Sean C. Capparuccia

4 October 2026

Sermon 1 in the 3-part Romans 8 series

Ezekiel 36:24-28; Psalm 32:1-7; John 14:15-18, 25-27; Romans 8:1-11

I was so sad that the Genesis series was over that, after brooding for a couple days, I decided on another series, albeit a short one. We are going to do three Sundays in Romans 8. Why Romans 8? Because Romans 8 gives us a wonderful look at who we are in Jesus. This is kind of a “state of our salvation” address. What does it mean to be “in Christ Jesus,” to be “saved,” to be “forgiven”? More specifically, we are going to see what Jesus has done with our past, what He is doing with our present, and what He is going to do with our future. And this is going to tie in very nicely with revival meeting starting next Sunday and then Homecoming Sunday after that.

Guilt  

Let’s talk about guilt for just a minute. For just a moment, bring to mind something you did that made you feel guilty. It may have happened years ago, maybe it happened yesterday or even this morning. You don’t need to share it, unless you’d like to.

We all have guilt, for sure. We all have things in our lives that we wish we could do over, change, erase.  Some things other people know, some things only you know. Some things we have confessed to God. I hope you have confessed them to God. Some things you have confessed to your pastor or counselor or spouse or friend. And sometimes it’s good to confess things to someone else who can help reassure you of God’s forgiveness, because sometimes the hardest person to forgive is your own self. There are things that you’ve perhaps done in your life that you replay over and over in your mind and just can’t accept forgiveness for it.

There’s the story of the man who went to confession and told the priest, “Father, forgive me for I have sinned. When I was on a skiing trip, I happened to see my boss standing at the top of the advanced slope and, being all covered up and knowing he wouldn’t recognize me, I went up behind him and pushed him down slope. He broke both legs, his left arm, and his collarbone.” The priest said, “My son, that is the fifth time you’ve told me that.”  And the guy replied, “I know; I just like telling it.”

Obviously, this guy wasn’t having a difficult time forgiving himself, but there are times when we do. There are some who believe that the sins of their past are so bad that not even God could forgive them and so they live their lives in misery, unforgiven, and never experiencing the joy of salvation.

Flesh & Spirit

            There is a battle between the spirit of carnality and the Spirit of God.  Paul’s letter to the Romans is all about this battle: flesh and Spirit. Listen to how chapters 5, 6, and 7 end:

“… as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (5:21).

“For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (6:23).

“So then I of myself with the mind serve the law of God; but with the flesh [I serve] the law of sin” (7:25).

There is a continual contrast between the flesh and sin and death, and the Spirit and the mind and eternal life.

Which is why this first verse in Romans 8 is so powerful. It is the answer to the puzzle that Paul has laid out in the previous chapters. He says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” This is a theological statement; it is a statement of fact. It isn’t an if-then statement; if you do that then this will happen. It is similar to Jesus’ statement in John 3:16, “…whosoever believes on [the Son of God] should not perish, but have eternal life.” Those who believe on Christ have eternal life. Let me put it another way: it isn’t something we must do, but something God has already done. I’ll say it again, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

 Forgiveness

And listen to the Psalmist’s equivalent, the Psalmist being David, of course, who was very keen on sin and forgiveness. In his Psalm (that we just read) he writes, “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! (Ps. 32:1). Think about that. How “happy and blessed,” is he whose transgression is forgiven! We can contrast this to the one whose sin is not forgiven.

            The book of Lamentations, written by Jeremiah, also known as the “weeping prophet,” is just that, a lament; a cry; a pleading. In Lamentations 3 the prophet cried out to God:

We have transgressed and have rebelled; thou hast not pardoned.

Thou hast covered with anger and pursued us;

thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.

Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud,

so that no prayer can pass through.

Thou hast made us an offscouring and refuse

in the midst of the peoples.

All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.

Fear and the pit are come upon us, devastation and destruction”

(Lam. 3:42-47).

What misery accompanies a lack of forgiveness!

In the Lord’s prayer, our Lord places forgiveness in the context of forgiving. “Forgive us our sins (or debts) as we forgive our debtors” (Mt. 6:12; Lk 11:4)^[1] The disposition that doesn’t forgive cannot be forgiven, because it is, by that very fact, a proof that we do not realize the amount of the debt we owe.^[2] And only until we come to realize that we owe a debt to God because of our sinfulness do we have the need to cry out for forgiveness. This is why you won’t find a Christian who says, “Yeah, I never really sinned, I just felt like I should become a Christian.” This person, then, does not know the true value of Christ and the salvation He can give because he doesn’t know the value of his own debt. No, you will never find the Christian who says that.

