The Struggle With Sin

Good Morning From the Bitterroot Valley;

This morning we are continuing in Romans.  Now in chapter 7 we are looking at why we struggle so much with sin.  Well, at least I do!  From reading Romans I know Paul did and I imagine it is something you deal with occasionally too.   Here are some of my thoughts on Romans 7:7-25

7  What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.”  8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead.

Does the law cause us to sin?  Certainly not!  It is the law that causes us to know what sin is.  If this is so then, to some degree the often quoted saying; “You can’t legislate morality” is actually not true.  I often say that this law or that law should not be passed or kept on the books because “you can’t legislate morality”.  Then let’s get rid of the laws regarding killing someone; because people are still being killed and you can’t …..

9 Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.  10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.  12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.  13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. 14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  

Most laws in one way or another have a moral basis, either good or bad.  In America and much of the Western World today we have tried to separate Biblical doctrine from government  and government laws.  Since especially English law and American law were based in large part on the laws of the Bible this has caused multitudes of problems.  When man tries to separate Natural Law, God’s Law from how man governs himself in society then that society is doomed to failure.  If you look at the laws that many lobby to get overturned, they are often because we no longer want to consider those actions sin.  Getting rid of the law will not make the actions any less sinful.  God’s law will prevail and the society as a whole will suffer from the effects of the sins.  Without the ‘law’ on the books the sin may not be recognized as wrong by the citizens.

15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing.  20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.  21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law;  23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.  24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?  25 Thanks be to God–through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

Once we accept Jesus Christ as savior of our lives, we become convicted of things in our life that need to be changed because they are sin.  With the conviction of the Holy Spirit we know that things that we have done in the past are wrong and desire to change them.  Not to ‘follow a law’ as in the past but because we desire to please God.   This brings about a struggle between our old nature, with which we were born in sin and our new nature, when we were born again in Christ.  We are constantly trying to bring the old nature into submission to the new nature.  But it can be really frustrating.  I think this is what Paul expresses in these verses.   As Paul says, and I agree heartily; “Thanks be to God– through Jesus Christ our Lord!   Because Jesus Christ has freed me from the penalty of my sins, I have the assurance of eternal life.  I am not crushed under the weight of the sins that I know I have and do commit.  Jesus Christ gives me the ability to bring these sins into submission through walking ever closer to Him!

I am praying that you and I will be victorious in our struggles with sin today!

Regular Joe

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