Inner Confliction & The Gospel (3 parts)
May 5, 2007 10:29 am Sermon-Series, Chapter 7, Romans, Sermon-TextsA three part sermon series addressing the theme of Inner Confliction & The Gospel from an exegetical treatment of Romans 7:13-25. These sermons were originally preached in April and May of 2007 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © THE RESOLVED CHURCH
Permissions: you are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and
distribute this material provided you NOT alter the wording in any way and you
do not charge a fee. For web posting a link to this document is preferred.
:: The Resolved Church ::
www.theresolved.com
contact@theresolved.com
(619) 393-1990
THE INNER CONFLICTION AND THE GOSPEL SERIES: THREE PARTS
by Pastor Duane Smets
INNER CONFLICTION AND THE GOSPEL - Part I
:: The Resolved Church :: April 15th, 2007 :: Pastor Duane M. Smets
Inner Confliction and The Gospel - when sin gets the upper hand
Romans 7:13-25 (Part I)
I. The Law and Gospel Connection
II. Who’s Experience is This?
1. the structure of Romans
2. the plain reading
3. 1st century Judaism
4. Paul’s pre-conversion
5. honest self-assessment
6. the Christian struggle
III. The Gospel Response
- theme one: true hedonism
Romans 7:13-25
13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 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. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 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. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 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.
Introduction
Good morning church. Today we embark in studying one of the most experientially vivid, honest, relevant at the same time both spiritually liberating and spiritually devastating and yet hopeful passages in the whole Bible. We are back to our study of the book Romans, which we as a church are taking a few years to carefully go through. So let’s read the text and pray.
God, without the illuminating gift of your Spirit our minds will be confused as we study this passage. Through your faithful servants you have given us the Bible to tell us about yourself, about Jesus and how he so perfectly fits the great need of our body and soul. Guard us from error today as we study. May we walk away today with a deeper understanding of the gospel and not take this passage as an excuse to let inner conflict run rampad in us and at the same time may we not leave using this passage as a warrant for freedom from struggle. Show us your glory, may your Son Jesus shine with exceeding brightness, allow us to see and be saved despite our sin and corrupt natures. Amen.
Last week was Easter and I preached a sermon about the connection between the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and the mission of Jesus Christ after he rose. I said that mission begins at resurrection and that being a Christian begins at the point where you become strongly persuaded in your mind that Jesus really is and really rose from the dead. Biblical faith begins in the mind, flows then to affections and then plays itself out in your actions, in how you live. That is slope of how God designed faith to be. So here is faith, prepare your minds for action. You are going to have to work the muscle of your mind today.
I. The Law and Gospel Connection
So first let’s catch our minds up with where we were last in Romans because it is really important for this passage. Where we were was in verses 7-12 for a month, four sermons on the connection between law and gospel. Earlier Paul had written some pretty gnarly stuff about law. Things like we need to die to it, that it arouses sinful passions and that it hold us captive. So Paul, one of the fisrt church planters, wrote verses 7-12 to defend the law and show us how it leads us to the Jesus gospel.
Through the course of a month we looked as the six different ways that Paul tries to show that there are some bad effects that result from our intereaction as humans with the law. The law being either the written commandments in the Bible or the unwritten, inner moral sense inside us as humans. So Paul writes to defend the law and to help us put it in a proper persepective. And our first verse of study today, verse 13 is really a recalling or a restatement or a summary of verses 7-12. Let me show you.
Read verse 7 with me, “What shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.” That’s verse 7. Now read verse 13, our first verse of study for today. “Did that which is good (the law), then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good (the law), in order that sin might be known shown to be sin, and the the commandment (the law) might become sinful beyond measure.”
Does it sound similar to you? Is the law sin? By no means! Did the law bring death? By no means! The law makes me know sin and thus my need for a savior. Do you guys see the connection? So Paul is really continuing the same line of thought in our passage today but in verse 14 he takes a turn and dives into this experiential illustration to continue to defend the law, show human sinfulness, and display the greatness and goodness of the gospel that cures it.
If we wanted to we could have just taken verse 13-25 and clumped them down together as a seventh reason in our Law and Gospel series dealing with verse 7-12. But we didn’t do that and here is why. The reason is because once we hit verse 14, we dive into a deep canyon. There are a ton of issues that this section of Scripture brings out. This passage, for some is a very dear passage of comfort, consolation and hope and for others it is a passage they hate and think it has no relation to being a Christian at all. In this passage we dive into a hot bed of controversy that is fueled by emotions and pain and fear and bad theology and all kinds of stuff and it’s a mess.
II. Who’s Experience is This?
So because of all that we are going to do three sermons, maybe four on it, we’ll see. So here is the big question. Here is where the lines get drawn from there things go in almost every direction. Who is this? That is the question. Who is this? All this talk about “I” and the things I want to do and don’t do. Such an intimate look at a divided conflicted person. Can this person really be a Christian and if it is, is this really Paul, the great church planter who wrote two-thirds of the entire New Testament Bible? Is he just speaking hypothetically? If it is a Christian is that what it’s like to be a Christian, when does this conflict occur, is it right before or right after if it is a Christian. You can see why things get pretty thick and intense huh?
So what are we to do? We are a group of “resolved” people who believe in Jesus and want to follow him and read and understand his Bible. What do we do when we come to a passage like this? There are two options.
One is to say, “who cares.” I just love Jesus and isn’t that enough. Controversy is bad and I don’t like getting into fights, so I just stay out of anything where there is disagreement, because how can you ever really know what side is right anyway? I just love everyone. That’s one way.
The other way is to suck it up, dive in and try and figure it out. That’s what we’re going to do. It’s going to be good times. That’s our evangelistic technique here. Invite your friends next week and say, you should come to church with me. My pastor is preaching about the inner confliction of a post-christian from the ancient letter to the romans in the seventh chapter where he defends the nomos with an existential illustration of depravity and hope in the gospel. I’m sure they’ll jump at that oppurtunity. J
So I have 12 arguments that we are going to go through. We are going to try and go through six today. But before we start let me tell you why we are working through the text this way, in the form of looking at arguments. Are all arguments bad?
No. I’ve said it before and we have to learn it. But just because there is controversy over something does not means that one position isn’t right and we cannot afford to let the things that we believe be dictated by what Satan can cause controversy over. Often times the most precious things are the things upon which controversy hovers over. And the real truth is, everything is controversy. That we believe God exists, that the Bible is true, that Jesus is God and rose from the dead, and that Jesus is the one true religion…that’s kind of controversial. J
So arguments are not bad…they are necessary. Though know this that my goal is not to make good you good arguerers. If you think you are a good arguerer your probably a conceded, arrogant jerk and people don’t like you very much. The goal is not to make us a bunch of smart people who are superior to everyone else because we know what we believe and why. No my goal is that we would strive to have an honest faith that is rooted and ground in the truth of Scripture and that some how in the way I preach I would implicitly teach you how to read you Bible. And to do that we have to deal with controversial things.
Okay, hopefully you guys are all excited now. So here we go. I’m not good at concealing what I really think so I just say it out right, actually, I think I already said it. But I am convinced that this passage is talking about a Christian, that it is the experience of Paul and all Christians alike, even sometimes, long after first becoming a Christian.
