We are continuing our study in Romans chapter 8 and this just precious Section between verses 31 and in 39 and honestly if you don't come away from this study Thinking that these are the greatest words in the Bible Then I then you should fire me You know, I mean because it's so easy. It's the promises there are so Overwhelming and amazing and I really want you to come and and feast on them with us. We Today we are talking about this this one section of what Christ has done for us Verse 34 where it says Christ Jesus is the one who died who can condemn us and As I was thinking about that or reflecting on that as it as my mind often does I went back to thinking about Johnny Cash I grew up as you know most of you know I grew up in the rural sections of West Tennessee and and My dad was a Johnny Cash man Every Saturday we did the same thing we went to Walmart. We stopped by sonic on the way home We got home in time to watch love boat fantasy island and between fantasy island and championship wrestling My dad would take his guitar out of the closet and begin to play Johnny Cash songs and so Johnny Cash has always been very close to my heart and when the movie came out about him is Graphical movie walked the line came out of course. I watched it as soon as I could and I knew That Johnny had lived a very self-destructive life. Everybody knew that He almost killed himself with alcohol and drugs But what I didn't know that what was really killing him behind all that was guilt He lived with his overwhelming guilt feeling responsible for his brother's death and And I just reflecting on that and reflecting on this text it really began to Open up to me that this universal feeling that we call guilt I think we all live with this sense that there is a a yawning gap this this huge chasm between what the world ought to be and what it is and To some degree or another For whatever reason we feel responsible for that gap It's really an interesting thing It's this nagging feeling. I just watched another movie last night about a woman who well into her older years Carried around this guilt Because as a little girl she felt responsible for her father's self-destruction It's sad but it's there We all seem to feel it. There's this This universal sense some of us feel guilty for the things that we did that we should not have done You shouldn't have done it The children that we've yelled at the the the people that we have betrayed The advantages that we have taken of different people We feel guilty for that and and we want to make it up But as you begin to really explore the depth of what sin does you realize that there is no making it up It really is an interesting thing when you begin to To take an inventory. I wish Alcoholics anonymous weren't the only people taking moral inventories because it's it's a great tree for you to go down to make you feel your need for Christ to actually ask yourself Who are all the people who've been affected by my sin? You if you've sinned against a young girl in your teens then you're not only sitting against her you're sitting against Her parents are sitting against her future spouse. You're sitting against her future children It just goes on and on If you sin against your children and you and you hurt their self-confidence and in a meaningful way if you really damaged them then not only are you sitting against them? You're sitting against their spouses. You're sitting against their children. You're sitting against everybody They come into contact with the rest of your their life You're affecting them and that guilt you you can't you can never really fix it
Some of us feel guilt for omission things that we should have done Sometimes you're in a situation where it's impossible to do all the things that you should do I was in a situation a few years ago where I was with my family My my immediate family my wife and children we were on vacation a vacation that my children had looked forward to For months and we're loving kind of a once in a lifetime thing while on the other side of the country my my sister was in the hospital And I was in all those situations where I really should be two places and I can't be both And you know, I made the decision to stay on vacation and my my sister passed away and I'll never get that opportunity to be with her again And it's a guilt as a sin of omission a offense sense that I had a responsibility that did not keep And it's just there Say anything you want to about well, you know, you didn't know or whatever the fact of the matter is it was a responsibility. I didn't keep Sometimes there is Just a sense a guilt that comes from just a feeling of inadequacy You know, just I just wasn't enough. I wasn't everything my parents wanted me to be I'm not everything That my children need me to be I just can't be all that I'm supposed to be if I were good enough then Then my wife would be happy if I were enough if I were everything that I needed to be then then you know I would be a better pastor this church would be fuller whatever it is. There's this just sense of inadequacy and Again, it brings out this this guilt that we feel in the message of the gospel that is so beautifully laid out for us in this text Is that Jesus has absorbed all of our guilt? He's absorbed all of it so we can live a life without condemnation He has absorbed all of our guilt We we want to think that peace and life is going to come from Excuseing our guilt or from doing better next time But the fact of the matter is the only way where ever going to get peace is to say yes, I failed or Yes, I did the wrong thing I'm sorry But Jesus has absorbed that guilt He's absorbed it And has removed it from me and I can live without condemnation All right, we're going to do something a little different. We've not done it before but I'm just trying to give you of Some breaks in the middle of the talk. So we're going to stand now for the reading of God's words. Please stand with me This is really just to keep Separate in your mind words from Ricky and the words of God. I think it should be obvious What Ricky says and what God says, but in case it's not we're going to have you stand for what God says here the word of the Lord What shall we say to these things? If God is for us who can be against us He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died more than that who was raised who's at the right hand of God who indeed is Interceding for us Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or Famine or nakedness or danger or sword as it is written for your sake We are being killed all the day long We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us For I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers Nor height nor death nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus our Lord Amen, please be seated
