Broken Saints (Romans 7)

Joshua Kehler: We used to have a tax guy who we would go and

he would do our taxes for us.

And, they're a little complicated sometimes when you're a pastor

and, he'd say, okay, here's what you're getting back.

And we'd be like, Oh, okay.

And he's well, let me take another look at it.

And he'd always, he said the same thing every year.

He's I sharpened my pencil.

I did some more work and I got you some more, and every year I

sharpened my pencil, I did some more work and I got you some more.

After last week, not all of you were there, we came off an

incredibly spirited discussion.

and I've sharpened my pencil.

I've done some more work, and hopefully we get some more, out of this.

So we'll be moving on into a Romans eight next week, but I did want to spend

one more, week here in Roman seven, which you guys are getting off easy.

I've been reading, Dr.

Martin Lloyd Jones.

He did 144 sermons on Romans five to eight.

Holy moly, 144 sermons.

So anyways, I think between me and gospel Tom, it's going to be three in

Roman seven, but, maybe four there, but.

I remember, I call this sermon Broken Saints, and that actually was the title

of our blog when we left the church, came out of the brokenness of that situation,

and that term seemed to sum up perfectly how we were feeling in the moment.

We felt very secure in Christ's love for us, but very broken at the same time.

And so Broken Saints is the name of this.

As a young church planner, you get invited and, get to be in some circles

that are fun and get to go on trips and go to bougie restaurants and, on other

people's tithe money and, goodness.

and, anyways, we got invited, as a group of church planners to

another network that was trying to recruit us to their church planning.

And so is this, the young and the hip and the cool church planters who are planning

churches across the United States.

And so we're there, and there's energy in the room, everybody's

talking and comparing church sizes, and just like every person does.

But the guy who gets up, who's leading the network, got up and he was very serious.

and he choked out his words as he opened up and he said, I have something heavy

to share and that's that two of our church planners this last year lives.

And it was like this bomb went off in the room and all the energy, all

the excitement, all the we're so cool went out of the room and we

realized, oh yeah, we're broken.

we're a group of beggars showing other beggars where to find bread.

And, Sadly, the guy who was leading that conversation and leading the network at

that time, a decade later, took his life.

And so there is a brokenness, a guy who loved Jesus, lived his life for Jesus.

And yes, there's mental health.

Yes, there's, all kinds of things.

We struggle, struggle with depression and, chemical imbalance and all that stuff.

But there's also this reality, I was reading J.

R.

Packer on Romans, and he said, famous preacher, commentator, incredible man

of God, that if he got saved, it was this triumphant, get in the gospel,

you're in, but then it was this law that he could never meet up to.

Now grow in the law, and he, Almost ended his life.

J.

R.

Packers.

That's his story is that he almost because of the weight of trying to

live up to and perfect himself with the law to live up to that standard.

As a youth pastor, my counseling was this kind of language every single time.

The kid would say, the good I want to do, I don't do, that which I don't want

to do, that's what I end up doing, who will save me from this body of sin.

And in my office, they felt comfortable enough to share

that and share their struggles.

And the struggles are profound and shocking.

You can't show that you're shocked, but you're like, oh, wow, there's brokenness.

But in front of the youth, as we would gather, we do what we

just did and ask for prayer.

Every single one of them, knowing the depth of their struggle,

would say I have an unspoken.

I want prayer, but I cannot bring that vulnerability out.

I can't let that brokenness be seen.

And, and that was the culture of the church.

A cultural thing.

We had a theology of grace.

in the church I grew up in, but it was a culture of law and perfecting

oneself by means of the law.

Romans 5 is the theological heart of the book with Romans 5 20 to 21 being

the controlling exegetical verse.

Now the law came to increase the trespass, but where sin increased grace

abounded all the more so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign

through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And if we misunderstand chapter 5, one will by necessity misinterpret 6 and 7.

They form the bookends dealing with the objection to Paul's central assertion

In those verses, that grace abounds, that we are reigned in grace and eternal

life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And the entire section unpacks our union with Christ through the reign of grace.

Chapter 6 proves our sanctification is guaranteed since we're united to

Christ and can no longer live in sin.

Romans 7 proves our sanctification is guaranteed since we've been freed

from the law and married to Christ.

We are enabled to bear the fruit of the Spirit.

And chapter 7, and this is what I wanted us to take away as we

leave chapter 7, offers a dramatic warning of what happens when we

seek sanctification through the law.

Apart from the spirit because chapter eight then unpacks the reality that

a lever sanctification is guaranteed because they've been united to Christ

and thus are indwelt by the spirit.

And so the struggle we see as we see it, we felt it.

I hope we felt it is that.

I've begun in the spirit, but now I'm going to perfect myself in the flesh.

And Paul would say, you stupid idiots, you foolish Galatians, what a powerless thing.

