The Battle

Text Facing - Sin prevents the obedience we desire; Christ alone delivers us.

Audience Facing - You cannot rely on yourself to defeat sin, but you can rely on Jesus who provides freedom for you.

Gospel - Christ does not merely accomplish the obedience we failed to achieve; he also delivers us from the dominion of sin that keeps us from obeying. - our inability was solved in Christ's ability

Intro

Why is it that we know what the right thing to do is yet the struggle is real, we do not always do it or want to do it.

In C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Edmund Pevensie knows what this is like, he does something bad and he does know better. He meets the white whitch in the land of Narnia, who he knows is not good, but gets tempted to do something bad. He knows the White Witch is cruel. He knows his brother and sisters love him. Part of him still wants to do what is right. And yet he finds himself doing the very thing he hates.

Drawn by the enchanted Turkish Delight and the Witch’s flattering promises, Edmund betrays his family and aligns himself with evil. Even as he walks deeper into her service, his conscience is not silent. Uneasiness grows. Shame rises. He senses the wrongness of what he is doing. But the pull is stronger than his will. He is, in a real sense, sold under the power of that dark enchantment—wanting one thing, doing another, and growing more wretched by the hour.

That is the Romans 7 experience. “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

Edmund could not free himself. No amount of regret or good intention was enough. Only Aslan’s costly intervention—his willing sacrifice on the Stone Table—broke the power that held him and set him free.

And so it is with us. The law can show us the good. Our conscience can accuse us when we fail. But only Jesus Christ can deliver us from this body of death. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

We look to this passage and think, that was written about me! the battle that seems to rage within our lives that causes us to do what we do not want to do, and the good we want to do we do not do. This is a continuing theme from the last few weeks, but nevertheless holds great meaning for us still. What we are going to see today is that

Sin prevents the obedience we desire; Christ alone delivers us.

You see,

You cannot rely on yourself to defeat sin, but you can rely on Jesus who provides freedom for you.

14-20 – The battle between sin and following God

we begin by looking into the battle we all struggle with. Or at least Paul describe the internal battle that goes on in our lives. We where learning last week that we have been united to christ and died to sin. Releaded from condemnation. But we still struggle.

Romans 7:14 CSB

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold as a slave under sin.

This shows the intro to the battle that we face that has what we would call two chief actors. The law which is spiritual, it is good and of God. We are fleshly, unspiritual, slaves to sin.

To be slaves to sin this would appear to refer to the life that we had before we knew Christ, but based on the context and the rest of the passage this applies to Christians as well. The law that is good and of God, not really in reference to the creremonial laws and food laws but the moral law of God, the good we are to do, the Sanctification that we are to live for which guides our lives.

Romans 7 uses the Mosaic Law as the vehicle, but its focus is entirely on the moral law. It demonstrates that whether you are an ancient Jew reading the stone tablets or a modern Christian listening to your conscience, God's moral standard is holy and good.

Romans 7:15–17 CSB

For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate. Now if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good. So now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me.

As I mentioned, this is a battle both the believer and the unbeliever would face, a spiritual battle that has eternity at stake. If this is in reference to both the regenerate and unregenerate then one thing we have to rememebr, our spiritual standings are not identical.

Either way the person struggling is at the end of themselves, realizing they do not know what to do anymore because they keep doing the things that they despise.

There is something else at work in our lives, wether believer or not, and that is sin. It is what is responsible for the wrong that we do. Do you ever relate to this, even in the midst of temptation to sin. The battle that wages war in our inner being. You know what you are supposed to do. But you have the inability to do it, or you might not want to do it, or you might just struggle to break the pattern of sin. Paul does ot really explaim why it happens, just that it does and he struggled with it as well apperantly.

Does this mean that we are not responsible then for the evil that we do?

That is not the case. Though sin is the problem, we are at fault for the sin that we commit. We are fully responsible for the mess that we have made of our lives. Paul is not saying that we are not at fault. to say that it was not me, it was sin is the wrong application to get from this. we are finally beginning to realize that sincerity is not enough!

This is echoed and emphasized in verses 18-20

Romans 7:18–20 CSB

For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one that does it, but it is the sin that lives in me.

