Married to Christ

Brothers and sisters in the Lord, Romans chapter 7, traditionally within our circles,
has been one of the most properly debated chapters in Scripture.
The reason for that is to be found in what it is that Paul says from verse 15 to verse
19 of this chapter when he says, "I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do
what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate."
I know he says that nothing good dwells within me that is in my flesh.
I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.
For if I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.
Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer either do it, but see in which dwells
within me.
The good that I would he says I do not, and the evil that I would not do, he says that
I do.
And the big question over the years has been the question concerning whom is Paul speaking?
Is he talking about his own life as it is in Christ?
Is he speaking as a Christian or is he speaking of his life apart from or outside of Jesus Christ?
How you answer that question is of critical, practical importance.
Because if the answer is the former that he is speaking about his Christian life and
his Christian experience, then you may as well take all visions of a victorious Christian
life for you and me and throw it out the window.
Because if a man like Paul with his faith and his spiritual stature could not do the good
that he would but only the evil which he would not do, then what chance is there in the
world for you and me to overcome the sins that be set us?
Is that not true?
My experience has been over the years within our own circles that that's how it tends
to be understood.
Interestingly enough, it's never happened to me here in this church, but it's happened
to me in many, many other churches.
That when you begin to talk about the life that we have in Christ, God's provision for
victory, there's almost always somebody who knows how to quote Romans chapter 7.
And whenever people quote Romans chapter 7, they always quoted in the context of, well,
if Paul could not have victory, then what chance is there that I can have victory and the
bottom line?
Why even bother?
And it becomes a wonderful excuse to continue to sin because, well, that's just the way
it's always intended to be.
But if the answer is that it does not speak concerning Paul and Christ but perhaps outside
of Christ or in some other way, apart from his Christian experience, then you see this
verse ceases to be and excuse to keep on sinning.
And it's for that reason it's so critically important for us to understand what it really
is that Paul is saying in this very difficult and very hotly contested chapter chapter 7
of the Book of Romans.
Now this morning as we start on it, we obviously can't completely do justice to it.
But I think we can make a beginning.
And we want to begin by putting Romans chapter 7 within the context of the overall Book
of Romans.
It's been a while, at least a few months since we have done our study in the Book of Romans.
Let me just remind you concerning the basic theme.
The basic theme of the Book of Romans you will recall is how God in Christ takes rebellious,
stubborn, wicked, ungodly people, and that's you and me in Adam that he's talking about,
somebody else, and through Christ changes and transforms us so that with every part of
our being we are set free to be obedient to the will of God.
And the key to that says Paul is faith in Jesus Christ.
It is Jesus who has been God's gift to cause that transformation in your experience and
in my experience.
And as we've been looking at Romans chapter 6, we see that there are two phases to that
that Paul talks about.
In Christ he says, we have first of all been delivered from the power of sin.
It is like a cruel taskmaster holds me in bondage, I cannot shake it through Christ,
I have died to sin, I have been raised to righteousness, I am a new person to live to
the praise of God.
But Paul says number two, there is another side to it.
In Christ not only have we died to sin, we have died, he says, also to the law, verse 14
of chapter 6, sin will have no dominion over you since you were not under law, but under
grace, you're not under law, but you're under grace.
All you will recall is that whole system of relating to God where you get what you deserve.
God tells you what it is that he wants you to do, but he doesn't give you any help in
doing it.
As we'll see again a little bit later this morning, the law will always put you under
condemnation because all the law can do is stir up all the crud within your life.
All says later on in Romans chapter 7, he says, I didn't know how bad I was until the
law came along and told me how I ought to leave, and then he said, the more I try to live
that way, the more it put me under condemnation.
And here in Romans chapter 7, Paul continues to illustrate what it is to be set free from
the law and to be joined to Jesus in our relationship of grace, and because he knows how
hard it is for us to understand that, he begins Romans chapter 7 with an analogy, an illustration,
an example, and interestingly enough, the example that he uses is the example of Mary.
She says, do you not know brethren, for I am speaking to those who know the law, that
the law is binding on a person only during his life, thus a married woman is bound by
law to her husband as long as he lives.
But if her husband dies, she is discharged from the law concerning the husband.
Accordingly, she will be called an adulterous of 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 adulterous law, as Paul is binding on a person only during
his life, what's he trying to say?
Well, he's trying to point out that the only legitimate biblical way for a woman to get
out of a relationship with her husband is for the husband to die.
A married woman, he says, is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives.
Doesn't come through very clearly in English.
Comes through really clearly in the Greek, the woman is under her husband's domination.
