Transcription
[Music] Well, if you have your Bibles, I'm inviting you to return with me to Romans chapter 8, where we're gonna wrap up Paul's discussion about the law. This is really the end of what you would have in chapter 7, his summary of that. We'll stop after today and then pick it up again in August.
But this morning, we come in our study of Romans to chapter 8. It is truly one of the greatest chapters in all of the Word of God. It is a thrilling chapter. It is a chapter that starts with no condemnation and ends with no separation. It's one of the most encouraging chapters in all of God's Word. If you're struggling with guilt, read Romans 8. If you're struggling with sin, read Romans 8. If you're going through a hard time, read Romans 8. If you're struggling to pray, read Romans 8. If you're feeling distant from God, read Romans 8. In fact, if you're feeling good, read Romans 8, you'll feel even better. It's an amazing, amazing chapter.
When we come to really one of the great verses in Romans chapter 8, because this verse tells us the good news about the good news. So, as we look at it today, if you're taking notes, and I hope y'all want to, I'll give you three aspects about the good news about the good news. And the first one is this: First of all, the reality. The reality, and the reality for us is celebration. Let's read at Romans chapter 8, verse 1: "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."
"There is therefore now no condemnation." And you know, we have a tendency to read that verse so fast, and what happens is we'll read it fast, move on, and they rejoice for the moment in it. They say, "Wow, that's a great verse." Maybe you've got it underlined in your Bible. The question is not, "Do you have it underlined?" and not, "Have you rejoiced?" but, "Do you really understand it?" Do you understand what it's saying? Do you understand the power of it? Because it is arguably one of the greatest verses. "There is therefore now no condemnation."
First of all, I want you to notice the word "now." It's not talking about later. He's not talking about heaven. He's not talking about when you get your act together. He's not talking about when you're on your deathbed. "Now" means right now. From the moment you got saved, from that millisecond of your salvation, on through today, on throughout all eternity. "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."
Second, I want you to notice this: not only the word "now," but the word "no." Now, you wouldn't think that "no" would have to be defined to a highly educated group of people like you. But the longer I pastored, the more I have realized that most Christians need a working definition of "no." So, here it is: "No." Turn to your neighbor and say, "No." Let's make sure we all know how to pronounce it. The first definition of "no" is used to give a negative response. For example, "Is anything wrong?" "No." Now, that's probably true, unless you're talking about marriage dynamics, and then "no" could mean "yes." But outside of that, this may be better: "No, I will not go on a date with your cousin Ralph." Synonyms: "Absolutely not." "Most certainly not." "Of course not." "Under no circumstances." "By no means." "Not at all." "Negative." "Never." "Not really." "Nope." "Not up." "Now." "Not on your life." "No way." "No way, Jose." "Ixnay." Hopefully, you had time to write those down.
Now, "no" means "no." "There is therefore now no condemnation." "No" in this verse does not mean "less." A lot of Christians read the word "no," but then they live their lives as if the word "no" meant "less." They have a tendency to think, "Well, now there's less condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." Let me just say this: the Christian is a person who has been taken completely out of the realm of any possible or conceivable condemnation. There is no condemnation. The Christian has nothing to do with condemnation. There is no condemnation now, and there never can be. It is impossible for the Christian to ever be in a state in their relationship with God where there is one ounce, one iota of condemnation. The meaning of the word "no" is "no." It means never will there be condemnation. It's a good place to say "Amen," because this is true. You should never feel condemnation because this is true. Say it again, because this is really important: You should never feel condemnation.
You say, "Well, why do I feel condemnation?" The condemnation you feel is a result of two things. First of all, it is a result of your lack of understanding of what God did for you in the gospel, which is why we've taken so much time in Romans. Because when you really understand what it means to be justified, when you understand justification and what God did for you, then you understand that condemnation is an absolute impossibility relative to your relationship with Christ. You don't understand. You haven't trained your heart, your mind, or your conscience. Therefore, you find yourself condemned because of the weakness of your flesh, not because of the moving of the Spirit in your life.
Second, you feel condemnation because the enemy is coming to you, and the enemy is trying to make you feel condemned. The enemy is trying to use what you know about God's Word against you. And so, whether it is you or whether it is the enemy, in that moment that you feel any condemnation, you need to rise up. You need to memorize this verse. You need to say loudly to yourself, and to the enemy, and to the world, if necessary: "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."
