Romans 7:7-25 – Romans

So this is Romans seven, verses seven through twenty-five, and the question for our uh kids and teens is what does Paul delight in?

Paul is the author of this text.

So verse seven.

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.

But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetous covetousness.

For part for apart from the law, sin lies dead.

I was once apart from alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive, and I died.

The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.

For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me.

So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and righteous and good.

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.

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

For I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good.

So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, it that is, in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

For I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my memb 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.

Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?

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.

And so reads God's word.

Welcome to you.

If you joined us while we were singing, my name is Mark.

I'm one of the leaders uh here at the church.

And can I invite you, please, to uh to have Romans 7 open in front of you?

I don't know if you realize when Grace was reading it, but there's lots of I do not do the the the knot that I do do, and uh and and so it is very important that actually you have that open in front of you.

Maybe you have a Bible that's openable, but every one of you has a Bible that's switch-onable.

Uh, all you need to do is kind of go to your web browser and stick in uh Romans 7 esv.

That's the English standard version, that's the version that that we read from, and you'll be able to follow along so that we uh one, so that we we don't lose one another, but also because I have no authority here beyond what the word gives me.

And so I can't tell you anything or to do anything that the word doesn't say, and so you're able to check me uh by by looking at go, okay, is Mark actually teaching the passage or is he teaching some blessed thoughts that uh that he he dreamt up at some caffeinated hour during the during the week?

So the the word is the one who is guiding us, not just uh me and any in uh inherent authority or goodness that I have by virtue of my position, because nobody really gives a rip about that.

Uh we have been uh in Romans for uh for a good long while now, and uh we've been in Romans uh six and seven now these last few weeks, and uh we'll be uh going into to Romans eight, really, for all of uh June, uh as we come to really the high point of the letter.

But these three chapters as a section, six, seven, and eight, are really concerned with uh with one thing.

And that one thing is well, how do you transform human beings?

How do you transform a human being?

How do you change uh the human heart?

And we've been looking at uh how Paul begins to answer that question.

But you might be sitting here and think, well, I'm slightly offended by the premise of the question, because why why do I need to change?

Why why should I change?

Aren't I fine the way I way I am?

And certainly we'd want to say, yes, in one sense, God loves you uh just the way you are, and uh we are glad that you're here, whatever your your story is, or wherever you would place yourself uh on uh on a journey of faith.

God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you so much that he's not content to leave you the way you are.

Uh, and that is because all of us, actually, if we're honest, at least with ourselves, if not with other people, uh, realize that there are parts of us that um aren't aren't as they should be, shall we say.

That each one of us is a we're a mixture of what you might call virtue and and uh and vice.

We have a good side, we have the uh the kind, considerate, patient, loving, noble even side.

That side, that's the side that you're hoping uh that people will see this morning.

That's the the side that you tend to bring out into public, the side that is uh nice and inoffensive.

But then each one of us has a darker side, a side that's more selfish, a side that's more envying, a side that's more proud, a side that is even more callous and unloving, maybe even cruel.

And there's a tension, isn't there, in in each of our lives between those those two parts of us kind of pulling against one another.

Very often, uh the good and the dark are mirrored.

So the person who is very driven, the person who likes to is a self-starter and likes to start new things and achieve things, can also be quite an impatient person.

A person who just kind of runs over the top of others.

They're connected.

And there's a tension between the the light and the dark within each of us.

This is captured really well in a in a story uh by Robert Louis Stevenson uh called uh The Strange Tale of Dr.

Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde.

Uh, give me a quick whoop if you've heard of Dr.

Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde.

Okay.

I have that has given me no measure of how many people.

I shouldn't have done that.

If you have no idea uh who Dr.

uh Dr.

Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde are, it was a short story, short novella um by an author, and the story is basically this that Dr.

uh Dr.

Jekyll is a uh is a medical doctor, and he realizes uh something of this of this tension within himself between the light and the dark.

And so what he concocts in the story is he concocts a potion uh to to essentially separate out the the two parts of him, and he takes it in the evening so that the uh the selfish part of him could kind of do its thing and run amok uh in the evening, and then he was more free during the day uh to operate out of his good side and to do uh the good and helpful and kind things that he that he wants to do.

