12 Jun The war within

Romans 7:7-25

⁷ What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” ⁸ But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. ⁹ I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. ¹⁰ The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. ¹¹ For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. ¹² So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

¹³ Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. ¹⁴ For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. ¹⁵ For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶ Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. ¹⁷ So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

²¹ So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. ²² For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, ²³ but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Have you ever wondered, if God has made us a new creation, why do we still struggle with sin so much? Why is it very hard to love God more? Why is it so hard to do the right thing? Why is it so easy to do the wrong thing? The good thing we want to do, we do not do it. The evil thing we do not want to do, we keep on doing it. What is wrong with us? Our passage for today is one of the most life-changing chapters in the Bible for me. It is a controversial passage, but it is absolutely crucial. In this passage, Paul talks about his personal struggle with sin. Yes, you heard me right. The greatest Christian who ever lived, the apostle Paul had been where we are. In Romans 7, he speaks about the war within. And Tim Keller likens the struggle that Paul experienced to the story of Jekyll and Hyde. It is a famous classic book that has been turned into many movies and plays. In the story, Dr Jekyll is a good man with a good reputation. But he is frustrated with himself because he realizes that there is a good part and a bad part inside of him. And the bad part is always holding back the good part of him. So, Dr Jekyll does many experiments, and he develops a potion that separates the good part and the bad part of him. The good part of him comes out during the day. This is Dr Jekyll. And the bad part of him comes out at night. And this is Mr Hyde, whose name derives from the word hidden or hideous. The two exist separately, with Dr Jekyll being all good and Mr Hyde being all bad.

So now, Dr Jekyll is free. He is free from the influence of evil and he can do all the good he wants without restraint. The problem is that Dr Jekyll finds out that the bad part of him is far more wicked than he had imagined. Mr Hyde is extremely evil. He does whatever he wants, and he kills people. To the point that Dr Jekyll says, “I am tenfold more wicked than I ever thought.” And what Dr Jekyll realizes is that he is not a hypocrite. He realizes that both Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are him. And as time goes by, Mr Hyde becomes more and more in control of the body. When Dr Jekyll realizes he is about to lose control and permanently become Mr Hyde, he kills himself. It is a very disturbing narrative. But Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of the story, actually wrote the story based on Romans 7. And here is what he is trying to communicate. Even in the very best of people, there is a capacity for evil that is way beyond what we believe and far worse than we ever imagine.

And this is the picture of us. When we became Christians, life did not become easier for us. It became harder. Before we became Christians, life was a lot simpler. We simply followed our sinful desire and did whatever we felt like. But now that we have become Christians, we have a new desire. We want to obey God’s commandment. We want to do what is right. But it does not mean that the old desire goes away. The old desire still resides in us. So, there are now two conflicting desires at war within us. There is part of us that wants to do what is pleasing to God and there is part of us that does not want to do what is pleasing to God. Christians are those who experience war within. I love the way Timothy Keller puts it. He sums up Romans 7 beautifully. “When we become Christians, we don’t move from warfare to peace; we move from a battle we could not win to a new battle we cannot lose.”

I have three points for this sermon. The war we can’t win; The war we can’t avoid; The war we can’t lose.

The war we can’t win

Romans 7:7-13 – ⁷ What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” ⁸ But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. ⁹ I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. ¹⁰ The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. ¹¹ For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. ¹² So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. ¹³ Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

Notice that in verses 7 to 13, Paul speaks in the past tense. He is describing who he was before he became a Christian. And in these verses, Paul points out our main problem. And it is shocking. Paul argues that it does not matter how hard we try to obey the law of God, the law of God cannot save us. Because the main purpose of the law of God is not to save us from our sins but to reveal our sinfulness to us. The main purpose of the law of God is not for us to save ourselves through it; it is to show that we are hopeless on our own. The 10 commandments are not given as a checklist for us to be saved. The 10 commandments are the expression of God’s standard of holiness. It shows us the kind of person we must be in order to be accepted by God. The problem is none of us can live up to that standard. In other words, the law functions like a mirror. Let me give you an example. Imagine staring at a mirror when we wake up in the morning. We find many things that we don’t like about our faces. None of us wakes up in the morning with that #IJustWokeUp Instagram face. None. That #IJustWokeUp face is the result of spending time in front of a mirror. How long? As long as it takes to make it Instagram-worthy. None of us wants to Instagram our real #IJustWokeUp face. So, we wake up and the mirror reveals to us many things that we don’t like about our faces. That’s what the law of God does. It reveals all our drools and flying hair. But it does not fix the problem for us. The law tells us what is right, but it does not make us righteous. The law tells us our problem, but it does not give us the solution.

