2001 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

©2004 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

08/01/04

Enemy In The Camp

8/1/04 Enemy In The Camp

Last week we began

what will probably be a seven or eight week series

on the basic principles that govern the Christian’s life with Christ.

In our 20+ year history as a church

I have taught all of these principles several times,

but every three or four years

I will take us through them again

because they are, quite simply, the foundation for everything else I will ever teach you,

and if these principles are not firmly imbedded in your thinking,

it will make it much harder for you to correctly hear what’s being said.

Last week we took the morning

to look at the first principle

upon which all others are built -

what it means for God to offer us a relationship with Himself

that rests solely upon the Person of Jesus Christ

and His death in our place for our sins.

Now, today, we are going to move on to the second principle,

one that we’ll call “The Enemy In The Camp”.

Are you sometimes frustrated in your Christian walk?

That probably qualifies as one of those “dumb questions preachers ask”, huh?

On one side - our union with Christ has clearly brought about a dramatic change in our lives.

Christ’s presence within us

brings about changes within us

that no religion can ever accomplish.

They are changes that profoundly alter our perspective on ourselves,

on our God,

on our world and our priorities in life,

on our understanding of sin and righteousness.

Some of you will remember the phrase I like to use to describe some of what happens within us.

Before we come to Christ we think we should be good,

after we come to Christ we wish we could be good.

Among other things,

God creates within us a hunger and a thirst for righteousness.

It’s not a guilt thing,

or a fear thing.

It’s the most remarkable hunger deep within us

to be truly good.

Let me see if I can briefly explain why this happens.

In John 3:3

Jesus describes our submission to Him

as a process through which we are “born again” at the spirit level.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17 Paul tells us,

“Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

And in Colossians 3:9 he says,

“Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him...

With all of these passages,

and in many other like them

the New Testament writers tell us

that a huge, permanent change takes place within us

at the point at which we enter into the family of God through faith in Christ’s death for our sins.

So what is this change?

We all enter this world with a heart attitude of independence from God.

It is a heart independence handed down to every human being

as a result of Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God in the Garden of Eden.

Simply put, we believe that we have both the right and the ability to run our own lives

without our personal submission to and dependance upon the authority of God.

Now, this heart rebellion against God

is a tricky thing to recognize within ourselves

because most of us cloth it in a socially acceptable facade of religious reverence,

or even in fervent commitment to doing good to others.

We may look at one person

who has allowed that inner rebellion

to express itself through sexual perversion,

or hatred,

or greed,

or dishonesty

and say to ourselves, “Oh yes, that person is clearly in rebellion against God.”

But exactly the same inner rebellion

may drive another person to become Man of the Year

and to donate $1,000,000.00 to the children’s wing at the local hospital

because his actions are still driven

by a determination to be his own god,

and to run his own life in the way he thinks is best.

It is not our specific actions,

but rather our heart attitude of independence from God

that keeps us separated from our Creator,

and both immorality and self-righteous pride are equally sinful.

The truth is,

everything we do prior to our submission to Christ is sin

because it flows out of a heart in rebellion against Him.

But then, when we come to Christ

our heart, our inner spirit

bows before God and yields the control of our life to Him.

In response to this spirit submission,

God places His Holy Spirit within us,

joining His Spirit to our spirit in the most remarkable spirit marriage union.

This union of our spirit and God’s Spirit

is what Paul calls THE NEW MAN.

This New Man,

this new spirit center within us

is a perfect, eternal creation of God.

It is absolutely holy, and righteous, and pure in every respect.

God’s favorite title for the Christian in the New Testament is “My holy one”.

More than 50 times He calls us by this title.

Unfortunately, the power of what He is doing is lost to most of us

because the title is translated as “saints” in most translations

and, as such, we fail to hear what’s really being said.

But right here is where the confusion starts.

If it’s true that we really do have new hearts within us,

then why do we still mess up?

