WHY IS IT THAT, WHEN I TRY TO DO THE RIGHT THING, I SCREW UP?

In Romans 7:23,[1] Paul talks about the law of sin at work in the members of my body, which wages war against the law of my mind. When these two clash, the result is that I become a prisoner of the law of sin. Yet he has just said in Romans 6:2[2] that “we died to sin”. What is he doing – talking out of both sides of his mouth? Are we dead to sin or are we not? 

To answer that question right at the start, Romans 6:6-7 says very clearly: “[F]or we know that our old self was crucified with [Christ] so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.” So our old self, which had a tendency to like sin, has been done away with. We are no longer slaves to sin. We are free to live holy lives. To make that kind of living even easier, we are told in 2 Peter 1:3: “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” So we are dead to sin, we are no longer slaves to sin, we have divine power to life godly lives, and we can participate in God’s very own nature and live the way He would.  

So why is there so much sin in the church? Why is there so much sin in me, so much that is not like God? Good question, to which there is probably more than one answer, but let’s look at the answer given in Romans, which is the book that has the audacity to tell us in the first place that we don’t have to sin. 

Right after Romans 6, Romans 7 shows us a very different picture from being dead to sin. It shows a believer trapped in a desperate struggle with sin and losing every time. Let’s summarize here what that struggle looks like.

(1) I discover God’s standards

There are many commandments and standards in the Bible. I read them and decide that this is how God wants me to live.
I do my best to live that way. 

(2) My success in living up to God’s standards 

The minute I decide to try living God’s way, sin springs to life and fights against all my good intentions.
The result is that I find myself doing the things I don’t want to do and not doing the things I know I should be doing.

(3) The result

I end up discouraged and defeated. I feel like a failure and a big disappointment to God.

What went wrong? God says I died to sin. He says I have everything I need to live above sin. He says I’m no longer a slave to sin. But the minute I try to rise above it, I find myself in a battle I never win. Is He lying to me?

No, He’s not lying. It’s just that we missed something very important in Romans 6 and 7. That is the role of the law.

The law is all of God’s standards and commandments. It’s all the “you shoulds” and “God wants you tos”. The minute we find ourselves saying or thinking:

            I really ought to . . .
            God says I should . . .
            God would expect me to . . .
            God would want me to . . .
            What would Jesus do? That’s what I should do.

we are setting up a law in our mind. 

Here is how a law in my mind works. I decide what it is I ought to be doing. I then set about doing my best to achieve that. Romans 7:23[3] comes into play. The law of sin in my members wages war against the law of my mind, and it wins. I fail to do what I want to do, or I do what I don’t want to do. I confess my failure to God and promise to do better. Then I try harder to achieve the law of my mind. Romans 7:23 again comes into play, and again I fail. After a while, I get discouraged. I ask the Lord to help me and make me strong, but still I fail. Eventually, it is easy for me to become convinced that either God is not willing to help me or He is not as strong as the sin I am fighting. That causes me to become disappointed in God as well as myself. My faith in Him weakens or I wonder what is so wrong with me that God doesn’t seem to work for me. Either way, I am not living as if I have died to sin and have everything I need for life and godliness. What is wrong? 

What is wrong is trying to live by any kind of law. The Bible says “the power of sin is the law” (1 Corinthians 15:56) and “apart from the law, sin is dead” (Romans 7:8). How does the law increase sin, you say? Ever have someone tell you “You’d better not ________”? As soon as you’re told that, isn’t that the one thing you’d just love to do? Or: “You really should ________”, and some part of you just wants to never do that. Romans 7:7-8 talks about that: “I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, ‘Do not covet.’ But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire.” 

So being told, or telling myself, what I ought to do causes a very natural reaction which increases my desire to sin against that law. But that’s not the end of the bad effect of setting up laws in our minds. Remember our description, where God didn’t seem to be helping us be good even though we were praying and asking? Is it true that He helps some and not others? Absolutely not. “God does not show favoritism” (Acts 11:34), and He is passionate to help us. That help is called His grace. “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8). That is especially true when it comes to God helping us with sin. Romans 5:20-21 says: “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” So God is always giving grace. But grace is only ours when we receive it. Trying our best is not looking to God for grace. Trying our best is looking to ourselves to accomplish something. But whose job is it to make us like Jesus so we act like Jesus? Can we do that? Of course not. God doesn’t expect that of us because it’s impossible for us to do. In Galatians 3:1-3, this warning was given to some people who thought they could do their best to be holy: “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you; Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?” The Bible sees trying to be holy by doing our best to obey the rules as a foolish idea. 

But it gets worse. Galatians 5:4 says: “You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.” Remember that God gives grace to enable us to live well. When we try our best to keep the rules, we fall away from grace. God is still giving, but we are not receiving. All we have going for us is our own best efforts, and Jesus said: “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). No wonder we fail when we try to live this way. 

So how do we live righteous lives? 

Keep in mind, first of all, that this should be easy. Jesus said: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). If living well becomes frustratingly difficult, we have missed grace somehow.  

Let’s go back to the beginning where we discover God’s standards, but let’s not go down the road of “I try my best”. Let’s go down God’s road instead.  

(1) I discover God’s standards
I know what God wants from me, but I also realize that apart from Jesus, I can do nothing, and even what I consider to be my own righteous acts are really “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6).[4] 

I also know God is more than willing to provide all I need to live His way (2 Peter 1:3). 

(2) I turn to God
Romans 6:13-14 says to “offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.” In other words, my job is to turn to God and say: “I know You expect me to ________. I also know that there is nothing in me that is able to live up to that. Would You do whatever You need to do in me so that I live this way?”
It is now God’s job to work within me by His divine power to produce godliness. We may mistakenly think that this will take Him a long time and that we will be doing a lot of sinning before He is finished. Nothing could be further from the truth. He can change things within us quite dramatically and quite quickly.
But let’s say we do sin. What then? It’s the same process with one addition. 1 John 1:9 says: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” We confess the sin, but again it is God’s job to purify us from all the unrighteousness inside us that caused us to sin in the first place. So we turn to Him and say: “Lord, I just sinned by ___________. Would You go to every part of me that fed that sin and do whatever You need to do to change those parts of me so they want what Jesus wants and are able to live as Jesus lived.”
Then we just relax and let Him do His work. This is receiving His grace. 

(3) The result
What is the result of allowing God to remake us on the inside so we think and react and act like Jesus?

Romans 8:
31  What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?
32  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
33  Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.
34  Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
35  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
36  As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."
37  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
38  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,
39  either height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
Now is that good news, or what?

Sharon Currens