Romans 7:1–6Scripture
Well, we're in Romans chapter 7, and this morning I've been charged with working our way through the first six verses of chapter 7. And if you're taking notes, i've entitled this Love Is Greater Than Obligation, but I used a little math sign, a little sideways arrow, the greater-than sign. It's fun.
Love is greater than obligation. We're going to dig into this today, but first off I just want to read the Scripture together, so if you would turn your bibles to Romans chapter 7. You've now hopefully spent the last week or better studying this Scripture yourself and with your small group. If you're not in a small group, this is the plug. We try to plug it at least once a Sunday, the significance of small groups. And you were really just getting like the last bit of the meal if you're just coming to church on Sundays and hearing myself or Pastor Shawn last week. Give it up for Pastor bruce last week. Pastor Bruce brought a great word. If you're just coming on Sunday and hearing the sermon preached, you're not getting, you're just getting the final course of the meal, because we've been going through the Scripture together for the last week, in our small groups, in our personal study. Romans chapter 7, starting in verse 1 says this: Or do you not know, brothers, for I am speaking to those who know the law, that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?
For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. Likewise, he just made this analogy, this is our connecting word, likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you
Introduction
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. I read this Scripture and we had a meeting, myself and Pastor Shawn and Pastor Bruce, before the group left for Israel. Pastor Shawn called us into a meeting last Friday, well, two Fridays ago now, and sat Bruce and I down and said, I want to talk to you about your messages. And Pastor Bruce had already, like, rewritten his sermon four or five different times and I hadn't even started on mine. And as we talked, Pastor Shawn shared the level of intensity that he felt we should be walking in as we approach the Scriptures that we have to preach, because Romans is rich in theology, and when you address Scripture that's rich in theology, the likelihood of you misrepresenting that Scripture goes up exponentially, right? So time must be spent. I love what Pastor Bruce shared, that because of your giving, because of your faithfulness, we have a pastor who doesn't just come up on Sundays and shoot from the hip with his sermon.
He spends hours in study, hours in preparation, and then comes and brings you what the Lord has worked out in his heart as he's wrestled with the Scripture.
Pastor J.R. Brown · 3:41
If you sit under a preacher who regularly... I'm not the kind of guy who thinks that you can't go off your notes at all, but if you sit under a preacher who regularly says, oh, I'm not using my notes, or who comes up to preach and doesn't even have any notes, it probably hasn't done a lot of preparation. I'm just saying. But after this conversation, towards the end of it, Pastor Shawn says, my goal would be that by the end of this conversation you question whether or not you even want to preach. I'm sitting there going, done. Like, you have accomplished your goal, if that was your goal, because this Scripture is rich in some theology, and this is a Scripture that if you just gave a glazed approach, if you just gave it a once-over, you have a very high percentage chance of getting it wrong and not understanding what Paul's talking about, because he's shifting analogies. We've spent chapter 6 talking about how we're all slaves, how you're either a slave to sin and death or you're a slave to God through Christ Jesus. Either way, you're enslaved.
This idea that we just live our own lives and get to do whatever we want and that there's nobody in control is false.
Pastor J.R. Brown · 5:02
It really demeans the authority and the sovereignty of God.
But now Paul shifts, and he's no longer talking about slavery, he's talking about marriage. Now, for some of you married people, it may seem like one and the same subject.
That was my joke. Apparently it was only funny to Pastor Bruce. Sorry, Deborah. But he's shifting analogies, and then in this text he uses the word law in two different contexts. So again, if you're just doing a quick read on your five-minute daily devotion, you are going to miss what Paul's trying to communicate here. And as I read this Scripture over and over again, I kept thinking to myself and asking the Lord, like, what points, what is it that you want me to draw out of this Scripture to preach on? I have 45 minutes. What is it that you want me to hit in this Scripture? And as I continued to read, what I learned more and more is that instead of trying to make points with today's Scripture, I ought to just take some time and address some questions from this Scripture. So I'm going to make three different points this morning, but my points are really questions that I believe every believer, if you're going to try to understand what Paul's trying to communicate in these six verses at the beginning of chapter 7, there ought to be some questions that arrive in your mind, because this is not an easy text
Point 1Paul uses marriage to picture a covenant change
To just read through and get a quick comprehension of. The first question that I asked myself as I'm reading this Scripture is, why does Paul use a marriage analogy? Why marriage?
