Christ Life In Us Romans 7:17-20 Nothing Good Dwells Within Me

So let's begin with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you've given us your word so that by it we might come to know you. And Lord, we would be so, so lost without your word. And so Lord, we just pray that you would open our minds to understand, to behold your son, to behold you through your son in the written word this morning. and give us clarity of thought in everything that we look at and study here, that our eyes would be turned to you. In Jesus' name, amen.

So I want to back up, review a little bit of what we talked about last week. Romans 7 answers a lot of really practical questions about the Christian life. In our present verse, this is really important to understand, Paul is describing the Christian, not the unbeliever, as some have held to. As a Christian, you have two indwelling natures. Very important to understand.

You have the sin nature, and we see that throughout this passage, right? The sin which dwells in me, which dwells in our flesh or our physical body. We all have that old nature still attached to our bodies, but we also have a new nature. We have the nature of Christ himself. In chapter eight, verses nine through 11, we read that the spirit of God dwells in you. So Christ is in you. Christ dwells in you by his spirit. And what we see is that Christ dwells in the inner man by the Holy Spirit.

As Peter writes, we've become partakers of the divine nature. It's an incredible thing, a new creation in Christ Jesus, partaking of his very nature. And so we have both, as believers, we have both the sin nature and we have Christ's nature. What else can that result in but conflict, right? So we have the desire of the sin nature, which is totally contrary to the desire of the Lord Jesus.

Whereas the flesh always seeks to serve and glorify myself, Jesus always seeks to serve and glorify the Father. In John 6, 38, Jesus says, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. That right there is the nature and character of Jesus in one sentence, to do the will of God the Father, not my own will. And so we have 7 verse 15. Paul describing this conflict between these two natures, the desire to serve myself and the desire to serve and glorify the Father. And he says, for what I am doing, I do not understand. For I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. And this is a strange situation. It's a strange reality to find yourself in as a believer. Unbelievers don't experience this. This is an experience unique to you as a Christian. And as strange as it is, we have to understand that God has a good purpose in all of this.

And until you and I receive our resurrection bodies, we're going to have this inner conflict, because we will have the indwellings in nature until that moment in time. And God wants you to feel and to experience the tension that this creates. Because it's a very powerful learning tool, very powerful teaching tool in the Lord's hands. But the question is, what does the Lord, what is he seeking to do with it? What does he want us to do about it? How do we respond to all this?

And sadly, the vast majority of Christians are trying to handle this in their own strength. We feel the conflict, we feel the tension, and we don't know what to do about it. And so we seek to handle this in our strength, attempting to overcome the power of the indwelling sin nature through our own effort. Struggling against sin, struggling to produce a Christian life.

And that is often the message that's pounded into the heads of Christians week after week. But what's the problem with that approach? It'll never work. It's a losing battle. It's lost from the beginning. It's self fighting self. In which case, if self wins, self is winning, right? I mean, you can't defeat self by self.

So God wants us to see the difference between these two natures that indwell us, not so that we can fight for victory over sin. That's not the point of having these two natures in us, but so that we can learn to rest in His victory over sin. Now, the Lord knows that our natural response is going to be a fight, not to rest. He knows us very well, and he knows that by leaving these two conflicting natures in us, we will struggle, we will fight to overcome, because we have this new set of desires, and we want to overcome the power of this sin, and he knows that we're gonna struggle for that, we're gonna fight for that, and he allows us to go through that so that we will come to see that we will never overcome the power of the sin nature. You're just not going to win. It's that simple. And that's part of what the Lord wants us to learn. He wants us to find out that we can't live the Christian life no matter how hard we work at it.

He wants us to come to the end of ourselves so that we would cry out with Paul, wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death? And as hard as it is for us to face up to that as a believer, it's a very very important place to get to. Realizing my own total inability to live the Christian life and crying out for deliverance from sin and self is the ground upon which the Christian life is lived. Realizing my own inability, that has to be a starting point.

And that's the kind of humble faith that the Lord delights to respond to, and he will. So this whole process prepares us to see that the only way we're ever going to have a Christian life is if it's purely by grace. We have to realize our total helplessness and receive it as a gift by grace. Louis Sperry Chaffer said, grace finds its greatest triumph and glory in the sphere of human helplessness. We've got to get to that point where we realize our helplessness.

