Death to the Law Brings Works of Love Not Lawlessness

Why are they so hateful about it? Why are they so high-handed in their rebellion against this God and His revealed will? It's because their heart hasn't been changed. Why is it that even when you struggle, you come to the Word of God and you find the Word of God teaching what you don't want to do in your circumstance? And yet you find it so compelling. It's so compelling because it's the will of my Father that I submit to as well. Why is that? It's because you've been joined to Christ and because the Spirit of God is coming and taking up residence in your heart. This is why the fact that you've been freed from law and you've been united to Christ has changed you forever. This is why John says he that has been born of God cannot live in sin because God's seed remains in him and he cannot live a life of sin.

It's not possible because there's a new union. You know, it wouldn't be wonderful parents if we could go back to the days when we practiced arranged marriages and you could choose your children's partners. I'm being facetious because it'd be probably the greatest tragedy they ever hit this culture because of the way people, the choices people make wouldn't help at all. But it's really important who they marry, isn't it? It's crucial who they marry. And we know the kind of havoc that it can wreak when they're joined to the wrong person. Well, let me tell you the new covenant joins you to the right person. The new covenant has joined you to the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know, he takes the virus center, he takes the greatest rebel in all the world and when that person is joined to Christ, there is transformation, glorious transformation.

It's going to ultimately come to perfection. Stand with me and let's pray. We'll close in prayer. Our Father, I pray that you'd bring your Word to bear upon our hearts. We confess to you, Father, that we have such a desire to please you and yet there are so many things in our lives as we live in a fallen world that is so ungodly in its appetites and is so blatant in its appeals for us to live a life of rebellion against the Holy God. And we are causally being presented bombarded with temptations in this life. And yet you've ruined us for sin because Christ has come to live within us. We pray that you would teach us how to live in a fallen world with devotion to Jesus Christ. How to be lampstand, a lampstand as a church and lights in a fallen world that's in such darkness, and we pray we wouldn't do it as legalist as Pharisees, but we would do it as new covenant believers whose hearts have been changed.

We pray, oh God, that our lives would be characterized by this relationship, by loving service like Jesus. I pray even now, as we end our service, as we have conversation with each other, I pray that our conversation, all of our conversations would be characterized by the truth of who Jesus Christ is and the way we relate to each other. We are a community of faith. We are the people of Christ, and we're in process, Father, we have so many weaknesses. We have so much sinfulness in our hearts and lives that you have yet to remove. And yet we have this great and glorious reality, we have Christ living in us. And so we pray that you would work in a deep way in our hearts. And even as we talk with each other and encourage each other in sight, one another to love and good deeds, I pray that you would grow community in this place, that you would help us to encourage each other and to be a real fellowship for one another in this fallen world, Father.

We long to live for you. We long to manifest the righteousness that Jesus Christ truly is in the way that we live. And so we pray that you would produce that in us for the glory of your Son. We want to bear fruit for you, Father. Fruit that pleases you and brings you deep joy. And so we ask you to continue this powerful work in our hearts. In Jesus' name and for His glory, Amen. Turn with me to Romans chapter 7. What a relaxed atmosphere we have during the summer. And I want this word, this part of God's word, to really penetrate into your hearts. This is a wonderful truth in regards to the nature of our salvation in Christ. We want to answer the question today, why it is that freedom from the law brings love, that is works of love and not lawlessness.

There are a lot of people who are worried that if you don't keep people under law, then you won't see any righteousness coming out of them. They will be, if they know that they're not under law, their lives will be characterized by sin. Very interestingly, Paul says it's not grace that incites sin, it's the law that incites sin in the lives of fallen people. And we'll see how that unfolds. Notice what's going on here. In Romans chapter 7, let me read the first six verses and listen to these words. Paul writes, or do you not know, brethren, for I'm speaking to those who know the law, that the law, that is the mosaic law, the law that God gave to his people at Mount Sinai, that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives.

For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he's living, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living, she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law so that she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man. Therefore my brethren, you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead. In order that we might bear fruit for God, for while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.

But now we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the spirit and not in oldness of the letter. This text, what's going on here, is Paul is continuing, finishing his answer to the question that he raised back in chapter 6, verse 15, that is, shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace. Paul has made this clear statement, we are not under the law but under grace. We are in feared in grace. In grace, of course, is God's unmerited favor displayed in Christ Jesus. You could say, shall we sin because we are not under law but in Christ? Shall we sin because no longer are we under the domination of the law and Paul begins to answer that question in verse 16 of chapter 6.

