Romans 7:14-25

The Best of Intentions... Mr. Gatling was a physician and an inventor. Like other Americans in the mid 19th century, he had seen the carnage that war could cause. In the Civil War he had seen men maimed and killed. According to one legend he decided to try to prevent all wars in the future. To do this he decided to make war so awful that no one would think of going to war again. So he set at work to create a weapon so awful, so horrifying that war would be unthinkable. He was partially successful. He managed to make war more awful than it already was, but it didn't end war. You see, Mr. Gatling invented the Gatling Gun. It was a primitive form of a machine gun. No longer did soldiers need to reload their rifles. They would just turn a crank and bullets would come pouring out the end of the rifle. His intention to end the killing was good, but the result was that he just made the killing all the more easy. He should have known better. If people want to kill making it easier will not stop them.

This is the paradox of being a Christian. We intend to do the right thing, but often we do not. The history of the church is dotted with incidents where "good" Christian people meant well, but did evil. Crusades and inquisitions all started with the intention of spreading the Gospel, but ended in mass murders. More recently a number of evangelists have gotten in trouble. Some of them probably began their careers with an honest attempt to tell people the Good New of Jesus, but they ended up actually lining their own pockets or manipulating people instead on inviting them. As odd as it may sound, good people sometimes do bad things.

Paul, the apostle who wrote Romans, had the best of Intentions. Even before he met Jesus on the road to Damascus and was saved, he meant well. The people he respected most in the religious community told him that these Christians were blaspheming by claiming that the Messiah had come. The laws of Moses were clear. Blasphemers were to be stoned. It was a command from God. Paul never did the actually stoning, but he did hold the coats of those who stoned Stephen the first Christian martyr. Paul intended to serve God and follow the commandments, but instead he ended up fighting God and persecuting the only begotten Son of the living God.

We can understand such behavior from one who has not yet been changed by the power of Jesus' blood. Paul had not yet met the light of the world so how could he see in the darkness. He had not yet met the Author of truth so how could he know what is good and what is evil. And in fact he was dwelling in ignorance. He didn't know what was right or wrong. He didn't know any better. Human beings are by nature sinful. Since Adam and Eve, sin is the one thing the human race has been good at. It is something that is built into our character. Human cannot, on their own, even will to do good or know how to do good. Sin and separation are part of the existence we lead.

Yet through Christ our spirits are changed. We are made into new creatures. Christ transforms our spirits so that we can know what is right and we can want to do it. But we still live in a sinful world. The power of sin which still rules this world is at war with the power which rules our transformed spirits.

This is the dilemma of the Christian life: Our intentions have been made pure by the power of the love of Christ; yet we continue to so the very things which make our renewed spirits sick. Paul is a good example of this. He continued to sin even after he was saved; converted; changed by the blood of Christ and the power of the resurrection. He writes, "I do not understand my own actions. For I so not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." He also writes, "I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do." His intentions were the best. His previous intentions had been purified by the Blood of Christ. They were now the best of intentions. Paul had become aware of his own sinfulness yet he continued to do what he knew was wrong. In short he sinned even though he knew better.

Like Paul we Christians sin despite the best of intentions. Often times this disturbs Christians. They have experience the renewing of their lives by the power of God's love. They are on fire for Christ and they feel cleansed by the blood if Christ. They are freed from all those sins which the Holy Spirit has taught their hearts to hate.

Then it happens, despite their best intentions they sin! I doubt there is a Christian who has not experienced this. Even Paul had done things that he knew were wrong.

Yet there are still people who refuse to face this dilemma. There are some who claim that if a Christian commits a sin after she or he is saved, then that person has forfeited their salvation and that they will not be forgiven for it. They say, "You knew better." So they claim that God will not forgive a person who knows better. They claim that God's forgiveness is only for those who are still blind to their sin.

There are some who argue that if a person commits a sin that means they were never saved to begin with. This line of reasoning is strictly logical. It claims that if God has changed a person they are truly changed and cannot go back. According to this line of reasoning if you sin then you must not have been changed to begin with.

There are still others who refuse to acknowledge this dilemma by redefining sin. They say that once you become a Christian your sins don't matter any more. God simply ignores them as if they don't exist. As if our willful disobedience didn't cause our heavenly Father any pain.

These lines of reasoning all deny the facts. Christians, like Paul, who have been truly changed, converted, still commit sin. Yet God continues to minister to them and to use them to spread the good news. Does Billy Graham sin? I am sure he does! But I am also sure he mourns his sin just as Paul did. And despite his sin God still uses Rev. Graham to lead thousands to Christ. When Christians sin it hurts them by hindering their relationship with God. It hurts their fellow humans through the hatred that is behind the sin. And our sin hurts God who loved us enough to die for us. And that hurt has to be healed.

What can we do? We are driven by the good put in us by the spirit but our human nature often leads us in another direction. This dilemma is a part of the world that we live in. As Paul writes, "I see in my members another law at war with the Law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members." Despite the best of intentions to do the will of God we still sin. This is part of the Christian life and it cannot be explained away.

Should we surrender to sin and not fight back! No! Through the power which God gives us we should fight against that evil which dwells in us. Methodists used to talk about sanctification, and some of us still do. That is the process by which God takes the sin out of our lives and makes us holy. It is the on-going battle of a Christian, with God's help, to fight each sin out of their lives. We should pray for God to show us where sin is still in our lives and work with the Spirit to banish it. But despite the sanctification that God works in our lives, we still sin from time to time.

What can we do? Despite our best intentions we still sin. How can we be delivered from this dilemma. Paul asks the same question. Listen to his answer! "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin."

Christ died for us so that our sins could be forgiven. Some people think that is just a word of hope for the unsaved. So often Christians are hard on themselves when they sin, and sometimes we are harder on each other than on those in the world. We say, "Christians ought to know better," and then we refuse to forgive ourselves because we know how evil all sin is. But I have some good news for all of us. Jesus died to give us all forgiveness. That even includes those who know better. Christ died for you, and you, and you, and me, and still offers us forgiveness every day.

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