The War Against the Flesh.

Introduction:

Up to this point the apostle has been describing past experiences in his life- namely, the deep conviction of sin through the law. This morning we are going to see him move into the present tense and describe an experience he had since being born again.

Recap:

Lets recap what we talked about last week, so we have a clearer understanding of what the Spirit wants to teach us this morning.

Remember that this is a letter, and it would have been read from beginning to the end. Keeping that in mind we need to understand that as Paul describes in chapter 6, we are dead to sin.

The freedom we experience doesn’t stop there. Paul tells us in the first half of our chapter this morning that we are no longer slaves to the law either.

This doesn’t mean that we are free from the law so that we can live for ourselves.

We have freedom and that freedom produces fruit for God. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Gal 5:22-23

The problem we experience with the law is that our own depraved nature is exposed.

The law telling us what not to do, stirs in our evil hearts to think I need to do that.

It is important to reiterate that the law isn’t to blame for our messed up we are, it serves to expose how wicked we are.

We closed last week with a good hard look at sin. In verse 13 Paul doesn’t try to use words to describe sin. Because the worst word to use was to call it by its own name.

V 14) The law cannot help

Paul does acknowledge that the law is spiritual- and what that means is that it is, holy in itself and adapted to man’s spiritual benefit.

But he realizes that he is fleshly because he is not experiencing victory over the power of indwelling sin in his life.

“i am of the flesh” is the greek word sarkikos, which mean, “characterized by the flesh”

In this particular context it speaks of the person who can and should do differently but doesn’t.

Paul and us too clearly see our own carnality, we know the law, even though it is spiritual, it has no answer for this fleshly nature.

He is sold under sin. He feels as if he is sold as slave with sin as his master.

Paul is in bondage under sin and the law cannot help him out. He is like a man arrested for a crime and thrown in jail. the law will only help him if he is innocent, but Paul knows that he is guilty and that the law argues against him.

The law cannot help us over come sin.

Vv 15-19) A sense of helplessness

[15] Paul’s problem:

His (the) problem isn’t a lack of desire- he genuinely wants to do what is right.

His (the) problem isn’t knowledge- he knows what the right things is.

His (the) problem is a lack of power: (verse 18)”For I have a desire to do what is right.” He lacks power because the law gives no power.

The law simply states, “Here are the rules and you had better keep them.” But it give no power for keeping the law.

This struggle between the two natures Paul is a split personality, a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He finds himself indulging in things that he doesn’t want to do, and practicing things that he hates.

In my years of being apart of the church and like you experiencing this very same thing what Paul is describing is a believer who does not know the truth of their identity with Christ in death and resurrection.

It is the conflict between the two natures in the person who climbs climbs Mount Sinai in search of holiness.

Paul was a man trying to achieve holiness by personal effort, struggling with all his might to fulfill God’s “Holy and righteous and good” commandments (v.12), only to discover that the more he struggled, the worse his condition became. It was a losing battle, and no wonder, for it is not in the power of fallen human nature to conquer sin and live in holiness.

Notice the prominence of the first-person pronouns- me, my, myself, and I; the occur over forty times between verse 9 and verse 25.

If you have experience what Paul is talking about in this chapter you probably have had an overdose of “Vitamin I.”

Trying to search for victory in self, (will not work)where it cannot be found.

Sadly, most modern Christian psychological counseling focuses the couselee’s attention on themself and thus adding to the problem instead of relieving it.

I believe counseling and therapy are very important for the wellbeing of people.

But first people need to know that they have died with Christ and have risen with Him to walk in newness of life.

The important part is isn’t of trying to improve the flesh, that we point people to Jesus, the only one who has the ability to change people, through His death and resurrection.

[16] For some verse 16 might be a little confusing: What Paul is saying is that committing acts which his better judgement condemns, he is taking sides with the law against himself, Because the law condemns them too. Crediting the law as good.

[17] Paul is not denying his responsibility as a sinner. He recognizes that he sins, he acts against his nature as a new man in Christ.