And that brings us back to Romans 8.

If you read the first seven chapters of Romans, you will hear Paul telling you something quite uncomfortable: you are a sinner. This is more than being a “trespasser.” Biblically, a trespass – παράπτωμα – is a lapse or deviation from the truth.[3] Compare this to a sin – ἁμαρτία – which is better defined as a “violation of the divine law in thought or in deed.”[4] It is a wandering from God’s law, and how we are prone to do just that. Now, sometimes ἁμαρτία is translated as “trespass” but it’s not a very good translation. Slighting my neighbor might be a trespass against him, but it’s not necessarily a violation of divine law. ! But either way, they both need to be forgiven in their own way. 

Depravity

So, we are more than “trespassers.” We are more than people who occasionally make mistakes. We are not basically good people who occasionally make bad choices. Sin has affected every part of us – as we learned from our Genesis study: Adam’s sin has infected everybody and every part of everybody.[5] It has affected our minds, our desires, our wills, our relationships, and ultimately, it has affected our relationship with God.

And Paul has also told us something else which we need to bear in mind: we cannot fix this ourselves. Oh, We can try. We can read a bunch of self-help books and watch Oprah; we can promise ourselves over and over that we will do better. We can become more “religious”; we can attend church more faithfully; we can put more money in the offering plate; we can read the Bible more and pray more. And while all of these things are good things, none of them can erase sin. None of them can erase the debt that we owe. And none of them can go backward in time and undo what we have done. Try as we might, God is still holy, and we are still guilty. Which is why Romans 8:1 is such incredibly good news:

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

But we also should note what Paul does not say here: he doesn’t say, “There is therefore now no sin.” Nor does he say, “There is therefore now no consequences.” And he also does not say, “There is therefore now no such thing as right and wrong” now that you are saved. Sin is still sin. What he does says is even better, and that is that there is no condemnation. Can you wrap your head around that? Your sin is real, but the condemnation has been dealt with; your guilt is real, but God has provided forgiveness for it; your past cannot be changed, but you can be changed. And the reason for all this is found in the last three words of the verse: “In Christ Jesus.”

Becoming a Christian, or being a Christian, isn’t about being “good enough” for God, it’s about being united to Christ. Like the tax-collector at the Temple, all we can say is, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner” (Lk. 18:13) and then coming to the realization that He has. He has had mercy.

Weakness of the Law or Strength of the Flesh

            Look at verse 3, “For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did…” What was impossible for us to do, God did. The law cannot make us free – only Christ can do that. The law can tell us what righteousness looks like, but the law can’t make us  righteous. It can show us what sin is, but it can’t remove it. Our flesh, our carnality, is too strong. So, God did what we could not do – He put on this flesh of ours and lived the righteous life that we have failed to live and He bore the judgment that our sins deserved.

And that is why there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You cannot pay for your sins against God, nor can you make yourself righteous enough to stand before Him. We’ve said that.

Now, one of y’all sitting here right now might be thinking, “Pastor Sean, you don’t know what I’ve done.” It’s true, I don’t. There may be things in your life that you would never tell another person – sins that still embarrass you; failures that still haunt you. There may be someone you have hurt, or wronged, long ago and you can still see that person when you close your eyes. There may be something you did when you were young that you still cannot believe you did. You may have asked God a hundred times to forgive you and yet you’re still carrying the guilt with you. If that is you, listen…. Listen very carefully:

“There is therefore now no condemnation

for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

It’s kind of like in the marriage vows when we say, “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mt. 19:6). Verily I say to you, when a man and a woman divorce for an unjustifiable cause, they have placed themselves above God for they have torn apart what God has put together. And likewise, when you refuse to forgive yourself for something, after you have asked God to forgive you, you have placed yourself above God which is idolatry. And if that is where you find yourself right now, somewhere on a pedestal of your own making sitting high above God, then I urge you to come down and let God be God, not you. If God has forgiven you, Beloved, you are forgiven. Focus your mind on Jesus, not on your own foolishness.

