Let me invite you to take your Bibles and go to Romans chapter 7, please. Romans chapter 7. It seems common among people to have a tendency to blame the equipment when it's an operator error. Probably you've had someone go, this stupid phone. And then some younger person grabs it and fixes it in a heartbeat, right? Because it wasn't really the phone or the computer or, you know, I like to golf and you'll see someone hit a bad shot and then they're looking at the club as if it was the club's fault. It was the clubber, not the club. We just have a tendency to think that the problem is the equipment when it's often user error, either not using it properly or using it for something it wasn't intended to do. If I pulled out one of my old hockey sticks and stepped up to home plate, It's not going to be very effective. It was not designed to do that. And so the problem isn't with my hockey stick at that point, it's with the user trying to do with it something it wasn't designed to do. And basically that's been a part of what Paul's doing here, right? He's been helping us understand that the problem is not the law, right? The law is holy and righteous and good. The law is spiritual. He says all of those things about the law. It's not the law that's the problem, sin is the problem. And actually, when you get down to the issue of sin, the problem with sin isn't tied back to the law. It's actually tied to me. It's tied to you, right? Because the thing, the root of sin is really in our flesh. It's not in the law. And so Paul is trying to get them to see that as he articulates a gospel of grace, that there's no way a person can be justified before God by the works of the law. And in fact, having begun by faith, if I could borrow the words of Galatians 3, why should they think they would be perfected by the law? The law is not the problem in their condemnation, their sin is. And the law is not the problem in their lack of sanctification, the problem is in them, it's in us. And Paul wants them to understand it and get that point because the law simply could not do what some people were trying to make it do. Right on the spiritual plane, they were grabbing a hockey stick and stepping up to the pitcher at home plate. The law was not designed to do that. That was not God's purpose in giving it to them. In fact, what it did was actually not give life, but became an instrument by which sin caused death. But it was sin that caused the death. Not the law. It couldn't actually transform the heart, but it could expose both sin and the sinner, which is very good. Because if somebody doesn't recognize sin, nor recognize that they're a sinner, they will never look for a savior. So the law had good purposes from God and it should not be faulted because people were misusing it or misunderstanding what is going on. And so last week, we started to work through the second part of chapter seven and looked at the basic principle. I wanna just remind us of a couple of things so that we can take the next step in it. Look at verse 14, because here's the basic principle that he's gonna unpack for us. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of flesh sold into bondage to sin." So the reality of it here is that the power of sin is in my flesh. That's where its animating energy comes from, not from the law. All right, the law is not the problem, my flesh is. And if you were here last week, hopefully it'll help just to get a restatement of it. If you weren't, it's really important that you get this so we can work through it right. All right, the of flesh in chapter seven and verse 14 is referring to his humanity, or if I could put it this way, his human condition post fall. He's of flesh. And that's something very different in these chapters from the phrase in the flesh. as in verse five of chapter seven, which is referring to the lost condition. He says, for while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. And I said that's the lost condition because it's setting contrast to verse four. that they were made to die to the law through the body of Christ in verse six, but now we have been released from the law. So when they were in the flesh, they were under the law, but now they've been released from it. They've died to it, right? So in the flesh in chapter seven, verse five is referring to their lost condition. And the same thing is true over in chapter eight. Look at chapter eight in verse nine. However, you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. Obviously we'll come to this in a month or so, but look at the contrast here. There's two realms in which you could live, in the flesh or in the spirit. And those realms are mutually exclusive. because he says in verse nine that you are not in the flesh if the Spirit of God dwells in you. Okay, so if you have the Spirit of God dwelling in you, then you are not in the flesh. And then he makes it really clear at the end of verse nine, because he says, if you don't have the Spirit of Christ, right? But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. So you're left without any kind of dodging the point, I think. If you are, you're not in the flesh because the spirit of Christ is in you. And if you don't have the spirit of Christ, then you're not in Christ, right? So you can't be in the flesh and have the spirit dwelling in you. And if you don't have the spirit dwelling in you, then you're not in Christ. So when Paul says, of the flesh, he's talking about the human condition after the fall of Adam, that you and I have a human problem because of our fall into sin. and that hasn't been solved in the sense that it's removed yet, and we'll talk about that, but we shouldn't come to the conclusion, well, if I'm of flesh, that I'm in the flesh. No, that's not the case. He's not saying about himself in verse 14 that I am lost. He's saying, I still have the remnant of my fallen condition in me. I have not been perfected yet. I am still in a state in which there is indwelling sin in me. And he makes that really clear. Look at the end of verse 17. but sin which dwells in me. And then at the end of verse 20, but sin which dwells in me. And then if you look at verse 21, I find then the law, the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. So our flesh is the remnant or remainder of our fallen condition that will not be completely overcome until the redemption of our body. Drop into chapter 8, verse 23. 