I don't think there's a good deed you have ever performed in your life for which you did not have to repent.

I said good deed. In other words, I don't think there is perfect motivation in this world.

I think everything you do is tainted by sin.

And therefore the life you live should be a life of continual repentance.

And embracing of the glorious gospel of an alien righteousness, which

alone will give you standing with God.

How should Christians respond to their ongoing battle with sin?

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper unpacks Romans 7, 14 to 25, showing how believers can cling to gospel hope while navigating the tension between loving God's law and battling indwelling sin.

This sermon was originally delivered at Bethlehem Baptist Church on June 3, 2001.

Here's the crucial question.

Why did Paul go about defending the law in chapter 7, verses 14 to 25, this odd way.

It's strange.

By describing a man's experience, his own, it sounds like, a divided man.

Verse 19, you see the divided man.

The good that I want, I do not do. But I do. I practice the very evil

that I do not want. Now, how does this long, drawn-out description of this man's turmoil,

notice the turmoil, verse 24, wretched man that I am.

How does that help answer his question?

How does that answer the objection?

You make the law to be sin.

You make the law to be death.

If you would get the law right, Paul, and stop directing people away from the law and put them under the law, you might get something better than verse 19.

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