Now if you would, let's open
our Bibles to Romans chapter 7. Book of Romans chapter 7. Now I've entitled the message this
morning, The Life Experience of a Believer. The Life Experience
of a Believer. And obviously that's what we're
going to talk about, the walk and the life of an experience,
what we experience, that which is common to all believers as
we walk through the wilderness of this world until the Lord
takes us home to be with Him or until He comes again the second
time. And I think that Romans chapter
7, the whole chapter is really one of the best passages in the
Word of God to describe that. There are others, but this is
one of the best. And I've been talking about the
warfare of the flesh and the spirit from Galatians 5, and
Romans 7 is one of the best passages to talk about that subject, the
warfare of the flesh and the spirit, the inner warfare that's
taking place in each and every one of you who are true believers.
And that really begins at verse 14 of Romans 7 specifically,
but the first verses of this chapter sort of lays the foundation
for that and gives it substance. When we talk about the warfare
of the flesh and the spirit, obviously we could simplify it,
talk about, well, we're just warring between doing what's
right and what's wrong, but there's a little more to it than that.
But I want to begin back in the first part of this chapter. I'm
not going to cover it all this morning, obviously, but just
to lay the foundation of this thing of the life experience
of a believer. And then, of course, we'll get
into the last part. There's a lot of difficult language,
a lot of debate over this passage, I think unnecessary. But when
we talk about the warfare of the flesh and the spirit, let
me just read one verse out of that psalm that Brother Aaron
just read, Psalm 144. I believe that's a psalm where
David is expressing his conflict, inner conflict and outer conflict.
You know, we talked about the war of the flesh, warfare with
the world, the flesh, and the devil. We've talked about the
world. David's talking about it all. But that first verse
sort of sums up the foundation and the power by which we fight
this warfare. He says, blessed be the Lord,
my strength. The Lord there is Jehovah, the
covenant God of grace, the God who saves sinners by his grace
through Christ. He's my strength. I don't have
any power, but he is. That's what the Bible talks about
when it talks about Christ in us. It's talking about Christ
dwelling within his people by his spirit and by his word to
give us power, his power. strength and his goodness. And then he said, which teacheth
my hands to war. We have to be taught to war.
And so it's almost like you've got, just like when you go into
the military service, you go to bootcamp and you learn the
basics and then you go out and you learn even more. And that's
what it is. And how does he teach us to war?
And he teaches my fingers to fight. Well, he teaches us through
his word and that's what we're doing. And that's why I want
you to look at Romans 7. Now, first of all, understand
this. You know, I thought about this.
True Christianity, and you have to say true Christianity because
there's so much false Christianity, but true Christianity is like
no other religion on earth. I mean, think about it. It's
a religion of Christ, obviously. That's why it's called Christian.
Disciples, followers of Christ, saved by Christ. It's a religion
of pure, sovereign grace. Grace, grace, grace. And it's
the only religion of pure, sovereign grace. All other religions are
religions of works. Works-oriented religion. Man
working his way to achieve some goal that he will gain merit
before God, blessings from God. That's all other religions. But
true Christianity is not like that now. For by grace are you,
we quote this verse all the time, by grace are you saved through
faith, that's not of yourselves, the gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. We are his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works. Now, what that tells us right
off is that living the Christian life is a matter of grace. It's
not living by our own power or our own goodness, it's living
by the power and out of the goodness of Christ. following his word. But let me tell you something
else about true Christianity. It spans eternity. It's the only
religion that does. It's the result of an everlasting
covenant of grace made before time between the Father and the
Son and the Spirit. This is what the Bible teaches.
Paul, in speaking to Timothy of the great salvation that God
has freely given his people, in 2 Timothy 1 and verse 9, let
me just read it to you, he says this, he says, it's the gospel
according to the power of God who has saved us and called us
with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. That's an amazing thing. Now,
it spans eternity. That means it has no beginning
and no end. But it's also worked out in time.
