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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.
The Enemy Within
Series Life and Hope in Christ
| Sermon ID | 310231938381494 |
| Duration | 1:07:44 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Romans 7:14-25 |
| Language | English |
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