Sermon Transcript
Good morning, church family.
Thank you. All right. Pastor Dan is taking a long deserved break. All right. So, but he is a very hard act to follow.
Okay. So I am scared to death here. So pray for me, please.
I’ve never preached in such a big congregation. So this is the first time. So in our conferences that we teach, it’s usually about 50 people, and then we have small groups. Okay, so that’s the setting that I’m used to. Okay, so today we’re going to get back into Romans to do a little review, right?
We’re in the 7th sermon. And today’s title will be New Life Through the New Way, Live the New Way. Okay, because it is really a continuation of last week’s lesson or sermon. Let’s walk through the 6 different sermons earlier.
Yeah, we went through the Gospel as the basics, and Paul’s talking to us about the gospel, and it’s from faith to faith, and it’s something that he’s not ashamed of. And the second one, we get into the second chapter, it’s the Gentiles and the Jews are really more alike than different. They’re really— they all sin and they all or fall short of the glory of God. So then in chapter 3, we looked at how Jesus has done everything for us, and what we have to do is to accept the payment. If we accept the payment, then we are, we’re in, as God will accept us.
And chapter 4, we talk about how do you actually become a Christian? How It really is based on faith. We’re back to, it is faith, because it talks about Abraham and how Abraham believed in God, and God had counted him as righteous. So his righteousness was given to him by God because he believed God, because of his faith. So I want to make one point here.
He was counted as righteousness. This counted is not like, well, you’re really not, but I’m going to let you slide and you will— I’ll count you as one of us. But no, it’s really a counting term. So in the original language, this counting is accounting. So in the accounting world, you either have the dough or you don’t.
So if you have the money, you’re ahead. If you don’t have money, it’s not there. So God is counting him righteous because he is righteous. God has imparted righteousness to him. So because he believes, he’s counted righteous.
So are we. We have believed God, believed in Jesus, and we received the payment. We are counted We are righteous. Okay, it’s not just we, you know, He let us slide.
5, chapter 5, freedom and confidence even in suffering, because we have a God that loves us so much that while we are still sinners, that He sent His Son to die for us. And with this kind of God, with this kind of love that’s long-suffering, We are— we have the confidence and the freedom, even if we are suffering, if our circumstances are not good. And last week, finally, resurrection. Paul tells us that because we are identified with Christ, when He gets nailed, when He was buried, we are united with Him. So therefore, even when He’s resurrected, we resurrect with Him as well.
So this, we really have a new life. We really have a new life. We have a new way of living. And, but then we talked about last week, let’s do a little review of last week because today’s lesson is actually a continuation. Because last time, the resurrection actually helped us create a freedom from sin and also a brand new life.
So he talked about 3 points. Old way to live was we were enslaved to sin and death, and the new way to live is we’re united with Christ. And verse 4 in chapter 6 says, we too might walk in in the newness of life. Just like Christ, when He arose, He walked in a new life. And sin will no longer have dominion over us.
Okay, sin shall not be my master anymore. And he talked about how to live it. And this is to surrender to Christ, because we’re now under grace, and we need to surrender to ourselves and our bodies to God as instruments of righteousness. So today, as we go into the new chapter, we really are extending what this topic is. How do we live?
How do we really live? And this new life is, how is it different than the old? Because Well, let’s pray and then we’ll look at the Scripture. Okay? Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for this opportunity that we get to look at Your words together.
And I ask You to anoint the speaker because he is very weak. He is not able himself, but I know that You are able and Your Spirit is here with us. And You are going to teach us Your words. So I give the following time to Your hands, and we ask that You will glorify Your own name. Pray in Jesus, Your holy name.
Amen. All right. If— let’s read verse 1 to 6 together, okay? Let’s read that. Romans 7:1-6.
Feel free to follow along. Or read out loud, brothers, for I am speaking to those who know the law, that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives. For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress.
Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. Okay, thank you, Marilyn. Uh, Maylin, sorry.
So let’s take a look at this. Paul is continuing because he says, or do you not know? So that means the people that he’s talking to may have this continuation of a question. And they should know this, because I am speaking to those who know the law. And the law is binding to a person only as long as he lives.
So he uses a marriage example of how the law applies. You know, with the marriage law, it’s only binding when both of them are alive, right? If one dies, then it doesn’t matter anymore. So it’s very simple, and he’s laying it out as, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive, right? So this is very simple.
