This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to our daily drive-time devotions to the book of Romans.
We are looking together at Romans chapter 7 this week at the freedom that God
gives us from the law. If you and I are to grow as believers, we have to
understand the law.

And we've looked the last couple days at the fact we have to understand that
we're free from the law. But there's something else we have to understand. We
also have to understand that the law is good.

That is incredibly important for your faith as a believer. You understand that
you're free from the law, but you also understand the nature of the law, that
the law is good. And in looking at that, we're going to look at Romans 7, 7-15
today.

Now, the key to that passage is in verse 14. Romans 7-14 says, "We know that the
law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. " Let's go back
up to the beginning of this passage and talk about what this is talking about.

I know, first, that the law is spiritual. That means it's good. The law is
spiritual.

The problem is not with the law. If we try to make the law less than it is,
we're never even going to begin to win in this battle against sin. What
relationship does the law have to sin?

Well, these verses reveal that to us. First, they tell us that the law reveals
sin. Verse 7, "What shall we say then?

Is the law sin? Certainly not. Indeed, I would have not known what sin was
except through the law, for I would not have known what coveting really was if
the law had not said, 'Do not covet.

'" By God saying, "Here's what not to do," or "Here's what to do," it became
clear to us that we were violating the law. It reveals sin. As an illustration,
Paul chose a sin that we all struggle with, the sin of coveting.

It's easy to talk about sin in an impersonal way, but when you begin talking
about coveting, that makes it personal. I would say that coveting may be the sin
in God's top ten, the Ten Commandments, that we all most struggle with. Who
doesn't covet?

I'm amazed in my own life at how easily coveting enters in. Why did they get
something that I didn't get? That could be about your job, that could be about
your family, that could be about a meal at a restaurant, that could be about a
thousand different things.

For a lot of us, let's just be honest, our first response to another's blessing,
another's being able to receive some great gift in their life, another person
getting a promotion or whatever happens is not, "Wow, that's great, but why you?
Why not me? " First thing that we do is we covet.

Paul says that's one way that God reveals to us our sin through the law. The
word reveal there is like a mirror, it's like holding up a mirror, "Oh, that's
what I really look like. " The law reveals sin, it shows us the reality and the
ugliness of it.

But he says a second thing here, and this one might surprise you. Not only does
the law reveal sin, but the law provokes sin. Listen to this, verse 8, "But sin,
seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind
of covetous desire, for apart from the law, sin is dead.

" Now, sin sees the opportunity. It's not the law that sees the opportunity, the
law is good, remember. But sin in me sees the opportunity when a command was
given.

Let me give you just a goofy illustration. What if I said to you right now, "All
right, for the next minute, do not touch your chin. Whatever you do, I am
commanding you by my authority to not touch your chin.

" There's something in our human nature that wants to go, "Dink," and touch our
chin. Just to say, "Hey, I can do what I want. " Or even if it's not a thing
about authority, there's something in our mind when somebody says, "Don't do
something," all of a sudden we want to do it.

It's in us, not in the law. It's in our sinful heart and nature, not in the rule
that's given. In Augustine's Confession, that early father of the Church,
Augustine, in his book called Confessions, he talks about the illustration of
stealing fruit from a pear tree.

And he says, "I picked the fruit simply in order to become a thief. The desire
to steal was simply awakened by the prohibition of stealing. " He wouldn't have
picked the pear except somebody said not to pick the pear.

He wasn't lured by the pears, he was lured by the fence. And there is, within
each of us, this voice that says, "I wonder how many pears I can pick without
being seen. I wonder if I can get away with it.

" And the moment we start asking those kinds of questions, we have crossed an
invisible line into an arena that ends up in fear. Grace delivers us from that
fear, but it's easy to quickly return to that fear. Grace tells us we don't have
to spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders wondering who might
catch us, thinking that that's exciting.

It's not. Grace tells us we can live the rest of our lives living out, looking
forward to be the kind of people that God made us to be. How are you doing about
touching your chin, by the way?

You see, apart from the law, the Bible tells us sin is dead. Now, what does that
mean? Does that mean that there is no sin?

If there is no law? Well, if that was true, why not just not have a law? At
least then we would have maybe chaos, people doing wrong things, but if God had
never created a law and there was no sin because of that, then maybe that would
be the right thing to do.

That's not what this is saying at all. You see, in the Garden of Eden, we fell,
we sinned, and that sin stained the entire human race so that we were all lost,
we were all separated from God. In the law, we see that we have fallen, even
that we are incited to sin.

We see our lostness, we see our separation from God, and in Jesus Christ, we are
saved. There is a parallel very strongly in these verses and in Genesis 2 and 3,
and we all see that parallel in our own lives. The law somehow provokes us to
sin.

God says, "Don't eat from that tree," and they ate from that tree. The Bible
says, "Do not covet," and we go ahead and covet. The law provokes sin, and that,
in verse 9, results in death.

Verse 9 of Romans 7 says, "Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the
commandment came, sin sprang to life, and I died. I found that the very
commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin,
seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through
the commandment put me to death.

So then the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did
that which is good then become death to me? By no means.

In order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through
that which was good," talking about the law there, "so that through the
commandment sin might become utterly sinful. " And then that verse we started
with. We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave
to sin.

You hear what Paul is saying in these verses. Since the law is holy and
righteous and good, and since the law somehow produced death in me, problems not
in the law, problems in the sin, problems in my propensity, decision to sin. And
he says that shows us how utterly sinful sin really is.

Blaming the law for our problem would be like blaming your email program for an
angry email that you sent to your boss. It's Google's fault. They shouldn't have
given me that account.

The law is good. Now I'm not comparing Google to the law. You understand.

The law is good, but even a good thing here produces death. That shows not a
problem with the law, but a problem with us. Sin is utterly sinful.

Stuart Briscoe says, "Perhaps one of humanity's greatest needs is to recognize
that sin is utterly sinful. " You see, the weakness of the law is law is good,
but it doesn't have the power to make us good. The law is holy, but it doesn't
have the power to make us holy.

The law is just, but it does not have the power to make us just. The law is
spiritual, but it doesn't have the power to make us spiritually alive. You might
think of it this way.

The law is a map. It gives us guidance, but it's a map to the moon. You can't
get there on your own power.

And the law doesn't have the power. It shows us where we should go, but it
doesn't have the power to get us there. What good is a map to the moon without a
rocket?

We need a rocket. Now, legalistic people think that maybe by being legalistic
enough, keeping enough laws, I'll get there someday. It's impossible.

We need a new power. We need a new strength. Legalism is trying to grow by
rules, and that either results in a focus on the rules or that results in an
abandonment of the rules.

God has a different way. God has a different hope. I'm leaving you today with
the bad news, and tomorrow we're going to take a focus on us, but let me tell
you, this chapter is heading towards the end with some very good news.

But for now, as we pray together, let's focus on being honest with God about who
we are. Take a minute just to talk to Jesus Christ and say, "Jesus, I see this
in me. When a rule is given, sometimes I want to break it, just because the rule
is there.

I admit that. I see that sin is utterly sinful. I can take even a good thing and
try to ruin it.

And God, I admit that about myself. I'm unafraid to admit that, because I know
there's an answer. That answer isn't found in myself, it's found in you, Jesus
Christ.

And I pray that in this chapter, in your truth, as we look together at your
answer, God, you would increase my hope, deepen my faith, and strengthen my love
for you. I pray it in Jesus' name, Amen. Tomorrow, we're going to focus on what
the Bible has to say about us in Romans 7, verses 15 to 20.