We move on in our sermon series on the book of Romans. In his usual engaging style Scott galloway shares the sermon with us, asking the question from Romans Chapter 7, Why is it so hard to be Good?
Worship is lead by Will & Ronaug Smith.
Message Summary
Coming Soon…
Reflection On The Message
There are only two possible options for our lives, we are slaves to sin or slaves to God. As we do not live with the kind of slavery that was practiced in the ancient world, it can be difficult to understand what slavery entitles. I can get caught up in the ideas of chains and beatings and miss the message here. But we can get some insight from more modern writers, we can see the hilarity that ensues in Carlo Goldoni’s A Servant of Two Masters and in Mere Christianity C. S Lewis points out that “in God we find either a master or a judge”. It is impossible to live for ourselves and live for God. We will get caught out by one or the other. I recently came across the idea that life is a zero-sum game, everything you put your energy into means you aren’t putting your energy into something else.
In order to live under the new covenant with God under Jesus we first we have to be realised from the contract under the Law. The Law of Mosses is a covenant – an agreement between two parties. God has, and always will be faithful to the law but much of biblical history is a “saga” of humanities unfaithfulness. Though we see the seeds of this as far back as genesis with the original sin. Jesuses death on the cross was therefore twofold, firstly, to release us and god from the covenant so that we can enter a new covenant. Secondly, it was to pay the costs of our transgressions against God under that old covenant. The example Paul uses of marriage makes sense to me and really helps me to conceptualise what’s going on here.
Paul goes on to wrestle with a dilemma – despite knowing what is required of him to be right in God’s presence under the Law his body betrays him and he does what he does what he does not want to do. He also talks about how receiving the law seems to heighten sin. I believe that the contrast between right and wrong becomes sharper when what is right is presented to you. Similarly, later in the book Paul talk about how the Jews were the custodians of the Law and yet they did not keep it. They knew better and thus the standards were higher. If you chose to break a law your sins are doubled, not only did you break the law but you chose to do so.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle talks about how if a person does something wrong, he cannot truly know that it is wrong, or else they would not do it. How harshly should you be judged if you truly do not know a law that you have broken? Learning to drive requires learning the highway code. But then this is the true heart of feeling convicted and moving on to repentance. Once you learn what is right and wrong how do you proceed?
But Paul talks about how his flesh fails him. We live in a world of addiction to pornography, fast food, and gambling. Habbas of any kind are difficult to change especially when the behave is addictive. I believe Paul is openly wrestling with this question “How do I deal with this sinful habit?” so that we can reflect and do the same.
As Scott reminds us in the conclusion to his sermon, not sinning is a side effect of living like Jesus. As it says in the Lord’s Prayer “thy will be done on earth as it is in haven” the kingdom is here on earth, not, as it is suggested in Maslow’s Dr Faustus, that “everywhere is hell that is not heaven”. It leads me to ask myself not how can I not sin, but how am I growing more like Jesus? Where do I need to grow? And how much is Jesus front and centre in my life? I can’t say that I am close but I am growing.
Scriptures Shared In This Message
The following scriptures were shared in this message:
- Romans 7:1-25
