Romans 7:1-6

Take out your copy of God's Word. I hope you have it with you today. Romans chapter 7.

Romans 7 · chapter mention

As you're doing so, I'd like to say welcome to our guests. It's really good to have you here this morning.

! I hope that your family time is precious as you're visiting the area.

We've been working our way together as a church through the book of Romans, verse by verse, as we love to do.

But before I read Romans chapter 7, verse 1 through 6, I'm going to tell you that we're not going to spend a lot of time in it this morning.

Romans 7:1–6

As a preacher, I've been doing this for a while, and there are times in my preparation that I'm led to do something a bit different than what the original plan was.

I have notes actually prepared. I can scroll on down and see them for this text.

This morning, though, as I was reviewing them, I was led elsewhere.

So we're going to read this together. It doesn't totally depart from the text and the meaning of the text,

but we're going to spend a little bit of time in the book of Luke this morning.

Let's begin this morning by reading verses 1 through 6 of chapter 7.

Let's read some of those.

And if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress.

Likewise, my brothers, you have also 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,

nor 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.

Let's pray together.

Father God, I thank you very much for this morning, and I thank you for your written word.

And I pray, Father, this morning you will add to us knowledge and understanding

that yields itself in wisdom for righteous living.

We look to you for these things.

We are incapable of speaking your word, of understanding it, of applying it,

knowing it whatsoever apart from you.

So we look to you to intervene this morning.

We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Well, not to completely neglect our text this morning,

we have been led up to this point by Paul through a rather logical and linear argument

to essentially say to us that there is a law of God given to man to expose our sinfulness.

We worship a holy God who is entirely set apart, who dwells in righteousness.

And the law was given to us to show us how short we come of that righteousness.

I told you last week that the law demands two things of us.

It demands fulfillment and it demands condemnation.

It demands fulfillment and it demands condemnation.

Look at Romans chapter 2, verse 12 through 15.

Romans 2:12–15

First part of 15.

For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law.

And all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.

So those with the Mosaic law, those without the Mosaic law.

Anyone who sinned will die by that law.

For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God,

but the doers of the law who will be justified.

For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires,

they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.

They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts.

So we have working here throughout Romans two different types of law, if you'll allow me.

The Mosaic law, those ten commandments and the commandments surrounding it

that were given to Moses on Mount Sinai to give to the people of Israel.

But we also have what's been commonly called the moral law.

Those things that are written on our hearts.

Those things we know are right and those things that we know are wrong.

Interestingly, there's no article in the original language.

We read all through the book of Romans, the law, the law, the law.

There is no article, but in order for it to make sense in English, we must add an article to it.

So he's simply saying law, speaking generally of both types of law.

And both types demand fulfillment and condemnation.

Just because we have to place our faith in Christ doesn't mean that the law doesn't need to be fulfilled any longer.

Understand that the law must be kept.

But it's kept in Christ.

I'll explain that a bit more in a bit.

But also because the law has been transgressed.

It demands condemnation.

Those who have transgressed the law must pay the due punishment for that transgression.

Now this is the beauty of the person and work of Christ.

Because he meets both of those requirements on our behalf.

Because he lived a perfect life.

It's so important to our Christology that we understand that Christ lived a perfect, blameless life.

But he fulfilled the law.

And because he died and bore the wrath of God for the sins of the church,

he also met the requirement of the condemnation of the law.

Now for us it's impossible.

We can not fulfill the law on our own.

Nathan, I can work my darndest.

I could spend all of my time trying to obey the law.

And it is impossible.

Because of the sinful inclination of my heart that I inherited from Adam.

Impossible.

I will not accomplish it.

But in Christ, my faith placed in Christ, it has been fulfilled.

Such a beautiful, beautiful truth.

2 Corinthians 5.21

Paul writes,

For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin,

so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Christopher Hitchens, you guys know who that is.

An outspoken atheist.

I think he actually at one point called himself a militant anti-Christian.

Very well known for much of what he said against Christianity.

Passed away this week.

And you get online, there's some wonderful, wonderful articles written about that.

But he believed that Christianity was immoral.

He believed that for us as Christians to place our guilt upon the shoulders of Christ is immoral.

That we ought not give away what is rightly ours to bear.

The guilt of our sin against God.

It's a man that doesn't believe in God, which is ironic in that case.

So that Christianity is immoral.

But the problem with this thinking is that he believes that we cast our guilt on Christ's shoulders.

And the reality of it is that Christ took it from us.

