The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus #1: No Condemnation in Christ

The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set every believer free from the law of sin and death, and that is why, as Romans 8:1 says, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. In this first message of the series, the pastor shows how to apply the Divine Exchange in daily life: stop judging yourself by your feelings and your performance, and trust the Holy Spirit to produce God’s nature in you.

Below you will find the full video, a structured summary of the sermon, the Scripture behind each point (linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline, and practical steps you can take this week.

Sermon at a Glance

This message was posted at NTC Ministries on October 29, 2024, and opens a new series on Romans 8. It runs about 56 minutes. The pastor picks up directly from his previous series on the Divine Exchange and asks a practical question: now that we know what Jesus did for us, how do we apply that knowledge so that His divine nature is actually evident in our lives?

His answer runs through Romans 8:1–13. Believers are not condemned, whatever they feel. God deliberately chooses weak and imperfect people. And the Holy Spirit, not human effort, is the one who works righteousness out in us.

After the Divine Exchange: Perfected Forever

The pastor begins with Hebrews 10:14: by one offering Jesus has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. Under a magnifying glass, he jokes, every one of us looks like a mess. But that is not how God sees us, and faith comes when we learn to see ourselves the way He does.

Peter teaches that grace and peace grow as we grow in the knowledge of God and of Jesus, and that through that knowledge we receive all things that pertain to life and godliness and become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:2–4). The pastor describes his own walk: as he grew closer to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, things that used to bother him stopped bothering him, and a calm assurance took their place.

That assurance depends on hope, and hope depends on hearing the good things of God. A message of “you’re no good for nothing and you better repent or you’re going to burn in hell,” he says, is not God’s message. That kind of thinking is why God asked Israel in Isaiah 52 why they were always in bondage. It was because they did not know His name (Isaiah 52:5–6).

He then reviews the Divine Exchange. The table below sets out each exchange as he restates it.

The last line comes from Galatians 3:13–14: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, so that the blessing would come upon us. The only thing holding that blessing back, the pastor says, is lack of understanding, for people are destroyed for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6).

No Condemnation, No Matter What You Feel

Condemnation has no place here, because every person was uniquely designed and is uniquely loved. That is why we are told not to judge one another. Everyone is flawed, the pastor says, just in different ways. From the beginning God has wanted to understand our weakness. Before judging Sodom and Gomorrah He said He would go down and see (Genesis 18:17–21), and He would not hide His plans from Abraham, whom He knew would teach his children.

God already knows everything, the pastor explains. What He was saying is that He wanted to experience what people experience. So Jesus came as Emmanuel, God with us (Matthew 1:23). He felt our shortcomings, even asking how long He must bear with a faithless generation (Matthew 17:17), and then took every weakness and its penalty to the cross. God created man in love, came in love, died in love, because He so loved the world (John 3:16).

Then comes the foundation text, Romans 8:1–2: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus… For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” The pastor points out two laws: the law of the flesh, which brings death, and the law of the Spirit, which brings life.

He encourages believers to be good Bible investigators with a concordance. In his study, several words in the King James wording of verse 1 were supplied by translators, and the phrase about walking after the flesh appears in its full form later, in verse 4. Stripped back, he says, the statement is emphatic: no condemnation to those in Christ. Period.

That means that even if you feel condemned, you are not condemned. You must learn not to live by your feelings. Most believers have felt condemned since being born again, he says, but that comes from old thinking or from Satan. The same is true of healing: whatever you feel, you are healed, holy and righteous, because there was an exchange.

He illustrates surrender with a story from a tent crusade near a town in Uganda, in a largely Muslim area where many miracles took place. Two young men came forward asking for the power they had seen. He told them they would have to renounce the god they served and give their lives to Jesus, just as a king would never give authority to someone unwilling to serve him. Of the many Muslims he has seen born again, those two were the only ones he saw walk away.

Does no condemnation mean we can do whatever we want? No. Romans 14:23 says whatever is not from faith is sin. The pastor asks what difference there is, then, between not believing God for healing, or not believing He loves you, and some other sin. The answer is not more rules. It is learning how the knowledge of who God really is produces His nature in us.

Chosen in Weakness: Twelve Ordinary Men

The New Testament never shows a perfect church, the pastor says. Corinth was the most troubled church Paul wrote to, and he did not write to condemn it. If you find a perfect church, he jokes, don’t attend it, because you will ruin its record.

