Runneth Over | No Condemnation, Only Freedom

“How Christ’s Love Frees Us to Live Generously”

October 27, 2024

Romans 8:1-4

Rev. Teer Hardy

No condemnation! None! Nada! Not an ounce!

For those who have heard the gospel for years, and for those familiar with wooden church pews or the consistency of the church’s liturgy, we may gloss over Paul’s declaration. But think about it for a moment: in Christ, through Christ, and because of Christ, we are not condemned. All of the mistakes, the missteps, the times we have fallen short – they are not held against us. We have heard Taylor Swift say, “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem,“ but God says that what we or others say makes us the problem - our shortfalls and failures - are no problem at all.

The beautiful and strange truth of the gospel is that in Christ we are free. It is not that we have somehow earned this freedom. No, it is that we have died, our lives are now hidden with Christ.

Paul is giving us the key to living a generous life. You see, the world tells us we are what we accomplish. We are measured by what we produce, by the size of our bank accounts, by the model year of our cars, by the number of people who follow us on social media, by the accolades on our CVs. But the gospel of Jesus Christ flips all of that upside down. In Christ, we have died to that way of living. We have died to the need to prove ourselves, to accumulate and hoard.

When God the Creator looks at us, they do not see what we have accumulated or our failures and shortcomings. The Father sees the Son. And that changes everything.

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