Latest / Reformed Thinking / From Wretchedness to Thanksgiving: The Believer’s War with Indwelling Sin (Romans 7:15–25)

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From Wretchedness to Thanksgiving: The Believer’s War with Indwelling Sin (Romans 7:15–25) · Reformed Thinking

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  Hello and welcome to Reformed Thinking.
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  It is Monday, February 2, 2026, and we are really glad you're
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  with us today. We're opening up a stack of
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  sources that they deal with what might just be the most universal
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  and maybe the most frustrating experience in the whole
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  Christian life. It's definitely one of those
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  topics. It tends to make people squirm a
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  bit, but you know, it's also one where we find a tremendous
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  amount of hope if we can just look at it through the right
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  lens. And to get ourselves oriented,
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  as we always do, we're looking at all this material through the
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  framework of historic Protestant Christianity, specifically
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  Reformed theology. And today we're sticking pretty
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  close to the Westminster Confession because, well, the
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  sources we have are just really anchored in that tradition.
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  Which is helpful, you know, 'cause when you're dealing with
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  the the messy interior life of a believer, you need guardrails.
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  You really do. You need a solid theological
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  structure so you don't just fall into despair on one side, or
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  maybe worse, pride on the other. So the topic at hand is Romans
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  Chapter 7, specifically verses 15 through 25.
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  And if you've been a Christian for more than, say, 5 minutes,
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  you know this tension Paul is describing.
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  It's that that painful paradox where you want holiness, you
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  genuinely want it, but you find yourself practicing sin.
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  It's that classic. I do what I hate, Paradox.
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  Right. For I do not do what I want, but
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  I do the very thing I hate. It's just so raw.
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  And the question we're really digging into today based on
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  these sources is a big one. Why do even mature believers
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  feel like walking contradictions?
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  I mean, is this a sign that we failed or that we aren't
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  actually saved? Or, and this is the key, is it
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  actually a sign of life? That's the hook.
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  Is the struggle itself a good sign?
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  That is the pivotal question. It truly is.
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  If you get the answer to that wrong, you can end up in a
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  really bad place spiritually. We've got 2 pretty heavy hitting
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  sources for this deep dive. One is titled From Wretchedness
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  to Thanksgiving and it takes a more pastoral look at this war
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  within. The other is called The
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  Believers Battle and that one gets more into the the nitty
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  gritty of the Greek text and the theological arguments.
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  And our mission really, is to unpack what these sources call
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  the anatomy of indwelling sin. The anatomy of it, I like that
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  we want to see why the law can't save us, but also how it drives
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  us to the only person who actually can.
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  And this anatomy lesson, it isn't just for, you know,
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  theological curiosity. It really helps us understand
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  what is actually happening inside of us when we struggle.
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  OK, so let's jump right in Section 1.
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  The sources all agree this is the interpretive key to the
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  entire passage. It all hangs on one question.
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  Who is the I? When Paul says I am of the
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  flesh, soul under sin, who is he talking about?
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  This is what the sources call the interpretive crux.
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  It really is. It determines your entire view
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  of sanctification of the Christian life.
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  Is Paul speaking as a lost man, an unregenerate person who's
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  under the conviction of the law but doesn't have the Spirit?
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  Or is he speaking as a mature regenerate believer?
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  Exactly, and that changes everything.
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  I think a lot of people, when they first read this, they
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  intuitively feel like, well, it sounds like a lost guy.
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  He's saying he's a slave to sin. And historically, there has been
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  a pretty big debate there, right?
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  Oh, a huge debate. Some of the early Church
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  fathers, like John Chrysostom for instance, he argued that
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  this had to be an unregenerate man.
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  The logic was that the language of captivity and being sold
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  under sin was just too strong for a Christian.
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  They thought a Christian is supposed to be free, so this
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  description can't possibly fit. That was the idea.
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  It must be a man who sees the law, knows he should obey it,
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  but he can't because he doesn't the Holy Spirit yet like someone
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  on the very edge of conversion. But the Reformed tradition and
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  our sources really emphasize this takes a very different
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  view. They side with Augustine,
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  especially in his later years, and then Martin Luther and John
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  Calvin. Correct.