And and so he takes the potion and and what emerges is Edward Hyde, uh Mr.

Hyde, a being of uh of pure selfishness and callousness.

And as the story goes on, uh Edward Hyde, Mr.

Hyde ends up murdering people.

But in the day, Dr.

Jekyll continues with his help and care of others, and inside of us there's there's Dr.

Jekyll and there's Mr.

Hyde.

Now, lots of ink has been spilt about Romans 7.

Certainly, it has hurt my brain at various points this this week.

There's lots of opinions about whether or not Paul in this passage is talking about his life before he became a follower of Jesus or his life now as a Christian, as a follower of Jesus.

But I want to kind of separate ourselves uh apart from that debate ever so slightly and simply acknowledge that this tension is something that we feel whether or not we would describe ourselves as a as a Christian.

If you're here and you wouldn't say that you're a follower of Jesus, I'm really glad that you're here.

We're really glad that you're here, and I imagine that actually you feel something of that of that pull, that that tug between uh the way that you want to live and uh and the darker side of you.

In fact, you might be here this morning precisely because you feel uh that that internal Mr.

Hyde-esque darkness, and what you're striving for is you want to live a more virtuous life.

And so you thought, well, who can help me with that?

Um I'll come to church.

Maybe that will help.

Paul describes this tension for us uh all the way through this passage, but I'm gonna give you, point your attention to uh to a couple of places.

Verse 15, look at it with me.

He says, For I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate.

So that I have this desire to do good, and yet I end up indulging the dark side of me.

I end up doing what's wrong.

Or verse 19, I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that I do not want is what I keep on doing.

You see, there's a there's a deep split right at the core of human beings between the light and the dark.

Do you recognize that in yourself?

If you don't recognize, or you're struggling to recognize that, then consider this.

Do you know in the story why Mr.

Hyde is called Mr.

Hyde?

It's not just because of his ugly appearance, though he is.

No, it is because Jekyll never realized how bad he was.

That there was stuff in there, wickedness in there, selfishness in there that even surprised and shocked him.

It was hidden from him.

It was hidden from himself.

And it wasn't until he takes the potion and lets the wicked man out that he sees just how corrupt and selfish he is.

And so we go through life, don't we?

We go through life thinking that we're okay, that we're virtuous people, not perfect by any means.

We're all acknowledging that, but we're we're all right, we're making progress, and we're uh we try to be as kind as we can and considerate and uh and other person-centered as uh as possible, but then but then something happens.

You find yourself in a circumstance of particular stress, your marriage is in trouble.

Loved one gets sick, there's stress at work, and then suddenly what happens is this stuff begins to come out of you, and you had no idea that it was there.

You're like, oh, hold on, why have I responded in this sort of way?

Mr.

Hyde has come to play.

That thing that was hidden from you until stress came upon your life.

You're like, oh, hold on a second.

There's stuff in there that I didn't even know was there.

Why?

Because it was hidden.

If that's true, then the question is, well, what hope is there?

You know, say here, okay, right, you've completely depressed me.

I'm gonna pretend I'm gonna depress you a little bit further, uh, and then give you some some relief at the at the end.

I mean, what hope is there for the battle, this tension that we face within ourselves?

And this is exactly what Paul seeks to answer in this chapter.

Before we get into the detail, I want you to notice something.

Have a look at uh verses 7 to 13.

Can I just scroll through it as you're looking?

And one of the things that you'll notice is that a lot of the language, a lot of the verbs that Paul is using there in verses 7 to 13 are past tense.

In a sense, he's recounting a uh a former battle.

So versa, I would not have known sin.

I would not have known what it is to cover.

It's all past tense.

And then something happens around verse 14 through to the end of the chapter, and you'll see that the the tenses change, they become present tense.

I am of the flesh, I do not understand my own accents, I do not do what I want, I do the thing that I hate.

Present tense.

He's describing a current battle.

So there's a previous battle, verses 7 to 13, and there is a current battle that Paul is involved in, a war that he is waging in verses 14 to 17.

