Go

Contact Us

  • Phone: (509) 747-3007
  • Email:
  • Mosaic Address:
    606 West 3rd Ave., Spokane, WA 99201

Service Times

  • Sunday:  8:30 am, 10 am, 11:30 am
  • Infant through 5th grade Sunday School classes available
  • FREE Parking!

Sermons

FILTER BY:

Back To List

Aug 23, 2020

Our Second Marriage

Passage: Romans 7:1-6

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: Romans

Keywords: legalism, marriage, grace, law, love of christ

Summary:

In Romans 7 Paul turns to our relationship to the Law of God. He draws the dramatic distinction between the relationship we now can enjoy with Jesus and the relationship we had to the Law...and may still have, unfortunately, even as we love Christ. This message is a call to a new and vital marriage relationship with Christ that far surpasses any relationship we may try or unknowingly live out in Christ.

Detail:

Our Second Marriage

Romans 7:1-6

August 23, 2020

INTRO:  A one question quiz about marriage:  is marriage…

  • binding OR liberating?
  • limiting or freeing?
  • confining or expansive?

The answer to that depends upon 2 things:

  1. Who your spouse is.
  2. Who you

We could ask the same question about your spiritual/religious/ experience in life:  has your sp. experience been…

  • binding or liberating?
  • Limiting or freeing?
  • Confining or expansive?

What does your answer depend upon?  (Same 2 things:  1.) what your religion/spiritual master is like, and 2.) what you are like.)

REVIEW:  Romans 6 has been all about what our relationship to SIN was and is.  Last week Matt very powerfully talked about what it is like to be bound to sin…to be a “slave of sin.”  He showed us from Romans 6 and our experience that,

  • We are all slaves. But we only have 2 options when it comes to our slavery—sin as master OR our Savior Jesus as master.
  • We are all slaves of what we choose to listen to—either our sinful natures, thoughts, desires OR the calls of Christ upon our lives in everything from emotions to thoughts to words and deeds.
  • He ended by calling us to a life of slavery to the One who lived and died the perfect life of a slave for us—Jesus.

Great illustrations of being bound by our sin—

  • evidenced by making excuses and denying reality about the bondage and effects of sin in our lives (Andrew being tied up)
  • power of “magnet” of our human will to either bind us to a life-track of sinful self-determination OR of slavery to Christ and Spirit-determined living.

Chapter 7 changes from talking about our relationship to SIN both before and after meeting Christ to our relationship with “the Law.” 

When most of us think about those words, “the law,” what comes to mind?  What law?

  • Criminal law—violations of state and federal criminal laws about theft, bodily harm, destruction of property, murder, financial crimes, etc.
  • Civil law—seeks judgments of financial and legal nature as relates to people we have had some experience with, i.e. divorce, financial restitution, property issues, landlord-tenant issues, contracts, etc.

When Paul talks about “the law” in Romans, what is he usually referring to?  (The Law of God contained in the O.T. Law.)

What is the difference between our criminal and civil laws and “the Law” of the O.T.? 

  • There are many overlapping and parallel laws between our criminal and civil laws and the Law of God.
  • There are significant differences
    • dietary laws: what you can and can’t eat and how it is to be prepared
    • religious laws: fasts and feasts, how to worship, what to offer in sacrifice, when to worship, etc.
    • civil laws: what is a crime, how it is to be punished

Most of us know how to relate to our U.S. legal system pretty well. 

If you don’t, you will soon learn.