Please turn in your Bibles this morning to the book of Romans chapter 7. Once again, we will consider verses 14 through 25. But let me remind you, I know I say things repeatedly, but we need to be reminded Verse divisions and chapter divisions are not inspired. They were added by a man. And aren't we thankful for them? We can say, turn to Romans chapter 7, verse 14. We know exactly where to go, every one of us. But as we're reading, Paul didn't write like that. He didn't get to verse 25, put a period, and then write a big 8 at the top of the next page. That's not how he wrote. He just continues. So we're going to read through 8-1 to kind of get the flow. We're not going there yet, but we'll get the flow. Romans chapter 7, beginning in 14. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of flesh. King James, I am carnal. New International, I am unspiritual. sold into bondage. Verse 15, for what I am doing, I do not understand. For I'm not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the law, confessing that the law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh. For the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do. But I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I'm doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the law or the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin, which is in my members. Wretched man that I am. Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then on the one hand, I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other with my flesh, the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Great triune God of heaven, we ask your blessing now on the preaching of your word to the end that we might be conformed to the image of our dear savior. We pray that you would save souls by granting repentant faith to new creations. God, we ask that you would sanctify your people by your word and your spirit. Amen. Last time we went to great lengths to define the I referred to in this text, that in that message we talked about who is I? Bad grammar, but a good question. Who is I? That message and this message could be packaged together as I sermons or bad grammar sermons, either way. because I've got, and I will confess to you that I really enjoy when we get to use statements that are bad grammar but good doctrine. So we had that good question, bad grammar good question last week, who is I? And now this week we could say, we could title this message, I is the problem. Who is I? I is the problem. And yeah, it's poor grammar, but it's good doctrine. And we'll see that as we get in. Paul's use of I in chapter seven we saw last week does refer to himself. And it refers to Paul as a mature believer in Christ. And as we read the text, we find ourselves here in the text, believers who struggle in this life As we've just come off chapter 6, we must keep in mind throughout chapter 7 all the truths that come from 6. And really, 5, 6, 7, and 8 can all go together here. But we can't forget, remember, those chapter markers were not something that Paul penned. So we've gotta bring all those things forward as we read. And I wanna remind us what was in chapter six. Now you may look back there if you're right there. And I just wanna read a few select verses. Beginning verse one, what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be. And then he asks, how shall we who died to sin still live in it? And then look at verse six, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away with so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. Verse seven, for he who has died is free from sin. And then look down at verse 11. Even so, how are we to think about ourselves? Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God. What a glorious, victorious feeling we have as we read chapter six, as we come from that. We who are in Christ are dead to sin. We now walk in newness of life, dead to sin, alive to God, our old self crucified with Christ. And it's very important as we study chapter six and now as we're in chapter seven, that we don't try to set six and seven in opposition to one another in some sort of disagreement. If we did that, we would do harm to the text. We would do disservice to the church. So we need to read six without ignoring seven. We need to study seven without forgetting six. If we did that, we might present a doctrine in chapter 6 of perfectionism, like we're so sanctified that sin is no longer any issue in our lives. If you think you're going to get to the point that you can say, using the language of chapter 7, the things I want to do, I always do. The things I don't want to do, I never do. If you think you're going to get to that point, I've got news for you. You might get the idea if we just pull these verses out of their context, we might get the idea that we're going to be perfection, that we're going to arrive at perfection. But we need to read chapter 6 and chapter 7 and