And I bring that out because I want to show you two things this morning.

So I'll describe the problem, the problem of that inner tension, and really the question is so how do we resolve that?

Two things this morning.

There is a war that you cannot win.

And there is a war that you cannot lose.

There's a war that you cannot win.

If you wage it this way, it will kill you.

But wonderfully, there is a war that you cannot lose by the Spirit of God.

Let's look at this war that Paul cannot win.

That's the that's the past tense war that he's describing in verses 7 to 13.

And it's this when most of us want to change our behavior, we tend to think in terms of goal setting, rule setting, parameters, restrictions on ourselves, and then exerting our willpower in order to meet those goals and keep those rules and achieve those ends.

So we set restrictions and we run at it hard with our willpower.

So every now and again I kind of think uh I'd like to I'd like to trim off some of these love handles and I'd like to lose a little bit of weight.

And my vice is not chocolate.

I could I could have cupboards of chocolate and never look at it.

My vice is cheese and crisps.

Can I get an amen for cheese and crisps?

Amen.

Yes.

Who are the chocolate people?

Give me an Amen for chocolate?

Nah, whatever.

Both?

No, you no, you don't want to do chocolate.

People who do chocolate and cheese and onion, that's no, that's from the pit.

Uh, we don't do that.

So when I want to shave off the love handles a little bit, what I what I do is I set rules and parameters for myself.

I say, I'm not, I'm not buying uh the the Kyo's Atlantic sea salt and cider vinegar crisps anymore.

I set my alarm for a little bit earlier so I can get up and head out to the gym and spend the rest of my day exhausted and grumpy.

I exert my will in order to keep the restrictions that I have placed over myself in order to overcome my negative choices and behaviors.

Or you might be somebody here who's like, I just I need to stop looking at things that I shouldn't.

So you think, okay, right, I'm gonna buy an alarm clock because I'm not gonna use my phone as an alarm clock, I'm gonna buy an alarm clock, I'm gonna leave my phone outside of the bed, so I'm gonna place these rules and boundaries and restrictions on myself.

I'm gonna, you know, close down my app store and all of these things, I'm gonna set the rules, and then I'm gonna run at it with my willpower and I'm gonna try really hard.

And this is how people think the change happens.

Set the rules, exert your will.

Friends, this is the war that you cannot win.

You cannot win this war.

Changing your behavior does not equal a change of heart.

You cannot win the war simply by applying your will to rules, or what Paul in verses 7 to 13 calls the law.

And this is what exactly Paul found.

He begins by asking this question, this question of, well, is the law sinful, therefore?

Is there something wrong with the law?

And Paul says, in essence, no, no, the law is it's good and it's holy and it's and it's righteous.

The problem's not the law, uh, the problem's me.

But actually, the law, when it comes in contact with the with the sinful human heart, it can't it can't change it.

Why?

Well, in one part, it was never really meant to.

So, what does it do?

What does the law do?

What do the rules do when they come into your life?

Well, Paul gives us the answer.

The first thing that the law does is it exposes our sinfulness.

He says, I would not have known that I had these covetous desires.

We're going to come back to coveting in a second.

We say I wouldn't have known that I had these desires until the law came and said, Thou shalt not covet.

Again, it's Dr.

Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde.

Jekyll takes the potion in order to separate out the good and the bad, and then is shocked by how wicked he is.

Why?

Because the potion exposes what is in there.

That's what the law does.

The law exposes your sin.

It's like a searchlight over the dark parts of you.

He goes, Oh, look, you've got this in there.

It cannot help you.

It exposes sin, it reveals the dark desires of our heart.

Paul's already hinted at this all the way back in 3 verse 20.

Let me remind you of it.

He says, For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

What does the law do?

It makes you aware of how sinful you are.

Again, we've talked about the sign in uh in the main courtyard of Trinity College, that sign that says, do not walk on the grass.

You didn't know that there was a dark part of you, a perverse part that loves to tread on those little blades until you had seen the rule that says, don't walk on the grass.