The law that killed you to bring you to Christ now is

going to make you like Christ.

And so that's what we will get into today that there is now no

condemnation for followers of Jesus.

Why I think this is so important and why I want to spend a little

bit of time here and get this on the books, sharpen the pencil as it were.

Because James 5.

17 talks about church culture and it says, Therefore confess your sins to

one another and pray for one another.

That you might be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power and it's working.

When you tell somebody what's going on,

Galatians 1, 3 says, Brothers, if anyone is caught in

transgression, it's gonna happen.

You who are spiritual should restore him in the spirit of gentleness.

Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.

Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

like I said, I grew up in a church where the gospel was preached and believed

to get you in, but then the law was used to progress in the Christian life.

And again, that is not something that you necessarily hear from the pulpit.

the law.

But it is a culture.

And what is a culture?

Culture is not something you see.

It's how you see.

it's the vibe you feel.

it's the shape.

It's the, and the intangible boundaries in a social construct

that you just know are there.

and it doesn't have to be overt, but it is there.

No one could match up to the standard of the law.

And that led us to either, or A.

Utter discouragement on the one hand, oh wretched man that I am, or to wear a

mask and present a false righteousness that was not living but dead.

I can't tell you what a bad vibe that is.

it's like a Christmas tree.

We are all Christmas trees.

We all looked beautiful.

We all had our ornaments of good deeds and good works and happy merits.

We had popcorn strings remember that used to be a thing you'd put popcorn

on your tree till they were like You got an infestation of animals.

Maybe it's the popcorn Maybe it's the sugar water.

We put at the base that all the answer there.

But anyways But a christmas tree looks vibrant.

It looks alive.

It's light.

It's blinking.

It's hurrah the beautiful.

It's shimmering It's beautiful It's dead.

It's dead.

You have a form of godliness.

But denying its power it is dead and that's what happens either utter

Discouragement and I pull away from the community of God which God gave me to be

healed and grow or I fake and look like I don't need to grow so that I can stay part

of that community and it is Utter trap of the devil in the enemy and even in our

doctrinal statement We would affirm the righteousness of Jesus to our account, but

the culture was one of law So if someone's shared a weakness and I saw this over

and over they would never be asked to be on leadership And in that's the ladder

you climb you got to get to leadership.

I've grown up in this church all my life I got to be doing something with my life

and I thought to be doing something with my life was to be on leadership I got

to get into leadership So somebody would share and you'd be like, sucks for you.

You're never going to be asked to be on leadership, because of that

weakness and that vulnerability.

or.

If they shared a struggle they had on leadership, they would be removed.

And our team was amazing.

It was like the CIA black site.

Those people would just disappear.

You either like internet history would be gone.

There would be like, no, we'd be like, who's, where did so and so go?

They're like, who do you speak of?

There was no person like that.

And that was actually, the culture.

And so you could perform and be a part.

Or you can hide and be alone.

There was not that through was not that victory.

There was not that healing that James talks about.

It was an absolutely toxic environment to grow in Christ.

And let me get a little more personal.

you guys know my story of struggling with migraines.

As part of that struggle early on, the pain would get bad, so bad,

I would want to be knocked out.

sometimes the medication wouldn't work.

I've tried knocking myself out by hitting my head on the door.

but worse, I began to cut myself.

And it would send a rush of endorphins, and it would actually help with the pain.

There was a time where I'd wear long sleeved shirts as a preacher

at reality, because I didn't want people to see the scars on my arms.

Now, I knew it was wrong.

I hid it.

I hid it from my wife.

But, and then I felt like I had victory over it.

And I was like, fine, and that is really what I want as a Christian,

is I want to get the victory on my own, by myself, and then go tell

people about the victory I had.

I don't want to bring them in.

I don't want to confess my sin.

I don't want to get help.

but because I didn't do that, I fell back into it.

And I told my wife finally.

And she's holy crap.

she did not hide her shock.

No, she probably did, but she's you need to get help.

You need to bring other people in.

So I brought my pastors in on it and, shared the struggle and asked

for accountability with that.

And guess what?

I've never done it since praise God, but

for whatever reason, They leveraged that to share with people as a means

for dis, as part of a dismissive.

I only share that because

when you share your vulnerability and you get the healing that James promises, but

then that is leveraged to get rid of you.

And I'm not bitter.

I get it.

Everybody thinks they were doing the right thing.

I'm not even going down on that.

But what I realized was I participated.

I participated.

And creating the same culture that I'd come out of.

We had a theology of grace, but we had a culture.

performance.

Yeah.

And I contributed to that.

I was the lead pastor.

I take full ownership of that.

I take full ownership of that.

But to taste it and to realize it, I want to say as Grace House, I never want

to be part of a church like that again.

