What ‘No Condemnation’ Does to a Heart

00:00:00.000 | [Music]

00:00:04.000 | There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

00:00:10.000 | As Romans 8, 1 is one of the great texts of the Bible for the Christian,

00:00:14.000 | our justification in Christ is life-changing.

00:00:17.000 | And this declaration from the courtroom of God is meant to free us

00:00:21.000 | and to change our lives from top to bottom.

00:00:23.000 | Our marriages, our jobs, our lives as students,

00:00:27.000 | everything we do and everything that we are is impacted by this glorious declaration

00:00:32.000 | that our lives are now free from condemnation.

00:00:35.000 | And a life lived in this glorious reality will be free,

00:00:38.000 | as Pastor John explains in this sermon clip sent to us from Joel,

00:00:41.000 | a college student in Atlanta.

00:00:43.000 | Here's Pastor John applying Romans 8, verse 1.

00:00:47.000 | What about no condemnation in marriage difficulties?

00:00:52.000 | Is that practical enough?

00:00:54.000 | Anybody have any problems in your marriage?

00:00:57.000 | Suppose you're this morning disappointed.

00:01:01.000 | I mean maybe some of you are really big time, life-long disappointed.

00:01:06.000 | It isn't what you bargained for at all.

00:01:11.000 | How are you going to find the emotional and moral power

00:01:18.000 | not to return evil for evil?

00:01:22.000 | To return good for evil?

00:01:24.000 | To be kind and forgiving and loving and tender-hearted

00:01:29.000 | when you feel so unjustly handed by God?

00:01:35.000 | Answer, you're going to remind yourself day in and day out,

00:01:41.000 | I'm a sinner.

00:01:43.000 | I'm an ungodly, undeserving, hell-deserving sinner.

00:01:50.000 | And there flies over my life a blood-bought banner.

00:01:56.000 | No condemnation.

00:01:59.000 | I swim in a reservoir of free grace,

00:02:05.000 | and I will manage a lifetime of buckets for my wife.

00:02:11.000 | I don't care what she does.

00:02:14.000 | That would save a marriage.

00:02:17.000 | Maybe God would step in and make it good.

00:02:23.000 | I know the testimonies.

00:02:25.000 | It does happen, folks.

00:02:27.000 | But you know what?

00:02:29.000 | If it never happens, that's okay.

00:02:33.000 | You got 85 million ages of years

00:02:37.000 | when there is no more marriage or giving in marriage

00:02:40.000 | but only our husband.

00:02:43.000 | The sweetest, deepest pleasures you will ever know.

00:02:48.000 | Dip into the reservoir of no condemnation.

00:02:51.000 | Pour them out on husband.

00:02:53.000 | Pour them out on wife.

00:02:54.000 | And what if your kid is breaking your heart?

00:02:58.000 | And your own conscience is quite adequate to tell you you're the problem.

00:03:05.000 | It's your fault.

00:03:08.000 | It's your fault.

00:03:10.000 | How are you going to stay above water?

00:03:12.000 | How are you going to just keep on with the other kids?

00:03:15.000 | Or how are you going to keep on with that kid?

00:03:17.000 | How are you going to keep loving?

00:03:18.000 | How are you going to keep coming back?

00:03:21.000 | You know what?

00:03:22.000 | You will never sort out how much is your fault and how much wasn't.

00:03:27.000 | Ever.

00:03:28.000 | Ever, ever, ever.

00:03:30.000 | You will never sort that out.

00:03:32.000 | So, you come to me for counseling on that issue and say,

00:03:36.000 | "Can you help me sort this out? You know what I'm going to say?"

00:03:38.000 | "No."

00:03:40.000 | "My next sentence is going to be, 'Nor do I care, nor need you care.'"

00:03:46.000 | You'll never sort that out.

00:03:47.000 | I've got good news for you.

00:03:49.000 | You're standing with Almighty God and the moral resources that you can appropriate

00:03:55.000 | for living on your face in humility before that kid

00:03:58.000 | don't depend on whether you blew it or not.

00:04:00.000 | Because there is, therefore, now no condemnation for any parent in Christ Jesus.

00:04:06.000 | So, that's practical.

00:04:08.000 | Here's what might happen.

00:04:10.000 | Living, swimming in that ocean of no condemnation grace.

00:04:16.000 | You know what will happen?

00:04:17.000 | You will be so humbled.

00:04:19.000 | This is the mark of whether it's really happening or not, by the way.

00:04:21.000 | We've got a lot of people who hit people over the head with their doctrine.

00:04:25.000 | The evidence of whether glorious doctrine like this is taking any effect in people's lives

00:04:30.000 | is how humble it makes them.

00:04:32.000 | If you humble yourself under this child so that you go to this kid, 5 or 50,

00:04:40.000 | and say, "You know, I don't know how much is me and how much is you

00:04:44.000 | and how much is your sister, brother, dad, or friends.

00:04:48.000 | I just know I've got a lot of responsibility here, and I am so sorry for my failures."

00:04:57.000 | Where does that freedom come from?

00:04:59.000 | Out loud, not feeling it only, but saying it.

00:05:02.000 | Where does that come from?

00:05:03.000 | It comes from Romans 8, 1.

00:05:05.000 | And on and on we could go, but I guess stop.

00:05:08.000 | We could talk about sexual temptation and no condemnation.