In fact, I guess we could say with pretty much confidence that
God created time, didn't he? But it's worked out in time.
Paul went on in verse 10 of that same chapter, he said this same
gospel, this same salvation which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began is now, a word of time, now, presently
made manifest, how? By the appearing of our Savior,
Jesus Christ, who has abolished death. Now how did he do that?
By his death. I love that old treatise by the
old Puritan John Owen, the death of death and the death of Christ.
He abolished death by His death and has brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel. You wouldn't know about this,
this immortality, this life, except God had revealed it to
you through the gospel. And you wouldn't know that and
have that except Christ died on the cross in time. It was worked out in time first
by Christ on the cross. Legally, in time, He put away
our sins. He brought in righteousness.
That's what the Bible means when it says He was made sin. He paid
our debt in full. That's what that means. This
is the ground of our salvation and it's the foundation of Christianity,
true Christianity. Christ and Him crucified. That's
why Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 2, I strive
not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Now you think about a statement like that. And then you read
the writings of Paul, the writings of God through Paul. And you
see, Paul dealt with a lot of subjects. He dealt with a lot
of subjects, but everything that Paul dealt with was building
upon the foundation of Christ and Him crucified and risen again.
Everything that Paul wrote was to lead sinners ultimately to
Christ and Him crucified and risen again. Even in obedience. Even the details of things like
marriage, or things like church unity, or things like the fruit
of the Spirit. It was all in that context of
Christ and Him crucified. And if you remove Christ and
Him crucified and risen again, what have you got? You've got
false religion. You've got moralizing. That's
all you're doing. Now I know some people need moralizing
as far as their character and conduct, but that will not save
a sinner from sin. That will not enable a believer
to live the Christian life, this life experience of a believer.
It takes the power and the grace of God. So it's worked out in
time first in Christ on the cross. It's worked out in time in our
new birth. In fact, if you want to talk about the life experience
of a believer, you have to start with death. Did you know that?
Because how are we born physically? Ephesians chapter two and verse
one says, and you who were, you hath he quickened who were what?
Dead in trespasses and sins. Spiritually dead. We had physical
life, but we didn't have spiritual life. We start out dead spiritually.
That's our experience. What does that mean? Well, that
means we have no spiritual life. That means we don't have spiritual
ears to hear and have any love for and desire for and belief
in the things of the glory of God in Christ. We don't see the
glory of God in Christ. We're blind spiritually, deaf
spiritually. No heart for Christ, no heart
for his word or his people or his worship. We have a heart
for religion. That's man by nature. Man by
nature is religious now. I mean, you can get him reformed
up, cleaned up, fixed up, joined up, baptized down, and everything. You can do all of that, but it
will not save him. He's still spiritually dead.
If you think that baptism in the water will save you, you
go down into the water dead and you come back up dead. Isn't
that right? Spiritually dead. So we start
in spiritual death. Well, what's the answer to that?
Well, in time, Christ said this. He said, you must be born again.
That's what he told Nicodemus in John chapter three. You must
be born again. That's a spiritual birth. That's
a birth from above. We fell in Adam under the curse
of the law and death. Now that does not deny or contradict
the fact that we were already chosen in Christ before the foundation
of the world, given to him and under his surety ship. How long
has Christ been my surety? Think about it. Answer that biblically.
He's never not been my surety according to the scripture. When
did he perform the duties of one who is a surety on the cross
of Calvary? But he's always been my surety.
If you're a child of God today, he was your surety before this
world was ever created. Isn't that right? That's what
the covenant of grace is about. That's how the Old Testament
believers, like Abel and Enoch, and Noah and Abraham could have
been justified before God even before Christ actually came and
performed that great work on the cross in time. Why? Because he was their surety and
it was given them by promise and it was always sure and certain
in Christ. So much so that God justified
them upon the same ground that he justified you who are justified
before him. The blood and righteousness of
Christ. Even before that blood was shed on the cross, God justified
Abel, based on it, because of the surety. They're saved by
grace, same way as we're saved. But then in our experience, as
the fruit and result of Christ's death on the cross, God, the
Holy Spirit, brings us under the preaching of the gospel.
