GOD'S GREAT NEWS for MAN'S GREAT PROBLEM - Romans 1-8

Daddy's Note

The hospital was quiet and still that bleak January evening. The nurse stood at the nurses' station on the seventh floor. She glanced at the clock. It was 9 PM. She grabbed a stethoscope and headed for Room 712, at the end of the hall. Room 712 had a new patient, Mr. Williams. A man all alone. A man strangely silent about his family. When the nurse entered the room, Mr. Williams looked up eagerly, but dropped his eyes when he saw it was only the nurse. She checked his breathing. It was slow and even, just what she wanted to hear. He had suffered a mild heart attack several hours earlier.

He looked up from the starched white bed. "Nurse, would you --" He hesitated, tears filling his eyes. Once before he had started to ask her a question, but had changed his mind. She touched his hand, waiting. He brushed away a tear. "Would you call my daughter? Tell her I've had a heart attack. A slight one. You see, I live alone and she is the only family I have." His breathing began to speed up. "Of course I'll call her," she said, studying his face. He gripped the sheets and pulled himself forward, his face tense with urgency. "Will you call her right away -- as soon as you can?" He was breathing fast -- too fast. "I'll call her the very first thing," she said soothingly. She flipped off the light and looked out the window at the foggy mist curling through the parking lot. "Nurse," he called, "could you get me a pencil and paper?" She dug a scrap of yellow paper and a pen from her pocket and set them on the bedside table. The nurse quietly left the room.

She went back to the nurses' station and called information for the daughter's phone number. "Janie, this is a registered nurse at the hospital. I'm calling about your father. He was admitted tonight with a slight heart attack--" "No!" she screamed into the phone, startling the nurse. "He's not dying, is he?" "His condition is stable at the moment," the nurse said, trying to be convincing. "You must not let him die!" Janie said, her voice utterly compelling. "My Daddy and I haven't spoken in almost a year. We had a terrible argument on my 21st birthday, over my boyfriend. I ran out of the house. I -- I haven't been back. All these months I've felt guilty, wanting to come to him for forgiveness. The last thing I said to him was, 'I hate you.'" Janie's voice cracked into agonzing sobs. A father and a daughter, so lost to one another. As Janie struggled to control her tears, the nurse prayed: Please God, let this daughter find forgiveness. Janie suddenly said, "I'm coming. Now! I'll be there in 30 minutes." The phone clicked.

The nurse tried to busy herself with charts at the nurses' station, but her mind kept drifting to Room 712. She had to get back to 712. She hurried down the hall. She found Mr. Williams laying very still. She reached for his pulse. There was none.

"Code 99, Room 712, Code 99. Stat." The alert shot through the hospital as the nurse tried to compress the heart and resusitate the patient. Doctors and nurses flew in with emergency equipment. "Stand back," cried a doctor, as the nurse handed him the paddles for the electrical shock to the heart. He placed them on Mr. Williams' chest. Over and over they tried. Nothing. No response. Mr. Williams was dead.

When the nurse finally left the room, she saw her against the wall by the drinking fountain. A doctor who had come out of 712 was talking quietly with her, holding her elbow. He moved on, leaving her slumped against the wall. The nurse took her hand and let her to the nurses' lounge. She stared straight ahead, glass-faced, almost breakable looking. "Janie, I'm so, so sorry," the nurse said lamely. "I never hated him, you know. I loved him." Oh God, please help her, the nurse prayed silently. Then Janie said, "I want to see him." Together they walked down the long hall to Room 712.

They moved to the bed. Janie leaned over her father and buried her face in the sheets. As the nurse backed away from the bed, she backed against the bedside table. Her hand fell upon a scrap of yellow paper. She picked it up. It read:

My dearest Janie,

I forgive you. ... I know that you love me. I love you too.

Daddy

The note shook in the nurse's hand as she thrust it toward Janie. She read it once. Then twice. Her tormented face grew radiant. Peace began to glisten in her eyes. She hugged the scrap of paper to her chest. (NB: This story is excerpted and edited from James Dobson's Life on the Edge, from an original story by Sue Kidd, RN)

That note says in simple words what our Father writes to his children in Rom. 8:1: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Guilt: Here, There, and Everywhere

Our theme for today: freedom from guilt. Guilt is everywhere around us and in us. Most of us were raised under a powerful system of guilt-induced shame. Parents have a thousand methods of instilling guilt in their children, saying such things as, "You should be ashamed, young lady!" or "I've told you again and again, and you're still not making your bed!," or "Can't you be more careful!" or "You shouldn't be so forgetful," or "After all we've done for you, this is what we get in return?" or the old faithful "What will the church think when they hear what you did?!" We grow up hearing such things on an almost daily basis, and somehow it gets woven into our souls that we are bad, that we don't measure up ... and that God is watching.

