I am still thinking through this morning’s sermon from Pastor Pat. He preached through Romans 7:13-25. This used to 
be a confusing text for me until I understood that humans do not really do anything good or righteous. Even those folks who might call themselves “Christian”, think they are good now, but that is such a false assumption on their part. As the Apostle Paul states in the Romans 7, he does the very things that he desires not to do, and hates those things, and yet still does them. He has the desire to do what is right but not the ability to carry it out.
Now, come on, this is the Apostle Paul writing here. Surely if anyone had the ability to do good, it was him right? Not so, says the Apostle himself. For he states in verse 23 of chapter 7 that there is a war going on between the law of his mind (doing good) and the law of sin within his body. In the next verse he even refers to himself as a wretched man. Even as a follower of Christ.
He then poses the question that I did not totally grasp until later in life because I thought that since I became a Christian, I should now be doing righteous things. The question is this:
Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Or, who can save this wretched man that I am. The answer comes on the heels of the question in the form of gratitiude.
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
It is only through the finished work of Christ, his life, his death, and resurrection that good things happen through man. Try as he might, he cannot do the good on his own. It is work of the spirit of Christ in him. As Christians we should never, ever boast about the good that happens through us. It is only Christ Jesus doing that good through us. We have no righteousness of our own.
If you’d like to listen to the enlightening sermon online go here. If you’d like to download it and listen to it later go here.
Soli Deo Gloria!
sarcasm or irony? I know I have. Some of the lessons I learned well I learned this way. Mind you I didn’t like it but it was a lesson learned. Learning through this method provokes an emotional response and engages the mind to think about something from an alternative angle. This method is used to teach the reader critical elements of the south in the 1950’s and 60’s through the fictional novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, considered one of the best books in American fiction.
Upon This Rawk 