8.23. And not only this, but also we ourselves having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body, right? So think, I've got it on this side of the pulpit, right? So of flesh is a human condition, but for believers, There's something different about them. They're actually indwelled by the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit's presence in them causes them to groan in anticipation of the full redemption that's promised to them, the redemption of our bodies. All right, and the Spirit's presence in this text is called the firstfruits, right? It's an Old Testament imagery where they would go out and they would harvest and the firstfruits that they got were brought in, they present those as an offering to the Lord, the firstfruits. The language is similar to chapter one of Ephesians where the Spirit is called the earnest or down payment. of our ultimate redemption. That is the fact that God has put the Spirit in us is the down payment that he's going to deliver on the complete redemption, which comes ultimately at our resurrection, right? That he has saved us and given us hope of this redemption, and so we're living in light of that, and the Spirit's presence is in fact the guarantee right, that he's going to do what he promised to us. But the reality of it is, we are still of the flesh. Now, I've used this phrase last week, and I'm gonna use it here, and I'm gonna say a little more about it later, but I think it's just good to get it pounded into our heads. So that means what we're talking about when we hear the phrase of flesh, think corruption. Not creation. So when I say human condition after the fall, right? It's that we have been corrupted by sin. Not that we were made that way, right? We didn't need, right? When in the garden before Adam and Eve rebelled against God, they did not need a resurrection. They did not need a redemption of their body because sin had not happened, right? So it's not a created problem with our embodied existence. It's not the sort of Greek philosophy that says materialism, material things are sinful, spiritual is pure and holy. That's not what we're talking. There's nothing wrong with being a human. embodied because that's the only kind of real human existence that there is. God made us material and immaterial. And he said it was very good. So we don't have, we should not, in a Christian understanding of the human condition, should not have a view of the body as if it's worthless or inherently evil. Because someday we're gonna have a body, So God's plan for us is to be embodied in the resurrection. We're not gonna be like spirits hovering around with our harps and wings like we like to sometimes talk about it. We don't, I hope, but the culture does. And it's gonna be good, right? Having a fully redeemed body is not gonna be a concession to some kind of lower life. It's actually gonna be the way God made it to be. Right, there's nothing wrong with the human body in its created capacities. But we're talking about our lives as living in a world that's become infected by sin and that infection as well as in us. And we're subject to some of that corruption. it is in fact a reality of the human experience, even after coming to Christ. And that's his point. So when we look at sin, and this is the part we've gotta come to grips with, right? Because go back to my user error thing, something deep inside all of us, when a sin happens, is to look outside of us. We wanna point the finger, And that started right there in Genesis 3, right? Well, the woman you gave me, well, the serpent you made, right? We always are reflexively tending to look outside of us as the source of the problem. I mean, let's blame it on the law. If the law hadn't told me not to do this, I wouldn't have had any problems. But that's not where the problem is. Problem's in here, right? The problem is in here. And Paul wants us to see that because unless we diagnose the problem correctly, we won't turn to the right solution. And so it's important to get the diagnosis right. Then we began to try and answer the question last week, who is this I? And that might seem like an obvious thing, but trust me, there have been gallons and gallons and gallons of ink spilled over the I, right? Is this I Paul before he was saved? Is this I Paul after he was saved? Is this I Paul identifying with the nation of Israel in relationship to the law? I, Paul, creating a character to deliver a speech to make an abstract point. I mean, there's just loads of stuff, right? And so I'm not in any way gonna wander through all those woods. I'm just gonna show you what I think it is. All right, and I think in doing so, it would wrestle with some of those, but hopefully in a way that just drives us toward the central point. And I wanna make this clear. You can get the point of what Paul's saying without wandering through the forests of interpretive questions about who the I is. Because the basic point is the problem's not in the law, it's in the I. All right, that part is not hard to get. And we might wanna dodge it by spending all kinds of time debating the intricacies of this issue. But I think that might be us like looking at our phones and thinking our phone's the problem. We need