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  The reform view held pretty consistently is that this is the
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  regenerate mature believer, and it isn't just a preference, the
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  sources argue. There's what they call a smoking
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  gun right in the text that basically proves this cannot be
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  a lost man, all right? Let's look at that smoking gun.
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  What is the evidence? What is the piece of the text
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  that makes them so sure the I here is actually a Christian?
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  You find it in verse 22, the speaker says I delight in the
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  law of God in my inner being and you compare that with verse 15
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  where he says he hates the evil that he does.
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  OK, delighting in God's law and hating evil.
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  Right now we have to do a little bit of theology here, connecting
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  Scripture with Scripture. If you flip over to the very
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  next chapter, Romans 8, verse 7 tells us something absolutely
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  critical. It says that the mindset on the
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  flesh is hostile to God. Hostile.
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  Not just indifferent, but hostile.
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  Exactly. It says it does not submit to
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  God's law. Indeed it cannot.
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  So an unregenerate person, a natural person, simply cannot
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  delight in God's law. They might fear the punishment
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  that comes from breaking it. Sure, they might dislike the
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  consequences of their sin, getting caught, losing a
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  reputation, going to jail. I get that.
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  But they don't love the law itself.
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  They don't delight in it. The unregenerate man might hate
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  the heat of the fire, but he secretly loves the sin that
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  causes it. He is, at his core, at enmity
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  with God. He certainly doesn't agree with
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  God in a heartfelt way that the law is good and holy and just.
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  So you're saying only a new heart, a heart that's been
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  regenerated by the Holy Spirit, can actually side with God
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  against its own sin? That's the critical distinction.
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  That's the whole argument. The source material calls this a
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  dual agency conflict. It's not a person wrestling with
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  two bad options. It's a conflict where the new
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  man, the real you in Christ, loves God's command.
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  But there's this other thing, this indwelling thin, that's
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  fighting back with everything it's got.
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  And that conflict is actually proof of life.
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  That conflict is the proof of life.
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  A corpse doesn't struggle. A dead body in a river just
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  floats downstream. If you are fighting, if you feel
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  that exhausting battle, it's because you are alive.
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  If you are dead in sin, you just go with the flow of the current.
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  The fact that you're swimming upstream and getting tired
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  proves you have a new nature. That's it.
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  And that's meant to be a deep comfort, even though the fight
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  itself is miserable. That is reassuring, but yeah, it
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  doesn't make the struggle any less frustrating.
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  So let's move into Section 2 and look at the specifics of that
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  frustration. This is where we get into what
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  the source is called the inability of the will in verses
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  15 through 17. Right.
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  And this is where we have to slow down and really look at the
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  text closely, because the English translations, often they
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  smooth over the violence of the language Paul is using here.
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  Verse 15 kicks off with a really stark confession.
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  I do not understand my own actions.
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  The sources point out something interesting about the Greek word
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  used there for understand. Yes, the word is ganeshku.
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  It usually means to know, but in this context it has a hebraic
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  nuance. It means something more like to
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  acknowledge or to approve. You can think of Psalm 1.6 where
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  it says the Lord knows the way of the righteous.
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  It doesn't mean God is just intellectually aware of it.
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  No, it means he approves of it, he sanctions it, he's in
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  relationship with it. So when Paul says I do not get
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  into my own actions, he's really saying I don't recognize this as
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  my own. I don't approve of this.
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  I look at what I just did and I say that's not me, that's not
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  what I wanted. It's a disavowal, A profound
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  one. And what's fascinating is that
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  the sources point out that Paul uses three different Greek verbs
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  for doing just in this one verse, which gives us this very
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  nuanced picture of the struggle. OK, break those down for us.
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  What are the three verbs and what do they mean here?
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  So first when he talks about the sing he commits, he uses the
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  word cutter gazumai. This means to work out or to
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  produce. It has the sense of bringing
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  something to a final result, like a factory.
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  The flesh is like a machine that produces sin.
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  Sometimes, even despite our best intentions, it works it out.
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  OK, so the flesh is productive, but in a terrible.
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  Way, a terrible active way. Then for the habit of sin, the
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  thing he practices, he uses the word prashu.