For me to be present and to go to.

And so we've tried very hard.

I'm, repent if we've failed, to be a place where it's okay not to be okay.

Because what I think that's That's real.

We don't want to hide and be discouraged and I never ever want

any of us to wear masks And perform and to be something that we were not

who are we our identity in Christ?

But our struggle to go back to the law to make ourselves acceptable

to Christ is an ongoing challenge.

And it's something that I've fallen into.

So, God willing, I will never be a part of a church like

that with a culture like that.

And God help us, we need to check each other.

Because that's my tendency is to go back to that.

That's what I grew up in.

I default to that.

I have surrounded myself, thank God, with you people and like Pearl and Gospel Tom,

and they keep Remain, they're like, ah, but grace, ah, but grace, ah, but grace.

And, keep rescuing us, from falling back into, that.

So, I want to grow.

And Rennie Manning said, and I love him so much.

He's one of my heroes.

He said, until you believe God loves you, if you never change, you'll never change.

Guys, he's one of my heroes.

He died a drunk,

he would wake up, he'd preach.

And.

The most incredible messages on grace and he'd wake up the next day in a gutter

Just totally not knowing how he got there.

And that was his ongoing struggle William Kalper who we sing his hymns

He struggled with lifelong depression and questions his salvation all the

way on, he writes some of the most beautiful, profound hymns and poetry

and truths because of the brokenness,

because of the brokenness, he was a broken saint, Brennan Manning was

a broken saint, and to be honest about that struggle, Is amazing.

The human dilemma is that we have this tension in our lives.

We feel like we can either be known or we can be loved, but it can't be both.

Because if we're known, people aren't going to love us like deep

down, see us in, inside and out.

And God answers that dilemma by seeing us and loving us.

But the church is supposed to be that too.

It's supposed to be that place where we are.

Seen and loved we're supposed to act out that drama.

We're supposed to act out that to one another.

That's what galatians 6 1 2 is about and so yeah I said last week that romans 7

was like an old friend giving me a hug It actually much stronger than that.

It's biographical for me I believe the gospel with all i'm all my heart and i'm

here today because of it I also know while the ongoing battle of trying to present

God a righteousness through obedience to the law, instead of resting in the

righteousness that Jesus won for me at the cl at the cross, I know the cry of

Peter who when he looked at Jesus in the eye after having to deny to him a third

time, he went out and wept bitterly.

Andrea, me always said we would never sacrifice our

kids on the altar of ministry.

And as some of my kids have seen behind the curtain of church politics

and the brutalism of people seeking position, they have looked at

church and said, nah, we're good.

there was a while back, this was a couple years ago, but I was on a drive

to work and my air pods were dead.

And nothing would come through on the radio.

I was in a dead spot and I was left with the terrible silence of contemplation.

And I began to ask God, have I begun to seek a righteousness apart from grace?

Have I used ministry once again to make myself worthy of love?

Have I put my kids on the altar of ministry?

I don't know what other drivers would think as they were passing me.

But they would see somebody in a work van hitting the steering wheel and weeping.

Bitterly.

that's why I say Roman 7 isn't just a hug, it's biographical.

so let's go.

We will see the bookends, the assertions, the potion of self righteousness, and then

the walk of the spirit of the bookends.

And I'll run through these kind of quick.

We dug into the scripture last week.

So this is more of an overview of the way, that Paul does this.

We can't just.

Take a verse out and remove it from its context.

It's bookended as we saw it's he's got a thought process that he's running through.

He's through Romans six and seven.

He's answering objections.

to his thesis about us living in abounding grace.

And and then he, the bookend again is Romans 5 and then Romans 8, the life in

the spirit and everything that comes our way because of that life in the spirit.

Paul is going for a similar thing here, Romans 5, 18 to, 18 to 21.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so

one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

For as by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by one man's

obedience the many will be made righteous.

Now the law came to increase the trespass.

But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in

death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal

life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And then as we read in Romans 8, 1 4, the other bookend, There is therefore

now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the

Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his

own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and forcing him to consume his flesh

in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.

Who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

And in between Paul is saying, the good law of God can't save you.

It diagnoses you, and in your own strength, it also can't sanctify you.

Can't sanctify you.

Galatians 3, 1 3 Oh foolish Galatians!

Who has bewitched you?

It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

Let me ask you only this.

Did you receive the spirit by works of the law?

Or by the, with the hearing of faith?

Are you so foolish having begun by the spirit?

Are you now being perfected by the flesh?

The law is like a train on the railroad tracks.

It's just, it's going somewhere.

But think of a freight train.

And think of wanting to get that freight train to its destination.

The law's good.

Paul's affirmed that.

The law is the expression of God's character, of his holiness.

And Jesus fulfilled that law perfectly.

And guess what?

