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Uncertain if you have read Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic book: Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Stevenson was a Christian and wrote his book with inspiration from his faith. The book describes
Dr. Henry Jekyll as a well-respected citizen, an intelligent and outstanding doctor, but also perplexed because he realizes there is also a corrupt and cruel component to his life. He calls himself an “incongruous compound” of good and bad blended together. So, Dr. Jekyll, being a great chemist, develops a potion that is able to separate the two compounds of his life. The constructive compound comes out by day – that’s Dr. Jekyll. But, the corrupt compound comes out at night – that’s Mr. Edward Hyde; whose surname derives from the word “hidden” or “hideous.” Stevenson writes, “I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both.” … “Good and evil are so close as to be chained together in the soul.”

At first. Jekyll delighted in becoming Hyde, because it gave him freedom to pass off blame of his dark side. However, Jekyll found that Hyde was taking over increasingly and involuntarily. Dr. Jekyll never realized that Mr. Hyde was far more mischievous and malicious than he thought. He was angry, vengeful, even murderous, and overall depraved. Dr. Jekyll said, “I was tenfold more wicked than I ever thought.” Eventually, Jekyll’s potion had gone empty over the course of time needing to take larger doses to reverse his character. And Jekyll’s laboratory couldn’t replicate the potion, so that in the end, Jekyll is consumed by Hyde unto his death.

Dr. Jekyll said, “I was tenfold more wicked than I ever thought.”

Tim Keller summarizes our text today: “Everyone has a war within themselves. We all want to live according to a high moral code, but none of us can meet the demands. The reason for this is that inside of ourselves there is a desire for evil as well as a desire for good. Therefore, none of us can win the battle. But the battle changes when we become a Christian. The deepest parts of ourselves change so that for the first time our most inner being delights in the law of God. We move from a battle we cannot win to a battle we cannot lose.”  

I invite you to explore the faith struggle from Romans 7.

EXAMINE       Romans 4-7 Faith Struggle

For many, preaching Romans is like hiking Mt. Everest.[1] One has said the book is the Christian’s constitution (Swindoll). Many preachers have spent ample messages teaching the book…

• 366 messages (12 years) by Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones
• 225 messages (8 years) by John Piper
• 65 messages by Sam Storms
• 48 messages by Al Mohler
• 44 messages by Charles Swindoll
• 30 sermons JD Greear
• 8 sermons by pd… but another 9 in other formats.

Today you can discern why my messages are dramatically lower, as we fast track chapters 4-7. Our focus today is on faith and how we struggle with hope.

Last message: Romans 3:24 “we are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”

Justification: Legal declaration of pardon (forgiveness) and peace (reconciliation).
Forgiveness says, “It’s solved. You can go.”
Justification says, “It’s solved. You can come.”

But Paul knows the Jews will still have questions. So, he teaches a Bible study on faith using the life of Abraham – the Jewish forefather, and a quote from David – Israel’s greatest king.

• It would be like someone asking, “How did America get started?” You’d have to talk about George Washington.

The primary question I want to answer is how can we know if we have faith? Can we have assurance/confidence of our salvation, especially if our faith seems to struggle with sin??

Genuine faith hopes not in what we can do for God, but what God has done for us.

Romans 4 ¹ What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? ²For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. ³For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” ⁴Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. ⁵And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, ⁶just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: ⁷ “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; ⁸ blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.” ⁹Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. ¹⁰How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised.

Paul explains that if Abraham was justified by works, then he has something to boast about. But, in v.3 Paul tells the readers to go back and read Genesis 15:6 “Abraham believed and it was counted to him as righteousness.” In other words, Scripture has always expressed that God justifies us by faith not works. Faith in God opens the door to salvation; it’s not a general belief but a specific trust in what God has performed or promised. Abraham did not accomplish standing before God, he simply trusted the Lord’s covenant promise, and God credited him with inclusive righteousness.^[2]

In v.4, Paul explains Abraham’s work were an obligation to God, but God’s not rewarding him with right standing as due payment but as undeserved favor; it’s a gift.^[3]

You see, Abraham was a man of faith but he was also a fallen believer.

• Abraham committed adultery with Hagar.
• Abe’s parenting was neglectful to Ishmael.
• Abe was heartless to Hagar, leaving her without provision as mother to his son.
• Abe lied two different times that Sarah was his wife out of fear that either Pharaoh or tribal leaders might kill him but be merciful if he claimed her as his sister. But once they discerned Sarah was committed, they returned her unharmed.
• Abraham’s legacy is one of faith yet fully relying upon God’s mercy to not abandon his family and God’s grace to keep His promised blessing.

Paul not only brings up Abraham in this Bible study, but references king David in vv.5-8. David speaks about God’s blessing those whose sins are not counted against them. Just as Abraham was a sinner, David’s many sins (adultery, murder, etc.) were not counting against him because faith in God’s gracious promise was counting for him.