And now he continues in the first six verses of chapter 7. In really is answering the question, why does freedom from the law not result in lawlessness? Why is it that people don't, the people of God simply don't just go on and sin when they discover that they're no longer under law. Notice something what Paul does here. In chapter 6, as he answers this question, he uses the analogy or the metaphor of slavery. And he answers first the reason that we are not to sin even though we're not under law but under grace is because we have a new owner. We are no longer slaves of sin but we are the slaves of God. We belong to God. We saw when we looked at that passage that the Bible teaches that you're going to serve somebody.

You're either going to serve God or you're going to serve sin. And Paul says it is insane for the believer to present himself to sin because you've been set free from sin and enslaved to God. But then in chapter 7 he begins to use the analogy of marriage and he's going to explain that there has been a transfer not only of ownership but a transfer of allegiance. And that's what he's picturing with this picture of marriage. And notice how he does this. In these verses that I read in chapter 7, it really breaks down in these three sections of these six verses. First, he gives the principle in verse 1, second, an illustration of the principle in verses 2 and 3. And finally, an application to our lives as believers in Jesus Christ, new covenant believers.

The principle basically is this. The principle found in verse 1 is that law has jurisdiction over a man as long as he lives. But when he dies, the law no longer has jurisdiction over him. You have no policeman out at the cemetery, just outside of Brentwood, driving around the cemetery, making sure that none of these corpses break the law. The reason is when you die, you are no longer under the law. That relationship has been severed. The fact that you don't pay your taxes after you die doesn't mean anything. Because the law no longer has jurisdiction over you. That's the principle. Now he applies the principle, rather he illustrates the principle first in verses 2 and 3 with marriage. And notice what he says about marriage.

Now let me say first of all that his point here is not to give us the biblical teaching on marriage. He's assuming some things. He says nothing to do with what the Bible teaches about divorce and remarriage. The Bible has a lot to say about that. The Bible says there are cases in which a believer can divorce and marry again. And he teaches very clearly what those things are. Basically three things. If your spouse dies, you're free to marry. If your spouse abandons you, you are free to marry. If your spouse will not repent and ongoing immorality, the believer is free to marry again at the ending of that marriage. This is what Paul teaches in Romans chapter 7, which is totally consistent with the teaching of Jesus.

But he's not teaching on marriage here. He is using marriage as an analogy, as a picture of this principle. And so the principle is this, is illustrated in this way. When a woman is married to a man, when she has a husband, she is bound by the law to that husband, as long as that husband is alive. And she has a husband. Now the reason I say he's not teaching on marriage here, and this is where I don't want you to bring this text over and apply it to something it's not meant to apply to. Jesus told the woman at the well, if you remember in John chapter 4, he said, you have had six husbands and the husband you're with now is not your husband. In other words, she had had more than one husband. What he's talking about here is when a woman has a husband, she's bound to the law of that husband that she has until death.

And it's simply the principle that the law has jurisdiction over a man as long as he lives. Now, if the law has jurisdiction over you, then we should ask the question, why aren't you obeying the law of God? Have you read the law of God? Have you read Deuteronomy? Did you know that you were breaking the Sabbath yesterday as you lived your normal life pattern? Why don't you feel guilty about that? Whether you know it or not, and maybe you have no idea why you don't feel guilty for breaking the Sabbath, and I can guarantee you that none of you know any Sabbath keepers. There aren't any. There may be a few Jewish people who keep Sabbath, but they're not really keeping Sabbath because Jesus is a fulfillment of the Sabbath, and the only way we could keep Sabbath in the true sense is by resting in Christ Jesus.

Why don't you feel guilty about breaking the law of God when you read the Ten Commandments and one of the commandments is to keep Sabbath and you don't keep Sabbath unless you can so modify it that you can say, well, I keep it according to my rules. Well, I'm sorry. It doesn't work that way. So why is it? Well Paul says it's because of a death, because we are bound to this law. The woman is bound to the law of her husband as long as he lives. And if the husband dies, if there is a death, if he dies, and she is free from the law, and she can marry again, she's free to do that, because death has ended this responsibility under the law, this jurisdiction of the law. And so he says, in verse 3, so then if while her husband is living, she's joined to another man.

