Our Struggle with Sin

We're working our way through this great Christian document, the book of Romans, the unveiling of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The first four chapters we've Paul has developed, the center of the gospel, the center of Christian teaching, and that is that a man can be made right with God through faith in Jesus Christ, because Christ's righteousness is imputed to those who come to him in faith. And then beginning in chapter five, which is kind of a transition chapter, begins then to talk about this issue of how do those who have been made right with God live in this fallen world? Since you still have sin cleaning to you, and I assume you're all aware of that, how do you as justified people as people who are right with God?

How do you live with sin still clinging to you in a fallen world? That's the issue of sanctification. How does God take those that he has set apart for himself and change them in heart, in mind, in soul, in body, in this fallen world? And so he's been unveiling this to us. In chapter six, he showed us how that our identification, our union with Jesus Christ, not only provides the righteousness that we have before God, but this union with Christ also provides for sanctification and our transformation in this life. But listen to these words, I'm going to begin reading in verse 14, and I ask you to think about these words and see if it sounds anything like your own experience in your best efforts to live for Christ in this fallen world.

Do you ever feel like this? Does this describe you? Paul writes, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am a flesh sold into bondage to sin. 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. So now no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh, for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice a very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

I find then the principle, the law, that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good, for I joyfully concur with the law of God and the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin, which is in my members. Wretched man that I am. Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then on the one hand, I myself with my mind, I am serving the law of God, but on the other with my flesh, the law of sin. What a description. Does that remind you of anything like what you go through in your living for Christ? This passage has great relevance to those who want to live for God and yet face the reality of their own sinfulness and their own struggle with sin.

Is there any good news in this passage? Well, we need to ask this passage some questions, and this is how you study the Bible. You simply read carefully and ask good questions and find those answers to those questions. I'm going to ask two questions of the text today that is this passage that we just read. They're not the only questions we could ask, but they're two important questions. The first is who is speaking? Who is speaking here? Paul's language is so stark and so depressing that many have considered the one speaking here as being an unregenerate person, a person who's not yet come to Christ. And needs to come to Christ. Others say that Paul is simply describing the experience of the Jew who attempts to live as a Jewish man, his attempts to live before God in righteousness.

Others have said this is describing a Christian in some phase in his life that he needs to leave and go on beyond this, that this is a picture of a carnal Christian. These struggles, and only those of us who've gone beyond that no longer struggle with sin. Well, the problem with those kinds of solution is that Paul's desire to keep the law doesn't sound like the confession of an unregenerate person. If you remember back over in chapter 8 verse 7, he says, the mindset of the flesh is hostile toward God. It does not subject itself to the law of God, for it's not even able to do so. Has no desire to do so. So this man who's speaking here is speaking as one who desires to keep the law and yet finds it to be a big struggle.

His anguish over his failure here is hardly the expression of an unregenerate person or a Jewish man as Paul was, as he describes himself in Philippians 2, who said before the law, before the law was blameless, that was his attitude before he came to Christ. The struggle that is described here in Romans chapter 7 portrays something that can't be divorced from the picture of conflict that we saw back in chapter 6, that there is this ongoing struggle with sin in the life of the believer. Now, the predominant view of the church throughout church history has been this is Paul speaking about his own experience as a believer, as a mature believer. As a believer is discovering that his great need as a Christian is to learn how to walk in the spirit.

This is a mature Christian who's struggling with sin. I believe that's true for three reasons. The first reason is just the general flow of the argument of this book. He's been talking about in the first four chapters justification before God. How an unbeliever is made right with God by coming to faith in Jesus Christ, not through his works, not through his effort, not through turning over a new leaf, but coming to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and having his righteousness imputed to his account. And now, in chapter 5, he begins to speak about sanctification, the transformation of the life that comes about through our union with Jesus Christ. So in the context here, he's not talking about, and he doesn't have to establish again the fact that the unregenerate man cannot keep the law.