to look in the mirror on this one and see it. So I said last week, the first thing we'd say about it is that Paul has a representative voice. Remember I said he does this shifting between the pronouns. You, we, I, you, us. Right, so what Paul's doing is tackling a very delicate and complex issue when you're speaking to a congregation that has Gentiles and Jews in it, and they're trying to wrestle through what role the law has on life, because that all comes like sort of to a peak in chapters 14 and 15. How do we live this out? The navigating of it. That's why some of them didn't want to eat certain things and wanted to observe certain days, and others of them had no problem eating certain things and didn't want to observe days. And that's why with sometimes myths, people always just tend to focus on chapter 14, but the whole unit actually goes from 14.1 all the way into chapter 15. Right, and because we know that, because in 14.1, he says, accept one another. And in 15.7, he says, accept one another. So he's been talking about the whole way, but when he finishes what he says in 15.7, he then breaks into this recitation of Old Testament text that talk about the Gentiles coming to trust in the Messiah. And he's saying there, so you Jewish believers, the Old Testament anticipated that the Gentiles would trust in the Messiah too. That's why we're supposed to with one mind and one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And it's all the way through there because that's the tension. So Paul knows that tension's there and he wants to, unify them, but do so by actually sort of moving the Jewish believers to a position on the law, which doesn't come naturally to them, right? You're a Jewish Christian who grew up under the law, being taught to follow the law, and now Paul's going, we're not under the law, we're not under the law, we're not under the law. Right, so he is actually using a kind of thing like you and I do when we have bad or hard or difficult news to deliver somebody, sometimes rather than pointing our finger always at them, this is the way you are, we say something like, hey, we all have this problem. I mean, I struggle with this, but we're doing that as a way of going from you to we, to me, back to you, and then to us. And that's exactly what Paul's doing. So what he says here in Romans 7 applies not just to Paul, but to us as well. That's the point. And that is an answer to those who wanna say, well, this is just Paul as an Israelite wrestling with this issue. That really doesn't have anything to do with you if you're a Gentile and you're a Christian. And I don't think that that's the right way to understand it. All right, the second thing is that we're looking at this and seeing Paul as a believer. All right, now let me suggest you why I take it that. Notice, go back up to verse seven, for instance. All right, because in verses seven through 11, Paul is writing in the past tense. All right, he says, I would not have come to know. So he's talking about something in the past. Then notice in verse nine, I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died. All right, end of verse 11, it killed me. So he's using a past tense there to talk about something in his past. But notice what happens starting in verse 14. I am of flesh. Verse 15, for what I am doing, I do not understand, for I am 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. Do you notice Paul's language? It's all present tense. He's actually talking about life right now for himself. I don't wanna do certain things, but I'm doing them. I wanna do other things, but I'm not doing them, right? So he's actually using the present tense to describe his present situation. And so it's hard to come up with a concept that says, well, this is Paul actually talking about his former life. or Paul talking about some abstract concept when he's using very clear language about his present circumstances and his present wrestling match that's happening. Notice what he does here though, he expresses desires in this passage, which point toward an inward regeneration. Let me show you some that are suggestive of that. All right, notice verse 15. what I would like to do. And in verse 16, I do not want to do. So here's Paul talking about a desire in his heart to do what is right and a contrary desire not to do what's wrong. In fact, look at verse 18. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is my flesh, for the willing is present in me, but the doing of good is not. And then in verse 19, for the good that I want, I do not do, and I practice the very evil that I do not want. And look what he says about himself in verse 21 at the end of the verse. The one who wants to do good. Those are all suggestive of some kind of desire in the heart of Paul that corresponds to a desire to do the thing God wants done. And we'll come back to this in a moment, but he comes around in chapter 8 and says, the mindset of the flesh doesn't think like that. It's hostile against God. It does not please God. So if he's still lost in saying these things, that's really questionable. But it even comes out more clearly. Look what he says in very clear language about himself in verse 22. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man or person. Right? Go down, look at verses seven and eight of chapter eight. Compare that phrase, I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner person. Look at verse seven of chapter eight. Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so for those who are in the flesh cannot please God. How do you square that if Paul's still lost? I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner person." And then just a space of a half page later, he says, the mindset in the flesh is hostile against God, cannot please Him, not able to do so. There's something that doesn't square there. Look at verse 23. 