Big Idea: God offers us freedom from condemnation and a new way to live.
Thomas Johnson knew injustice. He was a slave, and slaves were commodities, publicly sold at auctions, often ripped apart from parents. Thomas had never known his father. He was often mistreated: tied to the whipping post and beaten with a three-pronged whip on his shoulders, lower back, and buttocks. He knew that shame.
He longed for freedom.
He longed for the place where boys could run and roam without fear, without struggle, without whippings. But as he lay within a hardened bed frame in the corner of a clapboard shack on a tobacco plantation in Virginia, he swore Heaven was a place to sing about, but never reach. For Thomas Johnson lived in the real world, one ruled by men like Quentin Ellis, who made sure freedom was enjoyed only by white men. (Steal Away Home)
Thomas was in a desperate situation.
Thomas was a slave. He was in bondage, caged, the property of another man. The master and foreman held absolute power over him. He had no rights, no voice, no recourse, no future. The depth of this reality consumed him, and it was slowly suffocating what little hope he held.
After two decades of this, Thomas hardly felt human anymore. One night he decided, “I’m going to escape.” It was an idea that had consumed his thoughts since childhood. Two things held him back: fear of getting caught, and not knowing what he would do once he was free.
But as he escaped, he came across something he didn’t expect: a group of slaves worshiping Jesus.
He was captivated. Ezekiel, one of the slaves, turned to Thomas and spoke words that completely changed the direction of his life:
Jesus sets slaves like us free. He may not take away the chains from your hands and your feet. He may never let you off this plantation. But, Jesus will do something even better than that. He will take off the chains from your heart.
Jesus sets slaves free. He will take off the chains from your heart.
That’s what we’re going to look at today.
You see, according to the Bible, we’re in slavery — not in the same kind of slavery as Thomas Johnson, but slavery nonetheless.
Jesus said, “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). Romans 6:20 says that all of us were “slaves to sin.”
When Paul wrote these words to the church in Rome, it’s estimated that one-third of the population were slaves. Many of those who were free had once been slaves.
The thing about being a slave back then is that you wouldn’t have been able to tell who’s a slave and who’s not. And that’s our condition today. The Bible says that the natural condition of every person alive is slavery to sin.
The main idea of being slaves to sin is that sin is our master. We like to think that we’re self-determined, that we have the choice of how to live. The reality, according to God, is the opposite. We lack freedom. But the good news, according to Paul, is that we have been set free from slavery to sin. So, the words that changed Thomas’s life can change yours too:
Jesus sets slaves like us free. He may not take away the chains from your hands and your feet. He may never let you off this plantation. But, Jesus will do something even better than that. He will take off the chains from your heart.
We’re a lot like like Thomas. And for slaves like us, the message of Romans 8 is very good news.
Today I want to answer one simple question: What does God offer us through the good news of what Jesus has done? And the answer comes in two parts. Here’s the first.
First: God offers us freedom from condemnation (Romans 8:1-4).
Romans 8:1 may be one of the most important verses in the Bible in what might be the greatest chapter of the Bible. Listen to these words and let them wash over you:
There is therefore now no condemnation for tho…
