Title: The War Within
Scripture:
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 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. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. 20 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. 21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in the 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. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 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 the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
A couple of weeks ago, my family and I were in a restaurant enjoying a very good chicken stew. We were the only ones in the restaurant, and the TV was turned on. I noticed this young man, who was obviously very important to the people that were attending to him. [not important to me, just to those that were on the show with him]. I noticed that he was getting dressed for some event, I didn’t catch the name. But, what did catch my attention was the fact how he was making a big fuss over his clothes. He kept saying to the five or six people that were gathered around him and watching him watch himself in the mirror, “This just doesn’t work.. This just isn’t working!”
He was mildly rude to everyone, but everyone, including the announcer never said anything about it. Instead they talked about how smart and handsome he was and his fine eye for clothes. They immersed themselves in just how the tie really did need to be just one shade of gray lighter. They didn’t hear the tone in his rude voice during that familiar, “this just isn’t working, this just isn’t working.” [though I’m willing to say an occasional look on the face of one the girls there, did reveal some amazement at just how picky he was.]
That young man had no clue as to what life was all about. To him life was all about image! To him, life was all about how people saw him. To him, life was about what he saw in the mirror and thinking and believing that he looked good. When, you know, the suit on the guy standing next to him looked a lot better than his did.
This young man had no clue that the real image that he needed to be examining or looking into, was the image of what he looked like before God. But, sadly, he truly personifies that first verse of our scripture reading,
Romans 7:15 I do not understand what I do.
for he truly had no clue as to what he was doing.
But, then, isn’t that true of most of us?
How about this…What do you think you look like before God? I mean when we look into the mirror, we see a physical presence looking at us. When we look in the mirror we see a body, that is aging, or suntanned, or muscular, athletic, etc. But, what does God see?
I mean, the reflection that we see in the mirror does not reflect our thoughts about ourselves and other people, does it? What if it did though? What if every good or bad thought I have, has an impact on what I physically see in the mirror? What if I have a bad thought about a friend, then a wrinkle or a spot pops up? What if I think horribly about someone I don’t even know and a scar pops up on my face?
There’s more! The reflection that we see in the mirror can only reflect the love that we have for ourselves. If you love yourself [not in a selfish sense], you will take care of yourself and that reflection of care and concern will be presented to your eye. If you love yourself too much, like the young man that we mentioned earlier, it will reflect that image. But, that reflection does not reveal our love for others. What if it did? What if the reflection that I looked at in the mirror everyday exposed just how much I loved the people around me? What if the reflection that I looked at in the mirror everyday depended upon the love that I have for other people around me? What if, every time that I demonstrated love toward someone else, the mirror would reflect the goodness of that and every time I only demonstrated a selfish love, the mirror would reflect the horribleness of that? That would be quite a change, wouldn’t it?
What about this? What about faith or works? You pick which one you want to compare, after all you know yourself and your own faith and works, don’t you?
But, what if a person’s looks were based upon their faith in God? What if their good looks, or bad looks, or simple looks, were based upon just how much they try to glorify God in all that they do? What would you look like? What would other people see?
My friend, that is what God sees. He sees the WHOLE you! The image that we present to God is based on every thing about us. Our good and bad thoughts, our love for one another. Our image before God is constructed not from flesh and blood, but from our inner relationship, our spiritual relationship with HIM.
Do you know what you’re doing when you’re doing it? Do you understand what you’re doing when you’re doing it? Many times, we don’t know what we are doing, and, if we do know what we are doing, then we probably don’t know why we are doing it. And if we do know what we are doing and why we are doing it, we probably don’t know how to do it. We don’t know, or We know. KNOW.
So, it comes back to knowledge, which was the pursuit of some of the Greek scholars for a couple of centuries. Did they find out the same thing Paul found out? No, the definition and understanding of man’s knowledge and wisdom was twisted and erroneous. They provided vague and wordy phrases. They skirted and twisted it, until finally, it was sufficiently buried in what they called philosophy.
What did Paul find out?
I. The Strength of the Sin Nature
II. The Strength of the Law
III. The Strength of the inner man
I. The Strength of the Sin Nature
Everyone has physical strength, and that strength can be measured in variety of ways. How fast are? How strong are you? How far can you run? How long can you run? How long can you stay underwater? How high can you jump? Even this one, How long can you go without food and water?
Everyone has strength. It varies according to stature and resolve. Though I may be bigger than another person, they may be a stronger runner. Though a person may be taller than me, I may be able to lift more, or run further.
The strength of the sin nature does not depend upon how big you are, or how tall you are, or even how much you can eat. The strength of the sin nature depends upon how wide the gap is between you and God. The strength of the sin nature depends upon your relationship with God.
How can you run a marathon if you’ve never conditioned yourself? How can you narrow the gap between you and God, if you’ve never read or studied the Bible?
Paul tells us:
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.
The sin nature is like a bad rash that you can never get rid of, but you can control. Everyday you put medicine on that bad rash and you are able to hold it to an almost invisible state. But, if you miss one day, the rash comes right back out. It’s not very big, just a little spot here or there. But, it makes its presence known. Miss two or three or four days and it gets little bigger. Not much, and still not that noticeable. You miss a week, or a month, and you’ve got a problem.
