Romans 7:1-4 — Bearing Fruit to God

Scripture Intro: Last week we looked at what it means to be married to Christ, as opposed to our being married to the law?  When Paul uses a familiar metaphor like marriage, he intends that we stop and think about it, drawing out the image.  Why are we married to Christ?

Sermon Intro:  On Wednesday, Aug 1, 2007, at 6:05pm, during the evening rush hour, the 5^th busiest bridge in Minneapolis, carrying 140K vehicles a day, suddenly collapsed killing 13 people.

In 2005 the bridge was rated as structurally deficient finding problems with cracking and fatigue.  As a result of that bridge collapse, inspectors scattered across the country examining bridges.

To the normal observer, like the bridge in Minneapolis, these bridges looked safe.  But under the eyes of these inspectors, many other bridges were declared structurally deficient due to cracks and fatigue.

If the cracks are attended to right away, the bridge is sustained, sometimes even made stronger.  But if not, at some point due to the continued stress the bridge will collapse.

Fallen Condition:  Marriage doesn’t create the cracks.  Marriage reveals the cracks.  Marriage is the one-and-only relationship in which the cracks in our character become obvious.”  (Tim Keller)

You can hide the cracks from friends and people at work or at church.  But in the stress of an intimate relationship like marriage, the cracks and fatigue will eventually become evident.  If those cracks are not dealt with, your marriage may suddenly collapse under the pressure.

Marriage does not create these cracks, it reveals them.  How much more does a Christians marriage to Holy One of Israel reveal the cracks in our character.

Paul is concerned we have a fruitful marriage with Christ.   What is the problem?  We have character issues.  And in intimate relationships like marriage, character cracks tend to interrupt the intimacy that bears fruit.

If you do not realize that you are no longer in a marriage relationship with the law, but are married to Christ, your sanctification is in jeopardy.

Proposition:  Because We are Married to Christ,

                                        We will Bear Fruit to God.

Billboard: The Consequences, The Privileges, The Purpose (Credit Martyn Lloyd Jones)

M/P1: The Consequences of Marriage to Christ:  

A.  It is a Real and Complete Union with Christ.  

In Ephesians 5:25, Paul writes: Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot of wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

And he continues in vs. 29, For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of His body.  Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.  

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 

Marriage is a profound mystery.  How many of your marriages are a profound mystery?

We read this passage as being about our marriages.   We talk about wives submitting, and husbands loving their wives.

Paul primarily is talking about Christ leaving His heavenly Father, and holding fast to His wife, the church, so that we become one flesh with Him.

It is a real, intimate, complete union.  Earthly marriage is but a dim reflection of this infinitely more intimate, profoundly mysterious marriage with Christ.

B.  Christ is our Lord.  

The word “bind” in vs. 2 and 3, in the context of the law of marriage, comes from the Greek word “kurios”; lord, master.

Our life under sin used to be governed and controlled by our first husband the law so that we would not be as bad as we could be.

However, Christ alone is head of the church and lord of the conscience. (PCA Constitution)

Because of past abuse of authority and a natural desire to go our own way, we tend to pit the the authority of the church and the authority of our conscience against each other.

We want to be lord of our conscience.  We don’t want to authority of the church over which Christ is the head.  But you are not lord of your conscience.  Christ is Lord of the conscience.

He has placed you in the community of His church in mutual accountability relationships because your conscience is broken.

On the other hand, the church often abuses its authority, binding people’s  conscience with unbiblical laws and rules lording over people.

But Christ is Head of the Church, and the community is a body of believers, and plurality of elders to keep the church accountable.

Martyn Lloyd Jones suggests, When you get up in the morning say to yourself, “I am the wife of the Lord Jesus Christ.  I take my position as His wife, subject to Him, to be guided and led by Him, to be controlled by Him in all things.

In our marriage to Christ, He is Lord.  Marriage involves a significant loss of freedom and independence.  You can’t do whatever you want.

However, in exchange for this loss of freedom, there is this possibility of an unparalleled experience of divine love, intimacy, acceptance, and security you could never have.

Our marriage is a real and complete union with Christ Jesus our Lord.

C.  This brings us to the third consequence.  Our Marriage to Christ is Permanent.

If you are going to take the cracks in your character seriously, you have to know that the marriage is permanent.  Otherwise you cover up the cracks and manage the fatigue in hopes your marriage doesn’t collapse under the stress and pressure.

