No Condemnation!

And let me invite you to turn in your Bibles, this morning to Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8. We are Doing a verse by verse study through Romans 567 and 8. We're calling this a journey to the heart of the Gospel, and as we continue in our study of this section of Romans, we come this morning to Romans chapter 8, verse 1, and my goal this morning is to try to cover verses 1 through 3, but if the first service is any indication, I already know we will not be able to do a full treatment.

Of all these verses, especially verse 3, if you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be No condemnation. No condemnation. I have some very good news for those of you that are believers in Jesus, and that is that there's no condemnation from God for you. And I have very good news for those of you that have not yet believed in Jesus.

And that is that this is fully available to you. If you would but humbly see your bankruptcy and inability to save yourself and come to Jesus by faith. This is a free offer. of what God is offering.

And for those of us that are believers, Paul is speaking to Christians when he asserts this in Romans 8:1. And that's where we're going to be focusing in this morning. this is one of the most remarkable, glorious statements in all of the Bible, and it is true, and it's true, for us, no condemnation. I don't know how many of you have heard of a guy named William Cooper.

Who passed away in April 20th of 1800. William Cooper was born in 1731, extremely sensitive and frail as a child. His mother passed away when he was 6. That did not help his mental and emotional stability at all, but he was very bright, and he went to school, studied law, began practicing law until the age of 32.

While he was around 32 years of age, he began preparing to undergo a public examination for an administrative post, and in the preparation process, he got so nervous about the upcoming examination that he suffered a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide on 3 occasions during that period. After that point, his propensity to depression. Anxiety and despondency and even insanity was something that was especially keen. He was placed in an insane asylum for a period of 18 months, and while he was there, He thought he would pass the time, so he picked up a copy of the Bible and began reading it.

And of all books he read the book of Romans, and as he was reading the book of Romans, he came to Romans chapter 3, verse 25, where the apostle Paul is speaking of Christ and says, Speaking of Christ, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood. In other words, Christ is the wrath appeaser. To declare God's righteousness for the forgiveness of sins that are passed through the patience of God. William Cooper read that verse and realized, I need a savior.

I'm a sinner, I can't save myself, and I must have this Jesus as my savior. And so then and there he called on the name of the Lord for salvation. That was 1764 at the age of 33. After that, as the years went by, he met up with a guy named John Newton who wrote Amazing Grace.

They became very good friends in 1772 in a burst of confidence in the Lord and in His salvation. William Cooper initially, his sanctification began with a leap for joy over the fact that all of his sins were forgiven. There was no condemnation for him. Anymore and we see this confidence expressed in a song that we sing here at Cornerstone from time to time.

There is a fountain. He says there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains, not some, but all their guilty stains. The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain. In his day, and there have I, though vile as he washed all my sins away, not some of my sins, but I got all of my sins washed away through the blood of Jesus shed for me at the cross.

You might think, wow, this guy's really a confident believer, believing in his forgiveness and uncondemned status before God. Well, he was in that zone when he wrote this hymn, but within a year, William Cooper suffered another mental nervous breakdown and tried to drown himself. He was so despondent. He not only began doubting his salvation, but he became convinced that he was not saved and that God had marked him out for eternal condemnation.

He tried in the years that followed at various points, low points, to commit suicide. His friend John Newton was frequently there to persuade him out of it. John Newton trying to get William Cooper to, how can I get this guy to preach the gospel to himself? He's like, I know this guy's a great poet.

I'll have him write hymns, gospel hymns. For our church services and so he encouraged William Cooper to do that and William Cooper began doing that and just putting the gospel in front of his face and writing these hymns. 67 of the hymns that William Cooper wrote made it into John Newton's hymnal that he had compiled for his congregation. There were many ups and downs throughout William Cooper's life, moments of confidence and believing in the grace of God, believing he was justified, and then low moments of doubting that and lower moments of being convinced that he was under God's condemnation.