Now, We want to spend our time today in verses 17 through 20. And we're going to see more here about the sin nature that indwells us. We've already seen that as Christians we still have a sin nature, and we've seen that the sin nature is totally contrary to the Lord, but Paul has more to teach us about the sin nature, and it's important. So much of the fruitless wrestling and striving that goes on in the Christian life would be answered and dealt with if only we understood these verses. In verses 17 through 20, we have a statement in verse 17.

Paul says, so now no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me And just the structure of this here, he makes this statement, and then he gives us the reasoning behind that statement in verses 18 and 19, because this has to be explained. And then in verse 20, Paul draws the logical conclusion of his argument in 18 and 19, and then he repeats the exact same words as he's just said in verse 17. So he states it, he backs it up logically, and then he repeats it. This is a very tight, logical argument here.

So let's look at verse 17. We read those words, so now no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. And the first question we have is, well, doing what, right? Well, we have to look back in the context. It's directly proceeding in verse 15, the last part of 7.15.

For I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. Okay, and what is the thing he hates? Well, it's sin. It's the thing contrary to God's law that he's been confronted with. And he's unable to do it, he's unable to fulfill it. And he hates that, but it's what he does. And then here in verse 17 he says, so no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

And when he says sin which dwells in me there, that word sin has the definite article in front of it. If you're not a grammar nerd, that means it's a specific thing. That means this is the sin nature. So what Paul is saying, we could kind of paraphrase this or maybe translate it even, say, so now no longer am I the one committing sin, but the sin nature which dwells in me. And that looks like a total cop-out, does it not? It could look like Paul is saying, it wasn't me, it was my sin nature, him, over there.

But that's not correct. Otherwise, how could Paul say by verse 24, wretched man that I am? I am a wretched man. Clearly, Paul sees himself as a wretched man, the sinner, the one responsible for the sins. So this is not a cop-out. We are responsible for the sins that we commit as believers. And Paul knows that. So what's Paul saying? How can it be both I and not I?

Mike and I have been talking about this a little bit because Mike's going to have the next verses here. And I'm probably going to step a little bit into Mike's verses. I don't want to overstep too much. But we have to kind of see the context here. And in studying this out, I believe that we can see all throughout scripture a very clear distinction, a biblical distinction between what I'm going to call here the outer man and the inner man.

Well, what Paul calls the outer man and the inner man. Not in this passage, but in 2 Corinthians. In verses 22 and 23, here in Romans 7, Paul is going to contrast the members of my body and the inner man. And in 2 Corinthians 4, Paul uses the terms outer man and inner man.

Now, last week I made mention of this, and I might have confused things a little bit. I said that Paul refers to the new creation that we are in Christ Jesus as our inner man. And I think that's true, but what I didn't say is that the unbeliever also has an inner man. So it's not just a believer who has an inner man. So hold your place in Romans and flip over to Colossians 3 verses 9 and 10. I want you to just look at this one. A few books to the right. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. Colossians chapter 3 verses 9 through 10.

Paul says here that when we were born again, we laid aside the old man and we put on the new man. He says, do not lie to one another since you laid aside the old man, your translation might have self, NASB puts self, the word is man. Okay, same word that we see in chapter seven for inner man, this is the old man, Anthropos. You have laid aside the old man with his practices and have put on the new man who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him. Old man, new man, and we see that the new man is a new creation, the one who created him. By the way, did you consciously lay aside the old man?

No. You consciously put your faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior. You, as a lost sinner condemned to hell, put your faith I trust in Jesus Christ as your savior. And in that moment, you laid aside the old man and put on the new man, the new creation in Christ Jesus. If you have not, I shouldn't assume this for each one of us, if you have never received Jesus Christ as your personal savior and his death on the cross for your sins, then there's nothing in between you and that but yourself. And don't wait. Trust Jesus Christ as your Savior. And in that moment, you will have laid aside the old man and you will have put on the new man, the new creation man in Christ Jesus.

But we also see there in Colossians 3.10, you have put on the new man who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him. And so there is a continuing work of renewal. or growth in this new inner man. Mike and I were talking about this a little bit this morning.