As a result, some people teach you can fall from grace, you can lose your salvation.  They do not believe in the permanency of this marriage.

What does the Bible say?  Nothing but death can put an end to marriage, and you belong to another, to him who has been raised [once for all time] from the dead.  

How long will you be married to Jesus?  Is it only until you fall into sin?  When you fail do you drop out of a relationship to Him?  Do you have to be married over and over again?  Does he expose all the cracks, and leave?

He will not love you more on your best day, or less on your worst day.  He loves you perfectly.  It is a legal, permanent relationship.

The consequences of our marriage to Christ is that it is a real, complete and permanent union with Jesus Christ our Lord.  Which brings us to the privileges of marriage to Christ.

M/P2:  The Privileges of Marriage to Christ:

A.  We have a New Name  

Yesterday, I had the privilege of officiating the marriage of Michael Hankins and Tara Decareaux.  They were joined together as Mr. & Mrs. Michael Hankins.  Tara received a new name.

It is most common today in baptism to stress our conversion experience.  People long for an experience, to feel something.

However, the main point of baptism is not our conversion, or experience of salvation.  The main point of baptism is the naming.  We receive a new name.

That is what it means to be baptized into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

We pursue titles of dignity or name-drop the names of powerful people.

There is no greater title, no greater dignity, not greater honor, no higher name, it is the name that is above every name.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.  There’s just something about that name.  Master, Savior, Jesus.  Like the fragrance, after the rain.  Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, let all heaven and earth proclaim.  Kings and kingdoms will all pass away.  But there’s something about that name.

Instead of singing as if the word “Jesus” is magical.  Sing it as a new bride, rolling over on her mouth and in her mind, the name of her husband; that name that is to become hers.

His name is our name.  The marriage certificate has been signed, and sealed in the registers of heaven.

B.  Because we share His name, we also share His Standing.  

In every royal marriage, when a common wife marries the royal prince, she shares his royal standing.  We just saw this with Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

How much more do we share the royal standing of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  As the bride of Christ, we are co-heirs.

Because we are married to Christ, His wisdom, His righteousness, His sanctification and redemption are ours.  We are complete in Him.

Instead of limiting “robes of righteousness” to moral terms, think about the robe of Christ’s righteousness in marital terms.

Of course you feel unworthy to wear the marital robes of intimacy.  You are!  Of course Satan will point out all our failures and remind us how we don’t belong, and depress us.

But the last thing you want to do is remove these marital robes of Christ righteousness and attempt to enrobe yourself with your old husband the law.

C.  Because we share His Name and His Standing, we also enjoy His Access to the Father.  

You’ve seen the famous picture of John F. Kennedy’s children under the desk in the Oval Office.  No other children had that kind of access to the most powerful man in the world.

How much greater the privilege that you have access into the presence of the heavenly Father.  Angels do not have this kind of access and favor.

Pray, worship, the word, and the sacraments are about welcoming access.

God doesn’t need our worship.  We are the ones who need to worship Him.  The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

God doesn’t need our prayer.  He already knows who we are and what we need.  It is not about praying the right way.  It is about the royal access of a beloved child.

God didn’t need to reveal himself in Scripture because he gained better self-understanding when he writes things down.  He gave us his word because he wants us who are known by Him to know Him.

The sacraments are not cumbersome fastidious rituals we have to get right.  They are gifts from God for us to remember that God has remembered His marriage covenant with us.

When the cracks are exposed and we wonder if he is finally done with us, he gives us visual aids to encourage our weak faith.

You, the bride of Christ, will never be refused access to or answer from the Father when it is for our good.

D.  Finally, because we have a new name, a new standing, and free access, we also have His eternal care and protection.

He thinks ahead of us, plans for us, shields us, and guards us.

He knows the danger we are in better than anyone.  Though the world is full of evil and temptation that will lead us astray, He alone is able to keep us from falling.

Which brings us finally back to the purpose of our being married to Christ.

M/P3:  The Purpose — We were married to Christ in order that we might bear fruit to God.

Fruit means children.  It is the fruit of our marriage to Christ.  To say that we can be justified and not changed is to say that Jesus Christ is as impotent as the law to bear fruit.

If you are a Christian in order to deal with your own problems, so you can have the privileges and blessings, but you don’t want to deal with the cracks in your character, it is like saying to Jesus, “I will marry you, but I don’t want to have any children.”

