The Book of Romans XI, Why Do Christians Struggle

I appreciate Susie McCabe, Romans 7, and we're going to look tonight, for the next 30 minutes or so, at why Christians struggle, and then we're going to pray for struggling Christians. Okay, Romans 7, did we all get the pink outlines? Let's pick it up at verse 13. Did that which is good then become death to me, talking of the law, by no means, but in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual. Now you might have other words, how many of you have different words than spiritual, or unspiritual? What do you have? Pardon? Carnal? Okay, fleshly? All right, it's okay, you can talk here. 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. I know that nothing good lives in me that is my sinful nature. Or some of your Bibles might have my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I wanted to do, no, the evil I do not want to do. This I keep on doing. Now this is one of those things you can, if you're lost now, you're in serious trouble because it is awfully repetitive, but he's making a major point that we are going to try to uncover tonight. 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, what I want to do, good, evil, is right there with me. For in my inner being, I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in my members of my body. Waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in a sinful nature, a slave to the law of sin. Therefore, all right, we'll pick up the therefore later. Most of us have relationships with folks that fall into the category of what we would call nominal Christians. People who profess to believe in Christ or to be a Christian, who understand the basic tenets of the faith, you know, like the Trinity and the birth of Christ and, you know, the second. Can they understand those things up here? They were born into a church or baptized into a church or on occasion attend one or relate to it. But when they come to articulating their faith in Christ, they do it in terms of religious practices and good works. Anyone know people I'm describing right now? Four of you do. That's excellent. There's probably about 50 of us here tonight that could be described in this way. You know what I'm talking about? People, you know, they they think, hey, sure, you know, I'm an American, I'm a Christian. But you know, when you talk to them that there's a world of difference between what they think is a believer and what, you know, the Bible describes as the marks of true believers. These people see themselves as relatively good. I mean, compared to and they think of some people that are just dastardly, they're pretty good. Compared to some people, they think are really holy, like pastors. They don't think that. Be careful how you laugh. But let me tell you, those of us who are privileged to serve as pastors can tell you assuredly people think that we have this certain holiness. I recently, it's been a few months now, I was talking to a car salesman and he. I was introduced, of course, as a reverend minister, doctor, righteous one by somebody and the guy, you know, by by one of the managers. And so the salesman was immediately, you know, he put everything that hinted of sin out of off his desk, you know, and he started talking in all these terms about how, you know, he was really, he's really a pretty good person and he just, you know, he'd like going to church when he went and said, but but, you know, I'm not where I really want to be, you know, and he said, compared to someone like you, you know, which obviously in his mind meant that I never had one immoral thought go through my mind, you know, that I never once got frustrated or angry, you know, in his mind, he just, I could tell by his comments that he was perceiving me as someone who just walked in this perfect righteous bubble, which, you know, he was stretching it a little bit, I would say. And, you know, clearly along the way, I try to just make him relax and assure him that I was just a normal person like him and, you know, then when I told him I wasn't interested in the car, that kind of blew that whole thing anyhow. So off we went. But I never got close, you see, to talking to him about what it really means to be a believer, even though in his mind, I'm sure he thought he was, you know, getting up there. You see, when you talk to a person who really understands God and the things of God, they talk about grace. They talk about the fact that they've received a gift. Now, around here, we talk about that a lot. That's not common practice out there in the world. We talk about the love of God, which we have enjoyed and tasted together. We talk about victory over sins. We talk about hunger for the word and worship that's alive and free and open and expressive. And we talk about giving without feeling like someone's going to twist our arm to get it. We don't talk in terms of how much we've worked to be accepted. We talk about works as a response to the goodness of God in our lives. Now, last week, last Wednesday, if you weren't here, we talked about three kinds of people. Those that are under sin. Let's flash it over here from last week real quick, real quick. Under sin, and then we talked about those who were under law and under grace, all right? And we said last week, which were some of you? Well, we were all under sin, and some of us came out from our sin, but we started to live under the law and tried to please God only by doing the law and not understanding that grace and freedom and openness was