10-10-10 Evil Within

We ended our study last week

in the middle of a passage

from the 6^th and 7^th chapters

of Paul’s letter to the Romans.

It is a passage in which Paul is explaining to his readers

what has changed in the Christian’s relationship to God

as a result of our faith in Christ,

and how those changes have the ability

to alter our relationship to sin forever.

Without plunging into a major reteaching

of everything we’ve done in the past,

let me just summerize it by saying

that taken as a whole,

and presented in a single statement,

this section of Romans,

describs the way in which God shatters the power of sin in the believer’s life.

He tells us that this work is accomplished within us

by God creating a new heart within us,

freeing us from the law,

and joining us to Christ

resulting in our dying to the power of sin in our lives.

We heard Paul explain to us

that, when we enter this world,

we are locked under the

unbending authority

of the Moral Law of God,

forever present in our lives,

demanding moral obedience from us,

and condemning us when we rebelled.

But then Paul went on to explain

that when we come to Christ

we are freed from the Law

and joined to Christ Himself.

ROM 7:4 Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

And we ended our time

by my attempting to illustrate

the difference between living under the Law

and living under the leadership of Christ

by my putting some words into the mouth of the Apostle Peter

to help us see the difference.

I want to share those words with you again

because they will help us get back into our study

and provide a foundation

for where Paul goes next.

When I look honestly at those gospel records,

this is what I believe Peter would say

about his relationship with Jesus Christ:

‟Most of all this man became my friend, a friend who knew me fully and loved me completely just the way I was. Certainly His friendship produced profound changes in my life. But they were not changes I attempted to paste on in order to be “a good disciple of the great Teacher”. They were changes that gradually infiltrated my life the more I relaxed in His unconditional love and acceptance.

I sometimes think the greatest gift the Master ever gave me was His permission to be myself. It was a gift He gave me most of all through all the things I never heard Him say. I look back over an endless stream of stupid things I said and did during the months I spent with Him. Yet not once did I ever hear Him say, “Peter, you’re such a fool!”, or “Peter, you blew it again!”, or “Peter, just once would you try thinking before you speak!”, or “Peter, I’ve had it with your endless egotistical stupidity - get out of here!”. Amazingly, he seemed well content to have me forever blundering along at His side, knowing the only thing that would transform my life was the discovery that even my worst failures would never separate me from my Master’s love.”

That is what Paul is talking about

when he tells us we have been freed from the Law

and joined to Christ.

That is the Christ we have been joined to.

That is our God,

and that is life with Him through the grace He seeks to pour out into our lives.

And that brings us up to the 7^th verse of the 7^th chapter of Romans.

But what we’ve seen so far

still leaves some major questions unanswered.

The first one concerns our ongoing attitude toward the Moral Law of God.

Given the fact that this Law

is the very thing that inflamed my sinful passions,

driving me into sin,

how should I view the Law now, as a Christian?

Is the Law itself evil?

And Paul’s next words

are written to put an end to that question.

He goes on to say,

ROM 7:7-13 What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, "You shall not covet." But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead. I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.

Simply stated,

Paul says the problem wasn’t with the Law,

it was with that heart of sin within us.

When the x-ray reveals cancer

the x-ray isn’t evil.

When the temperature gauge in our car registers HOT,

the problem is not with the gauge.

And when the moral law of God

draws our rebellious heart to the surface

not only is it not evil,

it is very, very good,

performing exactly the work for which God designed it.

But then, in verse 14 Paul takes up a second question,

and one that is far closer to where most of us live.

It is all well and good

for Paul to talk with us about this new heart within us,

and us being freed from the Law

and joined to Christ,

but the truth is,

any Christian who has lived

more than a day or two in the family of God

has discovered that there is still

something terribly wrong within us.

In some way,

at some level,

there is still evil present within our lives,

and present in a way that has the ability

to exert tremendous pressure on us at times.

And unless we understand

why that evil is there,

and how God views it,

and how He expects us to relate to it,

it can and will tear us apart.

We are going to spend

the rest of our time together this morning

looking at Paul’s words

in Romans 7:14-25.

But before we move into the passage

I want to prepare you

for what the truth contained in these verses

will equip us to do.

Outside of Christ

and a correct understanding

of the recreative work

He accomplishes within every person who comes to Him,

the discovery of evil within ourselves

forces us into one of two cages -

either we will attempt to run in terror from what we have seen,

or we will allow what we have seen

to define for us who we are.

But the truth that God shares with His people

in the verses we will look at here in Romans

allows the Christian to do

what no other thought framework in the world

can equip us to do.

It allows us be brutally honest

about the reality of the evil within us,

not running away from it,

not denying it,

but facing it honestly

and calling it what it is,

and yet,

at the same time,

to live with a clear, correct, healthy concept

of ourselves as a new creation in Christ,

with a pure heart

that longs to please God.

I am convinced that the main reason

many Christians never dare face their own inner dragons

is because they are terrified

that if they acknowledge them

and bring them out into the light

those dragons will shatter their own frail,

pain-filled self-concept.

What Paul does in these few verses

is designed to free us forever

from that fear.

And I need to warn you -

as much as possible we need

to approach these verses

as if we had never heard them before.

We need to allow them to say

exactly and only what they really say.

The key passage here is Rom. 7:14-25

And verses 14-15 begin right 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.”

But then the very next thing Paul does is to offer us the beginning of hope.

In verses 16 and 17 Paul 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.”

And what he says is remarkable.

He says the problem is not ME, but rather it’s the 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’s 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’s 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 walks into the kitchen and his foot goes right through the floor.

Then 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’s 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’ve ever seen in my life,

and second, you have the worst case of termites I’ve ever seen in my life.”

How does that information affect our builder?

Can you see how 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,

and 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 7:18-21

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 body 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 clonk 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’s 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.