The Law of Freedom

Well, again, good morning and welcome to Advent.

My name is Jeff, and I'm one of the pastors here.

And if you're new to our church,

or if this is your first time joining us for worship,

I just wanna welcome you.

I would love to meet you after the service.

I'll be out there by the entrance

and would love to connect with you and hear your story.

We're so delighted that you're here this morning.

In his book called The Year of Living Biblically,

writer and journalist A.J. Jacobs

tells about the story of a year-long experiment that he did.

And his experiment was to follow all of the laws

in the Bible as literally as possible.

And he says that he did this experiment for a couple reasons.

One is that he was culturally Jewish,

and so he wanted to understand the traditions

in his culture better.

But he said that the main reason why he wanted to do this

is that he had a growing concern

about religious fundamentalism

and all of the various problems in society

that arose when people took their religious texts

like the Bible literally.

He wanted to understand not just what Scripture said,

but he wanted to understand communities of people

who took the Bible literally from the inside.

And so for an entire year,

he wrote about his journey

of taking all of the commands of the Bible

as literally as possible,

even ones that sounded arcane and strange,

like some of the ceremonial laws in Leviticus,

like not wearing clothes of mixed fabrics

or not trimming your beard.

But he also tried to follow

all of the moral commands of the law too,

like don't steal, don't lie, love your neighbor,

some of the commands that we read earlier this morning

in the Ten Commandments.

And if you watch the TED Talk

that he gives explaining this experiment,

he talks about the surprising positive benefits

of this year-long experiment that he had in his life.

He says that the ritual of taking a Sabbath

was transformative for him

because by nature he was a workaholic.

And so even though there were some positive benefits

that he experienced from this experiment,

he says in the end,

his conclusion was that

even though there might be some positive benefits

from taking the Bible literally,

in the end,

if you want to benefit from the Bible's teaching,

you really just have to pick and choose.

You have to pick and choose

which parts you want to follow

because some are helpful

and other parts are unhelpful

and even immoral or morally regressive.

And A.J. Jacobs' experiment

gets at a question

that's at the heart of our text

here this morning in Romans 7.

Are the commands and the laws in the Bible

just an antiquated, morally regressive system of morality?

Or do they actually have some sort of relevance

for our lives today?

That's a question Paul is addressing here in Romans 7.

In the previous chapters, 1 through 6,

Paul has been expounding the heart of the gospel,

which is that we are saved by grace

through faith in Jesus Christ,

not by good works,

not by works of the law.

Now if that's true,

if we are saved by grace,

a natural question follows

and it's a question that Paul anticipates

and it's a question that Paul answers.

And the question is this,

well if we're saved by grace,

then what was the purpose of the law?

Does it even matter?

Is there any relevance for our lives?

And I should clarify briefly

what we mean when we talk about the law.

And I wanna talk about three ways

that Paul uses the law

so that can help us the rest of our time together

as we refer to it.

There's a few different ways to think about the law.

The first is the Mosaic law

that God gave Israel in the Old Testament.

So we're thinking Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy.

There's the Mosaic law.

More broadly, we can think about

all of the commands in Scripture,

both Old Testament and New Testament.

But another way that Paul talks about the law in Romans

is the moral law inside each of us.

The moral law that all of humanity experiences.

Every person, whether you're religious or secular,

whether you believe in God or not,

has an innate sense of right and wrong.

You might be here this morning

and you may think that the Bible

has absolutely no relevance to your life.

But I can almost guarantee

that you're also not a moral relativist either.

At least not in practice.

You probably have a keen sense

of moral obligations and duties,

of justice, of human rights.

And that's what we call the moral law.

It's this deep sense of right and wrong

that all of humanity has in common.

And so whether you're a Christian or not,

whether you believe in God or not,

this question about whether or not

the law has relevance for our lives,

it's a question that's relevant for all of us.

So what is A.J. Jacobs' experiment

of following the Bible literally for a year?

What does that get right?

Where is it incomplete?

Where is it worthy of critique?

That's what I wanna look at this morning.

We're gonna look at three things

from Romans chapter seven.

We're gonna look at the goodness of the law,

the problem with the law,

and the fulfillment of the law.