The sin nature will always be there. It will always be lying just beneath the surface, waiting for those days that you don’t read the Bible. Like that bad rash, the sin nature is just waiting for those missed days. Miss one day, it might not be that bad. But miss a week, or a month, and you’ve got a problem. It will always be there, just waiting for those weeks that you don’t go to church. Waiting for those days that you don’t share your problems with God. Paul had those problems, too. He says,
17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.
The sin nature can be controlled. But, like many other things in life, it takes active participation by the person to step up and say that:
18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.
We get up and we’re inclined to pray. But, it doesn’t happen. We decided to work on something else. Or watch the news on TV. We tell ourselves, maybe later.
Then, later, after that, maybe we are inclined to read the Bible. Maybe we even pick up the Bible and open it. But after a line or two we put it down and decide to work on something else. Or go for a walk [sometimes we’ll justify physical fitness over spiritual fitness]! Maybe we’re inclined to sing a worship song or two. But we decide our voice is awful, or the neighbors may hear, or the embarrassment will be too much.
Paul says that, when I want to do good, evil is right there with me. No matter what you try to do improve yourself spiritually, evil is right there with you, waiting for you to make a mistake. It’s waiting for you to fail so that it can pull you down into self-pity and make a mess out of your life.
Paul tells us in the verse before that
For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
I want to do what is good, I want to do what is Godly, but I cannot do it!
But, here’s the good news. Each time you determine to overcome that sin nature, God is right there with you. Each time you determine to overcome that sin nature and follow through with it, the next time is much easier, and easier and easier.
II. The Strength of the Law
What strength does the law have? The law that we’re talking about is the law presented by God to Moses in the Old Testament and handed down over the centuries. It went through many additions and amplifications until there were over six-hundred laws for the Jewish citizen to remember and follow.
What strength does the law have? The law, in a broad sense, had the strength of life or death. The law, in a broad sense, had the strength and weight to break the back of the common citizen. The law was developed to make man conscious of sin.
But there’s been a change!
25 …I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law,
What happened? He says, in my mind. What changed this outward law that was a litany of difficult rules and regulations, to a poetic internal passion for observation and conformity? Jesus Christ! That’s what happened! The inner man can be changed!
(Hebrews 7:18-19) The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless 19 (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.
A better hope is introduced, a life in Jesus, by which we are allowed to draw near to God. Without God, and the love that He expressed through His Son on the cross, we have nothing either externally or in the inner man.
But, what about the inner man?
III. The Strength of the inner man
Paul says,
22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law;
The physical strength of every human being again, depends upon their size, weight, and muscles. Yet the strength of the inner may depends upon my relationship with God.
Remember earlier, we said that the strength of the sin nature depended upon our relationship with God. That meant the opposite of the size of the spiritual inner man here. As our relationship with God grows, our sin nature diminishes. As our sin nature diminishes, our inner “GODLY” man grows; our inner “GODLY” man matures; our inner “GODLY” man flourishes!
(Hebrews 10:19-22) Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
As we draw nearer to God
(James 4:8a) Come near to God and he will come near to you…
Conclusion:
There was a frail young woman who was a schoolteacher during World War II. She was a Christian, but not just any Christian as Christians call themselves today. She was steadfast believer in the Lord Jesus.
Her name was Ahn E. Sook. She was a schoolteacher in Korea, which was occupied by Japan. This small, frail woman had more inner strength, more inner power, more Jesus, than those around her. And, especially those that tried to make her bow to the Japanese way of life.
She started out by refusing to bow to a shrine. A simple Shinto shrine set up by the Japanese to honor a person, their emperor. She was put into jail for a time. In and out of jail for the next few years, she faced an inner battle of ‘size of faith.’ Simply put, she believed that most of the other Christians around her had more faith than her. Simple humility kept this woman alive and fighting for Christ for many years.
She went to Japan once with an old man, an elder from the church she had attended in the past. They were going to protest the treatment of the Korean people before the Japanese government.
Before they left, they had to show their papers to get on the boat. Hers were all in order, while the elder had simply left his at home. “you don’t have your papers? How are you going to go? We are ruined?”
The elder was a strong believer, and his next actions taught her about faith. His simple faith took him past the guard checking the papers and into a seat on the boat. But, that faith not only got him past the guards, but, like we said, it taught Ahn E. Sook some things about faith, too.
These were not just any Christians, as Christians call themselves today. These were Christians that had, through God and the power of Jesus Christ, conquered the sin nature and kept it locked up through active, faithful, and hard work for God.
These were not just any Christians. They were Christians whose whole lives revolved around God and His will for their lives. As an example, Ahn E. Sook’s mother came to her once and told her that God had revealed through His Word that she would marry a pastor. She, on the other hand, told her mother that God had revealed to her through His Word that she would marry an engineer. She married an engineer, that, just a couple of days before they were married, shared with her a strong desire to become a pastor.
These were not just any Christians. They had the hands of God firmly on them, around them, and working in their lives. How?
Their constant, perpetual relationship with God kept the sin nature out of their lives. Their constant, perpetual relationship with God strengthened their inner man. They drew nigh to God, and He, WITH POWER, drew nigh to them.
We have distanced ourselves from God. We of course blame it on the world, society, technology, Al Qaeda, and our own economic status. But, it has nothing to do with that. The wedge that is driven down between us and God and making that distance between us and God grow wider is not the wedge of the world. It is our willingness to succumb to the lure of the world that widens the gap. It is our willingness to choose the world and its desires, instead of God, that widens the gap. And, it can all start by a simple thought. Remember what Peter says in 1st Peter 5:
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. 10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 11 To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.