Paul then gives us one example from the law: You shall not covet. Why this law? Because out of all ten laws, this is the one that directly deals with our heart. When we read the ten commandments, we could easily look at them only in terms of external behaviours. We could easily tick them off our checklist and think that we are good Christians. We could say, “I haven’t worshipped an idol. I haven’t disobeyed my parents. I haven’t killed anyone. I did not lie, steal, or commit adultery. I am a good Christian.” We can look at the law superficially and see it only as behavioural rules that are not that hard to keep. Until we reach the last commandment. You shall not covet. What is covet? Covet is not only when our heart desires something that is not ours. So, it is not only to look at somebody else and say, “Wow, check out that new channel bag. I would love to have a channel bag.” Covet means to want something so much that we are discontent. So, we look at our friend’s new channel bag, and we are not happy with our Target bag. Covet has everything to do with our hearts. And the law tells us that a healthy heart is a heart that does not covet. And this is extremely problematic. Because if I can be honest, I am often discontent with what I have.

For example, if I compare the number of views we have on our church’s YouTube channel with other churches, I often feel discontent. On average, our English sermons have about 100 views each. But if I look at other churches’ YouTube channels, the sermon might have just been uploaded for one minute, and it already has more than 100 views. And by the end of the week, the sermon has 100,000 views. So, the ratio is 1:1000. And do you know what is the response of my heart? “Oh wow, God is so gracious in using those churches 1000 times more than us. God bless their ministry.” I wish that’s the case. But that’s not true. My response is, “How come they have so much more views than us? Oh, I know. People love them because they are great communicators. But their sermons are shallow. It’s all milk and no meat. They don’t preach the gospel. We preach the gospel deep and wide. We preach solid food. Only those who are chosen before the foundation of the world like our sermons.” Can you see what happened? There might be an element of truth to it, but this is covetousness. I look at other people’s ministry and I become discontent with ours. Have you ever felt that? You look at other people’s families, spouses, jobs, cars, and you become discontent with yours. You look at people’s Instagram stories and you start to think that your life sucks. How come they get to go on a three-week holiday to Japan while you are stuck in Campsie? How come their children are a lot more well-behaved than yours? How come they get promoted at work #blessed while you have to work overtime with no bonus #slavingforJesus? That’s covetousness. And the law tells us that we must not feel that way. We are supposed to love God so much, to be so satisfied with God and his love, that we are always content. That’s what God required of us. And the law shows us that we fail miserably in keeping the law. It tells us that there is a standard that we must live up to, but we can’t.

And it gets worse. Romans 7:8-9 – ⁸ But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. ⁹ I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. Paul says that the law not only reveals sin, but it also activates sin and kills him because of it. St. Augustine gave a very good explanation. When he was 16 years old, he and a few other teenagers broke into a pear garden and stole pears. Augustine then tried to contemplate the reason he stole those pears. He realized that he was not hungry. He also did not like pears. Then why did he steal those pears? His answer is very revealing. He said that he stole those pears because he found pleasure in stealing them. He liked it because it was forbidden. He had no interest in those pears until somebody said, “You can’t have those pears.” Then suddenly he really wanted those pears.

Parents, don’t you see the same problem in your kids? How do your kids respond when you tell them, “Don’t do it”? Isn’t true that the more you tell them not to do it, the more they want to do it? And they have the audacity to look at you and smile at you while they do it. It is as if they intentionally want to do it because it is forbidden. Let’s not talk about kids. Isn’t true about us? The more people tell us not to do something, the more we want to do it. The more people tell us to do it, the more we do not want to do it. There is a voice deep inside of us that says, “Nobody tells me how to live my life. This is my life and I get to decide what I want to do with it.” Do you see what happened? Rather than enabling us to obey the law, knowing the law actually makes us want to disobey it. The law aroused in us the fundamental sinfulness of heart: the desire to be God for ourselves instead of submitting to God. The law reveals our deep desire to be our own saviour instead of depending on the saviour. The ultimate motive of sin is to play God. We want to be sovereign. And that is why we hate the law of God. Because the law reminds us that God is sovereign, and we are not. And this leads us to condemnation before God. It leads us to our death. So, the law reveals our sins, activates our sins, and kills us through it.