We're gonna see in 2 Corinthians 4.16 that I made reference to, where Paul talks about the inner man and the outer man, he says, Therefore, we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. And Mike and I were talking about this word renewed. And I believe, based on what I was looking at in the New Testament, this word renewed is only used two times and both times in reference to the renewal or renewing of the inner man. And it can, and actually if you have the NASB, I think they even put a footnote that says that means renovated.

Well, I don't think the new man needs renovation, okay? The new man is a new creation in Christ Jesus. The new man in you needs growth. The new creation doesn't have a problem with it, but you need to grow. You need to grow up into the fullness, the full stature of Christ.

So when we see being renewed here, I believe that's the sense behind the Greek, is that this new inner man, needs to grow. So we have the clear biblical teaching about this new inner man which is being renewed or growing. And we see the two aspects of the Christian life, both spiritual birth and spiritual growth. Spiritual birth is yours at the moment of faith in Christ, and spiritual growth is gradual.

It's supposed to follow that. We're not supposed to remain babies, infants in Christ. We're to grow. And it's the result of learning to walk in dependence on the Lord. So as a Christian, you have this new inner man in which you are growing and maturing.

But the distinction we're really trying to pull out here is seen in 2 Corinthians 4.16, is this contrast between the outer man and the inner man. And notice there that as Christians, Paul says that you have both, an outer man which is decaying and an inner man which is growing. And this distinction between the inner and the outer man is a common theme all throughout scripture. There's the external and the internal aspect of each person. It's the difference between what is perceptible to man and what God sees.

I'm going to put a bunch more references on the screen. You can turn to them, but I probably won't give you enough time to flip. If you just want to write the references down or if you want to turn to some of them, I just want to show you that this is a very common theme. We could have put up far, far more. And most of these will be pretty familiar verses.

1 Samuel 16 verse 7, this is Samuel going to look to anoint the new king. And he's looking at all of David's brothers, and the Lord says to Samuel, do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, what man can see, because I have rejected him.

For God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. So there's that distinction, outer man and the inner man. Luke 16, verse 15, Jesus speaking, and he said to them, you are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God.

Hold on to that one because that really connects with our passage here in Romans 7. Matthew 7, 15. Again, Jesus' words, beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing. This is the outward appearance, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. If you want to talk to me about predator animals and the ones that kill sheep especially, we'll talk later. I have a special place in my heart for those things. Matthew 23, verse 27. Jesus again, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.

For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness." Very much parallel. And Peter, 1 Peter 3, 3 through 4, your adornment must not be merely external, braiding the hair and wearing gold jewelry or putting on dresses. Not that those things are wrong, right?

But let it be the hidden person of the heart. hidden person of the heart. I love the way he phrased that. With the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit which is precious in the sight of God. Where are you going to get that kind of quality, right? Not from yourself. And I think that, and we can look at so many other passages like this, right? This is a very common biblical theme.

And I think that this is the frame of reference that Paul has in mind here in Romans 7. There's the outer man that's visible to us and to those around us. The me that everyone sees, we could say. And then there's the inner man, which no one sees but God himself. But both are me, okay? my inner man, which is a new creation in Christ Jesus, my outer man, which is this decaying part of me, the tent, earthly tent that is still indwelt by the sin nature. And Paul can use the pronoun I when talking about either aspect of himself, and that's why it can get confusing.

Think about Galatians 2.20, where Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. Okay, so on the one hand, no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. But then he turns around and says, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. You have this pronoun I used on both sides. On the one hand, I'm dead, and Christ lives in me.

On the other hand, I live in the flesh. but that life, he says, is by faith in the Son of God. And so here in Romans 7, when Paul says, no longer am I the one doing it, I believe he's speaking from God's perspective. The inner man, the new creation in the Lord Jesus Christ, is not the source of the sin nature. It couldn't be, okay? And yet I still sin. So where's it coming from? It's sourced in the sin nature which dwells in my flesh, the outer man that's decaying.

And from our earthly perspective, that's still me as well. So Paul can say both, I am no longer the one doing it, and wretched man that I am. Hey, that's the conflicted state in which the Lord allows us to exist. And it's tough, it's confusing, and it's perplexing, and it's exactly where the Lord wants us to be at this point in time.