But parents do not have a monopoly on induced guilt. Children soon learn to dish guilt right back: "All the other parents are letting their kids go ... why can't I?" or "Everyone else gets to stay out past ten!" or "You never let us do anything." Sound familiar? As Erma Bombeck once said, guilt really is "the gift that keeps on giving."

Guilt seems to follow us our whole lives like the cloud that used to accompany the Peanuts cartoon character "Pigpen." Older parents still hound us, saying "Why don't you call more often?" or "Why don't you drop us a line?" or my favorite "Why aren't you ever at home when we call?" ... as if we are to stop our lives and sit by the phone! Spouses hound each other as well, with husbands complaining, "This house is a mess ... what did you do all day?" or wives rebuking, "You should spend more time at home ..." And in the inner dialogue of our own hearts, we inflict guilt on ourselves throughout the day: "I'm late again!" or "This shouldn't be taking so long," or "I should be doing more at the church." I should this, I should that ... most of us are masters of self-condemnation.

Paul Tournier in his landmark book Guilt and Grace said that guilt is "the seasoning of our daily life." Concluding a survey he conducted to measure the extent of guilt, Tournier challenged his colleagues: "Open your eyes! ... see among your patients that huge crowd of wounded, distressed, crushed men and women laden with secret guilts, real or false, definite or vague." Think about that statement: even the psychologist studying guilt scolded his colleagues with the guilt-inducing command "Open your eyes!" Guilt is everywhere around us and in us, so much so that we cannot begin to imagine how it inhibits our God-given freedom in Christ.

Now that we are all feeling guilty about feeling guilty, there is hope for us: to a guilty world, to those burdened excessively by parents who controlled them by shame, to those who seek now to control others and motivate them by guilt, God sent His Son. And that Son died on a cross, but He lives today. And to all those who believe in God's Son, God has spoken a word of hope to dispel the condemnation of guilt: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Therein lies freedom from guilt.

Paul's Guilt and Paul's Freedom

But what is guilt? Here is a definition from Bruce Narramore's excellent book No Condemnation, from pg. 27: "I would define guilt as a complex cognitive-emotional reaction we experience over the disparity between who we are (or how we act) and who (or how) we think we ought to be. This reaction may involve self-punishment, self-rejection, and a sense of shame, disesteem, or inferiority." That is a good definition. But an even better definition of guilt can be found in Paul's gut-wrenching struggle in Rom. 7:14-24. Narramore studied guilt and derived a modern definition; Paul lived it and wrote about guilt's terrible stranglehold on us. The prison of his own making, the prison of his own body where Paul lands himself in Rom. 7:23, is a prison of guilt.

Paul agonized over his own guilt, his own awful, internal discord when he measured his behavior against who he should be. Paul defined guilt in Rom. 7:19-24: "For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish. But if I am doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?" To paraphrase Paul's last sentence: "Guilt-riddled man that I am! Who will set me free from the guilt that is killing me?"

But what about the guilt that is killing us? I want each of us to stop for a moment and consider how guilt follows you around like Pigpen's little cloud. We spoke of this in prayer meeting on Wednesday, and one brother honestly admitted that he gets lost for a while in a fog of guilt and self-condemnation every time he catches himself sinning. He sins, then he heaps guilt on his own head, burying himself for a while until the Lord resurrects him to grace once again. Maurice tells of his struggle with guilt as a young man in the Mennonite church, when at the end of every day, he would review the day and have to admit one more time, "I failed again today!" Each night he would go to bed under a coverlet of guilt. A dear friend in this church told me the other day, "I always feel guilty that I'm not doing enough, well enough, for enough."

But what about you and me? I would bet that every one of us has a secret area of past or present sin that crushes us with guilt. Maybe you discover in your marriage that though you desire to truly love your spouse, you are actually the picture of selfishness. Maybe you feel you are losing the daily struggle with your thoughtlife, that a private sin of lust or fantasy constantly entraps you. Maybe you have never recovered from the guilt of past sexual sins, because of how you handled the unwanted pregnancy. Maybe you feel as though you never measured up to what your parents thought you should be. Maybe you feel as though you never fulfilled your own hopes and dreams. Maybe you feel as though you are a constant disappointment to God, who tolerates you because He is longsuffering. Maybe you feel that what you have done in the past is so heinous you can never forgive yourself. God might ... but you never could. Maybe you cannot accept a compliment or word of praise because your guilt has convinced you of your unworthiness. Maybe you sabotage your own success in relationships, or business, or whatever, because you are convinced in your heart that you don't deserve success. Guilt has a thousand faces, but every face looks down and frowns at you. And deep down, many of us believe the one face frowning most at us is the face of God.

