FBC Adult Bible Study

Faith Baptist Church

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All right, would you turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 7, Romans chapter 7.

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One of the interesting paradoxes of the

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Christian life is that on the one hand, Jesus said, I came to give you peace and joy.

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My peace I give to you, he said. Not as the world gives do I give to you, but his peace.

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He came to give us his peace. And then he also said that he came that our joy might be full.

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So on the one hand, Jesus came to give us joy and peace. But on the other hand, every

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Christian, every Christian knows the experience of spiritual strife and the conflict that we have with sin within us.

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It's a very real thing. And we have that conflict all of our lives.

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So we have an age range here of adults from early 20s to almost 90, and a range of experiences in the

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Christian life and how long people have been saved. But in honesty, every one of us would have to say,

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I've never come to the place where I no longer have any internal strife in battle with sin.

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So there's this ongoing conflict with sin. So we have this paradox of the

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Christian life. Christ came to give us peace and joy, and yet we know the experience of this internal strife of fighting, as Paul describes it in Romans 7, the wretched man.

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So look at verses 22 through 25, and then we'll look at it in more detail. Paul writes, he says,

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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.

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Oh, wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank

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God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

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Now, here's the thing. I think this passage can be a great encouragement to us as believers in Christ because of this testimony of Paul.

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We might default into thinking that Paul, as this great spiritual giant, would be very consistent and faithful, and his testimony would be,

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I constantly keep my foot on the throat of sin, and it doesn't really bug me.

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But his testimony here is a testimony of a struggle that is contrary to that notion of a sinless perfection, if you will, on the part of Paul.

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So in this book that we're using as a basis for this series on holiness, Michael Barrett explains, he says,

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Paul's life involved continual conflict between the spirit and the flesh.

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He experienced ongoing strife between his new nature and the remains of his old one.

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Just like us. Just like us. We wrestle with inward holiness.

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Now, the passage, this verse begins, this passage begins with the testimony of a genuine delight.

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And if you are a believer in Christ, you can testify to, yes,

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I do have this genuine delight. Paul says, I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.

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And this statement of Paul's really echoes the statement of the

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Old Testament Saint David. Remember what he said? David said in Psalm 119, verse 97, he says, oh, how

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I love thy law. It is my meditation all the day. And there are several places in that one psalm that really is a focus on God's word, of loving and delighting in and joying in God's word.

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So this is the testimony of believers through the centuries, Old Testament, New Testament saints, genuine believers in Christ can say in the inward man,

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I do delight in the law of God. But notice how that delight is connected with God's law.

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I delight in the law of God. In other words, Paul is saying, I enjoy doing what is consistent with God's word.

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I enjoy thinking that is in line with God's word. I enjoy doing

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God's will, walking in God's ways, obeying God's commands.

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I enjoy these things related to God's law. Now, I think on your handout,

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I have a thing here about the purposes of God's law and understanding that. So to say,

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I delight in God's law, I think I need to have an understanding of the purposes of God's law. God's law is not and never has been a means of salvation.

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Even the Old Testament believers, they did not keep God's law in order to be saved.

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So I think you'd have that basic understanding. You don't keep God's law in order to be saved.

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So what is the purpose of God's law? I suggest there's threefold.

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One of them is to convict us of sin, to convict us of sin.

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Another place Paul speaks of the law in Galatians, the law being a schoolmaster leading us to Christ.

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And one of the tasks of that schoolmaster is to convict us of sin and our need of Christ.

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So to convict us of sin. A second purpose of the law of God, I alluded to it in our prayer time, is to restrain sin in society, to restrain sin in society.

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Insofar as a nation in its laws reflect the law of God, sin will be restrained, it will be kept at bay, at least the full expression of it.

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So for example, the genius of Western civilization is that so much of our legal system was built upon and rooted in God's law.

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For example, why is stealing a crime? Who came up with the idea that stealing is a crime?

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So if you take out the decalogue out of human experience and human history, you just take that completely out, and there is no divine law given that says, thou shalt not steal, there would be no objective basis for a society to say, stealing is wrong, stealing is a crime, stealing is to be punished.

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And so when a society gets away from that objective standard that says, stealing is a crime, then you run into all kinds of problems, like we are experiencing even now in our society today.

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I can't remember which city it was, was it Los Angeles or one of those cities, where the district attorney of the city said, we are not going to prosecute shoplifting, we're not going to do it, we're not going to prosecute shoplifting.

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So store owners know, don't even bother calling the police if you catch someone stealing something from your store.

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And so consequently, what's happening? People are going into stores and taking whatever they want and walking right out.

