No Longer Condemned (Easter 2024)
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The Scarlet Letter is classic tale in American literature that that many of you know of.
It was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne back in 1850,
And it’s a story about a mother,
living in the heart of Puritan New England,
who is punished by her neighbors
because she had a child with a man who was not her husband.
And the punishment for her was that she was forced to wear a Scarlet Letter on her dress,
so that everywhere she went her shame would follow her on full display for everyone to see.
There was no escaping it,
There was no hiding it,
For the Red Letter she bore signified her condemnation before all.
This past week came across a pastor who spoke of a modern-day equivalent of the Scarlet Letter,
Which happened several years ago in the State of Tennessee
for first-time drunk driving offenses.
And under this new Tennessee law
those who had been convicted of driving under the influence faced:
Jail time,
loss of licence,
fines,
were required to take educational classes,
go through a period of probation,
And, in addition to all of that,
They had to do numerous hours of community service
by picking up litter alongside the highways that they had chosen to drive drunk down.
How is that equivalent to Scarlet Letter you might ask?
Great question.
It’s because those who were a part of this program were forced to wear a bright orange vest,
That read - in large easily to read letter:
“I am, a drunk driver.”
See, the idea behind the law
was that these men and women would feel so much embarrassment and shame when they were seen by their friends, family, and co-workers,
that they would never want to drive drunk again.
Now, maybe you think that’s a good idea or bad idea.
But that’s not my point at all here,
I’m not questioning whether a drunk driver should face punishment,
Or whether they should even be forced to wear a mark of condemnation and shame for their crimes.
What I am questioning is:
Why are you continuing to wear your vest of condemnation and shame?
Why haven’t you taken it off the second you were able to,
surely as these drunk drivers did the second they were able to?
I don’t pretend to know everything about ya’ll.
But I do know that some of you struggle to be free from the guilt and shame from your past,
And consequently, you dress yourself in the clothes of your worst mistakes.
And, just when you begin to stop doing that,
along comes society which can’t wait to dress you in your worst moments!
They can’t wait to pin that Scarlet letter on you,
Which results in many of us having closets full of clothing with Scarlet Letters attached to them,
Which all serve to remind of us of our guilt and condemnation.
And this causes us to think of ourselves as our worst moments:
I’m a Liar,
I’m a thief,
I’m divorced,
I’m an addict,
I’m a bad parent,
I’ve had an abortion,
I’ve hurt and failed more people than I care to count.
Well, if that’s you,
Then I’m glad you’re here!
Because I now have the privilege of sharing with you the most wonderful news of all
And that news is this:
1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
This is, no doubt, great news!
But the only question left then is:
How can this become a reality in our lives?
3 ways:
To be free of your condemnation you must:
Admit your guilt (v. 1)
Accept God’s offer of exchange (v. 2-3)
Abandon the old and embrace the new (v. 4)
The book Romans is an amazing book that addresses humanities’ big question
for how a Holy God can accept scarlet-lettered sinners in a way that is JUST!
In a way that is right!
Because this is quite the conundrum.
See, if God is Holy and Just - which He is...
He HAS to punish sin.
He can’t just ignore it and let it go.
Even if we might think that He should.
But I want to tell you something about that idea;
The idea that God should just pardon everyone with a wave of His hand.
Sure, you say that you think He should,
But deep down, you know He can’t,
AND!
you wouldn’t want Him too even if He could.
Think about this with me for a moment:
Imagine for a second that someone violently murdered your entire family and everyone you felt dear to.
And then after the long, grueling and agonizing months waiting for justice,
The trial finishes,
and the judge is about to hand down the verdict.
And when she does, she turns to the defendant and says this:
“After looking over all of the evidence and hearing all of the eye-witness accounts from the people who saw you commit the murder,
There is no question in my mind that you are absolutely guilty for the crimes in which you stand accused.”
However…
I pardon you.
Because I see that you were a Boy Scout who got good grades
AND,
I see here that you’ve spent a lot of time over the years volunteering at your local soup kitchen.”
What would you say to that?
What would you think about this judge and their understanding of justice and righteousness?
You’d be LIVID!
And rightly so!
Because here is a judge,
Someone who’s supposed to stand for truth and justice,
now taking a stand for the EXACT OPPOSITE!
and by doing so they are making a mockery of the pain and suffering this person caused to you!
My friends, the same is true of God with us.
Because the truth is,
every single one of us has committed crimes, not just against each other,
But first and foremost against a Holy God,
And the crimes we have committed against Him makes the murderer I just mentioned a moment ago
seem like a moral Boy Scout by comparison!