read them together. Now, we just read these verses from 7. I don't want to read it again, but look at what we've seen. The law is spiritual, but I am a flesh sold into bondage. I'm not doing the things I wanna do, the things that I hate, those are the things that I'm doing. Verse 18, I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh, for the willing is present, but the doing of good is not in me. Verse 19, the good that I wanna do, I don't do, I practice the very evil that I do not want. Chapter seven, these verses read very differently from chapter six. If we read this text and we ignore chapter six, then we would get to that place of just resigning ourselves to say, there's nothing good in me. I never do the right stuff. It's not, that's just, and we could resign ourselves. That's just how it is. I'm just going to live in sin my whole life. That's just the way it is. If we ignore, and that is our tendency, isn't it? Either to focus on chapter six or to focus on chapter seven. And what we need to do is we need to take the whole and say, these things go together. I want to tell you how common it is for us, and maybe I shouldn't say us, maybe I should just say me, how common it is to focus on one and not the other. Just this past week, I had a very important conversation, a gospel conversation with someone who I love, and they were asking me about the thief on the cross. How could that person live a whole life of sin, and then right at the very last moment, They're going to heaven? How can that happen? They didn't live a good life. And so I started speaking and I started saying things like this. Well, a true Christian, if they live very long, that God just didn't have very long to live. But if he lived very long, we would see that their life is in such a way that it demonstrates a change in relationship to sin. If a person lives after they've come to Christ, truly come to Christ, they will live holy lives. And as I said those words, Something in me said, like your holy life? Like you? Like your sinlessness? I immediately, see the problem is I was preparing for this message today and I had this Romans 6, Romans 7 on my mind and I had to pause in the middle of the conversation and I had to say wait, I realized that I'm presenting a Romans, and I didn't say this to them, but I realize I'm presenting a Romans 6 doctrine without any consideration of Romans 7. I'm presenting that whole, we're dead to sin, we're no longer, does it have mastery over, I'm presenting that, but I'm not saying anything about Romans 7, and I had to pause and regroup and come at the conversation again, and I hope this morning that I can do a better job, that we can communicate all that is here. I hope to get our minds around Romans 7 without neglecting Romans 6 so that we have a both and doctrine instead of an either or. So the I of chapter 7, the I of chapter 7 can confess all the truth of chapter 6. And the redeemed, dead to sin, no longer walking in sin, Christian of chapter 6 is the same person in chapter 7 who is struggling, who is wrestling, who is battling. And even now, it seems as though we set these chapters in opposition to one another. But there are hints, even as we were in chapter six and we saw all this speech about free from sin and no longer slaves to sin and we're dead to sin alive. Even as we saw that language, there were little hints that show us that Romans seven goes together with Romans six. Look at verse 12 of Romans six, if you're still there. Therefore, do not let sin reign. Hey, you're dead to sin, sin no longer has mastery over you, but do not let sin reign. Why did he say this? Because we can, Christian, let sin reign. And he says, don't do that, verse 13. Don't go on presenting your members as instruments to unrighteousness. Don't go on doing that. And why does he say that? Because a true Christian can and does present your members, the parts of your body, to sin for unrighteousness. So chapter 6 has already foreshadowed for us in verses 12 and 13 what chapter 7 presents this battle. So let's look now at chapter 7 verse 14 and we begin to see the problem 14. For we know that the law is spiritual but I am of flesh. For we know Now when we read Paul and we say, for we know, he's gonna use this language, this formula, for we know. He's gonna use that again, right? Romans 8, 28, for we know that God works all things together for good. For we know. So there are things that we should know. If you don't know it, don't be embarrassed, because Paul's gonna tell you what we should know. For we know, and then he gives it to us. So there's things that we should know He says, what is it we know? The law is spiritual. Now, everybody put on your 2025 thinking and you say, oh, the law is spiritual. Oh, I know what that means. I know how we use the word spiritual. We hear people say this all the time, don't we? I'm spiritual. Sometimes I say it in a fuller sentence. I'm