Proper 9 A / The Life of Struggle and Thanksgiving / Romans 7:14-25a
6 July 2014 – Redeemer
If I was a smart preacher I would have chosen to preach on the Old Testament reading. “Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope: today I declare that I will restore to you double.” Who wouldn’t want to hear that the Lord will give you a 100% return on your investment? (That’s not really what its saying, but that’s another sermon).
If I was trying to win friends for Redeemer I would preaching on the Words of Jesus in today’s Gospel, “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” That’s exactly the sort of God people are shopping for – an easy God who doesn’t lay any heavy burdens on you.
That’s the way I would go if I was smart or if I wanted to win friends, but you haven’t called me to be wise or winsome, you have called me to preach the foolishness of the cross and that’s why we’re going to tackle the hard words of Romans chapter 7, words which tell us what life is like for the Baptized Christian – it is a life of hatred and failure. It is a life of evil and war. It is a life of wretchedness. It is a life for which we give thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Baptized Christians know that the Law is Spiritual – the Law is a gift of the Holy Spirit, given from our Father above. We agree that the Law is a good thing. We learn the commandments in the catechism. We are taught what they mean. We believe it is good to worship God alone and to fear, love, and trust Him above all things. We believe it is right to honor God’s Name – to pray, praise and give thanks. We believe the angels cringe when God’s name is taken in vain as the favorite explicative of the English language. It is Godly to honor your parents, to reserve sex for marriage, to respect and honor life, to protect your neighbor’s name, and treat all possessions as gifts of God.
The Law is spiritual. It is good, right, and salutary, but I am not. I am of the flesh, sold under sin. I know the Law – honor your father and your mother and I mock them, I disobey them, I think they’re fools, I neglect them. Remember the Sabbath day is a great commandment – I need to hear God’s Word but I daydream during the Divine Service about fishing or bbq ribs and potato salad or relaxing with a good book by the fire tonight. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
You would think the Christian life would be different. That because you believe your sin would decrease and your goodness would increase. You would think you would be a better husband and father and struggle with sin less and less. Wouldn’t it make sense that you would win some victories and live a better life? It makes sense, that’s what you would think but that is not how it goes.
For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil that I do not want is what I keep on doing. I know I should not listen to gossip about the neighboring pastor, but his problems are my praise. I should lead my family in devotions, but it is so much easier to watch an old episode of 24 or a rerun of some Eastwood movie. I want to do good but I fail. I hate evil and the very thing I hate I do. This is Paul. This is Bruce. This is you if you believe.
If this isn’t you – then there is nothing at Redeemer for you. If you think you don’t sin. If you believe that what you’re doing is right and good and holy, then Jesus didn’t come for you. You don’t need Him and He cannot help you. The righteous do not need a Savior, only wretched sinners need Jesus.
This struggle is a good thing for it confirms my identify as a baptized son of God. This evil that I do, this is not ultimately and finally me. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. Do you know who I am? Sin is not my identity and death is not my destiny. I am a baptized child of God. In my baptism God credited everything Jesus did to me, so I am righteous because Christ kept every commandment. I am forgiven because He bore my sin and death on the cross. I am living and anticipating the resurrection because He rose from the dead. I am a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
Because Christ has done all this for me I am a changed man. I was born of the flesh, sinful, but now, born from above ,I am spiritual, a new man in Christ, raised from the dead, a child of my heavenly Father who delights in His Law. And if I delight in God’s law is it any wonder I hate what sin does in me and through me? Now I look upon sin as something in me, but not of me.
Sin for the baptized Christian is like a severe illness. How do you act when you’re really sick? Are you ever short-tempered, rude, demanding, lazy? Your wife puts up with it for a while because she knows its not you. You’re sick. You might even say, “I’m sorry for what I’ve done, but I’ve got this horrible sinus headache.” It’s tied to you, it’s in your flesh, but it’s not you. You’re getting over it and hope to be rid of it. That’s sin. You hate it and you’re looking forward to the day you’ll be rid of it – the resurrection.
It is obvious that you ought not enlist in the Marines if you don’t want to fight. You ought not be baptized if you don’t want to go to war with sin. When Jesus comes to you He does indeed lift the burden of sin and death from your soul, but that actually puts you at war with the sin that clings to your flesh. I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but 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.” If I didn’t know what sin is I wouldn’t recognize it as evil. If I didn’t believe the Law is spiritual I wouldn’t hate my sin. One of the signs that you are a believer, that you are alive in Christ is tension, affliction, struggle – if you are living in sin and you don’t care or don’t mind or have convinced yourself your sin isn’t sin you ought to question if you really believe.
Is it any wonder Saint Paul cries out for mercy? He knows he cannot save himself. He knows his sinful flesh will never grant him peace. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Certainly not Paul. Certainly not Bruce. Certainly not you.
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. This life of hatred and evil, of failure and war, of wretchedness leaves us with only one place to look – to Jesus. Jesus delivers His body to death for your body of death. Jesus baptizes your body of death into His death and resurrection. Jesus puts His body and blood into your body of death. This He does for your forgiveness, for your life, to declare you right with your Father, to snatch you out of the death of sin and secure you into God’s family by His own righteous life, death and resurrection.
This is how life is for the baptized, for you. It is not easy or peaceful or kind. The life of the baptized is fraught with evil and hatred of sin, it is a life of battles and failures, it is a life that cries out in its wretchedness, but here’s the clincher – it is life. If you see no sin in yourself and don’t struggle against evil this text should lead you to conclude you are dead to God. For this is the life Christ won for you and gave to you and in the life of the world to come, in the resurrection of your flesh – no more evil, no more sin, no more battles or failures, no more wretched confessions of sin. By faith we can say, “This is life and it’s getting better because Jesus is coming again.” For this life we say, “Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” In His Name. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm
5 July 2014 anno Domini