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The Spirit Empowered Life

What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. (Romans 7:7-13 ESV)

Paul asks a question: “Is the law sin?” “What a ghastly thought!” Of course not. The law showed him what sin was. He illustrates with coveting. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet.” What happened when the law said, “Don’t covet.” He wanted to covet—as a matter of fact—coveting of every kind.

In verse 9, he says: “I was once alive apart from the Law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.”   In other words, before there was a law, I had no conscious awareness that coveting was a sin. But when the law came, I became aware and I began to sin. And that sin resulted in death for me.”

Notice the purpose of the law—its purpose was to bring life, not death. However, when sin got hold of the law, sin said, “The law says you can’t do this, but you really can and you will really enjoy it. As a matter of fact, the only reason the law says, “no” is because you will have so much fun doing it. So, go ahead. Have a great time. Covet your neighbor’s wife. After all, everybody else is doing it. And your neighbor doesn’t treat her wife quite right anyway.” What has happened? Sin has taken the commandment, “Do not covet,” and turned it into the most desirable thing to do.

“Did that which is good then bring death to me? By no means!”   The law did not cause Paul to sin. What then, did the law do? The law simply pointed out what sin was. And not only that. The law made sin look exceedingly sinful.

I love the way Spurgeon explains this.

Paul here calls sin “sinful beyond measure.” Why didn’t he say. “exceedingly black,” or “exceedingly horrible,” or “exceedingly deadly”? Why, because there is nothing in the world so bad as sin. When he wanted to use the very worst word he could find, to call sin by, he called it by its own name, and reiterated it: “sin,” “sinful beyond measure.” For if you call sin black, there is no moral excellency or deformity in black or white. Black is as good as white, and white is as good as black, and you have expressed nothing. If you call sin “deadly,” yet death in itself has no evil in it compared with sin. For plants to die is not a dreadful thing; rather it may be a part of the organization of nature that successive generations of vegetables should spring up, and in due time should form the root-soil for other generations to follow. If you call it “deadly,” you have said but little. If you want a word, you must come home for it. Sin must be named after itself. If you want to describe it, you must call it “sinful.” Sin is “exceedingly sinful.”

That’s what Paul is talking about. The law says, “Do not touch.” We want to touch. And deep in us is a great desire for sin (called the flesh) and the flesh longs to be satisfied. The law simply pointed out sin. Sin used the law to make sin even more attractive. Look back at verse 6. There you see the new motivation. “new way of the Spirit.”

The law is an external, objective standard to which we conform. The Spirit is an internal, subjective Person to whom we relate.

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Guilt Replaced by Grace

Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:4-6 ESV)

So that you may belong to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead. It’s one thing to be freed, but now what do we do? Since the law no longer has its condemning grip on us, are we to wander aimlessly through life without any sense of direction? How are we to live if the law no longer dictates our day-to-day activities?

Focus on that word “belong” as translated by the ESV. The NAS translates it “joined to.” The NIV translates it “belong to” and the KJV “married.” Joined, belong to, married are relationship words. Compare those words to the description of the married woman found in 7:2, “the married woman is “bound.”

A question. If you had your choice, would you rather be “bound” or “joined”?

Notice that, just as death frees the married woman to marry another, death frees us to pursue a new relationship. When we come to know Christ, we belong to him, are joined to him, are “married” to him. We are called the “bride” of Christ.  Guilt moves out and grace moves in.

In a sentence: Jesus loves you. He didn’t die on a cross to give you a new system for living: he died on the cross to give you and became your groom, your Savior. He loves you.

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The New Landlord

Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:4-6 ESV)

Larry Christenson, in his work The Renewed Mind, describes it this way:

Let’s say that you live in an apartment under a demanding landlord. The rent has to be paid on time, every time, and if you’re a moment late, you’re penalized. Every month, it seems, the rent increases. Your landlord comes into your apartment at will and checks to see that all is perfectly arranged—he keeps a clean house.

One day you hear the news. Someone has come in and bought the apartment complex. You meet your new landlord and to your surprise discover that you don’t even have to pay rent. It’s free! You never have to undergo the meticulous inspections again. This landlord visits you, sometimes dropping by just for an occasional chat. He brings you things He thinks you need. You don’t know how to act.

Then one day, you hear a knock on the door. It’s a familiar knock—you know it too well. You go to the door, knowing who’s standing there. It’s your old landlord. And before you know it, you’re opening the door. He’s demanding payment, even though he does not own the apartment complex. Without thinking, because you’ve done it for so many years, you pay up—money you don’t even owe him!

You don’t have to open the door. The old landlord, the law, has no right in your home. He can exact no payment from you. You have a new landlord, who is also your friend.

You belong to another.

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A Crucial Crucifixion

For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.  (James 2:10 ESV)

The law is a package deal. If you keep one law, you must keep them all. When you break one law, you have broken all of them and are found guilty. We carry the law as a heavy weight on our shoulders. We are sad when we can’t achieve, disappointed when we can’t perform. We’re never good enough, never quite make it, never get it just right. The law is perfect, and when we fail in one point, we have failed in all points and we are judged guilty.

