“Between the Lines: Did I Do That?”
Romans 7:14-25
“Did I do that?” I hope I’m not the only one who remembers Steve Erkel – that klutzy, nerdy yet wonderful and lovable television character. He was constantly doing things that resulted in creating messy or difficult – and often humorous – situations. And whenever he came across one of these situations he would query, “Did I do that?” “For what I do is not the good I want to do.”
A Calvin and Hobbes comic strip shows Calvin in the house next to some smashed furniture, holding a baseball bat, and his wild-eyed, frantic mother shouting, “You’ve been hitting rocks in the house? What on earth would make you do something like that?” Calvin responds, “Poor genetic material?” in the final frame he’s sitting in his bedroom, under punishment, and says, “Bad guess.” “The evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.”
How many times have you said something like, “I don’t believe I did that?” “Why did I do that?” “I swore I would never do that again!” “Did I really do that?” “Why can’t I keep my resolutions?” Agnes Allen put it neatly: “I should be better, brighter, thinner, And more intelligent at dinner. I should reform and take some pains, Improve my person, use my brains. There’s a lot that I should do about it, But will I? ... Honestly, I doubt it.” “For what I do is not the good I want to do. “The evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.” Why is it we seem to be addicted to the bad and so unable to change? Paul has some vital insights into our behavior as he spells out the patterns of our addiction to sin.
According to Paul THERE IS A SYSTEM TO OUR BEHAVIOR. I am keenly aware that factors such as heredity and environment have an impact upon how we behave and the way we live, but I also know that much of our behavior is learned. The sensations or feelings we experience as a result of certain actions and choices influence future behavior. Pavlov and his dogs taught us that a long time ago. Behavior can be, and often is, conditioned.
If a behavior is associated with an effect of pleasure or relief from pain and distress, that behavior will occur more frequently. If I do something that makes me feel good, I’m likely to do it again. If I keep doing it and it keeps feeling good, it will soon become a habit. I’m attached, even addicted to it. I may not even be conscious of that fact, but it is true none-the-less. To be more specific, there are at least FOUR PROGRESSIVE STEPS in this system.
First, LEARNING TAKES PLACE. Choose any behavior – taking a drug, counting money, dreaming of someone, biting your nails. If the first time you do it brings you pleasure or relief, your brain associates that relief with that action. Learning has taken place. For example, let’s say that one time I snapped my fingers and Barb kissed me. So I snapped them again, and she kissed me again. What do you think I’m going to start doing with more frequency? Right – snap my fingers! Or if biting my nails gives me a ‘high’ of some sort, I’ll bite my nails periodically just to feel that ‘high.’ Learning takes place.
Second, A HABIT IS FORMED. When my brain begins to associate learnings with other behaviors in my life, I’ll repeat those behaviors more often. For example, if I feel depressed my brain might communicate “You’ll feel good if you bite your nails.” Guess what I’ll do. Or if I’m having a difficult day and come home frustrated and my brain says, “When you snap your fingers Barb will kiss you,” guess what I’ll do. The specific behaviors increase. Now, instead of just doing them when I desire the sensations, I begin to do them to ward off other not so pleasant feelings. Then the desire for the effects increases even more. Now I’m headed for difficulty.
The third step in the system of behavior is that A STRUGGLE OCCURS. The habit has become entrenched; it’s an integral part of my life. With any upset the behavior is a reflex. Then soon, even without an upset, I desire the sensation to prevent an upset and to help ward off potential bad feelings. Soon I cannot go very long without repeating the behavior so I do it frequently. By now you have a finger-snapping, nail-biting preacher!
Now, fourth, the battle heats up. INTERFERENCE COMPOUNDS THE ISSUE. Something is bound to interfere with the increased frequency of my habit. For example, if I take a drug more frequently, the supply becomes a problem. If I chew my nails more frequently, I run out of chewable nails. If I snap my fingers too much, Barb will not always be around, and she may tire of kissing me. (I don’t know how she could ever tire of that but it could happen!) So I decide to stop, to withdraw from the behavior. But that’s stressful – and how have I learned to deal with stress? By repeating the habit! So if I try to stop the habit I’ll be in a real battle with myself. My attempts to quit simply fuel my desire to continue! I cannot stop and repetition makes the habit more ingrained. I am now at war with myself. The apostle Paul said that we become addicted to sin in the very same way. “For what I do is not the good I want to do…The evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.” Our habits, and our propensities towards sin, become gods which enslave us.
Isn’t God smart? He commanded, “You shall have no other gods before me.” If we focus on him and his will, if we choose initially to do what is right, if we strive to live between the lines commandments 2-9 become much less of a problem. Once again, we come face to face with THE SPIRIT OF GRACE. Gerald May, in his book Addiction & Grace, wrote “It all seems very difficult and entrenched. God creates us with our vulnerabilities, our propensities for addiction and willfulness. And then as we grow through life we are tempted and seduced away from our deepest desire, forced to struggle with ourselves, thrust repeatedly back on our own weakness…Grace, the freely flowing river of divine love in human life, is the only hope for true freedom from the enslavement.”
