Romans 8: I Am Not Condemned | Romans 8:1-4 | Micah

Welcome everyone.

You made it through the announcement on slot of this week.

A lot going on, but a lot of good things happening.

Um if if we haven't had a chance to meet yet, I sound a little do I sound a little echoey or is that my ears?

I sound a little echoee.

It's on me.

Okay.

All right.

Feels very echoey, but anyways, um Michael figured out.

Uh Michael's a great sound sound guy.

It's a little weird.

Okay.

Sounds different.

I sounded good before.

But now I sound bad.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

That hurts a little bit.

But um if we hadn't had a chance to meet yet, uh, my name is Micah.

I also get to serve on staff here with the Salt Company, uh, the College Ministry of Ambassador Church.

We're super excited that you're here with us.

I see some new faces in the room.

I promise I don't normally sound this echoey.

But two weeks ago I couldn't talk, so we're making progress.

Um we're trending in the right direction.

Uh if you have been with us through this semester, um, we actually just finished a series and we're starting a brand new series that we'll take through the rest of the semester.

And we're gonna be breaking down Romans chapter eight, okay?

So we're gonna be in this verse by verse through the rest of the semester.

Um, that's where we're gonna be heading.

Uh and each week, what we'll do is we'll have like a short but powerful statement about what that part of the chapter says about those who have placed their faith in Jesus.

Okay, so each week's gonna have uh a short statement, and this week, the first four verses in Romans 8, the statement is I am not condemned.

Okay, I am not condemned.

But first, what I want to do is I want to start with a question.

Okay, how many of you have ever seen a house that is like in sh- Okay, you've ever great, Caleb, you've seen a house.

Congratulations.

It was not finished yet.

Freshman guys, I'm telling you.

They're just very excitable.

Um, how many of you have ever seen a house, but like it's in shambles, but it's like still kind of standing?

Yeah, you've seen like uh a house that's ready for uh like maybe demolition, right?

It's been uh it's in bad shape.

Like the city has to kind of come in and say, like this house, like we've got to go down, it's uninhabitable, don't go in there, right?

You've seen one of those before?

So one of my favorite coffee shops here in Milwaukee, um Pilcrow Coffee.

Anybody been to Pilcrow before?

Zero of you.

That's crazy, dude.

Shelby says yes.

Well, Shelby, yeah, even you've been there before.

Anyways, they have great coffee flights.

If you've ever had a coffee flight before, they really do it big at Pilcrow.

It's great.

It's one of my favorite coffee shops.

Um, for a long time when we first moved here, I would go to Pilcrow, and right next to Pilcrow, like two buildings down, in between the plant shop and the street, there was an abandoned, condemned house.

Okay.

It had been there, I mean, I I think it had been there on my first visit to Milwaukee like two years ago.

All right.

So it had been sitting there for a super long time, but it had an abandoned house just two doors down.

And something happened at some point to that house to make it beyond livable and not salvageable.

Okay.

It's not like Chip and Joanna Gaines were not gonna come in and flip this house.

All right, it was set for demolition.

When you looked at it, it's kind of hard to imagine that it was ever livable in the past.

All you're looking at is this place that you can't imagine anyone living there.

Like you just looked at it and you got sad because you thought, man, that thing just, we just gotta, we gotta get the big bad wolf in here and blow that sucker to the ground.

It it's we can't be looking at that anymore.

This house that I kept seeing every time I went to the coffee shop was labeled Condemned by the city of Milwaukee.

It had like tape on it and stuff, looked like there maybe been a fire even at some point.

And for months and months, even before I started going there, it had been in this state of decay.

And it had this like death sentence of demolition looming over it.

Right?

The city takes a while to do things, so it took time, okay?

And last month, the house actually finally got destroyed.

It was crazy.

I remember like walking up and I'm like, wait a minute, there's no house there.

I thought it was like a Mandela effect situation, but it turns out they had finally torn it down.

Right?