The Holy Spirit

One of the greatest truths in history is that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit when He left. And the job of the Holy Spirit, one of them, is to convict the world of sin (Jn 16:8). There is a big difference between conviction and condemnation, though. Listen, the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, then what? Condemnation tells us to run away from God while conviction says, “You are a sinner, come to Christ.” Condemnation says, “You have sinned, hide from Christ.” But conviction says, “That thing you did was wrong, now repent.” And where condemnation says, “You are worthless; there is no hope for you,” conviction brings us to the cross which tells us that we are worth more than anything in the world. Have you thought about that? If you believe that Christ died for you, then you must be worth something, even if you are a sinner. This is a little different than thinking that Christ just died for everybody, come to Him if you want. Jump on the train, so to speak. Or not.  No, he died for you and that makes His sacrifice a bit weightier. So, when the Holy Spirit begins convicting you of sin, it’s your cue to run to Christ, not away from Him.

Made New – Transformation

Paul doesn’t stop with forgiveness, though, because Christianity is not simply about having your record cleared. It’s about being made new. In verse 4 Paul says that those who belong to Christ “do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” And this is the second great theme of this chapter – it’s not just what God has delivered us from, it’s about what He has delivered us for. We’ve been delivered so that we might walk in the Spirit. Walking denotes purpose, too, doesn’t it? Walking is not the same as passively sitting or standing as you may recall that imagery from Psalm 1. Walking is moving in a direction. When we are walking with the Spirit, we are moving, we are transforming, we are becoming holy.

I hope you leave here understanding this at least: holiness is not about doing this or that. It’s not about obeying certain laws. Being holy is about walking – moving – living – in the Spirit. Friends, He has forgiven us so that we might become holy.

He died for you; He sent His Spirit to you; He convicted you and He enabled you to repent; He gave you a new heart, and He joined Himself to you. This is called being in union with Christ. And, this is all God’s justifying grace, by the way.

Isn’t this just what Ezekiel said would happen? “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean…” And then he says, “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you” (Ezekiel 36:25-26). God didn’t just say, “I’m going to give you a list of rules and tell you to try harder.” And yet that is exactly what a lot of people believe being a Christian is. No, Beloved, He says, “I will give you a new heart.”

That’s the difference between a Christian and someone who just goes to church: a Christian has a new heart placed there by God Himself.  In the hymn we sang, Charles Wesley wrote, “Our nature [has] turned, our mind transformed in all its pow’rs, and both the witnesses are joined, the Spirit of God with ours.”^[6] How beautiful that is when our mind and our very nature are turned toward Christ and are in union with Him. That’s what salvation is!

The Eucharist

And this morning, we have something that makes all of this more than just a bunch of words to listen to. Today is Communion Sunday, and even more than that, it is World Communion Sunday, so I want us to think for just a moment about what we are about to do. We are not coming to this Table because we have had a perfect week of saying no to sin and temptations. If that was the requirement, I’m afraid this Table would be pretty empty. We aren’t coming because we have conquered every sin in our lives or even because we have earned the right to be here. We come for one reason: because Christ has invited us.

We come because we are sinners who need a Savior and because we know that we have been forgiven by His amazing grace. And we still need His grace; we still need His hand to hold as we continue to walk with Him. But, friends, there remains this truth:

“There is therefore now no condemnation

for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

In just a few moments we will see the bread that is His body; we will see the cup which is His blood shed for us. But if we look very closely, we should see something else: the answer to our guilt. Our sin matters; our sin didn’t just disappear. Our sin was dealt with, and continues to be dealt with, at the Cross. Think about the Cross for just a moment. Think of it as the intersection of your guilt and God’s grace. In Latin the word for cross is crux, which translates back as “the root” or “the bottom”; the heart of something.  And usually, we say that that is the crux of the matter.

Beloved in Christ, I’m going to tell you yet one more time what the crux of the matter is: “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

So, when the time comes in just a moment, come to this Table humbly, come with repentance, come with thanksgiving. But to this Table, come with joy! Because if you are in Christ, you are coming forgiven.

Amen.

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[1] “debts” οφειληματα; “sins” αμαρτιας; “debtors” οφειλοντι; nowhere is “trespasses” παραπτωματα a part of the Lord’s Prayer but is used in an accompanying thought only in Mt. (Mt. 6:14), see Gal. 6:1. “Trespasses” in the Lord’s Prayer is a result of a mistranslation in the BCP in the Church of England.

[2] Preacher’s Homiletical

[3] Brown, Drivers, Briggs.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Total Depravity.

[6] Charles Wesley, “How Can We Sinners Know.”