Appropriate for today’s them I lift up two ways to experience God’s grace. First, REMEMBER THE LAWS. It sounds almost contradictory, but think about it. The late Ray Stedman recalled a time he was a guest at a conference and was driven around in a Lincoln Continental. He remembered thinking how quietly it rode – he couldn’t hear the engine. Yet, as they drove through mountain passages he realized that with each push of the accelerator there was a huge surge of power. He continued: “That is something like what Paul is describing here. Sin lies silent within us. We do not even know it is there. We think we have hold of life in such a way that we can handle it without difficulty. We are self-confident because we have never really been exposed to the situation that puts pressure upon us – we never have had to make a decision against the pressure of the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not…’ But when that happens, we suddenly find ourselves filled with attitudes that almost shock us – unloving, bitter, resentful thoughts, murderous attitudes…We find ourselves awakened to these desires. As the great engine surges into life at the touch of the accelerator so this powerful, idling beast within us called sin springs into life as the law comes home to us.”
The LAW OF GOD reminds us that there is sin within us which prompts our desires. It waits for the right opportunities to step on the accelerator. As Paul wrote (7:16-18), “And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.” As a result we experience the frustrations we referred to when we began. First, (18-20), “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” The Holy Spirit prompts us to do good, brings rightness into our hearts. But evil cries ‘No!” It’s just like when a mother says “Don’t eat any of those fresh baked cookies while I’m gone!” We’re lured to the cookies! So evil pounces on our weaknesses and lures and drives us into sin.
Then Paul mentions the second frustration, THE LAW OF EVIL (21-23). “So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the sin at work within my members.” Have you ever thought “I’m not a bad person? Why can’t I do what is right? Why am I so weak? What can’t I break this pattern?” Paul thought it (24): “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
Yet as we remember the laws, they point us to a second remembrance: REMEMBER JESUS CHRIST. We must not focus forever on the frustrations and our wretchedness. We instead must focus on where Paul ends, with Jesus Christ.. It is reported that a tribe of people lived near Tarsus, where Paul was born, who inflicted a terrible punishment upon a murderer. They fastened the body of the victim to that of the killer, tying shoulder to shoulder, back to back, thigh to thigh, arm to arm, and then drove the murderer from the community. So tight were the bonds that he could not free himself, and after a few days the death in the body communicated itself to the living flesh of the murderer. As he stalked the land, there was no one to help him. He had only the frightful prospect of gangrenous death. He could well cry in horror, “Oh wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Against this backdrop Paul wrote (24): “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
This is where the Sermon on the Mount begins! “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” We are blessed when we are at the end of ourselves, when we arrive at spiritual bankruptcy. GRACE CAN FILL OUR HEARTS ONLY WHEN THEY HAVE FIRST BEEN EMPTIED. If we think we are strong enough, there is no room for grace. Unless we admit that we are powerless against that which overpowers us, there is no room for the Spirit’s power to flow in. But “Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” We are informed by the law but we are not under law; we are under grace. We are married not to the dead body of sin but to the risen Lord Jesus Christ. We can be filled with his Spirit. The power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead belongs to you and me. We may not always feel it – just like we may not always feel the power and lure of sin – but it is there. As Paul says in Romans 8:3, “What the law was powerless to do…God did by sending his own Son…” The law can point out sin, condemn sin, stimulate sin – but not overpower sin. But Jesus did! Jesus does! And it’s our sense of inadequacy which brings us to Him.
But why wait until we’re in the depths of despair? WHY KEEP PUSHING JESUS ASIDE? It was almost 1:00 AM when Dr. Leo Winters phone rang. A highly acclaimed Chicago surgeon, he was awakened with a start. This time it was a young boy, the caller said, tragically mangled in a late night accident. No one else could handle this case. Dr. Winter’s hands were possibly the only ones in the city, or maybe even the whole region, skilled enough to save this young boy. The quickest route to the hospital was through a rather rough area, but with time being a critical factor, it was worth the risk. He made it through the worst of the neighborhood - but then, at a stop light, his door was jerked open by a man in a grey hat and dirty flannel shirt. “I’ve got to have your car!” screamed the man while pulling the doctor from his seat. Dr. Winters tried to explain th4e gravity of his situation, but the man was not listening and got in the car and sped off. The doctor wandered around looking for a phone for over 45 minutes. When the taxi finally got him to the hospital, over an hour had passed. He burst through the doors and into the nurses’ station, but the nurse on duty only shook her head. Too late. The boy had died about 30 minutes earlier. “His dad got here just before he died,” the nurse said. “He is in the chapel. Go see him. He is awfully confused. He could not understand why you never came.” Without explaining Dr. Winters walked hurriedly down the hall and quietly entered the chapel. At the front knelt the huddled form of the weeping father – in a grey hat and dirty flannel shirt. Tragically, he had pushed from his life the only one who could save his son from death.
How often have you pushed Jesus – the only one who can save you – aside? Next week we’ll look at taking control of our lives by living in the power of the Holy Spirit; but we must begin here. We must face our inadequacy and make room for the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Quoting Gerald May again, “…the power of grace flows most fully when human will chooses to act in harmony with divine will.” So this morning we gather around the Table of our Lord. As he reveals Himself to us, we receive the grace He offers; we open ourselves to His broken body and shed blood. We recommit ourselves to being His presence in our world. Unless we begin here we will never be able to say, “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Come to the table, for all is now ready.
