Community Church Sermons
July 3, 2005
Romans 7:15 – 25 a
Margaret I. Manning
Well, if it isn’t challenging
enough to hold down the fort, as it were, while Marty is away, I had to choose the
most difficult passage from our lectionary readings to preach on this
morning! Now, I didn’t do this
deliberately, but as I studied and read in preparation to preach, I discovered
that this passage in Romans – a passage right in the middle of Paul’s theological
excursion into the wonders of God’s grace and the nature of the law – is one of
the most difficult passages for interpreters![1] So, I’ve decided to ask Bob Puckett to stand
up and give us his interpretation since he was around in the days of the
Apostle Paul and probably spoke to him personally about this passage! Just kidding, Bob!
In all seriousness, though,
interpreters have difficulty understanding who Paul is referring to when he
begins to use the first personal pronoun, ‘I’ throughout our passage for
today. Most believe that it cannot be
Paul himself, because of statements like these that he makes in this section:
“I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.”
How can Paul, describing himself, say that now, as a believer in Jesus
he is a slave to sin? While I’m sure
Paul would admit he continued to struggle with sin, I doubt he would say that
salvation left us enslaved to sin. That
simply doesn’t make any sense. So many
interpreters view this passage as Paul’s description of what it was like for a
Jew living under the law, and this seems to fit the context of the whole
chapter because he’s spent the first part of our chapter describing the nature
and function of the law. Our reading
for today serves as the ‘turning point’ in Paul’s discussion about the
law. For here we see the struggle
between knowing the right thing to do, and finding that knowing the right thing
doesn’t lead us to do the right thing.
If we’re honest, most of the time we end up doing the wrong thing. The Law cannot inspire or create a new way
of living – it can only set the standard, which, more often than not, shows us
how much we fail to do the right thing.
Let me give you a silly
example to illustrate what I mean here.
For the next 5 seconds, I don’t want you to think about ice cream,
ok? Don’t think about it at all…not
even a fleeting thought…not about Tic Toc, or Dairy Queen, Baskin Robbins or
Sonic, ok. 5…got it? 4…don’t even go there…3…you’re thinking
about ice cream aren’t you? 2…stop
it!....1..ah ha![2] I bet you thought about ice cream didn’t
you? You see, just as I set the
standard – do not to think about ice cream - Paul tells his audience that the
Law sets up the standard of what is right and good and true. But simply setting up what is good and right
and true doesn’t then impart goodness, and rightness and trueness to us, does
it? “Thou shalt not think about ice
cream” didn’t prevent you from thinking about ice cream.
Of course, the obvious
message here is that none of us can keep the law perfectly. But, that was never the intent of the
Law. The Law functioned as a tutor to
show us our shortcomings, our failure, and our sin – it gives us a standard,
but it was never meant to save. The
speed limit sets the standard, but it doesn’t infuse us with the ability to
drive 55, does it? I don’t know about
you, but when I see 55 and I drive 60…or was it 65? So, just like you and me, the poor individual in our passage
struggles with obeying a Law with no power to help her obey it! She is trapped and in need of rescuing;
“Wretched person that I am,” the text tells us, “who will set me free?”
And then Paul gives the
answer for a new way of living and a new identity – both to the Jew under the
law, and to you and me, reading this passage today: “Thanks be to God through
Jesus Christ our Lord!” Christ sets us
free from the power of sin and Christ saves us, unlike the Law, because Christ
took on himself both the requirement and the penalty of the law for our sake! And this salvation is what our passage in Zechariah
anticipates when it says, “I have set the prisoners free because of the blood
of My covenant with you…this very day, I am declaring that I will restore
double to you!” You see, Christ not only fulfils the standard of the law, he
also provides us with a new identity, our true identity in Christ! That is restoring double to us! We are no
longer prisoners to the Law, we have been set free from the cycle of guilt and
fear that comes from knowing the Law, and yet, not keeping the law! Now, through Christ, we are set free to
serve the living God!
Understanding our new
identity in Christ, our real identity as Christians is crucial for us to hold
on to, as we continue to live with sin; for we are not perfect and as a result
we will struggle with sin. But, those
who have been rescued do not return to the prison that held them captive. We now have the ability to get out of that
prison. Think with me about a recent
example of rescue. Do you remember
those coal miners in Pennsylvania a few years ago? What if those coal miners continued to live on it that coal mine
– the place of their entrapment and eventual death even when their rescuers
came to save them? What if they said;
‘No, thanks. We’re fine down here in
the heat and the stench, and trapped underground with little oxygen. Have a nice day!’ That doesn’t make any
sense! Now that those coal miners are
rescued, there’s no point staying in that coal mine!
So, as rescued persons, there is no point for you and me to cling to our old way of living – our imprisoned way. We now, with our new identity have the choice to let go of our resentments, our bitterness, and our unforgiveness. And as we grow in our real identity, we will more and more consciously reject the old identity – those habits, those patterns, those death-promoting choices that are not, and will not be me. There is now no point clinging to that old identity of lying, gossip, pettiness because this is not who we are anymore. Christ didn’t save us for that! So, when we find ourselves struggling in these areas, we must remind ourselves of our real identity – Christ has rescued our souls, rescued us to live a new kind of life – a life that can choose not to sin and is free to live for God!
Dallas Willard, in his book, The Spirit of the Disciplines, says it
this way:
“To
be dead to sin [to our old life] with Christ is not to be lacking in natural
desires, but to have a real [and a new] alternative to sin and the world’s sin
system as the orientation and motivation for our natural impulses. In our new life, [with our new identity] we
are capable of standing beyond sin’s reach as we choose what we will do and in
that sense we are unattached from it, we are dead to it. It is still possible in the abstract for us
to sin, but we see it as the uninteresting or disgusting thing that it is. Even if we waver and turn back to the ‘old
person’ upon occasion, we still are able to do otherwise as a result of being
infused with our new life in Christ.
People without the new life have no choice. But we have a new force within us that gives us choice. In this sense we are free from sin even if not
yet free of it. Doing what is
good and right becomes increasingly easy, sweet, and sensible to us as grace
grows in us.”[3]
Do you see that as Christians, we are no longer trapped by a standard we could never fulfill, but rather, we’ve been rescued to live a new life – a life where obedience to God’s law flows out of a heart that longs to serve the One who freed it! No longer do we sin so that grace can increase, but rather we obey because of that grace – given and poured out freely to us in Jesus Christ.
Folks, the rescue of our real identity
has happened through Jesus Christ; now, it’s up to us to live as if it were
true! Amen.
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“Abba Evagrius taught: “Whether these (sinful) thoughts disturb he soul or not does not depend on us; but whether they linger in us or not and set passions in motion or not does depend on us.” P. 117