That's what Paul wrote there, 2 Timothy chapter 1, 9 and 10,
made manifest through the gospel, And he gives a spiritual life.
We're born again. Born again by the Spirit of God.
And that spiritual life, that new birth is not the result of
the will of man. The scripture teaches us that.
That's what separates true Christianity from false Christianity. False
Christianity will tell you it's all the result of your doing
better than the sinner sitting next to you who won't do better.
Basically. Christ said, or John wrote of
Christ, in John chapter one it says, but as many as received
him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God. And that
power there is not ability, it's the right and a title to call
yourself a child of God. Even to them that believe on
his name, which were born not of blood, that is not of natural
birth, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of the flesh, nor
the will of man, but of God, the power and will of God. James
1.18 says it this way, of his own will beget he us with the
word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of
his creatures. Now Romans 7 involves both of
those things. And as I said before, we're gonna
be talking about the warfare of the flesh and the spirit,
but understand this, the main purpose of what Paul is writing
here in Romans 7 keeps right with the context of the chapters
before and the chapters after, but what he's trying to show
mainly is this, the impossibility of the law, the law of God, to
make a sinner righteous before God, before salvation and after
salvation, even as a believer. Now you know before you became
a believer, before you were born again by the Spirit and brought
to faith in Christ, the law could not make you righteous by your
works. But now even after having been born again, even after having
been brought to Christ by faith and true repentance and given
spiritual life, the law still cannot make you righteous before
God. Cannot do it. by your best efforts,
the law cannot give you a right standing before God. And listen
to me, and if you have true conviction of sin, and if you're born again
you do, if you know your frame, if you know that God would be
just to send any of us to eternal damnation based upon our best
efforts to keep the law, then the law cannot even give you
peace of conscience. peace of mind. For any who look
to the law for salvation can't do it. For forgiveness, the law
can't do it. For righteousness or justification
before God, eternal life in glory, by deeds of the law shall no
flesh be justified in God's sight. There's no justification before
God either in the court of heaven or in the court of conscience.
other than what God himself provides freely in the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ by his blood and righteousness. Listen to what
he says. He first talks about the court
of heaven. Now let me, before I read these
first few verses, I want to caution you on one thing. This is not
a biblical treatise here on marriage and divorce. Many people who want to teach
what the Bible teaches on marriage and divorce and remarriage will
go to this chapter. They're wrong. That's not what Paul's talking
about here. He uses marriage as an example to illustrate his
point. But if you want to talk about
marriage and divorce and remarriage, you've got to go to other passages.
Even Paul talks about it in other passages. But that's not what
this is about. Reason I said this, I was teaching on this
one time down in Georgia. And a woman said, well, you didn't
even talk about divorce. I said, well, that passage is
not about divorce. That's not what it's talking
about. Look at the context. He says in verse one, know you
not brethren, for I speak to them that know the law. Now right
away we know he's talking to believers, true believers. They're
brethren in Christ. Brethren. He's not ashamed. Christ
is not ashamed to call us brethren. Why? Because our salvation honors
his father. How does it honor his father?
Through what he accomplished on Calvary. God is just to justify
a sinner like me through Christ, by his grace. And he said, I
speak to them that know the law. Only a true believer knows the
law. Others don't. Now they might be able to quote
it. They might be able to recite the Ten Commandments, or they
might be able to recite the Beatitudes, they might be able to recite
a lot of it. They might admire it, they might talk about it,
they might discuss it, but they don't know it, the reality of
it. Because let me tell you something, now let me give you a simple
way to divide that up in your mind, and that's this. Any sinner
who's trying to keep the law, to be saved, to be righteous,
to earn God's favor, does not know the law. He thinks he does,
but he does not know the law. I don't care if they can quote
Genesis to Revelation. If they're trying to be saved
or be made righteous by their law keeping, they do not know
the law. They don't understand the law.
