DECEMBER 22, 2024 - "Christmas Justice"

Welcome to DeSoto Hills Baptist Church.

Our Sunday morning services are weekly at 9 and 10 30 am.

You're listening to an audio recast of this past week's service.

We hope you enjoy.

God bless.

Well, that video is humorous.

My concern is that so often we do that with Jesus.

Often we do that with Jesus so often, especially at Christmas, we like to have our nice neat little nativity sets and we put Jesus in our nice clean little manger and we have baby Jesus there asleep on the hay.

And when the cattle start lowing, baby Jesus wouldn't cry, would he the hay.

And when the cattle start lowing, baby Jesus wouldn't cry, would he?

I mean, no, he couldn't do that.

And then and then we take Jesus out and then at times we just like to like we do our nativity sets at Christmas.

So often we just put him back in our little boxes and we carry on with our lives and we don't connect, we don't make the connections that it is baby Jesus, it is Christmas.

Christmas started it.

For us, christmas is the reason that we are able to celebrate and we're able to celebrate the life that he he brings to us.

Jesus came and he was born and he lived and he died and he arose so that we may have life and so that we may receive justification.

Today, and we're going to be in Romans, chapter 5, the first five verses of Romans, chapter 5.

Romans 5 · chapter mention Romans 5 · chapter mention

And in this passage.

We're going to look at the idea, not idea.

We're going to look at justification and what that means.

In his dictionary of theological terms, donald McKim defines justification this way.

He says justification is God declaring a sinful person to be just on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus Christ here's how my grandma would say it.

Of Jesus Christ, here's how my grandma would say it Jesus made it just as if I'd never sinned.

He made it just as if I'd never sinned.

And some things have to happen for justification to take place in our lives.

Because here's what we know Because God is just and because there is sin, something has to be done with that sin.

If God just said, let's just not worry about that, let's just forget about the sin, he would not be just, he couldn't be just.

If he just said we're, we're not just, we're going to forget about that.

But because he is just, something has to happen.

So Jesus came and he lived a perfect life.

He died on the cross, taking upon himself what we deserve the punishment that we deserve, the wrath of God that we deserve.

And now, because Jesus did that for us, god can now, the just God in his mercy, can now look at us and say now you are just, not because of what you've done, but because Jesus has paid the price for your sin.

You can be justified, I can make it, jesus can make it just as if you'd never sinned.

So we see this idea of justification and I don't want to disconnect that from the Christmas story, because that is essential to the Christmas story.

Look, in the season of Advent, we hang these banners up and we have hope and joy and peace and love.

And in this passage in Romans 5 today, when we are talking about justification, where Paul is going to tell us to rejoice joy, to rejoice in our justification.

And so what we want to see today is we want to understand that even today we are still able, and should be able, to rejoice in our justification.

So the question that we're answering today is this how or why, why are we able to rejoice and find joy in our justification?

So let's read this morning from Romans, chapter 5.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

If you are able, if you'll please stand with us this morning as we give honor to the reading of God's word.

Romans, chapter 5, verses 1 through 5.

Romans 5:1–5

Paul writes this, paul writes this, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Let's pray together, god.

We are thankful this morning, jesus.

We are thankful that you came and you were born among us and you walked among us and you lived among us, and you were tempted in every way, just like us.

Yet you did not sin and, jesus, you died for us To justify us.

And so, god, this morning we come before you and thank you and rejoice in our justification.

Spirit this morning, guide us in all truth as we look into your word, jesus.

It's in your wonderful name we pray.

Amen, you can be seated.

So the question here's the question that we want to answer again is why are we able to rejoice in our justification?

Well, the first thing that we see here is in our justification.

We can rejoice because we find peace with God.

He says it right there in verse 1.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith there's that word, therefore, and since I tell people all the time, right when you see, therefore, you need to stop and see what it's there, for Not only do you have, therefore, but you have since.

So here's what he's saying Because we have received justification by faith, because we have been justified, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

A few weeks ago, I told you a story about peace and we talked about peace, and the story was of a rich man who was having a competition of a painting For someone to paint the best picture of peace, and the picture that won was a picture of a bird and actually it was a cascading waterfall.

And there was actually it was a cascading waterfall and the river was flowing rapidly and the spray was coming up.