But through all the ups and downs, his faith survived, and on his deathbed. April 25th of 1800, among his last words as the Spirit of God just came upon him with this burst of confidence, William Cooper said these words, I am not shut out of heaven after all. And with those words entered in glory. I begin with that this morning because William Cooper is an extreme example.

But his story in various ways represents the story of many believers in Jesus. And what often happens in many of our lives is there are moments where we have great confidence in gospel truth, such as there is no condemnation, and then there are other moments where we doubt. Whether that be true of us and then lower moments where we're almost convinced that that cannot be true of us, I am comforted by the apostle John's statement in First John chapter 3 verse 20, where John says, In whatever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart.

I love that because what John is saying is he's alerting us to the fact that it was not beyond him as an apostle to have a heart that at times condemned him.

And he's also saying to his readers, it's not beyond you to at times have a heart that is speaking and uttering condemnation against you. This is a common occurrence in the lives of God's people that they find themselves in a place of condemnation. Whether or not this happens to you. Let's see.

Let me ask you a few questions. Do you ever find yourself in moments where you feel like God is against you? You ever find yourself in moments where it feels like God views you and treats you as guilty of your sins, that God is hostile against you as a person, that God holds your sins against you, He holds it as a grudge against you and nurses grievances against you. Are there ever moments where you're going through an especially difficult and painful season and you begin to think that perhaps God has allowed hardships in your life for punitive purposes?

God's punishing you for some failure. It's not redemptive, it's punishment. Do you ever find yourself in moments where you believe, think and wonder if God's wrath was fully spent on Jesus, or is there some of His wrath left over for you to bear as a believer, that God bears some portion of wrath against you for your sins and your failures? Are there points in your life where you feel As if God has withdrawn your favored status from you, that because your performance on a given day has not been up to snuff or you failed in some significant way, that you feel that you have lost your favored standing or your favored status with God.

Just raise your hand. How many of you ever as a believer, find yourself in moments such as this? Raise your hand. OK.

There are certain triggers. That trigger such thoughts in most of us. Some of these triggers could be identified as follows, as follows. Sometimes after we fall into some significant sin, we find ourselves in a place of condemnation.

Sometimes our heart is condemning us, and it's hard sometimes to go, Oh no, wait a minute, this is my heart. This is not God. Sometimes we don't make that distinction the way we should. perhaps we find ourselves in a place of condemnation when experiencing the risings of evil within.

Maybe you're trying to be holy, trying to be righteous, things are going well, but all of a sudden evil, indwelling evil rises up, and you're saying no to it, and you're battling against it. But eventually, you began to wonder, is God angry with me that I'm even having to struggle so hard? To be good? Is he disgusted with me that this evil is even inside of me?

Sometimes we go to a place of condemnation when we're being judged and condemned by others. You ever had someone approach you with a really arrogant, condescending, Pharisaical, condemning, judging spirit with not an ounce of kindness? Sometimes that happens, and in those moments, sometimes we don't make the distinction. Oh no, wait a minute, this person's just being arrogant and carnal.

This is not the heart of God towards me. And sometimes we think, oh, maybe that is how God feels about me. Sometimes we go to a place of condemnation when feeling simple Holy Spirit wrought conviction over a particular sin in our life, and we don't yet know how to make the distinction between conviction and condemnation. We don't yet know how to experience conviction and grief over sin without automatically going to a place of condemnation.

There are people born again children of God who when you come to them very kindly, very gently, and point out a sin in their life, and it's just loaded with grace that they don't know how to feel grief over that and let that in and experience that conviction without immediately going to a place of condemnation. Perhaps some are haunted by the memory of some past sin. And those memories haunt you, and you find yourself in such moments. easily going to a place of feeling condemned by God.

Perhaps you're experiencing very difficult trials and you think this is God's judgment against you. Maybe there's unanswered prayer, God seems to be answering other people's prayers, but he's not answering your prayers. And you're wondering why doesn't he answer my prayers? Why doesn't God seem to favor me like He does other people?

