Stuggle With Sin

An Example from Marriage

Romans 7

¹Brothers and sisters, all of you understand the law of Moses. So surely you
know that the law rules over people only while they are alive. ²For example, a
woman must stay married to her husband as long as he is alive. But if her
husband dies, she is free from the law of marriage. ³But if she marries another
man while her husband is still alive, the law says she is guilty of adultery. But if
her husband dies, she is free from the law of marriage. Then if she marries
another man, she is not guilty of adultery.

⁴In the same way, my brothers and sisters, your old selves died, and you
became free from the law through the body of Christ. This happened so that you
might belong to someone else—the One who was raised from the dead—and so
that we might be used in service to God. ⁵In the past, we were ruled by our sinful
selves. The law made us want to do sinful things that controlled our bodies, so
the things we did were bringing us death. ⁶In the past, the law held us like
prisoners, but our old selves died, and we were made free from the law. So now
we serve God in a new way with the Spirit, and not in the old way with written
rules.

Our Fight Against Sin

⁷You might think I am saying that sin and the law are the same thing. That is
not true. But the law was the only way I could learn what sin meant. I would
never have known what it means to want to take something belonging to
someone else if the law had not said, “You must not want to take your neighbor’s
things.” ⁸And sin found a way to use that command and cause me to want all
kinds of things I should not want. But without the law, sin has no power. ⁹I was
alive before I knew the law. But when the law’s command came to me, then sin
began to live, ¹⁰and I died. The command was meant to bring life, but for me it
brought death. ¹¹Sin found a way to fool me by using the command to make me
die.

¹²So the law is holy, and the command is holy and right and good. ¹³Does this
mean that something that is good brought death to me? No! Sin used something
that is good to bring death to me. This happened so that I could see what sin is
really like; the command was used to show that sin is very evil.

The War Within Us

¹⁴We know that the law is spiritual, but I am not spiritual since sin rules me as
if I were its slave. ¹⁵I do not understand the things I do. I do not do what I want to
do, and I do the things I hate. ¹⁶And if I do not want to do the hated things I do,
that means I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷But I am not really the one who is doing
these hated things; it is sin living in me that does them. ¹⁸Yes, I know that
nothing good lives in me—I mean nothing good lives in the part of me that is
earthly and sinful. I want to do the things that are good, but I do not do them. ¹⁹I
do not do the good things I want to do, but I do the bad things I do not want to
do. ²⁰So if I do things I do not want to do, then I am not the one doing them. It is
sin living in me that does those things.

²¹So I have learned this rule: When I want to do good, evil is there with me.
²²In my mind, I am happy with God’s law. ²³But I see another law working in my
body, which makes war against the law that my mind accepts. That other law
working in my body is the law of sin, and it makes me its prisoner. ²⁴What a
miserable man I am! Who will save me from this body that brings me death? ²⁵I
thank God for saving me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So in my mind I am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful self I am a slave to
the law of sin.

 The Holy Bible, New Century Version

SITUATION

Paul taught the Romans that the Law could never guarantee eternal life. He proved again that Jesus Christ could save.

OBSERVATION

The Bible teaches us how sinful we have become, but Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit provide the power to overcome sin.

INSPIRATION

Our country imprisons more people per capita than any other nation except the Soviet Union and South Africa; yet we have the highest crime rate in the world. If that's law and order, spare us any more.

Baffling? Yes, but nothing new. Eighteenth-century British officials tried to cut crime by promoting large crowds to witness the hanging of pickpockets. There was a problem, however. Other thieves had a field day stealing the wallets of those gathered to watch the execution of their fellow pickpockets.

The paradox makes no sense to the secular mind - but the Christian should understand. For where is the anguish of the human soul more poignantly expressed than in Paul's letter to the Romans. "The good I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish." He never wanted to covet, Paul explains in Chapter 7, until the law said "thou shalt not covet." Then he found himself filled with covetousness of every kind.

Why? The sin within us uses the law itself to produce the very offense the law is intended to prevent. But in the next chapter the apostle answers the dilemma: though the law alone could not restrain sin, through Christ we are set free, rescued from the sin which controls us. (From Who Speaks for God by Charles Colson)

APPLICATION

What sin do you struggle to avoid? Thank God that he will one day rescue you from the struggle. Until then, let a prayer for strength be a reflex reaction to temptations.

EXPLORATION

Victory over Sin - Genesis 4:7; Psalm 119:133; 1 John 3:4-6.