Romans 8: Part 1 - No Condemnation - Luke Kennedy

If you’ve ever wondered what real freedom feels like, Romans 8 is your road map. This message unpacks how God breaks the power of sin, gives us a new identity as His beloved family, and plants unshakeable hope deep in our bones. From wrestling with our failures to standing secure in His unstoppable love, this chapter is a rally cry for anyone ready to live life in the Spirit. Tune in, lean forward, and let these truths sink in—you’re not condemned, you’re called.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Romans chapter 8, verse 1. This is going to be slightly more technical, maybe than than um the average message. So uh over the next four weeks, it's gonna be we're gonna get a little bit into something a little bit me more me more theological, but I I think it's gonna be very encouraging. Okay? Are we ready? Romans chapter 8, verse 1. Let's read. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do, because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. That is a mouthful. Okay, if you didn't get all of that, that's okay, because that is a mouthful. Paul likes to write in very long sentences, very long, compound sentences that need to be unpacked a little bit. They're like, he likes to punch you with a sentence and then break the sentence down. That's kind of his his writing style. The backdrop of Romans chapter 8 is the context is this. You've got the book of Romans is written in two parts, basically chapter 1 to 8, and then 8 to 9 to 16. This is like a climactic conclusion to the first part of the book. This is the climactic conclusion, and it's really about it's about what a new life living in the spirit looks like. This is a picture of gone on a journey of salvation, and now this is a picture of life in the spirit. Now think about this. When when the Jews thought about this kind of verse, they would have had a backdrop. One of the big backdrops is the book of Exodus, where they are freed from slavery and they go out into the desert into a promised land. Very similar arc to what we have here in the book of Romans. They are thinking about liberation from slavery. That is the mindset which they are bringing to this book. And that is a lot of the same language that we see here in this book. So Romans chapter 7 ends with this cry, who will deliver me from this body of death? And then Romans chapter 8 begins with, therefore, now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. It's a climax of the book. And I don't know about you, but when I hear the word condemnation, I tend to think about like a court of law, right? I tend to think about the judge, you are maybe guilty, guilty as charged, sir. You know, uh that's kind of my worldview. And in church, I kind of grew up with that framing as well. You that God is a judge and you are guilty, and and then he's gonna um kill Jesus so that he can make you innocent. It all sounds uh, you know, um quite confronting. And but I want to encourage us to maybe broaden our thinking a little bit about what this scripture could mean when when the Bible talks about no condemnation, Paul is unveiling a covenantal, uh covenant is a like an agreement on steroids, an unbreakable agreement between God and us, a covenantal, liberating act from God that fulfills Torah, defeats sin, and empowers a new humanity to live by the Spirit. It's very much bigger than just simply being pronounced innocence. It's much more than forgiveness, it's a whole new way to be human, full of the Spirit of God. Much better story. So let's read verse 1. There is no there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So those who were enslaved, if you could think about condemnation as being enslaved, there is now no longer those who are enslaved in Christ, but you have been set free. The condemnation in in view is not primarily primarily a legal status, but a the dominion of sin and death over humanity. Jesus broke that regime when he died and rose again on the cross. This is a little bit technical, but stay with me because it's going to get practical. Is this okay? So this idea of being in Christ is a really foundational understanding for what it means to be a follower of Jesus. If you want to be a Christian who's who's confident, you have to understand what it means to be in Christ. To be in Christ. You could think about it the opposite as being maybe in self or in sin or in full of myself. I am now in Christ. So this is a liberation declaration, um, not just an acquittal. What's um this word condemnation? What's the difference? I often get this question, what's the difference between conviction from God and just feeling bad about myself? Like condemnation, feeling condemned. Has anyone ever felt just terrible about yourself constantly? I'm failing, I'm failing, I'm failing. I just feel guilty that I'm not a good Christian, that I'm not living up to the standards, I'm not condemnation often pulls us into isolation, it pulls me away from community, even away from closeness with God. It often leads to offense and striving, turning to myself for all the solutions. Look, what are you gonna do? Look, you need to fix this, look, you need to fix this. Anxiety, stress, all the weight comes back on my shoulders with condemnation. That's not from God, guys. It's not from God. Conviction, on the other hand, draws