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And I can't remember if this is LA or San Francisco, one or the other, but anyway, there are actually like Walgreens stores who have had to completely shut down, they've just closed because people are doing that, they're just going in and taking stuff and walking out and nobody can stop them, nothing can be done about it.

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So this is the genius of Western civilization. We have, as a civilization, knowingly or unknowingly constructed a society of laws that are rooted in the law of God, and that's one of the purposes of God's law.

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A third purpose, and this is the purpose that really zeroes in on our study today, is that it is to serve as a rule of life and an expression of gratitude for believers.

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So in other words, going back to the idea that we don't obey the law in order to be saved, we obey the law as a means of expressing gratitude to the

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God who has saved us, as a response to grace that has been received, if you will.

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And we look at God's law as a guide for how to live. So we often say here, we want to find out what

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God is like and what God likes. Where do we learn what God is like, what

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God likes? The general answer is in the Bible, true.

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A more specific answer is in the law of God. So God's law serves as the ruling principle, to quote, bear it again, the ruling principle by which we express our gratitude to God for salvation in Jesus Christ.

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Now that delight in God's law is expressed in the Christian life in a variety of ways.

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So it's our delight, for example, to serve God, to cleave to Him, to obey

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Him. It's our delight to deny ourselves, to crucify the flesh, to flee from worldliness.

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It's our delight to take up the cross, to follow Jesus, to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

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And it's our delight to seek to tighten our grip, again, I'm quoting here, to tighten our grip on God and loosen our hold on sin.

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So one of the old Puritans, Thomas Brooks, said this, he said, a gracious soul, and see if this is your experience, a gracious soul grieves more that God by His sin is grieved and dishonored than that for it

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He is afflicted and chastened. Let me say that again. The gracious soul, the one who has been converted, who understands this relationship, this delight in the law of God as a response to grace received and as a means of, as a rule for life, if you will, a guide for life that is divinely given, understanding what

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God likes, a gracious soul grieves more that God by His sin is grieved,

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I grieve more that God is grieved and dishonored than I grieve over the affliction and chastening that I might receive because of that disobedience or because of that departure from God's law.

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So there is this delight in the law of God that the genuine

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Christian has, but, and that's what verse 23, the way verse 23 begins, but I see another law in my members.

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So while on the one hand, this is my great delight, my delight is in the law of God, on the other hand,

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I experience this inward dilemma, this inward dilemma. Again, Barrett, he says this, he says, we encounter another law, another principle, and another power that is contrary to the law of our renewed mind.

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The other law represents the remains of our fallen nature that is still within us.

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This law is the inclination to do evil. So while on the one hand we have this delight in the law of God, there is within us this other law that fights against that delight and is inclined to do evil.

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And these two natures, the remnants of our fallen nature and our new nature in Christ Jesus, these two natures are in constant jihad.

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We understand that word. We know that word from recent years, right?

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Holy war. These two natures are in a constant holy war. Paul puts it this way in Galatians 5, 17, he says, for the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another so that you cannot do the things that you wish.

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It is no matter what you do, you do not do the things you wish because of this conflict, right?

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Think about it. The flesh desires against the spirit. The spirit desires against the flesh.

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So whichever one wins, you end up not doing what you wished.

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Did I totally lose you on that? Follow. My spirit is desiring against the flesh.

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I want to do what God wants me to do. My flesh says, no, you don't.

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You want to do this. You want to commit this sin. So I've got these two natures within me that are expressing different desires, different things, if you will, it wants to do.

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Only one of them can be done. So if I do this, then

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I don't do this. If I do this, then I don't do this. So Paul is kind of vividly expressing this holy war that exists within us.

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John Bunyan, of course, we know Bunyan most for his book, The Pilgrim's Progress, but he also wrote of this holy war with another allegory, with a book by that title,

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Holy War. And in that book, he talks about this internal struggle as an assault against the city of our soul, the city of the true believer.

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And that assault, those assaults come by way of the eye gate, gates of the city, the eye gate, the ear gate, and other entryways into the city.

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There is this holy war. And in this holy war, the two sides, the old nature, the remnants of that old nature, that old nature is inclined to commit evil.

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Again, I'm not saying anything you don't understand, you don't know by experience. You know this inclination, you feel this, you experience this from time to time.

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It is an inclination that is active and it is present and it is parallel with God's law.

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It's warring against the law of my mind, Paul says here in verse 23.

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So in verse 22, he says, I delight in the law of God according to the inward man, but I see another law in my members warring against this law of my mind, my delight in God's law.

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It is an active, present, parallel struggle that is going on, this old nature's inclination to commit evil.

