Sermon For July 12

I don’t have a joke for you this week, nor do I have a special rant as a few weeks ago. What I do have is a warning for all of us today. The warning is that most of us are breaking the law right, and we don’t even know it. Now in the United States, ignorance is not an excuse for breaking the law, so I am going to help all of you to become better, more law abiding citizens. Let me ask a question first. Are any of the men carrying a fire arm today? No, well then I must inform you that you are in fact in violation of Massachusetts state law that a rifle must be carried to church on Sundays. Goatees are also illegal unless you first applied for a permit and paid a special license fee for the privilege of wearing one, and snoring is illegal unless all bedroom windows are firmly closed and locked. Now that you are not ignorant anymore, I hope you will make the necessary changes to your behavior to begin to obey the laws of this fine Commonwealth. Why on earth would I tell you all of this, well it sort of relates to today’s text.

Turn with me to your programs. We read in Romans 7:

5For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

7What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." 8But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Paul is continuing his thoughts from the previous chapter, and it behooves us to revisit his main ideas for a moment. What he says in Romans 6 is that we are not under Law anymore, but under grace. He says we died to our old selves, and were raised with Jesus to live a new life, and this new life is not by the Law, but by the Spirit. But, it almost seems from his argument that it was the law that was the cause of sin. So here he begins to refute that assertion.

Paul clearly states in verse 5 that while we were living in the flesh, in that old life, our sinful passions were aroused by the Law, and I think we need to look at this closely before we move on. It would seem by this statement that the law does in fact cause sin, but not 2 verses later we read that the law is not sin. How can this be the case? Let me ask the guys a question- do any of you now want to grow a goatee simply because I told you it was illegal to do so? Some of you do, I am sure. How many of you are familiar with the internet? Most of us. Well have you ever been forwarded, or found on your own something called the “Don’t Push the Red Button Game”. You can find it a variety of places. All the game is, is a red button that says “Don’t push” on it. If you push it, the saying changes to “Really don’t push it”, “I am serious, don’t push it”, “Are you listening”, etc. It goes on like this for hours. Now I submit that to win, all you need to do it not push the button, but everyone pushes it. Most simply because it tells us not to. See, our sinful passions were aroused by a law. Now it is not evil of the game to say don’t push the button, it is simply the rule to win said game. We though, having our passions peaked, push it.

I want to give one more example, but since I really like following rules, I have to use my wife for this. Some of you may not know it, but my wife is the rebel of the family. Really. If you tell her not to do something, she usually want to do it to spite you, and if you tell her to do something, she doesn’t want to do it, even if she was going to do it already. Let me tell you how this plays out in her life. By the way I am not gossiping since she is in the room, I am poking fun- it is completely different.

As most of you just experienced, it is commonplace in MERCYhouse to stand while we sing worship songs. While it is common, it is not the rule. Typically after the sermon, and especially after communion, people don’t stand unless they are told to by the worship band. This is quite a social phenomenon worthy of study, but that is not what we are concerned with at present. See, my wife does like to stand right after the sermon, and especially after communion. She is usually praying and gearing up to stand, when the worship leader will say something like, “Would you all stand,” or “Let stand for the last song,” and something in Sarah snaps. She was on her way to stand of her own free will, and after hearing these words sits down defiantly. She sure showed that worship leader, she is not going to stand simply because they said so. The best part of it all is that she actually wanted to stand, and may have been upset that others weren’t standing, but once it becomes a command, well that is an affront to her, her liberty, and her God, and so she sits. Now I know that you all will be watching her later, so really guilt her into standing, even if we are told to.

What has changed in the seconds that she wanted to stand, and then didn’t? She was simply told she should stand. She was given a rule, a law, if you will, and it aroused her passions. I want us to notice something though, she is not actually trying to actively be defiant. She does not premeditate this. In fact, being a woman who is seeking after God, she is actively trying to stop this reaction. She recognizes it for what it is, sinful, and tries to stop it. The verbs Paul uses here are also passive. They reflect much more the passions over taking us, being aroused almost, dare I say, against our will, rather than we fanning the flames. The law is used by our sinful nature in very much the same way as the stupid internet game, or my wives defiance.

And Paul attributes this to our flesh. The reason we want to push the button is because we were told not to, and for no other reason. I know we can all relate to this. In Confessions, Augustine talks about how, as a youth he stole fruit from a local vendor, not because he wanted the fruit, (he actually ended up feeding it to animals) but because he was told not to. This is our flesh. It is defiant and crooked. This is why chapter 6 is so important. It reminds us that we have died to the flesh. We are no longer under law.