We're becoming more like Christ from one degree of splendor to the next.

What's the destination?

It's going down those railroad tracks, right?

We're going to look more like Christ.

But think about, I want to get there, so I'm going to push this train.

Very foolish.

You're not going to move that train, no matter if you work out every day.

You will not push a train that is, a mile long down that track.

What do you need?

Like in those old trains, what would they do?

They'd shovel coal into the furnace and that heat would build up and

there would be, energy as it would combust and steam would release and

then that train would start to move.

That impossibleness of the weight that would begin to move down the

tracks and that is a picture of the Spirit of God who fuels our heart.

Toward Christ likeness Romans 8 15 to 16 for you did not receive the spirit

of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption

as sons by whom we cry Abba Father.

The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and

like shoveling that coal into the furnace, the spirit is like, You're a child of God.

He's, you're not just a child, he's your daddy.

I know, what?

That's crazy.

He's your Abba.

You are a child of God, beloved, invincible, you've been adopted, you're

an heir of righteousness in all things.

Boom, the heart begins to burn.

The heart begins to burn and the train begins to move down its tracks.

Number two, the assertions, Martin Lloyd Jones said that this chapter is one of

the most controversial in the Bible.

the disagreement about Romans 7, 14 to 25 is whether Paul is describing

some dimension of his Christian experience or whether he's describing

his pre Christian experience of defeat as he tried to keep the law.

So is he a Christian?

Can a Christian talk like this?

Can a Christian talk about the good he wants to do, he doesn't do,

and that which he doesn't want to do, that's what he ends up doing?

Oh wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of sin?

can that be?

so is he pre Christian experience or is Christian experience?

What is he describing here?

Now my view is that Romans 7, 14 to 25 is a description of the kind

of experience Paul often had as a Christian and that we often have.

And I say often because I don't want to give the impression that

those verses describe the totality of the Christian experience.

Occasion.

One.

There are really good scholars on both sides of this.

And we're going to be in heaven worshiping Jesus.

You can believe one or the other and not be outside of the pale of orthodoxy.

So if you hold a view other than what I see, how I see this, we're good.

Beautiful.

Tune me out.

Praise the Lord.

We're going to take communion in a little bit.

Couple minutes.

So I just really we're good.

That's good.

Yeah.

Good people hold the view that may go, no, I don't think a

Christian can talk like this.

I think this describes realistically our experience, but, no hate.

So just know that I do want to encourage humility.

As we read scripture, the psalmist would often say that

he delights in the law of God.

Was he like, Leviticus really gets me going.

As I read about leprosy and dietary laws, because that's what he's talking about.

No, what he's saying is he's saying, I flourish under your authority.

Every jot, every tittle, your law, your authority is how my life flourishes.

You design the universe to operate as it operates, and when I come

under that, instead of making my, myself the law, when I come under

that, your authority, I flourish.

again, we don't stand above the word of God.

We let the word of God speak to us, right?

We come under the word of God.

listen.

2 Timothy 3.

16 says, All

Which is a lot.

Scripture is breathed out by God

that it's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training

in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

And remember, in their day, as Paul's writing this, most of their

scripture was the Old Testament.

Yeah.

We do not come to a text and throw out what we don't like.

We work through it.

And to our best, humbly discern why the Spirit of the Living God Thought this

jot and this tittle was necessary for our complete equipping That's where we come

and we reason together humbly because I mean In this day and age of having

all the information at our fingertips.

We've stopped relying on expert and become our own We're our own doctors.

We're our own political science majors dietitians physical therapists

psychologists and expositors.

Bruce Lee said, I got roasted for this when I posted this years ago.

Bruce Lee said, I don't fear the man who knows 20, 000 different kicks, but

the man who practiced kicked 2000 times.

And what I, why do I bring that up?

Because I think experts are necessary and helpful as we plumb

the depths of the infinite one.

There are people who have devoted their lives to studying Scripture.

To one book!

One book!

Or, I think of some of the guys I read who just, spent their life on John 17.

They're like, just gonna live and make my life about this one chapter of the Bible.

Guys, there's a lot to plumb from that.

There's a lot of experts in our family of faith who have journeyed

and wrestled and thought and debated and prayed and wept and shaped.

And so we have to come humbly as we look at scripture and go and not just go,

we go, what are you saying here?

And how does that fit?

with everything else that you have breathed into, that you see as

necessary to my complete equipping.

two, notice the I's in ,the present tense.

the most natural way to understand Paul's use of the first person I in the present

tense is that he's talking about himself and part of his life now as a believer.

He uses I or me about 40 times in this text.

And he explains his situation in the present tense all the way through.

I am of flesh.

What I am doing, I do not understand.

I do the very thing I do not want, and so on.

Present tense.

On the face of it, then, it looks like he's describing his

present Christian experience.

