Please turn in your Bibles this morning to Romans chapter 7 as we continue our study through Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. As we have seen as we have been going through this chapter that deals with Sanctification and the Law, that Paul opens up this chapter and is speaking of Our Relationship to the Law or that we are dead to the Law. The Law has not died, the Law is in good health, but we have died and because of that the Law has no power over us. Not only have we died but we have been raised up from the dead in Christ and thus, since we have died we are free to marry another, to marry Christ and, as I have said, the Law has no power over us because we have died to it, we are no longer married to it. And Paul spoke of this in Romans 7:1-6.
Next, in Romans 7:7-12 Paul dealt with the issue of Sins Advantage in the Law and he showed us that yes, the Law is good but it has no power to save us, but just to expose our sin. It shows us that we are guilty before God. Not only that, but when the Law shows us what is wrong, the sin in our lives is aroused in us. The sin that is in us is revived! It is not the Laws fault; it is the sin that is in us!
Last time we started a section of this chapter that focuses on The Conflict we have and that is found in Romans 7:13-24, and we did not finish up on this section. The focus is Paul’s life after he was saved, and I believe it was a time when he was writing this letter. Paul is sharing the struggle, the battle, the war that is going on inside of him between the flesh and the spirit. The things that he wants to do he doesn’t do and the things he doesn’t want to do he is doing. He desires to do that which is right, it is in his heart to do what is right, but he can’t do it to the extent that his heart wants to do it.
Now some say that Paul is speaking of an unsaved person here, but dead men don’t wrestle with sin, they are dead! Others say that Paul is speaking of a carnal Christian, but when you look at the text and if you look at the personal pronouns that Paul uses, he has to be speaking of himself and as I have said, I believe it is the struggle of a Christian, any Christian, and Paul could have been at the height of his spiritual growth here.
For me, this is encouraging, that a man like Paul had struggles, battles in his Christian life with the flesh. If I were to ask you this morning, how many of you have daily battles with the flesh, if you were honest with yourself, all of you would raise your hands. And if you didn’t, well, I guess the flesh won out on that one because I think every believer faces these struggles with the flesh on a daily basis.
Look at what Paul said in I Corinthians 9:24-27, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” Paul was focused, he understood who he was fighting against, and he prepared himself by drawing close to God, but it was still a battle for him as it is with us!
Again, listen to what Paul says in Hebrews 12:1-2, “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
This cloud of witnesses are the dear saints that Paul spoke of in Hebrews chapter 11, that great hall of faith and they are showing us what we can do as we draw close to God, the victories we can have in Him! Now what stops us from running or what hinders us from running? Paul mentions two things. First of all he speaks of “weight” or OGKOS, (ong’-kos) in the Greek. This is not bad or evil necessarily but they speak of things that get into our life and weigh us down so we can’t finish the race that God has set before us. You know how it is, the more weight we put on in our physical lives, the harder it is to do the things we did when we didn’t have all that weight on.
Imagine a marathon runner who is pulling a refrigerator behind him in the race. He needs food so he thought he would bring some along. Also, it is a long race so he can catch a movie, so he brings his portable DVD player with him. To catch up with the news he brings along a newspaper and a favorite book to read along the way. None of these things are bad, they are not wrong but they will hinder him from finishing the race, they will weigh him down. We as Christians cannot win or run well if we are carrying excess weight around. For us it can be anything that distracts us from Christ, that keeps us from doing what He has called us to do. For these Jewish believers it was legalism, the old religious ways that kept them from going forward! What is holding you down, what is holding you back?
Secondly, Paul speaks of “sin” or HAMARTIA, (ham-ar-tee’-ah) in the Greek and it speaks of missing the mark, of coming up short, an offence before God. Any sin will hinder our progress and specifically here, it is “the sin” which I believe is unbelief. You see, unbelief will hinder us in this race of faith; it will give the enemy room to trip us up. But make no mistake about it; all sin will be a hindrance to you! And if you think about it, any sin can ensnare us, trip us up, cause us to be taken out of the race that God has set before us!
