Don’t Be a Fool Series #4

What Do We Do Since We’ve All Been Fools? (Romans 7:15-8:17)

Let’s pray…
Please turn to Romans 7:15

So I have been reading an incredible book. I would strongly suggest you grab a copy from Amazon, or have someone order it for you at the one of the local bookstores. The book is by Paul Tripp. It’s called Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands: People in Need of Change, Helping People in Need of Change. His book and a series of 22 sermons by John Piper were big helps as I came to tackle the text that we are going to cover here tonight. I will have links to both once tonight’s sermon notes get loaded on to the CITG Web site. (Look for sermons from 2001 and 2002 beginning at Romans 7:15 through Romans 8:17 if you follow the link to the Piper)

Until then, while you’re here with us, let me catch you up. To review, we are in the middle of a series called “Don’t Be a Fool.” And what we’ve been doing is looking through passages in Proverbs, mainly, and discussing some of the common pitfalls in life, in the life of believers and non-believers.
And, so far we’ve talked about listening before you talk. The Bible says, if you talk before you listen, You are a Fool.

And then we talked about the importance of speaking life into people’s situations instead of speaking death. And specifically, we showed in Scriptures where you and I are fools if we gossip, or spread slander or if we criticize others or if we… if we bring death with our mouths.

Then last week was really hard hitting. We talked about the way in which sexual sin, sexual immorality – which we cast the biblical net over to call anything outside of sex between a man and a women IN MARRIAGE as sexual sin. We unpacked Proverbs 7 and just let it show us the way we become fools when we submit to the slave master of sexual sin.
Now, we’ve still got a couple of other areas that we are going to hit in this series. I’m going to talk about foolishness in how we handle our money and Andy is going to tackle foolishness in how we deal with anger. Those sermons are coming down the pike.

But, today I wanted to pull us into a rest stop and just revive us with the waterfall of grace that is found in Christ Jesus.
Because if we only focus on “The Bible Says this is foolish, the Bible says this is sin. You and I do this stuff, therefore we are foolish sinners.”
Then we are going to just hang down our heads and cry and we’re going to say what’s the point?

If we only focus on the sin and the foolishness that leads to that sin then what good are we. We are a Gospel saturated church, which by definition means that we are marinated in the Gospel, which is literally THE GOOD NEWS.

If we are marinating in the good news, then you should be able to taste the good news, you should be experiencing the Good news in every message.

Because of that, I have been purposeful in bringing every message in this series back to Jesus. But, sometimes when we are really confronted with biblical truth about OUR sin.

Sometimes when we hear what the Word of God calls us to and what He calls us AWAY FROM, we feel it like a truck hitting us. If the Spirit is working in my heart, then seeing a clear picture of my sin is going to knock the wind out of me. He has to give us a spiritual emptying of all the evil of our heart before He can pour in the good.

But it has been true for me that I have heard some sermons in the past where the cutting away was so painful so eye-opening and frankly, so traumatic, that I left without hearing the rest of a message that would have brought me to Christ as the “re-filler” restorer, reconciler of my soul.
So this message tonight is going to serve the purpose of catching you up onto the goodness of God, despite our foolishness and despite the SIN that our foolishness has lead us to.

And again this week, we are diving in to so much text that we are just going to read and unpack, read and unpack. So let’s get started in Romans 7:15 where Paul talks about indwelling sin in the life of believers…

15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

Paul is a really interesting guy. This is the guy who wrote a majority of the New Testament. He started a ton of churches and is given a great portion of the human credit for the spread of the gospel in what were considered untouchable areas of the Roman Empire. And because of all of that, we sometimes forget that he was just another dude. In his own estimation Paul states in 1 Timothy 1:15 that he is chief among sinners.

And he didn’t say this because he had been worse than the murderers and the corrupt politicians of his day. He didn’t say it because he thought of himself as worse than the child molester that might live down the street.

We like to compare ourselves to the worst people around us, “at least I’m not _______!”

Paul was different and we should follow his model. He saw his sin in comparison to the Holy God of the universe. And Paul realized that it was against that perfection, the perfection of God, that He would be judged, if not for Jesus Christ.