And so no.
Deep down we know that God MUST judge our sin,
For if He doesn’t - He’s no Just God at all!
And yet, instead of embracing this reality,
We spend our days trying to convince ourselves that this isn’t the case.
We cover up our Scarlet Letters with anything and everything we possibly can,
trying to convince ourselves that we are OK.
And we try to cover it up with things like:
religious activity or trying to be a good person,
But it doesn’t work!
Because it can’t work!
And for those of us who have come to realize that trying to live a good life
won’t undue the sin that gave us our Scarlet Letters,
What do we do?
We turn to distractions!
Hobbies,
Career,
Love,
Family,
Materialism,
Drugs,
or sex,
Anything and everything!
All with the effort of trying to distract ourselves from the Scarlet Letter we know we wear.
But here’s the thing:
Until you come to recognize that you are a law-breaker,
Until you realize that you are a trespasser
who has sinned and violated God’s Holy Standard more times than you could ever count!
and consequently deserve to the wear that Scarlet Letter across your chest that says: “I AM A SINNER”
You won’t be able to exchange your sinful robes for Christ’s righteous ones,
You won’t be able to shed your shame and condemnation!
And so you must come to accept God’s offer of exchange to take your robes of guilt and shame,
and instead be robed in Christ’s righteousness,
To be free of your condemnation you must:
Admit your guilt (v. 1)
Accept God’s offer of exchange (v. 2-3)
2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 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 1941 in the Auschwitz concentration camp,
A prisoner broke free from the camp and escaped,
Which resulted in the Prison Commandant selecting 10 men to executed
in order to serve as a deterrent for anyone else who might try to escape.
As the guards began to select prisoners to be executed,
One man, a prisoner named Franci-szek Gai-ouv-ni-czek,
Began to beg and plead for his life.
“Please, not me! The man cried!”
“I have a wife and children!”
But the Nazi prison guards were unmoved by the man’s pleas,
And began to collect him with other prisoners.
But then, a man named Maximilian Kolbe,
standing in the back of the crowd,
was moved with compassion and stepped forward, saying:
“I will take the man’s place.”
And his place he took.
The German guards then rounded him up with the other 9 inmates,
To be crammed together in a cell where they were condemned to die by starvation & dehydration.
But despite the harsh and hopeless conditions,
Maximilian, who was a Polish Priest, served as a beacon of hope to his fellow condemned inmates,
As he led the men in prayers
and continually comforted them in their last agonizing days.
And he did so until he was the last man standing,
Which is when the guards administered a lethal injection in order to hasten his death.
My friends, this is what Christ did for us, and so much more!
See, because of sin,
every single one of us was marked out for death and eternal destruction,
And there was NOTHING we could do about it!
But then, at the last moment,
Christ, our Great High Priest,
Stepped forward and did the unthinkable!
He didn’t administer the sacrifice to God,
He became the perfect and final sacrifice to God!
and when He did He rose to life on the 3rd day,
Not to condemn us - BUT to CONDEMN SIN ITSELF!
And because He did,
We have been SET FREE from our Scarlet Letters that marked us as guilty and condemned.
Which is something you can I could never have done in a million lifetimes of:
Caring for the pour,
Serving in soup kitchens,
Or trying to be a good religious and moral person!
Nope!
None of that is capable of removing or guilt and condemnation!
Which is why verse 3 says:
“FOR GOD HAS DONE WHAT THE LAW, WEAKENED BY THE FLESH COULD NOT DO!”
Do you understand what this is saying?
It’s saying that because of Jesus Christ
we are SET FREE from the law of sin and death!
And when you’re IN CHRIST JESUS, as verse 1 says,
There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that put you back into that bondage!
Because Christ didn’t just take away your Scarlet Lettered clothing!
No!
Because if that’s all He did,
we’d be naked for about 7 seconds until we sinned and put more Scarlet Letters right back on ourselves again.
This is why Christ came to defeat the law of sin and death as verse 2 says,
And condemned sin in the flesh as verse 3 says!
Which means that Christ didn’t just remove our Scarlet Letters,
He removed the very thing that CAUSED our Scarlet Letters in the first place!
Which is why
THERE IS NO MORE CONDEMNATION FOR THOSE WHO ARE ROBED IN THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST JESUS!
And there is no more condemnation because God signed sin’s death warrant,
and He signed it with the righteous blood of His One and Only Begotten Son!
