The Good I want to do...

In 'The Good Shepherd'; Meditation on Christian Ministry in Today's World Lesslie Newbigin says, 

"Very often our theme, if not the actual text, is chosen for us by the Chruch in the plan of lessons set forth in the Book of Common Worship... It is a safeguard against becoming a prisoner of my own limited ideas and emotions. It compels me over and over again to preach on a passage which i would not have chosen for myself., and therefore compels me to wrestle with what s new and unfamiliar to me. I would say that this wrestling with an uncongenial text can be the source of endless new insight. I am sure that the most helpful sermons I have preached have been those which came out of this kind of wrestling, not from texts which I could choose for myself."

I hope Newbigin's reflection on a long life of preaching comes to be true for me. Philip and i are going through the book of Romans. We have different perspectives on the book, yet we both wish to be faithful to its author and to the Gospel. Since I do not have to preach every week, I get time to mull over the passage. I get to live in it and let it marinade in my brain for a couple of weeks. Yet even if I were to go with KC's best, I am unsure that I will know how to handle my passage.  I get to preach out of Romans 7. here are the verses

Romans 7.14-8.6

14 For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. 15I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 17But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that 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. 22For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23but 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.24Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.
8There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set youfree from the law of sin and of death. 3For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

I know this passage is incredibly important, but it is also incredibly difficult. I may have chosen this in a couple of years, but not now. Lets hope I can wrestle with it and that God will use that wrestling. For now I post the passage. comments welcome. What questions do you have? What question is Paul answering? How does this pericope operate within the wider Roman context?