1. the structure of Romans
First reason, the structure of Romans. What a text means is not whatever it means to me in my own personal experience. The Bible is an amazing, divinely inspired book, but it is not magic. We read it just like we read any other book. And like other books the book of Romans has a beginning, middle, and end. In the first five chapters Paul made a case that all are ungodly both by our actions and our nature and that there is an eternal penalty for that, the wrath of God, but we can be spared from wrath by believing that Jesus was really God who came and as the eternal God suffered eternal wrath in our place on the cross. It’s what we call propitation.
But gospel is an easier word, gospel means good news and it is good news not only because of what it provides for us in the future but also now. So in chapter six Paul talked about the nature of grace and how it works after becoming a Christian (how it has implications for seeing Jesus as our master and as our spouse) and now in chapter seven he has been talking about the nature of the law and how it works after becoming a Christian (how we come to love the law as it protects us and leads us to Jesus).
So structure. Both chapter six and seven fall consequetively and conceptually after chapter 1-5 as part of a tightly fit argument where Paul is systematically and chronologically ordering his book about how God is glorious in saving sinners. Thus, chapter seven must be the experience of a saved believer based upon the general theme, purpose and outline of the book.
2. the plain reading
Second reason, the plain reading of the text. A general rule of thumb when reading any text of any kind is that the right way to understand and interpret it is whatever the most natural, plain, and obvious way of reading it is. I mean listen to some of this again, “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 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. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 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. 24 Wretched man that I am!”
I, I, I, I, me, my…it’s kind of obivious isn’t it. He uses I, me, or my forty times in this passage! In the present tense, to say that he is talking out of his own experience. He doesn’t give us any clues that he is saying anything else. He doesn’t say he is speaking hypothetically, or that he is speaking from the past before he became a Christian. He shares it as a personal illustration and to not see it as that is to reject the straight forward impression and to read a whole bunch of stuff into the grammar and words that seem to work so hard to say, “look, I know what I am talking about, here is my experience.” Now I grant it that sometimes the meaning of a certain passage may not be all that clear from the outset. But is this really one of those passages? I don’t think so. I think it takes enormous amounts of exegetical gymnastics to get anything else out of these words to make them say that this is not the inner struggle of a Christian.
3. 1st century Judaism
Third reason, a first century Jew. Let’s consider the historical and cultural background of this text. Another tool we use for correctly interpreting the Bible. For the sake of argument, let’s say that this is a first century Jew living in Palestine. Is this the way they would talk about their law? “I joyfull concur with the law of God in my inner man”?
Here is what we know about 1st century Judaism and the law. The law was everything…you have three main schools of thought about the law, the pharisees, the sadducees, and the zealots. And all three groups were meticulous in keep every point of the law to a perfect “t.” Would such a person, with a total committment of outward perfection for their righteousness say as verse 21 does “I delight in the law of God in my inner being”? I don’t think so. The law was not an internal issue for them. I think I can show you this.
4. Paul’s pre-conversion
Let’s go to our forth reason and look at passages in the Bible where we get pictures of Paul, as a 1st century Jew, before his conversion. Two passages, Galatians 1 and Philippians 3. You can read along with me if you like.
Galatians 1:13-14 “For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism (so real clear here, we’ve got pre-Chrisitian Paul), how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and treid to destroy it; and I was advancing in Judaism beyond my countrymen (sound like a little competition, outward perfection), being more extremely zealous for my ancesteral traditions.”
That’s one picture. Here’s the other.
Philippians 3:4-6 “If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness, under the law blameless.”
So first, does a pre-Chrisitan Jew in the first century “delight in the law of God in their inner man.” I don’t think so…that sounds much more like a joy of a believer in Jesus who sees Christ as the fulfillment of the law and all it’s requirements.
But here is the even bigger issue. In those two passages we read, did you hear the sound of any struggle. Those who say that this passage of Scripture is a person before they become a Christian say it has to be because someone who really knows Jesus shouldn’t talk like this right? So struggle is before. But did you hear struggle? I didn’t. It doesn’t sound like there was any conflict of conscience at all. The law was something Paul boasted about and was proud of. He was the very opposite of this divided and sometimes tormented man we read about in our passage today. So my fourth reason for saying this is a Christian is because before Paul became a follower Christ he had no internal struggle, just competition for perfection, trying to earn favor with God by doing all the right things.
5. honest self-assessment
Fifth reason, an honest self-assessment. It seems to me that Paul here in our passage today, is wrestling with himself, and that the reason he wrestles is because the Holy Spirit has done a huge work in his heart, so that in verse 18 he can honestly admit, “I know nothing good dwells in me, in my flesh.”
People who do not follow Jesus and sadly, and many who claim they do, do not speak like this. Everybody thinks they are a good person. Everyone. No one thinks they are bad and that they have ever really done anything wrong that is deserving of damnation. God is love so he should just sweep it under the rug and hopefully see that though sometimes I do bad things I’m still a good person, right? One who truly knows God and looks into the mirror of God’s law sees how pitiful and depraved they are. That is the confession of a Christian. I am a sinner and I need a savior. I have nothing on my own. There is nothing good in me. How do you see yourself? As good, doing alright? Or daily in desperate need of Christ?
Such a confession is the opposite of a self-confident self-righteous Pharisee that Paul was before he began serving Jesus. It is interesting that he adds this qualifier, “in my flesh.” If you were around when we started chapter seven we talked about this concept, “the flesh.” The flesh is the evil way in us, the contamination and depravity that has effected every part of who we are. But notice he, says “nothing good dwells in me,” and then adds, “that is, in my flesh.” That is because the Bible teaches that when you come to believe in Jesus work on the cross for you that his Spriti comes to reside in you and you get a new nature, the Spirit of God nature. That is where we are going in Romans 8, the new life in the Spirit. So what happens is the Christian ends up with two natures, the flesh and the spirit. And they are in conflict.
6. the Christian struggle
That leads us to the sixth and final reason for today, the Christian struggle. Galatians 5:17 says this, and this is a passage that there is not any debate about, everyone agrees that in Galatians Paul is talking about the experience of a Christian…listen, “The flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.”
Interesting huh? Does that sound familiar? Flesh, oppostion, not doing the things you want to do? He uses a lot of the very same vocabularly and almost some of the same exact phrases there in Galatians that he does here in Romans 7. And there it is clear he is teaching that there is struggle in the life of a believer. So my sixth point here is that it seems very clear that in Paul’s overrall theology that he believes the Christian, after becoming a Christian, will have times when there is intense spiritual struggle.
We know this is true. Yes, sometimes people may feel bad about hurting someone’s feelings, or cheating their work out of time or money, or whatever it may be. But there is not an intense spiritual struggle and conviction and sorry toward God like we have here in Romans 7. A desire to please God and yet willful disobedience. A non-Christian does not struggle like that. They do what they want and do whatever they want and do their best to keep their faults covered up. They do not feel the weight of indwelling sin because they are dead in sin and not yet resurrected to new life in Jesus. Some have said it is having a 1-ton weight fall on a dead body, it feels nothing. But in the life of a Christian…oh how you feel the weight.