me back to God. It's it sets me on the path. It's conviction is that voice inside of my heart that says, you're about to turn off the path, stay on the path, stay on the path to life. Here's a path to life, stay on it. Come back to God, come back. It's always calling you back, back to God. Conviction is a call back to God. Come back to the path of life. Don't get off it. When you're out with your friends after work, at that after work drinks party, and things are getting out of hand, and you know what's going to happen next because you know what happened last week happened next. People are about to get drunk, and people are about to make really dumb choices, and there's this voice inside your heart that says, it's time to go. It's it's this drawing you back to that's a path that leads to death. Stay on the path that leads to life. It's this little conviction, and the more that you listen to that voice of conviction, the stronger it will become, and it will lead you into a path of life. It's this internal correction factor. So you don't need to wait for someone to come and tell you to be corrected. You don't need that because you have the internal Holy Spirit-led conviction that's actually pointing you towards the path of life constantly. Ever heard that voice? Do you know the voice I'm talking about? If you're a Christian, you do know that voice. Okay? You do. Maybe you don't fully understand it or can't articulate it, but you know that voice. It's the voice of God that's pulling you into. I think that's the voice of God that tells you come to church even when you don't feel like it. I think that's that voice. Because it it wants you to be part of community, come back, come return, come closer. That's the voice of community, not further away, but come. And I just wanted to say to the Christians here: stop being pushed around by condemnation. Stop being pushed around by that. That voice of condemnation that's constantly pulling you into isolation and pulling you away from closeness with God and pulling you away from confidence in Him. Don't be pushed around by that. Be strong in your identity in Christ. I am in Jesus, I am no longer a slave to sin. I am with Jesus. So in Christ means a new covenant humanity in Christ. It means I'm part of the renewed family of God that God always intended from the very beginning. Um, Tom Wright, in his book Into the Heart of Romans, which is a very dense read. I'll I'll save you, I'll I'll read a few parts of it. It's a very, it's a very thorough read. Um says, Jesus is the representative Messiah. What happened to him happens to his people. In him, the story of Israel reaches its goal and new creation begins. So being in Christ is not trying harder to live more like Jesus, it's not having Jesus beside you like a life coach, or being a religious upgrade like project self. That's not what living in Christ means. What it means is union with Christ in his death and his resurrection, participation in the spirit-filled life, very different, and transformation into the kind of human intended by God from the very beginning. That's what it means to be that. And this is our foundational identity as a Christian. This is my core identity. The world is trying to teach us today that your desire is your identity. Whatever you want, that's your identity. That is not your identity, that is not our identity. Our identity is in Christ. That's where it is. Or maybe my identity is my struggles. I'm traumatized. I'm ADHD. Who's not ADHD these days? It's called having a screen, and you know. This becomes my identity. How I identify myself is by my brokenness. That is not how we identify ourselves as a follower of Jesus. These often, these labels often come from real pain. And sometimes it's helpful to name a problem. That's maybe sometimes a helpful thing to do. But that is not the end, and that is not my identity. So don't get more comfortable naming and claiming your dysfunction as who you are and getting stuck in your dysfunction. That is not the goal of following Jesus. The goal, what is on offer for us today, is healing, it is salvation, and it is freedom. I gotta tell you that, guys, we are not just coping through life as a follower of Jesus. The goal is to become a whole person who can actually be filled and live by the Spirit of God. That is our goal. Are you with me? This is encouragement to you. You don't have to stay in dysfunction your whole life. You could go from dysfunction to wholeness in one generation. That could be your family tree story. That is the story of my family. And I'm on the journey of wholeness. I don't I don't know that uh we'll ever be a hundred percent until we're in new creation. But I am, I mean, where my family's come from to where we are today is extreme. It is extreme. That's one generation of the work of God in our lives. So here's a couple of identity statements you might want to think about. I am not condemned, I am in Christ. I do not live by the law of performance, I live by the spirit of life. I am not defined by my dysfunction, I am defined by Jesus' resurrection, and that same resurrection power is living inside of me. Sin is not my master, shame is not my name, the spirit leads me now. That's my new, that's my new identity. A son or a daughter of God. But here's the question: Are you willing to give up that old identity to get a new one? To get a new beautiful one from God. I was talking to a young guy recently, and I was sharing the gospel with him, and he said, I love everything that you say about Jesus, and I love everything that you're teaching me about God, but I gotta be honest with you, if I put my trust in God today, it means admitting that I've been wrong my whole life, and I'm just not willing to admit I've been wrong. I thought, wow. At least he's honest about his pride. It takes humility to follow Jesus. It takes humility, it's an act of surrender of your will to follow Jesus. I am not like I used to be. I am who you say that I am now. I'm a new person, I am a new creation. 