No Condemnation: Breaking Free from Guilt (Romans 8:1-4)

Many believers struggle with guilt that keeps them stuck in the past and uncertain about what God thinks of them. In this opening message from the How to Live in Victory series, Pastor Chris walks through Romans 8:1-4 to show how Christ removes condemnation, breaks sin’s power, and leads believers into a Spirit-shaped life. 

Link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/18607101

Key Points:

1. Stand on the foundation that lifts you above condemnation (v. 1)
    Romans 8:1 declares a settled verdict for those in Christ. This freedom flows out of the struggle of Romans 7 and assures believers that guilt no longer defines their standing before God.
2. Live in freedom from the power of sin (vv. 2-3)
    Through Christ, the law of the Spirit sets believers free from the law of sin and death. What the law could not do, God accomplished by sending His Son, breaking sin’s authority and shame.
3. Follow the Spirit into a sanctified life (v. 4)
    Freedom from condemnation is not an excuse to drift, but an invitation to walk according to the Spirit. God’s purpose is a transformed life shaped from the inside out.

Personal Stories from Pastor Chris:
Pastor Chris uses the image of a fallen tree crushing a cabin to illustrate how guilt feels different when a mess is our own fault, and how grace still restores. He also shares a humorous story about a guilty dog hiding under the table to show how shame causes believers to pull away from God.

Notable Quotes:
 “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
 “Grace gives us permission to move forward.”
 “Freedom from guilt opens the door to a Spirit-led life.”

Actionable Takeaways:

Reflect on what guilt continues to surface in your heart
 Stop hiding and bring sin honestly before God
 Trust Christ’s finished work instead of self-accusation
 Take a step forward in faith where shame has held you back

Scripture References:
 Romans 8:1-4
 Romans 7:24-25
 Romans 5:1
 John 5:24
 John 3:16-18
 Colossians 2:14-15
 Galatians 5:16

Keywords: Romans 8, living free from guilt, no condemnation, grace, Christian victory, Holy Spirit, sanctified life. 

Challenge:
This week, accept Christ’s verdict over your life and intentionally walk forward in freedom by following the Spirit instead of living under guilt.

26.0201de Living Free From Guilt

The WELL Faith Podcast offers encouraging, Bible-based messages from Pastor Chris Teien and guests. New sermons are released every Sunday. Replay episodes are marked with an asterisk. Find us online at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.Church in Virginia, MN. Email comments to wellfaith24@gmail.com