She should be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man. So you get the principle. The principle is the law has jurisdiction over a man as long as he lives. But in this case, if he dies, then she's freed from the law. Now notice what he does. He flips it in verses 2 and 3 when he gives the illustration, it's the husband that dies and the wife is free then to marry another man. But when he applies it to the believer, it's not the husband that dies, it's the believer, the wife who is pictured as a wife here dies. It's the death of the wife that enables her to marry another man and not be violating the law, not be a law breaker.

And notice how he applies this, this is the application in verses 4 through 6, therefore my brethren, therefore a new covenant believer. Those of you who have come to rest your faith in Jesus Christ, those of you who have entered into the new covenant relationship with God, he says, you also were made to die to the law. That is the law of Moses. That's what he's been talking about all the way through this context. You have been made to die to the law through the body of Christ. That is through Christ's death on the cross so that you might be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law where our work and the members of our body to bear fruit for death.

But now that this death is taken place and this new union is taken place, we have been released from the law having died to that by which we were bound so that we serve in newness of the spirit and not in oldness of the letter. Notice, he pictures the law here. This is important. He pictures the law as a power of the old era. Remember, we talked earlier on Paul begins to set up this picture which is consistent with the testimony of Scripture that the Bible pictures two eras, two realms, the old realm which he uses many different terms to refer to in chapter 80 is going to primarily use the term, the concept of being in the flesh. Our life outside of Christ, life in a fallen world apart from Christ, we were in the flesh, but now we have been placed into Christ, the old evil age and the age to come.

We've been transferred out of this era, into this era, out of this rule, into this rule. And so he is picturing the law as a power of this old era from which we need to be, notice in verse 6, we need to be released. You see that in verse 6, he says, but now we have been released from the law. We have been released from the law. This is the word is used several times by Paul in chapter 6 and 7 and it's a very strong word. It means to nullify. He says that we were identified with Christ so that the body of sin would be done away with. That is, our body being used as an instrument of sin would be nullified, same word. So he says, we've been released from the law. There is an end of our relationship with the law.

God caused it to come to an end. So the fact that I don't keep Sabbath means that I am not living in sin because I am not, I am no longer under the mosaic law. How are we releasing this? How are we released from the law? Well in the text he says, therefore my brother, you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ. So the way I'm released from the law, now I'll make it clear as we go along, it doesn't mean you're released from righteousness, it doesn't mean you're released from all rules and all laws, it means you were released from the mosaic law and the condemnation and the power of the law over your life, the mosaic law over your life. He says we were made to die to the law through the body of Christ, that is through Christ dying on the cross.

So it is death that separates me. That frees me from the dominion, not only of sin but even of the mosaic law of God and the condemnation that it brings. Now why does he do this? What is God's purpose in releasing us from the law? Why is that so important? You might be thinking man, he just keeps going over and over this and I don't really see what's so significant about this, let me show you what's significant. Three phrases, crucial phrases in this text tell you God's purpose in freeing you from the law. First is that you might be joined to another and he's giving us this analogy of marriage that a woman is under the law to this husband, in other words she is joined with him in a covenant and she is joined with him until death takes place.

So she is under the law of her husband and Paul says here, the reason I use this analogy is you are under the law of the mosaic law. The regulator of your relationship with God before you put faith in Christ was the law of God, the revelation of God's absolute righteousness. But he says, God wanted you to join you to another husband, a different husband than the law and therefore he brought an end to this relationship so that you might be joined to another and he identifies this other as the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who was raised from the dead. Now notice, secondly the expression that we might bear fruit for God. Now in the context, bearing fruit for God here is talking about having children.

In other words, in the analogy of the marriage, here's the problem. This marriage between the individual and the mosaic law was sterile in the sense that because of the fallenness of man, it would never produce righteousness. It would never produce fruit. And so it's a picture of a woman who has a husband and I know there's nobody like this here. So don't think I'm thinking of anyone in this congregation. But it's like a woman having a husband and he has very high expectations, very clear righteous demands of his wife and that's all there is. And even though she has a husband who's perfectly righteous, there is no fruit in this marriage because there is no relationship. Now Paul's going to tell us in chapter 8 that the problem with this relationship was the flesh, the fallenness of man.