You could see it in the picture and you could see the wind blowing, the description of the trees even in the painting they looked like they were doubling over from the wind and there below a log was a little bird in its nest covering its eggs, asleep.

And we talked about how that is a beautiful picture of peace that that bird had found in the chaos that surrounded her.

And so often we talk about peace and we talk about an inner tranquility that we can find in a world of chaos that surrounds us.

And while, yes, that is peace and yes, that is peace that we find in Jesus, I don't think it's the peace that Paul is talking about here.

See what he says we find peace with God.

You know, what we are so often slow to admit is that before we are justified from our sins, we are enemies with God.

Scripture, over and over, describes us as enemies of God.

Back in Romans, chapter 1, verse 18, paul says this about us for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who, by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth.

Romans 1:18

We are ungodly and unrighteous, and while we hear here how the wrath of God is being revealed to mankind and so often when we think about wrath of God we think about hellfire and brimstone that's not what Paul says here.

He says the wrath of God is being revealed to mankind because he gives us what we want.

He turns us over to our most debased desires, us over to our most debased desires.

He gives us up because we are ungodly and unholy.

He says in Romans, chapter 8, verses 7 and 8,.

Romans 8:7

He says again for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.

Indeed, it cannot.

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

What he is saying is those who have not been justified by faith are hostile to God.

We are enemies of God.

He even writes in Ephesians, chapter 1 to chapter 2, in Ephesians, chapter 2, verses 1 through 3, he says this and you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you once walked, following the course of the world, following the prince of the power of the air and the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of our body and mind, and were, by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention Ephesians 2:1–3

See, what we don't like to admit is that, before we place our faith in Christ, we are enemies of God.

Listen, and and you may be sitting there and saying, grant, I mean, I don't hate God.

This is pretty harsh, grant.

And and look, I agree, but these are not my words, this is not made up by me, this is from God and his word.

And he tells us that we are enemies of God before we come to know God.

But Because Jesus justifies us, because he died on the cross for us, because he arose and gives us life.

And now God declares us just.

He declares us to be godly and righteous Because of what Christ did for us.

Now we have peace with God.

When we call Jesus the Prince of Peace, as we so often do at Christmas, we don't need to think just about the inner tranquility that Jesus brings to our souls, but we also need to understand that we have been brought to peace with God.

We are no longer enemies.

Not only that, but we are at peace because we no longer fall.

In Romans, chapter 3, it says For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

We all fall short of the glory of God.

We all fall short of the glory of God.

But he goes on right there in Romans, chapter 3.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

And he tells us how.

In verse 24 he says but we are justified by his grace as a gift.

We fall short.

We don't live up to what we were created to live for.

We are not only do we not live up to it, but we are unable to live up and do what God has created us to do.

We fall short, but now we have been brought to peace With God and he makes it so we don't fall short.

Now we are able to live the way we were created to live, to do the things we were created to do.

Because of our justification, we can rejoice Because we find peace with God.

He goes on to say right there, not only do we find peace with God, but the second reason that we can rejoice in our justification, he says in verse 2, through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

We can rejoice not just because we have found peace with God, but now we can rejoice also because we have hope in God.

Sinclair Ferguson, in his book Heaven Came Down, he talks about this hope and that he talks about how hope is more than just being a glass half full kind of person.

It is more than just being someone who always hopes for the best.

No, this hope that we find in Jesus, this hope that we find in our justification, he says, he says is somebody who believes the promises of God and is waiting for them to be fulfilled, no matter what, we have hope in Jesus.

We find hope in him because we stand in grace, hear what he says right there.

Through him, we have also obtained access.

Well, if we've obtained access, to whom or to what have we obtained access?

We have obtained access to the very throne room of God, to the very presence of God, and we obtain that access by the grace of God.

Go back to Romans 3, where we just read in verse 23.

I want to read it again.

He says For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift.

Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith, we obtain access to the Father.

We no longer fall short of meeting the Father because we have been reconciled with God.

We have been justified through grace, by placing our faith in him.

We have been justified and now we have obtained access into the very presence of God.

That's where we have hope.

We have hope that that we can enter into God's presence, and not only just enter into God's presence, but we have hope that we can stand there.

He says, he goes on and says Grace in which we stand, into this grace in which we stand.

See, so often we think the gospel and this message of hope is for unbelievers.

And hear me, it is.

If you don't know Christ, listen to me you are an enemy with God and you are not at peace with God.

