Sermon Transcript
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. For God has done what 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 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.
Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if we live according to the flesh, we will die, but if by the Spirit we put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. Provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
Acceptance is one of, if not the deepest longing of the human heart. Our search for acceptance can dramatically influence the decisions we make, influence how we live. I, I used to work with a woman who she said she had kind of given up on church, and she had given up on church because according to her, when she went through a divorce, her church, instead of caring for her, the church— this is her perception anyway— the church basically shunned her because of the divorce. Her friends from church, or so-called friends, they stopped talking to her. Wouldn’t invite her to lunch anymore.
When she came to church, they didn’t want to sit with her, so she felt rejected by them. And what did she do? Well, she stopped going. She sought out acceptance somewhere else, and she found it down at the bar. This is the story she told me.
She felt the bar people were always glad to see her, would ask her how she’s doing. They would sing and dance together. So over time, she moved farther away from the condemnation she perceived at church and more toward the bar where she felt accepted. On sort of the flip side, though not really a true counterstory with that woman, because I don’t believe that woman actually struggled with alcohol, but sort of on the flip side, one of the reasons why recovery programs like AA are so effective is because of acceptance. At a place like AA, you can confess to a group of people.
You can say, I’ve burned down my life, I’ve damaged all my relationships, I’ve squandered all my money, and that group of people will give you a warm, understanding smile. They’ll tell you that they are proud of you for sharing. Many of them will say, I get it, I’ve been there. Instead of shunning you, they hug you. The group communicates, you are still part of us.
This embarrassing, shameful decision that you made doesn’t isolate you. We still accept you. You are not rejected. We will not leave or forsake you. Many times they’ll even cheer for the person who confesses a failure.
They celebrate when somebody shares what they’ve done. Now, they aren’t celebrating what the person did, but they are celebrating the confession. They’re celebrating the vulnerability. It’s like Jesus says in Luke 15, there’s greater rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 who do not need to repent. So if heaven is rejoicing when someone shares the struggle and wants to turn from it.
Like, if heaven is throwing a party, then the people in AA figure, well, we should throw a party as well. And if you’re part of a group like that, it’s powerful, it’s transformative. So especially for people who feel rejected everywhere else, condemned everywhere else because of their decisions, they are drawn to those groups. It’s wonderful to be seen and loved like that, certainly better, far better than any short-term benefit they might receive from their addiction. So very often people in AA or other groups like that find success in their sobriety.
And while you may or may not have the same struggle, wouldn’t it transform your life to be part of a group like that, to find an acceptance like that? Where you’re seen to the bottom, all your failures, all your faults, your worries, your fears, they knew about those, and yet you were still embraced, loved, celebrated. Wouldn’t it help you with whatever tends to ensnare you? Such is the power of acceptance. We’re in the 8th week of our Romans series, and each week we’ve said that Romans is really about the gospel.
It’s about what Jesus has done on our behalf to bring us to God, to forgive us, to remove our shame and guilt, to redeem us, to give us a future, to make us secure, to eliminate our fears and worries, to make us whole, to give us significance and status that cannot be removed. The gospel is how Jesus earned all of that for us. And in our series each week, one way or another, those themes— forgiveness, redemption, freedom, security, unshakable status, future— Those have been common threads in each of the first 7 chapters of Romans, and today we come to Romans 8 where Paul dives into our acceptance in Christ. So as we study this passage today, we will see God’s acceptance of us, how it changes us, and then how to lean into it, or how to lean into it even more. God’s acceptance of us, how it changes us, and then how to lean into it.
Or even more lean into it. So first, God’s acceptance of us. Paul comes at God’s acceptance from 2 different angles: no condemnation plus adoption. No condemnation and also adoption. We’ll start with no condemnation.
Romans 8:1: There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. If I were ever to get a tattoo which I don’t think I will, uh, but if I ever did, my tattoo would say, not condemned. Romans 8:1, there is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Zero. None.