So for the average person, it's going to take a lot to say what he's doing.

No, it's not what's happening.

Assertion number three, the law of the inner being Paul speaks about

the law of God in this passage in a way that sounds like the way a

Christian believer would talk about it.

Not in the way an unregenerate Jewish man would talk about it.

He says in seven 22, I delight in the law of God in my inner being.

Now it's this phrase in the inner man.

That sounds so much like the way Paul talks about the Christian,

the Christian's real inner self.

I don't think Paul would have said this about his pre Christian self.

Assertion four, inconsistent with his past.

The description of Romans 7 of Paul as a divided and sometimes tormented

man in relation to the law doesn't fit with the way he describes his

experience before he was a Christian.

In his pre Christian days, he is anything but a man who is torn

because of any perceived failures to live up to the law of God.

In Galatians he describes himself as having, Undivided zeal for the law so the

roman 7 paul doesn't fit with the way he describes his pre christian experience

assertion 5 more than fallen flesh I think paul talks about himself in roman 7 in a

way that only a christian could A person with faith and with the holy spirit, for

example, he says in roman 7 18 I know that nothing good dwells in me and then

he qualifies it That is in my flesh.

Now, if Paul is here giving a Christian assessment of his pre

Christian experience, then why does he add to this statement?

Nothing good dwells in me, the qualifier that is in my flesh.

I think in Paul's view, the pre Christian person.

is only flesh.

Only a Christian is more than fallen flesh.

He has the Holy Spirit.

And that's why Paul has to say that qualifier that is in my flesh.

There is a good thing in me, namely the Holy Spirit.

So he's not talking about the Christian Paul, I believe.

Assertion six.

Parallel is Galatians five.

In Galatians 5 17, Paul uses language very close to Roman seven.

But everyone agrees that in Galatians and has not really controversial.

It's a description of the Christian experience.

He says in Galatians 5, 17, the desires of the flesh are against the spirit.

And the desires of the spirit are against the flesh for these

are opposed to each other.

And now comes the phrase that sounds just like Roman seven, almost the

same language to keep you from doing the things that you want to do.

This is a description of the inner conflict of the Christian.

And the language is so similar to Roman seven.

I do what I do not want to do.

I don't do what I want to do.

7.

Free from captivity, not warfare.

Romans 8.

2, this is very powerful.

It says, For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ

Jesus from the law of sin and death.

Romans 3 says, The person, in verse 23, is made captive to the law

of sin that dwells in my members.

But now, in Romans 8.

2, we are free from the law of sin and death.

There is a freedom from it.

But not an absolute freedom from its influence, but which we can defeat

that influence with the spirit of the living God, eight, Roman seven.

There's this anticlimactic kind of thing in verse 25.

Romans seven seems to reach its climax in verse 25.

The first half of the verse, it goes like this.

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

And you're like, all right, let's go right into Romans eight.

In other words, who's going to deliver me from this horrible situation.

That's that I've been describing in these verses in Romans seven answer.

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

But then he ends it by saying, so then I myself served the law of God with my mind.

But with my flesh, I serve the law of sin.

And then he goes into chapter eight.

And so he still holds, yes, he delivered me.

And I still have this struggle.

Nine, Paul's progression.

He says in first Corinthians 15, nine, for I am the least of the apostles,

unworthy to be called an apostle.

Because I persecuted the Church of God, and he wrote that in around AD 56.

Then in a 60 or 61, he writes in Ephesians three, eight, this grace was given

to me the least of all the saints, to proclaim the gen to the Gentiles, the

incalculable riches of the Messiah.

And then year, a couple years later, in AD 62 to 64 and one Timothy one 15, he says.

This is a trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance Christ Jesus came into the

world to save sinners of whom I am chief

Do you see his progression?

He's hey, I'm the least of the Apostles then he's you know what?

I've known myself for a bit I'm the least of all the Saints

a little more time goes by

He says I am the chief of sinners So in his mind, he's not becoming less

aware of his sin You As he gets closer to Christ, he becomes more aware of it.

Not that he's sinning more necessarily, but he's more aware of in the

blazing light of the holiness of God.

Oh, that is a crazy standard.

if you come by the job I'm doing right now in Arden, Sacramento, right

across the street from the Arden Fair mall, we're building a raising canes.

At 1 35 PM.

The sun hits the building in just the right way and the

stucco work looks terrible.

I had showed up the other day after they had done the stucco and

I was like to talk to the super.

I'm like, what are you going to do?

this is, did you hire a blind crew to do this?

this is insane.

And then he said, just wait, wait about half an hour.

And then the sun shifts.

And I was like, Oh, it looks fine.

But as you get closer to the light, as you walk with the beloved Lord

Savior, not only is it your actions that are like, oh man, but then

it moves to your motivations.

