always good to see Pastor Bill. What do you make of Romans 8:1 same book same author , different message. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Once you accept Jesus as the Son of god, John 3:16-18 clearly absolve us of judgment, condemnation, sin , as a gift by imputed righteousness, Pastor bill, Why do you make it so hard on yourself?
I think in the effort to get all thunderous about sin, we might get far more grandiose than we need to get. That can bring up people’s defensiveness, when a meeker voice could remind people of where they are “falling short of the glory of God” — with respect to a glory that they understand already. Start with the witness that people already have. It isn’t enough to say “I haven’t harmed a fly” if you can’t say “I have gladly helped my neighbor.”
There is no contradiction between Romans 1 and Romans 8. It is all a seemless argument, a continuum of argument bringing all of the world ,gentile and Jew under condemnation before God that they might see the need to accept the gift of the Righteousness of Jesus Christ. What do you mean when you say I am hard on myself?
Romans 6.
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
John 3
16 “For God so loved the world,fn that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.
21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”