not so much religious but I'm spiritual. I'm very spiritual. Usually that's it's very, I'm very, I'm not religious, but I'm very spiritual. What that statement means is what the apostle Paul would call hooey. And if you have said that, then don't be insulted, but let's be corrected. Listen, every person, every one of us is made up of two parts. Body, we might say body and soul, or body and spirit, two parts. We are bipartite, if you want to Big word for it. We are bipartite. Every one of us, every human being made in the image of God has these two parts, body and spirit. So we are all spiritual. And you might say, well, I didn't think I was spiritual. You are spiritual. You are body and spirit. And not only are we all spiritual, we're all equally spiritual, one part out of two. So we're all spiritual. But even there, that's not what Paul is saying. That's not what Paul is communicating here. Paul is making a connection for us. He's drawing a line. The law. He's drawing a line between the law and the Spirit. The Holy Spirit. This is a statement that is, the law is not evil. The law is not pertaining to the fleshly. It's not disconnected from the spirit. No, the law is from the spirit. The law is spiritual. Boy, this speaks to us. I think you could probably preach a whole message just on this statement, the law is spiritual, because it tells us something about the law. Pop quiz, can we now, the law is spiritual, can we keep the law then only physically without the spirit? Can we keep the law by engaging the law with our body, but not engaging our spirit? No, that's what God spoke of when he said, they obey me with their mouth, But what? Their heart is far from. See, the law is spiritual. And if we are going to be people who kept the law, then you go back and you think of like the rich young ruler who said, I've kept the law. He wasn't speaking of the law as spiritual. So Paul is reminding us here, the law is spiritual. We've got to move on. He says, the law is spiritual, but I am, new American standard, of flesh. The law is spiritual, but I am of flesh. We need to understand what this means. So we're going to have more quiz questions, I guess. I have this written. Is flesh good or bad? So is flesh good or bad? So somebody is going to say, well, flesh is bad. You've read some verses of scripture and you know flesh is bad. Some of you are going to say, wait, wait, wait. I don't know. I think the flesh is good. Some of you are going to say, yes, the flesh is good and the flesh is bad. You probably have the best answer. So here's the question. When God took Adam's rib and he made Eve, the Bible tells us that God closed up the flesh in that place where he took the rib. He closed up the flesh in that place. Is flesh good or bad? You could say good, you could say well it's just a thing. It's just he closed up the flesh. Flesh is just his body. But then we get to Romans 8, we're gonna see a lot of this. The mind set on the flesh is at enmity with God. The mind set on the flesh does not know the things of God, does not conform to the law of God. So in that context the flesh is bad. But what we know now is we have to say every time we see the word flesh, we have to ask, what do you mean here? What about verse 14? NASB, New American Standard and English Standard are both unhelpful. We're going to find that I don't like any of the English translations. New American Standard and English Standard, they say of the flesh. But when we get to chapter 8 and we see of the flesh and the mind set on the flesh and a person that is of the flesh, that's going to be a lost person. That's not what Paul is speaking of here. So you see how that's unhelpful that they say of the flesh. Now, NIV tries to be clever. The law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual. Well, that's not what's trying to be communicated at all either. If you have an NIV, praise God, put it on the shelf and Get something else. Let's go back to King James. Surely the King James can bail us out. That's what I was raised with. That's what I know. The law is spiritual, but I am, does anybody know the King James? Carnal. I'm carnal. Well, that's not helpful either, is it? Because carnal presents to us this idea of carnal Christianity. And people, by the way, have built this whole doctrine of carnal Christianity, which is malarkey. And they base it off this verse sometimes. The law is spiritual, but I am carnal. That's not what, this is not what is communicated here, as Paul uses this word, I am. The word is sarcos, or sars, is the root, and it means made of flesh. Now we say things like this in our everyday language. I'm not a miracle worker, I'm only, flesh and blood, right? We say, I'm only flesh. And what are we saying? When we say I'm only flesh and blood, we're saying I'm a normal, natural human person made of flesh and blood. And I have all the weaknesses and all the limitations that are common to