The reason that the system of the law, Paul puts it this way in Romans 8. What the law could not do week is it was through the flesh. In other words, the law would never produce righteousness in fallen humanity because of the fallenness of humanity. In other words, we had, it's as though we had married the wrong person. You know, parents go through this all the time as they're raising their children and they're really concerned about who they're going to marry as they get a little older because they know. They know that it is crucial. It is crucial for them to select the right person to marry because it changes everything. I was once talking to a Dr. Sekir who's a, has a theological seminary in India, a brilliant man.

And we were talking about different things and we were talking about a young lady that was having some real struggles and he said it was very interesting. She was, I think this young girl was just a young teenager and he said, what she needs is a good husband. That was his Indian perspective. He said in our country, if you haven't trouble with a 15-year-old girl, you simply get her a good husband and that will solve everything. We know that it is crucial who a person marries, don't we? Jonathan Edwards once had a young man approach him about marrying his daughter and his daughter, the daughter that he wanted to marry, was a very strong will to young lady. And he told this young man, no, you can't marry my daughter because she would ruin you.

She would so dominate your life that you would never become what God wants you to become. You need a different wife. See we had the wrong wife, we had the wrong husband rather. We could, there would never be fruit from this relationship, this relationship of a person who wants to have a relationship with God and having the law as the regulator of that relationship, righteousness would never come out of that relationship and the reason is is because of the weakness of our flesh. You put a righteous person under the law and what do you get? You get righteousness, you get fruit, you put Jesus Christ under the law and what do you get? Read the Gospels. You get a life of righteousness. You get a perfectly righteous man under the law which Jesus was and what He produced was a righteous life that please God.

You put any of the rest of us under the law of God as fallen people and what you get is not fruit, but a fruitless life. In fact, He goes on to say in this text that this law incited us to sin. It had a greenhouse effect, so to speak. It caused us to sin all the more. The more that we discovered what righteousness was, the more rebellious we were. As Paul says later in this chapter, I didn't even think about coveting. When the law said to me, thou shalt not covet it. All of a sudden I was coveting in all kinds of ways. We were married. This was a marriage that needed to be ended so that we could be joined to another. The other that we were joined to is the one who was raised from the dead and the reason for that is so that we might bear fruit.

Then the third expression is that we serve in newness of the spirit and not in oldness of the letter. This is a key phrase. It's found in verse 6. This tells you this is going to be a tip off to us of what Paul is really talking about here. He's talking about life under the new covenant. Now, here's the point of all this that God wants you to understand. And Paul is communicating this truth that salvation is a liberation from law and a unification with a living person. It is liberation from the letter which was engraved on stone so that we might be united to a living person, the Lord Jesus Christ. Death to the law has a purpose of setting us free from this sterile relationship so that we might be wedded to Christ and bear fruit for God.

F.F. Bruce says in his commentary on Romans, allegiance to a person had displaced devotion to a code. What he's saying is what God took us out of was devotion to a code that never produced a righteous life and he exchanged that for allegiance to a person. And in this personal relationship, the believer is transformed in out of his life flows the fruit of righteousness that pleases God. The purpose of this liberation from the law and union with Christ is that we might bear fruit for God. That we might bear fruit for God. Now I like you to think about this for a second because this really drives home an important truth to our hearts and that is that this transference of allegiance is a logical consequence for all those who trust in Christ atoning death.

Everyone who rests their faith in Jesus Christ embedded in saving faith is this allegiance to Jesus Christ. If a person tells me that they are a believer and yet they have no allegiance to Jesus Christ, the fact is they don't have saving faith because saving faith that it's heart is allegiance to Jesus Christ. It's a part of the formula. It's at the essence of saving faith. It's putting your trust in a person and as you grow in the Christian life, what happens, what develops and deepens is your allegiance to Jesus Christ. And I can tell you that all of you who have been walking in the faith, the greatest struggle in your life, the thing that causes you, the most trouble in the Christian life is worrying about this very issue.

You want to be committed to Christ, you want to have a communion with Jesus Christ, you want to be close to Him, you want to manifest allegiance to Him and you're always seeing things in your life that belize that because it's at the heart of saving faith. This union with Jesus Christ is the most important thing about you. And not only that, it's the most important thing to the Heavenly Father. The most important thing to God, the thing that brings God, great pleasure is your union with Jesus Christ and the fruit that flows out of that union. Now the closest thing I can relate that to on a human level is having grandchildren. The grandchildren are the fruit of a loving relationship between a husband and wife and when your children marry and they begin to have children, it brings great delight to your heart, doesn't it grandparents?

