From His Heart

Speaker 1

Do you have a battle going on within your heart against sin? Here's Pastor Jeff Shreve now.

Speaker 2

We're in a series entitled "This Is War: Overcoming the World, the Flesh, and the Devil." You say, what is the flesh? Well, the flesh is the residual from your old Adamic nature.

And when you become a Christian, things change. But there's still a problem with this residual of the old nature.

And we want to talk about that today as we discuss the battle within. He can heal every scar with real truth, real love, real hope from his heart.

Speaker 1

This is from his heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve. And thank you for joining us today as he begins the third message from his new six-lesson series. This is war: Overcoming the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. The message today is entitled "The Battle Within."

As Christians, we're in an external war with the world and with the devil, but we're also in an eternal battle with the flesh. No one is immune, and it's a constant battle we all face. But there is victory for those who trust in Jesus.

In today's lesson, Pastor Jeff is going to share three truths about our human nature that'll help us to understand how the enemy seeks to attack us. This new series is also our gift of thanks to you for your support of From His Heart this month of any amount.

When you go online to fromhishheart.org, first, though, open your Bible to the book of Romans and turn to chapter seven as we begin the lesson today, "The Battle Within."

Speaker 2

Now we're in a series entitled "This Is War: Overcoming the World, the Flesh, and the Devil," those three enemies that we face, and they all work in tandem. But as we said, you know, you have the world that's an external foe. It's out there. It's the culture, the humanistic culture that opposes God. And then you have the devil. He's an external foe, but we like to call him an infernal foe because he's the devil from hell and he's working. The whole world lies in the power of the evil one, lies in the lap of the evil one. And then you have this thing inside called the flesh. The flesh. You say, what is the flesh? Well, the flesh is the residual from your old Adamic nature. And when you become a Christian, things change. But there's still a problem with this residual of the old nature. And we want to talk about that today as we discuss the battle within.

You know, if the devil were to be obliterated, if God just said, "I'm going to take the devil out. He's going to cease to be. I'm going to incarcerate him in the lake of fire forever and ever and ever. You're never going to see him again," you're still going to struggle with sin because sin's an inside job. And Paul talks about this in Romans chapter 7. Romans 6, 7, and 8 are three really key chapters. Because as we're going to learn today, Romans 6 tells us we're dead to sin. Romans 7 says we still struggle with sin, with the flesh. And Romans 8 tells us there's victory in the Holy Spirit.

So this is what Paul says in Romans 7, beginning in verse 14. "For we know that the law is spiritual, the law is good, it's spiritual. But I am of flesh sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing I do not understand. For I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate." Now, he is not talking about being a non-Christian. He is talking about being a Christian here, desiring to please God and serve God. He said, "But what is going on? Not doing what I want to do. I'm practicing what I don't want to do."

Verse 16: "But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the law, confessing that the law is good. So now no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. For the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not." Now when he talks about the flesh, he's not talking about your hide and hair, your skin and bones. He's not talking about your physical body. He's talking about this residual from the Adamic nature that's the flesh.

"For the good that I want I do not do. But I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man. But I see a different law in the members of my body waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members, wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then on the one hand, I myself, with my mind am serving the law of God. But on the other, with my flesh, I serve the law of sin."

There's a little poem that says, "Two natures dwell within my breast. One is foul and one is blessed. One I love and one I hate, but the one I feed will dominate." Now, the Bible doesn't tell us we have two natures. The old nature has been crucified. But the old nature, the residual effects of the old nature are still there. And every Christian can relate to Romans chapter 7 when Paul gives his biographical sketch of this struggle that goes on inside of him. It's exactly what he says also in Galatians chapter five.

"But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desires against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please." And every Christian knows about this battle. We're at war with the world, we're at war with the devil, and we're at war, an internal battle with the flesh.

And so here's our question for today: Do you understand the inner battle of every true Christian? Non-Christians don't have this battle. This is a battle that is true for a Christian. So three truths for today.

Truth number one: Every Christian is dead to sin and alive to God. That's the truth. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, if you've given your heart and life to him, you are dead to sin and you're made alive to God. So this is what Paul says in Romans chapter 5 as he finishes up Romans 5. He said, "The law came in so that the transgression would increase. But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Lord, we're all in sin, but God's grace is greater. Now, Paul knew that his readers, the Roman audience, would say, "Oh, well, you know, if we sin and that gets more grace, then we need to just continue in sin. Because where sin abounds, grace does much more abound." And so this is what he says in chapter six: "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might abound? May it never be! God forbid! Or as some translations say, what a ghastly thought. How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death?"

