[MUSIC PLAYING] Good morning and welcome to
the 9:45 service at Calvary. Who's excited to
be in church today? I'm excited to continue
our study through Romans. Turn to Romans chapter seven. We're going to be in verses
14 through 25 this morning. We're going to kick
it off right away. I'm going to read
the whole text, and I'm actually
read it from the NIV, because I love the
way it describes it. Then when we go back
into it in a second, we'll be digging into it
in the New King James. So hopefully you all
brought your bibles. We're going to read it
together on the screen, though, so if you you didn't bring a
Bible or you don't have an NIV, you can follow along with
us as I read it out loud. "We know that the
law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual,
sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do
not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I
do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer
I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself
does not dwell in me, that is in my sinful nature. For I have the desire
to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good
I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do-- this I keep on doing." Are you guys
following this so far? I mean, Paul is
all over the place. Like, what's going on, bro? "Now if I do what I
do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it,
but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work:
Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For it my inner being
I delight in God's law; but I see another
law at work in me, waging war against
the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the
law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this
body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God,
who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Let's stop there. I'm hoping that today you
and I can talk honestly. We can be honest
with one another-- honest about who we are,
honest about our struggles. Because I want to preach
a simple message today called the struggle is real. Hey, turn on your neighbor
and say the struggle-- come on, say it
with some attitude. The struggle is real. Turn to the other person. Say, yo, the struggle is real. The struggle is real. I don't know about you,
but as I look at my life, I so often find that a
struggle is going on. There's a battle
going on inside of me. And if I'm really
honest, I struggle at times for consistency. Our staff here at
Calvary-- and also, if you've gone
through Life Track-- I highly recommend it-- take this test called
The Five Voices. Basically, you answer all
these questions about yourself, and the test basically diagnoses
you and tells you who you are. It tells you what your strengths
are, what your weaknesses are. It basically tells you what
your personality type is. Well after I took this
test for the first time-- I've taken it several times-- I was actually excited about the
strengths that it said I had. I actually liked it. I liked the things
that it said I had, the potential it said I had. I accepted the
weaknesses it said I had. I saw where I needed to grow. But I had one thought
after I took it. I was like, man, if I would
have taken this test last week, I think the results might
have been different. And I think if I take it
again a week from now, the results might
be different again. Because if I'm honest,
throughout the week I sometimes feel like
a different person. Anyone relate to me on that? You just sometimes feel
like a different person? I'm like, man, I wish there
was only two versions of me, but there are like
seven versions of me; Sunday Nate, Monday Nate,
Tuesday Nate, Wednesday Nate, Thursday Nate, Friday
Nate, Saturday Nate. You don't know what
you're going to get. It's like, I wish that I
could be the same person all the time. But the reality is I
struggle with consistency. And I know it can be hard,
but can we just try today to be a little bit honest? Can we just try? Just for today, can
we try to be honest? I'm not going to ask
you to raise your hand, but let's just be
honest that a lot of us struggle with consistency. Hey, do you remember
January of this past year? January 1, you woke up and
you said, this is my year. I'm going to be better,
I'm going to grow, I'm going to be different,
I'm going to overcome, I'm going to conquer. This year, I'm going
to lose 15 pounds. You gained 15 pounds. This year, I'm going
to go back to school. I'm going to get that degree. This year I'm going
to read more books, this year I'm going
to start serving, this year I'm going to improve. Have you ever been to
the gym in January? That place is more packed
out than Balloon Fiesta, but come September,
it's a ghost town. Right? Because a lot of us struggle
with keeping our commitments. And if we're honest
today, many of us struggle with consistency. We struggle with
fulfilling our commitments. And if we're really honest,
many of us in here would say, I believe in Jesus. I've surrendered
my life to Jesus, but Nate, if I'm really
being honest with you, I still struggle
with common sin. In fact, have you ever
noticed that it's typically like one or two things that
each and every one of us struggle with? It's typically a couple of
things that we struggle with, and we're like, man, I'm getting
an A in this area of my life. I'm passing the test in
that area of my life, but this one area I just
can't seem to get past. These one or two
things seem to always be haunting me and hounding
