Latest / INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living / Portrait of a Struggling Christian │ Msg 2-5

Transcript

Portrait of a Struggling Christian │ Msg 2-5 · INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living

0:01
Speaker 1: Well, we've been away from home for a while, so
0:03
Speaker 1: I thought you folks might want to hear a letter
0:08
Speaker 1: that a kid wrote his parents when he was away
0:11
Speaker 1: at camp and they had been away from each other
0:14
Speaker 1: for some time. And his name is Cole, and he
0:18
Speaker 1: writes this from a scout camp. Dear mom and dad,
0:21
Speaker 1: our scout master told us to write to our parents
0:24
Speaker 1: in case you saw the flood on television, and we're worried.
0:29
Speaker 1: We're okay. Only one of our tents and two sleeping
0:32
Speaker 1: bags got washed away. Luckily none of us got drowned
0:36
Speaker 1: because we were up all night and the mountains looking
0:39
Speaker 1: for Chad when that happened. Oh yeah, please call Chad's
0:44
Speaker 1: mother and tell her he's okay. Now he can't write
0:48
Speaker 1: because of the cast I got to ride in one
0:53
Speaker 1: of the search and rescue jeeps. It was really neat.
0:57
Speaker 1: We never would have found him in the dark if
0:59
Speaker 1: it hadn't in for the lightning. Scout Master Walt got
1:05
Speaker 1: mad at Chad for going on a hike alone without
1:07
Speaker 1: telling anyone. Chad said he did tell him, but it
1:10
Speaker 1: was during the fire, so he probably didn't hear him.
1:14
Speaker 1: Did you know that if you put gasoline on a fire,
1:17
Speaker 1: the whole gas can will blow up. The wet wood
1:23
Speaker 1: didn't burn, but one of the tents did. David's going
1:27
Speaker 1: to look a little weird till his hair grows back.
1:32
Speaker 1: We'll be home on Saturday if scout Master Walt gets
1:35
Speaker 1: a car fixed. It wasn't his fault about the wreck.
1:40
Speaker 1: The brakes worked okay. When we left, scout Master Walt
1:44
Speaker 1: said that a car with a car that old, you
1:47
Speaker 1: have to expect something to break down. That's probably why
1:51
Speaker 1: he can't get any insurance. But we think it's a
1:55
Speaker 1: neat car. He doesn't care if we get it dirty
1:59
Speaker 1: and if it's real hot. Sometimes he lets us ride
2:02
Speaker 1: on the fenders. He gets pretty hot with ten people
2:07
Speaker 1: in the car and four of us on the fenders,
2:10
Speaker 1: but he let us take turns riding in the trailer
2:12
Speaker 1: until the highway patrolman stopped us and talked to walk Scott.
2:18
Speaker 1: Master Walt's a neat guy. He's a good driver. In fact,
2:23
Speaker 1: he's teaching Terry how to drive on the mountain roads
2:26
Speaker 1: where they're isn't much traffic. Did you know that you
2:30
Speaker 1: don't need guard rails on roads that don't have much traffic.
2:35
Speaker 1: All we ever see up there logging trucks. This morning,
2:41
Speaker 1: all the guys were diving off the rocks and swimming
2:44
Speaker 1: out in the lake. Scott Master Walt wouldn't let me
2:48
Speaker 1: because I can't swim, and Chad was afraid he'd sink
2:52
Speaker 1: because that big cast. So he let us take the
2:54
Speaker 1: canoe all the way across the lake all by ourselves.
2:58
Speaker 1: It was great. You can still see some of the
3:02
Speaker 1: trees under the water from the flood. Scout Master Walt
3:06
Speaker 1: didn't crabby like other Scout Masters. He didn't even get
3:10
Speaker 1: mad about our losing the life jackets. He spent a
3:15
Speaker 1: lot of time working on the car, so we're trying
3:18
Speaker 1: not to cause him any trouble. Guess what, we have
3:22
Speaker 1: all passed our first Aid merit badges. When Dave dived
3:27
Speaker 1: in the lake and cut his arm, we got to
3:29
Speaker 1: see how tourniquet works. Wade and I threw up, but
3:35
Speaker 1: scout Master Walt said it was probably just food poisoning
3:38
Speaker 1: left over from the chicken. He said they got sick
3:45
Speaker 1: that way with the food they ate in prison. It's
3:55
Speaker 1: my favorite lion. I'm so glad he got out and
4:01
Speaker 1: became our scout master. He's the best, he said. He's
4:06
Speaker 1: sure figured out how to get things done better. While
4:09
Speaker 1: he was doing time, I have to go down. We're
4:12
Speaker 1: going to go to town to mail our letters and buy bullets.
4:24
Speaker 1: Don't worry. Everything's going to be fine, Love Cole. A
4:29
Speaker 1: lot of kids write letters like.
4:31
Speaker 2: That, crazy stuff.
4:46
Speaker 1: Dmitri Vail was a great portrait painter. If you ever
4:52
Speaker 1: saw his gallery that hung in the downtown area Dallas
4:57
Speaker 1: back in the fifties and sixties, you never you never
5:00
Speaker 1: forgot his ability with a brush. In fact, you had
5:06
Speaker 1: to look closely to make sure that it was really
5:09
Speaker 1: a oil on canvas, not a photograph. It was remarkable
5:17
Speaker 1: how realistic Bail could paint those portraits. And when you
5:25
Speaker 1: walked along the gallery, I remember doing it several times,
5:28
Speaker 1: it was like a visit with all the great celebrities.
