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I Joy the God but I see a la in the MERS of my body Waging War against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner making me cap of the law of sin which is in my members Wretched Man that I am Set Me
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Free from the body of this death thanks be to God from Jesus Christ Our Lord so then on the one hand I myself serving the god
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Lon there a place in Edinburgh Arthur home geology
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it's deal except that as we walked as we Contin to up and up it seemed like the PE was right over the
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next keep walking is another okay we're just no we're not all afternoon seemed we were we were not and so I thought of that when I when I was thinking of this verse here in the
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beginning of chapter because I think Romans is very much like that kind of a mountain where you're walking fairly Ste
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and sting to understand the difficult things that Paul writes you think I'm almost there not you're not yet begin actually
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in the valley of 3 verse 9 where Paul says we have charged that all that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin he
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spends an entire chapter actually beginning in chapter bringing all of mankind under the condemnation of sin and so we begin to climb in chapter
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4 following the path of Faith the path of Abraham Our Father according to the faith and Paul writes with respect to the promise of God he did not waver in
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unbelief but GRE strong in faith giving glory to God and being fully assured that what he had promised he was able also to
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perform chapter five preaches a peak many modern evangelists like to stop because we read but God demonstrated his own love toward us and that while we were yet sinners
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Christ died for us modern Evangelical loves that first because without it we would be stuck with John 3:16 that' be it now we got another one that tells us how much God loves us while were we as
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Sinners that seems like we've reached a level an elevation that that is wonderful all keeps climing and we need to follow
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him psts and moral by their highest elevation in elevation in chapter where Paul writes therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death in order that as
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Christ was raised from the dead the glory of the father so we too might walk in newness of Life grab on to that Peak and we can we can moralize Christianity
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it's all about our walking in newness of life now it's all about what we do now because of what Christ has done for us deal of Armenian preaching is that way
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PA keeps PA keeps climbing anom have always LED chapter therefore myen you also were made to die to the law through the body
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of Christ that you may be joined to another to him who is raised from the dead cries of I am not under that's actually but the idea that we're free
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from the law and it has been taken so far in modern evangelicalism that it really doesn't matter how you live as as at some in time you have accepted Jesus
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Christ as your savior that's all that matters law doesn't matter anymore so that's that's a wonderful Peak but Paul keeps climate and if you haven't noticed as
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we've G through these chapter the elevation keeps getting steeper and steeper we all gets harder and harder to compreh
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ofer ACC to his purpose never mind what that purpose is which is what the rest of the book is all about but I would submit to you that we reach the reach the top in
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top in verse we read There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus there is no greater statement single statement one sentence regarding
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the power of the Gospel the power of God into salvation regardless of class ethnicity or gender Romans 8 verse one
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this is the top of the mountain and everything else before and after is the view from the top this is where we're standing now we we have reached the heights with that single verse and we
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are not intended by PA to ever go back down again what we see before as we look we look behind us beginning in chapter one what we see ahead as we move on and
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really through the rest of script we read from the heights of there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus this is where PA
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hased us and we are not to ever go back down Psalm 103 beginning in verse 10 he has not dealt with us according to
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ours nor rewarded us according to our iniquities for as high as the heavens are above the Earth so great is his ling for those who fear Him as far as East is
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from the West so has he removed our transgressions from us as father compassion on compassion on his compassion on those
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manss inse there inse there is condemnation for those who are in
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another analogy let's look at this another way of the language that
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Christianity and Atheism you think atheism that's a religion yeah it's a relig of no God it's a religion of man man is God but either death is dealt with as it is in
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Christianity or it is said to be nothingness that we are nothing more than a pack of chemical molecules and when we die we simply decompose into dust and that is the end of it that is
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the only two they are the only two options with dealing with the reality of death Paul presents the most damning evidence against man mankind
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in the reality of death and it is hard for us to deal with that because our culture has pushed death away we push it off and then we push it out of sight but
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Paul brings it right up in front of our eyes again and he has used the word death dying or killing multiple times all the way through here we are under
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the sentence of death every single human being Jew or Gentile death is is the incontestable fact that the jury of human
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consciousness cannot consciousness cannot ignore because it's going to happen anyway the writer of Ecclesiastes points that out it really doesn't matter whether you're a wise man or a fool for
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death will greet you both the atheist con claimed to his dying day that there is no is no God but all that he has accomplished
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even the great Steven Hawking with his incredible was all ended by death death is one said the great
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the great equalizer and so Paul comes to in a sense the end of his prosecutorial oratory by saying Wretched Man that I am
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identifying himself with the defendant for he himself is a son of Adam Wretched Man that I am who will free me from the body of this death death is is the
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elephant in the living we can talk about morality we can talk about being good we can talk about bevent benevolence we talk about Justice and all of these wonderful virtues which
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the philosophers have made so much of throughout history and they're all dead and none of it matters in the fact and face of
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death so again either biblical Christianity or atheism the Jews object they say we
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have Torah we have God's law and Paul responds in Chapter 2 you who boast in the law through your breaking the law do you dishonor God yes you have Torah you
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have the law you claim to be a teacher of the Nations and yet you rob temples you violate and break the law all the time indeed Paul goes on to say
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in one of the steeper sections of the climb the law was given not to acquit us from sin but rather that transgression might abound and in that transgression
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that we might be convicted of sin for we would not have known what it was to CET had the law and the Commandment not said Thou shalt not C so to Hope in the law is to lean on a
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broken re Paul says that I was once alive apart from the law but when the Commandment came Commandment came sin revived and I
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died it's an open and shut case man is already convicted he's already condemned Romans 5 establishes our
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common Heritage in Adam through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men therefore through one man sin entered into the