III. The Gospel Response
- theme one: true hedonism
Okay, so that is six reasons why I think this passage is talking about Paul’s life and ours as well, after becoming a Chrisitan. And maybe you are like big deal. What is the difference? Sure Duane, you made some good arguments but really does it really matter what I think about this passage. What is the point and if you are right, that kinda sucks, because who wants to be a Christian anyway if it just means signing up for a lot of inner turmoil?
Here is my answer. Actually there are really three answers I think, maybe more. But I am going to give one each week, one for each sermon. My first answer, the one for this week, is true hedonism.
Let me explain. The truth is that I have probably spent more time in my life studying this passage than any other passage of Scripture over the course of years. I have wrestled with this passage a lot. It was hard to dive back into it this week, because I knew what I was getting myself into. Maybe that is part of the reason we detoured for awhile and its taken so long to get here.
But here is the main reason I was not excited about preaching on this text…The main reason is because the picture here is of a very confused, frustrated, and emotionally wrecked person. And I am trying with all my might to try and help bring us as a church to maturity and stability and I’m afraid that you will take what I have said today and what we have studied and think that it is okay and that the normal way of the Christian life is being lost in a myriad of spiritual depression and confliction. And the result is that whenever we get together it is just a big complaining fest where we lick our wounds together and then pray some hopeless prayer.
Here is the thing, that is not the gospel and that is not the point of this text. If you only look at these twelve verses and you don’t look very close, yes that is where you will end up. But there is a whole bunch of other stuff in this book of Romans that surrounds this passage and in the whole rest of the Bible there is a ton of a stuff that says this is not the normal way of the Christian life, that is not what it is about, it is about the kingdom of God where there is peace, joy, and love…that is the gospel. The infinitely great satisfaction in knowing Jesus and walking through life with him.
So let’s think about this text…think about it with me. What is the point? Why is he wrestling so here? What is the goal? What does he want? Is it not joy and happiness? Verse 24-25, who will deliver me? Thank God for Jesus! Do you see that?
The reason why anyone struggles, why anyone is ever confused, why anyone ever feels down and feels inner turmoil is because they want to be happy and they are not and they are trying to figure out a way to get there. That’s why the theme we are focusing on this week is true hedonism. And it’s here in the text too. “I delight in God…but…I am conflicted because of sin.” I want to be happy, how do I get there, what is the pathway, who will deliver? Verse 25 “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
So, I believe this text is a vivid portral of the Christian orientation to long for, look to, and seek after joy in God through Jesus. That is why I say this week’s gospel response is true hedonism. Hedonism is a word that means life is about pleasure, about making yourself happy. And the gospel is something that says putting your faith in Jesus does not mean that you will never struggle, but you will find deep, immense, and true joy because it is fixed in the ever increasing joy of the glory of God. Christianity is a future oriented faith and it is an honest faith. Honest about life and it’s hardships and our human faults and about our desire for true and deep and lasting joy.
If you look at my sermon title for this series, it is “Inner Confliction and the Gospel” but I have a subtitle too, it says, “when sin gets the upper hand.” I have that subtitle because I believe what we are seeing here is the picture of a person’s experience when they recently blown it, have broken God’s law and are either toward the end of coming out of it when they are just starting to deal with it all or they are looking back on the what happened shortly after they have repented and have gotten back up on their feet and are following Christ. I don’t think we are looking at a normal everyday Christian experience, but rather an incident or a season of real, hard, gospel growth in the soul.
Conclusion
Okay, so what does this all mean for us? How do we apply this text? If this text really is relevant to the experience of a person after becoming a Christian what does that mean for us?
One, it means do not be surprised when you fail and it gets hard. If you are a new Christian, God often times will grant a season in the newness of your faith where it is fairly easy to follow Jesus and everything is new, you feel that born againness Jesus talked about, God’s spirit is working in you, and you are perceiving the glory of God shining all around you. That is good. Those are special times. Relish in it. Suck up the joy of the gospel in your soul for all its worth. Treasure this time and document it in your heart. Just know this. A time will come when you will struggle, and so when you struggle, don’t bail. There are categories God has given us for understanding this. It is Romans 7. It is flesh and spirit battle and conflicted wants. And the way out is Jesus.
Second, it means, if you are in the struggle right now. Know you are not alone. Some of the most godly men who have walked the face of this earth have had deep, intense bouts with sin. This is one person right here, the great apostle Paul, broken and at odds with himself. Many of my heroes have walked this path. The great preacher, Charles Spurgeon, often had intense bouts with depression. John Owen, one of the great puritan theologians. For two years he could barely speak he was so weighted with the reality of his sinfulness, and then he came out of it, ever conscious of his depravity but with a new found faith and vigor for the gospel and he became a pastor, a professor, and one of the greatest theologians we have ever known.
Know this too if you are stuggling right now, there are people here in this room that are struggling too. You are not alone. Find someone you can talk to. Whether it is through the mid-week small group, or if it is through inviting someone out to lunch or whatever. We can spur each other on in the faith.
Third, with all the tenderness and love that I can muster, I say this…just repent. Almost every we are struggling and we start talking about it, we start talking about what happened to us. So we deem our struggle not to be our own fault in any way. It was either this person or that person or this circumstance or that. But here is the thing. We rarely see our own fault. We don’t like to. It is a lot easier to be the victim. But every spiritual struggle is a struggle with sin. Humble yourself. Admit to God your failings and your faults. Embrace Christ. Receive his grace. Being a Christian does not mean we are free of our sinfulness it just means that we have a Jesus who is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us of all our unrighteousness when we confess it to him (1 John 1:9).
Lastly, for the kids. The Bible says here that sometimes you know what you should do because your mom or your dad told you so, then you go ahead and do what you know they don’t want you to anyway. That is because there is something called sin inside you and the only way to be happy and not feel all crudy, like you do after you disobey, is by receiving Jesus. He was punished for you so that your punishment from mom and dad won’t be so bad. Jesus loves you and one day will get rid of the sin inside you forever and ever if you trust and follow him with your whole heart.
INNER CONFLICTION AND THE GOSPEL - Part II
:: The Resolved Church :: April 21th, 2007 :: Pastor Duane M. Smets
Inner Confliction and The Gospel - when sin gets the upper hand
Romans 7:13-25 (Part II)
I. Who’s Experience is This?
1. the structure of Romans
2. the plain reading
3. 1st century Judaism
4. Paul’s pre-conversion
5. honest self-assessment
6. the Christian struggle
7. the new master
8. a body of death
9. the law principle
10. the conclusion 7:25b
11. the apostle Peter
12. 1 John 1:8
II. The Gospel Response
- theme one: true hedonism
- theme two: true war
Romans 7:13-25
13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 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. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 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. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 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.
Introduction
Alright, good morning everyone. Hopefully today we will be free and clear from crazy microphones, bats and any other weird occurances for the next half-hour. I know its been kind of wild lately. Which maybe kind of fits since we are in the latter half of Romans 7. So let’s read the text and pray.
