Our sermon text this morning is primarily going to be with a focus on Romans 7, verse 14, but also the broader passage of which it's a part. I'm going to read this morning for us Romans 7, verses 7 through 25, the whole passage for our reflection. Paul here engages two questions in particular. that come up underneath the topic of our sanctification. And I'm actually gonna read this morning from the New American Standard. I think it's preferable in a couple ways, but we'll talk about some of that. So it'll be a little bit different than what's in your Pew Bible, but let's give attention to God's holy word. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be, on the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the law. For I would not have known about covening if the law had not said, you shall not covet. But sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law, sin is dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died. And this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me. For sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me. So then the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? It never be, rather it was sin in order that it might be shown to be sin by affecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment, sin would become utterly sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. What I am doing I do not understand, for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the law, confessing that the law is good. So now no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. For the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. wretched man that I am. Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So that on the one hand, I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other with my flesh, the law of sin. Thus ends the reading of God's word. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we seek to know the blessing that comes from understanding your word, Work in us to that end, Father. We know that this is a lifelong process, but continue this in us even now, we ask in Christ's name. Amen. Well, brothers and sisters, this morning we're looking at some aspects of this very famous passage in Romans 7. I've been doing some work on this in the recent past, and so I thought it would be good, while it's on my mind, to present some reflections for us. In my experience, parts of this passage in Romans 7 are among the most commonly quoted in Romans. Not the most commonly, I don't think, but, I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate, verse 15. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death, verse 24, and other texts like that. It's notable this text has always been fascinating for God's people, sometimes also confusing, and so I think it's helpful for us to reflect. It won't be possible to talk about the whole passage. There's much that's here. Many more sermons would be needed, but I do want to focus on a few things about the passage as a whole, and then particularly some things about Romans 7.14 itself. Over the course of history, the history of the church, there have been various views of this passage, particularly regarding who's talking or whose experience is being described. Does the passage describe Paul's own experience as an unbeliever before he came to Christ? Does the passage describe the experience, say, of a believer under the old covenant rather than a believer under the new covenant? Or does the passage, as has been most often thought, describe Paul's own experience even as a Christian underneath the New Covenant? Now, that's a difficult question in itself, and some good arguments could be made for each of those views. The most common one, though, is the last one, and I'm going to assume this view is most likely what most of us hold to anyway in what I say here, that Paul is describing certain aspects of what he has experienced as a Christian as he seeks to walk before the Lord. When we say that, though, We must immediately recognize some difficulties here, some challenges to our understanding that we have to work through carefully in order not to misunderstand what our condition is right now as Christians before the Lord. It's possible to misunderstand this passage and so to misunderstand who we are or what we are, what we've been made to be in Christ. In a general way then, we need to be clear what about the Christian life is Paul describing in this passage and what is he not describing, almost as importantly. And then I also want us to particularly look at this phrase in verse 14, I'm of the flesh, sold under sin. Firstly then, our passage in Romans 7, we need to be clear about this. describes some real experiences of a true Christian, but it does not describe the full intended experience of a true Christian. In other words, it describes the futility that we feel, we often feel regarding our sin, but that is particularly a futility that we feel when facing sin through the law, not when facing sin through the Spirit. In that sense, we need to say this, that the passage here is descriptive, not prescriptive in some ways. Meaning, it describes some of what does happen to us, but this passage alone does not describe the totality of what should happen to us. We need to keep reading in Romans. or read what's earlier in Romans 6 and Romans 8, and we'll talk about some of