But when Paul beheld the face of Jesus Christ, he discovered exactly the opposite!! He found there the face of absolute forgiveness, the face of amazing grace, a smiling face of joyful and eternal acceptance. Paul found in the face of Jesus Christ freedom from guilt, and his heart leaped to praise: "But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh, the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." All debts of guilt are cancelled for those who are in Christ Jesus!!

Beholding the face of Christ, finding eternal acceptance and love there, Paul tells us the bold truth that cancels out guilt forever: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!!

God's Verdict - Great News Indeed!

Let's look closely at this liberating verse. The "therefore" in this case is gigantic: Paul now writes the summation of his entire argument from Rom. 1:18-7:25.

Let me illustrate this for you by entering one final time into the awful courtroom of God that we were tried in as we studied Rom. 1:18-3:20. In chapter three, when we realized that we were utterly guilty and entirely naked before God in our sin, we faced eternal condemnation. We had no recourse through the Law, so we threw ourselves down upon the cold courtroom floor, casting ourselves upon the mercy of the court. Suddenly, Paul introduced us to our Advocate, Jesus Christ, who came in and gently covered our naked and prostrate bodies with His warm robes of righteousness, that we might then be presented before God with the same standing He has before God. Jesus Christ's basic argument in our defense was that it mattered not how utterly guilty we were in our sin, He had already paid the penalty for all past, present and future sins, no matter how heinous, because He died our death for sin when He died on the cross. That is where we left the scene back in chapter 3. We know what we did: sin. We know what Christ did: die for our sin. But there is one thing we don't yet know: What will God say? What will happen? We have been waiting for some time now to hear God's reply as the Divine Judge. What will His verdict be?

God's verdict is gleefully pronounced here in Rom. 8:1!! His great gavel comes crashing down upon its stand, and He smiles a winning and joyous smile, standing to pronounce His verdict: "There is therefore now no condemnation for you, because you are in Christ Jesus." Case closed ... you are acquitted forever. And in God's court there is no double jeopardy: anyone He acquits in Christ will never be tried for the criminal offenses again. Once acquitted, always acquitted ... of past, present and future sins. His acquittal IS acquittal!

The courtroom scene is appropriate in understanding what Paul is saying here. The word katakrima, or "condemnation," appears only three times in the NT, all in Romans: Rom. 5:16,18; 8:1. But in the papyri detailing everyday usage of the term in the ancient world, the word denotes the judicial penalty ascribed to the guilty. Thus, "There is therefore now no PENALTY because of our sin." The penalty of our certain death sentence has been paid by Christ on the cross. In another sense, this could read, "There is therefore now no EXECUTION ..." because we were under the death penalty demanded by our sin. This phrase thus summarizes Rom. 1:18-5:21, where Paul examines the guilt of man in sin, revealing at just the right moment how Jesus paid our due penalty for sin when He died on the cross.

So, there is no "execution" order "for those who [are] in Christ Jesus." This is a statement of our eternal identity in Jesus Christ. This is a broad statement summarizing the three great images of union with Christ found in Romans chapters 6 and 7: God identifies us with Christ through the baptism of the Spirit, we identify ourselves with Christ by our lifelong choice of bond-slavery, and we are joined together with our risen Christ through Paul's marriage analogy. Each of these images present before us the deep truth of the believer's complete and renewing unification with Christ, translating into an irrevocable change in identity for those "in Christ Jesus." Thus, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

This also brings home the freedom Paul says Christ has purchased for us: WE ARE FREE FROM SIN in Romans chapter six; WE ARE FREE FROM THE LAW in chapter seven; and in Romans 8:1, WE ARE FREE FROM GUILT.

Think of that: free from guilt!! Guilt does not come from God, as most of us incorrectly assume. God often convicts us with a godly sorrow over our sin, He often asks us the quiet, urgent questions that reveal our sin, but He does not traffic in guilt!! It is God Himself who pronounces His verdict: there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!! No condemnation ... that means zero guilt. But grace abounds!! God dishes out His grace, over and over again, to all who are in Christ Jesus. He doesn't guilt us, because guilt kills. He graces us, because grace gives life. Guilt is gone forever for believers in Christ Jesus, and grace abounds forever in Christ Jesus.