The word married here in married woman in the Greek is literally who undress, which
comes from a combination of two Greek words, who Paul, which means under and undress, which
means man, and it literally means being under the power of a man.
And the analogy that Paul is presenting here is that you have this woman and she is married
to this man.
As we'll see a little bit later, he's a very exacting and a very demanding taskmaster.
She's married to this man.
It's a bad relationship.
He brings out all the worst in her.
She wants to get out of the relationship.
She wants to be married to a much nicer man.
But says, Paul, how do you get out of that relationship the only way that you can get
out of that relationship is for the man to die and then she is free to remarry.
If she starts living with the man while her first husband is alive, then of course she
is living and committing adultery.
If her husband dies, she is freed from that law.
And if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress that ties in.
She will recall with what we looked at two weeks ago on Jesus' teaching of divorce and
remarriage.
There is a bond between a husband and a wife that in God's original plan and God's original
purpose could only be broken by death.
And divorce has only become legitimate because of the hardness of the human heart.
It was not originally intended that way.
A married woman's Paul is bound by law to her husband.
That's the principle.
If you're in one relationship, the only way out of that relationship into another relationship
legitimately is somebody has to die.
Now keep that in mind because having stated the principle in the first three verses of
Romans chapter 7, he now begins to apply it to the Yeshua hand.
And as he does, he throws in one of these curveballs, he switches illustrations on us and
that leaves a lot of people very confused.
Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ.
He says you have died to the law through the body of Christ.
Do you see what it is that he's doing?
You would have expected him to say likewise, brethren, your husband has died and now therefore
you are free to remarry.
That would have been the logical connection.
We can't do that because the husband is the law.
The law is the way God runs the universe.
Live up to it or die.
That's the law in short.
And that law will never pass away.
It can never die.
Jesus, you will recall, but at this way, He said, think not that I have come to abolish
the law and the prophets, I have come not to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
For truly I say to you, do heaven and earth pass away, not an ayoda, not a dot, will pass
from the law until awe is accomplished.
I have come not to abolish, but to fulfill the law.
It's really important to understand that because people will often take law in grace
and they will put them at odds with each other.
And they will make grace sound as if everything goes and you can do anything that you want
to do and it's okay because God forgives you.
That's a misinterpretation of grace.
Jesus came not to abolish the law, but He came to fulfill it before God and in your life
and in my life by the power of His Holy Spirit.
So Paul can't say the law has died.
The analogy cannot be carried through any further.
Instead He says you have died because you see, if the husband can die to break the relationship,
I can die and if I die, then I am free from the bounds that I was under in my relationship
with that husband.
And so what Paul is saying here, and this is the best way to understand it, I think,
picture yourself as a woman, for at least half of you, that won't be very hard.
The rest of us might have a little more trouble, but let's try it anyway.
Picture yourself as a woman and you are married to this very demanding husband.
Some of you wives are saying I don't have to picture anything, I can just, you know,
that's my life.
Now, you've got this husband and he is exacting and he is demanding.
I mean, he is the bossy type.
He thinks he owns you.
He thinks he can control you and he is always looking to make sure you're doing it just
right, dinner's got to be at the table, you know, 530 sharp, and how come it isn't on
the table?
And when you fail, he'll never let you forget it.
He never overlooks your flaws.
He expects you to be perfect all the time in every way and his love towards you is conditioned
by your performance, how would you feel?
If you've ever been in that kind of relationship, you know how that just brings out the worst
in you because there is simply no way that you can live up to his expectations.
It gets worse.
He's a wonderful critic.
He has exacting standards, but he will never stick out his hand and give you one Iota of
help.
He tells you all of the things that you've got to be doing, but he doesn't want to be
any part of it, and you know what's the worst of it?
He's always right.
I mean, that's horrible, you know.
You never can say your demands are way out to lunch, I don't have to listen to you.
He's always right, his will is a perfect will for your life, but all he is demonstrating
is the impotence within you to live up to that incredible standard.
Paul says that's how it is between you and me and the law.
The law is like a husband who is exacting and who is demanding, who is always right.
But he never helps me, and all he can do is bring out me my rebellion and my frustrational
will see in a few moments, and all of my sense of failure because all he ever does is
he rubs my nose within my sea.
There is no forgiveness under the law, a part of course for Jesus Christ.
So you're in this bad relationship.
How do you get out of that bad relationship?
Well, Paul says your husband isn't going to die because he can't.
So God in Christ makes it possible for us to be joined to Christ and we die.
He goes on to say you have died to the law through the body of Christ.
When Jesus hung on the cross and the law imposed upon him, the ultimate penalty of sin,
you and I died with him.
