7.8.23 Romans 7:15–25a
15 I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not keep doing what I want. Instead, I do what I hate. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 But now it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me. 18 Indeed, I know that good does not live in me, that is, in my sinful flesh. The desire to do good is present with me, but I am not able to carry it out. 19 So I fail to do the good I want to do. Instead, the evil I do not want to do, that is what I keep doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me. 21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is present with me. 22 I certainly delight in God’s law according to my inner self, 23 but I see a different law at work in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin, which is present in my members. 24 What a miserable wretch I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Christians Fight Losing Battles and Yet Win the War
True or False. A Christian is someone who has their act together. You would think so or hope so. I mean, we’ve been baptized. We have the Holy Spirit living in us. We know we are forgiven and adopted into God’s family. We know God is watching over us and works all things out for our good. We also have the Word of God to guide and direct us. We know right from wrong, good from evil. We know where we are headed, on the pathway to heaven. These are all clear advantages that we have over the unbelieving world. We live in the light, not in the darkness. We should have our lives together.
Yet Paul defined himself in a different light. He said, I do not understand what I am doing. That doesn’t sound confident and knowing if you don’t even understand what you’re doing. He also sounded conflicted. I do not keep doing what I want. Instead, I do what I hate. It’s what the world loves to call “hypocritical.” He preached one thing, knew what he was supposed to do, but then did another.
This sounds strange of Paul, because everything WE see of Paul is confident and active in his faith. He wasn’t a womanizer or a drunkard. He was well behaved and law abiding. He went on at least three missionary journeys. He was seemingly fearless in his faith, willingly facing death on a daily basis. He knew his doctrine and practice well. He called out Peter and Barnabas publicly when they had stopped eating with Gentiles. Here’s a guy who knew exactly what God wanted him to do and he did it. Yet when Paul looked at himself, he saw his many failures, failures that were not obvious to the public eye.
The same probably rings true of many Christians that you would think of as strong, having their act together. You see the couple that comes to church on a regular basis. They and their family seem well adjusted and happy. That doesn’t mean that they don’t have their own struggles on the inside, maybe about things that most might consider “minor.” The thing is, the more you get into God’s Word, the more you know what God expects of you and the more you KNOW how you fall short. You don’t take those failures lightly. But this is part of what makes Christians strong, when they are harsh with themselves on the inside. When they see their many failures. It keeps them from pride and arrogance. It keeps them from falling into even deeper sins. The nature of Christianity is that we DO struggle, because we know what God’s law says we should be and should do, and we see clearly how we fall short.
C.S. Lewis once made a brilliant insight on the nature of sin. He mentioned how we are sometimes surprised when we have a “moment of weakness.” I can recall earlier in my ministry a gal wanted me to visit her mother in the hospital. I tend to qualify things that I say I’m going to do, because you never know what might happen. So I said something to the effect of, “I should be able to get up there today.” She took that as a personal affront, as if I didn’t care about her mom, and much worse. It didn’t take me long to go from zero to fifty with her. I was genuinely angry. After the conversation was over, I was shocked at myself. What got into me? I should have reacted much better than I did. I could have blamed it all on her. But it was my fault, probably much more than hers. I knew better. Lewis mentioned how we like to excuse our sin because someone “catches us off guard.” Or “they caught me in a bad moment.” But he compared it to turning on a light in the basement, and seeing mice scurry here and there. He said that the light didn’t cause the mice to be there. They were already there. The light just exposed the mice that were there all the time. So when you find yourself bursting out in anger, it isn’t the problem that someone did something suddenly that CAUSED you to burst out in anger. The problem is that the anger was ALWAYS in there. The problem is with what’s inside of you. That’s always where the problem is. It’s not with the person that’s irritating you. It’s with the person being irritated. It’s what’s in your heart.
So Paul is harsh on himself, even as a baptized Christian. He describes himself as sinful, and with evil being right there with him. And if it’s that deep and that bad, then we realize we have a big problem inside. We tend to treat our sins more like getting a little muddy or sweaty on a walk. We get a little dirty and stinky because it’s hot out or it just rained. So what do we do? Well, we just need to take a shower and get some new clothes on. But Paul intertwines sin much deeper within us. He makes it a part of our nature, and you can’t just get rid of that so easily, not if it’s in your flesh and blood. You can’t just stop sinning by making a commitment or a vow to yourself. And you aren’t going to deal properly with it if you just laugh about it and treat it as if it were no big deal. We shouldn’t treat it so lightly, not if we’re going to look at it from Paul’s (and God’s) perspective.
If we follow Paul’s inspired line of thinking, then Christians will have a profoundly negative self view. We know we are sinners from head to toe. We are conflicted because we KNOW how we should be behaving, but we still don’t do it. The problem isn’t that they don’t know HOW to behave, it’s just that they don’t WANT to do it. “If I say ‘I’m sorry,’ then he’s just going to use that against me.” “If I admit my own laziness, then I’m going to have to do more work.” “If I don’t get any thanks for what I’m doing, then I’m not going to do it.” They know they SHOULD be more loving, but they have a real hard time doing it. They want to be nicer. But they just can’t seem to get a grip on themselves. They can’t do what they tell themselves they should be doing. And it’s sometimes confusing. “Why am I so angry all the time? Why am I so selfish? Why can’t I be a better spouse?” Because I’m a stubborn sinner and a lazy sinner. Christians are confused and conflicted, not because they don’t know what to do, but because they do.
