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. Now some of you may be wondering why we are going so slowly through this book, why we are spending so much time on each chapter. The reason is simple. In the days we are living in many Christians are confused about their faith and thus, the book of Romans is one of those books that lays it all out for us. There is no escaping where we stand and what God has for us. Paul starts us in a section that you might call, CONDEMENTAITON!
Paul spent the good part of the first 3 chapters of his letter showing that the whole world is guilty before God, that none are good, not even one before a holy and righteous God. That is where Paul needed us to be before he took on the next topic, found in Romans 3:21 through Romans 5:21, a section on JUSTIFICATION! You see, the righteousness of God has been revealed from heaven apart from the works of the Law, our justification is only found in Christ. He took our sins and He gave to us His righteousness and that is the only reason we can stand before God. In fact, as God looks at our lives, He sees us as perfect, without sin, any sin. There is no record of any of them because Jesus has paid them in full as He shed His blood for us!
We are presently in the third major division of this book besides the opening salutation and Paul’s introduction, and that is dealing with SANCTIFICATION! In Romans chapters 6 through 8 Paul is showing us the power of God’s Spirit to live a life that is pleasing to God. In Romans chapter 6 we saw how we are no longer slaves to sin because we have died to sin and we live for Christ! In Romans chapter 7 we have seen a struggle going on between doing what is right and doing what is wrong. The key is that we are no longer under the Law but under grace.
You see, the Law did not die, the Law is healthy, the Law is good. But we died, and thus, since we were married to the Law at one time we were unable to marry another. But now that we have died we can marry another. How can that be? Because we have been resurrected by Christ and now we are free to marry Him. Thus, we are not under the Law, but under grace through Jesus.
Now last time we saw this struggle of Paul, like I have said. The things he wanted to do, well, he didn’t do them. And then, the things that he didn’t want to do, he ended up doing them. It truly was a battle for Paul. It is not that Paul was carnal here but I truly believe it is the struggle of every believer. And yes, Paul is going to find out where the victory is found, but even in saying that, he still struggled because I think he tried to accomplish in the flesh what can only be accomplished by the Spirit. There is this battle that is going on and that battle is only for believers. You see, dead men don’t wrestle with sin, they are DEAD!
In fact, in this chapter we see the word, “Law,” mentioned some 23 times. We will not find victory in the Law. Yes, we know what is right and we think we can do it, but we end up losing the battle. Paul tells us in Galatians 5:17 that this is a battle for us, “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.”
In his commentary on Galatians, John MacArthur wrote:
. . . it obvious that walking by the Spirit is not simply a matter of passive surrender. The Spirit-led life is a life of conflict, because it is in constant combat with the old ways of the flesh that continue to tempt and seduce the believer. The flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.
It should be noted that the flesh is the term Paul often uses to describe what remains of the “old man” after a person is saved. It refers to unredeemed humanness, the part of a believer that awaits future redemption at the time of his glorification (Rom 8:23). Until then he has a redeemed self (cf. Gal 2:20) living in an unredeemed humanness, and that creates great conflict. . . .
The flesh is that part of a believer that functions apart from and against the Spirit. It stands against the work of the Spirit in the believer’s new heart. The unsaved person often regrets the sinful things he does because of guilt and/or painful consequences, but he has no spiritual warfare going on within him, because he has only a fleshly nature and is devoid of the Spirit. The sinful things he does, though often disappointing and disgusting to him, are nevertheless consistent with his basic nature as an enemy of God (Rom 5:10) and a child of His wrath (Eph 2:3). He therefore has no real internal conflict beyond whatever conscience may remain in his sinful state.
It is only in the lives of believers that the Spirit can fight against the flesh, because it is only in believers that the Spirit dwells. Only a believer can truthfully say, “I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind” (Rom 7:22-23). Only in believers are the unredeemed flesh and the Spirit living in the redeemed self in opposition to one another, so that believers may not do the things that they please. Believers do not always do what they wish to do. There are those moments in every Christian's experience when the wishing is present but the doing is not. The Spirit often halts what our flesh desires, and the flesh often overrides the will that comes from the Spirit.
