Romans 7:15-25.               What is wrong with me??                             9/7/17

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. {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!

What is wrong with me? As I look back over the past week, month, years, I see that I have done any number of things that I know I shouldn’t have done, and didn’t want to do. At the same time there are things that I know I should have done, but didn’t, and I should know better. What is wrong with me? What a wretched man I am! And I am your pastor.

Time and time again I fail to live the kind of life that I know I should. And then to make matters worse, someone comes along with a smart comment, like, ‘Christians are supposed to be good people, aren’t they?’ ‘What a Hypocrite!’   Or, ‘you can’t possibly die a sheep if you are living a goat’s life’. In a sense they are right. So Again then what is wrong with me?

For most of us we easily fall into the thinking that to be a Christian is all about living a good moral life. We are simply to be good people and the church is there to encourage us to do this. So we look to the church and the bible to tell us how to live the Christian life. It is all about ‘me’ and what I must do. But all too often all we see is our failures and the failures of others around us.

This is a struggle I have, and I am sure that many of you have also. We know the good that we want to and need to do, but far too often we find ourselves doing just the opposite. We want to do the right thing but so often it all seems to go wrong. This is a problem for all of us, including Paul here in our reading. ‘For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do.’

Now we could go along with those out there and say that we have a real problem and that we are hypocrites and much more. But here we are reminded that this struggle and difficulty that we have is not faith-shattering, but in fact the opposite – faith-building.

In fact, this is what the Christian faith is all about. Yes, God calls us to live good, holy lives, but because of our sinfulness we will never be able to achieve this. So the Christian faith is all about what God has done through Jesus Christ and the cross to rectify the situation. Then for us to recognise our weakness and look to God and the help that he has provided.

So it is not faith-shattering; because when we struggle in this way we know that certain laws and forces are at work in our lives. It makes us ever aware of the sinfulness that is continually at work in our lives and the sinful nature that we have - even now as Christians. It also makes us aware that God’s good Law is there and at work pointing out our failings and shortfalls – our sin – and so our need to look beyond ourselves for forgiveness and help.

It also helps to show us that when we look to ourselves and seek to live under our own strength and ability we are in trouble. We just cannot do it as we should, and so we are forced to acknowledge our weakness and failure and then look again to the one who truly can give us what we really need. So this struggle that we have is good.

In fact, there is a real problem for us if we do not have this struggle, because it shows that there is a lack of conscience: that there is the absence of any understanding of God’s Law and any desire to live in accord with the will of God. If anybody does not have this struggle in their lives, they are lawless in the full sense of the word, and so are in deep trouble.

Their only desire is to please themselves and to get out of life what they can for themselves: to hell with anyone else. We can already see that our society is well down this track, and the churches are sadly following suit. They seem to think that they can ignore what God has to say to us in his Word because God loves us and accepts us never-the-less. “We’ll all be up there when we die! So it doesn’t matter.” Sadly, despite these hopes, God’s Word is clear that this will not be the case for most.

However, for those of us who are aware of God’s Law and have this struggle in our lives, of doing what we know we shouldn’t be doing and all of that, means that we become painfully aware of who we really are. In light of God’s Word, we know that something is drastically wrong in our lives and that when we look to ourselves and our goodness we are in deep trouble.

Now as Paul says here and elsewhere, that does not mean that God’s Law is bad or that he has fouled up. It means that we have fouled up: that we are not living up to the expectations that God has set for us and created for us to do: and that there is an evil force at work in our lives. It also points us to the consequence of hell for those who do not trust in Jesus Christ and the importance of his death on the cross for the forgiveness of sins.

Yes, it shows that we are all too human: that we are full of sin, and that, nothing good lives in us. That is what is wrong with us! So it shatters any faith we may have in ourselves, and compels us to cry out, ‘what a wretched person I am’.

Having done that it drives us to seek help beyond ourselves. So we cry out with Paul, ‘who will rescue me from this body of death?’ Who is there that can truly help us?

Certainly it is not the saviours that our world is putting forward today: The power of positive thinking; or the doing away with all religious thinking; the accumulation of wealth and material possessions; the conservation of our environment; our technology, and the like. Nor does it help to bury our heads in a glass of beer, or drugs and sex, or some other form of avoiding the big issues of life. No, there is only one way out!

‘Thanks be to God, that it is through Jesus Christ our Lord.’  It is through Jesus Christ alone that we can find any real and lasting hope, and the only way out of the mess we are in. Through his life, death and resurrection, we have a sure way out: God’s way out for us all.

All who look to Jesus Christ and the cross, no matter how big their struggles and failures in life may be, they have the assurance of perfection in God’s sight, through the forgiveness of their sins. Because of his death on the cross, God forgives everyone and accepts those who now look to Jesus and put their trust in what he has done for them.

So now again there is hope and joy, now there is a future; despite ourselves and our failure to be the people that we were intended to be. Now we can go forward with confidence; not in ourselves, but in Jesus Christ. Now we can again go forward to live. But not in our strength and ability anymore, but in Jesus Christ alone. As we look to him and live in him, we know that it will all work out.

So our struggles in life are not faith-shattering, but faith-building. Instead of destroying our faith, it turns us away from ourselves to the only one who can truly help us. As we look to our Lord Jesus Christ and trust in him and his promises to us, we can continue on with our struggles, recognising that they are not always in this life going to be taken away from us, for they are a part of life in a sin-ridden world.

These struggles will dog us each and every day of our lives, and yes, will even still cause us a great deal of anguish and pain. But now they will be God’s means of turning us away from ourselves, and help us to continually look to him who is now our Lord and Saviour. As a result, all glory will again go to our great God.

So now we can readily acknowledge our weaknesses and failures. Instead of ignoring, downplaying or denying their existence in our lives; and so truly being hypocritical. We can accept that everyone of us are far from perfect, but at the same time remind ourselves that God’s ways are Good and beneficial for us and our lives in this world.

So we remind ourselves and one another of our need for forgiveness and also of the need for God’s help and the support of and for one another.  In this way we are then enabled and enabling each other to live in the face of all kinds of troubles and hardships. We are in this way living the Christian life as God sees that we need to. We are then enabled to see that great value of Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. He will then be held up as Lord and as that which is all important in life for us.

So what is wrong with me? Sin and evil! But thanks be to God that through our Lord Jesus Christ he has provided a way out. So to him alone again then, be all praise, honour and glory, now and always.  AMEN

Pastor Roger Atze

Glandore/Underdale Lutheran Parish