the way that God wanted us to live. And we talked about that extensively in this last week. But Paul spells out in these next verses some incredibly personal and revealing thoughts that answer both to that nominal person we've described and to some of the frustrations that we face. First of all, then, on your pink outline, true believers recognize their new disposition, their new nature. Paul says that he understands he's gone through a change. He's no longer just going through the motions. He's living in response to God's goodness in his life, and he loves to do it. What he does for God, he does not because he wants acceptance, but because he's experienced the love of God. Now, there's a family that's here today that can, I think, is a great testimony to what this means. Some months ago, they lost their dog. They entrusted the dog to another family who cared for it, watched over it, and just in a flash or a twinkling of an eye, the dog got away from the caretaking family. When the family that owned the dog came home, the dog was missing. And it was an evening time. It was dark. It was rainy. It was miserable. And the dog, his name was Dr. Twinkie, was gone. I told you this story on a Sunday. And we went through a long process of trying to find the dog. Never found it that night. The next morning, just by sheer, you know, taking a stab in the dark, saying, why not, Carol and I drove over to the neighborhood where the dog had wandered off. And we're talking not about a huge dog that you can see from a mile, we're talking about a dog that's, I mean, a very cute dog, but it's little and brown and hides nicely in the bushes and things, okay? And we found the dog. And we just stumbled across this dog in this, you know, most unexpected way. And we drove up, and I handed the dog over to the weeping parent. I was going to say mom, but parents, okay? And quote, here's what she said, she said, oh, you know, this means I'll do anything for you. Anything at all. You know, I was just, I'm just so thankful. Well, you know, in my mind, I'm thinking, this is, this is great. I mean, you know, it's not like a kid exactly, but it's close, you know, this dog was once lost and now it's found, or something like that. And she promised me, you know, I'll bake, I'll, you know, I'll serve, I'll do anything. And it was just a tremendous outpouring. Why? Because she felt obligated? And I don't think so. I think she just felt like, I want to do something. I'm so thankful for finding this dog. Well, it made an impression on me, because you see, I think that's how God would love for us to be. We want to serve God. We want to live for God, not because He demands it, but because we want to. Because we who were once lost have now been found. Paul's saying, verse 18 and 19, look at it, he's saying, I want to live to please God. I have a desire to do what is good, he says in verse 18. Verse 22, he says, I joyfully delight in God's law and my inner being. I used to be in bondage to it, but now I delight in doing it. It's a change from the inside out. Now, how many of you have known the difference in your own experience? How many here, let's loosen up a little bit, how many here were once trying real hard to please God by keeping religious laws and rituals and doing good works? How many of you? All right. If you weren't, that's just because you were a total reprobate. Most of us were at least trying, you know, because we knew we should. But the law wasn't fulfilling to us, it wasn't satisfying. And we were honest, you know, we had to say, this doesn't feel right, it's not getting me anywhere. But now, something's happened on the inside, like Paul, have you discovered that it can be a real joy to please God, make choices that please God? Have you ever faced a temptation square in the eyeball and walked away from it, one that used to get you? And now you can say, oh, man, and feel good about it, not feel like, oh, man, I wish I could do that. You say, God, this is wonderful to please you. Well, that's what Paul's saying. We sing a chorus around here, Lord, make me like you, make me like you, you're a servant. And that's what we want to do, we want to be like the Lord. If you're a true believer tonight, you know what I'm talking about, if you really know Christ, you know what I'm talking about. Number two, though, Paul says that true believers agonize over the lingering presence of sin in their lives. True believers, it's on the overhead, agonize over the lingering presence of sin in their lives. Now, this is very important, because a lot of us here tonight are agonizers. Sounds like a battery or something, doesn't it? No. We're agonizers. The unbeliever or the counterfeit or the nominal person I described early on, that person generally can be described as one who doesn't care all that much about sin, you know? They go out and get plastered on a Friday night, you know, and make a fool of themselves and hurt somebody else or whatever, and then they brag about it the next morning. They shortchange their boss a few hours of work every day, and they go tell their buddies how cool they are. When tax season comes, they whittle away down to the bare minimum and they rip off, and they're kind of happy that they got away with it. Nobody's caught them. They can slander, they can compromise, or they can take the Lord's name in vain and not think twice about it. Anyone know the people I'm talking about? I was playing tennis with one of my kids last summer, out in the court, and two guys came out, the