He spent an entire chapter talking about slavery and did a pretty good job at what he was communicating. Why does Paul, at the beginning of chapter 7, feel the need to shift stories? Because if we were just reading 6 and 7 all together, like, how many of you know people, I'm one of these people, but how many of you know people who tell stories, and in one story it feels like you've been in three different movies, right? Because they just jump from topic to topic. Sometimes Lacy does this to me, and there's no segue, and I'm like, what are we talking about? And she's like, oh, I switched topics. I'm like, help a brother out, let me know that we're not talking about the same thing anymore. Why does Paul use a marriage analogy? So I did some studying, man, and what I came up with was this: Paul can't continue to talk about slavery as he moves into this next teaching in chapter 7, because there's a relationship change that Paul's talking about, and our relationship with the law to our relationship with Christ, and what changed is the covenant. And so how much better to depict and paint a picture of a covenant change than to talk about a marriage covenant? A marriage covenant, by definition, is a relationship that binds and establishes, draws a connection between two parties. So the day that you walked in, those of you who are married, the day that you got married, you walked in as an individual and you walked out of that ceremony, that covenant, joined together, bound together with your husband or your wife. And while our society might not have a rich understanding of the significance of the marriage covenant anymore, I find it intriguing that our government still understands it, to the point that we just went through tax season, right, and Lacy and I file our taxes, and we file our taxes, the word that they use is jointly. So according to the federal government, according to the state of Missouri, Lacy and I aren't two individual financial beings. Together, our finances are bound, and we have to pay taxes on those, and together we get a tax return. Hallelujah from the government. Now, you can choose to file separately, but you can also file jointly. This marriage covenant is this binding together of two parties. And I loved, I did some looking on verse 2, when Paul says if the husband dies, that the woman, the wife, is released from the law of marriage. Here's one of the two contexts of the word law that Paul's using. First, he's talking about the law of marriage; later in the text he's talking about the old covenant law. Again, if you don't spend some time reading, you're going to get lost. Paul is all over the place sometimes. He was also, like, going to persecution and being beaten and imprisoned and, like, he had a lot going on while he's writing the books that he wrote for us. But this word, law of marriage, in verse 2, is a Greek word that I looked up, and the word is nomos. Say nomos for me. Nomos. And I find this interesting because in the context of today's teaching, we're the bride of Christ, we're the bride, Christ is the groom.
This word nomos is a Greek word that in the Old Testament time, well, even in the New Testament, in biblical times, this law, nomos, the law of marriage that Paul's talking about, is a law which simply binds a woman to a man. The law isn't the United States federal government view of marriage, that the two have become one, that's biblical, the two have become one. This particular law, the law of marriage that Paul's talking about, binds the woman to the man.
Right? So by biblical standards, Lacy is bound to me as my wife, and I have headship and I have authority over my home in our marriage relationship. The law binds the woman to the man. So this law that Paul's talking about, the law of marriage, isn't about the man. That's why he's specifically addressing the bride. If the wife acts against that law, then she's in defiance to that law. It's not about the groom in this law of marriage that he's talking about, it's about the bride's attachment and the bride being bound to the husband. He says she's released from this law, this binding law, she's released from it if her husband dies. The change of the relationship we're looking at today, this, like, set on my heart so heavy this week, the change in the relationship that Paul's talking about today is from a death in a marriage. Paul's referring to the marriage covenant coming to an end in death, not in divorce.
Death and divorce are two very different things, and this is important to understand as you're looking at Paul's analogy, because if you don't understand the analogy, you can't understand the teaching. And it's important to understand the difference between a death in a marriage or a divorce in a marriage, because a widow has a very different view of her deceased husband than a divorcee often has of her ex-husband. Would you agree with me? Now, I've walked this out in my life, I've seen it, I haven't walked it out, but I've seen it firsthand in my life, because in my family I've experienced divorce, in my parents, and we've experienced death.
My father was divorced three different times, and he had two ex-wives. One of them he remarried and then got divorced again, but he had two ex-wives.
My mom was his first ex-wife, and then he had a second one, it was my stepmom. For 22 years they were married, and then when they got divorced he got remarried, and he was remarried to his third wife for five or six years, and then he died. So my father left behind him two ex-wives and one widow, and there's a very big difference in how his widow regards him today. When I speak with her and she reminisces about my dad, she speaks very fondly and very lovingly about my dad. And my dad wasn't a saint, just so we're clear. His widow has plenty of things that she could complain about if she wanted to, but she doesn't, because he's passed away and she's his widow. But it's a very different conversation if I'm speaking to my dad's widow about him or if I'm speaking to one of his ex-wives, because even though he is passed away now, they still sometimes don't have the greatest things to say about him. And it's important to realize this marriage dynamic, and the dynamic of a marriage covenant being dissolved because of death and not because of divorce, because we're going to look into some Scripture today, and Christ sets the standard as our new covenant, as our new groom. Christ sets the covenant, sets the standard about how we should regard and view our old covenant that we have died to.
