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Jul 16, 2023

He Gets Us

He Gets Us

Passage: Romans 7:21-8:4

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: That’s the Spirit: Learning to keep in step with Him who indwells

Keywords: righteousness, spirit, law, condemnation, flesh

One mark of a sound framework for thinking about reality or ourselves is having what’s called “explanatory power”--that is, it accounts for much of what it claims by what we observe and what else we know. At least one reason we believe the words of Paul have endured is that they possess an explanatory power of not just what we observe in ourselves, but also in what we think we need and how we ought to live. But Paul gives proper credit where it is due: to the Father, the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. In the condition the Spirit addresses in us, the intervention the Spirit applies to us, and the intention the Spirit has for us we find a way of understanding and of living that has great explanatory power.

*Please note: There are audio issues with the video below. Please scroll to the 16:30 mark to pickup audio. We apologize for the technical issue.

Readings & Scripture

PREPARATION: 1 Chronicles 16:28-31
LEADER: Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength!

ALL: Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
bring an offering and come before him!

LEADER: Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness;
tremble before him, all the earth;
yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved.

ALL: Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice,
and let them say among the nations, “The LORD reigns!”

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH/SCRIPTURE READING/CORPORATE PRAYER: Matthew 5:14-20
LEADER: You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

CENTRAL TEXT: Romans 7:21-8:4
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Rom. 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 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 for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

CONFESSION OF SIN:
ALL: We pause and consider our hearts and find them at best distracted and at worst divided. We have no good answer for why we do what we do not want and don’t do what we should want.

ABSOLUTION OF PARDON: Romans 8:1
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

BENEDICTION: Hebrews 13:20, 21
LEADER: Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever..

RELATED SCRIPTURES:

  • Matthew 5:17-20
  • Galatians 1:3-14
  • Galatians 5:17
  • 2 Corinthians 3:7-10
  • Hebrews 13:14

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. When you were younger, who, aside from your parents, most “got” you–most understood you? Why did you pick them?
  2. How does Jesus and His good news explain you to yourself? That is, how does He help you make sense of you and your world?
  3. We’re of the mind that Paul is describing, not his life previous to his conversion, but his life as a believer. He is a puzzle to himself: not doing the good he wants and yet doing the evil he does not want (7:19). Can you relate to his puzzlement? If so, would you be willing to describe a personal experience of behaving in that puzzling way?
  4. Whether you are alone or in a group study, stop and meditate for a moment in silence on 8:1–that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. How does that hit you? How might that matter–even change one way you think, feel, or may act in light of not just hearing that but believing it? (While we’re at it, what is the Spirit’s role in the distinction between hearing and believing?)
  5. The law of God was to Paul that standard he could not meet because he was not capable of meeting it. But here in verse 4 he says the aim of the Spirit is that those in whom the Spirit indwells would now aim to fulfill the law’s requirements. What changed?
  6. We’ll look more closely next week at what Paul means by walking according to the Spirit, rather than to the flesh. What do you already think you know about that distinction? How would you explain that difference in words anyone today could understand?

ILLUSTRATIONS:

QUOTES: 

  •  [The law] commands, after all, rather than helps; it teaches us that there is a disease without healing it. In fact, it increases what it does not heal so that we seek the medicine of grace with greater attention and care. (Cited in Zahl’s “Cure of Souls”)
  • The law-maker became the law-keeper and died in the place of law-breakers. Matt Smethurst
  • I remember once saying to [Oppenheimer] how I found the Christian religion so puzzling, such a combination of blood and gentleness. He said that is what attracted him to it. Isidor Rabi, a friend of the nuclear physicist, quoted in Kai Bird’s and Martin Sherwin’s American Prometheus
  • I wanna know what love is
  • I want you to show me
  • I wanna feel what love is
  • I know you can show me “I want to know what love is,” Foreigner

  • © John Hendrix

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