Ever. There’s no rejection, no shunning, Not even a little, not even a drop of that from God toward us. If we’ve placed our trust in Jesus, if we’ve looked to him to remove our guilt, as we’ve talked about each week in our series, then our guilt is gone, our debt is cleared, our shame is erased because Jesus absorbed it for us on the cross. It is no more. There is no condemnation for us ever.
Permanent pronouncement over our lives. Sometimes Christians can get the wrong idea that our forgiveness, our acceptance in Christ, that it can come and go. You know, sometimes we’re shunned maybe a little bit, sometimes we’re not. We think, you know, when we ask Jesus for forgiveness to begin with, great, we’re cleared for that moment, but we’re only cleared until we sin again, and then at that point we’re cast out again. Until we ask for forgiveness again, and over and over it goes, back and forth.
But here Paul is directly refuting that line of thinking. He says, in Christ there is no condemnation for you, not now, not ever. You are always in the clear. You don’t come in and out of acceptance. Acceptance is your eternal status.
It is not like, you know, when sometimes our friends forgive us, there can just be a lingering tension. Maybe they forgive us but they still seem a little distant. With God it’s not like that, there is no lingering tension, there is no distance ever because there is no condemnation. See, that would be a pretty good tattoo, right? Not condemned.
What other permanent mark would we want on ourselves? What else would we want to see, you know, daily written over our lives other than no condemnation. Now, if you’re not familiar with the Bible, you might know Romans 8 is not the only place where this no condemnation language is used. We get a great picture of it in a famous account in John 8 where the religious leaders bring a woman to Jesus who was guilty of adultery. It’s not that she was suspected of it, It’s not that there were rumors, it was no doubt about it, she was guilty.
And as they bring this woman to Jesus, they remind Jesus, they say, hey, Jesus, remember the law says we are to stone such a person. She deserves execution for her actions. You remember that, Jesus? They weren’t wrong, that is what the law says. But then Jesus responds, and this is— you’re probably familiar with this even if you’ve never read the Bible before.
Jesus tells the crowd, he says, let him who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her. He says, I mean, in other words, if there’s anyone here who isn’t also guilty, maybe not of the same thing, but of something, if there’s anybody here who isn’t also guilty like she is, then that person can be the first one to throw a stone at her for her execution, which takes the air out of their balloon. This crowd that was so amped up to judge this woman suddenly realized they deserved to be judged as well, and no one throws the stone. Eventually, everyone walks away, which leaves this woman alone with Jesus. She’s alone with the one person who was totally innocent under the law.
She’s alone with the one person who doesn’t deserve to be judged, the one person who is without sin. And Jesus had just said, let him who is without sin be the first to cast a stone. So she may be wondering, will Jesus do it? Will he cast the first stone? He’s qualified to do so.
I mean, he’s elsewhere, he says he’s going to judge the earth. So she, she doesn’t know what her fate will be when she’s standing alone with Jesus. But then Jesus asked her, has no one condemned you? And she replies, no one, Lord. And then Jesus says, neither do I condemn you.
There’s no condemnation for you. And then he adds, now go leave your life of sin. But first, it’s no condemnation. First, it’s you are accepted. Then after you understand there’s no condemnation for you, then there’s life change.
Life change is second, not first, and that order is important. Acceptance is first. Christianity is the, is the reverse of basically everything else in the world, whether it’s religion or how Jobs work, acceptance with friends, pretty much everything else is measure up, earn it, and then after you earn it, then you will be accepted. Everything else is, number one, leave your life of sin, and then if you do, at that point, there will be no condemnation for you. But Christianity starts with there is no condemnation.
It starts with forgiveness and acceptance before we get ourselves cleaned up, Before any change happens, Jesus accepts us while we’re still a mess. In the middle of our sin, he accepts us. There is no condemnation for Christ. That’s one of Paul’s descriptions of our acceptance. But we get much more than simply no condemnation.
