“Free From Sin's Power” One Part Only

Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 884 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text

-- Brother Chip King: Praise the Lord. Let’s turn over to Romans. I believe I’ll start a little bit in Romans 7, go to 8, and then maybe back to 6 a little bit. The Lord is here this morning, isn’t he? Appreciate His presence in the song service...this beautiful day that He’s given us. Praise God! This is the day the Lord hath made. I will be glad and rejoice in Him.

Just on a personal note, I’ve been awfully busy at work, probably too busy...some of it probably my own doing. So you pray for me. But also, I haven’t been feeling all that well, and I know that God’s people have been joining their hearts together and praying for me, and I feel much better. So, I’m thankful for that. We just have to get my blood pressure up a little bit, and I’ll be fine.

They ask me at work, what is it you’re on? ‘Cause I’m sort of walking around, sort of calm, cool, and collected, which is not my normal state of mind there. So the Lord is doing something special for me and He’s doing something special for you.

You know I had a thought here this morning...it came to me strongly before we even...before I even began lifting my heart there, asking God to give us the songs that we were to sing this morning, and it’s this--you know if the Lord has set us free, we are free indeed. And, you know, there is a great lie of Satan that would have you and I in a state of believing that it will never get any better--that this state that we’re in, this sorry state that we’re in, will never change.

Now we give mental assent, and we have faith in the fact that Jesus Christ died for us, that our sins have been paid for, that we’re free. But we kind of tend to put that off someplace. Well, that’s my ultimate destiny. Praise God, I’m gonna be with Jesus because He’s taken care of my sins, and I praise Him for that. But we continue to live down here condemned. We continue to live down here in lives that are less than victorious. I’m here to say that when Jesus Christ has set us free, He has not only has set us free in the future, He has set us free today.

( congregational amens ).

That we have power over the enemy.

( congregational amens ).

He has no power over us. We do not need to listen to his lies and live condemned lives because we see our sorry nature, and we focus in on that. That’s exactly what he wants us to do. Do you think that Satan’s gonna come to you and tell you something’s gonna help you? He’s not gonna...his goal is to make us feel as bad as he possibly can, and to spoil us. So let me just sort of get into this, and I don’t know where it will go. If it’s not the Lord, why you guys sit me down and we’ll get what we need this morning, ‘cause that’s what we need--what God has.

You know Paul here in the last part of Romans chapter 7 is putting down on paper...he’s writing down what...an understanding that he has come to about himself. He says in verse 15. “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that do I. If I then do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” Paul is saying there’s sin that dwells in this flesh of mine.

And he says this, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me...”--I’m giving it my best effort. I want to do better--”...But how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.” Don’t you find yourself in that place?

( congregational amens ).

Amen. This is hard to read here. “Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” Here again, Paul again is acknowledging the sin that dwells in him. “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.” I’m trying, but evil is there. “For I delight in the law of God...”--I understand it. I believe, I’ve been saved. He says--”...after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”

Boy, he was in a sorry state there, focusing on himself and his own lack, focusing inward and seeing the sin that was there, and he was just expressing it here. He says, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?” Paul wanted deliverance. He knew he needed deliverance. And I believe that’s a good place for you and I to come to. We need to come to a place where we know we need a Savior. Do we not?

Is that not the purpose of the law? Was to bring us to a knowledge of sin that we might see that we can’t do this ourselves. That we are sinful, sinful, sinful! We were born that way and we needed a savior. We needed someone to go before us and offer Himself as sacrifice to God, so that God could accept that sacrifice and then we, if we’ve entered into that sacrifice, were made free as well. Praise God!

It’s good for us to come to that place, but we’re not to stay there. We are not to stay there. He says, “O wretched man that I am....” How many times a day do you utter that phrase or think it, one way or the other? You see yourself. You see your failures. I don’t know about you, but I do. They’re right in front of me all the time--right in front of me all the time.

He says, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” And then he says this, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” But then he goes on. He doesn’t stay there. And this is important. We are not to stay in this place of realizing...well we are in one sense...but of realizing our sinful nature, the fact that we can never attain to Heaven without somebody else’s help.

But he says this in verse 1 of chapter 8, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus....” The debt has been paid. Paul, you no longer have to be wretched in your mind. You no longer have to bemoan the fact that you can’t do the right thing. Jesus Christ has set us free. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” And this is what I wanted to get to. “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” You and I have been made free, in the ultimate sense, but now, today, right here where you sit, you are free.

( congregational amens ).