There was something in each of us, and I feel this myself, that when somebody says no to something, I want to be the master of my own fate, and the first thing I want to do is I want to show them that I'm in charge and flaunt their rule.

It's a stupid rule, anyway.

What does it matter?

But if they hadn't said anything, this is what the law does.

The law exposes our sin.

It cannot help solve the problem.

Then Paul uses the example of this commandment, you shall not covet.

Because the law exposes sin that's hidden.

And that's what's so important about the fact that Paul uses this law, the last one of the Ten Commandments, do not covet.

Look at verse 9.

Verse 9 he says, I was once alive, it's a strange face, apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive, and I died.

In order to understand this, you've got to imagine the Ten Commandments is a checklist.

And Paul going through the Ten Commandments.

Don't worship other gods.

Okay?

Haven't bound out any idols today.

Tick.

Keep the Sabbath.

All right.

Don't do any work on Saturdays due.

Tick.

Okay.

Honor your father and mother.

Yeah, I think they're pretty great.

I'll honor them, give them their due position and deference.

Tick.

I've done that.

No murder, tick, no adultery, tick, no stealing, tick, no lying, tick.

Paul's doing well.

Paul's got through all nine.

He's like, oh, I'm I'm alive.

This is great.

He hasn't done any of the bad things.

Then he gets to number ten.

And number ten is different because number ten isn't a matter of action, it's a matter of the heart.

You see, coveting is an inward attitude, not an external action.

It is coveting is being discontented with what God has given you.

You ever feel that?

It is longing for something that someone else has or that you feel you deserve and do not have wealth, success, beauty, power, possession, disapproval.

And in that longing, the heart is saying to God, You have withheld this thing from me.

See, the law searches our hearts and finds those places of ugliness, and it exposes our Mr.

Hyde and leaves us powerless to defeat him.

But that's not the only thing that happens.

Another reason why rule keeping and willpower cannot help you win this war is because the law doesn't just expose sin, but sin in turn grabs hold of the law and exploit it.

So the law exposes sin and sin exploits the law.

Let me explain what I mean by that.

Our sinful self seizes onto the law, and instead of becoming better once we learn about the law, we become worse.

Why?

Because the law gives us ideas of how to sin.

That's how he uses the coveting example.

He said, I had no idea what coveting was until the commandment came and said, don't covet it.

It's like, oh, that's a good idea.

Do you see?

The sinful self in you is like, oh, I never thought of sinning that way.

Let's indulge that one.

That sounds great.

Sin seizes the law.

In the same way, it's the same as the don't walk on the grass.

You're like, oh, I have missed the feeling of freshly cut green grass between my toes.

I would just love to walk on that grass right now.

Sin seizing the opportunity.

Because of the law.

And so it kills Paul.

Verse 9 again.

I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive, and I died.

Imagine for a second that you're you're in a room on your own and you're chained to a great monster.

You're chained to this great monster called sin.

And this monster is snoozing.

It's asleep.

And you stay alive as long as the monster is asleep.

But the law walks in and declares in a loud voice, you shall not comet.

And the monster wakes up and it kills you.

That's what Paul's saying happens.

You cannot win the battle against your darker self by rule keeping and willpower.

You cannot do it.

Some of you know this because you've tried it and it's led you to despair.

And you're here because you feel hopeless.

Yeah, that's described my this whole season of my life.

Or you're here and you're like, oh, I think I'm doing quite well.

Thank you very much.

With my willpower, my law keeping.

Yeah, what about the sin of pride?

And just on that.

See, the law doesn't just, or our sinful self doesn't just kind of seize the law in order to do more bad things.

It even twists the good things.

You read on the story of Dr.

Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde, and Jekyll, he stops taking the potion because he realizes that Hyde's getting too strong.

He realizes all that Hyde is doing, and so he resolves in order, he resolves in essence to make up for all of the wickedness that Hyde has done by redoubling his goodness efforts.

And so he becomes an even more caring doctor, even more available, even more patient.

He helps even more people, he does even more stuff in order to make up for the wickedness.