He’s just saying, Likewise, in verse 4, you also are died to the law through the body of Christ. So this goes back to the— we’re united with Christ as we died and then we rose again with Him. So that you may belong to another. To who? To Him who has been raised from the dead.
So this is Jesus, right? So we now belong to Jesus. It’s almost like the marriage metaphor again here, that we are actually dead to the law, but now we’re married to Jesus.
Now, the purpose of this marrying or this belonging is in order that we may bear fruit for God. So now that we as a new person, as a new— have a new life, Our purpose now is living to bear fruit for God. Bearing fruit is a visual, right? It’s a tree. So we are now becoming a tree that God has planted, and He wants to eat the fruit from the tree.
So our desire now is to serve God by bearing fruit for God. And that’s the purpose of our new life. Don’t you, as a Christian, you want to serve God? You want to, you want to do the right things for God, right? So that’s why we all volunteer and we do different things.
That’s why I’m standing up here so nervous, you know. But I do want to serve God. So I hope I can have some good fruit for Him. Now, we are We are living for when we were. So he goes back a little bit.
So we’re on verse 5. So we were living in the flesh, so our sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. So this is the old way. Okay, so this goes back to last week’s, the old way we’re enslaved by sin. And this tells a little bit more of how the dynamics worked.
And because of the law, and you actually get aroused by the law, and you produce fruit for death. So, but now he’s saying, in the same way, we are released from the law. We don’t have this law, and also the law doesn’t cause the arousal to sin now, to come up with a sinful passion. So now you’re— we’re no longer held captive, and so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the letter, written code. So we’re going to serve God or bear fruit, we have to serve in the new way of the Spirit.
So this is very different than the old way. The old way is the written code or the letter. It’s not the software code. Okay, so it’s the letter. Okay, so it’s how you do not do this and do not do that.
So that’s the code, but we’re released from that now. Now the question here is, Don’t we need the law? Didn’t Jesus come, and then in Matthew 5, He said, I didn’t come to abolish the law, but I came here to fulfill it. And if anyone takes away any of these, you’re in big trouble. And He said, also said that if your righteousness does not surpass the scribes’ and the Pharisees’ righteousness, you shall not enter heaven.
So Jesus, didn’t He give us a whole bunch of new laws or new Christian standards that we need to follow?
That is a question that in your life group you can discuss, okay? But I’m going to show you what Paul is saying here, because he’s saying you’re not bound by the law anymore. You’re not serving the letter. You’re not serving the rules anymore, but you need to serve in the new way of the Spirit. So let’s see how, what difference that makes.
Our new lives are dead to the law, but we are alive to the resurrected Christ. So this slide is just saying, summarizing that before we go through to bear new fruits, Paul has caused us to think about what about the law? Because the law is good. And Jesus even gave more, more, you know, so-called laws. And so how are we to deal with this dichotomy here?
Let’s read the next section from 7 to 13. Romans 7:7-13. 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. But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.
For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good then bring death to me? By no means! It was sin producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
Okay, so look at this, the law versus sin, because the question came— Paul was anticipating a question. So, well then, Is the law become sin, or is law sin? But definitely not, right? We knew that it’s not. Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.
Like he uses the example of, you shall not covet. You shall not covet. But then he’s saying if he doesn’t have that law, then he wouldn’t even know what it means to to covet. Because sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment or the law, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law sin is dead.
Let me give you an example, maybe in a parking lot. Okay, if you go to a parking lot, it’s like free parking.
Okay, is there any kind of thoughts that will come into your mind as to, am I in trouble with anything? No, right? It’s just free parking. So sin has no place, has no opportunity there. Sin lies dead.
Now, I come to the parking lot. Free parking except for these hours. All right, now, oops, I’m— 2 more hours and it’ll be free parking, but I’m here now. And sin comes to me to say, it doesn’t matter. There’s nobody, there’s not that many cars, so who cares?
And then sin also says, well, it’s the weekend. So the police are probably not working anyways. Nobody’s going to give you a ticket. So sin has the opportunity because there’s a law, because there’s a commandment, there’s a rule. Then he comes and that’s his opportunity to raise all these sinful passions within you.
And also at this point, Paul has shifted from the concept of sin, the idea of sin, to use this literary device of personification. Sin now becomes a person in this case. It takes on a personality. He wants to show how bad this is. That’s why he’s like, sin is a person.
He’s this monster of a person. He comes to challenge you. That he wants to kill you, right? So he uses this example. Now we can apply this example to many different things.