We must remember that we fight a spiritual war

We can not do this on our own we have been learning. so the first thing in this battle, a reminder from last week is that:

Stop trying to use the law to defeat sin. It is not a step by step guide, we will fail. Many Christians find themselves stuck in a constant loop of despair because they treat the Christian life like a self-improvement project based on human effort.

If it is a spritiual war then we need something more, which we will see later on in a bit. But also if it is not of ourselves that we win we need the work of the HS in our lives which we will see later. but Ephesians 6:10-12 is a good reminder for us of this.

Ephesians 6:10–12 CSB

Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength. Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens.

we will expand on this in a bit.

21-25 – Jesus alone delivers

What then do we do? we need a deliverer, we need a way out of we struggle like this, to do what we hate and to not do what God’s good law demands?

Romans 7:21–22 CSB

So I discover this law: When I want to do what is good, evil is present with me. For in my inner self I delight in God’s law,

Romans 7:23 CSB

but I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body.

evil is always present we are told.

The battle, or the conflict is between the desire to do what God commands and the inability to do it (non believer) or the failure to follow it (believer). It is an honest recognition of the ongoing presence and power of sin in the flesh, even while the real “I” (the inner man / the person who is in Christ) does not want that sin and agrees with God’s law.

Verse 22 -

To delight in the law of God. This is where we see that this passage is also in reference to those that are followers of Jesus. Highyl debated subject, but there you go. I do believe what we learn here today can apply to all of us for we all struggle with it in some way or another.

Whenever we genuinely intend to do good, evil is standing by waiting to ambush us. We have a regenerate mind (delight in the law of God) and the law of sin. The rules are simple enough. With your own willpower, your flesh will pull you downward no matter how good your intentions are.

This is always the case when trying to run 2 different lives at once. Wiith our own willpower we will fall. which makes us a prisoner to to sin and the never ending spiral of what do I do.

Romans 7:24 ESV

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

How many of you have ever felt like this before, wrecthed man that I am who wil deliver me.

This is the turning point. This is not helpless doom like we would think it is but to the point of self-despair. To finally get to the point where we realize that we need something more.

To the non believer - This is where you need to be.

you need to be at the point where you see all of this, you realzie there is nothing you can do, nothing you can achieve that will change your standing. This what the general revelation, the law of God has done. This is what gets people angry sometimes. Wretched man that I am who will rescue me? \

To the believer - All is not lost

Though this passage seems to be written towards those lost in sin we too need to get to this point of realizing that we have a rescuer. We fight a spiritual war and we need to realize that it is not about us, it is about our saviour.

Romans 7:25 CSB

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am serving the law of God, but with my flesh, the law of sin.

Thanks be to God that we do not have to do it on our own.

verse 25 is the conclusion of the dilemma, but it is not yet the practical answer to how we win the day-to-day battle. It leaves us in a state of honest tension: admitting that as long as we are in these mortal bodies, the friction between our mind and our flesh remains real.

So What?

Gospel - Christ does not merely accomplish the obedience we failed to achieve; he also delivers us from the dominion of sin that keeps us from obeying. - our inability was solved in Christ's ability

Remember we are in a battle, albeit a spiritual one, but a battle between for the soul and we can not and do not fight it on our own. We where inable, but good news. Christ was able to rescue us.

Are you walking in the flesh or living in Christ

warns against let down guards, but urges believers to separate their new identity in Christ from the stubborn habits of their old, unredeemed flesh.

When you fall to sin again, that does not mean you are a wicked person. But you must hate the sin that you do and have a desire to delight in the law of the Lord. This means that your identity has been changed by God. Allow Him to work in your life and change your heart.

Let self-despair drive you to the deliverer.

            Who will rescue me instead of how can I try harder next time. Stop trying to fix yourself and let your despair drive you to the deliverer. It is not how can I try harder next time but hwho will deliver me.

Remember to turn to God and put on His armor through driving yourself to Him. We should never regard the sins we commit with complacency. They are not supposed to be there. God hates them, and he has given us the solution to get rid of them. we are going to learn next week how this works, the next steps to take.