What can we do about it? Paul tells us that we are to “lay aside” or APOTITHEMI, (ap-ot-eeth’-mee) in the Greek and it speaks of casting off, to put away. In other words, we have choices to make in this life and the choices we make will either hinder us or propel us forward. They will either keep us apart from where Christ wants us to be or move us closer to the finish line, where He is standing!
You see, these things are trying to “ensnare us” or entangle us. They are like an ambush to our faith, but they don’t have to be! We can run the race with endurance, with joy, with patience, with consistency. The word for “endurance” translates the ancient Greek word HUPOMONE, (hoop-om-on-ay’) “which does not mean the patience which sits down and accepts things but the patience which masters them . . . It is a determination, unhurrying and yet undelaying, which goes steadily on and refuses to be deflected.” (Barclay.) You see, the “race” we are in, AGONA in the Greek, speaks of a conflict or struggle.
I think that is what we see here in Romans chapter 7 with Paul and he is showing us these struggles here to bring us to Romans chapter 8 to show us where the victory is found and that is in Christ. It does not mean these struggles, these battles go away, but we can obtain victory over them. You see, the Bible teaches us that the flesh is warring against the Spirit and the Spirit will therefore war against the flesh, there is a battle going on inside of us and we need to deal with it if we want to be victorious!
And so here in Romans chapter 7 we are going to continue to look at this conflict that is going on inside of Paul and inside each of us. We have covered verses 13 through 18 last week, but we are going to read through them again to get the flow of the passage. So with that said, let’s begin reading in Romans chapter 7, starting in verse 13 and see what the Lord has for us as we continue looking at the subject of SANCTIFICAITON AND THE LAW and specifically here, THE CONFLICT!
I hope you are seeing in these verses the struggle that is going on here in the life of Paul. It is as C. S. Lewis said, “No man knows how bad he is until he has tried to be good.” You see, Paul is speaking of the war going on between the Spirit and the flesh. It is truly a battle as Paul tells us in Galatians 5:16-18, “I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” The key is where are you walking, who are you walking with?
And when you examine your life in the light of God, you see where you really stand, how sinful you are compared to a holy and righteous God. It is as this story tells us:
A young man once said to a preacher, “I do not think I am a sinner.” Then the preacher asked him if he would be willing for his mother or sister to know all he had done, said or thought, all his motives and all his desires. After a moment the young man said, “No, indeed, I certainly would not like to have them known—not for all the world.”
- Illustrations of Bible Truth, 1995 AMG International
You see, we do know what we are like; we just don’t like to admit it. And the nearer you get to the Lord, The more His light shines upon your life, the more you are going to see what sin is in your life. The nearer we get to God, the more we will see what we really are.
How true that is and thus, there is this battle that is going on in our lives. We know what is right and we don’t do it, and we know what is wrong and we do it! That is the battle that Paul was going through and it is a battle that we all face in our Christian walk! Last time we covered verses 13 through 18 and we will finish up with verses 19-24 this morning. So let’s dig into these verses and see what the Lord has for us this morning.
Now please understand that Paul is not saying that his entire life was bent on evil. What he is saying is that he was in a battle. He had this deep desire to do good. You see, the new man, the redeemed man has a desire to do what is right, but there are those times when that old nature wins out. That is what Paul was saying in Philippians 3:12-14, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
We have not already attained, we are not already perfected in the practical sense, but we too must press on, keeping our eyes upon Jesus! Our desire is to do good, that is what we want to do, but it is not what we always do. And that is what Paul is saying here. In fact, this troubled Paul because what he did not want to do, he ended up doing at times.
Now, is this the way an unbeliever or a childish or backslidden Christian will feel? Absolutely not, it is the way that a mature believer feels, that he hates sin, that he knows the holiness of God and what God desires of him and yet, he also sees his weakness, his failures.
