Facing The Battle We Cannot Escape

Dear Lord, holy, heavenly Father, we just come here this morning to praise you.! We praise you just through our worship of singing, of praying, of bowing our hearts to your word, O Lord.

We give you thanks for this glorious opportunity to enter into your presence. We ask these things in your name. Amen. Please be seated. And as you are seated, please be turning to Romans chapter 7.

Romans chapter 7. I'll be honest with you, when we turn to Romans chapter 7, I didn't think I'd be preaching this many sermons on Romans chapter 7.

But it has been a great learning experience, just going through one of the most debated passages in Scripture. And I have been delighted by the response, just from many of you just thanking me, just letting me know that it's bringing clarity and that you are understanding God's eternal word, even sometimes when we get jumbled up in the text.

So to begin, I want you to imagine a man for a moment, a man that loves God with all his heart, yet every day finds himself doing the very things that grieve the God he loves.

This man wants to please God. But there's this power that keeps ambushing him from within.

This man, he delights in God's law in his most innermost being. But he feels this force inside of him, a force that wars within him, a force that pulls and pushes him in the opposite direction of where he really, truly wants to go.

If you've been with us, you know from this text that the man is the Apostle Paul. And if we're being honest, this man is many of us.

Amen? We can relate to his desires. We can relate to the force that ambushes us.

For several weeks now, we've been walking through what some consider one of the most honest, yet comforting passages in all of Scripture.

Paul has pulled back the proverbial curtain on the Christian's lifelong struggle with sin.

You'll remember he said, I do not want, I do not do what I want. I do the very thing I hate. Nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh.

And I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. And now in verses 21 to 25, the struggle that Paul has been taking us through for this chapter reaches its dramatic climax.

If you remember, Paul was confused. Why do I do the things that I do? To explaining, well, there's a power within me that explains to me why I do the things that I do.

And now he explains to us that we are in fact in all-out warfare. And he concludes this passage by asking this most desperate, heart-wrenching question.

Who will deliver me from this body of death? This question matters because many of us quietly or loudly wonder the same thing.

We assume that if we are really saved, the battle should be over by now. We think if I were truly growing, temptation wouldn't come against me so much.

For spiritually mature, we start to think obedience has got to be so much more easier than this. And when the fight continues, we secretly fear, maybe nothing has changed within me.

But here's the truth that Paul is going to give us this morning. Is that God's word gives us better news. See, before Christ, sin ruled without serious resistance.

We might have felt regret or shame, but we did not delight in the law from the heart. Then God saves us.

God transforms us. God gives us a new heart. With this new heart comes new desires and a genuine love for holiness.

And if we were paying attention, that's when the battle began. See, the battle you feel raging inside is not proof that you or Christ is failing.

The battle is the proof that Christ has begun a new real work in you. And we know that even those that are unbelievers feel guilt, but it's more than just feeling guilt.

The evidence of new life is that like Paul, you now love what God loves. You hate what God hates and you long to obey him from your heart.

If you were with us last week, I spoke of three truths that we need to accept in this battle. One, the flesh cannot produce what God requires.

The flesh cannot produce what God requires. Two, right desires alone do not produce right living. Right? I have all the desire to work out, to eat right, but somehow yet my body's not changing.

What's going on? Right? And then the third point we brought in, lasting victory begins when we stop trusting in ourselves.

This morning, Paul takes us one step further. And this is the question. If I can't find the answer in me, where is it?

Where is this answer? If I cannot rescue myself, who can? And that's what brings us to this morning's text.

Let's begin reading Romans 7, beginning in verse 21. Paul writes, So, I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. But I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

Wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So, then I myself serve the law of God in my mind, but my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Paul shows us this morning that because sin remains, every Christian remains in a real war, a real battle.

But because Christ reigns, no Christian ever fights without hope. So, this morning I want to provide for you three essential responses, three truths you need to grasp that every believer must make to this ongoing battle with sin.

The first is you have to start to stop denying the struggle. There is a battle. You need to stop denying the struggle. Number two, we're going to look at stop trying to rescue yourself and simply cry out to Jesus.

