Living to Win Over Weakness
Tom Shrader examines Romans 7:15-24 to address the normal Christian struggle where believers find themselves not doing what they want to do and doing what they don't want to do. He explains that this internal conflict is actually normal Christian experience, not a sign of spiritual failure. Shrader provides six practical steps for dealing with weakness including getting encouragers, finding trainers, doing the right things even when they don't feel right, and trusting the Holy Spirit's process of growth.
“You're more wicked than you ever imagined and more loved than you ever dreamed.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Living to Win (2014)
Recorded: 2014
Duration: 38 min
Themes: weakness, struggle, failure, victory, growth, temptation, flesh, encouragement, struggling with sin, feeling like spiritual failure, new believer, discouraged christian, mentor seeking guidance, pastor counseling others, young adult christian, believer questioning faith
Scripture: Romans 7:15-24, 2 Corinthians 12:5, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Ephesians 3:14-16, 1 Thessalonians 3, 2 Thessalonians 2:16, Hebrews 12, 1 Peter 5
Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual growth, sin nature, flesh spirit conflict, romans seven, christian maturity, holy spirit, progressive sanctification
Full Transcript
If you have Bibles, open them to Romans 7. I can remind you that we are in a series titled Living to Win, with the subtitle Identifying and Unraveling the Entanglements of Life. Those entanglements are what we looked at last week with guilt. We said that guilt really is the cornerstone of all this. To resolve that, I feel guilty because I am guilty, and the only way that I can resolve that guilt is to come to Christ in repentance and faith. Now that's in play, I can begin to deal with these other issues, like stress and anxiety and all that goes with it.
You have the outline in front of you today, and we're going to talk about weakness. When we think of that, we could probably think of all sorts of different types of weaknesses, but the weakness that we see highlighted there in Romans chapter 7. In fact that section almost reads like a fortune cookie.
The Struggle Described in Romans 7
Verse 15: "For that which I'm doing I don't understand, for I'm not practicing what I'd like to do, but I'm doing the very thing I hate. And if I do the very thing that I do not wish to do, I agree with the law confessing that it's good. So now no longer I am the one who's doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh. For the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good I wish, I do not do, but I practice the very evil I do not wish. But if I'm doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer the one doing it, but the sin that dwells in me. I find that the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes 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." The last verse, verse 24: "Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from this body of death?"
You see it goes back and forth and has an odd sort of rhythm to it. Making this maybe more powerful is the fact that Paul's writing this, most scholars believe, as a Christian. He's writing about what I would describe as the normal Christian life.
The Myth of the "Victorious Christian Life"
I remember years ago a guy coming up to me and saying, "I don't believe I'm living the victorious Christian life." I said, "Well what is that?" He said, "I don't know, but I'm not living it."
Let me go out on a limb and project what I think he's saying. I think that he's saying that most of us feel that when we come to Christ in repentance and faith, that big issue is settled. By that, let's make sure we got terms clear - by that I'm not dealing in religion anymore. I've come and confessed my sin, I've come to Christ's work on the cross.
We're getting ready for Christmas. In your calendar you'll see it pretty quickly. That's a big deal on our calendar. In most of the churches you're in, I would suspect that Christmas is a big deal, and then what's the next one? Easter. Those are extraordinary - those are our Super Bowls. Those are the big events.
Christmas and Easter: The Heart of the Gospel
When we talk about Christmas, we'll never separate it from Easter. Christmas is Christ coming into this world to be born so He can die. Christmas is kind of cool with little baby Jesus meek and mild, but we don't leave Him there. We get Him to the cross and then get Him to the tomb, because that's why He was born. I came that sinners might have life. That's what it means.
Now I have this moment where I come to Christ in repentance and faith. There's all sorts of verbiage that we use: "I asked Jesus into my life." Whatever that verbiage is, it's that moment where in my mind I'm no longer trusting myself, but now I'm trusting Christ's death to pay the price for my sin.