As a Christian, our sins have been dealt with, gone. Our relationship with the law is one where we are dead to the law. It has no jurisdiction in our life. It cannot accuse us. It cannot condemn us. And it cannot prescribe punishment to us. There's no condemnation. Most of the problems we face as Christians would be diminished or completely resolved if we understood this verse. Notice it says Romans chapter 8 and verse 1: "There is therefore now no condemnation for who? To those who are in Christ Jesus." A little word with an absolutely huge meaning.
You remember when we were in Romans chapter 5, that we said there are two categories in all humanity: there are those who are in Adam, and there are those who are in Christ. Everybody apart from salvation is in Adam. That's why we all sin. That's why we are all sinners. That is why we all died. We're in Adam. He is our representative head. He was acting on our behalf. Not only that, we were in him genetically, if you will. We're in him. What that word "in" means is it's as if what happened to him happened to us. If you do not get a hold of the fact that humanity is in Adam, if you don't really understand that, if you don't really embrace that, then being in Christ will be meaningless to you. It's a problem in the contemporary church, seriously. A lot of contemporary Christians do not want to believe in the depravity of man. They don't want to believe that man is a sinner. They want to believe that somehow man is good. But if you, if you go there, and if you don't see and understand biblically what the Bible says about mankind is in Adam, then being in Christ will make no sense to you.
But "there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ." That means that what happened to Him happened to us. We're in Him. It means that when He died on the cross, we died with Him. When He died to sin, we died with Him. When He died to the law, we died with Him. What happened to Him happened to us. He died and rose again; we will die and rise again. We're in Christ, and there's no condemnation. We're wrapped in Him. We're clothed in Him. We're in Christ, totally wrapped up in Him. So there's no condemnation for us because there's no condemnation for Him. If you're in Him, if He's wrapped you, if He's covered you, if you're surrounded by Christ, and He's not condemned, you're not condemned. "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ."
You say, "Well, what about if I sinned? What happens then?" As a Christian, if you sin, what you have to understand is you're not sinning against the law. You're sinning against love. For a non-Christian, that's not true. For a non-Christian, when they sin, they are sinning against the law of God. And you read Revelation, and here's what it says: It says everything that an unbeliever does is written down in the books, and someday the books will be opened. They will stand before the One whose eyes burn with fire, and they will give an account for everything they have done as was recorded in the books. They sinned against law. It would be like somebody who sins against the laws of the state of Missouri, and the law would prescribe not only the crime but the punishment.
On the other hand, for the believer, we've died to the law. We're not, we're not subject to the law. The law has no jurisdiction over a dead person. Remember, we've talked about that repeatedly. Instead, what we have is we have a relationship with Christ. We are, in Romans 7 and in Ephesians 5, married to Christ. We're joined to Christ. Therefore, when you and I sin, it's not a sin against the law because the law has no bearing on us. It's a sin against love. It would be like a husband who does something that offends his wife, or a wife who does something that has offended her husband. It's not breaking the law; it's breaking their heart. When you and I sin, it's not a matter of being condemned. It's not a matter of a crime committed and punishment prescribed. It's a matter of you and I having offended the One who loved us so much He died for us. And there's not a condemnation in that. You don't feel condemnation, or you shouldn't, with your spouse. You should feel shame. It's a big difference between the two. So, "there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." That's the reality, and we celebrate that: no condemnation.
The second thing I want you to notice, and I want you to notice the reason. The reason that there is no condemnation, that's justification. Now, let me just bring up the definition so we're all on the same page. Justification is the act of God whereby the sinner is given faith to believe. What happens is, when you come, there are times people will come to me and they'll say, "You know, I will believe that, I just can't believe. I just don't seem to have the faith." I say, "Hey, that's, that's no big deal. You don't have to have the faith to believe, because it's not your faith that saves you. It's the faith that God gives you that saves you." And God gives the faith. He gives us all things that we need. What does 2 Peter say? "He has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness." So, God gives the sinner the faith that we need to believe. To every man has been given the measure of faith. God gives us the faith that we need to believe. And watch what happens: Justification is the act of God whereby the sinner is given faith to believe, receives forgiveness of all sin, all sin, past sin, present, and future sin. Sin that you haven't yet committed. You say, "Well, but I, what I have to do is I have to make sure I confess that sin so that I'm forgiven." That sin doesn't work that way. At the point that you were saved, at the point that you were justified, all your sin was forgiven. All of it. Forgiven all of it under the blood, all of it cleansed, all of it removed from you, all of it gone. It's all gone. That's an amazing thing. If that, if that's all we got out of being a Christian, that would be massive.