But Dorm, you might say, what about our legitimate struggle against indwelling sin, just like Paul struggled? Don't we still struggle? Yes, we do struggle against sin, and we will thus struggle in some sense all our days on earth. But how the struggle effects us is what counts: if I struggle and then condemn myself because I failed yet again, I isolate myself from God to wallow in self-centeredness. Guilt is just another facet of self-centeredness. And the most insidious aspect of guilt is that it drives me to hide from God, like Adam and Eve in their guilt hid in the tree in the garden. Thank God He pursued them and found them, even though they were hiding!!

By contrast, if I accept the struggle as a part of the Christian life, embracing Christ and allowing His grace to cover my sin, then the struggle paradoxically leads me right where I need to go: into His arms. Thus, the struggle is with us as long as we are earthlings: but I can either let the struggle propel me into the gracious embrace of my loving Christ, or I can feel guilty and let the struggle isolate me from Christ.

Understanding our feelings is crucial to this whole process. Guilt attacks us as a feeling: when we sin, we feel guilty, we feel what we perceive to be God's wrath, we feel ashamed, so we hide. But over and against these nebulous feelings is the FACT of God's verdict: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. God's verdict is true whether we believe it or not, it is true whether we feel it to be true or not. It is a true saying, true in an eternal, absolute sense.

Perhaps the greatest of the great news of the gospel is this: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

God's Forgiveness -- For Sons and Daughters

So, God's verdict is final, and it is absolutely true about all who are in Christ Jesus. God's forgiveness is tangible for us as His sons and daughters.

The story of the prodigal son is perhaps the greatest story of the tangible forgiveness of God. The young man sins egregiously, saying to his father's face that he wishes his father were dead so he could collect his inheritance today. The humble father allows the son his allotted portion without a word of rebuke. The son goes to the far country and squanders his inheritance with wild women and party living. Soon the money runs out, and the son is destitute. He finds himself doing the lowliest work imaginable: feeding pigs. What's worse is that he finds himself coveting the pig food because he can buy nothing for himself to eat. At that lowest point, he comes to himself. Deciding to return home, he practices his speech along the road. The speech goes like this: "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men." All along the dusty homeward road, the prodigal practiced that speech. Why? Because he expected his father's full wrath when he got home. He expected the worst, so he prepared a mea culpa speech to say before the blows began to rain upon his head.

But what happens when he nears his hometown? He sees the strangest sight of his entire life: his father picking up his long, dignified robes and running on scrawny old legs through the middle of town to meet his lost son!!! The prodigal must have stood there gaping. The wise and compassionate father embraced the son and kissed him in public. Then the son gives his speech, without the last line about being hired on as a slave: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son." The father doesn't answer him directly, he answers with a dramatic action in the sight of all. He commissions his slaves to bring his own best robe to give TO HIS SON, he puts the family signet ring on the finger OF HIS SON, he puts sandals on the feet OF HIS SON (because only slaves went barefoot), and he commissions the big dinner party because "this SON OF MINE was dead and has come to life again." The prodigal returns, feeling guilty and unworthy to be called a son, but the forgiving father tells him YOU ARE MY SON in as many ways as he possibly can.

The point is this: our Father God is a forgiving Father, so forgiving that He meets us in our guilt not as a condemning judge, but as a Father embracing and kissing us as SONS and DAUGHTERS, showering us with tangible talismans of grace. We expect judgment for our guilt and shame, but we find with this Father forgiveness and grace abounding, punctuated with public displays of costly love.

We spoke of this in prayer meeting on Wednesday: no matter what, God calls us SONS and DAUGHTERS. We are part of His royal family forever. Dave told us of his own father, and how much it meant to him when his father called him "Son." There is a fierce pride and an eternal attachment that goes with that word. No matter what else his father might have done or not done, Dave knew his father loved him as a son. The same is true for God our Father. He calls us "Son of Mine." There is ownership and eternal relationship in such a title.

This is crucial to grasp: when next you struggle with sin and you are tempted to feel guilty, cowering under God's perceived frown, think about the father of the prodigal running through town on spindly legs to meet you, embrace you, kiss you, and shower you with grace. Know that that Father would look at you with compassion, identifying Himself with you by calling you "Son of Mine." Truly, for sons and daughters of this heavenly Father, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

If God Has Pronounced the Verdict, Who Are We to Contradict Him?