But there’s good news. Don’t miss this.

For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:19-20 ESV)

If you have trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you have been crucified with Christ. This is great truth and sometimes hard to grasp. Notice the grammar of the statement: “I have been crucified.” This is the present perfect tense—denoting an event in the past with continuing effects. When were we crucified?   When Jesus died. Jesus died a substitutionary death—he died in our place. He stood in on our behalf.

The law that brought to Paul the awareness of sin, and the guilt to you, brought Christ to the cross. And on the cross, he died, once for all, for the sins of all people. The law always required a sacrifice. Jesus’s sacrifice was perfect—the law was perfect. Jesus’s sacrifice was complete, fulfilling the obligations of the law. When you chose to accept Christ, whether you knew it or not, you accepted Him as your representative before God and His death as fulfilling the law.

How should this change the way we live?

One word: focus. Do you focus on your sin problem or on the One who freed you from your sin problem? When you fail, do you wallow in guilt, or turn to the One who took your failures to the cross and seek His forgiveness?

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Jesus, the Selfless Master

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. (Romans 6:16-18 ESV)

Either: you have a choice. You can either obey sin or you can obey righteousness. No longer must you show up to the taskmaster of your own flesh and say “yes.” You can say, “no.” Why does Paul saturate this description with slave language? A slave among the Romans was considered his master’s property, and he could do with him as he wanted. Under a bad master, the slave lived a dreadful life. His ease and comfort were of no concern; he was treated worse than an animal; and, in many cases, his life hung on the mere whim of the master.

That’s what the old slave master, sin, does. Satan cares nothing for you. And when you come to Christ, his hatred for you intensifies. Your old nature, the sinful nature that you possessed when you came to Christ, you still have. Deep within you is the desire to sin. When you give in to that old sin nature, you are throwing away the freedom given you in Christ. Your own evil lusts and appetites become your most cruel taskmasters.

The truth is that you choose your master—and you do not have to show up at your master’s house one more day. You can be free. As a Christ-follower, slavery to sin is voluntary.   Look at what Paul says. You are a slave either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness.

Why use the same term, slave, to refer to believers? It more forcibly shows that we are our Master’s property; and that, as he is infinitely good his service must be perfect freedom.   Jesus Christ asks no obedience from us that he does not turn to our eternal advantage because He has no self-interest to secure. You see, before Christ, you had no choice. The temptation came along, you gave in, and you fell to it. Now you have a choice. You have God, in the form of the Holy Spirit, living inside you. When temptation comes, you don’t have to say yes.

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The Underestimated Power of Sin

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. (Romans 6:12 ESV)

Sin is tenacious. Sin is powerful. Sin is persistent. Sin is dominant. Sin is controlling. Sin is devastating. If you doubt the power of sin, consider Josh Gordon’s story:

Josh Gordon is a wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns. He is 23 years old and his annual salary is $1.3 million. He was suspended for ten games of the 2014 season because he could not say no to marijuana. A failed drug test sealed his fate. Now his playing ability for 2015 is in jeopardy. He has tested positive for alcohol. Gordon has opportunities that any athlete would only dream about…yet he is rocked by the reality that he can’t resist the temptation of drugs and alcohol.

Sin is controlling. Sin is not content as a guest in the throne room of your life. Sin will insist on being king on the very throne of your heart–sin will reign. And once sin reigns, it will call the shots, choose your course, determine your destination.

The Cleveland Browns are dealing with another potential rising star who’s mesmerized with sin. Consider this post today on nbcsports.com.

Browns head coach Mike Pettine just said that he has to approach this offseason as if he’s looking for a starting quarterback, saying “it’s probably accurate” to think that’s the team’s approach.

Pettine said he visited Manziel in rehab last week, and that “he has our full support.”

“He’s in a much better place now than before he went in,” Pettine said. “We’re proud of him. . . .

“We had the same information everyone else in the League had. It turns out to be a deeper-rooted thing that we thought.”

The support for their quarterback at a human level is impressive. But the lack of support from a football standpoint is telling.

Johnny Manziel’s bout with alcohol has gotten the best of him. He might just lose his career over it.

Don’t underestimate the power of sin.

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I Did Not Know

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:1-4 ESV)

For the first 17 years of my Christian life I did not know.

Here’s what I did not know:

  • I did not know that I was baptized into Jesus’s death.
  • I did not know that I was buried with Jesus in his burial.
  • I did not know that I was resurrected with Jesus in his resurrection.

I did not know. I’ve told this before (and it’s really embarrassing, but true). For several years I drove a Chevy S-10 that had a 3rd door. chevyred-754828Behind the driver’s door was a 3rd door! For years, when Trent wanted to ride with me, he would climb behind my seat into the back and sit on the fold-down chair. I never saw the door handle to the 3rd door. It was hidden in plain sight. That’s embarrassing.