5:33
Speaker 1: Jack Benny with his famous violin held in his hand,
5:37
Speaker 1: and comedians Rowan and Martin in one of the frames,
5:41
Speaker 1: Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Red Buttons, Red Skelton, Sophie Tucker
5:49
Speaker 1: was there and along with Ed Sullivan, Frank Sinatra, John Wayne,
5:55
Speaker 1: James Dean, and several former presidents of the United States States,
6:00
Speaker 1: as well as a couple of astronauts and a few
6:03
Speaker 1: world class athletes, all of them with their name marked
6:08
Speaker 1: in bronze at the bottom of the frame. As I
6:13
Speaker 1: arrived at the end of the long corridor of Veils paintings,
6:17
Speaker 1: I was taken back by a piece that wasn't yet framed.
6:24
Speaker 1: It was in a sort of a dimly lit area,
6:28
Speaker 1: and it was done in charcoals and dark browns and
6:33
Speaker 1: deep blues and gray sort of unhealthy flesh tones on
6:43
Speaker 1: the person that had been posing for that portrait, and
6:48
Speaker 1: I didn't recognize him, though I could have named all
6:51
Speaker 1: the others, and you could have too. So I asked
6:56
Speaker 1: one of the attendants, who is this? And he answered
7:02
Speaker 1: A lot of people ask me that. He said, it's
7:06
Speaker 1: a self portrait of the artist. This is mister Veil.
7:11
Speaker 1: He painted it during one of the darkest periods of
7:14
Speaker 1: his life. It's a rather recent work. I'm surprised to
7:22
Speaker 1: see that, realizing that a man of that talent and
7:28
Speaker 1: notoriety certainly didn't lack for genius or money, or fame
7:38
Speaker 1: or possessions. Dmitry Vail had it all. I ran with
7:46
Speaker 1: people in high places and even New royalty. His name
7:50
Speaker 1: was often in the news But as I studied that face,
7:57
Speaker 1: I realized that there was another side of him that
8:01
Speaker 1: most people had probably never known or seen. There's no
8:08
Speaker 1: record in the scriptures that the Apostle Paul it was
8:12
Speaker 1: a portrait painter. He painted his best works with a pen,
8:18
Speaker 1: and though a theological genius, by anybody's estimation, no one
8:27
Speaker 1: could paint humanity like the Apostle Paul. And what makes
8:33
Speaker 1: the seventh of Romans so significant is that it is
8:36
Speaker 1: a self portrait. It catches you up short because you
8:44
Speaker 1: would never expect him to title his portrait wretched man
8:53
Speaker 1: that I am. Maybe you haven't looked at the verse
8:57
Speaker 1: for a while. It's in verse twenty four of Roman
9:01
Speaker 1: seven that's his honest and realistic portrait, wretched man. For
9:11
Speaker 1: three chapters, Paul has painted the lost person. For the
9:16
Speaker 1: next two chapters, he paints the justified sinner. You know
9:22
Speaker 1: what justification means. It's the sovereign act of God, whereby
9:28
Speaker 1: he declares righteous the believing sinner while we are still
9:33
Speaker 1: in a sinning state. Learn the definition of justification doesn't
9:41
Speaker 1: mean just as if I'd never sin. That's a cheap definition.
9:45
Speaker 1: It means far more than that, much beyond that the
9:50
Speaker 1: sovereign act of God, it starts with God doesn't make
9:54
Speaker 1: us righteous because of this old nature. He declares us
9:59
Speaker 1: righteous in spite of our old nature. And there's a
10:02
Speaker 1: world of difference between the two. No nature is eradicated
10:08
Speaker 1: in this life, but when we are converted, a new
10:13
Speaker 1: nature comes and joins with our own spirit, and yet
10:19
Speaker 1: at the same time shares the same body with an
10:23
Speaker 1: old nature that will never be better, never improve. There's
10:30
Speaker 1: an old hymn that says, then we shall be where
10:33
Speaker 1: we would be. Then we shall be what we should be.
10:36
Speaker 1: Things that are not now nor could be soon shall
10:39
Speaker 1: be our own. Sound like a tongue twister, but it's
10:43
Speaker 1: great theology then, meaning when we are with Christ, when
10:49
Speaker 1: we are glorified, then that old nature is gone. Then
10:53
Speaker 1: the wretched man is history. Not until so. On that
11:01
Speaker 1: second frame of chapters four and five, the justified sinner
11:07
Speaker 1: is portrayed by the apostle Paul. And as we learned
11:11
Speaker 1: last time, when you get to chapter six, the frame
11:15
Speaker 1: is the picture, the portrait of the victorious believer, who
11:19
Speaker 1: is to live in grace and not ever again to
11:23
Speaker 1: be caught under the burden of the law, or to
11:29
Speaker 1: live as though he or we are victims of the
11:32
Speaker 1: old life. However, that nature is always there, as the
11:40
Speaker 1: Lord spoke to Cain, it's crouching at the door ready
11:47
Speaker 1: to bounce. Maybe it already has, even though you've begun
11:51
Speaker 1: the cruise with us. Maybe there's been a flare of
11:54
Speaker 1: temper or maybe a little impatience that first night when
11:58
Speaker 1: you had to wait for you meet, or perhaps it
12:05
Speaker 1: was something someone said, and you're you're already walking around
12:13
Speaker 1: with a grudge. That's the old nature saying, let me
12:19
Speaker 1: in let me in control again. I control you all
12:22
Speaker 1: your pre salvation life. Let me get back in there,
12:27
Speaker 1: in control. And when he does, you're a wretched individual.