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  But then when he talks about the good that he wants to do but
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  doesn't, he uses kui, which is the simple basic word for do or
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  make. So there's a disconnect.
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  The tragedy is that the will, the desire to do good, the the
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  the it's there. The wanting is present, but the
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  accomplishment the actual poig. Isn't the executive power to
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  carry it out perfectly is missing?
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  That is the inability. It's not that he doesn't want to
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  do good. The will is present, but he
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  can't bring it to completion. And this brings us right back to
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  that phrase. I do the very thing I hate.
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  The source material has a great line on this.
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  It calls hatred of sin a marker of grace.
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  It sounds so counterintuitive. Doesn't.
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  It We usually think of hatred as a bad thing, but here you're
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  saying hating your own sin is actually a sign that you're
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  spiritually healthy. Think about it this way.
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  If you're comfortable with your sin, if you cuddle up to it,
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  negotiate with it, make excuses for it, that's a dangerous place
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  to be. But if you hate it, if it
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  grieves you deep down, that signals an awakened conscience.
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  It shows your heart has been changed.
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  It does. As we said, The spiritually dead
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  don't hate sin as sin. They might hate the hangover,
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  but they love the drink. They hate the consequences.
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  Paul hates the sin itself because he knows it offends a
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  holy God whom he now loves. And this logic then flows
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  directly into verse 16, which the source is called the
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  Vindication of the law. Paul says now if I do what I do
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  not want, I agree with the law that it is good.
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  This is just Paul's brilliant logic at work.
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  He's basically saying, look, if I sin and I hate that I'm
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  sinning, what does that say about my opinion of the law that
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  forbids that sin? It must mean I agree with the
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  law. My hatred of the action proves
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  my love for the rule. Precisely.
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  The Greek word here is fascinating.
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  It's Symphony. Symphony.
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  That's where we get the word. Symphony literally means to
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  speak together with the believers inner voice.
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  Their new heart is harmonizing with God's law.
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  God's law says do not covet and the believer's heart says Amen,
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  That is right. Coveting is wrong and I hate
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  that I do it. So the problem isn't the
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  standard. We aren't looking at God's law
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  and saying this is too hard or God is unfair, or this is a bad
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  rule. We're saying the rule is
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  perfect. The problem is me.
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  The problem is the operator, not the standard.
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  And that vindication is so important because it stops us
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  from blaming God for our failures.
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  It forces us to look inside. Which, of course, is where Paul
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  goes next. In Section 3.
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  He starts to dissect the soul. This is the anatomy lesson
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  verses 17 through 20, and Paul makes a statement here that
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  frankly, if you don't read it carefully, sounds like a massive
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  cop out, he says. So now it is no longer I who do
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  it, but sin that dwells within me.
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  I can just hear the objection already.
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  Oh, OK, Paul, the devil made me do it, or my sin nature made me
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  do it, so I'm innocent. Exactly.
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  Is he just dodging responsibility here?
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  No, and the swords are very, very clear on this.
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  He is not saying I am not guilty.
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  What he's saying is I am not whole.
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  He's making a profound theological distinction about
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  his own identity. OK, explain that identity shift.
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  What does he mean? The I, the true self, the real
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  ego, is now the new man in Christ.
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  That is who Paul is fundamentally.
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  He's a child of God. Sin is now identified as a
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  foreign agent. The text uses the word enukusa,
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  which means it is an invasive resident.
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  It's a squatter. I like that squatter analogy.
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  You own the house. The title deed has been signed
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  over to Christ, but there's this old hostile tenant living in the
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  basement who refuses to leave and keeps banging on the pipes
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  and trying to set fires. That's a perfect picture.
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  And Paul saying that noise you hear in the basement, that
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  racket, that's not the homeowner, that's the squatter.
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  It helps the believer understand that while sin is in them, it is
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  no longer them. It doesn't define their core
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  identity anymore. But he also uses this really
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  loaded term flesh or sarks says, For I know that nothing good
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  dwells in me, that is in my flesh.
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  We really need to define what flesh means here, because people
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  today hear that and they just think skin and bones.
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  Right, and if you think flesh just means the physical body,
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  you end up with some form of Gnosticism, the ancient heresy
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  that the spirit is good and all material stuff, including the
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  body, is evil. Paul is not saying his body is
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  evil. That's Greek philosophy, not
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  biblical theology. So what is the flesh?
