Bible Text: Psalm 51:1-14; Romans 1:18-23 | Pastor: Pastor Jason Bryant |   My dad was a big fan of a comic strip that ran for years and years.  The comic strip was called Pogo.  Set in the Okefenokee Swamp, the strip engaged in social satire through the adventures of Pogo, a possum and several of his other animal friends.  In many ways, if there wasn’t Pogo, it would be hard to imagine other comic strips like Calvin and Hobbes as well as Doonesbury and a host of others. 

  One of the great lines coined by Pogo’s writer Walt Kelly came way back on Earth Day 1971.  In that particular strip, Pogo utters the now famous line – “we have met the enemy and [the enemy] is us.”

  It’s a funny line in that particular strip but what makes it so memorable over 50 years later is that it speaks truthfully about the universal human condition.  We are God’s creatures, created by Him in His image but at the same time, we are fallen creatures.  In that fallen, broken state, we’re oftentimes at war against ourselves.  We want what’s best for us and know what it is thanks to the Word of God, yet frequently are shocked to find ourselves doing the exact opposite.

  A form of civil war rages within each and every one of us.  It can lead to sleepless nights, self-loathing, even injury to ourselves and others as we wander down the dark corridors of sin.  We know what’s right, the Bible tells us in both general and specific terms.  But sometimes, when we think no one is looking, we veer away from the straight and narrow and pursue sin with reckless abandon.

  And the reality is this – it harms us.  Sin warps the image of God which we bear as a result of being created in His image. 

  St. Paul touches upon this vexing state of being unable to will ourselves to do what we know is right in the 7th chapter of Romans.   

  We should remember that Paul’s letter to the Roman church is unlike any other letter he wrote that’s included in our Scriptures.  That’s not to say that it’s better than or worse than the others as they’re all the Word of God.  At the same time, there is something unique here in Romans.  In all the other letters we have from this Saint, Paul is writing to a specific church about specific concerns that have been brought to him. For example – in Thessalonians, he writes in order to correct their understandings of the Second coming of Jesus Christ and what it means for us as well as for those who’ve already died.  As he writes twice to the church in Corinth, Paul confronts specific problems which have arisen in that church and so he writes with the hope of correcting them.  All of Paul’s other letters work from a similar principle, problem/correction. 

  Romans, as I’ve said, is different.  Different because in it, Paul isn’t reacting, instead, he’s offering a clear picture of Christian belief.  Remember, Paul never made it to Rome before arriving bound in chains to a Roman centurion to face the Emperor who would quickly crucify him.  In Romans, Paul writes to a largely unknown audience.  The Roman church was planted by others and so Paul didn’t quite know its ins and outs, so to speak.