But having your sins forgiven, too, is not the same as having right standing with God. Having your sins forgiven is not the same as being righteous enough to stand in His presence. And so, what God did through His Son, Jesus, is He gave us a righteousness of Christ. He has assigned to us the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Now, look at this in Romans chapter 8, verse 2: "For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus." There it is again: "in Him." "From the law of sin and death." What's the law of sin and death? The law of sin and death is the commands of God. It's the law that accuses us. It is the law that exacerbates sin. It's the law that excites sin. Paul says, "I would not have known what covetousness was had it not been for the law." But "sin, seizing the opportunity, produced in me all kinds of covetousness." Remember in Romans 7? In other words, what happens is there's the command, and you and I can't keep the command in our own human flesh, and then sin comes along, and Romans chapter 7, verse 11, sets up a base of operations. Sin, seizing the opportunity presented by the law, begins to attack us. Here's what it says: "The law of the Spirit of life." What is that? That's the gospel. And we won't take, I could take you through the New Testament and demonstrate that. For the sake of time, let's just say for the law of the Spirit of life, the gospel has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. How did that happen? Look at it, verse 3: "For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do."
Now, listen. The law wasn't bad. We saw that in Romans 7 again, again. This is the that climaxes, is the summary of Romans chapter 7. The law, I think it's in verse 12, is holy, righteous, and good. Nothing wrong with the law. Everything wrong with us. We can't keep the law. The law was not a problem for Jesus, because Jesus was perfect. He was sinless, sinless, spotless. He was able to keep the law, absolutely, totally, perfectly, which was the basis of His righteous life. He was a spotless sacrifice. God placed on Him our sin. He kept the law perfectly. We gave Him our sinful life; He gave us His righteous life and clothed us in it. But we couldn't do it.
"For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do." What could the law not do? The law could not justify you. The law could not forgive you. All the law can do is point out where you're wrong. It can't erase the mistake. All the law can do is prescribe punishment. It can't pay the penalty. It can't substitute for the punishment. That's why we needed something more than the law to save us.
Now, look at this, verse 3: "For God has done..." I want to stop there for just a moment, because again, sometimes we read so fast, we don't stop and think about what it's saying. God did something. God saw something. God did something for us that we couldn't do for ourselves, and the law couldn't do for us. And that is the heart of the gospel. The heart of the gospel is God did something for us. The heart of the gospel is God saw us in our sinful estate and had mercy on us. The heart of the gospel is, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." The heart of the gospel is God loved us, and it wasn't an afterthought on His part. It was something that even before the creation of the world, even before Adam and Eve were in the garden, God was planning for. When I say "our salvation," that's true, but let's not just put it in an ethereal "our." Let's put it in a personal "you and yours." God was planning for your salvation. He's planning for my salvation.
Look at this in Ephesians chapter 1. I love this. This is from Message: "Long before He laid down Earth's foundations, He had us in mind." Do you know what? Nothing about you has escaped God's notice. God thinks about you a lot. How much does God think about you? Psalm 139 says this. He says, "How precious are Your thoughts about me! They are too many to count, too many to number." God's thinking about you a million times more than you've ever thought about Him. And what is God thinking about you? Before the creation of the earth, according to this, God had John on His mind. God was thinking about the person He would create. God was thinking about how He would reach out to you. God was thinking about what you would need and how He would demonstrate His love. God was thinking about today. God was thinking about May 6, 2018, you sitting in this room, you hearing this as a believer and being encouraged, you hearing this as an unbeliever and being called to salvation. God was thinking about you. God's been thinking about you a whole lot. God loves you so much.