That's hard to understand, but what it means is that the law, my husband, has no longer
an ability to control me because when I'm dead, I'm dead.
He can't make me do anything anymore.
That's why some wives and abusive situations commit suicide.
He can no longer reach me because I am out of his reach.
But when I'm joined to Christ, I'm not only joined in his death, I'm also joined in
his resurrection.
Christ doesn't just destroy me.
He raises me up as a new person, and now as a new person, I am free from the law that
said I'm married to my first husband.
And the result is that I can now be married to my new husband, Paul puts it this way.
He says you have died to the law through the body of Christ, but you may want, belong
to another, and this other is every woman's dream of a husband.
Oh, his demands are not any less exacting.
The demands that he has are every bit as high as the demands of the law.
What the big difference is that it is a gracious relationship.
When I fail, he overlooks my faults.
When I blow it, his love is unconditional.
And when I am faced by a load that is too heavy for me to bear, he sticks out his hands,
and he walks in my shoes, and he says come on, let's do it together, we can do it, because
I have overcome all things, because he is Lord of lords, and he is the King of kings.
When I'm weary, when I really don't know how else to go on, he understands what lives
in my heart long before I ever know how to put it into words.
He lets me put my head on his shoulder.
He says it's okay.
You're going to make it.
And because he understands me, and because his love sets me free, his love enables me
to find the person that I am.
I don't have to pretend that I am something that I'm not.
I don't have to keep on an old front, and I don't have to keep on trying to pretend that
I'm something that I can never be.
He knows me through and through, he knows every flaw of my being, but he loves me anyway.
And what I need to be encouraged, he encourages me.
What I need to find, what my niche is in life, he comes along and he sets me free to find
my niche, and under his gracious love, empowered by his spirit, my life begins to grow because
it is Christ who lives in me.
I am married to an other husband, a husband who is gracious.
That's what Paul's talking about.
He says you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong
to another.
When we're joined to Christ, we are moved out of this tit for tap, law orientation, where
I'm always reminded of my failure.
I move into what the Bible calls the realm of grace, where Christ not only forgives me
for all my sins, but he lives within me and he starts to empower me from within and he
enables me to rise up and to be all that God would have me be.
Through the law he says you 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.
Or what reason? In order, he goes on to say that you might bear fruit for God, that you
might bear fruit for God.
And here we begin to understand why he uses the analogy of marriage.
Here in chapter 6 he uses the analogy of a slave owner and he said we have been transferred
from one owner to another.
That gets a certain truth across.
But it's not enough to illustrate the full implication of what it is that he's trying
to say.
What happens when a couple get married normally speaking?
Sooner or later if all things are okay, they're going to have children.
They bear fruit.
That's the mystery of the one flesh relationship.
You have two separate individuals.
They're joined together, they conceive a child and in the child there is a blend of
the one from the other and you don't know where the one begins and the other ends.
They bear fruit for God.
What happened when we were married to the law?
Well as long as we were married to the law, the fruit we bore, says Paul, is bad fruit
verse 5 while we were living in the flesh.
Our sinful passions aroused by the law were at work at our members to bear fruit for
doubt.
Remember now the law is this exacting husband who doesn't stick out his hand to help us
when I heard it?
All he can do is bring out the worst in me and so as long as I'm married to that kind
of a husband, as long as I have that kind of a relationship with God and with the universe
as long as I live under the law, the result will always be failure in condemnation.
My sinful passions will be stirred up because I will be told what to do but I will not be
given the help in which to do it and that fills me with despair, that fills me with discouragement,
that fills me with brokenness, that wants me to make me throw in the whole towel and who
cares to live that way anyway because I haven't got what it takes to live up to those incredible
demands.
Never feel that way.
Can begin to tell you the number of people that I talk with in the course of a year that
come out of good religious homes, that know their left hand from the right hand and they
know right from wrong and they know what it is that they're supposed to do and they've
tried so hard to do it but no matter how hard they've tried the harder they try, the worse
it gets.
Paul says in Romans chapter 7 and this is the theme of Romans chapter 7, that's the purpose
of the law, the purpose of the law was never to change your life.
The purpose of the law among other things is to show you what lives inside you, Paul says
I didn't know what it was to cover it until the law came along and said don't cover it
and the harder I tried not to cover the worse I got and the more I discovered the good
that I would, I do not and evil that I would not do, that's what lives within my heart.
All the law can ever do is put you in the hopelessness of despair, it makes a hypocrite
out of you because you either crack up or you begin to the lower the demands of the
law so that you can begin to feel pretty good about yourself.
