The Believer’s Struggle With Sin Romans 7

How many things are necessary for you to know, that in this comfort you may live and die happily?

Three things: the first, how great my sin and misery is; the second, how I am redeemed from all my sins and misery; the third, how I am to be thankful to God for such redemption.

Many years ago I was the founding chairman for a parent controlled Christian school at Albion Park, now Calderwood. My main job was to come up with a verse that would summarise the whole idea of Christian education. The verse we arrived at was in 2 Corinthians 5:9. "Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him… we make it our ambition to please Him" In all things please God! It seemed like we took months to agree on this.. but it appears to be gone now.

All of our desires, decisions, aspirations, and affections should be governed by our prior determination to please God. This is distinct from a superficial interest in religious things that is nothing more than a thinly disguised form of self-preoccupation. Our belief should be in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is externally and objectively true, not in a form of God that exists to please us. David Wells writes, "A God with whom we are on … easy terms and whose reality is little different from our own—a God who is merely there to satisfy our needs—has no real authority to compel and will soon begin to bore us."

We must ask ourselves, "Who am I trying to please?" The worker endeavors to please his boss, the child his parents, the pupil his teacher. But for the believer, underpinning all that must be a heartfelt commitment to be able to say with Paul, "We make it our goal to please him" (2 Cor. 5:9).

"May he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen" (Heb. 13:21).

But, we have a struggle. And mainly it is inside of us.  A civil war seems to rage in every Christian's heart!

Paul plunges us into this civil war as he discusses the whole idea of sanctification, of being godly people who please God.

1. The Revelation of the Struggle

What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, "You shall not covet."

The Commandments Define Sin  the "civil use,"  to restrain evil. 

8 But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead.9 I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died;

The Commandments Disturb Us To Sin

10 and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me;11 for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.

The Commandments Provide A Standard to Condemn Humanity.

Augustine wrote, "the law bids us, as we try to fulfill its requirements, and become wearied in our weakness under it, to know how to ask the help of grace."

So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

The Commandments Reflect God's Nature

They are a guide for the regenerate into the good works that God has planned for them (Eph. 2:10)

Calvin "the proper purpose of the law, finds its place among believers in whose hearts the Spirit of God already lives and reigns. For even though they have the law written and engraved upon their hearts by the finger of God [Jer 31:33; Heb 10:16], that is, have been so moved and quickened through the directing of the Spirit that they long to obey God, they still profit by the law in two ways.

First, the moral law teaches us God's will. 

Second, it not only teaches us God's will but exhorts us to obedience. In this way, the moral law helps those who have the Holy Spirit do what they desire to do: obey God. As Calvin notes, "Even for a spiritual man not yet free of the weight of the flesh the law remains a constant sting that will not let him stand still"

14 For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.15 For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.16 But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good.17 So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

2. The Reality of the Struggle

Exasperation, Martin Luther said, "When I became a Christian I thought I had drowned the old man in me, but I found the rascal could swim!"

Present tenses and Personal pronouns 46x

Paul delights in the Law 22

One of the reasons I believe Paul is talking about himself and his on-going war against sin as a man of God is because of the way Paul describes his deep, longing a passion for true righteousness. A lost man does not have a longing or passion for true righteousness.  In fact, he is perfectly happy to settle for mere "surface" or "exterior" righteousness.  He does not really care about being perfectly pure and holy before God.  But the man Paul is describing in Romans 7 has a deep desire, and passion for purity and righteousness.  Listen to a few of the expressions Paul uses to describe this new passion for true righteousness….

v.15 …For what I WILL to do, that I do not practice;…18 … For to WILL is present in me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. v.19  For the good that I WILL to do, I do not do;  21 I find then a law, that is present with me, the one who WILLS to do good.

A truly saved person has a heart to that wants what God wants.  (A spiritual person does not resist everything God is trying to do in their lives.  They have a heart to do the things God wants them to do.)You don't have to manipulate and persuade a Christian to do what is right… It is in his heart to do it…

You don't have to try to coerce a Christian to Love God first… He wants to do it.

You don't have to try to coerce a Christian to attend church… He wants to do it.

You don't have to try to coerce a Christian to give generously… He wants to give.

You don't have to try to coerce a Christian to love his neighbor… He wants to do it.

You don't have to try to coerce a Christian to read God's word… He loves Gods word.