12:33
Speaker 1: So am I. That's the seventh chapter. This is the
12:38
Speaker 1: this is the reality of the old nature that will
12:44
Speaker 1: never improve and never change, always there, So Paul, interestingly,
12:49
Speaker 1: coming off the heels of the sixth chapter, where we are,
12:53
Speaker 1: we are just on the edge of our seat with
12:56
Speaker 1: joy and delight. Grace is our is our watchword, and
13:01
Speaker 1: it's our it's our marching orders. And now we are
13:04
Speaker 1: we are to live to Christ and for his glory,
13:07
Speaker 1: and let others live as well. Someone made a made
13:09
Speaker 1: a great comment to me when she said, I think
13:13
Speaker 1: we're we're all better at uh at at receiving grace
13:17
Speaker 1: than giving grace. Isn't that a good insightful comment. I
13:22
Speaker 1: love receiving grace, not real good at giving grace. God
13:27
Speaker 1: does it all the time. It is of the Lord's
13:32
Speaker 1: mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fail.
13:37
Speaker 1: Not they are new every morning. That's grace. Though the
13:42
Speaker 1: clouds are there, the sun has risen. Great is his faithfulness. Well,
13:52
Speaker 1: in chapter seven we moved from the theory and the
13:57
Speaker 1: position of chapter six into the real reality of Chapter seven.
14:03
Speaker 1: And for the first thirteen versus, the emphasis is on
14:07
Speaker 1: the Mosaic law and it's clinging and it's clutching tendencies.
14:15
Speaker 1: Look at Chapter seven, verse one, do you not know,
14:23
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters. I'm speaking to those who know the law.
14:27
Speaker 1: And right now this is civil law. Is we'll call
14:32
Speaker 1: it a small letter l law. When we get to
14:34
Speaker 1: the mosaic law, it'll be capitalized, at least in the text.
14:38
Speaker 1: I'm using that the civil law has jurisdiction over a
14:42
Speaker 1: person as long as he lives. For the married woman
14:47
Speaker 1: is bound by law the civil law to her husband,
14:51
Speaker 1: while he's living. But if her husband dies, she's released
14:55
Speaker 1: from the law concerning her husband. You know that to
14:58
Speaker 1: be true. Some of you have lost your husband, you've
15:01
Speaker 1: married again. There's everything right about that. You are, in
15:08
Speaker 1: the eyes of the law, free to move right along
15:11
Speaker 1: in another marriage, and in the eyes of God, that's acceptable.
15:16
Speaker 1: Now verse three. So then if while her husband is living,
15:22
Speaker 1: she's joined to another man, that's another subject. She'll be
15:26
Speaker 1: called an adultress. But if her husband dies, here's our
15:32
Speaker 1: favorite word again, she's free from a law, so that
15:38
Speaker 1: she's not an adultress though she's joined to another man. Now,
15:46
Speaker 1: Paul isn't teaching about marriage. Is this isn't a subject
15:49
Speaker 1: on domestic life. These are all symbols of what he
15:52
Speaker 1: wants to teach us about the Christian life. And this
16:00
Speaker 1: will help you now to make the analogy, because we
16:02
Speaker 1: get to verse four, the letter L is capitalized and
16:05
Speaker 1: he moves to the mosaic law. So his point is this,
16:12
Speaker 1: the first husband is the mosaic law. The second husband
16:16
Speaker 1: is the Lord Jesus Christ. We're the bride, we're the woman,
16:21
Speaker 1: we're the wife. You and I believers in Christ. Now
16:24
Speaker 1: look at verse four. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you
16:28
Speaker 1: also were made to die to the law through the
16:31
Speaker 1: body of Christ. That was last time we were together.
16:34
Speaker 1: When Christ died, we died. When Christ overcame the clutches
16:38
Speaker 1: of the law, we overcame. He fulfilled the law. And
16:42
Speaker 1: in Christ positionally we live above the demands and requirements
16:48
Speaker 1: and burdens of the law. Capital l so that you
16:53
Speaker 1: might be joined to another, to whom to him capital age,
16:57
Speaker 1: to Christ, who was raised from the dead, that we
17:02
Speaker 1: might bear fruit for God while we were in the flesh.
17:06
Speaker 1: This is in our lost of state before Christ. This
17:09
Speaker 1: is BC and our unconverted state. While we were in
17:13
Speaker 1: the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the
17:16
Speaker 1: law were at work in the members of our body
17:19
Speaker 1: to bear fruit for death. And isn't that the truth?
17:24
Speaker 1: Time and time and time again look through that list,
17:28
Speaker 1: that the Mosaic law, and we realized we broke that.
17:32
Speaker 1: When we broke this one, we broke Yep, we broke that.