I have a study that we do during the week, and we're currently studying the Beatitudes. It begins with "blessed are the poor in spirit." That poor in spirit means spiritually bankrupt. Blessed are the ones who come and say, "I don't bring anything to this" - to satisfying God's wrath.
God's Wrath and Our Response
We were in a meeting the other day, and somebody was trying to say that we portray a God that's angry at the world, and he was trying to say maybe we shouldn't. One of the guys said, "Well, maybe He is." The reality is, He is going to judge sin. But there's that moment in time where many of you, maybe most of you, have come to that realization. Now that's not the end of my Christian life - that's the beginning of it. Now I begin what we call walking with Him.
The Marriage Analogy
Well, in our minds, we think this: it's like a couple getting married. I don't think I've ever done a wedding, and I've done a lot of them, where they're up there thinking, "I doubt this is going to work." They all think they're the exception. You can meet with them and pre-counsel and talk about all the difficulties, but they say, "We've talked about that, and he's great with the kids." I keep going, "You aren't the exception."
Here's the vows: better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness, health. Those vows imply difficulty. When Sandy and I started dating, and when Susan and I were dating and getting ready to get married, we talked about whether we thought we'd have kids, where they'd look...
when they go to school, now we say, do you want to be cremated, or buried? Do you have good insurance, got any debt, what's looming? It's a whole different game. Well, those are those inevitables. Now, I've wandered away from the point, so let me come back.
The Normal Christian Life
The normal Christian life is, I'm not doing the thing I want to do. Doesn't that resonate with you? Don't shake your head, because everybody will then judge you. At this point, I've been a Christian for thirty-four years. I should be beyond this.
Now, it's interesting, and I don't have the scriptural references, and that's my fault, but in Paul's life, there's a progression of how he views himself. Early on in his walk, he calls himself—all you take notes, this is a big one, you ought to write this one down—he identifies himself early as the least of the Apostles. Here are these twelve guys, and he got a break because Judas is out of there, so he couldn't beat him, but now with him gone, he's going, I'm the least.
A little bit later, he says, I'm the least of the saints. I'm the least of this group of twelve. Now, I'm the least of the whole body. Then, at the end of his life, he describes himself the chief among sinners.
Here's what I think happens: the more you walk with Christ, and the closer you get with Him, you don't see yourself as this amazing strong man or woman of God. You see yourself for the sinner you really are. So can we go back to last week's sentence? You're more wicked than you ever imagined and more loved than you ever dreamed.
Growing Up in a Different World
For a group of people in this room with an exception or two, you're kind of my age or a little bit older, maybe a couple of years younger. We were raised in a very different environment than the one today. I'm walking with one of our staff guys the other day. We're going from my office over to a meeting room and his phone rings and he said, hey it's home. Do you care if I take it? I said not at all. Oh that's so good. Good for you. That's great. I'm so proud of you.
Well here's what happened. The kid went to the bathroom in the potty. That's a big deal and I'm starting to rejoice when I can get there myself sometimes. He got off the phone I said, your daughter just got more approval in 30 seconds than I got from my dad my whole life. Not to beat up my dad, they didn't do it.
You bring that to your relationship with God. You're going, God loves me, but if He knew this He wouldn't. But then you're in trouble because you know He already knows it. Rather than being adopted and accepted by God, we feel we're on probation with Him. That's how we feel. All of a sudden you can just feel myself smile when I go, this is an amazing truth. I'm more wicked than I ever imagined. I'm more wicked than you can imagine. I'm a wicked little guy, but I'm more loved than I ever dreamed. He's not angry with me, His kid, looking for some way to zap me, saying don't you screw up or you're going to have to give that jersey, property of Jesus, you're going to have to give it back.
Six Steps for the Struggle
Now in this struggle, in this fitness for the inner man, I have six steps. So did we paint that well? Are we on the same page, at least the same zip code? Here's the struggle, what do we do?