Maybe it's because I'm under condemnation and that he doesn't favor me like he does other people. Maybe you're actually experiencing earthly consequences of past sins that happens, and they hurt and they keep the reminder of those sins in front of your face. And in such moments, maybe you wonder, is this Punishment from God against me, God disposed against me. Perhaps what triggers us going to a place of condemnation is when We're on the losing end of comparing ourselves with other people spiritually.

We look at others who are going gangbusters growing by leaps and bounds, and we're not. We feel left behind. And why is God growing them and not growing me? Does He not favor me, or at least as much as he does them?

Or God is blessing someone materially or in other ways, but He doesn't seem to be blessing you quite to that degree. Why is that? Does God favor them more than he does me? Guys, these are just a few examples of triggers that can easily Take us to a place of condemnation.

And here's the deal, when we end up in a place of condemnation, we are not in those moments experiencing the grace of God to the degree that we ought, and therefore, we have no grace to give to anybody else. We can only give what we are receiving and what we are experiencing. And in such moments we either withdraw from other people so as to protect ourselves and them from afflicting them with the spirit that we're under, or perhaps we don't withdraw and we assault and victimize others with that same condemnation spirit that we are being tormented by.

Well, this is a real problem in the lives of many believers.

If you don't struggle with this, I know that people who do. And so we've got really good news from Romans 8 verses 12, and 3 that we'll try to look at with the time that we have that can minister to this need. 5 truths we're going to look at about our deliverance from condemnation. That we can just see in verses 12, and 3.

Real quickly, let me define what the word condemnation is. Looking at Romans 8:1, Paul says, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh. This word condemnation.

That shows up in verse one is literally the Greek word that means judgment with the word against prefixed to the beginning of it. It literally means judgment against. I like the way John MacArthur defines this word. He says it is a verdict of guilty and the penalty that verdict demands.

Let's break it down into three categories. When Paul says there's no condemnation, the condemnation that he is speaking of, the condemnation that all the world, all those that are outside of Jesus, are actually under, is this. The verdict of guilty for all of their sins. 2.

A declaration of the sentence or the penalty or punishment deserved. And then 3, the execution of the penalty deserved for our sins. All of those ideas are involved in condemnation. And Paul says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

In other words, there's no verdict of guilty for any of our sins. There is no declaration of some sentence or penalty that we deserve for our sins, which is the eternal wrath of God. And there is not, nor will there ever be an execution of that eternal wrath or penalty that we deserve for our sins. There is no condemnation.

For those who are in Christ Jesus. Now, let's break this down, 5 truths that we will be able to see, enjoy and relish regarding our deliverance from condemnation in these few verses. The first truth that we observe in these verses is this, and that is that deliverance from condemnation comes to those who confess their sin problem and put their hope in Jesus Christ. Deliverance from condemnation comes to those who confess their sin.

They confess their sin problem and put their hope in Jesus Christ. Paul does this in the book of Romans. He's gonna give us the good news of the gospel, beginning in chapter 3, verse 21 and following. But before he does that, he lays out the sin problem of man in chapters 12, and 3, verses 1 through 20.

We need to understand Paul wants us to understand that we have a problem, and it's called sin. It's rebellion against God, and we are completely unable to save ourselves, and we need a savior outside of ourselves, and that is Jesus. Paul basically on a smaller scale mirrors this very sensibility in the connection between Romans 7 and Romans 8. We've seen how in the second half of Romans 7, Paul is saying, the good I want to do I don't do, the evil I hate, I find myself doing.

It's no longer I doing it, sin that dwells in me. Verse 24, wretched man that I am. What he's saying by wretched is desperately impoverished man that I am. I am poor in and of myself, and I don't have the resources or the capacity or the wherewithal to deliver myself from this sin problem.