This woman who was brought to Jesus and was guilty, it’s not only that the hammer didn’t fall on her, which would be wonderful enough, But that’s actually only the beginning. Paul describes, you know, not only is there no condemnation, there is also adoption. In our passage, Paul refers to Christians as sons of God 3 times, verses 14, 15, and 19, children of God another 3 times, 16, 17, and 21. God bestows upon us the status of sonship. All of us, men and women, sons.
Now sometimes in our culture, women may not appreciate being called sons, just like men may not appreciate being called the bride of Christ, which is another biblical concept that we won’t cover today but have before. And we may want to smooth those out. We may want to not refer to women as sons, and we may not want to refer to men as prides. But we should never smooth out Scripture because if we do, we’ll miss something. And in this case, with women being called sons, Paul is including them in something they could not be included in, in their culture.
In Rome, only males were adopted. But here Paul is saying all Christians are adopted into God’s family. God becomes their Father. And by relating what we have with God to adoption, Paul brings to mind for his readers everything associated with Roman adoption. In Rome, adoption was common because many times people wouldn’t have an heir to whom— of their own to whom they could bequeath their estate, so they would adopt someone.
And most of the time they adopted an adult. It’s a very common practice in Rome to have an heir that was not your biological child. All of Paul’s readers were familiar with it, and the moment adoption occurred, it immediately had 4 implications for the new son, 3 of which mention immediately one later. First, the son’s old debts and legal obligations were paid, so whatever he owed, he didn’t owe anymore. Second, he got a new name and was instantly an heir to everything the father owned.
The father’s estate was his estate. He could put the family crest on any documents. He had the status and privileges of the father into the community. And third, his new father became liable for all his actions. Going forward.
Anytime in the future that the son incurred another debt, it would be absorbed by the father. Anytime the son committed a crime and owed a fine, the father would pay it. Anytime he acted dishonorably, the shame would be carried by the father. And this is how Paul describes what we have with God. Jesus paid our debts.
We get his name and status. Everything that belongs to him is ours. His riches of heaven, his eternal glory, is ours. We are co-heirs with Christ, as it says in these verses, and we can’t lose it because he’s liable for all of our future failures. He covers any of our future debts.
Such is our acceptance in Christ. Now imagine being this guilty woman who was brought to Jesus, and you— and she learns that not only is the hammer of judgment not going to fall on her, But also, she’s adopted, something not even available to women. And she’s not only adopted by some estate owner in Rome, she’s adopted by God himself. If that woman who was about to be executed understood all of that, that she went from death row to princess of heaven in about 2 seconds, How do you think she would respond? What do you think her life looked like afterwards?
Now, we don’t know any more of her story because she never appears again in Scripture, but we can take a guess because we could put ourselves in her shoes. And really, she represents all of us because we are also all on death row, guilty, deserving of judgment. But God raises us to be seated in the heavenly realms with Christ. When that happens, what’s our reaction? It brings us to our next point, is how God’s acceptance of us changes us as we follow after him.
If he has taken away our condemnation, given us his status and glory, provided us a forever future that doesn’t depend on our performance, where we never need to worry about measuring up in order to be included— if we’re accepted like that What else would we want besides him? If people are drawn to acceptance, and we are, right? If acceptance is like a magnet to our souls, if people are attracted to AA because they feel known and loved when they are there, how much more would the gravitational pull of God’s acceptance bind us to him? I would wager that the woman caught in adultery spent the rest of her life following Jesus. Because in Jesus she had someone who embraced her and elevated her when everyone else rejected her, when she deserved to be rejected.
Jesus forgives her, adopts her. You know, interestingly, what many people point out about this account of this woman who was brought to Jesus, many people point out the crowd only brings the woman who is guilty of adultery to Jesus. But no one can commit adultery alone, so there must have been a man involved who was also just as guilty. Where is he? Why isn’t he standing trial as well?
We don’t know, but what we do know is that wherever he is, he has abandoned her. Here’s a woman who is apparently willing to risk it all to be with him, She was willing to do anything for his acceptance, but then he rejects her. Obviously, he rejects her. He’s not there with her. He must, he must have left, but Jesus didn’t.
