Title: Self-understanding of saints!!
Brothers and sisters, we are living in severe contradictions and conflicts. We try not to admit these contradictions, we try to rationalize them, and we try to hide the inner world of our conflicts. I don't want to talk about my worries. Afraid to tell others about your problems. But we must be humble in matters of our existence. It is necessary to affirm the facts, acknowledge one's concerns as they are and share them with each other.
Dear brothers and sisters, I want to understand who we are through the confession of the Apostle Paul's existence in today's text. As saints, we want to understand who we are. Like the Apostle Paul, I hope that we will acknowledge our contradictions and conflicts as they are and confess to each other.
1. We must admit that we are sinners. (verses 21-23)
The more we try to live a good life, the greater conflict and despair we experience. I am disappointed in myself for not being good enough. There is something within us that is neither latent nor nature, and that dominates us. That is sin, and sin still reigns over us and has dominion over us. This is not just a psychological phenomenon. In fact, the power of sin reigns over us.
The Apostle Paul confesses that he is a sinner and lives under the power of sin. Look at verses 21-23. “Therefore I understand a law, that evil is present with me, who desire to do good. In my inner man I delight in the law of God, but in my members I see another law waging war against the law of my heart, bringing me captive to the law of sin which is in my members.” Here Paul is discovering a law, a principle. What is the principle? There are two laws within you. There is a law of the heart that delights in the word of God and another law that dislikes it, the law of sin. Two laws are fighting in your heart, and you are seeing the law of sin triumph and bring you under the law of sin. What is clear here is that the law of sin is stronger than the law of a good heart. That is why any human being is a slave to sin.
Brothers and sisters, this is true even for a seemingly innocent child. No parent in this world teaches their children to sin and do evil. There is no teacher in the world who teaches sin and evil to his students. There are no textbooks that teach sin and evil. They all teach goodness, honesty, and goodness. But where does sin come from? Because we have the law of sin within ourselves. Therefore, we are not sinners because we have sinned, but because we are sinners, we bear the fruit of iniquity. The characteristic of the saints who have experienced God deeply is that they realize that they are sinners deeply. Peter did. Isaiah was like that. Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to realize deeply that we are sinners.
2. We must admit that we are incapacitated. (verse 24)
Dear saints, what is the problem with this Paul? It's that you don't have the means or the ability to get out of this dilemma. In a word, it means that you cannot save yourself by yourself. It means you don't have a prescription. Because we are caught up in sin, all our resolutions and resolutions are null and void. “O wretched man I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death?” What is? It is spiritually bankrupt. He acknowledges his own irresistible existence as it is. You are lamenting about yourself.
This is also true for us. Recognizing that we are sinners, we must acknowledge that we cannot escape the penalty of sin, death, by our own strength or effort. This is the true understanding of the saints.
God wants us to have a thorough and irretrievable self-understanding. Because only then can we deny ourselves. Think of Jacob in the Old Testament. You're driving into a corner. He wants our surrender. He wants you to be poor in spirit.
3. We can now discover the grace of Jesus Christ. (verse 25)
Where should a person who acknowledges that he is a sinner and admits that he cannot escape from the body of death, the penalty of sin, on his own, seek salvation? If you cannot find salvation in yourself, where is it? We must seek salvation outside ourselves.
The apostle Paul found a way out. Paul found a solution in defeat and despair. They found a way to be freed from the power of sin. It was not within itself. Paul found it outside himself. What is that? It was grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. So Paul says in verse 25, “I will give thanks to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul himself is such a miserable man, but he is thankful that God has given him grace.
Dear saints, a saint who understands himself like this will do at least two things.
First, you can't brag about yourself. How can a person whose existence is a sinner and incapable of salvation from the body of death and live only through the grace of Jesus Christ boast of himself? It is because those who boast of their own righteousness do not know their own existence. A saint who knows who he is cannot boast of himself. Those who know the grace of God cannot stand up for their own righteousness.
Ephesians 2:8-9 testifies that the purpose of saving us by grace is so that we may not boast of ourselves. “For by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.” Therefore, true saints cannot boast of themselves. Please don't brag about yourself. Rather, I want you to be proud of your sins and shortcomings.
Second, we have no choice but to be tolerant and forgiving towards others. Those who truly know that they are sinners and that they are helpless and that they live by the grace of Jesus Christ have no choice but to be tolerant of others. One day the Jews brought a woman caught in adultery to Jesus. There was a law that any adulterous woman caught on the spot should be stoned to death. The people who heard Jesus' words, “He who is without sin, let him strike first,” quietly put down the stone they had heard and left. After looking at himself, he recognized that he was also a sinner, so he could not condemn the woman.
If you condemn the sins of others, you must also be condemned by that condemnation. Because he himself is a sinner. Therefore, those who believe that they are a sinner and are incapable of salvation, who believe that the grace of Jesus Christ is the only way to live, cannot condemn others. Therefore, we have no choice but to be tolerant and forgiving towards others.
I want to ask you today. “If you are confident, pick up a stone and use it.” If not, put down the stone you heard in your heart. Now, I hope that you will build a beautiful Advent Church with forgiveness and love.