And then there's a there's a there's a scene in the in the novella where he's he's sitting in a park in in London and he's he's reflecting on all of the good things that he's done and and he's looking at all of the other men that are walking past him and uh and he begins to think, I've done I've done far more than than they have.

Gosh, I am a way better doctor than than that guy over there.

I'm I'm far more kind than him.

I I am I'm I'm better than they are.

I've done more good than them.

And he looks down.

And what does he realize?

He realizes that he has turned into Mr.

Hyde without the potion.

What's happened?

Mr.

Hyde has seized hold of even the good that Jekyll has done.

Sin seizes hold of even the good that we do.

Do you ever feel that?

You think, I'm having a really humble day today.

Oh, ruined it immediately.

Because as soon as you as soon as you think of how humble you are, you're being proud.

Sin seizes even hold of the good things and twists them to pervert our and bring to the fore our selfishness.

You cannot win the battle with internally with yourself by applying fresh resolve and more willpower in order to keep the law.

You cannot do it.

You cannot make yourself or your children virtuous by simply setting a list of rules and requirements for them to meet.

You may make moral people who on the outside perform morally virtuous actions, all of the required do's and do-nots.

But you will never help them win the battle for their hearts.

You will never help them win the battle inside them.

And one day that monster is gonna wake up and it's gonna kill them.

If you bind yourself to the law, you cannot win this fight.

But there is hope.

Because in verse 6 of the passage, just immediately before the one that we've read, Paul says this.

He says, But now you are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve how in the new way of the spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

We serve in the new way of the spirit, not in the way of the written code.

You try to change your heart by rule keeping and willpower, that's a war you cannot win.

You serve in the new way of the spirit, friends, that's a war you cannot lose.

That's the second point.

Here's the war that you cannot lose.

Now just note as we get into this half, that Paul, when he switches to the present tense from verses 14 to the end, he doesn't leave, he doesn't suddenly say, I felt this tension, I felt this uh civil war before I was a follower of Jesus.

I felt this pull between my uh uh my my lighter side and my and my darker side, but then I became a follower of Jesus, and now it's victory all the day.

Victory morning, noon, and night.

No more sin for me, I am at peace within myself.

No, he doesn't say that at all.

In fact, if anything, the struggle's more profound.

Beforehand, the the monster of sin just woke up and killed him.

But now that Paul is made alive in the spirit, now it's really on.

Now there's really a war to be had.

We feel this too, don't we?

If you're a believer in Jesus, if you're a follower of Jesus, one of the things you realize after you become a follower of Jesus is that actually life gets harder.

So if you're looking in on Christianity, just so as you know, why?

Well, because one of the things that happens is that the Spirit of God comes and indwells you and declares war against the dark part of you.

And so you feel more of this tension, you feel new desires conflicting with old desires, the things that you know that you should now do, uh, wrestling with the things that you know that you shouldn't do.

So, how is this a war that you cannot lose?

The principle is verse 6 that you cannot lose it if you're waging war by the new way of the spirit.

And uh, and in the rest of the passage, Paul helps us understand four ways in which things have changed for us in this new warfare.

Let me go through them quickly.

The first thing that's changed is that you have a new awareness of your weakness.

Paul says something interesting, odd, maybe even slightly offensive.

In verse 14, he says, We know the law is spiritual.

Again, the law is not the problem.

It's the law when applied wrongly and to the sinful human heart.

We know that the law is spiritual, but I'm of the flesh, sold under sin.

Oh, that's a weird thing for a Christian to say.

Yes and no.

What Paul is saying there is that he's realizing actually, I have no resources in and of myself, of my own strength, in order to fight this battle.

I need the Spirit of God to empower my wrestling, my warfare, my struggle.

But it just left my own devices.

I'm just, I'm of the flesh.

I can't do it on my own.

Have you ever thought that way?

You think, what's wrong with me?

Why can't I do this?

Why can't I just get over this habitual sin?

Why can't I stop it?

When you say that, what you're saying essentially is, well, why aren't I strong enough?

Why aren't I disciplined enough?

Why aren't I self-controlled enough?

Paul says, Yeah, you're right.

