God's Gifts Under Christmas Tree

Introduction: Just a few days before Christmas, a postal worker at the main sorting office found an unstamped, handwritten, messy envelope addressed to God. Curious, he opened it and discovered that it was from an elderly woman who was in great distress because all of her savings—$200—had been stolen. As a result, she wouldn’t have anything to eat for Christmas.

The man went to his fellow postal workers and took up a collection for the woman. They all dug deep and came up with $180. Putting the money in a plain envelope, with no note or anything, the postal workers sent it by special courier to the woman that very day. A week later, the same postal worker noticed another unstamped letter that had been addressed to God in the same handwriting. In it, he found a brief note:

Dear God, Thank you for the $180 that you sent me for Christmas, which would have been so bleak otherwise. P.S. It was $20 short, but that was probably those thieving workers at the post office. In Romans 5 God gives us His Gifts.

1.The Gift of Justification

Therefore being justified by faith, Romans 5:1

Justification is the divine pronouncement of God that we are acquitted from sin’s penalty, God’s judgment for sin, and made acceptable before God even though we are sinners.

Swindoll writes: "Justification is the sovereign act of God whereby He declares righteous the believing sinner--while he is still in a sinning state," in other words, while we still sin and have a sinful nature.

2. The Gift of Peace with God

we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: Romans 5:1

"Peace with God" in essence means reconciled to God. It means the barriers of hostility and enmity that separated us from God, barriers like our sin, our spiritual death or lack of spiritual life. The barriers have all been removed by the person and work of Christ. "Peace with God" means the peace of salvation through the Prince of Peace. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:27

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, Ephes. 2:14

Today, the root of the troubles of the world is not the failures of government, nor even the absence of money to finance new programs, but the fact that man is at enmity with God. What men need is "peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." So, on that glorious night when He was born, the angels sang, "glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace."

3. The Gift of Access to God

By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, Romans 5:2

The apostle Paul reminds us here that there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. And the author of Hebrew (4:16) tells us to come boldly before the throne of Grace to find grace to help in our times of need. How? Through Christ who has given us access into the very presence of the Almighty as believers in His Son. Furthermore, Jesus in Matthew 11:28-30 issues this invitation

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. [29] Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. [30] For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Christianity is the way of ACCESS. Does this impress you? It should because all the other religions of the world shut man out from God; they provide no access to God. Why? Because they keep man from God by turning them away from Jesus Christ, because they do not seek to come to God by way of God’s Christmas tree, the person and work of the Jesus Christ.

4.The Gift of the Love of God and the Holy Spirit

And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Romans 5:5

In the context of this passage, this is God’s love for us, the extent of which is expressed in the verses which follow as they develop and stress the work of God in Christ as the expression of His love cf vss. 6f and particularly vs. 8). The Apostle John expressed it like this,

"By this the love of God was manifested in (among) us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the World so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 Jn. 4:9-10).