Text: Roman 8:1–4, 35–39
Topic: Celebrating the results of Christ's passion

• Illustration: Jörg Gerkner, a German solider who escaped from a U.S. war camp, lived in fear for years, thinking he was going to be sent back to prison for his crimes. Gerkner eventually confessed his crimes, and the U.S. released him from the charges and made him a United States citizen.
• How many of us live under this great tension and pressure of condemnation?
• I want us to look at Romans 8 and see the results of the passion of Christ.
• Those of us that live under constant condemnation need to listen to the Word of God when it says, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."
• I want to show you two things that are a result of the passion of Christ.

• In Christ's passion we have liberation from all condemnation.
• The "therefore" in this text places great emphasis on what has been said—not just in the last couple of verses in chapter 7, but on thoughts Paul addressed way back in Romans 1.
• Throughout the first seven chapters of Romans, Paul speaks of condemnation.
• Chapter 8 begins this way: "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."
• That is the result of the passion of Jesus Christ—no condemnation.
• In the Greek New Testament, the text literally reads: "No condemnation, therefore, for those who are in Christ Jesus."
• In Genesis 6:14, God told Noah to build an ark that was covered in pitch.
• The word "pitch" is the word "atonement."
• God is pointing to something bigger with the story of Noah; he's pointing to being in Jesus Christ like Noah was in the ark.
• My point is this: when you are in Christ, you are secure.
• It's not your holding on that saves you, brothers and sisters; it's the fact that those nail-scarred hands are holding onto you.
• The whole of the Book of Romans spins on one word—justification.
• Justification is not the same thing as salvation.
• When you come to Jesus Christ, if you receive him as your Lord and Savior and receive his salvation, you receive new life.
• You have to come back and repent and ask him to forgive you, but you don't get saved all over again.
• That justification is eternal, holding you securely through all of eternity.
• Justification is also not the same thing as a pardon.
• If I was a judge, and you brought a criminal before me and I pardoned him, he would still have a record.
• Justification means there is no record against you in heaven at all.
  • Illustration: An English man has his bill waved by the Rolls-Royce company as if it never existed. 
• When you get to heaven and Satan wants to holler and scream about all your sin, Jesus is going to look through the files, turn around, and say: We don't have a file on him here at all.
• If you're in Jesus Christ, you are in for eternity.

• Christ's passion also brings the operation of God's redemption into my life.
• The law of the spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and the law of death.
• When Paul uses the word "law," he doesn't mean the Mosaic Law; Paul is talking about the operation of sin and the operation of death.
• Because I've received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, the result of his passion, crucifixion, and resurrection is that now I no longer have to yield to what sin dictates for my life.
• Beyond that, death doesn't have the final say on my life.
• You might say, "How can that be?"
• Paul shows us that it's not because of the law! 
• The law can't make you perfect; it only reveals how imperfect you are.
• What we could not do, God did.
• This is perhaps the clearest verse in all the New Testament on the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ.
• What sin had done to me—condemning me to an eternity in hell and in separation from Jesus Christ—Jesus reversed at the Cross; Jesus pardons me.
• You might say, "Why did Jesus have to suffer?"
• The answer is in Romans 8:35: Jesus suffered for us, because he loves us. 

• Illustration: Princess Alice lost her life when she decided to go against doctor's orders and kiss her baby boy who was sick with the black diphtheria.
• You were dying eternally in your sins and transgressions when you cried out to God.
• God heard your cry, came and took you up in his arms, and smothered you with a kiss of grace—and it took his death to do it.