Paul
Text: Romans 7:14-8:2
Pastor Phil Hughes, American Fork Presbyterian Church, Utah
March 17, 2024 Fifth Sunday in Lent
He was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man. Before he had a radical and mind-blowing conversion to Christ we are told in the book of Acts that he “breathed out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples”.[1] Before Christianity was called Christianity, it was called “The Way.” If he could find any who belonged to The Way he would get permission to drag them off to prison.
Saul – as he was called at that time - was sadistic. He inflicted pain on disciples of Jesus for the sheer joy of doing it.[2] He wanted to hurt and cause grief and shame. Saul found delight in cruelty and in the suffering of Christians, putting men and women in chains, destroying families, having believers whipped and tortured, sometimes killed.
But one day when Saul was off on one of his trips to round up followers of Jesus, the risen Lord mightily confronted him, appearing to him as a blinding light, knocking Saul off his horse, and bringing him to his very knees. Saul came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
After he became part of the very people he once tried to destroy Saul changed his name to Paul. We know him as the Apostle Paul and perhaps the greatest evangelist of the faith of Jesus ever. His life and letters fill the New Testament. What we believe today is largely because of Paul.
Paul’s past always haunted him. In 1 Corinthians he writes, “For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”[3]
He writes in Galatians, “You have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely, I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.”[4]
To the Ephesians he said he was “less than the least of all God’s people.”[5]
When Paul was converted no one believed it. The disciples asked, “Isn’t he the man who raised havoc on the believers? Doesn’t he take them as prisoners?” When he came to Jerusalem he tried to join the disciples but they were afraid of him. They figured surely Paul was faking all this Jesus stuff so that he could find them and arrest them. Beware!
Paul’s past was far from perfect. In fact, imperfect isn’t the word. Wretched is what Paul was. He wrote to Timothy and said, “Here is a trustworthy saying, that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst.”[6] For Paul that isn’t dry theology. It is personal testimony. Paul has learned this with his life. This is in his heart.
Jesus and the gospel take hold of our lives when we can say this: “Christ Jesus has come into the world to save sinners and that includes me. I am one of them.” Until we can say that Jesus is still off in the distance, but not ours.
Christ had intervened in Paul’s life to save him. Paul says that the grace of the Lord was poured out on him abundantly. Literally, the term Paul uses is “superabounded”. God’s grace was supersized for Paul. It overflowed to the max. He uses the same idea in Romans 5:20 where he writes about how the law pointed out our wrongs. “But where sin increased, grace increased (super-overflowed) all the more.”
I want to say something to two groups of people. First, those who don’t really think they have a past. You have lived a generally moral life. You haven’t done anything “real bad”. You have kind of rationalized your life to the point where you can say, “I’m basically a good person.” Mix that in with church two or three times a month and you figure you should be OK. Maybe you are a little religious. Don’t be fooled. Everyone stands guilty before the God of all the universe. No one stands perfect before God. You need his grace.
Then, there are those who think their past is too bad for God to forgive. “Lord, you don’t know the things I’ve done. You don’t know where I’ve been, what I’ve thought, how bad I’ve been.” Yes, he does. He knew who Paul was and what he was about. He knows you and me, too.
If your past is in the way of your coming to Christ this morning then hear this: We all have a past. All of our pasts are imperfect. There is no past that God cannot forgive. There is no past that God cannot handle. You might doubt that, and say, “Well, I don’t know.” God is big enough. He’s seen a few things in his time. The wrongs in our life probably don’t even impress him.
Paul knows there are many people watching and wondering and about to come to Christ. But they need to know if God will truly forgive them. Paul says, “Well, just look at me.” We think of Paul as a great evangelist and missionary for the gospel. We think of him as the writer of much of our New Testament. But maybe the whole point of what God did with Paul is for all to see the amazing depths of God’s grace and how absolutely anyone can be forgiven and come to God.
But even as Paul was transformed in Christ, even with supernatural encounters with Jesus, even with his deep spiritual knowledge and enduring faith, living for the Lord was a struggle. In Romans 7 Paul gets very autobiographical and speaks of his own struggle to do what the Lord wants him to do. He says, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” (v. 15)
Do you ever feel like that? We are a Christian. We want to follow Christ. But why do I do this and think that and keep talking this way? I really am a Christian. I believe in the Lord and want to walk in his ways. But I still struggle with these temptations and often lose my way. We want to do good. We know the good we ought to do but so many times when we want to do it we can’t get there. It can be so frustrating.
Paul is writing from a desire to allow the grace of God to have full effect in his life. And this struggle he writes about and that probably isn’t unfamiliar to us is kind of good in a backwards way. One of the things that happens when we surrender our lives to God is that we become more sensitive to his ways. And as we become sensitive to his ways we become more sensitive to the struggle with sin within us. We know when we are blowing it. We see the pride in us. We see the lack of compassion we can have. We are aware of our lack of trust, lack of prayer, and tendency to serve our will above God’s will. And so we want more of Christ, but we also become conscious of how far we can be from living for him. It is a paradox of the Christian life.
