Romans 7:7-13

7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.

13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

-Romans 7:7-13

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When you’re injured, your body experiences pain as a means to tell you something is wrong.  The purpose of the law is to help you do that with your soul.  Our souls are vehemently sinful, but it can stay pretty well hidden.  But when we are confronted by a law, especially God’s law, our sinfulness comes light.  No matter the rule or law, our soul just wants to disobey.  I see that in baby Taylor.  Baby Taylor always wants to crawl to the places that we’ve set as off-limits.  Sometimes she’ll even look at us to make sure we’re watching her blatantly disobeying us.  It’s not fun disobeying if the people you are disobeying don’t know!  We’re all like baby Taylor.  There’s something in us that just wars against authority and anything that’s godly.  That’s our sin nature that the law brings out in us.

So we need God’s laws and rules because not only do they tell us how to live life to the full, they show us how messed up we are on the inside.  We just can’t follow them.  It’s like there’s something wrong with us, because there is!  It’s sin!

This is why the Apostle Paul says that the law is good.  God’s laws and rules show us how we’re messed up and compel us to seek help.  If we don’t know we’re messed up, why would we ever come to God for help?  Only a sick man seeks a doctor.  Only a sinner seeks a savior.

Romans 6:19-23

19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. -Romans 6:19-23

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Let’s get real about how sin tricks us.  When you first commit the sin, it feels so good.  It feels like that sinful act is so fulfilling and life-giving even.  But it’s so short-lived.  After we commit the sinful act, there’s a sense of emptiness.  Then there’s the guilt!  The Apostle Paul here uses the term “ashamed.”  This is how sin gets us.  It tricks us in accepting short-lived empty so-called “pleasures.”  We keep falling for it and then at the end of our lives when we look back at what we accomplished, it’s just emptiness.  We’ve wasted our lives chasing one empty pleasure to another.

But when we allow God to take control of our lives, we find true fulfillment.  God made us and so He knows what we were made for.  We were made for holiness.  We were made for righteousness.  When we pursue these things, there’s a sense of peace and calm that overtakes us even in the midst of life’s setbacks and storms, because we operating the way God designed us to.

Horatio Spafford wrote the famous Christian hymn, “It is Well With My Soul.”  He wrote it after the death of his four daughters from a shipwreck.  Check out the first verse of his hymn:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Only a man who pursues God can write this after such a tragedy.  There was no emptiness in this man’s heart.    His heart was filled by God and that’s why he can sing, “it is well with my soul,” even in the direst of circumstances.

Do you want unassailable peace?  Do you want eternal fulfillment?  Choose God.  Follow Him.  May it be well with your soul.

Romans 6:11-14

11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace. -Romans 6:11-14

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Are you wise in the way that you’re dealing with sin?  In this passage, the Apostle Paul writes that we are not to let sin reign in our mortal body.  What in the world does that mean?

It means we need to be wise about how we deal with the temptations in our lives that lead to sin.  If you’re struggling with a particular sin, and you’ve been trying to deal with it the same way for years, by now you should probably get the message that whatever you’re doing is not working.  Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Not allowing sin to reign in us begins with prevention.  For example, it’s probably not a good idea for an alcoholic to hang around in bars.  That’s just unwise because the temptation of a drink is right in front of you.  It’s the same thing with any other temptation, being wise and creating a situation where you are far from that temptation is going to help.

This is where the tough part comes in.  Prevention might mean cutting things out in your life.  That’s what the Apostle Paul meant when he says “do not offer any part of yourself to sin.”  It means you got to cut things out in your life that may encourage you to a particular sin.  So for the alcoholic, the bar is probably a no go.

For you, it might be things that are hard to cut out.  It might be cutting out friendships that at this time isn’t healthy for you.  It might be cutting out a sport you really like but it’s become an idol in your life.  Cutting things out is hard.

