Law Of Sin

First scripture reading:

Psalm 65:(1-8), 9-13

Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion; and to you shall vows be performed,

O you who answer prayer! To you all flesh shall come.

When deeds of iniquity overwhelm us, you forgive our transgressions.

Happy are those whom you choose and bring near to live in your courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, your holy temple.

By awesome deeds you answer us with deliverance, O God of our salvation; you are the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas.

By your strength you established the mountains; you are girded with might.

You silence the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, the tumult of the peoples.

Those who live at earth’s farthest bounds are awed by your signs; you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy.

You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide the people with grain, for so you have prepared it.

You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers, and blessing its growth.

You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with richness.

The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird themselves with joy,

the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain, they shout and sing together for joy.

Romans 7:1, 4-6, 8:1-11
Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only during that person’s lifetime?
In the same way, my friends, 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. While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law–indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

SERMONPaul began this section of his letter, starting in charter 7, by identifying his readers. “I am speaking to those who know the law.” Who were those who knew the law? Right, Jews and Jewish Christians. It was important to Paul that his readers knew the Law because he was, metaphorically, about to pull the rug from under their feet.For around fifteen hundred years, the Jews had relied on the Law of Moses to guide them to lives acceptable to God. And now …Well now I’m going to leave Paul and the Roman Jews story hanging for a moment. I am going to give you a very brief synopses of what I believe, my theology of freewill.God created humans to be in a close working relationship with Himself. And so he gave the gift of freewill.Freewill means that we can truly love God by choosing to obey. It also means we humans have the ability to disobey God. I strongly believe that freewill is the only thing which we can truly call our own. And It is the most important gift we can give back to God.Now let’s get back to Paul’s letter.The Law, all 613 laws, was, and is, the center of devout Jewish life. It was how to judge their own actions, the actions of others, and even the desires of God.There were laws covering every aspect of life. The law was the guidebook on how to live a life pleasing to the Lord. If you could put a checkmark next to every law, then you were good-to-go. If not, you knew where to improve. Simple, right?Paul earlier in his letter to the church at Rome wrote, “As it is written: ‘There is no one who is righteous, not even one.'” That is the truth of the human condition. Even if a person were able to cheek off all 613 of the laws on the list, it was not sustainable. We are constantly stumbling and falling off the path that God places before us. So, if even for a second the light of the Lord were to shine upon us, the cloud of our sin would soon overtake us. That is the Law of sin.Sounds hopeless, doesn’t it? If we try you live by the law, it is hopeless. Period.Ah, but hear the good news: when we accept Jesus as Lord and saviour, we also accept that our old sinful nature died. The Law of Moses ceased to have control over us, because we have become something new. (2 Cor. 5:17) “You are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.“Therefore, brothers and sisters I Christ, we must live as the Spirit directs us. What we are not to do is to live as our self-directed nature guides us. If you live the way your self-directed nature directs, we will surely be eternally separated from God. But if by the power of God’s Spirit we quit doing the sinful things that your bodies desire, we will live eternally. We who allow the Spirit of God to guide us are God’s children. God’s children are not subject to the Law of Sin but the Law of Life Eternal.Go and sin no more. Amen.