It is good
to be a disciple of the Lord. It is
good.
Paul has
taken his readers on a journey to discipleship.
He began with knowing there is a God.
It was a simple thing. “C’mon
guys, look around you. You know this
didn’t ‘just happen’.” There was and is
a Creator God at work. To deny this is
to deny the intellect that your Creator placed in you.
Theological
statement: There is a God. Duh!
The next
part was a little tougher. God had
standards, and you didn’t hit the mark.
In fact, everyone missed the mark.
Some were given more instruction than others but nobody could hit the
mark. Everyone fell short.
On top of
the fact that nobody had a passing grade, the learning curve was going the
wrong way. Nobody was catching on to
doing things God’s way. It was as if the
entire creation was rebelling against God.
But while we
were still rebelling against God and surely not doing things his way, God
himself made a way for us to be right with him.
It cost him a lot. God paid the
price and made us right with him once again.
God did what
we could not do on our own—put ourselves in good relationship with him, our
Father, our Creator, our God.
Through
Jesus, God did it all. We are made right
in God’s eyes and so it became time to live fully for God in response to his
great love.
That brings
us to chapter 7. We have come here
without words such as sin and transgression, atonement and grace, righteousness
and salvation. Some of you put those
words in my rapid recap of the first six chapters.
We can let
him get away with leaving out:
All have sinned and fallen short of
the glory of God.
While we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us.
What shall we say then, shall we go
on sinning so that grace shall abound even more?
Paul brought
his readers not only to salvation but to discipleship and chapter 7 puts us
squarely in the middle of discipleship.
Isn’t it great to live in response to God’s unbelievable love?
You get up
in the morning and you set your sights on living fully for God. You can do this now. We don’t have to worry about sin and death
having a grip on us. They don’t! We are saved!
We get to
live fully for God and everything just falls into place. It falls perfectly into place. We know exactly what we need to do and we do
it and God is glorified.
And then the
alarm goes off and we have to enter the world again. It is like, “Wake up! It is time to go back into the world. You had better put on the full armor of God
because it is a war zone out there!”
So we get
our self-talk going: “My eyes are fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of
my faith. I can do this!”
We are free
from sin and death. We don’t carry those
burdens around with us anymore. We can
live for God. We are free to be the
people that God made us to be. We can
finally live a life that brings glory to God!
And then we
go and do the exact opposite of what we set out to do.
We screamed
at or digitally signaled the guy who cut us off in traffic.
We walked
around all day with a long face.
We cussed
out the dog again.
We made
ourselves read the day’s devotion just so we could say that we did.
We lined out
the words judge not lest you be judged
from out Bibles because that was just too hard.
We put off
working out for one more day. That
temple maintenance will wait another day.
We did eat
our salad. We put a pound and a half of
bacon on it and didn’t eat that green leafy part but we ate our salad.
It seems
that everything that I set out to do I did not do or messed it up so badly it
would have been better if I hadn’t done it at all.
All of which brings us back to the law. What?
The law—I thought that we were beyond the law?
Paul told his readers, I did not know what sin was before the
law. I did not know what it was to covet
until the law said, Thou shalt not covet.
But we are not bound by the law! How does this relate to us? More than we may ever realize. Remember that the law is 248 directions to
“do this” and 365 regulations about not “doing that.”
“Do this. Don’t do
that and don’t do that either.” I hadn’t
even though about not doing that until the law said not to do it, then I wanted
to do that very thing, and I did it or at least the thought of doing it
continued to occupy my mind.
But now we are not bound by the law. Christ has set us free from having the curse
of sin which is death hanging over us as a consequence for our transgressions;
yet, when we set out to follow Jesus free from the eternal consequences of sin,
somehow we do exactly the opposite of what we set out to do.
This is not in everything that we do, but I suggest that it
is universal among Christians. We set out to love one another and the next
thing you know we are giving someone a piece of our mind instead of God’s love
that resides in our heart.
THAT’S NOT WHAT I SET
OUT TO DO WHEN I STARTED THE DAY!
Some would say that the Devil out there and he will get
you. Okay, he is out there but if I know
it’s him, I have the name of Jesus on my side.
No weapon formed against me will prevail. I can walk through the valley of the shadow
of death and know that God is with me.
I get that! I am ready
for that.
Some would contend that maybe I forgot a piece of my armor. Remember Paul’s instruction was to put on the
full armor of God. Maybe that’s it, but
sometimes it seems that something is already at work when I am putting on my
armor.
Paul told his readers and he is telling us that sin is still
at work in the world. It cannot change
our destination. We are God’ kids. We are brothers and sisters to Christ
Jesus.
That’s forever. By the blood of Jesus, he has claimed us and
that’s forever but sin is still at work in the work and wants to wrestle with
us.
The more that we set our sights on fixed objectives, the more
leverage that sin finds.
Thou shall not covet—you name the person, place, or thing.
These days we don’t covet our neighbor’s goat
or ox or donkey very much but we do still covet, especially when reminded not
to covet what our neighbor has.
Sin now knows where to wrestle with you and it will.
You have driven by your neighbor’s Ford F-350, 96” wide cut
lawnmower two hundred times in the past year and thought to yourself, “Nice
mower. I’ll bet that cost him a pretty
penny,” but you just kept on driving without giving it another thought.
But this time when you drive by, your wife remarks, “You are
not getting one of those. Don’t even
think about it.”
Well, up to that point the thought of getting such a
monstrosity for yourself had not really crossed your mind and if it had been a
momentary thought, it vanished quickly as your returned to reality and drove
down the road. But now, oh but now, your
mind holds on to that thought. Why?
You were told that you can’t have one.