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." So the law of his mind is actually contrary to the law of sin. And again, chapter 8 and verse 6 wouldn't allow that. 8.6 says, the mindset of the flesh is death. The mindset of the spirit is life and peace. You can't have a lost person expressing this law of the mind like this, I don't think. And then look at verse 25. He says, 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 any other with my flesh, the law of sin. I'm serving the law of God. All right, so when I read those things, I come to the conclusion that I cannot see how Paul could be talking about this person as if they're a lost person. because a lost person doesn't joyfully concur with the law of God in the mind. They don't have a law in their mind that has them serving the law of God. They don't actually with my mind serve the law of God, but my flesh serve the law of sin. I think he's talking about a believer. In fact, notice what he does in verse 24, 25, because he actually praises God in the middle of this struggle. 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. All right, so here's a positive affirmation of the fact that he knows he will be set free from the body of this death. Like is a lost person gonna say that? So here's the problem. If you don't think a lost person can say that, then you have to try and treat the first part of verse 25 as Paul just sort of breaking away from the whole passage just to go blurt out, thanks be to God. Okay, let's get back to it. But the problem with that is look at the words right after thanks be to God. It says, 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. That so then means he's drawing a conclusion from what's just preceded. Right, so he's not in any way just all of a sudden forgetting himself and blurting out some praise to God in it. He's actually beginning to turn the corner to help us understand what the real answer is. Right, the real answer is not in the law, it's in God through Christ by his spirit. doing for us what we couldn't do for ourselves, nor could the law do for us. And he's been trying to help us understand the significance of that because it's God, right? The reality of it is, is who will rescue me, right? That question hangs out there. And the answer on the man's side of the equation is there is no help there. But the answer comes from God's side of the equation that God, in fact, can rescue. So just briefly, all right, so how do you wrestle with these hard negative statements? I mean, I wanna make clear, I'm trying to keep us as straight lined as we can here, but the reason why there's been such debate about this is because I just showed you a bunch of statements that I don't understand how they could apply to a lost person. Okay, in fairness to the other side of the argument, they would say, but Paul says some hard things that I don't see how they could apply to a believer, right? That's why they tilt that way. And if you're gonna be fair in wrestling through the arguments, I think you have to at least knowledge that and come up with an answer for them. So I just wanna show you why I think that you can answer those, right? Go back to verse 14, when he says, I am a flesh, sold into bondage to sin. Someone would go, how can a believer be described as sold into bondage to sin? And if you remember from last week, the answer to that is he's talking about the flesh there, right? He's not, if I could put it this way, he's not speaking of himself as a person, but he's speaking of the principle that's operative in me, in him, the flesh. the remnant of sin, it is still in bondage. Remember that word in chapter eight, verse 23, when he talks about our bodies? We're waiting for what of our bodies? The redemption of our bodies. Right, in chapter seven, verse 25, four and five, he uses the word rescue. Who's gonna rescue me or deliver me? Okay, so Paul can still view a Christian as having aspects of his redemption or her redemption still future. The rescue from the power of sin comes later. in its fullness, right? It's a delivery that's still gonna be there. That's why, I mean, I point to this periodically. Paul says in the same book of Romans, he says, for now our salvation is nearer than when we believed, right? So that's a paradigm setting way for us to think about the work of God's salvation in us. He's talking to people who are saved. They've trusted in Jesus Christ and they will never be disappointed because they've called on the name of the Lord. So he can say to them, now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. Right? You trusted in Christ back here and you've been following Christ through these years. You're coming to the point where either you're gonna go to him or he's gonna come to you. Therefore, that part of our salvation is nearer now than when we believe back there. And that's the framework that the New Testament has. I mean, it's right here. Look at chapter eight, verses 24 and 25. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it." Okay, think about that in terms of what he's talking about here. I stand here, right? So I'll just take myself, right? Way back in 1969, I came to Christ. All right, here we are in 2023. So a long time since then. And who knows when the culmination of that will be. Let's just say for sake of argument, I do the three score in 10, I hit 70. So I got eight and two months left, right? I'm nearer to my salvation than when I believed. And in fact, I'm saved by hope. And who hopes for what he sees? All right, now think about that. There's a lot I do see. I mean, I've experienced forgiveness, the work of the spirit of my life, a lot that I've seen. But what's the immediate referent in verse 24? 