17:34
Speaker 1: When we broke this one, we broke that one. And
17:37
Speaker 1: it haunted us. It revealed to us just how wrong
17:40
Speaker 1: life was for us. The living out of life was
17:44
Speaker 1: never in the righteous level, a righteous plain. But now
17:51
Speaker 1: we have been released from the law, having died to
17:55
Speaker 1: that by which we were bound, so that we serve
18:00
Speaker 1: in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of
18:03
Speaker 1: the letter. I love that versus Scripture ties in with
18:07
Speaker 1: the previous chapter where he talked about being raised to
18:10
Speaker 1: walk verse into verse four, chapter six, in newness of life.
18:16
Speaker 1: There is a fresh newness of life. We have died
18:19
Speaker 1: to the first obligation, and we have been released from
18:23
Speaker 1: its demands, just as a woman is released from the
18:26
Speaker 1: first husband by his death and freed to marry a
18:30
Speaker 1: man with whom she falls in love, and grace comes
18:36
Speaker 1: to our rescue. Now, this presence of grace is our
18:40
Speaker 1: guide that brings to us a freshness to our obedience.
18:45
Speaker 1: We now obey out of delight. We're not driven, We're
18:49
Speaker 1: not required, we are not forced. We are now free.
18:54
Speaker 1: Whereas before Christ we couldn't obey if we tried. Now
18:59
Speaker 1: we have that inner compulsion, that desire, that drive, if
19:06
Speaker 1: you will to please our husband, our savior. Now Verse seven,
19:14
Speaker 1: what shall we say, then, is the law sinful? Oh?
19:21
Speaker 1: May it never be what a ghastly thought. Perish the thought.
19:25
Speaker 1: The law itself is not sinful. No, nothing wrong with
19:31
Speaker 1: the law. On the contrary, I would not have come
19:34
Speaker 1: to no sin except through the law. First time God
19:38
Speaker 1: ever wrote his word was in the writing of the
19:41
Speaker 1: of the Torah, the writing of the commandments, and in
19:46
Speaker 1: the writing of them he established a standard of his holiness.
19:50
Speaker 1: There's nothing wrong with it. Of course God wrote it.
19:52
Speaker 1: It is his nature in writing it is his standard.
19:56
Speaker 1: I would not have known about coveting if the law
19:59
Speaker 1: had not said you shall not comment. You see, the
20:05
Speaker 1: first benefit of the law is that it defines specific sins,
20:10
Speaker 1: and you're not left in a fog wondering what's sinful
20:14
Speaker 1: and what is The law gives us the rules. Some
20:17
Speaker 1: of you play tennis, and you know that there are
20:22
Speaker 1: rules to make the game fair. Right, just recently going
20:27
Speaker 1: through the Wimbledon series and remarkable games played. Now, when
20:34
Speaker 1: you play tennis correctly, you cannot bounce the ball two
20:39
Speaker 1: or three times if it's a cloudy day on one side,
20:44
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to do that. You can't serve two
20:47
Speaker 1: balls at once. You can only serve one ball. You
20:51
Speaker 1: can't serve the ball on either side. If you're tired,
20:56
Speaker 1: you have to serve it in the right court. These
20:59
Speaker 1: are called the laws of tennis, and they define the game.
21:04
Speaker 1: Nothing's wrong with the laws, and and it isn't the
21:08
Speaker 1: law's fault. If your ball goes out of the lion
21:11
Speaker 1: it it means you're out. You're you're you're out of bounds. Now,
21:17
Speaker 1: sometimes we would love to change the laws. I don't
21:20
Speaker 1: golf because the holes are too little. I would golf
21:25
Speaker 1: if they were big and you had a big, old
21:28
Speaker 1: beach ball you could bump along and you have to
21:31
Speaker 1: hit it so hard, hang out, drink cokes and kind
21:35
Speaker 1: of bump the ball and it goes in. Know, it's easy, great, big,
21:38
Speaker 1: but does it the silliest thing in the world. And
21:42
Speaker 1: the ball is like this tany and these guys just
21:48
Speaker 1: play it all the time and they just learn new
21:51
Speaker 1: words every day when they can't get And these professionals,
21:57
Speaker 1: I mean practice and practice it. And Tiger Woods looks
22:02
Speaker 1: it off to the side. You go, if he can't
22:04
Speaker 1: do it, why does anybody take their time to do it.
22:10
Speaker 1: You gotta put the ball in the hole. And you
22:14
Speaker 1: have to do it at par or under par. You're
22:17
Speaker 1: not that great a player. You can't get under PGA
22:20
Speaker 1: if you're great. There are rules that make it the game,
22:24
Speaker 1: make it right, that's the law. Don't pick at the law,
22:28
Speaker 1: saying that if it weren't for the law, it'd be
22:32
Speaker 1: a lot easier, or it'll be better. No, And the
22:38
Speaker 1: second thing about the law is that it arouses my interest.
22:42
Speaker 1: Isn't it funny when we hear something is not to
22:46
Speaker 1: be done, we want to do it. We want to
22:50
Speaker 1: do it. Paul told me that the sign in San
22:53
Speaker 1: Francisco that says try not to walk on the grass,
22:58
Speaker 1: what kind of warning is that? Try not do one?
23:01
Speaker 1: Ere we walk by where it says wet paint, don't touch.