All of this is true, but still we seem to wallow in guilt. The fact of the matter is this: something about guilt appeals to our flesh. There is a twisted religious pleasure out of feeling guilty, because then we feel like we are really dealing with our sin. We really are facing it and calling it what it is. No denial for us! In fact, by feeling guilty we leave the place of heinous sinner and mount the lofty bench of judge. Feeling guilty and nursing our guilt makes our flesh feel somehow in control, because we sit in judgment over ourselves. There is a perverse power in self-condemnation, but it still kills us. Whenever we try to deal with our sin in our own way, we are crushed by it.

How subtly sin works through guilt! We saw in Rom. 1:18-3:20 that sin constantly attempts to elevate our self to the place of God. Even though God as righteous judge has pronounced us NOT GUILTY!, that is not good enough for us. Perhaps He didn't really understand what happened, how bad we really are. So, refusing to accept God's wise verdict based on the atoning work of Christ on the cross, we replace Him as judge and judge ourselves, condemning ourselves to be GUILTY! But because we got to pronounce judgment on ourselves, we can again feel good about ourselves, and applaud ourselves for dealing even more ruthlessly with our sin than God did. How sick, since God dealt with our sin by sacrificing His Son.

But the reality is this: if God has pronounced His verdict of NOT GUILTY!, and God has stamped our prison card with the word "RELEASED!!" ... who are we to contradict Him? Are our judgments more righteous than His? Do we get some false feeling of righteousness by wallowing in our guilt?

Believing God's word means accepting God's verdict about us. Anything else is disobedience and results in all manner of perverted evil. His verdict stands: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Living Like Released Prisoners With a New Lease on Life!!

So, the good news is that WE ARE FREE FROM GUILT, we are released to live and breathe forever in real freedom. There is no condemnation for us. God's verdict is absolute and eternal. So, how shall we then live?

I asked the Lord this week, "What would a person truly free from guilt act like or look like?" It would be a wonder to behold. Then He reminded me of a story. We all know the story of A Christmas Carol, about Ebinezer Scrooge's Christmas Eve visitation by the spirits of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Future. Scrooge has a harrowing journey reviewing the absolute selfishness and parsimony of his life with the spirits of Christmas Past and Christmas Present, but he is absolutely haunted by the Spirit of Christmas Future. That horrifying spirit takes him to a graveyard where he beholds his own tombstone, and he falls into the yawning grave, spiraling downward to hell where he is chained with gigantic chains and drafted into being the devil's bookkeeper because he has hoarded his own money so well. Scrooge is almost scared to death by that awful visit to his own customized hell.

But the highlight of the entire book is the absolute transformation in Scrooge when he awakens in his own bed on Christmas morning and realizes he has avoided eternal damnation, and has been granted the grace of a second chance. He literally sings his way through Christmas, where before all he could say about Christmas was the famous "Bah humbug!" Whereas the day before he refused to give even a farthing to a charity for the poor, on Christmas day he donated such a large sum it left the social worker speechless. He purchased the largest turkey in all London to be delivered to longsuffering Bob Cratchit. He went to church, he walked the streets, he watched the people hurrying to and fro, he patted little children on the head, he laughed a hundred laughs, he questioned and gave money to beggars, he looked down into kitchens and up to high windows, and everywhere he looked he found something to yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed of such happiness.

Oh the joy of living in freedom from guilt and condemnation!! I find myself wanting to live and be like that: a released captive bringing a message of freedom to other captives!!

Everyone here who is in Christ has been so set free from guilt!! May our God give us grace to live like we are so free! And may we also beware of the insidious power of guilt to steal our joy and freedom in Christ. A wise older friend of mine once told me about a sweet little nun who had an office she would pray and study in each morning before going out to take on her day. There was a sign hanging over that door that was her final prayer to the Lord each day before going out the door to serve Him. The sign read, "Lord, help me not to should on myself today." May our prayer be the same: let us not bind ourselves with shoulds, but let us enter into the full joy of our Master, who dearly bought our freedom from guilt. Let us experience, trust in, and rejoice in this great, objective FACT from the Scripture: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!

Conclusion: Freedom from Guilt

Daddy's note to Janie read:

My dearest Janie,

I forgive you. ... I know that you love me. I love you too.

Daddy

Our Father's note to us reads:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Let's take several minutes to quietly take our hidden guilts to Him to receive His priceless forgiveness, and let His grace bathe us and renew our souls.