In a way, this is good because it shows the Holy Spirit is convicting us. He shows us when our actions or attitudes aren’t in line with Christ. And in order for the Spirit convict us we have to be open to him. We are aware of when we fall. We thirst to be more of what God wants us to be and yet we know how far we fall short. We feel the struggle.
Sin seeks to sabotage our faith. It becomes an intruder to who God has made us to be. Don’t feel bad when part of you wants to do what is wrong. Feel bad when we no longer are sensitive to those impulses, and don’t turn to God to help us live the way he wants us to live.
Paul knows what is good but he can’t always do it. He knows the evil he wants to steer clear of and that is what he finds himself doing. It’s like he is trapped in a room with no door. He can’t find his way out of this.
Paul says, “I am a mystery to myself.” “I can’t figure myself out.” Paul spells out this war within us. Knowing and wanting one way yet succumbing to another is the great tension of Christian faith.
As long as we are in this life and in this body we will always struggle with sin. Paul writes that this dark part of his nature is living in him. Our sinful nature, that part of us that is more full of self than of God, is being overcome by the Spirit but it won’t be completely dead until we are with Christ. Willpower won’t overcome this. We don’t have it within ourselves to be all that God wants us to be.
Paul spells out this frustration of wanting to live fully for Christ and not being able to do it. And he says, “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” He is admitting that he can’t do this for himself. He needs someone outside of him to come.
When we come to the realization that there is a part of us that we are powerless to do anything about then we look for help beyond ourselves. Paul does not draw up some self-help program. Christian faith is not about turning over a new leaf. Paul is a drowning man crying out for rescue. When he says, “Wretched man that I am…” he means there is part of him that is beyond his power to change.
And when we come to this realization, we are now ready to receive the grace of God in Jesus Christ.[7]
Who will rescue me? Paul has an answer to his question and it isn’t “I will try harder” or “Maybe if I just pray more” or “I have got to go to church more.”
Paul’s answer is: “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ.
I don’t understand myself. I see the good and I want to do it, but what is wrong is right at hand and often gets me. But even in this confusing state I know who will do for me what I can’t do for myself: Jesus Christ.
The good news is that God doesn’t look at us in disgust and say, “Why can’t you get your act together? I am done with you. Too much frustration. Uh-huh.” No, God runs toward us.
When Satan wants to really get to us I think one of his most potent weapons is playing with our minds. He wants us to think about where we aren’t cutting it. Guilt burdens our conscience and weighs down our heart. It hangs around our neck like a boulder and makes living unbearable at times. Paul learned that through his Son, Jesus Christ, God has dealt with our battle bringing forgiveness, healing, mercy through the cross.
This is why Paul can go on to write, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”[8]
This is not “we will never sin anymore or struggle with certain things.” There is no Christian perfectionism. The struggle will always be there, just like an addict has to face her addiction everyday. What it does mean is that God has done for us what we could never do for ourselves.
When we share in our Prayer of Confession we are basically saying, “Lord, I feel the struggle in my soul to live for you. Thank you that you fight this battle for me.”
Winston Churchill said, “Success is the ability to move from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” Success in the Christian life is the ability to move from failure to failure without losing our trust in God’s grace in Christ.
When we feel we are struggling to hold on to God, don’t be defeated – God is holding on to us.
When we feel like we are spiritual failures, don’t give up – God isn’t keeping track.
When we feel like we can’t do the good, don’t let it disqualify us – Jesus Christ has done all the good we need. We will get there next time.
Paul had a past. He came to Christ and his life changed. But even when we come to Christ we are not perfect. And therein is the power of the gospel.
In his book Hope Against Darkness, Richard Rohr writes this,
“God makes grace out of our grit; salvation out of our sin. We are saved, ironically, not by doing it right as much as by the suffering of having done it wrong. We come to God not through our perfection as much as through our imperfection. Finally, all must be forgiven and reconciled. Life does not have to be fixed, controlled, or even understood to be happy. Now be honest, that is good news.”
That is good news. Coming to God not through perfection but imperfection. That we don’t have to be fixed, just saved. And God does that. That is good news. It is the good news. Let the imperfect rejoice.
Prayer: God, may your Holy Spirit always enliven our consciences to be aware of our living for you and with you. Continually give us a desire to live as you want us to live, and in the times we don’t get there, we thank you for grace that will forgive and draw us back.
Thanks be to God that you deliver us through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
[1] Acts 9:1
[2] See William Barclay, I Timothy, p.45
[3] 1 Cor. 15:9
[4] Gal. 1:13
[5] Ephesians 3:9
[6] 1 Timothy 1:15
[7] James Edwards, Commentary on Romans, 193-94
[8] Romans 8:1-2