Freedom In Christ Series

Back in the 1990s there was a scandal that rocked the political world. There was a 20-year-old intern who was discovered to have had a sexual relationship with the President of the United States. Her name was Monica Lewinsky… and when the scandal hit the news, she found herself being scorned, ridiculed and hated. She later noted “The ground completely crumbled in that moment. I felt so much guilt, and I was terrified. There was a point for me… in the first several hours where I would be hysterically crying and then I would just shut down. And in the shutdown period, I remember looking out the window and thinking that the only way to fix this was to kill myself, was to jump out the window. And I felt terrible. I was scared, and I was mortified...”

And she said, "The shame stuck to me like tar.”

What do you do when your past with its sins and failures … just refuses to go away. What do you do when your guilt and shame stick to you like tar? What if you can’t fix what you’ve broken and undo the things you’ve done?

Well, Romans addresses that. Paul writes: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who does it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Romans 7:15-24

DOES THAT SOUND CONFUSING? Well, I think it’s supposed to! Paul is confused. He wants to live a sinless life… but he just can’t quite get it done. He just kept falling short – he keeps messing up.

Earlier in Romans, Paul said: Romans 3:23 “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” And the Apostle John wrote 1 John 1:8 “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

And here in Romans 7 Paul writes: “I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want… THAT’S what I keep on doing.”

But now, why should it bother Paul that he’d messed up once in a while? Well, because we serve a righteous God. In Isaiah 45:21 God said “There is no other god besides me, a RIGHTEOUS God and a Savior.” Paul realized that while God is righteous he (Paul) was NOT righteous!

And Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Jesus “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Paul knew that Jesus was without sin… but he (Paul) was NOT without sin.

It frustrated him - that he couldn’t always do the good he wanted to do. And there had been times that he had said, thought or done something that shamed him. His actions, thoughts, words were “inappropriate” and it bugged him! He realizes he couldn’t measure up, and so he cried out: “Wretched man that I am! WHO WILL DELIVER me from this body of death?” Romans 7:24

So, WHO would deliver Paul? Well, that would be Jesus! Romans 8:1 says “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Now, how does that work? How can we be assured that there would be no condemnation?

Well, John wrote: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (I John 2:1) Notice - our objective is to NOT sin. But if and when we do sin (i.e. we’re guilty) we have an advocate. What is an advocate? An advocate is a lawyer – someone who understands the law.