Remember Paul said that to the Galatians when they were sidetracked
by legalists. who claimed to be Christian.
And they said, well, you're saved by the grace of God in Christ,
but that's not enough. You've got to keep the law. And
remember what Paul says, oh, foolish Galatians. He said, oh,
you that desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law?
What does the law say? The law says, cursed is everyone
that continueth not in all things which are written in the book
of the law to do. Well, Paul's saying, hey, I'm talking to you
who know the law. You know what the law says. The law says do
and live, disobey and die. And there's no provision for
forgiveness or atonement in the law. It will not exonerate you. There's no excuses. There's no
extenuating circumstances in the law of God. It's the perfect
law of God. and it requires perfection. I've
told you the story about a man I was having lunch with and he
was talking about somebody being saved because that person did
what was required. And I asked him the question,
I said, well, what do you believe is required? And he said, well,
I really don't know. And so I told him, I said, well, let me tell
you what's required. And he said, what? I said, perfection, perfect
satisfaction to the law of God. And his eyes got that big. He
said, well, nobody can do that. And I said, that's right, that's
why salvation is by grace through Christ and not by works. So I'm
talking to you who know the law, and he says how that, look at
verse one, how that the law hath dominion over man as long as
he liveth. You're born under the law, live under the law,
it has dominion as long as you live. He said, and he uses marriage
as an example, an illustration. He says, for the woman which
hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as
he liveth. But if the husband be dead, she's loose from the
law of her husband. We take the marriage, you take
the marriage, that says, till death do us part. That's where
that comes from. And that is in the law of Moses.
It's even before the law of Moses, isn't it? And he says, so then
if while her husband liveth, she be married to another man,
she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband be dead, she's
free from that law. So he's saying the only thing
that'll free you from that law is death, all right? And somebody
says, well, that puts the divorced person in a different category
than everybody else, like a leper. Give them the scarlet letter. And no it don't. We're all sinners.
I'm not going to get into all that about marriage and divorce
today. That's not what this is about. But we're all sinners.
We're either sinners lost in our sins or sinners saved by
the grace of God. We don't have to put you or anybody
in a specific category. If you're bringing reproach upon
the church, we'll deal with it the way the Bible says to. But don't look at yourself as
some kind of a specified category of sinner that's off from the
rest of us like a leper. That's not the case, that's not
what this is teaching. He's just simply saying she's
bound her husband until he's dead, and verse three says, so
that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
Now here's what he's leading to, look at verse four. He says,
wherefore, my brethren, you also are become dead to the law by
the body of Christ. Now there's the point. You're
dead to the law by the body of Christ. And that's what he's
talking about. Here's the court of heaven. God's
law and justice has a matter against us. Somebody asked me
one time, have the children of God ever been under the wrath
of God? Not personally, but we were in
Christ. We were in Christ. What did he
suffer on the cross? What did Christ suffer on the
cross? The wrath of God. Who did he do it for? For his
people. Were you in him? Yes. We were
under God's wrath in Christ. He took our wrath for us. He's
our substitute. Our sins were made his. They
were his sins, not because he committed them, not because they
contaminated him or anything like that, but because they were
charged to him. They were accounted to him. And we became dead to
the law. The laws, all the matters of
law against me, I'm dead to. How? Because I turned over a
new leaf? No. But because Christ died on
the cross. He took my wrath. Now that's
our hope. And so the court of heaven has
nothing against me. That's what he's saying here.
I'm dead to the law. I don't owe a debt to the law.