At this point, some people would say, “If that’s the case, if that’s what the law does to us, then the law must be sin. The law must be bad.” To which Paul replies, Romans 7:13 – ¹³ Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. Paul is saying that there is nothing wrong whatsoever with the law. The problem is not the law but the sin inside of us. The truth is, we are far more wicked than we think we are. We have a capacity for evil way beyond what we think we are capable of. And the law exposes us to our true condition. We cannot say no to sin. We are so addicted to sin that we can do nothing but sin. And the law cannot help us. The law is holy, but it cannot make us holy. The law is good, but it cannot make us good. The law is righteous, but it cannot make us righteous. Leave us to our own, we are hopeless. We are in a war we cannot win. But praise God it is not the end of the story for Christians.

The war we can’t avoid

Romans 7:14-23 – ¹⁴ For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. ¹⁵ For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶ Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. ¹⁷ So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ²¹ So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. ²² For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, ²³ but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

Now, there is a debate among scholars whether verses 14 onwards speak of Paul’s pre-Christian experience or Paul’s Christian experience. Some scholars argue that all of Romans 7 speaks of Paul before he became a Christian. However, I disagree. I am convinced that in verses 14 onwards, Paul speaks of his struggle not as a non-Christian but as a Christian. I have three reasons why I believe this is the Christian Paul. First is Paul’s use of the present tense. From verses 14 onwards, the tense shifts from the past tense to the present tense. It takes a lot for the reader to conclude something else other than Paul describing his ongoing experiences. Second is Paul’s delight in the law of God. Non-Christians hate the law of God. They do not want anything to do with God and his law. Third is Paul’s inner conflict. The pre-Christian Paul boasted of his ability to live up to the law. He said he was blameless before the law as a Pharisee. So, the fact that there is a conflict happening inside of him tells us that this is not the pre-Christian Paul.

Let me tell you why this is important. If we do not understand this, then we will continue to live a defeated condemned life as Christians. Because the first important step to battling sin is to recognize that we are in a constant battle. And the battle is hard and last a lifetime. As long as we live in this sinful world, the war against sin within us will never stop. This war within us is not our whole story but it is an important part of our Christian experience. Look at what Paul says. Romans 7:15 – ¹⁵ For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Paul is conflicted. He says there is a war within him. He does not understand his own actions. Note, Paul is not saying, “I know I really should do my assignment. But I don’t do my assignment. I know I should not watch Korean drama, but I watch Korean drama instead of doing my assignment. What is wrong with me?” That is not the war within. That’s procrastination. What Paul says is much deeper. As a Christian, he wants to do good. There is a new nature in him that wants to obey God’s commandment. If the old Paul only wants to please himself, the new Paul wants to please God. He has the desire to love God. But he does not do it. Instead, he does the very thing he hates. But pay attention. What Paul does is he is not avoiding responsibility for his sin. He is not saying, “Hi guys, I am sorry I did something bad. But it’s not me. It’s the sin in me. So don’t blame me. Blame the sin in me.” He does not say that. Paul says, “When I do the things I hate, yes, it is sin in me that makes me do it. But ultimately, I am the one who does it. I do the very things I hate. I am the one who acts it out. I am responsible for it. And I don’t understand myself. I am frustrated with myself.” And this is problematic. How can a great Christian leader like Paul talk like this? We would think that Paul would be far better than this. But he is not. And it gets worse.