And the only way to find that is through being justified through what Jesus and placing your faith in what Jesus did for us.

And we have hope in that and only in that, and we feel like that is.

When we get there, though, our hope all of a sudden changes to us.

But that's not what he says here.

He says it is in the grace of God we stand.

Why would we ever think that we get to God by grace but we have to stay with God because of us?

That would never happen.

Us, that would never happen.

The reason, the way that we remain in God's presence, is because he is pouring grace out on us.

Day by day we find hope.

We find hope in what Christ has done and by the grace that God is pouring out on us, by the grace that God is giving to us.

Not only that, he says in verse 3, but we rejoice in our sufferings.

Listen, this sounds crazy, I know, but hear me.

We find hope today in our sufferings.

Well, how is that so?

Why would we ever find hope in our sufferings, he tells us.

But we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and that hope does not put us to shame.

We suffer, and as we suffer, it produces endurance in us, and that endurance produces character in us and that character produces hope, james.

He says it this way In James.

Let me get to my right thing.

In James, chapter 1, I don't even have to turn there In James, chapter 1, he says this Count it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials.

James 1 · chapter mention James 1 · chapter mention

The trials that James is talking about is sufferings that we go through.

And he says count it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and steadfastness when it has had its work, we become complete, lacking nothing.

Listen, we find hope in our sufferings because it is through suffering so often that we are made complete.

Listen, we kind of understand this idea.

John talks about, or Peter talks about, this idea in 1 Peter, chapter 1, verse 6 and 7.

1 Peter 1:6

He says this in this you rejoice, though now, for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials or sufferings Verse 7, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in the praise and glory and honor and the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Now listen, it's not the same practice used today to refine gold, but the practice in the biblical day was this You've probably heard this illustration.

You may know it, but gold is typically not found pure.

When you find gold in nature, you don't find pure gold.

It is mixed with other elements and other minerals and other metals.

So you have to take that gold and what they would do back in the day, before we have all the refining processes that we have now, is they would put it in the fire and they would melt it down and impurities would come to the top and they would scrape those impurities off.

And then they would make it even hotter to make more impurities come to the top and they would scrape those impurities off, and then they would make it even hotter to make more impurities come to the top and they would scrape those impurities off.

And they could repeat that process up to seven times to refine gold and make it pure gold.

And listen, that is the same idea, the same concept, the same thought of us as we go through various trials, as we go through sufferings, as we go through hard times that we encounter.

And so often in those sufferings and in those hard times and in those trials, when we are saying, why, god, why are you doing this to me?

We should be saying thank you, god, you are refining me by fire, and it's in that refining process that we should find hope and it is in that refining process we should find joy.

And then I love how he says right here in verse five, he says and hope does not put us to shame.

The NIV says it this way Hope does not disappoint.

Here's what he's saying.

Hope never fails.

Hope never fails.

Understand this.

And where we find our hope?

In Jesus.

God fulfilled one of his oldest promises.

Go even way back to Genesis, when Adam and Eve sinned.

God promised Eve that he would send a savior, a seed of man, a seed of Eve, who would crush the head of the serpent, this oldest promise that we find in the Bible.

And Jesus fulfills that promise.

But not only does he fulfill the oldest promise in Jesus.

Listen, he fulfills the costliest promise that he has made.

The costliest promise, the promise to justify us, to reconcile mankind with himself.

And it was costly, not to us, but it was costly to God.

It cost him the life of his son.

It was the costliest promise.

And listen, understand this.

If it is the costliest promise, why would God give up on it?

He's not going to Just think about the things that you invest in.

Think about those things that you invest the most in.

You take care of those things.

You don't give up on those things.

You hold on to those things.

You don't give up on those things.

You hold on to those things.

You relish those things, you hold them close and you hold them tight.

This is the costliest promise of God to reconcile us through his son.

And because of that, he is going to hold on to that promise and listen.

Because of that we find hope.

And listen.

Because of that we find hope and we should rejoice because hope never fails.

We should rejoice because we have found peace with God.

We should rejoice because we have found hope in God and we should rejoice because now we experience the love of God and we should rejoice Because now we experience the love Of God In verse 5.

It goes on and says this Because God's love has been poured into our hearts Through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Love is poured Into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

You is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

You recognize this right.