Why don’t we now act perfectly in every respect?

Why aren’t our lives

simply an endless flow of pure, righteous, holy actions?

There are several reasons why.

The first one I’d mention

is found in Paul’s words to the Colossians in Colossians 3:9-10.

“ Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him ...”

Having a heart longing to please our Lord

and having the knowledge of how we can actually do that are two very different things.

We come to our Lord with our minds crammed full of religion,

and systems,

and assumptions about what He wants and doesn’t want,

and most of those assumptions are wrong.

Discovering what it truly means to live in a way

that displays His life through us

takes a tremendous amount of learning and listening to Him.

In my experience

some of the most challenging learning we will ever go through in this area

is that of learning how to discern the difference between

the life of the Spirit of God within us

and the mass of assumptions and expectations

dumped onto us by the religious community around us.

Sometimes the greatest steps of both faith and freedom we will ever take

are those points at which we understand God’s working within us enough

to be able to say, “No, that just isn’t a role God has equipped me for.”

But the truth is, that learning process is not the part of this process

that causes us the greatest turmoil.

There are other areas in our lives

in which we know

that what we struggle with

is clearly not the result of ignorance,

places where we know that the impulses within us

are quite simply wrong.

When we first begin to honestly face the continued presence of evil within us

following our entrance into the family of God

it can be a terrifying thing for us.

And if we don’t understand what’s happening

and how God wants us to view it

we can easily get pulled into several wrong responses.

We may be so offended and frightened by what we see

that we attempt to cram it down inside and deny it’s there.

Frequently such an approach

will then drive us to a frantic attempt

to cover up what we’ve seen

under a thick coating of religious facade.

We become the first to give a testimony,

and the loudest singers in the group,

and the most faithful in attendance and activities.

“Everything is OK with me! Yep, me and my God are just doing great.”

The problem with this, of course,

is that this kind of denial

makes it impossible for us to ever find freedom and healing,

and there are only two possible long term results from such an approach.

If we are sufficiently terrified of the truth,

we will build our protective religious exterior thicker and thicker

until it completely seals us off from those around us.

Nothing touches us,

but neither are we able to touch those around us.

We can’t risk loving the people entrusted into our care

because loving makes us vulnerable,

and that is simply not an option,

so we go through life dispensing our little religious system,

incapable of either giving or receiving love,

using our knowledge to hide from the truth.

Our religious world is filled with folks

who are filled with knowledge,

and yet incapable of loving others

because they have never learned how to love themselves.

And then there are those who attempt to hide from the evil within,

only to find that it blasts out of them at the worst possible time,

damaging themselves and anyone else who gets in the way.

Then there are others who, when confronted with this evil within

decide that nothing has really changed at all through Christ.

And they slink away from their life with God

defeated and broken in spirit,

telling themselves they simply don’t have what it takes

for the true walk of faith.

But the truth given to us by our God

about what’s really going on and why

will lead to none of these results.

On the contrary,

when we hear correctly what He is saying,

it will allow us to rest secure in the knowledge that we truly are new, holy creations of God,

and yet, at the same time,

to face honestly the reality of the evil within us

without allowing that evil to defeat us,

or to distort our concept of ourselves as God’s holy ones.

Now, the key passage for what we need to see is Romans 7:14-25.

We’ll take the time now

to walk through the passage step by step

to see what Paul has to say to us.

And let me say first of all

that this is one of the most remarkable sections of Scripture in all of Paul’s writings.

Those of you who were involved in our study of Romans several years ago

may recall that Paul wrote this book

as his organized, unified statement of Christian doctrine.

With the exception of these few verses

he writes in the second person, from the perspective of a teacher

instructing his students.

“Do you not know? For I want you to know...”

But he does something fascinating in these few verses

in the last half of chapter 7.

He switches to the first person present tense.

All of the sudden he isn’t say “you”,

he’s saying “I”.

And he’s not saying, “I was...I did...”.