court next to us, you know, that's not unusual. They weren't very good tennis players, that's not unusual either, but when one started hitting the ball, you know, kind of off the court, and one hit over the fence, he let out this stream of cursing, you know, two, three, four times, using the Lord's name, and, you know, I'm standing there thinking, this is just, this is pathetic, and I know it didn't even cross his mind, you know. The only time he probably referred to God was in that way, but I'm willing to say it, I would bet if he walked up to me and said, are you a Christian, you know what he'd say? I'd say, well, I'm as good of one as you are, you know, why, because it's so, we're saturated in all the confusion. But unbelievers and nominal Christians, they don't agonize over sin. Jeremiah says that we're able to blush, sin without blushing that is, I mean, we can commit so much sin that we don't even blush about it, it doesn't embarrass us anymore, but the true believer is entirely different. Look at verse 15, when he sins, the true believer doesn't understand themself, the true believer struggles within themselves and says, I don't understand what's going on. He even says in verse 24, wretched man that I am, why do I keep living this way? It's contrary to what I know is the changed disposition that's in my heart. And Paul is besieged by this in the same way that David was, listen to Psalm 38, because of my sinful folly, he says, I am bowed down and brought very low. All day long I go about mourning, my back is filled with searing pain and there's no health in my body. I'm feeble and utterly crushed, and I groan in anguish of heart. Now, there's a man that is under the weight of the conviction of sin, and by the way, David, in that Psalm, very clearly identifies sin and sickness. Now, you say, oh, you mean if I'm sick, then I'm a sinner? You mean there's some gross sin? No, I didn't say that he equated it, I said he identified it. And there is some sickness that's a result of a sinful lifestyle. It doesn't take a lot of genius to put some of that together, but David agonized over it. And I just wonder today, if you have found yourself living in a way that you knew wasn't really you, I mean, what you really wanted to do, and you found yourself saying on more than one occasion, why am I doing this? Why am I saying these things? This is the time when everyone looks particularly holy in our church. I like this. But I know you because I know me. And I am vulnerable and susceptible on many times in my life to say, where did that come from? And I try to catch a word that just got out before I could check myself. You know, this last weekend, or was it Monday, I don't know, it was in the last week or so, I guess it was, we went down to the mall. I mean, this is a great time to see how holy you really are in the mall. We went in there, and I managed to get through most of the hassle. My wife was complimenting me on how well I was doing, and she just was blessing me with all this affirmation of being a good shopper. And going out, the last place we stopped, and it was my own fault because I fell prey to the demon of chocolate. And I stopped in this little shop, and I won't name the shop, and the people in the store, they were helping this young person, you know, like a 10 or 12-year-old person, figure out how to put batteries in this toy, you know, this toy that was made somewhere in the backside of Afghanistan. There was no instructions, and this guy was ripping this thing all apart, and I was holding this candy bar, and after a while, I said, and there was another teenage gal up there in the booth, you know, with this other guy, and the guy was working this thing, and he wasn't available, and so I said to the gal who was just standing there, I said, could you, you know, could you take my money for this? And I said, how much is this? And she said, 45. So I walk all the way around the booth, and I hand her the 45 cents for the candy bar, and she says, well, I can't take it because I don't run the register. So you know, in the meantime, a line is built up here on the register. So I said, well, you know, I'm not going to go all the way back around and get in line. I said, could you just take the 45 cents and give it to the guy that can run the register? And she said something under her breath that was not nice about me. I mean, really, it was something like, you know, just get in line, or something worse than that, in a way, it was, but it was really not from God, I knew that much. And I was also knowing that to go back around the line would have put me in the back of the line I'd already waited about five or ten minutes in just for this candy bar. Well, I was amazed, I was amazed at the ungodliness that started stewing up in me. I really was. And I don't say that with any, I mean, I can laugh a bit about it now, but I walked out of that place, I didn't, you know, I didn't tear a head off, if you're wondering, I didn't jump up there and smash my head. I had some, I was unspiritual, I was, I will tell you that, I was unspiritual, but I walked out and I, you know, and by the way, if you don't know by now, I've alerted all the pastors, anywhere we go, we are fair game and people know kind of our church now, and you got to be nice to everybody, whether they deserve it or not, that's, so I walked out of this place and I, you know, but I was, what really got me was my response, you know, it wasn't a big deal, you know, it was an inconvenience and it was a