Why do you keep doing the things you despise? You promise yourself never again. yet find yourself trapped in the same destructive patterns. You want to be patient, but you explode. You're determined to break a sinful habit, but you cave again.
Sound familiar?
Well, it's because we're all broken. Even the Apostle Paul cried out, I'm not practicing what I would like to do, but I'm doing the very thing I hate. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindahl describes the secret. It's not trying harder. It's adopting the divine paradox that restores our way.
So, let me give you just as a sidebar here, three of the benefits of the law. Number one, it defines sin. It tells me what's wrong, it tells me what's right. There's another benefit to the law. Verses 8 through 11 It arouses my desire to do wrong.
Now that sounds almost blasphemous, but it's true. Verses 8 through 11, look at this. Sin taking opportunity through the commandment produced in me, coveting of every kind. Verse 9, I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I entered into a death-like existence. But this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me.
For sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
Now, the commandment is not deceptive. But sin is deceptive. And I fell into it because of my old nature. Verse 12.
So then.
So then, the law is holy, the commandment is holy and righteous and good. It's not a problem with the law, it's the problem with me. Third. Third benefit of the law: it exposes the cause of sin. I am the problem.
The law is doing its job, but it is not the cause of my wrongdoing. Illustration. You have a pain in your side. While showering one day, you reach over and you begin to feel a lump. A swelling.
It grows over time, and you know that you can't ignore it any longer.
So you go to your doctor. And the doctor says, Yep, there's something in there. Let's check it out. He puts you through an MRI, and you come out and he looks at the thing and he goes, Hmm. It's a lump.
Okay, um And I say in return, Your problem is your machine. It's the machine problem. No, no, no, no. The machine just shows you what's wrong. It's a very delicate, very expensive instrument, but it shows you what you need to know.
Hey, it's not my problem, it's a machine. It's like the missionary, medical missionary that spent half his life in the jungle. serving a tribe that got its water from the river. They didn't know it, but the river was polluted. And before long, a plague stretched across this tribe.
They began to get sick and even began to die. Medical missionary checked the water in his microscope. He saw the germ, and he wanted to convince the chief that if they would just boil the water and stop drinking water out of the river, they'd be healthy, they'd live.
So he brings the chief in, he looks through this thing, explains it to him. Is this chief sitting there getting all the scoop about the germs? The next morning, the medical missionary gets up, goes to his lab, and the microscope is smashed. What's wrong? He missed the point.
The problem is not in the scope. The problem is in the water. The problem is not in the law, it's holy and righteous and good. But when the law reveals and magnifies wrong, it says to us, We're bad. We got a nature that never will be improved.
We've got to deal with that, and it's from that nature, the struggle. begins.
Now we're going to read of the struggle when we get to verse 14 and on. And here's the reason why we struggle. Paul writes virtually the same thing twice. He begins by acknowledging an innate sinfulness. He then goes to a description of the conflict, and then he says, The indwelling sin is my problem, not the law.
He does that twice between verses 14 and 25. Look at 14. We know the law is spiritual, but I'm a flesh, sold into bondage to sin. Let me give you a way to remember this. See the word flesh?
Think of the word carne. My favorite food. Chili. Con carne. Chili with meat.
Our problem is not our spirit, our problem is the meat. Our problem is in this body, is an old nature. It's meaty. It's fleshly. And every time Paul refers to this flesh, he's referring to an old sin nature that we've had with us since birth.
And will go with us. Don't miss this. Till death. It'll never improve. It'll never get better.
Even though the Spirit of God is living inside the believer, there is this battle back and forth, back and forth, which describes what he's saying here. Listen to the way he puts it, 15. What I am doing, I do not understand. For I am not practicing what I would like to do. See, his mind would like to obey the truths.
of Jesus. To follow in his footsteps. I would like to do that, but my carne, my meat, My flesh is doing the very thing I hate. 16. I do the very thing I do not want to do.
If I do that, I agree with the law, confessing the law is good. It shows up that it's wrong.
So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin dwells in me, meaning I'm not. Planning it, I'm not Driven by it, but down inside me is a nature, a rooted nature of sinfulness that wants to act out. He describes the root, and then the fruit would be the actions of sinfulness. He says, it's the sin that dwells in me. Look at 18.
For I know that nothing good dwells in me. That is, in my carney. In my flesh. The willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. Eugene Peterson in the message renders that, I can will it, but I can't.