Tim Keller used to say, he said, a religious person repents of his sins.

A Christian repents of his good deeds.

Because

we're so aware in the light that even the good we do could be tainted

to make ourselves look good, to get approval, to you come closer to the

light, you're like, Oh, I'm exposed!

I'm exposed.

nine assertions, and then we move to the potion.

We talked last week about the battle we can't win.

and I mentioned Robert Louis Stevenson's, book, Dr.

Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde.

One of the most amazing things I taught, I didn't mention that I

absolutely loved is in that book in the middle, he's separated himself.

He drinks his potion and he's the good doctor.

He's good, cause he doesn't want to struggle with that conflict anymore.

And then he lets hide out and hides terrible, but he's

way worse than he thinks.

Hyde is, starts murdering people, and like, all the stuff that he

never thought himself capable of.

that's it.

He finds out that's what Hyde's been doing because the police come looking for him

And he's oh shoot and he throws all the potion away and he's like i'm not doing

that and then he works hard To become a person and he starts giving to charity.

He starts helping people He's paying off his crimes as best

he can through being religious.

Remember this guy he grew up in a presbyterian church.

And that had some influence on him.

Listen to this so he's sitting on a bench and he begins to re account all

the good he's been doing, feeling like he's balanced the scales out, okay?

He says, I sat in the sun on the bench, the animal within me licking the

chops of memory, the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent

penitence, but not yet moved to begin.

After all I reflected, I was like my neighbors.

And then I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active goodwill

with the lazy cruelty of their neglect.

And at the very moment of that vainglorious thought, a qualm

came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering.

I began to be aware of a change in temper and my thought, greatness,

a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation.

I looked down, my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs.

The hand that lay on my knee.

Was courted in Harry.

I was once more Edward Hyde, but he hadn't taken the potion.

Which is the whole point of that story, and any adaptation of that

story always doesn't put that part in.

He's saying, and this is what Paul's saying, in Romans 7, he's saying the

law itself actually stirred that up.

When I thought I was obeying it, that's what killed me.

He's saying, as I began to think of my religiousness and how good I was, That I

became Hyde without even using the potion.

that is the true source.

And so he's pointing out that, that law, trying to use the

law, not only to save ourselves.

But then trying to use it to sanctify ourselves says don't break that because

there's one who could fulfill that law and he already did it You needed a

hero to step into the story You needed somebody to do for you what you never

could do for yourself and he fulfilled it totally He didn't fulfill 90 percent

said K 10 percent up to you He did it.

And as we stand in that completed work, and as we hear that we're beloved, as

we live in the Spirit, as we're rooted and grounded in Him, as grace reigns

and fills our minds and our hearts, man, that engine starts to burn within us.

Jonathan Edwards called it the affections are stirred, they're, they rise up

and affection is deeper than a desire.

It's deeper than an emotion.

It's like at the core, it's the deepest thing you long for.

And as that deepest thing that you long for is heated up.

It's that old thing that, as a construction guy, you could take a

piece of steel that they like put on the side of a building and you can bend it.

And with all your effort as you bend it, man, you have to hold it.

And as soon as you let go of it, and the moment you let go, it

goes right back to its shape.

It probably hits the person who's next to you.

So what do you do?

You take a blowtorch to it, you heat the thing up, and then that thing's putty

in your hands, and that's what God does.

The Spirit of God is inside us.

He breathes on grace in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and He magnifies

the work of Christ for us.

And guess what?

Our heart becomes putty in His hands.

What was hard becomes formable.

That's the change as it takes place.

But to try to use the law to restrain ourselves is much like the futility of

trying to take that steel and bend it in our own strength, hold it in place.

Can you do it for a while?

Sure.

Is it last and permanent change?

No, and you'll probably get smacked yourself in the face

and be worse off Comparison.

The danger of comparison.

Because as we talked about last week, we have to water down the to actually

feel like we're fulfilling the law, and the way we water down the law is we

compare ourselves, with other people.

and we go, like Dr., or Mr., like Dr.

Jekyll said, he said, I'm like my neighbors.

I'm, in fact, I'm better than them.

I'm pretty good.

So we begin to compare ourselves amongst ourselves, and it's ridiculous.

In verse 7, he says, What 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 in the law.

If the law had said, you shall not covet.

Using the law to try to make ourselves acceptable makes us worse.

I remember, I've told you this story.

I was in youth group and I remember a guy just got saved and he had,

never been to church before.

And so he's I effing just met Jesus, I was just shocked, and I was just

like, I like had to step outside of the room because Ooh, I was blushing,

we don't speak like that in church.

And I remember talking to God.

At least you have me, Lord.

At least you have me.

And I felt a divine spanking, from a loving father.

And just that communication of, man, he is more righteous than you right now.