You recognize that once we have been declared righteous by God, that because we have placed our faith in Christ Jesus and what he did for us, we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And what the Holy Spirit comes, one of the things that he does is he comes and he pours into our hearts love.

Do you remember, several years ago, the ice bucket challenge?

I don't know if you remember that, but it was this social media fad right when people were challenged to take a bucket of ice water and you would see videos of this and everything on social media and people got very creative in some of the ways that they poured ice water out on people.

I saw some people with front-end loaders who just dumped the bucket on people of ice water Not I said Grant, but they just dumped, and you just saw all kinds of ways that ice water was dumped on people and no matter what the way, here was the ending result.

Whoever ice water was dumped on people and and no matter what the way, here was the ending result, whoever the water was dumped on what, they were?

Drenched in ice water.

Listen, that is the picture here.

The holy spirit dumps on us in various ways and we are drenched in the love of Christ.

1 John, chapter 3, verse 1.

1 John 3:1

In the NIV says this God has demonstrated his love for us in that while we might be called.

It says this God has lavished his love upon us.

He has lavished his love on us that we might be called children of God.

I love that word lavished.

Just imagine that he has lavished his love.

He has poured it out, he has filled us up.

Just that we might be called.

Just that God for a moment might consider calling me his child is more love than I know what to do with it, is more love than you can handle.

Just that he might think about calling you his child.

But the verse doesn't end there.

Here's what he says.

And this we are.

He has made us children of God.

He has reconciled us to himself.

He has poured love into our hearts, and we experience that because we have been justified by Jesus Christ.

He also tells us, in verse 8, how God demonstrates this love to us.

Let's go back, though, and let's read in verse 6.

Start in verse 6.

For while we were still weak at the right time, christ Jesus died.

Still weak at the right time, christ Jesus died for the ungodly.

Hear that he didn't die for the godly.

He didn't die for the righteous, they didn't need it.

He died for the ungodly, for one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare die.

But God shows his love for us in that, while we were still sinners, christ died for us.

Listen, so often I hear people say Grant, I'm going to get my life turned back around and I, I'm going to turn my life around, and then I'm going to give it to God.

And I say, no, you're not, you never will.

While we were still sinners, christ died for us.

The only way to find peace with God, the only way to find hope in God, the only way to experience the love of God, is to be justified by Jesus, and he died for us while we were still sinners.

We have to place our faith in him.

He says then in verse 9.

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood Much more, we have been saved by him From the wrath of God.

Listen, here's the Christmas story.

Don't miss this connection.

Jesus came, yes, he was born in a manger, and while we like to think about our nice, neat little manger, it was never neat.

And Jesus lived, and he was tempted in every way, just like you and I are.

Except he did not sin and he went to the cross and he died for us and he arose.

And now we can have peace with God and hope in God and experience the love of God and rejoice in these things when we place our faith in the one who died to save us.

That is the Christmas story.

Don't stop at the manger.

Carry it out to the empty tomb.

Actually, carry it out to now.

He is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Father, at the right hand of the throne of the Father, interceding for us, and one day he's going to return and take us home.

So we're going to enter into a time of invitation and if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, we are inviting you to come.

We are inviting you this morning.

If you have never received the justification that Christ offers us by placing our faith in Him, we are inviting you to come.

To come this morning, we're going to pray, we're going to stand, we're going to sing as we're singing, we invite you to come.

I'm going to pray for you.

There are counselors here who will take you out and share with you how you can trust Christ and you receive that justification that he offers.

Or maybe you have, and you have obtained access to the throne, but you are trying to stand on your own.

I encourage you to stop.

Stand in the grace of God, surrender to him.

This morning, god's calling you.

He may be calling you to all kinds of things.

He may be calling you to ministry.

He may be calling you to missions.

He may be calling you to the job that you are at right now just to share the gospel with those around you.

To be a missionary right here, he, with those around you.

To be a missionary right here.

He may be calling you to be a missionary you're in your school.

To be a missionary in your family.

To be a missionary in your front, with your friends.

We encourage you this morning to to surrender to him.

God could be calling you this morning to unite with us here at DeSoto Hills.

If he is, we would love to have you.

I'm going to pray for us.

We're going to stand and sing as we sing.

If you have a decision to make, let's make that today.

Thanks for listening to this week's sermon.

If you have any questions for our pastor, feel free to reach out at desotohillscom.