St. Luke Ev. Lutheran Church

Sermon delivered by Pastor Anthony E. Schultz

July 3, 2005 Pentecost 7 series A Romans 7:15-25

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight I God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

People of God—rescued from the flaming lake of fire in hell by the innocent blood of the very Lamb of God:

Frustrations! It’s hard to know where to begin! Oatmeal! You are having your morning bowl of oat meal—supposed to help reduce your cholesterol. You are chewing—when suddenly you realize you have a chunk of chaff—the nifty little wrapper from the oat—that’s supposed to be removed. And there—like a piece of cardboard—it’s in your mouth! Fast food burgers—why can’t they line up the bun—the burger—the bun—three concentric circles? Why do they put so much tartar sauce on fish sandwiches that it squirts out on your tie? Why do they have French Fries—with that black part on them? Don’t they have quality control people either? Why can you have a drawer full of batteries—AA and AAA and D and those little square ones. You can have a zillion batteries—just not the one you need? You are at the grocery store—and they make someone—80 years old—fumble and fumble in their purse for their ID so they can buy a little bottle of elderberry wine? Pens out of ink—tearing your paper—your shoe lace breaking when you are in a hurry. Frustrating stuff happens all the time! And this is not the worst of it. These frustrations are with things and stuff. Far worse—sinful frustrations—the sinful painful hurtful mistakes we make all the time. They do hurt and harm to our faith, our immortal soul, our Savior’s reputation. Today God’s Word encourages us—as we lean entirely and completely on Jesus because:

Jesus Overcomes My Sinful Frustrations!

1. Who will rescue me from this body of death?

2. Thanks be to God—Jesus does!

This is week 6 of 16 Sundays reading from the letter to the Romans. Remember? Third missionary journey—three years in Ephesus—looping through Macedonia and Greece—picking up the Thankofferings for the relief of believers in Jerusalem. Late winter or early spring 57 years after baby Jesus was born—Paul writes to the believers in Rome! Paul writes about sinful frustrations. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. Sometimes—sometimes—it’s difficult to know what to do. Like when somebody leaves a very little person in a car seat—and they perish in the heat—or in the bitter cold—because they forgot them! Should somebody who does that be punished because what they did cost a little person their life? Or is the absolutely crushing load of guilt a horrible punishment that they will suffer every day and that is enough? Do you know? I don’t! Or there was a food fight at a high school the other day. About 60 seconds into lunch—somebody yelled, “Food fight!” Everybody threw their food—their hot dogs—their pudding. Nobody was injured. I understand a bunch of food got wasted—and that’s certainly not a good thing. But what is the appropriate penalty for that? To be literally arrested by the police—put into handcuffs—have a police report of disorderly conduct on your record? I’m not sure. I don’t know. If you watch police and lawyer movies—sometimes it’s almost impossible to know—guilty or innocent—right or wrong. I’m not sure. But most of the time—it’s pretty clear. What I want to do I do not do. Like be more patient when I’m driving. Like I’m going down highway 26 and I get behind somebody who is going about 52 miles per hour—more concerned about unwrapping his cheeseburger than getting on down the road. Or somebody downtown Watertown—you know that big sign that says—no turns—lit up around 3 in the afternoon? And there’s this person that Jesus died to save plugging up Main Street because they want to turn left—and there are about 85 cars coming the other way—and there’s no way they are going to turn left! Do you know what I mean? I want to be patient—but more often than not—I’m not! I would like to be like my friend Judy—who never ever says anything negative about anyone—never—ever! But I’m not. Sometimes people are such Charlie Brown Blockheads—how do you not say something negative about them?

What I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. There have been a bunch of shark attacks of late by Florida. The guy with an advanced degree in shark studies said—“It’s a sharky time!” What technical language is that—sharky time? They say there is this thing called the bait line. It’s this invisible line—where the shore drops off. A line—where the smaller fish go back and forth. The place where the sharks go to find lots and lots of bait size fish to eat. They say—when people go swimming around the bait line—you are just asking to be attacked! They interviewed people on the beach near the shark attacks. One lady said—you will not find a person more afraid of sharks than I am. Oh, really? The next and obvious question was—so, you won’t be going in the water? Oh, she said—sure I’m going swimming. Does this make any sense? Of course not! But it’s not surprising either—is it? Just about everyone thinks—if only I could lose 5 pounds. And where are we on Friday night? At the all you can eat fish fry! What is in our grocery cart? Fresh fruits and vegetables—or chips and cheese doodles? Instead of working out—we push the buttons on our remote control—watching professional athletes—complaining that they aren’t playing hard enough—while we eat salty greasy snacks and concentrated sweets! Eat a whole plate of brownies? I wouldn’t—I couldn’t—unless I was home alone—and the brownies were just sitting there! Or—starve myself—make myself throw up—treat good food that Jesus provides—as if it were poison? I know that’s wrong! And yet—as hurtful and self-destructive as I know that is—what I hate—I do!