His whole purpose of marriage is to multiply and fill the earth with fruit to the glory of God.

Or you say, “I want to bear fruit, but I can’t.  I am a sinner.”  That is true.

But it is also the whole point.  The fruit-bearing seed of Christ is so powerful and potent, that Jesus can bear fruit EVEN IS US.

The law was unable to bear fruit in us because of the weakness of our flesh.  However it is not your responsibility to produce the fruit.  Your responsibility is to be faithful to your husband, to live in this one-flesh marriage with your husband Jesus Christ.

That marriage to your first husband, the law, had to be dissolved.  Now you belong to another.  You have been married to Christ, so that you can produce fruit to God.

Romans 7:1-4 — Married to Christ

Scripture Intro:    If we are alike, you’ve struggled with Paul’s internal struggle with sin and the law he describes at the end of Romans 7.  Is this his pre-conversion or his Christian experience?  Is he talking theoretically or is it a real struggle?  Perhaps you were told to “stop living in Romans 7 and get to Romans 8.” 

Starting with personal experience, Paul’s or ours, will not help us understand Romans 7 or the Christian life. The key to the 2^nd half of Romans 7 is the 1^st half.

What is our relationship to the law?  More importantly, what does it mean to be married to Christ?

Sermon Intro:  On Saturday, May 19, in Cookeville, before God and His church, Tara Decareaux and Michael Hankins will joined in the holy estate of marriage.

At that time, I will ask Michael the familiar words, “Do you, Michael, take this woman, Tara, to be your lawfully wedded wife?  Do you promise and covenant, before God and these witnesses, to be your loving and faithful husband, in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live?”

Then I will ask Tara, “Do you, Tara, take this man, Michael, to be your lawfully wedded husband, and do you promise and covenant, before God and these witnesses, to be your loving and faithful wife, in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live.”  

Fallen Condition:   The holy “estate” of marriage is an entirely new life, a new one flesh union, a profound mystery, created by God.

In that marriage, the law will be honored.  I will conclude, “By the power vested in me, primarily by God, and secondarily by the State of Tennessee.”

Primacy of God’s law over the State of TN will not be a conflict saturday.  However, anyone reading or watcheding the news, this week especially, has heard again about the legal controversy surrounding marriage.

Notice the vows “this man” and “this woman.”  Also we live in a time of no-fault divorce.  Lawful marriage has permanency, as long as you both shall live. 

I realize people divorce.  But it is a legal divorce.  The legal exception to the permanency of marriage is not granted because something is wrong with God’s law of marriage, but because of hardness of hearts.

Many are divorced because some secondary authority granted a divorce, but have not been divorced by the primary authority for marriage in God’s law.

Interestingly, I posted on my Facebook an article about a Christian homosexual man who was sharing his struggle to honor God’s law primarily by abstaining from homosexual relations, even though the state okays it.      

This bring us to the real trouble with Romans 7.  James Boice writes, “Interpreting Romans 7, in the final analysis, is not that difficult.  Applying it in our lawless age is the problem.  

People have little concern for the law.  How do you get people who do not care about the law to take the law seriously?  

Even harder, how do you tell them they must be freed from the law in order to live for righteousness, when they already act as if they are freed from the law and righteousness doesn’t matter?  

This morning, through a familiar image to readers in 57AD and 2012AD, Paul invites us to draw the implications of this image of marriage out with respect to the law and to Christ.

Proposition:  If We are to Bear Fruit to God,

                                  We must be Married to Christ.

Billboard:  We will make one point, and then give 4 direct applications. 

M/P1:  We were legally married to the Law.  We are now legally married to Christ.  (vss. 1-2)  

The verb “binding” in vs. 1 and “bound” in vs. 2 is the word kurios which means “lord” or “master.”  That is the law lords over, rules, has authority over, is master over is binding on a person. 

In every pre-marital counseling, this issue of submission and authority is always a problem with both liberally minded people who want to stress equality and conservatively minded people who stress headship.

In 1-2 Paul makes his point about the legality, headship, and permanency of marriage, assuming agreement.

In vs. 3, He makes a 2^nd obvious point against polygamy.  You can’t be married to two husbands at once, and again he assumes agreement.

But his point isn’t our marriage. In vs. 4 he say’s marriage describes our relationship to the law and to Christ.  Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ.  The law didn’t die, you died to the law through the body of Christ.