that. The bigger picture is in the surrounding texts, and then this text treats part of the overall picture. To see this, we need to be careful to notice some of the context, and we can start by looking at Romans 7, 4 through 6, just before our passage. There, Paul describes Christian conversion as something in which we die to the law through the body of Christ, Romans 7, 4, in order to belong to the Lord and then bear fruit for the Lord. And then in verse 6 of chapter 7, he describes the Christian dying to sin in order to serve the Lord and then he gives us a contrast between two different ways to serve the Lord. A proper one and an improper one. And he says that we're to serve the Lord in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter or the law. In other words, Paul announces his topic, which is how we are to live now as, before the Lord, now that we are Christians, and he contrasts two different ways of possibly seeking to do that. Serving God through the power of the Spirit or serving God through the power of the law, the former of which, of course, is the proper one. Then, after verse six of Romans 7, you notice, that though serving God through the Spirit is what we ought to do, not through the law, for the rest of the chapter, all throughout our passage, the Spirit is not mentioned again, whereas the law is mentioned many, many times over. In fact, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, does not come up again until chapter 8, where he then himself is mentioned over and over and over. Meantime, in our passage, what Paul describes is an aspect of our experience when we address ourselves to sin through the law alone, making no reference in the passage to the Spirit. Therein is our futility. Paul's describing something Christians do experience, but not the fullness of what we are intended to experience. He's describing what our experience is when we fight against sin with the resources of the law and not with reference yet to the Spirit in terms of what he's described. Why? Why does he do this? In order to make clear the extent of our own weakness, the extent of sin's great power, and that while the law itself is a good gift from God, that it is utterly insufficient to enable us in our fight against sin. We need, brothers and sisters, something more, something decidedly more. And that's what the passage describes. Paul asks in Romans 7, 7 then, is the law sin? No, he says. Instead, the law details for us what sin is. It describes in detail, for example, what coveting is so that we know exactly how to define it. But does that lead to not coveting? No. Because the demonic power of sin, stronger than us ourselves, interposes itself in our lives using the knowledge that the law gives us about what coveting is, to prod and to tempt us to covet. Verses 8 through 11 of our passage. Sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting, he says. Verse 8. So the law itself is good, verse 12, But it only provides knowledge about sin, it does not itself provide strength against sin. So now we know what the problem is, and we're helpless against the problem, if that's all that we have. So verses 13 through 24 describe the futility that ensues when we seek to obey the Lord, addressing ourselves to him still, even as Christians through the law, in the law's power. in the resources that the law provides. The law helps us know and even delight in what is good, but the power of that knowledge is not in and of itself greater than the power of sin. Mere knowledge, brothers and sisters, is not the solution. That's what Paul says here. The problem is not merely that we are ignorant and we just needed more information, and when we get that information, we're good to go. Not at all. The problem is not our lack of education. That's not the human problem in general, right? Education is good. We need it. We promote it. We want to know the truth. But there's something more deeper going on here. The problem is greater that we ourselves are weak to do even what we know is right, and that sin is far stronger. It's part of what Paul means in verse 14 when he says, we are of the flesh. We're composed of flesh. He means we're weak. All flesh is as grass, scripture says, and its glory is the flower of grass. The grass withers. The flower fades, right? It's weak. It's temporary. It has no strength. It has no endurance. We're being compared to that. And so while the law provides knowledge about sin, it does not itself renew us. It does not change us. It does not enable us to do what it says. Thus, the futility described in this passage. A passage is not describing, then, the properly intended fullness of the Christian fight against sin. It's describing our limitations. It's describing the limitation even of the righteous law of God and the futility that we experience if we do seek to walk before the Lord, as Romans 7, 6 says, in the oldness of the letter. It's very important to understand. As Christians, we are not redeemed from sin in order to just take up the law again and try again. It's sometimes tempting to think about it that way, or we don't think about it fully enough. Christ has forgiven me so that I get to try again. I get a do-over. I can do better this time. Our passage says you can't. Not in yourself. We need to recognize our continued pervasive constitutional weakness in ourselves, our