Life in the Spirit: No Condemnation for Those Who are in Christ

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Last week we looked at a critical strategy of God’s rescue plan for his fallen creatures and creation. We saw the hopeless plight of the human condition in which Paul talked about the wretched man, most likely Israel, who was called to be a key player in God’s rescue plan but who was unable to fulfill its task because Israel was every bit as flawed as the rest of humanity. Paul indeed painted a grim picture for us because left to our own devices, our fallen nature, what Paul refers to as “the flesh,” is unable to keep God’s good and holy Law. And so instead of bringing life to us, the Law inevitably brings death because it exposes our sin.

But as we also saw, this isn’t the end of the story because as we are reminded in today’s Epistle lesson—a continuation of the argument Paul has been developing in his letter to the Romans—God used the Law precisely so that he could expose sin for what it is, draw it out fully and put it on Israel’s Messiah, Jesus, God become man, so that God could condemn sin in the flesh once and for all. This is what Paul means when he calls Jesus a “sin offering.” And because God has taken on sin himself and condemned it in Jesus, there is therefore now no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus.

This is essentially what it means to be justified by grace through faith. God not only has offered us the only real way to end our alienation and exile from him, he has also dealt decisively with evil by condemning sin in the flesh through the cross of Jesus. If you want to know the heart of the Gospel, do yourself a favor and memorize the first four verses of Chapter 8 because much of the essence of the Gospel is contained in them. We don’t earn this gift nor do any of us deserve it. We are offered this great gift because God is who he is, faithful, just, and merciful. We simply must believe it is true and then live our lives like we really believe it.

But if there is now no condemnation for us who are in Christ, then why do our bodies die? Because of the residual sin in us. Our bodies die but we are not condemned because we are Christ’s through faith and he has borne the condemnation for our sin in his body. When we are Christ’s we will be where he is and be just like him, all with the help of the Spirit. As Paul alludes to in the final verses of today’s Epistle lesson, our final redemption will come when God raises our mortal bodies from the dead and transforms them into spiritual and immortal bodies, just the way God did for Jesus. Here again, we see the wondrous truth contained in the Christian faith. It is no self-help religion. The Gospel is a rescue religion and is available to all of us.

We receive this free gift of God’s grace to us in Jesus and this often happens instantaneously. In other words, we can become a Christian in a moment. But that isn’t the end of the story because there is another essential component to God’s rescue plan. Even if we do become a Christian, we still have to live in our mortal bodies and we still have to deal with our fallen nature. God understands this and again gives us what we need to overcome our brokenness. God gives us the gift of himself in the Presence of his Spirit living in us to help us become the creatures he wants us to be. This is what Paul talks about in the remainder of today’s Epistle lesson and it is worth our careful consideration because it helps us have a richer and fuller understanding of God’s wondrous gift to us in himself: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

When we give ourselves to Christ, he gives us his Spirit to live in us and help us overcome our hostility toward God and our stubborn rebelliousness. But this doesn’t happen overnight. Dr. John R.W. Stott uses this analogy to help us better understand the work of the Spirit in us. Stott likens the transforming effect of the Spirit to growth in a marriage. It takes only a few minutes for a couple to get married but it takes a lifetime of adjustment in the often tumultuous environment of home for two strong wills to dovetail into one. Likewise in our growth as Christians (which is not the same as being saved by grace through faith). We can become Christian in a matter of moments but it will take a lifetime of adjusting to the demands and promptings of the Spirit living in us to become the transformed individuals God wants us to be.

This obviously implies that we will not live mistake-free lives. Nor will we be immune from ever doing anything bad once we become Christian. For you see, the Spirit is gentle and he will never force himself on us against our will. Jesus stands and knocks at the door of our life. He doesn’t break it down. We have to want him to live in us. We have to be humble enough to let him lead us so that he can transform us into the people he wants us to be and we don’t always want to do that. After all, it’s easier to hate our enemy than to forgive him. We’d rather serve ourselves than others, especially those we do not like. All this, of course, means that we learn as we go and grow, making appropriate adjustments along the way.