The goodness of the law,

the problem with the law,

and the fulfillment of the law.

So first of all, the goodness of the law.

At the beginning of Romans chapter seven,

Paul is explaining that those who have faith

in Jesus Christ now have a new relationship

to the law, to the laws of the Old Testament.

They no longer live under its obligations

and expectations.

This then anticipates an objection in verse seven,

and he anticipates this objection.

What then shall we say?

Is the law sin?

If the law couldn't save us, to begin with,

and if we now, through faith in Christ,

are no longer under the law's obligations,

then does that mean that the law was bad

in the first place?

Does that mean that the law was a morally regressive system

to begin with?

And his emphatic answer throughout this whole passage

is absolutely not.

No.

His own answer to his own question in verse seven

is by no means.

Later on in verse 12, he says the law is holy,

and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

He is affirming the goodness of God's law

as something to be cherished and delighted in.

This is the attitude of Psalm 19, which we read earlier.

Psalm 19 says,

the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.

More to be desired are they than gold,

even much fine gold, sweeter than honey

and the drippings of the honeycomb.

Psalm 19 is not only saying that God's law is true,

but that it's desirable,

that it's more precious than gold.

It's sweeter than honey.

That it keeps us from destructive paths.

It leads us towards flourishing in life.

And you can imagine that Paul may have even had Psalm 19

in the back of his mind

as he is writing Romans chapter seven.

He's affirming that the law is good

because it's meant to show us what freedom looks like.

The law is good because it's meant to show us

what freedom looks like.

God gives us the law to show us the design

and the grain of his creation.

How we're to thrive and flourish as human beings.

Now this might sound ridiculous or even offensive

to a lot of people in our culture today

because a lot of people think about freedom today

in our modern culture

not as the presence of rules or constraints,

but as the absence of constraints.

I'm most free when I don't have any constraints

or limits or rules in my life.

If you've ever seen the TED Talk

from psychologist Barry Schwartz

called The Paradox of Choice,

Barry Schwartz says that he defines

what he calls the official dogma

of Western industrial societies.

And it's this,

that to maximize the welfare of our citizens,

we have to maximize individual freedom.

And the way that we maximize individual freedom

is that we maximize choice.

That the maximization of choice leads to freedom

and leads to welfare for all.

And so that's why

if you go to the grocery store this afternoon,

you don't just find three kinds of salad dressing,

you find 53 kinds of salad dressing

because more choice leads to more freedom,

leads to general welfare.

This is how most modern people

think about the good life.

The good life is about the maximization of choice.

It's about freedom from constraint.

But I actually don't think

that you have to be a religious person

or believe the Bible is true

to actually understand

that there's a lot of issues with that.

Because practically,

you can't actually live that way.

How many of you drove here this morning

ignoring the lines on the road,

ignoring the stoplights,

ignoring the stop signs?

Hopefully none of you.

It was in following the constraints of the road

that you were actually free

to arrive at your destination.

If I decided that I totally wanted to be free,

by removing all constraints from what I ate,

that I just wanted to eat whatever I wanted all the time,

it would probably involve a lot of steak and cheeseburgers

and a lot of oily, fattening, fried, sugary stuff.

But if I did that, it wouldn't go well

because I would be ignoring the constraints

and the limits of my body.

I'm actually most free

when I follow the constraints of my body

by eating healthy food.

That's good for me.

Let me give you one more example.

Oxford mathematician John Lennox

makes the connection with music.

He says,

When a great musician wants to play beautiful music,

they first have to read the sheet music.

The success of their performance

depends on their ability to read and play those notes

as they are written.

It is only when you know the notes

and submit yourself to their discipline

that you are free to play beautiful music.

And it is the same with our lives.

We want to make music with our lives

and the quality of that music

depends our attention to the score of God's law.

True freedom isn't the absence of constraints,

but it's embracing the right constraints.

And this is what Paul is affirming here about the law,

that it's meant to show us

the design and grain of God's creation

that lines us up with life and flourishing.

And this, by the way,

is why we read the summary of the law

every week in worship.

It's why during Lent,

we rehearse the Ten Commandments.

