No Condemnation

Romans 8, 1 and 2. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. Anybody who's been around here any length of time knows that the main threat to the Spirit in this fellowship is corporate ministry to the world beyond us. The only reason we exist as a fellowship is so that we can proclaim the gospel, manifest the mercy of God out there beyond ourselves.

We're not here to be holy in a vacuum or to see how many wonderful spiritual experiences we can have here for our own satisfaction. We come together here to serve God so that we can serve God out there. But there's one thing in our lives which is for many of us, if not all of us, holding us back from having an effective ministry corporately and individually in the world out there.

Something that drains the strength out of us and causes us to be so preoccupied with ourselves that we have very little left to give to the world beyond. That's condemnation. This feeling that God is mad at us all the time or that we're so far out of line that God can't possibly use us in any way.

And this affliction of condemnation is not only in those lives that seem to have long faces on the outside but even those of us who appear on the surface to be pretty much together and having our lives rather well-ordered and spiritually healthy are afflicted with this thing in a far off land. There is a custom which has been passed down through the generations as far back as memory goes. When a young woman or a young man comes of age, they exchange their child clothes for what is called the garment of truth.

Now this mantle or garment of truth is a piece of material that has thousands of little steel needles that are worn against the body. At first, the garment is worn rather loosely. But as the person advances to more maturity, the garment is tightened around the body until finally it's fastened with a steel belt so that these little needles puncture and tear at the flesh.

There's a kind of stiffness in the walk. It's loneliness as people sit down and get up. And it's considered a sign of spiritual maturity to look kind of pained on your face and to walk around slowly.

The problem is that people are then so consumed with their own anguish, they have nothing left to help anybody else. It's really a pretty dismal land. Now in our life, we don't do things like that.

You know, we're more subtle. We don't wear this garment with all its needles against our body. We wear it around our soul.

And it's called the garment of condemnation. And it's worn by more people than we would imagine. When we first put it on, we don't think of it as condemnation.

We think this is our conscience. Or this is our faith. We're just doing what somebody told us to do.

Who's supposed to know? It may be that when we put it on, our conscience was already quite seriously troubled and we found relief from our original pain by having this new pain over here. There are people, by the thousands, who wear this thing against their souls and don't even know it, who consider this feeling of condemnation to be just part of normal living. When I have this garment wrapped around my soul, it seems that God is forever wearing a frown.

Man! Never satisfied. Jesus is always shaking his finger and sometimes his fist. Moreover, when I have this thing wrapped around my soul and all its needles pushing in there, I have very little strength left to lift another person's burden.

Because I'm too busy trying to find relief from my own inner pain. Now sometimes I try to find relief from my pain by working off guilt. I'm running around doing for people all over the place, but the driving force that's pushing me out to do this is not love for God or man, but all these needles.

Trying to find relief. And sometimes I'm trying to find relief from my inner pain and condemnation by justifying myself and condemning others. God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are.

Extortioners, unjust, adulterers, grievances, publicans. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess.

I, I, I, I. And as long as I'm wrapped in that garment of condemnation, that's all I'll ever be able to think about. I, I. For I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Who will get me out of this mantle of condemnation? And the one thing that never happens, as long as I'm wrapped up in this thing, is that I never repent.

Miserable as I am with myself, I don't repent. I can't seem to turn to God. I'm so hard and dry and empty and barren and angry and miserable, but I can't repent.

Before I can repent, this garment of condemnation has to come off. And I have to be able to see that this condemnation is not my conscience. It's not the convicting voice of God's Spirit.

Condemnation is always a religious lie and never comes from God. Early in the morning, he came again to the temple. And all the people came to him and sat down, and he sat down and taught them.

And the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery. Isn't that something? They never caught the man, but they caught her in the act. How did they do that? They said to him, Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.

Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her? This they said to test him that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.

We don't know what he wrote, but it could have been, Where's the man? Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her. And once more he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the eldest.

And Jesus was left alone with a woman standing before him. Jesus looked up and said to her, Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? She said, no one, Lord. Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn you.

Go and sin no more. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death, got me out of this garment of condemnation. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. Sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not by the flesh, not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

It happens every single time we come into living communion with Jesus that this garment of condemnation falls off and now we find it possible really to repent. This is why people fell at Jesus' feet, weeping, sobbing, shaking, because he had lifted the garment of condemnation from their weary souls, made it possible, set them free now to be able to repent, and that's what they did and they found forgiveness. There's a man, he used to come to Bible studies here and meetings really all over the city, and everywhere this man went he would say, I can't repent, I just can't repent.

And we, I'm sure this went on not only here but everywhere he went, we would say to him, what do you mean you can't repent? Anybody can repent if he wants to, but there's a sense in which not only could this man, this man not repent, but countless people like him can't repent as long as they're wrapped in the garment of condemnation. How can you repent before a spirit of condemnation? You can no more repent before a spirit of condemnation than you can repent at the feet of Satan. Before you can repent, you have to bring the whole mess to the cross and allow the Lamb of God to dissolve that thing you're wrapped in, in his blood and remove it.

Then you can repent. Once that's all and we repent, then we can find real forgiveness and we can turn our lives away from the things which have made a mockery of our will and we can place our whole future in Jesus' hands. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.

Without a doubt, the one thing which is the greatest defender at keeping us from being able to be effective out there in the world is this mantle of condemnation that we wrap around our soul. And as long as we have that thing on, we won't be effective. We're going to be walking around so taken up with ourselves and how we feel and how bummed out we are that we'll have nothing left to give anybody.

So we have to bring this to Him. We have to enable the Lord to show us the difference between, and there is, condemnation and conscience. Condemnation and the convicting power of His gracious spirit.

Jesus, when He calls us to repent, that's a totally different thing. And we have to see that difference. Moreover, may God help us not only to see that, but to deliver us from going around dumping condemnation on other people.

Making people around us feel so bummed out and so worthless and so hopeless that they give up. And we've done that. Then said Jesus to the crowds and to His disciples, The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' feet, so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do.

For they preach, but do not practice. They find heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with their fingers. The tendency in all people who are in any way mixed up with religion is to do just that.

You know, we're wrapped up in our own garment of condemnation and make ourselves busy making burdens for other people to carry too. We keep dumping them on people. Many times unconsciously.

But Jesus does the opposite. He lifts the burden. He bears away the sin.

He takes that thing off. And so today as we come to His table, as He invites us to come to His table, to eat His body and drink His blood, His hand goes out to each one of us and says, Give me that garment of condemnation and come to my table today with repentance that I might forgive your sins. God help us to come to the table today with repentance that we might be forgiven.

And that having been forgiven by His death and quickened by His resurrection, we might go out into the world to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins to all nations. That having been set free from this garment of condemnation and all its needles, we might be able to set others free. There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. May God just help us to soak that in and hold on to it until it begins not only to make sense to our minds, but absolutely revolutionizes our living. Let's pray to Pontiff in prayer.