And three, start rejoicing in the victory that is already yours in him. That's where we're going this morning. So, let's begin with stop denying the struggle.

The reality is there is a spiritual battle. You know it. I know it. Many people try this whole mind over matter thing. It doesn't really exist. It shouldn't be here.

It shouldn't be a part of my life. But Paul simply says, so I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

Now, I want to clear something up right from the very beginning. I want you to understand what that word law means. Some people think that it means the Mosaic law. Like, if I'm following the Ten Commandments, then things aren't going astray.

But that's not what Paul is talking about. He's describing here, it's like a law of life, a settled principle, a truism of life.

And that simply is, whenever I reach for the good, evil is right there. We just know this. We all know this. It's just a law of life.

It's like Murphy's law. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, especially when you're trying to do anything right. And sadly, it becomes a repeated depressing pattern.

Now, I want you to note what Paul does not say. He does not say, evil is close when I am deliberately running away from God. He doesn't say that.

He says, evil is close when I want to do right. And many of us know this experience.

It even gets us in the minutiae parts of life when we sit down to pray, and all of a sudden your to-do list just starts going off in your head, right? All these things I got to do.

Our minds start to wander. When we are at seminary, we had to, one of the class, we take a class on prayer, and one of the exercises you had to do is you had to pray for a whole hour.

And a lot of times we just think that's, oh, you know, I'm going to knock that out. That's going to be no problem. I would say within the first 10 to 15 seconds, your mind's going to something else while I'm praying.

But, man, I still got to do my Hebrew exercises. You know, all these things start to, so you have to figure it out. You know, I'm going to write this stuff out. And next thing you know, you're writing out your grocery stuff next to it, right?

Like everything just gets distracted, right? You determine to speak patiently to your spouse or your children, and then all of a sudden irritation comes up, right?

You choose, I'm going to forgive this person. This person really hurt me. I'm going to choose to forgive them. And as soon as you're talking to them, it's like this movie is going through, and it's the offense and your passions to start, oh, I'm so angry at this person.

We know it. We open our Bibles and we commit to reading, and all of a sudden just even reading 20 minutes a day seems like it's like a four-hour exercise.

You step out to serve, and pride becomes to whisper in your ears, hey, make sure people notice that you're serving, right? There's just this evil.

There's this stuff that's always there, that even our best actions can become infected with wrong motives. We can give generously, but we want people to notice.

You can correct another person because truth matters, but I really enjoy being right. Let's be honest.

This is the Christian life. Evil lives close at hand. And if we notice in verse 22, Paul shows us another side of the war.

He says, For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. And this is crucial. Paul just doesn't respect God's law or submit grudgingly to this.

In the deepest part of Paul's renewed heart, he says, God's law is right. It's beautiful.

This is what I want at the very depth of my being. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being.

If you remember, we talked about in one of our earlier sermons about, is Paul writing this as a person where he is now or who he used to be?

I believe as we've gone through this text, it's overwhelmingly that it's now. These truths connect to us so deeply.

And Paul as an apostle wasn't like a super Christian who never had temptation or didn't get scared or any of those things. But we see that delight in the law of God is evidence of a new birth.

It assures us. Now maybe you're here today and you would not exactly call yourself a Christian. You know, you're exploring, you're checking things out, you're trying to figure out who this Jesus character is.

And maybe you respect the Bible's teachings and perhaps you even fear God's judgments. But in the back of your mind, God's commands feel like they'd be a weight around you, like a chain that is holding you down.

And that doesn't feel good. Now if that's you, I want you to hear something important. See, what Paul describes here is exactly what happens when someone is born again.

Before we know Christ, God's holiness seems restrictive, right? Well, I still love those things of the world.

I still remember plain as day, there was this young man when I was in university, was one of my Bible studies, his name was Mike, loved coming to Bible studies, loved learning, did all his homework. But he just said, man, I love partying.

I still, I want to experience as many women and experiences that this world could ever have. You know, this is what I want to be committed to.

And he says, what you're offering me, I don't know if my desires would ever change. See, but here's the thing that he did not know.

And sadly, I was too unlearned to explain it to him fully. But holiness is not like someone is trying to ruin our fun or take away our freedom.