- John MacArthur, Galatians
How true that is for each of us as we live out our Christian faith. Now why would Paul write about these struggles, what was the purpose? First of all he is not writing to excuse our weaknesses or defeats. It is not, “Sorry I yelled at you, but my spirit was willing, it is my flesh that is weak!” No, that is not at all what Paul is doing here. He is trying to help us to understand what the true path to victory is all about!
As I have said before, to often Christians look for a quick fix to their problems, a short-cut to obtain that victorious Christian life and in doing so they become self-reliant instead of Christ-reliant! And we do try to escape our struggles, whatever they may be because we want that victory without the hard work of self-denial and our consecration to the Lord! You see, hard work does not mean that we are being carnal. It is not that God does everything and we just sit back. God does His part and we do ours and that is where the victory is found.
Let’s face it, none of us like to face struggles and we do try to avoid them, even though they are there to help us to grow. There are at least three ways that we try to avoid struggles with sin and I would like to look at those first before we get to our text this morning. This is important for it will help set the stage for what Paul is going to say in Romans 7:25 and then on into chapter 8. So let’s look at these three ways we try to avoid the struggles of sin and see how wrong that really is.
Americans love this approach, the formula approach. The idea here is that there is some special formula, some secret formula, some hidden formula you might say that will bring about instant victory in our lives. I am sure you have heard of this or you may have even tried it for yourself. It may be a new book that will set you free from the struggles of sin if you follow their formula, their approach. It is a guarantee to work or so they say!
The big one today is the spiritual warfare seminar or approach that will help you live that victorious Christian life! Let me give you an example of what this is about from the following article from Let Us Reason Ministries. They wrote:
Today we see people using the term of binding and loosing as an exercise of their spiritual authority as believers over Satan, and demonic powers and beings in the spiritual realm. Many people are convinced because of the results.
People are claiming that we have the authority and power to bind the devil and his demons. Some say that we can also bind sickness like cancer, and loose people from the devil's hold, which can include poverty. . . .
At these spiritual warfare sessions the audience participates together in calling down spirits of adultery, greed, homosexuality to the demons of alcohol and lust. While the participants’ emotions soar at the outcome this in no way validates the means or the results (which usually are none except to feel good in a army like camaraderie and that has exercised their spiritual power over the enemy.) This is all done so that there will be no obstruction to the Gospel when it is preached. What we see as a theological slant is that we take the earthly dominion back ourselves. It is a restoration theology that is being promoted which is foreign to the scripture. It is Christ who will restore the Earth in the Millennium he has not given this power or authority over into the hands of man. . . .
- Let Us Reason Ministries, Spiritual Warfare, Biblical Binding and Loosing
You see, it is not your fault, it is these demons that are making you do it. There is the demon of gluttony, the demon of obesity, the demon even of baldness! That is not completely true, in fact, it is not true at all. You have a free will to choose what you want to do and it is that flesh nature that often wins out. And the reality is, these quick-fix formulas are nothing more than these Christians being lazy. They feel that the Christian life is not to be hard, it should be easy and yet we do not see that in the Scriptures! But again, if you do things right, if you use the right formula, this walking in the Spirit should be like a walk in the park, at least that is what they tell us. Folk’s, it wasn’t like that for Paul as we have seen here in Romans chapter 7. What do these Scriptures tell us regarding this life? Let’s look at a few verses and see.
First of all let’s look at I Corinthians 9:25 as Paul tells us, “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.” The Living Bible puts this verse like this; “To win the contest you must deny yourselves many things that would keep you from doing your best. An athlete goes to all this trouble just to win a blue ribbon or a silver cup, but we do it for a heavenly reward that never disappears.”
The Greek word for “competes” is AGONIZOMAI, ag-o-nid’-zom-ahee and it speaks of agonizing, fighting for, to labor fervently, to strive, but for what? Paul is speaking of the Isthmian Games that were held in Corinth and how these athletes worked hard to achieve the prize! For us as Christians, we too are in a race and we need to be ready to run, to compete. We should be in training daily by being in the Word of God and then exercising our faith. We should avoid those things that will not build us up in the faith. You see, we are running for an imperishable crown, a crown that is a reward for service and here the crown is that of seeing others saved, a reward for sharing your faith and seeing people come to know the Lord!