Because the law is good.

It's meant to show us what freedom looks like.

But there is a problem.

And that's the second thing we want to look at.

We want to look at the problem with the law.

In verses 7 through 11, Paul says,

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.

The very commandment that promised life

proved to be death to me.

And this is the biblical understanding of sin.

It's a power that has influence and dominion

and control in our lives.

It's something that we are enslaved to

and held captive by and that dwells in us.

And part of our captivity to sin

is seen in the fact that the more that we understand the law,

the more it provokes the power of sin inside of us.

The better we understand God's law,

the more sin is provoked.

The example that Paul gives here is coveting,

or jealousy,

the last and tenth commandment.

Coveting is the disordered longing

for stuff that doesn't belong to us.

And Paul is saying,

knowing that the law says you shall not covet

didn't make me not covet.

Actually, it helped, it gave me,

it made me think of 900 creative ways

in which I wanted other people's stuff.

It actually produced lots more creative ways to sin.

That's what it did.

And we can think of all sorts of ways

that we experience this in our daily lives.

And if you, this afternoon,

were to make a dessert

or a batch of chocolate chip cookies

and you were to tell your kids

or your roommates or your housemates,

you know, I made these cookies,

but you can't eat them before dinner.

You know, cookies are for after dinner.

What are you doing?

You're trying to do something good

that leads to freedom,

and you're trying to protect your kids

from ruining their appetite.

But if you were to do that,

what is that gonna do for them?

It's gonna create this longing and desire

to eat, to swipe one of those cookies before dinner.

And maybe it won't just do that for your kids,

but maybe it'll do that for you too.

There's lots of other examples we can think of

where knowing more about the law

actually provokes sin inside of us.

And this is not because the law is bad,

but because sin is sinful.

There's a great classic Puritan book

called The Sinfulness of Sin.

It's a great title.

And that's what Paul is saying here,

actually, in verse 13.

If you look in verse 13, Paul says,

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 so just to summarize where we've been,

the law is good because it's meant to point us

to what freedom looks like.

But even though the law can point us to freedom,

it can't actually make us free.

And that's because the problem with the law

is not with the law itself,

but with the power of sin.

Our struggle with sin is perhaps

most clearly articulated here in verses 14 through 20,

perhaps more clearly articulated here

than anywhere else in Scripture,

where Paul here gives us a glimpse

of his own inner struggle with sin.

And see if you find yourself resonating with these words.

In verse 15, he says,

for I do not understand my own actions,

for I do not do what I want,

but I do the very thing that I hate.

Now, if I do what I do not want,

I agree with the law, that the law is good.

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.

Friends, doesn't this describe

our daily, inner, unrelenting struggle with sin?

I know it describes mine.

We're constantly doing things that we don't wanna do,

and the things that we wanna do

that we don't want to do, we keep on doing.

Perhaps this describes your own inner struggle with pride.

Pride.

Or with anger.

Or with jealousy.

Or with lust.

Or with eating too much.

Or with drinking too much.

Or with working too much.

Perhaps it describes your struggle

against substance abuse or pornography.

We long to obey God,

to do what will lead us into freedom,

but there's a huge gap between that

and how we actually live.

And if we live in that gap long enough,

if we live in that tension long enough,

it can drive us to a really dark place.

It can drive us to a place of despair.

It can drive us to a place of shame.

It can drive us to a place of self-hatred.

This is where it leads Paul.

Did you notice Paul's conclusion?

In verse 24, he says,

his conclusion about this struggle is,

wretched man that I am,

who will deliver me from this body of death?

It's a place of despair.

It's a place of shame.

And perhaps you know what this feels like.

Perhaps you've heard voices like this inside your head.

I'll never be able to stop acting this way.

I'll never be able to change.

I'm such a terrible person.

I'm such a failure.

I'm damaged goods.

I'm beyond repair.

I'm such a hypocrite.

And if that's you this morning,

I have good news for you.

First of all, you're not alone.

The fact that the Apostle Paul is describing this

as his own personal experience

should give us comfort

because it means that this is the normative experience

even for those who have mature faith in Christ.

That we live between the gap

of how we know we should live

and how we actually live.