But when we do cut things out for the sake of our faith, we see that God replaces whatever we cut out with Himself.  We experience a greater joy than what any temptation or sin can provide.  Far greater joy.

What do you have to cut out in your life?

Romans 6:8-10

8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. -Romans 6:8-10

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Jesus has the power. On the Cross, Jesus not only conquered physical death, but Jesus conquered spiritual death. In Christian terms, death is being as far away from God as possible. You see, God sustains us. Every breath we take, that’s God allowing us to breathe. When we are far away from God, we cease to function physically and spiritually. But on that Cross, Jesus was able to overcome the separation between us and God. He defeated physical death and spiritual death. Jesus has the power.

And now the one who has this immense power wants to be your friend. Not just your friend, your best friend. Not just your best friend, a brother. Jesus wants to be with you. Will you accept his invitation?

Romans 6:5-7

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. -Romans 6:5-7

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Christianity is not behavior modification but heart transformation.  Many people think of Christianity as a set of rules that force you to do what’s “right.”  It’s a list of do’s and don’ts that you have to try to follow.  It’s a way to make sure that we all behave.

The problem with behavior modification is that it doesn’t change the heart.  You can make a law forcing people to not say racist things for example.  And because they can get in trouble for it, they stop.  But, it doesn’t stop them from being a racist.  Their racist thoughts and beliefs are still there.   That’s behavior modification.

Christianity doesn’t just want to stop people from saying racist things.  Christianity wants to help people to not even be racist.  That’s heart transformation.

When Jesus died on the Cross for our sins, he began the process of heart transformation within us.  It is a process but over time our hearts will begin to change.  We will obey God not because we have to, but because we want to.

From the poet William Cowper:

To see the Law by Christ fulfilled,

To hear His pardoning voice,

Changes a slave into a child

And duty into choice.

Romans 6:3-4

3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. -Romans 6:3-4

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Jesus took our spot.  Imagine being arrested for the crime, but someone else went to jail for you.  Or a better example would be you did something that broke school rules, but instead of getting suspended, someone else took your spot and was suspended in your place.

That’s what it means when the Apostle Paul writes that we are “baptized into his death.”  Our sins and our trespasses against God deserve death and instead of us dying, Jesus died in our place.

But God’s love for us doesn’t just end there.  Not only did Jesus take our place, but he also gave us the power to live the life that we were meant to live.  He gives us new life.

As you reflect on Jesus’ sacrifice and gift, may it produce in you a sense of gratitude.

Romans 6:1-2

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? -Romans 6:1-2

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There were people back in the day who twisted God’s truth.  They basically said that we should sin MORE because when we sin there is more for God to forgive thereby giving God more glory.  That’s messed up thinking right there.

It’s like saying I should disobey my parents more so they can forgive me more and be better parents.  That’s ridiculous logic.  Good parents would raise their children to obey authority.

Therefore, we truly give God glory when we allow God to transform our hearts and help us live out a godly lifestyle.

How do you know if you’re transformed?  The Apostle Paul who wrote Romans tell us here.  He writes that we are transformed when we are dead to sin.  In other words, we don’t desire to sin anymore.  What used to be a temptation no longer tempts us because we have died to that sin.  It doesn’t have any power over us.

When I was younger, abusing alcohol was definitely a huge temptation and a struggle.  But as I matured in my faith, that desire to drink and get drunk began to disappear.  And now I don’t even have the desire to drink.  That’s being dead to sin.

Be patient with God.  He is changing you and transforming you.  You’ll know when things that use to tempt you become less and less tempting.  Before you know it, you’ll wonder why you even desired that sinful thing to begin with.

Romans 5:18-19

18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. -Romans 5:18-19

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We are powerless without Jesus.  The fall of humanity and the salvation of humanity both exist outside of our control.  The passage tells us that we are born with sin and there was nothing we could have done to prevent it.  The spiritual disease started by Adam has passed down to us.  It’s as much a part of us as being born Asian or whatever race our parents were.  We have no control.