I do realize that this may be hard for some to agree with, but it is true, Paul is speaking of himself as a mature believer and I think he was speaking of the time when he was writing this letter to the church in Rome. Think about King David, a man after God’s own heart, (I Samuel 13:14), and yet he agonized over his sin and I think we do the same.
How many of you struggle with sin? How many of you know what you are to do and yet do the opposite at times? You see, I would guess that all of us struggle with this because none of us have been perfected yet, we are being sanctified in the practical sense and yet, in the positional sense, God sees the finished product; he will complete the work He has begun in us!
Can you imagine how you would feel if Paul said that he was already perfected, that he only did that which pleased God, that he never did anything that was wrong? You and I would feel horrible, like failures, like we were not even Christians. But thank God Paul is honest and he is telling us what we already see in our own lives. And don’t think that he is condoning this, but it is a reality and he will move on and show us where we can find the victory in all of this and it is not in ourselves!
Now please understand once again that Paul is not making excuses for his actions, the things that he was doing that were wrong. He was not trying to avoid his own responsibilities in these things like so many do today. Paul is simply stating that he has not found the deliverance from the power of the indwelling sin. You see, when Paul sinned that was not his desire, the new man did not want to sin but the flesh or that old nature is the source!
Before Paul was saved, yes, it was the inner “I” that was doing it, but no longer because the inner “I” is spiritual now, it is new in Christ and thus, it is this flesh nature that tries to resurrect itself and get us to do those things that we don’t want to do! Think of this verse like this, “Now if I (the total me) do what I will not to do (the new me), it is no longer I who do it (the new me), but sin that dwells in me (my flesh).” I think that sums it up pretty good! Or, as The Living Bible puts it, “Now if I am doing what I don't want to, it is plain where the trouble is: sin still has me in its evil grasp.”
It is that old nature that is causing us all this trouble but one day that will be taken away as God redeems these bodies of flesh. It is as Paul tells us in Romans 8:22-25, “For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.”
It is easy to be discouraged as we fail, we fall short, we don’t do those things that God desires us to do, but look at this glorious promise, our hope. What is it? It is that Jesus Christ is coming back and when He does this body of flesh will be redeemed, the Lord will give to us a new body for our spirit and soul to dwell in. We can’t see it now but we are standing on our tiptoes waiting for this to occur.
Of this event, Paul tells us in I Corinthians 15:50-58, “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed — in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?’ The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”
We are waiting for that day, the redemption of our bodies! That word “perseverance” in verse 25 of Romans chapter 8, Morris tells us “It is the attitude of the soldier who in the thick of battle is not dismayed but fights on stoutly whatever the difficulties.” May we continue to do so – don’t lose that hope! You see, God will strengthen us in these bodies until He presents to us new glorified bodies! That old nature that is causing all this trouble will be taken care of by the Lord, it will be gone!
Paul is not speaking of the Law of God here but a law, a principle in every person’s life and that is this evil, even with Christians and that is who he is speaking about here. The unsaved have this but it does not bother them because dead men don’t wrestle with sin, they are dead! But for the Christian, he knows what is right and yet there is that desire in him to do the opposite.
Barnes put it like this in his commentary on Romans. He wrote:
There can be no doubt that he refers here to his carnal and corrupt nature; to the evil propensities and dispositions which were leading him astray. His representing this as a law is in accordance with all that he says of it, that it is servitude, that he is in bondage to it, and that it impedes his efforts to be holy and pure. The meaning is this, “I find a habit, a propensity, an influence of corrupt passions and desires, which, when I would do right, impedes my progress, and prevents my accomplishing what I would.”
- Barnes' Notes
Let me say this, and please listen carefully. If you reject this idea of this evil being in you, look out! If you doubt this for a minute you will find your life shipwrecked. Why do I say that? Because if you are not prepared for the battle, you will lose the war! We need to be aware of what we are doing because even the good things we do can lead us down a path that is wrong.