23, the redemption of our bodies for in hope, right? The thing I have not experienced yet is the redemption of my body. That I'm still feeling the effects of a brokenness in this world that's groaning for God to deliver the full and final promise of my salvation. And I'm living in light of that hope. All right, that's right here, right now, as someone who's experienced a new birth, but lives it out with the remnant of my fallenness. Right, that's the context of it. So when he says that my flesh is sold into sin, he's talking about the fact that that's where we live right now. We do have this principle of evil in us. Sin does dwell in us, 18 and 20. That's the reality of what it means to live between, if I could put it this way, sort of like between the times of what God has begun in me and is continuing until the day he completes it. That's the point that he's making. Why would he call himself a wretched man that I am? Well, I think it's because the end of the verse talks about being delivered from the body of this death. It's in the conduct, wretched man that I am. What's wretched about that, Paul? I've got the body of this death. When is this gonna be settled? When's it gonna be resolved? When is sin gonna be gone completely? That's what he's talking about. When is my full conformity to the glory of Jesus Christ gonna happen? Like Philippians three talks about, when he comes back, our citizenship is heaven, which we wait for Jesus to come to transform us into the glory of his resurrected state. Until then, there's a sense of the difficulty and challenge of it. What about being a prisoner of the law of sin? Look at the end of verse 23, and I'm just trying to be honest with the interpretive battle here, right? He says, making me a prisoner of the law of sin. Now, if there was a period there, This might be harder to answer, but there's not a period there. So what's the next part of it say? He says, the prisoner of the law of sin, which is in my members. Again, it's about his being of the flesh. It's the body of this death, the law that's operative in my members. So all of those, I think, can be answered. They are very strong negative statements, but they're not made about Paul with regard to his new nature. It's actually made about Paul with regard to the fact that he's still of flesh, that he still has this remnant of a fallen condition in him. And in fact, I think a large part of the answer to all of it is to think about what Paul is doing in Romans 5, 6, 7, and 8. Think about it. And again, we started this in the fall, so I'm not expecting you to remember all of this. So I'm going to remind you. Chapters 5 and 8 really carry the bulk of the weight of the point. In chapter six, Paul goes, so what does that mean about our fight with sin? We're no longer having sin as a master over us. And in chapter seven, he's saying, so what does that mean about the law? We're no longer under the law, right? So when he talks in chapter six, he talks in terms that are really harsh, right? You were a slave of unrighteousness. You were dead. He's using that kind of strong language to show the seriousness of sin and its pervasive hold on those who are outside of Christ and the fact that you have actually now, because of your union to Christ, you've died to sin and have been raised to newness of life. In chapter seven, he's looking at the human experience to some degree under the penetrating gaze of the law. Because what does the law do? It exposes sin. It identifies what sin is and it actually indicts the sinner. So here's the fact that you and I know, I mean, we probably recognize this in our own experience, right? The more we should, I think, the more we become familiar with what the scriptures say about the glory and holiness of God and his absolute perfection, and the more we understand about the scriptures say about us, the more we recognize how sinful we are. right, that we're sinners, and that we desperately need a savior, and we have one, right? That's why I like, there's a old writer, J.I. Packer, or some of you know the book, Knowing God, but he talks about the fact that the Christian life is actually a life that goes downward in repentance, right? The longer you live, As a believer, you don't become less concerned about sin. You become actually more serious about sin. Because you see it in its ugliness. You see it in its depth. In fact, if you look into the face of the cross of Christ, it doesn't cause you to go, phew, sin's not that big a deal. It causes you to see the enormous gravity of sin. Right? It's real and it's ugly and it's destructive. We're never called to sort of become lighthearted about sin. And so what Paul is doing is opening up to us the heart that ought to recognize that there is a real issue in sin and it should not be dismissed. The law exposes that, indicts the sinner, but it is without power to change within or constrain from outside. Do you realize that? The law cannot change your heart, and it actually can't control your sinful impulses. The law can't do that. And that's what Paul wants us to see. But we need to see as well then, and clearly, I think the point of this, and I've already started to step into it, is that Paul's not just a representative voice as a believer, but Paul is a sinner. And that becomes clear in this. And he does so by highlighting the internal conflict in his life. Notice the conflict between his desire and his practice, verse 15. What I'm doing, I do not understand. That is, it's sort of baffling to him. For I am not practicing what I would like to do. I am doing the very thing I hate. He desires, but doesn't do, and he hates, but still does. That's what 15 and 16 are saying. So look what the conclusion is at the end of verse 16. So if this is true, I agree with the law, confessing that the law is good. All right, so think about what he's saying here. All right, here, he's a