Jun. 05, 2022

What If I’m Stuck?

June 4 & 5, 2022

Primary Text:  Romans 7:14-25                            

Previous Teaching:  What If I’m Broken?

1)  Self-Inflicted Brokenness

Psalm 51:1-4:  Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.  Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.  For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.  Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.

DQ 1) How has your own sin broken your soul?  Are you still carrying guilt and shame?

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2)  Cleansed & Restored

Psalm 51:6-12:  Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.  Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.  Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.  Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.  Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.  Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.  Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

DQ 2) What is the process by which God heals and restores broken people?

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This Week’s Teachings

1)  A Good Law

Romans 7:14-16:  We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  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.

DQ 1) What is the “law” Paul references in Romans 7:14-16?  Why is it good?

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2)  Nothing Good

Romans 7:17-23:  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.  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. 

DQ 2) How does sin “live in us”?

DQ 3) Why would anyone have a “desire to do what is good”?

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3)  What a Wretched Man

Romans 7:24-25:  What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. 

DQ 4) What is the battle between the mind and the flesh (sin nature)?  How does the battle work out in your life?

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4)  Crucified with Christ

Galatians 2:19-21:  For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" 

DQ 5) What does it mean that “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me”?

DQ 6) How does the grace of God provide the means for becoming “unstuck”?

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5)  Transformed!

Romans 12:1-2:  Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship.  Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will. 

DQ 7) What transforms our minds into the likeness of Christ?

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