Let me give you an example so you see what I mean. One of the reasonability’s for a pastor is to counsel people who are in need, who are hurting and that means they will counsel women that are having marriage problems all the time. And usually this is a one-on-one meeting. Nothing wrong with this, the pastor is trying to help a person out who is in trouble.
So week in and week out they meet, she confides in him and he being a pastor is listening to her and having compassion on her, something her husband wasn’t doing or she would not be in counseling in the first place. All of this is good. She is seeking help and he is giving her godly advice.
The problem is this. Inside of us is evil and the Devil knows how to jump on situations like this and use it for his good. And there have been a number of pastors who end up dating and marrying the women they were counseling, even divorcing their own wife’s! You see, we need to be aware that this is evil in us and unless we are aware, we will not be prepared to battle against it. That is why I don’t counsel women alone; I bring my wife with me. It is just being wise! And I think that is the point that Paul is driving home here!
The inward man, the new man, the spiritual man loves the Law of God; he loves the things of God! Paul, in Ephesians 4:17-24 tells us, “This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”
Too often, for some Christians, the Christian life is all about knowing facts regarding the Scriptures. Now don’t get me wrong, having the correct doctrine is important for us but unless you apply that doctrine to your life, it is worthless, it is empty. And it is a choice on our part, a choice we must make and as we surrender our lives to Him, walking in His ways, our mind will be transformed.
With our minds being transformed our actions will flow from this new nature we have in Christ as Paul shows us in Romans 12:1-2, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
The Amplified Bible puts these verses like this, “I APPEAL to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship.”
You see, to learn Christ is more than just knowledge about Him; it is an intimate relationship with Him. It is a communion with our Lord and Savior. Thus, as you read God’s Word, as you hear God’s Word being taught, He will convict you of sin, encourage you as needed, He will bless you and-so-on. Learning Christ is not just learning about Him, but making Him part of your life!
Thus, we are told to “put off” the old man and his wicked ways, because, if you don’t, you will continue to become more and more corrupt. The old man, that sin nature is like an ugly monster, the more you feed it the more it grows and the more it grows the more it wants to be fed! Put it off, put it away, discard it from your life or it will control your life! Put on Christ instead!
And in verse 24 of Ephesians chapter 4 Paul is telling us to put on an entirely new man. Not the old man cleaned up but a new man on the inside, which will overflow to the outside. Now Paul says that this, “ . . . new man which was created according to God . . .” is better translated from the Greek, “according to what God is.”
When we are born again into the family of God we are not transformed into the image of man but into what God is. Our actions and attitudes should reflect those of God. We should hate sin and love that which is good. Now you may be thinking that you fall far short of those standards and that is very true, we all do. But it is what we are working towards. We are new in Christ and our actions should reflect the attitudes of our heart.
You see, this inner man, that is what needs to grow, to mature in our lives as we feed it the Word of God and apply the Word of God to our lives. As we do then it is the nature of God that will flow from our lives, the fruit of the Spirit, which is love instead of the works of the flesh, which is just plain ugly!
Paul, in Ephesians 3:16-21 is praying that the Lord for the Ephesian church and for us, and he tells us, “ . . . would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height — to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Build up the inner man, love what the Lord loves and hate what the Lord hates and you will be growing in Him! This struggle is what Paul was facing and it is what we face, we delight in the Law of God but we don’t always do the Law of God and Paul is going to speak on that in the next verse!
Make no mistake about it; sin is a powerful force in our lives! That is what Paul is saying here. Now, as you read this it also seems that Paul is saying that the body is evil and the mind is good. Not at all. In fact, this idea, and not what Paul was speaking of here, is what latter became known as Gnosticism where they believed that the body was evil and thus, you could do whatever you wanted because you were not responsible for your actions, your body made you do it, in a sense. On the other hand the spirit is good and because of that they could sin like the Devil and still be okay because the body is evil but the spirit good! How foolish!
