The other morning I was running over around where Fred and Evelyn live. As I ran along I saw this nail in the road. This nail interrupted my sermon preparation, which often takes place on a run. I was running for time, so I didn’t want to slow down or stop. I ran on by the nail in the road.

The little devil on one shoulder said, “It’s no big deal. Maybe an Amish buggy with steel wheels will hit it and knock it off the road.” The angel on the other shoulder said, “You really ought to go back and get that nail. What if Fred and Evelyn or Andy and Casey or maybe even Troy and Jamie run over it and have a flat tire?”

The debate continued for about a quarter of a mile, and then I turned around and went back and got the nail, partly because on Wednesday night we talked a little about this Scripture (James 4:17): Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.

We all face this battle in our hearts and minds about doing good and doing bad. The minor struggle I mentioned above is just that — relatively minor. There are more major struggles that people face all the time.

A young man told me last week that he really wants to overcome his addiction to alcohol. He goes to AA and he fights hard. He’s even gone in liquor stores when he is strong, sober, and determined and begged them, “If I come back in here, please don’t sell me anything.” But in moments of weakness that comes from the pressures of life, he finds a way to find what he wants but knows that he should not have and does not need. He falls again. And again. And yet again.

Men (and women) battle internet pornography. Even though a man’s marriage is in danger of being destroyed because he’s been caught looking at porn, in moments of weakness, when alone, maybe late at night, he makes the fateful clicks of unfaithfulness, hating it even as he does it. He knows it’s so wrong, and he really doesn’t want to do it. Yet he does; click after click.

You ever say things like this?

“I don’t understand myself at all!”
“I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong.”
“I can’t help myself.”
“No matter which way I turn – I can’t make myself do right”
“When I do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.”
“What a miserable person I am.”

These are the words of Paul as found in the New Living Translation of Romans 7.

And you have just read the introduction to Sunday's sermon! We're going to explore the problem that we all have in battling sin.

Paul ends his confession with a question and answer that goes something like this:

Who can rescue me from all this?

Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.