Brings great delight to your heart and you see those children as the fruit of a loving relationship. And here at Pictures God, as having his heart fill with joy as he sees the fruit that comes out of the life through union with Jesus Christ his son. And so as we are joined to Christ and we are walking allegiance to Him and out of our life flows this fruit. The fruit, the evidence of our union with Jesus Christ, it brings delight to the Father. Brings profound joy to the Father. Notice that expression to bear fruit for God. Have you ever thought about that? What is fruit for? The Bible talks about fruit bearing all the time, John 15, Jesus said, you can do nothing on your own. You have to abide in me.

But if you abide in me, you will have much fruit. And fruit that remains and Paul tells us here, this fruit is for God. You think it's for yourself that you can chalk it up that you've borne all this fruit and when you get to heaven, you're going to get a reward for it. That's not the idea at all. The whole concept of fruit is for the pleasure of the living God. God takes great pleasure as he watches you grow. As he watches the influence of Jesus Christ begin to produce radical change in your heart. You're no longer parsimonious and stingy and tight-fisted, but you begin to open up your heart and your hands. You begin to love people the way Jesus loves people. Instead of being proud and arrogant and thinking everybody is under you, you begin to kneel like Jesus and you begin to wash the feet of his disciples like Jesus did.

You begin to look like Jesus in your lifestyle. You begin to have a servant's heart. That brings delight to the heart of God. And you know what? It brings delight to our hearts as well. We look at believers around us and we begin to see them being transformed and becoming more like Jesus. We know it comes through relationship. It comes through this union with Jesus Christ. Why did God sever your relationship with the mosaic law as the regulator of your relationship with Him is so that you could be joined to Christ and out of your life flow fruit that will remain and that delights the heart of God? Now why is such radical change necessary? Why is it that it takes a death in order for you to bear fruit for God?

Well, he tells you the reason for that in verses five and six. And actually these two verses introduce the theme of the rest of chapter seven and eight and notice what they say. Why we were in the flesh. What does that mean? Being in the flesh is the condition we were in. It was the state that we were in before we came to faith in Christ. And that condition isn't simply giving in to the power of sin. The idea of being in the flesh means living in this fear of existence that is in separation from God, living according to this worldly principles and values, separated from God. On our own. And you know some people in the flesh when you measure them with other people in the flesh some of them are much better than others.

Some produce a lot more things that we can see their life seems so productive but they're still in the realm of the flesh. And he says when we were in this realm, notice this in verse five, why we were in the flesh, why we were living outside of Christ, why we were in this fear. He says the sinful passions, the sinful passions, what are the sinful passions? The sinful passions are those movements within the heart under the influence of sin that cause us to want to desire to, to be passionate about living in such a way that we violate the law of God and the rule of God and the authority of God in our lives. It's that push in us, that energizing power within us, that God has to live independently of God.

And notice what he says in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work. It means by we're at work means they were manifesting themselves in a powerful way. The law comes to us and Paul uses the example a little later in this text as I said when the law came to me, I thought I was keeping the law perfectly and then I noticed the commandment, thou shalt not covet. Now if none of you coveted here, if nobody in this world coveted, the whole economy would go belly up in America. Everything means you have a, you are greedy, you want more. You know the little iPods, Apple makes the little iPod, those things cost between three and five hundred dollars, a little music player that big.

I was reading the article the other guy, a day and a guy had fifteen iPods. What is that? That's called covetousness, greed, I got to have more, I got to have more and more and more and more. Now your greed may be under much better control, it's not nearly as life-shaking but you know what greed is, you know what covetousness is and so the commandment comes to you and says, thou shalt not covet. I mean imagine folks, what would happen in our life as a congregation if all of a sudden tomorrow we were all satisfied and content with what we had? What would happen if you just became content with what you had? You know, you got a fifteen year old car, not tomorrow, you woke up and you were just content with that car.

You've been looking at numerous 80s or BMWs or something and you were ready to go make the purchase and all of a sudden you just, you couldn't figure it out but all of a sudden you were just content with that nineteen, you know, ninety Buick. I got one of those at home. You were just content with it, would that be something? And instead we experienced covetousness of all kinds, as the law gave me and said, thou shalt not covet. He said, all of a sudden I begin to covet everything, everywhere I looked I was coveting. How can you not covet? How can you turn on your computer and go on the worldwide web without coveting? It's impossible, isn't it? How can you go to the mall and not covet? How can you drive down the street and not covet?

