What Makes Christians Different – Find Rest In Jesus starts us on a new sermon series. We all know we need rest. Without it, our bodies and minds begin to suffer. Yet we know our deepest need is not simply for more sleep or a vacation. We need spiritual rest. Romans 7 reminds us that every believer lives with the exhausting daily battle between the new self that delights in God’s will and the sinful nature that resists it. Left to ourselves, it is a battle we cannot win. But Jesus gives the rest our souls long for.
The Good That I Would
18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
Ah the sinful nature, the original Greek calls the sinful nature the flesh. As many of you are aware, I was at a youth camp last week. Camping can be a dirty, messy activity. For time’s sake on Friday morning there isn’t always time to let everything dry nicely so you throw the wet towels, tarp, tent, clothes into a big 42 gallon trash bag and drive the eight hours home. By the time you get home it’s late – we’ll deal with it tomorrow. Can any amount of bleach cleanse the rot and filth? Can you imagine what’s growing in that trash bag? Just as that trash bag is the perfect environment for mold to grow on camping equipment, so also your flesh, your body and soul is the perfect environment for sin to grow.
Young and Old Alike
Consider some of the sins – greed and lust. Lies and deceit. What about anger? At the middle school camp the two topics that the Bible studies hit on the last day were different for the boys and the girls. For the ladies it was self-image, beating back the lie that they are ugly, that no one could ever like them. For the boys it was revenge. How do I handle my anger? He just said something about me, why can’t I take his head off. Those may seem like problems of the past, but middle school children don’t stay young forever, they grow up and their flesh grows with them, often carrying the same skewed self-image and the same anger into adulthood. This can only lead to spiritual exhaustion.
Want to hear more? Watch this week’s message, What Makes Christians Different – Find Rest In Jesus.
Topic(s): FaithBook(s): Romans
Series: What Makes Christians Different
Tag(s): Rest
Speaker(s): Fred Guldberg