He's already proven that. He's talking here about the believer who attempts to keep the law. The second reason is, is because of the grammar here, Paul speaks in the first person, I, me, I'm the one who's doing this, and he's speaking in the present tense. This is what's going on right now. That's the way he portrays it. This is what I'm facing right now. There's a contrast here up until verse 13, he speaks in the past tense, but now he begins to speak in the present tense. This is what I'm experiencing. And as you read it, I think most of you who are honest would say, I can relate. I can relate to that. The good that I wish to do, I don't do it. I do the very thing that I hate. And there's three things about his statements of himself in this passage that identifies him as a true believer.

He hates sin versus 15 and 16. The unbeliever doesn't hate sin. The unbeliever hates what sin does at times, but the unbeliever doesn't hate sin rebellion against God, independence from God, ignoring God. For example, one of the greatest sins against God is simply to act as though he doesn't exist. You know, some people don't think God should find that offensive, the fact that you act as though he doesn't exist. Why would he be offended by that? We'll try that on your wife this week and see if she's offended. And yet people act live as though God doesn't exist. Paul says he hates sin. And then he says he delights in the law of God, verse 22, only a believer delights in the law of God. And then in verse 25, he looks for deliverance to Christ alone.

That's clearly the mark of a believer. Listen to what John R. W. Stott, a British commentator and preacher in this book, says, now let me repeat that anyone who acknowledges the spirituality of God's law and his own natural carnality is a Christian of some maturity. The more mature you get in the faith, the more you realize what a sinner you are. It's a mark of maturity that we come to understand that our struggle with sin is real. And there are some things that I cherish in my life that I don't even see a sin, and that makes them all the more sinful. What's so sinful about being proud, about feeling holier than now, about feeling superior to people outside my circle? Well, it's the kind of thing Jesus said that makes him want to throw up.

So evidently, it's offensive to God, but it's not offensive to us until the Spirit of God brings the mirror of the law right before our face and we see the truth. The second question we should ask this, Texas, is this a necessary aspect of the Christian life? You mean, I have to actually experience this? Yep. That's right. It is necessary. It seems clear by the word of God and by our own experience that struggle characterizes us as long as we are in the flesh. I was speaking to a believer this last week whose 83 years old been in the faith for 68 years, 68 years, and has been serious about following Christ, and she was telling me that she still has to struggle with sin. Isn't that amazing? The year struggle with sin is going to last her at all of lifetime.

So what Paul is doing here is he is giving us a picture of a believer seeking to keep the law with the resources of the law and his new life alone. What Paul is going to do in chapter 8, I wish we could get there today we won't, but in chapter 8 he is going to say now here's the only solution when you struggle like this and you will struggle. The only solution is what Christ has provided in the Spirit of God. Notice the word occurrences in chapter 7 and 8, this is a simple little thing you just go through in circle words, but notice it reveals something to us. In chapter 7 Paul uses the word I 30 times. In chapter 8 at least the first 17 verses really all I'm thinking of, he doesn't use the word I at all.

In chapter 7 he uses the word law 20 times, in chapter 8 he uses it only four times, very special uses there. In chapter 7 he mentions the Holy Spirit zero times. In chapter 8 he mentions the Holy Spirit 30 times. Do you see the contrast and so what Paul is doing is he's giving us a picture here of what it's like to have honest desires to serve God, live for God, walk with God and yet experience complete and ongoing failure and of course we're going to see the solution. Our only hope is the Holy Spirit of God in whom we walk and we get to chapter 8. Let me remind you something we talked about this before is that we live in what's called the overlap of the ages. That's what theologians have come to the already not yet aspect of the kingdom of God as we see in first John chapter 3.