As Christians we must own up to our sin. While realizing that the impulse to sin does not come from who we really are in Christ.

What Paul is doing here is tracking down the source of his sinful behavior, not excusing it.

“To be saved from sin, a man must at the same time own it and disown it; it is the practical paradox which is reflected in this verse. A true saint may say it in a moment of passion, but a sinner had better not make it a principle.”

[18] Family, there can be no progress in holiness until we learn what Paul learned here- “For i know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.”

The flesh here means the evil, corrupt nature which is inherited from Adam and which is still in every believer.

It is the source of every evil action which a person performs. There is nothing good in it.

When we learn this, it delivers us from ever looking for any good in the old nature. It delivers us from being disappointed when we don’t find any good there. And it delivers us from occupation with ourselves.

There is no victory in introspection. For every look we take at ourselves, we should take ten looks at Christ.

There is nothing but hopelessness found in the flesh. Paul mourns that although he has the desire and the knowledge to do what is right, he doesn’t have the resources in himself to accomplish it.

[Example] The trouble is that Paul and us too is casting his anchor inside the boat.

[19] The conflict between the two natures rage on. Paul finds himself failing to do the good he wants to do, and instead doing the evil that he despises.

Just like Paul we can be a hot mess of contradictions and paradoxes.

Vv 20-23) The battle between two selves.

We might paraphrase this verse like this: “ Now if I (the old nature) do what I (the new nature) don’t want to do, it is no longer I (the person) who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”

Again Paul is not excusing himself or disclaiming responsibility. He is simply stating that he has not found deliverance from the power of indwelling sin, and that when he sins, it is not with the desire of the new man.

[21] Paul finds a principle or law at work in his life causing all his good intentions to end in catastrophic failure. All he wants to do is what is right, yet he ends up sinning instead.

Anyone who has tried to do good is aware of this struggle.

[example] Eliza, “But I want to listen.”

We never know how hard it is to stop sinning until we try.

“No man knows how bad he is until he has tried to be good.” -C.S. Lewis

[22] As far as the new nature is concerned it delights in the law of God. We know that the law is holy and that it is an expression of the will of God. And we being true believers want to do God’s will.

Every believer needs to come to the realization that the old man is not the real person you are now. The flesh is destined to pass away and be resurrected.

The new man is the the real us. It is our challenge is to live like god has made us!

[23] You might be asking yourselves if Paul was saved during this struggle or not.

There is a debate among Christians as to if Paul was a Christian during the experience he describes. Some look at his struggle with sin and believe that it must have been before he was born again.Others believe that he is just a Christian struggling with sin.

In a sense this is an irrelevant question, for this is the struggle of anyone who tries to obey God in their own strength.

The experience of struggle and defeat is something that a Christian may experience, but something that a non-Christian can only experience.

“The one point of the passages is that it describes a man who is trying to be good and holy by his own efforts and is beaten back every time by the power of indwelling sin; it thus refers to anyone, regenerate or unregenerate.”- Griffith Thomas 19th century theologian.

“Waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive:”

Sin is able to war within us and win because there is no power in ourselves, to stop sinning. Making us caught in the desperate powerlessness of trying to battle sin in the power of self.

V 24) Desperation and perspective.

Now Paul lets out his famous, eloquent groan. “O wretched man that i am!”

The Greek word wretched is more literally, “wretched through the exhaustion of hard labor.”

Paul is completely worn out and wretched because of his unsuccessful effort to please God under the principle of law. He feels as if he has a decomposing body strapped to his back.

Legalism always brings a person face to face with their own wretchedness, and if they continue in legalism, they will react in one of two ways.

Either they will deny their wretchedness and become self-righteous Pharisees, or they will despair because of their wretchedness and give up following after God.

The tone of this groan shows that Paul is desperate for deliverance. He is overwhelmed with a sense of his own powerlessness and sinfulness.

Likewise, we must come to the same place of desperation to find victory.

