What
we looked at in the last two sermons was very encouraging. We have been freed
from the power of sin, freed to live to God as whole people. And to be reminded
of that part of the Gospel can be encouraging, indeed. Yet, as you know, that’s
not the whole picture. There’s also the other side of the coin. This morning we’re
going to take a look at the battle that we all face. Listen to how Paul
describes this battle in his life.
I do not understand my own actions.
For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I
do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I
who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells
in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not
the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do
not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer
I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when
I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God,
in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the
law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my
members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law
of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. Romans 7.15-25
What
I just read is Paul’s description of the battle that every Christian has to
deal with. We delight in God’s Law. We desire to obey it, to do it. That’s the
result of our being freed from sin. And yet, as Paul wrote, ‘evil lies close at
hand’. And what, all too often, is the result of that? What did Paul write?
I do not do the good I want, but the
evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
Instead
of living lives of perfect obedience, we struggle with and too often are
defeated by sin. We need to explore this.
Here
is the first thing that I want you to see. Having this battle with sin is not
an indication that you are somehow failing as a disciple. No, this ongoing
battle is actually a part of what it means to be a Christian. You might even
call it a ‘normal part’ of being a Christian. I say that to be encouraging to
any of you who struggle with this and maybe even doubt that Jesus has rescued
you. You’re not a failure. You’re fighting the battle that every Christian is
called to fight. In fact, if a Christian is not
facing this situation, is not
battling against sins as Paul describes here, something has gone wrong,
seriously wrong. Fighting this battle is part of what we are called to do.
Some
of you have heard about movements like Victorious Christian Living or the
Higher Life. These were popular in years gone by. Their claim was that a
Christian could skate through life without any of this battling with sin. That’s
for lesser Christians. But if you had the faith to believe, to really believe,
this painless life could be yours.
The
names for this kind of attitude are different today, but the lies are the same.
Jesus never promised carefree Christian living. Actually,
quite the opposite. And such claims certainly don’t fit with what Paul has
described here as his own experience. Don’t be fooled. Living as a faithful
Christian is hard. There are battles to fight.
Here’s
a way to understand this battling that really helps: Christian suffering. That
label defines any situation where a Christian is fighting against sin. It may
well be that the attacking sin comes from outside of us. Here, think of
persecution. But Christian suffering can also be about something that is
internal, like our battles with sin. And the Gospel is clear that suffering is
a part of every Christian’s life. What Paul has described is every Christian’s
experience.
Now,
let me ask a question you might be thinking. Why? Why is it this way? God could
have set things up so very differently. Actually, He could have set it all up
so that we would, in fact, all be ‘victorious Christians’, never having to face
the evil of sin in the way that Paul has described. The Father could have
decided that once a person becomes a Christian he or she is completely sanctified.
All issues about sin would be gone. All sin would be gone. Every act and
thought and attitude would be the response of holy obedience. And that’s not
hard to imagine. After all, this is exactly how we will live after Jesus
returns. Every act and thought and attitude will, in fact, be the response of
holy obedience. The Father could have moved up the timetable so that perfection
would happen in this life instead of waiting for the next life. He could have
done that. But He didn’t. No, instead, here we are battling away, sometimes
winning, sometimes losing. Why?
It’s
important to remember that God’s goal in the Gospel is not for us to arrive in
heaven. No, His goal is greater than that. His goal is for us to become whole
people, just like Adam and Eve before that first sin, whole people whose
purpose is to reveal the beauty of God. But we’re not whole people. And God
wants us to become whole.
Now,
one thing that is required if we’re going to become whole people is growing in
our understanding of reality. It’s having a growing understanding of God, of
ourselves, of our situation.
We
need a growing understanding of our situation. We live in a world that sin has
corrupted and twisted all up. It actually is worse than we realize. We need to
see that more clearly. It’s only as a person really gets the bad news that the
good news will be seen as really good. We need to see the world as it really
is.
We
also need a growing understanding of ourselves. So, who are you?