And second, the good news is that

there is freedom to be found

in our struggle with sin.

Even though the law can point us to freedom,

it can't actually get us there.

But we can find freedom.

We can find freedom

from the one who fulfilled the law in our place.

And that's where Paul goes next.

And that's what I wanna look at finally.

Third and finally,

the fulfillment of the law.

At the end of chapter seven,

Paul says in despair,

wretched man that I am,

who will deliver me from this body of death?

And where does he go next?

Thanks be to God.

Through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Jesus Christ brings us the freedom

that the law points to but can't deliver.

Specifically, we're gonna see

in Romans chapter eight

and the verses that follow

that Jesus frees us from the penalty of sin,

the power of sin,

and the presence of sin.

Jesus frees us from the penalty of sin,

the power of sin,

and the presence of sin.

The verse right after this,

Romans chapter eight,

verse one through four,

Paul says,

therefore, there is now no condemnation

for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Because through Christ Jesus,

the law of the spirit of life

has set you free from the law of sin and death.

For what the law was powerless to do,

what was the law powerless to do?

Help us keep the law.

Free us from sin.

For what the law was powerless to do,

because it was weakened by the flesh,

God did.

God did.

By sending his own son.

What the law could not do,

God did.

And friends,

that is an incredible summary of the gospel.

What the law couldn't do,

God did.

All of us are rule breakers

and law breakers in God's sight.

Because of that,

we rightly deserve God's judgment for sin.

But Jesus Christ came into the world

to fulfill the law in our place.

He perfectly obeyed

every single command in scripture.

Not only the letter of the law,

but the heart of the law.

What's the heart of the law?

It's love.

It's what we read every Sunday.

To love God with all of our heart,

soul, mind, and strength,

and to love our neighbor as ourself.

And Jesus did that.

Jesus loved God with all of his heart,

with all of his soul,

with all of his mind,

all of his strength.

Jesus loved his neighbor perfectly,

completely.

And Romans 8 verse 4 says that

Romans 8:4

because he did that,

for those who trust in him,

that the righteous requirements of the law

are actually met in us.

Now that's an incredible statement.

What does that mean?

It means that if you have trusted in Jesus Christ,

that when God looks at you,

he doesn't see your moral failures,

he doesn't see all the ways

that you've completely blown it this week

in your pride,

in your anger,

in your lust,

in your jealousy,

he doesn't see your sin.

He sees you as if you have

perfectly obeyed the law

every day of your life.

Because Jesus' perfect resume

of law keeping is credited to you.

All who have faith in him

not only have his forgiveness,

they have his righteousness.

That's what it means

for the righteous requirements of the law

to be met in us.

And friends,

this is incredibly good news

as we struggle with sin

in the midst of our daily lives.

Because not only do we struggle with sin,

but we struggle with those voices

of shame and despair.

I'm such a terrible person.

I'm such a failure.

I'm beyond repair.

I'm such a hypocrite.

And if that's you,

let me invite you

to meditate on the truth

of Romans 8.1.

This is a verse

that you probably should memorize

until you know it,

to let it sink down deep

into your heart

until it drowns out

the voice of shame.

Romans 8.1,

there is now

no condemnation

for those who are in Christ Jesus.

No matter how much

we struggle with sin,

we can be assured

there is no condemnation for us.

Why?

Because Jesus

has already stood condemned

in our place.

And because through him,

the law is fulfilled

in us.

So first of all,

Jesus brings freedom.

He frees us

from the penalty of sin.

Secondly,

he frees us

from the power of sin.

From the power of sin.

Romans 8.11-13,

if the spirit of him

who raised Jesus

from the dead

dwells in you,

he who raised Christ Jesus

from the dead

will also give life

to your mortal bodies

through his spirit.

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.

What is this saying?

It's saying that

the presence of Christ

dwelling in us

through the Holy Spirit

allows us to experience

the freedom

that can never be gained

through the law.

Through the power

of the Holy Spirit,

we can experience

real change,

real healing,

real freedom

from the power

of sin in our lives.

How does that happen?

How do we experience

the kind of freedom

and change

by the power

of the spirit?