Look at it: "He had settled on us as the focus of His love, to be made whole and holy by His love long, long ago. He decided to adopt us into His family through Jesus Christ. What pleasure He took in planning this." God was thinking about you. Here's an interesting verse. I think it's in Revelation 13:8. It says that your name was written down in the book of life, the Lamb's Book of Life, before the foundation of the earth. God has been planning not just for your creation, but for your salvation for a long, long time.
"For God has done..." A problem with a lot of Christians simply is this: they've made salvation all about them. They process salvation in terms of their experience, their feelings, their emotion, their the star of the show, their what it's all about. When they got saved, what they were doing when they got saved, how they felt when they got saved, how they felt after they got saved, how they've used salvation since they've been saved. They've made their Christianity about them, which is absolutely foreign to Scripture. We've talked a lot about "for everyone." Look, you take it yourself, take ten of Christ. But let me just put it to you in another way to help you get this in your heart theologically and the importance of this. If we get our eyes off of ourselves long enough to be to look at God, then we'll be filled with praise. When we think that this incredibly great and powerful and glorious and awesome and splendid God, in love, thought of us before we were ever created, that He planned for our creation, He planned for our salvation, that He loved us so much that we're on His mind continually, and that He's working all things together to bring us to a knowledge of Him. And after we know Him, oh my goodness, He's working to develop us, to grow us, to go before us. He's adopted us as His children. He's thrilled when we call on His name. He looks down and says, "That's my son. That's my daughter. I can't wait to spend eternity with him. I am so pleased to be able to reveal myself to them." That is the God we serve, and that's what salvation is about. The more we think about what He's done for us, the more we think about who He is, the more we process salvation in terms of not just us, but the God who loved us so much that He reached down to us, the more we'll know His joy and the more confidence we'll have that "there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."
For God had planned to do. God did something. God has done what the law, bring it up again, God has done with the law. We can do by the flesh could not do. God did something. We say, "What did He do?" By sending His own Son. I want you to notice this: by sending not just His Son, but by sending "the Son." It's a reminder to us of Jesus' identity. People can talk all day long about all roads leading to heaven, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the bottom line is, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me." The Apostles reaffirmed that in Acts chapter 4. They said, "There is no other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved." Jesus Christ is the source of salvation. He is the way of salvation. And it is only through faith in Him that we will experience salvation. And Jesus Christ is not a man in the sense of a typical human being. But no, He is God, very God, co-equal, co-eternal, co-existent with the Father. He's not a lesser God. He's not a created God. He is God. And God has done what the law we can by the flesh could not do by sending His own Son.
Watch this: "in the likeness of sinful flesh." I want you to notice the precision with which Paul is explaining this. "In the likeness of sinful flesh," not "in sinful flesh." He comes as a man, but He's not just a man. He is God come down to His own. This is the mystery of what theologians call the Incarnation: the God-man, 100% deity wrapped in 100% humanity. He was in the likeness of human flesh. You say, "What, what does that mean?" That means He was human, but without sin. And He stayed that way, even though He was tempted. The writer of Hebrews says, "In every way, as we are, yet without sin." He perfectly withstood every single temptation. You have to believe He had the greatest temptations of all thrown at Him, and yet He was without sin. He came in human flesh. Why? To save humanity. He couldn't give human beings a righteous life if He had not lived a righteous human life to give them. He could not take the place of human beings if He were not a human being.
"God has done what the law could not do, weakened by the flesh, by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin." Whose sin? Our sin. To be the sacrifice, to take our place. He on the cross took our place. And in that moment, what did He do? He condemned sin in the flesh. You say, "What does that mean?" He came as an offering for sin. Our sins were placed on Him. And in that moment, God judged our sin by judging Him. This is, this is the miracle of what happened at the cross. That in that moment, the Bible says, "He who had no sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21) "became sin for us." In that moment, God took all of our sin and placed it on Him, all of it. And God punished Him for our sin. Imagine what is the punishment for our sin? For any one of us, for a lifetime of sin, or even a few hours of sin, what would be the punishment? It would be eternal death. It would be eternity in the lake of fire. One of the miracles of God pouring out His wrath at the cross is that what He did is He compressed an eternity of billions and billions and beyond billions of years of punishment, compressed it and poured it out on the Son. No wonder, as He bears the sin of everyone who would ever believe, in God punishing Him, no wonder He cries out, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" And it tastes death for all men, that all men who believe in Him would not die. He took our place. He bore the condemnation for our sin.