I have no real strength in and of myself.

So he says also in verse 18, I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh.

So I don't really bring any great willpower to the to the battle.

And what I want you to see, brothers and sisters, is this is not Paul throwing a pity party.

This is not Paul slipping into self-loathing.

It's simply him acknowledging that he doesn't have the strength or the willpower, the resolve within himself to fight the temptations that he faces.

And this leads him to the second new thing.

And it goes with this new awareness.

And that is, secondly, that Paul has a new dependence.

Paul, right at the end of the passage, in utter frustration, cries out to God.

Look at verse 24.

Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?

How can I ever be free from the civil war that's raging within me?

And then he immediately answers his own cry in verse 25.

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Thanks be to God.

The answer to our weakness is not that we must become stronger, the answer to our weakness is that we must embrace his strength.

Amen.

Amen.

To depend on him, to cast ourselves on him.

And this is what all of chapter 8 is about.

So we're going to get into it really for a month.

But this is what chapter 8 is about.

It's applying the principle of, okay, what does it mean to depend more fully on the Spirit of God rather than on ourselves?

I say we're going to look at that more in coming weeks, but this week let's acknowledge that this is what brings about lasting change.

I met with someone this week who's feeling sad and frustrated that they felt like they knew they knew biblical truths in their head about who they were and who God is and what's right and what's wrong.

They felt that they they had the information, but it wasn't getting down into their heart.

You ever feel like that?

It's like, I know this, but it's not changing this.

Sometimes they say we're like broken vending machines.

You know, the coin goes up here, and we need to kind of whack it on the side in order for that coin to clink down into our hearts.

And we get frustrated, don't we?

Because we're like, well, why can't this new information that I have change how I feel in here?

But here's the thing, friends, you're not a robot in need of new programming code.

Our sin is far too stubborn than that.

No, it's the Spirit of God who takes the word of God and plants it deep in us, changes and fashions us in his likeness.

It's as we cry out to him, it's as we realize I can't do this in my own strength, and we and we cast ourselves in those private moments on the mercy of God and say, Help me, Spirit of God, when we seek his strength, his comfort, his wisdom, his joy, as we depend on him, the one who prays for us in our weakness, the one who energizes and sustains our obedience, only then will we find blessings in the battle.

Only then, when we have a new dependence, not simply on the law of God, but on the Spirit of God, will we find that we are able to make progress.

And that's the third thing that's changed for Paul, is that there is a new struggle going on.

So often I meet Christians who are weighed down under the burden of sin, and they feel like they're falling and failing all the time, and they feel just wretched about it, to the extent that it begins to shake their faith, and they wonder if they're if they're even Christians at all.

One of the things that you need to realize, friends, is that even the fact that you are aware that there is a battle going on, even the fact that you're aware that there are things that you ought not to do, and that you have the desire to do the things of God is a sign of God's spirit at work within you.

It is far more concerning to meet somebody who is living this way and who just does not give a rip.

It's like, yeah, why like why do I care?

The fact that you wrestle, the fact that you feel that tension, that burden, is a sign that God has brought you alive by his spirit.

So take heart.

And I also want to encourage you by the fact of remember who's writing this.

Remember who is describing his battle in the Christian life.

It's Paul.

You might know him by a different name.

Saint Paul.

Saints, usually kind of the you know, top-tier holy people, usually doing all right.

Here's Paul saying, I feel this war within me.

I feel like I know the things that I should do, but I keep on doing the things that I that I shouldn't do.

And I feel these conflicting desires.

Brother and sister, take heart that the that the apostle to the Gentiles, one of the big 13, has been has these same struggles as you.

This side of heaven, God calls us to make progress in the warfare, not to be perfect.

God will bring that work of perfection to completion in the end.

We'll get to the to that in the end of Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

One day, the presence of sin in your life will be finally gone.

But it'll be on the day when you enter into his glory and find yourself transformed into the image of Jesus.

It will not be this side of heaven.

This side of heaven, what you are called to, is you're called to a renewed warfare by the Spirit of God to make progress against sin in your life.

When Isla, my daughter, took her first steps.