He is saying you were legally, permanently married to the law.  Now you “belong to another.”

First, what law is Paul talking about?  Some see Paul referring to the 10 commandments.  Others broaden it to include the 5 books of Moses.  Context helps us understand.

But the outline for both ch. 6 and 7, comes  from Paul’s conclusion in 5:20-21: Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

In Adam, we are under the three tremendous powers – law, sin and death – and somehow must be set free.

In ch. 6, through the image of slavery, Paul shows that, in Christ, we are under the reign of grace, and no longer under the reign of sin and death.

Now in ch. 7, using covenant marriage, Paul is showing why and how we are no longer under the law.

The context is our covenant representative, the 1^st Adam, and that 1^st law that was universally binding upon all mankind.  You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Gen 3:16-17)

As he did in 6:23, 7:4 is another one of those great gospel nutshells.  In Adam, we were legally, and permanently married to the law, and bound to its lordship over us.  “Under the law” means “married to the law.”

But look what Paul says in vs. 4. The law did not die.  Rather, we died to the law, and now we are legally married, permanently married to Christ and his headship and lordship over us.

M/P2:  Now, using this image of marriage, let me make 4 Applications:

A.  An Entirely New Life

You cannot be married to the law and to Christ at the same time.  That is adultery.

Because both relationships are permanent, you can’t get a divorce from the law.  Everyone is under the law, married to the law.  The only way you can be remarried is someone has to die.

That someone is Jesus Christ.  Jesus honored the law by fulfilling the law and all its  righteousness, all its conditions all its demands.

He died to the law on your behalf to give you an entirely new life.  As a result, freed from our first husband, we belong to another, Christ.

You want to know how to honor the law?  Many people want to honor the law through obedience, taking it seriously, putting it in court rooms.

You will never honor the law more than accepting Christ as your only righteousness.  Nowhere in all of history has the law of God been more honored than on the cross of Jesus Christ.

The law exacted its full penalty and punishment on Christ and has no more claims.  The law did not pass away.  We did.  We were crucified with Christ.

Therefore, to accept Christ, is to accept a marriage proposal, an entirely new life with a new husband.  To go back under law is like trying to live with two husbands.  It is illegal and it is adultery.

B.  We also have an Entirely New Relationship.

First, we have a new relationship with the law.  The law didn’t die.  The law is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.  But the law is no longer our lord and master.  We are not under law, married to the law.

Illustration:  I actually remember dying to the law.  I had been teaching SS going through the 10 commandments, and feeling the weight of the law.  Vicki and I were just getting on the backside of our marriage trouble. And I was asked this question, What have you ever started doing or stopped doing just because you love Jesus?

I didn’t know what to say.  Couldn’t think of anything.  My reasons for trying to but failing to obeying were law-based fear of rejection, fear of punishment, fear of disappointment, control and manipulation.

If you take away the law, what is a Christian to do?  If it’s all by grace, why not sin all the more?  If we don’t have the law, then what is going to be our incentive for living a holy life?  That is how most of us live.

If the law is your incentive for living a holy life, then you are still married to the law.  Take away the fear, take away the law, then what happens to your incentive?

What is a Christian’s incentive?  Christ is my husband.  Before you ever said “yes” to Jesus, Jesus said “yes” to you.  He said, “I, Jesus, take thee, Sinner to be my [lawfully] wedded wife; and I do promise and covenant, before God the Father, to by thy loving and faithful Savior, in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, for this life and all eternity.”

Ours is a responding love: “I, Sinner, take thee, Jesus, to by my loving Bridegroom and Savior; and do promise and covenant, before God the heavenly Father, to by thy loving and faithful wife, in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, for this life and for all eternity.  (James Boice, Romans)

Our incentive has completely changed.  We still serve.  What changes is our reason.  We do not keep the law because the law is our master, and we have to or God might come there and get us.

Rather, Christ is our husband, and we are His bridge.  Because of this new relationship the new incentive is grateful joy and love that comes from being loved in the Beloved.

C.  We also have an Entirely New Purpose.  I will be brief because we will come back to it next week.

Why die to our first husband, and be remarried to Christ?  Look at the end of vs. 4 — in order that we might bear fruit to God.

If a man who marries a super-model for her looks or for sexual reasons, what do you think about that man?  If a woman marries a man for money and security, what do you think of that woman?  But let’s not be stereotypical.  Women today look for a guys that are ripped, and insecure men look for security.

