Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Key to Spiritual Growth | New Testament | Romans 7

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

Are you willing to be honest with yourself and others about your sin? Like, really honest? Pretending everything is okay could be in the way of your deeper relationship with God. In today's episode, Keith uses Romans 7 to discuss how honesty can change your faith forever. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Romans 7

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. John Wayne Gasey was a serial killer. He was convicted and later executed for the rape and murder of 33 boys and young men between 1972 and his arrest in 1978. 27 of those boys he buried in a crawl space under the floor of his house, while others were found in nearby rivers. He became notorious as the killer clown Because of the many block parties he threw for his friends and neighbors

He entertained children in a clown suit and makeup under the name Pogo the clown Soofshan Stevens wrote a song about John Wayne Gacy and told that story in a powerful way But perhaps the most shocking part of the song is the way it ends Here's the last few lines And in my best behavior I am really just like him Look beneath the floorboards for the secret it's I have hid. Do you hear the honesty? Sufin Stevens looks at the serial killer and says, I've got that same dark sin in me.

Gacy buried children under the floorboards of his house, and Stevens is saying that he is buried junk, ugliness, sin under the floorboards of his life. Many Christians will be offended by that idea that they have the same kind of sin in their life as a serial killer does in theirs. I think they're offended because they're not willing to be honest. They're not willing to examine their own heart and motives and deal with what they find. And when we're not willing to be honest with ourselves and others, we really stunt what God will do in our life. And we settle for a kind of imitation, pretend Christianity. In Romans 7, we see a different kind of faith, a Christianity that is real and genuine. Christianity encourages us to be honest

about our lives and especially about our sin. I'm going to read some from Romans chapter 7. I'm but before I do, it's just important to remember who wrote this. It was the Apostle Paul, who at this time had been a Christian for about 20 years. Listen to how he describes his condition. He says in verse 15, I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate I do. I know that nothing good lives in me that is in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do. No, the evil I do not want to do. This I keep on doing. So what can we learn from Paul and Romans 7 about our Christian life? Well, first we can learn this. Every Christian is involved in a conflict with sin. The same battle that

raged inside of Paul rages inside of us. I'm sure you've heard of the book Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Well, it's a good picture of the divided nature of every Christian, a conflict between the real me and my sinful nature. In the book, Mr. Hyde is the evil person. That is represented by my sinful nature. My sinful nature is far more evil than I realize. Even the best people at the core of their being have a hideous sinfulness. But do you feel the conflict inside of you that Paul is talking about? I know I do. There's part of me that wants to obey Jesus, that might be the Dr. Jekyll. And the part of me that wants to do my own thing and live the way I want. That's Mr. Hyde. It's like there's a battle going on inside of me. Here's Romans 719, for I do not do the good I want to do. You know the right thing to do, but you don't do it. You know you should ask someone to forgive you for the way you wronged him. You know you should

start reading your Bible. You know you should spend a significant amount of time in prayer. You know that you should have maybe something like family devotions that build spiritual truth into your kids' lives. You know you need to grow in patience, but you don't do it. That's sin's impact on you. Here's the rest of Romans 719. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing. Sin is always acting, always conceiving. always seducing and tempting us toward impatience or unforgiveness or jealousy or criticalness or complaining. The list goes on and on. In some sense, no one wants those things to be true of themselves.

But again, that's sin's impact on your life. Verse 21, so I find this law or this principle at work. When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. That's the honest truth, isn't it? The Christian life is a constant struggle, and if Paul was struggling with it 20 years after being a believer, if he was struggling it as an apostle and leader in the church, then my guess is I'm going to struggle with it for the rest of my life. Because this is the normal Christian life. So we can all stop being surprised at our own sinfulness.

A second thing we can learn from this passage is that given this conflict that rages inside of us, if we're going to do well in our faith, we're going to have to realize that rules and self-reliance won't work. Here's verse 18. I know that nothing good lives in me. That is in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. In other words, in my own strength, I don't have the power to do what I know is right. That's why rules won't work. Paul writes saying, Colossians 2. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom. I mean, you have this list of rules that you're trying to live by, it looks like you're wise. But listen to how he finishes the verse. But they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. In other words,

those rules don't have the power to lead us to Christ's likeness. So the third thing I learn is this. If rules and self-reliance aren't going to work in the Christian life, then what will? Well, the only way to win this conflict is through Jesus. Here's Romans 7, 24 and 25. Paul says, what a wretched man I am, who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. It would be a huge mistake to conclude from this chapter that believers are hopeless and their struggle against sin. Look, we've seen that all believers struggle against sin, and all believers are probably frustrated

that they're not further along in their faith, that they're not more like Jesus. All believers look forward to the day when sin has been defeated. and they are freed from the power of sin and able to please God in all ways. That day is coming, but it's not here yet. There is a day coming when we are not only free from sin's penalty and its power, but also we are freed from its very presence in our life. In the meantime, we realize there is a conflict between God's spirit and our sinful nature inside of our soul.

And the only way to see real spiritual growth is to start by recognizing, recognizing how sinful we are, and then to depend and rely more and more on Jesus. Hey, thanks for listening. If you want to go deeper, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talk newsletter. You'll get a short email once a week. It'll challenge you to grow in your faith, give you interesting background on today's passage, and a lot, lot more. Just click the link in the show notes to sign up. It'll help you deepen your journey with Jesus.