Bonhoeffer lived in a time when the law of the secular world demanded absolute allegiance to a regime. That regime was opposing to the justice of God’s kingdom.
When visiting America, his colleagues and friends in America strongly recommend that he should stay safely in America. But he chose to return to his home. He wrote, “If I don’t choose to go through these hard times with my people now, I won’t have the right to be their pastor when the war is over.” He was executed in prison, just a month before the war came to an end in May 1945.
According to Michael Sandel, a renowned political philosopher and Harvard professor, justice is simply ‘doing the right thing’. But the question is, “what is the right thing to do?” How do we know what the right thing to do is at home, work, in church, or even on streets? Most importantly, what is the right thing to do in our daily life as children of God?”
The Psalmist, David, is one of those ancient believers who were determined to do the right thing in all circumstances. In Psalm 119 he declared, “I have hidden your Word in my heart, that I might not fail as your servant.”
The ancient Hebrew word tsaphan (have hidden) implies that the Word of God is your most valuable asset. And you really want to store it up in your mind, so that nothing else can crowd it out. David treasured the Word of God in his heart. He stored it away preciously in his heart. And whenever he needed to make a choice, he made the choice based on the treasures he had stored in his heart.
If we’re to rewrite the Roman passage in modern way, it would read, “I do not understand what I do; for I don’t do what I would like to do, but instead I do what I hate. Since I do what I don’t want to do, this shows that I know at least what’s the right thing to do before God. So I am not really the one who does this thing; rather it is the sin that lives in me. I know there is sinfulness in my human nature. Even though the desire to do good is in me, I am not able to do it.”
At first glance, it may sound as if Paul is making excuses for his failures as a child of God. However, Paul describes a painful, ongoing civil war within himself: the desire to do the right thing to do constantly battling the pull toward what he hates.
It is easy to view this conflict as a ‘zero-sum game’—a situation where you either win or lose, leaving you powerless to intervene. It also makes you feel like mere bystanders, watching two internal forces collide and simply waiting to see which one will prevail.
If we view this conflict merely as ‘the Spirit’ versus ‘the sin’ inside us, it can feel like we are trapped in the middle forever, hoping the Spirit wins so that we might also succeed, and at the same time fearing that if the sinful nature prevails, we are doomed to fail.
But I’d like to propose a different perspective. The battle is actually a “2 versus 1” dynamic. As believers, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit, and we have the capacity to form a partnership with the Spirit in this battle. When we intentionally choose to side with the Spirit and work alongside Him to resist our sinful nature, the fight always becomes two-against-one. And your chances of winning the struggle increase dramatically.
Friends, every time you face a choice like this, remember that you are casting a vote. When you intentionally side with the good – the desires to do the right things in all your relationship, which is the desires of the Spirit, – you are acting with your true identity in Christ.
We are not victims of our nature; we are stewards of our choices. The sin that lives in us will always be persistent, but it is no match if you consciously choose to side with the Lord. Yes. The struggle is real, but the responsibility to choose the right side is the result.
I think that Paul has articulated in his reading the tension between the sanctuary and the street. Many Christians act as if their faith matters much only inside the church building. But the true test of the Gospel, where our faith really lives and grows, isn’t found in our collective ‘Amens’ on Sunday, but in the noise of our Monday morning.
However, the modern world offers endless voices for our attention, our ethics, and our identity. They often make us confused or even lost. And with all these grey areas and confusions, some churches teach their members to draw a thick, binary line, saying this is sacred, that is secular. They label the world as the enemy, so they don’t want to engage with the complexity of it.
That’s not how the Gospel started. John 3:16 still reads clearly: “God loved the world so much that He sent His Son”. God did not send Jesus because he loved the religious so much. God did not call us to abandon the world. He called us to be the stewards of His presence within it.
Our task is not to retreat behind a line of purity, but to move forward by always choosing the side with the Spirit to win the conflict happening inside all the time.
Our Christian faith is not about escaping the noise of life; it is about bringing the light of Christ into it, whatever it takes. When you face your next choice, (you will face hundreds this week), remember your partner and helper in the struggle: the Holy Spirit. Choose to walk with the Spirit in everything you do and have. Amen.
