Romans 7:14-25 - Doing what we want to do.

Romans 7:14-25

I had the opportunity to do several fun things with my family this week. The first thing we did was go to the beach, usually we travel up the coast out to Nahant where there is a quiet beach full of tide pools and other little wonders, but we decided not to take the extra 10-15 minutes and choose instead to go to the closer Revere Beach. It was a 90-degree day and up to the beach we went to fend off the heat. As we approached we noted that the water was a funny reddish color but did not think much of it. We unloaded the car, staked out our little claim on the beach and let the girls run free in the waves. After some time Mike and I ventured down to the water’s edge where Stella convinced me to wade in with her so she could go jump waves (something they are not allowed to do without an Adult) as soon as I got in the water the reason for the odd coloration to the water became readily apparent, the water was thick with this red sea weed. It was like wading in soup with red noodles. The girls did not seem to care one way or the other about the seaweed but I did not like the way the seaweed in the water felt. I tried to stay in the water with Stella so she could enjoy wave jumping on our beach day, but my distaste for the feeling of weird red seaweed all around me won out and took her back in after only a few minutes. I wanted to stay in the water with her, I truly did, but I just could not bring myself to do it.

Later this week, we met another family at the Frog Pond on the Boston Common and let our children play together while their mother; Mike and I caught up on each other’s lives and talked. We had arrived early and were there when they first opened the pond up for wading, they did so by reminding us all of the rules. No carrying of children or adults while in the water, no running in the water, no horseplay and absolutely no food or drinks in the water. Now all these rules make sense to me and seem to be fairly self explanatory from a safety stand point, but when she said, “absolutely no food or drinks in the water” I had the over whelming desire to just toss the little blueberry which I was just about ready to pop into my mouth into the water. I don’t know why, even though I knew it was wrong and would never have thought of doing so otherwise, I still had to squelch the overwhelming desire to just (flick) that blueberry in, just to be contrary, just because she told me not to.
Paul has managed to put into words the struggle in which we daily live, individually and collectively. There are things we want to do that we know we shouldn’t do and there are things we should do that we simply don’t do. My desire was to stay in that water with my daughter, to let her happily play in the waves, lifting her up as each wave came rushing over us so that she could “jump” them, but the feeling of all that sea weed in the water, it was just . . .I don’t know, I just could not do it. Thankfully Stella was understanding but as with so many other things in life. I just could not manage to do what I know I should do, my desire was to allow my daughter to have the best possible wave jumping experience but I could not do it. I stopped myself from doing what I wanted to do and what I wanted to do was good. At least the better part of me won out in the blueberry battle. My children and I were not unceremoniously tossed out of the Frog Pond due to my lack of restraint. But it does not change the fact that my first gut reaction was to just toss that blueberry into the water.

We live daily having to stop ourselves from doing things we know we should not do, and telling ourselves to do things we know we should, whether it be not running that red light, or yelling choice words at that car that nearly ran us over while we were in the cross walk. Whether it be eating more fiber or stopping and helping out that woman who just dropped her bag of groceries all over the sidewalk even though we are in a hurry. We are constantly at war with ourselves to do the things we know we should do and not do the things we know we should not do.

In this passage Paul lays out, in the most confusing way he can possibly do, the weakness that we all experience in our lives, the struggle we humans daily live, the hopelessness our efforts find when we strive to live the way we know we should. As Christians we try to live the way God calls us to live. We desire to be kind to other people. We want live in ways that would glorify God. We try daily to love God with all our beings and to love others with the love God gives to us. But when we are honest with ourselves, when we look at ourselves in the mirror and really see the person we see there, we know that we fail, time and time again. It seems there is nothing to be done, we do not do what we want to do and we do do what we hate. We desire to live one way but we continually find the details of our lives show that we live an entirely different way.

We are hopeless, at every turn, no matter how strong our effort we fail. We know God’s way is good, we know God’s call on our lives is to be holy. We know that we should treat everyone we meet with kindness. We know that we really should not yell at our children or our neighbors. We know that we should reach out and help those around us whom we see are struggling. We know that we should not speak sharply to those whom we love most, even if they deserve it, even if we know we are right and they are wrong.