Now we are the children of God but it does not yet appear what we shall be. It's true you are children of God but I can tell you we can't tell you that any difference in you and the way you looked and sometimes even in the way we act from those who are not children of God but there's coming a day the not yet period of the kingdom of God when you will be able to tell that we are all children of God. It's going to show in our faces. It's going to show in our count. It's going to show in everything about us. So we live in this overlap of the ages. Now the old age before the coming of Christ is pictured in Scripture in this way and Paul does this throughout the first chapters of the book of Romans.

He keeps making this comparison of the old age and the new age. That is before Christ and now with Christ. Under the old age Paul is describing himself there as I myself with my flesh I am serving the law of sin. He described it as being an atom being in the flesh but the new age I myself Paul says with my mind I'm serving the law of God and he describes us as being in Christ or living in the Spirit. Now here's the problem for the believer. We are living in both ages at the same time and sometimes it really gets to us that we still experience both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. The fact is that the believer, the Christian, does not any longer live a life fundamentally determined or controlled by the flesh but we still feel the rumblings of the flesh within.

The flesh continues to be a powerful force in our experience and we can be moving in the flesh very easily. We all are aware of that. We see it all the time in our lives. We can be very fleshly and very carnal. The conflict with sin doesn't diminish as you go on in the Christian life in fact it increases because the more that you turn to the Spirit the more the flesh rises up, sin rises up in this struggle. Now let's look at in the text itself just three things are helpful and that is that there are three cycles in this text as we read it and as you look at it carefully you'll see it as you read through it you'll see there's repetition here and there are three cycles and those cycles go like this.

In verses 14 through 17 he describes himself as a slave of sin. In verses 18 through 20 he's describing himself as a believer as being impotent for good. He wants to do the good thing but he doesn't and then in verses 21 through 25 he describes a believer as always in a losing conflict. It's kind of this law of repetitive capture. I keep being captured by sin. This isn't the kind of thing that you typically admit in open conversations. You have to get into a recovery group or something where people start to be honest about their lives and about how they keep succumbing to the same kind of sin. You read the statistics about the church, Christianity and members of churches and the kinds of struggles they have.