You are free. You’re free because Jesus Christ has made you free. You remember Phil ministered sometime ago on that expression that Jesus gave the disciples, he said, the god of this world cometh, but he finds nothing in me. Well if he finds nothing in Jesus Christ, and you and I have been made new creatures in Jesus Christ, what does that mean? That when he comes to us, there’s nothing there either! There’s nothing there either! The devil would want you to think there is. Now that doesn’t mean we’re perfect...well we are in one sense, but that doesn’t mean we lead perfect lives. But what the Lord wants us to understand is, we are free!

( congregational amens ).

The cross has made us free! We are free from sin! We no longer have to be in bondage to sin. We no longer have to live our lives with our heads looking down at the ground. We can look up and thank God that we’re free every minute!

( congregational amens ).

Every day! And we’re gonna fail, but we have an Advocate. We have One we can go to, who sits at the right hand making intercession for you and I. But let’s not put this off in the future someplace, and believe that there’s no hope, and leave ourselves in chapter 7 of Romans, and say, O wretched man, there’s no hope. I’m just gonna be as I am forever, but hopefully at the end, when it’s all over, and said, and done, I’ll go on with Jesus. Praise God! You’re free today! I am free today.

( congregational amens ).

Paul expressed it. He said, we’ve been made more than conquerors through Jesus Christ. ‘We’ have been made more than conquerors. Praise God! Let’s go over to chapter 6--verse 1 of chapter 6. “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” Paul has been contrasting sin and grace here, using sin to basically say that’s why we need grace. And we do.

He said, “God forbid.” We’re not to continue in sin, so that we can prove that God is full of grace. The enemy would want us to continue in sin and just stay there. He says, “God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin....” What do you mean, we’re dead to sin? We are dead to sin. You’re dead to sin right now. Praise God! You’re dead to sin...not off in the future but right now. Praise God!

Where was I? “God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?” Now think about that. That wasn’t just Jesus Christ doing that. That was you and I. When we entered in, we were baptized into his death. You and I--we personally partook of that.

“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Praise God! You mean we are able to walk in newness of life now? It says it right here. We can. We can walk in newness of life right now. We don’t have to walk around feeling condemned! We are free because Jesus Christ has made us free.

( congregational amens ).

Praise God! The devil doesn’t want you to hear this. He wants you to continue on as you are, believing that nothing will ever change. He took care of it. And if you were buried with Him in baptism, you’ve been raised in newness of life, that you can live free, happy, joyful! Praise God! The Lord wants us to be happy and joyful. Don’t you believe that?

( congregational amens ).

Isn’t the joy of the Lord our strength? Praise God! It’s not ‘our’ joy, but He ‘gives’ us that joy because we are victorious in Him. And they overcame him by what? “...The blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” He has taken care of this, but we are to enter into it on a moment-by-moment basis. Praise God!

“For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” Well praise God! Don’t put that off someplace in the future. It’s now. Praise God! “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him...”--That was taken care of--”...that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.” You are free from sin. You are free from sin. You are free from sin, now!

( congregational amens ).

Praise God! Not just so you can go to heaven, but so that you can live a victorious--I can live a victorious life ‘here.’ Praise God! We are free from sin. “Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.” Praise God! Let’s live victorious lives! Let’s...is Jesus Christ victorious?

( congregational amens ).

Absolutely. Are you in Jesus Christ? Then you’re victorious and so am I. Hallelujah! “...If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.” Praise God...or you or me. “For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin...”--We’re to reckon ourselves to be dead unto sin. Praise God!--”...But alive unto God...” Praise the Lord. We are alive unto God this morning.

( congregational amens ).

Praise God! “...Alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Let me go back and read verse 2, of chapter 8. “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free...”--You can insert your name in there. It has made Chip free from the law of sin and death. Praise God! We have everything to give glory to God about.

( congregational amens ).

Praise God! Let’s not allow the enemy to keep us down. Let’s lift our eyes up and behold the salvation of God and see what He has done for us. And when we fail, we go to God and say, Lord, I’ve failed. I confess it. Cleanse me. But, praise God, you’re no longer a slave to sin if you’re in Jesus Christ. We do not have to be slaves to the enemy. We don’t have to be slaves to our nature. We have the power to overcome this thing, because the power of Jesus Christ resides in us. Praise God! Do you believe that this morning?

( congregational amens ).

You can do all things through Christ that strengthens you. Now let’s not get ahead of ourselves, and think that we can do this ourselves and live perfect lives. That’s not it. We’re always dependent on Him. Praise God! But He died, and we’re to reckon ourselves dead to sin. The cross is not just in the future. The cross is for us day to day. Hallelujah!

-- Brother Phil Enlow: Wow, did I need that. Praise God! Praise God! You know this is one of the truths that I think is the hardest for us to get ahold of as Christians. We come to a place--finally the Lord brings us to a place where we see that we need salvation in the sense that we can’t pay for our sins, that we’re gonna have to stand before the Lord one day. And we see that Jesus paid it all and we put our trust and hope in that.