Why
do you do the things that you do? And that includes the good things as well as
the bad things that you do. Why do you do them?
What
are the priorities of your life? Not your announced priorities, what you might
tell others, but your real priorities, what your heart really thinks is important?
What
stirs your soul?
How
does the evil of sin express itself in your life?
These
questions need good solid answers if you are going to understand yourself. But
how many try to live without really understanding themselves. That can only lead
to poor choices, being deceived and experiencing frustration. How sad. By the
grace of the Spirit, we can avoid those problems.
Behind
both of those, understanding your situation and understanding yourself, is
understanding God. People don’t understand life or themselves or much else
because they don’t understand God. But think about it. He is the one who runs
all of this. And He does that having certain goals in mind, following a certain
style, using certain methods. So, who is He? What is He like? What are His priorities? How does He achieve
those priorities? And where does He want us to fit in with all of that?
I
went through all of that to be able to ask a question and to answer it in terms
of our topic. How do you grow in understanding? One tool that God uses for your
growth in these things is suffering. And that includes things like having a
knock-down, drag-out fight with the sin that lives within you. It’s when you
are confronted with that battle that you are able to see the real you in
action. That’s when your heart, what you really believe, is revealed. In
addition to that, you get to see your God in action. You get to see His style,
His priorities, His responses to your tactics in this battle. It’s in the midst
of this battle that you’re able to see the real nature of this life. That’s
when you can see how your life has been corrupted so greatly by the evil of
sin. And that’s when you can see how your God is at work redeeming your life.
Now,
being able to see these things, growing in understanding, is not an automatic
result of this battle. There are many who suffer without growing at all in
their understanding of important things. But the battle is an opportunity for
that growth to happen.
Don’t
take what I’m saying as an attempt to sugar coat your battles, as if I were saying
that they are somehow good. They aren’t good. Sin is still evil and dealing
with it can be very wearying. But God uses evil to produce good. Remember the
Cross. This battling sin really is one of God’s tools that can result in you
growing in your understanding of God, of yourself and of your situation. It’s a
pathway to becoming a whole person.
And
that’s one reason God has set up life in this way.
Now,
for the practical question. So, what do you do? How do you respond to this
battle? Here are a couple of things.
Lament.
As you find yourself in the midst of this battle with sin, this wearying battle
with sin, it’s good and right to lament, to express to God your grief at all of
this. David and others do that often enough in the Psalms. And isn’t that what
Paul is doing here?
Wretched man that I am! Who will
deliver me from this body of death?
Wouldn’t
that fit in a Psalm of lament? Never minimize the evil parts of life. Lamenting
fits.
Another
thing that you need to do is to continue to fight those battles. As Paul wrote
here, you do serve the law of God. That is who you really are. So, you fight on
so that you will serve God’s law. And that is something that you can do with
great optimism. You can defeat those sins and get rid of them, one by one. So,
fight on. Paul will explain how to get rid of sin in the next section of his
letter. So, next time we’ll look at that to see how we can battle our sins and
win.
There
is one more thing to mention here. And Paul gives a quick glance at this before
he moves on to that next topic.
For
reasons that I’m not going to go into, Paul associates the evil of his sin with
his body. And that’s why he asks this question.
Who will deliver me from this body of
death?
And
the answer is obvious. Jesus will. And He’ll do that at the resurrection. That’s
why Paul answers his own question with this.
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ
our Lord!
Some
words that Paul wrote elsewhere fit here. They’re about our future resurrection
bodies.
When the perishable puts on the
imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the
saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O
death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the
power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through
our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:54-57
All
this will happen at the resurrection. This is when we will enjoy the victorious
Christian life. This is when there will be no more sin to battle. No more
suffering. No more losing to sin. No more weariness. So, another thing for you
to do is to work to develop and pray for a lively hope in the age to come. As
that hope develops in you, you will be able to keep fighting this battle. It is
the hope of the resurrection that will keep you going.
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