The Battle
- July 3, 2011
- Speaker: Pastor Aaron Smith
- Category: New Testament
(This "sermon" is actually two sermons, directed at two different audiences: those who see their Christian life as less of a battle, and those who see their Christian life still as a battle.)
For Those Who See Their Christian Life as Less of a Battle:
The Christian life is a battle between the life that has given to us in Jesus through the Holy Spirit and the sinful nature which still clings to us until the return of Jesus. Now, this battle is not about winning and losing. The victory has been achieved through the death and resurrection of Jesus and that victory is ours by grace through faith. The battle is about battling. It is about fighting. The new life given in Jesus battling and fighting the sinful nature. The battle is struggling with sin.
However, there are those Christians who begin to struggle less with sin. This is called apathy and it is dangerous. How does this happen? How does a Christian battle less and less with the sinful nature? (1) By avoiding the Biblical text. God's Law is all over the Scriptures: His demands, His commandments, His holiness, His judgment against sinners and idolaters. However, individual Christians, Christian congregations, and yes, even entire denominations have skipped right over those sections of Scripture, choosing to ignore what God says about His Law and law-breakers. (2) By playing the victim. It is very true, the being sinned against is a grevious thing. Too many people have been sinned against for far too long. However, Christians can play the victim. They sin against others because they have been sinned against. How many fathers withhold love from their children because their fathers did not love them? They excuse withholding love because of what their fathers did to them. We cannot minimize their being sinned against, but we cannot excuse of own sin either. (3) By reasoning that Jesus died for sin, so who cares if we sin anyway? It's already been paid for! This is a mind trick that allows temporal justification for willful sin. (4) By underestimating God and Satan. God judges sinners. That is part and parcel with His holiness that Christians love to sing about, but don't always understand. His holiness demands that sinners are judged. Satan is also underestimated in how he desires to destroy us by our sin. Satan does not desire us to sin because he likes sin. Rather, Satan desires us to sin because he desires to see us destroyed - and he knows sin does! He is called Destroyer in the book of Revelation!
An implicit message in Romans 7 is to struggle with sin. Sin, death, and Satan have been defeated by Jesus' shed blood and His resurrection. Those who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death and raised to new life. So, consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus! Do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies! Present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life in our baptisms!
For Those Who See Their Christian Life Still as a Battle:
The Christian life is a battle between the life that has given to us in Jesus through the Holy Spirit and the sinful nature which still clings to us until the return of Jesus. Now, this battle is not about winning and losing. The victory has been achieved through the death and resurrection of Jesus and that victory is ours by grace through faith. The battle is about battling. It is about fighting. The new life given in Jesus battling and fighting the sinful nature. The battle is struggling with sin.
Some of you are all too familiar with this battle. It is a daily grind. Here are some examples of how this battle might be playing out in your life. (1) In Confession and The Lord's Supper. You find yourself week after week confessing your sins in corporate confession, with the same sins running through your heart week after week. You kneel at the altar to receive the body and blood of Jesus in your mouth broken that the same sin drove you to the altar last week...last month....the last 4 years. (2) By trying everything. You have had an accountability partner to support you in your battle against that sin. Your partner has heard your confession, has prayed for you, supported you, announced God's forgiveness in Christ to you. Yet, that hasn't ended your struggle. You wrote Bible verses on Post-It Notes and placed them on your bathroom mirror and your car dashboard. That hasn't "worked." You have immersed yourself in Bible Study attendance, daily devotions, weekly worship. You even went to the extreme of talking to your pastor about this deeply personal struggle. You are desperate for you have also frustrated those closest to you with the same apologies and pleas for forgiveness for the same sin.
Paul knows what that is like. "I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." "For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing." So then, it is very strange to hear what Paul says in verse 25: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" How could Paul give thanks to God through Jesus Christ in the midst of a struggle he desires to see vanish? Paul trusts that the blood Christ shed on the cross was for sinners....even Christian sinners. Just as Christ said to the thief on the cross, "Today you will be with Me in paradise," so Christ says to the Christian who struggles with sin, "you will be with Me in paradise." Christ shed His blood for original sin, sin pre-faith-in-Christ, and sin post-faith-in-Christ. All who are saved are saved by grace through faith on account of Christ...even life-long Christians. "Thanks be to God throught Jesus Christ our Lord!" Amen.
