Present Call: No Excuses
The Rev. Dr. John Judson
July 3, 2011
Present Call: No Excuses
Romans 7:13-25
Did what is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.
“Why did you do it?” It was not the question I wanted to hear but knew was coming. I was standing in my parents’ living room next to one of my friends. In front of us were my parents, my friend’s parents and the over the fence neighbors. We were there because my friend and I had been caught doing something we should not have been doing; something that could have had financial repercussions for our parents. I will not tell you what it was, just that my friend and I knew better. Deep in our gut we knew better when we planned it. Deep in our gut we knew better when we did it. Now we were busted and the question came. “Why in the world would you do such a thing?” Had I known then what I know now I could have answered, “We are boys. We are ten years old and our brains are not fully developed.” But the reality was I had no idea why we had done it. It was as if we couldn’t help ourselves. Over the years I have discovered that my friend and I were not the only ones who have done something wrong who were driven by the sense that we just couldn’t help ourselves; that in fact it was as if something deep inside us was pushing us to our stupid deed. And if we are to believe the Apostle Paul, even he experienced the same thing.
Paul sets the stage by explaining that he knows the difference between right and wrong. He knows this because he knows God’s commandments, or if you will God’s rules. God’s rules were given, Paul writes, so that we could know what sin is so we could clearly see what we were not supposed to do. God’s rules he writes were given in order, “that sin might be shown to be sin.” In other words God’s rules show us the difference between a good choice and a bad choice. We are permitted to see what leads to life and joy and what leads to pain and death. In that sense God’s rules are like playground rules. The rules are there to show us how to stay safe when we are having a good time. Or for us adults, they are like speed limit signs. They show us what speed we ought to be traveling in order to remain safe.
Unfortunately as we all know, rules while being necessary and often appreciated do not in and of themselves have the power to make us obey them. We know this because when we are on the playground we do not always follow all of the rules exactly as they are written. We also know this because most of us, at one time or another, may have accidentally drifted just over the speed limit. Why do we do such things? Why don’t we follow the rules exactly? Paul tells us the reason is not because we are 10 year old boys who brains are not fully formed. He tells us that we do because sin is at work within us. He puts it this way, because he is sold into slavery under sin, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but do the very thing I hate…but in fact is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me…I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” What I find really disturbing about this is that Paul sounds like a ten year old boy trying to explain why he picked on his sister. “But mom it wasn’t me. It was sin. I was sold as a slave to sin so I could not do what was right.” So what is going on here? Needless to say this is not all that helpful unless we are looking for an excuse for our bad behavior.
What is going on here is that Paul is setting a trap for us. He is setting a trap by pretending that this describes his life. He is pretending if you will to be that ten year old boy who claims he cannot help himself. He is pretending so that we will do what we just did; stop and ask, hey what is going on here? He wants us to so and ask so he can spring the trap in Chapter 8 when he writes, “For God has done what the law…could not do; by sending his son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin he condemned sin so that the just requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us.” In other words because of what Jesus has done, sin is defeated and we can make the right choices. Unlike the person Paul was pretending to be, he insists that because of what Jesus has done on the cross and what God did by raising him from the dead, we can no longer use the excuse of sin made me do it. You and I have the power to choose rightly.
As we come to the table then here is that challenge that I offer you. It is to ask yourself, am I taking responsibility for my choices? Am I taking the power God has given me in Jesus Christ and using it to make decisions that honor God?