little bit of inappropriate behavior, but what the point is, rather than just coming out in self-control and in blessing and, you know, being able to absorb this little bit of a diversion in my day, I was unspiritual. Now, that's never happened to you, I can tell by the way you're looking at me, you marvel at a pastor. I don't know, I see one of my brothers over here who always compliments me and when I share with him that I'm flesh, like he is, he can't understand how I would ever, you know, could I ever lose my temper, and I have to tell you folks, just like you, I ask the question, many different times, why did I say that? Where did that come from? Where is that thought? Who put that in there? Or sometimes it's, why didn't I say what I wanted to say? Or why didn't I do what I wanted to do there, instead I did what I didn't want to do? Who does that sound like? Who? We just read that, didn't we? But it's true of us, and if we're honest, none of us are so spiritual that we never have any problem just saying the right thing, doing the right thing, and responding in the right way. And here's the thing that I want us to get a hold of tonight, let's be real about this, okay? Let's be real that being in a spirit-filled church does not free us from the temptation to fall back into the flesh. It's a struggle that we all face. The issue becomes, however, what we do with that. That's the place we have to look very carefully tonight, so that, because see, I'm talking to some people who right now are living in a pattern of sin, and there's a difference between a pattern and an occasional slip. And I want tonight to free some of you who every time you fall, you think, man, gosh, I don't deserve to be part of that church. I call myself a Christian and I smoke, or I call myself a Christian and I watch a movie here I shouldn't go to, or I call myself a Christian and I lost my temper, and you're beating yourself down. And I want to free some of you from the guilt that the devil wants to put upon you. Why do you do that? Because inside of you, there's a struggle going on. And even though you have a new nature, given as a free gift from Christ, even though you have that, there still lies within you the smoldering remnant of who you were. You know that? It's still in there. It is crippled, it is weakened, it is held by a chain, as C.S. Lewis said, but it can still roam around and it can still lash out and cause you to stumble. I read a quote I'd like to read to you by Martin Luther, who faced this same problem. He said this, when I became a believer, I thought I drowned the old man in me, speaking of baptism, of his baptism, but the rascal knew how to swim. It's called positional righteousness. Everyone say that. Positional righteousness. That means, in the eyes of God, he wants you, you are free. That is a good view. It's a good view. But practically speaking, that old nature is still looking for a way to get back and hopefully take control again. And I've discovered it's, we all, honestly, the rest of us. I thought of some illustration. I don't know if this helps you. The alcoholic. The alcoholic can be in total bondage to the bottle. And then he or she may come to a place where they realize they have a problem and they get help and they get right out. And then they can go for months and years and never have a drink. And so, in effect, they are free. They're living a normal life. They become contributing members to their families and society and all the rest. But what do they know? What does the alcoholic know? He's always an alcoholic and he knows that that lingering nature is still there. That if he or she goes back and plays around again with it, what's going to happen? You know? It's the same thing that I've seen you do. We're free. Of course. But if we play around. And I've discovered this. This war that I'm talking about. This sort of treason of the soul. It's a very subtle thing to think about. The Marine Corps Sergeant, by the name of Clayton Long, a year ago, was serving in the United States Embassy in the Soviet Union. He'd been there for a couple of years in the mid-80s. By 1985-86, he was discovering, number one, that he was getting really bored. Number two, that he was getting very old. So, he did what he wasn't supposed to do, but other people were doing. He went out and served in the date in the Soviet Union. He found a very beautiful woman by the name of Violetta. He began to build a good relationship with her and he used to begin to fill up many of his evenings by spending time with her. And after several months, Violetta introduced Sergeant Long to Uncle Sasha. He became a friendly, engaging kind of person. Invited him over to their place and they'd spend some evenings talking. And he figured out all these different ways to convince his superiors that he was doing the things that he wasn't supposed to be doing. Well, after a period of time, Uncle Sasha began to pump him for information. If you heard the story, you know that what took place was that basically, over about a nine-month period, he began to reveal secrets about our embassy and about our security and all the rest. And a year later, he was in it so deep that he realized that the KGB were going to kill him. He didn't give the information. He realized that the Americans had thrown him in jail if he didn't tell them. After that, he stayed for a while. He went to the Americans and said, I am going to put my head on your health. Today, I'm going to put you in jail for a year. I want you to