Paul has already told us that he is responsible for his actions and thus, Paul is just speaking of the reality of all this. The unredeemed body, the flesh is at war against the Spirit and that is what Paul tells us in Galatians 5:17, “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.” The Amplified Bible puts this verse like this, “For the desires of the flesh are opposed to the [Holy] Spirit, and the [desires of the] Spirit are opposed to the flesh (godless human nature); for these are antagonistic to each other [continually withstanding and in conflict with each other], so that you are not free but are prevented from doing what you desire to do.”
Do you see the battle that Paul was facing here? He knew what the new man, the inner man was showing him and yet, there was this body of flesh, this flesh nature that was trying to get him to do those things that he was not to do. It was a struggle, it was a battle for him and I believe it is the same for us!
In regards to this struggle that Paul is speaking of here, Walvoord and Zuck tell us:
The indwelling principle of sin is constantly mounting a military campaign against the new nature, trying to gain victory and control . . . of a believer and his actions. The new nature is called “the law” of the “mind” . . . because it has the capacity for perceiving and making moral judgments. Further, despite a believer’s identification with Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection and his efforts to have Christ-honoring attitude and actions, he cannot in his own power resist his indwelling sin nature. In and of himself he repeatedly experience defeat and frustration.
- Walvoord & Zuck, The Bible Knowledge Commentary, p. 468
That is where Paul is at and as you understand that you will understand what he is now going to say in verse 24 of Romans chapter 7.
Here is the struggle, the inner man loves the things of God and the flesh is at war, the flesh doesn’t want you to go down that path. And Paul says “O wretched man that I am!” or literally, “O wretched through the exhaustion of hard labor.” It can be overwhelming as we see ourselves in this condition.
You see, Paul understood that as long as he was in this mortal body there would be this conflict between the flesh and the Spirit and it truly was a battle! And I see here that Paul is acknowledging his own inability to win this battle, that he is in this bondage you might say, this struggle. Paul is asking to be delivered from this condition, this body of death and he uses the Greek word, RUOMI and it carries with it the idea of being rescued from danger! Often it was used of a soldier who would go onto the battlefield to the aid of a wounded soldier and carry him to safety, to rescue him, to deliver him! And keep in mind this “body of flesh” is the place where sin lives and sin expresses itself and Paul wants to be delivered from it!
Now in Paul’s day this idea of being in bondage to this body of flesh was a vivid illustration. You see, in an area near Tarsus, the place where Paul was born, there was a tribe of people who lived and they inflicted a horrific penalty upon a person who murdered another.
What they would do is they would take the body of the dead man, the man this person murdered, and they would fasten it to the body of the living man, this murderer. In fact, they would tie the body shoulder-to-shoulder, back-to-back, thigh-to-thigh, and arm-to-arm and then they would drive the murderer from the community and into the hot Mediterranean sun! Some feel that they tied them face-to-face, body-to-body, which is even worse!
You can imagine what this was like and it was not pretty but effective I guess. And keep in mind that these ropes were so tight that he could in no way free himself. And after just a few days in that hot Mediterranean sun the rotting, decaying body would inflict it’s poison upon the living murderer! This rotting tissue would spread to the flesh of the living body!
And what was the outcome of all this? It was death! You see, as he walked helplessly in that hot Mediterranean sun with no one to help him with this dead, decaying body tied to him, he could have cried out, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
And I think Paul’s point is this. He is saying that this illustration is what we as Christians feel like at times, like we are carrying around a dead, rotting, decaying corpse and it seems hopeless. In fact, The Amplified Bible puts this verse like this, “O unhappy and pitiable and wretched man that I am! Who will release and deliver me from [the shackles of] this body of death?” Yes, it does seem hopeless but it is not!
