FREEEEEEEEDOM!!
Romans 7:4-6
Introduction
In the movie, Braveheart, William Wallace wages a war for the freedom of Scotland from English tyranny.
His passion was to see Scotland as a free nation, no longer bowing in servitude to the King of England.
Freedom was the by-word of his life, and the driving force behind everything he did.
In fact, according to the movie, his very last word was this – if you know it, scream it along with me:
FREEEEEEEEDOM!!
Don’t worry if you haven’t seen the movie – I haven’t blown the ending for you.
Our passage today deals with a different type of tyranny. It’s a tyranny of bondage not to an earthly king, but to the law of Moses, which became for man a shackle of religious performance that no one could adequately sustain for righteousness.
Paul addresses this shackle, this bondage, in our passage today, Romans 7:4-6. Please follow along as I read:
4 So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. 5 For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
Paul is talking to people who have lived their lives following the Law, just as Paul did before coming to Christ. And now he is explaining that the law has been replaced by Christ.
So what is that to us? What can we find in this passage that we can use as 21st century followers of Christ who have the benefit of these teachings?
Well, I think there are three benefits of dying to the law as Paul talks about here. And if we’ll look at these seriously, and meditate on how these can really affect our day-to-day living, we will become people whose by-word of life in Christ is freedom, and not bondage.
My hope is that you will leave here today determined to live in the freedom that Christ gives us, and that you will be free to live for Christ and serve Him as never before.
Let’s look at these three benefits of dying to the law. First…
Dying to the law…
1. Frees us from the bondage of the law.
What do I mean by this? I mean, the law is from God, right? So why is bondage to it bad? Was the law itself bad?
No – but as the Bible makes abundantly clear, there is no salvation in following the law.
The purpose of the law is to show us our need for grace – our need for a Savior. But not recognizing this could lead to slavery. When we put our hope in law, we actually become a slave to it – always hoping that we follow it well enough to please God and not incur His wrath.
But we don’t live under the law of Moses, so what’s the big deal?
You may not live under the word-for-word restrictions of the law of Moses, but you might still be living under the principle of trying to earn God’s favor.
You might go to church because you’re afraid that God will reward you if you do, and punish you if you don’t.
Maybe you read your Bible using a certain method. Or memorize Scripture. Or teach a Sunday School class. Or dress a certain way for church. Or you have your devotions in a certain way or using a certain devotional guide because someone convinced you that it was the only right one.
Or maybe you have your quiet time during a certain time of the day because you think that God only listens in the morning, or because you’re convinced that you should give God the best part of your day, which of course is only in the morning, before even the roosters have sense to get up!
Dr. Howard Hendricks of Dallas Theological Seminary relates a story about how in one class he taught, he was telling his students that he gave God the best part of his day, at 5:00 am. Soon, he started noticing some students being sleepy in his class, and yawning. When he asked why, he found out that all these students were getting up to have devotions at 5:00 so God could have the best part of their day.
Dr. Hendricks had to point out that he was talking about how 5:00 was the best part of his day, and that obviously, it was not the best part of their day! They needed to individually find that out for themselves.
You know, that’s one I had to deal with. I am not a morning person as you know. I am so grateful that God invented caffeine it’s not even funny.
And I’ll just be up-front with you about something. I am not a morning person. If it were up to me, I would get up promptly at the crack of 10:00 am.
It’s about then that my brain starts to clear to the point where I can be most effective. You know when my best part of the day is? The mid-afternoon. So guess when I have my quiet times most of the time?
GASP!!! Can you handle that? And there was a time that I had my devotions at (GASP!!!) NIGHT just before I went to bed! Oh no! Could God possibly speak to me outside of the early morning hours?
You bet! My God’s big enough to speak any ol’ time He wants to! And I want to be alert enough to hear Him. How about you?
Here’s my point. None of these things – Bible reading, praying, going to church, dressing nice, or whatever are bad in and of themselves. The problem comes when we look to these as ways to get earn God’s acceptance and love or to avoid God’s anger.
And we become a slave to our own law of acceptance to God.
But Christ died so we can be free from this. Christ’s death allows you to die to the law. You are not obligated to it. You are now free from it.
Look again at verse 4 –
…you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another…
Don’t allow yourself to live in bondage, especially to man-made rules about how you should live for God.