me and chasing me down. And we can wonder to ourselves
in this dilemma, man, I must just be weak. I must just not
be strong enough. I must just not be good at this. I must just not
be called to this. And this thinking can
happen within our lives so much that it causes us
to doubt our salvation. When we accept Jesus,
many of us believe that turning away from
sin means never sinning. We think that giving
our lives to Jesus means that all of a
sudden we're good. Like it's just going to go away,
we're going to all of a sudden become righteous. And although justification is
the gift of accepting Jesus, the gift of sanctification
is a daily process. Understand this, you're
in process, and that's OK. It's OK to be in process. You don't have to
have it all together. Maybe it's OK if you're not OK. Maybe it's all right
if you're in this place and you don't have it all
together-- you don't understand everything, you're not perfect. As a matter of fact, I
think accepting that truth-- accepting that fact-- brings us freedom. In our last study in Romans, we
looked at the great deliverance that God has given us, not
just from the penalty of sin, but also from the power of sin. And Pastor Skip did
an incredible job teaching that message. And as we appropriate
these truths in our lives, we begin to experience it. And although we might
recognize that this is true, we all still know what it's like
to struggle with sin, don't we? Because the struggle is real. There is a struggle that
undoubtedly every believer faces in some capacity. The battle between
right and wrong, the battle between
holiness and unholiness, the battle between the
flesh and the spirit. And in essence,
the struggle here that Paul talks
about in Romans seven is of a man trying to live out
the teachings of Romans chapter six-- living free from the
penalty and power of sin-- without the Holy Spirit. Romans seven is a
description of someone trying to live out Romans
six without the power of God. As a matter of fact,
in Romans seven, the word I is used 30 times
without a single mention of the Holy Spirit, as opposed
to Romans chapter eight, where the Holy Spirit is
referenced more than 20 times. See, the outcome
of this struggle is of the utmost importance
within your life. And in this text, we're
going to see three things as we dive into it. Number one, the
situation that we face as we look at the reality
that each and every one of us are sold on to sin. We are carnal, that's
the situation we face. Number two, we're going to
see the struggle we fight. As we relate to Paul and say,
man, I want to do good things but I don't do good things, and
I don't want to do bad things but I'm always doing bad things. And then finally, we're
going to see the solution we find as we realize that
it's found only in Christ. Let's look at our first
point, the situation we face. Look at verse 14 with me now
in the New King James version. "For we know that
the law is spiritual, but I am carnal,
sold under sin." The first thing we
see here in our text is the situation we face. There are some facts
we have to face, there's a reality
we have to accept, there are some truths
we have to recognize as we fight this struggle
that each and every one of us are in. Now this word carnal is from
the Greek word sarkikos, and it literally means
belonging to the world, natural, and weak. Paul describes the situation
we face of what carnality is-- what it means-- when in 1
Corinthians 3 he says this. "And I, brethren, could
not speak unto you as unto spiritual,
but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ." I want you to mark that down,
because that's important. "For you are yet
carnal, for there is strife and envying
and divisions among you, showing your carnality. For one of you
says, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollo's,
are you not then carnal?" We see a few things that mark
our carnality-- a few things that are the reality of
the situation we're in. First and foremost, carnality
is an arrested state of spiritual development. I want you to know
that, because it is a state of
spiritual development. Paul is talking here
in Romans to believers. He's not talking about carnality
in unbelievers in the world, but he's talking to the reality
that each and every one of us-- every single person,
no matter how far on in the sanctification
process you are-- have carnality within our lives. Paul is writing an
autobiography here. He's speaking of himself-- that there is a carnal
nature within himself. See, carnality is a state
of spiritual development. It's just an arrested state
of spiritual development. I told you before to mark down
the idea that he says, just as unto babes. See, just as a baby
is dependent on others to feed them and
take care of them, the carnal person is
dependent on other people for their growth in their
relationship with Christ. Now this is OK, initially. As we begin our
relationship with Christ-- as we begin to grow
in Christ, it's OK to need other people to
have to help you to grow. When you come to Christ,
you don't know how to grow, you don't know what to do. You don't know what a
relationship with Christ looks like, so you
need other people there to help you grow in
this relationship with Jesus. But eventually you
have to grow up and you have to start
learning how to feed yourself. You have to start learning how
to read the Bible for yourself. You have to learn what it
means to grow in Christ. But some people get
stuck in this arrested place of spiritual development. It says, just as unto babes. This is important,