Wrapping up this thought/point, vv.9-10, Paul asks, “Is God’s blessing then only for the circumcised (Jews) or also for uncircumcised (Gentiles)?” And Paul asks another important question: When did Abraham get circumcised – before or after God made the gracious promise to bless him?

* Side note: If you’re unfamiliar with OT, at one time circumcision was not merely a hygienic act as it is for modern males, but in ancient Israel was a holy practice commanded by God that symbolized people of faith. Circumcision marked a cutting away of flesh to not impede God’s promise for offspring. I’ll leave you to further study…

The answer to Paul’s question was that Abraham did not obey God for circumcision until after God’s gracious promise. So, people are accepted by God not because of their religious obedience but from unmerited, divine grace.

FAITH

• Forwarding All Issues To Heaven
• Fear Aint In This House / “fear not” repeated
  Ps 56:3-4 “when I am afraid I put my trust in you”[4]
  Isa 41:10 “do not be fear, for I am with you”[5]
• Ultimately:
  Forgiveness Available In Trusting Him (Christ)

Hebrews 11:1-2, 6 “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation… And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

• Faith requires you to face the bad news that you’re hopeless but trust the good news that Jesus rescues. Start today…

Genuine faith hopes not in cheap forgiveness but enduring grace.

Romans 5 ¹ Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ²Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we⁵ rejoice in hope of the glory of God. ³Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Salvation has at least three facets

1. Gracious peace with God (justification).
Illus: Airports have security measures with metal detectors and screening processes. If you walk through with metal in your pockets the alarm will sound. It could be simple as keys in pocket, a watch on wrist, a belt buckle, or even metal loopholes on shoes.

Likewise, in our heart is a standard gauge or sin detector. As Paul has stated many times in the previous chapters, either the Law will condemn us or our conscience will convict us. Deep down, humanity feels tension and conflict that they fall short of a matchless standard and mysterious glory. But, faith in Christ is the passport to peace.

2. Sanctifying hope with suffering (sanctification).
Illus: Recently, our church has had the joy of celebrating infant births and ministering with meal-trains to these families. Brunk with Evangeline & Epiphany / Gatewood with Ivy. I’m told childbirth is painful. I’ve witnessed it 5x and have observed the intense distress and agonizing suffering with lingering after-effects of pain. Yet, I’ve also seen in the blink of an eye the mother’s eye sparkle and bright smile at the sight and holding their infant in their arms. Mothers endure labor because they know the joy on the other side.

The Christian life is not immune from problems or pain. The apostle Paul endured persecution, physical pain, depression, sleeplessness, danger, hunger, thirst, and severe pressures (cf. 2Co 11:24-29). And undoubtedly, you have weathered stress and storms too. Romans teaches us that God permits suffering because it keeps us persevering in our dependence upon faith. If life were perfect without problems, do you really think we would grow in our understanding of God and appreciation for His faithfulness?  – You say, “Well, I wish for a few less worries…” Me too friend. But amid these, suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

3. Righteousness that leads to eternal life (glorification). ⁵and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us…
²¹ so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might rain through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Paul describes the role of the Holy Spirit to complete what God has started. Jesus justifies, the Spirit sanctifies and leads us to the Father for glorification unto our eternal home.

Jesus justifies, the Spirit sanctifies and leads us to the Father for glorification unto our eternal home.

At this point some might be tempted to think, this news is too good to be true. “I can sin and God will forgive me.” Yes. And no. The one who is truly forgiven will not treat grace so cheaply. They will not mock God with and trample on the blood of Jesus. God’s love has been poured into our hearts, and we overflow with gratitude and good works. …

Romans 6 ¹ What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? ²By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? ³Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. ⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷For one who has died has been set free from sin. ⁸Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. ¹⁰For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. ¹¹So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. ¹²Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. ¹³Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. ¹⁴For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

In brief, Paul is eloquently communicating the Christian’s faith is not cheap or compromised but is captivated by grace and surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus. Like Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead and commanding to take off the grave clothes, so we have died to sin and are awakened to new life in Christ. Christians present their bodies as instruments of righteousness and as a living sacrifice.

Illus: Many purchase special toothpaste or teeth polishing strips to restore their teeth to a better condition after years of usage. Stained teeth comes from dark colored beverages like coffee, soda, tea, or even smoking. For the process to work, brushing or strips must be applied repeatedly over a long time to wear down the stains and remove the blemishes. Tarnish will not disappear after a single usage.
Yet, many people go for one or few weeks being devoted to Jesus want that effort to last all year long, or their entire life. We want long-term impact with short-term effort.

• The brushing and polishing strips of faith are spiritual disciplines and biblical accountability. There is no quick-fix or rapid relationship with Jesus apart from spending time with God’s word. Likewise, there is no microwave spirituality apart from the messiness of vulnerable friendships and honest accountability to brothers and sisters.