Romans 7:18 – For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. It reminds me of the story of Peter. One day, Jesus told all his disciples that they would abandon him to save their lives. And Peter said, “Not me Jesus. All these dudes might walk away from you, but not me. I will stay with you. I will never abandon you. I am ready to go with you to both prison and death.” Peter had strong confidence in his love for Jesus. He had the desire to do what was right. But despite his boasting, Peter did exactly what he vowed he would never do. When Jesus was arrested, Peter ran; he turned his back on Jesus. Peter had the desire to do what was right but not the ability to carry it out. But let me take it a step further. Paul says that nothing good dwells in him. He does not mean that he is not capable to do anything good. But what he is saying is that even his good deeds are tainted with sin. Even the good that he does is inherently sinful. If we are honest, there are many good things we do for the wrong reason. Right? We commit to coming to church every Sunday. We commit to MC once a week. We do bible study. We minister every week. We tithe. And they are all good things. But the question is, why do we do it? Isn’t true that we are often driven by wrong motivations? It’s not that we do not love God. We love God. But at the same time, we also do it because want to look better than other people. We do it because deep inside our hearts, we hope we can earn brownie points with God so that he will give us what we want. We do it because we want to prove ourselves. We know these motivations are wrong and sinful, but they are lurking inside of us. We want to do good purely because we love God, but we cannot. The good that we want to do we do not do, but the evil we do not want to do is what we keep on doing.

And here is Paul’s logical conclusion of his struggle. Romans 7:22-23 – ²² For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, ²³ but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. In other words, there are two selves in Paul: the new Paul and the old Paul. The new Paul is driven by his godly desire. The new Paul delights in the law of God. But the old Paul is driven by his sinful desire. The old Paul is waging war against the new Paul. But both are Paul. This tells us something important about the Christian experience. Listen. In every Dr Jekyll, there is Mr Hyde. In every Christian, there is sin lurking. For every Christian, there is a war within us that we cannot avoid.

Let me give you one warning and one comfort from this passage. Let’s start with the warning. This passage warns us that no one ever gets so advanced in Christian life that they don’t struggle with sin. Many Christians assume that as we grow in maturity in our walk with God, the less we struggle with sin. But that’s not true. In fact, it’s the opposite. What many Christians don’t understand is that when they become Christians, the old self does not go away. The old self is still there, and it wages war against the new self. And the more mature we get, the more we see the sin in our hearts. The more holy we become, the less holy we feel. The closer we are to God, the more exposed we are to our sinfulness. Note carefully. I am not saying that the more mature we are, the more we sin. As we grow in our walk with God, we will see ourselves making progress against many sinful habits and attitudes. But at the same time, we will become more aware of the sinful desires still within us. It’s like trying to clean the basement of your house with a candle. You do the best you can, and you think it is clean already. But the next day you come back to the basement with a flashlight and the basement looks even dirtier than it was before you clean it. Is the basement getting dirtier after you clean it? No. But you can see the basement more clearly with a flashlight than a candle. This is what happens when we are growing in God. The more aware we are of God’s holiness, the more aware we are of our sinfulness. The warning is that we must expect a war with our sinful nature as long as we are alive.

But here is the comfort. If there is a war within us, it means that the gospel is at work in us. When we struggle with sin, it is easy to think that we must be terrible people. We must be very wicked or very immature to have such a struggle. But this passage encourages us that temptation and struggle with sin, even some relapses into sin, are consistent with being a growing Christian. Just because we are in a constant struggle does not mean that we are not growing. In fact, it’s the other way around. The war within us is proof that we are growing in the gospel. What separates Christians and non-Christians is not the lack of war within, but Christians feel their failure; they are pained and frustrated by it. Can you see how comforting this is? Because sometimes I look at my own heart and I get so discouraged. I mean, after all these years, why do I still struggle with pride? Why do I feel jealousy toward those who are more successful than I am? Why do I find it very easy to assume the worst about others? Why do I still struggle with lustful thoughts? Why is my love for God so cold sometimes? Why do I find it easier to blame others than to repent of my sin? And friends, these are true about your pastor’s heart. I hope you are not shocked. Your pastor is a lot more sinful than you think. It’s not that I don’t love Jesus. I love Jesus. But oftentimes my love for Jesus is superseded by my love for myself. Deep down, I want to obey God’s command, but I just can’t make myself obey God’s command. But the good news of the gospel is that the war within me, the war within us is not a war between two equal powers.