believer, but he's a sinner. And so he has good desires that he doesn't carry out, and he unfortunately has bad desires that he does carry out. But how does he know what's good and what's bad? Right, so the fact that he has that tension actually confesses that the law is good. Because I know the thing I ought to do, I ought to do. So I agree with the law. And I know the thing I don't want to do, but I actually do, is not good. So I agree actually with the assessment of the law about the moral rightness or wrongness, right? The law is not the problem. It's his conflicting desires that are the problem. It's the battle that's fighting within him that's the problem. All right? Notice the conflict between him as a person and indwelling sin. It's, again, I say, it's baffling to him for what I'm doing. I do not understand it. And here's the thing. I mean, we all say, I mean, I can't understand why I did that. Right now, there's an easy answer for it. You're a sinner. But when you really start to peel back, you're like, why? Like I know that's not right and I did it anyway. And I know what I should have done and I didn't do it. I don't get this. Why is this happening? Right, so Paul's got that tension going on between him and he pinpoints it. Right? It's sin which dwells in me. End of verse. It's almost like it's the chorus for a very sad song. Right? Look at the end of verse 17. But sin which dwells in me. The end of verse 20. But sin which dwells in me. The flesh operates like a trader within. I do not think that Paul is denying responsibility here, but stressing the internal conflict between do and do not, and do not and he does. An awareness of a powerful force that's fighting against what is good. Because he says in verse 19, I practice the very evil I do not want. Okay, so think about that. You need to understand 17 and 20 in light of the fact that he owns responsibility. I practice the very evil I do not want. But what he's trying to explain to us is what's going on under the hood. There's sin dwelling in me that has this power and I find myself doing the things I know I shouldn't do or not doing the thing I should do. In fact, he can even say it operates like a law or a principle within him. Verse 21, I find them the principle. And if you have NASB, it's got a footnote there because it's going to tell you that actually there's the Greek word is law. I find the law or principle that evil is present in me. He talks about it as a different law, verse 23, in the members of my body, the law of sin. So there's this principle. And so we've, you know, historically you'll hear people, Christians wouldn't talk about the battle with sin, they'd talk about the sin principle. or the flesh or the old nature. And I know there's sometimes you have to be really careful with some of those nuances, but the basic concept is that even in a born again person, there is still a principle operating with which we fight. It's waging war, that's the language of the text. It's not a neutral thing. There's a fight happening. That's why in Galatians chapter five, Paul can be talking about a similar kind of issue, but he uses these words. The flesh and the spirit are at odds with one another, right? So there's a battle that's happening. There's a war that's taking place between the believer and the indwelling presence of sin. In fact, it is corrupted and captured by sin. It's sold into bondage, 14 and 18. He says, I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is my flesh. So he doesn't have the hope that somehow the flesh is going to change. You can change, right? And I believe that to depths of my core because of 2 Corinthians 3.18. We all beholding in the glass, the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory. So the believer can be growing in Christ likeness, but the flesh will never change. It is in bondage to sin until the redemption of our bodies. All right, as long as there is breath in these lungs and blood flowing in these veins, I am gonna have a fight with sin. That's a reality. Remember I talked last week about living in between two lines, right? Thinking somehow you could get to a line of perfection, ain't gonna happen. Right, you ought to be reaching for it because you want to be as close to Christ and as much like Christ as you possibly can, but you are never gonna grab that bar until Jesus comes and takes you. So you're never gonna get there. And if you think you've made it there, you're actually demonstrating that you haven't made it there. Right, because you're thinking you stand in a way that's contrary to the scripture. But there's also a floor Right? And that is we shouldn't pursue a perfectionist approach, nor have a pessimistic view. Right? The very presence of the fight. I know it's discouraging at times, but at times we ought to remember that it should be an encouragement because you know why you have that fight? Because the spirit of God dwells in you. Right, if you could just do whatever you wanted without any remorse or any twinge of conscience and no hesitation, I mean, if sin really didn't matter to you, you wouldn't be of the flesh, you'd actually be in the flesh. You would be actually demonstrating that you've never been born again. But if the spirit of God dwells in you, there's gonna be a fight. He's gonna convict you. He's going to try and form Christ in you. The word is gonna be used, not only to cheer you on, but to chisel against the anti-Christ stuff that's in you. And that fight is good. Right, it's a good thing. You shouldn't be pessimistic about it because if God began the work, he's gonna continue it until the day of Christ. So we gotta live above the bar of pessimism, but below the bar of perfectionism in the world of real fight as people who've been born again and are following Christ. And that's why this passage reflects the