Father God, this is not the funnest passage to talk about. And it is a text that so easily either becomes an excuse for our own sin or it becomes a pride-filled trophy of how much better we think we are now on the other side of deep spiritual struggle. Help us this morning to honor you in how we deal with your Bible. May we not treat it flippantly. Guard us from solely interpreting it in light of each of our own personal experiences. And most of all would we come to see and understand and know and love the gospel more because of what we learn today. Amen.
So we are in part two of our series in Romans 7:13-25, “Inner Conflict and the Gospel - When Sin Gets the Upper Hand.” Last week we began by looking at the context of this passage so that we could see how this passage is really set up as a personal illustration added on to some arguments that Paul made in order to say that the Law, the inner sense of moral right and wrong or all the demands in the Bible, are not bad in and of themselves but that we all break the law and the result is sin. So the question is how can the Law be good when it is so intimately caught up with us and sin which leads us to hell.
I. Who’s Experience is this?
Because of that question and the way that Paul answers it here with a personal illustration there becomes a lot of debate about what he is really saying here. If it is really a personal illustration or not and if so what time of his life is he talking about, before or after becoming a Christian? And so, rather than to sidestep the debate and just say that it doesn’t matter, we have decided to be honoest and dive deep into it and so last week I gave six reasons (they are in grey on the screen) for why I believe this passage is talking about Paul and/or any and every person at some point after becoming a Christian. Today we go after the next six.
7. the new master
To sort of start things off, we are going to talk about what is probably the strongest objection against the view that I am presenting. We are a church who cares about what is actually true and right and because of that we are not afraid of other viewpoints. That is why we have a doubts box and encourage doubting…the reason is so that you can come to a real and solid faith and we are convinced that Christianity stands the test.
So the seventh reason, the new master. Here is how the objection goes, “Paul says here in Romans 7:14, ‘I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.’ If this person were really a Christian they could not say that. The very essence of being a Christian is being freed from sin and receiving the savior.” And then they refer to several earlier passages in Romans 6, where it says things like, “our old self was crucified…so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin…we were once slaves of sin…(but) now have been set free from sin (Rom 6:6,17,18).”
That is a pretty strong argument. I mean, I quoted three different passages in Romans 6, word for word, verse 6, 17, and 18…no longer enslaved to sin, once slaves of sin, now set free from sin. What do you do with that? If that is true what do you do with Romans 7:14 if it talking about a Christian being “sold into bondage to sin.” Do you get the problem?
Here is what I think the answer is. When I preached from Romans 6 we did two different series with several sermon given to each of them, the two series were “Sin and Union with Christ” and the second was “Master Jesus.” In a huge oversimplification let me summarize those two series. The first series, “Sin and Union with Christ” says that through faith in Jesus we become united to him and thus receive all the benefits of the cross and eternity because we are with Jesus. The second series, “Master Jesus” says we have all been slaves to a master called sin and through united with Jesus our sin gets dealt with and we begin to live under a new master, Jesus, who is the far stronger, kinder, and wiser than our old master sin.
Here is the connection, uniting with Jesus and him becoming our new master is a real, true, spiritual reality that has begun to take place, but is still in process until we either die or the resurrected Jesus comes back on his cloud of glory. That is why we get something like Romans 6:12-13. Listen, “Therefore (because all that is true spiritual reality), let not sin reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life.” Did you hear that? It sounds like there is still left over, indwelling sin, where out of it our members can still do unrighteous, sinful things. That sounds kind of like Romans 7, where instead of putting your stock in the spiritual reality, sin gets the upper hand and you do exactly what Romans 6 tells you not to do.
So going to Romans 6 does not help you. We cannot treat the Bible like we are at some sort of fast food restraunt and we only order things off its menu that fit our current desires or theology. You can’t just pick out a verse here and a verse there and then build a theology on that. No, there are verses in-between.
So, here is what I think Romans 7:14 is saying in comparison to Romans 6. I think it is saying that when you give in to the old slave master, what is that but being sold into bondage to sin. Under the old master we were in total bondage to sin and had no freedom or power to do anything else but sin. But now there is struggle. Not going back and forth from being a Christian and then I’m not a Christian and then I’m a Christian again and you get saved like 50 times before you get it right. No, there is struggle and there is moment when sin gets the upper hand and it is an expereince of slavery, and it is dark and sad and hard and horrible and more intensely so because of the fact that you know you are really under the new master Jesus, who loves you and died for all your sin already. So that is reason 7, let’s move on.
8. a body of death
Reason number 8, a body of death. In Romans 7:24b Paul cries out “Who will free me from the body of this death?” Those who say that Rom 7 is pre-Christian say “can a Christian really cry out ‘who will free me from this body of death?’” I mean, that sounds pretty dark. If you are Christian does that mean you really know God and his beauty and glory and how great his creation is, including our bodies, and didn’t Jesus die for us to save our bodies?
The answer is yes, those things are true. I believe that in becoming a Christian your eyes are in a sense opened up to a whole new world around you and you see things with a new wonder and amazement. And yes, we are not into some philosphy that says spirit is good and matter is evil. God is the Lord and redeemer of both.
But my question is, if you really are a follower of Jesus and believe all the things he promises, then how can you not cry out, “who will free me from this body of death?” This body is contaminated and diseased with sin, it is breaking down, as 2 Corinthians 4:16 says, “it is wasting away.” But the goodness of the gospel is that Jesus rose and secured for us a heritage to receive a new, glorified body like his, that will not waste away and that when we receive we will be completely free from the constraints and corruptions of sin.
The gospel is great and real hope for this life. If not what else do we have. That when we die, it is just the end. That we reincarnate? Even if there was a single shred of evidence for that, who wants that? Don’t we long for, as humans, for a new life that is still us living it. That is why the resurrection of Jesus Christ is such a central part to our faith. It is our secure hope with proofs. The cry, “who will free me” is the Christian cry for liberation from the diseased dying body in its dirty bouts with sin and a longing for our new, sin-free, body like Jesus’s.
9. the law principle
Ninth reason, the law principle. Verse 23 says, “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.” This is a very interesting verse. It is a crushing verse to those who would try and define the word “law” as only the Jewish law because here, in this one verse, you have three different definitions. But you can see why they would want to define law as Jewish law only. Because then, this struggle of Romans 7 only applies to a Jew who wrestles in trying to keep the strict standards of the law. And then, they would say that in Romans 8:2 when Paul says we are “now free in Jesus from the law” that the struggle of Romans 7 are left behind after conversion.
That is why whenever I have referred to the word “law” in my sermons I have tried to be careful to say something like, law, the internal moral ought within us all or the written demands of the Bible or the Hebrew Torah. It is because of this issue. Many want to say that the law is bad and it’s not. Yes, simply because the law is there we break it (and for a lot of other reasons). But through that, the breaking of law, in those moments afterward of conviction and humility God enables us to see how truly broken we are and need Jesus. So the law’s overall goal and purpose is to lead us to Jesus and on top of it it comes from God (that’s what Paul argued earlier in the chapter).
So notice something with me. Notice how Paul says, “I see in my members another law.” So he already acknowledges in that statement that there is a standard view of law but here he says he “sees” another law. I think he is using “see” here to say that he realizes another principle, another moral code, another law at work and that is this, that sin is a princple or power or rule that works through and the body making it a law of death and it still can be an operative principle or power in the life of a believer.