Likewise, the cure for our disease is also beyond us.  There is nothing we can do to bring about it.  Only solely through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ are we free from the bondage of sin.

The truth of our powerlessness is one of the cornerstones of the Christian faith.  Only when we recognize our inability to control our lives can we then begin to surrender to the one who does have control—God.

Do you recognize your own powerlessness?  This is the beginning of your Christian faith.

Romans 5:17

17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! -Romans 5:17

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Jesus is the better Adam.  Adam was created by God but he rebelled against God and brought sin into the world.  Jesus is the better Adam who obeyed God and brought salvation to the world.  Adam brought death to the world and Jesus brings life and revival.

As people, we get to choose who we follow.  Will we follow Adam in his disobedience and death or will we follow Jesus in his obedience and life.  This is a choice we make every single day and every single moment of our lives.

Will you choose Adam or Jesus?

Romans 5:12-14

12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. -Romans 5:12-14

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Sin is not just something that we do, but it is a corruption of our desires from the moment we are born.  This passage is underscoring the theological concept of “original sin.”  Original sin refers to Adam and Eve’s disobedience which brought sin into the world.  Ever since then, the corruption of their disobedience has infected everything, including you and me.  Think of it as a disease that we are all born with.  That’s sin.

In Christianity, we believe the only cure for this spiritual disease is the Cross.  When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, he healed us of our spiritual illness.  Our desire for sin is slowly being transformed to a desire for God.

Understanding our spiritual disease only makes us appreciate more our spiritual cure—Jesus Christ!  May you grow in gratitude for what Jesus has done and is still doing for you and me.

Romans 5:9-11

9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. -Romans 5:9-11

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“Enemy” is a strong word.  There might be people we don’t like or get along with, but very few of us would use the word “enemy.”  When we think of “enemy” we think of terrorists or others who have committed great offenses against us.  Yet, “enemy” is the word the Apostle Paul uses to describe what our relationship with God was prior to following Jesus.

It’s weird to think that we were once God’s enemy.  We’re not THAT bad.  It’s not like we killed people or committed genocide.  That’s bad.  Those people should be God’s enemy.  But we’ve lived a pretty moral life.  Why should God consider us his enemy?

If you think this way, it’s only because you don’t understand the horror and the gravity of sin.  Anything that we do or think that is contrary to what God wants for us is a grave offense.  The problem is that for many of us, we don’t see it as a big deal.  We don’t think our sins or our shortcomings are that bad at all because we don’t have a proper view of sin.  We’ve grown too comfortable with sin.  We’ve learned to co-exist with it.

But God can NEVER co-exist with sin.  And because He is perfect He must not tolerate any sin in His presence.

So God has a problem.  He loves and wants to be close to us, but He can’t tolerate sin.  So what does He do?  He removes our sin from us through His son Jesus.  Jesus took on our sin so that we can be close to God again.  We were once God’s enemy because of our sin, but Jesus, in a sense, became God’s enemy when he took on all of our sins on the cross.  We should have been treated as the enemy, but instead Jesus was treated as the enemy.

Only when we understand the horror and depravity of sin do we begin to understand the beauty and the love of the Cross.

Romans 5:3-5

3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. -Romans 5:3-5

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God does not enjoy it when we suffer, but He puts our suffering to good use.  We say that our God is a god of redemption.  The term “redemption” means to take something messed up and then make it good.  That’s what God does with our suffering.  He takes something messed up and the turns it to something that ultimately is good for us.

This passage gives us a little bit of a clue on how God does that.  When we trust God through our suffering, we begin to grow in endurance, in our character, and in ability to hope.  God can actually use the suffering to make us stronger.

Are you going through a difficult time right now?  Do you feel like you are suffering either physically, emotionally, psychologically, academically, relationally, or spiritually?  God wants to redeem your suffering.  He wants to take the horrible thing that is happening to you and turn it for your good.

Will you let Him?

