Somewhere Between 7 and 8
Somewhere Between 7 and 8 by Rev. L. John Gable
April 29, 2018
This may come as no surprise to you, but I am one of those people who actually enjoys visiting with my seatmate when I’m on an airplane. Through the years I have met some fascinating people and have had many “faith-sharing” conversations whether they knew I was a pastor or not.
A number of years ago I sat next to a young man who I guessed was in his mid-30’s. I was tired and that particular day was not much in the mood for conversation, while he, on the other hand, was more than ready to talk, particularly once he found out I was a pastor.
He said he had been raised in a good Christian home and church, and throughout his childhood had had a strong and meaningful faith. During college he was very active in a campus fellowship and had many wonderful faith experiences. He married his college sweetheart, also a strong Christian, but for a whole variety of reasons they divorced after several years of marriage, something neither of them thought they would ever do. He told me how he started living a lifestyle he had never known before and was now living with a woman who was not his wife and her daughter. He said they had talked of marriage, but hadn’t made any decisions, and honestly didn’t think they ever would. He said they still go to church, sometimes, but that his faith didn’t have nearly as much meaning to him now as it once did.
As he told me his story I didn’t have much to say, nor was I given much of an opportunity. It just kind of bubbled out of him and I could tell, as painful as it was, it was a story he desperately needed to tell, almost like going to confession; so I simply listened. Finally, as he was nearing the end of his story, or perhaps as we were beginning our descent, he said, “I guess I’m living somewhere between 7 and 8”. I gave him a quizzical look and said, “I don’t know what you mean by that.” He said, “You know, I’m living somewhere between Romans 7 and Romans 8, between life in the flesh and life in the Spirit”, and then I knew exactly what he meant.
I hope you were with us last week, if you weren’t I will encourage you to listen to the message Oscar preached because he laid out perfectly the life of despair we live in chapter 7, without Christ, and set up perfectly the freeing message we hear in chapter 8 of our new life in Christ.
In so much of Paul’s writing he makes it sound as though we live in one of those places or the other and that there is no “in between”, which is the very place many of us might give is our spiritual address as did my new friend on the plane. We look back in chapter 6 and it sounds so clear cut and absolute, “We know that our old self was crucified with Christ so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin…so you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (6:6,7,11). I absolutely agree that that is how it should be and how I want it to be, and I dare say, you do as well. Once I gave my life to Christ I wanted sin to have no more control over me, but I’ve discovered that’s not how it is. I want to be “dead to sin” and “fully alive” to Christ, but in reality I am more like the woman who confessed, “I can’t actually say that I have died to sin, but I did feel faint once.”
When I was in seminary I spent a summer working at the lumber yard my wife Kris’ parents owned. There was one particular worker there who was a devout Christian and we would get in to very interesting theological discussions as we delivered lumber together. He was part of the holiness movement and believed that once you accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior you no longer sin. He would point to passages such as these from Romans 6 and 7 and say, “I am dead to sin and alive to Christ” which for him meant no matter what he did he was no longer sinning. Sin had been perfected out of him.
While, of course I disagreed with him, for him the faith was clear cut, before and after. But for me, so much of my spiritual life has not been the black and white of chapter 6 or the total darkness of chapter 7, but the “divided heart” that Oscar named so well last week. Paul states his struggle, and it could be mine, and yours as well, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.” (7:15, 18)
What Paul is describing here is the human condition, the human condition without Christ. We are created in the image of God, but enslaved to the bondage of sin. It is not a matter of knowing what is right and wrong, or of desiring to do the good rather than the evil, but of being so bound by our sinfulness that we cannot do the right we know we ought to do. This is what Paul means when he writes, “Now if I do what I do not want it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me” (7:20). He is openly acknowledging the power and pervasiveness of human sinfulness. It has us in a stranglehold from which we cannot free ourselves. As much as we desire to soar with the Spirit we find ourselves mired in the passions of the flesh.
It reminds me of the little limerick I heard years ago. Admittedly, there aren’t many limericks that are suitable for a sermon.
There was a young lady from Linn,
Who was deep in original sin.
They said, “Do be good”.
She said, “Would if I could”,
And then went and did it again.
Now some could read Paul’s explanation of the human condition and find in it an excuse for our sinful behavior. Sin is so powerful and we are so weak that it is no use struggling against it. Why even try if we can never win? But that is not what Paul is saying at all. His understanding of the human predicament may be an explanation, but it is no excuse. Rather it is a cry of desperation. It is a cry for help and deliverance. “Who can rescue me from this body of death?” Who, indeed? Given the condition we are in, who can save us? With Paul, we can freely admit we don’t need someone who will commiserate with us and help us understand why we do the things we do. I don’t need someone who will help me rationalize my rebellious nature. I can do that for myself. Instead I need someone who will offer me a power that is stronger than the power of sin and death which controls me. I don’t need a therapist or a counselor to deal with this particular problem. I need a Savior!
