I want to start this morning by asking a few questions.
• Raise your hands, who owns a radio?
• How many listen to their radio?
• How many listen to their radio in the car?
• How many listen to their radio at home?
I belong to the group that listens mostly in the car.
• The only time I listen at home for the most part is when we are having storms.
One of my fondest memories of taking trips with my family
• Was that my dad loved to find old radio shows that were still being played and we would listen to them while we were driving.
• Shows like Amos and Andy / the Lone Ranger / But the one that would scare me the most was The Shadow
• For the younger ones that have no clue what I am talking about during the first 30 seconds or so it started out with silence / then there were footsteps / slow footsteps that were coming closer / until they reached the door / and I swear it took like 15 seconds for that door to open / creaking the whole time / then finally came the voice that said
• Who knows what evil lurks within the hearts of men?
• Followed by the answer The Shadow Does.
If we were to try and come up with another word for original sin a good one would be The Shadow
• John Stanford once referred to it as the dark unwanted side of our personalities.
• The Shadow is made up of pieces that don’t fit
• The ones that don’t belong in the picture
Paul wrote that he couldn’t understand his own behavior.
• He said the things I love, I fail to do.
• The things I hate, I find myself doing. Instead of doing the good things I want, I carry out the sinful things I don’t want.
Think back to when you first became a Christian
• You felt great.
• Things began to turn around in your life
• You were full of joy / You began to have victories in your life.
• Life was good and you were happy.
And it went on like that for a while till;
• One day you woke up and it felt like the honeymoon was over.
• Once again things started to go wrong / and it felt like you were losing control.
• Even worse some of the old self had managed to sneak back into your life.
• Old habits were resurfacing.
• And you found yourself thinking that I want to do what is right but I can’t.
• It’s just not working out. / What’s wrong with me?
• There are things going on in my life that I don’t want happening,
• And I know God doesn’t want them happening.
• I know what is right and what’s wrong
• So why do I keep doing what’s wrong?
Why do we do the wrong things when we know there wrong?
• Every person here this morning that made a mistake
• Everyone has messed up in some form or another this week
• And we knew it was wrong when we were doing it.
So Why do we do it?
• It almost seems like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde syndrome.
• It’s like there are two people inside us that keep fighting each other.
• One wants to do the right thing.
• The other wants to do what makes us feel good, the sinful things.
Today we are going to look at Romans 7: 14-25
• Roman’s 7 is a picture of a struggling Christian.
• Its Paul’s autobiography.
Through the text today we’ll see that Paul is suffering through these same problems.
• So we see these problems aren’t just happening to you they happen to everybody.
• The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde syndrome isn’t new.
• It’s been around since the beginning of time,
• From the moment that Adam and Eve blew it in the garden.
• Here Paul is saying that inside each one of us there are two natures.
So that’s what we are going to look at today are these two natures.
First as Christians we have a new nature
Eph 4:22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;
• We must display a new nature because we are new people.
• When we decided to follow Christ
• When we decided to step over that line
• The bible says we are given a new nature.
• And this new nature wants to do what is right.
• This new nature wants to live for God.
But the Bible also teaches us that we have an old nature.
• This is the nature that we had before we accepted Christ.
• This old nature didn’t die just because we became a believer.
• And because it didn’t die , we see this in
Gal 5:16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
• What we have to realize is that we will never satisfy the sins of the old sinful nature.
• Gal 5:17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.
Want Paul is saying is that inside of every one of us there is a civil war going on.
• And it is a battle to the finish, a winner take all kind of thing.
• On the one side there is the part of us that says I want to follow God
• I want to do what’s right.
• And on the other side there’s the part of us that’s says
• Whoa hold up I’m having too much fun over here.
It’s the old verses the new and this is what we call life.
• The old side wants to sin,
• It never wants to do what’s right.
• In fact it Couldn’t do it even if it wanted to.
• Outside of Christ our fallen nature doesn’t have the ability to be sin free.
And The old nature is never going to change.
• You can’t fix yourself on your own.
• You can’t force yourself to be a better person.
• You can’t discipline yourself enough.
How many have tried to do this / don’t raise your hand
• You have something in your life that you just can’t get rid of. (Examples)
• You think man am I ever going to be able to get rid of this.
• You feel like you just can’t defeat it.
• You try and discipline yourself / you make promises to yourself
• You make promises to God and you know what
• By your power it you can’t change it / it just won’t die.
As long as we live on this earth we are always going to have to battle the old self
• But we have to learn how to win these battles.
• If there is a civil war inside us
• We need to get prepared to win that war.
So lets be honest
• Doesn’t it make you feel a little better to know that we aren’t alone in this struggle?
• Isn’t it comforting to know that a man that’s as great as Paul?
• A man who wrote most of the New Testament
• Had some struggles of his own.
• And here he is being totaly honest.
Here Paul is talking about trying to live under the law
• And what that means is trying to please God by our own power.
• If you’ve ever tried doing this
• You know it doesn’t work.
• Our own works are never good enough.
• All that happens is that we fail, and that makes us miserable.
Here Paul is sharing what he’s struggling with
And each one of us have these same feelings.
1) I have a problem
Ro 7:14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
• Paul is saying that he has a problem just like we have a problem
• Admitting that we have a problem is the first step.
• If we aren’t willing to admit we have a problem
• Than the rest of the stuff means nothing.
• First we have to look in the mirror and say I have a problem
The problem that we all share, every one of us is Sin.
• Sin wants to control our lives
• The key word that we find in Romans 7 is I
• It’s used 27 times in 12 verses.
• Our biggest problem isn’t the devil / our friends /
• Our biggest problem is ourselves.