How can you look at your neighbors, thirty five thousand dollar commute, you know, import economy car and not covet? It's a part of our culture. Think of what Paul was going through, thou shalt not covet and he says, all of a sudden I begin to covet in every kind of way. And that's what he's talking about here, that the sinful passions which were aroused by the law. The law says to me, thou shalt not covet and man, every time I look around I covet something. He says they were at work, powerfully working in the members of our body, they were moving us to action to bear fruit, to bruise the product of death, a life in separation from God. But then notice the contrast in verse six, but now that I've come to Christ, now that I've died to the law, now that I've entered into this new sphere, we have been released from the law having died to that by which we were bound so that we serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

Paul says, I tried and tried and tried to resist, but the temptations were so strong, I couldn't resist breaking the law, thou shalt not covet. And Paul says, now what's happened to us is we've been freed from the law. Set free from the law. Instead of being dominated and controlled by this worldly principles and values being in the flesh, he said I began to experience something on the inside that happened to me. God began to do something on the inside, instead of this external set of rules, he began to do something on the inside and we were set free. Now in the flesh, the law aroused our sinful passions, it produced behavior that was worthy of God's judgment. In fact, let me show you an example of this.

This is a religious example, a lot of people feel very religious and so they think they're exempt from this kind of thing. In fact, they see their lives as very righteous. Here's a such a man in Luke chapter 13. Here's an example where the law became his excuse for his horrendous sin. I mean, this was an outrageous sin what this man is doing here. This is a religious leader, Luke chapter 13. Notice verse 10, and he was teaching, that is Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues. He liked a church today, one of the churches. And there was a woman who for 18 years had had a sickness caused by a spirit and she was bent double. Have you ever seen anybody in that condition? Bent double, bent over and the only way they could move around was for their body was bent over double and she could barely move around.

And she could not straighten up at all. For 18 years she's had this condition and notice what happens. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, woman, you are freed from your sickness. He heals her. What a glorious thing the God of the universe. Here's the heart of God reaching out to this woman who's been in agony for 18 years. And Jesus said, you are freed from your sickness. And he laid his hands on her and immediately she was made erect again and began glorifying God. Isn't that glorious? Can you imagine what a church service would be like if that happened? If somebody came up here and God reached down and touched them and healed them in such a miraculous, glorious way, wouldn't you be just overwhelmed with joy?

Wouldn't that be a glorious thing? Well, notice what happens. The synagogue official. A religious leader in the synagogue, the senior pastor, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. See how he's using the law? You didn't do no work on the Sabbath and Jesus heals this woman. He does a work on the Sabbath. Begins saying to the crowd in response, I can't get over this statement. I mean, this is just amazing. Listen to his statement. There are six days in which work should be done. So come during them and get healed and not on the Sabbath day. We don't want any healings on the Sabbath day because you're supposed to rest. You see how perverted his heart was? You see how the law did not produce righteousness in the heart of this man, but it simply revealed the wickedness of his heart.

What did this man need? He needed a heart transplant. He needed a new heart. And that's exactly what Paul says happens to us. We died to the law so that we might be joined to Christ and have our lives completely transformed through this union. So the law has this greenhouse effect, forcing the growth of sin to bring forth a fruit of death. The harder the religious try to be righteous, the more unrighteous they can be. We all know stories like that of religious people who try to be righteous and all they do is wreak havoc in the lives of people because they're sinners. They're sinners. Their hearts are wicked. Our hearts as fallen people are wicked and nothing less than a heart transformation is ever going to produce righteousness in us.

You'll notice in verse 6 again, he says, so that this is a crucial phrase, so that we might serve God in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter, newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter. When I was growing up, the group I grew up in, they used to use this kind of phrase and they thought it meant this. It isn't teaching the Bible that's going to change people's likes, that's the letter. This is the letter. What people need is the spirit. And so a good service, they would literally use this phrase, man, how is the service? It was so good we didn't have any preaching. I mean the spirit of God moved and we didn't have any preaching because the spirit, the letter kills, but the spirit, the Holy Spirit makes a life.