You see, the secret is not in a program, or a methodology but it is found in a person, the person of Jesus Christ. Now we will finish up with this last verse next time but I don’t want to leave you like this as we close this morning. Look at what Paul says in Romans 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.” The Amplified Bible puts this verse like this, “O thank God! [He will!] through Jesus Christ (the Anointed One) our Lord! So then indeed I, of myself with the mind and heart, serve the Law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” Isn’t that great! Our victory is in Christ and not ourselves and we will deal more with this as we look at this issue next week. And keep in mind that the ultimate fulfillment of this is in the redemption of our bodies, and then we will not have this issue any longer, we will be with the Lord and have our new resurrected bodies!
Now, as I begin to close this morning, listen to how J. I. Packer summarizes these verses here in Romans chapter 7 and he will cover all the way through verse 25 of Romans chapter 7, which we will finish up next week, but just listen to what he has to say because he does summarize it nicely for us. He wrote:
Alive in Christ, his heart delights in the law, and he wants to do what is good and right and thus keep it perfectly. . . . But he finds that he cannot achieve the total compliance at which he aims. Whenever he measures what he has done, he finds that he has fallen short (v. 23). From this he perceives that the anti-God urge called sin, though dethroned in his heart, still dwells in his own flawed nature. . . . Thus the Christian’s moral experience (for Paul would not be telling his own experience to make theological points, did he not think it typical) is that his reach persistently exceeds his grasp and that his desire for perfection is frustrated by the discomposing and distracting energies of indwelling sin.
Stating this sad fact about himself, renews Paul’s distress at it, and in the cry of verses 24, 25 he voices his grief at not being able to glorify God more: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Then at once he answers his own question: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! . . .” The question was asked in the future tense, so the verb to be supplied in the answer should be in the future tense too: “Thank God! He will deliver me through Jesus Christ!”
Paul here proclaims that his present involuntary imperfection, summed up in the latter part of verse 25, will one day be made a thing of the past through the redemption of the body referred to in chapter 8:23. . . . For that future redemption we must long and wait, maintaining always the two-world, homeward-traveling, hoping-for-glory perspective that pervades the whole New Testament.
- J. I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit, pp. 128-129
We long for that day when we will be truly freed, but until then, the battle! And I do realize that like Paul, we can all get frustrated, even want to give up over our failures as we serve the Lord. Listen to this story and then I will close with a few comments. We are told:
On New Year’s Day, 1919, Georgia Tech was playing California. Late in the second quarter, Roy Regals recovered a fumble for California, and in his excitement he became confused and began running in the wrong direction. After racing sixty-five yards he was finally tackled by his own player at the Georgia Tech two-yard line. California attempted to punt from deep in their own end zone, but the kick was blocked and Georgia Tech scored a safety. In the locker room at halftime, Roy Regals sat in the corner with his hands buried in his face, crying. Everyone else was silent.
The coach didn’t make his usual halftime speech, but shortly before the team was to take the field for the second half, he said, “The starting team is going back onto the field to begin the second half.” The whole team left the locker room except for Regals, who remained in the corner, face in hands. “I can’t do it, Coach,” he said. “I can’t play. I’ve ruined the team.” The coach said, “Get up Regals. The game is only half over. You belong on the field.”
- Steve May, The Story File, p.121
Do not give up, you will have struggles in this life over sin, there is a battle going on. The secret is keeping your eyes focused on the Lord and understanding that He is not finished yet with the work He is doing in you! It is good to be aware of where we are at and not to become complacent in our walk with the Lord, but also, don’t let the enemy beat you up because as Paul tells us, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” The Amplified Bible puts it like this, “THEREFORE, [there is] now no condemnation (no adjudging guilty of wrong) for those who are in Christ Jesus, who live [and] walk not after the dictates of the flesh, but after the dictates of the Spirit. [John 3:18.]” Romans 8:1. Yes, there is this conflict we face daily but our victory is in Christ!