2.18.08 Were You There? Study Guide Notes

Today's Text: Romans 7:14-25

NLT Romans 7:14 The law is good, then. The trouble is not with the law but with me, because I am sold into slavery, with sin as my master. 15 I don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. 16 I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience shows that I agree that the law is good. 17 But I can't help myself, because it is sin inside me that makes me do these evil things. 18 I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can't make myself do right. I want to, but I can't. 19 When I want to do good, I don't. And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. 20 But if I am doing what I don't want to do, I am not really the one doing it; the sin within me is doing it. 21 It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. 22 I love God's law with all my heart. 23 But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin?(1 )25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.


Paul paints a picture of conflict in this passage. The conflict is between two natures that reside within: sin nature and our desire for God. Left to themselves, the sin nature wins out every time. Why? Because it is a stronger force than our will power. Now, there are some battles which our will power might win. There might even be seasons of victory, but in the end, our sin nature draws upon our selfish desires and ambition to win out. The strength to conquer this sin nature does not come from within but from outside of us. The Holy Spirit is able to conquer our sin nature. The key is to understand our role in working with the Holy Spirit to do this very thing. And that key is more about giving up than it is taking on anything. GIving up control in our lives and accepting the Holy Spirit's control is what takes us from being conquered to conquerors ourselves. The more room that we give the Holy Spirit, the less room our sin nature has. At times this is hard work because it means leaving some things in our life behind. It also may mean that we pick up new and more God honoring habits to weave into the fabric of our life. Lent is that time to do just this. If you are working through this study, you have already placed a God honoring habit in your life and as a result given up something else you could have done instead. That is the wonderful thing about how we are made. Our time is "mutually exclusive" in terms of events. We can only do one thing at a time. So if we want to leave something behind, we only need to pick up something new that takes up that time. Easy to say, and much more difficult to do!