The first benefit of dying to the law is that it frees us from its bondage. The second benefit of dying to the law is that it…
2. Frees us from the shortcomings of the law.
What in the world do you mean by “shortcomings,” Brian? If the law is from God, how can it have shortcomings? Allow me to explain.
I think the law has two main shortcomings:
One, it cannot obtain salvation for us. It was never meant to. But it was looked on by most Jews, including the religious leaders of Jesus’ day as if it was the means of eternal life. In other words, if they kept all the commands of the law, then they’d make it to heaven.
In fact, Jesus made note of this in an interaction with the religious leaders of His day. Listen to what He says and how He ties it into His own mission.
John 5:39-40 –
You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
Notice Jesus that didn’t say that the Scriptures were useless, but that the purpose of the Scriptures was different than what the religious leaders had in mind.
They thought obedience to the law was key. And beyond that, they had come up with a whole set of their own laws, designed to help the Jewish people obey the laws of Moses.
These laws became almost a Scripture unto themselves, and the effort involved in keeping these laws created a huge burden on anyone honestly desiring to serve God in those days.
Jesus says that the purpose of the Scriptures was not to burden us with an unattainable goal of perfection through obedience to the law, but to point to Him.
In Him there is life, and there is freedom.
The Bible is very clear that eternal life cannot be earned. The law is not a means of salvation. Putting your hope in obedience to the law would cause you to come up short.
Paul says in Galatians 3:10 –
All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law."
You see the problem? Unless someone obeys the law perfectly, they cannot make it. And unfortunately, no human has ever been able to obey the law perfectly.
So the law is unable to bring forgiveness and a home in heaven.
The second shortcoming of the law is in how it could be used by the sinful nature. Verse 5 says this –
For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.
Let’s skip down to verses 7-8, which are just after the passage we are dealing with today, because it illustrates this a bit:
What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet." 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead.
Do you see what Paul was saying? Our sinful nature seizes on what the law expresses as wrong, and desires to do that very thing.
This was certainly not the intention of the law, but it was one consequence of the law – it provided the opportunity for disobedience.
Does this mean that by dying to the law we’ll never be tempted? Hardly. Temptation will always be around those who wish to live for Christ. So what do we do with those temptations that come from the law?
Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Community Church, and author of The Purpose Driven Life suggests that focusing our attention on the temptation and defeating it is itself a maneuver that invites defeats, because it brings our focus to the temptation, not Christ, who brings freedom.
And so he suggests that instead of playing a kind of tug-of-war with temptation, that we “drop the rope.” Drop the rope and run away from the temptation. Did you know that the Scriptures never say to resist temptation? It says we are to run from temptation. Check it out.
Our passage says we are to be dead to the law. I think that if we would look at temptation like a dead man, we would be more successful in that arena. Dead people cannot respond to temptations.
When your very attempts to obey Christ bring temptation to disobey, you have the choice to respond as a dead man does.
Dying to the law frees us from the shortcomings of the law.
The third benefit of dying to the law is that it…
3. Frees us for life in Christ.
Verse 6 says that –
…we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit…
The old way, the old covenant, was the law. But Jesus said that He came to give us a new covenant, in His blood.
That blood purchased our freedom from the law, and what it brought, sin and death.
So we are not to live in that which we died to, but rather we are to live in the freedom that comes from a life lived in the Spirit.
You know what I find amazing? The fact that people who profess to believe in Christ, and profess to be free from the law of sin and death, yet are still in bondage to a performance-based desire to be accepted by God.
Folks, we need to move on! We need to live not in fear, but in freedom.
There is a world of difference between living to avoid displeasing God and living to please Him.
Living to avoid displeasing God is bondage, because it puts a burden of law on our shoulders, a burden that is not only impossible to carry, it’s totally unnecessary.
Jesus offers to lift that burden, and He invites us to take up with Him, because His yoke is easy and the burden light.
It’s when we have the yoke of Christ that we are able to live to please God. Why, because in Christ there is freedom.
But just how do we do that? How do we live for Christ, now that we are free to do that?
First, focus on the doing, not the “don’ting.”
Here’s what I mean. If you will focus on deepening your relationship with God, through time in the Bible and prayer, you will find plenty of ideas of what you can incorporate into your life to aid you in fulfilling the great command, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength,” and to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Second, make the Great Commission a personal mandate for yourself. After all, it is a personal mandate from God, and He expects His people to take part.