Number one, commit to giving this struggle all the attention it deserves. Commit to understanding that this is in place. Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians 12:5, on behalf of such a man I will boast, but I will on my own behalf not boast except for my weakness. Paul says paradoxically when I'm weak, I'm strong. When I get to that point where I acknowledge I can't do this, but He does it through me.
2nd Corinthians chapter 4 verse 16 and 18: therefore we don't lose heart, though the outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but the things that aren't seen. The things that are seen are temporal. The things that we don't see are eternal. All of a sudden I begin to see things differently.
The Outer Man is Decaying
I rarely, maybe have never, miss a Wednesday or a Thursday where I don't teach at all, but I want to stay on this schedule. But I didn't teach yesterday. We were up in Flagstaff for a one-day retreat with some of the pastors from the larger churches in town. Jamie was there, Don Wilson was there from CCV, Luke Barnett was there from First Assembly, a whole bunch of other guys. You should rejoice that these pastors, rather than lob bombs at each other, are in the same room at least pretending to like each other, if not really doing it.
Well it was interesting because we were all getting up first thing in the morning, having a cup of coffee, going down to eat, I heard more moaning and groaning, oh, and achy, and I hurt so much. Why? The outer man is decaying.
This was 20 years ago now. I'm at my office and the phone rings and it's my eye doctor. He said, Tom, how you doing? Good, haven't seen you in a while. I need you to get in here and do an eye checkup. He said, I was listening to one of your tapes and I know it's time for you to do one. I said, how can you tell that from listening to a tape? And he said, you said that you were 43,
The Reality of Physical Decay
Having your 43rd birthday, when you come in you're going to need some bifocals. Really? So I go in and we do the test and sure enough, now we're going to put in bifocals. The outer man is decaying, almost in a predictable way. I just had my annual physical and it's very discouraging. I mean, we can trace this. It looks like the stock market going like this, and is there anything you can do to stop it?
Well, in reality, no. We can postpone it a little bit if you ate more fruit, more vegetables. And I said, well, it's not that bad. I mean, we can live with this. Here's what He's saying, and this is transformational. Sandy and I were walking the other day talking about this and asking ourselves, can you get this point before you get there? That the outer man is decaying. All this is passing away.
Gaining Perspective on Temporary Things
All of a sudden, I can now enter into this struggle because I'm not stuck on the fact that this stuff is permanent. We had just a little bit of talk before we started today about Iowa football or college football or football in general. And I know it and I say it to myself every Saturday, this does not matter. Now I'm going to give it the best 14 hours of my life, but it doesn't matter.
That deal that your heart is breaking over, that perception that you want somebody to have of you, it doesn't matter. All this is the outer man. It's decaying day by day. That stock that you're buying, even if it explodes, it doesn't matter because at the end of your life, it's not going to transition with you into eternity. So in this struggle, I've got to give this thing proportionately what it deserves.
Finding Cheerleaders and Trainers
I'm going to combine two and three on your outline. You need to get some other people to cheer you on and you need to find some trainers to help you develop. One of those is written to the church at Ephesus, Ephesians three, the other, First Thessalonians.
It's interesting to me, I like the background stuff. Paul spends three years in Ephesus. Paul goes there and has this amazing connection with these people. Tradition says that the apostle John actually comes and pastors in the church at Ephesus and tradition says that Mary, the mother of Jesus, attended there. This is a power place, Ephesus.
He's with them three years and he has a love for them and he writes to them in chapter 3 verse 14, "For this reason I kneel before the Father from whom His whole family in heaven and earth derives His name and I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you. I pray that you may have power." You need that cheerleader. You need that person that's in your corner.