But when it comes to living a practical Christian life, that’s a whole different story, and we quickly discover the things that Paul did. As I said before, I believe that God took Paul definitely, I mean, deliberately through what he experienced in Romans 7. One of the main reasons was so that he could help you and me, because we need help. We’re all made of exactly the same stuff that Paul was.

And of course Paul, you know, was a self-righteous Jew by his upbringing. And I don’t mean just Jew in the general sense, but he was a Pharisee, which was a particular religious sect among the Jews that just went out of its way to emphasize a self-righteous, legalistic--I’m obeying the law, and I’m righteous before God--kind of way of looking at life.

The Lord had to show Paul exactly why he needed a Savior in a practical sense, not just “my sins are forgiven,” but I want...but Paul was brought to a place where in his mind, he said I want to live for God. I want to live up to His righteous standard, and I want to please Him and to do what’s right. But then he tried to go about it in the way that he knew...by obeying the law.

I had this picture in my...oh I’ve had it the last couple of days, it’s come to me several times of how helpless a fly is if it gets good and enmeshed in a spider web. Now you think about the poor fly. What has he got to help him out of that situation with. There he is, stuck. Let’s say really stuck good to a very sticky strand of that spider web. He struggles against that, and he struggles against it, and he can’t get out that way, so he looks for something else. Maybe if I get a hold of this over here, I can pull loose here. The problem is this is sticky too. You see the problem.

That’s the problem we have if we’re going to try to be better people through our own strength. Everything we touch is sticky. Everything we touch is just gonna get us in deeper, and in more bondage, and more failure. It just spirals. It gets out of control. The next thing you know, our expectation is, oh, all I’ll ever be is a failure. I have no hope.

Well the problem is not that there is no hope. The problem is we’re hoping in the wrong thing. We hope in our own strength and our own ability to do right. After all, we’re Christians, now shouldn’t we be able to serve God? Yeah, but not if we go about it with self-effort and self-strength. That’s what the Lord had to teach Paul.

But I praise God for what he said there at the end, and the way Chip emphasized that. God brought Paul to a place where he cried out, and that cry meant, “Oh God, I know that I cannot do this thing. I need you desperately to help me.”

And that’s the truth because it’s not just the initial act of salvation in which we need God to act graciously on our behalf because we’re helpless. We need that same principle to apply all the way through this life. I not only cannot save myself initially, I cannot live for Him. I cannot do anything unless He comes in and does it in me. I simply have no power. I’m exactly like that poor fly that’s been caught in that spider’s web. There’s another power that’s got to come into play.

That’s why he exults so much in what God has done. He says, “Because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life...”--in 8:2--”...set me free from the law of sin and death.” (NIV). And it not just free from the condemnation of it, it’s like Chip is saying, God wants us to learn to be free from its power as well.

( congregational amens ).

Now notice when Paul started out, he’s saying I want to live for God. I want to be able to obey His righteous laws and live up to His Holy character. Now follow that through. He finds he can’t. He cries out to God and then God reveals to him, yes, there is a power that I have made available to you through my Son and what He did.

Now what’s the end of that? In verse 3 it says, “For what the law was powerless to do...”--Now, why was it powerless?--”...In that it was weakened by the sinful nature....” In other words, our inability makes it impossible for the law to help us. “For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did...”--How?--”...By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he...”--God--”...condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.”

You see how it’s brought full circle. He starts out, I want to live for God. I can’t. I cry out to God for help. He shows me that there is help. And because of that help, he finds, “I can live for God--not by relying on me, but by continually saying, oh God, I’m relying on Your strength right this moment, to face this particular issue that I’m facing.”

The Lord brings me face to face with this all the time, including this morning during the service. Chip is right. The devil hammers us with our inability constantly...with a sense of our futility and our failure leads to a sense of futility. But God wants us to know that there is an answer, just as there was for Paul, there is an answer to us.

( congregational amens ).

I thought of an illustration that we are so familiar with. It’s a story we’ve heard so many times. And of course, it’s not just a story. It’s an account of something that happened, and that’s when Jesus came to the disciples. They were in a boat in the middle of a storm, and He came walking on the water. Peter, as I recall, the impulsive one, said, Lord, if it’s you--if it’s really you, and not just a ghost that’s trying to scare us--if it’s really you, bid me to come to you on the water. And the Lord said, come. No big deal. No long speech. Just come. So on the strength of what Jesus said, Peter stepped out of the boat and walked on the water. I’m sure for a moment there, he was just unconscious of what was going on. All of a sudden he looked around. He said, “My God, what am I doing here?”

( laughter ).

