Well, it's a scandal that's been written about and talked about all over the place. It's been analyzed up one side and down the other, criticized by both people on the left and on the right. We've been swimming in it this week with a complete disregard for the facts in the case. blatantly pushing aside a proven guilty verdict, a powerful ruler sets a condemned criminal free. Or more specifically, a compassionate father pardons his guilty son because he can. And no, I'm not talking about Hunter Biden. I'm talking about you. I'm talking about you. Because if you consider yourself a Christian, if you're trusting in Jesus' substitutionary death and justifying resurrection to make you right with a holy God, I've just described you. I've just described what has happened to you. Now, All earthly analogies trying to describe eternal realities break down at some point. This one will too, but the parallels are remarkable, friends. Just as a father, Joseph Biden, pardoned his son last Sunday night, so your compassionate father has pardoned you. just as a powerful president issued an irreversible verdict of no condemnation for his son. Listen, so the king of the universe has pronounced no condemnation over all his true sons and daughters. And I'm here to tell you this morning that this irrevocable verdict which is we're gonna see is so much more than simply a not guilty verdict. That verdict has everything to do with Christmas, believe it or not. And that Christmas connection is made for us in Romans chapter eight, verses one through four. As you're turning there in your copy of the scriptures, Romans eight, one through four, I wanna remind you that this Advent season at Cedar Heights Baptist Church, we're focusing on the fact that God sent, God sent His Son into our broken world. The Father sent His Son purposefully, lovingly, graciously. And as we remember this sending each December, we usually depend on the gospels of Matthew and Luke to tell us the story again for the first time. And rightly, we love to hear about angels and shepherds and stars and wise men and mangers and no room in the inn. Those details constitute the what of the Christmas story. But other inspired biblical writers teach us quite a bit about the why of the Christmas story, why Jesus was sent to breathe our air and walk our sod, as the song says. So this December, here at Cedar Heights, through several unexpected Christmas texts, I think, in the epistles of Paul and John, we're gonna consider why Jesus was sent. What did he accomplish in his sentness? we're going to see that Jesus was sent to be today our righteousness, sent to be our Redeemer, sent to be our propitiation, and sent to be our Savior. And the first part of Romans 8 is one of those unexpected Christmas passages. The great eight, as the eighth chapter of Romans is called, is a fathomless, endless, glorious gold mine of spiritual riches, and by my own admission, we'll just be scratching the surface this morning, and actually just maybe scratching. Paul's setup for chapter 8 in the first seven chapters of Romans is crucial for understanding the magnitude of the promise that's contained here in these first four verses. In Romans chapter 1, Paul just lays it on mercilessly to irreligious sinners. Although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. But before you shout Amen in your religious self-righteousness, Paul goes right after religious sinners like me, right away in chapter 2. In passing judgment on another religious sinner, you condemn yourself. And because of your hard and impenitent heart. He's talking to people who say, hey, I got religion. No, because of your hard and impenitent heart. You're storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. After this two-chapter salvo, Paul lays down the planet-wide gauntlet when he writes, among both God-haters and God-acknowledgers None is righteous, no not one, no one understands, no one seeks for God. Concluding then in verse 23 of chapter 3 of Romans, all have sinned, everybody, and all have fallen short of the glory of God. Added to this already bleak picture is chapter 7. where Paul, as someone who's already, he says, been justified by faith, which is what he unfolds in chapters three and four and five of Romans, justification by faith. But in chapter seven, he screams his frustration. He's a divided man wanting to do good and wants to live righteously, but he finds it impossible to do it. And so he vents his exasperation in Romans chapter seven, verse 24. Can you find it there? Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? And wonderfully, he answers his own question in verse 25. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So now with these two realities in view, the pervasive poison of sin and the hope for victory over it, That backdrop, Paul begins Romans chapter eight, and I'm gonna ask you to stand in honor of God's word as I read the first four verses into our hearing today. The pervasive poison of sin, the hope of victory over it, and Paul says, there is therefore now no condemnation. Say no condemnation. No condemnation. For those who are in Christ Jesus. Four. The law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 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 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. This is the word of the Lord. So Holy Spirit, we ask you come now, help me to speak the truth, to make it clear, to speak with conviction, help us to hear what the spirit has to say. Lord, it's good for us to grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. It's good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace. And so I pray that today you would give all of us the spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of you, having the eyes of our hearts enlightened so that we may know what is the hope to which you have called us. and what are the riches of your glorious inheritance, your glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of your power towards us who believe. I ask in Jesus' name, amen. Be seated. This morning, if I could summarize ahead of time, I want to show you from this passage that this amazing declaration in verse 1, no condemnation, comes through incarnation and substitution. Or if I could say it another way, the verdict, no condemnation, is only possible because of Christ's incarnation and His atoning substitution. You know, there's been a great flood of what's called reformed rap. or lyrical theology over the past decade or so. Artists like, hip hop artists like Shai Lin or Timothy Brindle have been spitting big God theology appropriately. And I think one of the reasons that rap lends itself to deep doctrinal themes is because so many of the theological words rhyme. Justification, sanctification, glorification, crucifixion. So I'm going to wrap this main theme today without the beat box. The declaration, no condemnation, comes through incarnation and substitution. The declaration, no condemnation, comes through incarnation and substitution. So this declaration and verse 1 of Romans 8 begins with one scandalous pronouncement. One scandalous pronouncement. The guilty verdict has already been well established. All have sinned. And beyond that, the wages of that sin is death, eternal separation from God in hell. Every human being who takes a breath of life stands under this death sentence. Marxists and capitalists, murderers and ministers, communist Chinese and flag-waving Americans, soldiers and pacifists, paupers and presidents, strip club attenders and church attenders, Gen Xers and Gen Zers, uneducated and home-educated, all have sinned. When it comes to treason against the Holy God, we are all convicted, condemned criminals. But by a scandal of grace, the pronouncement comes, no condemnation to people in all those categories that I mentioned and thousands more that you might think of. No condemnation to those who have tried hard, as hard as they can, to run from God and to those who have tried really hard to please God and know they can't. No condemnation. But this isn't just ollie ollie all come free. The announcement of freedom from condemnation doesn't apply to every human being who's taken a breath of life. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Only those who are in Christ receive this irreversible pardon. The miracle and the mystery of union with Christ is the basis for this scandalous announcement. Charles Wesley preached this truth in his hymn, No Condemnation Now I Dread Jesus and All in Him is Mine, Alive in Him, My Living Head and Clothed with Righteousness Divine, Bold I Approach the Eternal Throne and Claim the Crown Through Christ, my own amazing love, how can it be that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me? Bask in this, believer. Believe it, you still-sinning Christian. Believe it. Marinate your doubtful soul in this. No condemnation. Condemnation of any kind will never be a threat to you again. As Paul continues in Romans 8, he's quick to let us know that the guilty verdict isn't just casually shoved aside. God doesn't just disregard the evidence in the case or ignore the required sentence. He gives two grounds on which our no-condemnation status rests. Verses 2 and 3 then show us two supporting actions for that one scandalous pronouncement. These two actions are introduced by the English students, the conjunction for. Verse 2 begins with, see it, for, and verse 3 begins with, 4, which means Paul is making an argument here. He's answering the question, why can God make this no-condemnation pronouncement? Because, or for, he has taken the initiative himself. in two ways. Your Heavenly Father has performed two unilateral actions so that He could justly and rightly pronounce no condemnation over guilty sinners. The first action is God liberated you. You didn't emancipate yourself. You didn't find the key and unlock your own shackles. God liberated you. And one of the evidence that this is true is in the grammar of verse 2. So I want you to reach way back. For some of you, it's just last year. For some of us, it's decades ago. Reach way back to 8th grade English or wherever you learned about grammar. And I want you to notice as I read verse 2 that the main verb here, the main action is a Passive verb, meaning it's something that's done to you, not something that's done by you. Why can God pronounce you free from the guilt and power of sin? Verse 