Romans 4:18-25

18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. 20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” 23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. -Romans 4:18-25

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God promised Abraham that he would be the “father of nations.”  One problem though, Abraham’s wife Sarah couldn’t have children.  She was barren.  In the midst of this impossible obstacle, Abraham trusted God.  His trust wasn’t perfect.  His faith wasn’t perfect.  But the obstacle to Abraham’s faith strengthened his faith.  That’s the paradox of spiritual trials—they seem like they exist to hurt us but in turn they make us stronger.

Like many, during this pandemic, I’ve been exercising and working out quite a bit.  When you lift weights, it actually tears apart your muscles and damages them.  It looks like destruction.  But that destruction brings about healing that actually makes the muscles stronger and bigger.

This is just like faith.  When there are obstacles to our faith, those obstacles actually help to make our faith stronger because we need to use faith.

Are you facing obstacles to your faith right now?  May you see them as opportunities for your faith to grow!

Romans 4:9-12

9 Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. 10 How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. 11 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, 12 and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. -Romans 4:9-12

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Who is Abraham?  Why is circumcision even talked argued about in Christianity?

Many consider Abraham to be the father of the Jewish people.  God told Abraham to leave his home country and basically start a new nation.  And Abraham obeyed.  God wanted this new nation to be distinct from all the nations in the world so he made the guys get circumcised.  So circumcision now has become the mark of whether or not you belonged to Abraham’s new nation.  The mark showed that you were part of God’s people.

Fast forward 1600 years.  Abraham’s new nation is no longer new.  They are called Israel and they continue to practice this circumcision tradition.  But now the tradition itself has become so important it’s replaced faith.  Israelites falsely believe that you’re God’s people if you are circumcised.  Faith is not even part of the equation!

Now before you hound on the Israelites, we Christians today do the exact same thing.  We think that going to church makes us a Christian.  We think having Christian parents make us a Christian.  We think standing up in an altar call during a praise night makes us Christian.  NONE of those things do.  In the end, it’s faith.

Before God told Abraham to perform the mark of circumcision, Abraham already was part of God’s family because Abraham had faith.  The Apostle Paul was trying to emphasize this using a history lesson about Abraham.  Abraham’s faith came BEFORE God gave the mark of circumcision.

Going to church, going to Harvesters or AYL, or even reading your Bible or praying doesn’t make you a Christian.  You need to have faith that comes BEFORE doing any of those things.  Faith is matters.  It’s how you connect to God’s Insta, or FB, or TikTok, or whatever.  It starts with faith.

Are you starting with faith or do you falsely believe that the things you do will save you?

Romans 4:1-4

What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” 4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. -Romans 4:1-4

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If we see our faith as grace-based, then anything we have we see as a blessing from God.  But, if we see our faith as works-based—that we did something to earn it—then anything we have we see as a product of our hard work.

How do you know if you’re seeing your life through the lens of grace or through the lens of work?  That’s easy.  Are you blaming God for things?

Oftentimes, when we blame God, it’s because we believe we’ve done things to deserve better.  The thinking goes like this, “I’ve served you in Harvesters and at church.  I’ve been a good person.  God, you should do more to bless me.  Why don’t I have this or that?”

The person who believes in a works-based Christianity feels that God owes him or her.  He or she did the work, God now needs to come through and honor His end of the bargain.  And when God doesn’t, the person gets mad at God.

But in a grace-based Christianity, the person understands that God did all the work.  God doesn’t owe him or her anything.  Any blessings the person receives is seen as a gift.  There is a sense of gratitude toward God regardless of the person’s external circumstances.

If you’re mad or annoyed at God for something, it’s possible that you’re struggling with a works-based mentality of faith.  You feel you earned your religiosity and God should compensate you accordingly.  That’s not Christianity, that’s self-worship.

Ask God to help you to get rid of your works-based mentality.  Ask Him to help you see the world through His grace, mercy, and forgiveness.