And the craziest part about it was that the place where the house used to sit, you actually couldn't even tell that there was a house there.

Like there, like it didn't even really have like a foundation pad.

There was just like nothing.

They had torn it down completely.

And this condemned house had been around for years, for decades, decaying, rotting away, and then finally got its demolition sentence, and now it's just gone and forgotten about.

Okay, now why am I talking on and on and on about a condemned house?

This picture of a house set for demolition, this house that was labeled as condemned, is actually a lot like our sinful condition as humans.

Okay, now before you get offended that I said you remind me of an old, disgusting, condemned house, just chill off for a second.

Okay.

Just know that it's not just individually you, but it's all of humanity, including myself, that reminds me of an old, disgusting, condemned house.

See, the reality is that we actually all start out just like this house set for demolition.

And the picture that I'm trying to paint for us is that each and every human that has ever lived except for Jesus was born condemned.

Okay, like for thousands of years, ever since the Garden of Eden and Genesis 3, we've talked about it a lot this semester, we have all been condemned.

Okay, and I've used this word condemned now several times.

Let's let's clear the air on what condemnation means.

Okay, condemnation simply means this it's the penalty or the sentence or the consequence of sin for all people who are outside of Christ.

Can we say that one more time?

The penalty, the sentence or consequence of sin for all people who are outside of Christ.

This condemnation is the norm, not the exception.

Okay?

This condemnation, this sentence, it cannot be changed with anything that we try and do.

There's nothing that you can do in this life that will change that big old condemned label that has been attached to you since the day you were born.

But there is a way to reverse your sentence.

Okay, it's all hope is not lost here.

If we ended on this, that would be pretty depressing.

Okay, but tonight in our passage, we're gonna unpack the way that this actually happens, this reversal of our sentence according to God's word.

Okay?

Sound good?

Sounds good to three of you.

Awesome.

Cool.

Well, if you haven't invited uh opened your Bibles uh yet, turn in them to Romans chapter 8, towards the back half of your Bible.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

We're gonna start in verse 1 of Romans 8.

Okay, if you don't have a copy of God's word, we have free copies back there in the cafe.

We'd love to give you one, but open it up.

We're gonna start reading here in verse 1.

If you got it, say got it.

Yeah, there we go.

That's a nice majority.

Okay.

Here we go.

Romans 8.1.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

For what the law could not do, since it was weakened by the flesh, God did.

He condemns sin in the flesh by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering, in order that the law's requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to Okay, so what I want to do is I want to walk us through this process, how we can go from being condemned to being free in this way that has been paved by Jesus.

Okay, and the first is this it's we are no longer condemned, but free.

Okay, how many of you have ever heard of like a permanent record in school?

You ever hear you ever get that tossed around?

Some of you people have been in the principal's office probably heard that a couple of times.

Some of you are smirking.

Levi's smirking.

He's been in there.

Yeah.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Like in school, allegedly, I don't know, I've never seen one, I guess.

So allegedly, there's such a thing as a permanent record that records all of like the negative things, and I guess maybe positive things during your time from kindergarten to senior year, like all the time you spend in grade school in like some you know manila envelope somewhere.

Okay.

You guys know what a manila envelope is?

Mac and I talked about that last week.

I couldn't remember if it was vanilla or manila.

That's crazy, but um allegedly your entire permanent record is kept in one of those things, somewhere in your school.

Like that time in high school that you skip class to go hang out with the girl that you like, that's on your permanent record.

Okay?

Like the time you bit a kid in first grade because they took your monster truck at recess, that's on your record.

Okay.

Like you that time that you challenged your left guard on the offensive line to a fight after seventh grade football practice and you punched him in the face, in the nose, and he went home crying, that was me.

That's a real story.

That's on your permanent record, right?

Stuff like that.

Adam Zakone, if you ever listen to this, thinking about you, bro.

Or maybe you're like Will Hill.

That's the actual name of a kid that was in my kindergarten class.

