Stop Entering the Courtroom

Read

Romans 8:1–4 (ESV)

1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

I want us to really think about what Paul is saying here.

Romans 8:1 (ESV)

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

I know that we believe this, right?

I think all of us maybe even have this verse memorized.

But, do we live like we believe it?

Even as Christians, we are tempted to pursue sanctification in order to measure up to self-expectations...

Which are really the product of the expectations of someone else that has influence on our life.

Those expectations could come from:

A parent that has passed on.

A parent that is still living.

A spouse.

A friend.

Most likely all of them combined in some form or fashion.

And, listen, there is no doubt that there are expectations put upon us in every aspect of our life, right.

And, expectations are not the enemy...

As long as we’re not letting our performance make a verdict on our own value.

As Christians, we have to be careful not to let our performance or the grade given by mankind of our performance inform us of our real value or to be the verdict.

Our fallen nature, and tendency to self-righteousness...

Makes us think we living our life in a huge courtroom.

A courtroom that has evidence that is created every day...

Every day we are waking up to a new courtroom experience...

And, that evidence is pointing to whether we feel like we are winning or losing.

And, so, even when we feel like we win, we don’t...

The next day even more and better will be expected of us.

And, so everyday we’re tempted to enter this courtroom...

And, let our performance equal our value.

And its a rollercoaster of never feeling good enough.

Never feeling finished.

Never actually feeling like the verdict is done because it’s new every day.

And, the systems of the world add to this despair.

And, so so often we feel condemned because we know our performance is not good enough...

And, when we know the standard is perfection, well, we can never meet that.

But, Paul says in...

Romans 8:1 (ESV)

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

Our failures, our sin, our not measuring up to:

the world’s expectations.

our own expectations.

our parent’s expectations.

our peers’ expectations.

our spouses expectations.

our children’s expectations.

The every day court room appearance is finished.

Paul is telling us here that we don’t have to go into the courtroom ever again...

Why?

Because the only verdict that matters has been given for us in Jesus Christ.

And, that verdict has been rendered by the only true Judge of all things…God.

This is the beauty of the gospel.

Of being in Christ Jesus.

We don’t perform for the verdict.

The verdict comes first in the gospel.

And, the gospel is good news that the verdict is good.

And the verdict is one of Righteous, blameless, holy.

And, it is based upon the person and work of Jesus Christ.

And, so the good news of the gospel is that we don’t perform for a verdict.

We perform based on the verdict already given.

We’re not trying to perform for a verdict.

We perform because a beautiful, declaration of perfection and blamelessness has been freely given to us based on the performance of Christ.

So, no matter how our life may look, with its ups and downs...

Poor performances, okay performances, not so good performances...

In Christ, we still get a verdict based upon the performance of Christ.

We still rest easy knowing that we don’t enter the courtroom when we wake up.

Christ entered the courtroom for us, so that we’d never have to hear a bad verdict.

The only verdict that matters is the verdict made by God.

This doesn’t mean we don’t care how we behave…

It does mean, however, that we don’t let our behavior make a verdict.

Paul says we are Blameless in Christ.

Romans 8:1 (ESV)

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

Let’s pray