He recommends John MacArthur’s book Twelve Ordinary Men, which observes that the apostles show how God’s strength is made perfect in weakness. They had different commitments to the law, different political views, occupations, personalities and temperaments, and one was a traitor. Jesus knew all of that before He chose them, and still chose them.

So are you. 1 Peter 2:9 says, “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” Verse 4 calls Jesus rejected by men but chosen by God. As His nature grows in you, the pastor warns, expect some rejection too, often from religious people, since it was religious leaders who pushed for Jesus to be crucified.

Jesus also said, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit” (John 15:16). In that culture, students chose their own rabbi. Jesus reversed it. A teacher chosen by many students might compare himself with one who had few, which is why Paul warned against measuring ourselves by one another (2 Corinthians 10:12).

God places each of us in the body as He sees fit. The Holy Spirit is the governor of the kingdom on earth, the pastor says, sent not to overlord us but to lead and guide us with the everlasting love God speaks of in Jeremiah 31:3.

1 Corinthians 1:26–31 says not many wise, mighty or noble are called. God has chosen the foolish, weak, base and despised things of the world, so that no flesh should glory in His presence. Christ became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Even Paul, a Pharisee trained under Gamaliel, counted all of it as rubbish for the excellence of knowing Christ (Philippians 3:7–8).

The Humility of the Kingdom

It is all in Christ, the pastor says, so we are not trying to attain a perfect self or a glorified position. The kingdom works through humility, and Jesus modeled it from the beginning. When God created Adam, He knelt in the dirt and breathed the breath of life into it (Genesis 2:7).

Jesus was born of a woman, laid in a feeding trough and wrapped in swaddling cloths. He washed His disciples’ feet like a slave and rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. Before His accusers He was silent as a lamb led to the slaughter (Isaiah 53:7), and when Pilate claimed power over His life, Jesus answered that Pilate had no power except what was given from above (John 19:10–11).

He became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross, and so God gave Him the name above every name (Philippians 2:8–11). The point is not our greatness or goodness, or keeping up with who looks or does best. It is living with Jesus and letting the Holy Spirit tell us what to do and say. “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:31).

Some will say this gives people a license to sin. The pastor says the opposite is true. It is about learning to let the Holy Spirit do these things in you, rather than frustrating yourself trying to make them happen, like Israel in Isaiah 52 relying on its own strength.

He mentions churches in the South named Corinth Baptist, which he takes as a confession that they are imperfect people who love Jesus and let Him help them. Only one was ever truly fit for service, and His name is Jesus. So our prayer should be, Holy Spirit, come and do whatever You want, however You want, because You know best.

The church, he says, is not a trophy case where great people are displayed. It is a boot camp for imperfect believers who grow in faith. He recalls older Pentecostals who would interrupt joyful worshipers to ask whether they were dancing in the flesh. That kind of burden is what the apostles refused in Acts 15:10, a yoke that neither they nor their fathers could bear.

The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus at Work in You

Now the pastor reads on. Romans 8:3–4: what the law could not do, because it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son, so that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk according to the Spirit. Read this way, he says, the meaning is simple: it will work out in the lives of those who trust the Holy Spirit in them rather than their own performance.

If you struggle with anger, for example, you thank the Father that His Spirit is in you, commanded to bear fruit, and that you will not be that angry person anymore. Self-control is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23); no three-step program will produce it.

Nor do believers have two natures. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). What remains is a mind programmed for years, with fragments that need clearing out. That is why Romans 12:1–2 urges us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice and be transformed by the renewing of the mind.

Believe the Holy Spirit is working good things in you, the pastor urges, and that you will be better today, tomorrow and the day after. If you have a bad day, don’t give it a thought. Even in the middle of a struggle with sin, declare that you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, and let Him cleanse you from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Think well of yourself, because you are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).

Paul’s no in Romans 8:1 is a strong Greek negative, he explains: there is no way, no how, that you are under condemnation. The law of sin and death only holds believers back and frustrates them. The law of the Spirit of life frees them to live by the power of God. Since he took hold of this, he says, he has seen more miracles than he could imagine.

