Life, liberty, and the pursuit of holiness: the enemy within

Romans 7:13-25 ESV

Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Rev. Dwight Yoo

The law does not enable us to do what is right. It gives us the standard, but we don't have the power to do it.

It is like a poster of the ideal body given to a morbidly obese person. This poster shows them where they need to be, but it does not empower or enable. They can't eat the poster and lose weight. They can't roll it up and lift it. It only shows them their need.

Change is not easy. It is not a straight line. It is not like we accept Jesus and we just change. We have times of success and times of failure. Even in the same day. That is the experience of the christian life. So much struggle. It is like a battle or war going on.

Who is the Enemy?

Indwelling sin or the flesh is the enemy. Not flesh like physical body, but the part of us under sin's influence. We believe in a bodily resurrection, so the body is not bad.

From our last sermon, we know that sin is not our master. It no longer has power over us. But we still feel the influence... We are no longer slaves to sin, but we still let it tells us what to do.

We are like slaves immediately after emancipation. Even though the slaves are legally free, they still let their old masters control and influence them. So it is with us and our old master, sin.

Why do we have to take this Enemy seriously?

• It is always there and it never rests.

Even though sin has been dealt a deathblow by Christ. It is still fighting. It is like an guerilla war. It is waiting and hoping for an opportunity to attack.

"The Enemy Within" - Kris Lundgaard

• It seeks to do the worse at all times

Sin nature always seeks to try and drive you to it's worse end. Adultery, murder, and atheism. That is sin's goal. Subtle compromises and attempts to manage our sin result in horrible consequences. Sin wants to destroy us and those around us. If we play with sin, we are deluded.

If you have no tension, no fight with the inner man, no struggle...beware, sin has snuck up on you. Anything is better than apathy. Praise God that you are fighting sin.

What do we do?

• Be encouraged, if you feel the battle.

God is at work. Take heart. Sin will lose.

• Know your enemy.
• Kill the enemy.

Take the battle to the one you are fighting with. To battle well, you need to know who you are fighting. And how to fight. How to fight in the Spirit.

Walk in humble vigilance and confident resolve.

Humble in our vigilance over our soul, knowing our weakness and sin's strength and strategies.

Confidence in the promise of God, that sin will die and Jesus has opened the door into heaven.

The Peacemaking Church: Conflict starts in the Heart

[James 4:1-10]

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

{Rev. Dwight Yoo}

Starting Principle - Get the log out of YOUR eye. (Matt 7:3-5)

The inclination of our hearts is to look others in a negative light. To see their faults and their failings. But this is a downward spiral. We can keep going and going in pointing out others faults because all of us are sinners. We will start to think others are worse than they are. But this is not what God wants us to do.

We are to look at our own faults and failings FIRST. What does that get us? We get a healthy sense of self-suspicion. When we get into certain situations, we will examine ourselves to see whether it is our sinful hearts leading us astray. James tells us that conflict starts in our hearts. The world tells us that the reason we have conflicts because of things outside... the traffic, our work, or a bad situation. This is why we are having conflict. BUT the Word tells us it comes from our heart. This is not referring to the organ, but when God talks about the heart, He is referring to the central control in our life. Proverbs 4:23; Matthew 15:19-24;
The desires and passions found in our hearts can be good as well as evil. These are the things that control and move us. Whether it is a desire to eat at Tyson's Bees or to have your children behave...

Let's take a peek at our hearts and how this works...
- i desire...
- (becomes) I Demand...
- (changes us) I JUDGE...
- (makes us) I PUNISH !

So desires that may be perfectly good become demands. And these demands become central to our satisfaction and happiness. They are now idols. They have taken God's place in our lives. Given time, when our demands are not met, they start to impact our relationships. We then begin to judge others according to whether they meet our demands or not. "SHE's a horrible friend." "My husband's so USELESS." Whether we say it or it is just in our hearts, we become overly critical of others. This is what James 4:11 says, "Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge." So then, when we become judges, we will then pass judgment and punish others become of their failures. We see others according to our kingdom rules and regulations. When they fail to meet your expectations or they are not meeting your "needs", you will give them the cold shoulder, shame them, or ignore them.

If you are giving people the cold shoulder or slandering others, it is a CLEAR sign that an idol is in control of your heart. When we punish others who are close to us, they do not want to love us more. It makes them hurt. It makes them get defensive, attack us back, or run away.

"double-minded" - James is telling us that we can only have ONE ultimate source of satisfaction and fulfillment. We cannot serve both God and money. We cannot serve both God and ______. (Friends, family, success, career, & spouse.) No matter what else it is, it will NOT satisfy. It will only disappoint. People are fallible, they will fail us.

We cannot simply remove an idol. Just removing an idol simply opens our heart to another idol. We must replace the idol with God. We must replace the idols of our lives with the desire to love & follow Jesus. Then our fears and anxieties will dissipate...