Who will set me free from the body of this death? Now he's looking outside of himself rather than in himself. All of his internal resources have been exhausted, and he's saying, I can't do this. Who will liberate me or set me free from the body of this death?

He finds his answer verse 25. Thanks be to God. God is the one who will deliver me and liberate me, and God will do it through Jesus Christ, who is my Lord, Paul says, and also the Lord of the readers. Paul has come to a point in his life where in all humility he's In a searchingly honest way, willing to confess the reality of his sin problem and his inability to save himself from that problem, he realizes salvation must come from without.

My problem is an inward problem and my solution must be external, and he finds the only external solution available, and that is God Himself through Jesus Christ, who will bring this needed liberation and deliverance. And then, having said all that, look what he says in chapter 8, verse 1. There is therefore You might want to underline the word therefore because it connects you back to what he's been doing in Romans 8. Now I know that Paul in the second half of Romans 7 is confessing all these things as a believer.

He's not getting converted at the end of Romans 7, but nonetheless, guys, what we did on the day of our conversion and confessing our sin problem and And coming to Christ, that's actually simply the beginning of a whole life of repentance. We keep reduplicating that on a variety of levels. Paul here in Romans 7 is simply mirroring the very phenomenon that happened on the day of his conversion. You don't repent on the day of your conversion and say, Man, I'm glad that's over with.

I don't have to repent again. That's not the case. Our life as believers is a life of daily repentance, daily seeing our bankruptcy in and of ourselves, daily looking to God to give us the liberation through Christ. And having gone through that journey once again, Paul says there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

See, in order to escape the condemnation of God, you must get into Christ Jesus, and you will only get into Christ Jesus, if that you need to flee there, that those who come before God on their own merit, own righteousness are going to be condemned by God. Jesus says they're already condemned, because they do not believe in Jesus. But those who know that they need a strong tower, a refuge, a shelter, They run to Jesus, get inside of Jesus, and inside of Jesus is the only safe haven from the condemnation of God, from the verdict of guilty, from the declaration of the sentence deserved, and from the execution of that penalty deserved in sight of Jesus is the only safe place.

Deliverance from condemnation comes to those who confess they're humble enough to confess their sin problem, their bankruptcy, their inability to save themselves, and who put their hope in Jesus Christ.

There's a second truth about our deliverance from condemnation that we can observe here in the very beginning of Romans 8 that we can cherish and relish and celebrate and be strengthened by. And that is that our deliverance from God's condemnation is absolute and total. Our deliverance from God's condemnation as believers in Jesus is absolute, and it is total. Look what Paul says in Romans 8:1.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. No condemnation, underline the word no. I think by the time we're done, you will underline every word in this verse. No condemnation.

Now there were different ways and different words that could be used by Paul in a case like this to convey the idea of no. The particular word and form of the word that he uses to convey no, according to some commentators, is stronger than the other choice he could have made. And the idea of this word no is the idea of not a single one of any kind. That what Paul is saying is there is not a single condemnation of any kind from God upon those who are in Christ Jesus.

One commentator translates, no condemnation in this way, not a single condemnation stands against us. Not a single condemnation stands against us. How do we understand this? The best way to understand this is think of like even modern trials.

Sometimes a person is on trial and there's one charge that's brought against him or her, but then there are times where there may be two charges or 8 charges brought against the defendant, and And the prosecutor's like, rather than having 8 different trials, I'm going to have 1 trial and try to find this person guilty and prove their guilt of these 8 different charges, and perhaps all of them or most of them, or at least 1 of them will stick. And after all the proceedings are concluded, the jury will render its verdicts, and they might say, on the first count, we find the defendant not guilty.

On the second count, we find the defendant not guilty. On the third count, we find the defendant guilty.

