunderstand the stewardship of God. through faith, and they're moving away from faith alone saves, and they're swerving into teaching the law, which means that they're teaching more of human effort than God's grace. And they're thinking of themselves as wanting to be a teacher of the law without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they are making these confident assertions. Now, we know the law is good if one uses it lawfully. So we know that the law is good, but I have to use it lawfully. And then he goes on and he talks about who the law is for. In the Greek, this is all one sentence, by the way, and it's almost as if that center section is a parentheses. And for sake of time, just go down to verse 11, because that's really where the sentence kind of ends in the Greek. So he says, if one uses the law lawfully, and then this is kind of how we know how one uses it lawfully, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with whom I have been entrusted. And so the principle that we think through is, okay, I need to understand that these particular books were written to particular people at particular times, right? But I also need to understand that a lot of these things find their fulfillment in Christ, and that I can never divorce myself from this idea that salvation has always been taught as faith alone in God's promises alone, specifically now in the New Testament as faith alone in Christ alone. Now, this is not a comprehensive understanding of how we read the Old Testament. My purpose as an expositor this morning is to expose what Paul says, that we can't say the law is evil, even though if we've read up to this point, there might be a temptation for us to just throw the law out and go, well, if I'm free from the law, therefore I don't have to listen to it anymore. Rather, we understand that the law is good and that we should not throw it out. And that we need to accept it as being from God. Now at this time, we're going to think about something other than the law. We're going to think about the gospel. We're going to think about Jesus coming and dying on the cross for our sins, being buried and rose again on the third day. We're going to celebrate the Lord's Supper together. So I'm going to ask Greg to come up.