Just that sense of, here, God, I'm going to justify myself.

I'm going to use this standard and compare myself and make myself, try

to make myself acceptable to you.

And this kid's just standing in the new righteousness, the born again experience.

and so, uh, just say no, verse eight, but sin season and opportunity through

the commandment produced in me all kinds of covetousness from the lies dead.

And there's something about the law that stirs up, do not walk on the grass.

I know Andrew doesn't struggle with this.

She's she's told me before I see a sign like that, I'm not going to do it.

But there's, for some of us, there is stirred up in us this Oh, I wasn't even

thinking about that, but now that you say it, I might do it a little bit.

Who are you to tell me?

What commission did you get together?

Did I get to vote on who would decide that I can't walk on this grass?

I'm not a part of the HOA.

I don't pay these, There is something that's stirred up because At the core of

our being, we want to be the kingmakers.

We want to be the kings.

We want to be the rulers.

We want to be the law giver.

We want to be the ones who determine what right and wrong is.

St.

Augustine said, And tells a story of his childhood.

He said, in a garden nearby our vineyard, there's a pear tree loaded

with fruit that was desirable.

Neither an appearance nor taste.

Late one night, not one night, a group of very bad youngsters set

out to shake down and rob this tree.

We took great loads of fruit from it, not for our own eating,

but rather to throw it to pigs.

We did this to do it.

Pleased us.

For the reason it was forbidden for I stole a thing which I had plenty of my

own and much better quality Nor did I wish to enjoy that thing which I desired

to gain but rather to enjoy the actual theft in the sin of theft So then speaking

to God he says in a perverse way all men imitate you who put themselves far

from you What therefore did I love in that theft of mine in what manner did I

perversely and viciously imitate my lord?

Did it please me?

To do with the impunity things, bearing a shadowy likeness to your omnipotence?

Behold how your servant flees from his lord, and follows

After a shadow, could a thing give pleasure, which was done for no other

reason, but because it was unlawful.

So he said, the very thing, the very reason I did it because

forbidden and because I was told no.

And he's saying, I want to follow.

A shadowy omnipotence, my own omnipotence, what I think is

omnipotence instead of God's.

he's saying, if that, so Romans 7, don't use the law to try to save yourself.

The law diagnoses your need for salvation.

It shows you the problem that's there, but then what you've begun

in the spirit as you yield to Jesus, then the rest of Romans 7 is saying,

don't try to use the law to sanctify yourself in your own strength.

Don't you look at the list and make your 10, 10 power principles

for how to do a better life.

I'm going to, I'm going to try harder, do better, be faster.

What Paul is saying at the end, who will save me from this body of sin?

He says, run to Jesus, flee to Christ.

in the ancient day, when you were being hunted, by, the enemy, you would run

to these places called the refuge.

And as long as you got into the gates, you were safe.

You're safe and off limits and what Paul is saying is he's saying run to

the city of refuge run to the Redeemer The only way you are safe is if you

run to him Don't use the law to perfect yourself in your own strength Use it as

the guide rails of the railroad tracks like you don't want to take you know

Sometimes you talk to people and they're like, oh yeah, this is what I believe.

And it's like the railroad tracks have gone over a cliff into the ocean.

You're like, I don't know if that's where that leads.

you're like, so yes, it's good.

And it shows us the pattern, right?

Of who God is and it expresses his holiness.

but to think that I can push that train down its tracks by my own

strength, sadly, a lot of pulpits They get you in through the gospel,

but that's where the gospel stopped.

And then the means of sanctification comes through trying really hard in your

dedication and in your effort to obey.

We told kids

we had purity seminars, vessels for honor.

That was the guys, a garden enclosed, which is a little, okay.

It was for the girls.

and we told them, Make a dedication, sign a card.

We're going to give you a little trinket to put around your neck

that says you're a vessel for honor.

And now you've got to keep this.

Do not be smirched the name of God.

Do not bring shame on God's name by misrepresenting him.

He has saved you.

He has set you free.

Now you keep yourself.

I got to say that is one of the most powerless, limp, philosophies,

theologies that are out there.

You know what we should have told the kids?

Christ rescued you.

And guess what He gave you?

Because He knows that you're going to blow it.

He gave you an invincible purity.

That no matter how hard you try, because where sin abounded, grace abounds all

the more, you cannot taint it, you cannot color it, you cannot mar it.

And that God's beauty and his purity, like we see in the Gospels, is so powerful

that when he came in contact with the unclean, he would not be moved by it.

He would change the unclean thing to the clean thing.

Guys, that's what we need to hear.

We need to hear that we have an invincible righteousness that we can't escape.

God praise the Lord for that.

Finally, our walk very briefly.