It's a death relationship, it's not a divorce relationship.
Pastor J.R. Brown · 15:23
I believe that's key, and why Paul uses the analogy of marriage instead of any other analogy that he
Point 2We died to the law, but we never despise it
Could use. So how does Christ, as our new covenant head, I just said he gives us instruction, how does he instruct us to view the law, the old covenant standard that we had? Turn your Bibles with me, if you would, to Matthew chapter 5, starting in verse 17. Jesus says this: Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. The law will stay in place until Jesus has accomplished everything. Therefore, verse 19: whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Listen, if as Christ followers we view the law through any kind of negative or a past-tense lens, then we don't share Jesus's own view of the law, and Jesus is a new groom, he's the new covenant, he's the new marriage in our lives that looks at your previous dead husband, even though we were the ones who died to the law through Jesus's death, but a death severed our relationship, he looks at your old covenant and says, you better not talk negatively about it, you better not put it down, you better not try to teach it in a way that minimizes any of it.
The law is significant and will remain significant until I have fulfilled everything,
Pastor J.R. Brown · 17:28
and this is your new, this is your new covenant, this is your new relationship, this is your new marriage. And all of this started to come to life in my mind over the last couple weeks as I was preparing this message, as I was experiencing these different dynamics in my own family. And I spoke just a week or two ago with, her name's Catherine, is my stepmom, my dad's widow, and I spoke with Catherine. And the last year or so, my dad's been passed now for about two and a half years, and the last year was kind of rough, because Catherine went through a lot of grief when my dad died and she got very lonely, and she got to a place where she wanted some companionship again, and she honored me and my siblings and my dad in such a way that she called each one of us, not to get our permission, but to let us know where she was at and what she intended on doing and that she needed companionship because of how lonely she was. And that was hard for me. It was hard for me to know that the woman that my dad had married was moving on, right? She still loves my dad, she still wears her wedding ring, but she had to move on to a certain degree, and it made our relationship kind of weird for a few months, okay?
But I called her a few weeks ago, and we were talking maybe a week or two ago, and I said, so, I'm just sitting under this weight from the Lord, trying to be a good man and be an honorable stepson, and I said, how's your guy doing? And she said, oh, that didn't work out.
I said, I'm really sorry to hear that's a bummer. And she said, I'm not. I said, what happened? And literally in the back of my mind I'm thinking, I really don't care, I'm just trying to be, I'm trying to be a nice person. What happened? And she said, turns out that he had a problem with how close I still am to you and your siblings, and he felt like I shouldn't have relationships with my deceased husband's kids. And I was like, oh, yes, I'm really sorry to hear that. But I mean, it just gave me so much peace in my relationship with her to know that she honored my dad so much that if another man tried to look down or minimize or demean her love for my dad, though he's dead, and his children, that she wouldn't stay in that relationship.
And that's how a lot of teachers, a lot of Bible teachers, teach on our relationship or our view to the law and to the covenant. There are even some today, and it just baffles me how far it's gone, but there are some today who will even say things like this is a current teaching coming out of biblical preachers' mouths, that the church should unhinge itself from the Old Testament because the Old Testament doesn't apply to us anymore because we're in new covenant.
Like, are you kidding me?
Where in any of Jesus's teaching did he tell us to disregard the law or to disregard the old covenant?
Pastor J.R. Brown · 21:04
Now, if you are in new covenant relationship with Jesus, Paul makes it very clear, you have died to the law so it no longer lords over you. It's no longer the standard for holiness. If you're in new covenant relationship with Jesus, you have a new covenant, you have a new contract, but your new covenant, your new groom even looks at the old covenant and says, you better not minimize it, you better not teach it in any kind of demeaning way, or what does Jesus say? Or you will be the least in heaven. Like, that's huge. That's huge.