a person who is in a human body. And that's exactly what Paul is saying here. The law is spiritual, but I am made of flesh. I am fleshy. I am not of the flesh, a lost person, but I have all the weaknesses and all the limitations that go along with being in a human body. Another way you could say this is I am a physical descendant of Adam. And we're all in the same boat. We're all of flesh. We all live in these bodies. And that's what Paul is saying. This is what he's made. And he says, I am fleshy. I am made of flesh. And then he makes another allusion to Adam in the next phrase. The law is spiritual, but I am fleshy. I am made of flesh, sold into bondage to sin or King James and ESV sold under sin. Now this cannot be a reference to being still lost in sin, alive to sin, dead to the things of God like we used to be. He's already covered that in chapter six. That's not who we are. We are dead to sin, alive to God. Sin no longer has master over us, but here's what he's saying. I'm still in this body. I'm still in this flesh, sold under sin. I'm still prone to sin. Now just a few minutes ago we confessed this truth as we sang earlier, prone to wonder. Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Now that can't speak of a lost person. They don't love God. That's not the person of Romans 6 or the person of Romans 7. But Christians do love God, but we are fleshy. We are made of flesh, and since Adam's sin in the garden, we have been sold under sin, and we are prone to sin. By the way, that verse of come thou fount seems to express exactly the things that we find here in Romans 7. I wasn't only a debtor to grace one time long ago at the moment of justification, daily, to grace a daily debtor. God, let your grace, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee. Here's my heart, take and seal it to thy courts above. Those things expressed in that song are expressed in this text and in our hearts as we read it. So this sold under sin is a reference to Adam's sin where all mankind, every individual, every one of us was sold out. Sold under sin. And if you're thinking, wait a minute preacher, this doesn't make sense. I read the truth of Romans 6 and I come here and I read this thing about I'm fleshy, I'm prone to sin, I'm sold under. This doesn't make sense. You're saying you love God, but you still sin. You're no longer in bondage to sin, but sometimes you still surrender your weapons to the enemy. This don't make sense. And I would say you're exactly right. You're exactly right, this doesn't make sense. And that's what Paul is saying in verse 15. What I'm doing, I don't even understand. This is not a reasonable, logical thing. This doesn't make sense. What I wanna do, because I'm a child of God and I love righteousness, I don't do that. The things I don't want to do, the things I hate because I'm a child of God and I hate sin, those are the very things that I do. Paul says, I don't understand what I'm doing here. And we can say with him, amen. We don't understand it, but we know as we read, this is exactly what happens. This is exactly how we live as Christians in this world. Christian, how does it go when you sin? I'm thinking about not that one-off sin that maybe caught you unaware, but maybe that indwelling sin, that continuing sin that seems to hang on. How does it go with you? Moments before you sin, you hate that sin. And moments after you sin, you hate that sin. And while you are in the process of committing the sin, you could say this, I hate this sin. I hate the thing that I'm doing. In verse 16, even in the doing of the sin that I hate, all the while I'm agreeing with the law of God. I love the law. I confess that the law is good. Brothers and sisters, is that not exactly what life is as we struggle against sin in this present life? I think Paul's painting a pretty clear picture here. I'm so thankful for verse 17 because this is our ticket. Verse 17 is our get out of jail free card. I'm so glad this verse is here, because this, we're going to be off the hook. We're going to be, verse 17, I am no longer the one doing those things. It's not me. It's sin that dwells. Is that what he's saying? Some of you will remember that old comedian who had the line, the devil made me do it. Now you had to be pretty old if you remember that. Wasn't that Flip Wilson? The devil made me do it. Is that what Paul is saying here? Listen, you're off the hook. No. This is not our get out of jail free verse. This text does not teach that I can blame someone else for my sin. This text does not teach, listen, There's something that some of you have been taught, and this text doesn't teach that either, and you need to come away from this error in thinking. Come with me. Some of us have heard this. Inside of you, there are two dogs fighting. And the one that you feed the most will be stronger, and that's the one that will... You do not have two whole natures in one body. unless you're schizophrenic. You're not the one. Now, there is one and only one with two whole natures in one body. We went over that earlier, right? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. He is fully divine and He is fully human. Two whole natures in one body. Without confusion, composition. So you're not Two dogs fighting. You are I. I mean, you're I. You're the I that confesses the truth of Romans 6, and you're the I that struggles in Romans 7. You are singular I, but you do have an old man, a dead nature, and you have a new man, a new nature and the new man we gotta carry around that old man while we're in this life. This body of sin. This body of death. That old dead man is still twitching and moving and causing trouble. You can't say don't blame me it's the old man. This is not an excuse. Because the I who wants to do the right thing is ultimately the same I who does not do the right. It's you. And the I who doesn't want to sin is in the end the same I who commits sin. It's you. So this, it is sin that dwells within me is an explanation, it's a reason, but it is not an excuse. It doesn't let you off the hook. Verse 18, Paul says, for I know that nothing good dwells in me. You might say, wait Paul, I thought the Holy Spirit dwelled in you. I thought something good did dwell in you. How can you say that nothing good dwells in me? Well, Paul knew you were gonna ask that, so he added the next little phrase. That is in my flesh. Nothing good dwells in me. That is in my flesh. And here Paul uses the same word, the same sarcos word for flesh. But because of the context, we know that he's getting at the sinfulness of the flesh. Nothing good dwells in the sinfulness of my flesh. Nothing of righteous value. Nothing good. And believer, this is true for you. Christian, redeemed, rescued from slavery to sin. But you're still fleshy. And you still have nothing good that dwells in your flesh. The willing is there to do the good. Of course, it is because. Because you are Christ's, you're in him, you're a new creation. But the doing of good is not in your flesh. This is why we can't. This is why we say, well, you can't be saved by the spirit and then walk by the flesh. Did you think you were going to be saved by the spirit and then walk by the flesh? Paul asked the Galatians. Nothing good dwells in your flesh. Now, verses 19 and 20 repeat the ideas that he's already given from these earlier verses, and we come to a place that we can understand the problem. Now, I made this statement. I said we could title the message, I is the problem. There's a quotation. It's rich in history. Maybe sometime you can see where it comes from. But I just want to give us the quote. Over the years, it's been through iterations. It's changed. Here's the quote. We found the enemy, and it is us. We found the enemy and it is see this is the problem is I. I is the problem. We look at these verses from Romans 7 and we allow the searchlight of God's word to shine brightly in our hearts and we have already asked who is I and now we say I is the problem. The problem of sin in my life is not because Jesus fell short somehow, not because he hasn't done enough. The problem of sin in my life is not some outside force. The problem is I. C.S. Lewis had a unique way of speaking about the person of I and the problem of I, and I'm not going to tell you exactly what C.S. Lewis said because I don't want to offend your sensitive ears. He was a bit more King James than we would like. He used a word, we'll call it the King James type word, that means donkey. So I'll just modernize this and use the word donkey. C.S. Lewis referred to this problem of I as that brother donkey. That brother donkey. And boy, if you really break down what he's saying, it really says something here. That brother. Brother. Close relation. How much closer can you get than self? This close relation, even a familial love and concern, brother, but then donkey, indicating a stubborn, mule-headed pain, an annoyance that will not go away, that will not comply, that will not get in line. And doesn't that just about sum it up for us Christians? The body of flesh, the body of death, They use Paul's term. We have a long relationship with this brother. What a pain. Brother donkey. So we've looked at these verses and we will pick back up in verse 21 in a couple of weeks, but. Let's circle back to the conversation that I had when I spoke about a Pollyanna idea of Christianity, and I'm saying, oh, Christians live a life of holiness. Can we say, after we've considered Romans 7, 14 through 25, can we say Christians don't sin? Obviously, and absolutely not. We cannot say that. Can we say Christians sin differently, or less, or less often, or with less severity? Well, I hope that's true, that would be great, but I'm gonna tell you, at any given moment, if you look at my life, or if I look at your life, at any given moment, it might just look