So, the reality is celebration: no condemnation. The reason is justification. What Jesus did in that moment when He gave us faith to believe, forgave our sin, and clothed us with His righteousness. The result is sanctification. What is sanctification? Sanctification is this process whereby, and we're gonna see it later in the book of Romans, in Romans chapter 8, God makes us like Jesus, the perfect Man, the perfect human being. You said, "You mean we can be made perfect?" Not in this life, but we become more and more like Him. The call of Scripture: God says over and over again, "Be holy, for I am holy." In Hebrews chapter 12, it says, "Without holiness, no man will see God." The question is, "How do you and I become holy?" That's really the issue. And what this, what Romans is teaching us is it's not by way of rules.
Now, watch this. I want you to watch this in verse 8, there, verse 4, excuse me: "in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us." You say, "What does that mean? What's the righteous requirement of the law?" The righteous requirement of the law is simply this: that sin must be punished. And Jesus bore that punishment. The law demands perfect obedience. And Jesus perfectly obeyed. Therefore, "in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us." You say, "How's this work?" Jesus fulfilled the law. If we're in Him, we have fulfilled the law. Jesus fulfilled the law. He fulfilled it all perfectly. You don't stand before God as righteous because you came to church today. You don't stand righteous before God because you tried to be a good person. You stand righteous before God because you're clothed in a righteousness that's never been yours from the beginning. It was His. It was His righteous life. It's the righteous life He perfectly lived. He took your unrighteousness and, in a divine exchange, gave you His righteousness. And now you're clothed in His righteousness. You're in Him. You're wrapped up in Christ. Your Christ has, has Himself around you. And therefore, because He fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law, you fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law. So, what it means to be in Christ: what happened to Him happened to us. If He did it, we did it. It's as if we did it.
Now, look at what else He goes on to say: "in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh." Now, a lot of people, and I'm not gonna take a lot of time to go over different verses in the Bible on walking according to the flesh. Most people understand that to mean, "Why, you know, the flesh, that's the, you know, that's lust, and that's anger, and that's sorcery, and that's sensuality, and that's, you know, lying, and stealing, and murder." Those are all, you know, acts of the flesh. And that's true. Paul defines in Galatians chapter 5 the works of the flesh and gives a list very similar to that. But I think it's important for us to understand that the flesh, when we're talking about the flesh, that does not always mean a person is leading an overtly sinful life. Fact, that's not Paul's point here at all. What Paul is talking about here, and who he is addressing in this, "the righteous requirement of the law has been fulfilled in us because we are in Christ." And then he says, "who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."
So, we're not walking according to the flesh. What, what does that mean? In Galatians chapter 3, Paul writes to the Galatians, and what happened in Galatians is Paul goes into this region of Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, preaches the gospel, and then he sets up leaders in the church and he moves on. And false teachers come in. And here's what false teachers start doing with the Galatians: they're saying, "Oh, man, you you've heard the gospel from Paul? Yeah, yeah, we've given our, we've put our faith in Christ. He's forgiven us of all our sin, and now we have right standing with God." And the, the false teachers come in and they say, "Wow, that's, that's really great. But, you know, I mean, Paul's a busy guy, probably didn't get to stay here very long, teach you some things. But let me just, let me just give you a few things. I'll help you here. You know, there's a few things that if you do, make it even more righteous for them." It was the Jewish law, especially as it relates to males, being circumcised. You know, if you do that, boy, God's gonna really think you're, you're really righteous. And for a lot of people, what happens is they get saved, and then well-meaning people, as we've said, come along and say, "You know what? We'll really help you to be even more righteous, really growing this thing, if you do this, this, this." And you know, if you do those things, and you know, God's gonna, you know, you, you're gonna feel the pleasure of heaven because you're doing these things. The problem is when you don't do them, and you can't measure up to somebody else's standard or your own, you've put yourself back under the law.
