Philosopher, social critic, and write for the London Daily Observer, G. K. Chesterton was addressed by a woman who wrote a letter asking him to write a series of articles explaining what was wrong with the world.  The following day, Chesterton penned this reply, “Madam, I will tell you what is wrong with the world:  Me.”

What’s wrong with the world?  Me!  Not a political problem, not an economic situation, the real reason for the problems of the world is the fact that people are in it!  What’s wrong with my marriage?  Me!  What’s wrong with my parenting?  Me!  What’s wrong in my world?  It’s me!  Why?  Because I am sinful!  In my heart dwells no good thing Paul writes in Romans 7:18! 

My personal sin, my desperately sinful heart is the sole cause of all of the problems that come pouring out into my life, which in turn affects the world and people around me…now multiply that by 7 Billion and then exponentially multiply that by 60 seconds every minute, 60 minutes every hour, 24 hours every day, 365 days every year and on average 68 years (the average life expectancy worldwide).  You know what the product of that equation is?  A mess!  Man rampant sin, intense problems personally and proliferating throughout the world!

And the thing is, the entire world knows it!  We use words like “dysfunctional” and “victim” but the plaguing issue is just plain sin!   The power of sin brings destruction Paul writes in Romans 6 and it’s true.  Everything I’m ashamed of in my life is always directly linked to sin, yet note this, preoccupation with sin only brings depression and exhaustion!  Paul had lived his life preoccupied with sin.  Careful to observe every minute detail of the law such that he would be blameless but even after  his intense focus daily on doing right, being right, feeling right, he found himself intensely hypocritical.

Why?  Because he knew he wasn’t any of those things.  He found out that his tractor beam on the law made him appear blameless on the outside yet on the inside he was an animal!  Filled with rage and selfishness and that is precisely where living after the law drops you off…because the law cannot deal with your sin, it simply reveals your sin!

And there’s danger there!  The danger is that once we see that we are sinful, we have a tendency to set up rules and regulations throughout our lives in order that we might not sin…but those rules and regulations, they exhaust us, depress us because we think they’ll break our fall into sin when they only add to it…because inevitably we discover…we are unable to keep them…it’s like we’re stuck…we’re congnizant of the law, conscious of righteousness…but also very aware that we aren’t it…and so if the law isn’t the answer, if it’s not able to save, then is it by itself…bad?

Romans 7 Verse 7

• Interesting that Paul brings up covetousness as his example here.  I believe Paul coveted prestige in his previous Pharasitical role.  He wanted to excel as a scholar, he wanted to lead his peers, he wanted to bring more glory to God than any other leader within Judaism, which all seem quite noble…yet as he studied the law, he saw that the underlying reason for his pursuit was a hunger for prominence…a deep desire for self exaltation and attention…his very motivation, even for these seemingly noble pursuits, was sin…he discovered that, look at the next verse…

Romans 7 Verses 8 – 10

• You see the more Paul studied the law, the more he realized how far he was from the law.  Verse 8 is a troubling translation in the New King James Version.  “Sin taking opportunity by the commandment produced in me evil…”  Reading that on it’s own you could conclude some fairly incorrect understandings.  That phrase is one of the most intricate Greek phrases you’ll find in the New Testament…
• If you study the specifics of the Greek here, simply look at the original language, you’ll see that what Paul actually presented is more literally translated, “sin, being revealed by the law, showed me evil!”  In other words, all Paul thought he had to do was study the law, but the more he did, the more he realized how far he was from true spirituality! 
• Lincoln, my 3 year old, believes all there is to life is sleeping, eating, playing and spiderman!  Every time we go to a store he truly believes that if he just gets one more spiderman action figure then all of his problems will be solved!  Madison, my 6 year old believes that every day is essentially about going to Unique to get another stuffed horse!  Brantley, when he was 4 he’s now 14, he thought the world was about Power Rangers…he loved that show, loved those toys, his days were spent clutching them in his hands and lining them up down the hallway of the apartment!  But since then he’s discovered…there’s a little more to life!
• Just like that, Paul discovered that there’s more to the law than what he was taught and what he was teaching in Judaism.  That the law itself is not the answer or the problem…but that he is the problem and as that truth sunk in…as he grew up…he found that he wasn’t full of life…that somehow, even being blameless outwardly…he was spiritually dead inwardly.