like sin. So what is it? How do we describe the life of a Christian? First we better understand how to describe the life of a lost person. An unbeliever can live comfortably in sin. An unbeliever can live in open, unrepentant sin and never have a hiccup, never have a worry, no struggle, no repentance, no problem. By the way, this person, pray, pray for this person's salvation because when I said that to them, they said, that's where I've been. And I can tell the Holy Spirit's working. An unbeliever can live in sin No repentance. No problem. But when you see a Christian sinning, what are you looking at? You are looking at a war. You're looking at a battle. You're looking at a struggle. A brutal battle between flesh and spirit. A Christian fights against sin. Praise God, there are some victories. Some of you today could give testimony to victories over sin, but we all know that there are some losses. That's what we're seeing when we read these verses in Romans 7. There are some losses, but there is a fight. Now I've heard people say this when it's not true. I've heard people say, I struggle. I hear this with men who say, I struggle with pornography. And that's not true because they're not struggling with pornography. They're just looking at pornography. But it's not okay to say I look at pornography. It is okay. It's acceptable to say I struggle. But they're not struggling. Ladies, you're not off the hook. You can say that same thing. I struggle with this sin. And somehow we feel like if we can, if we can speak this way to one another, I struggle with this sin and you struggle with this sin, but none of us are really struggling. But don't we feel better about talking about the fact that we all are struggling with, and there's no struggle going on. So Christian today, examine your life. Look at your own heart. Look at your life. You sin. How dare you? I know you sin. The Bible makes it very clear. It's common to all of us. You sin. But examine your heart. Do you hate your sin? Do you fight and struggle and do battle against sin? Listen. If you do, maybe you say with Paul in these verses of Romans 7, I experienced some losses. But can I tell you something? That's good news. How is it good news that I'm struggling and battling with this sin? Because it means It's an indicator that Christ Jesus is at work in you. It's an indicator that you are a true child of God who hates sin. You're not comfortable with it. Those who are lost in sin, alive to the things of the world and not alive to the things of God, they don't struggle with sin. They're comfortable in sin. If you're battling sin, praise God. Now, my friend, you may look at your life and you may see someone who professes to be a Christian, but you may find, hey, wait a minute, I'm right at home with sin. I'm comfortable in my sin. I'm not convicted. I don't hate sin. Friend, go back, look at these verses in chapter 6 and chapter 7 and into chapter 8 and pray to God that you could find a place of repentance. Pray for deliverance from this body of death through the only deliverer, the only one who is able, there is only one Savior, Jesus Christ. Don't be content to live in sin and then enter eternity in hell. Run to Jesus for forgiveness of sin and for deliverance. Deliverance that we know in part now in this life and deliverance that will be full and complete in the life to come. Let us not ignore chapter 7 and present some utopian idea of Christianity. And let us not ignore chapter 6 and live in sin unfettered. Understand the struggle of the Christian life presented here in these verses. And then Christians, let's engage. And for some of us, let's re-engage. Put your armor back on. Get your sword back in your hand. And let's go to battle against sin. God, we pray that you would strengthen us that you would enable us. And Lord, even as we pray these things, we know that we ask in accordance to your will, because you've revealed all this in your word. God forgive us. God forgive us. For we have not fought as we should. where we have just surrendered our weapons of war to the enemy? God, thank you. Thank you for every Christian here who sins and is miserable. Thank you for the work of your spirit which will not let us live and love sin. God, we pray for victory. We pray. We pray, God, that you would deliver us We know, Lord, that one day we will be delivered from the presence of sin altogether. Thank you that we are already delivered from the mastery of sin. And God, we pray that you would deliver us from sin practically. Those besetting sins And God, we pray for those who, though they have professed Christ, are still in the flesh of the flesh. We pray that you would bring them to Christ Jesus, to true salvation. We pray that your Holy Spirit and your word would work to make them new creations. God help us to love what you love. Help us to hate what you hate. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.