The Power of Personal Mentorship
I always take family out of it because I know if I leave family in it I'll offend somebody, so take family out of it. I've never had a person in my life like Larry Wright. We met, we connected, we used to go out for breakfast, and the lady would say, "How old is your dad?" I'd say, "Well, he's not my dad, my grandpa." But we kind of look alike. We acted alike. When I started teaching, people used to call me little Larry in a negative way. "You're just trying to be like Larry." No, I'm trying to be the best Tom I can be. But the best Tom I can be is a lot like Larry.
I never experienced criticism from him. It wasn't that he wasn't corrective, but I would go to Him and say, "Larry, I'm thinking about doing that. What do you think?" And he would never say no. He would always say, "Have you thought that through?" Well, that was Him saying in the strongest terms, don't do it. You need people in it.
Coaching the Heart, Not Just Performance
I'm reading, I don't want to digress too much, but I'm doing some work right now on the topic of coaching. We've been maybe invited to sort of work with some of the high school coaches in the state and around. Sandy and I are working in conjunction with Bill and some of the FCA guys, and it's absolutely exciting. But there's a book called 3D Coaching. You can go online and get all of this material, and I'm telling you, it is amazing stuff.
It's about coaching. I mean, our answer to coach was like push, do it harder, run through the wall, you're nothing. When this guy's going, no, no, no. He might have missed that block because his dad left His mom last night. And you're coaching the X and Os. Well, you need to coach His heart. And I would just tell you, where I'm hooked on this is it's the same principle in business. You got a guy that's not selling. You bring Him in and go, "You need to make more calls." Maybe His heart's aching.
Everyone Needs Encouragement
I don't know anybody who doesn't need a cheerleader. The most successful person in the world. Here you go, I don't know this as a fact. My suspicion is Barack needs somebody to cheer Him on. But you need somebody every day to tell you, keep it up. And it's worth it.
My daughters are essentially stay-at-home moms, each with four kids. Haley's going through, for whatever reason, Haley hates potty training. And she's going through it right now. And I'm going, "Hey." And she goes, "She did it on the floor." "Well, she's not going to do that when she's 20. We'll get there. Just hang in there. She'll hit it most of the time." And sometimes you need to hear that, right? You need somebody to just cheer you on.
The Power of Prayer Support
The most powerful way, and you see it there, is to pray for you. I remember one day Susan was at Costco. And she was checking out. And this was when she was pretty sick. And she had her wallet. And in it, it said East Valley Bible Church. I don't know what she saw. And the lady checking out said, "Oh, my gosh. Do you go to East Valley Bible Church?" And Susan said, "Yeah, I do." And she said, "We pray for the pastor's wife every day. I wouldn't know her if she was standing in front of me. But I pray for her every day." And Susan would just light up and tell that story.
That means so much just to know that there's somebody in your corner. If you're a parent or a grandparent, I was just reading that I go to my grandkids now for football and baseball. I don't know what to do. They were talking to high-achieving athletes, professional and college. They said the best thing that their parents and support people ever said to them is, "I love to watch you play."
After every game, I'll say to Brayden, "Hey, bud." They got beat up that Saturday. It was just brutal. He was feeling kind of down. The game started with a snap over his head. It went down from there. They didn't do anything right, and it was over. I said, "You know, buddy, I love to watch you play." He said, "We got killed." I said, "It doesn't matter. I love to watch you play." I was thinking really hard, can I find a play that went well? I said, "I love that one little pass you threw to Yale. It was a great play." You need a cheerleader.
You Need More Than a Hero - You Need a Role Model
Here's the second thing. You need somebody that's more than a hero, but that's a role model. It's skin on skin. First Thessalonians 3: "We could stand it no longer. We're sending Timothy, our brother, to you to strengthen you and to encourage you." Here you go. If Phil Mickelson needs a coach, you do. If these athletes need a strength coach and this coach and that coach, you need a coach. You need somebody that'll come alongside and help you.
Many of you are at the point where you're on the other end. You need to be somebody else's trainer. You need to come alongside in this process. Remember the context here of weakness and struggle. You need to come alongside and be that guy, be that gal that people can go to. You need to have that in your life.