And what they meant by the Holy Spirit was some mystical feeling, that some chills that ran out and down your spine, that's what it really moved you. That's not what this text means at all, is it? You all know what this text means because we've been reading through Romans, you can see, what does he mean by the letter? He means the law of Moses inscribed on stone. This contrast here is between living under the law as the regulator of our life and ministry and living under the power of the spirit, working in the newness of the spirit. Let's look a little closer at this phrase because this tips us off that he's speaking about the new covenant, our new life under the new covenant in contrast to the old covenant that was given to Moses and the people of God and the Old Testament of Mount Sinai.

First of all, I'll put it up here for you in case you can't turn there fast off. And second Corinthians, chapter three, listen to this, here is our link to the new covenant. Paul says, not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything is coming from ourselves. That's a great, that is a great attitude in ministry. We just get that straight, it would change everything in our lives. Here's the Apostle Paul, the greatest Christian who ever lived by the estimate of most people. No one has been used by God in the way the Apostle Paul has as a member of the church. And yet Paul says, not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything is coming from ourselves. He was brilliant, this man.

The writings of Paul reveal his brilliance as well as the power of the spirit. But he says, we're not adequate in ourselves, but our adequacy is from God who also made his adequate as servants of a new covenant. Not of the letter, but of the Spirit. See that expression? Not of the letter, that is not of the law of Moses, but of the Spirit, of the Holy Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. The law was meant to be used by God in the flow of redemptive history to bring to pair up on the heart of fallen man his true sinfulness. You think you're righteous? You think you're a righteous person, and if you just were left to yourself, you could live the kind of life that when you stand before God that he could say to you, I'm going to let you in heaven because you are a righteous person and you've proved it by your life.

Then go to the law, live the law, and what the law will do to you is it will slay you. It will kill you dead because you can't keep it. And Jesus makes that clear in the sermon on the Mount. Now notice this. This is pointing back. Paul says in the text I just read in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, that the apostles are servants of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit, because the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. In other words, he says, we are not simply apostles of the law. We now are a part of the new covenant. We are not adequate in ourselves. We're not teachers who've learned how to keep the law, and so we're going to show you how to. We are sinners like you, but our adequacy is in Christ and in the Spirit of God.

So Paul makes it explicit that he's talking about the new covenant. When he refers to the new covenant as not according to the letter, but according to the Spirit. This is how we know that Paul is speaking of serving. When he talks about serving by the Spirit and not the letter in Romans chapter 7, he's referring to the new covenant. What is this new covenant? We'll notice this is the key passage in the Old Testament regarding the new covenant. The new covenant was a promise by God to the people of Israel because they fail so miserably under the law. They began to understand they couldn't keep the law. They were under judgment continually. In fact, when Jeremiah writes, they're in Babylonian captivity because of their sin.

And so what does God do? He makes them a promise. He says, I have another plan. This is my plan. This is what I'm going to do. There's been my plan all along. I wanted you to come to know the truth about your sinfulness, but here is my promise. Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord. When I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers and the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, although it was a husband to them, declares the Lord. They broke it over and over and over and over again. And in fact, their situation when Jeremiah is writing to them is proof that they are law breakers.

This is the classic text in the Old Testament on the new covenant. This is the text that is quoted by the writer of Hebrews when he teaches on the new covenant in the book of Hebrews. And he tells us in this text, the law will no longer mainly be external, written on stone. That is what he means by letter, but it will be mainly internal, written on the heart of the person who enters into the new covenant. This is a much better plan. This is a much better plan. This plan says you want to enter into the covenant. This is what God will do. God will change your heart so that as John puts it, his commandments are not burdensome. Now that word, that expression when John says his commandments are not burdensome, doesn't mean his commandments are not hard.

Now his commandments are hard, aren't they? His commandments are hard, that you're to love each other the way Jesus loved you. That you're to love your enemies. You find that hard? I find that very hard, don't you? But they're not burdensome. And the reason they're not burdensome is we have the Holy Spirit who empowers us to keep them. Now in this text, he tells us the law is going to be written on our heart. The law will no longer be a demand from outside. It's going to be a desire from on the inside. That's a part of the new covenant. What happens when a person enters into the new covenant? Their heart is changed. The laws inscribed upon their heart, they begin to want to serve Christ. Now there are struggles, there's all kinds of resistance, but there is this desire that is so deep in the heart of the person who comes into the new covenant that they can never resist it.