But that when Jesus Christ saves us, a miracle happens. In fact, I would argue it's the greatest miracle that anyone can ever experience.

He gives us a new heart. And this heart that lies within changes our desires, what we want, what we favor, what we want to experience.

Suddenly, we begin to see that God's commands are not changed, but they are descriptions of the life that we were created for. Amen? Without it, there is no purpose.

Your purpose is simply yourself. But there's this God of the universe who saves you, who tames your soul, so to speak.

And he gives you a job description that is from the creator of the universe. Because of this, we begin to delight in his ways, even when we still fight sin.

And that inner delight isn't something we manufacture, right? You know? Oh, gee, bubbling water. It's so much better than beer.

It's not that. It's that there is a desire for what is right, what is good, what is lovely, and what is of God. It's not manufactured.

It is what is called the fruit of the gospel. You see, Jesus lived the perfect life that you and I cannot live. He died on the cross to take away the punishment our sin rightly deserves.

He rose again so that we could be forgiven and ultimately transformed. And when Jesus Christ saves a person, he sends his spirit to live inside them and begin changing their heart so that they actually want what God wants.

Amen? So if you're here this morning and you don't yet know that kind of delight, I want you to know right here, right now, that it's available.

Right here, today. Christ offers not only forgiveness, but a new heart that begins to love what is good, what is true, and what is beautiful.

Let me pray for you right now. Dear Holy Heavenly Father, if there's someone here that is still blinded by the lies of the world where the excitement of this world, they believe, surpasses the greatness of what you grant to us, Father, I pray that you would open their eyes.

I pray that you would answer their questions. I pray that you would reveal to them either, give them eyes to see whether it's their friends, their parents, their teachers, their professors, just someone in their life that does know the goodness of Jesus Christ, someone who invited them here today.

And they just simply ask the question, what is their purpose in life? And how does that differ from mine? Father, I ask that you give them strength to ask them, why is it that you delight in the law of God?

Tell me about this delight. Father, I pray that you'd bring truth into their minds, that they would see these things and ultimately bow their heart to you.

Father, I pray that none here would be willing to remain in silent, but just would ask whoever invited them to church, what is this delight?

Father, I ask you these things in your most holy and precious name. Amen. But we come to this other truth that is in verse 23.

There's this painful tension that Paul brings to us. He says, But I see in my members another law, waging war against the law in my mind, and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

And if you're not familiar, Paul is using military language here. What he's saying is sin is not the vacation. Sin isn't the resort. Sin is waging a war against you.

And if you were here for Romans 6, we know that if you're a believer in Christ, Satan no longer rules over you. Amen? But it fights.

It wants that territory back. It's dominion is broken, but its presence still remains. And although it's no longer your master, it still remains an enemy.

And the enemy fights dirty. And what it does is it works through our unredeemed humanity, right? It makes us look at things we shouldn't be looking at. It controls our tongues to say things we don't want to say.

Our appetites, our emotions. You see, until our bodies are glorified, they will always remain vulnerable ground.

Paul says this other law is making me captive. That's strong language. It tells us that there are moments the believer is dragged where he or she does not want to go.

Yet notice this captivity grieves him. He hates it. He fights it because he loves what God loves. He loves what God loves. So here's two important warnings that I have for you.

First, do not conclude that the presence of a struggle means you are not a Christian. If you delight in God's law, hate the sin that contradicts it, and long to obey Christ, the battle itself is evidence that a new heart has been created in you.

But you're like a soldier who just shows up for boot camp. You're really not ready to fight. You don't have the tools. You don't even know how to shoot a weapon. That's what maturity in Christ does.

It helps you with those things. Then number two, never use the struggle as an excuse to surrender. Some people say they're struggling with sin when what they mean is they've made peace with their sin.

They protect it. They feed it. They get defensive when confronted. Oh, you're just bringing legalism into this, BK. This is not what Romans 7 is talking about.

The man in this passage hates his enemy. And you do not feed what is trying to destroy your obedience. You do not repeatedly place yourself where you know you are weak and simply says, well, I have freedom in Jesus.