The purpose of marriage is not so you can feel blessed, and secure, and whole, and complete.  These are mercenary and narcissistic reasons to marry.  That is using each other, not loving each other.

You don’t start a marriage with a cost benefit analysis, “What am I getting our of this?”

The purpose of marriage is to bear fruit to God.  Adam and Eve, originally married to the law,  were to multiply and fill the earth for God’s glory.  Instead, sinning against God, sin seized the law, and multiplied and filled the earth with sin and death.

Christ reverses everything.  We are married to Christ in order to bear, multiply and fill the earth with fruit to God for His glory.

What does it mean to bear fruit to God?   What are the children, the offspring of our marriage to Christ?  Holiness, the fruit of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control.

D.  Which brings us to our final application —An Entirely New Ability

The law was and is impotent to bear fruit to God.  The law was never meant to bear fruit.  We are the problem.  When it comes to bearing fruit to God, apart from Christ, we are barren.

We try to undergo all sorts of man-made ways to produce fruit, but our best works are as filthy rages.  Sinners cannot bear good fruit to God.

We need an entirely new ability, a new potency, and new husband, so powerful, so strong and virile that He can produce fruit to God even out of people like us.  It is His strength that matters.

He is the one who so impregnates us with His holy nature, that He will produce fruit to God.

Sermon Conclusion  As we approach the Lord’s table, you may say, “I am not fit to take Communion. I do not feel that I am good enough.”  You will never be good enough. The Lord’s Supper is not for people who are good enough.  IT IS FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE MARRIED TO CHRIST. We come to His table, yes.   But we come as we are because we are married to Him.” (Martyn Lloyd Jones)

Romans 6:20-23 — From Slavish Rations or Lavish Grace

Scripture Intro:   Driving in the mountains on those curvy roads makes Vicki and Molly sick, and often causes me injury from fingernails in my right arm when I take a sharp turn too fast.

This morning we take a rest stop at one of the most famous Gospel watering holes in the Bible on our slow drive through this perilous road through the mountainous regions of Romans 6-8.

Sermon Intro:  Every two weeks Roman soldiers were given a ration of 3 1/2 pounds of grain, which they baked into Bucellatum consisting of flour, a little salt, enough water to convert it into dough, and a dash of oil.

Bucellatum was shaped into circles and baked until rock hard.  It would keep for months, even years if stored correctly.  It was so hard and flavorless that reenactors jokingly said that Roman soldiers conquered the world in search of ketchup.

Fallen Condition:  Paul’s readers in Rome understood the meaning of “wages.”  We receive wages from our jobs, often including other benefits like health insurance and retirement.

The word for “wages” in vs. 23 technical term for the meager rations given by the military to Roman soldiers.

The wages, the rations, paid by the government of sin if far worse.  The “wages of sin is death.”

In contrast, the free gift of God’s superabounding grace is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Prop:  Since the Lavish Grace of God is Eternal Life in Jesus Christ our Lord,

                    Quit living off the Slavish Rations of Sin that leads to Death.

Billboard:  Two Possible Masters, Two Contractual Terms, and Two Constrasting Results

M/P1:  Two Possible Masters  — Look at vs. 20.

What does Paul mean by “free in regard to righteousness”?  Vs. 18 says we have been set free from sin, and have become slaves of righteousness.  But before you were set free, you were slaves to sin, you were free from righteousness. 

This doesn’t mean that people, before they were Christians could do whatever they wanted.  Because God is gracious, because they were enslaved to sin and free from righteousness,  they were under law.  The law came alongside and constrained sin.

What he means is that you can’t be both a slave to sin and a slave to righteousness at the same time.  Either you are a slave to sin, and free from righteousness, or you are a slave to righteousness, and free from sin.

There are only two possible masters.  You are either governed, controlled and directed by the commanding general of sin, or governed, directed and controlled by God.      

Illustration:  Becky Pippert in Out of the Saltshaker writes, “Whatever controls us is our lord.  The person who seeks power is controlled by power.  The person who seeks acceptance is controlled by acceptance.  We do not control ourselves.  We are controlled by the lord of our lives. 

Application:  Every person [in this room and outside this room] is involved in “covenant service” with something.  

We’ve made this point several times.  Paul’s advance is to connect that inner lord to the pursuit of righteousness; either God’s righteousness, or some counterfeit substitute righteousness of our own.  