Christ paid my debt. He paid it in full by his obedience
unto death. And now nobody can lay anything
to my charge, not even Satan. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justified. Who
can condemn us? It's Christ that died. We were
never under the wrath of God, but we were in Christ and he
took our wrath. That's what substitution is all
about. That's the foundation of Christianity right there.
That's the ground of our salvation. Now the body that was prepared
for him, you see the law couldn't justify me based on my works,
that's why Christ had to come. And that teaches that is we as
believers have been made free from any legal obligation to
the law of God. Death frees the person from any
legal debt. How did I die? I died in Christ.
Look back over at Romans chapter 6 and verse 5. He says, for if we have been
planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also
in the likeness of his resurrection. Christ died as a substitute.
And death, his death, freed all his people from any legal debt
or obligation to the law. And the believer's debt to the
law was fully paid in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now
that's the foundation of Christian living, right there. When Christ
died, and that's why his body, it says the body of Christ over
in Hebrews, it said, a body hast thou prepared for me? That's
why a body was prepared for him, so that he could die. And when
he did that, he paid the debt full. He paid the full debt of
the law, which was against his children, his sheep, his church.
And in order to redeem and justify us, God couldn't, you see, God
couldn't just merely declare us or decree us righteous without
that law being satisfied. Justice had to be satisfied.
Righteousness had to be established. Sins had to be put away. How?
By deaths. The wages of sin is death. The
blood of Christ put them all away. So he had to die. And the
scriptures declare that when he laid down his life, he fully
paid the redemption price. That's what redemption is. We're
become dead to the law by the body of Christ. And that's how
all of God's people, Old Testament and New Testament, are justified
and made right and accepted before God. But now salvation is more
than just a legal matter. Now, what we're talking about
here, our death to the law by the body of Christ is our redemption,
that's the ground of our salvation, that's the foundation of Christianity,
but there's also fruit. Now we talked about in Galatians
five, the fruit of the spirit. We talked about being born again.
I look here in verse four, he says, wherefore my brethren,
you also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, by
the death of Christ on the cross, in order that you should be married
to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, in order
that we should bring forth fruit unto God." Christ did all of
that in establishing the ground of our salvation. in order that
there would be fruit. And what is that fruit? That's
the new birth. That's the life, spiritual life
given to every one of his people. We're married to Christ. What
does that mean? It means to be united to him. How are we united
to him? By faith. We believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Paul told the Corinthians, he
said, I've espoused you to one husband. You're to be loyal to
him. You're married to Christ. That's
his church. And every individual that makes
up his church. We're married to Christ. We've been brought
from unbelief to faith in Him. We've been brought from death
unto life. From faith, from unbelief to faith in Him. From rebellion
to repentance. And here's what he's saying here.
That you should bring forth fruit unto God. The fruit of the Spirit. That's the result of Christ's
death for us. We have the work of the Holy
Spirit in us. Now this is where the warfare begins. When we talk
about the warfare of the flesh and the spirit, when the Spirit
of God enters in and begins to produce fruit which we bear,
then begins the warfare of the flesh and the spirit that Paul's
gonna describe later on. Look at verse five. He says,
for when we were in the flesh, now we've talked about the flesh.
The flesh in a believer, in a child of God, is all the remaining
sin and evil, evil desires, attitudes, everything you can name that
is opposed to God's Word, opposed to the glory of God in Christ.