Paul says that when a believer puts themselves under the law, when a believer tries to reduce following Christ and being Christ-like to rules, that is the same as walking in the flesh. Watch this, are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? I mean, are you really thinking that by keeping a law, are you really thinking by keeping some outward, external commandment, that somehow that is going to make you? When a person does that, what happens is they're not, they're not becoming more like Christ. They are simply walking deeper into the flesh. And the proof of that is, as we've talked about over and over again, is they start living that law, and they become proud about it. They become competitive about it. They become judgmental of others on it. Or on the other hand, they begin to think about themselves, look at themselves, feel less than they should. They focus on "I," which is the whole essence of sin. They're walking in the flesh, but they think they're being a good Christian. And again, I remind you that a rules-based approach to holiness produces unholiness. You will never be holy by rules. You will never grow in godliness by rules. You will only grow by walking in the Spirit and letting the Spirit of God produce in you what only He can produce.
Now, watch this as we go back to Romans chapter 8: "in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us because we're in Christ." So Christ has done that. "Who walk not according to the flesh." We're not, we're not into a list of rules. And listen, when you go back to rules, you immediately set yourself up for condemnation, which is why so many Christians struggle with feeling condemned. When you've been set free from the law, why would you put yourself back under it? "Who walk not according to the flesh," not according to keeping some external code, not according to trying to make myself right before God, not according to trying to make myself right just by what I do, but "according to the Spirit."
So, what happens is, all of God doing, all that God can do in our salvation, the Son around us, the Spirit in us, the Father for us, all of God involved in salvation. To go through Romans, yeah, I mean, you'll be on your feet shouting. But the Spirit of God is what He's talking about here. He's gonna talk about the Spirit a lot in Romans 8. And what the Spirit does is the Spirit begins to work in us to produce in us what? Christ likeness. To conform us to, to mold us into the image of His Son. What is it that the Spirit does? How, what are some of the things the Spirit produces? You don't have to look any farther than Galatians chapter 5, the fruit of the Spirit. Now, the fruit of the Spirit, Paul writes this in Galatians chapter 5, is what? Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness. The list goes on. But I want to, I want to stop here for just a moment. What's the first thing? Love. Now, the fruit of the Spirit is love. The production of the Spirit in us is love. You know what's interesting? When we get to Romans chapter 13 and verse 9, here's what you're gonna find: "Love is the fulfillment of the law." That when you and I walk in love, live in love, then we fulfill the law. Jesus said, as much as they came to Him trying to figure out 613 laws, they're trying the Pharisaic Judaism of Jesus. They, you know, like, man, 613 laws, that's a lot. And who can keep them all? So Jesus, if there's only one law a person is going to keep, which one is it? And what does He say? "This is the greatest law: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind. And the second is like unto it: Love your neighbor as yourself." In this is all the law and the prophets fulfilled. Love fulfills the law.
How do you and I, how do you and I look like Christ? How do you and I live like Christ? By a list of rules, or by the power of the Spirit? It's the power of the Spirit producing in us the life of Christ, starting with love. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. So, we're walking in this relationship, we're walking in this power, we're walking in this freedom, we're walking in this joy, we're walking in the Spirit. And the Spirit of God is producing in us not only a familial relationship with the Father that causes us, in verse 15, to say, "Oh, Abba, Father, Daddy God," but produces in us a love for God and a love for others that is continually, constantly increasing because of His work. Love fulfills all the commands. Love casts out all fear.
And so, we've seen this. We've seen the reality. We live in is celebration. There's no condemnation. God is not condemning you. Why are you condemning yourself? Maybe it's time you stood up to yourself and stood up to the devil and simply started quoting the scripture that is so gloriously presented: Romans chapter 8, verse 1: "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ." And that's the reason: justification. In Christ, He gave me faith to believe. He forgave all my sin. And He created in me, clothed me in a righteousness. And then the result: sanctification. He puts His Spirit in me. And that Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is working in me to produce in me a Christ likeness, starting with the production of love. I don't know about you, but that is very, very liberating. And that's, that's the reign of grace. That's what we're talking about. This is the reign of grace. The reign of sin is oppressive. It's condemning. It's an exercise in futility. The reign of grace is God loving us and doing in us what we could never do for ourselves. My prayer for you is that if you are a believer, that you grow in your understanding of grace, because of my conviction, 95% of Christians have no idea what it means or how to walk in it experientially day to day. I'm just simply saying it is, it is amazing growing grace. That's why Paul writes every one of his letters, "Grace and peace to you," that we might understand how important it is. And if you're not a Christian, that you will come to Jesus Christ.