Romans 7:5-25

In one of the most celebrated passages in the book of Romans, Paul expresses for us in Chapter 7 the absolute futility of having an ongoing relationship with the Lord that is predicated upon self-effort.  If having been saved freely by grace, the justified Christian begins to try and seek holiness and acceptability before God upon the basis of their own compliance to rules and regulations, we will have placed ourselves right back in bondage to the very law we were freed from in the first place.  And all that is going to produce is fruitlessness and frustration. The answer to our growing in the Lord is not HOW…  But the answer to our growing in the Lord is WHO  –  Jesus Christ alone.  You are not going to find the way to holiness at the foot of Mount Sinai, you are going to find the way to holiness at the foot of the Cross.