Do it. The good that I want to do, I do not do, but I practice the very evil. That I do not Want. Let me give you several things here. Number one, we cannot curb our own disobedience.
We cannot make that old sin nature nicer. We cannot stop the old sin nature from wanting to disobey. We can't curb it. Not in ourselves. Second, we do not fulfill our own desires.
We desire to do what's right, but we do what's wrong. Wrong. Ray Steadman said, with tongue in cheek, after reading these verses, Paul must have been a golfer. Because all the golfers know that what you want to do, you do not do. And what you do not want to do, those are the very same things you keep on doing.
I know it's a battle because I watch golf. I don't play golf. The holes are too little. That's the dumbest thing in the world. They got little tiny holes and a little tiny ball and a club with a long shank expect you to put that little thing in that little tiny hole.
Make the holes big. Make a bigger. Give you a gun to shoot that pop- You get that thing right in there every time. That's a sport. Hit that thing with a long club like that?
No wonder guys learn to cuss in a whole new different language when they start playing a game of golf. I mean that that is no fun at all. You cannot stop doing it. And the pro stands there, and he says, No, you hold it like this, you put it like this.
Okay, whoop, you didn't do it. I know, I know I didn't do it, but I want to do it. It's that kind of thing. Except, this isn't golf. This isn't a game.
This is life. This is the way you live. It's the way I live. It's the way we live. What's the problem?
Third thing: we dare not ignore our own sinful nature. You just can't ignore it, it is forever with you. forever with you. It's like dust in a house. You notice?
Think. See the word dwell in verse 17. It's where I got the thought. Sin dwells in me. Verse 20, end of it.
Sin dwells in me. It means to be at home in. It's like dust. You clean, you dust, you vacuum, you mop, you scour, you scrub, you wipe, then you go in on your bed on a sunny day and you go, Boom! And it's like A whole new meaning to desert storm.
I mean, you've got dust everywhere. You think, I just died. Yeah. It's all over us. It's all around us.
So it is with that sinful nature. And the worst thing you can do is act like it's not true. It's easy to give an impression to those around you that, you know. You don't struggle with that. When you and I do.
False impressions are easily given. Friend sent me this story. A woman was flying from Seattle to San Francisco. Unexpectedly, the plane was diverted to Sacramento along the way. The flight attendants explained that there would be a delay and if the passengers wanted to get off the aircraft, plane would reboard in about 50 minutes.
Everybody got off the plane except one lady who was blind. The man had noticed as he walked by and Could tell she was blind because her seeing-eye dog lay quietly underneath the seat in front of her. throughout the entire flight. He could also tell she had flown the flight often before because the pilot approached her and called her by name. Kathy, he said.
We're in Sacramento for about an hour. Would you like to get off and stretch your legs? The blind lady responded, No thanks, but maybe my dog. would like to stretch his legs. Picture this.
All the people in the gate area. came to a complete standstill. When they looked up and they saw the pilot, Walk off the plane with a seeing eye dog. To make matters worse, he was wearing dark glasses. People scattered.
They didn't. They didn't want to take that plane on to their destination. They even tried to change airline. Wrong impression. The greatest thing we can do as a Christian when we're around non-Christians is tell them the struggles we have.
And remind them that when you come to Christ, you don't become suddenly perfect.
So quit acting like you are. Quit strutting your stuff around those who are struggling with things you now have victory over. The truth is there's a civil war waging inside all of us. 22 and 23 even use the words waging war. Look at, I joyfully concur with the law in the inner man, but I'll see a different law in the members of my body, my carne, my flesh.
Waging war. against the law of my mind. Making me a prisoner of the law of sin, which is in my members. Isn't that the truth? Example, every new year.
We promise. This year. I'm losing weight. This year. I'm going to get as thin as my wedding picture.
I tell people to keep wedding pictures, just don't put them up. Because you looked like a concentration camp victim. You're so thin back then. Nobody's ever thinner than in their wedding picture. But I'm gonna be really disciplined.
By the fourth day you're at Maggiano's eating a nine course meal. Going. How come I can't lose weight? Because There's a war waging between the mind and the will. There's an old nature that says there's not a big problem with gluttony.
You know, after all, you can... Practice that in public and it's not even scandalous. People will just laugh at you for being fat. When in fact It's as wrong as any other sin. But you can't seem to stop it.
Why? Because you got an old nature that loves to feed your body more than you ought to be eating.