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? What a wretched person I am! The Greek word for wretched means enduring toils and troubles—afflicted, wretched and miserable! Very literally it means to get a callus! Do you understand the word picture? It’s the same old thing—day after day. The alarm clock goes off and you don’t want to get up. We have breakfast Bible Class at Perkins. We could go around the table—and except for the people who order the muffin of the day—we could all say—the usual and save a bunch of time! The same people have a short stack with sugar free syrup. The same people have oatmeal with a little plastic cup of raisins. The same people have 2 eggs—over easy—whole wheat toast. The same people have cranberry juice—scrambled eggs and an English muffin—and coffee—and give their little packet of jelly away. Day after day—incredibly ordinary and painfully average. We make the same mistakes day after day—driving against the arrows into the parking lot. Driving right past the Post Office—the letter you are supposed to mail—safe on the front seat beside you. Day after day—children complain about having to eat their broccoli, their Brussels sprouts, their pasty lima beans. Day after day—husbands drop their sweaty T-shirts and sweaty socks on the floor—leave wet towels on the floor of the bathroom—leave whiskers and dried shave cream in the sink. Children spit their toothpaste on the side of the sink and don’t rinse it away. It’s the same failure to take the trash to the curb—week after week. It’s the same mistake of saying—you always or you never—then fill in the blank with the current complaint. We make the same mistake again and again—until our metaphorical heart and our literal hands and our literal feet and our immortal soul are calloused with the same tired sins and mistakes. Only Jesus could take those sins away. And only Jesus did. What a wretched—soul calloused person I am! Who will rescue me from this fatally flawed body of death?

Who will rescue me from this body of death? I was at the doctor this week. They did all the things they usually do. Step on the scale. They put the sphygmomanometer on your arm with the Velcro and pump, pump, pump until it’s real tight. They put their fingers on your wrist to measure how often your heart beats in a minute. How often do you think about that—how many times in a minute your heart beats? I was at 62. They said that was pretty good. They take samples of juice to see if there is bleeding from a kidney stone. They have you lie down and push on your tummy and ask, “Does that hurt?” They listen to your lungs. They take an x-ray—a picture of your insides. They poke you in the arm and take test tubes of blood. If this teaches you anything—it teaches you that people are breakable! How imperfect is your blood? Your Cholesterol—your hdl and ldl—your triglycerides—your alk-phos—all your liver functions? Do you know? We are all fatally flawed—physically flawed and spiritually flawed. We are all dead man walking. You can try to ignore that fact. But it isn’t easy—what with the cemeteries—the car crashes that you drive past—the news night after night—of suicide car bombers in Iraq—the obituaries in the newspaper night after night—the TV programs where people are murdered in every more gruesome ways. Who will rescue me from this body—this sinful flesh that is surely dying?

Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! Thanks be to God! Is there a passion in our heart to give thanks to God? Melissa and I went and heard the teacher of the year give a talk down at Delevan Wednesday morning. This teacher of the year named Ron Clark said he was watching TV when he saw a story about the failing schools in Harlem, New York. What could he do about that? He loaded up his car—drove to Harlem—went up and down the streets until he found a falling down school—walked into the principal’s office and said, “I want to teach here.” You must be kidding—they said. He would be the only white person in the building! He would be teaching a class room of 5^th graders—where no teacher—no teacher had lasted a single year with them. In fact most of their teachers didn’t last more than two weeks! The first day of school these 5^th graders threw their books out the window—turned their desks around backwards—and passed a calendar and money in an envelope around the room. It was a pool to guess what day he would quit! When he confronted a girl in that room—she literally spit on him! She spit on him! How much would you have to love teaching—how much would you have to love children—to want to stay and teach people who spit on you? Think how much Jesus must love you—for him to endure sinful people spitting on him—crowning him with thorns? How much must Jesus love you and me—that he should suffer the penalty for all our sins and mistakes? How great is the love the Father has lavished on us—that we should be called children of God—and that is what we are—not frustrated but forgiven for Jesus’ sake! Amen!

To God alone all glory!

Rev. Anthony E. Schultz