Paul writes we can serve under the Spirit. But it still seems like the Law could be called evil, especially when viewed through the lens of laws today. In my introduction I told us about a few crazy laws in Massachusetts. There are actually worse one other places, like Florida, par example, where it is actually illegal to give a donkey a bath in your tub. What you do when your pet donkey gets dirty, I don’t know, but you don’t give it a bath, that’s for sure, unless you’re a felon. But the objection can easily be raised that it is only illegal to do this because it was written down, and if the law was never put on the books, everyone who loves their Donkey and gives it a bath would not be a felon, but rather a great owner. It seems then, that the Law is what produced the crime. And this is a reasonable objection for US laws. Things are not illegal until we make them so. In the early 1920’s my grandfather started what would become an illustrious career. He was 12 at the time, and was driving a delivery truck all around Boston. And he did it all legally. He was a law abiding citizen. This was possible because there was no law in 1920 demanding that one must be over 16 year old and licensed by the state to drive. You could just hop in and go, assuming you knew how to operate a stick shift. Today that is not the case, but no one would say my grandfather should have been arrested for driving so young. It became illegal to drive at 12 after they made the law.

What should we say then, is the law sin? Does this Law of the Old Testament operate under the same system as the laws in this country, or any, for that matter? Well Paul tells us by no means! The law is not sin. But Paul does concede that if it were not for the Law we would not know sin. If it is only by the law that we know sin, how does the law not produce the sin? That is a very subtle metaphysical question, and it has equally as subtle an answer. This is where the previous chapters of Romans come in real handy. We may remember a few weeks ago I gave a brief synopsis of those chapters. One of the strands of thought that Paul follows is that both Jews, who have the Law, and gentiles, who don’t, are guilty and condemned before God.

The Jews stood condemned because of the Law, and the Gentiles because of their conscience, for they know what is right and wrong, but don’t follow it. See, it may not have been illegal to murder someone before that became a law, but it was certainly wrong. In this case the law was there before the written code. Cain is punished for murdering his brother even before the Law was given. Now what the Law does is call wrong doing something different, it calls it sin. Wrong was wrong before the Law was given, but under the Law, wrong also becomes sin. The Law lets us know what Gods standard are, and how we have failed. This is evident in Paul’s example. Paul chooses to prove his point using the tenth commandment. Now this commandment only deals with the condition of the heart. While the others certainly deal with conditions of the heart as well, they also have outward actions. The command not to covet has no immediate outward actions associated with it. It is only an internal desire. And Paul says he wouldn’t have known what coveting was had he not been told. Once the command was given though, something happened. Sin now had an opportunity to strike. When Cindy or Scott or Ethan or Eric tells us to stand, it is a good thing. We are brought together in our worship and reminded of our relation to God, but with this command comes an opportunity for sin. We can become defiant and rebellious and not want to stand out of spite.

In the same way the command to not covet can produce covetousness. But it is not the commandment that is sinful, but rather sin. And sin uses what ever it can. By having the Law, we have even more ways to be rebellious, and since we are of the flesh, we rebel. We rebel against laws, authority, God, and so the flesh produces in us all manner of sin.

And then Paul takes a brief digression. He says:

9I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.

After reading some commentaries and meditating on these verses I have come to the following conclusion about these verses. What Paul is doing is giving us a personal glimpse into the moment he knew his own fallenness. Remember that Paul lived in Israel and was a Pharisee, so it is hard to imagine a time in his life that he was without the law. However, I can imagine Paul going through the same transition in life that so many others have gone through. How many of us have grown up with the Law? We are raised to believe in right and wrong, etc. And most of us for a while thought ourselves, at the very least, decent people. I would imagine most people consider themselves, “good”, and polls back me up. But something happened to most of us in this room. We were confronted with Gods standard and we were ashamed. At some point in our life we knew that we were not in fact good people, but hopelessly broken and sinful. Our sin came alive, so to speak. We finally saw it for what it was, it became known, and at his very moment we died. We knew we could not measure up, that we were condemned, and rightly so. This is what I believe Paul is communicating here. These commandments that promised life, when he really got it, understood it in his heart, actually proved death because he realized he had not kept a single one.

