Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Romans 7:15-25
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  July 19, 2020

Sometimes, when I approach a portion of Scripture I know that, right away, I’m going to have to spend quite a bit of time explaining how it applies to us. Whether due to the complexity of the section, or our distance from the ancient world, or our unique experience as modern Christians, it takes a bit of time to demonstrate how we can relate to the words. But that is not the case today. Anybody person who reads Paul’s words in chapter 7 is going to say, “Oh ya, I know what that’s like. That’s me.”

Paul says, “I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not keep doing what I want. Instead, I do what I hate.” Can you relate? A wife walks into the house and her husband mentions that she forgot to close the garage door. She spits back, “Oh ya, like you don’t forget to do like thirty things every day!” And then moments later, she hears a voice inside ask her, “Why do get so spiteful, why are you so mean sometimes, you certainly don’t sound like a Christian.” “I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not keep doing what I want. Instead, I do what I hate. A young Christian man goes somewhere private late at night with his cellphone. And, denying his conscience, he allows himself to be controlled by hormones rather than the Holy Spirit. Before he falls asleep, a refrain repeats in his brain: “I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not keep doing what I want. Instead, I do what I hate.” A woman has had a hard day at work and though she swears she won’t do it again, later that night the sound of the refrigerator ice-machine fills her lonely apartment and she once-again drinks herself to sleep on the couch. Later that week she confesses to her pastor, “I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not keep doing what I want. Instead, I do what I hate.” We don’t need any context, we can relate, can’t we? 

Personally, I’ve wanted for a long time to set a rigid habit of Bible reading and prayer every weekday morning. But try as I might, the sinful pragmatist in me, says that I need to get to work. That I need to look at my email first. That I should really focus on my sermon. And I end another day, beat down by my sinful nature, only to realize that the practice of devotion which would have given me the strength to fight, was the very thing which I neglected. I don’t understand it, because I do not do what I want!

We all have these kinds of inner struggles within ourselves. You have yours; I have mine. And naturally, we come to some conclusions: We say, “What kind of a Christian am I anyhow? I must not be very good. I must be a weak Christian. What is wrong with me? What is this that lives inside of me? Why am I so sinful?” Or like the Apostle Paul said, “What a miserable wretch I am.” Can you relate with that statement sometimes? I know I can.

But this to me, this is incredibly encouraging. That probably sounds like I have other issues to deal with, but I assure you it is encouraging. Because do you know who wrote these words? It wasn’t a weak Christian. It wasn’t a new convert to the faith who struggled with discipline. It wasn’t someone who didn’t have it together. It was the Apostle Paul.

Now I don’t want to compare Christians, because there is no such thing as a better or worse Christian in God’s eyes. But as far as a comparison would be useful, I don’t think anyone could claim to be more mature or disciplined in faith than the Apostle Paul. When he wrote the letter we call Romans, he was about 60 years old; he had been a Christian for some twenty to twenty-five years at this time. He had been on numerous missionary journeys; he had performed miracles in Jesus’ name; he had started dozens of churches; he had spoken courageously before kings and rulers; he had been tossed into prison, beaten, and stoned for Christ. And yet, here he is, the appointed Apostle, the epitome of maturity in Christ, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit mind you, saying, “I don’t get it. I do the things that I hate. And the very things that I want to do, I don’t do. What is wrong with me? He says, “What a miserable wretch I am!” Do you understand why this is encouraging?

My friends, one of the marks of a mature Christian is the awareness of this battle with sin in your life. One of the marks of a mature Christian is an honest awareness about the sin in our own heart, an honest awareness of the weakness of our sinful flesh, and honest frustration about this civil war going on inside of you. The mark of a mature Christian is not perfection. That’s the mark of delusion or hypocrisy, or quite possibly both. According to the Apostle Paul, a mark of a mature Christian is that a person continues to struggle with sin until your dying day. This is not a sign of weakness, not a sign of double-mindedness or doubt. This is a mark of a real Christian who lives with a Biblical awareness of the sin inside of himself or herself. 

Be encouraged today, because if you feel like a miserable wretch sometimes, then you are in good company. Be encouraged that if you struggle with sin, if you desire to love God and trust in him at all, but are frustrated when you fail, it is a sure sign of the Holy Spirit’s work in your heart. A healthy faith fights. We all should be battling.

But that’s the thing, isn’t it…We don’t always battle. We don’t always struggle with sin. And there are two main reasons: #1. We sometimes forget that there is a war going on inside of us. It sounds crazy, but it happens quite often. People grow apathetic in their pursuit of God’s laws and assure themselves they have no grievous sin in their heart. They wonder, what should I even confess? Did I sin today? Is your spiritual life is so together that you think you have surpassed the Apostle Paul in discipline? Do not be naive. You cannot outgrow this battle. The fact is, that if you don’t know about the war inside yourself, you have been deceived. A French Poet, Charles Baudelaire once wrote, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” The Devil doesn’t want you to think about him. He doesn’t want you to realize the sinful nature at work in your heart.  He doesn’t want you to realize the battle which is taking place at this very moment inside of you. If you have ceased to struggle with your conscience, if you don’t ever get frustrated like Paul when you fail to keep God’s good law, if you aren’t battling, then you are in grave danger. Wake up, pick up your shield of faith, and start fighting. 