You discover that the church in the church the manifestation of sin is as great as it is outside the church in general. There's as many marriages that fall apart in the church as outside the church in America. There's as much pornography in the lives of Christian men as there are in non-Christian men that is shocking but that's exactly what every study shows. Why is that? Why do we succumb so easily to sin? Why is there this repetitive and sometimes when it comes out of the open Paul says some men sins go before them others follow after and every time we hear about some highly known high visibility Christian leader who falls into some kind of gross sin is so shocking but it scares the daylights out of us because we know we all have a struggle with sin and there are many Christians who never admit to anybody outside of their own hearts that they struggle with serious sin in their life until it becomes known and Jimmy swaggered was his sin was publicly made known the such shame and what came to the surface was that he had been struggling with the same sin for many many many years and here's an example of a man who preached so hard I'd never heard anybody preach against sin so hard as Jimmy swagger the very sins that he was bound to that he was in bondage to and no doubt I assume what happens to him what was happening to him was he kept trying to be free from it and he thought preaching against it was almost redemptive for him to preach against the very sins he was succumbing to was redemptive for him see the struggle with sin is real we may not want to talk about it openly but the fact is believers struggle with sin sometimes the sin is much more tolerable in Christian circles it's much easier to be a racist in the church of Jesus Christ than it is to be something else there are some Christian circles I've been in where people are openly racist and feel good about it that's a horrendous sin you know right I mean that's a sin against the living God who created man his own image and yet it's tolerable in some Christian circles and there are certain sins that are tolerable in this in Christian circles and others are not but the fact is we all struggle with sin these in these three cycles notice what he does in each one of them he first in each one of these cycles he acknowledges his condition which is really important to acknowledge your condition secondly he gives a depiction of the conflict he goes into some detail about the conflict that's going on inside of him the in the first second and third cycle and then in the finally the last the ending of each cycle is identification of the cause which is guess what in dwelling sin it's fine to say the devil made me do it that worked good for flip Wilson made millions of dollars in that line but you know what it's true Satan does attack but I'll tell you what you could live and sin without the devil you don't even need demons go clinton talks about his demons and struggling with his demons I'll tell you what he was struggling with he was struggling with in dwelling sin that's what you struggle with it's what I struggle with that's where the warriors is with in dwelling sin let's look at each one of these cycles the first one verses 14 through 17 here we have the believer as a slave to sin for we know that the law is spiritual but the problem is I am a flesh sold into bondage to sin that's my condition even though I've been regenerate I've been changed and delivered in many ways but I'm still a flesh I still have flesh I'm still not transformed I still haven't been set free from the body of this death for what I am doing I do not understand for I'm not practicing what I would what I wish to do but I am doing the very thing that I hate but I if I do the very thing I do not want to do I agree with the law confessing that the law is good and then notice his final statement he identifies the source so now no longer am I the one doing it but sin which dwells in me he's not as he's not trying to escape responsibility he's being very vivid in his description he says there something inside of me that is so powerful that at times it takes me captive and I become enslaved to sin and I end up doing the very thing that I hate the very thing I don't want to do Gifford in his commentary on this passage says a slave that has been sold is more wretched than a home born slave he says I have been sold into sin Adam wasn't created to be a slave he was creating the image of God and display the glory of God but he was sold into sin we were not created to be slaves of sin Gifford goes on a man is said to have been sold because he has not been a slave from the beginning that is God's design slavery to sin is not the proper condition of our nature the believer is not master in his own house that's what gets us about indwelling sin is it takes us captive in our own house that's the horrible thing about house invasions home invasions people come into your own house and take over your lives steal from you do damage to you Paul says that's exactly what sin is done is this come into my very life it dwells within me and notice in this context how he uses the word i in this section there's only one i there's only one Paul but this one person has two sides to his being and so he says the i and he uses it as a comprehensive way including both his sinfulness and his righteousness both the fact that he has been affected by the spirit of God and the fact that he still has flesh and then at other times he uses it to refer simply to the inward man the man that has been transformed by the work of the spirit and his deepest self so there's one person but he has both a mind which has been affected by regeneration Ephesians chapter 4 verse 23 says that we have been regenerated in the in the mind of our spirit that the mind itself our ability to know God and understand God and to acknowledge God has been radically changed by regeneration our eyes have been opened and so he says I have both mind which is set free and I have flesh that is indwelling sin and he is responsible for all that's found in his total personality I can't say I didn't do it my sin did it no I did it because I submitted to this powerful force of sin the second cycle he gives us a verse 18 through 20 and he says describes himself as being impotent for good he can't do the good not only as he captive to sin but he can't bring himself to do the good and notice I describes this for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is my flesh for the willing that is the wishing is present