Learning to Possess Your Possessions

Sermon OverviewScripture Passage: Romans 7:1-4There seems to be a gap between what the Bible says we are in Christ and what we are in reality. We are called to be victors, yet so many of us live as victims.Adrian Rogers says, “We need not to make the Bible match our lives but to make our lives match the Bible.” We must appropriate what God has already provided for us and learn to possess our possessions.Romans 7:4 says, “Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.”By nature, we're married to the law, and it makes demands upon us that we cannot meet, no matter how hard we try. But when Jesus Christ died, we died with Him and became dead to the law. His death, burial, and resurrection had our name on it, and now we have a new life as the Bride of Christ.The first step is to learn how to die and start living. We will never possess our possessions until we come to the end of ourselves.Adrian Rogers says, “The reason that so many of us are not filled with the Spirit is we're so stuffed full of ourselves, there's not room for the Spirit.” We must go through something to get to something; we must go through death to ourselves to get to the victorious life.The second step is to stop trying and start trusting. Even after we are saved, we cannot keep the law of God in our own strength. We will fail over and over again, because it is in our nature to sin. But because we are the Bride of Christ, every demand upon our life is a demand upon Jesus, who lives in us. He is able to cover the multitude of our sins and deliver us from the law of sin and death. We can quit crying and start praising, for now in Jesus, we have the law of the Spirit.Apply it to your lifeWhat would your life look like if you learned to possess your possessions—to appropriate what God has already provided? Learn dying and begin to live; stop trying and start trusting; quit crying and start praising!