Genuine faith hopes not in what we can do for God, but what God has done for us.

Genuine faith hopes not in cheap forgiveness but enduring grace.

Genuine faith hopes not in absolute perfection but accurate posture toward Christ.

Paul gets brutally honest and vulnerable before the Roman Christian audience (and us today).

Romans 7:15-25 ¹⁵For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. ¹⁷So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

²¹So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. ²²For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, ²³but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

The end of the chapter is why Tim Keller called this section “the battle we can’t lose.” Paul explains there is a “Mr. Hyde” inside of “Dr. Jekyll.” ¹⁵For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Is Paul alone in this testimony? I know I can relate. There is an inner war inside my sin nature and my redeemed spirit.

Illus: It’s like an Orioles fan sitting next to a Yankees fan during a game. They cheer at different times. They jeer each other when the other team messes up. They barely look at each other if the competition is tense. All the while they’re fantasizing about the other’s demise.

The flesh and the spirit are evident not just before you become a Christian but throughout the faith journey. While that can be discouraging, Paul wants us to find encouragement in this reality too for two reasons:

#1 You’re not alone in the battle. Remember this letter of Paul is not early in his conversion story. Paul is not an immature believer needing to grow up. Instead, Romans is like his capstone writing and greatest theological treatise on the Christian life. Paul is a mature and educated adult, a seasoned and tested Christian, and vividly vulnerable for the sake of Jesus Christ. His life is an open book for others to view him as a “chief of sinners” but on display is the magnificent mercy and fierce faithfulness of God. Spiritual growth does not mean you feel like you’re graduating to less need of grace; instead its growing in awareness of your need of grace, clinging to the cross, and drawing ever so tightly to the feet of Jesus. And we don’t do this on our own but with backs to lean on, shoulders to cry on, hands to hold, arms to lift up, and feet to walk with you every step of the journey. This is why one of the applications of this letter will spend ch. 12 discussing spiritual gifts and exercising them with genuine love, overflowing honor, and fervent zeal. Church – you are the body of Christ, and if one member is suffering, then we all need to do our part to extend support and hope. “A burden shared is a trouble halved, A blessing shared is a joy doubled.”   

Spiritual growth does not mean you feel like you’re graduating to less need of grace; instead its growing in awareness of your need of grace, clinging to the cross, and drawing ever so tightly to the feet of Jesus. And we don’t do this on our own but with backs to lean on, shoulders to cry on, hands to hold, arms to lift up, and feet to walk with you every step of the journey. A burden shared is a trouble halved, A blessing shared is a joy doubled.

Which leads to the 2^nd encouragement:

#2 Your battle is already won. Paul describes his inner struggle and spiritual war and ends with sheer despair. ²⁴Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? But, he also takes that despair to the depths of the gospel well. His posture toward Jesus Christ was dependency and deep devotion: ²⁵Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!  

1941 was a dark time for England and the world. The oppressive rise of the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) was looking like it could be merely resisted in spurts but not defeatable, and likely equipped to conquer. But then came Sunday, December 7 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. When Winston Churchill heard about the Japanese attack, he walked into his office and called FDR and said, “Well, we are all in the same boat now.” And later in Churchill’s memoir, he wrote, “No American will think it wrong of me to proclaim that hearing the U.S. was on our side was the greatest joy to me. England would live. Britain would live. The rest of the war was simply proper application of overwhelming force. [So, that night] I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and the thankful.”

In other words, amid a tragic attack and one, if not THE darkest days of our nation, the ordinary people of the world had their mindset transformed from helplessness to hopefulness. Nothing tangibly had changed. Hitler was still on the offensive. But, like Churchill, the world knew the overwhelming force would be the presence of a great nation’s military adding to other great nations to fight the battle.

The Christian life will have countless battles. But we can look upon our internal enemies wreaking havoc and external foes and know all things are under His feet and their defeat is assured. Jesus has already won the war and the gates of hell shall not prevail.

APPLY/TAKEAWAY

Genuine faith hopes not in what we can do for God, but what God has done for us.

Genuine faith hopes not in cheap forgiveness but enduring grace.

Genuine faith hopes not in absolute perfection but accurate posture toward Christ.

• What is the posture of your faith?
  Don’t be like the truck driver being controlled by his cargo. Press the brake. Straighten the wheel. And orient your destination.
  
  
• What is holding you from trusting in Jesus today? Step forward. Make it known.
  
  
• Moms – – – transfer mindset from weakness to hopefulness by saying, “Thanks be to God”

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[1] https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/preaching-on-romans/

^[2] Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press, 1988), 196.

^[3] James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1–8, vol. 38A, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1988), 204.

[4] Absolutely love Laura Hackett’s song on this verse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1vzX8EYQ20

[5] This song comes to mind with this topic and verse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTimp4I3u5s