Also, listen to how Paul described his life as he prepared to be put to death for his faith in Jesus Christ by Nero. He wrote in II Timothy 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” And once again The Living Bible puts this verse like this, “I have fought long and hard for my Lord, and through it all I have kept true to him. And now the time has come for me to stop fighting and rest.” That does not seem like Paul was sitting back letting the Lord do it all but he too was in this battle and he fought hard, and in the end he kept the faith!
Also, let’s look at Matthew 7:14 and see what Jesus said about the Christian life, “Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” The word, “difficult” is the Greek word THLIBO, thlee’-bo and it speaks of tribulation, suffering, trouble. That is the Christian life according to Jesus!
And one more, and that is I Thessalonians 3:4 as Paul tells us, “For, in fact, we told you before when we were with you that we would suffer tribulation, just as it happened, and you know.” Here in I Thessalonians 3:4 the words, “suffer tribulation” is the same Greek word we saw in Matthew 7:14. So I think it is clear that the Christian life is a battle, we are not just spectators on the sidelines while God works, but we are actively involved!
Now you may be thinking what is the big deal if some feel this way? I will tell you why it is a big deal. First of all it is not Scriptural. And secondly, people get frustrated running from one formula to another, from one book to another, from one seminar to another and-so-on. And in the end many just give up having that victory or even worse, they walk away altogether out of sheer frustration. So this is not the answer, it is not in some formula, as we will see!
This new experience mentality in trying to avoid struggles in the Christian life is something we see in the health, wealth and prosperity movement, the seeker friendly movement, the purpose driven movement and now in the emerging church movement. There is a new experience that we must seek after, some kind of charismatic experience or vision or revelation that we feel is the key now to the Christian life!
Too often Christians want to glow instead of grow. What do I mean by that? They want to feel the emotion instead of having that inner man built up. For instance, during worship they have this emotional experience, which is not wrong until you begin to worship the worship. And they leave church all pumped up because of the worship or the skit or the entertainment and in reality, they are leaving empty because they have not been given the biblical knowledge that is needed for them to grow, to equip them to fight the good fight of faith! They want the Holy Spirit to TURN THEM ON instead of GROW THEM UP! And folk’s, that is not a good thing, there is no spiritual growth in that.
Let me give you a couple examples to show you what I mean about how we grow in the Lord. First of all in Ephesians 4:11-16 Paul tells us, “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head — Christ — from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”
Here we see what a healthy church is all about. God has placed leaders within the church, within the body of Christ to teach and equip the saints. What are they equipped for? They are equipped for the work of the ministry. It is not the pastor that does the work of the ministry but the saints that are being taught by those that are in these offices. It doesn’t mean the pastor doesn’t do these things, but that is not his primary purpose.
The Greek word that Paul uses for “equipping” is KATARISMOS (kat-ar-tis-mos). It is a word that is often used as a medical term for the setting of a bone. It also illustrates to us the idea of putting something back to its original condition, that it is made complete, perfect. These offices are there to help return men and women back to God and to make them complete in their walk. In other words, they are there to help them grow in the Lord!
Today, tragically it is not about building people up in the faith but to grow a church in numbers and so the church in America may be 3,000 miles wide but only an inch deep! We are more interested in the experience, how we feel instead of growing in the Lord and I will tell you this, as you grow in the Lord, it is not always easy, God is molding and shaping us, but that is where we need to be! But if we don’t allow God to work in us we end up having Christians who are unstable in their walk because they don’t know what to believe; they are not built up in the faith!
Let me say this, the reason the church of Jesus Christ exists today is as follows:
Also, if you do not believe that God’s Word is important for our spiritual growth, then listen to what Peter tells us in I Peter 2:1-3, “Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”
Peter is telling us since we are born again by the power of God’s Spirit working through the Word of God we need to put away, eliminate these things from our lives that will only cause division between believers and it will keep us out of God’s Word. Yes, we once practiced these things but now we are a new creation in Christ and we need to discard them from our lives, don’t put back on those soiled garments. Very wise words.
Not only are you to cast out those sins but also you are to take in the pure, uncontaminated, unadulterated Word of God so that you can grow, mature in the faith. Let’s see if you can answer this question. “When does a newborn baby want to eat?” A baby wants to eat whenever, wherever it wants. It has this inborn passion to eat and nothing will stop a newborn from getting the food that it wants! How about you in regards to God’s Word, are you that hungry? May we have that hunger for God’s Word.