because as a child grows, they simply learn not
to do certain things. Like for some kids,
they really struggle with sucking their thumbs,
but usually, kids just grow out of that. Some kids really like
talking in baby talk, but most kids just
grow out of that. I don't see anybody
in here right now-- and I even see some
younger folk in here-- I don't see anyone sucking
their thumb right now. I don't see anyone sitting
there, talking in baby talk, and saying, Nathan, I
don't like this message. No, no. Because you're adults. You guys grew up, so you
put childish things away and you're now living as adults. But some believers find this
arrested place of spiritual development-- this carnality-- and they don't grow up. The carnal believer is
experience oriented. That is to say church
always has to be exciting. Church always has to have some
thrill or some feeling that is attached to it. Many people get saved because
there is this feeling, and then they chase
that feeling-- they chase that experience. And so they're always church
hopping from one place to another saying, well, I
really like this experience. I really like that experience. And they're chasing a
feeling rather than facts. They're chasing this idea. And that's a dangerous
place to be in, because the reality
is eventually that's going to bottom out. Eventually you can
only go so high. Eventually the experience
is going to diminish, and if you've only based
your relationship with Christ on experience and on
feelings and on excitement, you're going to
have nothing left. For a lot of people, the more
lights, the more pyrotechnics, guest bands, the better. Now those things aren't bad--
those things can be used. We often use a lot
of those things. But the problem a carnal
Christian finds themself in is that the second you crack
open the Bible, they shy away. They never develop a real
hunger for the word of God. They find the word
of God boring. They don't want to hear it. They get bored. They don't want
to hear the Bible, they think that it's all just a
bunch of rules and regulations. Carnal believers love
Christian entertainment, but not committed Bible study. Carnal Christians always
have time for pleasure, but never time for prayer. See, the carnal Christian
is a miserable person because they can
never have enough. And that can be church based. You're miserable-- a lot of
people walk away from God because it's never enough. If they're always chasing that
experience and that feeling, eventually it's not enough. But it's also true, not
just in church life, but in regular life-- carnal people are always
looking for things to fill a void, things
to make them happy. But they're never realizing
that it doesn't matter how much of the
world you get, you can never be happy if
you're using the world to make you happy. Do I have any
Patriot fans in here? Sorry about Antonio. Tom Brady, in an interview
with Steve Kroft, said this. Why do I have these
Super Bowl rings and still think there's
something greater out there for me? I mean, maybe a lot of
people would say, hey, man, this is what it is. I reached my goal,
my dream, my life. Me, I think, God. It's got to be more than this. I mean this isn't-- this can't be all that
it's cracked up to be. What's the answer? I wish I knew. I wish I knew. Well, I know. And it's not what
he thinks it is. It's not what many
of us think it is. It doesn't matter how
much of the world we get, that will never make us happy. And yet, a carnal
believer-- someone who is in this arrested
state of development-- is still looking for
things in the world to make them happy
when they have the thing that could
bring them true joy right in front of them. Number two, carnal believers
are easily deceived. And this really
goes in conjunction with this arrested
state of development. Because they're not growing for
themselves, because they're not reading the Bible, because
they're not being nourished and they're relying on other
people for that nourishment, they will accept and
believe anything someone says if it's attached to "the
Lord says" or "the Bible says". This really answers
the question to why the prosperity
gospel has flourished so much in our culture. My wife and I were talking
about this the other night, and we were thinking
about this reality that you have these guys on TV
who will get on there and say, I need $54 million for a jet. God told me I need
a $54 million jet. So I want you to give me
money to buy this jet, because I can't
fly in a big tube with a bunch of demons-- that's
what this preacher refers to as people. That's really good. And my wife was asking,
she's like, man, how did people buy into this? How do people accept
this and believe this? You'd think that they
would see this and just say, man, that's ridiculous. That's crazy. This person's a kook, I don't
want anything to do with that. But they don't. They actually give money to it. They say, OK, here. Take my money. And I talk to
people all the time who've been so hurt
by that, and my wife said, why is that the case? I said, the difference is
that you know the Bible. You've read the Bible,
you understand the Bible, so when you hear something that
isn't true-- that isn't right-- because you've
grown in Christ, you can spot it as fake and false. But a carnal believer
who's in an arrested state of spiritual
development, who's not growing for themselves,
who's not being nourished for themselves--
they hear anything and they accept