2 Corinthians 5.17 was the first verse that I learned as a brand new Christian. Therefore, the old has gone and the new has come. I am a new creation in Christ Jesus. Is this encouraging for anyone? Um, verse 2 says, For the law of the spirit of life in Christ has set you free from the law of sin and death. Now, when I think about that word law, I think about, again, I think about like if a policeman, if I broke it, a policeman would arrest me. Right? Or maybe again, think about to the court back to the courtroom, the judge, you've broken the law. That's not really what the writers of Romans are thinking about when they're thinking about this word. Think about the word, one helpful way to think about the law is maybe principle or power. Power. If I was to say it like this, the law power of sin and death, which is the power of the sin, is enslaving, corrupting, leading to decay, and ultimately to death. And the law power of the spirit of life is the power to liberate, renew, align with God's purposes. It's the power. So think about it like this: the law is the word Torah, it's not the word um traffic infringement. Brisbane has okay, all right. Don't get me started on Brisbane traffic people. Um it's the word Torah, and it's not so much a law that we think about today, it's more of a wisdom that leads to life. It's more of a path, a path that leads to life. That's what you would say. The law is something that is strong that's going to lead you towards life. And that's what God was doing throughout much of the difficult books of the Bible. Exodus, Leviticus. He was establishing a path that leads to life. People who were slaves and didn't know how to live with life, now he's establishing a new society which would have life at its foundations. That's much of those early books of the Bible. And you could think about um the law of sin and death as almost like an anti-life. An anti-life, something that leads away from life. That's the law of sin and death. A law that leads away, a path that leads away from life. And many of us have experienced this anti-life. I know I have. I struggled a lot with anger as a teenager. I struggled a lot. I come from a very, very violent family. Um, yeah, very violent family. I struggled a lot with anger, and underneath that was probably fear. I struggled a lot with fear, and and probably rightfully so in an environment like that where a lot of crazy things could happen at a drop of a hat. I had a lot of fear and a lot of anger. My fear came out as anger. Um, I struggle with that, and I as much as I knew that it was wrong and I didn't want it, I didn't see any other path. I couldn't see the path to life. I couldn't, I couldn't see it, and I certainly couldn't do it by myself. And then I met Jesus. I met Jesus at 14 years old, and something amazing happened. Jesus didn't just come and give me life advice, Jesus came into my life and motivated me and changed my heart so much that I actually wanted to start forgiving the people who were hurting me rather than beat them down. It was like, and I was watching myself change, and I'm thinking, this is weird. This is weird. Why am I wanting to forgive these people? That's so weird. I wanted to forgive my father. I hated my father. Why on earth would I want to forgive him? I wanted in my heart to tell him that I loved him, and I didn't know why. It was like the Spirit of God had come into my life and changed my heart. That is the law of life that sets you free from the law of sin and death, guys. Have you experienced the law of have you have you experienced that life? I hope you have. I want you to. If you haven't, you can. You can. So Paul is speaking here about two rival modes of existence, not just a not just an upgrade to make your life better. The Spirit isn't just helping you live the rules better, he is launching you into a whole new way of being a human. Empowered by the Spirit of God. Verse 3. We're almost there. This is my last verse today. Alright, are we doing okay? Um, verse 3 for what the law was powerless to do, God did by sending his own son, and so condemned sin in the flesh. This may be one of the most confusing verses in the for today. Okay, but let's jump into it. It says, The law was powerless to change us. What does that mean? The Torah was good, the path was good, but it couldn't change you. Couldn't change your heart. Nothing bad about it, just couldn't change you. Um why was it powerless? Not because it was bad, but because we are weak. We are weak. And I I'm so often selfish. I can see the path, and I'm not taking it because I'm selfish. I don't want to do the right thing. It's like having a perfectly good road that leads to