And so they end up with a mixed verdict on some of the counts the defendant is guilty and on some the defendant is not guilty. All right, so with that in your mind, then start looking back over your life and think of how many charges can rightly be brought against you. And if you want to know how many that is, think of every single time you've ever sinned. The million plus times that you have sinned throughout your lifetime, the times where you have sinned with your deeds, the things you have actively done wrong, the good deeds that you did not do that you should have done, those are sins.

Think of all of. Think of the sins that you have committed with your words that have brought injury and harm to other people that have used God's name in vain and not served his purposes or glorified Him. Think of the thoughts that you have thought. And the sins you've committed in your thoughts, the lust that you have entertained in your heart and in your mind, the murder that you have done in your heart and mind through the sin of anger and hatred, think of the envy and the discontent and the bitterness and so forth.

Think of the sins that you have committed that other people. About they heard you commit those sins. They saw you commit those sins. But think also of the many sins you have committed throughout your life that no one knows about, and you would be mortified if the people in this room were aware of your sins.

Think of a whole lifetime of sins that you have committed. Every one of those sins represents a charge that can be brought against you. Now imagine standing trial before the sovereign judge of the universe, the highest authority. In all of the universe, and the charges are brought against you, all million of them.

And the evidence is presented and you sit there and you have to hear all of the evidence and you wince as that evidence is presented to the sovereign judge of the universe and that you are guilty of every one of them. Some of them you remembered already, some of them as the evidence was presented, you're like, Oh my goodness, I forgot about that. That's right, I'm guilty of that too. Imagine guys, millions of sins brought against you, a charge for each one.

And then for Paul's purposes here, the picture is more like this, that at the end of all that presentation of evidence, God, the judge says on count number 1, I find the defendant not guilty. Count number 2, not guilty. Count number 3, not guilty. Count number 4, not guilty.

You get the drift. I'm not going to go to 100 million here. But imagine every single sin that was presented to God the judge, and he finds you not guilty because you came to Him in brokenness, confessing your sin problem to Him and looking to Jesus for salvation, and you got in sight of Jesus, and so every one of those million counts against you. The decision is returned not guilty for all of those accounts.

That's what Paul is saying here. Not a single condemnation, not a single guilty verdict, not a single one. Now for some reason, and I don't know why this is, but there are certain sins that we have little trouble believing that God forgives us for those things. But we all have those other sins that we've not forgiven ourselves for, and we can't imagine God forgiving us for those things.

And we're like, man, I don't know if I get a not guilty verdict on this particular count. Those are the sins that haunt us, that wake us up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. But the teaching here is that if you have fled to Jesus and have gotten in sight of Jesus on all million plus of those counts against you, God has returned the verdict not guilty. There's not a single guilty verdict on any of those counts.

I believe that the devil is terrified at the thought that the people in this room just might believe what I just said. What does it mean to be rescued from condemnation? It means this that before the bar of divine justice we have been declared not guilty of every sin. It means that the sentence of eternal death has been rescinded.

It means that God's wrath against us for our sins has been removed, and it means now that God relates to us in friendship, and it's only with grace and all of his dealings with us, His countenance towards us. His disposition towards us, his thoughts towards us, His providence with regard to us, the things he does to us and allows in our lives are all completely and always, every moment of every day throughout our lives being shaped and governed by grace. There is no Condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, not a single one.

We are utterly free from condemnation.

Octavius Winslow. Speaking of a justified person who has been delivered from condemnation, says it this way, there's no condemnation, and he says what that means is sin does not condemn him, the law does not condemn him, the curse does not condemn him, hell does not condemn him, and God does not condemn him. Imagine just dream a little bit. Imagine walking in the good of this statement.

There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There's a 3rd truth about our deliverance from condemnation that we can observe here in Romans 8:1. And that is that our deliverance from condemnation is a present and perpetual reality, a present and perpetual reality, and you might want to add the word unalterable. It cannot be changed, and you can also put unrevocable.