A Target-Rich Environment for Ministry
In all of life, Sandy was saying last night—I was gone, she was teaching the Tempe gals last night—I just hadn't been feeling very well. So I texted her and said, "I'm going to go to bed." She came in and woke me up. It felt like we should have had a real conversation, but we really didn't. I said, "How'd the night go?" She said, "You know what, it was pretty cool. There was a lady there that had only been in town a week. There was a lady there who was probably older than me who had her mom, and they were looking for a church. There were all these new people."
We live in a target-rich environment for this where you've got people who are moving in and through, and they're looking for help. I remember when we had these kids, we didn't have a clue what to do with them. I'm walking through the lobby one day at church, and there's this mom and she's got this baby. I don't know where people got the idea if you bounce a baby, it's going to help them. Think about your head flopping around. So she's bouncing this kid around.
I said, "Hey, hey, hey, let me see the baby. Is that your first baby?" "Yeah, yeah." "Where are you from?" "Well, we're back East." "You don't have your mom out here." I said, "How's the baby?" She goes, "The baby, I can't get him to burp." I said, "Oh. Let me show you what I used to do because I was good at that." I said, "Here's how I used to burp him." So I set him on my lap and I got my hand under His chin. This is how I like to burp. I didn't like him on me. I tapped him and this kid was all of a sudden like the exorcist. He was burping and His head was flying. I'm thinking, poor little guy's been carrying that around for a month and a half in there.
She said, "Oh." Then you could see her go, "I'm such a failure. I can't even burp my baby." I'm saying, "Hey, isn't that cool? I mean, look at that. That kid's got—that kid loves you." I'm not blowing smoke. You need to hear that. I need to hear that.
Start Doing and Saying the Right Thing
Here's the fourth thing. You need to start doing and saying the right thing. Second Thessalonians 2, verse 16: "May the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father who loved us and by His grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good work, in every good deed."
You get strong by doing things that will make you strong. You do the right thing the right way for the right reason. Most of the time, you know exactly what that is. If somebody comes to me and says, "I'm not really sure what to do here in the midst of this situation," and then they'll lay it out, I'll simply say, "Well, what do you think you should do?" "Oh, I think I should do that." "Could you do that?" "Yeah." "I think we have a plan." This is not that hard.
Then you do the right thing the right way for the right reason, even until it starts feeling right. I've had some of my guys on staff push back at that and say, "Well, I don't really know about that. That sounds phony." I got this one day when I taught on giving. I taught on giving and I said, "The Bible says God loves a cheerful giver. So if you can't give cheerfully, don't give at all." A guy came up afterwards and said, "Do you think not giving is a sin?" I said, "Yeah, I do. I think it's wrong." "So, your view is, if they can't do it cheerfully, don't do it at all. So, if I can't be faithful to my wife cheerfully, I shouldn't be faithful to her at all?" It doesn't sound right when you say it that way.
See, there's nothing phony about this. I do the right thing the right way. I start saying, doing, acting what's right, and I may not have the conviction or power of it initially that I'll have eventually. It's not being phony, it's being the person God's called you to be.
Don't Stop Just Because It Hurts
Number five—we got two more in about eight minutes. Don't stop this just because it hurts in the Christian life. Remember the context now? The struggle part? Don't give up. Hebrews 12: "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees." You've got to go.
It's an eternal struggle. I find it and face it all the time on a physical plane. I left Sandy a note. I didn't sleep all night. I hurt so much. Finally, at like three or four, I took a pain pill, so it could be an interesting day for me. I sent her a note and said, hey, I'm not going to get back till late. I have to look at some property and some stuff this afternoon, but maybe we go for a walk tonight. Maybe go over to the track. I got zero interest in this, but I know if I don't do it, there's a big downside to it. Selfishly, I want to do it just so I can have a cheeseburger.
