Jan. 22, 2023

Sermon Title: ”Conflicting Natures”

Scripture: Romans 7:14-25

Paul highlights the frustrations of the Christian experience to show how God's good law provokes, exposes, and condemns sin without either being tainted by it or bringing deliverance from it. 

The Law Cannot Save Us From Sin (7:14-25)

1. V. 14 The law is spiritual, creating conflict in our flesh.

1. Sold under sin

2. I am of the flesh

Christianity is a fight for holiness, and these verses are like looking into a mirror and it reveals the most obvious truths of God’s diagnosis of the human dilemma. 

2. V.15 Sin is a perplexing mystery

1. Sin creates contradiction, compromise, and comfort.

1. “Be comfortable being uncomfortable.” Peter McWilliams & Navy Seals

3. V.23 We are waging war

1. This battle is from our sin, and our sin nature.

2. This battle is between our old/ new nature - these are opposing natures

4. V.24 Who will deliver me

1. Confusion linguistically, philosophically and even theologically.

5. V.25 Serving the law in my mind… with my flesh the law of sin

1. (John 3:5-6)

2. (John 6:63)

Freedom from the law  is what the believer experiences in the deliverance from sin, and death with Christ is the gate through which each must pass to enter this realm of freedom.

3. In the union of Christ we are no longer enslaved to the death sentence of our sinful nature (again this is what we inherited from Adam) to the law.

4. Mosaic Law has an authority/ claim over people as long as they live; believers; however, died to the law through their union with Christ’s death. 

1. Gal.3:13-14