SPEAKING NOTES:

INTRO: The story of room 712. It read: My dearest Janie, I forgive you. ... I know that you love me. I love you too. The note shook in the nurse's hand as she thrust it toward Janie. She read it once. Then twice. Her tormented face grew radiant. Peace began to glisten in her eyes. She hugged the scrap of paper to her breast. That note says in simple words what our Father writes to his children in Rom. 8:1: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Guilt: Here, There, and Everywhere

- Our theme for today: freedom from guilt. Guilt is everywhere around us and in us. Most of us were raised under a powerful system of guilt-induced shame: "You should be ashamed, young lady!" or "I've told you again and again, and you're still not making your bed!," or "Can't you be more careful!" or "You shouldn't be so forgetful," or "After all we've done for you, this is what we get in return?" or the old faithful "What will the church think when they hear what you did?!" We grow up hearing such things on an almost daily basis, and somehow it gets woven into our souls that we are bad, that we don't measure up ... and that God is watching.

- But parents do not have a monopoly on induced guilt: "All the other parents are letting their kids go ... why can't I?" or "Everyone else gets to stay out past ten!" or "You never let us do anything." Sound familiar? Erma Bombeck ...

- Guilt seems to follow us our whole lives like the cloud that used to accompany the Peanuts cartoon character "Pigpen." Older parents still hound us, saying "Why don't you call more often?" or "Why don't you drop us a line?" or my favorite "Why aren't you ever at home when we call?" ... as if we are to stop our lives and sit by the phone! Spouses hound each other as well, with husbands complaining, "This house is a mess ... what did you do all day?" or wives rebuking, "You should spend more time at home ..." And in the inner dialogue of our own hearts, we inflict guilt on ourselves throughout the day: "I'm late again!" or "This shouldn't be taking so long," or "I should be doing more at the church." I should this, I should that ... most of us are masters of self-condemnation.

- Paul Tournier in his landmark book Guilt and Grace said that guilt is "the seasoning of our daily life." Concluding a survey he conducted to measure the extent of guilt, Tournier challenged his colleagues: "Open your eyes! ... see among your patients that huge crowd of wounded, distressed, crushed men and women laden with secret guilts, real or false, definite or vague." Think about that statement: even the psychologist studying guilt scolded his colleagues with the guilt-inducing command "Open your eyes!" Guilt is everywhere around us and in us, so much so that we cannot begin to imagine how it inhibits our God-given freedom in Christ.

- Now that we are all feeling guilty about feeling guilty, there is hope for us: to a guilty world, to those burdened excessively by parents who controlled them by shame, to those who seek now to control others and motivate them by guilt, God sent His Son. And that Son died on a cross, but He lives today. And to all those who believe in God's Son, God has spoken a word of hope to dispel the condemnation of guilt: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Therein lies freedom from guilt.

Paul's Guilt and Paul's Freedom

- But what is guilt? Here is a definition from Bruce Narramore's excellent book No Condemnation, from pg. 27: "I would define guilt as a complex cognitive-emotional reaction we experience over the disparity between who we are (or how we act) and who (or how) we think we ought to be. This reaction may involve self-punishment, self-rejection, and a sense of shame, disesteem, or inferiority." That is a good definition. But an even better definition of guilt can be found in Paul's gut-wrenching struggle in Rom. 7:14-24. Read Rom. 7:19-24. Paraphrase Paul's last sentence: "Guilt-riddled man that I am! Who will set me free from the guilt that is killing me?"

- But what about the guilt that is killing us? Prayer meeting: Joe. Maurice as young Mennonite. Dear friend: "I always feel guilty that I'm not doing enough, well enough, for enough."

- But what about you and me? I would bet that every one of us has a secret area of past or present sin that crushes us with guilt. Maybe you discover in your marriage that though you desire to truly love your spouse, you are actually the picture of selfishness. Maybe you feel you are losing the daily struggle with your thoughtlife, that a private sin of lust or fantasy constantly entraps you. Maybe you have never recovered from the guilt of past sexual sins, because of how you handled the unwanted pregnancy. Maybe you feel as though you never measured up to what your parents thought you should be. Maybe you feel as though you never fulfilled your own hopes and dreams. Maybe you feel as though you are a constant disappointment to God, who tolerates you because He is longsuffering. Maybe you feel that what you have done in the past is so heinous you can never forgive yourself. God might ... but you never could. Maybe you cannot accept a compliment or word of praise because your guilt has convinced you of your unworthiness. Maybe you sabotage your own success in relationships, or business, or whatever, because you are convinced in your heart that you don't deserve success. Guilt has a thousand faces, but every face looks down and frowns at you. And deep down, many of us believe the one face frowning most at us is the face of God.