It cannot be revoked. At all. Look what Paul says in verse one. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Now, there is no condemnation. Part of what he's saying is we're not waiting for some future day, like I'm going to stand before God one day and I'm sure hoping that he'll render me not guilty then. No, the verdict has already been rendered. The decision has been made.

And that is that we are not guilty of every sin that we have committed. There is therefore now at the present time, if you are a believer in Jesus on the day that you were converted, this decision, this verdict was rendered by God. You were pronounced guiltless of all of your sins, and now you enjoy this status as an uncondemned one, as a justified one. This word that is translated now shows up in chapter 8, verse 18.

Go to that verse. Look what Paul says. He says, for I consider that the sufferings of this now time literally is what he's saying. The word present is the same word that is used in verse 1 that is translated now.

When he says there is now no condemnation, what he's talking about is in this time period, in this window of time from our conversion to glory. We've still got so far to go. We are so woefully imperfect. We stumble along in so many ways.

There's so much ignorance and confusion and growth that still needs to happen. But in this window of time, in this fallen world with decaying bodies, full of struggle and even the presence of sin in our physical members in this window of time that Paul says we call now time, we even now enjoy. Our status as completely and utterly uncondemned ones. It might be easy for us to imagine God looking at us in our fully glorified perfect state and saying, I pronounce you uncondemned.

But for God to look at us now and say not guilty, uncondemned, that's tougher to believe, but that's exactly what Paul is saying. We're not only rendered not guilty and uncondemned over our past sins, but also over our future sins. Do you realize, guys, we're not even done sinning yet? And yet we have been declared not guilty of the sins we've not yet committed, but God knows we're going to commit, and he goes ahead and renders us not guilty of even the sins that lie in our future.

John MacArthur says it this way, no sin that a believer can commit, past, present, or future, can be held against him. No sin will ever reverse the divine legal decision. It's absolutely unrevocable. All of our sins, past, present, and future, God will never change your mind about your past sins.

Like, well, I know, a year ago, I forgave you for this sin from your past, but I've been thinking about it. And, and what, I changed my mind. God doesn't do that. God doesn't today say, what, I forgave you of all of your sins, but what you did today shocked me.

I had no idea you were going to do this, and I am rescinding my not guilty verdict upon your life. This sin is a doozy, and you are not forgiven for this. No, as MacArthur says, no sin that a believer can commit, past, present, or future, can ever be held against him. No sin will ever reverse the divine legal decision.

Now the beauty of this, that there's now no condemnation, as I said a moment ago, is our life is often such a mess, right? And yet there's no condemnation. We often think of Romans 8 as a positive chapter, but actually there's a lot of negativity in the chapter. We'll see this as it plays out.

In fact, I think 28 times you see the word no, neither, nor or not in Romans 8. And you see a lot of mess even in Romans 8. Just going to Romans 7, Paul's like, the good I want to do, I don't do the evil I hate, I do, wretched man that I am. And yet even of himself who struggles with sin and often finds himself sinning, he says there's no condemnation for me.

Even though I see this mess in my life and indwelling sin in me. In Romans 8:18, he speaks of the sufferings of this present time. I suffer, I hurt, and I weep, and I groan, but I'm not condemned. In Romans 8:21, he speaks of all creation, the physical creation that is a slave to corruption, and we experience that slavery to mortality and corruption with our physical bodies.

And so even as we see ourselves losing our hair and our skin becoming wrinkled and experiencing the ravages of aging, though we age, though we and our physicality are slaves to corruption, we are not condemned. In Romans 8:23, he says, we groan within ourselves, man, we groan, we hurt and we groan with longing for that future day and glory. But even though we're groaning right now with longing, we can still say that we're not condemned. In Romans 8:26, he speaks of us having weaknesses.