Romans Chapter 7 Verse 11

• The law which once was the very tool Paul would use to exalt himself, now being spiritually awakened by the indwelling of the Spirit of God, that same law now reveals to him his sinful desperate state and how self deceived he had been in his own righteousness. 
• He uses that same word later you know…deceived…in 1 Cor 3:18…he says, “Let no one deceive himself…”  Self righteousness is simply a lie.  And lies breed lies, and more lies, and more lies…God is truth.  He said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.  No one can come to the Father except by Me.”  There is no righteousness apart from Jesus Christ man…and the law, the more you look into it, the more you find it to be holy…and you not to be holy…

Romans Chapter 7 Verse 12

• Then what’s the problem Paul?  What’s the problem?  Me…

Romans Chapter 7 Verses 13 - 14

• When Paul says, “what is good,” he is speaking about the law.  And so what he says here is, “has then the law become death to me?”  In other words, “bad.”  Not at all!  But the law has revealed to him the sin that is within himself and what’s more, the more he has grown, the more he has observed the exceedingly sinfulness of sin…the reach it has, the depth it has infected…past his everyday life, past his physical flesh and all the way into the depths of his spirit man to the point where he absolutely declared bankruptcy on himself.  Which is a precisely the beginning of salvation!
• When we truly begin to spend time with the Lord, no longer hindered by pride and false self sufficiency, but man being real and courageous and accepting that we have nothing to offer God but a sinful busted life…WE OFFER IT…and He just takes it immediately, without reproof, without judgment and we enter into relationship with Jesus…we’ll find ourselves saying just what Isaiah said. 
• Read the first five chapters of the Book of Isaiah.  He pronounces judgment and woes upon the peoples and nations for their sin and then in chapter 6 he sees the Lord and says, “Woe is me!”  Why?  Because in the presence of the Lord, you realize that you are no better than those whom you are indicting with your demands and cruelty and harshness and judgment…
• A life lived in God’s presence excludes condemnation of others.  Paul had spent a lifetime condemning others for coveting, for lusting, for being lesser than him…all the while he was coveting, lusting…being lesser with them…but he didn’t realize that, he didn’t perceive his own prison man, until the scriptures unlocked it for him. 
• That was all pre-conversion.  We know that because he exclusively uses the past tense in verses 8 – 13.  But as Chapter 7 unfolds, we see that even after he was saved, he still battled with his sinful flesh.  He still went to war daily with this infection of sin.

Romans Chapter 7 Verse 15

• Paul says, all the time, in every place, in every situation, I want to do right…I want to respond perfectly, I want to glorify God entirely…but I don’t.  I fall short.  I make a plan, I set out, I fall short…I do this every morning!  I set my alarm, every morning for 4:30am.  Intending to get up and go man…get into the Word for a couple of hours before work…and then the alarm goes off…and what happens?  Without thinking, without praying, without even a moments worth of brain activity, my finger slams down…on the snooze button!  Right?!
• I want to do it, get up that is…but I sooooo don’t want to get up!  Man it’s just like that in so many avenues of us!  We want to do right, we even set alarms man…but without even thinking we find ourselves snoozing!  And then guess what we do?  We start planning to use the snooze button!  Paul is taking a courageous step back and saying, “man I’m so off!”  “I want to perfectly honor God…but, you know what, I never do.”  I bring Him honor and glory but not at all sufficient to what He is due…and it’s not because I am limited in human, physical terms…Jesus said with God all things are possible, Paul says I am limited by my exceedingly sinfulness of heart man…

