The Gospel of Guided Grace – No More Condemnation!
Genesis 3:17 (NLT)
And to Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate the fruit I told you not to eat, I have placed a curse on the ground. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it.
Genesis 3:9-11 (NLT)
The Lord God called to Adam, "Where are you?"
[10] He replied, "I heard you, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked."
[11] "Who told you that you were naked?" the Lord God asked. "Have you eaten the fruit I commanded you not to eat?"
1. Condemnation gives birth to fear, fear gives birth to stress, and stress gives birth to all kinds of spiritual, emotional and physical deterioration
"I am convinced that the basic cause of some of the most disturbing emotional/spiritual problems which trouble evangelical Christians is the failure to receive and live out God's unconditional grace, and the corresponding failure to offer that grace to others."
From a biblical view, “Christians who hang on to guilt, condemnation, and self-belittling worthlessness are living under the curse….the power of the law….The idea that fear and guilt and self-condemnation will keep us from sinning and therefore give us inner peace and joy is completely contrary to experience. Those who live that way are filled with inner turmoil and driven by strong….compulsion toward the very sins they try hardest to avoid. Why? Because guilt and self-condemnation were never meant to be the motivating force of Christian living. David Seamands
1 John 3:21 (NIV)
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God
John 16:8-11 (NIV)
When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt[ a] in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: 9in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; 10in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
1 Corinthians 15:34 (NKJV)
Awake to righteousness, and do not sin…
2. When you have failed, the Holy Spirit convicts you of righteousness, not your sin
Romans 7:18-20, 24 (NIV)
I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. [c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it...What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
Romans 8:1 (NIV)
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus
Romans 8:1 (NKJV)
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,[ a] who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
The more you come under the law and attempt to be justified by it, the more you will fail and be condemned by it. This is not God's way.
When you fail, condemnation and guilt will cause you to run from God's presence
John 8:10-11 (NIV)
Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."
3. We are first given the gift of “no more condemnation” before we receive the strength to “go and sin not more”