That doesn’t sound much fun being a Christian, does it? Define Christian. Someone who hates himself and can’t stand falling short all the time. Someone who knows what he or she should be doing and keeps on finding reasons not to. Someone who feels constantly guilty over his shortcomings. Define Christian. A miserable human being. What a miserable wretch I am! Who wants to be that?
So you might expect that Christians would be a bunch of quitters then. If we’re born in sin and are bound to sin, why not just sin all the more? Why even bother? But that doesn’t mean that Christians just give up and give in. Paul prayed for the Ephesians and for us, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. (Eph 4:1) And that’s what we WANT. We WANT to do what is right. Why? The Holy Spirit has captured our desires and captured our hearts, so we want to do what God wants. We still have a strong desire to please the Lord, even though we fall short. Why? He’s died for us. He’s paid for our sins. He’s taken care of us. He’s been merciful to us. He’s given us His Holy Spirit. He’s called us His own, adopted us into His family. It’s like when you’re in the car listening to your favorite artist. You can’t help but WANT to sing along, no matter how badly you sing. When we are with the Holy Spirit, focusing on Jesus, we want to be more sacrificial and patient with people. We want to be more like Him. We want to be kind. We want to be more gentle. We want to be forgiving. We want to be more generous. We don’t want to be selfish. We don’t want to be angry. That’s a HUGE thing, to at least WANT to do what God’s wants, especially living in our world. Our fellow humans are constantly being told to do what makes YOU happy. Get rid of the people that irritate you. Look out for ME first. Have it YOUR way. But we don’t WANT to live that way. We want to please God.
It takes work. It takes sacrifice, especially because of what we have to work with. Paul realized he had a sinful body to deal with and sinful desires. He talked about beating his body and making it his slave. He went all in. I’m sure he had rationalizations as to why he didn’t have to work so hard. He had reasons why he could relax. And we can always find reasons to sin. A young Christian says prior to marriage, “We should wait until marriage for sexual relations. We shouldn’t move in together. I want to do this RIGHT!” But the war ensues. Maybe the person you are dating doesn’t have your morals, and you start making excuses. “We can’t afford to live apart. We know we’re getting married. Let’s just move in together. What’s the difference? We’re already having sex.” Another one says on a Sunday morning, “I need to get back to church.” But then on Sunday morning the sinful nature kicks in, “It’s my only morning to sleep in.” One spouse avoids the other for calling her out on something she did. In anger she says, “I can’t stand to be with him right now.” So she avoids him, when she should be apologizing and trying to make amends. We can rationalize anything. Paul had it too. So in today’s text Paul said, When I want to do good, evil is present with me. 22 I certainly delight in God’s law according to my inner self, 23 but I see a different law at work in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin, which is present in my members.
So Christians are constantly at war within themselves, in their own minds, struggling with who they are. Sometimes it takes time, but eventually they confess their sins, repenting of what they’ve done, time and time again. Exposing themselves before the Lord with all of their ugliness. This isn't easy. It isn’t fun. It is a struggle. It is a fight. It is a WAR. If your mind stops fighting against your desires, you will lose the battle. This is what it means to be a Christian. God doesn’t call us to sit on a hill, cross our legs, and meditate by escaping our bodies. God doesn’t call you to put on a fake persona of happiness on the Internet, as if your life is more happy and joyful because you’re drinking a drink while on the beach. He calls you to fight constant battles, some of which you will lose along the way.
So why battle at all? Why fight at all? It will wear you out. It will make you realize that you CAN’T save yourself. No matter how hard you battle, no matter how much you fight against your sinful flesh, you will always be sinful. So you will be forced to look OUTSIDE of yourself, to someone STRONGER than you, HOLIER than you, more GRACIOUS than you, to come and save you. Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! What a wonder, that God Himself took on a human body like mine? What a wonder, that this God used His body, His mind, His soul, His mouth, to resist sin perfectly, and to live the perfect life that I didn’t. What a wonder, that this God used His body to go to the cross, to face hell and death for ME and for YOU. I look to Him to rescue me from myself. I hear Peter promise me that baptism washes my sins away. I hear Paul promise me that my baptism clothes me in Jesus and puts me to death with Jesus and raises me with Jesus. I hear Jesus promise me that the Lord’s Supper is for ME, for the FORGIVENESS of my sins. I hear Him call to me, “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.” So it is my failures in battle that lead me to seek the One who WON the battle, for me. When I come here I can find rest for my soul, for my failures, in His success. Yes, my failures make me THANKFUL for Jesus. My failures make me want to sing to Jesus all the more, when I hear what He did to rescue me. He won the war already.
Does this define you as a Christian? If what Paul is saying here sounds foreign to you as a Christian, I’d have to ask you, “How hard are you trying to live as one?” Permit me one other C.S. Lewis quote. He said, “No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.” So what we see in Paul is someone who took God’s Law seriously, very seriously. But then it also caused him to take Jesus very seriously. He was so thankful that Jesus came to rescue him from himself.
In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus reminds us that He knows what it’s like to be weak and to face temptation. He doesn’t despise us for our failures. He comes to us in our failure and says, “Come to me, you who are weak and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Jesus died for failures. Jesus came for failures. He came to give us rest, true rest, in Him alone. This is what makes the battle of Christianity so beautiful, when we get the opportunity to run to Jesus time and time again, in the midst of our struggles and losses, and find our rest in Him. God give you strength to battle against yourself. Then God grant you that rest in Jesus, in the midst of whatever battle you’re fighting right now. And God give you strength to keep fighting those battles, for that is what Christians do. It’s a gracious thing. We keep fighting, keep losing, and yet win in the end, all because of Jesus. Amen.