If you were driving on the Autobahn in Germany, I go to Germany quite a bit to teach the Chinese people in Germany. So if you’re on the Autobahn, there’s no speed limit. You can drive as far— as fast as you can. So there’s no voices or there’s no sin coming to challenge you to say, you know, how fast you should drive. But we have 65 sign on our freeways here.
So sin comes to me and says, why are you driving 65? Everybody else is going at least 70. Okay, and you know, you will get cut off if you drive too slow. So sin takes the opportunity when there’s a commandment. Now Paul is saying the commandments that promise life prove to be death to me.
The commandment caused sin to come and challenge and to kill people But then the commandment supposed to promise life, right? Such as the speed limit. What’s the reason for the speed limit? For safety, right? It wants to make sure people are safe because you’re not driving too fast.
But because of this commandment, it’s supposed to promise life, it actually created more trouble for me because sin takes the opportunity to come and arouse me. If you think about Adam and Eve, what’s the commandment that God gave them? Do not eat from this tree. You can eat everything else, but do not eat from this tree because the day you eat it, you will die. So the commandment really is promised life, saying, don’t do this Because I’m warning you, because if you do this, it’s not good for you.
It promises life. If you do this, you live. And also when Moses gave all the commandments, or God gave Moses the commandments in the desert, really all these commandments or the laws are for their own benefits, how to live as a nation of God, how you live. That’s— those are all good things. They all promise life.
However, sin seized the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, or deceived Adam and Eve, and they fell for it. And it actually killed them. Right? So today, if I focus on the commandments, if I focus on the laws, I get in the same kind of trouble. That’s why Paul summarized saying, so the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and righteous, and good.
But did that which is good then bring death to me? How can that, you know, God’s law, how can it actually result in death in me? It’s not. He’s saying it really is not the law. It was sin.
I’m in verse 13, producing death in me through that which is good, which is the law, in order that— the purpose of this really is to show sin is sin. Sin is sin. And even more, to show that the The sin is sinful beyond measure. He’s using the person, right? The sin, the monster, he is very sinful, is sinful beyond measure.
It causes all kinds of trouble because God’s law is good and holy, but sin is very sinful. All right, so he made his point. I think we’re all clear about that.
And commandments, God’s laws, God’s advice to us is always good. God loves us like a loving Father. You know, I read Proverbs all the time. It has 31 chapters, so I try to read one every day according to the chapter. Proverbs is full full of like, my son, do this, remember this, lest you die.
You don’t want to die, right? Listen to me, do this. So God is always well-meaning. God loves us so much, He wants us to listen to Him. But sin, it has always been the troublemaker from day one, from the beginning.
It’s sin that causes us to get in trouble. So God showed— Paul is showing us how we get in trouble if we follow the old way. If we still focus on trying to live by the law or by the rules, this is how you get in trouble. All right, so let’s read the next section. Romans 7, verses 14 to 23.
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do not— if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.
For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
Okay, thank you. And Paul, with this new life, he has— he grew up as a Pharisee, and he was a good Pharisee as well because he’s also a scholar. He’s actually like a seminary professor type, but he finds himself always in this struggle. Why is that? He’s now a new person.
He’s under grace now, but he’s still having trouble with sin. Okay, so he says, He does what he doesn’t want to do, right? I don’t want to read this over again because it will twist my tongue, but she’s already went through this. So follow along on the screen. I agree with the law.
He definitely agreed with the law. Even before he became a Christian, he believed, he agreed with the law. But now he understands that he has to struggle Even when he was a Pharisee, he goes through this struggle, because he’s living in the old way. And, but now he’s saying he understands, it’s no longer I that did the wrong things, but sin dwelling in me is the one that’s causing the trouble. And, you know, it almost sounds like he’s trying to give an confused, because he made sin a person.
So he’s like, sin dwelling in me is the one that does it. So it’s almost like he’s saying, okay, I’m not the person. But let’s see why he said that, or the split of personality. How does that come about?
And he said, nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. Okay, so there’s— he’s trying to say that there’s a part of him, the flesh, is not good. And because I have the desire to do what’s right, but I don’t have the ability to carry it out. You know, we carry out our desires through our flesh or through our body, our members. So I don’t think he’s only talking about the meat part, or the physical part.