23:07
Speaker 1: I touch it every single time, and I wouldn't even
23:11
Speaker 1: think of touching. I lived in southern California almost twenty
23:13
Speaker 1: five years, and for about twenty of those years I
23:16
Speaker 1: drive by those orange orchards and whoever picks them is
23:21
Speaker 1: really sloppy because they don't pick them a lot, and
23:24
Speaker 1: the oranges drop on the ground. And I drove by many,
23:28
Speaker 1: many an orchard with oranges on the ground until I
23:32
Speaker 1: saw a sign that said, right, do not eat fallen oranges.
23:40
Speaker 1: It was the first time I saw the sign. Couldn't
23:44
Speaker 1: wait to pull over and crawl over a fence and
23:48
Speaker 1: eat a fallen orange. It never dawned on me until
23:52
Speaker 1: I shouldn't do it. There's nothing wrong with the sign.
23:58
Speaker 1: There's something wrong with me.
24:00
Speaker 3: Yeah.
24:01
Speaker 1: And the law thirdly exposes the cause of sin. It's
24:12
Speaker 1: very important now we get down to verse verse thirteen.
24:15
Speaker 1: The law exposes the cause of sin. Look at thirteen. Therefore,
24:21
Speaker 1: did that which is good become a cause of death
24:24
Speaker 1: for me? May it never be? Rather it was sin.
24:30
Speaker 1: It was this, It was this inner nature in order
24:33
Speaker 1: that it might be shown to be sin by affecting
24:36
Speaker 1: my death through that which is good, that through the commandment,
24:40
Speaker 1: sin might become utterly sinful. If I have a tumor
24:51
Speaker 1: inside my body, and I get an MRI, and I
24:56
Speaker 1: come out from that exam and I sit down with
24:58
Speaker 1: my doctor that happens to be doctor Ken Cooper in Dallas,
25:02
Speaker 1: and he says, well, I need to tell you you
25:04
Speaker 1: have a tumor. And I said, you know what, it's
25:08
Speaker 1: that MRI. I think you got a problem with it.
25:11
Speaker 1: He'd looked at me like a calf looking at a
25:14
Speaker 1: new gate, like what the MRI is revealing the tumor.
25:20
Speaker 1: I read some years ago of a missionary that was
25:23
Speaker 1: in an area and the tribe was dying off because
25:26
Speaker 1: they were drinking contaminated river water, and he wanted to
25:31
Speaker 1: show them that they can't do that. So he's medical
25:35
Speaker 1: missionary brings his microscope and he shows the chief. He
25:39
Speaker 1: shows him the germ. He says, you cannot drink the water.
25:44
Speaker 1: It's contaminated. Look at the germ. Next morning, missionary got up,
25:49
Speaker 1: walked to his lab. The microscope was mashed into smitherings.
25:55
Speaker 1: Get rid of this microscope. We don't need to see that.
26:01
Speaker 1: Nothing wrong with the micro nothing wrong with the MRI.
26:06
Speaker 1: Something wrong with us. So experientially, this is why we struggle.
26:12
Speaker 1: This is the struggling Christian fourteen to twenty five of
26:15
Speaker 1: Romans seven, Look closely, Paul writes, virtually the same things twice. Sometime.
26:22
Speaker 1: You have to do that just to get the point across.
26:24
Speaker 1: In verses fourteen to seventeen, he says virtually the same
26:29
Speaker 1: as an eighteen to twenty Watch closely, you get fourteen.
26:32
Speaker 1: We know the law is spiritual, but I am a
26:36
Speaker 1: flesh sold into bondage to sin. For that which I
26:42
Speaker 1: am doing, I do not understand. For I am not
26:47
Speaker 1: practicing what I would like to do, but I'm doing
26:52
Speaker 1: the very thing I hate. But if I do the
26:57
Speaker 1: very thing I do not wish to do, I agree
27:01
Speaker 1: with the law confessing it's good. So now no longer
27:05
Speaker 1: am either one doing it. But there's a there's a
27:09
Speaker 1: nature that dwells within me. Let's pause here and make
27:14
Speaker 1: sure you got that. Residing within you is an older
27:19
Speaker 1: nature that is longing to be satisfied, as it was
27:25
Speaker 1: before Christ came into your life. It longs to have
27:30
Speaker 1: its way. It pleads for satisfaction. And as we mentioned
27:38
Speaker 1: about signs that the turn us in the wrong direction,
27:41
Speaker 1: you know deep inside you ought not do that, and
27:47
Speaker 1: amazingly we not only do it, we do it repeatedly.
27:51
Speaker 1: When they built a big hotel about ten or twelve
27:54
Speaker 1: story hotel in Galveston, one of the first tall hotels
27:58
Speaker 1: right into the Gulf Uh, it was sort of the
28:05
Speaker 1: the thing of beauty on that old island. And what
28:11
Speaker 1: they discovered shortly after it began to be used by
28:15
Speaker 1: guests is that this big uh picture window in the
28:21
Speaker 1: dining room right above the water's level kept getting broken
28:25
Speaker 1: by sinkers because people who were on the eighth and
28:30
Speaker 1: ninth floor would would bring their fishing pole and that
28:37
Speaker 1: and get it down you have to have a big
28:38
Speaker 1: sinker on the line. It would boom, come back, it
28:41
Speaker 1: would break the window. And they thought, what are we
28:43
Speaker 1: going to do, And some bright guy says, we need
28:47
Speaker 1: to take the sign out of the room that says
28:50
Speaker 1: absolutely no fishing from the from the balcony. Never again
28:57
Speaker 1: was the dining room window broken. The sign was great,
29:04
Speaker 1: but it just reminded people, by the way, when you come,
29:07
Speaker 1: it must be great fishing, or they wouldn't be wanting
29:09
Speaker 1: you to stop bringing your fishing pole. By the way, buddy,
29:14
Speaker 1: fishing from the ship is really tacky. I saw you
29:17
Speaker 1: doing that the other and I don't do that. Man.