And what a beautiful picture, in a relationship and a marriage situation where there's a death that has separated and dissolved the marriage covenant, what a beautiful picture for a new groom, a new husband, to look at the dead husband and say, you better honor him, you better uphold him, you better lift him up, don't you ever speak negatively about your old husband. And I believe that this is significant, that Jesus is drawing an even more beautiful, significant picture of the covenant relationship that he has with us, because you can't rightly understand your covenant relationship with your new groom if you think it's okay to demean and minimize or speak negatively about your previous covenant, because what you're speaking negatively about is covenant, is marriage.
So if you're remarried, all right, this is just, I'm just throwing this out there, if you're remarried, you and/or your spouse have been married previously, and you and or your spouse regularly make a habit of just trash-talking your ex, what you're showing your husband or your wife is that you don't value the covenant of marriage, because you entered into it with that person, with that ex, and it's the covenant that Jesus is saying you have to honor it.
Now, that doesn't mean that you have to falsely inflate somebody who was not deserving of it, but it really kind of boils down, church, to the ancient old wise saying, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. Jesus is saying, don't you dare speak negatively or trash-talk or demean or try to teach in any kind of false way the law and the commandments, or you'll be considered least in heaven.
Point 3Born again, we are no longer bound by the law
The second question that I ask from this Scripture is, how does the law apply to a born-again Christian? Because Paul clearly states, Romans chapter 7, verse 4, and today's Scripture, likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ. Romans 7:6, also in today's Scripture: But now we are released from the law, having died to that which has held us captive. Romans 6:14 from last chapter: For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law but under grace. You go to Galatians chapter 3, verse 25 and 26 says, But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, referring to the law, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. Scripture is clear that under the new covenant in Jesus Christ we are no longer under the covenant of the law. So what does this mean? If we're no longer bound to the law through the old covenant, we are no longer in nomos, in that binding relationship with the law, but we're now in this new nomos relationship with Jesus. Paul teaches we're no longer married to the law, we're no longer expected to submit to its commandments, because we're now married to Christ and we're expected to follow his. I found this interesting as I was studying and I was reading several different commentaries that pointed out that in new covenant relationship with Jesus, under a new covenant in faith with Jesus Christ that provides us salvation through his atoning sacrifice, through his blood on the cross, we are no longer bound in contractual covenant relationship to the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are not binding over you as a law anymore, because as Paul's reiterating over and over again, we've died to that law, we've been separated from the old covenant and been grafted, been drawn into a new covenant relationship with Jesus. But I asked the teenagers this last Wednesday, because this week I got an opportunity to do something I'd never done before, and I preached to our students on Wednesday nights, but they're working through the same Scripture that we're working through, so I actually got like a test run through my sermon on Wednesday night. And I've talked on Wednesday night and then taught on Sunday before, but they were always different messages.
But one of the questions that I asked the teenagers is, we're not bound to the law anymore, does that mean it's okay if I go kill somebody? If I'm not bound to the Ten Commandments anymore, is it okay if I commit adultery and cheat on my wife? No, of course not. We're going to get into that, but it's important to realize that in new covenant relationship, under a new nomos contract, under a new binding covenant, that the law of the Old Testament, the Ten Commandments, is no longer binding over you. And if that's true, Paul's said this over and over again, then my question is, how does the law apply to us then, if we are followers of Jesus in covenant relationship with him? Romans 7:4 continues on, says, 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. So that you may belong to another. Jesus said in John 14:15–24, he says this: If you love me, keep my what? Commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Verse 21, he repeats himself: Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. Judas, it says in verse 22, not Iscariot, said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? And Jesus answered him, and repeats himself again in verse 23: If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me. Jesus clearly states, church, that a follower of his will obey his commands.
He's not saying you're still obligated by the law to abide and adhere to the law, he's saying now, if you love me, then you'll keep my commandments.
Point 4Love, not obligation, moves us to obey
The title of my sermon today is Love Is Greater Than Obligation.
We are no longer in an old covenant contractual commitment and obligated to the law as Israel was for hundreds of years, but Jesus says, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.
Pastor J.R. Brown · 30:01
If you love me, you'll do these things. So what then? If the law applies to us through our relationship with Jesus, that in love to Christ will keep his commandments, what then are Jesus's commandments? Matthew 22:34–40 says this: But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him, and the lawyer said, in verse 36, Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law? And Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. Now listen again, Jesus himself said if anyone takes the law and tries to minimize it or teach it in a way that shows other people to minimize it, he will be considered the least in heaven. Keep that in mind, because here Jesus is asked what is the greatest commandment, and he gives two: love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. And I have heard countless preachers take this Scripture and then walk away with a view and say things and create church mission statements or vision statements that read like this: love God, love people, that's all that matters. Love God, love people.