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  He's using flesh to describe the whole person, mind, will,
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  emotions, everything. Considered in weakness as marked
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  by the fall, as oriented in resistance to God.
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  It's our fallen human nature in its entirety, operating apart
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  from the grace of the Holy Spirit.
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  So when he says nothing good dwells in my flesh, he's making
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  an absolute statement. His fallen nature has zero
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  capacity, none at all, to produce genuine holiness.
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  Zero. And this is the crushing blow to
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  every form of moralism. Moralism is the idea that if I
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  just try harder, if I make a stronger vow, if I get a better
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  accountability partner, I can fix this, Paul says in verse 18.
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  I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to
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  carry it out. The will is there, but the power
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  isn't. The will is there, but the flesh
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  has no ability. And the source notes that the
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  Westminster Confession references this reality
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  directly. It says that this corruption
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  remains during this life. During this life, that's a hard
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  pill for us to swallow, isn't it?
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  We want to believe we can reach a point some higher level of
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  Christian living where we're finished with this battle.
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  But we all want that. But the confession and more
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  importantly, Paul says there is a continual and irreconcilable
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  war. You cannot make a peace treaty
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  with the flesh. You can't domesticate it.
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  You can't train it to be good. It's an enemy until the day you
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  die, because the. Flesh is not interested in being
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  good, it's interested in self preservation, self glory and
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  rebellion. And you know, realizing that the
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  flesh has no ability is actually liberating.
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  It is. It stops you from looking to
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  your own willpower as the solution.
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  If your car has no engine, spending hours polishing the
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  hood won't make it drive. The flesh has no engine for
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  holiness. So if the flesh is the problem,
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  this engine of sin, let's talk more about how it operates.
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  That brings us to Section 4, which the source is called 2
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  Laws at War. In verses 21 through 23, Paul
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  said something really interesting.
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  So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil
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  lies close at hand. He's using the word law here,
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  not in the sense of the Mosaic law, the 10 commandments, but
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  more like a scientific principle like the law of gravity.
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  Gravity is a great comparison. It's always there, doesn't take
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  a day off. You don't have to turn it on in
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  the morning. And you don't have to try to
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  fall. You have to actively exert
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  energy to stand up. Falling is the natural state,
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  Paul is saying. He's discovered a rule of
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  operation in his members whenever he sets his heart to do
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  good, to pray, to serve, to love his neighbor.
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  Evil is parakaitai, that's the Greek word.
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  And what does parakaitai mean? It means lying close at hand.
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  It's right there. The sources describe it as being
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  within easy reach. It's terrifyingly accessible.
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  You don't have to go looking for evil.
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  It's right there on the shelf next to your good intentions.
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  It's like a shadow. As soon as you shine the light
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  of a good intention, the shadow of resistance appears right next
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  to it. A perfect image, and this leads
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  right into the battlefield imagery.
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  Verse 22. He delights in God's law in his
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  inner being. But verse 23.
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  But I see in my members another law waging war against the law
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  of my mind. Waging war.
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  This isn't passive. Not at all.
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  The word is anti strata wine. It means to draw battle lines to
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  launch a military campaign. Sin is not a passive bad habit
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  that we just need to break. Like, you know, biting your
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  fingernails. Sin is an active insurgent.
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  It's plotting. It's strategizing against your
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  new nature. That completely refutes the idea
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  that the Christian life is supposed to be this easy.
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  Float into heaven. It's a fight.
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  It's a combat zone from day one to the very end.
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  And Paul says this war leads to him being made captive to the
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  law of sin. Now this raises a huge
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  theological question. We just came from Roman sets
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  where Paul says repeatedly that we are free from sin's rule.
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  So how can a believer be captive if Romans 6 says we are free?
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  This is where that critical distinction between dominion and
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  captivity comes in, right? Yes, and it's a vital
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  distinction for every Christian to grasp.
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  Romans 6 teaches that sin no longer has dominion.
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  It is not the king. It is not the rightful ruler of
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  your life. You have been transferred out of
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  the Kingdom of darkness and into the Kingdom of Christ.