2) Paul realizes that he is confused
Ro 7:15 I do not understand what I do.
• Paul the greatest Christian that has ever lived says
• I don’t understand what I’m doing.
• And he asks himself 2 questions
How can I stop doing these bad things? / How can I start doing some good things?
He goes on to say
• For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
• How many of start the day with the best intentions?
• Man this is going to a great day /
• But by the end of the day we find it didn’t turn out the way we had planned.
Paul says I’m Confused I’m Frustrated
Ro 7:17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
Ro 7:18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
• Most of us can relate to this
• Maybe not everyday but at least once in a while.
Let’s say I bake a big batch of chocolate chip cookies.
And I invite Travis over to share the cookies, and after pouring each one of us a big glass of milk we begin to eat those cookies.
• We eat and eat and eat.
• Finally Travis say to me if we don’t stop eating these cookies were gonna get sick.
• And I say How we gonna stop?
• Travis says we need will power.
• And I say I know lets put em in a box and tape it up with duck tape.
• Then Travis says that wont work all we have to do is cut the tape.
• And I say OK lets do that but then we’ll put the box way up on top of the cabinets.
• And Travis say that won’t work cause all we have to do is get a ladder.
• So Travis grabs the whole tray of cookies and throws them out in the yard and the squirrels and birds carry off every single chocolate chip cookie. Now I’m all bummed out.
Now we don’t have any more chocolate chip cookies. / not even 1
Yea says Travis but now we have will power
I say you can have your will power I’m baking some more Cookies.
This is exactly what Paul is talking about in these verses
• Paul says I want to be good but I can’t
• Because will power by itself, isn’t enough?
• Paul says I’m in a battle. / I’m getting tired, / I feel like giving up
• We see that it makes Paul and us a prisoner of the law of sin
• Do you know that in the entire 7th chapter of Romans not once is the Holy Spirit mentioned?
• This maybe one reason that there is so much defeat going on in Paul’s life.
• We fail when we decide to live life under our power.
• And that’s what Romans teaches us
• A Christian who tries to keep the law by their own power
• Is dead in the water.
We have to have the power of God’s Spirit in our lives if we are going to be successful in life.
• Listen to
Ro 8:2 through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
• There is only one law that is greater than Sin and that’s the Law of The Spirit.
• It’s a higher Law; it’s the Law that sets us free.
Look at Romans 7:24 Paul says
• What a wretched man I am!
• Who will rescue me from this body of death?
• If Paul the man who wrote the book is a wretched man / I’m in trouble
• Who is going to rescue me?
The word wretched means exhausted,
• To be completely out of energy from doing battle with my inner self.
• I’m completely worn out.
• And this is what I see in the lives of so many Christians.
• So many look like they are ready to give up.
• They are going through personal agony.
Paul says I can’t get rid of this old sinful nature.
• And we can’t either, as long as we are on this earth
• We can’t get rid of our old sinful nature.
Paul asks who will rescue me from this body of death
• In verse 25 we get the answer Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
• The only way we can live life successfully is to let Christ live His life through us.
First we have to Admit we have a problem
• Admit that we’re confused
• Nobody lives a perfect life. / nobody has it all together / nobody has all the answers.
• You don’t / I don’t / Paul didn’t / we are all struggling.
• We are all fighting the war that’s inside us.
• We can’t win on our own, but we can win.
• But we can only win through Christ.
Next we need to Accept our own imperfections
• Nothing good lives in our sinful nature.
• We all have thoughts in our heads that we wish weren’t there.
• We may even act on some of these thoughts. / Paul did
Then we need to Leave room for failure
• If we set ourselves up for perfection and leave no room for error
• the first time we fail were done.
• Paul says it is the Sin that lives in me that makes me do the things I don’t want to do.
• He doesn’t blame the devil, he blames the Sin that lives In him.
• There has to be room for failure in the Christian life.
There isn’t one person in this room,
• In this town, in this state, country, world, who is going to live one more week and not mess up.
• There are some who won’t make it till noon today.
• That’s just a fact of life
• We have to admit the struggles and the feelings and the thoughts that we have in our lives to God.
• You have to be honest with God and ourselves
God isn’t going to love us any less, / He’s not going to beat on us.
• He wants us to come to Him not only with our victories
• But also our weaknesses.
We have to learn to relax in the Grace of God
• We have to allow Christ to live through us.
• The power of God is real.
• And if each one of us is a Christian we have that power.
So this morning ask yourself what’s your problem
• Temper / Impatience / Self-Control / Lying / Your Thoughts / Pride / Laziness
• We all have skeletons in our closets.
• And it’s not God’s plan for his children to live this way.
Romans 7 shows us the vicious circle that we all get trapped in
• We need to be honest with ourselves and admit that this new life
• Isn’t a walk in the park.
• There is a very real devil that’s going to make sure that it isn’t.
We came to Christ as sinners
• We’re saved by God’s Amazing Grace
• We were forgiven and justified before God.
• But we still struggle with the Sin that’s in our lives.
• And Paul told us how to win the war.
Some of us here this morning are feeling defeated
• They don’t know how they are ever going to live this Christian life that the Bible talks about.
• They want to do what’s right but they just keep falling short.
• The old habits are still haunting them
• And sometimes they fall victim to those old habits.
And what I want to tell these people this morning
• Is that you can’t live the Christian life under your own power.
• You need the power of the living God.
• That is how we succeed in life.
• Remember the key word in this chapter / I
• I try to do my best but I keep failing.
We can’t change the old nature but Christ can
• Jesus can change the old nature thing
• And with His help we will have victory in Jesus.