I got weaknesses, and yet I am not condemned. In Romans 8:26, he says, we don't even know how to pray often as we should, so there's ignorance, there's confusion. So even though in this now stage of our existence between conversion and glory, Even though we experience ignorance, weakness, groaning, mortality, suffering, struggling, and sin, and the presence of sin, and many times stumbling into sin, even those things, even though those things characterize our life in the here and now, we can say that there is therefore, right now, no condemnation.

For those of us who are in Christ Jesus.

We can celebrate this now. God's not waiting until we reach perfection to declare us uncondemned. We have that now. There's a 4th truth about our deliverance from condemnation that we can look at, cherish, and celebrate and walk in, and that is that this deliverance from condemnation was accomplished by the powerful operations of the spirit of life.

We're going to see all three members of the Trinity showing up in these verses. But what we observe in verse 2 is that our deliverance from condemnation was accomplished by the powerful operations of the Spirit of life, by the sheer force of the Spirit's will. What we're going to observe is that the three members of the Trinity, and in verse 2, the Spirit of God, this is, this is something that God really wanted to happen in our lives. It's not like we came up with this idea and said, it'd be really nice to have sinned, and then somehow get God to say not guilty.

So let's go to God with that idea. Hey God, here's what we're thinking about. Here's what would be really nice. We sin.

You pronounce us not guilty. What do you think of that? And God says, I don't know, but what? Let me think about it.

OK, I'll set something up for you. This is God's idea. And it's something God desperately wanted to happen. And he says in verse two, almost quite literally, the idea is the Spirit made it happen by the sheer force of his will.

You look at the Spirit's involvement in our salvation, and you see that the Holy Spirit is all over this. By the way, the Holy Spirit shows up one time in Romans 7, I think 21 times in Romans 8. By the time we're done with Romans 8, you're going to love the Holy Spirit. You're going to see how intimately, wonderfully involved he is in your salvation from day to day, and the Spirit was all over making it happen and setting in motion the chain of events historically that could bring you to that incredible moment on the day of your conversion where you came to God with all of your sin, mess, and brokenness and believed in Jesus and called on his name, and God said, not guilty.

The Spirit rejoiced on that day. Because the Spirit brought that about by the sheer force of His will and the demonstration of his power. Just a few things by way of the spirit's involvement in our salvation. Think about this in Luke one, we observed that it was the spirit who came upon Mary and caused her to conceive Christ in her womb.

Christ at his baptism when he was about 30 years old as he was coming out of the water, it says the Spirit descended into Him literally is what the Greek preposition reads. The Spirit descended from heaven and entered into Jesus and then drove him into the wilderness to be tempted and then basically compelled him throughout his life. All of the good deeds that Jesus did, the miracles he performed, the demons that he cast out, he did all of that by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And read Hebrews 9:14, and you see that Jesus' ultimate act of giving his life over and death.

Do you realize, according to Hebrews 9:14, that Jesus did that in the power of the Holy Spirit? The Spirit empowered Jesus. To make that right decision, and to offer himself up in death, so that through his blood, we can have salvation. Not only that, but in Romans 8:11, Jesus was buried after his death, and it was the Spirit, according to Romans 8:11, who raised Jesus from the dead.

So the Spirit comes upon Mary, Christ is conceived in the womb, Spirit enters Jesus at the age of 30, empowers the miracles of, of Jesus, and then Jesus empowers him, giving himself over in death for our salvation. Jesus is dead and the tomb and the Spirit raises him to life. Christ has ascended to the right hand of the Father, and then Christ pours forth the Holy Spirit in Acts 2. And when the Spirit came immediately, the Spirit began empowering the early believers to preach the gospel so that people could hear the gospel all the way down to us hearing the gospel to this day.

We learn in 1 Peter 1:12 that the gospel comes to us by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. We also learned that, the gospel, the Spirit empowers those who preach the gospel to us, and then we can't even understand the gospel. So the Spirit illumines our minds, renews and regenerates us, and capacitates us to understand it, and thus receive it. And then the Spirit comes into us.

