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Who shall deliver me?

Romans 7: 1 – 25

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 18 Sep 2005

TWO WEEKS ago, when we gathered to baptise John Bautista, I said that Romans 6 is a great chapter from the Bible, but I said that we need to move from chapter 6 into chapters 7 and 8.

I couldn’t leave the sermons stuck in Romans 6! You’d run into the same problem that Paul expresses in chapter 7, and think – wrongly -- that Jesus doesn’t deal properly with sin.

There is a progression from Romans 6 through to Romans 8.

Romans 6 is about moving from the realm where sin and death are in control and moving to the realm where sin is defeated and Christ rules in righteousness.

Romans 7 is about the psychological tension between sin and Christ–controlled righteousness.

Romans 8 is about the experience of transformation from a sinner into a righteous person.

We can’t stay in a new land without learning how to live in that land.

The relationship between these three chapters is like when Chris and I went to England for Luke and Viv’s wedding.

We stayed with Viv’s parents, Roger and Mary. You met Roger and Mary a couple of weeks ago, when they stayed with us. They are a lovely and welcoming couple, and it was great to stay there.

But it was still a little like being in Romans 6. We had left the realm where Chris and Peter reign supreme and had entered a realm where Roger and Mary reign supreme.

Many things there were different from how they are at our place. They wash up differently. They have different arrangements for showering. Even minor differences are still real.

At times we were torn. On the one hand, we wanted to do things Roger and Mary’s way, because we wanted to fit in. But, at the same time, we felt that we should do these things the way we would have done them at home. Sometimes, we even forgot and did do it the way we were used to.

That tension between our way of doing it and their way of doing it is the Romans 7 situation. It might not be world–shattering to do the dishes from left to right instead of from right to left. But it is a big deal when you live in God’s Kingdom and still want to live the way things were where Satan was god of the world.

In God’s Kingdom, the biggest things are at stake, and the tensions are far higher.

Of course, the way to resolve the issues of living in someone else’s house is to learn to do things their way; but that only works well if you have some way of knowing the owner’s backgrounds and ways of thinking, so that you can anticipate their way of doing it, even if they haven’t told you.

And that is like being in Romans 8 — but that’s for next week!

In Romans 6, we saw great statements like,

ROM 6:8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. ¹⁰ The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

^{ROM 6:11} In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. ¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. ¹³ Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

By faith in Jesus, we have a new ruler, by faith we live in a new realm, a realm where sin is defeated and Christ rules.

But then we enter Chapter 7. Here, Paul expands the ideas from Chapter 6. He says,

RO 7:1 Do you not know, brothers--for I am speaking to men who know the law--that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives?

He gives an example of how that applies, then he continues:

RO 7:4 So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. ⁵ For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. ⁶ But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

Not only are we free from sin, but we are free from the power of the law, which constantly condemns us and finds out our failings.

It’s not that the law is bad; it is just that it lacks power to correct our tendencies. In fact, what was created good ends up a snare to us, because it leads to temptation.

It’s like the story of the green–eyed monkeys.

A knight was on a quest to rescue a damsel in distress. To reach her, he had to cross a gaping chasm, over which was a ricketty bridge from which every knight before him had fallen.

Seeking advice on how to cross safely, the knight consulted a wise man who lived near the bridge and was reputed to know how to cross it.

“It’s simple!” said the wise man. “Cross it in the ordinary way. There is only one thing to remember. No matter what happens, you must not, on any account, think of green-eyed monkeys.”

As soon as the law tells us we must not do a certain thing, it becomes the centre of our obsessions. Freedom from the power of the law is a wonderful thing!

However, Paul is no dreamer. He knows that life is a struggle and that we keep turning back to our sinful ways. He says,

RO 7:14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

On the one hand, he wants to do good; on the other, he constantly does what he knows is against God’s plan for him.

RO 7:21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²² For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³ but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. ²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!

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

We have to be realistic. We are not immediately made perfect when we come to Jesus. But we are immediately brought into his Kingdom. That doesn’t mean we won’t still struggle with sinful tendencies.

Each of us faces different temptations depending on our own habits and what we have learned. Our life experiences drive us one way or another.

But we can begin changing. Just because we are not perfect in this life, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t begin. Far from it.

Imagine you are drowning in rough seas. Someone throws you a life–preserver, but you know there’s a good chance that you will still get water in your face, and will breathe some in. So, of course, you throw the life–preserver back: if it can’t perfectly protect you, you don’t want it.

What nonsense!

Of course, you take the life–preserver, because you know that ultimately you get to safety, even if you are only half–way there while you are still on that life–preserver.

But Romans 8 takes us further. We are not condemned to floating in the stormy waves with our mouths just above the waterline. We can begin to experience the liberation of heaven, even before we get there. Paul asks, "Who will rescue me?" He answers his own question: God will, through Jesus our Lord.

Meanwhile, I just want to make one point.

Christianity is realistic. It doesn’t offer simplistic answers, it promises no magic.

It is also realistic, because it offers a way of life based on a clear understanding of what human life is like, and it provides answers that fit with what life is really like.

So it makes sense to follow Jesus, to surrender to his rule over your life, and to trust him to save and keep you.

Don’t expect magic, but do expect life, and an inner peace that nothing and no one else can give.

Come to Jesus, right now

He will save you right now —

Right now!

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2005. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)