Transcript

Chris T 0:16

We're starting a new series on Romans chapter 8, How to Live in Victory. So we just did a series in Hebrews chapter 12. It talked about training for the Christian faith, how to live in victory. Everybody wants to live in victory, I think, but people have a different idea of what that means. And sometimes people have a difficulty with their past, with the baggage, what they think that God thinks of them, and that can be hard. So let me just read the passage that I'm going to focus on. Romans chapter 8, verse 1. 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 condemns sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. And so Romans chapter 8 is an exciting passage. Such an exciting passage that D.L. Moody, who was a famous evangelist and started Moody Bible Institute back in the 1800s in Chicago, said he would rather live in Romans chapter 8 than in the Garden of Eden, for it is literally a storehouse of spiritual treasure for the Christian. Here we have a panorama of blessings which can be experienced in the life of a Christian. And so that's why I thought that Romans chapter 8 would be a good series until we get near Easter. Today I want to talk to you about living free from guilt, how to live in victory, living free from guilt. So again, a lot of people struggle with what God thinks of them. They have guilt over the sins of their past or what they're even doing today, and it becomes a barrier to them moving forward. And if you've read the book of Romans before, if you've gone through the book of Romans, you know that it almost reads like a law document. Sometimes I feel, especially in the beginning, like I'm reading like a life insurance document where you're trying to figure out what's covered and how it's covered and how that affects you and everything. Romans chapter, let me just highlight, Romans chapter 1 to 3 establish a universal guilt before God. Romans chapter 4 and 5 explains justification by faith alone. Romans chapter 6 addresses freedom from the mastery of sin. Romans chapter 7 describes the real struggle of a believer who desires to obey God but feels the pull of sin and the frustration of the law. And Romans 7 ends with a desperate cry. Ends with a desperate cry. It says, Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? And then right after that, I'm sure there wasn't a chapter break when Paul wrote this. They didn't have chapters and verses back then. That was a reference tool that was brought in later. But the answer is, therefore, there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So, guilt. To think about the type of guilt that we struggle with sometimes. I always feel guiltier when it's my fault. So on the screen is a picture of a tree that's fallen on someone's house or cabin by the lake. And there's a chainsaw right next to it. You wonder, is the chainsaw there because the tree fell over? And they're trying to pick up and clean up a storm, storm damage? Or did somebody think it was a good idea to cut down the tree? And so they thought that it would fall in a different direction, and unfortunately, it fell on the house, on the cabin. And so what do you do with that kind of guilt? The same is true in our life. Sin destroys our life. Sin destroys our relationships. Sometimes when we have the biggest troubles, when we struggle the most, when we made the biggest mess, it's not our fault. A storm went through and things just fell over, and now we can clean up the mess. Sometimes it's totally our fault. We didn't listen. We didn't pay attention to other people that had like guidelines and instructions on like maybe you, maybe how you can cut that tree down so it doesn't destroy your house. Or maybe instead of cutting the whole thing down at once, maybe you want to climb up to the top and start taking it down piece by piece to be safer that way. Sometimes you see people use cranes and cables and all sorts of stuff, and even then, sometimes the cables get broken or even the cranes get pulled over. Crazy things. But the interesting thing is that even if the tree has fallen on the house of your life, even if you created the mess, there is forgiveness. Grace allows you, God will help you to clean up that mess of a tree in your life and even to restore the house, the cabin of your life, and to move forward. So when Jesus saves us from our sin, it's not just to rescue us from the penalty of condemnation and sin. It's not just a get out of hell free card or a free pass to get past all of our difficulties, but it is an open door to a relationship. It is an open door for us to move forward with the Holy Spirit at work in our life. Sometimes Satan can accuse us and that shame, those accusations constantly going in our mind, make us feel like we're unworthy, like we're unworthy to tell other people about Jesus, like we're unworthy to live for Jesus, unworthy to serve Jesus. That's why this is such a wonderful passage, why this is such a wonderful verse. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because it gives us permission to move forward, gives us permission to move forward, to stand on the foundation that lives, that lifts you up, lifts you above condemnation, to stand on the foundation that lifts, I can't talk, lifts you above condemnation. So when we look at the verse, Romans chapter 8.1, it says, therefore, and again, we've mentioned this many times that you always look to see, you know, what it said in the context of what that was therefore. And so Bible scholars wonder what did Paul mean when he put this in there? Did he say, Because of what I just read in verse 24, what a miserable person I am, who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Did Paul say, therefore? Or was it everything that he said in Romans from about chapter 3 all the way through 7, as far as all of the things that we learned about God's law and the Spirit and salvation and how we're not saved by keeping the Old Testament law and everything that Christ did to secure our salvation, all of that all combined together to then say, therefore, and then turn the book that he was writing Romans into an instruction guide on how to live life in the Spirit. I think it's both. I think Paul was referring to both. And it would make a lot of sense to take that all into consideration that whenever you see, therefore, there's going to be a prescription, there's going to be a list, there's going to be a guide as to what you are supposed to do now. And it will be a good thing when we live in accordance with that. So Romans 5 1 also says, therefore, it says, Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So justification sets us free from sin so that we can live rightly with God. Jesus paid the price for our sin. He literally took our sinfulness upon him and exchanged his righteousness in our place so that we can live a life where God, when he sees us, he sees what Jesus did, and we can have that communion with the Father. We can have that communion with Jesus. We can be empowered and move forward