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And what is it trying to do? He goes on in verse 23. He says, it's warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members.

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It seeks this old nature, it seeks my enslavement to sin.

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So even though I'm a believer in Christ, a follower of Jesus, and I delight in God's law on one hand,

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I've got this, the remnants of my old nature within me that is constantly trying to enslave me to sin from which

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I have been delivered by the work of Christ. So it's constantly trying to do.

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And think about this, think about this old nature as a volcano.

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And there's been some volcano activity in the news in recent weeks, right?

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A volcano that is an active volcano, it's not always evidently active.

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If you're standing on an active volcano, you may not know it at that moment.

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So a couple of years ago when we were in Costa Rica, Costa Rica has several active volcanoes in the country.

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And the hyenics, missionaries that we were visiting, their home at the time was on the side of an active volcano, it's on the side of a mountain.

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But it was a mountain that was a volcano. And nothing had happened in that volcano, there'd been no eruptions or anything like that for years.

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But deep beneath the surface of the earth, there was this stuff going on.

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And every once in a while, every once in a while, that stuff that was going on would cause a rumbling on the surface.

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And sometimes it's inconsequential. So one day as we were visiting with them, we're in a shopping center, a mall, it was, it was a mall, and having, getting ready to have lunch.

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We had placed our order and we're sitting there. And all of a sudden, everything just starts shaking.

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And the hyenics, I mean, Chris and I were just sitting there, we're not like sure what's going on here. And the hyenics immediately got up from the table and they looked out into the, looked out into the, you know, the mall itself, wherever, to watch what other people are doing.

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Because they knew that they would, they may need to evacuate immediately if things didn't stop.

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And again, you know, Chris and I were like, what's going on? Why did you just get up?

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And then they said, this was an earthquake. And they said, we get them all the time. They're caused by the volcanoes.

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So our inward man is like this volcano that it may be, it may on the surface be dormant.

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I mean, like nothing's going on, but underneath there's this rumbling that every once in a while rises to the surface.

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And yet, what eventually happens with an active volcano? What eventually can happen?

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A big eruption, right? And if we understand that,

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I mean, if you think of that analogy, it helps us a little bit to understand how someone who is a believer in Christ can commit terrible sin.

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Think of David and his encounter with Bathsheba. I mean, you know,

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David is a godly man. He, oh, how I love thy law, it is my meditation all the day, he says.

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Then how in the world can someone who loves God's law, I mean, can David's genuine faith be called into question?

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No, not at all. But then you've got this volcanic activity that blows up on that evening when he looks out and he sees

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Bathsheba and he takes it from there. And then, you know, the death of Uriah and so forth. This is a huge volcano, and the lava flow from that volcano of David's activity caused all kinds of destruction from that eruption on, beyond, in his family, in the country, and so forth.

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So, oftentimes, we can think of this old nature, this inward battle as a volcano, but it eventually seeks to derail us, to derail it.

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Look back at verse 19, derail us from doing the good that we would. Chapter 7, verse 19,

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Paul says, For the good that I will to do, I do not do.

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But the evil I will not to do, that I practice.

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Don't raise your hand here, you don't need to. Do you know what this is like?

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You know this experience? What I want to do, I don't do.

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What I don't want to do, I do. All that is, is a reflection of the battle within us that ends up, a battle that ends up, a battle that ends up being lost to the remnants of the old nature in the conflict.

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Its goal is to derail us from doing the good that we know to do and that we really want to do.

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We end up not doing it. So our old nature is inclined to evil.

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That's on the one side. On the other side, we have this new nature. It's ours in Christ Jesus.

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And this new nature expresses a deep awareness. It's expressed in this statement,

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Oh, wretched man that I am. Now here's the thing. You and I have abundant reasons for happiness, right?

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I mean, God is your portion forever. Believer in Christ, God is your portion forever.

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You by God's grace have found Christ and you rest in his atonement.

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You have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you. Your sins are forgiven, past, present, and future.

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Your guilt is purged. You have the hope of eternal glory. You have abundant reasons for happiness.

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But then you read this and you understand that you have sufficient reason for grief.

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Oh, wretched man that I am. That is an expression of grief.

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So it's like, why? Because I can't serve the

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Lord as I sincerely desire to serve the Lord. Going back to verse 19. The good that I will to do,

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I don't do. I don't serve the Lord with the intensity, the faithfulness, the fervor, the commitment, and all that I really want to do.

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I don't. And I don't love the Lord as he is worthy to be loved.

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Have you ever been in one of those week -long special meeting services, evangelistic or revival meeting type services, where it seems like the evangelist's goal is to get as many people to make some kind of decision or come down the aisle as he can.