One of the signs of genuine conversion is that a person's "WILL" has been refashioned, and down deep inside he wants what God wants.

 

The Summation at the end 25 So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

Milton Morris the transport minister in the Askin government had the reputation of being stainless steel. There hasn't been another like him for honesty and integrity, a godly Christian man who gave the last years of his life to preaching Christ.  But the truth is, there are no Teflon saints. We all sin!

3. The Rigour of the Struggle

THE SPIRIT BORN PERSON HAS A GROWING SENSITIVITY TOWARD SIN.

The Spirit Born person HATES his/her sin.

The Spirit Born person GRIEVES over his/her sin.

The Spirit Born person does not WANT to sin.

The Spirit Born person is SURPRISED by his/her sin

The Spirit Born person is willing to OWN his/her sin.

 

Kenneth Boa Holman "It is not uncommon for commentators to suggest what might have been in Paul's mind when he cried out, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" (Rom. 7:24). "Wretched" we understand, but what is the "body of death" from which he wants to be rescued? A most gruesome picture is that presented by the Roman poet Virgil (70–19 B.C.), with which his audience in Rome might well have been familiar (noted by Bruce, p. 147). In Book Eight of the Æneid, Virgil's epic poem that chronicles the wanderings of Aeneas after the fall of Troy, the horrific cruelty of the Etruscan king Mezentius is told. To punish and torture his living captives, Mezentius tied them face to face with decomposing corpses of those killed in battle, leaving them bound together until the living captive died. Virgil's poetic presentation does little to soften the horror of such a fate:

    The living and the dead at his command

Were coupled, face to face, and hand to hand,

Till, chok'd with stench, in loath'd embraces tied,

The ling'ring wretches pin'd away and died.

—Virgil's Æneid, Book Eight

What did Paul call himself—a "wretched man"? What did Virgil call those locked in the embrace of death—those "ling'ring wretches"? Surely no word other than "rescue" would fit both scenes. And if Paul had Virgil's epic in mind, then this image of "body of death" suddenly puts the gospel's deliverance from the law in a new and more serious light."

Longenecker makes the point that maybe the particular person we were bound to (he takes the view that Romans 7 is not autobiographical, but rather a continuation of 7:7-13 and is more about mankind as a whole rather than the believer's experience), is Adam (as in Romans 5), and we are bound face to face hand to hand to the death that we have in Adam! We can experience being freed from this bondage and being united to Christ instead, with all the benefits of dying to sin and living in resurrection life in Christ!

4. The Result of the Struggle

After Paul bears his soul, and expresses the agonizing struggle he has with the principle of sin in his own life he cries out in despair… "O wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?"  (v.24)

Then Paul immediately answer that question and tells us exactly "WHO" can and will deliver us from these bodies of death…

Rom 7:25 I thank God-- through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

Listen my friend… JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF is our victory over sin.

Our victory does not come through counseling

Our victory does not come through therapy

Our victory does not come through support groups

Our victory does not come through training or education (we have a lot of very smart, well trained, sinners.  Sinners who know the Bible)

Our ultimate victory comes exclusively through the Person of Jesus Christ living in us, through us and controlling us.

I love what Bill Stafford told us recently when he said, "When I got saved I did not just get VICTORY  over sin…  I got the VICTOR HIMSELF!"

25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Delivered From The Penalty of Sin

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,

Delivered From The Power of Sin

4. so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.5 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

One day Delivered From The Presence of Sin.

8 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.

25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Now primarily, Paul is reminding us how He saved us from the power of our sins:

He has dealt with our pardon from the Penalty of our sins in Romans 3-5. He is dealing with the Power of our sins in chapters 6-8, and the presence of sin from chapter 8.

The truly saved person can not continue in a lifestyle of sin…Listen to how the apostle John puts it:

I Jn 1:6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

I Jn 2:3 Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4 He who says, "I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

I Jn 2:15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

I Jn 2:29 If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.

I Jn 3:5-6 And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.

I Jn 3:8-9 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.

I Jn 5:4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world-- our faith.

I Jn 5:18 We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him.

Be Comforted: The struggle is real. It is ok to struggle.

Be Kind: Others struggle too. When they fall be kind. Sometimes unkindness and impatience is because we for get that God has been kind to us. Ephesians 4: 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.32 Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.