anything as true. They're easily deceived. This answers the question as
to why so many bad churches are growing in America. It's not because God
is blessing them, it's because they
have found what is appealing to carnal Christians. There's many churches today
that will have awesome programs, they'll have great
music, they'll have entertaining videos,
and those things aren't bad in and of themselves. They can be used. We often use those. But the problem is they
never teach the Bible. They might hint to it,
they might reference it to occasionally prove a point
that they're trying to prove, but they aren't
teaching the Bible. I hear a lot of pastors
that-- they'll open up and they'll read a
verse at the beginning, and then they won't mention the
Bible again the entire message. They don't talk
about what they're supposed to be teaching. Ephesians 4:14 says
that we should no longer be children tossed to
and fro and carried about with every
wind of doctrine, but grow up into the full
measure of completeness found in Christ. See, we need to grow up. We need to stop
being this arrested place of spiritual development. Grow up, be fed, be nourished,
be taught sound doctrine so that we can spot the
fake thing when we see it. The third thing we see
is that carnal believers are given to division and envy. We see that Paul talks
about that in 1 Corinthians. He says, some say I'm of
Paul, I'm of Apollo's-- see, carnal Christians are always
trying to be on the winning team and get people
onto their side-- to convince people
to see it their way. They blame others. They're fault finders,
and they're fault finders because they're
personally frustrated-- a lot like David, who
was a fault finder. He saw in someone else the sin
that he himself was guilty of, and he became a blamer-- a fault finder-- because in
reality, he was personally frustrated about
something in his own life that he couldn't see correctly. They want other
people on their side. They will mold and manipulate
scripture to fit their needs. At the core, carnal Christians
are bare minimum Christians addicted to the highs of sin
even though it's killing them. I read a story about
a toad in Australia. And this particular toad is
a very, very poisonous toad, but it's extremely colorful. It's got beautiful
patterns and it's really pleasing to look at. And apparently it's
become a problem because some dogs have been
licking this poisonous toad and getting sick and even
dying from licking the toad. Now that's not surprising,
because dogs are dumb. Dogs eat anything. Like, literally, my dog
will eat its own poop. My dog will eat entire things
of hair ties in one gulp, and I'm like, how
did you even do that? Dogs eat anything. But what's interesting is they
say that the dogs have actually become addicted to the high
that this toxin gives them, so they're doing it over
and over and over again. Some dogs have actually gone
to the vet five or six times from licking these toads. They're literally
addicted to the very thing that's killing them. Tim Keller said, "You
begin an addiction when you have some
distress in your life and you look to a substance
to give you relief. But you really know you're in
the inescapable stranglehold of an addiction when you
look to the very thing that is causing the
problems in your life to give you relief from
the problems in your life." A lot of us are addicted to sin. And to defeat sin's
control within our lives, we need to move up
from the carnal, self-indulgent living that
we're stuck in to the spirit empowered life where these other
sinful things within our lives simply cannot survive. See, the point is this. If you try to battle
your carnality and your sin yourself,
it won't work. If you try to use sheer
willpower and determination-- stand your ground and say,
I'm not going to do it, you're going to lose. Case in point-- that was
the last slice of pizza I'm ever going to eat. I'm going to get healthy. 24 hours later-- it
just sounds so good. That Dion's ranch-- I just can't resist it. OK, fine. Well, if I'm going to eat pizza,
then I'm going to work out. Tomorrow, I'm going to the gym. 24 hours later-- on the
couch, eating more pizza. See, sheer willpower
and determination can't get you through anything. If you sit up late
at night and say, I'm not going to
touch that bottle, I'm not going to
call that person-- that toxic relationship
with that boy or that girl, I'm not going to go to the
website and look at that stuff. I'm not going to do it. I'm going to choose not to--
my willpower, my determination. If you try to battle your
sin and carnality yourself, you're going to lose. The only way you can defeat
the carnality in your life is to focus not on your sin,
but instead focus on God. Start focusing on what
you've been redeemed to. Start focusing on getting
back up after you've fallen, not on the fact
that you've fallen. Rise up, and the things
that are bringing you down will naturally fall off. See, cardinality is a place of
constant struggle and turmoil, and perhaps some of you
are living in this arrested state of spiritual development. Maybe some of you are caught in
this carnal dilemma right now. That really leads us
to our second point, the struggle we fight. Paul presents the situation we
face-- that we're all carnal, we're all sold under sin,
and there's this dilemma that we face. And that really leads
him to this realization that, man, the struggle is real. The struggle we fight--
look at verse 15 to 16. After remarking on his carnal
dilemma, Paul says this, "For what I am doing,