I'm living this Christian life, and in the midst of this, I have to understand I have an enemy in Satan, in the flesh, in the world system. There are going to be times in the midst of this struggle where it's really going to hurt. But I don't stop because it's tough.
Trust the Program
Here's the last thing in this struggle. You have to trust the program to produce the results. You have to trust the Holy Spirit.
1 Peter chapter 5, and it's important to remember who the author is. It's Peter, remember? He's failed big time. We've studied it. He said, here's my testimony: "And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you've suffered a while with Himself, will restore you and make you strong and firm and steadfast. To Him be the power forever and ever."
There's Peter's testimony. I love the testimonies. I love the whole idea of the infomercials that always has, here was a problem, here was this, I went through this, and now I'm that. Here's Peter saying, I denied Christ. But Jesus saved me and used me. And I'm telling you, personal testimony, like He did to me, He will restore you and make you strong and firm.
The Need for Encouragement
So in the midst of this struggle, where I'm not doing the things I want to do, I'm doing the things I don't want to do, I'm going to be discouraged at times. I need somebody to come along and I need somebody to encourage me. To tell me to keep it up. This Christian life requires a person or two around you. If you're married, oftentimes, and maybe in an ideal setting, that spouse is an important person in this process. But I don't think he or she can be the only person.
I find Sandy strengthens me a lot. Sandy knows, we've been married now 29 years. I was somewhere the other day and I said, the guy said, 29 years? I said, yeah, we met in high school. I was teaching English and she, cheap joke. But she knows, she can look, she can tell from a text or the absence of a text. She knows what I need in that. But she can't be it all. You need those other people around you that are going to encourage you in the midst of this and tell you that it's worth it.
The Paradox of Strength in Weakness
But Paul writes and he says, "Therefore, I am content with weakness and insults and distress and persecution and difficulty for Christ's sake. For when I'm weak, I'm strong." It seems so paradoxical. It seems like a fortune cookie. It seems like it's all backwards. But what he's saying is when I'm not trying to do this myself, when God is working in me and through me, I have a strength that's beyond anything I can imagine.
"My grace," Paul writes, God saying, "My grace is sufficient for you. For power is perfected," that word translated perfected means matured or complete, "Power is complete in weakness." The weaker I am, the stronger He is in me.
This Is Normal
Week one, I've got this guilt. What do I do with it? Well, it's Christ. Week two, now I'm in this family, but I've got this whole dilemma going on. I'm not doing the things I want to do. I'm doing the things I don't want to do. What do I do with that?
From my own experience, before we deal with doing anything, it's to step back and go, this is normal. This is the normal thing. When I was doing my little therapy and recovering from the heart deal, I got about week three, and if you graphed my progress physically, it was going up. It was ticking up. Every day I could walk a little further. Every day I could do a little more. Then all of a sudden, I hit these two days where it just didn't feel right.
The doctor said something. The minute he said it, I connected with this. He said, this is very normal at this stage. Oh, okay, it's going to go away? No, just keep doing the stuff you're doing. That idea that I'm not doing what I want to do and doing what I don't want to do, that's okay, that's normal.
Now, you can't stay there. You want to go ahead and acknowledge that that's a season in your Christian life, but it can't become the lifestyle. You can't be sitting there saying every day, oh, I really am bad at this and I'm sinning my brains out, but that's normal. That's not what we're striving to get at. We're striving to let you experience the grace and peace in the midst of it.
Father, thank You for this truth. Thank You that You tell us what we already know. Apart from You, we can't do anything. You're everything, we're nothing. Father, work in our life, please. Strengthen us, please. For those right now that are discouraged, put courage into them. Remind them that this life, as tough as it is, is worth it. Help us keep going. Because we're not doing it alone. You filled us with Your Spirit. You strengthened us. God draws closer to You. Use us in a powerful way. We pray that in Christ's name. Amen.