Jesus has absorbed all of our guilt So we can live a life without condemnation Just look at this text and see what Jesus has done for our guilt the first thing he tells us is He comes to us again with one of these rhetorical questions who can condemn you and It demands this overwhelming loud response no one why because Christ Jesus is the one who died There's there's two parts of that one phrase We're going to have to we need to drill down on first of all that is Christ Jesus who died What does that mean? He's different from us? You know that right Christ Jesus born of a virgin the Son of God become man It's God himself who has died in our place He's not he is not Some kind of third party. I think there's just just misunderstanding of the gospel that leads to all kinds of kind of crazy ideas this idea that God finds some kind of innocent party who's willing and he punishes him instead of us and That would be kind of odd and off-putting and and it wouldn't help because the innocent party isn't the person who has the Right the ability to forgive the sin, but you see because Jesus is truly God He can absorb our guilt. Why because all of our sin is against him He is the one who has sinned against and he is the one who's making the sacrifice All sin is ultimately against him even if I sin against you if I sin against your body you see You're a steward The God who gave you your body the guy who created your body is Ultimately the one that the sin is against your body is just on loan from him if I sin against your property Well, you're you're a steward of that property, but ultimately it belongs to God that This was Make clear to me in an unfortunate illustration this winter. I don't know if you're a member or not We had a lot of ice crazy and and one of the ice storms My son drove over to a friend's house We thought that was a wise decision because our neighborhood the roads were clear, but in the friend's neighborhood they were not and Without going into the detail. Let's just say his his car ended up at the bottom of the hill Where it was not supposed to be parked, but and he decided he would leave it and let dad come get it While we're waiting for dad to come get it another car ends up at the bottom of the hill slammed into To my son's car Well, that was really even though my son was the one driving it even though he was the one who parked it there Even though he's the one with the keys that's my car and So when the the driver who slammed into it left his phone number. I'm the one who made the call I'm the one who had the ability to either make this person pay for his son not really a son But it's an illustration pay for his damage or I could absorb it myself Somebody had to pay for it the dent is there Somebody has to pay for it Either I'm gonna pay for it to get it fixed or I'm gonna pay for it and resell value and I'm gonna pay for it in just the Shame of driving around with a huge dent, which you know whatever or Or he's gonna pay for but somebody's gonna pay for it and I'm the only one since I'm the owner of the car I'm the only one with the authority to forgive that and Just and say you don't have to pay for it I will absorb it in the same way that God who created all things He's the only one with the authority to say I can forgive your guilt and I will absorb it and And that's what Jesus did the as the God man He has God absorbed our guilt but our guilt is The guilt of a man It's the guilt of a person. It's humanity that is ruined this earth and left it with this yawning gap Between what she is and what should be and so he pays for it as a man It's Christ Jesus who died Christ Jesus who died who went into that awful darkness and And just to Refresh your memory and what's going on when he's on the cross We're told that the earth was veiled in darkness and from that darkness. He cries out my God my God Why have you forsaken me? now And the old the old creed the old reading and the apostles creed describes that time is saying he descended into hell In our minds when we hear hell we think you know flames and for somebody's in the color red and You know kind of Satan running around torturing people and and I just want you know That's silly and that is not it
The way that Bible describes hell more than anything else is a place of outer darkness The place of complete and utter separation from God Where there is chaos and there is aloneness and there is darkness and When Jesus went into that darkness and when he cries out for To God who has forsaken him. He is in hell He is experiencing the fullness of God's forsakenness for us In hell is a timeless place. There's no such thing as three hours in heaven or three hours in hell It's timeless and Jesus is an infinite God He doesn't experience time. He doesn't change If we're him to go into hell at all, it's just been an Eternity there. I know that's a mind-blowing thought. Just giving you something to play with He suffered an eternal darkness for us He absorbed our guilt He absorbed the punishment for our guilt Who can bring a charge against God's elect who can condemn nobody can condemn why because Christ Jesus has died and then Paul Sticks on this crazy ending. How can you possibly dare to say this? He says more than that? What could possibly be more than that? Well, it's more than that that he was raised from the dead You know and again, that's This interesting thing that in our church and our culture and our history and our theology We put everything on the cross and the cross is obviously extremely important Paul says Resolved to know nothing but Jesus Christ and crucified but the cross is nothing without the resurrection The cross is nothing the Roman soldiers Rome crucified thousands of people and they crucified many who said they were Messiah They crucified many Jews claiming to be the Savior but only one only one came back from the dead And was seen by hundreds of his disciples only one Jesus wasn't did not only die for us. He was raised for us and That resurrection brings with it an absolute proof that our dad is paid You're yes You do feel guilty because you are guilty You feel guilty because there are things that you have done that you should not have done and you feel guilty because there are things that you ought to have done that you did not do But Jesus Christ died for that and has been raised and What that being raised means is this if he hadn't been raised and then we would have no Sense of security that he had paid the whole debt He's still be paying it You know, I once Did some construction work for my landlord and he said well just you know get a store credit and you go Charge all the materials that you need and so I did that don't ever do it that way and And he said yeah, I'll just pay for all that well, you know months and months would go by and I would get Bills from the creditor saying you know you're overdue on this you're overdue on this We're gonna have to turn it over to a collection agency and I kept taking them to him and he kept saying don't worry about it Well, I'm worried about it because you haven't paid it and it's in my name Well if Jesus were still in the grave If he were still dead and he would still be paying our debt and We would be worried about it But when he comes out of the grave It is this testimony that it is paid and full That our Guilt has been taken care of completely it has been paid and full It's the receipt We have the receipt which is a new experience for me. It's the only receipt I have You know, we're paying taxes this month everybody's taxes are due in next month. Sorry to remind you and you know Some of you pay your taxes with absolutely no fear Some of us pay our taxes with great fear. We're knowing in Thurson audit. We're just gonna be like a promise Really I need you to take my word for it and your word won't get taken But others have you kept your receipt and you can pull the receipt out of that shoebox and say but I mean no more I have the receipt
Well when Jesus rises from the grave he's our receipt The debt is paid And when our guilt comes to us we can say bother me no more Jesus is raised from the dead that sin is paid for That sin is paid for Jesus is who can bring it who can condemn us who can condemn us nobody? Why Christ Jesus has died More than that Christ Jesus is raised from the dead And he is at the right hand of God interceding for us You don't believe this and I want you to and so we're gonna I'm gonna lower my voice and we're gonna talk about it, okay?