And then day to day, the Spirit is pouring out the love of God in our hearts. The Spirit is all over our salvation. was so intricately involved in all of these things historically taking place in order to bring about that incredible moment on the day of our conversion, when we came to God in brokenness, believing in Jesus, and God said, not guilty. This deliverance from condemnation was accomplished by the powerful operations of the Spirit of God.

All we have time to do is glance at the 5th truth regarding our deliverance from condemnation. for us to look at, and that is that this deliverance from condemnation was something God accomplished through His Son. How in the world could it happen that we can sin as we have sinned, And God renders us not guilty. How does that happen?

Look what it says in Romans 8:3. For what the law could not do, see, the law could not make us righteous. The law could not make us justified and uncondemned. The law could command and then condemn us for not obeying.

Condemn us for falling short. What the law could not do, weak as it was to the flesh, God did. What we could not do by way of obeying the law, God did. This is the essence.

This is what separates those who are free of condemnation and those who are not. Those who are under condemnation are those who think I can do this. I can live in such a way to where God will be impressed with my righteousness, and let me into heaven, and such people, if God were to let them into heaven, they would be intolerable bores because they would spend all eternity bragging about what they did, in order to earn their way into heaven. But those who are humble enough to know I could not do this, but what I could not do, God did.

Those are the ones who are liberated from condemnation. What the law could not do, weak as it was to the flesh, God did, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin. He gave His Son to come into the world and human flesh. And then gave His Son over in death upon the cross so that on the cross Christ would bear.

The judgment of God that we deserve for our sins. He died as our offering, as our sin offering, as our substitute. And when Christ was on the cross, the full fury of God's wrath was unleashed upon Him, and Paul says, God condemned sin in the flesh. God executed fully the punishment of our sins upon the person of the incarnate Christ.

And that's why the Holy Spirit then raised Jesus from the dead on the other side of that. And that's why those who look at what God has done. And they're more impressed by God and what He has done than they are, what they think they might be able to do to get themselves saved, and those who repent of their sin and repent of their righteousness and run to Jesus and find shelter in Him. They, and only they will be free of condemnation.

We can be so thankful. That the Spirit of God, that God the Father and God the Son We're so wonderfully involved in bringing about this salvation. What love is this? And because of this, I can say to all of you who are believers in Jesus, however messy your life is right now, however badly you have failed, That if you're a regenerated believer in Jesus, you may still struggle and sin and suffer and groan and have weakness and ignorance, but there is right now no condemnation for you.

Because you are in Christ. Let us embrace what we have heard from God's word and live in the good of it and have much grace to give to others. Let's pray together. Father, I pray if there's any in this room this morning that have never put their trust in Christ for salvation that you would Just bring them to that humble place where they would be willing to To do this Grant to them the faith to believe in repentance that leads to life.

Only you can do this, Lord, may they even where they're seated, call upon you for salvation and run and get inside of Jesus for not only the shelter from condemnation, but all of the joy and the peace and the grace and friendship and love. And relationship that's offered in inside of Christ. Those of us that are believers, Lord, we just, we thank you. For this stunning news.

But I would suspect that not one of us in this room fully believes this. And so give us, Lord, give us the faith to believe. If we really believe this, Lord, we would just go crazy for you. To whom much is forgiven, they love much, and may, may we see this and may our steps at holiness begin with a leap every morning over this reality.

We thank you for this, this liberation. Tomorrow's Independence Day, Lord, we celebrate our, our freedoms and, and we do this in Christ also. We thank you for the soldiers and those who laid down their lives, so that we might enjoy the freedoms we enjoy in this country. And above all, Lord, we thank you for Jesus Christ laying down His life willingly so that we might enjoy this liberation from day to day.

Help us to believe that we're actually liberated. And may it make a difference. In our walk Thank you, Lord, for this privilege of giving of our offerings to you. Receive these offerings and do much with them.

For the glory of Jesus. We just ask all of these things in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said, And