But he says now we're married to Jesus, he says we've died to the law, we've died to
that whole system of tit for tat and whatever else, he says we're married to Christ and Christ
receives me as I am and Christ comes to live within my heart.
He graciously renews me and he says the result of that relationship is that my life begins
to bear fruit.
My location in the kingdom of God is no longer determined now by whether I'm good or whether
I'm bad, God loves me as I am knowing the worst about me because I belong to Jesus.
I want to weary and tired and the challenges are bigger than what I can handle.
Jesus comes along and he puts his hand in my hand and he begins to renew me and my life
begins to change from the inside because there is now a new driving force within me that
says all right I want to love God, I want to live for him, I want to be obedient because
his law is written on my heart that's why he says in the concluding verse here but now
we are discharged from the law.
Did to that which held us captive so that we serve not under the old written code but
in the new life, in the spirit, the old written code that's the law, the law that says don't
touch, don't eat, don't do this, don't do that, the law that brings out in me the desire
to disobey but he says now we serve in the new life of the spirit because you see when
I'm married to Jesus I come into a new covenant and his spirit within me changes me from the inside
out and I begin to bear fruit because I have to work at it so hard not because I'm trying
so desperately but because the nature of the new life within me is to start reaching
out to God and I begin to love him and I begin to worship him and I want to begin to read
the scriptures and I want to begin to obey him doesn't mean as I said so often that we
are perfect and that we don't fall short or that we don't have our struggles but there's
new life there is a transformation the law is written on my heart.
So that'd been your experience?
You came to Christ before that you tried so hard to be good and you discovered with
Paul that the good you would you did not be evil that you would not do that is what you
did.
You began to discover that no matter how hard you tried or how long you lived it would
never ever really be different because it simply wasn't within you and the Holy Spirit
began to knock on the door of your heart the Holy Spirit began to point out to you that
you were trying to do the work of Jesus the wedding yesterday I shared to the people that
were gathered here a little bit of Rob and Tracy's story of how God's love had melted
the hardness of their own hearts of how that time in Rob's life when he was backed into
a corner the Spirit of God was knocking on the door of his heart finally dawned upon
him that he never understood grace he never understood salvation he never understood Jesus
because he always thought that when he was good enough that he could come to Jesus but
he never felt that he was good enough and he was too honest to say I don't want to make
a commitment but I cannot live out I'll never forget the day when he and I shared the
gospel together and his eyes were open and they lit up and he understood that you don't
come to Jesus because you've got it all in place you come to Jesus as you are and he
will take you as you are and he will transform your life and he will cause it to bear fruit
for the praise of his glory I shared with the folks yesterday I don't believe Rob and
Tracy would have gotten together to be joined in marriage where they've not for the transforming
power of Jesus Christ a lot of us here know that power a lot of us here know what it's
like to be married to the law to always live with the sense of failure if you're here
this morning and you've never come face to face with Jesus you've never come to understand
his glory as beauty in his holiness I want to encourage you to seek until you find because
the most wonderful the most beautiful the most glorious person in the universe you can
never be joined to the only one who can make you bear good fruit his name is Jesus he died
in the cross he arose from the dead he sits at the right hand of God the Father he is
coming again in glory he's poured out the Holy Spirit and it's all been for one purpose
to join us to himself in holy matrimony so that joined to him we can be released from
that to which we were married before and the bad fruit that caused us to bear and we
can be joined to Jesus and we can bear the kind of fruit that will give him glory my brother
and my sisters you 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 the God be the glory let us pray we confess Lord there are ever new levels of understanding
of the unsearchable riches that we have of the Lord Jesus I pray this morning that you
burn the analogy that Paul uses with it or hearts so the time and time again when this
struggle becomes too great the battle too big that we may understand the fresh that in
Christ we have died to the law we don't live that way any longer we no longer under its
power and can no longer dominate control or abuse us instead we're married to Jesus and
Jesus is gracious he loves me as I am he understands me as I am he walks with me in my
victories it in my defeat he encourages he challenges he loves he helps he strengthens
and when I succeed his eyes light up because he takes joy in seeing me restored to the image
of God Lord I believe there are some of us here this morning we struggle with bondages
or some of us here we have be setting habits of sin within us that we have justified we
have excused we have long given up believing that we can ever be delivered or there are
some of us we just don't like ourselves very much because are so keenly aware of the
areas in which we lack helpless to understand but the freshness that comes from the revelation
of your Holy Spirit that before your face that doesn't matter one Iota because of where
married to Christ those are no longer the terms that apply his gracious love will set
us free thank you Lord for your salvation thank you that you love us in Christ to the
fullness of your life in Jesus' name Amen