It has them. It holds them captive. And knowing God is no longer going to be an external command, but it's going to be an internal experience. Did you know under the new covenant, unlike the old covenant, one of the distinctions that Jesus made, he says, the Spirit has been with you, but on that day he's going to be in you. In fact, Jesus describes the believer in the new covenant as having the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit living within him, or her. He comes to live within us. It's no longer this external relationship that I have to go to a temple, a particular place, a holy place in order to find God for God lives within the new covenant believer. He comes to reside within us. The foundation for these internal experiences of grace are found in the last clause.

If you notice the last clause in verse 34 here on the screen, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin, I will remember no more. Their iniquity, I will remember no more, and there it is right there. I've got to get you to it. In verse 34, I will forgive their iniquity and their sin, I will remember no more. So in this new covenant, God provides a way to wipe all our sins away, gives us an experience of personally knowing him, and writes his law upon our hearts so that we love to please him. That's the main characteristic of the new covenant believer. You love to please God, and in fact, it's what causes you misery when you know you are not pleasing him, because he's changed your heart.

Now this newness that he refers to, we need to ask the question then, what about the Spirit? He hasn't mentioned the Holy Spirit here. Where do we find that in the new covenant? What do we find it in Ezekiel? In Ezekiel chapter 11, Ezekiel writes in I, he also was a prophet during the captivity of Israel in Babylonian captivity because of their sin. And God speaks to Ezekiel and says, I will give them one heart and put a new Spirit within them. I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and do them. Then they will be my people, and I shall be their God. In chapter 36, he reiterates this again more over.

I will give you a new heart and put a new Spirit within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you. I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. This is the new covenant promise. God says there's a covenant coming and when does it start? In fact, when is this going to take place? That's the question. When is this radical change on the inside so that people having a relationship with God have a relationship with God not based on external standard and rules, but based upon a changed heart? Well, we are told by the Lord Jesus Christ in Luke chapter 22, when the night he's arrested and he goes to the cross, Jesus says this, as for the first time, he institutes the Lord's supper, which we partake of continually, and Jesus said in the same way, Jesus took the cup after they had eaten, saying, this cup, which is poured out for you, is the new covenant in my blood.

This is the new covenant in my blood. This is when the new covenant begins. This is when God institutes this new way of relating to God. The death of Christ is the foundation of the blessings of the new covenant. You can no longer relate to God through the law, because a new way of relating to God has come, and that new way of relating to God is through the new covenant based upon the blood of Jesus. When Jesus says the new covenant is in my blood, he means that everything that the new covenant promise is provided by the blood of Christ, everything that the new covenant promised is provided in the blood of Christ. In fact, notice the specifics here. Our sins are forgiven because of the blood of Jesus Christ.

That's a promise of the new covenant. Jeremiah 31. He's going to forgive our sins. How does that come about through the blood of Jesus Christ, the eternal, the blood of the eternal covenant? Secondly, we are given the Holy Spirit. When did Jesus pour out the Spirit? We poured out the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Why on the day of Pentecost? Because it flowed out of his crosswork, out of his death on the cross, the shedding of his blood. When he was raised in the dead and went back to the Father with his blood, he then pours out the Spirit. So the Spirit then becomes the heart of the new covenant relationship, the Spirit living within. We come to know God personally. God takes up residence in us.

He gives us His Spirit who's not a Spirit of slavery, leading to fear, but He is the Spirit of adoption by which we cry, Abba Father. And then finally, the law is written on our hearts, not just on tablets of stone. You see what Paul is saying is, the fact that you are not under law doesn't produce lawlessness. It produces sacrificial loving service to Christ and His people. And the reason is, is that this new relationship is a union with Christ. Christ has come to live within. The Spirit has taken up residence. And God has written His law, His will, upon our hearts, so that when I come to the Scriptures and the Scriptures confront me, the Scriptures confront me about sin in my life. The Scriptures come to me and they put their finger on my heart.

And God clearly makes it clear what His will is. I want to submit to His will. I want to repent of my sin and my rebellion against Him. Why is that? Because He's done something to my heart. You put that same word before the heart of the person who is in the flesh. Why are people getting so upset about the Christian view of marriage? Because the Spirit of God does not reside in them. And so when they discover that God says marriage was instituted by God, one man, one woman committed together for all of life.