Help! I Am Married To A Rebel!

Romans 7:18 – For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.

Romans 7:19 – For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.

Apostle Paul strives to help us understand sin and salvation. In Romans chapter six he uses the analogy of slavery. We were slaves to sin. After salvation we are now slaves to righteousness. A slave must do the will of the master.

Romans 6:16 – Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey —whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Romans 6:18 – You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

As slaves to sin, willingly or not, we did what sin asked us to do. Now that we are slaves to righteousness, we should obey our new master. Be slaves to what is good and be loyal to God’s will.

In Romans chapter seven that we are considering today, Apostle Paul uses the analogy of marriage. Marriage is enforced by the law. We are only free from our spouse and the law, after death. When we die, our obligations to our spouse come to an end. When we die, our obligations to the law that enforced the marriage also die. Death sets us free from the two, sin our spouse and the law that enforced the marriage. Death is necessary if we are to be saved from sin and demands of the law that required sinners to die.

Jesus died that necessary death. Through baptism we accept and by faith participate in that death of Jesus for us. Therefore we who are baptized have resurrected to a new life free from our former spouse sin and free from the law that enforced that marriage.

The law enforces good marriages and bad marriages. If the law enforces a bad marriage, the law is not the problem. Your bad spouse is the problem. Don’t blame the law when you have a bad spouse. The law is good!

Romans 7:12 – So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.

Apostle Paul goes on to explain that in our marriage to sin we are helpless slaves. Sin is a rebel. Sin rebels against everything God tells us. When God brought His law that said do not covet, what did sin the rebel do? Sin caused us to covet everything. Sin loves to rebel. If the law says go left, sin makes going right.

Romans 7:7 – What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

Romans 7:8 – But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead.

Apostle Paul tells us it’s a desperate situation to be married to sin. You know the right thing, but your spouse sin, forces you to rebel. The good I know I should do, I can’t and don’t do. The evil, the wrong, I know I shouldn’t do, I end up doing. I am married to a rebel!

Romans 7:15 – I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

Romans 7:16 – And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.

Romans 7:17 – As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.

Our marriage relationship to sin only ends when we die. Jesus gave us an opportunity to die so that our relationship to death ends. However after dying, it takes a process of sanctification for rudiments of our relationship to sin to completely end. Jesus our new marriage partner helps us overcome previous rebel tendencies that may still linger.

Romans 7:24 – What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?

Romans 7:25 – Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

We need rehabilitation since we had become accustomed to rebel tendencies. The power of the Holy Spirit rehabilitates us. Sanctification is rehabilitation.

Only Jesus can save us who are married to a rebel. Only Jesus can bear with us as we struggle with tendencies from our former marriage. Over time (rehabilitation or sanctification) by the power of Jesus we cease to be rebels! We become children of God!

Are you married to a rebel? Do you keep doing the wrong you don’t want to do? Only Jesus can save and help us through the rehabilitation process. Run to Jesus and accept His salvation. When you accept the salvation of Jesus you get admitted to a new life in Jesus. That admission is called justification. It happens instantly. Then sanctification or rehabilitation begins immediately for the rest of your life. Daily you become a better person than before as you stick to Jesus.

Are you married to a rebel? Consequently you have bouts of anger that you know are wrong? You visit witches knowing very well it’s wrong? You watch pornography and masturbate knowing it’s wrong? You have multiple sexual partners knowing it’s wrong? You abuse drugs knowing it’s killing you but you can’t help?

Are you married to a rebel? Consequently you hate the church and its leaders and find pleasure in it, yet you know it’s wrong? You don’t pray when you should? You don’t study the Bible? You attend church erratically? You disobey parents and you know it’s wrong? You hate and antagonize people when you know you shouldn’t? You create strife and chaos and divisions in groups and families, knowing it’s wrong?

Apostle Paul admitted that he was married to a rebel. The good he wanted to do, he couldn’t do. The wrong he didn’t want to do, he did. Then he asks, who will save me? Then he says only Jesus can save. May we be saved from the marriage to a rebel, in Jesus’s name, Amen!

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