- But when Paul beheld the face of Jesus Christ, he discovered exactly the opposite!! He found there the face of absolute forgiveness, the face of amazing grace, a smiling face of joyful and eternal acceptance. Read Rom. 7:24-8:1. All debts of guilt are cancelled for those who are in Christ Jesus!! Beholding the face of Christ, finding eternal acceptance and love there, Paul tells us the bold truth that cancels out guilt forever: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!!

God's Verdict - Great News Indeed!

- Let's look closely at this liberating verse. The "therefore" in this case is gigantic.
- Illus: Courtroom illustration. What will God say? What's the final verdict?

- The courtroom scene is appropriate in understanding what Paul is saying here. The word katakrima, or "condemnation," appears only three times in the NT, all in Romans: Rom. 5:16,18; 8:1. But in the papyri detailing everyday usage of the term in the ancient world, the word denotes the judicial penalty ascribed to the guilty. Thus, "There is therefore now no PENALTY because of our sin." The penalty of our certain death sentence has been paid by Christ on the cross. In another sense, this could read, "There is therefore now no EXECUTION ..." because we were under the death penalty demanded by our sin.

- So, there is no "execution" order "for those who [are] in Christ Jesus." This is a statement of our eternal identity in Jesus Christ. This is a broad statement summarizing the three great images of union with Christ found in Romans chapters 6 and 7.

- This also brings home the freedom Paul says Christ has purchased for us: WE ARE FREE FROM SIN in Romans chapter six; WE ARE FREE FROM THE LAW in chapter seven; and in Romans 8:1, WE ARE FREE FROM GUILT.

- Think of that: free from guilt!! Guilt does not come from God, as most of us incorrectly assume. God often convicts us with a godly sorrow over our sin, He often asks us the quiet, urgent questions that reveal our sin, but He does not traffic in guilt!! It is God Himself who pronounces His verdict: there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!! No condemnation ... that means zero guilt. But grace abounds!! God dishes out His grace, over and over again, to all who are in Christ Jesus. He doesn't guilt us, because guilt kills. He graces us, because grace gives life. Guilt is gone forever for believers in Christ Jesus, and grace abounds forever in Christ Jesus.

- But Dorm, you might say, what about our legitimate struggle against indwelling sin, just like Paul struggled? Don't we still struggle? Yes, we do struggle against sin, and we will thus struggle in some sense all our days on earth. But how the struggle effects us is what counts: if I struggle and then condemn myself because I failed yet again, I isolate myself from God to wallow in self-centeredness. Guilt is just another facet of self-centeredness. And the most insidious aspect of guilt is that it drives me to hide from God, like Adam and Eve in their guilt hid in the tree in the garden. Thank God He pursued them and found them, even though they were hiding!!
- By contrast, if I accept the struggle as a part of the Christian life, embracing Christ and allowing His grace to cover my sin, then the struggle paradoxically leads me right where I need to go: into His arms. Thus, the struggle is with us as long as we are earthlings: but I can either let the struggle propel me into the gracious embrace of my loving Christ, or I can feel guilty and let the struggle isolate me from Christ.

- Understanding our feelings is crucial to this whole process. Guilt attacks us as a feeling: when we sin, we feel guilty, we feel what we perceive to be God's wrath, we feel ashamed, so we hide. But over and against these nebulous feelings is the FACT of God's verdict: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. God's verdict is true whether we believe it or not, it is true whether we feel it to be true or not. It is a true saying, true in an eternal, absolute sense.

- Perhaps the greatest of the great news of the gospel is this: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

God's Forgiveness -- For Sons and Daughters

- So, God's verdict is final, and it is absolutely true about all who are in Christ Jesus. God's forgiveness is tangible for us as His sons and daughters.

- The story of the prodigal son is perhaps the greatest story of the tangible forgiveness of God. Tell the story!! He commissions his slaves to bring his own best robe to give TO HIS SON, he puts the family signet ring on the finger OF HIS SON, he puts sandals on the feet OF HIS SON (because only slaves went barefoot), and he commissions the big dinner party because "this SON OF MINE was dead and has come to life again." The prodigal returns, feeling guilty and unworthy to be called a son, but the forgiving father tells him YOU ARE MY SON in as many ways as he possibly can.

- The point is this: our Father God is a forgiving Father, so forgiving that He meets us in our guilt not as a condemning judge, but as a Father embracing and kissing us as SONS and DAUGHTERS, showering us with tangible talismans of grace. We expect judgment for our guilt and shame, but we find with this Father forgiveness and grace abounding, punctuated with public displays of costly love.