Paul states this explicitly in Romans 13:3-4.  For being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own [righteousness that is, talking about the Jews zeal for God and His law], they did not submit to God’s righteousness.  For Christ is the end of the law FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS to everyone who believes.

Christ is not the end of the law. Christ is the end of the law FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

I spent most of my so-called Christian life in the church hearing all sorts of things about the gospel as forgiveness of sins, that the OT was about law and the NT is about grace, obedience, and Jesus as an example to follow.  I don’t ever remember talking about righteousness, and our hungering and thirsting after all sorts of things, or people, or achievements to give me a sense of righteousness with God.

This may seem obvious to you.  But tt wasn’t until 1995 that I heard “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness.” 

I had heard about the 1/2 the gospel in forgiveness.  But I don’t recall ever hearing in the Gospel, the righteousness of Christ was a gift to be received through faith, from faith to faith.

But also the Gospel as the righteousness of Christ helped me understand my ongoing struggling with law and grace.  The content of the Gospel, though much more, is not less than righteousness.  The content of the the law is righteousness.

Christ’s righteousness was  a lavish gift of God’s grace, while the righteousness of the law came from self-generated slavish labor bringing condemnation.

Either you are a slave to sin and free from righteousness, or a slave to God and free from sin.  There are only two possible masters.

M/P2:  These Two Possible Masters have Two Contractual Terms — Look at vs. 23

A.  First, we the wages of sin.  Vs. 21 shows the consistent contractual terms of the wages of sin.

Part of sin’s allure is the temporary pleasure for a season.  Sin gives us the sensation we have free-will and are making a free democratic choice.

However, sin offers the lie of freedom, and pays in slavery to death.  While the Gospel offers the truth about our slavery, and gives us true freedom as a gift.

What are the contractual terms of sin?  It is a fruitless life.  What fruit were you getting at the time?  

If the fruit is measured by this-world temporary happiness, success, money, achievement, education, you may experience temporary sweetness of fruit.  Of course there is pleasures we can enjoy temporarily.

But they don’t not last.  They are hay and stubble.  There is no real satisfaction.  [God has] made us for Himself, and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in Him.

Does anyone want to argue about the restlessness of this world?  We get tired of one thing and move on to another.  After moving from one fashion, or craze to another so many times, we even get tired of trying to find happiness.

C. S. Lewis writes,  “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

A non-Christian life is a fruitless life, and also a life of shame.  What fruit were you getting from the things of which you are now ashamed?  

There is a different between guilt and shame.  Guilt is being ashamed of what you’ve done.  Shame is being ashamed of who you are.

There is a reason “Judge not”  is he most quoted Bible verse.  No matter how much we deny or avoid it, we can’t stand being criticized, or feeling guilty.

Like Adam, our knee-jerk reaction when I feel guilt and shame is to attempt to run, hide and blames others.  When can’t escape, we attempt to cover ourselves with the counterfeit coverings of my own good works.

But the guilt underneath all our guilt is the floating sense of shame of who we are.

One of the greatest judgments against mankind is that we have forgotten how to blush in shame.  Jeremiah writes No, they were not at all ashamed.  They did not know how to blush.”  (Jer 8:12)

There is hope as long as we can still blush.  But when we reach the stage in which we cannot even blush, when we reach the stage where we have lost the very sense of good and evil, so that we gloat over evil and call right wrong and wrong right.  (MLJ)

One of the worse things we’ve done is our self-attempts to quiet the voice of guilt and shame in and cover it up with good works.

I am not suggesting you live in guilt and shame.  Rather, I am telling you about a third way that is neither denial nor cover-up.

Rather it is actually taking your sin, guilt and shame to Jesus.  He took your sinful guilt and gave you His righteousness.  He took your sinful shame, and gave you His acceptance.

The non-Christian life is fruitless, and shameful.

B.  In contrast it with the contractual terms of sin, what are the contractual terms of the free gift of lavish grace?  

First, a radical change.  Look at the first two words of vs. 22 — But now!

We want to go directly to the fruit, and compare the fruitlessness of the sinful life with the fruitfulness of the transformed Christian life.  That is a huge mistake.

“But now!”  Before Paul talks about transformation, he keeps bringing us back to that glorious once-for-all-time transfer, the realm change, the ransom price paid to set you free from sin and enslave you to God.

A Christian does not ever get tired of hearing about what God has done for Him in Christ.