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  So the king has been officially and legally dethroned.
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  He has, But Romans 7 teaches that the dethroned tyrant is now
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  a guerrilla fighter. He's hiding in the hills, he's
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  in the jungle, and he can launch raids, He can take temporary
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  captives. You can be taken prisoner in a
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  skirmish even if your side has already won the war.
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  That really explains the experience of, say, backsliding
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  or falling into a particular season of sin.
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  You feel like APOW in that moment, but you're not actually
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  a citizen of the enemy's country anymore.
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  Exactly right. The Believer is never a neutral
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  party in this. A lost man isn't fighting this
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  war because he's a collaborator with the enemy.
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  The believer fights because he is a renewed man with an enemy
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  that is still camping out inside the walls of the city.
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  And that reality, the enemy inside the walls, is what leads
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  to the absolute climax of the passage in Section 5, the
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  wretched cry, verse 24. Wretched man that I am, who will
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  deliver me from this body of death?
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  This is such deeply emotional language, the word for wretched
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  talaipuros. It means miserable, but it also
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  carries the idea of being calloused from exhaustion.
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  It's the cry of a soldier who's been in the trenches for months
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  without relief. He's covered in mud, he's bone
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  tired and he just wants to go home.
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  And it's so important to note, as the sources do, that this is
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  not the cry of the damned. A damned person doesn't cry out
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  for deliverance from sin itself. No, they cry out for deliverance
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  from punishment. This is the groan of the godly.
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  It's a paradox, but the more holy you become, the more
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  wretched you feel about your remaining sin.
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  The closer you get to a bright light, the more dust you see on
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  everything in the room. And then there's that horrific
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  imagery of the body of death. The sources mention a possible
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  historical illusion here that is just chilling.
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  Yes, some commentators point to an ancient and truly barbaric
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  torture method, sometimes attributed to Etruscan pirates
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  or a tyrant named Magentius. They would take a living man and
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  strap a decomposing corpse to his back, face to face, hand to
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  hand, leg to leg. That is absolutely gruesome.
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  It is the living man was forced to carry this dead weight around
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  everywhere he went until the decay and the disease from the
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  corpse started to infect him and kill him.
• 18:23
  Wow. And that's the picture Paul's
• 18:25
  painting. It perfectly captures what he
• 18:27
  feels. He is alive in Christ.
• 18:29
  He is a new creation, but he feels shackled to this body of
• 18:33
  death, his unredeemed mortality, his remaining corruption.
• 18:37
  It drags him down. It stinks and he can't just
• 18:39
  shake it off. So in his desperation, he cries
• 18:41
  out, who will deliver me? Yeah, and the sources all point
• 18:44
  out that shift in the grammar. He asks who, not what.
• 18:47
  That is so important. He doesn't ask what method will
• 18:50
  deliver me or what new technique or what 7 step program.
• 18:54
  He knows the what has failed him, the law a what failed to
• 18:57
  deliver him his own willpower a what failed him.
• 19:00
  He needs a person. And he gets the answer
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  immediately. Verse 25.
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  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
• 19:08
  This is the pivot of the whole chapter.
• 19:10
  The answer to abject misery is Thanksgiving.
• 19:13
  He doesn't look inward for the solution.
• 19:15
  He looks outward. The solution is extra nose.
• 19:18
  It's outside of us. And notice that little
• 19:21
  preposition deliverance is mediated through Jesus Christ.
• 19:25
  It's his work, not our own self improvement.
• 19:28
  That's the key to everything. Paul doesn't say.
• 19:30
  Thanks be to God, I finally figured out the secret to stop
• 19:33
  sinning. He implies that the deliverance
• 19:36
  is a rescue operation performed entirely by Jesus.
• 19:39
  But then, and this is the part that always throws people for a
• 19:42
  loop, right after that shout of Thanksgiving, he gives this
• 19:45
  incredibly realistic summary in verse 25-B.
• 19:48
  So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my
• 19:52
  flesh I serve the law of sin. You'd really expect him to say
• 19:55
  thanks be to God and now I never struggle again.
• 19:57
  But he doesn't. He circles right back to the
• 19:59
  reality of the struggle. Why does he do that?
