The Struggle is Good

Romans 7:15-25

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At our campus ministry, as I work with college students, I really like to take questions from the students that they want to dig into and study. And one of those questions recently was, Can I still be forgiven if I keep on sinning?

That kind of question can bother us because we look over our lives and we look into God’s Word and we keep on seeing I keep on falling into these sins again and again and again. And when have I just done it too much? When is God going to give up on me? Can I still be forgiven? So just one place I want to look today is Romans chapter seven, beginning with verse 15, because here we see the apostle Paul, one of the greatest Christians and missionaries the Bible speaks of. And it’s almost like he’s wrestling with these same questions. He has great answer for us. He says,

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell 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 I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? (Romans 7:15-24)

People from the Bible have been in this struggle, too, and wrestling with I know I’m a new person. I’m a forgiven child of God, but I keep on doing things that I don’t want to do. And sometimes I find myself even wanting to do those. What do I do with that? What do I do with this body of death that we live in? This person who is at the very same time a sinner? And yet God says is a saint, a person who is forgiven.

Well, in just a few words, Paul ends this section by saying,

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:24-25)

Only God can rescue us from this. And how many times does he rescue us from this? Over and over and over. We needed rescue. We didn’t need to just be a little bit better, but we needed a deliverer. And that’s Jesus Christ our Lord. He’s taken every sin to the cross and died for them. So when we’re struggling, sometimes we think, Oh, I keep struggling against sin. I must not be doing it right. But let me reframe that struggle.

A professor once told me the struggle is real. The struggle is good. If you’re struggling against sin, if you’re bothered by sin, if you’re asking those questions of, oh man, how long will God continue to bear with me? That’s a good place to be. It means that your faith is still alive. There’s always going to be a struggle inside of the Christian because there’s two parts. This sinner and this saint. And they’re going to be at war with each other until the day we die. And then that sinner part of us is gone forever and we won’t ever have to worry about that struggle. But if you’re not dead yet, there will be a struggle. The struggle is real. The struggle is good.

If there’s no struggle, it means the new man, the saint, the Christian, has died. If there is a struggle, that means you’re still alive. God is still with you, you’re still forgiven and you’re still on the road to heaven where someday there will be no more struggle. But until then, the struggle is real and the struggle is good. So let’s stay strong in the struggle together.