He’s saying I am...I do...”

I believe he does this for two reasons.

First, he does it because he knows it will draw us immediately into the writing,

because he is saying

exactly what we have been saying to ourselves.

And second,

I believe he does it because he wants to make certain we grasp this truth clearly,

and he knows that if he, as the greatest Christian teacher of all times,

illustrates the truth with his own life,

it will make it easier for us to believe what he’s saying

and to apply it to our own lives.

OK, in verses 14-15 Paul begins where we are.

“For we know that the Law is spiritual; but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.”

And every honest Christian who has ever lived

will, at certain points in their lives

say exactly the same thing.

I know that what God has said to me about morality and righteousness is right.

I’m no longer playing games with what He’s told me.

But I know, too, that there is something terribly wrong inside me

because I still have junk coming out of my life.

And the implied question is clear -

if I am really God’s child,

recreated in Him,

how can this be?

Then, in verses 16-17 he begins to offer us the glimmer of hope,

because Paul suddenly stops his self-condemnation long enough

to listen to what he’s saying.

“But if I do the very thing I do not wish to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that it is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which indwells me.”

He says, “Hey wait a minute!

If I am doing what I do not wish to do,

HEY! that means there really is within me a righteous heart

that longs to please and honor God.

That means that the problem is not ME, but rather it is this SIN within me.

Imagine for a minute

a man who decides to build his own house.

This fellow is a real perfectionist.

He has no intention of just slapping up some boards.

He is determined to build the best house he can possibly build.

He studies for months.

He reads books, he asks advice from builders he respects,

he studies all of the codes involved in plumbing and framing and wiring.

Then, when he has completed all of his preparation, he begins to build.

He pours himself into this project like nothing else he has ever done in his life.

He exceeds code requirements in every area of construction.

He strengthens and blocks and reinforces far beyond normal construction techniques.

Finally, his new home is completed and he moves in.

Then one day, a few years after he moves into the house,

he opens the bathroom door and it falls off the hinges.

A few days later he steps into the kitchen and his foot goes right through the floor.

He begins to notice that all of the door frames are sagging and some of the windows have cracked.

His house is disintegrating.

Understandably, the man is deeply depressed.

He has two major problems.

First, his house is falling apart.

Doors won't close, windows won't open, and there are some nasty holes in the floor.

But he has an even greater problem.

He feels now like there is no sense in even trying to pick up a hammer to fix anything.

“I'm such a lousy builder!” he says to himself.

“I did the very best I knew how to do, and look at this thing! It won't even last three years.”

In total desperation our builder then calls in an outside expert

to examine the structure and tell him where he went wrong.

The expert takes several hours, digging around in the basement and poking around in the attic.

Then he meets with the man and says, “Sir, I have two things to tell you.

First of all, this is the best-constructed house I have ever seen in my life.

Second, you have the worst case of termites I have ever seen in my life.”

How does that information affect our builder?

It comes as tremendously freeing news.

“Hey! The problem isn't really me. It”s the termites that dwell in me!”

Now, it’s true, he still has a major problem.

His house needs a great deal of work.

But the truth enables him to face and fight the problem

without the destructive self-condemnation that paralyzed him earlier.

This is exactly what Paul is trying to communicate to us in 7:17 when he says,

“...So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which indwells me.”

Then, in Romans 18-21

Paul does a rare thing -

he repeats what he’s just said.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish. But if I am doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good.”

He repeats

because he wants to reinforce what he’s just said.

Paul does have a heart that longs to please God.

He does wish to do good.

Somehow evil is still present within him.

Then, in Romans 7:22-23 he explains how.

For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.”

OK, in these passage

he puts titles to these two aspects of himself.

First of all, there is the INNER MAN.

This is that new inner spirit created within every believe at the time we come to Christ.

Second, there is what Paul calls THE MEMBERS OF MY BODY.

This is the literal physical body in which his spirit lives.