So do I. I mean, I'm no big deal in this. That's the same battle you've got past the biscuits Yes, the gravy! Whoever heard of eating biscuits without gravy? Crazy.
We have fun with it because I'm using Food. But as soon as I turned to a A real Scandalous subject. Nobody laughs. Old habits are hard to break. And the old nature.
Prompts. That sense of fulfillment. when you do what's wrong. A deep abiding love. For sin.
You love to gossip. That's why you gossip. You love to lust. That's why you lust. You and I love to drive too fast.
That's why we speed. We love it. Why am I yelling? We have this thing inside us that says, boy, this could be good. You know, that guy just went around you going 80.
You can catch him. On and on it goes. We Do not fulfill our own desires. The war never ends. We lose when we fight it in the flesh.
Remember that. Zechariah 4:6, it's not by might nor by power, but it's by my spirit.
So, how do I fight it? Spirit of God, I trust you now to strengthen me in this moment of temptation. Lord God, you live within me, and I don't have the strength to stop this. Help me stop this. You put the brakes on and I'll cooperate with you.
Remind me before I sit down that overeating is not the thing I ought to be doing. Keep me from looking at the wrong place when I'm with that other person. Focus my attention when I am on the internet so that I behave myself. and don't go to sites that are going to be hurtful for me. Get control of the drives of my mind and my sin nature.
We lose if we fight into the flesh. And by the way, we quit if we focus on the flesh. Paul is to the point of quitting when he says, Wretched man that I am. This is a regenerate believer yearning for final deliverance. The only time you're going to be delivered from this battle is when you die.
Die. By the way. Little comfort for you who have recently, I mean this sincerely. You may be grieving the loss of a loved one. Let me tell you something.
Where they are in Christ, They would never think about coming back. to live with what we live with here. The joy and the peace and the delight and the freedom from the old nature. How good is that? But here We are inseparably linked to this bag of bones.
Call the old nature. I found this very interesting in the work by Donald Barnhouse. It is reported that near Tarsus, Where Saul was born, A tribe of people lived who inflicted a most terrible penalty upon a killer. A murderer. They fastened the body of the victim to the back of the killer.
Tying shoulder to shoulder, back to back, thigh to thigh, arm to arm, and then drove the murderer from the community.
So tight were the bonds that he could not free himself. And after a few days, the death in the body communicated itself to his living flesh of the murderer, the flesh of the murderer. As he stalked the land, there was none to help him. Or free him. He had only the frightful prospect of gangrenous death.
He could well cry in horror, oh, wretched man that I am. Mm. Not what will set me free, but who? It's a person. And that's chapter 8.
That's a whole new frame in this gallery. This is the believer flying free in the spirit. For the first and only time Thus far, The work of the Spirit is set forth by the Apostle addressing the wretched man who's ready to quit. Three or four tips and we're through. First of all, Freely say, I do not understand.
Add that to your vocabulary, especially if you're an older believer. and you're about to start believing your own stuff. You know, you become a Bible answer person of the office. Practice saying, I don't understand. It'll help you when you're dealing with your kids.
Okay? It'll help the kids when they're dealing with you. It'll help you when you work with co-workers. There will be things that happen you don't understand. Paul says it in verse 15: what I am doing, I do not understand.
I mean, as far along as I am in this Christian life, I'm still practicing things that I know better than to do. I don't understand.
So leave room for that. Freely say it. Second, fully accept that there's nothing good in your old nature called the flesh. There's nothing good in your flesh. Verse 18: I know that nothing good dwells in me.
I'll give you a tip here. If you're relying on the flesh to get you through a situation, you're going to be sorry. Because the flesh is going to turn on you. The flesh is going to have you come out on top. And Christ will not win the victory.
Or you'll short-circuit what the Lord wants to teach you in the process of waiting for Him to work. Fully accept that nothing good comes from the carne, from the meat. from the flesh within you, the old nature. Third, always leave room for imperfection. Verse 20.
Always leave room for imperfection. I'm no longer doing it, but what's doing it is the sin nature within me. Remember that when you're around other people. It'll keep you from pride. It'll keep you from judging.
You'll want other people to walk on all fours, and you'll realize you haven't done that in years. You want other people to get in line when in fact you aren't getting in line. Uh Just Without any guilt or without any shame, just learn to say it's a fallen world. And you never grow past that. It's just always going to be fallen.