So then Paul concludes that the commandment is holy. It is not like these other human laws. It is good, it is we who were evil, and as such turned a positive in to a negative. But does that mean this good law brought death? Paul states it like this

13Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

And Paul again answers his rhetorical question with, “By no means!” It was sin that produced the death, not the commandment. It was through the commandment that we knew we had died, but this is no fault of the commandment, it is the fault of sin. What the commandment does is call sin, sin. It reminds us that it isn’t our personal ideas of what right and wrong are, but that there is a standard we are called to live up to. When our conscience condemned us, the commandment tell us why. It is because there is sin. There is a standard. So then sin kills us, and the commandment simply brings this to life.

And then Paul throws this line in:

14For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

And with this he is going to change his train of thought slightly. We have been in this theological realm once again with Paul. He is asking and answering rhetorical questions in an attempt to build an argument. He has been talking about the Law in this kind of Platonic Idea sense, and he has been doing all this to answer objections to his earlier arguments. Remember that there are Jewish converts who are concerned about the Law, and gentiles who want to throw the baby out with the bath water. In the entirely of this last section he has been trying to marry the idea of the Law with this new revelation of life by the Spirit. He is reminding us that the Law is both good but not sufficient. We are not to live by it anymore, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a purpose. It brought death, but that doesn’t mean it is evil. He is trying to answer objections from both sides, and he ends with this: That the law is spiritual but he is of the flesh, sold under sin, and presumably, not just him, but all of us. The Law then is good, but he is not, is the conclusion.

He continues in this vein, but we need to have Romans the larger book in the back of our minds as we read this next section. He is here going to join this latest diatribe with what has just been said in chapter 6. And what exactly was that? If we remember, Paul writes in those chapters that we are dead to sin, and as such can offer our bodies to God as instruments of righteousness. He tells us to not let sin reign in our mortal bodies, but rather be free of sin and slaves to God. Now with these commands in mind, as well as Paul’s confession that he is not spiritual, but of the flesh, Paul writes the following:

15For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18For 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. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

He says that he can’t do what he wants to do. More than this, he can’t even understand himself. He does what he hates, and can’t do what he wants. Let me pick on my wife a little more. If you ask her about her contempt for forced standing, she will tell you she knows it is ridiculous. More than this, she will tell you that she knows it is wrong. But she can’t help it. She tells herself to not feel this way, but it comes anyway. If you tried to convince her that her feelings are wrong (which guys I don’t ever recommend telling a woman), she would agree with you. So she then agrees with the law.

To use Paul’s example of coveting, we can see this even more clearly. We know coveting is wrong because we have been told, but how many of us covet. I know I do almost all the time. I covet others cars and houses and shirts. And I also know it is wrong. I know I shouldn‘t be doing this, but sometimes it seems like the harder I try not to, the more I covet. I see the consequences of coveting: not being content with what God has given me, trying to think of ways to get what others have by less that admiral means, getting cranky at my wife when I can’t buy what I want when I want. So I agree with the Law, that it is good. Coveting produces bad behaviors and shouldn’t be done, but I can’t follow the commandment.

Now Paul says that if I agree with the law, but don’t keep it, it can’t be me any more. Who ever heard of a person not doing what they want? If I want to walk over here I do it, if I want to go over there, I do it. If I wanted to go over there at this moment and couldn’t, but in fact went over here instead, then it must not be me or my will moving me. The best example I have of this is in the arena of sports. There are a few sports I have played, football and wrestling, mainly, where I was not always in charge or my own actions. During one wrestling match I desperately wanted to move my arm under the guy I was wrestling. He was pinning me, and my intent was to flip him. He, however, was stronger and more skilled than I, and as such moved my arm to where he wanted it to go. As he did this, I was caught in a move called a double chicken wing, which is painful and humiliating. I didn’t want to be in this position, in fact, my entire will was against it, but I was there anyway. I don’t believe anyone on my team thought, “That was stupid of Nate, he should have never chosen to be there.” They knew it was not my will. And so it wasn’t my will, but the other guys.

In the same way, many times while playing football I have had others will imposed upon me. I have been tackled or blocked, and I assure you I did not choose this. Therefore we know it wasn't me, but someone else’s will that threw me to the ground. This is Paul’s argument as well, albeit at a much higher level.

He tries to do good, but fails. He tries to not do evil, but does it. So it is not him anymore. He finishes this thought, repeating what he just said.