There’s also the part of the cognition, the brain, and the thought process, because that really is part of carrying things out, right? So, but he’s saying, I have the desire to do what’s right, but not the ability, because he does not do what he wants. Okay, and in verse 20, he repeats that again. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So what do you mean it’s not you, but you did?
If I do what I don’t want, but it’s not me. Therefore, he’s trying to have some kind of separation with himself and this flesh. And I find it to be a law, in verse 21, that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. So this law here is not to be confused with God’s law. I found it to be a law or a rule or a result that when I want to do right, evil lies at hand.
All right. So, for I delight in the law of God, So here we go. So first he said, I am, I really, I want to do the right things. But now in verse 22, the answer comes out. My inner being is the one that delights in the law of God.
What does it mean, inner being? When you say inner, that means there’s an outer. So when he was trying to say that there’s nothing good is in his flesh. The flesh is the outer. So in Pauline theology, there’s 2 parts to a human, the inner person and the outer person.
Okay, to him, there’s not like— there’s other theology that talks about 3 parts, like spirit, mind, body, or— but in Paul’s theology, there’s 2 parts, inner and outer. So he’s saying the inner being loves God’s law and wants to follow. But I see in my members, this is the outer, outer man, another law waging war against the law of my mind. So he is saying the inner man is the real Paul, because we have been regenerated. We have resurrected with God again.
So the inner man of me is the real Mark. What I carry out, it really is sin that could affect my outer person. So this is not for the purpose of like excuse or assigning fault, really. He’s just telling you the truth that our inside The inner man has been renewed, has been redeemed 100%. You, the real you, the real Mark, has been redeemed 100%.
But I live in this shell. I live in this flawed shell that’s not redeemed. So therefore, I have trouble. Sometimes I can’t, I can’t follow through. I can’t do what I want to do.
I can’t do, you know, the good that I know.
Lord of the Rings, right? Pastor Dan always uses Lord of the Rings, but I’ve never read it. So I use the example from Iron Man. Okay, the Iron Man has a suit, right? He flies in the suit.
It’s It’s more like the Iron Man suit that has a software bug in it, that you can’t— it just doesn’t listen to him all the time. He has trouble with the suit. That’s the inside person is the real Tony Stark. He’s the person, but the suit is not him. Suit is what he wants to use, and it represents what he wants to achieved.
So we, as the inner man, we’ve been redeemed 100%. You are a saint. We are saints. But our outer self is not. It has not been redeemed.
That’s why this happens. And sin seizes the opportunity whenever there’s law, whenever you want to follow the law, sin comes to tempt you, to challenge you.
I love my mom. Okay. She used— she lived by herself. So I would call her every day, and I would visit her at least once a week. But recently she’s actually had some trouble, so she’s at a rehab center.
Anyways, when I used to visit her, she wants me to visit her all the time, of course, right? And she wants me to call her every day. If I forget to call her, she will be really upset and she will say, you know, why didn’t you call me? If I died, you wouldn’t even know. You know, that kind of thing.
So I decided, okay, I need to have a way to always remind me to call him. So I set an alarm on my phone, 4 o’clock. 4 o’clock, it comes. Okay, I need to call. But sometimes I was busy, so I just mute the alarm.
So, and I forget again. So I have 2 alarms. I have another alarm at 8, because she goes to sleep at 9. So I have to call her at 8. So those actually became my laws, okay?
I need to call her every day. So when I have those laws, guess what happens? Sin comes to challenge. It says, why do you have to do that all the time? Your brothers and sisters never do that.
You know, why do you— why are you the one that’s always having to? And No, she’s so selfish. Why, you know, you’re busy, you’re serving God in many different ways. You know, she needs to know that. So sin comes to challenge me.
And then, but I still have to call her, right? So I call her, hi, Mom, calling you. How are you doing? And then after I talked a couple of phrases, and then she’s like, Do you really want to talk to me?
Why are you calling me? I’m hanging up on you. So I get really mad too, and she’s mad, I’m mad. So we’re both in sin, and it just kills me, right? It kills the relationship.
So that’s an example of if there’s a law, get in trouble. Now, my mom has been in the rehab, and she’s, you know, she’s been suffering from a spine fracture. Now, I go to the rehab center to see her every day, and I want to know how she’s doing. And if I can’t go, I’ll call her. I didn’t need any alarm.
I didn’t set any alarms because I don’t need it. This is serving in the Spirit. This is serving in the Spirit because I really, in God’s Spirit, in my fruit of the Spirit, I have natural love and affection for her, and I’m caring for her. I don’t need the alarm. The alarm is going to give me trouble, right?