I do not understand. For what I will to do,
that I do not practice. But what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what
I will not to do, I agree with the law
that it is good. " Maybe you're here
today and you are struggling over and over and
over with a reoccurring sin. As I said before
for most believers it's one or two things that
we really struggle with-- that we can't seem
to get away from. That seems to be what
Paul is referencing. Man, I'm in this dilemma,
I'm in this state, and I just can't seem to
get free of whatever it is-- temper, gossip, maybe it's a
loose tongue, impure thoughts, pride, greed, whatever. As a Christian, Paul
is saying that he has something in him that
really wants to do good-- that agrees with the law. Says, yes, the law is right. Yes, I believe the Bible. I want to do good,
but I can't do good. But he also says something else
rises in him that says, no. That says, OK, if I can't do
good, then I won't do bad. I refuse to do bad. I determine not to do bad. And yet he finds himself in
circumstances continually where his determination melts
away, his resolve is gone, and he ends up doing
exactly what he swore he would never do. Oscar Wilde said it this
way, "I can resist anything except temptation." You know, if I'm honest, Romans
seven kind of ticks me off. It kind of makes me
mad, because doesn't it kind of feel like Romans eight
should follow Romans six? That if we have this power
to resist temptation-- if we're freed from the power
and the penalty of sin-- it seems like Romans eight
should be the next step. And Romans eight
is so full of hope. It's so full of joy,
it's so full of promises. It just kind of stinks
that Romans chapter seven is in between. It's just kind of hard. It seems so anticlimactic,
but unfortunately this is the reality of many
Christians' lives. So first and foremost, don't
feel like you're alone. Because as I said
before, we all struggle-- if we're honest-- with
consistency, to some form or fashion. We all struggle with this. The things that
you struggle with, the issues that you fight,
someone else in here is also fighting those issues. Someone else is also
struggling with those things. You're not alone. The way you feel is the
reality of human life. So know that you're not alone. Don't believe the lie
that you're alone. The description we have here
is of a person who's come face to face with God's
perfect and holy law, and they acknowledge
that it's true, but upon acknowledging that
it's true, it's like a mirror-- they see their reflection, the
painful truth of who they are, and they look away in horror. He has seen himself
as he really is, and he doesn't like
the way he looks. I am notorious for spilling
red chili and coffee on white shirts. It's kind of, like, an issue. The fact that this shirt doesn't
have coffee or red chili on it right now is pretty incredible. But I have this issue of
spilling coffee on my shirts or getting food
stuck in my teeth. And oftentimes I don't
realize that it's there until I look in the mirror. And then I look in
the mirror, and I'm aghast at the giant
stain on my shirt that I've had all day long, and
all the meetings that I've had and all the people
that I've talked to. Sometimes I don't even
see it in the mirror. Sometimes I'll come home and at
nighttime-- by like six o'clock at night-- my wife will
look at me and say, has that been on
your shirt all day? What do you mean? Oh. That. And I recoil in horror. I don't like what I've seen. I don't like the reality
of what have been shown. Have you ever felt this way? Not about something on
your shirt, but maybe something in your life? An aspect of your life that
you didn't know was there? A part of your life
that you had maybe blinded yourself to, that
when you get exposed to it-- when someone points
it out-- you're like, man, how long has
that been there? How long have I dealt with that? How long has that been an issue? Is there a way out? Is there any hope? How do I get better? The answer is yes,
there is hope. See, though we struggle-- though we fight
with the old nature, and it will no doubt be
an issue until the day that we receive our new bodies-- the scripture does teach there
is a way out of carnality and into a godly life. Although it's impossible
to be sinless, it is possible to sin less. But a couple of steps
have to be taken in order for that to happen. Number one, look at verse 17. Paul gives us the first solution
to come out of this state. He said, "It is no
longer I who do it, but it is sin that
dwells in me." Now a lot of you
might look at that and say, Paul, that's
just a cop out. That's like what kids do. Wasn't me, it was my brother. No, no, no. It's not me, it's sin
that's in me, I promise. It wasn't my choice, it was sin. Blame sin. Just seems like a cop out. But it's not a cop
out, rather it's a recognition of what
we're really up against. You can't fight a battle if you
don't know who you're fighting. And any good coach-- of football or basketball
or soccer or baseball. Good coaches often will
spend just as much time studying the enemy's
playbook as they will practicing their own plays. Because when the coach
brings his team into battle, if you will, he
wants to make sure he knows exactly
what he's up against. Any good general, before he
marches his troops into battle, will find out what
kind of enemy defenses there are-- what kind of
artillery the enemy has, because he doesn't want to
lead his troops to slaughter. He wants to know
