if you're a Christian and you daily struggle against certain sins you daily fight certain Temptations and you find yourself giving into these T Temptations at times is that evidence that you are really outside the faith that you're not a true Christian and that you won't make it to Heaven well let me put it this way if you find yourself on a daily basis struggling against Temptations If you find yourself battling the weakness of the flesh if you feel yourself drawn toward sins of thought or word or deed if you if you find yourself battling these
urges within you and just struggling on a daily basis to remain faithful to Christ welcome to being a Christian that is the way the Christian Life is and the reason it's that way is because when when we are converted when God brings us from death to life when he brings us from being by Nature a child of Wrath to being by Grace an adopted child of our heavenly father we yes are newly created if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation as Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 but there Still Remains within
us what the scriptures call the the old nature or the old Adam you see for the rest of our lives in fact to our dying day once we become a Christian we have within us two Natures the theologians of the the Reformation referred to this as simol eustus at picat we are simultaneously Justified and a sinner or sometimes it said you're simultaneously a saint and a sinner this means that there's always going to be an ongoing Civil War within us this is what Paul talks about in Romans chapter 7 where he says the the good
that I want to do I don't do and the evil that I don't want to do that's what I do at the end he says who would deler me from this body of of sin body of death now contrary to what you will hear from some people Romans 7 is not talking is not Paul talking about his life prior to becoming a Christian all the verbs in the present tense Paul is describing the struggles that not only he but that every single Christian faces we are in this lifelong Civil War a civil war that begins
when we become a Christian what happens is we've got our old sinful nature which is still drawn toward all of those activities and desires and words that are contrary to God's Will and God's ways but you also have within us the the new nature created in the image of Christ Jesus that desires to do God's will desires to walk in his ways and to do what is right now I don't have to tell you that if you've got two Natures within you one pulling you this way and one pulling you that way then life is
going to be a struggle that is the Christian Life it's a life of struggle it's a life in which one side is pulling this this way and one side is pulling us that way now our identity in Christ is secure because we are safe in him as Paul says in Romans chapter 8 there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus in other words we are fighting these daily battles but with the knowledge and the hope the the sure and certain hope that the war has already been won the war has
been won not in us the war has been won in the Life Death and resurrection of Jesus Christ he has already fought evil and conquered evil and died for our sins on the cross attaining for us the victory that is now ours now yes we are still struggling we are still fighting we had this civil war going on within us but our Victory is certain not because we're going to overcome sin not because we're so Victorious over Temptations but because Christ has been our Salvation is secure in him and not in our life of obedience
so rest in that accomplished work of Christ even as you struggle against these Temptations father Thomas hopco in his famous 55 maxims said toward the end of those have no expectations in this life except to be fiercely tempted to your life last breath that is the the blunt but the realistic view of the Christian life that I face every single day I have no expectations except to be fiercely tempted to my last breath I don't expect there to ever be a a peace agreement between the forces the spiritual forces of darkness and Christ there's not
going to be I don't ever expect there to be a truce between my two Natures there's not going to be I expect to be fiercely tempted to my last breath and I also so know that I have a God who in Jesus Christ totally forgives me when I do give into temptation that doesn't mean that this is an excuse for doing evil but it means that when I do evil that I can come running back to my heavenly father and he's never going to turn me away he's never going to say no no I've already
forgiven you for that once or twice or three or four or five times he's always going to hear my confession and forgive me for the sake of Jesus Christ because he never tires of for giving us he is a good and a gracious and a merciful god now again that's not an excuse for our sins it's not like we should do evil because we know that God will forgive us rather we turn to God when we do give into temptation and we know and we cry out to God and Miss Temptations to Deliver Us from
from Evil so in the end we know that we are secure in Christ because there's no condemnation for those who are in him and we also know that daily our we are going to struggle and so we cast ourselves upon the mercy of God we pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit we ask him to Kindle within us desire to do that which is good and we pray for him to protect us from all those things which would be evil and would draw us away from Christ and most of all we give thanks to
him for the fact that there is no condemnation for us now because we are safe in Jesus Christ we pray that God would always keep us there safe and secure in him at in the end we may receive that gift which God has promised to all who believe in his son the gift of everlasting life and the promise of Resurrection that awaits us when Christ returns again thanks for listening