But I don’t need the alarm when I serve her. So the old way and the new way is very different. So we need to go get away from trying to do the right thing, and we come to surrender ourselves to Jesus. We come to surrender. The problem is the body.
The body is the body of death. Paul calls it the body of death. Okay, next slide.
Oh wait, you don’t have the body of death. Oh, sorry. Okay. Oh, there it is. Okay.
So the problem is the body. It’s the flawed Iron Man suit, that it doesn’t listen, because sin lives in it. Sin still lives there. Sin is dead. He has no power over us.
But if we try to work so hard to achieve things on our own, sin comes alive. So you got to be careful of that. That’s how we live as a new person.
And Paul, the next verse, yeah, yeah, okay. God is still our only hope. To bear fruit for God, we still go back to Him, and we go back to the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit will empower us to do the right thing instead of us put our nose to the grind to try to come up with the right way. And verse 6, if you want one verse to take home with us, verse 6. This really summarizes how we live.
Okay, Paul cries out. Okay, we get to the end of the chapter, the cry. I’m going to read this part. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
It’s like, I’m trapped in this body. I can’t, in this life, I have nowhere to go. I am trapped and I’m tethered to this body. And there’s no way out, seems like.
And this word wretched, you know, it’s not a, like, a common word. I don’t know, usually I didn’t know what that means, so I had to look it up. And in the original Greek, I don’t know Greek, I just looked up what it means. Okay. Greek is kallist.
So that means it’s being worn down so much it becomes calloused. And also it means that it’s a very miserable state. So he is so miserable. He said, wretched man that I am. So he’s battling, he’s trying to do the right thing, but he can’t.
And maybe he can once in a while, and maybe it was outwardly done right, like me calling my mom. But, you know, the heart wasn’t there. So he’s so frustrated and so miserable. He said, wretched man that I am. He said, who will deliver me?
He didn’t say, notice, he didn’t say, how would I get out of this? He said, who? Because Paul already knew the answer. He was just playing with us, right? He’s just trying to get us into what he wants to say.
He knew the answer. We have to give back to Jesus. The Sunday school answer. Your who is Jesus. Jesus started the salvation.
He saved you. He will save you continually as you live your life. So we need to give back to God, give back to Him, to surrender ourselves and Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, he uses 3 different nouns here. Jesus means He saves His people from sin.
Christ, He is the Messiah. He’s God’s Son. He’s the Creator. He’s the King of the universe. And He is our Lord because He is our new Master.
So coming back to Him, He’s the one that’s going to save us. He’s the one that will deliver us from this struggle that we experience. So he concludes, I myself serve the Lord God with my mind. So he’s saying he, Paul, he is— Paul is the person that serves the Lord God with my mind. But if I try so hard on myself, my own, my— I will— my flesh, I serve the lord of sin.
So we have the flawed flesh, and that’s the problem.
To go back, I actually got permission to go into chapter 8 for 2 verses. Okay, he’s going to repeat this, but this will give us more hope, really. Chapter 8 really tells us how we work with the Spirit, how the Holy Spirit helps us, and how we really live out the triumphant life in God’s new way, a new life. Okay, so our old ways, if we go back to the old ways, it cannot fulfill God’s law. That’s why Jesus said He’s here to fulfill, because He gave us a new life to fulfill.
It’s not a new way to fulfill God’s law. He gives us a new life. This life, if you follow the Spirit, you will never do anything against the law. You are not under law anymore. You’re under grace.
And God’s Spirit will not do anything against God’s law. So we need to just follow the Spirit.
Yeah, everything here is just repeating. The next slide is just repeating the conclusion. So let’s close with a word of prayer. Let’s close with a word Let’s have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for taking us through this chapter because it’s a very practical experience that Paul has gone through.
He was a good Pharisee. He knew all the laws and he tried to follow all the laws, but yet he has so much struggle. And he believed in you and believed in the gospel, and he knows that he is saved by faith. And with faith, he became a Christian, he become a new person, and with faith, he will live the Christian life. And so will we.
So help us to follow Paul. Help us to understand and try to do— try to come to You more than trying to do the right thing. Help us to come to the Spirit and have the Holy Spirit empower us, have the Holy Spirit fill us, so we will live the way You want us to. Thank You so much for this morning. And we pray this in Jesus Christ, our Lord, Your Son’s name.
Amen. Amen.