with the Holy Spirit. And that is such a wonderful place to live. Such a wonderful place to have a confidence of who we are in Christ. Because if we know who we are in Christ, if we know the privileges we have in Christ, if we know the power we have in Christ, it will motivate us to worship more, to do more, to step up more in our faith. So many things. Jesus said in John 5.24, very truly, I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and he will not be judged, but has crossed over from death to life. So this is one of those conditional messages. This is one of those conditional messages for those of you who have who have received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, those who have crossed over from death to life, those who have acknowledged that Jesus came and lived among us, that he died on the cross for our sin, that he rose again, that he ascended into heaven, that he is available to us now. We would love to talk to you about how you can come into a personal relationship with Christ. We have books out there, How to Find God in New Testaments, that we would love for you to give away, to give to people that are needing them. Somebody called the church recently with a spiritual crisis, and we mailed one out to her to help her since she lived further away. But nonetheless, we can live in Christ. We can have this confidence in Christ if we have received Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. For God so loved the world, he gave his one and only son, then whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. That's what it says in John 3.16, and you all know that. Some of you forget John 3.18 says, whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe in him stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. And some people say, Oh, I believe Jesus existed, but even Satan believes that. No, it's placing your trust in, it's placing your faith in, your confidence, and repenting of your sin, wanting to turn from sin, wanting to turn from the sinful life, and wanting to move forward towards the Christian life, towards Jesus, wanting to move forward in that way. And when you come to Christ, when you truly become born again, the Holy Spirit helps you to live that life. And it is a good thing. And it comes back down to there's no now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So it says, there is now no condemnation. So that means that today, it's doesn't we don't have to wait until we die and then someday stand before Jesus to be judged. Actually, believers won't be judged whether or not they merit heaven. They'll be judged for what they did for works, what they did to be rewarded for the things that they did in faith. But there is now, so those people who have received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, there's no condemnation now for those who are in Christ Jesus. And that is a good thing. So condemnation. So Bible scholars look at condemnation and wonder what exactly it means. Let me read a couple paragraphs from a Bible commentary, a couple of Bible commentaries about the Greek word for condemnation. So F.F. Bruce says, I'm not going to try to read the Greek word to you, but means probably not condemnation in the sense, but the punishment following sentence. In other words, penal servitude. There is no reason for those who are in Christ Jesus to go on doing penal servitude as though they had never been released from the prison house of sin. John Murray says in his Romans commentary, in this context, the apostle is not dealing with justification, but with sanctification and with what God has done in Christ to deliver us from the power of sin. So again, it's not a get out of sin free card, it's freedom to pursue a relationship, no matter what you did in the past, with Christ, to move forward in Christ. So then another question if there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, then when we sin, should we feel bad about it? Or should we just say, well, I'm forgiven, so I can do whatever I want. God's grace covers everything. He doesn't care. And of course not. That doesn't make sense. We continue in sin that grace may abound by no means. So we should feel bad when we sin because our heavenly Father is grieved because it gets in the way of our relationship with Christ, because it grieves the Spirit. So if you fall into sin, as soon as you realize it, you should stop doing it, and you should ask the Lord to forgive you for it and to help you to move forward and not to do those things again. Philippians 3:9. Become one with Him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law. Rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith. For this faith that we have in Christ isn't based on rule keeping. Back in Paul's day, they thought if they could keep the Old Testament law, if they could keep all the rules, and the Pharisees added even more rules, if they could just keep the list and do everything right, to be moral, to do all those things, that would merit them. Heaven, that they would merit a right relationship with God. But we know that's not true. And also that's not possible because we all sin in many ways. So many times when somebody gives you a list of things not to do it and tempts you even more to do it. You start to wonder why I shouldn't I do it? Or what happens if I do it? Or it doesn't matter if I do it, or it sounds fun if I do that thing that I've been told not to do. And then when we fall into the sin, then Satan accuses us and we feel bad. Sometimes Satan doesn't even have to accuse us. We spend time in God's Word and we know it's right and wrong. And then when we do what's wrong, we feel bad about it, and then we just hide away. We're like, we don't want to spend any time in God's word or spend any time with the Lord or spend any time in prayer because we know that thing that we've been doing and he wouldn't approve. In my house, I mentioned before that we like our dogs, and we have one dog that she loves to steal your socks, she loves to steal wash rags and towels and whatnot. And sometimes if she's disappeared and you can't find her and she's hiding under the table, the first question is, what have you got? And usually you'll find she's got your sock or a wash rag or something, but you really need to get concerned when she's hiding under the table and you have no idea why. There's no sock, there's nothing there. You're just looking at her, and she's like, we start to ask her, What did you do? What what what did you do? And we start to look around and see what maybe she got into. And we do the same thing in our relationship with Christ as we cower away, we hide away, we don't pursue the things of God. We're quick to stop serving, stop sharing our faith, those types of things. Don't fall into that, don't let that be your downfall. Keep remembering that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and you can keep moving forward, even if you made a mess of things, even if you knocked the tree down and it trashed your