And believe me, if you’re wondering just how you can do that, see me. I’ll be happy to visit with you about that - I’m always looking for people who are serious about getting out of the stands and into the game.
Asking God to show you just how you can be involved with that, and meaning it, will give you a sense of purpose that no longer lives under the burden of dead-end law, but rather engages you in the excitement of being a part of God’s moving in the current time.
Living to please God and make disciples gives us a healthy focus. But we have to die to the law before we can live for Christ in this way.
But what if you blow it? What if you sin, or what if you find yourself back in the same old patterns of bondage?
That’s an honest question. And I’m not perfect at this, either. I walking with you on this.
But the good news is that forgiveness is always available to the child of God. Confess it, and ask for His help to get you back on track. He’s ready and waiting.
Conclusion
William Wallace paid with his life for the freedom of Scotland. He didn’t see it in his lifetime, but he was confident that it would happen.
And it did – for a while, but ultimately, Scotland was not a free country, and is today part of Great Britain after finally being put under submission permanently.
Jesus, in His effort to bring freedom from the law of sin and death, and freedom from bondage to the law, also paid with his life.
But His mission was ultimately successful, and not just for the short-term. His death brought the freedom we need. And yet He lives to give us life.
He died that we might die to bondage, and He lives to give us life in the freedom of grace.
Is your life characterized by freedom or is it characterized by bondage to some form of law? Is your focus on avoiding the displeasure of God through keeping a bunch of religious regulations?
Or are you confident that through Jesus, we can die to that mindset, and be free to live for Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit?
Some of you might be saying right now, “That’s what I want. I have been living under the law, but I want out! What do I do to get out?”
Here’s the way it works. You simply ask for the Holy Spirit to make it happen in you.
You might say a prayer like this:
“Lord, I’m tired of living in this bondage. I want to live for you. I can’t do it on my own. And I know there’ll be times when I won’t want to do this, because I’m too comfortable living in the bondage I’ve been in for so long. Holy Spirit, fill me. Take it all. Help me to desire to live for Christ, not the law, and empower me to live a life characterized by a real sold-out love for God that overflows into the lives of others. Help me to focus on you, not any religious motions I might want to make, and allow me to know the joy that that freedom brings. Amen.”
If that’s you, then go for it. I’m going to be here after the service, if you want to make that your prayer. I’d love to pray with you, if you’ll let me.
And then you can scream along with me, “FREEEEEEEEEDOM!!!!!”
But there might be others here today, who haven’t even been able to make that first step, coming to faith in Christ.
And you might’ve come here today thinking that you’ve got it all together because you’ve been a “good boy” or a “good” girl.
You don’t get drunk, you don’t smoke, you don’t chew, and you don’t date girls who do.
You’ve followed all the “rules” that you think get you into heaven.
But you know what? This whole message has been about how following a bunch of rules doesn’t cut it.
The Bible says that no one gets to heaven by being “good enough.” You can’t go to church enough, you can’t read your Bible enough, you can’t even pray enough, and you can’t help enough old ladies across the street to get you to heaven.
So forget about it.
Others here might have the exact opposite thoughts. “I’ll never be good enough for heaven. God would never accept me – I’ve done too many horrible things in my life. I’m lost and there’s no hope for me. I don’t even know why I’m here today – it won’t do me any good when I face God.”
Well I want to tell you something. Just as it’s true that those who think they’re good enough for heaven are in for a surprise, you are too.
The fact of the matter is that no matter how bad you think you are, you are never bad enough that Jesus won’t forgive you and give you a home in heaven.
You see, Jesus died for sinners. He died for me, and He died for you, no matter who you are here today.
And His death and resurrection made it possible for you to be a new person, clean in the eyes of God, totally forgiven, and put in right relationship with the heavenly Father who loves you so much He gave His only Son.
And Jesus said, “I’ll do it. Because I love Brian. And I love Katie. And I love Danielle. And I love Nick.” And so forth.
Have you called out to Jesus for what He has for you? Are you ready to do it now? Would you like to leave here today knowing that you are forgiven, and that you will spend eternity in heaven when you die, and be in a personal relationship with God while still on earth?
He’s ready whenever you are. I hope it’s today, and that you will join me in your heart as I pray a prayer that you can offer to God, thanking Him for Jesus, and accepting the free gift of eternal life He offers to those who desire it.
Let’s pray.