But it’s more embarrassing to admit that for 17 years of my Christian life, I battled sin in my own power because I was ignorant. I was ignorant of this reality: when I trusted Jesus as my Savior (baptized into Christ Jesus) I was immersed in his death. My old sinful nature died that day. Death isn’t fun. My sinful nature hasn’t been happy ever since. As a matter of fact, every day my sinful nature (flesh) tries to rear its ugly head, tries to convince me to satisfy its desires, tries to deceive me into thinking I can be satisfied by its desires.

Death is devastating unless there’s a resurrection in the future! I did not know that I was baptized into Jesus’s death. And I did not know that I was buried with Jesus in his burial. And of course I did not know that I was resurrected with Jesus. That’s right!

How was Jesus raised from the dead? “By the glory of the Father.” That’s a loaded statement…one that this blog won’t allow today–tomorrow we will delve into it. Here’s what I didn’t know. I didn’t know that the death of my sinful nature had lead to the resurrection of a new man in Christ…one not bound by sin, one not under the sway of the world, one not gripped by the power of temptation.

Lamar Silver showed me the 3rd door on my truck. Chuck Swindoll, in his sermon series on Romans 1-8, opened a whole new vista into what it means to walk by grace, to be raised to life by the Spirit, to live an entirely new life.

Now I know. And I have choice. Climb over the seat to get to the back of the Chevy S-10…or open the 3rd door.

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A Prayer for Friday

Resting on God (from The Valley of Vision)

The thought of your infinite serenity cheers me, for I am toiling and moiling, troubled and distressed, but you are forever at perfect peace.

Your designs cause you no fear or care of unfulfilment, they stand fast as the eternal hills.

Your power knows no bond, your goodness no stint. You bring order out of confusion, and my defeats are your victories:

The Lord God omnipotent reigns.

I come to you as a sinner with cares and sorrows, to leave every concern entirely to you, every sin calling for Christ’s precious blood; revive deep spirituality in my heart; let me live near to the great Shepherd, hear his voice, know its tones, follow its calls.

Keep me from deception by causing me to abide in the truth, from harm by helping me to walk in the power of the Spirit.

Give me intenser faith in the eternal verities, burning into me by experience the things I know; let me never be ashamed of the truth of the gospel, that I may bear its reproach, vindicate it, see Jesus as its essence, know in it the power of the Spirit.

Lord, help me, for I am often lukewarm and chill; unbelief mars my confidence, sin makes me forget you.

Let the weeds that grow in my soul be cut at their roots; grant me to know that I truly live only when I live to you, that all else is trifling.

Your presence alone can make me holy, devout, strong and happy.

Abide in me, gracious God.

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God Will Supply All Your Needs

So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the LORD gave her conception, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! (Ruth 4:13-14 ESV)

The Lord gave her conception. We’re not sure why the author of Ruth pointed out God gave her conception. One wonders if it was a stretch because of Boaz’s age for him to father a child. Whatever the challenge, it is clear that Ruth had a child because God wanted her to have one. The second miracle is that the child was a boy. A boy was necessary in order to preserve Naomi’s line and tend her land. Naomi needed a boy and God gave her a boy through Ruth’s marriage to Boaz.

But the surprising turn of events in the story is that this boy ultimately became the redeemer. No one saw this coming! Up until this point Boaz has been the hero of the story…the man who reached out to a Moabite stranger gleaning in his field and directed his field workers to leave her extra food. He is the man who waited at the city gate anxiously looking for a redeemer who was closer kin to Naomi.

But Boaz, with all of his heroic acts, was upstaged by a baby boy. Who would have thought that a baby boy would burst onto the scene and redeem Naomi! What Boaz couldn’t do, the boy would do. What Boaz couldn’t feel for Naomi, her grandson, Obed, would. Through Obed, God promised to meet every need Noami had.

And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19 ESV)

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Kept By God

Slowly and deliberately pray this prayer to the God “who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy…”(Jude 1:24):

Jehovah God,

Creator, Upholder, Proprietor of all things, I cannot escape from your presence or control, nor do I desire to do so.

My privilege is to be under the agency of omnipotence, righteousness, wisdom, patience, mercy, grace.

You are love with more than parental affection; I admire your heart, adore your wisdom, stand in awe of your power, abase myself before your purity.

It is the discovery of your goodness alone that can banish my fear, allure me into your presence, help me to bewail and confess my sins.

When I review my past guilt and am conscious of my present unworthiness I tremble to come to you, I whose foundation is in the dust, I who have condemned your goodness, defied your power, trampled upon your love, rendered myself worthy of eternal death.

But my recovery cannot spring from any cause in me, I can destroy but cannot save myself.

Yet you have laid help on One that is mighty, for there is mercy with you, and exceeding riches in your kindness through Jesus.

May I always feel my need of him.

Let your restored joy be my strength; may it keep me from lusting after the world, bear up heart and mind in loss of comforts, enliven me in the valley of death, work in me the image of the heavenly, and give me to enjoy the first fruits of spirituality, such as angels and departed saints know. (The Valley of Vision, page 106-107)