You have no choice in that matter.

If you are his, he took it from you.

Oh, what a Christ we praise.

So as I was thinking about these truths, as we see in Romans chapter 7,

Romans 7 · chapter mention

that we have been set free from service to the law and we've been bound up with another.

That is Christ.

In him.

To serve him.

And that in that, we will live righteous lives.

As I'm thinking about this, my mind is just pulled to my favorite parable.

And that's where I want to spend our time today.

In Luke chapter 15, the parable of the prodigal son.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

So if you'll please turn there with me.

Because the intention to do this this morning came to me at about 645.

I don't have notes.

So this will be a new experience for you and for me.

I'm just going to stop as we read through this together and give you my own commentary to it.

And we'll sum it up at the end.

But I want to start by having you look at the beginning of chapter 15 at verse 2.

Because this is the stage that's set for this parable to be told.

It actually comes after two parables before it.

Verse 2 says,

And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying,

This man received sinners and eats with them.

They've got a group of people that were very religious for our terms.

They believed that they followed the law to the letter.

They believed that their righteousness was found in their effort to keep the law.

And they gather around Jesus and they say,

Look at this man.

He eats with sinners.

How dare he?

How could he possibly make himself unclean by even associating with people such as these?

And these parables are the parables that Jesus tells in response to that.

And so read with me, beginning in verse 11.

And he said, Jesus,

There was a man who had two sons.

And the younger of them said to his father,

Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.

This story was a shock and awe story.

For the group he was speaking to.

And I'm going to show you along the way why it would have been that way.

But here's the first point.

As these Jewish people are gathering around him.

The son says to the father,

Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.

In Jewish culture, this would have been him saying to his father,

Father, I wish you were dead.

There is something due me when you die, but I want it now.

In Jewish culture, that would have been him saying,

I hate you.

I wish you were dead.

I wish you would just go ahead and kick off so I could have what is mine.

Got your attention?

And the father, he divided his property between them.

Not many days later, the young son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country.

And there he squandered his property in reckless living or licentious living or prodigal living.

It simply means extravagant.

He spent it, boy.

We see later, the other son points out that he spent it on prostitutes.

Verse 14.

And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country and he began to be in need.

So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.

And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate.

And no one gave him anything.

Now understand at this point in the story, once again, the shock that would have come upon these Jewish listeners to this story.

He had brought himself so low that in their society, he got the lowest possible job.

The worst job you could have.

I'm not going to list jobs in our society because somebody may have that job here.

But think of the worst possible job in your mind to have in our society.

That's the one he had.

He had been brought so low as a son of Israel.

He had gone to another country and hired himself out to feed pigs.

And he was in such desperate need that he wanted what the pigs were eating.

Now the pods that the pigs were eating is something that we couldn't even digest.

They were fed to the pigs because the pigs have a special, I don't know, stomach.

Pigs are special in this way and they can consume all kinds of stuff that we cannot consume.

And these pods were one of those things.

He was so desperately hungry that he even wanted to eat that to fill his stomach.

Verse 17, but when he came to himself, and this is such an interesting phrase in the original language,

literally means when his mind was made right.

When his mind was made right.

He said, how many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread,

but I perish here with hunger.

I will arise and go to my father and I will say to him,

Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

Treat me as one of your hired servants.

And he arose and came to his father.

He was brought so low, but when his mind was made right,

what does he say?

I have a father who's so generous,

whose mercy abounds to his servants.

It would be better for me to be one of them.

And he humbles himself.

His mind is right.

Father, I have sinned against you and God.

And he goes to his father.

But while he was still a long way off,

his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced and kissed him.

Third shock moment for the Jewish culture.

This man was a wealthy man,

which meant that he would have had a house in town.

And he also would have had a house out in the country.

He would have had a place that the servants stayed out in the country to tend for his fields.

But he would have had a house in town where he could trade and be a well-to-do and have parties

and people would know him.

And he could be social in that way.

What's implied here is that while the son was returning,

the father was watching for him.

That the father cared enough for him

that he was pacing the front porch of his town home

looking for him to come.

Otherwise, why would he have seen him coming from a long way off?

And what does he do?

He has compassion and he runs to him.

Rich people didn't run.

In this day.

You did not run.

You had servants that ran for you.

You said, go run and grab me my ledger.

And they were the lowly ones that took off running.

This man would have been wearing a long robe.

In order for him to run,

he would have had to pull it up,

hike it up high enough for him to run.

And he ran.

