MID WEEK MOTIVATION - December 17, 2025 (Grant Stegall)

Listening to the Midweek Motivation Podcast from DeSoto Hills Baptist Church in South Haven, Mississippi.

Here's your host, Mark Lewis, David Burgess, Laura Ulrich, and Pastor Grant Stiegall.

Welcome to the Midweek Motivation Podcast for Wednesday, December the 17th here at DeS Baptist Church.

I'm Mark Lewis.

I'm Grant Stiegall.

And we hope this programming can encourage folks throughout DeSoto County and beyond.

Be sure to subscribe and share our link on social media.

We are in the middle of the Christmas season, the favorite season of most people, and it is so much fun.

I wanted to hit a couple of table topics throughout the season.

We uh caught a few table topics last week, so I got a few more for Grant.

If you had to swap Christmas dinner, you're not gonna like this one.

If you had to swap Christmas dinner for one fast food restaurant, who's gonna cater it?

Hmm.

What's fast food?

Oh, j let's not get into the weeds.

No, seriously.

Okay, like so is is cracker barrel fast food I would probably call Cracker Barrel a a restaurant, a sit-down restaurant.

But I mean it's a chain restaurant.

So I'm trading it with them.

I mean, if that's if that's acceptable, but you're probably talking about something with a drive-thru like that.

Chick-fil-A.

Okay.

Something like that.

Um which if anyone's listening, I I think Sid McNeil, I think his family has a tradition of Taco Bill on Christmas Eve.

Like I always see that's always always see them posting that.

I really think that's one of their traditions is Taco Bill.

We have we know a family that Christmas Day, after they open their presents, they sleep in, open their presents, and they do sushi on Christmas Day.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Our family has always been burgers and fries, I've told you that.

And homemade ice cream.

Yeah.

Uh uh, so fast food.

You're not a you're not even a big fast food eater, are you?

I do.

I do, I do like fast food.

I you know it's crazy.

Probably just McDonald's.

Really?

Yeah.

So you like McDonald's?

I do.

It depends on the McDonald's.

You have to find a good one.

But their fries are hard to beat.

I like McDonald's.

Interesting.

Billy Wilson, I'm gonna throw Billy under the bus here.

Billy Wilson said this one time, and I I wholeheartedly agree.

If you're craving a hamburger, McDonald's will never do.

Right.

If you're craving McDonald's, no other hamburger will ever do.

Who knew that Billy was such a deep thinker?

But that is 100% right.

And I can see his wife right now just shaking her head just all day long.

Billy, belly, Billy.

All right, real tree or fake tree, and why is your answer a hill you're willing to die on?

This this is one that gets a lot of people hilariously worked up.

I'm not willing to die on any of them.

We do a fake tree.

It's so easy.

It's so easy, and allergies.

We we have some allergies.

And that's Jennifer's, that's always been Jennifer's issue, too.

Also keeping it alive.

You're you're worried all the time that if it dries out and it might start a fire.

Yes.

So so that's a big deal.

But at the same time, there is something about a real tree and you walking in the house and that smell and I hang up the air fresheners.

Yep, we do that too, but it's still there's still something, there's still something about it being live.

And so I'm not willing to die on any of those heels.

If somebody came to me and said, You gotta have a real tree, I'd say, okay.

Or if somebody said, You gotta have a fake tree, okay.

I whichever.

So the hack on the hack on that one is to go to Walmart and get one of those wax melts, which they're like nine bucks for the for the actual little wax holder that you plug in and turn on.

And then they have one that I think it's called Douglas fir.

It's an actual Christmas, it's green, and it smells just like that.

Amber found little things to hang in the tree.

I've seen those on Amazon.

And they're good too.

And they work.

They they some of those have almost a cinnamon flair to them, and they're they're really nice.

Yeah.

Okay, so that is the table topics for today.

We are gonna hit the Christmas calendar, which is not as long as the earlier episodes this month because we are running through the season quickly.

Tonight is gonna be the family gingerbread house decorating party.

We did have a deadline to get those in uh earlier this month, but come and and watch everybody, watch all the kids decorate those gingerbread houses, even if you didn't uh reserve a spot.

It's just uh gonna be a fellowship fun.

And come sit at the tables and watch some of those families do it.

We will have a regular meal tonight, and I believe it's our last meal of the season.

Hey, we're in the middle of the International Mission Board Week of Prayer.

Did you want to mention that?

What's what's basically this week?

Um, International Mission Board Week of Prayer is a time set aside where you can pray for international missionaries.

We have, if you've not gotten those, uh there are pamphlets available probably at the Welcome Center that highlight different international missionaries that you can be praying for this week.

Tells you a little bit about their ministry, some of their prayer needs and prayer requests.

And so if you, if if it's Wednesday and you go, I didn't pray Monday and Tuesday, I can't do it.

Yeah, you can pray next Monday and Tuesday.

They don't care, just pray for them.

Right.

So those are available at the Welcome Center, but that's what that is, just kind of to highlight international missions.

Awesome.

And uh as a part of that, let's talk about Lottie Moon because that's coming up this Sunday on the 21st.

Lottie Moon Christmas offering.

Our um goal this year is fifteen thousand dollars.

Um excited about that.

Uh you again, we've encouraged you you can give all throughout the month.

If you haven't given already, though, this Sunday is a great time.

Um, we're gonna have a time in the service called March to the manger where you can bring your offering down, place it in a manger at the beginning, not at the beginning, but during the service, you can bring that down and place it in the in the offer in the manger.