And here in the end of Chapter 7 Paul says, I lean into the truth of my sinfulness and my need for Jesus’ Righteousness to cover me, I lean into that, I depend on that as much now as I ever have.

And His dependence on God was fostered by an honest appraisal of what indwelling sin was still doing in his life.

The truth that I’ve found as I’ve looked deeper into the Word, the thing that hits me again and again is the fact of my continual battle with sin and my deep love and gratitude for Jesus who died to free me from that sin through justification and through my progressive sanctification.

That’s what Paul is getting to in this section. He says, my life is living proof that, although I have been eternally and instantly freed from the punishment that I deserved for my sin – a punishment of death and Hell – I am still at war against the lingering effects of sin that I grapple with until Christ comes back or until I die.

To you and to me, to us - To believers in the church, Paul shows us that this is why we yelled at our kids or our spouse when we should have shown kindness. This is why we pad our accounts, this is why we over eat, this is why we look with an intent to lust at men or women around us, this is why we hold onto hate and refuse to forgive. This is why we throw in the towel when things get rough. This is why we are bold when we talk about the last restaurant we ate at and the last movie we saw, but we lose that boldness when it really counts for something eternal and we shy away from sharing the Gospel with a stranger, or a friend, or an enemy that God has placed in our path.

This indwelling sin is, Paul says, why we do the things we don’t want to do and why we don’t do what we know that God would have us do.
But! That is not where it ends. I am sad to say that I spent years of my Christian walk with this wrong notion that, since indwelling sin would always be at war with me, that I might as well just give up on battling the sin and just go through life waiting for Jesus so that He could finally make me pure.

I thought, “Well, Paul the super Christian couldn’t defeat sin, so I shouldn’t expect to in this life either.”

The problem with that mindset is Romans 8. Paul doesn’t just write these first 7-1/2 chapters in order to say, “Oh, well. It’s all hopeless.”

No, Instead he continues and says there is hope. The hope for you and the hope for me as we deal with indwelling sin is in Christ. And by the power of Christ, through the Holy Spirit, we do not have to sit like P.O.W.s in the enemy’s camp, waiting for the end of the war. No we can break free and fight back. Let’s read through Romans 8:17 and unpack a bit more of this truth. And as we read this, let me quote Paul Tripp as sort of a primer for this passage. Tripp wrote that “In Romans 8:1-17, Paul presents the gospel as a comfort and a call.”

In other words, like I said from the outset, I deeply desire for this to be an encouraging night for you, for you to know that IF you are in Christ that the storms of sin from others and the sins that wage war against you are not the final word on the matter. Be encouraged by that!

But also see this as a call to take action, because of Jesus, because of your love for God, because of your faith that you are His – take action don’t be a pacifist in this war on your sin, NO! Kill the sin that tries again and again to enslave you. This gospel pronouncement IS a comfort and a call for those of us who are in Christ. Let’s read…

1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

Repeat that with me. This is one of the most comforting verses in the Bible IF you are a Christian. If you are, let it wash over you. As you read this I want you to tuck it away into your heart.

That way when the enemy comes and tells you that God can't love you or won't love you because of all that you have done, or because of the thoughts that rattle around in your mind, or because of the words that you have spoken you can confront the enemy with this powerful weapon of truth. Say it with me: Therefore, there is NOW NO CONDEMNATION for those who are in Christ Jesus!!!!!!!!

2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4 in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

(Verse 3 and 4 are heavily weighted toward the salvation, or justification by faith in Christ)

5 Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. 8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

12 Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,

(BE AT WAR AGAINST SIN! John Owen wrote be killing sin, or sin will be killing you)

14 because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

All this is to say that You are not defeated by sin, if this sermon series and the rest of the messages here bring on conviction, a feeling of sorrow because of the sin in your life now, or un-confessed sin from the past than we praise God! If that is where you stand, then you stand with Paul and me and every other believer. We praise the Holy Spirit of God for showing us the evil that still lurks in our hearts trying to steal kill and destroy us.

Because we can’t take aim at an enemy that we can’t see.

Be encouraged! You are on the winning side of this battle. Keep Fighting! Fight by the word of God and prayer, fight by holding tight to the promise at the end of Romans 8. Be convinced as Paul is convinced, (vv. 38-39)...

that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Let’s Pray…
Communion…