For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

And I don’t think this was meant to give us an insight into only Paul’s struggles. This text applies to all of us, does it not? I know myself and my wife have uttered these very words many times. I don’t do what I want to. I know what I should do, but I just can’t do it. I know that what I am doing is wrong, but I just can’t stop. Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

This is the human condition, is it not? Both for Christians and non-Christians. One of the ways I know this, is that it is a common theme in movies and literature throughout the ages. How many of you have seen The Incredible Hulk - not the old movie that was terrible, but the good one that is out right now? What is Bruce Banners problem? He has a monster in him he can’t control- at least not in the beginning. He tries all sorts of methods to keep the monster locked within, finding some success with breathing techniques, until circumstances out of his control release the inner beast once again. This resonates with us. It has resonated with us for decades. And why, because people understand this inner monster that they can’t control. They get that occasionally, against their entire will a beast comes out. No matter how hard they try, or what they do, eventually a creature that is part of us, that lives in our inner most being, comes to the surface and takes control of us.

And don’t think this story is new to the post 1970 comic book world. It is far older than that. If we were to look at a list of must read literature of the English language, chances are that a book by Robert Louis Stevenson would be on that list. The book? The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I am not here going to give a summary of the entire book, but rather a quick over view and summary of the end. First there is Dr. Jekyll. He believes that there is both a good side and dark side inside himself. He sets about to separate the two, and after drinking many potions finds one that works. He transforms into Mr. Hyde, an evil, vile, monster devoid of morality. For a while he turns only when he drinks the potion, but soon he is transforming in his sleep involuntarily. He resolves to not change anymore, and get the monster under control- and for a while he is successful. Until a fateful night when the urge to become Mr. Hyde becomes to strong and he changes into the beast once again, who then roams the streets and kills Sir Danvers Carew. The grief from this event over takes Dr. Jekyll and he is even more resolved to never become Mr. Hyde again. And all seems well until, with no prodding, and completely alert he turns into Mr. Hyde for the very first time. This becomes the norm, Mr. Hyde now being in control more that Dr Jekyll, who now needs potions to remain himself. Does this sound familiar to anyone in the room? And I don’t mean have you read the book.

This plot of an inner monster that is uncontrollable is the human experience. We all cry out with Paul that what we want to do we don’t do, and hat we don’t want to do we continue to do. And all this from a man who told us not 3 paragraphs earlier to put to death the body, not be a slave to sin, stop obeying its lust and commands, and instead offer our bodies as instruments for righteousness. He concludes this thought as follows:

21So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23but 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.

There, it would seem, are two persons- a real Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He delights in the law of God, but can’t carry it out. He is waging a war against himself. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. What are we to do then? If this is us, we want to please God, but can’t. We see the Law as good, but it gets used for evil. We desire to live a righteous life, but instead find only death and sin. What are we to do? How can we survive if we are waging war against our very selves?

And this is a real problem, is it not? For the past two weeks we have been told to be good. I told us that we are no longer slaves to sin, but to God; that we had the ability to follow God and be righteous. Last week Patrick told us that there are two spirals, one of righteousness leading to life, and the other of sin leading to death. All we have to do is follow the spiral of righteousness. Let me ask, though, how many of us tried to follow this spiral? How many of us tried to put ourselves to death and unite with Christ in his death so we could be united with him in his resurrection? How many of us failed, and failed miserably? I know I did. What are we to do then? Paul cries out with this question too. He finishes the chapter saying:

24Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Who will deliver me? What am I to do? Wretched man that I am! He sees this death all around him, and also sees that he can not do anything about it. He can not even control his own will, how then can he live. And his answer?

Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! Thanks be to God. Again, go back to all the previous chapters of Romans. The theme isn’t what we have to do, but what God has already done. The death He died he died once for all. We get to unite with him in this through faith, but that is all. We need not do anything else. Yes, sin through the Law brought death, but God brought life. And we are not part of this world anymore. We have died to all that, if we unite with Christ. And more than this, we don’t only die, but are given new life. We are given new life. Who will deliver us from our bodies of death? Jesus.

And we only need to faith in him to be delivered. We no longer need to follow the Law, but the Spirit. That is not to say we are not still going to have struggles. Paul clearly does. I know I do. A Hyde still lives in all of us, and it is called many things: sin, the flesh, sin nature, humanity. But it is not who we need bow to anymore. Paul says, “so therefore I myself serve the Law of God”. That other thing, it is not who we are anymore, it is not us. This is our solace. That monster is still there, but where before we were the monster, now we are new creations.

