Revival Weekend 2021: The Crucified Life, Part 1

The Crucified Life, Part 1 - Romans 7

Jesus said He came to give us life abundantly, yet most Christians live consistently in inconsistency if not complete captivity. This is the problem the Apostle Paul articulated in Romans 7:7-24.

Romans 7 is the Apostle Paul’s personal story of futility in fighting his flesh—his sinnature. Paul’s story is the story of all of us. We all go through the same “stuff” because we’re all made of the same “stuff.”

More religion, determination, and self-discipline cannot bring our sanctification—the victorious life in Christ. Colossians 2:20-23, Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—"Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in WILL WORSHIP (KJV), false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.

The flesh cannot be disciplined into submission. It must go through a crucifixion. The cross is the way grace, not works, overcomes the flesh—your sin nature. (See Galatians 2:20)

Galatians 2:20, I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Romans 7:1-6, Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

To be delivered from sin’s penalty, Christ had to die. To be delivered from sin’s power, you must die. 1 Corinthians 15:31, “I die daily.”

Romans 7:24-25, O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

Matthew 11:28-30, Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

The yoke of Christ is the cross. The invitation is to come and die. But in dying, you live. (See Matthew 11:28-30)