in me but the doing of the good is not for the good that I want I do not do but I practice the very evil that I do not want but if I am the one doing the very thing I do not want I am no longer the one doing it but sin which dwells in me and again he uses the same pattern this is an explanation and a confirmation of what he just said he sees himself as a divided person in me and in my flesh I struggle this is a part of me that can wish for the good but I can't carry it out and then in this third cycle in verse 21 through 25 he says I'm always in a losing conflict the believer is always losing in this battle when he battles against sin listen to these words they're wretched I mean they're depressing he says in verse 21 I find them the principal the law at work in other words this law that is at work in me that evil is present in me the one who wants to do good because I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man but I see a different law in the members of my body waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members oh wretched man that I am who will set me free from the body of this death wow the enemy within is stronger than this renewed self he says I keep succumbing to it I keep losing the battle repetitively it takes me captive over and over again very vivid portrayal of the believer always losing the conflict you ever feel like that you don't have to even acknowledge that I just know that you do at times I know that you have it times you think there's something wrong with you there's something deficient in you there's something that hasn't been you you don't have whichever other believer has now some people aren't even aware of this they just they give into their particular sins they don't even realize you don't even recognize them as sin most of the time and so finally we hear this agonizing cry oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death I don't know for sure if this is true but there is a possibility that what Paul is doing here with this expression the body of this death is is referring to an uncommon but very real practice in ancient civilization where they would take a especially heinous murderer because of the nature of his crime and they would take the corpse that he has murdered and tie the corpse to him face to face and that was his sentence to live out his remaining time face to face with the body of this death now it may be that that's exactly what Paul is referring to here when he cries out who shall deliver me from the body of this death because at times it feels like that doesn't it when you want to live for Christ you want to obey the law you want to obey his will you want to do righteousness you want to do good but you keep being overwhelmed by the power of the temptation of sin so now Paul is at the end of himself that's what's important about this text right here Paul comes to the end of himself and it's important that he comes to the end of himself because until you come to the end of him of yourself then God doesn't come in and deliver no longer is he looking within but now he says who can deliver me offered Lord Tennyson wrote in one of his works oh that a man would arise in me that the man I am may cease to be here if you like that I wish somebody would zap me and just change me completely so I wouldn't no longer be the person I am I'd be a different person that's the cry of the concern Christian the Christian wants to live for Christ who wants to live an obedience to him and finds himself continually falling into disobedience he's aware of his weakness and he longs for deliverance he longs to be set free from the bondage of sin that dwells within him and then notice we have here this great cry of victory here's the good news after all that bad news a lot of bad news in this passage you read it but listen to the good news it's found this one phrase in verse 25 he breaks forth with this cry of victory I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord what is he saying that's the answer to his question who will in the future deliver me from the body of this death who is going to remove sin from me I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord there's a resurrection coming you know that one of these days you won't be like you are one of these days you won't be tempted to do what you keep falling into you're going to be set free through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and you'll no longer be the sinner that you are succumbed to the kind of sin that you succumbed to you'll become a different kind of person in the resurrection and you think oh man that's that's kind of good news but what about between now and then well this is how Paul describes it the end of verse 25 so then on the one hand I myself with my mind and serving the law of God I have this deep reverence for God's law and for God and his will I desire and I love the law but on the other hand with my flesh the law of sin Jesus is the only deliverer and he's going to deliver me in the resurrection but he says so that in this present state in my with my mind I serve the law of God but with my flesh I serve the law of sin and death this final sentence summarizes the major point of the section and it's this that the believers struggle is that between the mind and the flesh it's between the deepest part of who he is through the regenerating work of the spirit through union with Jesus Christ he has been changed at the deepest level of who he is he actually desires he loves God and he loves God's law he loves the will of God but he still has a deal with the flesh he still has a deal with the flesh these two entities within the believer's struggle for control as long as a believer is in the flesh and until the resurrection of the body there's going to be a struggle I hate to let you in on that but there is no second third or fifteenth blessing that's going to eradicate your sin nature you're going to struggle with sin throughout all of life can all the people over 70 say amen they're afraid to say amen it it's true you will always struggle with sin but there's really good news coming in chapter 8 the good news goes begins like this there is therefore now no condemnation to those who in Christ Jesus remember when Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery and all of their accusers were there they brought her before Jesus they wanted to stoner and they they throw her down at the feet of Jesus they caught her in the act of adultery the law said you should stone her and Jesus stooped down and begin