Alba 1-16-2022
WHO WILL DELIVER ME?
Romans 7:14-25
Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and A Child's Garden of Verses, is also well known for writing The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde first published in 1886.
It is the story of a man who had evil tendencies but wanted to hide them. Using a potion, he was able to change to a completely different person – Mr. Hyde. And as Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll does things he would never do as himself.
It is said that Stevenson had long been intrigued by the idea of how human personalities can hold and display both good and evil.
He was raised in a Presbyterian home but later professed being an atheist. Apparently he was exposing his own desires when writing the story about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
The sad truth is that all of us seem to fit too well into Stevenson's story about Dr. Jekyll. Because we also seem to have a split personality, at times doing things we know we should not do.
But we're not the only ones. Even the Apostle Paul was troubled by this struggle between good and evil.
Take a look at Romans 7:14-25. Here is where Paul bears his soul. And we see that even he had trouble being the person he wanted to be. Lets read:
14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. 16 If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good.
17 But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. 18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.
19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. 20 Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. 22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
The Apostle Paul admits he had a problem. But the first thing we should see in these verses is:
1. He Had a Will to Do What Is Right
His desire was to follow the Lord in all things and be obedient to the will of God. Paul had a deep desire to do what is right and good. This should be the desire of any and all Christians.
If our desire is not to do the will of God, it calls into question whether or not we are truly Christians.
In verse 22 Paul says, For I delight in the Law of God according to the inward man. Deep inside himself, Paul delights in the truth and righteousness of the Law of God.
This delight does not come from outside a person, but it is a desire from within. It comes from the new nature that is in the heart when a sinner is born-anew.
It can be seen in the things a person desires and obeys, and in the hate of the things the Law condemns. A proof of this delight in the Law is the persistent effort to keep the Law in spite of constant failure.
The Law guides the mind of the inward man, so that the inner self of the believer truly appreciates of the Law of God. When we know that the Law is holy, and that it is an expression of the will of God, it should cause us to want do God’s will.
This is the proper response of any believer. Through the new birth, a person receives a new nature, and along with it, gets a capacity for loving the spiritual truths contained in God’s Word.
In Psalm 119:97-98 David exclaims: Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies; For they are ever with me
In Hebrews 1:8 an Old Testament verse is quoted and applied to our Lord Jesus that demonstrates His desire to do what is right and good. It says, You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions.”
Loving righteousness is the way of Jesus. It should be our way too.
It was Paul’s desire, as it should be with every believer, to love and obey the Law of God.
So first we see that Paul had a will to do good. And next we see that:
2. He Had a Worry About Not Meeting the Standard
Paul is baring his very soul, and he is telling us of an experience that is part of the human condition. He knew what was right and wanted to do it; and yet, somehow, it didn't happen.
He knew what was wrong, and the last thing he wanted to do was to do that; and yet, somehow, he did. He felt like a man with a split personality.
It was as if two men were living inside of him, pulling in different directions, a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He finds himself indulging in things that he doesn’t want to do, and practicing things that he hates.
He was haunted by his frustration due to his ability to see what is good and his inability to do it; and his ability to recognize what is wrong and his inability to refrain from doing that.
Have you been there? I am sure that all of us have had times like this. It seems so easy to slip back into old ways, to do things that we thought were behind us. It is all too easy to be what we don't want to be. This is one struggle that all of us as Christians have. It is the struggle between knowing, and then doing, what is right. In other words it is the continued conflict between good and evil.
Still I think we should note that the mark of genuine Christianity is this: Wanting to live God's way. It doesn't excuse us when we do wrong. But like the apostle Paul, our desire should be to do God's Will.
Paul says in verses 17 and 18 that sin dwells in him, in his flesh. And it is there that sin resides, not as the honored guest, or even as a paying tenant, but more like a squatter that is impossible to eject.
And it is that sin that results in those acts which we hate so much. So even though sin is no longer part of our new character, it still rises up and torments each of us from time to time just as it did with Paul.
So this morning ask yourself what is your weakness that the devil can use? In other words, what is your problem? Is it Temper or Impatience or Lack of Self-Control? Is it Lying, Pride or Laziness?
It is good to figure out where it is that the devil seems to have an inroad that hurts your testimony as a Christian and keeps you from being who you want to be.
Also we all have to be careful not to let the culture define what is good and right. A sense of sin is lacking in today's world, along with a sense of right and wrong. Moral absolutes have been replaced with arbitrary preferences.
And if there is no standard of right and wrong, it doesn't take long for all that is wrong to become the standard.
Haven't you heard people say, “Well that is just the way God made me. I can’t help it if I have a bad temper, or I lie all the time, or I look at pornography, or if I cheat on my taxes. God made me that way and He’ll understand.”