These are the lessons of kindergarten, respect others, use kind words, wait your turn, keep your hands to yourself, don’t run and always take a nap after lunchtime. We learned these lessons when we were but 5 or 6 but although we know them we do not know how to live them, how to continually act in ways that are kind and respectful to others. We can’t seem to keep our voices and tempers under control. Perhaps we know how to keep our hands to ourselves, most of the time, but we still can’t seem to stop our hurtful or angry words from reaching out and slapping our loved ones and strangers alike.

We know that there are 101 little things that we could have, should have done in each day that would have better reflected the love of God in this world. There are another couple dozen things that perhaps we should not have done, or said that we choose not to do because we were too busy, did not have the time, or simply did not care enough to make the effort it would have taken to do them. We might have been able to justify our actions, words or lack thereof at the time, but if we looked ourselves in the mirror or took the time to look into the face of God, we would know that our excuses and detailed logical reasoning would fall short and would be weak to say the least.

In many ways Paul knows you. He knows your daily struggles, because your struggles are the same struggles Paul faced, they are the same struggles I face, they are the same struggles we all face. Our desire to do what we want to do, to please ourselves and ourselves alone; our constant ability to not live up to our best intentions, our failure to be kind in the face of evil, to speak words of peace in the face of violence, to love those who hate, or to simply just not verbally snap the head off of those whom you love most when you are annoyed with them (or perhaps annoyed something or someone else entirely), this is the reality of sin in our lives. This is the power of evil at work in us, at work in our lives, at work in the very fabric of our world. We live in this reality. We want to live right and good lives, but we continually find that we live more like pigs. We try very hard to not be but we continually find ourselves right back where we are trying to not be.

Sin/evil is a very powerful force indeed. At our core we are selfish, at our core we are angry and self-righteous at our core our desire is for ourselves, what will make us happy, what will feel good to us, we do what will best fulfill our wants and desires, we use other people to fulfill our own ends, we walk through this world thinking of little more than us and our own pleasure. This is who we are when left to our own devises. When we work hard to not live this way, when we struggle and desire to put others needs ahead of our own desires, when we try to act kindly in all things, love others and speak gently we find that we fail at every turn each and every day. Our efforts are useless they are worthless. No matter how often we try to love others, to act kindly to others in all things we find that it is always easier to love ourselves and to act in selfish ways.

Paul says this is who we are in our sinful selves. This is who we are as long as evil runs rampant in this world. This is the reality of life here in a fallen broken world that is but a poor reflection of what it was created to be. This is the reality of our shattered splintered lives. This is who we are when we are living but a shadow of the lives we were created to live.

This may be the reality of our life, but the truth of the matter is, this is not the way we were created to live. Although this is the best we can do in our own efforts. We will find that our own efforts will always fail. Our wanting to live right is not good enough. Our desire to live right is not good enough. Trying to live right is not good enough. Our wanting, our desires, our feeble attempts will always fail.
At end of the passage Paul in his own way asks, “Is there any hope?” “Will anyone rescue me, wretched man than I am?” he says. And the answer, thank God, is YES! There is hope someone will rescue us. There is more to life than failing at being who we know we can be. There is more to life than falling short of living the way God calls us to live. We can love God and neighbor. We can not yell at our loved ones, we can stop doing all those things we try not to do and manage to do all the things we know we should. But we can’t rescue ourselves; we can’t succeed on our own. We can succeed because of Jesus Christ. We cannot overcome the power that sin’s selfishness has over our lives on our own but through the power of Jesus Christ, because Jesus shows us the way, we are able to live the way we are called to live. We are able to succeed where we once failed. With Jesus Christ we can do what could not do otherwise and stop doing those things we have tried so hard to stop doing. Through Jesus Christ and through Jesus Christ alone, we can truly be who we were created to be. And THAT my friends it the good news of the gospel, that we come here every Sunday to celebrate, THAT is the good news of the gospel that we are called to share, THAT is the good news of the gospel that we all believe and have the opportunity to live! Through Jesus Christ we are able to be who we were created to be!