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8/18/02 - T 12                                   INI                           Romans 7:14-25

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Dear Fellow Redeemed,

How would you describe your spiritual life as a child of God?  Is it a bed of ease or a continual battle?   As the Apostle Paul approached the end of his earthly life, he said: “I have fought the  good fight.”  From these words we learn two things about Paul, the Apostle of Christ:   First, He was a fighter; Second, He was a good fighter.
Now you may be a little surprised at this.  Isn’t the Christian to be a “peacemaker”?   Are we not told from little on that we should not fight?  Yet the Bible speaks of the life of the Christian using many battle terms.  We are told that we do not “wrestle against flesh and blood, but against . . . the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places.”   Therefore we are to take upon ourselves “the whole armor of God,” “The breastplate of righteousness,” “The shield of faith,” “and the sword of the Spirit.”  (Eph. 6:11-17) Jesus is called our “captain” as One who leads His soldiers into battle.  Paul told young Timothy to “fight the good fight of faith.”  Oh yes, there IS a good fight that is to be fought by everyone of us.  It’s “The Fight of Faith.”   Paul describes this spiritual fight in the words of our text.

 DO YOU KNOW PAUL’S BATTLE?
 I.

Every Christian shares Paul’s “delight in the law of God.”  We do not want to cheat the government, or fail to put in an honest day’s work for our boss.    We don’t want to curse.  We don’t want to neglect the hearing and learning of our Savior’s word.  We don’t want to have adulterous thoughts or covetous thoughts in our hearts.  We know that it’s evil to think and to speak evil of our neighbor.   According to our inner man, which is the creation of the Holy Spirit at our conversion, we Christians want to follow after goodness and obey all the commandments of our heavenly Father.  But in every Christian there remains that other nature of which Paul speaks in v. 14: “I am carnal, or fleshly, sold under sin.”  We have the same wicked, depraved nature with which we were born. It still works within us, causing us to do the things we hate.  We love our Savior and we hate idolatry.  But again and again the love of money, the praise of men, and the love of self arise in our hearts so that our God becomes a second fiddle.   We know that our God has given us all good things freely and graciously according to His own wisdom, yet we are often envious, jealous and discontented.   We ought to forgive the sins of others against us as the Lord forgives us our great and many sins against Him.  But how difficult this is!   We love the Word of our God, but our flesh is bored with the Bible!   How fleshly we are, in bondage to sin!

Every true Christian knows of such a battle within him or her.  The old Adam wants to rise up and throttle the life out of the new Man, which fights against the lusts of the old Adam.   If a person says he is a Christian and that he feels nothing in his heat except true love and devotion to God and his fellowman, he is a liar and no Christian at all!   He is such a liar that he has deceived even himself and the truth of Christ is not in him!

Sometimes, while under the influence of God’s Word and the company of Christian friends our inner man seems so strong, doesn’t he?  We almost think that the old, sin-nature is dead.  But soon some denial of ourselves is asked of us, and we say: “I’ve done enough, let someone else do it!”   In moments of strength we bear the cross which God chooses to lay upon our faith.  But when He comes with a cross which seems to take every earthly joy from us, and gives us physical suffering and misery instead, then it becomes difficult to pray, “Lord, YOUR will be done!”   And the battle wages on between faith and fear, hope and despair.

 II.

We make a terrible mistake if we think of this battle as child’s play.  Some even question the existence of a real battle within the Christian.   Last week I saw the theme for the Sunday message of a Church of the Nazarene way out on Platte Springs Road.  It was catchy: “Become Fisher’s of Men” — You catch ‘em;   God will clean ‘em!”  So the message of all the “holiness” churches is that the Christian is “cleaned up” before God, or will be, if he just prays and works hard enough on earth.
 
      But  Paul speaks of the cost of his battle and its distress when he cries out in v. 24: “O wretched man that I am!”   Do you know the distress of this battle?  The apostle faced death again and again without a whimper.  He was often in weariness and pain from hunger, thirst, nakedness and cold, because of his preaching of the gospel in a hostile world.   But we don’t read that he cried out in those times.  It was this battle of the inner man of faith against the fleshly nature that almost crushed him.  It was this battle in the life of Paul that made him cry out: “O wretched man that I am!”

We should see from this what a fearful, costly, and distressing fight this is!  If you are only a little troubled by this inner battle, or you picture yourself as almost “cleaned up” since you first knew Jesus, then there is reason to doubt the safety of your saving faith.   For the stronger the Christian, the greater will be his awareness and sincere distress over the battle which is being waged within as he recognizes the power of his sinful nature.  Luther tells us that the battle within, between flesh and spirit, between faith and unbelief was so severe at times that he came close to dying from grief and despair.  This is why the Bible speaks of this struggle as a “crucifixion of the flesh, and as “self-denial.”   

Some have thought they could win this battle against the sins of the flesh by cutting themselves with knives, or starving themselves.  But this is not God’s will for His believing children.  Rather He wants us to crush our pride!    He wants us to put the run on our laziness in His service!  He wants us to say nothing but “NO!” to the jealousy and covetousness of our flesh, and “NOTHING DOING!” to its every request.

Why do we sing, “O Christ, have mercy on us!  O Lord have mercy upon us”?   Why do we pray, “Forgive us our trespasses”?  Why do we plead with our God: “Lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil”?  It’s all because of this wild beast, this fleshly nature dwelling within us, that continually prevents us from doing the good which our new nature would do.    No wonder Paul cried out:  “O wretched man that I am.”  

 III.

Still, the apostle was convinced that the victory was his.   Even though he cried out, “O wretched man that I am,” he immediately adds, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”   Do you know the victory of this battle?
Paul realized that he could not gain the victory by his own strength.  He saw his weakness and threw himself entirely upon his Savior, Jesus Christ, and the forgiveness that is in His blood.  This is the way God wants us to win the victory also — for there is no other way! As Paul did, we also are to give all glory to God alone.  John writes in his second epistle: “This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.”  — Faith, not in ourselves, but in God’s grace; in His power, in His gospel-word!

Our faith protects us because it trusts in the message of forgiveness which is the gospel of Christ.  This gospel is “the power of God unto salvation, to everyone who believes” — as Romans 1:16 declares.   “With might of ours can naught be done!”   But looking to our Redeemer, Who died for us and redeemed us unto God, and who preserves us through His precious Word and Sacraments, we will be held up on the battlefield.
Let us never forget that where there is no resistance to the evil nature, where there is no battle, there is no saving faith, but only a spiritually dead soul headed for eternal death!   But where the battle rages between the flesh with its lusts and the new man which delights to do God’s will, there is spiritual life, faith and salvation.  The stronger the battle, the more we sincerely cry out:  “Forgive me, Lord, and strengthen me through Your grace and promises.”   As our Lord assures us of His grace and forgiveness delivered by Word and Sacrament, He strengthens our hope and confidence that we shall finally overcome and obtain the victory!

May each of us know and share this greatest battle with the Apostle Paul and all the believing saints.  Then, by God’s continued grace, when our end comes, we too may say with Paul:

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race,
I have kept the faith.   Now there is in store for me
the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the 
righteous Judge, will give me on that day — and not
to me only, but also to all who have longed for His
appearing.”   — 2 Tim. 4:7-8

Amen.