- We spoke of this in prayer meeting on Wednesday: no matter what, God calls us SONS and DAUGHTERS. We are part of His royal family forever. Dave told us of his own father, and how much it meant to him when his father called him "Son." There is a fierce pride and an eternal attachment that goes with that word. No matter what else his father might have done or not done, Dave knew his father loved him as a son. The same is true for God our Father. He calls us "Son of Mine." There is ownership and eternal relationship in such a title.

- This is crucial to grasp: when next you struggle with sin and you are tempted to feel guilty, cowering under God's perceived frown, think about the father of the prodigal running through town on spindly legs to meet you, embrace you, kiss you, and shower you with grace. Know that that Father would look at you with compassion, identifying Himself with you by calling you "Son of Mine." Truly, for sons and daughters of this Father, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

If God Has Pronounced the Verdict, Who Are We to Contradict Him?

- All of this is true, but still we seem to wallow in guilt. The fact of the matter is this: something about guilt appeals to our flesh. There is a twisted religious pleasure out of feeling guilty, because then we feel like we are really dealing with our sin. We really are facing it and calling it what it is. No denial for us! In fact, by feeling guilty we leave the place of heinous sinner and mount the lofty bench of judge. Feeling guilty and nursing our guilt makes our flesh feel somehow in control, because we sit in judgment over ourselves. There is a perverse power in self-condemnation, but it still kills us. Whenever we try to deal with our sin in our own way, we are crushed by it.

- How subtly sin works through guilt! We saw in Rom. 1:18-3:20 that sin constantly attempts to elevate our self to the place of God. Even though God as righteous judge has pronounced us NOT GUILTY!, that is not good enough for us. Perhaps He didn't really understand what happened, how bad we really are. So, refusing to accept God's wise verdict based on the atoning work of Christ on the cross, we replace Him as judge and judge ourselves, condemning ourselves to be GUILTY! But because we got to pronounce judgment on ourselves, we can again feel good about ourselves, and applaud ourselves for dealing even more ruthlessly with our sin than God did. How sick, since God dealt with our sin by sacrificing His Son.

- But the reality is this: if God has pronounced His verdict of NOT GUILTY!, and God has stamped our prison card with the word "RELEASED!!" ... who are we to contradict Him? Are our judgments more righteous than His? Do we get some false feeling of righteousness by wallowing in our guilt?

- Believing God's word means accepting God's verdict about us. Anything else is disobedience and results in all manner of perverted evil. His verdict stands: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Living Like Released Prisoners With a New Lease on Life!

- So, the good news is that WE ARE FREE FROM GUILT, we are released to live and breathe forever in real freedom. There is no condemnation for us. God's verdict is absolute and eternal. So, how shall we then live?

- I asked the Lord this week, "What would a person truly free from guilt act like or look like?" It would be a wonder to behold. Then He reminded me of a story. We all know the story of A Christmas Carol, about Ebinezer Scrooge's Christmas Eve visitation by the spirits of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Future. Tell story: He literally sings his way through Christmas, where before all he could say about Christmas was the famous "Bah humbug!" Whereas the day before he refused to give even a farthing to a charity for the poor, on Christmas day he donated such a large sum it left the social worker speechless. He purchased the largest turkey in all London to be delivered to longsuffering Bob Cratchit. He went to church, he walked the streets, he watched the people hurrying to and fro, he patted little children on the head, he laughed a hundred laughs, he questioned and gave money to beggars, he looked down into kitchens and up to high windows, and everywhere he looked he found something to yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed of such happiness.

- Oh the joy of living in freedom from guilt and condemnation!! I find myself wanting to live and be like that: a captive bringing a message of freedom to other captives!!

- Everyone here who is in Christ has been so set free from guilt!! May our God give us grace to live like we are so free! And may we also beware of the insidious power of guilt to steal our joy and freedom in Christ.

- Illus of Nun: There was a sign hanging over that door that was her final prayer to the Lord each day before going out the door to serve Him. The sign read, "Lord, help me not to should on myself today."

- May our prayer be the same: let us not bind ourselves with shoulds, but let us enter into the full joy of our Master, who dearly bought our freedom from guilt. Let us experience, trust in, and rejoice in this great, objective FACT from the Scripture: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!

Conclusion: Freedom from Guilt

Daddy's note to Janie read:

My dearest Janie,

I forgive you. ... I know that you love me. I love you too.

Daddy

Our Father's note to us reads:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Let's take several minutes to quietly take our hidden guilts to Him to receive His priceless forgiveness, and let His grace bathe us and renew our souls.

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