Sunday, August 30 · Harris Creek Baptist Church
I Can't. God Can. I Trust Him.
The sermon walks through Romans 7 and the story of a man who wears himself out trying to break his own addiction, arguing that the first move toward freedom is admitting you are powerless, believing God is powerful, and trusting him with the thing you cannot put down.
The passages
For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don’t find it doing that which is good. For the good which I desire, I don’t do; but the evil which I don’t desire, that I practice. But if what I don’t desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the law that, while I desire to do good, evil is present. For I delight in God’s law after the inward person, but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death?
Romans 7:18–24
Praise Yahweh, my soul! All that is within me, praise his holy name! Praise Yahweh, my soul, and don’t forget all his benefits, who forgives all your sins, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your desire with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
Psalms 103:1–5
Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5–6
Go deeper
Why do I keep doing the thing I hate, even when I want to stop?
Paul writes this as a man who has already met Jesus, and he still cannot make his hands obey his own resolve. Anyone who has promised themselves one last time and then gone back knows the exhaustion in his voice.
For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don’t find it doing that which is good. For the good which I desire, I don’t do; but the evil which I don’t desire, that I practice.
Romans 7:18–19
I find then the law that, while I desire to do good, evil is present. For I delight in God’s law after the inward person, but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death?
Romans 7:21–24
For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, that you may not do the things that you desire.
Galatians 5:17
But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed. Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin. The sin, when it is full grown, produces death.
James 1:14–15
If I admit I can't fix this, doesn't that just mean giving up?
A man caught in a rip current swam with everything he had and got nowhere. He only lived because he stopped fighting long enough to raise a hand. Admitting powerlessness is not the same as surrendering to the thing.
What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the mind, I myself serve God’s law, but with the flesh, sin’s law.
Romans 7:24–25
He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me. Therefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, and in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong.
2 Corinthians 12:9–10
I waited patiently for Yahweh. He turned to me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay. He set my feet on a rock, and gave me a firm place to stand.
Psalms 40:1–2
When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been sick for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Arise, take up your mat, and walk.”
John 5:6–8
Can God actually stop the thing I've decided will never stop?
The pastor said he had quietly accepted that one particular struggle would follow him to the grave. Then he watched person after person walk out free from the same thing. Saul of Tarsus was the last man anyone expected to change.
Praise Yahweh, my soul! All that is within me, praise his holy name! Praise Yahweh, my soul, and don’t forget all his benefits, who forgives all your sins, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your desire with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
Psalms 103:1–5
A certain woman who had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and had suffered many things by many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better, but rather grew worse, having heard the things concerning Jesus, came up behind him in the crowd and touched his clothes. For she said, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately the flow of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. Immediately Jesus, perceiving in himself that the power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” His disciples said to him, “You see the multitude pressing against you, and you say, ‘Who touched me?’” He looked around to see her who had done this thing. But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had been done to her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be cured of your disease.”
Mark 5:25–34
But Saul, still breathing threats and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked for letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he traveled, he got close to Damascus, and suddenly a light from the sky shone around him. He fell on the earth, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He said, “Who are you, Lord?” The Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise up and enter into the city, then you will be told what you must do.”
Acts 9:1–6
But he said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”
Luke 18:27
What if I don't trust God to actually be good to me in this?
The pastor's father walked onto the beach, moved over on the bench seat, and drove the truck out of sand his son had been spinning in for hours. The son had watched it happen before and still had to decide to go get him.
Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5–6
For Yahweh God is a sun and a shield. Yahweh will give grace and glory. He withholds no good thing from those who walk blamelessly. Yahweh of Armies, blessed is the man who trusts in you.
Psalms 84:11–12
Or who is there among you who, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, who will give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
Matthew 7:9–11
Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out with tears, “I believe. Help my unbelief!”
Mark 9:23–24