All right, we are in the middle of a series on Romans and within that we've been looking at chapter 6 and 7 asking the question, how do we change, why is change so hard, what do we do to become, what God is making us into, we know who we are, we're broken, we are, we fall short and we know that He is making us into someone who is glorious and beautiful. What do we do to take part in that process? How do we change from the inside out and we've gone through chapter 6 that talked about us being a slave to sin and being freed from that slavery and now being a slave to righteousness, an indentured service to God and enjoying the freedom that being His slave gives us. And in Romans 7 we talked about how it went so hard, that inner struggle that we feel, that deep sin within us, that whenever we seek to do good, evil is right there with us. When we looked at how Paul has this ironic cry, one at the same time crying out, who will deliver me from this body of death and at the same time crying out, praise the Lord through Jesus Christ, I've been saved. And that is the cry that goes on as we continue to grow toward Christ and become like Him, we're always discouraged about how deep our sin is and we're always tremendously relieved, just tremendously blessed by how loved we are in that process, in that very time. And now we come to Romans 8 and I will unapologetically tell you this is my favorite chapter of the Bible. I have long desire to take you through it. I just love it. I love how it begins. I love how it ends. I love everything in the middle. And I am, I'm just thrilled to be here with you. So let's begin with the reading of Romans 8 verses 1 through 4, these just glorious declaration of our freedom. So the words of the Apostle Paul, the words of the Lord, therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives his 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 requirement of the law may be fully met in us who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. This ends the reading of a tremendous passage of God's Word may add his blessing to it. I, I've been reading recently this great biography, it's a spiritual biography of, called from, from fear to freedom. It's by Rosemary Miller and Rosemary was a good girl, important that you understand that. I mean, she was good. As a little girl, she was good. She was so good that the pastor of her very conservative church would bring his daughter over to her house to play with her so that maybe Rosemary would rub off on her. She was the good girl. She obeyed her dad no matter what he said and when her mom had a little bit of a, a little bit of a psychotic break, she took care of her mom and she took care of her sister. She never questioned anything and when she got married, she was a good girl and her husband wanted to go into the ministry and she did not want to be a pastor's wife but she quieted that and she, she held down that, that frustration and those desires and she was a good wife and she submitted to her husband and she was a good mom and she raised four good children and when one of her children rebelled and said she wanted nothing to do with the Christian faith, Rosemary was quiet about that. And she would not get angry with the Lord and she would not get angry with her daughter and she would not get angry with her husband. She was good and as her life grew and as she was, I went through years and years of this marriage, her frustration level got higher and higher, her anger within her got higher and higher. Her depression got deeper and deeper and one day she was out skiing and she was skiing on a place that she had never been and mountains that she had never been to and she took, she got on the gondolas, she was kind of getting away from everybody, they were at a spiritual retreat and she wanted to be by herself so she could kind of think through her frustrations and she got on the ski lift, she went high into the Swiss Alps, when she got off the ski lift she immediately saw that she had no business being up there. There was no way she was going to ski down this mountain. And she tried very briefly and she fell miserably and so she took her skis off and she started walking down the mountain and there were times when she had fallen to snow up to her waist. She lost a ski at one point, just washed it, go down the mountain and she had to go after it and chase after it. It took her over three hours to walk down the ski slope. Her legs were sore, she was soaking wet, freezing, crying. She got back to the hotel, she went and cried in a hot shower and then she went to a worship service and her husband was serving the Lord's Supper and at that point the Lord began to speak to her and say, Rosemary, you could have gotten in the ski lift and ridden down. All you had to do was do that, just get in the lift and go down. But instead you walked. Rosemary, keeping my wall is like skiing down that mountain. You can't do it. And I've done it for you. That's what I sent my son to do. He lived the righteous life for you and you could ride on his righteousness. But instead you're walking. You're insisting on being good on your own. You're insisting on pleasing everybody by being perfect and in doing that you're killing yourself. That's why you're angry. That's why you're depressed. And she said at that night, even though she had trusted Christ to forgive her for her sins, for decades, that night was the first time in her words that she heard the music of the gospel. That the gospel gave her joy because she realized for the first time that Jesus was her goodness. Jesus was her righteousness and she began to accept his righteousness for her own. This passage is so important, it's so packed because Paul is here telling us that when we rest in the righteousness of Christ, when we rest in the righteousness of Christ, condemn the nation no longer exists and we can rest and we can celebrate. We can hear the music of the gospel and we can change from the inside out. And first thing I want you to see, and I guess I should make it the climax of the sermon but I'm so excited, I can't wait. It's got to be the first thing I say here is that if you're in Christ, there's no condemnation. Look at this verse and look at it carefully. Look at what it actually says. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. Notice what he says, most of us interpret this text to mean, if you're in Christ Jesus, then when you die and go to the judgment seat, God's not going to condemn you. Great. So when I die, this is really going to help me out. That is not what this text says at all. That's not even close to what this text says. What this text says is condemnation from God does not exist. That's not all it says. It says condemnation from other people does not exist. It doesn't exist. And that's not all it says. It means condemnation from myself, from my own conscience does not exist. Paul says there is no condemnation from anybody, from anybody. Once you were in Christ Jesus, he condemnation no longer exists. Now what is this word? What does condemnation mean? You come before a judge and you present your case, he has two choices, right, he's going to slam the gabbled down at the end of the case. And he will either say you are innocent and you're justified or he says you're guilty and you're condemned. What Paul is saying here is the final judge has slammed down his gabbled and said you are justified. You're righteous, you're good. Most of us we tend to think when we sin, last night when you got so mad at the football game and you yelled at your wife and you were bad. You think what Jesus did at that point was you asked the Lord to forgive you and Jesus went over to his dad and he said father, Ricky screwed up again. I know you really want to send a lightning bolt and kill him. But he's my buddy, so let's let this one slide. And the father says well, Jesus you're right, I hate this kid and I want to kill him. But since I love you, I will let it slide, we'll forgive him again. That's what most of us secretly think and we kind of assume that at some point God is going to get tired of forgiving us. Jesus isn't there to whisper in his ear, we're going to kick him out. That is not what the Bible says. What the Bible says is that Jesus is our advocate, he is our, if you can possibly have a good interpretation of this word, he is our lawyer who stands up in our place and he has done for us everything that needs to be done so that when we sin, actually he's already done this once and for all, when we come to Christ and we confess our sin to him and we repent of our sin and we turn to him and we place ourselves upon him. He stands up for us and he says, I have already suffered for every sin he's committed, therefore the penalty for those who have all been paid, it would be unjust to condemn him. If God, if you were, if father, if you were to condemn him for his sins, that would be unjust. You would cease to exist, you would be going against your very word. You cannot demand payment twice for the same sin and the father says, of course, that's why I sent you. I love him. And all of Christ's righteousness has put upon us and he accepts us and we are his forever. He has declared us righteous and we are righteous. He's declared us righteous and no one can condemn us. He ends this great chapter with a series of devastating questions, just devastating questions that are designed to utterly demolish any question, any challenge to your conscience, any challenge to your being, to your well-being, to your peace. He says, he who did not spare his own son but freely gave him up for his all, how will he not with him give us all things? Who can bring a charge against God's elect? Who can bring any charge against you? For it is God who justifies, who can condemn? It is Christ Jesus who has died and who has been raised again and is standing at the right hand of the father making intercession for us. Nobody can condemn you, not God, not you, not your conscience, not your mother, not your father, not your spouse, not your roommate, not your professor, no one can condemn you. Like gavel that slams down and says you are condemned is gone, is gone and Paul says we should live with utter freedom because of that. He says in 1 Corinthians 4 this is beautiful, do you want to know how far this goes? He says in 1 Corinthians 4 I don't care if you judge me, I don't, I'm not even interested what you think of me, I don't care if you judge me, I don't even judge myself, I'm not my own judge. God alone is my judge. He says in Colossians 2 that it's your duty, it is your responsibility, if you're in Christ you can't let anyone else judge you, don't let anyone judge you for what you eat, what you drink, or any of your religious observances or anything else. You've been judged and you are declared righteous. You're free from, I understand why you are not screaming, this is great news. You're free from all condemnation, it doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. What would that mean if you really believed that? What would it mean for you if you really believed that you could not be condemned? I mean I want to go ahead, again I got 20 more minutes, I really shouldn't jump to the end but I'm going to. What if, let me put it this way, let me put it in rhetorical, why is it, and then when someone gets disappointed with you it just crushes you, that's not fair to you or to them.
