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Psalm 45:10–17 • Genesis 24:34–38, 42–49, 58–67 • Romans 7:15–25a • Matthew 11:16–19, 25–30

Today’s readings hold together a powerful vision of love and freedom: God rescues us through Jesus. Psalm 45 celebrates a royal love that calls us to leave what is familiar and entrust ourselves fully to the beloved. In Genesis, Rebekah does just that, stepping forward in faith into a future shaped by God’s promise. Yet Romans reminds us that even when we desire what is good, we remain unable to free ourselves (Romans 7). Into that tension, Jesus invites us to come to him for rest, because his yoke is kind and his burden light (Matthew 11). God’s love does not demand self‑mastery; it offers rescue and a shared life grounded in trust.

Reminder: This introductory paragraph is intended to show how the four RCL selections for this week are connected and to assist the preacher prepare the sermon. It is not intended to be included in the sermon.

How to use this sermon resource.

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God Rescues Us Through Jesus

Romans 7:15–25a NRSVUE

[Read or ask someone to read the passage.]

¹⁵ I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶ Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ But in fact it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸ For I know that the good does not dwell within me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do the good lies close at hand, but not the ability. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me.

²¹ So I find it to be a law that, when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. ²² For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, ²³ but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴ Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with my mind I am enslaved to the law of God, but with my flesh I am enslaved to the law of sin. Romans 7:15–25a NRSVUE

Have you felt like you want to do what is right, but another part keeps pulling you in the opposite direction? Have you ever been left wondering, why did I do that? [Maybe make it personal and give an example from your life or your community.]

If you understand this feeling, then you already get today’s Bible passage. It’s a letter from the apostle Paul, and he’s frank in his honesty. Basically, he’s saying I don’t do what I want to do, but I do what I hate.

This passage describes something we all know, even if we don’t have words for it. We know what it feels like to have a life that feels pulled in two directions at once.

But here’s the good news: we are not stuck in this condition. God rescues us through Jesus.

Let’s go back to verses 15–16

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good.

Here is Paul, one of the main leaders of the early church, saying, “I don’t even understand myself. I want to do what is right, but I keep doing things I know are wrong.” If you are new to Christianity, this might surprise you. You might think faith is for people who have it all together.

The Bible is a book for and about people who need God. The Bible is a collection of stories telling one overarching story. It is a story about God rescuing people who cannot fix themselves.

Something is off inside us. There is a gap between what we want to do and what we actually do.

Verse 17: 

But in fact it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me.

It is sin that lives within me. And that’s why the next verses make so much sense.

Verse 18–20:

¹⁸ For I know that the good does not dwell within me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do the good lies close at hand, but not the ability. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me.

Wait. No good lives in my flesh?

When we hear “flesh,” we might think Paul just means our physical, flesh and blood bodies. Or we might think that anything physical is bad, compared to so-called “spiritual” things.¹

But your body is not evil and being human is not the problem. In fact, Christianity teaches the opposite: God created the body and called it good. Jesus took on a real human body (This is the Incarnation). And Jesus was raised bodily from the dead.

So, “flesh” here is not about our skin and bones. We can consider Romans 7 in light of Paul’s other letters and the overarching message of the Bible. And when we do this, we can understand that the meaning of “flesh” in this passage is a condition, not just a body.

It is human life turned in on itself, apart from God’s life and power. The part of us that tries to live without trusting God. “Flesh” also includes patterns inside us like self-centeredness, fear, pride, harmful desires. It’s the pull away from God and toward ourselves. That’s why Paul describes it almost like a force living in him — a force pulling him in the wrong direction.

Now Paul’s struggle — and ours — makes more sense. We want to do good, but “the flesh” cannot carry it out. So, the problem is not lack of knowledge or a lack of good intentions. We lack the ability.

For the desire to do the good lies close at hand, but not the ability (verse 18b).

We desire to do good. But the flesh cannot produce it. On our own, apart from God, there is no power in us to make ourselves whole.

And we see the struggle further described in verses 21–23:

²¹ So I find it to be a law that, when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. ²² For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, ²³ but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

It feels like a battle is going on inside us. There are two forces at work: a desire for good and a pull toward sin. The struggle feels like a war inside the human heart.

Now verse 24:

Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Let’s look at what Paul does not say. “I feel stuck, so what else should I try to fix this?”

Paul does not go on to recommend seven daily habits to become spiritually successful. Thirty days to a stronger will power and more self-discipline. Three keys to living your best life.

He admits he cannot fix this. He feels wretched, weak, helpless, and worn out. He reaches the end of self-reliance. The solution is not “try harder.”

The solution is that we need to be rescued. We need a rescuer! We need to be delivered from the power of sin that dwells in us.

We need to be freed from this body of death. And we are!

Verse 25:

Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

God rescues us through Jesus.

The answer to the struggle is not found in ourselves. It is found in what God has done through Jesus. God provides the rescue we cannot provide for ourselves.

God the Father sends the Son to take on humanity, in all its brokenness — the Incarnation. The Son, Jesus Christ, lives a fully human life — facing temptation, pain, and pressure — but without sin. For us!

This is what we mean by vicarious. It means Jesus does for us, and in our place, what we cannot do for ourselves. Jesus lives the life we could not live. Jesus carries the weight we could not carry. Jesus takes the brokenness we could not fix.