Well, sometimes

it happens

in mysterious

and miraculous ways

in ways that we

can't fully understand.

And some of you

have experienced that.

But often it happens

as we give ourselves

to spiritual practices

and habits

over time.

Spiritual practices,

spiritual disciplines

are like raising

the sail

of a sailboat.

They're like raising

the sail

of a sailboat.

Raising the sail

doesn't move

the boat.

But what raising

the sail does

is it opens

the boat

to the power

and potential

of the glory

of the wind.

which does have

the power

to move boats

great distances.

Prayer,

reading scripture,

fasting,

solitude,

community,

confession,

worship,

all of these

are raising

the sail

of the sailboat.

It's not

the disciplines

themselves

that bring freedom

over the power

of the sin,

over the power

of sin,

but what they do

is they open us up.

They open us up

to the power

of the spirit

that does free us

and heal us

and change us.

When you engage

your body

and your soul

in any kind

of spiritual practice,

you're raising

the sail

and you're asking

the power

of the spirit

to come and blow

with his power

to bring freedom

and healing

in your life

against your struggle

with sin.

Now,

will we ever

be completely free

from our struggle

against sin

this side of heaven?

God,

no,

we won't.

Can we experience

real and significant

change and progress

and healing

in our struggle

with sin

this side of heaven?

Yes,

we can.

And this is what

is promised to us.

By God's grace

and through the power

of the spirit,

we can experience

real freedom

and real change

as we raise the sail

moment by moment,

day by day,

living,

walking in the power

of the spirit.

So Jesus frees us

from the penalty of sin

by fulfilling the law

in our place.

Jesus frees us

from the power of sin

by dwelling in us

through his Holy Spirit.

And finally,

Jesus will free us

from the presence

of sin

by renewing

all of creation.

This is what Paul

goes on to talk about

in Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

And if we had time,

I'd love to go there,

but that's another sermon

for another day.

The hope of the renewal

of all creation

is what the rest

of Romans 8

is about,

about the redemption

of our bodies,

about all of creation

that longs and groans

to be renewed.

And that's our hope,

that all of creation

will be renewed

from the presence of sin.

And what this means

for the present

in our lives right now

is that as we struggle

and as we fight

against sin

in the power

of the Holy Spirit,

experiencing both triumph

and defeat,

we do so

with the incredible hope

that one day

this struggle

will be no more.

The greatest struggle

that we will have

against sin

is right now.

But one day,

we will be freed,

completely freed

from the presence of sin.

One day,

we'll no longer

have to fight

the daily fight

against lust

or pride

or envy

or anger

or our relationship

with food

or alcohol

or workaholism

or greed

or substance abuse

or whatever it is

the thing

that you struggle with.

One day,

the freedom

from sin

that we can taste

now

by the power

of the Holy Spirit

will be the very air

that we breathe.

And so to put it

all back together

and to bring us back

to where we started,

what A.J. Jacobs

and his experiment

of a year

of living biblically,

even though it sounds crazy,

what it gets right,

what he gets right

is that the law

actually does have

incredible relevance

for our lives

because it's meant

to point us

towards freedom.

The problem

is not that A.J. Jacobs

explored the demands

of the law.

His problem

is that he didn't

deal enough

with the power

of sin,

with a struggle

that we war against

and that holds us captive.

but just as equally,

he didn't deal enough

with the one

who has brought us freedom

by fulfilling the law

in our place.

He didn't deal enough

with the Savior

who came to bring

the real freedom

that only the law

can hint at.

Freedom from the penalty

of sin,

freedom from the power

of sin,

freedom once and for all,

forever,

from the presence

of sin.

Having a better

understanding of the law

or even of our own

culture's understanding

of morality

can only get you so far.

But what we need,

what the world needs,

is the freedom,

the kind of freedom

that only Jesus can bring.

Let's pray.

our God and Father,

thank you that you have

made us for freedom.

And thank you that,

Jesus, you came

and fulfilled the law

in our place.

Lord, help us

to experience the freedom

that you came to bring us

by the power

of your Holy Spirit.

Lord, change us,

heal us,

free us, renew us,

we pray.

In Christ's name,

amen.