I mean if I, and this is why, this is why some of you, even after years of marriage, your marriage causes more stress in your life now than it ever has. The reason for that is this, you've gotten closer, you know each other better, you depend upon each other more. I think more of my life now than I did 22 years ago. I expect more from her. My expectations of her are higher, well if she lives under a fear of condemnation for me, then my marriage, our marriage causes more stress on her life. But when she understands this, that I can't, I don't have a gavel in my hands, I can't condemn her. Sure as you can disappoint me, of course you can disappoint me, I mean, we're kind of, if we don't understand this, if we, if I put the gavel in her hands and allow her to condemn me, that is my fault. Of course I can disappoint her, of course she can disappoint me, that's, that's a relationship. If you can't disappoint me, we don't really have a relationship, and what would that mean? That would mean I can, I don't have any expectations of you. I don't want, I have, I expect dirt from you. You're terrible. I mean, what would it mean if you can't disappoint me or what, you know, I would be, I would have to live on eggshells. Oh, you forgot to, you forgot my birthday, oh, that's okay, I don't expect anything from you. Oh, you, you know, my kids make all zeroes on their report card. Oh, that's okay, honey. I don't have any expectations of you. I mean, what, what would that mean? Of course they can disappoint me. That's what a relationship's about. It disappoints me when you forget about me. It disappoints me when you're rude or you're selfish or you're lazy, of course, but that doesn't continue unless you put the gavel in my hands. When you realize that once you've been justified in Christ, there's no condemnation. It takes the gavel out of everybody's hands, and then I can just live when I, when we hire people with for the church, Shane and, and bow and Michael when he worked for us, I gave them all the same speech. So I, I demand the right to disappoint you. I'm not going to be perfect. If you expect me to be perfect, then this job isn't going to go well. I'm not God. I'm going to be disappointed with you some days. That can't crush you. You have to be free to be disciplined for me to be disappointed with you. And I have to be free to disappoint you. That's life. That's not condemnation. Do you, are you beginning to get a glimpse of the freedom this offers? Well, I disappoint my wife. She's going to forgive me. We're going to move on. That's not condemnation. I've been declared righteous. Why have I been declared righteous? Because God has done with the law weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. God has done with the law weakened by the flesh, could not do. This is a vicarious victory. He is one of victory in our place. He's one of victory for us. Wanted the law not to do it. The law is perfect. The law that God gave us would have made us righteous. It would have healed every society. Israel would have been the perfect community if they had to kept God's law. You would be perfect people if you would keep God's law. It's true. The law itself is perfect. It does what it pretends to do. When the rich young man comes to Jesus and he says, what must I do to be saved? What must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus says, it's easy. Just keep the law. That's it. And the man says, hey, I've done that. And Jesus is like, great. That's good. You've kept the law. You have loved your neighbor as much as you love yourself. Well, let me test you. Tell all your goods and give them to your neighbor. You love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. So why would you keep your goods for yourself? Give them to them. And the man won't go the way sad, right? All of a sudden his whole idea that he's truly kept the law comes crashing down. Oh, oh, oh, you mean actually do it. When you said, love my neighbor, I thought you meant like have good feelings toward them. Oh, never mind. The law would, the law is fine. The law is perfect. You're not. You can't keep it. You know that. When I was in high school, I tried to play football. I practiced a lot of football and I watched a lot of games from the sideline. And you know what was interesting, I figured this out when I was like a junior. The coach never really drilled me on technique, ever. I went through all the same drills that everybody else did in practice. But when the big guy, I mean, I was small, I didn't break 100 pounds and draw as a junior in high school. I made up for being the smallest kid on the team by running a 6-2-40. I ran the 40-R dash. Uh, yeah, slow. Okay, so, uh, record time. So, you know, the coach never really drilled me. The other kids would go through it and he'd be like, no, you got to get your head on this side of the guy and you got to push with your legs and keep your hips low and all these things. And then when I would do the drill, he'd be like, that's good son. And I thought it meant I was doing everything perfect. And yeah, I never got to play and then finally it dawned on me. You can't coach size, you can't coach speed and you can't coach strength. He wasn't going to waste any time telling me what to do because it didn't matter. I could do everything perfectly and just get blown over without anyone ever trying. It wasn't because his techniques were bad because I just didn't have the strength to make it happen. Well, that's what Paul is saying here. The law is good, the law is fine. It's just that whenever you seek to do good, evil is right there with you. But Jesus condemned sin in the flesh. She came in the likeness of sinful flesh, your theologian, you love that passage, you're so precise, he didn't come in sinful flesh. That would mean that Jesus himself was sinful, but he came in the likeness of sinful flesh, which means that he shared everything that sinful flesh has. He impediment, every weakness he had it. Jesus got bad colds, Jesus had bad days, Jesus woke up tired in his body aches, he slept on the ground and when he woke up he was stiff just like you would be and just like you would be tempted to be short with people when they were, when they, you know, how it isn't you're tired? If I'm tired, I could commit mass murder, I'm tired, I'm having a bad day so I just want not killed 40 people, totally understandable, right? And Jesus felt that way, but he didn't do anything, he didn't act on it, he was righteous. He kept the law perfectly, he kept the law so perfectly that at his trial, three times the judge said there is nothing