On the cross, Jesus takes the full force of sin — not just the things we’ve done, but the power that holds us. Jesus dies for us, in our place. And when he rises from the dead, he breaks that power.

Therefore, our story is no longer “Try harder to become good.” Our story is “We have been given a new life.”

In fact, it’s the whole world’s story. You see, the Christian life is not a self-help plan. It’s not personal development or self-optimization. The gospel is not practical advice. Following Jesus is not a program to become a better version of yourself or unlock your potential.

It’s death and resurrection. United to him, you died with him. In Christ Jesus, your old self is dead.

Dead.

And Jesus gives you — not a “better” life — a new life.

So, the Christian life is not a self-improvement plan. It’s a substitution. Jesus takes your life and you get his. Jesus shares his life with us by the Spirit. He took our broken, sin-sick humanity and gave us a new healed humanity. He took our sin and gave us his righteousness, which means he gave us his right relationship with his Father.

And it’s union. We are united to Christ so when he died, we died. When he rose from the dead to new life, we did, too. When he ascended to the Father, we ascended. And now we share in his life and perfect, harmonious love with the Spirit and the Father.

Let’s Talk about Sin

Now let’s talk more about sin. We can draw different conclusions from this passage depending on our framework for sin.

This passage is a picture of how we experience sin personally. But sin is more than personal; it goes deeper. Yes, Paul does use the words “I” and “me.” But he is describing a condition that affects us all.

Sometimes we’re tempted to reduce sin to an individualistic model: Sin is my personal moral failure. I repent and I am forgiven. I am saved.

It’s important, though, to frame sin as something far bigger than individual bad choices. This does not deny personal sin. Yes, our actions cause harm and have consequences.

But sin is a power that enslaves all humanity, not just a series of choices. Individual sins are symptoms, not the root problem.

Humans are created to live in communion with the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. Sin is fundamentally a rupture of that communion.

Sin is the distortion in our participation in the life of the triune God — a twisting of our true relationship with God and one another. Sin even distorts our self-understanding. And it’s pervasive, meaning present everywhere and felt everywhere. It manifests both personally and systemically in ruptured and disturbed relationships, structures, and ways of being. By “structures,” we mean the way society is organized — in institutions, cultural norms, economic arrangements, and social habits.

And this is why you will hear Christians and Paul refer to it as “powers.” These “powers” cannot be limited or reduced to isolated individual choices. They include embodied patterns of sinful human life that have gained momentum, structure, and influence. (Ephesians 6:12)

“Powers” include the ways sin becomes larger than any one person. It takes shape in systems, cultures, and institutions. And these structures then influence how people think and act, holding people in bondage.

Sin has distorted and obscured how we see reality. At every level, humanity’s shared life has become disordered by sin. We are BOTH personally responsible AND we are also formed within corrupt systems that we did not choose and do not control.

You might be wondering: how is this good news? How is it good news to know that sin is present and felt everywhere in every relationship and structure of society?

Because we all feel it and experience it, don’t we? Well, it helps to name it.

Our individual problems and the world’s problems feel bigger than us … because they are! There’s freedom in understanding that. There’s freedom in knowing that it’s not up to us to solve the problem of sin. And it should comfort us to know we do not have to be self-reliant; we are created to rely on God.

God’s solution is rescue. God rescues us through Jesus.

Our Shared Life in Christ

God’s rescue matters for our shared life in the Church. It changes how we see ourselves and each other. We are being formed to be more honest, more patient, and more compassionate.

We stop thinking, “Why can’t you just do better?” And together we start thinking, “We all need God to work in us.”

Together, we say to God, “We need help!” And one way God sends help is by giving us his Body. We care for one another; we bear one another’s burdens. We are being conformed to Christ’s image through our interdependence and mutuality.

God’s rescue also matters as we make disciples. We will encounter neighbors who feel helpless and wretched, just like Paul described. And we will comfort them by saying, “Yes, like us, you are helpless to make yourself whole. But we know the One who does heal us and restore us.” And in community, we demonstrate what reliance on God looks like.

Jesus’ Church is not a group of people who have overcome all struggle. We are a people being held, shaped, and renewed by God in the middle of it.

That means we can be honest about our struggles. We can carry each other’s burdens. We can practice grace — because God is already giving grace to us. We pretend less; we trust more.

We participate in Christ’s ongoing work of restoring right relationships in every sphere of life. As we fill our days with love for Jesus’ Church, love for his mission, and love for our neighbors, we discover something that may surprise us: we naturally spend less time thinking about ourselves. We live in the freedom of God’s presence working in us through the Spirit.

Listen to how The Message, a Bible paraphrase, describes this freedom.

Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them — living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. Romans 8:5–8 MSG

Out of his love for the world, God the Father sends the Son. God the Son, Jesus Christ, takes on our humanity, dies in our place, and rises again to bring new life. God the Holy Spirit comes to live in us, making new life real in us.

This is the work of the Trinity — Father, Son, and Spirit.

So here is the heart of this passage:
We are not alone in our struggle. And we are not responsible for saving ourselves. God sees our divided hearts. God hears our cry, “Who will rescue us?” God answers with a Person — Jesus Christ.

God rescues us through Jesus.

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¹ Such a philosophy called “dualism” was extant in Paul’s day.

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Small Group Discussion Questions