Holiness, Godliness, Usefulness
08/17/2013, by John Kincaid
Lesson 8: 4 Truths About Sin (Part 1)
I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. Rom.7:21
1) Sin living in us is a law – how is sin a law? Paul is saying that sin has such powerful control over our lives, it works like a law that constrains our behavior. Laws are meant to make people behave in a “good” acceptable way. But sin is like a law which makes us misbehave.
Paul wrote earlier in Romans 7 about God’s law, which is supposed to govern the life of a believer, but the law of sin seems to win many battles. A law is a rule that commands us to do what it requires (pay your taxes), or don’t do what it forbids (do not steal).
A law entices us to obey by promising rewards, and threatens to punish us if we disobey. We speak of the laws of nature, such as gravity, which wants to attract everything and make it fall down. It is a force that makes things “obey” its “will”.
Think of every urge inside us as a law: hunger, lust, fear. They all insist that we satisfy their demands; they try to make us submit. Indwelling sin works the same: it tries to lure us in with sweetness, but if that fails, sin escalates to threats and intimidation. Sin is at work even in the lives of believers, always trying to pressure us to submit.
Christ has defeated sin in every believer, by cutting off sin’s power and control. Christ killed it at the root. But with its last breath, sin is still trying to grab us and pull us down.
About This Series
The goal of this series is to become more useful in serving the Lord Jesus Christ, as an instrument in the Redeemer's hand. The theme verses for the series are Ephesians 4:22-24, Philemon 11, 2 Timothy 2:21
- to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
- and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
- Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me.
- Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.