We do not excuse bitterness, gossip, lust, envy, pride, or anger as that's just the way I am. You see, Jesus Christ, as one author said, he did not save us so we could rename our chains.

He saved us to make us holy and we're to expect the battle but never accept sin as our rightful master.

So you need to understand that there is a battle and you gotta stop saying there isn't. There is. It'll never go away. It's the first truth that I want you to understand. Number two, the second truth is I want you to stop trying to rescue yourself.

Stop trying to rescue yourself. Cry out to Jesus. Verse 24, after describing the war, Paul cries out, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?

One commentator simply states, that is not a calm theological observation.

This is a raw cry of anguish from a man who is exhausted by the battle. The word wretched means someone who is miserable and worn out.

And maybe that describes some of you who are here today. You're exhausted and you're worn out.

And maybe if I just go to church one more time, I can reclaim that once love that I had for God could be instilled back in my heart.

What's interesting in Paul's response, he sees holiness and at the same time, he sees the sin that is in his members.

And he makes no excuses. He doesn't lower the standards or flatters himself to make himself feel better. So he groans, wretched man that I am.

Now I want to explain to you what spiritual maturity looks like. See, spiritual maturity is the closer you walk with God, the more seriously you take your sin.

Early in the Christian life, and I can attest, this was certainly me, we often compare ourselves to others and we feel pretty fairly good about ourselves, right?

Man, I'm glad I'm not like my brother. What a fool. We say that about our spouses, our friends, other people at church.

We compare ourselves and we do these things to feel good about ourselves. It wasn't until I took philosophy and understood that's a philosophical minimalist argument.

It's looking to the lowest denominator to feel good about yourself rather than raising your eyes to the most excellent objective truth of Jesus Christ.

You see, as we mature, we compare ourselves to Christ and we grieve. Not because we love sin, but because we love God and cannot tolerate what offends Him.

And there's a massive difference between the sorrow of someone who got caught and the sorrow of someone who has grieved the God he or she loves.

Anybody relate to what I'm talking about? But I want to give you a warning. We need a balance.

Now, let me explain what I mean by balance. If you've been a Christian long enough, you know that there are some people who turn grieving over their sin into a full-time job.

Right? They love to confess and they love to confess their worst sin to you. Oh man, I got to talk to you. I just got to talk to you what I did. Oh my gosh. Right? It's almost they make it into an art form to stare endlessly at themselves in the mirror of their failures.

They're so excited. I want to read all these really great, and I'll tell you it's going to do it. It's good and bad. Puritan books, man. They're going to get you to the raw part of your heart. But, if you think you are going to be the power to free yourself from that exposition of your own heart, you're going to feel burden coming upon you.

See, these people seem to believe that being thoroughly miserable about their sin is the true mark of godliness. And I've seen this a lot of times, right? The truth of the matter, if sackcloth and ashes were a cultural norm here, there'd be a lot of people wearing them, right?

Woe is me. Bad. Boom. You know? Monty Python joke if you got that. See, the fact is we may not wear literal sackcloth today, but we have our own modern versions.

We know people who disappear from church for weeks because they're thinking, I'm just not worthy to be there right now, or others turn down serving opportunities with a sigh.

No, no. I'm still working through some things. And sometimes you'll even hear, I can't make it to growth group. My sin is just too heavy.

Right? Let me clear something up for you. That is not repentance. That's penance. That's penance. That's called spiritual self-punishment.

It's turning your eyes inwards so much that you miss the Savior who is standing right next to you with His arms wide open. Let me tell you what true repentance is.

One, it agrees with God about our sin. Yes, it's sin. Two, we confess it honestly. Three, we receive the forgiveness that Jesus Christ already purchased on the cross.

And four, you get up and fight again. It's that simple. A lot of people get to that one, okay, I'm going to be honest with God. Then I'm finally going to confess it. Then, okay, I'm going to receive the forgiveness, but I don't want to get in fighting there, BK.

I don't want to get hurt again. I don't want to lose again. Maybe if I don't do that, then the battle will go over me, around me.

It'll ignore me. Now, notice where Paul's grief leads him. His righteousness does not drive him deeper into himself.