Here is the point. Simply because Romans 8 highlights that Jesus frees us from the law of sin doesn’t mean that Romans 7 is not a Christian. The point of Romans 8 is to say that the Christian now has the Spirit and thus the power to defeat sin, but the law of sin is still there too, or else Romans 8:13 would say to “put to death the deeds of the body.” The point of Romans 7 is to say that there is still a power, sin that can be at work even in one’s life after becoming a believer.
10. the conclusion 7:25b
Reason number 10, 7:25b. I say b because there are two parts to verse 25, a first part and a second part and that second part 7:25b is a genuine embarassment to an interepretation of this chapter as the experience of someone before they become a Christian.
Let me show you. So Paul is wrestling…I do the things I don’t want to do, I want to do what’s right but then I keep scewing it up and it is evil and sinful…what a wretched man that I am, who will free me. Verse 25, Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! You feel this building and building tension in the passage and when you get to verse 25, and you get to Jesus, you are like, yes I knew that couldn’t be right! In fact, if that was all there was in verse 25, I would be strongly persuaded toward the pre-Christian view.
But there is a b, a second part to verse 25, which says “So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” Just after Paul shouts out thanks to God for the future freeing from the body of death he soberly summarizes the lot of the Christian and sets up the discussion for Romans 8. If he were to end at 7:25b it would be a depressing life but in Romans 8 Paul talks about the possibility and goodness of walking according to the Spirit in spite of this struggle which every Christian will have.
So the 10th and final exegetical reason from our verses here is 7:25b. For Romans 7 to be a pre-Christian experience one really has to just cut verse 25b out of their Bible.
11. the apostle Peter
Now we move on to two final reasons that I get from looking at the Bible as a whole and the characters and stories that are told. Time and time again we read stories in the Bibles about people who are screw-ups that God has mercy on and calls them and enables them to do some incredible things, but even after all those things take place we see them fail and fall in bouts with sin.
Consider the story of the great apostle St. Peter who wrote two books of the Bible, who preached on the first day of the church and 3,000 people became Christians, who when Jesus said he was going to Jersusalem to die, Peter said he was ready to go die with him too. In John 13:37 Peter syas, “Lord, I will lay down my life for you.” And then the night of the next day Jesus is arrested and taken in. Peter is standing by a fire outside the building where they are holding Jesus and a little girl comes up it him and says, “You are one of Jesus disciples huh?” And Peter answers, “What? No, I don’t know him.” Two more people ask him and all three times he denies Jesus.
In the book of Acts, God teaches Peter about how culture itself is not bad but is a filter for the gospel and so things from the Jewish law like not eating meat isn’t a big deal. So Peter is stoked he starts eating steaks and hamburgers and he’s drinking good wine with it and loves it. It is good times, he is wondering why he ever got all caught up in the vegan straight edge thing. J But then in Galatians we hear about how he gets back to Jerusalem and his buddies are asking him, “dude we heard you are eating meat, what is up with that?” And Peter is all, “What! No way man. I didn’t eat no meat are you kidding me.” Again Peter was fearing men and seeking their approval and then lying and deceiving in his behavior.
Peter, a man who knew the gospel, followed Christ, had times when sin got the upper hand. I’m sure Peter too experienced the inner conflict Paul describes in Romans 7 and he went home and with bitter tears cried out “O wretched man that I am! Deliver me Jesus.”
I love the scene in John 21 at the end of the book after Jesus rises from the dead and he takes Peter aside and says to Peter, “Peter, do you love me?” And Peter answers “Yes, Lord you know that I love you.” Then Jesus asks him again “Peter, do you love me?” And Peter answers, “Yes Lord, you know that I love you.” Then a third time, just as Peter denied Jesus three times, Jesus asks him “Peter, do you love me?” And the Bible says that “Peter was grieved.” With his head hung low, wretched man that he was, Peter says, “Lord, you know all things and you know I love you.”
12. 1 John 1:8
The last and final reason. Reason number 12 why I believe Romans 7 is a post Christian experience, 1 John 1:8. 1 John 1:8 written by another disciples of Jesus from the beginning, the apostle John, in a letter he writes to be distrubuted to all the Christian churches, he says this, 1 John 1:8-9 “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
What I am getting at here is theology. How you interpret the Bible will dictate your theology, what you believe about God and his gospel. And here is my point. It is extremely difficult to see how one can interpret Romans 7 as someone who is not yet a Christian, and not end up with a theology called “Christian Perfectionism” or “Entire Santification.” Now I know those are big words, but basically what that means is that the Christian reaches a state where there is no inner battle and no sin in the beliver, they are perfect and entirely sanctified. And such a belief is a direct violation of 1 John 1:8, “if we say we have no sin we are deceived.”
And here is why I bring it up, because I don’t know about you but it seems to me that in a lot of churches or in a lot of Christians that I meet they seem to talk and act as though they don’t have any sin anymore. That somehow because they are following Jesus they have become perfect. And that simply is not true. We are still sinners. We are just sinners who are being saved and who are being opened up more and more to the joy of the gospel and who are on a mission to spread the fame of Jesus across the world.
I think Romans 7 was put in our Bible to humble us. To from ever have anything to boast about except Jesus. We are always in need of him and he alone is the savior who is delivering and who will ultimately and finally deliver us from this body of sin and death one day.
II. The Gospel Response
- theme one: true hedonism
- theme two: true war
Okay. So what do we do? How are we to respond? Where does the gospel fit in all of this? It seems pretty clear to me that Romans 7 is in fact a Christian experience. Where does that leave us?
Last week I focused on the theme of hedonism. I said that this text is a vivid portral of the Christian orientation to long for, look to, and seek after joy in God through Jesus. We are all naturally inclined to want to be happy and that is not bad, that is how God made us. But he made us in a way where the fit thing that satisfies our longing for happiness is him. The gospel is a joyful gospel and so the first theme to focus on in this text is the hedonism, that as Chrisitians our sights are to be set on pleasure in God, that is our orientation and our hope whether we are in the middle of a struggle, or in a season of grace without struggle, it is pleasure. The joyful God is where we have our sights.
This week the theme I want to focus on is true war. A very quick way to divide a room in half or to prick a group of people’s passion is to bring up the current war or whatever it is going on now in the middle east. Legally, we are not allowed to have a stance as a church, so I’ll be careful. I just want to note that war is a big deal. Some of the men who are in our church who are in the military have trained for war or even fought in them. Some of our grandparents or great grandparents know much about war. War is something that has plagued humanity for thousands of years. Do you ever wonder why? Do you really think the reason for wars have been because of politics or nationalism or money or whatever the case? I don’t think so.
Here is where I think wars come from. “I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin (Rom 7:23).” The Bible’s perspective is that wars begin with the law of sin inside individuals.
There is an implicit imperative in this verse that we must fight as Christians. We must learn how to wage war with our souls. Ephesians 6:12 says, “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” We must learn how to wage war so that we will not be taken captive by the law of sin. We can’t say we won’t fight, that we are just against violence, for then you have already given in. No, we must fight.