He disgraced himself for the sake of his son.

You guys getting who the father is in the story?

He's Jesus Christ.

He's Jesus Christ who disgraced himself on the cross for us,

who was stripped naked and beaten and hung as a spectacle for all to see on our behalf.

Also in this culture,

you know the Jews had, by Mosaic law,

had the right to stone to death a disobedient child?

Children, you hear that?

They had the right to do it.

The child was disobedient.

They could take him outside the gate and they could stone him to death.

Now, very few, I would even venture to say,

no parents actually did that.

I believe the law was in place to show the children how important it was to obey your parents.

However, a very common practice for a disobedient child

was to lock them in the town square in stocks.

You've seen that in the medieval times.

Head goes through a hole, hands through a hole, and they get locked.

And they become a spectacle, a disgrace.

The father would put his son on display for everyone to see.

Disobedient child.

Look at this son that I have that doesn't obey me.

This father disgraces himself,

and he runs out of the town to meet his son

before any disgrace can be delivered to him.

Before any of the town folk,

who I'm sure knew by now what had happened,

jested and jeered at him,

demanded that he be locked in the stocks.

He runs out beforehand and meets him.

As he's coming in.

Look at the joy that the father has to see him too,

as he's waited for him for all this time.

Run out to embrace him.

And to kiss him.

Verse 21.

And the son said to him,

as he had planned to,

Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

But the father said to his servants,

bring quickly the best robe and put it on him.

And put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet.

And bring the fattened calf and kill it.

And let us eat and celebrate.

For this my son was dead and is alive again.

He was lost and is found.

And they began to celebrate.

So he has a servant run back to town.

Bring out of town,

before he escorts him in,

the best robe.

Clothes him.

In that thing that would have said to everybody,

this is still my son.

He will not be locked in the stocks.

He will not be made a disgrace of.

Because he is mine.

Put on him a ring.

The significance here would have been

that it would have been one of his rings.

A signet ring.

That ring that had his stamp,

his seal in it.

So when he wrote a letter

and sealed it with wax

and stamped his sign in that,

people knew this is a message

from the rich man.

He placed that ring

on the son's finger.

The ring that would have said,

this son speaks for me.

And then he put shoes on his feet.

It was a sign of wealth.

Welcome back to the family's son.

And they take the fattened calf.

A rich man always had a calf

hanging out.

Doing no activity.

But being fed very well.

Those of you steak lovers out there know,

how good meat is

when it's being prepared

to be eaten.

For no other reason

but to eat it.

It's much better that way.

And he would have had this fattened calf.

It would have been

kept waiting

for a big celebration.

The biggest thing

that could have happened.

Possibly the older son

being married.

That could have been

why it was being prepared

that the older son

was approaching that age.

But it was slaughtered

for the sake

of the prodigal son.

And they began to celebrate.

Verse 25.

Now his older son

was in the field

and he came and drew near to the house.

He heard music

and dancing.

And he called one of the servants

and asked what

these things meant.

And he said to him,

Your brother has come

and your father has killed

the fattened calf

because he has received him back

safe and sound.

But he was angry

and refused to go in.

His father came out

and entreated him.

But he answered his father,

Look, these many years

I have served you

and I never disobeyed

your command.

Yet you never gave me

a young goat

that I might celebrate

with my friends.

But when the son of yours came

who has devoured

your property

with prostitutes,

you killed the fattened calf

for him.

And he said to him,

Son,

you are always with me

and all that is mine

is yours.

It was fitting to celebrate

and be glad

for this your brother

was dead and is alive.

He was lost

and is found.

So here we see the older son

who isn't even willing

to approach the house.

His father is throwing a party

and he's not going to go

to his father to ask why.

He asks one of the servants,

What does this mean?

What is going on at the house?

Why?

Such a charade

going on there.

And he's mad.

He's furious

at what has happened.

His father comes out to him.

Note that.

His father comes out

of the house to him

and says,

Please, come in.

Join us in the celebration.

My joy would be complete

if my sons were together.

Once again,

he says,

Father,

all these years

I have served you.

And what have you done for me?

Nothing.

But yet,

you'll give everything

to the son.

What a picture

this is

of grace to us.

What a beautiful,

beautiful story

it is.

And my question for you

this morning

is,

which of the characters

are you

in the story?

I believe there are

three

you can be.

You can be the

prodigal version

of the younger son.

You can be that person

that says to God,

I hate you.

I wish you were dead.

Just give me what is mine.

Let me go on my way.