You see, if you tasted that the Lord is good, that He is gracious, then you are going to want to know Him more and more, you will feed upon the Word of God! It is as Grudem tells us, “To drink the milk of the Word is to ‘taste’ again and again what He is like, for in the hearing of the Lord’s words believers experience the joy of personal fellowship with the Lord Himself.” It is as Jeremiah tells us, “Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; For I am called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts.” Jeremiah 15:16. May we have that passion to know God!
And yes, God will give us those experiences with Him, but we don’t live for the experiences, we live for the Lord and out of that relationship with Him we have the various experiences with God. We don’t use them to avoid struggles or think that the experience is some kind of key to living the Christian life, but we grow in the Lord. We don’t want the Spirit of God to TURN US ON but to GROW US UP!
And there are those times when Christians try to escape Christian struggles by avoiding them. What do I mean by that? When things don’t go the way we want, when life is difficult, rather than dealing with the problem, rather than bringing it to the Lord, we turn away from it and fill our minds with something else!
What do we fill our minds with? Sometimes we use television or movies or any kind of entertainment to help us avoid the situations we are in. Sometimes people use drugs or alcohol to help us try to avoid the situation and that is never good. I don’t know why, but many Christians feel that since we are God’s children we will not have any struggles with sin, this life will be a piece of cake. I am not sure where they get that from, but it is not from the Scriptures.
Listen to what Paul tells us in Hebrews 12:3-4, “For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin.” The Amplified Bible puts these verses like this, “Just think of Him Who endured from sinners such grievous opposition and bitter hostility against Himself [reckon up and consider it all in comparison with your trials], so that you may not grow weary or exhausted, losing heart and relaxing and fainting in your minds. You have not yet struggled and fought agonizingly against sin, nor have you yet resisted and withstood to the point of pouring out your [own] blood.”
In this letter to the Hebrews Paul is speaking to Jewish believers who were struggling in the faith and he wants them to CONSIDER JESUS, to look at His example to be an encouragement in their walk, what they were going through! Yes, they faced social and economic persecution, and even some physical persecution, but not to bloodshed, at least not yet! But Jesus has died for us, shed His blood for us and as He was persecuted, having done nothing wrong, He was righteous, He becomes our example of how to live out our faith!
You see, we as His servants will also face tough times as Paul said in Romans 8:17, “and if children, then heirs — heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” Folks, Jesus doesn’t ask more of us than we are capable of handling with Him, more than what He experienced in the Incarnation! He knows what we are going through and He will strengthen us through those times if we would only keep our eyes fixed upon Him. Don’t grow weary; don’t become discouraged, look to Jesus!
Paul said in I Corinthians 15:58, “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.” And in Galatians 6:9-10 Paul said, “And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.” May we not grow weary but finish the race that God has set before us. Let us not be discouraged but have faith in the One who is guiding our lives to the finish line! You see, when God called us to be His children, He also called us to a lifetime of struggles against sin in this life. Don’t try to avoid it but learn to grow in the lessons that God is showing you and fight against sin, not in your own strength, but in the Lord! You see, we are called to a lifetime of struggles against sin but we will NEVER achieve victory over them in our own strength, by ourselves!
And as we closed last week we saw the frustration of Paul as he cried out in Romans 7:24, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” I think that is the cry of Christians as they struggle with sin in their lives, this battle of the flesh against the Spirit! That is what Paul said, that is what Paul was crying out to God over and yet, today, we want to accomplish this on our own and it won’t work.
Think about what Paul would say today if he got caught up in the Christian garbage that is out there. Instead of, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” He might say, “O dysfunctional one that I am, how will I deliver myself from this mess?” No, your not dysfunctional, then maybe this will work for you, “O codependent one that I am, how will I deliver myself from this mess?” Still not the one you are looking for yet, then what about, “O victimized one that I am, how will I deliver myself from this mess?”
You see, Paul did not go down that path. He did not blame anyone else but he saw himself as wretched, miserable in the condition he was in. You see, God will honor that but He won’t honor the other garbage that is out there. From that point Paul doesn’t say that he is going to do it on his own, that this is his struggle in the first place, this battle of the spirit and the flesh. Nor does he say “what” is going to deliver him, like there is some kind of pill or potion or program or secret formula or latest book or CD or seminar. No, it is none of those but as we will see this morning, it is a person who will deliver Paul and He will deliver us! You see, your desire must go beyond a vague hope to be better. You must cry out against yourself and cry out unto God with the same desperation Paul did.