Where before Mr. Hyde was our true self, now he is something altogether other. That is not to say he doesn’t control us now and again, but just as it was not me who pinned myself wrestling, it was my competitor, so too is it not truly us when we are controlled by our flesh, but the sin that lives in us.

And although we don’t read it specifically at this moment, in other places we are assured that the victories of sin over us can and will become less frequent. As we continue to die to our old self, and become renewed perpetually, being guided by the Spirit, we have assurance that an eventual victory has already been won. Paul doesn’t end this section in despair, but rather in praise. Yes he was continually beaten and his will usurped, but God has rescued him anyway. Yes, he was unrighteous and sinful, and at times a monster, but God has set him free in spite of this. Who will rescue me? It is not I, but God. We have been set free from sin and death. We are no longer under Law, but under grace.

This is the conclusion we must come to as well. We are not under law, but grace. If we have been united with Christ in his death, then surely we will be united with him in his resurrection. We don’t need to rescue ourselves, God has already rescued us!

As we hear sermons about holiness and righteousness, the tendency in my experience, is to try to be good in our own power, and if we are honest with ourselves, we realize that we fail. We don’t do what we want, and we do what we don’t want to. What are we to do then? And here, in this chapter is the solution.

We are to morn our inequities. We are broken. We are sinful. We can’t keep the law. It seems like there is a monster inside us who controls us almost all of the time. But we mustn’t end there. We begin at trying to be righteous and move to what a wretched man I am. But that is not where we end. We end with “Praise be to God through Jesus” who has saved us from this prison. We don’t end at despair, but rather at hope.

Sin wants us to end earlier. It wants us to end at death. It wants us to despair. It wants us to forget our Identity. But grace wants us to move past this. We died with Christ and can now live with him. That is where we need to end. We realize that we are in the flesh now; we have opposing natures, but the old self, the sin nature is not who we are anymore. We must never forget this. We can serve God with our mind, even while our old selves try to rebel. We can be united with Christ in his resurrection. We can be guided by the Spirit.

This is the application for today. Know who you are. You are not that monster anymore. God has saved you. Rest in this truth- rest in His Truth.

Oh wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

If you are here today, whether a Christian or not, and this describes you, I tell you, you are not unique. If you try to do good, but can’t, or try to stop doing bad, but can’t, I tell you, you are not alone. This is the human condition. There is freedom though. Christ can set you free. That monster that lives inside and tries so hard to control you can be killed. You can claim this new identity that God has for you. He is the one who can save you. If you would unite with him in his death, know that you will also unite with him in his resurrection.

If it feels like you are living in a prison at times, I tell you, you are. We are cursed to live with this flesh that constantly tries to kill us. There is life though. Where sin brings death, Jesus offers us life. I am not saying that there won’t be struggles, that you wont fail at times, but you can take solace in the fact that it is not you anymore. You can be freed from bondage, even while having to stay in this prison.

There is noting you need to do- nothing you can do. What God is offering, he is offering for free. He has already done it all. The death he died, he died once and for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. We are told we can unite in this with Jesus. We can be given new life. Yes you will fail. Yes there will be inner turmoil and pain, but we need not stop there. Take the next step, and ask God to save you from all of this.

Don’t stop short of what this life can be. Don’t give into the lies and control of the flesh. Cry out with Paul, that yes, we too are wretched. We too can not save ourselves. We too are broke. Who will save us? But don’t end there. Take the next step along with Paul. Who will save us from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Join with Paul in thanksgiving and praise. Take this next step and cast off the despair on hopes of something more. Who will save us- God himself.

In a few moments we will be taking communion. We do this as a way to unite in both Jesus death and resurrection. I encourage you to use this time to cry out to God. Cry out with Paul. Confess that you do what you don’t want to, and what you want to you don’t do. Tell him about your monsters, about your Hydes. Ask him to save you from this body of death. Ask him for this new life he has promised.

On the Night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread and he broke it, and said,” This is my Body, broken for you, do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup and said, “This cup I the new covenant of my blood. Do this as often as you drink in remembrance of me.”

In a few moments I am going to pray and the band is going to come up and lead us in a time of worship. If you are a follower of Christ, I invite you to come to this table and eat and drink. Use this time to commune with the God ho has saved you. If you are not a follower of Jesus, I would encourage you to use this time to think about what you heard, to pray, to seek God.

Let us Pray.