Romans Chapter 7 Verses 16 – 20

• Wow, four verses, 18 times Paul says, “I and me.”  Way to go Paul!  Your courage is amazing.  He says I find this will in me to perfectly love the Lord yet I see that I don’t, and so then it is not the law that is bad…it’s me.  I accept responsibility. 
• I see that it’s not just human nature, it’s not just “normal,” it’s not something to be expected and therefore something that should be accepted!  No!  I now call a spade a spade.  Verse 17, its sin!  And verse 18…it’s MY sin!  And now my will to do good is there but truly how to achieve my will is not there and so I’m constantly frustrated, I constantly don’t feel good enough, I’m continually cognizant of my own sin…I am completely lost and sold to it…the law educated me, the Holy Spirit enlightened me, and my will to please God erupts in a battle within me…

Romans Chapter 7 Verses 21 – 24

• The summary of it all.  The period at the end of the point.  Paul nails it, “O wretched man that I am!”  No longer past tense is it?  Paul, saved as saved can be.  Washed clean in the blood of the Lamb.  Filled with the Spirit of God and therefore that Person of Truth within Him speaks to him and he responds accurately, “O wretched man that I am!” 
• When I got saved I automatically began to think myself more.  More righteous, more holy, more clean, more perfect…better and therefore judgment came forth.  I didn’t see that I was like that…I was thankful, I was saved man…I was in comms with the Commander of eternity!  I was set free…but I was taking the glory, placing myself as something good, something righteous and man that was sin I didn’t know anything about…
• Knew about all kinds of other sin.  Outright rank rebellious gross sin….but this was a spiritual sin…a sin while being filled with the Spirit of God and as I grew in the Lord I realized that I wasn’t more, I wasn’t righteous, I wasn’t holy, I wasn’t more perfect…He was.  He is more.  He is righteous.  He is Holy, He is perfect…and He is the One who simply gives me those things, bestows them upon me…calls me all of those things and I have all of those things…in HIM…not in me.  By grace I have been saved.  Grace alone.  I am as Paul is.  A mess.  O wretched man that I am.  Crisis moment man! 
• Who will deliver me?  You mean I’m not perfect?  You mean I’m not Matt that levitates and walks on water and always makes the right decision and always treats people right and always uses my time wisely and always, and always, and always…no…all I do…is always fall short…you see how there is no place for condemnation of others in a real genuine Christian life?
• What am I to do?  Crisis point in my faith.  I remember it!  Who will deliver me?  The answer is, the person who delivered you already….

Romans Chapter 7 Verse 25

• Paul says his wretchedness is forever before him.  He knows Perfection, met Him on the road to Demascus.  He understands perfection.  He perceives perfection.  He serves Perfection.  Yet He himself is not perfect.  And just like him, we are all in this body of flesh…we are going to have emotions of the flesh, and that flesh will scream out to sin but thank God, through the power that is within us…Jesus Christ our Lord, we don’t have to yield to sin anymore.  We don’t have to be ruled by our emotions.  We can have victory and if we fall, the Lord picks us up, dusts us off and sets us in the right direction…
• Your whole life, your whole Christian experience even, you may have been asking “how, how can I get victory?”  You’ve struggled long enough.  It’s not “how,” it’s “who.”  So many are concerned with “how.”  What’s the procedure, what’s the method…give me a plan, give me a program not realizing that those things only produce perpetual struggle. 
• The flesh always cries, “how?”  The Bible always answers, “Him.”  Who will deliver me?  Jesus…Christ…Lord.  First meet Him, then accept Him…then daily…daily believe in Him.  Jesus – Meet.  Christ-accept.  Lord-Believe. 
• Set absolutely and eternally free.  Paul has set us up.  Set us up for the most explosive chapter in this book…Romans 8.  And we’ll begin our journey through it next week…