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Good morning my friends, ready for a new week of life?
As we ‘walk with Jesus’, no matter what awaits each of us this week, we can face it with HIM! Do you agree?
Now here’s why that’s significant… Jesus already knows EVERYTHING that will happen in your life and mine this next week. Right? He can see it, as if it were happening right this moment.
Jesus knows everything ABOUT each of us, and how we will react to the unexpected challenges He sees coming our way, but which will be surprises to us when they arrive! Right?
So, seems to me, the wisest thing we can do is… ‘walk with Jesus’, because He knows what’s coming and He can help us face anything, especially the hard things coming our way. But how do we do this ‘walk with Jesus’?
We’re in Romans 7 today, and Paul the author, is honest enough to admit that he has struggled sometimes in facing the unexpected challenges of life. I like learning from someone who has already fought the fight, faced the same challenge I’m facing... so let’s dig in to Romans 7.
Please don’t let the first 6 verses throw you into head scratching confusion. We’ve learned by now, that Paul writes like a builder constructing a building. Foundation, walls, trusses, roof, each stage built on the one before, in logical order.
So yesterday in chapter 6, Paul challenged us to understand that part of our salvation experience is our being joined to Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit. Our old sin nature was dealt a death blow as we aligned ourselves with Christ’s death, and a new spiritual nature was birthed within us as we aligned ourselves with Christ’s resurrection. Now we have both an old sinful nature and a new spiritual nature alive within us. (Remember the two dogs example yesterday?)
In our union with Jesus Christ we live to please HIM and no longer is ‘keeping the laws’ our primary motivation in life. That’s what Paul means when he summarizes these first six verses with this: “But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law, so that we serve in a new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.” (7:6)
Jesus talked about this with Nicodemus, do you remember? John records this landmark conversation in John 3:3-7 “…Jesus declared, ‘I tell you the truth no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again!‘
How can a man be born when he is hold?’ Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mothers womb to be born?’ Nicodemus asked.
Jesus answered, ‘I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit…”
Now, you’ve read that many times, I’m sure. What did Jesus mean?
God created each of us in our mother’s wombs, right? Cell by cell, muscles, ligaments, bones, organs, eyeballs, fingers and toes, etc. Psalm 139 tells us we are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ by God. Then God birthed us.
We did not conceive, develop or birth ourselves, did we? We each exist by God’s desire and design. That’s what Jesus refers to as ‘born of water’… you dear women understand this better than we men. It’s a remarkable miracle how a tiny baby lives and grows within a woman’s womb, and then bursting forth as the water sack breaks, the baby moves through the birth canal, and transitions from dependence upon that umbilical cord for survival, to breathing on its own, outside the womb, as a newborn baby! That’s what ‘flesh gives birth to flesh’ means.
Jesus is saying, just as God does every part of that pregnancy & birth miracle, in His creation of a new person. So, in the same way, God does every part of our Salvation work, as He re-creates that person, now into a ‘new creation in Christ’, (2 Cor. 5:17) saved from sin condemnation, and with a new spiritual nature birthed within us! That’s what ‘Spirit gives birth to spirit’ means. The theological term is ‘regeneration’. Re-birth…‘born again’.
So in Romans 7 Paul is describing the struggle he and all Christians face, as our old sinful nature and our new spiritual nature battle for control in our lives.
When God proclaimed the 10 Commandments and other laws for His people, back in Exodus, they and we became aware of the things God viewed as sinful, wrong, and for which we would be held accountable, and punished justly by a holy God. That’s why Paul writes “I would not have known what sin was except through the law.” (7:7)
Now let’s be careful here…that does not mean we don’t have God given conscience, and a convicting Holy Spirit who alerts us to wrong that we are contemplating, or have said or done. That’s what Jesus meant when He said “When He (Holy Spirit) comes, He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin, righteousness and judgment.” (John 16:8) Even people who don’t know the Commandments of God, sense a conviction of wrong when they sin. But Paul is saying that through the laws of God, he became clearly aware of the standard of behavior, attitudes and even words, that God expects from His people, made in His image… and it’s a standard of holiness even he could not keep.
Paul is also saying there is a devious side to all of us. Something rises up inside us wanting to test the law, when we find out there is a law. That’s why we drive faster than the speed limit, and we race through yellow lights, and so much more. What is that rebellious thing that awakens in us? It’s our old sinful nature wanting to control us. You find that fight raging in you from time to time, don’t you? It happens in almost every area of life.
Advertising awakens in us coveting for that which we don’t have, don’t need and perhaps can’t afford. Advertisers know that ‘skin sells’, and therefore most men struggle with some lust, even watching sports on TV because of some female commentators, some commercials and ‘trailers’ for other shows or movies. Am I right my brothers? When it comes to filing our tax returns, have you struggled with what’s an appropriate deduction and what isn’t? It’s a never ending battle for every Christian, every culture in the world. What’s the battleground for you?
By the way, perhaps it’s important for us to realize this battle has raged in every human heart since Adam & Eve! Even for royalty like King David, and may I give you two verses David wrote that help me see lessons he learned in this very real inner struggle?
“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (Ps. 51:10)
“Teach me Your ways O LORD, and I will walk in Your truth. Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear Your name.” (Ps. 86:11)
I invite you to pause and just ponder these two powerful statements for a moment. What do you hear the Holy Spirit saying into your mind and heart about applying them to your life?
Now back to Paul… he goes to great lengths in chapter 7 to describe the battle even he faced with his sin nature. “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 cannot carry it out. 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…so I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.” (7:18-20) May I repeat… this is the Jewish Pharisee turned Christ following, Apostle Paul writing about himself, does that amaze you?
May I ask you, my friends, is that a little encouraging for you to know even King David and the Apostle Paul,and of course many other people seeking to follow God, have struggled with the battle between their old, sinful nature and their new, God given, spiritual nature? So what is Paul’s answer? What did he find to be his victory?
Look at vs. 24 & 25 “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!“ There it is! Paul found victory in his daily, growing relationship with Jesus Christ as his Savior, Deliverer and Master, Lord! Two major things here… Paul found his deliverance in Jesus, from life long bondage to his sin nature and certain eternal separation from God in judgement... that’s Redemption, Justification, Reconciliation, remember the last few days discussion of those words in Romans 3-6?
And, Paul found his daily victory over his sin nature, as he ‘walked with Jesus’ in full submission to his Master, his Lord Jesus, who empowered him and guided him. Paul realized it would be hopeless for him alone, without Jesus. . . do we understand that for ourselves or are we still trying to fight the battles with our determination, our best efforts?
Tomorrow, Paul gives us one of the most powerful chapters in the Bible, as he details his answer to the struggle of Romans 7… so don’t miss our daily rendez-vous tomorrow morning in Romans 8!
For today, may I leave you with three questions?
1. How do you describe the battle that rages inside you, between the God honoring life you’d like to live, and the temptations that come so often, trying to draw you to lowering your standards, and doing that which you really don’t want to do, say or think?
2. What have been some of the ‘keys to victory’ you have found, as Jesus has helped you win the battle over temptation?
3. What have you learned is the price you pay, when you succumb to the temptation and you fall… you say or do the things you know are dishonoring to God?
Oh Jesus… may I lift up before you each of these my friends on the journey with me, as we seek to ‘walk with YOU’ today and live the reality of Romans 7.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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