Romans 7:15-25a
Sin & Grace
- There’s something that resonates with us in this passage
- Something fundamental about human nature
- “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”
- “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”
- It resonates because it’s true.
- We know what is right
- We know we want to do the right thing
- But we also know that we don’t always measure up.
- What lessons can we take away from this passage today
- 3 things:
- Sin: It’s a real problem
- Separates us from God
- Separates us from each other
- Undermines our identity
- Grace sets us free
- Paul goes straight from wallowing in the brokenness of his life to praising God’s deliverance
- “24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
- Sets us right with God
- Sets us right with each other
- Sets us right within ourselves
- Salvation is not perfection
- It is true that as we draw closer to God, we are re-made more and more in the image of Christ.
- We are his disciples. We seek to live the way Christ lived
- The Holy Spirit is at work in us, making our hearts and our souls as new and beautiful as Lilley is today
- We’re not there yet
- Even Paul struggles with the same thing that we do
- “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—This I keep on doing.”
- So often we make the mistake of thinking that once we have received grace, we need to keep our end up. That if we fall short once more, then we’ve undone all the good that has been done in our lives through the grace of God.
- Nothing could be further from the truth
- S. Lewis – further up and further in
- “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now…Come further up, come further in!”
- Today Lilley has started on the first stage of a journey that will last all the way through this life and into eternity
- The journey that will take her where no sin or evil can ever follow
- A journey that will carry her into the heart of grace.