2, for the law of the spirit of life, here's the verb, has set you free. You didn't do it. Somebody else or something else did it, has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. Now my assumption, and probably was yours too, is that when you hear the word law at the end of that verse, you automatically go to thinking about the Mosaic law, the rules and the commandments that were given to Moses for the Hebrew people so that they could live in covenant with Yahweh. This is the law that no one could keep, thus it's called the law of sin and death. But if you make that assumption, when I make that assumption, then you also have to assume that the law that's referred to at the beginning of verse two is also then some kind of rule or some kind of commandment that you have to keep. You still have to do something. We're just gonna call it something different. We're just gonna call it the law of the spirit of life. That doesn't work though, because that's against the main thrust of this whole passage, this whole text. So without getting too deep into the weeds, if I haven't already, there are good, linguistic and contextual reasons to understand law in verse 2 in more of a figurative sense, not referring to specific rules and commandments, not referring to a specific set of commands, but to a binding authority to a power of some kind. Law is actually used that way in other places, in Romans and other places in the scriptures. So, understanding law in this way then attributes the power to free us from guilt and sin at the beginning of the verse, not to obeying some law, but solely to a person, to the Holy Spirit, such that Paul is describing your liberation from a death sentence as something that's accomplished by the Spirit. not by obeying some kind of a law. So you might say it this way, verse 2, the power of the life-giving Spirit sets you free from the sentence of condemnation of sin that leads to death. And I don't want you to miss this reality, that this liberation comes to those who are in Christ Jesus. It's our union with God the Son, accomplished by God the Holy Spirit, that frees us from the judgment of God the Father. I'm going to say that again. It's our union with God the Son, accomplished by God the Holy Spirit, that frees us from the judgment of God the Father. We're going to look at this stunning reality of union with Christ in just a moment. Hang on. But Paul's not done yet building the foundation for this theological skyscraper here. And as he continues his logical argument, it becomes even more clear that this is God's work, not something that we do. He alone is the mover and the actor in the second supporting action that's revealed in verse 3. And in the doctrinal dance that's going on here, it seems to me appropriate now in verse 3 that Paul is now going to be moving to an understanding of that word law as exactly the Mosaic Law, this list of rules and regulation and commandments. See if you can hear that as I read verse 3. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. So the 613 commands that God gave to the people of Israel were never designed to make somebody righteous. So the purpose of this law wasn't God saying, If you keep all of these perfectly, you'll be justified before Me, and you'll get to live with Me forever. That's not the point. The law could never do that, and you know human beings could never do that either. So God has to act, and He does. God has done what all those rules could never do. And what has He done? What action does He take? That's in the second part of verse 3. by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin He condemned sin in the flesh." So what is the second supporting action that God does to be able to pronounce no condemnation over guilty sinners? God sent Jesus. God started Christmas. invented it. This is the incarnation. Romans 8.3 is one of those unexpected, unlikely places where we see the wonder of Christ's first advent. God sent his son. And in two brief phrases, we get greater clarity on the nature and the purpose of this sent one. We have greater understanding here about who Jesus is, and why Jesus came. The Lord Jesus was sent, Paul says, in the likeness of sinful flesh. You see that in verse three? He's so careful about how he says this. The Holy Spirit perfectly inspired Paul to write this sentence the way he did to keep us from going into one of two disastrous doctrinal ditches. Notice, he doesn't say, for instance, that the father sent his son in sinful flesh. That would have been easier to say. Because if Jesus was embodied in sinful flesh, that would negate the Bible's teaching that Jesus lived a sinless life. It would run contrary to the truth that Jesus was never tainted by sin of any kind. And in that case, then, he would not be, as the angel says to Mary, In Luke 1, verse 35, Jesus would not be the holy Son of God, and therefore He could not be the spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. If He was incarnated in sinful flesh, He would not be fully God. But then, Paul won't let us fall into the other ditch either. He doesn't say that God sent His Son simply in the likeness of flesh. That would call into question then the full humanity of