Now there are different kinds of battles. There are big battles and there are small battles. I think Romans 7 is a big battle sort of struggle…but there are also little struggles every day. When our mood swings and you say unkind things to your spouse or when you are hungry and tired at the end of the day and the girl at the drive through at in-n-out can’t get your order right and when she finally does it’s all screwed up, charges you more and forgets your drink, which is probably a good thing so you didn’t throw it at her. J Those are small battles. Like battling to get up in the morning early enough to pray and read the Bible. Then there are bigger battles, battles with addiction and adultery and all kinds of grevious sins that if you give in reap harsh hard consequences that may cause a darkness to descend over you for sometime. Battles, fighting, waging war.
What I want to do to conclude this sermon is to give you some ways that can help you fight for joy. That’s actually the subtitle of one of John Piper’s books, “When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy.” Go read that book, there’s one way.
There are all kinds of means that God has provided for us to fight for and find joy in him. In our theology class that starts this Wednesday, there is one week where we talk about all the “means” there are to choose from in our fight to follow Jesus. By “means” what we are talking about are ways that God in the Bible has shown himself to work through in order to increase our satisfaction in him. There are a ton, I’ll just give you five. Reading the Bible and praying are on the top of the list but those are things you should just be doing everyday anyway, so I’m not going to mention them.
1. Preach to yourself. King David did this. In Psalm 42:5 David says, “Why are you so downcast oh my soul, put your hope in God and praise his name.” Sometimes you have to preach to yourself…you may have to get in the mirror and look at yourself and tell yourself who you are in Jesus in order to get through certain moments or days of temptation.
2. Wait in Silence. Again David says this in Psalm 62:1-2 “My soul waits in silence for God only; He only is my rock and my salvation.” There is so much noise in life…seeeming almost especially when you go to try and pray. Sometimes you just need to physically get on your knees or lay down prostrate with your face toward the floor and lay in silence and wait for God and his Spirit to fill you with his presence and power.
3. Fast from Food. In Luke 5:35 Jesus says that he expects fasting to be part of our normal life and mission as Christians, I’d say once a week a good rule of thumb. Fasting has an interesting effect on you if you are doing it for a spiritual reason and not just to get skinnier. Every time you feel hunger (yes, I mean real fasting not the wanna be kind where you fast from TV or something, fasting in the Bible is from food and drink), you think of God and the gospel and your need and desire for Him.
4. Change your geography. Several times in the gospel accounts we read about Jesus just leaving and going off by himself up on the mountain to pray and occasionally he would stay there the whole night. Sometimes you have to remove yourself from your current situation to be able to see everything from a better perspective and to be in a place where God can speak to you.
5. Talk to someone about Jesus. Philemon 6 says “I pray that you might be active in sharing your faith so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.” That is an amazing verse because it says that part of having a full and good life as a Christian is dependent upon us talking about Jesus. Your goal is life is not what job you will end up doing and how much money you will make but in what way you as an individual person will be able to best glorify God with your giftings and share Jesus with the people where you are using them.
Okay, so that is just a few means that you can use, there are a ton more, but those are a few…weapons you can use in the war for your soul.
Conclusion
This has been a sermon about sin, the sin which indwells us as believers making us at times conflicted when sin gets the upper hand. The answer is to seek joy in God and to wage war with our souls.
For the kids, today’s sermon is about how Jesus is so good and how he is what we need but it isn’t always easy to follow Jesus…so sometimes when you know one thing is right and you are thinking about not doing it, you have to fight with yourself…and the best ways to fight with yourself are found in the Bible. So as soon as you can you need to start reading the Bible or having your mom or dad read it to you.
For us bigger kids, I want to close with a quote from John Owen, the great puritan theologian. I have been reading one of the best books I have ever read on this subject. It has an amazing title, is called, “The Nature, Power, Deceipt and Prevalency of the Remainders of Indwelling Sin in Believers; Together with the Ways of Its Working and Means of Prevention, Opened, Encinced, and Applied: with a Resolution of Sundry Cases of Conscience Thereunto Appertaining.”
“There is a constant enemy in every one’s own heart; and what an enemy it is. (Many) live and walk as though they intended to go to heaven hood-winked and asleep, as though they had no enemy to deal withal. Many live in the dark to themselves all their days; whatever else they know, they know not themselves. They know their outward estates, how rich they are, and the condition of their bodies as to health and sickness they are careful to examine; but as to their inward man, and their principles as to God and eternity, they know little or nothing of themselves.
Indeed, few labor to grow wise in this matter, few study themselves as they ought, are acquainted with the evils of their own hearts as they ought; on which yet the whole course of their obedience, and consequently of their eternal condition, doth depend. An acquaintance with these several principles and their actings is the principal part of our wisdom. Next to the free grace of God in our justification by the blood of Christ, they are the only things wherein the glory of God and our own souls are concerned. These are the springs of our holiness and our sins, of our joys and troubles, of our refreshments and sorrows. It is, then, all our concernments to be thoroughly acquainted with these things, who intend to walk with God and to glorify him in this world.”
Let’s pray.
INNER CONFLICTION AND THE GOSPEL - Part III
:: The Resolved Church :: May 5th, 2007 :: Pastor Duane M. Smets
Inner Confliction and The Gospel - when sin gets the upper hand
Romans 7:13-25 (Part III)
introduction
Read text and pray. Father God you are a father. The father of all. A good heavenly father. Father us today and teach us about this passage as we attempt to work with it’s words and to deal with our hearts and this life. Would you cause your Spirit to work in us in a way that we would be opened up to the glory of the gospel and find all our peace mercy and joy in the grace extended to us in Jesus. Amen.
Last week we had my long-time friend and surfing buddy, who became my brother in-law, lead us in a day of worshipping God through song. There are times in a life of a church when you simply have to sit back and worship. It was good to do that. The two weeks before we were studying the same passage we are studying again this morning, Romans 7:13-25. And in those two weeks we looked at twelve reasons for why this passage can only be talking about the experience of Paul, and us, sometime after becoming a Christian. Now I’m not going to go back through all those reasons today. I checked and they are online at itunes, so if you missed those sermons, you can go there.
What I want to do first today is to go back through the passage and point out a few things, now that we have an established position on who it’s talking about. Because otherwise, if you don’t, then when you’re reading through it you are like, “what, who’s he talking about now?” So you almost have to know who you think this passage is talking about before you can even begin to kind of take it seriously.
And then we are going to spend a significant about of time today talking about introspection, since that is the final and chief applicational theme here. We already looked at the themes of seeking happiness and the theme of the Christian life being war in our other weeks. So this week we’ll focus on introspection.
This passage as a post-Christian experience
Verse 13 (re-read)
This is about the law. We know he is talking about the law becaue that was the whole subject in the verses before this passage (the role of the law) and because verse 14 begins with the words, “for we know that the law…” So how does the law function in the life of the Christian? It help show us our sinfulness. Look at verse twelve again. “In order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment become sinful beyond measure.”
That may not sound like a good fun thing. But it is. One of the reasons why we read the Bible as Christians, where God’s law is found, is because by doing that we come to see and know more sins or the depth of sin inside us which we may have not realized was there. And that is good. Coming to know that is good. Why?