He brought a knife to school and called the fourth grade, a fourth grade teacher, a word that I can't say on this recording and got expelled.

It was it was honestly electric.

Everyone was just running.

It was crazy, dude.

Like this kid was just going full blown.

I mean, honestly, he needed some help.

But you know, like chasing people with knives in kindergarten is a wild thing to do.

And what's crazy about these permanent records, okay, is that they are displaying only not only what happened recently in school for you, but they're permanently kept by the school.

That's why they're permanent record, hence the name.

Okay, once something goes on there, it's never coming off.

Like even if you tried to come in to the office where they keep everybody's permanent records and block every bad thing with a big tube of white out, even if you try to do that, there's still a lock on the cabinet and you don't have the key to it.

Right?

You can't actually do it.

This idea of a permanent tally that keeps the record of every right and wrong, this idea of a permanent record that never gets erased, that's what our sins are like in this life.

Okay?

It's like a permanent spiritual record.

We sin and we sin and we sin some more, and at the end of the day, the tally just keeps going up and up and up so high that we can't even see the end of the record.

Okay, no matter how hard we try, there's absolutely nothing we can do about it on our own.

Okay, but there is a way to do something about it with help.

Okay, verse one says this Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

Okay, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Okay, that long list of sins that you've committed, that permanent spiritual record, there's no longer a sentence to pay for those sins.

Okay, those things that you've done that you wish you hadn't, those mistakes that you wish you wouldn't have made, okay, they are no longer counted against you if you are in Christ.

If you have confessed with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and if you have believed in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you are no longer condemned.

That's what's true of you.

And being no longer condemned does not mean that what you did in the past sinfully never happened.

That's not what that means.

Okay?

Being no longer condemned doesn't mean that your sinful nature is somehow now gone.

It doesn't mean that either.

But being no longer condemned means that all that you have done sinfully in the past, all that you are currently doing sinfully right now, and all that you will do sinfully in the future is no longer counted against you.

No condemnation doesn't fix our sin nature on this side of eternity.

Okay, but no condemnation does fix our insurmountable debt that we owed because of our sin nature.

And it's all because of Jesus.

It has nothing to do with us, it has nothing to do with how many good things that you have done.

See, people have been trying to get out of their condemnation that stood against them for centuries.

Okay, the Israelite people before Jesus were given something called the law.

If you've read the first part of your Bible, that's a large part of the Old Testament.

Okay, the law.

God gave the law to the people of Israel, and it's put in place to bring awareness of sin that the people were committing.

Okay, it was put in place so that by faith the people of Israel would trust in God because they could see their sin more clearly and tangibly through the law.

But what happened instead for so many Israelites is that they looked at the law, the law that was given from God, as a way to earn their salvation and love from God.

They looked at the law as a way they could work their way into God's good graces.

But what the law should have revealed to them is that they never actually could.

They reversed it.

This law was supposed to help people be led to repentance of their sins and strengthen their trust in God, who gave them their undeserved favor.

But the people did not use the law in the way that it was supposed to be used.

Which leads Paul to say this about it in verse 2.

Because the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

Okay, Paul calls the Old Testament law the law of sin and death.

But what's interesting is that he also identified another law at the beginning of that verse.

He says, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

Okay, and this law, it isn't put into place so that people could earn their way to Christ through rules and regulations, but it's been put into place because Jesus knows the people can't earn their way to him.

This doesn't mean this law doesn't take sin as seriously.

Don't hear me say that.

This doesn't mean that this law doesn't hold people to a higher standard of living.

Okay, but it does mean that the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus does set people free from trying to earn their way into God's good graces.

That's what it means.

Because the truth is that we could have never earned our way on our own anyway.

But it it's impossible for us.

But like the verse says, we are now set free from the old law.

Why?

Because Jesus did the impossible second point tonight.

Okay, see, none of this freedom, like none of this reversal of condemnation is possible without Jesus at the center of it all.