Jesus, like, well, he was sort of a man, kind of like a man, but not actually, not really. Some kind of avatar, something like that. And that would then negate Jesus's ability to fully represent all of humanity before God on the cross. If that was true, substitutionary atonement is out the window. Rather, This perfectly crafted phrase guarantees that Jesus is both fully God and fully man, 100% deity and 100% humanity in the likeness of sinful flesh, meaning his physical flesh is both sinless and it is real. And that answers then who Jesus is in his nature. The essence of his incarnation is disclosed here in the phrase, in the likeness of sinful flesh. But the next phrase then shows us why Jesus was sent by his father, the reason for the incarnation. He was sent, it says in our version of the Bible, for sin. Two simple words there. Other Bible translations actually add some additional words to help us kind of understand what this means. So generally, Jesus, one English translation says, Jesus came to deal with sin. That's what for sin means, and generally that's true in a broad sense. Other translations with good textual warrant translates those two words more specifically as an offering for sin, by sending his own son as an offering for sin. That leans into the truth that the reason for the season isn't just Jesus generally, The reason for the season, the reason for the incarnation was the crucifixion specifically. As an offering for sin, Jesus would accomplish our atonement by shedding His own blood for us, as an offering for sins, means He was and He is our substitute. He died for us as an offering for sin. substitutionary nature of His death is encapsulated in the next phrase in verse 3, "...He condemned sin in the flesh." That means that the sentence of condemnation that you and I deserved was placed on His flesh. Through His death on the cross, He absorbed our condemnation in His body. And friends, that's why God can look at you and say, no condemnation. The declaration, no condemnation, comes through incarnation and substitution. But we're not done yet, because in verse four, Paul comes back full circle. He restates the no condemnation verdict of verse one, but he states it in a different way. Verse four begins with three words, in order then. Now, Bible readers, which I hope you all are, which we all must be." Bible readers, when you see those three words, in order that, it's going to reveal a purpose statement. We talk like this all the time, right? I work a job in order that I may provide for my family. Why do you work a job? Purpose? To provide for your family. I'm washing your mouth out with soap right now. Parents still do this? Johnny, I'm washing your mouth out with soap right now in order that you will learn not to sass back to your mother. What's the purpose of the soapy mouthwash? The purpose is to teach respect. Johnny, some respect for his mommy. So when Paul begins verse 4 with, in order that, he's going to reveal the purpose of all that has come before here. These two supporting actions, these two realities that he's been teaching about the incarnation and the crucifixion have then one stunning purpose. God sent Jesus at Christmas and Jesus went to the cross at Easter in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us." Are you kidding me right now? That is a stunning truth. That's amazing because the righteous requirement of the law is perfection. Perfect obedience to all of the law is what's required. James makes this clear in James 2.10. Is this still in Iwana verse? Whoever keeps the whole law, but fails in one point. Oh wait a minute, I kept 612. No, no, no. Fail in one point, you have become guilty of Seems to me that spelling bees are a lesson in perfection, right? If you want to advance in a spelling bee, you have to spell the words perfectly the first time. In my experience, there's no exceptions, there's no going back, oh, wait, wait, wait, I didn't mean to say U, I meant to say A. There's nothing like that. There's no like virtual whiteout where you can go back and erase your mistake. Listen, the Mosaic law is a divine spelling bee with heaven and hell in the balance. No mistakes allowed, no do-overs, no mulligans, you golfers. the righteous requirement of the law is perfection. And we all know, and God knew it when He gave it, that perfection is impossible. So how is it that Paul is able to say that this demand for perfection, listen, is fulfilled, completed, satisfied, indecidedly, and obviously imperfect sinners like you and me? How is that? He's able to say that because of the mind-blowing truth of, here it is, our union with Christ. Those two statements to our being in Christ, back up in verses one and two, are gonna come to bear right here. The Bible teaches that guilty sinners like you and me are brought by the Holy Spirit through faith into union with Christ. Or if I could say it another way, our status, believers, of being in Christ is achieved by the Holy Spirit through faith. And because of this status, the perfect righteousness of Jesus is counted to you. If you are in Christ by faith, the perfect obedience of Jesus is yours. It belongs to you truthfully, actually, completely. Jesus flawlessly