Now he's not talking about water baptism, he's talking about the moment that you received Christ. We do baptisms, immersion baptism, which is the only baptism talked about in the Bible. And that's a picture, a visible picture that we can all see of an invisible truth. And that invisible truth is when you come to Christ, you die to your old way of life and you have a brand new life in Jesus. That's why you can't picture that with taking a couple of spoonfuls of water and pouring it over somebody's head. You go down into the water, buried with Christ through baptism, raised to walk in newness of life.

Now that's a physical, visible picture of an invisible reality. And that's what he's talking about in verse three. It's an invisible reality. "Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life." You go down under the water as we picture it in baptism, you come right back up, raised to walk in newness of life.

"For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old self, our old man, that Adamic nature was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away with, might be rendered inoperative so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead, is never to die again. Death no longer is master over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God."

And then it says this: "Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus." Now every Christian, true Christian, I'm not talking about a make-believer, I'm talking about a true believer. Every true Christian is dead to sin and alive to God. That transformation has taken place. And you ask yourself, well, when does that happen? It happens the moment we repent and believe. The moment we turn from sin and turn to the Savior, boom. There's a transaction that takes place.

So I was a 17-year-old high school senior, January of 1980. I was convicted about my sin. I saw that I needed Jesus, and I saw that if I died right then I would go to hell because I had no basis to go to heaven. And I said, "Jesus, would you save me?" I didn't understand all the ramifications of that. I didn't understand theologically what was taking place. I just gave my life to him, and he gave his life to me. And in that moment in time, I died in my old way of life and had a brand new life in Jesus.

Second Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 17 says this: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creature. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come." Every Christian is a twice-born person. You're born once physically and then you're born again. And your old man is crucified, your old self, that Adamic nature is crucified with Christ. As Paul said in Galatians 2:20, "I've been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." That's the transformation that takes place.

Now when you pray to receive Jesus, then he comes inside your life and Christ then is given the throne of your life. You know, he doesn't come in as Savior and later on comes in as Lord. We receive him as Savior and Lord; he's the boss, he's the master. And you can't get saved unless you surrender your life to Jesus. Adrian Rogers used to say, you know, Revelation 3:20, the Lord says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him, and he with me." And he said, you know, you don't whisper a prayer through the keyhole of the door. You have to open the door and say, "Lord, come in." And he comes in as the boss, he comes in as the master.

Well, that is what happens to everyone who truly trusts Christ. And so we are dead to sin, we're alive to God, and this is a truth that we must remember daily. You have to constantly remind yourself, "I'm dead to sin, I'm alive to God," as it says in Romans 6:11. "Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus." You have to consider it. You have to keep putting it down in your mind. You take what's true on paper, what's a theological truth true in heaven, and you say, okay, how do I make that true on earth? True in practice? Because what's true on paper doesn't mean it's true in practice. And we have to constantly remind ourselves of that.

Because truth number two: Every Christian feels the internal pull of sin. And if you don't feel the internal pull of sin and you truly are a Christian, then you're a liar. Because every Christian feels that. And the feeling is the big operative word there. We feel. So the Lord says, "You're dead to sin, you're alive to God." But, hey, you know what? You and I don't feel dead to sin. But truth is not what you think. It's not what you feel. Truth is what God says. So if God says you're dead to sin and alive to him and raised to walk in newness of life, then that's true, even though I don't feel like it.

See, we don't feel dead to sin. We still feel the desires of the flesh. I mean, take a dead guy to an all-you-can-eat buffet. I don't care how good the food is, he's not budging, right? He doesn't care about the food. He's dead. He's not going to overeat because he has no desire for any of that. You take him to a gentleman's club—not really for gentlemen, but that's what they call it. You take him there, nothing phases him, right? You take him to the bars, nothing, because he's dead. And it has none of that, has any kind of impulse for him.

Well, the Lord says we're dead to sin. But how many of us feel like that if we go to the bars, to the gentleman's club, to the all-you-can-eat buffet when we're on a diet? How many of us say, "Well, yeah, that has no pull"? It does have pull because you still have this flesh that is dead. But it's not gone. It's still there. It's been rendered powerless, but it has not been rendered voiceless. And it still barks out commands to you and me to respond. And we don't feel dead to sin. We still feel the desires of the flesh. Just because God says it's true and it is true doesn't mean that immediately causes you to say, "Oh, well, then I'm dead to all those things." No, because your flesh is working against you.