What happens now? You
start thinking about what your neighbor has and it would be nice to have
one. Maybe
I don’t really need it but it would be nice.
Where there had been no thought before, now we ponder what
might be.
I do work hard and need
to take care of myself every now and then.
I think maybe I do need this lawnmower.
Now the fact that for the monthly payments that this thing is
going to cost, I could hire every kid in town to cut my grass twice a day for
the next thirty years gets pushed out of the operating parts of my mind.
I not only need that
mower; I deserve it. I wonder if they
have a 104” model?
If it had been offered on Amazon 1-Click that baby would be
here in 2 days. The mortgage, gas and
electric bills, and feeding the kids might have to be put on hold for a few
years but I had to have that mower. I gotta have it!
Man, I can see me now
cranking that baby up and using it as a hovercraft. There will be people on the other side of
town thinking that a Huey helicopter is coming in at rooftop level. There are probably a couple Vietnam vets out
there who instinctively pop smoke in an open field.
Until your wife said, “Don’t even think about it,” you hadn’t
given it much thought. Now you must have
it.
Were her words evil?
No.
Was the law evil? No.
So what exactly is going on here? What is this dynamic at work in me, in
us? Sin,
seeing its chance, jumped in head first.
Here we are shoulder deep in discipleship and somehow we are still
swimming in sin. We are saved from sin
and death and we are wrestling with sin?
Really?
Yes.
It is still there. It
doesn’t go away. Sometimes it messes
with us and we don’t seem to come out on top.
Sometimes it seems that we do exactly the opposite of what we really
want to do.
I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning
back. I sing it with all of my
heart. Though none go with me, I still
will follow. I believe this is exactly
what I am called to do no matter the cost.
Lord, I will follow you. You can
count on me.
Then suddenly we are in company with Simon Peter as the cock
crows and we cry and say “What did I do?
What did I do?”
What a piece of work have I become? I know what Christ did for me; yet, I live
doing things that do not bring glory to his name. I do not want to do them. I say that I won’t do them or that I will do
something and then I do the exact opposite.
I am singing the world behind me and the cross before me but
the next thing I know it seems like the cross is behind me and I am right in the
middle of worldly things.
What a piece of garbage I am.
What a miserable, wretched person I am.
Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ!
Thanks be to God!
In the previous chapter, I asked those of you who wrote in
your Bibles to draw a line between chapter 5 and chapter 6. On the chapter 5 side, I asked you to write
“Salvation” and on the chapter 6 side to write “Discipleship.”
Now, somewhere in the margins of chapter 7 write, “Salvation
realized in Discipleship.”
Until the power that sin and death had over us was removed,
we did not and perhaps could not realize how great the gift of life is.
We have been given life and life eternal. Sin can no longer take that away from us so
it targets our life abundant. We no
longer wrestle with sin so we don’t go to hell.
Our eternal destination is secured.
It is a done deal!
We wrestle with sin only because we long to bring glory to
God. We want to live God’s way and sin
fights us and it fights like a terrorist.
It will not fight strength to strength.
Jesus wins. He has won the
victory. Sin will not seek a rematch for
it is defeated.
But it will try some cheap shots. It cannot steal the promise of life eternal,
but it will try to steal the abundance of life in the here and now. Sin targets us where we are weak. Where are we weak?
We are weak where we seek to comply with a rule or law or
direction or directive for we were not created to be a compliant being but to
exercise our free will and be an obedient son or daughter of God.
What! Are they not the
same?
They are not!
Compliance is about following rules to avoid consequences or
sanctions or punishment. Punishment and
fear are old buddies and we do not do fear.
God did not give us a spirt of fear!
Obedience is rooted in love.
When we shrink back from the fullness of life into a
compliant mode, we give sin a chance to mess up our abundant life. When we try to comply with good rules, we
give sin a chance to mess with our minds.
Now rules are great things for our children, but we who have
taken on the yoke of our Master learn from him and find that what he gives us
is not a heavy burden. His yoke is easy
and his burden is light.
When we live in obedience to our Master, our Lord, our King
then we find that we don’t give sin a foothold.
We are living fully and obediently for God. We are fully trusting our God. We know the rules and the rules can tell us
how much we need God’s grace, but our response to his grace must not be just to
be better rule followers. We trust,
obey, and love.
But when our life becomes governed by rules, count on doing
some wrestling with sin. It will take every
opportunity to steal the abundance in abundant life.
Here is our challenge that comes from chapter 7: Live in loving obedience to God not in
compliance with his rules. Seek his
kingdom and his righteousness first instead of filling out a scorecard on
yourself. Trust in him over your own
understanding and see if the wrestling matches don’t become less frequent or at
least less intense.
There is another component to this discipleship that helps us
fully realize our salvation that we will talk about more the next time. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out what
the next chapter contains. We have
talked about God the Father and Jesus the Son, so get ready to bring God’s Spirit
into our walk of discipleship as we continue farther into Paul’s letter to the
Romans.
For now, when sin turns us upside down and we do exactly what
we didn’t want to do, pause and consider how great a gift that we have received
in the blood of Jesus, confess to God, and then get back in your walk of
discipleship, your race of faith, get back up and press on towards the goal!
When sin tangles you up in a big mess, stop right where you
are and thank God for his grace that you now know all the more, confess to him,
and get back in your race of faith.
Sin is still at work in the world and sometimes it will trip
you up. You don’t want it to. You didn’t go looking for it. You set out to do all the right things.
Do not be discouraged but give thanks to God for how great
his grace is. Cry out to the Lord, “I am
a mess. Thanks be to God for his grace
that goes so far beyond my mess!”
It is good, very good, to be a disciple of the Lord.
Amen!