Look at the phrase that is there “might become sinful beyond measure.” What does that mean? How can sin become more sinful? What does it mean for something to be sinful beyond measure? Just think about it for a moment and follow Paul’s reasoning and his view of God.
Who is beyond measure? Where does right and wrong come from? Who or what is sin against? God. At the beginning of this book, Romans, Paul said “what can be known about God is plain…his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature (beyond measure), have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made…so (none) is without excuse (Rom 1:20).”
Here at The Resolved Church we have talked much about sin, not being so much this violation of some moral, abstract code…but a personal wronging against the from who all that is good and holy and right and true comes from. The best definition of sin is “not glorifying God as we ought” because that is what we were made to do. We were made to worship God.
God is beyond measure. That is actually one the classic arguments for the existence of God. That God is the greatest of all possibilities and since it is greater to exist in reality rather just in the imaginiation, God must exist. If all of you are like what the ______! That’s cool. It’s not my point or purpose today to explain the ontoloigcal argument for the existence of God. My point from Romans 7:13 is that the law shows us the depth of our sin, that it is beyond measure because it is against God.
And once you know that, once you see yourself in relation to God, then you feel sick and then the salve of the gospel can come and minister to your soul. So the more you know of your sin the more of the love and grace and the compassion of Jesus Christ will become a deep experiential reality to you. The cross of Christ will overwhelm your soul that Jesus died for you and your sin.
Verses 14-15 (re-read)
Look at that phrase “sold under sin.” This is an intense picture. I doubt any of us here can even have the slightest idea of knowing what it is like to be a human that is sold. To be a prisoner of war taken away against your will and sold away for money to be a slave. That is the picture here.
There have been times in human history, like the first century when this was written, when people were sold away into slavery. And this still goes on. Women in our culture and time are sold into prositution by their pimps, kids are sold into the military as soliders in Uganda and Darfur. The black culture in America lives with a history and identity as a people who were sold.
I don’t think every parallel that we could make from that analogy is intended…but what is intended is that it is bad. The idea is that it is not who we are intended to be. God made us in his image. Beautiful creatures that have bodies and minds that are able to reason and be imaginative and can talk and think and sing and to know God and his glory. But because of sin we all get sold away and lose or forget our identity as children of the great King of the universe.
Now, this side of coming to know Jesus, we experience freedom from our slavery. True joy enters into us. But then we have experiences where we fail and it seems we have been sold back into slavery all over again. Our old life is still there, it didn’t totally disappear magically.
Then look at verse 15 again, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want but I do the very thing I hate.” After becoming a Christian, for a season everything is new and exciting and God grants you a period of time in your walk with him when you encounter the gospel and then “sin gets the upper hand.” And you sit down, feeling utterly miserable and you have that quiet conversation with God in your head…”What is wrong with me? Why did I do that? Why do I keep on doing that? I hate this.”
You see, I don’t think when Paul says, “I do not understand my actions” that he is saying that it is just a mystery. That he doesn’t know what is happening or that he is not responsible. No he knows very well. It is sin and the conflict between the desires of the Spirit of Jesus in us as Christians and the desire of the flesh contaminated by Satan that is in us as well as Christians. He knows he blew it and it is his fault. I don’t think he is saying “It is just too confusing and it is hopeless.” I think when he says, “I do not understand” what he is saying is, “This is so frustrating!” “I wish I wasn’t this way.” I think he is saying the same thing he says later in verse 24 when he says, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me (from this conflict, from my perpetual failing)?”
So many times I have heard people who have failed in some way spiritually and aftterward they come and talk to me and they say things like, “Man, I just don’t get it. I just keep on doing what I know is wrong and I can’t help it.” That’s not what Paul is saying here. He is not using sin in us as Christians as an excuse. He means I don’t understand as “I don’t like it” not “I can’t help it.” Do you see the difference? Okay, let’s move on.
Verses 16-23 (re-read)
There are just a things I want to point out from these verses. One is the overarching theology of sin in Christians that is here. Notice in verse 17 where it says “it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.” And then notice that same phrase again in verse 20, “it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells in me.” And then again in verse 23, “the law of sin that dwells in my members.”
That phrase “sin dwells in me” is key phrase. The Greek word for “dwells” here is oikos which means house. So if we wanted to be super literal we would say “sin that houses in me” or to be a little looser, “sin that has made its home in me.” In the Bible the human person is sometimes compared to that as a house, a place of living. And the theology of sin here is that it has made a home inside of every human.
When we come to know Jesus and that he died for our sin and rose again we are promised that our houses will not eternally go up in flames…and what happens is that the gospel of Jesus comes and lays a new foundation in us and a new house is being built…a gospel house. That is why Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell, or house, in you richly” and why 1 Peter 2:5 says, you “are being built up as a spiritual house…through Jesus.”
So let’s kind of draw out the analogy of indwelling or housing sin in us: our lives become totally corrupt because of sin, houses of sin, but then Jesus happens and at he is so bright and so glorious and so wonderful that when he comes in and lays a new foundation and shows us the architectural plans for what he has in store…that for awhile we don’t even notice that there is still a bunch of rotten wood and walls with chipped paint and whole and broken light bulbs…we just moved so all this is fresh, our old place looked like a train wreck after we moved everything out.
The main point is that there is indwelling sin. Not that we are hopeless. If you rip the parts out that say, “it is no longer I who do it but sin” and “I have the desire to do what is right but not the ability to carry it out” and detach them from the theology of indwelling sin that is here then yes, what you get it hopelessness.
With “it is no longer I who do it” you get some sort of weird mult-personality disorder where I’m Duane but there is also I “Frank” and “Dave” living in me. And with “I have the desire…but not the ability” you get “oh yeah, that sounds good but I don’t feel like doing it, so I’m can’t do anything.” And neither of those conclusions are right.
Paul is not saying as some have tried to make him say that there are two dogs, one white dog and one black dog living in us and they are fighting and sometimes the white dog wins and sometimes the black dog wins. No. That is not it. What he is saying is that indwelling sin, is foreign to who we really were made to be, it is part of our slavery, of being sold into sin. “It is no longer I who do it” is the I as a Christian, I am not acting out of following Jesus when I sin, I am following the old master of sin.
And when he says, “I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” He is not saying we are just stuck and that is that. You have to read what comes before that phrase. He says, “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh. For I have the desire…” So he already qualified the kind of ability he is talking about…the ability of the flesh.
And as we have talked about before, “flesh” is not just skin and bones but the whole old way of thinking before Jesus, where sin has corrupted all our thoughts and emotions and actions. Of course flesh has no ability, it is corrupt. As he says in the next chapter “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God (Rom 8:8).”
We are going to get into ability a ton when we get to Romans 8, so I’m going to stop right here and just say don’t take select phrases out of this chapter like “It is no longer I who do it” and “I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out” and turn them into excuses for your sin, to say “I can’t help it.” You are doing violence to the Bible if you do that.
I have couple final thoughts from the last few verses but before we finish off with them, what I want to do is talk about the theme of introspection here. Because vereses 18-20 are really the core of where the introspective analysis of inner conflict comes from.
