Sermon Cloud

"Foundations: How To Obey God"

Big Idea: Grace Changes Everything

"the stewardship of God's grace... was given to me for your benefit"  ephesians3/2nab

Romans 7:   If I'm going to consistently obey God...

I must Choose Freedom

"Do you not know...  that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives?  For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage."  vs1-2 = without Christ I am doomed

"So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.  So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another"  vs3-4 = with Christ I am free

I must learn to Hear God

"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."  vs6    *see also Jeremiah31/33

I must acknowledge my Sin Addiction

I try to Do Good:  "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good."  vs15>16

I want to believe something in me Is Good:  As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it."  vs17>20

I desire to be good but I Can't Be Good Enough:   "So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.  What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"  vs21>24

I can find freedom Only In Jesus

"Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!"  vs25