I remember when Lawrence Sandey was interviewing an 81-year-old missionary, the Navigators. He'd come back for a furlough. And he put his arm around this gentleman. He said, tell me, when did you gain victory over lust? Lauren asked this 80 minute, and the old 81-year-old missionary said, Well, Lauren.
It hasn't happened yet. 81-year-old dude still fighting lust. Why? Because he's got an old nature. Be just honest.
Just honest. Leave room for imperfection. It doesn't mean you don't seek the Spirit's control. It means when the Spirit of God works and is grieved, Wrong will happen. Just acknowledge it.
Bring it to the Lord and lay it before him. Number four. Openly admit your true feelings of frustration. Paul does. Wretched man.
that I am. I still remember the attendant at the Dmitri Veil gallery saying to me, You need to realize, sir, that. There's another side of Mr. Vail that isn't painted yet. And someday we're all hoping he will paint that picture.
Paul has not yet painted the other side. that part of him where The Spirit of God is now in control, and that's chapter 8. For neither life nor death, nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creation shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Yes. Yes.
And as Paul Harvey would say, and that's the rest of the story. You bow your heads with me, please.
Well, we feasted in the seventh of Romans today. We've gone through it, but the challenge is to have it go through us. My prayer is that it will make a difference in the way you live. and how you relate to others. That it will intensify your patience and understanding of those.
who can't quite keep up. And it will keep you from self-condemnation. and shame. Which helps nobody. The only one for whom I really have no hope apart from Christ is you who are without the Savior.
You know you're a sinner. Nobody has to explain that to you. You know that God is holy and can't fellowship with sinfulness. What you may not know is that he built a bridge between you and him. And it was in the shape of a cross.
But remember, he doesn't do everything for us. He doesn't walk across that bridge for us. Each one of us on his own or her own needs to walk across that bridge. Receive Christ. And with him Forgiveness.
The presence of His power in our lives, and for the first time ever. Freedom from the grip. of what has controlled you long enough. How grateful we are, our Father, for your presence and your. Word, thank you for telling us the truth.
For giving us an understanding of it so that it begins to make sense. And as we square our lives with its directives, We realize our Father How often we have settled for so much less. than what you have for us. Thank you for your long suffering and patience with us. Thank you for taking good care of us even when we're on the run.
For your grace Even when we're not pleasing you. We pray that that grace will woo and win us back. The hounds of heaven. with turn us to the things of God.
Now, to Him who is able to guard us from stumbling and to present us faultless. Faultless. before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. To the only wise God our Savior, be glory, and majesty, dominion, and power. power forever and Never.
And ever and ever. And all his people say, Eight minutes. Teaching from Romans chapter 7 and 8, Chuck Swindahl titled his message. Portrait of a Struggling Christian. Here at Insight for Living, we don't know what kind of heartaches you might be struggling with right now.
Maybe your thoughts are consumed with concern over a loved one, perhaps a son, a daughter, maybe a grandchild who's lost their way. Maybe you carry some personal regrets.
Well, whatever the case, we invite you to study Paul's letter to the Romans on your own and to draw from this wellspring of grace that's offered in Romans chapters 7 and 8. To guide your personal study, the Insight mobile app provides all of Chuck's Sermons for the Romans series for free. This allows you to hear each sermon in the series from start to finish at your convenience. Just download the Insight mobile app from your favorite app store. And today, we're pleased to offer a special PDF download that features the fifth chapter in Chuck's biography of Abraham.
In this highly personal chapter, Chuck describes how Abraham cultivated his friendship with God and the benefits that followed. Chuck wrote, The Lord has your future blessings all planned out. ready to be released when your spirit is mature enough to receive them. God, like a good friend, remains available to offer help for today. This time-limited offer is available to our current monthly companions and to anyone who decides to become a monthly companion today.
A monthly companion agrees to give an automated contribution every month. You set the amount that's best for you. And you can do that right now by calling 800-772-8888. Again, we'll say thanks by providing a PDF download of the fifth chapter in Chuck's biography of Abraham. Just go to insight.org slash monthly companion.
You can also speak to a team member when you call us at 800-772-8888. I'm Bill Meyer. Join us when Chuck Smondahl continues our study in Paul's letter to the Romans, Thursday on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Portrait of a Struggling Christian, was copyrighted in 2007, 2010, and 2025, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2025 by Charles R. Swindahl, Inc.
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