Part 2 | “The Challenge and Confidence to Change”

Change or Die Message Series: “Are you really interested in change or do you just like the “idea” of it? When it comes to becoming a new person, the world has their way and God has His. Often times they are very very different. On the heels of 2020, let’s embrace 2021 with a new attitude – changing for the good and the glory of God. If we learn to overcome the four basic hurdles of change, we will see God’s glory in our transformation.”

From Romans 7

📖 Acts 9:8 (ESV) Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

Reminder: Fasting and Prayer | Jan. 31-Feb. 2

📖 Romans 2:14–15 (NLT) Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. 15 They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right.

📖 Romans 2:12 (ESV) the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

📖 Romans 7:7–9 (ESV) What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.

📖 Romans 7:14 (NLT) So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin.

The Challenge to Change:

1. I change.

📖 Romans 7:15-16 (ESV) For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 

📖 Galatians 5:17 (ESV) For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.

The Christian is not of , the Christian is not of , the Christian is of .

a. Knowing doesn’t me do what I should do.

📖 Romans 7:14 (ESV) So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin.

b. what is right doesn’t me do what is right.

📖 Romans 7:18 (ESV) For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

c. doesn’t me do what is right.

📖 Romans 7:19 (ESV) For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

📖 Romans 7:20 (ESV) Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

📖 Romans 7:21-23 (ESV) So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

The Challenge to Change:

2. God has the for .

📖 Romans 7:24 (ESV) Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

a. The is in: Not .

📖 Romans 8:1 (ESV) There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

📖 2 Corinthians 7:10 (ESV) For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

Godly is what sin does between us and God. Worldly is what sin does to us.

b. The comes in: He me.

📖 Romans 8:2 (ESV) For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 

📖 Acts 9:17 (ESV) So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

📖 Romans 6:17-18 (ESV) Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. 18 Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.

c. is : God is me.

📖 Romans 8:3–4 (ESV) For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

📖 2 Corinthians 3:17–18 (ESV) Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

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