Jesus is still standing with her. So in him, she has found an acceptance that isn’t shaky. She’s found an acceptance that will remain even when she’s guilty, even when she’s a failure. In Jesus, she has found someone who won’t leave So what else would she do but go with him in the future? Where else would you— what else would she want?
Who else would she want to follow? I imagine when Jesus said, now leave your— neither do I condemn you, now leave your life of sin, I imagine she thought, of course, of course I’m going to leave my life. I’m going with you. Wherever you go, I’m going. Because my sin never gave me what you’re giving me.
My old life didn’t provide the richness and the belonging that I have with you. My old life comparatively was really, it was empty, it was just death. I mean, literally in her case, her old life was going to lead to execution, death. But that parallels what we will find in our lives apart from Christ. Paul describes in our passage verse 6 and verse 13, if we set our minds on the flesh, If we live in hostility to God’s law, if we don’t follow what God wants, it’s death, it’s emptiness, it gets us nowhere.
It’s a warning that Paul gives us. He says, don’t go there, that’s not going to fill you, it’ll rob from you. But then Paul adds comfortingly, verse 9, he says, but that’s not you, that’s not what you’re going to do, you’re not going to stray from God. At least not for long. Like the woman who would naturally follow Jesus for the rest of her life, Paul says that’s what you’re going to do, Christian, because you’ve been adopted, you’ve been redeemed, you’ve been given the status of a heavenly throne in Christ.
You have the best acceptance imaginable, and after you taste that, you don’t want to go back to death row. You’ll tell Jesus like she would have, of course I’m coming with you, it’s not even a question how I’ll live now. And that’s the point Paul makes. It’s really verses 5 through 8. It’s as a result of what Jesus has done for us, we orient toward him.
We walk in line with his Spirit. We live according to him. We follow him. We want to honor him. We want to please him because of what he’s done for us, which is actually the 4th implication of adoption in the Roman world.
After the old debts and legal obligations were paid, after the son got a new name and was instantly an heir to everything the father owned, After the new father became liable for all future failures, fourth, the new son was obligated to honor and please the father, represent the family to the world in the way that the father wanted. Now if the son failed, if he dishonored the family, the father was the one who was liable for it, the father paid for it, the son was still a son, so the son was safe in his status and future and he didn’t need to fear failure. But that arrangement came with an expectation: the son would live in a way that honored and pleased the father. It wasn’t an expectation that really required much, if any, coercion. It’s not like the son really needed anyone to twist his arm to honor and please the father after, after the father had given him everything.
He’d been brought from zero to hero. I mean, in the Roman world, it was typically wealthy people who adopted heirs. Heirs, and they, uh, and they typically didn’t adopt other very wealthy people because they would have had their own arrangement. So if you were adopted, it meant suddenly you had a future that you didn’t have before, and as a result, you’re going to want to live in gratitude for the one who provided that future for you. So it didn’t take coercion to honor the father, but it was an expectation, and that’s what we have in Christ.
After we receive him, we follow him. God, in fact, guarantees that we will follow him because he puts his Spirit in us. When God adopts us, it’s not just past and future debts paid, new status given. He also gives us his Spirit to guide us and transform us from within, which is referred to throughout this passage. Verse 9, the Spirit of God dwells in you.
Verse 10, Christ is in you. Verse 11, the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you. Verse 14, for all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. Verse 15, for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons. When God adopts us, he lives in us, and he will pull us to himself.
It’s like a tether. Whenever we stray from him, and we will, You know, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love, we just sang it. When we do that, we will return. First, because His acceptance is deeper and richer than anything we can find anywhere else, so we’re naturally drawn to Him. But second, we will return if He’s in us.
If He is in us, we will return. He won’t let us stray very far. He will bring us back. He bought us with a price. He’s not going to let us go.
So let me ask you, Christian, have you experienced this? Have you felt God tugging on you when you run away from him? Those times when you said, forget you, Jesus, I’m out of here, I’m going to go do my own thing, I’m going to pursue the darkness, I want to, I love the darkness.
After you started running How far did you get?