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And so he'll, you know, do you need Christ come? Do you need to rededicate your life to Christ come?

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And I've seen a few of these where, you know, he's doing his best to get people to leave their seats and come down and, you know, fill the front and nobody comes.

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And so he finally resorts to this. If you don't love

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Jesus as much as you should love Jesus, you need to come down here, you need to come to the altar.

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Well, why does he do that? Because he knows there shouldn't be, if everybody's honest, there shouldn't be anybody left in the pew.

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Because you don't love Jesus as he deserves to be loved, and neither do I. He deserves, you know, we are to love

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God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

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And I want to, but I don't always do so.

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Oh, wretched man that I am. See, this is what Paul is saying. Oh, wretched man that I am.

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By the way, I don't use those kind of evangelists anymore. Last time

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I had one like that was probably, let's see, this was 1980 -something. Almost 30 years ago, last time

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I had a guy like this, and it was a Friday night, end of the meeting, end of the week, and he wasn't getting the results he wanted to see.

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And that Friday night, he's pulling, you know, pulling and pulling and yanking and all he's doing, doing his 15 stands of just as I am, you know, that kind of a thing.

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Nobody's responding. And finally, at the end of the thing, the guy in exasperation says,

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I don't remember the last time I was in a church that was so cold. I'm thinking, he says this to the congregation.

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I don't remember the last time I was in a church that was so cold and hard -hearted and stubborn, you know, stiff -necked kind of a thing.

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And I'm like, are you kidding me? Would you just close in prayer and get out of here, you know?

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So, anyway. So you have sufficient reason for grief. And the thing is, it is because you are redeemed that you grieve.

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Get this, it is because you are redeemed that you grieve. Barrett says this way, he says,

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No one grieves so much about sin as those who have been delivered from it by the blood of Christ.

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No one grieves so much about sin as those who have been delivered from it by the blood of Christ.

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You grieve because of what you know. Because of what you know. Why is

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Paul crying out like this? He's crying out like this because of what he's been taught in the school of Jesus.

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He's been taught what God is like and what God likes. And he sees how far short he falls of that, of living in a way that is consistent with what

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God is like, and living in a way that is consistent with what God likes. It's what he knows that ends up causing him to say,

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Oh, wretched man that I am. Because of what he knows. He knows what

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God is like. And he knows how unlike God he is. He knows what

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God likes. And he knows how little he does that God likes, and how much he does that God dislikes.

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You grieve because of what you know. And you grieve because of communion with God.

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So again, our writer, he says, Romans 7 -24 does not come from the lips of a backslidden

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Christian. Alright, listen to this. Get this. He says, This does not come from the lips of a backslidden

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Christian, but from one who is in communion with God and Christ. Here's the point.

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He says, The closer we draw to God, the more we discover the vileness of our nature.

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It is not the weakest, but the strongest believer who groans, Oh, wretched man that I am.

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And I think this is true. I believe this is so. Because I have, you know, this is 2021.

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I started in the ministry in some kind of a practical manner in 1978.

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Very part time in 78. 1980 was a little more involved in the ministry.

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1982 I'm in at full bore. So what is that? How many years is that? 40 plus years in the ministry.

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And my observation is that that's exactly right. That believers, professing believers who are on the periphery, who are living careless lives, they're really not much bothered by it.

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And you would even call into question their profession of faith. But even those where you're pretty confident that they are

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Christians because of their testimony and because of the way they lived at one time and are backslidden, don't seem to be much bothered.

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They don't cry out, Oh, wretched man that I am. Who does? They cry out,

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Oh, wretched man that I am when they get under conviction and when they're drawn closer to Christ.

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And I think the older you get in the faith, the more sensitive you become to indwelling sin within.

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And you realize, you know what? Some of you may know who

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Kevin Bowder is. He was, at the time I heard him say this, the president of Central Seminary up in Minneapolis, St.

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Paul area. And he said this. He was in his 60s.

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And he said, You know, when I was in my 30s, I thought by the time I was in my 60s,

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I'd have a pretty good handle on this old nature of mine. And some of these sins that I struggled with in my 30s,

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I'd be done with them. And he said, I'm realizing now that I'm in my 60s, the battle is even more difficult than it was when

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I was in my 30s. Why? Because of communion with God.

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It is the strongest, not the weakest believer that groans, Oh, wretched man that I am. So think about this from even some biblical examples.

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Job, for example. He was pretty confident of his faith and his faithfulness to God.

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And he's arguing, I shouldn't have gone through all this stuff. And if I could plead my case with God, surely he'd side with me.

