Presented to Warehouse Mission 614 afternoon service, 04
February 2018 by Captain Michael Ramsay
Click here to read an abridged version: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2018/02/romans-715-82-holiness-odyssey-shorter.html
To read a 2019 version presented to Alberni Valley Ministries, click here: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2019/05/romans-7-holiness-odyssey.html
Click here to read an abridged version: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2018/02/romans-715-82-holiness-odyssey-shorter.html
To read a 2019 version presented to Alberni Valley Ministries, click here: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2019/05/romans-7-holiness-odyssey.html
The Christian life is an interesting one. Earlier in Romans Paul spoke about the hedonist that
gets run over by sin in Chapter 1:18-2:16 and the rigid Law bound person in Chapter 2:17-29. Paul is now talking about
how each of us reacts when we do know that there are things we should or should
not do but we feel this strange compulsion to do them anyway. Paul knows that
sometimes even when we do understand that there are some things that are not
beneficial for us we still do them. Has anyone ever been there? Paul says, Romans 7:18b-19: “For I have the desire to do what is good,
but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil
I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” Any of us ever been there?
This is an old problem. People smarter than me have wrestled with this one for a long time. Horace said, ‘I
pursue the things that have done me harm; I shun the things that will do me
good’ (Epistles 1.8.11). Plato said,
‘one may acknowledge evil things to be evil, and nevertheless do them’ (Protagoras). Ovid said ‘I see and
approve the better course, but I follow the worse one’ (Metamorphoses 7.20ff).[1]
The Apostle Paul said, “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot
carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want
to do—this I keep on doing.”
I don't know if anyone has ever read Homer - he wrote the Iliad
and the Odyssey. The Iliad is about the Greek and Trojan War and
the Odyssey is about the warrior Odysseus' journey home. During his
journey home, the main character Odysseus is warned about the Sirens. In Greek
mythology, Sirens are creatures with the head of a woman and the body of a
bird. (Sometimes they are portrayed as mermaids.) They live on islands and with
their irresistible song lure mariners to their destruction as they crash on the
rocks near their island. The mariners know they shouldn't steer their ships to
their death but once they hear the Siren's songs they seemingly can't help
themselves.
This reminds me of the dilemma before us today - and
particularly of struggles with addiction. In our time with The Salvation Army,
relating to addiction, we have had many friends some as young as elementary
school age who have been tempted by this Siren song to a slide
into destruction and many of my
friends from my time at Stoney Mountain Penitentiary wound up there, in part,
because they succumbed to addictions’ Siren song; for them addictions' Siren
song ended in the song of sirens coming to take them away.
The Siren's song is not only calling us to addiction, it can
call us to any sin - in the full range from licentiousness to legalism - to
which we are susceptible. Romans 7:18b-19, “For I have the desire to do what is
good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the
evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” So what can we do? What can we
do when we are trapped by licentiousness, legalism, struggles, temptation… sin?
Paul talks about the Law being good ropes to tie us up as
Odysseus to the mast of his ship but not so good that we no longer have that
struggle, that compulsion within us, so that we may even in our tied up state
find some way steer our life out of the ocean of salvation and crash our lives
on the rocks on sin.[2]
So what can we do? What can we do?
What can we do when desire to the destruction of sin is
pulling harder and harder upon us, like a giant magnet moving us ever so slowly
towards it. Sometimes we grab hold of rules or laws all the tighter and even
make more for ourselves. Sometimes we try really hard, so hard to avoid an
addiction or a sin that that all we think about is that sin. Whether we are
trying to stop lying, lusting, or smoking crack cocaine; the more we think
about ways to avoid it, the more we wind up pondering ways to imbibe it. Soon
our every thought is consumed with that sin that we are trying to flee. It is
everywhere! It is even in our very flesh…and then it has us.
Horace said, ‘I pursue the things that have done me harm; I
shun the things that will do me good’ (Epistles
1.8.11). Plato said, ‘one may acknowledge evil things to be evil, and
nevertheless do them’ (Protagoras).
Ovid said ‘I see and approve the better course, but I follow the worse one’ (Metamorphoses 7.20ff).[3]
The Apostle Paul said, “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot
carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want
to do—this I keep on doing.”
There is a secret weapon we Christians have for seeing
sin defeated even as it is in our flesh. Now I am not saying that if you are a
Christian you will never have given into sin. but there is the path to
freedom, should we choose to take it. Paul says, Romans 7:24-8:5:
24 What a
wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
25 Thanks be to God, [He] delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!…8:1
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2
because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you
free from the law of sin and death...5 Those who live according to the flesh
have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance
with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
The one who can deliver us from
all of this is Christ Jesus. The Spirit of God Himself will transform us.
Instead of wrestling with our sins, we can know that Jesus has defeated sin and
death between the cross and the empty tomb. We can seek first the Kingdom of
Heaven and then God will add to us everything else we need.
We've all heard the analogy about
how one spots a counterfeit bill. It is not by studying fake money, it is by
studying the real thing. Likewise we do not avoid sin by focussing on sin,
rather we avoid sin by focussing on God. They say that as a husband and wife
are a long time in a good marriage they become more like each other and maybe
even finish each others sentences. Likewise as we spend more time with God, we
find that we know what He is saying and He can finish our sentences.
I truly believe with everything
in me that there is nothing that you or I or anyone else can do to defeat sin,
only Jesus has done that. But we can experience a life free of sin. As we spend
more and more time with Jesus, we will naturally sin less and less for we will
become be more and more like Him. As we pray and read our Bible, as we sing our
songs, as we come to Church, as we serve God by serving others in Jesus' Name,
as we tell others about the Gospel of Salvation we will be transformed into the
very likeness of God Himself! As we spend time
with the Lord we will be transformed into His likeness. As we seek first the Kingdom of God and His holiness, everything
else will be added unto us!
Let us pray. This prayer for us
from 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, ‘May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you
(us) through and through. May your (our) whole spirit, soul and body be kept
blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is
faithful and he will do it.’
So then, let us remember when we
leave here and are faced with temptations to sin from even the devil himself,
to remain in the Spirit and sin and the devil will flee us -God will take care
of him! Amen!
---
[1] F.F. Bruce,
The Letter of Paul to the Romans. Tyndale NTC (Leicester, UK: IV Press,
1985),146.
[2] Cf. NT
Wright, Romans for Everyone Part 1: Chapters 1-8 (Louisville, US: WKJ,
2004),122-123. He uses a great analogy relating to a neighbour installing a
good alarm system in one's house to explain how the Law is indeed good.
[3] F.F. Bruce,
The Letter of Paul to the Romans. Tyndale NTC (Leicester, UK: IV Press,
1985),146.
---
More Salvogesis blogs daily at
Posts
