This week Pastor Mel continues the Romans series with Week 13, and he lands in one of the most personally honest passages in all of Paul's writing -- Romans chapter 7.The big question Paul is answering is one that every honest Christian has probably asked: if grace covers our sin, does that mean we can live however we want? Paul's answer is emphatic. Of course not. And Mel walks through exactly why, using the striking image of marriage. When we died with Christ, we died to the law -- and now we are free to marry someone new. Not the law, but Christ himself. And just like any healthy marriage, that relationship means we don't only ask what we want. We ask what he wants.From there, Mel moves into the wretched man passage, where Paul confesses that he does what he hates and cannot do what he wants. Mel makes the case that this is not a passage about spiritual failure. It is a passage about spiritual honesty, and about the difference between being called to perfection and being called to a lifelong process of being perfected.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Paul uses a marriage illustration to show that believers are dead to the law and now united with Christ. What is the difference between relating to God through rule-keeping versus relating to him as someone you are in a committed covenant with — and how does that shift change the way you approach obedience day to day?
Mel says the law does two things: it defines sin and reveals it in us. When has scripture or the Holy Spirit put a spotlight on something in your life you didn't even realize was sin? How did you respond — with repentance, defensiveness, or something else?
Romans 7:14–25 is Paul confessing, "I do what I hate." Mel notes that the longer we walk with Christ, the more our seemingly small sins bother us. What pattern or habit in your own life do you keep returning to despite genuinely not wanting to — and what does a repentant (not perfect) response look like in that area?
Mel says the daily solution is to die — to crucify the flesh and do the opposite of what it tells you. Where in your life right now is your flesh telling you not to do something you probably should? What would it look like to act against that impulse this week?
Mel closes with the image of posthumous legal exoneration — that in Christ we are declared not guilty of sins we actually committed. How does living from a place of "already exonerated" rather than "trying to earn forgiveness" change your posture toward God, toward your own sin, and toward other people?