house. You can always work at getting it cleaned up, picked up, and restored. You know, that whole restoration process actually is called grace. Grace, God helps us to restore the mess and make it even better. That's called grace. Again, for those who are in Christ Jesus. For those who are in Christ Jesus. So the question again is, are you in Christ Jesus? Because then Christ Jesus covers you. So another good Bible commentary that I found was it says in the simplest of terms, to be in Christ means that a person's faith in Christ places him in Christ. Positionally, the person is placed in all that is all that Christ is. Christ lived, died, and arose. So to be in Christ means that a person lives, dies, and arises in Christ. Christ is the person's representative, his agent, his substitute, his mediator in life and death and resurrection. The person who believes in Jesus Christ is identified with Christ, counted and considered to be in Christ, reckoned and credited as in Christ. Spelled out a little more in detail, when a person believes in Christ, God places and positions the believer in Christ. The believer's faith actually causes God to identify the believer with Christ, to count the believer as having lived in Christ when Christ lived upon the earth. Therefore, the believer is counted sinless and righteous because Christ was sinless and righteous. As having died in Christ, the penalty and condemnation of his sins are already paid for in the death of Christ. And as having been raised in Christ, therefore the believer has received the new life of Christ. Just as Christ had a new life after his resurrection, even so the believer receives the new life of Christ when he believes in Christ. Verse 2 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. So I'm going to talk about this more in the future. But what I really want to focus on is that Jesus Christ took care of it. Jesus in this the law of sin and death, you can read before it in Romans, but you know, trying to keep the law is one thing that you can't do. So the Old Testament law, the law of Moses. But also like the law of gravity, like the law of gravity, there is a law of sin that when you are going to live in sin, uncovered sin will lead to death, spiritual death, separation from God. But the law of the Spirit helps us to move forward. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And the law of the Spirit helps us to move forward in that grace, helps us to move forward in our faith, helps us to move forward in the Spirit's power with the spiritual gifts as the Spirit works in our life. And that's really what Romans 8 is. And if you don't catch the very beginning of this in Romans chapter 8, 1, the foundation, you won't really understand the rest of what Paul says. So first you need to come to the conclusion, the realization, and accept the fact that if you're in Christ, you are in Christ. You are forgiven. You are accepted, you are adopted, you are in. And there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. I know that doesn't mean that we're perfect. I know that doesn't mean that we're perfectly sinless. I know that doesn't mean that we still don't have things to work on, but positionally, in God's eyes, we have the freedom to move forward in Christ in faith. And if we're really walking in the Spirit, we'll continue to be helped, we'll be continued to be guided, we'll continue to be corrected so that we can change. And one of the big things that happens when we become a Christ follower is we receive a new heart. That was part of God's plan. Even in Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 26, I will give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart, and give you a tender, responsive heart, and I will put my spirit in you, so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations. If we're truly in Christ, it isn't the list that we live, it's the inner heart desire as we're spending time in God's word, and as we're changing and transforming, our inner desires become what God wants. Our inner desires become the things that the Spirit wants to have working in us and through us so that we can be effective in our Christian life. Even in Romans chapter 6, it says Paul wrote this earlier. In Romans, we know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin, for when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin. Set free from the power of sin. So that means that you don't have to sin. Now you still have the free will and free choice to sin, but when you are in Christ, there's no temptation that's going to come upon you that is in common to man, and God is faithful, he will provide a way out of that temptation. Matter of fact, some of the best things that happen when you're tempted, some of the things that you could look towards if you looked at Hebrews chapter 12 and wanted to be a champion for Christ and that type of thing, is when you see the temptation coming, get a big smile on your face and say, Here comes temptation. Maybe it's a test. I'm gonna pass it with flying colors. Jesus is gonna be proud of the way I handle this one. And then avoid that temptation, resist that temptation, do what's right, maybe even flee that temptation, but don't give in to that temptation. And so we have this confidence in one other verse before I get to the next point. Colossians 2.14 says, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us, he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross, and having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, trying, triumphing over them by the cross. So Jesus has taken care of our sin condition, and we're gonna have communion in a few minutes here. And to remember that and to celebrate that. And again, we'll talk more about the spirit and sin and the law when we get together next time. But just real quick, the reason for this, the reason for this passage isn't just justification. Paul isn't saying there's no condemnation for you in Christ Jesus, so therefore your sin debt is canceled. That's all you need to know. No, it's opening the door to a holy life, to a sanctified life, to a life guided and led by the Spirit. So Romans 8.4 says, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not a living according to the who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. And that is what Romans 8 talks about, is living this life in the Spirit. And then Galatians 5.16 affirms that. So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. So just think about it, okay? What is it that goes on in your head that makes you feel so guilty and so condemned? And have you taken that to the Lord? Have you confessed that? Sometimes the Lord has forgiven you, but you haven't forgiven yourself. Sometimes, if you got together with a biblical counselor and they could help you talk through some of those things that cause you to feel so unworthy, that can be helpful. And so I hope that you'll come back next week as we continue about the sanctified life, the spirit filled life, and all of these things.