Introspection
Do you guys know what introspection means? I took Amy too see Damien Rice last week for our six year wedding anniversary, we love him, it was an awesome concert. Anyway, he was introducing one of his songs and he said something along the lines of “you have to be a sort of be introspective person, familiarly aquainted with depression to get this song, which none of you here in San Diego may understand since it is sunny here all the time.” He might be right about introspection and depression, but not everybody is happy here in San Diego even though it is sunny a lot of the time huh?
What is introspection? Here is a definition: The contemplation of one’s self including your thoughts, emotions, and actions. Introspection is a self-reflective exercise. And by that definition this passage in the Bible has got to be one of the most introspective portions in all of Scripture.
Now, I think on the whole, our culture or generation seems to be a very introspective culture. Maybe it is just me since I like movies like Eternal Sunshine, Fight Club, and Waking Life and I like musical artists like Damien Rice, Bright Eyes and Ryan Adams. So if you are not a particularly introspective person that’s okay…my wife isn’t. But some you are and some of you are too much and some of you are not and you need to be more so.
So let me talk freely for just a few minutes about introspection because some introspection is necessary to have a real and true faith but introspection can also turn into a deadly trap that can destroy faith.
Let’s begin with the positives and the need for introspection. Here are what I see as the positives. I don’t see how you can live a life that is truly honest with the world we live in or how you can truly grow and have changes take place in your life unless you have periods of introspection. Obviously you can live in this state where you are always thinking about who you are and what you are doing and feeling or you would never get up or move or eat or work or do anything. But at the same time it is so easy just to get caught up in the motion of life and never stop to think about yourself and how you are doing and what’s going on.
So the positive is that through introspection you can come to know who you really are and begin to deal with things. And if you are being truly introspective, as we’ll talk about in a minute, then you’ll end up finding the gospel of Jesus and in it the meaning and purpose and satisfaction worldview and answers and community that we long for. And that is really good because Jesus is really good and there is nothing better than the heart truly finding it’s home in following Jesus.
Here are the negatives. There’s a lot more negatives…perhaps because introspection can often become one of the chief devices that Satan and his demons like to use going all the way back to the garden of Eden. Like anything that is really good it can become really corruptible. Jesus is the best and is ultimate reality but there is more askew, more lies running around about Jesus in our day than anything else.
So some dangers. The biggest danger of introspection is that you can get stuck. It is narcissism at its best, where like the greek god, narcicuss, who began looking at himself through the reflection in a pool of water got stuck doing that forever and ever. Sometimes looking internally can be like getting lost in a maze, where you don’t know which way is up or down or left or right. You can get fixiated on an emotion to the point in which it seems there is no way out.
Introspection run rampad is where you become completely self-absorbed, you are always the victim, the only that matter is what you feel and think and you think you are simply being honest because it is what you feel. The problem is that is not true honesty. Real honesty is not just paying attention to where you are at but it is considering all possibilities of what can be known.
For example, I might say, “I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out” and say I am simply being honest and I don’t want to do anything I do mean and so I am just stuck. But that is not real honesty, because real honesty would consider the other words around that text and would consider other truthful things that I may not feel but could eventually. Real honesty is not just being honesty with yourself but with reason and truth and the world around you.
This is why introspection often leads to depression because you cannot fix yourself. Only Jesus can take us and truly move us from a point of spiritual inability to a place of spiritual enablement. We can’t think or feel our way out of our problems. The only answer is to follow Christ. That is the difference between gospel introspection and futile and vain introspection. Gospel introspection takes work because you are looking internally to see your sin so that you might follow the savior and be happy. Futile and vain introspection looks internally to lick its wounds vie for attention so that other will lick them with us.
Sorry that is kind of gross. But I mean it. Evil introspection is powerful and deceptive. When I hear a sad song I am drawn in. I want to be sad then because it sounds like in some weird way that such a thing would feel good. But it doesn’t. It is a deceptive lie. What we are wanting is for other to look at us and how sad we are and then feel bad for us. Ah, there is difference. Gospel introspection is not so. We look internally like David and realize that things are not right and then we look to Christ and realize his glory and sufficiency for us. And then we fight for joy.
That where introspection leads…to the themes of the other two weeks where we talked about this passage, to a pursuit of joy and to a fighting for it. And that takes work. Not to earn salvation but to reap the fruit of joy.
Okay, that’s enough I think on introspection. I don’t want to get stuck there. So let’s finish up and look at the last verses and talk about Jesus some more.
Verses 21-25 (re-read)
Notice the result of Paul’s introspection. It did not result in wallowing but in a crying out for deliverance and in a resolute determination to follow Jesus. “Thank be to God for Jesus” and so I will follow Jesus and serve him with my mind, putting my confidence and trust there in the gospel and though my flesh serves sin, it will progressively done away with as my embracing of Christ in my mind sinks down more and more into my emotions and my life decisions and actions. That is the progression all sin as well as all delight begins in the mind. Thought precedes action and affection.
So let’s conclude by looking at Jesus, his introspection. If what I am saying is true then we should find that type of introspection in Jesus, correct. Granted he did not have any sin but we would expect him to display some self-reflective honesty and then out of that a pursuit of God and not a wallow in darkness, right?
Let’s go to Mark 14:32-42. This is the night of Jesus arrest which end up with him getting crucified. Read text. Jesus was God and so he knew all things. He knew all that was about to happen to him. The gospel of Luke when it tells this story says that when this happened Jesus was sweating drops of blood, which medical doctors today say can happen to people in moments of extreme stress. Jesus here looks internally at who he was and what he came to do, and he confesses it to God, and then he rises and goes to be crucified. Why? What brought him through?
Our last verse for today, Hebrews 12:1-2, listen, “Let us lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely (sound like indwelling sin?), and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the found and perfecter of our faith, (here is the answer for what got Jesus through Gesthamene) who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Did you hear what brought him through? “For the joy that was set before him.” For joy, for the joy of pleasing God and bringing him glory he battled through and laid down his life for us. There is no way that was easy. There has never been anything harder that a human has done. But Jesus fought for joy. He looked internally and then looked to the cross.
That is the answer for us and our lives. Where are you at? Do you feel weighted down? Look to the cross? Do you feel lost and confused? Look to the cross. Do you feel conflicted and frustrated? Look to the cross. Do you feel aimless and numb? Look internally and then look to the cross. Do you feel excited and strong? Build your life on the cross.
Conclusion
That is the conlcusion for today. We are a church plant which means we are on a mission to be driven by God’s glory, to be gospel centered in all things, and to build a city within this city. How do we do that, by giving God glory through recognizing that everything is about him and being honest about our faults and failures before him. By embracing the gospel of Jesus and building our lives upon the foundation of the house he lays inside us. By living lives within this city where we have compassion on those who are lost in the myriad of introspection and in love telling them to repent and embrace Christ.
For the kids…here is what today’s sermon is about. It is about realizing who you are and that realizing who you are can be kind of messy. But you need to know that you are a unique person who God made especially for the purpose of being most happy by loving Jesus. And loving Jesus is not always easy, but if you honest and you trust and follow him you will be okay no matter what.
Let’s pray.