But what this is, here's a big word for you if you're taking notes, what this is an antinomianism view of the law. Antinomianism.
I had to practice that one. And this view is an argument that says because we're no longer in this covenant with the law, that the law no longer applies to us.
Jesus, all he said, love God, love people, that's all we have to do. Love God, love people. Not what Jesus said.
Jesus also said in a sermon that we refer to as the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapter 5, Matthew 5, verse 21, Jesus starts, and he gives several, I'm just going to kind of give you a fast-forward view, all right, verse 21, Jesus says, You have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, I'm going to repeat that again, but I say to you, because you're going to hear this several times over the next minute and a half, Jesus says, you've heard it said, but I say to you. All right, I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Other translations, Jesus says, you've heard it said to those of old, do not murder, but I say if you have hatred in your heart, some translations say you've already committed murder. Verse 27, Jesus said, you've heard it said, You shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Verse 31, Jesus said, it was also said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the grounds of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Jesus has very high standards. And so to look at a new covenant relationship with Jesus and think the law doesn't apply to us anymore is ignorance, because Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, from verses 21 through verse 48, he extends the law against murder to make it about anger. He extends the law against adultery to make it about lust. He makes the law restricting divorce even stricter. He takes the law designed to prevent lying and takes it even further. He takes the law designed to restrain retaliation and he makes that stricter. He extends the command to love one's neighbor to also a command to love one's enemies.
So again, when Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commandments, a new covenant in Jesus Christ does kill our old covenant relationship with the law, but for those who are in a new covenant relationship with Jesus is showing us where we should have a loving desire to follow God's commandments, to follow Christ's commands, and the desire, Jesus is saying, is out of love, not out of obligation for a covenant.
The reason why the Pharisees became the Pharisees, right, they were, I mean, a Pharisee was just a religious leader, was a teacher, was a rabbi over Israel, it wasn't a negative term until they did what they did, where they began to enforce laws out of obligation and not out of a love for God.
And when you begin to try to approach something out of obligation, you will become legalistic in that approach every time.
Pastor J.R. Brown · 36:19
Every time. It became about the rules and not about a covenant relationship with Yahweh.
The same is true for marriage, which again, what a beautiful analogy that Christ gave us through Paul's teaching, that he would use a marriage, a picture of a marriage covenant. Lacy and I just celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary, and for some of you may be thinking, that's not that long, I've been married for 30 years, I've been married for 40 years. 15 years is the longest I've ever been married. It's a really long time for me, and it's worthy of celebration. So this coming Friday I'm taking her to Florida for a week with no kids.
It's going to be awesome. Pray for us, though. My son's type 1 diabetic and we're stressing out a little bit about leaving for a week, but we're going to celebrate our marriage covenant that we made to each other 15 years ago. And to be completely transparent, in 15 years it has not always been easy, in 15 years it has not always been fun. But Lacy and I understood full well when we stood before each other and I looked her in the eyes and I made a covenant to her, made a vow to her, we knew full well the level of seriousness that we were taking with it, and I had such a level of seriousness with it that I even struggled, I even struggled for a few months leading up to our wedding with getting married. I almost backed out, because marriages don't really have that much longevity in my family. I came from a divorced family, Lacy came from a divorced family, and the longest-running marriage between my dad and the woman who was my stepmom, for 22 years, was never really an ideal picture of marriage either. So I didn't have very good role models, and we've spent the last 15 years learning how to be in a biblical, honoring covenant relationship with each other. But it hasn't always been fun and it hasn't always been easy, and my problem that I have faced myself and in our relationship over and over again is because
I approached my covenant to my wife as, I have to be a good husband to you because God tells me to, and not always because I wanted to,
Pastor J.R. Brown · 39:10
because the love that I felt for my wife and my commitment to her drew up deep wells of desire for me to honor her and to love her the way that Christ tells me to. It's the same for a marriage. Jesus is not saying, if you follow me, keep my commandments.
He's not saying, if you're in new covenant relationship you have to do something. He's saying, if you love me, then you will.
If you have love for me in a covenant relationship, you will do it.
Pastor J.R. Brown · 40:03
Do you know what that means, husbands? I can't speak to wives, because I don't know how you all think. Sometimes I pretend to, but I don't. But you know what this means, husbands? This means that when you act like a dog to your wife, that's why we feel so guilty about it. That's why I love the TV show Everybody Loves Raymond.