00:05:11.000 | We could talk about ministry and no condemnation.

00:05:15.000 | We could talk about peer pressure.

00:05:16.000 | A lot of young people in this.

00:05:17.000 | Let me say a word about this.

00:05:18.000 | Just a teeny word.

00:05:19.000 | Teeny word.

00:05:20.000 | A lot of college students, a lot of high school students in this room.

00:05:23.000 | Peer pressure.

00:05:25.000 | Is my hair right?

00:05:27.000 | Is this the way it's supposed to be on the first day of school?

00:05:30.000 | Oh, nobody else has hair like this.

00:05:32.000 | Or how do you carry your books this year?

00:05:34.000 | Is it like this or like this?

00:05:37.000 | Do you use briefcases?

00:05:38.000 | Oh, what a nerd.

00:05:44.000 | Shoes?

00:05:45.000 | Ah, they were in last year.

00:05:47.000 | Shoot, I should have gotten around this summer.

00:05:49.000 | I mean, come on, get a life.

00:05:51.000 | Where are you going to get free from that kind of bondage?

00:05:56.000 | Jellyfish.

00:05:58.000 | Teenage jellyfish.

00:06:00.000 | Everywhere.

00:06:01.000 | I want a few dolphins in this church.

00:06:06.000 | Against the tide.

00:06:07.000 | Who cares?

00:06:11.000 | Good night.

00:06:13.000 | And I'll tell you how you get free from that kind of bondage.

00:06:17.000 | There is therefore now no condemnation over your head.

00:06:22.000 | You've got a Father in heaven whose approval of you is 10,000 times more important than what Mary or Joe think about what you're wearing.

00:06:32.000 | Or whether the right kind of cool word just came out of your mouth.

00:06:35.000 | Or you saw the right TV program or the right movie or like the right group or wear the right shoes or get the hair twisted just right.

00:06:45.000 | Come on, let's be free.

00:06:47.000 | Christianity is about freedom.

00:06:49.000 | And then I'll close by saying, you know, all this freedom that I'm talking about here, all this no condemnation, liberty is not to free you up to be a fat cat American consumer.

00:07:07.000 | Well, the pastor, he dumped on social action this morning.

00:07:16.000 | So I'm free.

00:07:18.000 | Go back to my nice suburban house in my three or four cars with my two cabins and my boats and my whatever.

00:07:25.000 | And because I don't have to worry about housing.

00:07:28.000 | I don't have to worry about poverty.

00:07:29.000 | I don't have to worry about drugs.

00:07:31.000 | I don't have to worry about broken families.

00:07:32.000 | I don't have to worry about 10,000 people a day who fall into eternity in lands that have no church.

00:07:38.000 | Because he said it's about me and God getting right with each other.

00:07:44.000 | That's the devil talking.

00:07:46.000 | You talk to me like that.

00:07:47.000 | I said, you didn't get it at all.

00:07:49.000 | You are free to die.

00:07:53.000 | You are free to become radical.

00:07:57.000 | You are free to serve.

00:08:01.000 | And I could preach another message here, but we got lots more years.

00:08:05.000 | God willing, let's pray.

00:08:07.000 | So good.

00:08:08.000 | This next clip is from John Piper's sermon on Romans 8, 1 titled "No Condemnation in Christ Jesus."

00:08:13.000 | No condemnation in Christ Jesus.

00:08:15.000 | The sermon was preached on September 9, 2001, just two days before the infamous day of 9/11.

00:08:22.000 | Incredible.

00:08:23.000 | This clip was sent in to us by Joel, a college student in Atlanta.

00:08:27.000 | This is such an encouraging clip he wrote about the practical effects of holding to the truth of no condemnation.

00:08:33.000 | In Romans 8, 1, from marriage issues, parenting issues, to teen issues and more.

00:08:38.000 | The dolphin and jellyfish metaphor is quintessential Piper.

00:08:41.000 | It sure is.

00:08:42.000 | Thank you, Joel, for that.

00:08:43.000 | Thanks for listening to today's sermon clip.

00:08:46.000 | All our clips are now crowdsourced.

00:08:48.000 | You tell us what bits of Piper's sermons changed your life.

00:08:50.000 | And we share that clip with the APJ audience.

00:08:52.000 | If you have one, email me.

00:08:53.000 | Give me your name, your hometown, the sermon title, and the timestamp of when the clip happens in the audio, and how it impacted you.

00:09:01.000 | Put the word "clip" in the subject line of an email and send it to me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

00:09:06.000 | That's an email address.

00:09:07.000 | Askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

00:09:10.000 | Well, is the COVID-19 vaccine the mark of the beast?

00:09:16.000 | No, it's not.

00:09:18.000 | But we are living in a time when there are all sorts of Christian conspiracy theories about.

00:09:23.000 | Should we buy into them?

00:09:24.000 | Why or why not?

00:09:25.000 | It's an important topic coming up next time.

00:09:28.000 | I'm here with Tony Reinke.

00:09:29.000 | We'll see you back here on Friday with Pastor John back in the studio.

00:09:31.000 | We'll see you then.

00:09:32.000 | .

00:09:34.000 | .

00:09:36.000 | .

00:09:38.000 | .

00:09:39.000 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

What ‘No Condemnation’ Does to a Heart

Chapters