Because what's the end result of it? What do we see Paul getting to here in this passage? He longs for deliverance from the sin nature. Isn't that a good thing? To long for deliverance from the sin nature? When we learn how utterly sinful we are in the flesh, then we are prepared to submit to the only possible solution. Now we want to look at verse 18 where Paul begins to logically defend the statement that he's just made. And as Jim said, this is critical right here.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me. Emphasis my own there nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh for the willing is present in me But the doing of the good is not and and this is really just a very logical deduction in this in this verse Okay, I know that nothing good dwells in my flesh for I The willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. In other words, if I had any ability to do the good that I desire, then I could conclude that there's some good in me, right? But I don't. And that proves that the sin nature, which indwells my flesh, is totally and utterly sinful. There is no good. Nothing good dwells in me.

And this is something that the Holy Spirit has to reveal to us as believers. Because it's not obvious to us. Most of us feel that we have some ability to do good. But the Lord has taught Paul that no good thing was in him. That will answer so many issues, so many questions that come about the Christian life if we would just understand that one thing. No good thing dwells in me, that is in my flesh, in the old sin nature. That me, that unregenerate self. Anything good that we can do is only good from man's perspective. From God's perspective, our deeds are filthy rags. Remember what Jesus said? Justify yourself in the view of men. But what's inside from God's perspective is utterly corrupt.

And we have to come to grips with just the absolute finality of these words, no good thing. Not some small ability to do good that we can cultivate and develop. How often have you heard that? We need to cultivate the good in ourselves. No, no good thing. We have to be convinced of this before we will look away from ourselves. and look to the Lord for deliverance. And learning this, it's a bitter experience. We have to see our failure in order to despair of self-righteousness. But the result is worth every bit of it, every drop of the bitter cup. When we cast ourselves upon the Lord, it will always result in life and joy and peace. His life, His joy, His peace. And verse 19 continues to build off of verse 18.

He says, for the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. And Paul's supporting the claim that he has no ability in himself to produce the good that he desires. And you can hear how personal this is to Paul. Some have tried to argue that Paul's not describing himself. How could it be otherwise? This is so personal.

He experienced this. Why can't I get it together? I know what I should be doing, but I just keep failing. I think all of us as believers have experienced this. It's a terrible frustration. And it doesn't make sense to us, right? It would seem like if we have the desire to do something good, we should be able to do it. And that's why Paul has to go through this whole logical argument here. The fact that we're constantly doing evil that we don't want, rather than the good that we do want, is proof that we are living under the control of the sin nature.

And never forget that this is speaking about the believer. That's really important to understand. As a Christian, you do not have the ability in yourself to live consistently with the good desires of the inner man. Not in yourself, not in the flesh. And yet that seems to be the missing element in the thinking of the vast majority of Christians.

In the Galatians class in Sunday school, we're just getting to the fruit of the spirit. and every Christian that I know of agrees that the Christian should exhibit the fruit, the singular fruit. Every Christian I know believes that the Christian should have good works. You know, and later on in Romans, Paul's gonna give us lots of good things to do, imperative commands. In Romans 12, 21, Paul says, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. So there should be, there should be good, there should be fruit, right? And I think every Christian agrees with that. And yet most Christians see these parts of scripture and totally missing the point of what we're studying in Romans 7, they try to figure out how to produce these good works.

How am I going to crank out these works? And of course they have a hard time with that, right? And so they think, well, if only we had the right motivation, then we could do it, right? And so we've got this whole, we're gonna go through church history here in five minutes, okay?

You've got the Roman Catholic Church, which sprung up very early in church history, and they said that good works earn your justification. So that's their motivation for good works. Well, if you don't do good works, you're going to hell. Okay? And then you have the Reformers who pushed back against that and they said, no, justification is by grace through faith apart from works.

How did they come up with that? They were reading their Bible, okay? And it's very clear. And they were reading mainly, particularly Romans, the early chapters of Romans, right? One through four into five, a little bit. And they said, no, justification is by grace through faith apart from works. And they were right.