what he's up against. We need to know what
we're up against if we want to win this war. And what we're up against
is the evil human nature, and it has to be dealt
with appropriately. Galatians 5:17 says "For the
flesh wars against the spirit, and the spirit
against the flesh. These are contrary to one
another so that you cannot do the things that you would." Augustine said, Lord, deliver
me from my worst enemy-- that wicked man, myself. We need to know what
we're up against. Verse 18, Paul
continues this idea. Verse 17, he says, it's
no longer I who do it, but it's sin that dwells in me. And then verse 18 he says,
in me, nothing good dwells. He had this idea that if sin
dwells in me, then in me, nothing good dwells. This is a vital step to our
deliverance from carnality, and that is a realistic
look at who you are. Now, this applies to even
the most dedicated believers. Sure, you might say, well,
this is a description of a carnal believer,
but this really applies to every one of us, even
the most dedicated believers. In fact, the more we grow
spiritually, the more we learn of him, the
more we're going to see our own sinfulness. When the prophet Isaiah came
into the presence of God he said, woe is me. I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips. David, after some years
of walking with God, said, I recognize my rebellion. It haunts me day and night. Another translation gives
us added insight into that. It phrases it as this, "I
know how bad I've been, my sins are staring me down." Anyone ever been
stared at in public? Someone is staring at you? How uncomfortable
is that, right? My sins are staring me down. The struggle is real. David understood
well the same truth echoed by the apostle John
in 1 John 1:8, when he said, if we say we have no sin,
we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Here in Romans
seven, this is Paul-- this is the guy who
wrote, if anyone has reason to boast in glory
in the flesh, I have more. Right? Like, he's flexing,
like, I'm good. I'm a good person. Have you guys ever
heard of weird flexes? Like bro, that's a weird flex. Some people have weird flexes,
like, for instance-- man, I can eat 10 pieces of pizza,
and keep on eating more. OK. Weird flex, bro. My truck is so big, it gets,
like, five miles to the gallon. OK. Weird flex, bro. I love Justin Bieber so much,
I waited in line three days to see him in concert. OK. Weird flex, bro. But Paul doesn't have a weird
flex, he has a righteous flex. He's like, man, if anyone
can boast, it's me. And yet, here in
Romans seven, he's saying, in me,
nothing good dwells. See, the point is
that we're powerless. Apart from God, we
can do nothing-- all the New Year's
resolutions, all the promises, all the programs, all the sheer
willpower that you muster up cannot get rid of sin. Granted, you can
be a good sinner, but you're still a sinner. And is that going to be
your response to Jesus when you stand before him? Well I'm good. I'm a good person. I went to church, I gave to
charity, I love my family-- doesn't matter. You're a sinner. Imagine trying to use
that in front of a judge if you were guilty of a crime. Say you hit somebody with
your car and killed them, and then you stood
before the judge, and before he sentenced
you, you said, judge, just take one
thing into consideration before you sentence me. I'm a good person. I go to church, I give to
charity, I read my Bible, I'm nice to people. The judge would
say, I don't care. You're guilty of a crime,
and being a good person doesn't negate the crime. This is a vital step,
and it has to be taken if we want to be delivered
from the clutches of carnality. We have to accept that in
me nothing good dwells. Verse 22 to 23,
Paul continues on. We really see the next aspect
of this struggle we fight, and it's a struggle
with the law. Verse 22, he says "For I
delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another
law in my members. Warring against
the law of my mind, and bringing me into
captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." Some people try to fight
this battle with the law, but the law is like
fighting with kids' gloves. Imagine if I got really mad
at one of you and called you and I was like, you know what? You and me-- we're
going to have a fight. After the service, in the
parking lot, by the volleyball courts. We're going to fight like we're
middle schoolers-- you know, everyone did that
in middle school. We're going to have a fight. And let's say I called you, and
you're like, all right, fine. You want to fight? I'll fight. You're like, you know,
6'5", skin and bones, a little bit of
fat, I can take you. So let's go. So we go to fight-- we're set to meet
to fight it out. What if I came to that
fight ready to beat you up with Hulk gloves? I'm like, all right,
you ready for this? These bad boys
have gamma power-- like gamma radiation. You've never been
hit until you've been hit by a foam Hulk glove. Let me tell you, you're
in for an awakening. You'd be like, man, this is
going to be an easy fight. I'm going to kick
this guy's butt. Why? Because I have no hope
to win a fight if I'm fighting with kids' gloves. I need to get rid
of the kids' gloves and I need to find power
beyond that reality. The law is like kids' gloves. See, the law puts the magnifying
glass on our sinful natures, and in doing so, it points us
to where the real power is, and that's the Savior Jesus. If we try to fight the power--
we try to fight that battle with the power of the law-- we're fighting