Romans 7:22 – For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being. This is Paul’s way of saying, “Even though there are two selves within me, even though there are conflicting desires within me, I know my true self. In my inner being, I am a Christian. I delight in the law of God. Although sin remains in me, it no longer controls me. I can still disobey God and I can still fall into sin again and again. But that is not the real me. The real me loves God and his law.” And this is very important. Let me tell you why. Let’s say that before you became a Christian, you had a sinful habit that you wanted to stop. You used to fall into it, felt bad about it, beat yourself up, made resolutions, got better for a while, only to fall back into it again. And then you became a Christian. But you still struggle with it. You fall back into it like you used to. And you start to think, “Nothing is changed. I am still the same old me. I still can’t resist sin. This is a war I cannot win.” But that’s wrong. You are no longer in a war you cannot win. It is a different war now. Before you became a Christian, that sinful habit was natural to you. Not anymore. Now that you are a Christian, when you do that sin, you say, “Why do I hate the fact that I do this sin? Why doesn’t this sin satisfy me the way it used to? Why doesn’t this sin taste as good as it used to?” Let me tell you why. Because it is no longer expressive of the real you. The real you delight in the law of God. The real you want to please God. The question is, how can we continue to fight the sin within us?

The war we can’t lose

Romans 7:24-25 – ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

The key to continuing to fight sin within us is to know that we are in a war we cannot lose. Look at the two things that Paul does in these verses. First, Paul admits helplessness. He cries out, “Wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death?” He acknowledges that there is absolutely nothing he can do in his own power to overcome sin within him. This is what we must understand. Growing in the gospel does not mean getting to a place where we don’t need grace anymore. Growing in the gospel means growing in awareness of our need for grace. If we think that we can do it ourselves, we are doomed. It is only when we know that we are at the end of ourselves that we can wage war against sin. Because the solution is not to work harder. The solution is not in finding a new method. Paul does not cry, “What can deliver me from this body of death?” He cries out, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” The solution is not what but who. Only if we truly understand our wretchedness can we then look outside ourselves to the only one who can rescue us. That’s the first.

Second, Paul looks to Jesus. He says, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Listen. There is nothing we can do in our own power to defeat sin within us. The good news is God can and has done it through Jesus Christ. This is the key to battling sin within us. It is to know that we cannot, but Jesus can. Think about it. What happened to Jesus at the cross? Jesus is the only person who did not have Mr Hyde in him. He didn’t have any evil in him. Jesus is perfect and he is all good. But at the cross, God made Jesus sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Do you know what it means? It means that at the cross, Jesus became the ultimate Mr Hyde. God made Jesus sin and treated him as pure evil. Jesus took our Mr Hyde and received the condemnation that we deserved. And here is what’s amazing. Jesus not only took our Mr Hyde, but he also defeated our Mr Hyde once and for all. Jesus never gave in to temptation and he perfectly obeyed God to his death. At the cross, Jesus is victorious over evil. And when we put our faith in Jesus, Jesus’ victory becomes our victory. And Jesus’ victory is absolute. Because of Jesus, our war against sin is no longer a war we cannot win; our war against sin is a war we cannot lose.

Let me tell you why this is absolutely crucial, and I’m done. This changes the way we war against sin. There are two ways we war against sin. First, we can try harder. So, we say, “I’m going to try harder. I am going to do better.” And we find ourselves becoming more and more frustrated. Or second, we can thank God. So, we say, “God, I can’t fight this sin on my own strength. I acknowledge my helplessness. But I know that Jesus has won on my behalf. And his victory is my victory. So, I won’t lose hope even though I fail. I’m in a war that I cannot lose. And I choose to rejoice in what Jesus has done for me at the cross.” Listen. I know this is counterintuitive. But it is the only way for us to get better. J.D. Greear puts it this way. “The irony of the Christian life is that those who get better are those who understand that their acceptance before God is not conditioned on their getting better but on Jesus’ imputed righteousness.” It is knowing what Jesus has done for us that gives us the power to obey God’s commandments. Jesus did not come as reinforcement in our war against sin. Jesus is not interested in helping us. Jesus came to replace us. He came to take our spot and defeated sin on our behalf. The way to fight sin is to look away from self and thank God for what he has done through Jesus. So, rejoice in Jesus’ victory for us. Behold the wonder of the gospel. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. Let’s pray.

Discussion questions:

1. Have you ever experienced the war within? Give examples.
2. What is the primary purpose of the law of God? Why can’t the law of God save us?
3. Romans 7:9 – I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. What does Paul mean? Can you see it happening in your own lives?
4. “In every Dr Jekyll, there is Mr Hyde.” What are some implications of this truth?
5. How does Jesus change the war that we can’t win to the war that we can’t lose?
6. List out some practical applications on how we can wage war against sin today. Be specific.