It drives him to a question. Who will deliver me? He doesn't ask what new rule will fix me. He doesn't ask what technique or promise or hidden strength can I find.

He asks who, not what. And in case you miss it, this is the turning point of the whole passage. See, Christianity is not another program of self-rescue.

Christianity is the announcement that a deliverer has come. And all you Baptists say, you see, Paul is not longing to be rid of his body.

He's longing for the redemption of his body. Paul knows that he has been delivered from sin's penalty. Paul knows that he is being delivered from sin's power.

And yet, he still waits to be delivered from sin's presence. The fact is, one day, Christ will glorify our bodies if we are in him.

And that means so that every sinful impulse, mixed motive, every wandering desire will be gone forever. Amen? But until then, we will love and serve God with completely undivided hearts.

So what should you do when sin defeats you? We've already stated, don't retreat into shame and self-punishment. Agree with God.

Confess your sins. Repent and return to the fight. And we depend on the means of grace God has given us. Prayer, reading of Scripture, the church, accountability, growth group, one another.

together, working with each other to put sin to death. And it's to understand that these still aren't our Savior.

One author puts it in such a great way, he just says, your discipline did not die for you. Your accountability partner did not rise from the dead for you.

The promises you make cannot change your heart. So the question is not, can I become strong enough to rescue me? The question is, who will deliver me?

And that brings us to our third point this morning. It's we need to start rejoicing the victory that is already yours in Christ Jesus.

It's to start rejoicing in the victory that is already yours in Christ Jesus. What does verse 25 said? It's almost like a sudden explosion of praise.

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. One moment, Paul is crying, wretched man that I am. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

What changed? Did his circumstances change? No, they didn't. Is he still here on earth? Yes, he is. Has his body been glorified?

No, it hasn't. Is sin no longer in his presence? No, it's not. What simply changed is where Paul was looking. In verse 24, Paul was staring at the conflict he could not escape.

In verse 25, he fixed his eyes on the Christ who cannot fail. And the result is immediate worship. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Who is the deliverer? God. How does deliverance come through Jesus Christ our Lord? And what's interesting is Paul does not thank God for helping him rescue himself.

He thanks God because full rescue comes entirely through Jesus Christ. You know, it's not like Jesus did 99 things and you've got to do the one.

He says, no, no, no, I'm going to do it all for you. Right? I'm going to live the perfect life. I'm going to have the atoning death. I am going to have the victorious resurrection.

I'm going to have the ongoing intercession and I am coming back. You see, Paul knows that this victory is not a possibility that depends on his performance.

It is a certainty based on Christ's finished work on the cross. Now, I want you to notice something beautiful here.

If you remember, for most of the chapter, Paul has spoken in the first person singular. He says, I do not understand. I do what I hate. Nothing good dwells in me.

Who will deliver me? But notice what he says now. Jesus Christ, our Lord.

You see, even though the struggle has been intensely personal, the deliverer just doesn't deliver Paul. The deliverer is the same, is the same hope of every believer in Jesus Christ.

Every single one of you who have placed your faith in Christ, he is your hope. The weakest Christian who belongs to Jesus has the same hope as the Apostle Paul.

Amen? And you've heard me use that, the analogy before. It's never based on how strong my grip is on God. God, it's based on God's grip of us.

And guess what? He's not letting go. He promises he's not letting go. So whether you've got big faith, litter faith, it's all the same faith.

It's called saving faith. So what do we learn from this? We learn that biblical hope does not wait for perfect victory before it worships.

It thanks God now because we believe that God's promise is certain. the Christian does now say perhaps Christ will get me home if I perform enough.

That's not what he says. Paul ends this verse on a very realistic note. He says, so then I myself serve the law of God with my mind but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Life is going to continue and I'm going to continue serving the law of God because he knows the war continues until the day Christ's return but because of Christ we fight from victory not for victory.

And this is why Romans 7 beautifully prepares us for Romans 8. Romans 7 is the struggle. Chapter 8 we meet the spirit. The answer to the weakness of our flesh for it is the power of the Holy Spirit applying the victory of Christ to us.