Romans 3:29-30

29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. -Romans 3:29-30

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God’s gift of Himself is available to everyone.  The story of Christianity is the story of God’s redemption of the world and He chose to start His story with the Jews.  But His plan all along was to help everyone.  We see hints of that even when Jesus was on earth.  He would help people who were Gentiles (not Jewish) and in many instances he commented on how the Gentiles had greater faith even to those who engaged in traditional Judaism.

When the Apostle Paul comes to faith, God’s plan to share His salvation with the world begins to come to fruition.  God gives Paul the task of sharing the Good News with Gentiles.

If you’re not Jewish, then you’re a Gentile, and your faith can be traced back all the way to the Apostle Paul.  He started the process of helping Gentiles meet Jesus and his mission continues today.  It even continues with us.  A huge part of the Harvesters and AYL is not just to help Christians grow in their faith, but to help those who may not call themselves Christians to learn more about Jesus.

God made Himself available to you and to me.  We can’t just hoard God.  Now we need to share Him with our friends and family.

Romans 3:21-25

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. -Romans 3:21-25

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What the heck is the word “propitiation?”  It means to “make up for” or to “pay the cost for.”  Another word for it would be “justice.”

As this passage tells us, all of us have done something messed up in our lives.  All of us have definitely have had messed up thoughts.  That’s sin.  When we mess up, we’re committing an injustice either against others, against ourselves, or against God.  Oftentimes, it’s all three!

That injustice has be made right and that’s what Jesus did on the Cross.  He paid for the injustice we commit to each other, to ourselves, and to God on a daily basis.  Propitiation—God paid for it.

May this reality give you joy and gratitude.  We deserve punishment for our mess, but Jesus took the punishment instead.  That’s sacrifice.  That’s grace.  That’s love.

Romans 3:19-20

19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. -Romans 3:19-20

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Many of us know the Ten Commandments like don’t steal, don’t lie, and don’t murder.  What’s the purpose of these laws?  First, the reflect the character of God.  But second, just as important is that they help us to recognize our own messed up sinful nature.  On our own, it is impossible to keep all God’s laws.  For example, the Ten Commandments say to honor our parents.  Have you ever disrespected your mom or dad?  Have you ever talked back to them? 

My niece Taylor is a super cute baby.  She’s also a little sinner.  When we tell her not to do something, she ALWAYS wants to do it.  When we set a law for her to follow like don’t crawl on the wires, she immediately wants to break that law.  That’s her sinful nature at work.

We’re just like Taylor.  When we are told not to do something, there’s this fire inside of us that wants to disobey.  That fire is our sinful nature!

One purpose of God’s law is to show us how we are sinful and therefore we can’t follow His law perfectly.  God’s law teaches us that we can’t save ourselves.  We need a savior to help us.  That’s where Jesus comes in.  He saves us because we can’t save ourselves.

The law reminds us that we need Jesus.

Romans 3:10-12

“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” -Romans 3:10-12

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We always think of ourselves better than we really are.  “I’m not that bad,” we think.  If you ask the average person if they are good enough to get into heaven, most would answer “yes.”  There’s an inherent narcissism that we all share.  We don’t judge ourselves by the same standards we judge others. 

The Bible puts us in our place.  It reminds us of our spiritual reality.  There is NO ONE who desires to do good.  There’s a fancy Christian-ese term we use called “total depravity.”  It basically means we’re so messed up that we don’t even know how messed up we are.  No one has the desire to do good.

Wait, but what about al the do-gooders in the world?  What about those who want to save the whales and promote racial justice and the like?  The Bible tells us any desire that we have to do good comes from God.  This is part of God’s “general grace” for all of humanity.  Whenever we see people doing good or even you doing good, it is by God’s grace and power that you even have that desire.  

This passage reminds the hold sin has upon us.  It reminds us that we are ALL in need of a savior.  And this reminds us that Jesus is that savior.

Do you think of yourself better than you really are?