That'll be separate.

We will take up our regular offering at the end of the service.

That'll be separate.

Uh, but it'll be good.

100% of that offering goes to missions, uh, international missions.

So it's a great, it's a great opportunity to support missions.

And then, of course, Country Christmas is this Sunday night at 5 p.m.

The biscuit fellowship will start at 4 30.

Bring some biscuits or bring your jam.

We will provide the biscuits.

Bring whatever your homemade jam is that you love to spread on the biscuits, and we will um pass some of that around.

It is always a lot of fun.

Country Christmas, of course, a staple event at DeSota Hills and has been for 15 plus years.

Uh, so you're not gonna want to miss that either.

Five 5 p.m., that service will always last for around 45 minutes to an hour.

So uh it's a it's great time for your family.

Bring uh bring your family out.

It's gonna be great.

And then next week, Christmas Eve, um, we will not have Wednesday night services on Christmas Eve or activities.

The office will close uh for the 24th through the first.

Part of the reason that that sounds strange to disclose out long is because of the calendar if you look at it.

It falls over the weekend.

So, but we will have regular Sunday uh morning services on the 28th.

So make sure you come with your family to worship on December the 28th.

Uh, I'm gonna be leading worship with uh Ellen Rotten, an amazing cello player.

It's going to be a really, really sweet service, and we will have our regular Sunday school schedule.

So uh that's gonna be 9 a.m.

service and 10 30 a.m.

service.

So be sure and show up for that.

We will resume Wednesday night activities on January the 7th.

It is now uh we're going to shift to our devotion portion of the podcast that we call the Midweek Moment.

So we've been looking at what is the gospel, kind of using a book by Greg Gilbert.

Um he he his main focus verses for the whole verses for the whole book is 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 1 through 4, where Paul writes, Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preach to you, which you received, and which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain.

1 Corinthians 15:1–4

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with Scripture, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with Scripture.

So we've looked at who God is.

God is one, God is the creator, and he is righteous, which gives him the right to judge man.

We saw last week that we are unrighteous.

We are there is no one is without sin, no not one.

And Paul said that, he even said here in 1 Corinthians that Christ died for our sins in accordance with scripture.

So God has every right to judge us and deem us unworthy of a relationship and sentence us uh to a life separated with him.

But he didn't do that.

Listen to what he says in 1 Corinthians, for Christ died for our sins in accordance with scripture.

So what God did while we were still in our sinners, what Paul says in Romans 5 8, while we are still sinners, Christ died for us.

So as we look at Romans chapter 3, we see what Christ did for us.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

In verse 21, he says this, but now the righteousness of God, remember we talked about how God is righteous, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.

So that's what we've seen in verses one through three.

We saw the righteousness of God, we saw people trying to get to God from the law and prophet from the from the law and prophets, but the righteousness of God was revealed, it was manifested to us apart from the law and prophets.

What he's doing here is he is pointing to Jesus.

That is Jesus.

So here's what he says he did in verse 22.

The righteousness of God through faith in, here it is, through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

So we've seen that.

So how does that happen?

How does God do that?

Because he is righteous, we're not.

He tells us in verse 24.

We are justified by his grace as a gift.

So that word justified, that is a that is a courtroom term, that is a legal term where God declares it to be.

So God declares us to be righteous.

He looks at us in our unrighteousness, and because he is righteous, and because he is the final judge, he is able to do this, he declares us to be righteous, but his righteousness doesn't allow him to declare us to be righteous without something punishment, without retribution being made for that sin.

Something has to be done with that.

So he tells us through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

So what he's saying is redemption was paid.

That redemption, that is that is a word used for for payment, okay?

So that Christ redeems us, he pays for our sin so that Christ, so that God can declare us to be righteous.

How does he pay for that sin?

Verse 25, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

So here's how he pays for that sin.

God put him forward as a propitiation.

I love that word.

Love to say it.

It's one of my favorite words.

I got made fun of when I first became pastor here because somebody said, Grant, you either say ponotic or propitiation in every service.

And then the other day, show off.

The other day, the guy I saw him and he said, You haven't said ponotic or propitiation in a service in a long time.

So here you go, Jonathan.

This is for you.

Propitiation.

Here's what that means.

It means Jesus was put forward as a sacrifice to atone for our sins.

That means the atonement means that he took the wrath of God that we deserve because of our sins.

He took that upon himself on the cross.

So Christ bore the wrath of God on the cross as a propitiation.

His doing that pays, it atones us.

He becomes the atoning sacrifice which pays the price to redeem us, redeem us from the sin, the debt that we owed.

And because he has redeemed that and paid that price, now God can declare us to be righteous, but it says that happens when it is received by faith.

He becomes our atoning sacrifice to be received by faith.

So God is righteous, man is not.

God loved us, though, so he had to make a way for us to be in relationship with him.

The way he did that is he put forward Christ to pay the price for our sin, to pay that penalty, so that he buys our redemption, so that through that buying of redemption, God can now, as the final judge, declare us to be righteous.

Thanks so much for listening.

If you don't have a church home, we'd love to see you here Sunday morning.

You can catch our services online at DeSotaHillsBaptist.com, our YouTube channel at DeSota Hills Baptist Church.

For all of our church family, we love you.

We'll see you back here next Wednesday morning, Christmas Eve, bright and early for a brief podcast.

God bless.

This has been your midweek motivation.

We'd love to have you join us in person on Sunday mornings.

Our services are at 9 and 10 30 a.m.