Our weakness, the impossibility of using the law and our strength

to become more like Jesus.

verse 18, For I know that the good within me is in my flesh, for I have

the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

We're weak!

He's telling us!

Guys, you're weak.

we have the remaining sinful nature prone to evil.

Our inner conflict sin leads us to do the things we hate.

But notice then our identity verse 17 and 20.

no, now it is no longer I who do it, but that sin that dwells within me.

Do you hear that?

In a sense then when I sin, it is the sin in us that does it, not the truest self.

He's saying, no, that's not who you are.

You are not your sin.

Sin is your sometimes activity.

It is never your identity as a Christian.

Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I do it.

But that sin that dwells within me.

Our dilemma, verse 21.

So I find it to be law that when I do right, evil lies close at hand, the more

we seek to do and be good, the more evil presses upon us and our own strength.

And then the two forces of the love of God's law.

In my truest self, the law of my mind, he says in verse 22, for I delight

in the law of God and my inner being.

So force number one, I do delight in the law of God, but then there's also

that other force at work, sin that hates the law of God, the law of my members.

Verse 23, but I see that in my members, another law is waging war against the

law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

And then the two cries.

So you've got two forces at work, and then you have two

cries, discouragement, verse 24.

Who will deliver me?

But then the hope.

Verse 25, Christ will deliver me, and Christ has delivered me.

How?

Romans 8, 1 4.

Salvation, total victory over sin, there is therefore now no condemnation

for those who are in Christ Jesus.

No condemnation for sin.

Verse 2, for the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ

Jesus, the law of sin and death.

second, there's no bondage to sin.

Verse three, for God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could

not do by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for

sin he condemned sin in the flesh.

number one, it comes through Christ's work.

And then notice verse four, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might

be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

Secondly, it comes through the Spirit's work.

All right.

Who magnifies the work of Christ in our hearts.

Finally, I talked about Jekyll and I talked about Hyde.

Hyde was shriveled.

Hyde was hard to look at.

Hyde was monstrous.

You would see him and you'd avoid eye contact with him.

And I wonder if Robert Louis Stevenson, having been raised in a church, if he

had that in mind as he came across 5214.

He writes of the Messiah who would come and suffer at the

hands of sinful humanity.

As many were as astonished at you, his appearance was so

marred beyond human semblance.

And is formed beyond that of the children of mankind.

In a real sense, he became Hyde.

Jesus, on the cross, he took our Hyde.

He became marred, he became and was treated as the monstrous thing.

2 And God made him who knew no sin, to become sin, so that we might become

the righteousness of God in him.

He became Hyde.

Destroyed in his flesh that sinful part.

He took it, but was treated as I deserved to be treated.

Guys, it's Okay to not be okay.

This is a hospital.

We do not shoot our wounded.

We do not tend We are not in need of Christ's rescue every day.

We don't put people on pedestals.

We Hopefully as we grow year after year We find the safety and the place where

you can share your vulnerability and it's not weaponized against you so that

we can protect confess our sins one to another and be healed so that we can

be a body that supports its members so that we can bear one another's burdens

and thus fulfill the law of Christ.

This, I pray, is a place where we let the light in and receive the

balm of grace from one another.

We do not go forward in self righteousness to prove our salvation, to get our

sanctification, but we furiously rest in the righteousness that has been won.

for us.

Let me pray for us.

Yes.

Father, we thank you for your word this morning.

and God, we just pray for that rescue that we need.

We confess that, we're too often.

We try do in my own strength, to show you that, I was a good deal.

I was a good get, Lord, you stand.

And you say, I love you because I love you.

Lord, before the foundation of the world, you chose us.

Ephesians one says, Lord, beautiful and love that before we even did

anything, before we moved a muscle, you loved us and you came to rescue us.

Lord, I just pray that this group right now would just feel your nearness.

Spirit of God, make much of Jesus right now.

Put your arms around the saints, broken as we may be.

But, Lord, is there any better place?

Because, Lord, you are near to the brokenhearted.

that, Lord, you go high and low, to come after us.

that you are the great physician.

Who comes to rescue the sick and the dying.

So Lord, I pray that, we'd struggle to enter that rest, that we'd strive

to enter that rest and that Lord, we would make much of any other's lives.

God, continue to knit our hearts together as a community.

continue, just to make us more like you Lord, as our hearts cry.

For your glory, Lord, we want.

The joy we feel about you, we want others to know you.

the worship Lord that we're about to sing to you.

Oh man, Lord, would you make many sons and daughters today throughout this city?

We want a whole chorus Lord.

We want a whole congregation.

We want the people from every tongue tribe and nation Lord

to worship and to praise you.

You are so good and you're so worthy of it.

And so be glorified Lord.

And um, yeah, stir up our joy now Lord.

And uh, we praise you.

So we give this time to you in Jesus name.

Amen.

My