None of it is possible.

Okay, Paul says this in verse 3.

For what the law could not do, since it was weakened by the flesh, God did.

He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering.

He says, What the law could not do, since it was weakened by the flesh, okay, God did.

So the law meant to bring awareness of sin and drive people to faith.

It was weakened by the flesh of man.

What does the flesh mean?

It means our sinful nature, our tendency to sin.

It was weakened by that.

Or in other words, the law was weakened because we always tend to sin.

People twisted what was supposed to be a helpful, faith-driven thing and turned it into a game of trying to earn favor of God instead of surrendering to him.

And you may be sitting here like thinking, okay, cool.

I'm not a Jew from ancient Israel.

Alright, so what does this have to do with me?

It has everything to do with you.

Why?

Because it wasn't just the ancient Israelite people who tried to earn their way into God's favor.

It even tried to attain perfection on this earth.

Okay, there's a set of questions that I like to ask people.

Okay, it's called the Kennedy questions.

Alright, we were just talking about this at Fall Retreat with a few of you.

Alright, they're attributed, I looked his name up because I couldn't remember on the spot.

Dr.

D.

James Kennedy, alright, not Bryce Crawford, CJ.

So chill out.

You guys are crazy, dude.

Anyways, I'm not hammering on Bryce Crawford.

I'm just saying he didn't come up with questions that are like three times older than he is.

But anyways.

This Dr.

Kennedy popularized these questions because he was saved through answering them.

Okay, that's how this guy came to faith.

He didn't actually make these questions.

He was made they were made popular through his testimony and through his use of them.

The first question is this if you were to die today on a scale of one to ten, one being not so much, ten being a hundred percent, how confident would you be that you would get into heaven?

Okay, that's the first question.

The second question is this if you were to die today and stand before God, what would you say to let you in?

What would you say to him to let you in?

Okay, and you want to know what one of the most common answers that I have gotten over the years to these questions.

I've been using these questions for, I don't know, I don't want to say it, but since 2020.

I'll put it that way, so I don't have to say it for you guys.

You know what I'm about to say.

Um anyways, uh the most common answer is, well, this is almost verbatim what it is every time.

Well, I think a six, okay, it's a it's a moderately placed number because I have been a pretty good person.

I think I've done some good things, but I also know I'm not perfect.

That is like so many times the answer to this question.

And I've gotten this answer from some of you in this room.

Okay, so that's why I know it's a real answer.

Let's think about that answer for a second.

Okay.

Putting yourself as a six because you think you've been a pretty good person, but you know you're not perfect.

I think that would probably accurately assess a lot of you and how you view yourselves in this room.

But what does that sound like to you?

To me, it sounds like someone who's trying to earn their way into God's good graces, or they think that that is the way to earn their way into God's good graces.

Like, to me, it sounds like someone who's trying to offer up good behavior as an offering to God.

Like, to me, it sounds like someone who has not trusted in the finished work of Jesus and is trying to trust the ongoing, not perfect, impossible to attain, unfinished work of themselves.

This is just like the Israelites trying to earn their way to God's favor with the law.

People think that they can be good enough to get into heaven, but they can't.

But you know that actually anyone and everyone can do something different.

It's trust in what Jesus has already done.

Let's look at the second half of verse 3 again.

It says this.

He condemns sin in the flesh by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering.

Okay, God takes our condemnation that we have on our own permanent spiritual record, and he condemns that.

Okay, how?

By sending his own son Jesus in the likeness of sinful flesh, that's humanity, as a sin offering on the cross.

Why is this good news?

Because all the ways that we failed in our sin, all the ways that we have not held up to the perfect standard that God requires of those who enter the kingdom of heaven, Jesus never failed.

Jesus never sinned.

Jesus was perfect.

Jesus' offering of his life was all that was ever needed to pay for all of the sins of the world in full.

And he did it willingly.

Lovingly, sacrificially, why?

So that our debt of condemnation could be paid in full.