• 20:01
  It feels like such a let down after the triumphant shout.
• 20:04
  The sources argue it's there to prevent what theologians call
• 20:07
  over realized eschatology. It's a fancy term for
• 20:11
  perfectionism. Paul is saying the victory is
• 20:14
  absolutely securing Christ. I am thankful for that, but T
• 20:18
  the present reality until the day I die or Christ returns is
• 20:21
  that I am still in this dual state.
• 20:23
  This is that famous doctrine of Simal justice at picotour.
• 20:26
  Exactly the Latin for simultaneously righteous and
• 20:30
  Sinner. We are righteous in our legal
• 20:32
  standing before God because of Christ.
• 20:33
  That's the thanks be to God part.
• 20:35
  But we are still sinners in our daily practice.
• 20:37
  That's the with my flesh I serve the law of sin part.
• 20:40
  So the source material argues this is actually a comfort.
• 20:44
  It means that if you're still struggling even after you thank
• 20:46
  God for Jesus, you aren't broken.
• 20:48
  You aren't a failed Christian. You're just not home yet.
• 20:50
  You're normal. We await the redemption of the
• 20:53
  body, which he's about to get into in Romans 8.
• 20:55
  Until then, the war is the normal Christian life.
• 20:59
  OK, let's move to Section 6 and try to synthesize all of this.
• 21:02
  The sources do a great job showing how this one passage
• 21:05
  just demolishes so many of the major errors we tend to fall
• 21:09
  into. Let's run through them.
• 21:11
  First up, legalism. Legalism says I can be right
• 21:15
  with God by obeying the law. Romans 7 completely destroys
• 21:19
  this because it shows that even a regenerate Apostle Paul
• 21:22
  himself cannot obey the law perfectly.
• 21:25
  The law is powerless to produce obedience in the flesh, so if
• 21:28
  Paul couldn't do it, you certainly can't.
• 21:30
  Right. Second error, antinomianism.
• 21:33
  This is the opposite idea, that the law doesn't matter at all,
• 21:36
  that we can do whatever we want because we're under grace.
• 21:38
  And that's refuted by the fact that the inner man delights in
• 21:40
  the law. Paul hates his sin.
• 21:42
  He doesn't say, oh I'm under grace, sin is fine.
• 21:44
  No, he calls himself a wretched man.
• 21:45
  You can't be an antinomian and groan over your own sin.
• 21:48
  The 2 are incompatible. The third perfectionism.
• 21:51
  We've touched on this, but let's drive it home.
• 21:53
  The summary in verse 25 B is the nail in the coffin for
• 21:56
  perfectionism. I keep on doing it's in the
• 21:59
  present tense. If anyone ever tells you they've
• 22:02
  reached a state of sinless perfection in this life, they
• 22:05
  are fundamentally disagreeing with the Apostle Paul.
• 22:07
  And finally, pragmatism. This one is huge in the modern
• 22:11
  church. Give me 3 steps to kill your
• 22:13
  sin. Five ways to a better you.
• 22:15
  Pragmatism is refuted because Paul's solution isn't a
• 22:18
  technique. It isn't a how to, it's a who.
• 22:21
  The solution is a deliverer. You don't need a life hack, you
• 22:24
  need a savior. So if the law can't save us and
• 22:28
  it can't sanctify us by itself, what is it for?
• 22:31
  For the believer? I mean, this horse has mentioned
• 22:33
  the third use of the law. Right.
• 22:35
  This is a classic Reformed concept.
• 22:37
  The first use of the law is to restrain evil in society, like a
• 22:40
  curb. The second use is to act as a
• 22:42
  mirror to show us our sin and drive us to Christ for mercy.
• 22:45
  But the third use is for the believer.
• 22:47
  It acts as a guide. It shows us what pleases the God
• 22:50
  we now love and want to abandon. So we look at the law, not to be
• 22:53
  saved by it, but to say, Father, I love you.
• 22:56
  What does a life that pleases you look like?
• 22:58
  That's it. It diagnosis and it dies.
• 23:01
  But it does not cure. Only the grace of God in Christ
• 23:03
  cures. Let's get really practical.
• 23:05
  Then. The sources breakdown the
• 23:07
  application into head, heart, and hands.