kind of inner outer tension in a fallen world. He talks about the members of my body waging war against the law of my mind, verse 23. And that's set against the inner man in verse 22. And the body of this death in verse 24 is contrast to the statement in 8.10 that the body is dead, yet the spirit is alive. All right, and here I come back to the point I said earlier. So we've got to see this as the battle with corruption, not our created humanity. All right, so I don't think that, I don't wanna think like this, the problem is my body. That's not actually the problem. The problem is my flesh, which isn't quite the same as my body, but where the fight is. And the reason I say that is because historically then people go, what's the problem with my body? Then if I abuse my body and neglect my body and inflict pain on my body, I can somehow bring it in. That's why he had a whole approach of asceticism in history that actually looked for victory over the flesh by human efforts to afflict and defeat the body. That's not the answer. All right, that's not what he's talking about. He's talking about the problem of indwelling sin that we haven't had fully removed from us and we won't until glorification. All right, so don't take off down bad paths on it. The flesh is a remnant of our depravity, which is the beachhead of sin in this life. And that's why we groan under the curse, longing for the resurrection. But also remember that Paul here talks about an ultimate hope in the midst of what could be a very, very sort of bummer kind of passage. He goes, thanks be to God through Christ Jesus, our Lord. And the parallel of hope in this is that we need to see that we can't set ourselves free. Who will set me free? not a human, only God through Jesus Christ. Paul's a wretched man because he can't set himself free, but God will. If Paul is not a believer here, then this praise doesn't fit the flow of the passage, which is why you have some really crazy efforts. I mean, you ever actually have people go, well, scribes, put that in there because they didn't want to be so bummed or whatever. I mean, that's sort of a cheesy way to say it. But they basically, they just think someone tinkered with the text because it seems so out of place. But it only seems out of place if you make a whole set of assumptions that are different. It's not out of place. If Paul's going, listen, I'm a believer in God through Christ. So my hope is in Him. And while I wait for that hope, so then, with my mind, I serve the law of God. But in my flesh, there's this other problem going on, right? And he has that recognized in it. And it reinforces the position of no perfectionism or no pessimism as we talk about it. We're in a fight, yes. But here's the point, it's a fight. And I say this is true of everyone who has been joined to Christ, right? It is a fight which we will not and cannot lose. That's the thing that we have to see here. If you're in Christ, you will not lose this fight. In fact, you cannot lose it because God has committed himself to you through his son. There is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. Right, so justification has solved the penalty problem in relationship to the law. And two things come alongside of this in chapter eight, because it's not just enough to say that the penalty has been removed. He goes after the power of sin and says, the answer to that's not the law. You know what the answer is? It's the answer is in the spirit. dwelling in the heart of the believer so that you can now serve in newness of the spirit rather than in oldness of the letter. That's what he said back in chapter seven. He says in chapter eight, the spirit of life in Christ has set you free, right? The spirit will animate this, but it's not just the present presence of the spirit. It's actually the promise of resurrection. Cause he goes just like this in chapter eight, right? If the spirit is alive, then he will raise your body. So then you are not under any obligation to the flesh to fulfill its lust, but instead should be putting to death the deeds of the body. Right, so the power of sin, which we still feel to some degree, has been ultimately broken, even as we fight with it, and the Spirit of God can enable us to grow in grace and fight that fight. And part of why we do it is because we're full of hope that we're gonna win. I mean, God said that he's gonna do this for us. And all things work together for good to those that love God and are called according to his purpose. And his purpose is to make those who've trusted in Christ just like Christ, right? He predestined us to be conformed to the image of his son. This is the work of God that fills us with hope so that we keep pressing on. So this passage is specifically, I think, designed to wage war against potential pride that thinks we're sufficient in ourselves, against perfectionism that thinks that we can reach a state where we no longer have a fight with sin in this life, or a kind of pessimism that thinks we'll never actually be able to win any battles in that fight. All that stuff needs to be set aside. The passage warns us about the traitor that's in us so that we don't trust in ourselves. Any kind of view of sanctification that is wrapped around me as the key engine to it is a serious mistake because I'm starting to put my confidence in myself. I can do this. I mean, there's lots of stuff that might be true. You can do this, you can do this, you can do this. But when it comes to this area, we better modify that. You can do that through Christ. You can do that in Christ. Better yet, Christ can do that in you. But anything that's putting the trust in me is a bad move. And it warns us that because of the traitor inside, we can't look to external forces as the answer or conformity. Because the problems in here, just pressing