This is the good news of Easter!
This what we are celebrating this morning!
This is what we have been singing about, and will sing about again shortly here,
And the reason we sing about it about it isn’t because we’re just naturally musical people!
It’s BECAUSE as GOD’S People we have a song to sing!
and it’s the song of our resurrected King!
On our own, there was no way we could ever un-stitch the scarlet letters from our clothing,
And I know I’m repeating myself a little now,
But I am doing so because some of you are going to walk out of these doors in a few minutes with your Scarlet Letters still on,
deluding yourselves into thinking you can get them off with a life of righteous living.
God help you!
Look,
The Book of Romans is crystal clear on this - and if you don’t believe me, go home and read it!
Because what it is telling us is that
ALL of our righteousness, apart of Christ Jesus
is FILTHY SCARLET LETTERED Robes before God!
And no amount of following God’s law could ever wash them clean.
And because of this,
Jesus came to live the life you and I should have lived,
and then died the death we deserve,
And because He did, we are now given His righteous robes by faith in Him!
We are given His righteous life!
Which means, as one preacher put it,
The only way you can lose His righteousness isn’t if you sin,
It is if CHRIST SINS!
And because He can’t and won’t,
We have a new, eternal life!
This is the Gospel.
This is the good news that we Christians celebrate NOT ONLY every Easter Sunday,
But every single Sunday and all day of our lives,
as we live in our new Spirit-filled identity forevermore!
To be free of your condemnation you must:
Admit your guilt (v. 1)
Accept God’s offer of exchange (v. 2-3)
Abandon the old and embrace the new (v. 4)
4 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.
In the story of the Scarlet Letter,
The women utterly refused to reveal who the child’s father was.
She would not give up his identity,
no matter how much suffering and shame the people threw upon her.
And as some of you already know,
the child’s father was a man named Arthur Dimmesdale,
Who ironically happened to be the town’s local minister.
And even though no one discovered Arthur’s secret and then forced him too to wear a Scarlet Letter,
Arthur wore his own Scarlet Letter for years,
until the internal struggle he felt from his guilt and shame eventually destroyed him.
Eventually, after his physical and spiritual health had deteriorated,
He man eventually stepped forward,
letting the towns people know it was him,
And after he did he promptly died in his guilt shame.
And why?
Because instead of exchanging his Scarlet lettered clothing for the righteous robes of Christ,
He tried over and over for many years to peel it off himself,
Which he never could.
With this mind, did you notice in verse 4 what Paul didn’t say?
He didn’t say:
“WE fulfill the law’s righteous requirements”
Instead he says,
“The righteous requirements of the law ARE FULFILLED IN US!”
It’s something that is ALREADY fulfilled in us
WHEN we trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior!
This is why Paul says
“The righteous requirements of the law ARE fulfilled in us BY CHRIST JESUS!”
And yet, that’s not where it stops does it?
No!
Because not only does Jesus do this,
But He then goes even further by filling us with the Spirit of God,
Which enables us to walk a righteous walk!
So the question is: is that true of you?
Are you walking according the spirit?
I’m not asking if you are living a sinless life - because that’s impossible
I’m asking you if you have turned to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior,
and had your guilt and shame removed,
which is PROVEN by the new life you’re now living in the power of the Holy Spirit?
Or does your life look pretty much the same?
And it does it look the same as when you were living in the sin that brought you your Scarlet Letters in the first place?
At the very end of the Hawthorne’s novel,
He tells of how the women finally left the town and her Scarlet letter behind to move away to live a new life with her daughter Pearl,
where she lived a brand new life free from her condemnation.
And what a picture this is of what it looks like when your condemnation is truly removed!
Because once it’s been removed, everything changes!
Not instantaneously, no!
But it does change,
Because it can’t NOT change!
And it can’t NOT change because our old life has passed away
and the new life we have IN Christ,
Who’s SPIRIT IS NOW IN US, has begun!
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Has the new life come into your life?
Have you abandoned the old and embraced the new by faith in Jesus Christ?
Or are you suffering in your guilt and shame as Arthur Dimmesdale did,
which led to his misery and destruction?
If so,
Fly to christ!
Look to Him!
Trust in Him!
For if you do you will then find a power at work in you that enables you to soar not fly.
To run and work the law commands,
Yet gives me neither feet nor hands;
But better news the gospel brings:
It bids me fly, and gives me wings.
By God’s grace, may we experience the freedom of no more condemnation in Christ Jesus, and live in the mighty power of His Spirit!