The Gospel is not the ABC’s of Christianity.  The Gospel is the A-Z of Christianity.  (Tim Keller)

A Christian never tires of hearing and repeating  “The Glorious But Now of the Gospel”  The fruitlessness and shame of what you were before, against what Christ has done in and for you.  But now!

Second, from this radical “but now” comes fruitfulness.  Look at vs. 22.  But now that you have been set free from sin and become slaves to God, the fruit you get.  

Paul uses fruitfulness in vs. 21 to make his point about wages or rations of sin in vs. 23.  Then he uses fruitfulness again vs. 22 calling this fruit a free gift of God’s grace in vs. 23.

One is the fruit of your laboring for your own righteousness, and the other is God’s working in both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Phil 2:13).

How does one become fruitful?  Fruitfulness comes from intimacy.

As a man and woman are fruitful and multiply children through intimacy, so our fruitfulness displays with whom we are and have been intimately involved.

Barren fruit of sin proves we are having an intimate love affair with sin whose wages/rations are death.

On the other hand, the fruitfulness in the Christian life comes from an intimate union and love relationship with Jesus Christ our Lord.

Fruitfulness is a result of intimate union.  The question is who are you in union with?

The Christian life is first a radical “but now” change of condition, leading to a fruitful life because we have been united with Christ, and necessarily transforms us to look like the one we love.  The fruit you get now leads to sanctification.

Ting Lin surprised Vicki and I the other day when he told us we looked alike.

He wasn’t talking so much out physical appearances, but our gestures, and comments and expressions. It was true.  The more more time you spend with someone, the more you are united with that person, the more you love them, the more you are changed and come to look like them.  So it is in the Christian life.

Like in any intimate relationship, tt is not that we have nothing to do.  We have plenty to do.

God has His own honey-do list.  In every marriage we struggle about the good things we should be doing.  Vicki has her list, I have mine, and the kids have there.

But God has His own honey-do list of good works, and His list trumps ours.  We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which He prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.  (Eph 2:10)

There are two possible masters, two contractual terms, and ultimately two completely different ends.

M/P3:  Two Contrasting Results — Look at vs. 23

The wages, or rations of sin are not only fruitless and shameful in this life, but in the end, the final compensation is death, not just death now, but the end is the ultimate final death.

John in Revelation 2:11 refers to the 2^nd death.   Many are afraid of the death.  But we are afraid of the wrong death.

Jesus says, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”  (MT 10:28)

We avoid talking about guilt and shame, and think the idea of original sin in Adam is offensive, because it threatens our democratic ideal of free choice.

But we have paid a mighty price to rid ourselves of the biblical language of sin, guilt and shame.

By refusing to accept the reality of that first death in Adam, we have also give up that great gift that we have been crucified with Christ and no longer have to fear that ultimate 2^nd death.

In contrast to the wages of sin ending in death, the free gift of God’s grace results, assuredly ends, in eternal life.

The word “free gift” is the same word with use for “grace.”  So, we can say “the grace of God is eternal life.”

How is this possible?  Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Though there are two possible masters, and though there are two sets of contractual terms.  There is only one way, and that is through our Lord Jesus Christ.

As we come to this table, this brings to mind Jesus saying, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.  No one comes to Father except through me.”

Matthew 19:14 — Let the Little Children Come to Me

Not that I am Jesus, but as my royal elder brother, it was important to Him to receive beloved children, even saying “to such belongs the Kingdom of God.”  Since I am in Him and He is in me, those things He cares about, are becoming things I care about.

Therefore, this morning, Rev. Richard Jennings is preaching in my stead, and I will be in the nursery along with Molly, my 16 year old daughter, and our little children.  So there will be no written sermon posted this week.

If you are not on our nursery schedule, have been attending regularly, are physically able, and do not have a background that would or should inhibit you caring for our beloved children, please contact Jennifer Spencer at hickorygrovepca@comcast.net and be added to our nursery rotation.

This rotation only applies to our worship service, as Brenda Williams has been caring for our little ones during Sunday School.

As a small church, I do realize many are involved in our worship, and teaching or leading Sunday School.

This is an easy way we can love, bless and care for our young mothers and fathers and their children by sharing this covenant care granted to us.  This is not “nursery duty” but “nursery privilege.”

So please don’t miss the opportunity.

Now as I reflect, this is a written sermon.

Love in Christ, Mike