to write in the sand and then he simply said to these men who wanted to condemn her he who was without sin led him cast the first stone and they all walked away and then Jesus said to the woman where are your accusers she didn't know they had all departed and Jesus said neither do I condemn thee go and sin no more you know what's really tough about a lot of relationships I used to have a friend that I work with pretty closely and he had a habit of carrying a guillotine in his back pocket you know what I mean he carried a gavel in his back pocket and he was ready to go to court anytime to judge your actions your motives your life and that's what he felt his spiritual maturity maybe that was a spiritual gift to discern your sin and pass a judgment upon you and so the relationship was always shaky because if you didn't live up to his expectations condemnation would come you've had relationships like that haven't you people that you can't you couldn't dare be honest with them about what's really going on in your life because they would pull out the gavel and pass judgment they would condemn you and Paul says there is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus that's an amazing statement you mean I can have a relationship with a holy God who is perfect in every way who knows the very motivations of my heart and I can have a relationship with him in which there is no condemnation yes and that's what chapter 8 is going to explain how to enjoy this no condemnation relationship while you're still in the state you're in not California but in the state of sin the conclusion of all this I guess is that God must do something for us if we are to be safe in the penalty of sin that's what we saw in the first four chapters if you're going to ever be forgiven if you're ever going to be set free from your record of sin and not be condemned before the judgment of God God must do something for us outside of us because we never could Paul is established a fact that given a million chances you would never keep the law of God you would always fall short secondly God must do something in us if we are going to be delivered from the power of sin that lives within if God doesn't do something in me I will always succumb to sin that's what Paul has established in this passage we looked at I will always succumb to sin if God doesn't do something in me and then finally God must do something for us and in us at the resurrection if we are to have ultimate deliverance from sin and its consequences for all eternity now the good news is he has he has done what was necessary in order to give you forgiveness he is doing something in your life right now through the work of the spirit to deliver you from the power of sin believer and he will at that resurrection do something in us and for us when he transforms us glorifies us makes us all that he wants us to be in Christ Jesus that's the good news now it all adds up to the sufficiency of Jesus Christ and his saving work for our inability both when we come to Christ and as we live in Christ it all adds up to the sufficiency of Christ is Christ sufficient to take someone such as you or I who has indwelling sin and in our own strength we are always even though we have the deep desire we are always unable to overcome the power of sin in our lives this sufficiency is received only when our inability our knowledge it's only as we come to the place where Paul came in Romans 7 where we recognize the truth I am in desperate need of deliverance in my daily life from the power of sin there's no plateau there's no second level Christianity there isn't any second blessing that will deliver you from this struggle the only thing will do deliver you from this struggle is the sufficiency of Jesus Christ as it is brought to bear in your life through the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit now the next time we come back to Romans what we'll see in chapter 8 is Paul's going to tell us how we must live if we are going to experience deliverance by the Holy Spirit if we do not walk in the Spirit as he's going to describe it as we if we are not led by this spirit as he describes it then we will be frustrated continually in the Christian life instead of having these short seasons these incidents in our life where we succumb to the power of sin regret it turn back take hold of Christ our lives will become dominated and it will bring great grief upon our lives you know almost every wedding I ever do I always mention the fact that if this couple will follow the commands of Scripture concerning their roles and marriage it will bring great joy and happiness to their life but if they neglect these instructions of what a husband is to do what a wife is to do it will cause great grief and unhappiness and sorrow most unhappy people in all the world are who are people who are married and not living according to the prescription of God's given to us as husbands and wives I can tell you them only people more unhappy are believers who do not walk in the Spirit but instead suffer the kind of continual and ongoing defeat that Paul's talking about so next time we come back to this we'll begin we'll be looking at this good news there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death for what the law could not do weak as it was through the flesh God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteousness of the law would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit you know if you're just walking in the flesh if you're a Christian but you're just walking after the flesh I can tell you it is a miserable path to go down there's a better way it's the way of the Spirit that's what he's calling us to why we stand together and close in prayer our father as we approach the throne of grace today we're constantly being made aware of how much we need what only Christ's sufficiency provides not only did we need you in order to be made right with you to have righteousness put on our account to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ but we need you now today as Christians who are attempting to live in righteousness in a fallen world and we are being bombarded with temptation and lies about the reality and truth of life so we pray that you would help us today we pray that we would walk in the Spirit and experience the joy of the Spirit the joy of deliverance through him we pray help us now as we encourage one another and site one another to love in good deeds that we do it in the power of the Spirit we pray in Jesus' name amen amen