And it is not that Paul was just giving up, throwing in the towel you might say. Poole put it like this, “It is not the voice of one desponding or doubting, but of one breathing and panting after deliverance.” That was Paul and that should be the way we deal with this issue!
With that said let’s begin looking at Romans 7:25 this morning as we focus on THE VICTORY.
You see, we still are carrying around the flesh, this body has not been redeemed yet and thus, we, like Paul are crying out to be set free. Yes, ultimately from this body of flesh, but in the present, to be freed from the controlling nature of the flesh, that we would be open to the Spirit and be controlled by God’s Spirit working with our spirit!
I like the way that John MacArthur deals with this verse here. He writes in his commentary on Romans:
Paul’s primary emphasis in the present passage, however, is not on the believer’s eventual deliverance from sin’s presence but on the conflict with sin that torments every spiritually sensitive child of God. He therefore ends by summarizing the two sides of that struggle: So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. In the poem Maud (X. 5), one of Tennyson’s characters yearns, ‘Ah for a new man to arise in me, that the man I am may cease to be!’ The Christian can say that a new man has already arisen in him, but he also must confess that the sinful part of his old man has not yet ceased to be.”
The problem for many Christians today is they want the easy way out. They are looking, like I have said, for the latest book, the greatest seminar, the latest Christian fad to deliver them instead of looking to the only one who can deliver them and that is Jesus! And what we are doing is trying to have victory over this struggle with sin by accomplishing it in the flesh and it will never work!
Folk’s my intention here is not to offend any of you if you feel this way, but you are wrong. I see this kind of mentality as the many fad diets that we see out there, and there are millions of them, right? Of course there are! Thus, you want to lose weight and someone tells you about the grapefruit diet and you try it because it will work In your mind it has to work! But when that fails you go to the next diet. The “take this pill and eat whatever you want diet.” Sounds great doesn’t it, but it too doesn’t work and you move on. And you can go from diet to diet to diet. Look at the checkout counter at the grocery store and every week there is the diet of all diets, this is the best, the greatest, the only one you will need till next week when they come out with another one!
What is the problem? It is the flesh right. That which I don’t want to do I do and that which I want to do I don’t do. I don’t want to eat those foods that are going to make me heavy, that are high in calories and yet, my flesh says, “Joe, this is good. Try it you’ll like it” and there I go, on my way to Dairy Queen. Now I am not picking on Dairy Queen, but I am using it as an example.
I am going to start out with a 6-piece chicken strip basket with Country gravy, a large Coke and I will top this off with a turtle pecan cluster Blizzard, large of course. My flesh wants it, it is hungry and as I feed my flesh, with this one meal, I am taking in 3,500 calories, 154 grams of fat and 4,460 mg of sodium. We should only take in some 2,000mg of sodium a day and in this one meal, we have missed the mark. And the calories, and fat, I won’t even go there! And then I wonder why I am not losing weight.
Okay, instead of all that, it is summer in Wisconsin, I think it started and ended on August 25th, and thus, I will treat myself to a large Dairy Queen chocolate chip cookie dough Blizzard, that has to be less than what I had before. It is but it is still bad. This one drink contains, 1,320 calories, 52 grams of fat, 27 grams of saturated fat, 90mg of cholesterol, 193 grams of carbohydrates, 144 grams of sugars and 680mg of sodium!
Thus, I want to lose weight, I want to eat less and exercise more, but that which I want to do I don’t do and that which I don’t want to do I do. “Joe, it is Dairy Queen calling, we have a Blizzard for you!” And thus, my flesh goes for the Blizzard and I buy the large waist pants!
Now, when it comes to our spiritual life we tend to do the same thing. “Okay, I am going to do what is right today. I am going to read my Bible, be nice to people” and the list goes on. That is what we want to do, those things that please God and we are determined to do them and how does that work? Not too well! You see, you can’t accomplish in the flesh these things, it is a spiritual battle and unless you are willing to give it to Jesus, to surrender to the Spirit’s control, you will never accomplish these things! And even when we do, we still fail at times, just as Paul did because it is a battle!