In response to that desperate cry for help, Paul claims the great promise of the Gospel: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Jesus is God’s answer to our need. He is our hope, our Rescuer, our Savior!
Suddenly then the desperation and hopelessness of chapter 7 gives way to the promise and joy of chapter 8, which Oscar set us up for so beautifully last week. We read, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit sets us free from the law of sin and death.” Friends, this is the Good News! God has done for us in Jesus Christ what we know we cannot do for ourselves. He has offered us the way out of our selfishness and rebellion. He has set us free from our bondage to sin and death. And regardless of what we have done He offers us the grace of forgiveness without condemnation as we turn to Him in faith. Hard as that may be to believe, the remarkable promise of the Gospel is that the same power of God which raised Jesus from the grave is available to you and to me today. It is God’s free gift given to us when we accept Him as Savior and Lord, and open our hearts to the indwelling of His Spirit.
When we come to this understanding of our need and then of God’s provision something changes within us immediately, namely our relationship with God. As we put our faith in Christ we are adopted as children of God, a remarkable concept which we will explore in more detail next Sunday. No longer are we considered rebellious but beloved! We are claimed by God’s love and the Spirit of Christ enters into our hearts and lives there. In that instant our relationship with God changes and we are set free from the condemnation of our sin. But something else begins to happen within us as well…more gradually. As we allow the Spirit of Christ more freedom within us we begin to live less and less for ourselves and more and more for God. Life in the flesh gives way to life in the Spirit as we decide for whom we will live, or as we spoke several weeks ago, “to whom we will be enslaved”.
When Paul talks about life in the flesh and life in the Spirit he is not talking about the two parts of human nature as in classical dualism, one part good, the other evil. Rather he is talking about two ways of living. Life in the flesh means living for ourselves and our own creature needs. It means living with an orientation toward the things of this world; whereas life in the Spirit means living with an orientation toward the things of God. As Paul explains, “Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace”(8:5-6). To live in the Spirit means we have surrendered to the Lordship of Christ. We desire to live lives which are “Christ-centered” rather than “me-centered”. Our worldview becomes Christo-centric rather than ego-centric, and it is exactly at this point that the struggle of the Christian life becomes full-blown because it demands a decision from us: are we going to go on living in chapter 7 or enter in to the new life of chapter 8?
Prior to knowing Christ we never really have to acknowledge our sinfulness because we only have other fallen creatures against which to measure ourselves, and, by and large, we come out looking pretty good. But when we come to know Him and understand God’s love and grace and see all that God intends for us to do and be, we come face to face with our own brokeness because for the first time we catch a glimpse of true holiness. For the first time we get a glimpse of what we can become in Christ, but we continue to struggle because we have become so accustomed to living in bondage to our fallen nature. So we find ourselves torn between Spirit and flesh, between what we are and what we want to become. So, like Paul, we come to the realization that we cannot do what we want to do and we do the very things we hate. We will what is right, but cannot do it. Like my new friend on the plane, we find ourselves living somewhere between 7 and 8, somewhere between Spirit and flesh.
In the midst of this struggle we need to understand two things. First, there is a part in the struggle which we must play that no one, not even God, can play for us. We alone must decide which life we want to live and focus our attention and devotion in that direction, not just once, but continually. I heard of a farmer who described the struggles of his spiritual life as feeling like he was hitched between two plow horses, one pulling toward God and other toward the devil. Someone asked, “Which one pulls harder?” to which the farmer replied, “The one I say ‘Giddy up’ to.”
This struggle between flesh and Spirit is an opportunity for us to recommit ourselves to the ways and purposes of God, and that is a decision and responsibility which we alone can and must make for ourselves.
There is, however, a second part that only God can play on our behalf, and the Good News is, He has! As we have seen, the power of sin is so great in our lives that we cannot set ourselves free from it, so if we are ever going to be released from its bondage someone is going to have to do that work for us, and that is exactly what Christ has done on our behalf. In response to our cry of “Who can rescue me from this body of death?”, we hear this glorious announcement, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus! You are no longer in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you!”
The struggle between life in the flesh and life in the Spirit is real; we know that all too well. We know what it means to live somewhere between 7 and 8. But friends, hear and believe this Good News: We have a Savior, a powerful Savior! “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death! Thanks be to God for the victory which is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Prayer: Gracious God, we hear Your invitation to us to enter in to the new life you offer by faith in Christ. Give us the faith, the courage, the conviction to make the decision to live for You, this day and every day, so that we might be all that You call us to be, through Christ our Lord we ask it. Lord, hear our prayer.