That is what Paul is talking about when contrasting living life in the flesh versus living life in the Spirit. We all must decide whose will we are going to follow, our own or the Spirit’s? When we say yes to the Spirit’s Presence living in us, we can be assured that he will help us obey him and transform us into the image of Jesus so that we can love and serve God by loving and serving others.

In fact we had better count on the Spirit’s help given what Paul wrote earlier in Romans about the hopelessness of the human condition when left to its own devices and what Jesus warns us about in today’s Gospel lesson. There are plenty of things and persons who do not want us to be transformed into the image of Jesus and who will actively oppose us in our Christian journey to full maturity in Christ. But in the end we need not fear our enemies because we know that God is stronger than any of the powers and principalities and we have God’s very strength and Presence living in us in and through the Spirit.

So what can we do to cultivate the Spirit’s Presence in us so that he can transform us over our lifetime? For starters, the best thing that we can do is to have the essence of the Good News, God’s rescue plan for us and God’s creation, planted firmly in our minds. In other words, we need to give up all our illusions of self-help for rescuing our broken relationship with God and acknowledge fully that only God can do this for us (and has done so in the person of Jesus). When we really understand what God has done for us, it both humbles us and makes us profoundly thankful. Toward that end, I would again encourage you to do what I suggested at the beginning of the sermon today. Take the time this week and memorize the first four verses of Romans 8 because it comes very close to capturing the heart of the Gospel.

Of course, you memorize something by repetition and so a good strategy would be to memorize verse one the first day, repeat it the second day before you learn verse two, and so on. By the end of the week you will have the passage memorized. Then you will need to repeat it regularly to remind yourself of the Good News that there is now no condemnation for you because you are in Christ. You will want to get into a regular pattern of repeating this passage because the Evil One will work very hard to get you to either forget what you’ve memorized or stop believing it. Getting into a pattern of behavior like this will allow the Spirit to help you prevent this from happening. This, in turn, represents a best practice in living a Spirit-led life.

A second practical thing you can do is to look for the fruit of the Spirit in your life. Paul gives us some practical manifestations of the Spirit in Galatians 5.22-25. Learn what behaviors represent the fruit of the Spirit and then look for those behaviors in your daily life. For example, look for the times you are patient in situations that really tax your patience or times when you are joyful when there is no reason for you to be. Look at the state of your relationship with God. Do you experience the sense of well-being that comes with God’s peace? You won’t be able to quantify or measure this but you will know when it exists.

By contrast, you can also look at patterns of behaviors in your living that represent the fruit of the flesh. Look at Galatians 5.19-21 or Colossians 3.5-11 for examples of those behaviors. When you see them emerge in your life, ask the Spirit to help you put them to death and then trust that he will help you do so. Don’t expect the Spirit to do all the work for you. It doesn’t work like that. You’ve got to do your part and make the effort to stop letting your fallen nature control your behavior. But in doing so, you also have to remember you have help.

As you do, don’t forget to give thanks to God that there is now no condemnation for you because you are in Christ, even when your ugly side gets the better of you on occasion. I’m not talking about rationalizing sin—there is no rationalization for sin. I am talking about being profoundly grateful for the costly and wondrous gift God has given you in Christ. If you love God, that should give you additional motivation to stop living your life in patterns that you know would grieve him.

Of course, it is always helpful to do all this not by yourself but in the context of fellowship with other Christians. Remember that Jesus told us he would be with us whenever two or three gather in his name (Matthew 18.20) and the Spirit can and does use our fellowship to help transform us into his holy and called-out people.

In sum, this is the Christian hope. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. That means having the sure and certain hope that our future is secured by this awesome God of ours. But the benefits of living a Spirit-led life are not confined to the future. We can enjoy immediate benefits. God promises to give himself to us right here and now so that he can teach us to be his Kingdom workers and equip us to bring Christ’s healing love to bear on others who desperately need it. Neither do we have to wait until our body dies before we can enjoy the benefits of living life in peace and harmony with God. That is also available to us right now in and through the Spirit. When we stop and consider that God has acted decisively for us to secure both our present and our future, we realize we have Good News, now and for all eternity.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.