#2. The other reason we sometimes stop battling is we feel defeated. We try to stop sinning, but time and time again we return to it. We do what we hate, we find ourselves weak, and we become demoralized in the fight. Do you know how they used to domesticate elephants in the circus? This doesn’t happen anymore, I don’t think. But when the elephants were young, they would tie a strong chain around one of their legs.  Then the chain was locked to a long steel spike that was anchored into the ground. The young elephant would struggle to get away until it realizes that it could not pull the spike out of the ground. It wasn’t strong enough. The elephant would then give up. By the time it is full-grown, however, the elephant would have plenty of strength to break free. But the animal is so brain-washed by this time that it doesn’t even try. An elephant never forgets, they say, right? It would remember it’s failure and would never try again. In fact, the trainers were so confident of this, that they wouldn’t even use chains and a steel spike after a while. After the elephant gave up, they would use a thin rope or cord and tie to a wooden stake. 

This is the sad case for too many Christians spiritually. They tried once to get out of an addiction or a sin, but when they couldn’t do it, they gave up. And slowly but surely, they are domesticated and brainwashed by the Devil’s lies, content to sin, content to keep God at arm’s length out of guilt and shame. 

My friends, remember what is true. Jesus Christ died and rose for you. You are no longer held captive by sin. We will battle with sin until we die, but Christ has already won the war. Listen to how the Apostle Paul ends the chapter: What a miserable wretch I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! That is what Jesus accomplished for us. His blood has melted the shackles of sin from our wrists and we have been set free. This is a fact, not a subjective feeling. In Christ, sin does not own you anymore. It will plague you, it will frustrate you, but it does not own you. You are a child of God. You have strength you do not know, you have a Holy Spirit who lives in you, you have a Christian community of brothers and sisters on whom you can rely and be accountable to, you have forgiveness and a promise of endless love and victory through Jesus. 

Martin Luther understood this well, he used this Latin phrase: Simul Justus Et Peccator.” Simultaneously, saint and sinner. You, as a Christian, are going to battle with the sin inside of you until your dying day, and yet you can be confident that through Christ the ultimate battle for your soul has already been won. You are not judged by your deeds or your track record. You have been credited with Christ’s righteousness. At the cross, your sin was placed on him, and simultaneously, his life, his perfection, his righteousness was given to you. You are a sinner here on earth but in God’s eyes, you are perfect in Christ. You are a saint. And that status is eternal.

So, how can we fight the good fight? What would it mean to battle your sinful nature? I have two encouragements. #1: Arm Yourself with God’s Word. Continue to be in the Word regularly. Keep coming to worship, and keeping watching online! Consider reading a devotion or meditating on some Scripture during the week connected with prayer.  If you are going to be in a battle, you want to be armed. Being in God’s Word regularly is like putting on spiritual armor. You want to go into the week armed to fight your sinful nature by remembering God’s love and promises. You want to have your mind most fixed on God, not yourself, or the news, or something trivial. Being in God’s Word regularly is to arm yourself for battle. In Ephesians 6 Paul says, Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes…Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. Arm yourself for battle as often as you can with the Word of God.

#2: Be proactive in battle. It’s always better to be proactive rather than reactive, right? I once heard of a guy who was trying to lose weight but struggle with late night binging. He got so frustrated with himself that he fixed a lock onto the fridge and gave his wife the key. Every night after dinner she would lock the fridge and no matter how he whined she refused to open it. We laugh, but that would probably help me! I respect him for being proactive. And I bet his wife got a kick out of refusing him, too. 

There’s a story about Victor Hugo the famous author of Les Miserables which has become a favorite musical for many people. Victor wanted to spend every morning writing, but he was a terrible procrastinator. He would walk outside, go out to work in his garden, he would have breakfast with friends, he would do anything other than writing which is what he really wanted to do. So Victor Hugo got proactive. He asked his servant to take away his clothes every night as he slept, so in the morning he would be forced to stay in his house and write. How can you be proactive against your sin? 

If you struggle with an addiction, be proactive, and get help. Talk to me, talk to Pastor Berg, get an accountability partner, find a professional counselor. Only foolish people think they can kick an addiction all by themselves. I know a friend who struggles with pornography. In order to help himself, he contacted Conquerors through Christ, a WELS ministry that helps people who are addicted to porn, and got the accountability he needed. He also had someone set a password on his cell phone to turn on the parental controls so he couldn’t go to certain websites. I’m trying to tell you exactly what to do in your case, but think about what you can do proactively to fight against temptation. If you knew that an enemy was coming to your house, you would prepare, right? Be proactive against the enemy in your heart which inevitably will fight against your new nature in Christ.

In closing, remember that because Jesus Christ has defeated sin, death, and the devil, you can be sure that your battles are not in vain. Even if you lose some, you know that you have reason to give thanks. You can rejoice in the Spirit’s power when you triumph or you can confess your sin and jump back on the horse after failing, because you know that ultimately, in Jesus, you’ve already won.

Amen.