aHave you ever had a problem that you just couldn't seem to solve? Maybe a troublesome personal habit that keeps coming back, even after using all of your will power? Welcome to the club! All of us struggle with the reality that we are sinners. Yes, we've been saved by grace but we still deal with that old sin nature within us. Martin Luther compared this to a horse with two riders, each wrestling for control. We've all experienced it, even the apostle Paul. Today, let's consider what Paul wrote to the congregation in Rome about this problem:

…the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. ... I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.... Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 7:14-25, excerpted)

Pastor and theologian R.C. Sproul often said that to understand the Good News we have to hear the bad news. In today's passage, Paul begins with some really bad news. He says, "The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin…for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it." Here's an apostle, a guy who wrote most of the New Testament, caught up in this internal battle with sin. Finally, he becomes so frustrated with his inability to overcome the sin in his life that he cries out, "Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?" Have you ever felt that way? You and I can come to the end of our patience with ourselves and be disgusted with being stuck in some besetting sin and yet not be able to put a stop to it. What's the solution? Paul finally brings us some hope: "Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord."

Jesus is the answer. Only Jesus can help us overcome the sin which so easily distracts us. Only Jesus can give us hope. Only Jesus can break the bonds of sin and death and lead us to eternal life with Him. Only Jesus...and that is the Good News!