complete need for dependence upon the Spirit of God for sanctification and for change even now that we're Christians. We're no less dependent. It's very possible to try to pursue the Christian life in the wrong way then. Paul's warning against that in our own strength. What I need to be is just stricter with myself. I need to try harder. I need to give myself a stern talking to, look myself in the mirror, right? Lecture. Really feel guilty. The sermon is really good if it makes me feel really bad. That's part of the picture in the sense that we should feel guilt for our sin, right? We need to know the problem. Knowing the problem is part of what we need. But the Christian life is not a process of setting New Year's resolutions or mid-year resolutions or most of the way through the year resolutions and then being our own life coach and mustering up our own resolve and failing. Not because we shouldn't try, don't misunderstand me. Not because the Christian life is not a matter of great work and great effort, it is. Paul says in Philippians 2.12, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, right? We're created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God has prepared in advance that we should walk in them, right? Ephesians 2.10. Or the passage we read from Romans 6. Do not present the members of your body to sin. And we're to strive in this. But we need a decisive change within ourselves that does not come from the law. We need the Spirit renewing us inwardly, creating spiritual life and vitality where otherwise there was none. And apart from Him, there still would be none, giving us new affections and desires for what's right and thereby enabling us to walk in this obedience to which God calls us. Yes, the Christian life does require effort. Maybe some of us need to hear just that much, right? Passivity, laziness, not engaging spiritual things is all its own problem. But sometimes that problem comes, brothers and sisters, because when we look at the Christian life and think about it, we think about it wrongly and we feel despairing and then that's it. Well, I failed again, so I guess I'm just gonna do something else. Yes, the Christian life requires effort, great effort. Paul calls upon us for this. But even as we're called to work out our salvation with fear and trembling in Philippians 2.12, he says, for it is God who works in you to will and to work according to his good purpose, Philippians 2.13. And so when we read Romans 6 and Romans 8, which flank our passage this morning, we should notice that we see something different and additional than what we see in Romans 7. In Romans 7.23, notice, we see sin dwelling in my members outwardly alongside a delight for God's law inwardly. So sin and law, sin outwardly, law inwardly. When we read Romans 8, we see something very different than that in crucial ways. Yes, we see sin still dwelling in my members outwardly, but we see the Holy Spirit of the exalted Lord Jesus Christ in my heart. That is the good news for my progress in sanctification. That is the new creation of God. If Christ is in you, Paul says, Romans 8, 10, although the body is dead on account of sin, there's that outward problem that remains, right? The Spirit is life because of righteousness. Verse 12, so then, brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. We do need to put to death the deeds of the body. How can we do it? By the Spirit. For united to Christ by faith, we have his spirit within us, and it is this spirit who works new obedience. And apart from that, we're all stuck in Romans 7. It's like the Spirit of God gave life to Adam's still lifeless body at creation. This body formed from the dust of the ground had no life in it. It's a shape doing nothing, able to do nothing. The Spirit of God breathes into Adam and he becomes a living soul. able to fellowship with the Lord. He brings them into existence. The Spirit of God, in that same way, brings us into existence, spiritually speaking, from our deadness, our lifelessness, before we knew Christ, now to a new life by His enabling power within. And so when you read Romans 7, brothers and sisters, you may resonate with quite a lot of it. Yes, this is how I feel when I fight against my sin. I have so little success. But you need to say more than that. Remind ourselves, yes, of our own inability. That's what the passage says. I'm weak. Sin is strong. The law won't help me enough. It'll tell me some things, but it won't solve my problem. But that's not the way I should engage the Christian life. Turn back as well, then, to the Lord for his continued forgiveness and for his enabling power. Christian life takes great effort. It takes great effort in and through the power of God. And we need to call upon him to infuse us with that power, even as we prayed, Spirit of God, dwell thou within my heart in the hymn that we just sung. The power of our Lord and Savior who is resurrected and glorified, splendid in heaven. It's that same power that raised him that now works within us at the core of who we are. And to cast ourselves then on the Lord in prayer, engage the battle of sin by meditating on the promises of his word. Meditating on what is true of us now in Christ so that his life, Christ's life would course through us in greater and greater measure by an even fuller work of his spirit day by day. When we experience the futility of Romans 7, it's especially then that we can be motivated to prayer. Prayer for the greater blessing of the Spirit that isn't described in that passage is described in others. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? Verse 24. Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He has delivered me. He's put His Spirit within me, and He will redeem me fully, even transforming this body in the future. Romans 7. enhance within us a desire to die to ourselves, to die to our own resources, our own preferences, to desire to give ourselves more fully to God because there it is, there's the futility apart from that. There's that emptiness that continues to plague me. Go to the Lord in prayer, go to him in his word, attend worship. And not just doing these things outwardly or formally, but asking him, calling upon him to bless these things, to be steeped in this way of thinking. I am in Christ. Spirit of God, form Christ in me more and more. When we do this, We need to also understand something about verse 14 in particular, what it is and is not saying. So secondly, I want you to, I want to say and I want us to be clear that Paul is not saying in Romans 7, 14 that Christians united to the living Savior are presently sold under sin or enslaved to sin. He's instead saying that we once were sold under sin before, which reinforces his point about just how incapable we are ourselves with the mere resources of the law. The ESV, the NASB, which I read, others translate verse 14 in a way that's not incorrect, but I think it can be misunderstood pretty readily. When they say, I am of the flesh, sold under sin. This phrase, sold under sin, would really better be translated, having been sold under sin. For those of you Greek students, it's a perfect passive participle that would be a more traditional rendering of it. I think it's an important distinction in this case. The key difference is this. Paul does acknowledge here and directly state that he, as he speaks, has been sold under sin previously, but he's not saying that he is still sold under sin, still in its bondage, still has it as his master. To the contrary, this word, this same kind of word, really should be rendered having been or even once having been sold under sin. You see the same kind of word in Revelation 5.12. I'll just give you an example so you understand what I'm saying. Revelation 5.12, the exact same sort of word is used in the Greek, where it describes Christ in heaven as the lamb having been slain. And notice, the passage is stating that Christ in the past was slain on the cross. It is not stating that Christ is still slain and dead. That would be blasphemous, wouldn't it? But he has, in fact, been raised from the dead, and that's why John sees him glorified in the heavens as the exalted Savior. Christ, having once been slain, but no longer slain. You, having once been sold under sin, but no longer. Now, why do I say that? It's the grammar there in part, but it's also the surrounding text. What did we read in Romans 6? In Romans 6, 3, Paul says, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? And then in verse 6 of chapter 6, we know that our old self was crucified with Christ in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. There it is. Once sold under sin, but no longer. And in verse 10, the death Christ died. He died to sin once for all. In other words, he died to sinful temptation every time completely. Life he lives, he lives to God for our sake. And then verse 11, he says, so you also must consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Notice, brothers and sisters, it is a command. It is a command for how you and I must think of ourselves. You may not think of yourself, biblically, as enslaved to sin. You must think of yourself biblically as dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. And therefore, that's why he can, in verse 12 of chapter six, exhort, therefore let not sin reign in your mortal bodies to obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. Why, verse 14 of chapter six, for sin will have no dominion over you. since you are not under law but under grace. The Christian has been definitively freed from enslavement to sin. Yes, we continue to experience sin's presence and influence in our lives. The passage describes that too, right? Don't obey the passions of your body, it says. It recognizes the presence of sinful temptation even in our outer members, what it calls our body. The presence of sin, the influence of sin, yes. The dominion or mastery or complete control of sin, no. In Christ Jesus, you have been freed. Romans 6, Romans 8, Galatians 5, elsewhere, Christians are very clearly and repeatedly described as once having been sold under sin, yes, but no longer. because we're united to Christ, because his spirit dwells within us, though our bodies in particular continue to experience sins, temptations of all different sorts. We've also experienced, though, in the core of our being, at the center of the seat of who we are, in our hearts, our souls, a new dominion, a new master, Jesus, master whose I am, purchased, right? I've been bought with a price, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6. Being united to Christ brings a new condition in the innermost sanctum of my person. At the core of who I am is the Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God. His Spirit dwells within me, regenerating my heart giving me new affections, beginning that work which we need to fan into flame and encourage and promote, that those new affections would be the dominant affections, that they would grow and increase to put away the old man, the old self. and to live in this newness which God has given us. I've been reconstituted as a new man or woman in Christ. Paul says in Galatians 2.20, for example, he says, I am crucified with Christ, or I have been crucified with Christ. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And so the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. It's extremely important, brothers and sisters, to understand our new condition and our new identity in Jesus Christ. Once sold under sin, yes. Still sold under sin, no. In light of that, engage this fight to which we are called. been popular in our day for people to self-identify in various ways. Some people would want to speak in that context of a gay Christian, for example, right? Now if that means, if that phrase is used to mean that a true Christian can be very tempted by and even have an ongoing tendency towards homosexual sin, that's true. we can have ongoing weaknesses and temptations towards every sin, right? Not just that one. Heterosexual sin, anger, lust, covetousness, et cetera. If somebody means by the phrase like gay Christian that being a Christian and experiencing something like homosexual temptation are both equally unchanging parts of who I am, equally deep in me, That is not true. And it's not true of any other sin. Christians indeed may do struggle with homosexual temptation, every other sort of temptation. Some of those struggles are very, very deep, ongoing, protracted, discouraging at times, difficult. We need to think of ourselves with regard to every single sin in the right way. Not to identify ourselves with any sin. Not to believe that any sin is an inherent core aspect of who I am. The core of who I am, I am redeemed from sin. I'm Christ's and he is in me. Purchased by his blood. Everything else is more outer than that, you might say. It's more peripheral. It may be present in me, but it does not define me, is not who I am. I have been crucified with Christ and no longer live, but Christ Jesus lives in me, and therefore I can live the life of faith, strengthened by him. Not perfectly, but growingly. There are many other sins that we need to be aware of that we think about in this way. This is just who I am. No, it's not. Don't give yourself that excuse. It is not who you are. It is who you were. Paul in 1 Corinthians 6 verses 9 and 10 lists a whole litany of sins, the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, those who practice homosexuality, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, swindlers. All of these, he says, will not inherit the kingdom of God, 1 Corinthians 6, 10, and such were some of you, but you were washed. You were sanctified, meaning set apart. You were justified, meaning declared righteous before the Lord in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God. This is not who you are. Yeah, I've just never been patient. So in other words, don't expect me to be patient. I won't ever be patient. This is just who I am. I'm not patient. I mean, it's a relatively more trivial example, but the sort of things we tell ourselves, right? I'm just a very passionate person, meaning it doesn't really matter, I can't do anything about it if I'm very angry and explode, or if I'm lustful and indulge. It's just who I am. No, it's not. The gospel proclaims something more brilliant to you than that, more encouraging to you than that, more life-giving. Whatever particular sin we might struggle with, brothers and sisters, we should never define ourselves by it. We must think of ourselves, as Paul says, reckon yourself, think of yourself in this way, dead to sin, alive to God in Christ Jesus, still experiencing temptation, yes, but addressing it, seeking to address it, calling upon the Lord to help you address it in the power of the living God, your creator. And so when we read Romans 7 or Romans 7, 14 in particular, we say, yes, I am of the flesh. I am weak in myself, hopeless, futile, with the law at my disposal, just as bad. I've even been sold under sin before. That tells you exactly who I am. My life history in that regard is very important, but it's very important to know that something else has occurred. God has rescued me in Jesus Christ. He has put His Spirit in me, and so now I am called to and I am enabled to walk in newness of life, not in the old way of the letter, but in the fullness and the newness of the power of the Spirit. Let's pray. Gracious God, we know that we shift around from this We feel the pinch of it as your claim and your demand is much greater than we often allow it to be. But Father, the emptiness and the futility, the hurt, shame that we feel in our sin is no answer. We do not want that instead truly. And so we ask and we desire that you would change us and work in us that Christ's purposes in and for us would grow and come to more and more fruitfulness and that we would indeed more and more be changed. We seek this for our good, for our happiness. There's not happiness without that. We seek it for your glory and we ask it in Christ's name, amen.