29:20
Speaker 1: It's now now, look at eighteen to twenty. I know
29:24
Speaker 1: that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh.
29:29
Speaker 1: For the wishing is present in me, but the doing
29:33
Speaker 1: of the good is not. You know why the wishing
29:36
Speaker 1: is present within me. I've got a new nature. And
29:38
Speaker 1: my new nature is right there saying this is the
29:41
Speaker 1: way you want to walk, this is what it is
29:43
Speaker 1: to obey Christ, this is how you please him. But
29:47
Speaker 1: you don't have to. And the old nature says, but
29:50
Speaker 1: remember we've been friends forever. Remember we walked a long
29:55
Speaker 1: time before he came along and come on, relax, And
30:04
Speaker 1: there's this battle going on in between. And and even
30:09
Speaker 1: though he says it again, it doesn't stop us from
30:14
Speaker 1: doing it. I know that nothing good dwells in me,
30:16
Speaker 1: in my flesh. The wishing is present. The doing of
30:18
Speaker 1: good is not the good that I wish. Here's the
30:21
Speaker 1: testimony of our lives. The good that I wish I
30:24
Speaker 1: do not do, but I practiced the very evil that
30:27
Speaker 1: I do not wish. We walk exactly as our parents walked.
30:37
Speaker 1: We do exactly what they did, and that even though
30:41
Speaker 1: they were good parents, we've learned to walk just like
30:43
Speaker 1: they walk. Gilda Radner, before her death, wrote a book
30:48
Speaker 1: called It's Always Something, and in it the last few paragraphs,
30:53
Speaker 1: she writes, when I was a little girl, my nurse
30:57
Speaker 1: Dibbies cousin had a dog, just a mut but the
31:03
Speaker 1: dog was pregnant. I don't know how long dogs are pregnant,
31:07
Speaker 1: but she was due to have her puppies in about
31:10
Speaker 1: a week. She was out playing in the yard one
31:13
Speaker 1: day and got in the way of the lawnmower and
31:16
Speaker 1: her two hind legs got chopped off. Well. They rushed
31:20
Speaker 1: her to the vet and he said, I can sew
31:22
Speaker 1: her up, or you can just put her to sleep,
31:25
Speaker 1: but I want you to know that the puppies are
31:28
Speaker 1: all okay. She'll be able to deliver the puppies. Dibby's
31:33
Speaker 1: cousin said, well, keep her alive, we want the puppies.
31:38
Speaker 1: So the vet sewed her backside up, and over the
31:41
Speaker 1: next few weeks the dog learned to walk funny, and
31:46
Speaker 1: so she she didn't worry about the pain. She just
31:49
Speaker 1: learned to walk by taking two steps in front and
31:52
Speaker 1: kind of bringing her rear up from the back end
31:54
Speaker 1: without her legs, and she'd walked to and then she'd
31:56
Speaker 1: bring her rear up, and then she had the puppies.
31:59
Speaker 1: Gave the six little puppies perfect help. She nursed them
32:03
Speaker 1: and weaned them, and when they learned to walk, they
32:05
Speaker 1: all walked just like her. Of course, of course, that's
32:14
Speaker 1: that's what we do. And and it's amazing how obvious
32:24
Speaker 1: it is and we and it doesn't change. That's the
32:30
Speaker 1: struggle that explains to all of us today, the power
32:36
Speaker 1: of the old nature, and no amount of rules stops us.
32:43
Speaker 1: Even though the rules are obvious. Obviously you don't touch
32:47
Speaker 1: web pain. Obviously you don't change the rules and the
32:52
Speaker 1: game stays fair. I was reading a Cynthia the other day.
32:57
Speaker 1: Somebody had sent me these these true two statements that
33:01
Speaker 1: appear on things people buy. On a Sear's hair dryer,
33:10
Speaker 1: do not use while sleeping, okay on Swanson frozen dinners,
33:21
Speaker 1: serving suggestions, defrosts on marks and Spencer bread pudding product
33:31
Speaker 1: will be hot after heating gets better. On packaging for
33:39
Speaker 1: a Rowenta iron. Do not iron clothes on body, okay,
33:51
Speaker 1: night tall sleep aid warning may cause drowsiness. On a
34:00
Speaker 1: American Airlines packet of nuts instructions open packet eat nuts.
34:11
Speaker 1: On a child's Superman costume, wearing of the garment does
34:16
Speaker 1: not enable you to fly. On a Swedish chainsaw, do
34:25
Speaker 1: not attempt to stop the chain with your hands or genitals.
34:29
Speaker 2: Well, I hope not.
34:31
Speaker 1: I got old man, guys, I try to stop that sucker,
34:38
Speaker 1: of course not idiots. Don't do that, boy, and I'll
34:49
Speaker 1: set you free.
34:50
Speaker 3: Man.
