I do not do what I want

Romans 7: 15-25a, page 157
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 in 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!
Sermon
What could be better than welcoming a new baby girl into the world; a little girl who will have the chance to be a part of this church, grow up in this town, be surrounded by kind and loving people who will help my wife and me raise her to make wise decisions, knowing who she is and how special she is in the eyes of God.
But at the same time, the thought of raising a baby girl in our world is terrifying. Life in our world today means steering clear of so much that’s negative, so much pressure, so much stress, so much that’s violent – and it’s not clear whether society will help us keep our children safe or put them in harm’s way.
This week it has seemed as though the world we live in is governed by a combination of self-determination and litigation from on high, or, as the Apostle Paul would put it, we have freedom on one hand and the law on the other.
On Monday the Supreme Court “struck down California’s ban on the sale of violent video games to minors,” putting an end to restrictions that have kept children from playing video games that involve shooting people, and has called forth a storm of concerned parents who defended the law first signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Then Tuesday came and the government attempted to protect children by approving tough new federal rules on baby crib safety that effectively bans the sale of used cribs.
It’s a mixed bag – while in one instance our society gave children freedom to decide what games to play ruling in favor of self-determination, the next day new legislation was enacted to protect children and at retail outlets, online sites, including eBay and Craigslist, even yard sales in the US, those who would try to sell a used crib to new parents face fines up to $100,000.
This past week, the week of my new baby girl’s birth, has been a mixture of legislation or law that attempts to protect on the one hand, and on the other values her freedom of speech over protecting her from violent video games.
Now parents and not the law stand in the way of kids and their violent video games, and the law and not parents will protect children from dangerous cribs.
Here is the struggle, then, for parents and every other resident of our society – we must, in some instances, decide for ourselves because we have been given the freedom to choose between what is safe and what is not, what is good and what is bad, we must depend on ourselves to keep sin at bay with the freedom to choose for ourselves – while at the same time abiding by laws that attempt to do those very things for us, deciding for us what is safe and what is not, what is good and what is bad, keeping sin at bay by outlawing those things that would do us harm.
I worry, then, about our moral compass. Certainly the moral compass that seems to be at work in the two instances I have mentioned has little to do with right and wrong or protecting our children and much to do with commerce, removing restrictions that would limit purchasing while adding restrictions that would increase the need for purchasing. Therein we see the limit of the law – the purpose of Government is not always to protect us, we cannot depend upon the law to always keep us from hurting ourselves or doing wrong, and so often we find ourselves left to our own devices.
Some would say that’s exactly how it should be. Why should the government decide for us, making decisions that we can make ourselves? But I believe we give ourselves more credit than we should in this regard, and here in our scripture lesson the Apostle Paul issues a warning, not at all confident that he can win over temptation by virtue of his own merit: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”
Freedom, for the Apostle Paul, is on the one hand, exactly what he wants. It is freedom from the Law that Christ brings – freedom to live according to the standards of the Golden Rule over the standards written down by Moses and his descendants. But freedom brings with it the opportunity to choose poorly, because freedom leaves decisions up to his own flesh and when left up to his own flesh too often, he does the very thing that he hates.
Here Paul takes seriously sin, its ability to control what we do, and the precarious position we all find ourselves in every day by living in a society where morality is not legislated, unless your heart desires a used crib at a neighborhood yard sale.
We must be wary of the Law, according to Paul, who says that only “if I do what I do not want, would I agree that the law is good.” Believing that abiding by rules can save us is a delusion, but at the same time we must be wary of this world when law or societal pressure does little to keep us in line lest we set loose that part of ourselves that drives us to sin.
Paul writes that “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,” and so he worries over freedom, for freedom may well set loose that part of ourselves that needs the limit of the law.
Without standards of Sabbath that tell us to rest, we find ourselves pressured to do more than we have time in the day to do, a way of living that leads to seeing a traffic accident as an inconvenience and not a tragedy.
Likewise, there are parts of ourselves that push away Biblical mandates for head coverings and restrictions on what we can wear, and so defining the limits of fashion is left up to magazines, standards of beauty set to standards unattainable, and we are left looking in the mirror for flaws and not wonder at God’s good creation.
And rather than have our income limited by tithing, knowing that it is not the Law but Christ who brings salvation, that part of ourselves that is constantly stimulated by the brainwashing of a consumer culture is set free to spend, though this part of ourselves always wants more and refuses to be satisfied.
We must be careful then. Because “sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
The Apostle Paul finds himself caught between the need for freedom and the need to limit our capacity for sin through the law, and with no way to choose between the two – freedom on the one hand and the law on the other, Paul calls us to a third option: the Cross.
There are plenty who believe that Paul simply replaces the Old Law with the New. And they live out their religion in the freedom of eating shrimp in the face of Old Testament prohibitions, while refusing women’s right to leadership, saying that Christ came and replaced the Old Law and brought a new one.
But that’s not what Paul is saying here. The Law, while it serves a purpose in limiting our actions, cannot be the means of our salvation because it isn’t enough. Nor does it honor the message of the Cross, because laws shape human behavior according to fear – fear of punishment, of the denial of attention, of removing favor. Under the law, God loves those who follow the commandments, but in the cross we see that God simply loves, even when that love means laying down God’s very life for you.
Without the law to help you make the right decisions, without the law to keep you from hurting yourself, without the law to protect your children, you may well worry about human behavior and the horrors that are sure ensue from such freedom.
But the greatest acts of humanity are not motivated by the fear of punishment or retribution; our greatest acts are motivated by love.
In Christ we know that those often-quoted words are true, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.”
And so we know that it is because a mother so loved her children, not because there was a law against it, that she kept violent video games out of the house.
It is because a father so loved his daughter, not because the Federal Government told him to, that he made sure the crib she goes to sleep in is safe.
And it is because love, the love of God found in Christ Jesus, made a difference in Paul’s life that he came to change his ways, turn from persecuting Christians to live a life as a great champion of the church. Not because the law of the land or the law of scripture told him to. It was because of love. It was love who rescued you from your body of death, because of love.
Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Amen.