With growth into childhood, the wants begin to go beyond the needs. The eyes rove, the child begins to call out for satisfaction. The distinction has to be made between needs and wants. The child has to be taught that wants may not necessarily be fulfilled at all and that needs may not necessarily be fulfilled immediately!
In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul notes, "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." That, of course, is how it should be, but - I wonder - is it really always that way? Doesn't the adult world suffer from this passion to have all our wants fulfilled - and at once! Haven't we grown up at all?
We are put right with God by God's grace on the basis of faith in Christ's redemptive death for us, not by any good works we may do. But what about sin in our lives. Paul starts chapter 6, "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" (vv. 1-2)
Christ has died to overcome the power of our sinful nature - "our old self was crucified with him" (v. 6), he says. We now have a new life, a life in the power of Christ's resurrection. "For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God" (vv. 9-10). Think about those words! Christ was accepting the consequences of our sin in his death. Having died and risen again, sin can do no more to him. He doesn't have to go through all that again. For a time he felt, not just the physical pain, but separation from the Father - "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" But now he lives in fellowship with the Father. "In the same way," Paul says, "count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus" (v. 11).
But sin still seems to be present in our lives! So - "you are not under law, but under grace" (v. 14) - but that doesn't make it all right to sin! Whose servant, or slave, are we? We have been set free from sin to become slaves of righteousness! "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (v. 23).
That is a beautiful picture! A wage is getting what we deserve. A gift is something that we haven't paid for - someone else has paid for it - we haven't earned it. Your wage is what is coming to you anyway. A gift is something that is freely offered for you to receive and accept. That is what God in his great love offers us in Christ. Foolishly we can stay with the wages of sin. We can choose to do nothing and simply receive our wages. We can strive to do our best - and still receive our wages. Our best works are just not good enough! They cannot cancel out the negatives of sin in our lives. We still fall short of the glory of God. We still receive our wages! But God offers us eternal life as a gift - a gift that we receive by faith, whether we have been a rebel sinner or an earnest striver after goodness. How important it is to receive that gift! to say to God, "I acknowledge my sins before you. I have fallen short of your great purposes. The wages for my sins is death - separation from you for ever. But your Son, Jesus, has died for my sins. By faith I accept your gift of eternal life which you are offering me in him!"
Have you ever prayed a simple prayer like that? It is a prayer that opens up a whole new relationship with God - eternal life. It is possible to come to church to try to reinforce the desires for good that we have and yet never to have taken that step of faith. John Wesley was ordained to the Anglican ministry and went as a missionary to the American Indians. He had done many good things - had lived a disciplined life, had visited prisoners, cared for the poor - but had never come to faith in what God had done for him. What a difference that faith made to him. It is not firstly what we do for God, but what God has done for us. Before we receive the gift, our hope is that God will be favourably impressed by what we do. After we receive the gift, we know that God's favour is not based on what we do but on what he has done. Knowing that God is favourably disposed towards us, we are to express this fact through our lives each day.
But what about sin? In today's reading in chapter 7, Paul is back to that question again. There is a question whether Paul is describing a struggle he experienced as an earnest Jew or as a Christian believer. I think it is probably the latter. We recall the words of the hymn-writer,
Paul has already given some important keys -
But what about the struggle? Do you feel it? We began by thinking about the demands of childhood. Do you ever feel that there is something in you that demands satisfaction?
Paul says, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do" (v. 15). Is this the Paul who wrote to the Philippians that he was "circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless" (Phil. 3.5-6)? Yes, it is! He also wrote, by the way, "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom I am the worst" (1 Tim. 1.15).
In our present reading he writes about a demanding human nature that calls out constantly, "I want! I want! I want!" over against what he knows is right. He writes about a state of unhappiness and distress because his inner being delights in the law of God, approves it, but he still manages to do the wrong thing.
But Paul goes on to speak, not of final defeat, but of the way to victory. In v. 25 we read, "Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
There is failure in what we do, but the way to victory over failure has been paved in the redemptive work of God in Christ Jesus. As Paul writes in Philippians 3.10-11, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."
The Good News Bible begins this with the words "all I want". In a very real sense "all I want" - all that I know ought to be, all that I myself seem unable to attain - only becomes possible when the focus and passion of my life is to know Christ and to experience the power of his redeeming and transforming grace.
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