34:50
Speaker 1: You get that goob? Isn't it? And isn't it funny
34:58
Speaker 1: how we try to act like uh something that we're not.
35:04
Speaker 1: There's a great old saying I read from a country preacher.
35:06
Speaker 1: He says, be who he is because if you ain't
35:09
Speaker 1: who he is, he is who you ain't. You and
35:12
Speaker 1: I are just rotten ciners. Don'kay how sophisticated we get.
35:18
Speaker 1: I really don't care how many degrees you got. You're
35:22
Speaker 1: just a rotten center. Given your choice, you'll go right
35:27
Speaker 1: to the slop. You'll, you'll just lust as soon as
35:30
Speaker 1: you look. You'll, you'll, you'll grab what you can, including
35:35
Speaker 1: the glory. You just everything within us. And and sometime
35:44
Speaker 1: we we do what is right, and we're so grateful
35:48
Speaker 1: for doing it. And even when we do what's wrong,
35:50
Speaker 1: people miss it because of their nature. Uh look, look,
35:57
Speaker 1: just just face it. Just face the fact two or
36:04
Speaker 1: three things. Number one, we cannot curb our own disobedience.
36:10
Speaker 1: We cannot curb our own disobedience, no matter how hard
36:15
Speaker 1: we try, no matter how pious we look. You cannot,
36:19
Speaker 1: on your own curb your own disobedience. You cannot do it.
36:25
Speaker 1: All the positive thinking in the world will not clean
36:28
Speaker 1: up your old nature. It'll be right there tomorrow morning,
36:33
Speaker 1: ready to pounce. You cannot curb your own nature. That's
36:39
Speaker 1: why it's describing here the struggling Christian. We need help
36:43
Speaker 1: from another source. We need help from a source that
36:47
Speaker 1: has no old nature and only one qualified. Here's the second.
36:54
Speaker 1: We do not fulfill our own wishes. We do not
37:01
Speaker 1: fulfill our own wishes, no matter how good or noble,
37:06
Speaker 1: our motives may be race dead. When my mentor said
37:10
Speaker 1: on one occasion, after reading these verses that Paul must
37:14
Speaker 1: have been a golfer, tongue in cheek, because all golfers
37:19
Speaker 1: know that what you want to do you do not do,
37:22
Speaker 1: and what you do not want to do you find
37:25
Speaker 1: yourself constantly doing. You cannot, for some reason fulfill what
37:32
Speaker 1: you really want to do that is on your own
37:38
Speaker 1: see verse seventeen. So now no longer am I the
37:42
Speaker 1: one doing it, but sin which in dwells me. See
37:46
Speaker 1: the word in dwells from a Greek term that means
37:50
Speaker 1: to be at home within, to be at home, but sin,
37:55
Speaker 1: which is at home within me, within me. You know
38:00
Speaker 1: what I thought of when I read that. I thought
38:03
Speaker 1: of dust. Dust. You ladies, some of your house husbands
38:08
Speaker 1: will know what I'm talking about. You can vacuum, you
38:13
Speaker 1: can dust, You can even, like Cynthia, hang out the sheets.
38:18
Speaker 1: We're the only family in our neighborhood that hangs out
38:24
Speaker 1: our sheets. Our neighbors drive by like ah. They don't
38:32
Speaker 1: know where if from mel Campo. But drive run and
38:35
Speaker 1: you can hang out your sheet. You can beat the
38:38
Speaker 1: bedspread just for an hour, clean dust, and then you
38:47
Speaker 1: got everything back. At the end of the day, the
38:50
Speaker 1: sun's starting to go down, and you go, I grant
38:54
Speaker 1: you let the ray of the sunshine and do this
38:56
Speaker 1: on the sofa. Is dust everywhere, it is omnipresent. That's sin.
39:15
Speaker 1: Why I'm not camping on this so long, Because so
39:18
Speaker 1: many people spend too much time trying to curb their
39:22
Speaker 1: own sin. You can't do that. You have to abide
39:27
Speaker 1: in one who does that for you. You have to
39:31
Speaker 1: rest in him, rely on him, give it over to him,
39:36
Speaker 1: release it to him. You can't stop lusting on your own.
39:40
Speaker 1: You can't stop greed on your own. You can't stop
39:43
Speaker 1: your own temper. But one who lives within you has
39:47
Speaker 1: the ability to put the brakes on that. And third,
39:53
Speaker 1: we cannot ignore our own sinful nature. It's like the
39:59
Speaker 1: root that gives the fruit in our lives, and it's ugly.
40:08
Speaker 1: Fritz Ridenauer, in a wonderful little book, How to Be
40:11
Speaker 1: a Christian without being Religious, not a great title, Romans writes,
40:15
Speaker 1: what's your problem, temper, impatience, self control, lust, being honest, laziness, pride.
40:25
Speaker 1: Everyone has his skeletons, and they don't always stay in
40:29
Speaker 1: the closet. You want to choose obedience, but you sin.