Now, it is important to note

that Paul does not say that the body itself is evil,

but he does say that it can contain evil.

And if we took the time,

we could trace through the New Testament

and see that what Paul says here is consistent with all we are told about sin and the Christian.

Whenever the New Testament writers talk about the source of sin within us

they always trace that sin not to our spirits,

but rather to our physical bodies.

Romans 6:6 talks about “our body of sin”,

Romans 6:12 tells us, “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts.”,

in I Corinthians 9:27 Paul says, “I buffet my body and make it my slave...”,

and in Rom 12:1 Paul says, “I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

So what’s he telling us?

Let me offer you five drawings that I think will help.

1. This is the little baby we bring with us into this world at birth.

It contains a remarkable onboard computer,

along with an amazing psychological and emotional system

that allows us not just to think things,

but to feel them,

and to record and recall those thoughts and feelings years later.

It is our own personal fantastic computer

that we start programing even before we’re born.

Now, it’s important to notice that,

though the body trains easily,

it does not retrain nearly as easily.

2. We also enter this world with an inner control center in rebellion to God.

This is our inner spirit prior to our submission to Christ,

a spirit that has one goal: “I can and will run my life...”

And even though we attempt to train ourselves and our children

to express this self-centeredness in ways that are socially acceptable,

the bottom line is still the same.

Two toddlers are in a room full of toys.

One toddler picks up a toy

and the other one instantly decides

that’s the toy he wants too.

And even if we step in and tell the second toddler,

“No! No! You shouldn’t clonck your friend on the head and take his toy like that,

you should ask him nicely if he will share.”,

still the bottom line is the same - we want what we want.

3. So, the result looks like this:

our life before Christ - a spirit in rebellion against God controlling and training this physical house in which we live.

4. Then, for those who come to Christ,

a dramatic change takes place when we come to Him.

A new, holy spirit is created within us,

a spirit that loves God and longs to please him.

But here’s the problem -

this spirit does not get a new body to train.

It gets dropped back into that old body

that has already been totally trained under the leadership

of that inner spirit that was in rebellion against God.

5. The Result:

This is exactly what Paul is describing in Romans 7:22-23.

Paul’s first response to this situation is given to us

in the first half of Romans 7:24.

Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from this body of death?”

In other words, YUK!

But then he takes us a step farther when he goes on to say,

“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

He says in effect, “Right! - I’m not in this alone. My Lord and I are in it together.”

From there he offers us his summery statement in Romans7:25.

“So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.”

And then, in the next verse

he gives us God’s perspective on this whole thing.

In Romans 8:1 he says,

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Now, of course that in itself does not tell us all we need to know

about making progress in bringing our mistrained bodies under the leadership of this new spirit within us.

But it is a huge first step.

We need to know that, when our God looks at us as His children,

He sees the intention of our hearts,

and He knows the corruption within our flesh and why it’s there,

and He does not condemn us

for the evil still imbedded in our bodies.

And what He’s doing here

is teaching us to live with a me-and-my-body approach to life.

We are not to look at ourselves,

see the evil within our flesh,

and then think, “Oh, I have to fix that for God.”

We are to look at the corruption within our flesh,

and then say to our God, “Lord, my body reactions here are all wrong.

I’m so thankful that this corruption can never again separate my from You,

and that you can and will show me how to bring my rebellious flesh

under the leadership of this new spirit you’ve created within me.”

It is not me and my sin on one side and God on the other,

but me and my God on one side and my rebellious body on the other.

And where does victory come from?

The short term program is touched on in I Corinthians 9:27 where Paul talks about

“buffeting our body and making it our slave”,

and the long-term solution is mentioned in Romans 8:23

where Paul says,

we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.”

The day will come

when this righteous spirit that our Lord has already recreated within us

will be given a new body,

one that has never learned sin,

and it will become the perfect means

through which our holy inner spirit

can then express itself throughout all eternity.