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Then he comes face to face with God. God confronts him and talks with him, communicates with him.

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And he says, Come on, Job, speak up. And what God does in Job says, I'm a wretched man.

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I'm a wretched man. My lips are unclean. There's no way. I can't say anything. What about Isaiah?

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He sees the Lord high and lifted up. And when he sees the Lord high and lifted up on the throne and the thrice holy mention of God, what does he say?

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Oh, wretched man that I am. I'm a man of unclean lips. He didn't say that before he saw and drew close to God.

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He said it afterwards. He became more aware of the wretchedness of his lips. And what about John?

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Even John, the apostle in Revelation 1. He saw Christ, he heard from Christ, and he falls down on his face.

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Oh, wretched man that I am. And think about the testimony of some saints in history.

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John Bradford, for example. John Bradford was martyred by Queen Mary, and before his execution, he signed a letter to a fellow prisoner in this way.

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He says he signed it, The most miserable, sinful, hard -hearted, and unthankful sinner.

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John Bradford. But if you met John Bradford and he was a member of the church with us, you would think of him as a godly man.

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And John Newton. Amazing grace, John Newton. He says, quote,

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I was ashamed of myself when I began to seek Christ, but I am more ashamed of myself now after that I have found him.

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And Samuel Rutherford. He said this body of sin and corruption embitters and poisons our enjoyment.

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Oh, that I were where I shall sin no more. So it is because you are redeemed that you yearn for this.

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This yearning that he expresses at the end of verse 24. Who will deliver me from this body of death?

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This is the yearning. And my sense is that every one of you in Christ Jesus, who are aware of the wretchedness of the old man within, and you can say this with Paul, Oh, wretched man that I am, have this same yearning.

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Who will deliver me from this body of death? Because you are redeemed, you have that yearning.

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And that leads to the happy deliverance that you anticipate in verse 25. If you do,

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I mean, if you're aware of this happy deliverance that you can anticipate, because Paul says, who will deliver me from this body of death?

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I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, note this cry is not a cry of despair, of hopelessness.

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It's a cry of distress. Realizing where I am and where I want to be, but then this yearning leads to the anticipation of what

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I know is coming. And why do I know that this is coming? That I can thank God that he will deliver me from the body of this death.

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I can know that because of the finished work of Christ. Romans 4 .25

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says that he was delivered for our offenses, and he was raised again for our justification.

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And 1 Corinthians 1 .30 says that our Savior Jesus is of God, is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

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The work of Christ on the cross is a finished work. And because of that finished work,

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I can anticipate the happy deliverance from this body of death.

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I can also anticipate it because of my final victory.

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Romans 8 .37 mentions this. He says, yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

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Christ has already won the war for those who are in him.

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Barrett writes this, he says, you may lose some skirmishes, particularly when you fight in your own strength, but you will ultimately win the war in the strength of Jesus Christ.

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Sin damages believers. It makes us suffer. It robs us of inward peace and disturbs our communion with God.

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It can take heaven out of our souls, yet sin can never keep a believer out of heaven.

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Sin will not win the final victory. Christ will. Christ will.

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So look at these concluding applications. I think I have this on your handout. When we understand our wretched state, that, number one, convinces us how much we need

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Christ. Number two, it shows us that the struggle is part of sanctification, of this lifelong process of growing in Christlikeness.

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Understanding our wretched state, number three, convinces us that we need the Holy Spirit. I cannot win this battle alone.

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Number four, it helps us subject our conscience to God's Word. To God's Word.

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Number five, understanding our wretched state teaches us to look for others to fight for holiness.

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We have Jesus Christ, the best leader to help us fight. We have the promises of the

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Father to comfort us. We have the best guarantee for eternal results.

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Romans 8, verse 28 says, all these things work together for good to those who love

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God, to those who are the called according to His purposes. So as we close, there are three indispensable marks of the

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Christian. Number one, you delight in God's law.

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I didn't say you obey it perfectly. I said you delight in God's law. Number two, you consider sin as your dilemma.

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You don't ignore it. You don't placate it. You don't play around with it.

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You look at it as your dilemma. And number three, you look to Christ for deliverance.

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Those are the indispensable marks of the believer in Christ. Father in heaven, we are in a battle.

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We are in a holy war. I pray, Father, that on the one hand, we would not be totally discouraged even though we would express this voice of distress about the wretched man that we are.

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Father, I pray that we would draw closer and closer to Christ, being more and more aware of the sin, the residual sin within us, not that we would despair, but that we might more ably fight the battle, relying upon Christ, delighting in God's law.