But then the Reformers were challenged with the question, well, if good works aren't necessary for justification, then what place do good works have? Doesn't it matter how a Christian lives? What motivation can you give the Christian to do good works? If good works aren't what keeps them out of hell, then what motivation have you got, right? And of course, they agreed that God's desire is for the Christian to have good works in their life, and so they grappled with that question. And to be really basic here, in order to do this in five minutes, They came up with two different answers, basically. The first is that good works are not necessary to be justified, so holding the line on that, right?

But you can't know that you are truly justified unless you persevere in good works until you die, and that is known as Calvinism, still very popular today. And then there was a man called Jacobus Arminianus, pushed back against that. He said, no, no. He said, I believe you can know that you are justified, but if you don't persevere in good works, well, then you'll lose your salvation. Okay, and that's Arminianism, and it's still around today as well.

And now, as much as you'll hear those two views pitted against each other, they actually have exactly the same motive behind them, okay, trying to gain assurance of salvation. which really means that it's a fear motive, the fear that I might not have salvation if I don't persevere in good works, which really is the fear of hell, which really, interestingly, is no different than Roman Catholicism. Okay? Still the fear of hell if I don't persevere in good works. Well, so is there another answer?

Eventually, there came along those Christians. Now, I'm saying this in terms of progression. There have always been Christians who hold to this next view. But in terms of, you know, its prominence or maybe a systematized theology or something, this kind of came along in a historical pattern. But eventually, there came along Christians who said, no, it's not Calvinism or Arminianism.

You can know for sure that you are justified by grace through faith apart from works because the Bible says so. Assurance of salvation does not come from good works, either before or after you're born again. And they're right. That is the biblical position. And this is often called the free grace position, whether or not you want to identify with that term or not.

But that is the biblical position that your good works do not earn your justification, and they do not prove or give you assurance of salvation. Of course, this is not teaching that believers should live in sin, but the same question comes back at them, the same question that the reformers were faced with. Well, then what motivates good works for the believer? What is the motivation? There's no more fear of hell motive, so what are you left with?

And there are a couple different variations of the response. But a lot of times what I see is kind of a combination of two things. The first is often the rewards motive. The teaching that the Lord will reward faithful Christians in eternity. which is a positive motivation, but it also has a flip side, which would be the loss of rewards, which is a negative thing, but notably not as negative as going to hell, right? So there's this motive, okay, the Lord has rewards for Christians who are faithful in this life, who walk by faith, producing the fruit of the Spirit, and the Lord's going to reward that. Okay, there's some motive.

To be fair, a lot of those who teach this position are not teaching rewards for obedience as the motive, okay? Because they understand that that can get very worksy very fast, right? It can be a very legal motive. They're simply teaching this as a fact. But it's honestly really hard to not be at least a little bit motivated by the idea of rewards to, well, I sure want those rewards. And that's what's motivating me to live the Christian life.

So that's kind of the one answer. that you'll often hear, could give it a lot of different names, but sometimes called the gratitude or love motive, and I will lump that in with what we call the grace motive. And this is the idea, we talked about this a little bit in my Sunday school class this morning, this is the idea that God has done so much for you, and it's totally by grace, and God doesn't require anything in return, but since God has loved us so selflessly, were motivated to obey him out of gratitude. And honestly, you know, the gratitude or grace motive is probably the only one that truly preserves the doctrine of grace. Although, you know, if it slides into the mentality of indebtedness, you know, God has done for you, therefore you ought to, we've all of a sudden got an ought going on right then, then it's totally wrong. God's grace is never something that can be repaid, otherwise it wouldn't be grace.

And so we've got all these ideas of motivation. What motivates the Christian life? But there's a problem with all of these different views. We can talk about motivation all day long, but the Christian life is not a problem of motivation, it's a problem of ability.

Paul says very clearly in these verses, I already have a desire to do good. I want to do the right thing. He's already got motive. The motive comes out of the new nature that he has as a believer. The problem is that he's not able to do it. And that's a much, much bigger problem. You can have all the motivation in the world, but if you're not able to carry out the desire, then it's no good. I mean, I could offer you a billion dollars to jump to the moon, and that's a lot of motivation, but you can't do it, right? What did Paul say in verse 18? For I know that nothing good dwells in me.

And that's the problem that we have as Christians. It's wonderful to know that we are saved as a free gift by grace. We love our savior. Our hearts are overflowing with gratitude. And we desire with our whole heart to live a life that would please him and glorify his name.