You can have again, we're two thousand years past the event and Sometimes when we're talking about things that are two thousand years ago The line between myth and history becomes Confusing it, you know, it's kind of you know, do we really believe in Julius Caesar or was he just a mythical figure and does it really matter? You know, sometimes it's easy to get confused about that and when it comes to Jesus We don't think about things like his ascension into heaven really mattering and Probably if a sword would put to our throat with a lie detector attached and imagine what that would look like, but go with me and And we were asked, you know, do you really believe Jesus bodily ascended into heaven most of us probably don't? Okay, let's just be honest. We can do that. We can be honest here and And a lot of us don't even know if it's important But what I want you to know is when Jesus ascended into heaven This is something that Paul and his Friends specifically his friends saw When Jesus appeared to them. He wasn't a phantom. He said things like touch my hands Touch my side Give me something to eat A spirit does not have flesh and bones as I have That's he said that after the resurrection he wasn't a figment of light kind of Mystical he was physical. It's extremely important that he was physical and as a physical person he rose up from the earth We don't know how far not very far evidently and he was surrounded by the clouds and that wasn't to kind of obscure our vision You know, man if he'd just been a high-pressure system that day then we could attract him, you know, we know where heaven is The clouds throughout the Bible represent God's glory God's glory enfolded him and he went into the dimension where heaven is and What that means is right now When God the Father looks to his right He sees a body a human body And that human body is making he is praying for you is your advocate Now if you're like me when you think of that what what you think of is this when you sin It's like we get together with Jesus and Jesus comes to us like I can't believe he did that I'm like, I know but I did Do you think you can get a little more mercy for me? And Jesus is going I don't know. I mean God's really showing a lot of mercy to you already I know but can you get me just a little more slack? I don't know I'll go ask But please don't make me ask again That's kind of how we do it sometimes we're almost that's why we're almost afraid to bring our sins to Jesus like That's not what's happening Jesus is fully aware of our sins and he's praying for us and when we do sin He looks at the Father and says Lord and heaven father I died for that sin it has been paid for Jesus is not pleading for your mercy. He's demanding justice He is saying it would be sin it would be wrong for you to punish that sin I've already paid for it. You can't demand double satisfaction. That would be wrong and
God of course because he arranged the whole thing is excited and glad of course of course I'm not going to punish them for their sin. I've already punished you for their sin Of course their sin is forgiven. You've already paid for it. Of course. I'm not going to condemn them You've already paid for it
That is that's what God is Jesus is doing making intercession for us There is a person right there at the right hand of God Raying for us with wounds in his hands with our names imprinted on his hands And he remembers us and he is loving us Therefore Paul has asked us who can condemn you and I want you to answer that question Deep in your heart Because almost every one of us in here have the same answer Who can condemn you? Who can condemn me? I can I condemn myself We've all said it or thought it at one point or another. I know God has forgiven me But I can't forgive myself And you need somebody to love you enough to look you in the eye and say who cares
Whoop do you can't forgive yourself? The Lord of the universe has forgiven you and that's a much bigger deal and in order for you to get over this debilitating guilt You have to make God's word about you infinitely more powerful than your word It's as if you don't believe that the sacrifice of Christ is very much Sure, sure. He died for the sins of the world But he just isn't going to make up for the fact that I forgot to get my mother something on Mother's Day Or something silly like that
Jesus has died More than that was raised from the dead And it's at the right hand of God making intercession for you No, you're not the husband you're supposed to be no, you're not the wife you're supposed to be you're not the mother You're supposed to be you're not the student you ought to be you're not the perfect person you dreamed that you were going to be when you grew up You're not You are not that you're free You're free from that guilt Christ Jesus has died Drill that down in drill that down into your conscience Please pray with me