Listen, our desire must go beyond a vague hope to be better. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

We must cry out against ourselves and cry out to God with the desperation Paul had.

Paul’s perspective finally turns to something outside of himself. Again Paul has referred to himself some 40 times now since verse 13.

In the pit of his unsuccessful struggle against sin, Paul became entirely self-focused and self-obsessed.

This is the place of any believer living under law, who looks to self and personal performance rather than looking first to Jesus.

[[Messianic Christians]]

The nature of his plea is not of one despondent or doubtful, but of one breathing and panting for deliverance.

“Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

There are two common ideas of what Paul meant here.

1st some commentators see a reference to ancient kings who tormented their prisoners by shackling them to decomposing corpses.

“It was a custom of ancient tyrants, when they wished to put men to the most fearful punishments, to tie a dead body to them, placing the two back to back; and there was the living man, with a dead body closely strapped to him, rotting, putrid, corrupting, and this he must drag with him wherever he went. Now, this is just what the Christian has to do, He has within him the new life; he has a living and undying principle, which the Holy Spirit has put within him, but he feels that everyday he has to drag about with him this dead body, this body of death, a thing as loathsome, as hideous, as abominable to his new life, as a dead stinking carcass would be to a living man.” -Spurgeon

The 2nd idea is others see a reference to sin in general. “This body has been taken to mean the whole and body of death is the whole mass of sin. Hence why Paul longs to be delivered from it, sin and all of its aspects and consequences.”

Regardless which view you hold to the point is that the old nature in all of its corruption is wretched and disgusting. And the plea is an acknowledgement that we are unable to deliver ourselves from this offensive, repulsive bondage. WE MUST HAVE HELP FROM SOME OUTSIDE SOURCE!

V 25) It’s all about Jesus!

Finally, Paul looks outside of himself and unto Jesus, with a burst of thanksgiving. As soon as he looks to Jesus, he has something to thank God for- and he thanks God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

There is something profound that happens to us when we look at our old sinful state, hopeless and helpless, then looking to Jesus.

It should produce in us a passion for Jesus something to excite us to be able to serve Him. Not only in acts of service but also lip service- called doxology. Here are a few examples of where the writers were so excited about the Lord that they needs to write out their adoration.

Romans 11:36 ESV

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Jude 24–25 ESV

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

“Through” means that Paul sees Jesus standing between himself and God, bridging the gap and providing the way to God.

Paul uses Lord to place Jesus as the ultimate authority in his life.

We need to acknowledge the struggle, and yet praise God for the victory we have in Jesus.

Paul doesn’t pretend that looking to Jesus takes away the struggle- Jesus works through us, not instead of us in the battle against sin.

The truth is: there is real victory in Jesus! Jesus didn’t come and die just to give us more or better rules, but to live out His victory through those who believe.

That is the glorious message of the gospel is it not?

That there is victory over sin, hate, death, and all evil as we surrender our lives to Jesus and let Him live out victory through us.

Jesus gave His life for you, in order to give His life to you, so that He can live His life through you.

The law is glorious and good, but it cannot save us- we need a Savior. Out of everyone Paul never found any peace, any praising God until he looked outside of himself and beyond the law to the only true Savior, Jesus Christ.

The world is looking to fix our problems with education. Well the law came like a teacher; teaching us what we need to do and guess what we couldn’t do it. That’s because we don’t need a teacher, we need a Savior.

The world thinks that motivation is the cause to our problem, look at how many self-help books are out there. The law came like a coach encouraging us to do what is needed and… we couldn’t. That’s because we don’t need a coach, a motivational speak, or self-help books. You need a Savior.

In the same line of thinking the law came like a doctor and perfectly diagnosed the problem. But the law cannot heal you. You don’t need a doctor, you need a Savior.

As many of you know Pastor Chuck had a fork in the road moment. Either be a doctor or be a pastor. You can extend lives, or save souls for eternity.

Numbers 6:24–26 ESV

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.