wrong with him, he has done nothing wrong, three times his judge said that, no one could accuse him of anything, he kept the law perfectly as a man and weak, sin-affected flesh. He was perfect and when God asked him to go to the cross, when God asked him to be obedient just because I wanted, just because I say do this, he was obedient and he went to the cross, he was obedient to the very end, knowing how much it would hurt, knowing how much it would cost him, knowing that he was going to have to wear our sin, knowing that he was going to have to be rejected by the Lord of the universe who had loved him as a frail eternity, knowing that he was going to have God turn his back on him, he was obedient to the very end, and by doing that, he condemned sin, he condemned the law of sin, the law of sin is that law that Paul talks about in chapter 7 where he says, I find it to be a law that whenever I seek to do good, evil is right there with me, that law of nature that we can't escape it, that law of sin that it's everywhere that flesh is, he condemned it and he justified us. Now, it's the 9 o'clock service, 9.30, when do we start? No, early, and if you're at the early service, this is not the first time you've heard this, you're the late service, you've probably heard it. I would dare to say that nobody here is in search of the first time, so you've heard this, but if you still live your life under a cloud of unworthiness, you have not heard the music of this. If you still live your life under a cloud of shame, you haven't heard the music. If you still live your life, angry, that you keep disappointing people, angry whenever someone asks you to do something because you can't say no, that might disappoint them and you'd be a bad human if you said no, but at the same time, you know you can't do it, then you haven't heard the music. You don't have freedom. You don't have the joy that is involved with believing to the core of your heart that the condemnation no longer exists for those who are in Christ Jesus. Condemnation itself has been condemned and you haven't enjoyed this bicarious victory. And I want you to, and the key to doing that is living in the Spirit, in other words, trusting the Spirit to do what you cannot do. He has done this in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, according to the Spirit. The law is fulfilled in us, we are perfect, we are declared perfect. When we get in the gondola and ride down the mountain, when we trust His Spirit and we stop judging ourselves based on what we do in the flesh, this truth is real. I mean, that's the wonderful thing is you're not going to hell or heaven based upon whether you've really enjoyed this truth or not. The truth is real whether you like it or not. If you are in Christ, you are righteous. That truth is a fact. It's real. Whether or not you live by it is up to you. That's the way bicarious things are. Something bicarious means it's done for you. It's done in your name. It's tremendously easy to come up with an example. If you know an Oklahoma sooner's fan, then you know that they have become very annoying over the last eight days. Oklahoma won this game. You know, eight days ago they beat Notre Dame. They haven't beaten Notre Dame since 1956 or something. And OU fans are different people than they were before that game. They're happy, they're confident, they're proud, they're physically different. If you were to take an OU fans testosterone level, it is higher now. This has actually been proven scientifically. It's higher now than it was before that game. They're different people even though they had nothing to do with it. That nothing to do with it. It was bicarious. They, a team won a game in their name. And it is affecting them. That truth is there for you too. Didn't effecting brands. Branson. I know you fan. He's a Texas fan. His testosterone probably dropped that day. Probably not. The truth is there. What you do with that truth, depending on how much it matters to you. For people who invest their life on whether or not a football team can get a little piece of leather over a line, then when they get the ball over the line, it means a lot. If you invest your life in what God thinks of you and you realize that and the God has declared that you are perfect, you are loved. Condonation doesn't exist. That means a lot. If that's the main thing, the thing that you're not going to miss, if that's the thing that you order your schedule around, you order your life around, then it's going to matter. Then you will hear the music. Then you will hear the music. And so the question is not whether or not this is true. The question is whether or not we're changed by it. In order to be changed by it, again, as clear as possible, you have to believe it. You have to preach it to yourself. You have to remind yourself. You have to sing about it. You have to make it a big deal. You have to make it a big deal to you that before the throne of God above, you have a pure and perfect plea. You have to make that a big deal. And then you have to take the gavel out of everybody else's hands. And everybody else doesn't understand that, right? There are people in your life who think they can condemn you. They can't. That's just up to you. There are people in Paul's life all the time trying to condemn him. They ended up killing him. They ended up turning him into Caesar and having his head chopped off. But Paul refused to be condemned because he knew what God thought of him. That's the freedom that exists for you. That is the joy that exists for you. You're free to fail, which means you're free to try hard, which means you're free to try things that you didn't think you could do. It means you're free to disappoint people, which means you're free to love people and you're free to succeed. But what matters most is that you're free. To be free, you gotta stop walking down the mountain and you have to get in the gondola. Trust the Spirit. Trust Jesus to do the walking for you. Please pray with me.