know something. It wasn't some dastardly deed. It was boredom and arrogance. And I was so tempted. I thought about that today as well. I know it hurts a lot of Christian opponents. They don't participate in the Kingdom of God. They withdraw and isolate themselves. They never love isolated Christians. It's in nature and well up inside you that God let it be a burden to you. These aren't evil people. These are people who are good people, who are evenly generated people. We don't respect that smoldering coal of the old self within us, no matter how strong we think we are. We are. How many years ago, we were living in California. Even back then, I was trying to run on occasion. I got into a habit of going to the medical doctor to go jogging. I remember very clearly that we would run up this long, gradual hill up there. It wasn't real steep. It was a long, gradual hill. One day, when we were running, we heard these fire trucks. We heard all this commotion. Fireways up in the mountains called El Padena. A storefront had burned. It was a pretty big fire. The roof had collapsed. The firemen were there. We ran by. The next day, we went back. It was still smoldering, even though there was doused wood. The next day, we went back. The same kind of thing. About a month later, when I ran by there, I could still smell the fire. I was amazed. I looked around. I stirred the coal. I didn't know where it was coming from. It was still. It was still. I had a strange impression. It sticks in my mind. The old man and us had been burned by the fire of the Holy Spirit. The old man and us. All it takes is a little stupidity, if you will, to pour some gasoline on it, walk into a bar, or whatever it might be. Walk into a temptation. And just pour some gas and let that old man shoot. Believers, let's be wise about this. We have a victory. That old man is defeated. But we have got to have the wisdom to stay away from him. The fourth point of your outline is we're not going to have victory, complete victory, deliverance from that sin nature of the wind. Yeah. So either Jesus comes or you go to Jesus. So, the war is going to continue. The coals are going to remain hot and burning. And I've discovered this. The more you resist the devil, the more you know the truth. But I also have learned this. It doesn't matter how old you are in Christ, you'll never be on temptation. You'll never be on that. Just set to do it. I mean it seriously. But the day is coming. We're going to look in the eyes of Jesus face to face with this weapon. It's like the Lord himself is going to come and take this big tail of water. He's going to dump it on those coals and they're going to be out. Because in heaven there is no sin. There is no impurity. There is no struggle against it. There is no war and there is no treason. Heaven is a place where we rest. Let me conclude with three points of application. Number one, if you're falling and struggling with sin. Number one, please don't flagellate yourself. Your struggle with sin. One of our elders prayed tonight. It really authenticates the fact that you're a sensitive person in Christ. It's when you don't struggle with it that you should start to worry. I keep doing it. I'm not saying, hey, just go ahead and have a good time because God will forgive you. How do you know I'm not saying that, okay? For those of you who I address who are in a pattern of sin. Be very careful. Because that pattern of sin, left unchecked, will become a lifestyle of sin. And the lifestyle of sin will be as we read it on the Scriptures, death. So, when you hear the nudgings, and even if it's a struggle, and even if you feel, get up again and say, oh, God forgive me. And number two, don't fuel the fire. Don't fuel that smoldering, don't put gasoline on your old wounds. Can I make another suggestion? Feed the new man. See, the more of the Word, and the more of prayer, and the more of fellowship, and the more of communion with God you pour into that new man, the stronger he or she gets. Keep your eyes on Jesus and you will be rewarded. And I have to say tonight, if you'll do that, an awful lot of your problems will be solved. So, you won't be like Sergeant Lonely. You won't be bored. You won't be lonely if your eyes are on Christ. Because He'll direct your steps into meaningful service and into genuine affirmation. And that will save you. I thought it would be appropriate to end tonight by having you pray for one another in your struggle against sin. What's hard about this is vulnerability. And I'm not asking anyone tonight to suddenly rip open your heart and say, Well, you know, I've got this terrible, chronic problem with... But I am saying, something tonight is ministered to you, and you want to lay hold of it and claim it as your own. Let's spend the next five, six, or seven minutes with you tonight, praying for one another in the midst of it. And saying, Lord, tonight, I want the old man to put back on the cross. I want the new man to come forward. How many sinners are here tonight? Let's be honest sinners. And let's come to a higher truth. Let's come to the grace of God tonight and say, Jesus, be glorified in me. Can you do that? Let's stand. Let's just sing, Lord in my life, be glorified in me. Here's where I struggle against sin. Pray with me to receive that new grace. Go ahead. If it's hard for you, just say, I'd like to listen. You don't have to do this. But if you can, it's going to free you up. Stretch yourself a bit. Find someone. I know it can be scary. Go ahead and do it.