Now I am not saying that we should just sit back and do nothing, but if you are doing this on your own, you will never succeed. John MacArthur made these remarks regarding Paul and his struggle and ours. He wrote:
That is Paul’s formula for victory. It calls for boldness, determination, and an intelligent, informed faith. It assumes that we love God and desire to see His righteousness working in our lives. It offers freedom from sin’s absolute authority and the means to defeat sin in our daily walk.
But it does not assume that the process is easy or that glorious victory will always be our daily experience. Paul certainly was not suggesting that the Christian walk is never marked by defeat or failure. As we have noted throughout, all we need to do is read on to Romans 7, and it becomes evident that Paul’s experience with his own sin was often deeply frustrating to him: “I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate” (v. 15). “That which I am doing, I do not understand … for I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not” (vv. 15, 18). “The good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish” (v. 19). “Evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good” (v. 21). “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” (v. 24).
The truth is, when we look into our own hearts, every one of us must echo those words of frustration. Though sin is a defeated enemy, though we wage our battle against it from a position of victory, it is still a life-and-death struggle. And it is a battle we must continue to take to the enemy as we mortify sin and attack its remaining influence in our lives.
- John MacArthur, The Vanishing Conscience, p. 227
And do you see the battle that Paul was struggling with. Look again at this verse we read this morning, 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.” You see, with his mind, or the inner man Paul served the Law of God. But there is still this body of flesh that has not been redeemed and it won’t be redeemed until we get our new bodies. Thus, there is the battle folk’s and if we try to have victory over the flesh in our own strength, we will fail. Thank God we can have this victory and it is based in Christ.
And folk’s, I don’t want you to leave here discouraged, thinking you have gone through Romans chapter 7 and now you should be living in Romans chapter 8, where the victory is and it doesn’t seem to be working. Yes, that is where we are to be at but keep in mind it is a battle and Paul struggled with this and so do we. Listen to what Stedman had to say in his book, From Guilt to Glory. We are told:
There are teachers who teach that this passage in Romans 7 is something a Christian goes through but once. Then he gets out of it and moves into Romans 8, never to return to Romans 7 again. Nothing could be further from the truth! Even as mighty a man as Paul went through it again and again. This is a description of what every believer will go through many times in his experience because sin has the power to deceive us and to cause us to trust in ourselves, even when we are not aware we are doing so. The law is what will expose that evil force and drive us to this place of wretchedness that we might then, in devotion of spirit, cry out, Lord Jesus, it is your problem; you take it.
- Stedman, From Guilt to glory, p. 195
Remember what Paul wrote in Galatians 5:20-21, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.” You see, our victory is in Christ and it is given to us by His grace. We don’t deserve this victory but we can obtain it by faith as we walk with the Lord!
And next time, as we move into Romans chapter 8, we will see where the victory is, which will be the life of the Spirit for the word “spirit” is the overall theme and is found some 23 times in this chapter. And that Spirit-filled life is only found as we are IN Christ. It is only found in a believers life! It is as Paul said back in Romans 6:11-14, “Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” That is only accomplished as we submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit; our victory is only found in Him!
As I begin to close this morning, let me share with you this poem by Avis Christiansen. It goes like this and it does sum up what we have been talking about this morning:
I prayed for help, I prayed for strength—I prayed for victory.
I prayed for patience and for love—for true humility.
But as I prayed, my dying Christ by faith I seemed to see,
And as I gazed my glad heart cried, “All things are mine, thro’ Thee!”
If He doth dwell within my heart, why need I strength implore?
The Giver of all grace is mine, and shall I ask for more?
And need I pray for victory, when He Who conquered death,
Dwells in my very inmost soul, nearer indeed than breath?
Oh help me, Lord, to realize that Thou are all in all;
That I am more than conqueror in great things and in small.
No need have I but Thou hast met upon the cruel tree.
Oh precious, dying, risen Lord, Thou are my victory!
- Avis B. Christiansen
May we leave here this morning understanding that fact, that He is our victory! Let me close with this saying, “I am not what I am going to be but thank God I am not what I was!” Praise the Lord for that! May we continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and continue to strive against sin, seeing our victory in Him!