Jesus did that for all who believe in him.

And you want to know what else is true?

It isn't just the payment of our debt that comes from Jesus' sacrifice for us.

That is the biggest part, right?

That we think about often.

But it also was so that we can now live our lives differently than before.

Yes, we get our sins forgiven, but now we can actually be different.

We can be set apart.

Okay, it's also so that we can walk in the spirit.

Okay, verse four.

It says this in order that the law's requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

Okay, now why is that significant?

Because it's showing us that when you are in Christ, when you have placed your faith in Jesus, you no longer live or walk like you used to.

Okay?

You no longer live in a way that's trying to earn God's favor by good behavior.

You no longer live in a way that's resembling the rest of the world.

But you live and you walk according to the spirit.

In other words, you're no longer living condemned, but you are living free.

Think about that old rotting house that we talked about earlier.

Okay, the one the city of Milwaukee slapped a big condemn sign on, right?

That they tore down to the studs, they hauled away into a pile of dust and rubble.

Okay, if you leave an empty lot sitting there in downtown Milwaukee, what happens?

Eventually, like some weeds grow back, right?

Trash blows in, or someone else tries to build another building that's shaky, top of a broken foundation.

That's what usually happens, or a new development comes in.

That's what it looks like when we're trying to clean up our own act without Jesus.

Okay, we get a brief moment of moral improvement, but we're just building a fresh shack on top of a condemned foundation.

Nothing solid can stand there on our own.

But when Jesus steps in, he doesn't just demolish the old house because of our sin and leave us in an empty, vacant lot.

That's not what he does.

Instead of demolishing it, he moves in.

He buys it up, he moves into the house.

That is what the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus actually means.

It means that he clears out the rubble of our permanent record, the will hill moments, right?

Bringing a knife to school and trying to kill somebody.

The fights, the guilt, the manila envelope stuffed with our failures, and he replaces our heart of stone with a heart of flesh empowered by his spirit.

He moves in.

You aren't staring at a report card anymore or a permanent record card anymore, trying to hustle your way into getting a six out of ten on the Kennedy questions.

You want to know what the truth is?

If it's not a ten, it's not the right answer.

It's not the answer that gets you in to the Kennedy questions.

It's one or nothing, one or ten.

There's no in between.

There's no six.

There's no I'm kind of passing by.

No, it's it's the finished work of Jesus.

Jesus took the demolition sentence so that you could receive a building permit for a brand new life of walking with him in the spirit.

He stood in front of the wrecking ball of God's holy justice on the cross so that the gavel would never fall on you again.

It's his finished work on the cross, and it's it's the reason why the Holy Spirit can actually take up residence in a messy, broken person like you and me.

So, what does it look like to actually walk in the Spirit this week?

Well, first it looks like stopping the daily hustle to try to prove your worth to God.

He doesn't need it.

He doesn't want it.

You're already worthy to him because of what Jesus has done.

And like when the guilt starts to creep back in, when you stumble tomorrow morning and your mind flashes back to that old, like, I'm condemned label, you don't run away from God in shame, but you run to him in freedom.

You're no longer condemned if you're in Jesus.

You're free.

Walking in the Spirit means catching yourself, trying to earn God's approval through your performance, and instead preaching Romans 8:1 to your own soul.

Romans 8:1

There is therefore now no condemnation in you.

Like imagine what would happen to our workplaces and our dorms and our families if we actually lived like peoples whose debts were canceled, whose records were wiped clean, folder thrown out, no more defensiveness, no more performing, just raw grace-fueled obedience because we are completely and irrevocably safe in Jesus.

We're safe in him.

We can be free.

Thank you for sending Jesus to take this sentence that we earned upon himself on the cross that we no longer have to walk as condemned people, but we can walk in freedom because of what Jesus has done.

God help us to stop living like condemned people because we've already been redeemed.

We're free.

God give us the grace to walk in step with your spirit as we carry all this in your name.