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world and death through sin and so death spread to all men because all sin there it is that is the undeniable common denominator of
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humanity death and death is not a natural product of Creation The Eternal God did not create mortality he said in the day that you
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eat of that tree dying you shall surely die and Paul makes it clear God did not introduce death into the world Adam did
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did but having introduced it it contagious spread to every single human being and though there was one born who was himself not susceptible to death he
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was susceptible to murder and he is the one who died on our behalf and Paul is establishing here the
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case against humanity against mankind it is open and shut it is airtight it is so bad that when he reaches the end of his
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oration there's only one thing he can say about himself and all of
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wretched we are in the body of this death the law can't free us our conscience cannot free us we are condemned to die
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and so we're all prepared for the Judgment but we're really not because the history of mankind shows that we
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were not willing to face the reality of our own condemnation and sin we are not willing to face the reality of what death teaches us in every generation all manmade religions and too
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much of professing Christianity views ultimate Deliverance as a sliding scale a balance of good and bad and even
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the ancient Egyptians would weigh the heart the larger the heart the better the man actually the larger the heart the more heart disease now we know why how he died he
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had a big heart we still use that phrase we still think in terms of God grading on a on a curve we moralize religion it's about
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what we do and what we don't do we either emphasize what we must abstain from or we emphasize what we must do but it's all graded on a sliding scale
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whereby I convince myself that while I'm not perfect I'm better than him I'm better than my neighbor and that describes the entirety of man-made
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religion and every element of Christianity that goes that way is nothing more than manmade Christianity which which is no Christianity at all
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everything is a morality play that runs like a comedy and ends as a tragedy that's our history in religion and so we don't want to look at
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the judge after the prosecution has rested its
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case we Face death and we understand in our conscience what Paul says in chapter 1: 18 where he says because the wrath of God is revealed in the gospel and in death against all ungodliness and
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unrighteousness of men somehow we know that this is not going to end well we hope that it will end well and when we hear of a friend or a loved one who
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has passed we we kind of wish that they're in a better place you've been at many funerals oh he's in a better or at least he's not suffering I'm not sure that either one
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of those statements is true that he may actually be in a far worse place and his suffering has only just begun but we don't want to hear
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that it's very bad form to say that at the funeral my suggestion don't say it at the funeral even the Jew cannot put the law
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between himself and God's Wrath Paul writes chapter 2 but because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of Wrath and
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revelation of the righteous Judgment of God how much less hope do we Gentiles have and so we come to the end of chapter 7 and it's not looking
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good it is not looking at good at all Paul's prosecution reaches both its conclusion and its Crescendo in chapter 7: 24
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7: 24 Wretched Man that I am who will Who can save me from the body of this death well we need to hold to the law
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better we need to become strict sabari or perhaps or perhaps confessionals if we just simply make that dot over our eye clear cross that
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tea with more Vigor say our shets correctly we'll be okay or no no no we need to baptism of the Holy Spirit we
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need that extra blessing from God by which we can overcome sin and sin no more we need to deny all fleshly
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pleasures we need to live in isolation and exstension in a monastery or a cell these are all classical Christian
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answers to the indictment that stands against us we just need to work harder we just need to try harder we just need to be better can you not spend an hour in prayer that was a big one back in the
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80s you know Jesus said to his disciples could you not even stay awake an hour and frankly most of us would answer sorry Jesus no I can't but there's there's a whole
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movement about spending an hour in prayer one very famous man Christian founder of a large campus organization you might even call it a crusade
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said that since he learned to fast for 40 days he finds he doesn't sin Much [Music] Anymore sometimes I think God lets us live too live too long because if we live long enough
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we're bound to say something totally stupid no we have to realize that at the end of the prosecutions the prosecutions oration there's no hope our condition is
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Fred and all we can expect expect to hear in the next verse is guilty but that's not what we
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hear after laying on layer and layer of sin and inability and Corruption and hopelessness the verdict comes
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back there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus it is not what we expected there
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no condemnation one author writes the only way to understand Paul is to take seriously on the one hand this idea of the body of sin and death of which we
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are by nature in Adam members we have to absorb the full force of the reality of death and that our
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body is a body of death and it will will die and that death means something more than just the end of my physical life it
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is the wages of sin it is my condemnation it is a certificate against me and I cannot Escape it and on the other hand we must take
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seriously the body of Christ into which we are Incorporated by faith and baptism Paul's most comprehensive description of man in Adam is Romans 7
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24 wretched and his most comprehensive description of Man in Christ is Romans 8 verse1 no
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verse1 no condemnation this is the peak of the mountain and I don't think there's a higher peak in all of scripture I think it's the Pinnacle it's the point from
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which Believers now now view the World Time and Time and Eternity we move on in our study of Paul's epistle to the
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Romans but let us never descend from this peak which by God's grace we have achieved let us
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pray father it is incredible to think that after the just and righteous indictment that we have read throughout this letter that we should come to the
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verdict not verdict not guilty knowing that no one seeks you that there are an unrighteous that all have sinned and fallen short of the
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glory of God to hear the verdict no condemnation is not just good news it is great news and father I ask that it would it
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would fill our hearts with both adoration and adoration and gratitude to know that we are guilty as charged but you have laid our guilt you
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have laid our condemnation upon your son our Lord Jesus Christ and he has taken that indictment and he has nailed it to that
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cross and we are free though the impact of sin will eventually claim our physical
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bodies we know that as Jesus Promised though he dies yet will he live because Jesus Lives all glory honor and praise
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to you through Jesus Christ Our Lord amen please rise for the benediction from
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[Music] Romans chapter Romans chapter 15 now may the god of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in Hope by the power of the
