Your Struggle is Real
(Romans 7: 15-25)
I’ve made a career out of listening. I know, sometimes it seems like I do more talking than listening, I know, I’m a chatty guy. I’m working on it along with a few other flaws. The challenge in listening is to not get in a hurry as you may miss what the person is really trying to tell you as many times they don’t just come right out and say it. My active listening started when I was a bartender, which was a training ground for showing interest in what someone whose tongue had been loosened by alcohol felt was important for me to know, especially if I wanted a good tip. And yes, what is said to your bartender stays with your bartender. It turned out to be an invaluable tool when I was a police officer engaging people in the streets for various reasons, taking offense reports, and settling domestic disputes. Case in point, I was held at gun point for quite a while on my first domestic dispute, so I did a lot of active listening. When I became a lawyer, I spent a lot of time in various county jails listening to my captive clients moan and groan as to why it was wrong for them to be locked up. After listening with much patience, we could then get down to what was at the heart of the issue and look for the best possible resolution in both the case and going forward from there, but I had to listen first. As a prosecutor I listened to victims of crime bemoaning what had happened to them and how their lives had been adversely impacted and what was I going to do to make it right? That took a lot of active listening. My time as a drug court prosecutor required my listening to law enforcement, victims, family members, and the struggling addicts. And now, as a pastor, I listen to not only your concerns and what is going on in your lives but also to the strangers that come in or call on the phone.
The point of all this is that I’ve learned that their struggles are real even if we don’t think they are that big of a deal. They are real to them and they can be personally debilitating. And that’s what the Apostle Paul is talking about in our scripture reading for this morning. He understands that there are those within the Christian church in Rome that are struggling, struggling with the allure of sin and the death grip it has upon their lives and the ability to move forward. Paul knows because, in spite of him being chosen as the apostle to the Gentiles, he has his struggles too, struggles that plague him and weigh heavily upon his mind.
His words jump off the page when he says: I don’t know what I’m doing, because I don’t do what I want to do. Instead, I do the thing that I hate. For someone reading this for the first time it had to have quite an impact. Really Paul? You too? Paul is identifying with them, he’s connecting with them and letting them, and us, know that he knows the struggle is real, that they are not alone. He’s baring his soul and telling them that no matter how together he appears to be, he is doing the thing he hates, the thing that is so not him, but it is. He feels as if he is drowning in his sin. He says that if he is doing the thing that he doesn’t want to do then he is agreeing that the Law is right. He acknowledges that he is not the one doing it, but instead, it is the sin that lives in him. He says: I know that good doesn’t live in me—that is, in my body. The desire to do good is inside of me, but I can’t do it. I don’t do the good that I want to do, but I do the evil that I don’t want to do. Paul is tormented by whatever it is. He doesn’t give us the specifics because they are not relevant and would only lead to people judging him and gossiping. It’s his struggle and it is real as it can be. He reasons that if he does the very thing that he doesn’t want to do, then he is not the one doing it anymore. Instead, he says, it is sin that lives in me that is doing it.
It’s as if he’s been taken hostage by a force that controls his every move, a force that imposes its will upon him causing him to do the things he knows are wrong. He says: So I find that, as a rule, when I want to do what is good, evil is right there with me. We can just imagine the number of people who silently said amen to themselves when they read this. Paul is speaking to so many of us. He goes on to say that he gladly agrees with the Law on the inside, but he sees a different law at work in his body. He describes a war being waged against the law of his mind that takes him prisoner with the law of sin that is in his body. He plaintively laments: I’m a miserable human being. He asks who will deliver him from this dead corpse and then answers his own question proclaiming: Thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Of all of Paul’s writings I think this is the most revealing and impactful. He is identifying with the Roman believers and using this letter as an opportunity to unburden himself of his struggle which, to him, is very real. Whatever it is, it must haunt his dreams and cause him many sleepless nights. Through his own personal battle, he is dramatizing the battle between Law and sin that exists in the person who is being held hostage by their sin and has not yet been liberated by the life-giving Spirit. A person in this situation needs the thorough going liberation and transformation made possible by the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus who enables God’s people to fulfill the righteous requirement of the Law. This new indwelling of the Spirit in no way diminishes the goodness and holiness of God’s Law because even while sin may distort it, the Law stands as a light in the darkness revealing sin to be sin. This is how God solves the dilemma that plagues all people occupied by sin by providing the Spirit, who dwells in them so that they might fulfill the righteous demands of the law.
What the apostle has done is to share with the reader the three lessons he learned in trying to deal with his sinful desires. First, he acknowledges that knowledge of the rules is not the answer. Second, self-determination, trying to do it your way, doesn’t succeed. And third, becoming a Christian does not stamp out all sin and temptation for a person’s life. In short, being born again takes a moment of faith, but becoming like Christ is a lifelong process with ups and downs, great successes and miserable failures.
This is not Paul throwing a pity party and it is more than the cry of one desperate man. He puts into words the experience of any Christian struggling against sin or trying to please God by keeping rules and laws without the Spirit’s help. He is laying out God’s provision for victory over sin, that He sends the Holy Spirit to live in us and give us power, and when we fall, He lovingly reaches out to help us up.
There is a great tension in our daily Christian experience. The conflict is that we agree with God’s commands but cannot do them on our own. As a result, we are painfully aware of our sin. So, when we feel confused and overwhelmed by sin’s appeal, let us claim the freedom Christ gave us. He knows that our struggle is real and He and He alone can lift us to victory.
Let us pray.
O victory in Jesus, my Savior forever! He sought me and bought me with his redeeming blood. He loved me ere I knew him, and all my love is due him; he plunged me to victory beneath the cleansing flood. Yes, gracious and loving God, how grateful we are for the lifesaving sacrifice of your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ who came to save us from ourselves, to offer us a way out of our bondage to sin. He knows our struggle because he walked among us sharing in our experiences as he healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, and restored the souls of the broken-hearted. By your Spirit we pray that we can overcome our struggle and live our best lives as we work to bring others to you who are losing their own battles against the sin that is holding them captive. May we lead the lives that show others what it means to live a life of freedom in your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
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7/05/26
Your Struggle is Real
The conflict is that we agree with God’s commands but cannot do them on our own.