“I’m standing on top of the water in a storm, yet. This is ridiculous. I can’t do this.” And, you know, as soon as he began to think that way, what happened? Boom. He went down. And what did he do? He did the right thing, though, didn’t he? He cried out and said “Lord, save me.”

( congregational amens ).

Well the Lord saved him, didn’t he? He reached down and pulled him up and they walked together on top of the water into the boat. That’s what God wants to do for everyone of us. You see the provision was there. That’s one thing that we need to realize, there is a provision, as Chip said, not only to forgive our sins and to wipe out the condemnation of them, but to also give us what it takes to overcome the power of sin.

Because if we cannot overcome the power of sin in our lives, then what kind of a gospel do we have? Are we going to preach to a drug addict, yeah, the Lord can forgive your sins but you’re gonna have to use your drugs the rest of your life. That’s no gospel. But it isn’t any different for the rest of us. We would look at somebody like that and say, oh yes, God can rescue you from the power of that thing, but He can’t rescue me from my negative spirit...all of the terrible things that bother me, from my temper, my jealousy, all of these things. Oh, He can’t help me with those.

God wants to help you and He wants to help me with the same salvation that’s there for the drug addict, or the alcoholic, or anybody else that will truly call on God from the heart. There’s a power in this salvation that I need in a greater measure in my life. But what was the difference? You see, first of all, I started to say this. There is a perfect provision for this to happen. Do you agree with me? Does the Word of God teach this?

( congregational amens ).

Is it there in the word. or we’re making this up? Is this just a pep rally? No! God has said it in His Word! Will God back up His Word? Is it true?

( congregational amens ).

So if we’re not experiencing it, what’s the problem? When Peter sank, what was the problem? He started believing something else more than he believed the promise and what Jesus implied when He said, come--that he could come. He started believing more in the winds and the waves. It’s just like us believing more in our inability, more in the devil, more in the futility of our situation, than we believe in the power of God’s promise to help us.

( congregational amens ).

It’s what we’re reckoning on. That’s where you go back to the chapter 6, because that’s the whole point of this passage. It all comes back to one thing. Paul establishes the principle that we did die with Christ. That’s a historical fact, isn’t it? That what he declares it is anyway. God is greater than time. He’s outside time. He is so great that He can look forward in history and see you, and see you, and see you, and see me. And He said, when my Son dies on the cross, when He goes into the tomb, when He’s raised from the dead, I’m putting them in there too.

( congregational praise ).

I know about them. I know their need. It’s coming. I know there’s gonna be somebody that will reach out to Me and need a Savior, and I am literally including them in what’s happening to My Son. It’s done. When He cried, it’s finished, was something left to be done? No! It was finished. The foundation was laid, and what God calls it in the Word, is a sure foundation! Praise God, you and I have a sure, certain foundation.

Jesus described it as a rock. You got to get rid of all the earth to get to it, but you dig down deep. You go down to what Jesus did, and get rid of all this self-trust and self-effort, and anything to do with us, and we get to where we trust 100 percent only in what Jesus did, and only in what He is, and what He said. We’ll find we’ve got a rock underneath us. But, oh, the thing that made all the difference in Peter was what he was believing.

And that’s what he’s saying here in chapter 6. After establishing what Jesus did, and how when He came forth, death had no more power over Him, he said in verse 11, “In the same way...”--Well the same way as what? The same way as Jesus came forth from the tomb and didn’t have to be subject to death anymore. “In the same way, count yourselves...”--in the King James, it says, reckon yourselves,--”... dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

That’s our problem. We reckon that we’re failures. We reckon that we will never change, like Chip said. We reckon that we have failed a thousand times, and we’re guaranteed to fail the next thousand times, because why should it be any different? That’s what we reckon on. I tell you, you could have a bank account with a million dollars in it, but if you and I did not take pen in hand and write out a check based upon what is in that account--that’s reckoning, that’s counting on it.

You and I reckon everyday, don’t we? If we didn’t reckon on that, we would live like paupers. It wouldn’t matter how much we had in the bank, it would never come out of that bank and actually do us any good. And I tell you, we have the treasuries of heaven at our disposal.

( congregational amens ).

I’ve been made so conscious lately of what a poverty stricken life I live much of the time, compared to what the Lord has for me. Oh, God help us. God deliver us from our own self-reliance, our own self-will, our own self-everything. Get our eyes off of self, and say Lord, help me to see You. Help me to take You at Your Word. Help me not just to get enthused on Sunday morning, but when I’m faced with a situation, when I’m faced with a problem that has recurred in my life, help me to begin to exercise Your faith and cry out to You and say, Lord, strengthen me in this time.

( congregational amens ).

Help me to go by what Your Word says and not by what I feel or what’s happened in the past.

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