a good place, but the car is broken down on the side of the road. Nothing wrong with the road, just the car is broken down on the side of the road. It's not working, or sometimes, maybe even worse than that, the car is active and alive and actively trying to swerve me off the road into the ditch. Ever experienced that? There's something in me that keeps self-sabotaging, that keeps driving me into a ditch in my life, even though I know that this is the path that leads to life. You like my drawing? That's pretty good, eh? Canvas amazing. Um so much of the time that is the wrestle that is happening inside my heart. I can see what's right, I even kind of want to do what's right, but I find myself driving off into a ditch, self-sabotaging constantly, through my addictions and my coping mechanisms and my dysfunctions and all the other complexity of the human experience. The Bible will just call it the results of sin. So, this this law of sin is the thing that keeps on pulling us back, the gravitational pull towards corruption and guilt and decay. But the law of the spirit breaks that. Gravity away towards healing and freedom. Not only that, it's the power to change. So today, what we're not offering you, maybe like a Jordan Peterson or someone like that, offering you uh 12 steps to a good life, nothing wrong with that, but that's not what that's what not what's on offer here today. What's on offer here today is a changed heart, a renewed mind and a life full of the spirit. Actually changing my uh motivational structure in my own heart full of the spirit. I want to love you now because of the spirit. Just change my heart. So the Torah revealed sin but could not rescue you from it. God did it by, and this is what it says, he did it by sending his son in the likeness of sinful flesh, not sinful, but truly human to deal with sin. Not just to forgive you, but to condemn sin. And this is really important for us to understand, I believe, um, that God did not condemn Jesus on the cross, he condemned sin on the cross in the flesh of Jesus. This is really important. God didn't punish Jesus as a substitute to let sinners off the hook, he condemned sin itself on the cross in the flesh of Jesus. So let's just get to a little bit of application and then we're gonna finish. Here's some application for us. Stop living like you're still on trial before God. That's we could stop and think about that for a moment. Stop living like you're waiting for God to judge you. He's already made his judgment. And his judgment is you are free. Go and live free with the power of the Spirit. Stop living in self-condemnation and start living full of the Spirit. Don't settle for a self-understanding only without healing. Our generation loves to be seen, loves to be understood, loves to be recognized. That is not the goal of what we're talking about here today. It may be the beginning and it may feel good, but it is not the goal. Our goal is healing and wholeness. That is our goal. That is the work of the cross. Jesus didn't die on a cross simply that you could be understood. He died on the cross so you could be free. That's what's on offer. So let's not try to Christian harder, but let's lean more and more and more into the Spirit of God, which empowers us to actually change. So here's a couple of questions, and I'm gonna pray for us. What labels have I placed on myself that the Spirit wants to rewrite or maybe even just rip up and throw away in my life today? What's some labels I've been wearing that just need to go, need to be finished. I need to stop going around the roundabout with these labels, and I just need to get rid of them, give them to God, and let God be the one who is writing my story, telling me who I am. I'm just not good enough. I'm just not smart. I'm just not like these other people. I'm just whatever your label is, it needs to be surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus and what he says about you. Am I walking in freedom or am I coping in a cage? Just something to reflect on. And what do I need the spirit of life to come in and set me free from today? What is the thing in your life right now that you know, and I know, I know for my life, what is it in your life that you need God to set you free in? Because you know that you're not free, and you're striving to find freedom, and it's just not working in your own strength, and you need the Spirit of God to come in and set you free from something in your life. What is that? We're gonna because we're gonna pray over it in a second, and I just really pray that the Spirit of God would come into your life and feel it, and that thing would end today. With me? What condemnation have I been living with that needs to go away today? All right, let me pray. Come, Holy Spirit, God, we surrender our lives to you. I pray, God, you would come right now and fill us with your life. As we surrender all of the labels, all of the coping mechanisms, God, we surrender them to you. Those areas of bondage in our lives that have been enslaving us in some way. We surrender them to you, and we're asking you, Holy Spirit, come and fill us and lead us to the path of life. Lead us, change our hearts, God. We're not asking you just for an upgrade. We need you to change our lives. We need you to change us, God. So asking you for that today. Come in and fill us afresh.