She took a couple of steps and then immediately face planted.

How old was she, Phil?

Like one?

Yeah, so she's about twelve months old.

She takes a couple of steps, die.

Philippa didn't call up to me and say, Mark, quick, come, Isla's fallen.

No.

She said, look, Isla's taking her first steps.

We don't look at our kids and say, I can't believe that you fell.

No, we look at them, we scoop them up, and we we gather them into our arms and went, you walked.

You walked.

Brother and sister, you're spending your whole life going, I keep falling.

The amazing thing is not that you're falling, the amazing thing is that you're walking at all.

Amen.

Amen.

You will not be rid of sin.

This side of heaven.

This side of heaven is warfare.

The first 70 years of being a Christian are the hardest.

It gets easier after that.

But it will come to an end when sin's persistent warfare ends and God brings peace and wholeness to your life.

Till then we make progress by the Spirit, dependent upon him.

And rather than saying to ourselves and one another, I can't believe that you keep on falling, say to one another, look how far you've walked.

Get up, let's go.

Let's take another few steps together.

That's how do you see how that's that's grace transforming our obedience, not law forcing our obedience?

Law forcing our obedience is you better not fall.

You keep on walking.

Grace is yeah, you fell.

It's wrong.

It's wrong.

But you walk that far and let me help you up.

Come on, we'll walk a little bit further.

But you see, it's different.

It's a different way of waging that warfare.

And so finally, the fourth thing that's that's new, that's changed, is that Paul has a new delight.

In the war that we could never win, the law was never a delight.

The law was an it was an obligation.

It was something that we had to do.

It was something that, it was something to fear, because it was, well, what if I mess up?

What if I break the law?

What if what if I don't do enough and God doesn't accept me?

But now that Paul is is waging a war that he cannot lose by the Spirit of God, it's completely transformed how he views the law.

And so he says in verse 2022, I delight in the law of God in my inner being.

Why does he delight in it?

Because it's no longer crushing him, it's no longer on his back, it's now in his hands, and he's like, I see what God is like, I see what, I see what God wants, I see how beautiful his living his way is.

And I don't have to fear messing it up because he's set me free by his grace, and so I can I can make every effort by the Spirit of God to live his way and to and to follow him.

So we're not people who just goes, you know, the first, you know, let's see, like that that we take that part of the Bible, you know, that's all of the the law, all of the Old Testament.

I don't really like that bit.

I'm just gonna be a New Testament sort of Christian.

Don't be one of those.

That's that's not a thing, right?

We're not people who just like law doesn't matter.

No, it's that the law is no longer on your back, but it's in your hands.

It's like something that's sweet, as Lasama says.

Sweet like like honey.

Why?

Because you've died to the power of sin, you've died to the law which crushes you, and now you use it as a tool in order to follow God and to know what it's like to please him and to see his character in it.

In the law of God, we see the beauty of God fulfilled in Christ, the Son of God.

Not just the weight of obligation, not just a sword that is used to run us through, but a sword in our hand used against sin.

In the old battle, when we were trying to improve ourselves by our own sheer will, either to be accepted by God or to be accepted by others, we kept the rules out of fear, fear of rejection, fear of judgment, fear of not measuring up, fear of ever not doing enough.

But this new warfare is different, friends.

This new warfare means that we're able to see the goodness and holiness of the law and delight in it.

And our motivations for keeping it are completely different.

We keep it not out of fear, but out of love.

In the end, Dr.

Jekyll realizes that Mr.

Hyde will win.

He's too strong.

He feels utterly hopeless.

He can do nothing against him.

And so, in his utter despair, Dr.

Jekyl takes his own life.

He was in a war that he could not win.

His heart cried out, Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?

And he felt that in reply there was just silence.

But it is possible to go from fighting the war that you cannot win to the one that you cannot lose.

It is not by strength of will or fervency of resolve or clarity of intellect, but by the double cry of our hearts.

Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

That is the answer.

One which acknowledges our weakness and brings us to a new dependence on the grace of God.

A heart cry that comes in answer to our need, that He has set us free, and if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.

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