What did it feel like? Feel like you’re swimming upstream? Feel like there was some kind of cord attached to your soul that was pulling you back to him?
Eventually you turned around, didn’t you? Even if you were able to run for a couple of years, you couldn’t keep going and you wanted to be back with him.
If so, if that happened, it’s evidence that you’re a son. It’s evidence that His Spirit is within you. Verse 16, the Spirit bears witness. It tells us, the Spirit tells us that we are His children. If you’ve experienced that, if you’ve strayed but felt drawn back, it’s proof that you’re His.
And the longer that you are a Christian, The more times that that has happened, the more evidence you have. So after you’ve strayed 10,000 times and been brought back 10,000 times, you’re an expert now, you’ve reached your 10,000 hours, you gain your confidence that you’re really his. You realize, oh, he won’t let me go. He will liberate me from this struggle. He will make me holy.
He’s not gonna give up on me. Because I’m his, I’ve been adopted. That’s how God’s acceptance of us changes us, we follow after him. Now finally, how to lean into this or how to lean into it even more, whether you’re not a Christian or you’ve maybe you’ve been a Christian for a long time and you long to experience his acceptance, you want to feel the depth of what Christ has provided for you and then be transformed as a result. How to lean into it, or even more, is set your mind on him.
Paul says those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on things of the Spirit and find life and peace. It’s setting our minds on the Spirit that leads to life and peace. But what does that mean? That seems rather vague. What are the things of the Spirit?
Is it just goodness, truth, honesty, beauty? We’re supposed to set our minds on those things instead of evil? Well, yes, but also no, not exactly. It’s more specific than that. In John 15, Jesus tells His disciples that the Spirit bears witness to Him.
In John 16, Jesus says the Spirit glorifies Him. In other words, the Spirit’s job is to make much of Jesus. The Spirit’s job is not to draw us to truth and beauty in a vague sense, but in a very specific sense, in Jesus. The Spirit points us to Jesus ultimately. So while the Spirit may lead us in many ways, remind us of many things, it all culminates in Jesus and more precisely in his crucifixion, which is what Paul describes starting in verse 2.
Paul says, the Spirit has set you free. Well, great! How? How do I get this freedom? Verse 3, for God has done what the law and what we could not do by sending his own Son for sin.
And that phrase for sin means, it’s sometimes translated as a sin offering, a sacrifice, a substitute. The Spirit has set us free through Jesus’ substitutionary work on the cross in our place. The reason there is no condemnation for us is because there was condemnation for Jesus. The reason Jesus can tell the woman caught in adultery, you will not be executed, is because as he is talking with her, he knows that he will be executed. He will bear her guilt so that she can be free.
The reason she is off of death row is because Jesus put himself on death row. He came for sin as a sin offering, a sacrifice. Paul tells us to set our minds on that. And then we will live according to it. Imagine, you know, this woman who was brought to Jesus.
Imagine in the future if she was ever tempted again to go in the wrong direction, if she felt drawn to the darkness once more. What would free her from that? If she could remember back to the day that she was about to be stoned to death, her life was about to be over, She was minutes away from being brutally executed, but then Jesus released her from her condemnation by being condemned in her place. His wounds provided for her future. If she could take herself back to that moment, her heart would melt.
She would want to follow Jesus all over again. So, Christian, if you’re struggling to follow God, Or if you’re not a Christian and you wonder how do you even start, where to begin, the next step is the same. You set your mind on what Jesus did for you, standing in your place. Him rejected so you could be adopted. Him cast out so you could be brought in.
Him despised so you could be celebrated. You focus on that until it becomes real to you and you will encounter a far better acceptance than can be found anywhere else. You’ll want more and more of him. You’ll give your life to him, and you’ll turn away from anything that isn’t him. You’ll find life and peace.
Let’s pray. Father, thank you for Jesus, for being a substitute, for saying there is not condemnation for us, for taking the condemnation that we deserve, for giving us his status and glory, for elevating us so high and exalted, Lord. May that become real in our hearts today, and may we change as a result. We pray those things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