Attitudes, thoughts, actions, that's the flesh, sin. And what
he's talking about when we were in the flesh, now notice he doesn't
say when the flesh was in us, because the flesh is still in
us. He says when we were in the flesh, what does it mean? When
we were unregenerate, when we were in unbelief, when we were
lost in our sins, before we were born again. He says the motions
of sins, that word motions, you might have this in your concordance,
is passions. Passions. Now did you know before you were
saved by the grace of God, before you were born again, you were
passionate about sin? Now you might say, well not me. Hold
on. The passions of sins which were
by the law did work in our members. What's our members? That's my
hands, that's my eyes, my ears, my nose, my legs. That's the
members, the physical body. It did work in my members to
bring forth what? Fruit unto death. The wages of
sin is death. Now how was I passionate about
sin? When you look at a verse like this, it says, when we were
in the flesh, the motions of sin, which were by the law. What
does that mean, by the law? How did the law, what he's saying
here is the law of God stirred up passions in me that were sinful. When? Before I knew Christ. Before I knew the law. Before
I knew my sin. How did that happen? Well, it's
one of two ways. One of two ways that we were,
in essence, passionate about sin stirred up by the law of
God. One way is abject rebellion. You know anybody like that, or
were you like that before God saved you? Just out and out and
out rebel. Anything, any authority, any
law, either of God or of society, you were just a, what do they
call it? Well, just a rebel. Immoral? That's one way. And you can describe
that like a lot of times when we go to this verse, we'll use
the illustration of a child. If you put a child in a room
and you give him ten toys to play with, but there's just one
thing in that room he can't touch, you say, you can play with all
these ten toys, but you can't touch this one thing, what's
that child going to do? He's gonna go after the one thing
he cannot touch. I always use the remote control
to illustrate that with my grandchildren. I bet you there's 10 remote controls
in their little toy box. I mean, they're real remote controls,
but they just don't work. You know, you got those, don't
you? And they're in their toy box, but the one remote, and
even Neil does that. I mean, he's just eight months,
and I'm telling you, it's like radar. The one remote he wants
is the one I don't want him to have that works. And that's by
nature, you see. And that's rebellion. You can
illustrate this way. But let me tell you something about this
verse here that you need to understand. Think about Saul of Tarsus when
you read this. The apostle Paul, what he was
before he was saved. Was he an immoral, perverted
individual who's trying to kill and rob everybody he saw? You
can read about it in Philippians chapter 3. You can read about
it in the book of Acts. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees.
He was a religious man. He was doing his dead level best
to keep the law in order to be saved. In order to be righteous
before God. That's the second way that this
passionate life exposes itself as it's stirred up by the law
of God. In other words, the law of God stirs a person up to be
religious. to be moral, to be ceremonial
and sincere, but in a way that denies the law of God. Now, the
problem's not with the law. Paul's gonna deal with that.
The problem's not the law now. There's no flaw in the law. The
problem is me and you. The problem is sin, self-righteousness. But think about the Apostle Paul,
and he's gonna use himself as an illustration here in the next
verses, I'll get to them next week. But he says, for when we
were in the flesh, when I was unregenerate, the passions of
sin which were by the law did work in my members, either in
a rebellious way or in a religious way, but either way to bring
forth fruit unto death. You look at the out and out rebel
who has no regard for the scriptures, no regard for anybody or anybody
else but himself and his own perverted selfishness and ways,
that's fruit unto death, obviously, isn't it? Even the world can
see that. That's why we have jails. That's why we have law
officers. Because even the world recognizes
that that deserves death or deserves to be incarcerated. But what about the religious
man? What about the kings of the world who are coming to God
to worship with the works of their own hands? That's fruit
unto death too. So look at verse 6. He says,
but now we're delivered from the law that being dead wherein
we were held. What he's saying here is we've been delivered
from that bondage wherein we were kept in jail. We were held
under the law because we didn't, listen, we're spiritually dead,
we didn't know the law, we didn't know ourselves, we didn't know
our sin, we didn't know Christ. We didn't know the reality of
righteousness. I thought that I could be saved just by walking
an aisle and saying a few words and getting baptized. How about
you? That's what I thought. I thought,
if I could just get up here and get baptized, I'll be okay. I
didn't know at that time that was a passion of sin that was
fruit unto death, but it was. It looks good to man. And when
you tell people that, they'll get mad at you, won't they? They
don't like to hear that now. John 3, 19, this is the light
that come into the world. Men love darkness and hate the
light because their deeds are evil. You see what I'm saying? Before that, you say, but I'm
delivered from that bondage. I was held under it by sin, by
darkness, by self-righteousness, but I've been delivered in it.