And what do we do? We blow it. We live for self over and over. We complain about our circumstances. We put our own interests above the interests of others. We covet everything we don't have. And then we do something good only to realize that it's sourced in our own self-righteousness. A wretched man that I am. Nothing good dwells in me.

So what's the answer? Is there an answer? Is there anything that can bridge the gap between the desire to please the Lord and the actual outworking of that kind of life? Is there hope? I said earlier that the Lord allows us all of this in our lives so that we long for deliverance from the power of the sin nature. And too often, we joke as if the only way to be delivered is through death or the rapture.

But what's wrong with that? It assumes that there's no victory until then. Is that what Paul is saying? Is that the conclusion? Is that what we're supposed to draw out of these verses this morning? I mean, I understand that our final deliverance from the from sin is when we leave these earthly bodies.

But what about right now? What about right now? Is there deliverance? Look at here, Titus 2, 11 through 12. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age. There must be deliverance in the present time. If God desires for us to live a godly life now, then there must be deliverance from the power of the sin nature now, today.

And isn't that what Romans 6-8 is all about? Isn't that what the whole section is about? In 6-1, Paul asked, are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be. We're not to continue in sin. There is deliverance from sin for the Christian, not just someday, but right now. And what does that deliverance come through?

Look back in chapter seven, verses four through six. Paul said, therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die. You were made to die to the law through the body of Christ. so that you might be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead." Why? In order that we might bear fruit for God. There is a fruitful life for the Christian. That's his purpose.

For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now, We have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we might serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter. It's our death with Christ. that frees us from the power of the sin nature. And our death frees us to be joined to the Lord Jesus Christ. I just say that differently. Our death freed us to be joined to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our life. We are united to him. So we are judicially free from the power of sin. That's a fact.

If you put your faith in Jesus Christ as a savior, you may not have realized it. We didn't, none of us really did, right, when we put our faith in Jesus Christ. But in that moment, the Lord identified you with Jesus Christ in His death, so that His death is your death. You died with Jesus on the cross. That's a fact. The sin nature has no more right to control us, but it will if we let it. And what do we learn back in chapter 6? What's our responsibility? How do we break free from the power of sin? And how are we going to live a righteous life free from sin?

It's not by fighting, it's not by effort, okay, but by taking our stand on the facts. 611, Romans 611, even so, consider, reckon, count yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. And this is what Paul had not learned yet when he was walking through the Romans 7 struggle that he's relating to us. And this is what we're missing when we look for some motive to live the Christian life, as if I had the right motive, I could live the Christian life. We don't need a better motive to live the Christian life.

We need to rest by faith in the facts that even though the sin nature is still in my flesh, even though it seems very powerful I am free from its power. I'm joined to Jesus Christ as my life, and he has all the ability. He has all the ability needed to produce his righteous life in me. That's the deliverance that God has for you and I as Christians. It's available to every believer. all the time. This is always what you can rest in. And it's a gracious provision. This is the only way to preserve grace. We don't have to work for the Christian life. We have to receive it by faith.

And Paul writes to the Philippians in Philippians 2.13, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. He is the one who gives you these new desires. He is the one who will live this life in you and I. He's given us these desires. He will produce the fruit. And our job is simply to trust Him. And that is a wonderful a wonderful answer to this conflict that we feel within ourselves.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that it is so clear that you don't mince words, that there is no good thing in our flesh. And Lord, I pray that we would realize that and that we would really, truly understand that all the motivation in the world can't ever bring me to produce a righteous life out of my flesh. I don't have that ability.

And Lord, I pray that we would come to that conclusion. Maybe we've got to be brought back to that conclusion repeatedly, but Lord, we pray that we would come to rest in the life that only you can live and that you will, you've promised it in your word, that you will work in us to produce that wonderful righteous life of your son that is the light of the world. Your Son came into this world to be the light of the world, so that men would see you. He's the visible manifestation of you, and that's what the church is to be. The church is to be like Christ, not because we're like Him in and of ourselves, but because you've created us anew in your Son, and you've given us this new life as we depend on you for it. So Lord, we pray that you would be glorified through each one of us as we learn to count ourselves dead to sin and alive to you in your son, Jesus Christ. In his name we pray, amen.