As Paul said, "The good that I do, I don't do, and the evil that I don't want to do, I find myself doing." What is going on here? I got this pulling me to do evil. Every Christian knows what that's like. Some years ago, I read "Up From Slavery," the biographical book by Booker T. Washington. Booker T. Washington, in my opinion, is one of the greatest men who ever lived. And Booker T. Washington experienced slavery firsthand. And when Lincoln freed the slaves and you had the Emancipation Proclamation and then the 13th and 14th amendments that came, well, the slaves were free.

Well, Booker T. Washington says in "Up From Slavery," he said, "You know, that was great news. When we heard that Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation, we were so elated." But he said there were a lot of people on the plantation, older men and women. They had been slaves their whole lives. That's all they knew was slavery. And now here they are, 60 years old, 70 years old, maybe 80 years old, and they're wondering, "How do I do this?" Because on paper I'm free, but inside, in my mind, I don't feel free.

And he said, sadly, many of them would go up to the house and talk to the master and work out a deal where they could be sharecroppers and still live on the plantation and still work. Everything was just kind of the same as it was. Because even though they knew in their minds that they were free, they didn't feel free. And they didn't know how to do this thing called freedom. That's kind of how we are. The Lord has said, "You're free from sin." But we say, "Yeah, but I don't feel it. I still get, you know, tempted by those things." Well, you're not alone. Paul got tempted by those things too.

And so we still struggle with our old crucified self. Now, Romans 6, verse 6: "Our old self, our old man was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away with." King James says, "destroyed." But the body of sin is not destroyed. It's rendered inoperative. It's rendered powerless so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. The greatest illustration I've ever heard about this: This man said, "Well, suppose that you're on this ship and the captain of the ship is the worst, meanest, cruelest captain you've ever seen in your life. He does terrible, horrible things, and you can't stand it, but that's what you're living under. And he said, one day there's a mutiny on the ship, and the captain is overthrown, and he's no longer captain anymore. And they tie him up and they hoist him up to the top of the mast, and he is there. He is rendered powerless. No more power over you. And now you have a new captain who is wonderful, who loves you, who wants what's best for you.

But here's the problem with the old captain: the old captain was not gagged. He's taken out of the way, but he still has a voice, and he still barks out commands. And you're so used to obeying that old captain that you jump when he says jump. You just say, "Ah. You know, I'm so used to doing what you say." And that impulse comes, and that's a picture of the flesh. The flesh is rendered powerless over us, but it still has a voice. And the Bible tells us that sin should no longer reign in us. As one commentator said, "Well, sin doesn't reign in us, but it does survive in us." And so that's where you have that struggle.

You know, just because you become a Christian doesn't mean that you're not still going to battle with sin. And the devil will appeal to your flesh, and the world appeals to your flesh. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. Romans 7:22. Look at it again. Paul says, "For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin, which is in my members, wretched man that I am, who will set me free from this body of death?"

Speaker 1

You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve today, and the lesson is titled "The Battle Within." There is a battle raging all around us. You can see it in the news. You can feel it in your family. And if you're like me, maybe you've fought more than a few battles in your own heart lately. It's not just life being hard; let's call it spiritual warfare. Whether we realize it or not, every believer is in a fight.

But here's the good news: God doesn't leave you and me defenseless. He gives us His Spirit, His Word, and His armor as we stand firm and win. That's exactly what we're committed to doing together at From His Heart Ministries—helping friends like you stand strong in the Lord and fight the good fight of faith with courage, clarity, and confidence. That's why your partnership is so critical. Your generosity helps this broadcast reach people around the world with the truth that they need to hear from Christ.

We're on radio, television, digital media, podcasts, and other resources. That's why we want to send you Pastor Jeff's brand new six-lesson series, "This Is War: Overcoming the World, the Flesh, and the Devil." In this new series, he takes you through the battlefield of the Christian life and shows you how to identify the enemy's tactics, guard your heart and your mind, and overcome through the power of God's truth. "This Is War" is our thanks for your gift today of any amount to From His Heart.

To get yours in the format of your choice, call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-24253) or go online to fromhisheart.org. Thank you for helping us share the real truth of God's Word with more people who are searching for hope.

Our closing scripture for today is one to bring you courage and encouragement in all of your life, no matter the battle within. Psalm 23:4: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me."

Well, thank you for being with us today. I'm Larry Nobles, inviting you to join us on Friday for the conclusion to the lesson "The Battle Within." That's on Friday, here on From His Heart.

Speaker 2

He can heal every scars of real truth, real love, real heart. From his heart.

Speaker 1

From His Heart is the listener-supported broadcast ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve, speaking the truth in love to a lost and hurting world.

Remember, no matter what, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

To find out more about that, go to promisheart.org.