40:33
Speaker 1: You want to do right, but you do wrong. Sometime
40:35
Speaker 1: you'd almost swear you were a split personality, regular walking
40:42
Speaker 1: civil war. The inescapable fact is that by ourselves we
40:47
Speaker 1: cannot do the right thing. And so he puts his
40:57
Speaker 1: finger on the issue verse twenty one. I find then
41:01
Speaker 1: the principle that evil is present in me, the one
41:05
Speaker 1: who wishes to do good. I joyfully concur with the
41:11
Speaker 1: law of God in the inner man, But I see
41:13
Speaker 1: a different law in the members of my body, waging
41:17
Speaker 1: war in that good wording, waging war against the law
41:21
Speaker 1: of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the
41:24
Speaker 1: law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man
41:28
Speaker 1: that I am, all left to myself. Paul is no
41:33
Speaker 1: more or less than any one of us. That's who
41:36
Speaker 1: we are, wretched man that I am. And then ask
41:40
Speaker 1: this significant question, who will, who will set me free
41:47
Speaker 1: from the body of this death? And that introduces the
41:52
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit. He comes in chapter eight in full bloom,
41:58
Speaker 1: and we find the praying new power that enables us
42:05
Speaker 1: to do the things that we can never do within ourselves.
42:15
Speaker 1: Some time, when we mean the right thing, we just
42:21
Speaker 1: don't say it the right way. It's as simple as that.
42:24
Speaker 1: Some time ago I was sick and I missed Sunday
42:27
Speaker 1: at church, and following week I had a dad write
42:31
Speaker 1: me this note. I just got done putting our daughter,
42:37
Speaker 1: Mikhayla to bed. As usual, we spent time praying together.
42:42
Speaker 1: Mark Young told us that Chuck was ill that day,
42:45
Speaker 1: and among other things, we should pray for our pastor
42:48
Speaker 1: that he would get well. First, my daughter prayed, and
42:51
Speaker 1: then I prayed. Afterward, my daughter stared at me with
42:55
Speaker 1: a very concerned look and ask why I had prayed
43:00
Speaker 1: for Pastor Chuck like I did. I said, because he
43:03
Speaker 1: needs our prayers. She still wasn't satisfied, and I actually bothered.
43:09
Speaker 1: I didn't understand her concern and asked what was behind it.
43:13
Speaker 1: She wanted to know why I had prayed for Pastor
43:16
Speaker 1: Chuck's quick return to Hell. I guess I must not
43:24
Speaker 1: have articulated the th at the end of health very well,
43:33
Speaker 1: simplest things, little things, tiny things, inadvertent things. But if
43:41
Speaker 1: it weren't for the magnificent power of the Spirit of God,
43:46
Speaker 1: the whole book would end with verse twenty four. Wretched
43:50
Speaker 1: man that I am. It's a magnificent thing to know
43:56
Speaker 1: that our God has come to our rescue and has
44:01
Speaker 1: marvelously provided a power that we haven't in ourselves. I
44:07
Speaker 1: wrap it all up with four simple little ways to
44:10
Speaker 1: respond to this. Freely say I don't understand, just admit it.
44:16
Speaker 1: Second Fully, accept nothing good dwells in my flesh, which
44:22
Speaker 1: will help you a lot with your pride of a
44:26
Speaker 1: few things are sillier to operate on than pride, though
44:31
Speaker 1: it keeps emerging. Third, always leave room for imperfection. It's
44:37
Speaker 1: a good word for all of us, all of us,
44:40
Speaker 1: not just the married, but singles as well. Leave room
44:43
Speaker 1: for imperfection in you and in others. And Fourth, openly
44:48
Speaker 1: admit your true feelings of frustration. And when you do,
44:54
Speaker 1: you simply say, Lord, I can't pull it off. I
44:56
Speaker 1: can't do it. I can't make it happen. But you
45:00
Speaker 1: can do it all. And without you, I am what nothing.
45:06
Speaker 1: Without me, you can do nothing. Bow with me, please.
45:18
Speaker 1: It was the poet who wrote, do this and live
45:21
Speaker 1: the law demands, But gives me neither feet nor hands.
45:26
Speaker 1: A better word, God's grace does bring it, bids me
45:30
Speaker 1: fly and gives me wings. I speak to you who
45:37
Speaker 1: are believers today and urge you to release the controls
45:42
Speaker 1: of your life to the one who is able to
45:45
Speaker 1: handle the urges. Do that now, Do that today, do
45:52
Speaker 1: that tonight, do it every morning, do it through the day.
46:00
Speaker 1: It's no wonder to us, Father that the Psalmist prayed
46:02
Speaker 1: evening and morning and noon. I will pray and cry aloud,
46:09
Speaker 1: and you will hear my voice. And this lovely ship
46:14
Speaker 1: of all things, we've brought the enemy on board, and
46:19
Speaker 1: he lives within us. It's enough to make the trip
46:23
Speaker 1: a wretched, miserable journey. If he has his way, he'll
46:29
Speaker 1: make us miserable, and he'll use it to make others miserable. So,
46:35
Speaker 1: in the process of learning how to walk, curb within us,
46:40
Speaker 1: by the power of your spirit, those things that make
46:44
Speaker 1: us ugly and unkind and impatient and angry and revengeful
46:54
Speaker 1: and greedy and proud in the name of Christ. And
47:01
Speaker 1: by the power of his spirit, everybody said Amen.
47:10
Speaker 3: The preceding message, Portrait of a Struggling Christian, was copyrighted
47:15
Speaker 3: in two thousand and eight, and the sound recording was
47:17
Speaker 3: copyrighted in twenty fifteen by Charles R. Swindall, Inc. All
47:21
Speaker 3: rights are reserved worldwide