with kids' gloves. We can't win. We're going to lose. There's no victory to
be found in the law. It's not until we shed the
kids gloves-- shed the law-- and accept the Savior-- accept Jesus-- that we find
real power to fight our battles. So often we struggle with
consistency and fulfilling our commitments because we
focus on following the law. But because of the law, we
are made constantly aware of our shameful condition,
even to the point of feeling like we need to
leave the faith altogether. Because we say, man, the
law is so hard to keep, and if I can't win,
why should I even play? I don't want to risk
being called a hypocrite, so instead of being called a
hypocrite-- instead of losing-- I just won't play. I'll just leave the faith. That seems easier to me. But when we understand
grace, it allows us to harness the true
power through Jesus Christ and go through the process
of becoming more Christlike. And it is a process. Every one of you--
every one of us-- I am in process. I am in process, and I find
my power not through the law, but through Jesus. We only become
hypocrites when we stop being willing to
admit that we continuously fight these struggles. Yes, our struggle is
real, but we will not let the struggle we fight
with sin disqualify us from the solution we find
in the victorious life that Jesus Christ
died for you to have. That really leads us to our
third point-- our final point, the solution we find. Look at verse 24. Paul cries out,
really in desperation. "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from
this body of death?" This is the cry of a man who
is sick and tired of being sick and tired. It's the cry of a man who is
so tired of this recurring condition of sin in his
life, and he wants help. The word wretched is defined
as miserable, afflicted, wretched through the weight and
burden-- get this-- of slavery. That should recall to you an
earlier verse that we just read, verse 14, where he
says, I am sold under sin. These were the words
of the slave market. Paul is saying, I
am a slave to sin, and I cannot bear the
weight and the burden-- the miserable state-- of slavery any longer. I need someone to save me. I need someone to rescue me. But you can only save
a drowning man who's stopped trying to save himself. Any lifeguard knows this. If you jump into the water
and try to save someone who is trying to save themself--
they're flailing around, trying to swim-- they could hit you in
the head, knock you out, and you could drown, too. So you have to wait until they
stop trying to save themselves, and they simply put their hand
out and say, help, please. Somebody. I can't do it. I've come to the end
of myself, I need help. I need rescue. This is the point-- this
is the only point where God's help is given, and this
is what we need to learn. If we think we have something
in ourselves that can work out our problems, if we think that
our wills are strong enough, if we think that our desires
are motivated enough that we can control evil in our lives
by sheer determination, then we have yet to
come to ourselves. We've yet to come to
this place of desperation that Paul found himself. Verse 24, he asked
the question again. He says, who will deliver
me from this body of death? Maybe you're caught in
this carnal dilemma, you're caught in
this place of sin, and you say, Nate I'm sick and
tired of being sick and tired. I'm tired of being a slave to
my own desires, my own passions. I'm tired of dealing with this
one thing over and over again. I'm tired of feeling
guilt and shame, I'm tired of feeling
like I'm not good enough and I'm not strong enough, I'm
tired of fighting this battle. Who can help me? No program can help you. No experience can help you. No person can help you. An exorcism can't help you. Inner healing can't help you. A psychiatric encounter
can't help you. A psychic encounter
can't help you. Not even Bible study, fasting,
and prayer can help you. Cara Delevingne has 43
million Instagram followers, an incredibly successful
movie career, and an even more successful modeling career,
and this is what she said. We are told that
if we're beautiful, if we're skinny, if we're
successful, if we're famous, if we fit in, if everyone
loves us, then we'll be happy. But that's not true. Modeling was killing my soul. When we look to the
world-- to the things the world says
will heal our soul, and we look for that to save
us-- for that to fix us, it actually does the opposite. It kills our soul-- destroys us, hurts us. And we can't bear up under
that weight, under that pain, and we're left in this place
saying, who can save me from this body of death? Because drugs didn't save
me, alcohol didn't save me, sex didn't save me, money didn't
save me, things didn't save me, friendships didn't save
me, so who can save me from this body of death? This phrase carries the idea of
rescuing someone from danger. It was used in
reference to a soldier going to a wounded
comrade on the battlefield and carrying him to safety-- rescue. The term "this body"-- many people believe that
it's about a tribe that was near the town of
Tarsus, where Paul grew up. And in this tribe, the
sentence for murder-- the punishment for
murder was that they would take the corpse of the
person who had been murdered and they would latch
it to the offender. And they would
force the defender-- the person who had done this
thing, done this murder, done this act-- to walk around and live with
the corpse of this body, until, eventually, because of