He wanted to know not just the God who wrote a book, but the God who placed the stars, who knows how to fix the human body, and who knows every thought. He tells of giving a word to a man in the church that he would be reunited with his family. Within about a week, the man’s daughter, estranged for years, called to reconcile.

Romans 8:5–9 contrasts minds set on the flesh, our own performance, with minds set on the Holy Spirit. To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. The carnal mind tries to manage alone and calls on God only after disaster. But you are not in the flesh if the Holy Spirit dwells in you. Even when you are not cooperating, the pastor says, He is still doing His work, though it goes easier when you go along with Him.

Finally, Romans 8:10–13: if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He will also give life to your mortal body. What effort did Jesus, or Lazarus, put into being raised? None. The same Holy Spirit will not fail to do His job in you, taking you from faith to faith, strength to strength and glory to glory.

Living Free From Condemnation This Week

Here are practical steps drawn from this message on the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus:

• Answer feelings with Romans 8:1. When you feel condemned, say aloud that there is no condemnation for you in Christ Jesus.
• Thank the Spirit for specific fruit. Name the area you struggle with, such as anger, and thank the Holy Spirit that He is producing the opposite fruit in you.
• Stop comparing. Remember that Jesus chose you; resist measuring yourself against other believers.
• Renew your mind daily. Present yourself to God each morning and clear out old thinking with His Word.
• Study for yourself. Use a concordance to see what the original words of a passage say.
• Treat church as a boot camp. Help imperfect people grow instead of judging whether their worship is in the flesh.

Timestamped Outline

• 0:00 After the Divine Exchange: perfected forever
• 1:08 Growing in knowledge to share His nature
• 3:22 The Divine Exchange in review
• 4:33 Redeemed from the curse; uniquely loved
• 7:01 God came down to understand us
• 9:27 Romans 8:1–2: our foundation
• 12:05 Words the translators added
• 14:38 No matter what you feel
• 15:54 Two young men in Uganda
• 18:01 Anything not of faith is sin
• 19:20 No perfect church; twelve ordinary men
• 20:54 A chosen generation: 1 Peter 2:9
• 23:46 You did not choose Me, I chose you
• 27:43 God chose the foolish and the weak
• 31:38 The humility of Jesus
• 37:04 A boot camp, not a trophy case
• 39:31 Romans 8:3–4: what the law could not do
• 43:04 One new nature, a mind to renew
• 46:32 Paul’s emphatic no
• 48:59 Knowing the God who made the stars
• 51:00 Romans 8:5–9: spiritually minded
• 54:14 Romans 8:11–13: the Spirit gives life

Law of the Spirit of Life Series

This is the first message in a teaching series on Romans 8 at NTC Ministries. Continue with the next message:

• You are here: The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus #1: No Condemnation in Christ
• Next: The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus #2: God Chooses Imperfect People

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does the pastor say God is not looking for a perfect church?

He points out that the New Testament never shows one. Corinth was the most troubled church Paul wrote to, yet Paul did not write to condemn it. God chooses the foolish and weak things of the world so that no one can boast. The church, he says, is a boot camp where imperfect believers grow in faith, not a trophy case for impressive people.

Why did the two young men in Uganda walk away?

They wanted the power they had seen in the crusade, but the pastor told them they would first have to renounce the god they served and give their lives to Jesus as Lord. He compared it to a king, who would never give authority to someone unwilling to serve him. They chose not to. He uses the story to show that the life of the Holy Spirit comes through surrender to Jesus.

What is the difference between the flesh and the Spirit in this teaching?

In this message, walking after the flesh means relying on your own performance: trying to fix yourself and calling on God only after things go wrong. Walking after the Spirit means trusting the Holy Spirit who lives in you to produce God’s nature and fruit. The first, the pastor says, leads to frustration and death; the second brings life and peace.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• Romans 8:1–2 — no condemnation in Christ Jesus
• Romans 8:3–4 — what the law could not do
• Romans 8:5–9 — spiritually minded is life and peace
• Romans 8:10–13 — the Spirit gives life to your mortal body
• Hebrews 10:14 — perfected forever
• Galatians 3:13–14 — redeemed from the curse
• 1 Peter 2:4–9 — a chosen generation
• 1 Corinthians 1:26–31 — God chose the weak things
• Philippians 2:8–11 — the humility of Christ
• 2 Corinthians 5:17 — a new creation

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

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