Your ways

mean nothing to me.

Your law

given to me,

that's not the way

for me to be happy.

I'm going to follow

my own philosophy

of happiness

in this life.

I'm going to chase it

with all that I am.

If you're that person,

I would say to you,

you're going to be

brought low.

Whether in this life

now

or

eternally,

certainly eternally,

you will be brought low.

You will

beg to be satisfied

on things that

will not satisfy you.

are you the

prodigal son

returned?

It's the

second

person you could be.

The prodigal son

returned.

Have you placed

your faith

in Christ?

Have you said

humbly

of yourself,

I have sinned

against you.

I'm not

even

worthy

to be called

your son.

but yet

you have found

yourself

clothed

in the

righteousness

of Christ.

You've been

given a ring

that you might

speak on behalf

of him

who has loved you

with such a

magnificent

love.

I hope that's

where we all

find ourselves

this morning.

That's the place

we want to be

with our identity

wrapped up

in the personal

work of Christ

because Christ

is the

only

person

that can

meet the

demands

of the

law.

Are you

the older

son?

I'm the

older son

sometimes.

I hope

not all

the time.

I hope

not the

majority

of the

time.

But I'm

the older

son.

I believe

I have

some

right

to the

things of

God.

I believe

that I

have

earned

that.

And I

get mad

when I

see him

merciful

towards

other

people.

God,

look at

all that

I do

for you.

What do

I get

in return?

I don't

even get

a goat

to party

with my

friends,

and yet

you've

killed

the

fattened

calf

for him

or for

her.

I believe

that the

job of

the

older

son

in this

story

should

have

been

to

pursue

the

younger

son.

To

love

the

things

that

his

father

loves.

To

have

been

about

that

work.

Here's

his

father

pacing

the

porch

of the

town

home.

The

son

should

have

been

out

there

finding

the

younger

son,

reminding

him

of how

merciful

his

father

is,

and

bringing

him

home.

too

often

we

don't

do

that.

We

hold

holy

club

meetings.

We

feel so

entitled

to so

much

as

Christians

rather

than

saying,

Father,

I have

sinned

against

you,

and I

do not

deserve to

be called

your son,

but I

praise you

that I

am,

that you

have

clothed

me in

this

way,

that you

have

given

me

your

way,

that you

have

put

shoes

on

my

feet.

What

a

blessing

that

is.

Look up

a bit

in

chapter

15

to the

parable

of the

lost

sheep.

This

is how

he

immediately

answers

that

question.

This

man

receives

sinners

and

eats

with

them.

He

says,

so

he

told

him

this

parable,

what

man

of

you,

having

a

hundred

sheep,

if he

has

lost

one

of

them,

does

not

leave

the

ninety-nine

in

the

open

country

and

go

after

the

one

that

is

lost

until

he

finds

it.

And

when

he

has

found

it,

he

lays

it

on

his

shoulders,

rejoicing.

And

when

he

comes

home,

he

calls

together

his

friends

and

his

neighbors,

saying

to

them,

rejoice

with

me,

for

I

found

my

sheep

that

was

lost.

Just

so I

people

who

didn't

need

repentance.

He

doesn't

mean

that.

What

he's

talking

about

are

these

Pharisees,

these

people

who

didn't

think

they

needed

repentance,

who

sought

to reach

to God

by obeying

the law.

There's

no rejoicing

over heaven

for them.

There's

great

rejoicing

for that

person

who

realizes

through

faith

that they

can't

and

believes

by

grace

that

Jesus

can

on

their

behalf.

I

want

us

to be

a

church.

Those

of you

who are

guests,

wherever

you

go,

I

want

us

to be

believers

who

act as

the

son

upon

his

return,

who

are

about

the

work

of

our

father.

I

don't

want

Christ

Family

Church

to be

a

club.

In

so

many

ways,

it's

not,

but

in

some

ways,

it is.

We

need to

be

searching

our

hearts,

asking

God to

expose

the

sinfulness

of them,

that we

might come

together in

this way.

Our

text,

Romans 7,

1-6,

which we

will get

back to

probably

after

Christmas.

Verse 4

says that

we've been

bound to

Christ,

that we

belong

to

another

in

order

that

we

may

bear

fruit

for

God.

And in

Galatians

5.13,

Paul wrote,

For you

were called

to freedom,

brothers,

set free

from the

bondage

of sin.

Only do

not use

your freedom

as an

opportunity

for the

flesh,

but through

love

serve

one

another.

of