Sunday School at 9 am | worship at 10 am

The Struggle

I have long wondered what it would be like to have a body that does what I tell it to do. When I wake up in the morning, I usually tell my body to get up and go to the gym to exercise. Most of the time my body obeys, but under protest. I tell my body to run, but my body doesn’t like to run unless it has a ball in its hands. So I grab a basketball and begin my routine of running and shooting the ball. During the course of my time on the court I tell my body to jump. My body just laughs at me (at least I think that’s what it’s doing). How else could I describe that vertical three inch leap? In the evenings when I sit in my recliner to relax and watch something on TV, my body often refuses to participate. It goes to sleep without warning. It gains weight when I’m not looking. Although my body generally does what I ask it to do these days, it does it slower and not nearly as well—much to my chagrin. I’m concerned that someday my body might not even respond to my requests at all. It’s really frustrating.

Paul describes in the Book of Romans a much deeper frustration—one with which only Christians can identify and one with which all Christians can identify. The Christian’s agony comes from realizing that our sinful flesh refuses to respond to the requirements of God’s Law. Those things which we as Christians despise we find ourselves doing. Those things which we as Christians desire we fail to accomplish. No matter how much we may wish to serve God in our minds, we find ourselves sinning in our bodies. As Paul describes his frustration in Romans 7, with his mind he desires to serve God. He agrees with the Law of God and rejoices in it. He wants to do what is right, but his body will not respond. He watches, almost as a third party, as sin sends a signal to his body, and his body obediently responds by asking, “What would you like to do?” Paul finds, as we do, that while our fleshly bodies refuse to obey God and do that which we desire and which delights God, they quickly and eagerly respond to the impulses and desires aroused by sin.

Before we go any further, I have to pause and ask—is this the kind of life God wants me to live? I want to say no. I want to say that God does not want me to struggle with sin. But Romans 7 tells me something different. God is saying something here that we need to pay attention to.

God wants you to go through Romans 7. He wants you to struggle with sin because that experience is meant to drive you into the arms of Jesus Christ. The struggle that you are undergoing in your life now doesn’t mean you’re a failure. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. God intends for you to struggle with sin so that in your struggle, you would be stripped of your self-reliance and begin to trust in God and God alone. Does the fact that you struggle make you a failure? No. Does it make you a bad person? No. Does it make you a loser? No. Does it make you a sub-standard Christian? No. Do you know what it makes you? It makes you an excellent candidate for the grace of God.