on the outside of me might suppress some of my sinful actions, but it doesn't actually deal with the problem. Okay, and we need to remember that. I mean, I'm actually all for suppressing some things, right? That's a good part of God's kindness to us. But at the end of the day, if the only thing keeping us from sin are the external realities, then we're in trouble. Because when there's no external pressure, what's inside is gonna come bursting out. We need work done inside of us by the grace of God. And I would suggest to you that's a part of why we have to be cautious about these contemporary efforts at a positive self-image as the approach to sanctification. Because I don't see anything in the text of scripture that goes, I need to get a positive self-image so that then I can actualize spiritually. I think Paul would look at you and go like, what? He'd actually be saying, you know whose image you need to be looking toward? Christ. So you can be transformed into His image, because that's what God wants us to do. And so we have to work with it. This also helps us understand the tensions that we've already seen. I just want to look at one of them and we'll finish for today. But look at chapter 6 and see that what Paul is saying in chapter 7 actually fits comfortably in these kinds of issues. Look at chapter 6. And 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, for he who has died is freed from sin. Wow, that's a powerful thing, isn't it? Look at verse 11. Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God. Verse 22, but now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God. Aren't those positive things? but we need to read those alongside of what he says in verse 12. Look at verse 12. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you would obey its lust, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, right? So here's my point. Chapter seven is simply addressing that tension. Here's what God has done for you. And really powerful, profound things that he's done. So that you can say you're a new person. But hey, don't let sin reign in your mortal body. Don't go on presenting yourself to sin. That is radically contradictory to who you are. But that battle is there, and that's where he comes along in chapter seven. And he's saying, I have desires toward what pleases God, but I fight this gravitational pull in my heart and life at times to go the other way. So don't yield to it. Don't live like that, because that's not what God is doing in you. So folks, the fight is real and we should feel it. But our answer, right? Our answer is found in God through Christ. Here's the way John says it. 1 John, I write these things to you that you would not sin. Right? He wants them to not sin. And then here's what he says. But if you sin, you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. There's the message of Scripture. Paul's saying, listen, we should be servants of God, presenting ourselves to God as instruments of righteousness. That's why I'm urging you, but there is a fight and a battle. So if you feel that fight and you recognize it's real, here's the remedy for you. There's no condemnation of them in Christ Jesus. So make sure that you're looking for your acceptance with God, not by your defeating sin, right? I'm not fighting sin so God will accept me. I'm fighting sin because he has. There's no condemnation in Christ. The penalty of my sin was paid for by Christ and it has been removed. So my only hope, right, in life and death is that as I stand here fighting with sin, I know that that day is guaranteed because of what Christ did at the cross. I'm saved in hope because my hope's in Christ. It's not me. It's not, boy, I hope I win this battle with sin so I can get to heaven. It's, I'm so grateful that Christ took sin by the throat and slammed it and said, it is finished. My hope is in Christ. And that hope then is looking for the ultimate redemption of my body. And then I'm looking, so where's my help? My help is in the Spirit. It's His power, it's His strength, it's His work in me that will produce the heart and actions of obedience. It comes by trusting God to be at work in me for His good pleasure. and me responding to that work, trusting Him and yielding to Him. It is a fight, but it is a fight for which Christ is more than sufficient. And the spirit of life can win in the hearts of those who follow Christ. Let's pray. Well, thank you for your Word and its revelation to us of your work in Christ to provide redemption. I would imagine, I certainly hope, that every one of us in this room that know Christ know that we're sinners. We know that we battle and fight. And sometimes we're not engaged in that as aggressively as we should. Sometimes we get tired and sort of lay down our weapons. Sometimes we get entangled in the affairs of this world. We stop abstaining from fleshly lusts that wage war against our soul. So perhaps today, Lord, you take this passage and use it to rekindle a fire in the hearts of some believer who has become cold and complacent about sin. Awaken them to this incredibly important truth. But also perhaps someone has come today who's been striving and struggling to try to earn your favor and acceptance. And because of that, they haven't looked to Christ. Because to turn to Christ is to turn away from our own efforts to earn salvation. We forsake those all and trust in Him. Would you work this morning to bring them to a clear understanding that by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified? that there is only hope found in the righteousness of Christ, that he obeyed all the way up to the cross, took death upon himself and conquered it through his resurrection and exaltation. May they look to the Savior to be the only answer for their sin. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.