So, it’s been a bit; I’ve had a few weeks of not preaching. But here you go, talking about sin, and Goofus and Gallant.
Matthew 11:16-30; Romans 7:15-25a; Psalm 145:8-14; Zechariah 9:9-12
I have a very important question to ask you all today: what do y’all think of when I mentioned “Goofus and Gallant”? I remember Goofus and Gallant quite well, from the Highlights magazine for children that my parents got for me when I was little. To be honest, they were my favorite part of the whole magazine. The premise is simple: to contrast the behaviors of two children, one who behaved irresponsibly and one who behaved responsibly. The basic goal was to show the dangers of misbehavior and the rewards of good behavior. For me, it mostly worked. Kind of. Sure.
Anyways, if you don’t remember Goofus and Gallant, let me give you a few examples: “Goofus bosses his friends; Gallant asks, ‘What do you want to do next?'” “Goofus takes the last apple; Gallant shares his orange.” “Goofus has to be reminded to brush his teeth; Gallant brushes and flosses regularly.” “Goofus interrupts when his mother is talking with a friend; Gallant waits until his mother is done talking.”
Looking back on it as an adult, all the situations just seem rather silly, but the basic idea of simply and clearly showing contrasting behaviors is not a bad one. In a way, we’re all conditioned to think this way — there are good and bad ways to behave and we want to be on the good side of behavior. Of course, things are not that simple, in fact there are far too many grey areas, but we still have this motivation to be “good”.
Romans 7 describes Paul’s struggle with his conflicting motivations to do good and to do bad. Much like in Goofus and Gallant, when presented with a situation, he finds himself torn between the “good” choice and the “bad” choice, yet more often than not finds himself gravitating toward the bad. Now there is a lot more going on here, but first we need to remember what “good” and “evil” choices are not nearly as clear cut as we expect.
I’ve mentioned before that sin is typically defined as a set of actions, when it ought more correctly be understood as any behavior that is not oriented to God. It’s what makes sin quite a bit more difficult to define, because we can’t rely on a set of do’s and don’ts to tell us what actions are sinful and which are not. Jesus himself broke some of the “laws” that 1st Century Jews defined as sin, but yet Jesus did not sin. This is because at its core, sin is a break in relationship between God and His image, humanity, and not any specific action. The core of sin is a human decision that we know better than God what is good for us.
So, understanding good and evil in the context of this relationship, it makes Romans 7 quite a bit more relatable. Paul begins in verse 15, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” To paraphrase, “I really want to follow God, but when I do I find myself not following God after all, sin keeps getting in the way.” That’s why we say in the confession, “we confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.” In our sinfulness, we can’t help but sin.
As Paul continues to explore this, it almost sounds like he’s spiraling down in a mess of depression. He’s so frustrated that despite his desire to follow God, his sinfulness keeps breaking the relationship he desires so strongly. Try as he might, he feels trapped by his sin: “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 in 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.”
Paul recognizes that he is a slave to sin. We all are. Now I want to just take a minute here. This does not mean that we can blame what we do on our sinfulness. Yes, without the work of the Holy Spirit, we can’t help but sin. But remember what sin really and truly is: not an action, but a break in relationship. It’s not God that broke relationship with us, but we break relationship with God when we try and make ourselves god instead of Him. This is Paul’s struggle: he wants so badly to keep a perfect relationship with God, but sin keeps getting in the way.
So finally, in what almost appears to be his final hopeless conclusion, he cries out, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” You can hear the pain in this exclamation. How often have we felt the same way — that no matter what we do we just can’t follow God the way we want to. That no matter how hard we try, we just can’t defeat this whole sin business on our own. That we are damned because of sin and we have absolutely no hope. We’ve all been there. I’ve been there. Paul has been there.
But you know what? That’s exactly the place we need to be. I can see what you’re thinking. “Umm, Pastor? What did you just say?” Let me explain. Remember what sin is? It’s us breaking relationship with our creator and putting ourselves in God’s place. The greatest lie the Enemy has perpetrated is that we can save ourselves from sin. It appeals to us because we naturally want to be able to do things ourselves. Yet trying to overcome sin on our own just makes the sin doubly bad.
So, when we are at our most broken — when we can only say “What a wretched person I am; who can save me from the death that I bring to myself?” — God has already saved us through his son Jesus Christ. This is why the answer to Paul’s question can only be “Thanks be to God–through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Because, as Paul writes at the beginning of Romans 8, “through Christ the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death.” We cannot under any circumstance set ourselves free from sin — and we don’t have to, because God has already set us free.
When we shattered our relationships with God, things weren’t fixed because we all of a sudden decided to turn back to him. God sought us out. God went after us, even though we break his heart time and time again. God continues to seek us out, no matter how often we do our best to run away, consciously or unconsciously. And thank be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, that he does.