Why? Verse six, in order that we should serve in newness of
spirit and not in oldness of the letter. That oldness of the
letter is legalism. That's what that's all about.
That's a sinner trying to be saved by his work. That newness
of spirit is being led by the Spirit of God in Christ. Motivated,
energized, empowered by grace, gratitude, and love. This newness
of the Spirit, this is where the warfare of the flesh and
the Spirit really begins right here. When God the Holy Spirit
implants within your heart that mind, the affections, and the
will, the power of God's grace in Christ and brings you as a
sinner to him seeking mercy and submitting to his righteousness
as that which alone saves you, keeps you, and entitles you to
heaven, makes you righteous before God. That's when he gives you
new desires for holiness. to be like Christ. And let me
caution, and I'm going to close with this because I want you
to see this. Let me caution you on this thing about desire. Somebody
says, well, when you're saved, when you're born again, you have
new desires, but you have old desires, don't you? The old desires
of the flesh. Now these new desires are not
of the flesh. They're not fleshly desires.
These desires to be like Christ, these desires to read and study
and the word of God to worship God. Those desires are not of
the flesh, they're of the spirit. That which is of the flesh is
flesh, that which is born of the spirit is spirit. The flesh
cannot produce those desires of the spirit. But these desires
are not based on feeling. Have you ever had to make yourself
pray? You just don't feel like doing it, but you know you ought
to. You know it's right. You know it's good in the sense
that it honors God. You ever had to make yourself
come to church to worship? I've had people tell me that.
They said, I just didn't feel like coming, but I came and I
was blessed. The feeling is the flesh. Feeling
says stay away. You know, it's kinda like, it's
kinda like, you know, somebody'll tell me on a Wednesday night,
say, you better hurry and get through Kentucky's playin' tonight,
you know? Would you rather be home watchin'
the ball game? Well, be honest now. You want me to be honest? So, I have a desire to watch
them sometimes. I have a desire to watch them
play sometimes. About lost the desire yesterday. But that's
feeling, that has nothing to do. The desire to do spiritual
things, to glorify and honor God, comes from knowledge, not
feeling. And it's knowledge that God gives
through Christ, by his word, by his spirit. It's knowledge
of my sin, I know what I am, and my need of God's grace in
Christ. I'm a sinner and I need God, I need Christ. The flesh will give me other
feelings. I'd rather stay home and lay in bed. Or I'd rather
go fishing. That's the flesh. But I know
what I need. Because the Holy Spirit has convinced
me of sin. I need Christ. I need Christ
more than I need food. I'm serious now. You understand
that, don't you? I mean, I need to eat. Not as
much as I do, but I need Christ more. It comes from a knowledge
of the fact that Christ is the only way of salvation. This is
my only hope. When Christ turned to the disciples
after the multitude had gone away and he said, will you go
away also? They said, Peter said, to whom shall we go? You have
the words of life. These are the words of life.
Now the flesh would inspire me to sit down and read a good novel
or something like that or watch a good TV show or a good movie,
but I don't need that now. I can do without that. I can't
do without this. I can't do without His Word.
This is my life. It comes from a knowledge that
His Word is my life and that the things of God and obedience
to Him is the right thing to do. It's just right for me, a
sinner saved by the grace of God, to thank my Savior for the
salvation that He's given to me so freely. mercifully and
graciously. How about that? That's where
that desire comes from. It's not how you feel. I've heard
people say, well, there must be something wrong with me because
I don't feel like praying or I don't feel like doing this.
There's nothing wrong with you, friend. You're just like every
one of us. We're all in the same boat. But
do you have that spiritual knowledge that God gives through his word
in Christ? And I know what's right. I know
what I need. I know where hope is. It's in
Christ. It's in his word. All right.