decay, disease, and rotting, the actual murderer would die. Because the body of death
was strapped to him. The body of death
was latched to him. He was forced to carry around
the remnant of his sin. Paul seemed to have
this in mind when he spoke of this old nature,
this remnant of who we were, this sin nature that
is supposed to be dead, and we're supposed to
be alive in Christ. This sin nature
is latched to us, and it's having the
same effect on him. He's saying, it's killing me. It's destroying me. The disease, the decay, the
infection from my old life-- it's eating me up. We need help. Our feelings have to
be answered by facts. You and I are wounded on the
spiritual battlefield of life, and we cannot help ourselves. Who will come to our aid? Who will rescue us? Look at verse 25. "I thank God through
Jesus Christ our Lord." I opened up reading
in the NIV, and I like the NIV's translation
of this verse a lot better. It says this, "Thanks be
to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord." Just as the sinner has to look
outside of himself to the cross to be cleansed of sin,
which is justification, so the believer has to
look outside of himself to that same cross for the
power of sanctification. The answer to how are you
freed from this state? How do you experience relief? How do you experience joy? How do you get rid of
the guilt and the shame? How do you get rid
of those thoughts that you just can't
do it anymore? How do you get rid
of those feelings that you're not good enough,
you're not strong enough, that you should just quit? Jesus. Jesus is the answer. He's always the answer. In him, we find the power
to live a sanctified life, not just for cleansing, but
also for identification. See, the secret is that once
we begin to live that life and find the source
of that power, we begin to walk in the
power of the spirit. Every day, we make
a number of choices. What to wear, what to eat,
what to say, where to go, when we drive, we make the
decision of when to stop and when to hit the gas pedal. But we also make choices
that have spiritual rewards or consequences
within our lives. What to read, who to talk
to, what to say to people. We decide if we're
going to forgive or if we're going to harbor
bitterness and hold on to it, let it fester. We decide if we're going to
pray for somebody or gossip about them. We decide if we're going to
obey what God has told us to do, or if we're going to disobey
what he's told us to do. But the wonderful thing is
that the flesh is automatically overpowered when we begin
to walk in the spirit. When we begin to focus on doing
what God has called us to do, when we rise into the
spirit empowered life that God wants for us, the
mediocrity of carnality naturally fades away. The pain and the struggle,
the doubts that we have-- doubting our salvation,
doubting our strength, doubting our weakness when we
realize we have no strength, but Jesus is our strength-- we begin to rise, and
sin begins to fall. One last thing. If you're here today-- you're dealing with the pain
and the sadness and the guilt, you're feeling like
Paul, you're like, man, I don't understand myself. I don't get it, but I'm
always angry, I'm always mad, I'm always sad. I always seem to be
struggling with sin. I never can find any
freedom, and because I can't find freedom, I just
feel so guilty and shameful. I feel like I don't belong
here with these people. Number one, understand that
everyone else around you has felt that same way. The people you're unwilling to
talk to about your sin struggle with sin. But number two, start
accepting your forgiveness and your lack of condemnation. Romans 8:1, which we're going
to hear about next week, says there is therefore now
no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. It doesn't say no falls, no
failures, no infirmities, no inconsistencies,
but no condemnation for those who are in
Christ Jesus-- for those who are in fellowship,
in communion with him. Thus when the Father
looks at us in Christ, he still loves us in
spite of our failures. In spite of our inconsistencies. In spite of our struggles
and our broken commitments and our empty boasts. When we really enter into
this union with Jesus, we find a new power that
we didn't previously have, the power of the Holy Spirit. And it's only through
the Spirit's power that the flesh can be overcome. And we have to remember
that it's better to focus on what we've
been redeemed to-- it's better to get up after
you've fallen, instead of focusing on the fall. And we can trust that
when God sees us, he sees the finished work
of Jesus on the cross. And so we will pursue a
life of sanctification, not from a place of
fear, but from a place of love for our Savior. Lord, we thank
you for your word. We thank you for the truth that
it holds, for the encouragement that it gives. Lord, for those of us
who are in it right now, the struggle is real. Battling our inconsistencies,
battling our sin and our shame and our guilt, Lord,
it's a struggle. But we find the solution in you. So help us to walk in the
freedom, the liberation, the lack of condemnation,
the joy of Jesus Christ. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. God bless you guys, we
will see you next week. How will you put the truths
that you learned into action in your life? Let us know. Email us at
mystory@calvarynm.church. And just a reminder, you can
support this ministry with a financial gift at
calvarynm.church/give. Thank you for joining us for
this teaching from Calvary Church.