• 23:10
  What do we need to get into our heads from this passage?
• 23:13
  First and foremost, you need to believe that struggle is normal.
• 23:16
  Stop panicking when you find evil in your heart.
• 23:19
  Don't let the devil tell you that because you had a sinful
• 23:21
  thought or because you fell again that you aren't a real
• 23:24
  Christian. The very presence of the war
• 23:26
  proves the presence of the new life.
• 23:28
  OK, that's the head. What about the heart?
• 23:30
  For the heart, you need to actively cultivate Holy hatred.
• 23:34
  This is an affection you need to pray that God would help you
• 23:37
  love what He loves and hate what He hates.
• 23:40
  Don't make peace with your sin. Don't call it a mistake or a
• 23:43
  struggle. Call it what God calls it,
• 23:45
  rebellion filth, and learn to despise it because it's what
• 23:49
  killed your Savior. And finally, the hands.
• 23:50
  What do we actually do? This is maybe the most important
• 23:54
  practical take away. You have to stop fighting flesh
• 23:56
  with flesh. You cannot defeat sin by just
• 23:59
  gritting your teeth harder or by sheer willpower.
• 24:02
  You need to use the means of grace.
• 24:05
  That sounds very theological. What are the means of grace?
• 24:08
  Simply put, they are the word, prayer and the sacraments.
• 24:12
  These are the ordinary channels God has ordained to strengthen
• 24:15
  the inner man. When you are weak, you don't
• 24:18
  need a motivational speech, You need to eat.
• 24:21
  You feed the Newman with Scripture, you allow it to
• 24:23
  breathe through prayer, and you find nourishment and assurance
• 24:26
  at the Lord's Table. In doing those things starves
• 24:29
  the flesh and strengthens the spirit.
• 24:31
  That's the battle plan. It's surprisingly ordinary,
• 24:33
  isn't it? It is.
• 24:34
  We want some magic formula and God just gives us a meal and a
• 24:37
  book. But that's how the soldier stays
• 24:39
  alive in the trench, day by day, meal by meal.
• 24:41
  So as we wrap up here, let's just look at the big picture.
• 24:44
  We've gone from the raw honesty of the struggle I do what I
• 24:47
  hate, all the way to the absolute assurance of the
• 24:50
  Savior. The flow is so crucial.
• 24:53
  We start with the reality of the war.
• 24:55
  We realize we cannot win it on our own.
• 24:57
  We cry out in our wretchedness, and that cry of desperation
• 25:01
  drives us straight into the arms of Christ.
• 25:04
  And the sources point out beautifully that this, thanks be
• 25:07
  to God and verse 25, is the perfect bridge to the very next
• 25:12
  verse, Romans 8.1. There is therefore now no
• 25:15
  condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
• 25:18
  You cannot truly understand the sweetness of no condemnation
• 25:21
  until you have felt the crushing weight of being a wretched man.
• 25:26
  The struggle leads to dependence, and that dependence
• 25:28
  leads to rock solid assurance. It's a beautiful paradox, isn't
• 25:32
  it? The more you realize you can't
• 25:33
  do it, the more you rest and the one who already did it all for
• 25:36
  you. And that's the safety net you're
• 25:38
  standing before. God never ever rested on your
• 25:41
  performance in this battle in the 1st place.
• 25:42
  It rests entirely on His. So we want to leave you with the
• 25:45
  final thought to chew on. We've talked a lot today about
• 25:47
  the exhaustion of this war. We have.
• 25:50
  And here's the thought. If you are exhausted by the war
• 25:53
  within, if you are just so tired of fighting your own sin, take
• 25:57
  heart that exhaustion is actually the most authentic
• 26:00
  evidence that you belong to God. Because the corpse doesn't fight
• 26:03
  back, the dead don't struggle. The only people not at war with
• 26:07
  sin are those who have made peace with it.
• 26:10
  If you are fighting, you are alive, and if you are alive in
• 26:13
  Christ, the victory is already irreversibly yours.
• 26:17
  This has been reformed thinking. Thank you for diving deep with
• 26:19
  us into the anatomy of our own hearts.
• 26:21
  Keep fighting, good fight. We'll see you next time.