I just finished binge-watching it, like I've finished the whole series this last week, and I'm like, no, what am I going to watch? And Kaylee says, the Bible.
And I was like, that is a good TV show, but I don't really know if it's on any of the streaming services. She's like, no, I mean, you could just read your Bible.
Have kids, they said it'll be fun, they said. But she's right. But I love Everybody Loves Raymond. I love the specific scenes, there's several of them through the show, where ray says something incredibly stupid to his wife, and one of my favorite ones, he says, what do you do all day? I'm sorry, because immediately he knew he had said something wrong. Immediately, that was a fear of Deborah, not a love for God, but immediately he knew that he'd crossed a line, and that's why we feel that conviction from the Holy Spirit, because Jesus said, if you love me,
You will keep my commandments. You will have a desire, it will spring up in you like a geyser, you will do it.
Pastor J.R. Brown · 41:41
First question I asked was, why does Paul use a marriage analogy? Second question I asked was, how does the
Point 5The new covenant gives the Spirit to bear fruit
Law apply to born-again Christians? My last question is this: how does a new covenant through Jesus compare to the old covenant?
Romans 7:4–6, I'm gonna read part of the Scripture again, says, 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. How does it compare?
Under the law sets the standard for holiness. It took Moses 600 and some odd laws to fully set a standard for what righteous living looks like, and what Paul says over and over again is the law was given so that it would highlight, that it would set apart, that it would put a spotlight on my sin, on my inability to uphold it.
That's why we have the law, to show man that you are incapable of living righteously.
Pastor J.R. Brown · 43:32
The only one who's done it was Christ. Because of man's inability to uphold the law, a reoccurring sacrifice was required for the atonement of man's sin, that sin Paul says that bore fruit for death. Under the new covenant, we have Christ's blood that atones for all sin. Being united with Jesus through his death and resurrection severs a person's covenant with the law and releases them from the captivity of their sin and indwells them with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit then that, the Scripture says, empowers them to bear fruit for God. To bear fruit for God. This is the word fruit. It's another word that's even in some of our small groups gotten taken out of context a little bit as we've been talking about it. Everywhere that you see the word fruit, Paul ain't talking about the fruit of the Spirit. The word fruit is just an action word that means to produce something, it's the product of something. Sin, Paul says, bore fruit to death. Obviously the Holy Spirit's not in that fruit. And then we're called in a new covenant relationship with Jesus to bear fruit for God.
That is, church, the fruit that we bear for God is our obedience to his commands.
Pastor J.R. Brown · 45:11
That is the fruit that we bear for God. And I sat with this and I was like, interesting that old covenant, Old testament law, given to the world through Moses, man is completely incapable of upholding. So God, in his sovereignty, the Bible says that even at the foundations of the earth Christ was crucified, the plan from the beginning was for Christ to go to the cross. So once the law has been established and man's complete ignorance and inability to uphold the law is fully displayed, Christ comes into the picture. Christ offers up his life, Christ provides atonement for our sin through his death and burial and resurrection, and then God says that if you are united with Christ in his death and in his resurrection, then you are severed from the obligation of that law and you are raised in new life to walk in a new covenant with Jesus. And then Jesus's commands are, obey the law but we couldn't do it. Wise God, asking us, why is Jesus commanding us, and then through love declaring that we will do something that Israel proved they were incapable of doing? Jesus said, in an earlier Scripture, John 14:15 and 16, I will ask the Father and he will give you another Helper. How does the new covenant through Jesus compare to the old covenant through the law?
You have the Holy Spirit. You have the Holy Spirit, so no longer can we make excuses for any fleshly inability to follow Christ's commands, because he gave us the Holy Spirit to empower you to do it.
Pastor J.R. Brown · 47:21
Paul says sin no longer has dominion over you. It no longer controls your life.
Pastor J.R. Brown · 47:34
Not it can't, not it might not, it doesn't, if you are in new covenant relationship with Jesus, because you have the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said, I have loved you as I and the Father are one, and you and I are one, so you are one with the Father. Jesus loved these men, but he knew that his rightful place wasn't to stay with them, but that he had to go back to his seat at the right hand of the Father so that God could give you the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, even greater things than I have done will you do, so that we can bear fruit, forgotten through this beautiful marriage covenant that we have with Jesus. We are empowered to live through his righteousness and to bear fruit for God.
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