While those things may very well characterize our flesh, which is still present in our life, the good news is that even though we can’t do it on our own, there is a way to get victory over the sin with which we struggle.
Paul gives us no illusion that it is possible for us to arrive at some state of perfection in which we will no longer engage in these struggles. I don’t know of one single Christian, and I’m including myself, who has experienced complete victory over sin.
Here is a truth: As long as we live on this earth we are going to have some of the old desires. But the more intimately that we get to know Jesus, the more we learn about just how sinful we are.
Then it is all the more necessary for us to cry out with the Apostle Paul, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
Paul had a will to do what is right. But he also had a worry that he could never fully measure up to the standard of God's law. But he knew there was an answer to his (and our) predicament. Because:
3. He Had the Wonder that God Had Made a Way for Him to be Forgiven. The Will, the Worry and the Wonder!
Paul knows the answer to the problem of our inability to live up to the perfect standard of what is right and good.
And so out of his cry of desperation for someone to deliver him he declares: I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Now that is true Thanksgiving! No matter what else may be going on in our lives we can thank God for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Only the blood of Christ shed on the cross of Calvary can remedy our plight. We're taken over by sin, and we can't free ourselves. We're unable, on our own, to overcome our sinful desires.
We desperately need to be delivered, and—“thanks be to God”—rescue is available! Jesus can deliver us!
When we try, we fail. When we trust, Jesus succeeds. Jesus is the Great Restorer, not us. His grace is sufficient to save us.
Apart from Him we could not stand for even a moment. We underestimate the power of sin in us, and we underestimate the power of God to overcome sin.
One man said, “When I take over the steering wheel I discover I’m not a very good driver. True conversion does not occur until we lose all hope in ourselves and realize that God alone is the way to life” (David Wells).
Most unbelievers really don’t have a natural desire to do what is right. Many seem to actually enjoy their sin, and that often becomes a considerable obstacle that keeps them from putting their faith in Jesus.
The difference for the Christian who has the mind of Christ is that there is the hope of being rescued from our sins; and the hope of having the power to achieve victory over the old man of sin.
We sometimes get discouraged that our progress seems so slow. But the Christian life is a process of slow, steady growth. And the further we progress, the more aware we are of our faults.
This causes us to depend all the more on Jesus. We're engaged in spiritual warfare, a battle from within, against our sin, and against external forces that seek to defeat us.
Christians aren't sinless...but we ought to sin less. Instead of running towards sin, we ought to be running from it, resisting the enticements of sinful thoughts and behaviors.
The only way we can live life successfully is to let Christ live His life through us.
Who can deliver us? Thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
CONCLUSION:
Robert Louis Stevenson's story about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the tale of too many people today who let themselves continue in their sinful desires.
Here is some of what was in an article on Wikipedia about this story:
Dr Jekyll is a "large, well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty with something of a slyish cast", who occasionally feels he is battling between the good and evil within himself, leading to the struggle between his dual personalities of Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde.
He has spent a great part of his life trying to repress evil urges that were not fitting for a man of his stature. He creates a serum, or potion, in an attempt to separate this hidden evil from his personality.
In doing so, Jekyll transformed into the smaller, younger, cruel, remorseless, and evil Hyde. Jekyll has many friends and an amiable personality, but like Hyde, he becomes mysterious and violent. As time goes by, Hyde grows in power.
Jekyll's transformed body, Hyde, was evil, self-indulgent, and uncaring to anyone but himself. Initially, Jekyll controlled the transformations with the serum, but one night in August, he became Hyde involuntarily in his sleep.
Jekyll resolved to cease becoming Hyde. Despite this, one night he had a moment of weakness and drank the serum. Hyde, his desires having been caged for so long, committed murder, he killed Carew.
Horrified, Jekyll tried more adamantly to stop the transformations. Then, in early January, he transformed involuntarily while awake.
Far from his laboratory and hunted by the police as a murderer, Hyde needed help to avoid capture. He wrote to Lanyon in Jekyll's hand, asking his friend to bring chemicals from his laboratory.
In Lanyon's presence, Hyde mixed the chemicals, drank the serum, and transformed into Jekyll. The shock of the sight instigated Lanyon's deterioration and death.
Meanwhile, Jekyll's involuntary transformations increased in frequency and required ever larger doses of the serum to reverse.
Eventually, one of the chemicals used in the serum ran low, and subsequent batches prepared from new stocks failed to work. Jekyll speculated that one of the original ingredients must have had some unknown impurity that made it work.
Realizing that he would stay transformed as Hyde, Jekyll wrote out a full account of the events and locked himself in his laboratory with the intent to keep Hyde imprisoned and, as Poole & Utterson smash down the door to the laboratory, committed suicide by poison.
Can't you just hear the cry, “Who will deliver me?”
We have the answer. It is Jesus. Thank God... through our Lord Jesus Christ.