fulfilled the law and met its righteous requirement. Therefore, believer in Christ, you flawlessly fulfilled the law and met its righteous requirement. Or to summarize the teaching of these verses very succinctly, Jesus was sent to be our. Righteousness. We heard this very same thing this morning in Jeremiah's prophecy. This is what Emma and Lydia read earlier. God says, I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness. And this is the name by which he will be called the Lord is Our righteousness, not just he's righteous, no, our righteousness. And this is one of the points where the president pardoning his son analogy breaks down. The God who sits on the throne of justice and righteousness does not, cannot just sweep aside the guilty verdict. He doesn't just disregard our guilt. He doesn't issue a pardon to his children just because he can. When His sinless Son was killed on a bloody cross, the condemnation for our sinfulness, the condemnation you and I deserve, was transferred to Him. The penalty was paid by divine substitution. But that's not all. That's just the first part, because as we saw, those who are united to Christ by faith receive His righteousness as our own. His perfection is credited to imperfect sinners like you and me. There's an actual legal transaction. There's a financial transfer that takes place. You are a million dollars in debt. and God brought your moral bank account up to zero, but that's not all. He also put a billion, billion dollars of Christ's righteousness into your account. Both of those are true. And because of this full and free pardon, this reckoning of Christ's righteousness to you, the scandal of no condemnation can be pronounced over a guilty criminal like me and guilty criminals like you. No condemnation through incarnation and substitution. If that doesn't make your Christmas merry, your wood's wet, man. Now, based on all of this glorious truth, I want to speak to three kinds of people as I close. You might be listening to my voice this morning, either online or in the room. And you recognize today, oh, I have never put my faith in Jesus. I'm not in Christ because I've never believed and trusted Jesus, His cross for the forgiveness of my sins. If that's you this morning, I have an invitation for you from another Christmas verse in John chapter one. where it says, Jesus came to his own. That's Christmas, right? He came. Jesus came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. as many as did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become the children of God. You receive Jesus Christ by believing in Jesus Christ, and then you become God's child. And you've just heard, haven't you, what God does for His children? He pronounces no condemnation over them and He gives you the very righteousness of Jesus Christ. That's my invitation. Believe in Jesus and receive this free gift of no condemnation, this complete and full pardon. The second group of people I want to talk to is you're here this morning and I'm a Christian. I've trusted in Jesus for my salvation but And when I look at my life and the habitual sins and how I just keep struggling, maybe even addictive sinfulness, I just can't seem to get over it. And the burden of shame and guilt weighs you down. Shame stalks you over and over again. Your secret sins are weighing you down. I want you to listen to the voice of your heavenly Father. Listen, guilty Christian, there is therefore now no condemnation for every child of mine who is in Christ Jesus. Swim in that. Believe in it. No condemnation. And thirdly, I want to speak to those who know you're pardoned and listen. You feel the truth of this verdict of no condemnation. You know and believe all this work that God has done in these first three and a half verses. If that's you, there's a response. There's an expected response. There's a logical response to this scandal of grace that you've experienced. And this response is at the end of verse 4. Those who know that Jesus fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law for them are those people who then subsequently, therefore, walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. It's not how you get to know condemnation. It's how you live and walk after you've been forgiven and made righteous. Walking in step with the Spirit, exhibiting love, joy, and peace, patience, and kindness. and goodness, and faithfulness, and gentleness, and self-control. That's a description of someone who's been scandalously pardoned. The father acted for the sake of his children. The son was sent to pardon those children. And as we walk according to this Holy Spirit, we're empowered then to act like, think like, talk like, live like, love like God's children. I want us to close tonight, this morning, with a prayer. It's actually a sung prayer. About three weeks ago, I discovered some long-lost verses of Hark the Herald Angels Sing, which we sang earlier. Glorious truth in that. But there's two verses that talk about union with Christ and being set free from sin and from Satan, from the serpent. about His likeness being seen in us is directed to God as a prayer. So I'm gonna invite you to stand and to sing this prayer as we close today.