So what does this mean? Well, thanksgiving is not passivity. It means we thank God and then we keep fighting.

We fight from acceptance not for acceptance. We fight knowing there is no condemnation and we fight knowing sin's dominion is broken and we fight knowing the spirit lives within us.

And we fight knowing that one day soon the war will be over. And we will love and serve our king with completely undivided hearts and we will sing thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Lord. Now I want to end this sermon with a bit of a pastoral note. Perhaps today you're simply tired of the battle.

You look at the culture and you see open rebellion. You look at the church and you see compromise and hypocrisy.

you look inside your own heart and you see the sin that needs to be fought and you find yourself self-whispering Lord Jesus come now.

Lord Jesus come now. I'm going to tell you that that is not a wrong prayer. It's not a wrong prayer. The truth is every believer in Christ should long for Christ's return.

But I believe we must be careful. Because longing for Jesus to come back must never become an excuse to stop doing what he's called us to do.

Right? I've seen too many believers and even pastors become so consumed with everything that is wrong. Whether it be the world, the government, the church, or any of the people around them.

They're always critical. They're always attacking. I hate that sin. I hate those people that represent that sin and they just get caught up in all this cynicism. One author said some Christians become so consumed with the darkness that they stop shining.

They become experts in diagnosing darkness and they grow cynical instead of compassionate. They get angry instead of praying and they get critical and are no longer useful.

And they hate the sin of the world sometimes more than the sin that exists in their own hearts and they get stuck. And they get stuck waiting to be taken out of the world while forgetting that they have been left in the world to serve Christ in it.

You see, if Jesus has not yet returned, then Jesus still has work for us to do. Amen? There are people that need to be loved.

There are people that need to understand the good news of Jesus Christ. There's truths that need to be spoken.

There's burdens that need to be carried. there's holiness that needs to be pursued. And there's lost souls who desperately need to hear about our great deliverer.

See, accepting the battle means accepting your assignment in the battle. Scripture uses three words to describe the believer. Right?

There's the athlete, the farmer, and the warrior. we are to be good soldiers. So my pastoral word for you is, yes, long for Christ's return.

But until he comes, remain faithful at your post. Walk in the light. Fight your own sin.

Love people. Proclaim the deliverer. Deliverer. And serve Christ with joy until the day he comes again.

So then we can say over and over, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen? Amen. Let's pray.

Dear Lord, holy heavenly Father, Lord, I hope this whole study of Romans 7 would be a burden lifted off the saints that are here.

It's so easy to get caught up in the things we must do rather than worship the God that we love. It's so easy to be discouraged about the sin that is within and sometimes worrying that, am I really a believer?

I know we've all had those thoughts, we've all done those actions. What in the world am I doing? Why am I doing what I do not want when, Lord, I desperately love you?

Father, I pray that this would not be a passive church. I pray that the lives that are represented in the worship this morning would not be passive people. That they would take up their posts as soldiers for the Lord.

Not hiding out in the foxholes, but willing to go to the front line to say, what can I do? Whether it's serving as a medic or a guard or a teacher or a discipler, an evangelist.

Father, you have given us a multitude of gifts that exist in this church, and I pray as we use them as soldiers for Christ that they would shine through and have an eternal impact on those that we love.

Father, let our prayers not be empty of souls we want to see saved. I know it's discouraging, but Father, we ultimately trust in your sovereignty, that those who are meant to know you will be called by you and we don't know who those are, so we promise to share the word with anybody and everybody that we can know, not just as cases, but as people we love.

So, Father, I pray for this church. I pray for its witness. I pray that we would continue to become a praying church, a church that loves the things that you love and delight in what you delight in.

Father, if there's anyone here that is still searching, seeking, wanting to know what Christianity is all about, I pray they see it in the lives that are lived out here in testimony to you.

People who can speak honestly and openly and say, I know exactly what that preacher guy was talking about. I have struggled with my sin. I have experienced new redemption.

I have confessed my sin and now walk with you, Jesus Christ. So, Father, we thank you for these things and we thank you for this continued worship that we get to be a part of.

In your name we pray. Amen.