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Scripture Reading for Sermon
Romans 7:1-13
(Romans 7:1-13) 1Do you not know,
brothers--for I am speaking to men who know the law--that the law
has authority over a man only as long as he lives? 2For
example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as
he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law
of marriage. 3So then, if she marries another man while
her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if
her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an
adulteress, even though she marries another man.
4So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the
body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was
raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.
5For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the
sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so
that we bore fruit for death. 6But now, by dying to
what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we
serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the
written code.
7What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly
not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the
law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the
law had not said, "Do not covet." 8But sin, seizing the
opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind
of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. 9Once
I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin
sprang to life and I died. 10I found that the very
commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought
death. 11For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by
the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me
to death. 12So then, the law is holy, and the
commandment is holy, righteous and good.
13Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By
no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it
produced death in me through what was good, so that through the
commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
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