QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“One’s own self is well hidden from one’s own self.”

~Friedrich Nietzsche

“Man is not truly one, but truly two.”

“I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a space to my original evil; and the thought in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine.”

~Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Kekyl and Mr. Hyde

“All of life is a battle between two selves. But there is a different war before you become a Christian and from the war that happens after you become a Christian. There’s a war between the selves before you meet Christ and there’s a different war between the selves after you meet Christ. The war before is without hope, but the war after, you cannot lose!”

~Tim Keller

“One must be joined to Christ for salvation, not simply follow the law. The law shows how sinful people are, but only Christ can save by His perfect life and His perfect righteousness.”

~Martin Lloyd-Jones

“It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.”

~C.S. Lewis

SERMON PASSAGE

Romans 7:1-13 (ESV)

1 Since I am speaking to those who know the law, brothers and sisters, don’t you know that the law rules over someone as long as he lives? 2 For example, a married woman is legally bound to her husband while he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law regarding the husband. 3 So then, if she is married to another man while her husband is living, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. Then, if she is married to another man, she is not an adulteress.

4 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you also were put to death in relation to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another. You belong to him who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions aroused through the law were working in us to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we have been released from the law, since we have died to what held us, so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the old letter of the law.

7 What should we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! But I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” 8 And sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law sin is dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life again 10 and I died. The commandment that was meant for life resulted in death for me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. 13 Therefore, did what is good become death to me? Absolutely not! But sin, in order to be recognized as sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment, sin might become sinful beyond measure.