GOD’S CHRISTMAS TREE AND HIS GIFTS
Romans 5:1-11
At this time of the year in homes all across America you will find a Christmas tree with presents underneath. It is one of the symbols of Christmas that stand out in this country as much as any and more than most.
The Christmas tree has become a part of our season, and any pagan connections it originally may have had were lost long ago—just as were the names of the days of our week which also had their origin in pagan beliefs.
Simply stated, the truth of Christ birth or the Christmas Season is that God the Son, the second person of the trinity, became the babe of the cradle, that He might become the man of the cross, that He might die as our sinless substitute to release us from the penalty of sin, and reconcile us to God that we might receive eternal life and live abundantly through His life, and all of this as a gift by faith in Christ.
God’s Word actually refers to both Christ Jesus, His person, and His death on the cross, His work, by either the word “tree,” or by terms associated with a tree.
One of the words in the NT which is translated cross at times is the word Xulon [zulon]. This word is used of both a tree and of the cross. The point is that one of the words used in the NT for the cross is a word that also means “tree,” “wood,” or “a piece of wood” and hence, anything made of wood.
Acts 5:30 – “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree [zulon].”
Acts 13:29 – “Now when they had fulfilled all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the tree [zulon] and laid Him in a tomb.”
1 Peter 2:24 – “Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.”
In the OT, the Messiah is viewed prophetically in terms that relate to a tree.
(1) He is portrayed as a shoot or branch which would grow out of the cut down stump of the hours of David. Isaiah 11:1 – “There shall come forth a Rod [shoot] from the stem [trunk] of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.”
(2) He is also seen as “the Branch of the Lord,” as “the Righteous Branch,” & as “God’s Servant, the Branch” whom God would raise up on the human scene to give righteousness and life to the nation, and to all who would believe in Him.
From these passages in both the Old and New Testaments, we see that God has His own Christmas tree in the person of His Son and in His Son’s work or death on a tree, the cross. But note, God’s tree is not decorated with lights and ornaments or tinsel, nor surrounded underneath with gifts or presents filled with perishable items purchased from our vain manner of life. Rather, under God’s tree are imperishable gifts of infinite value which were purchased by the death of God’s Son on God’s tree, the Cross.
*But just how does a person acquire God’s Tree with its abundance of imperishable gifts? And what are some of these magnificent gifts?
God’s Christmas Tree
As we think about acquiring God’s tree with its imperishable gifts, several wonderful passages come immediately to mind:
Isaiah 55:1 – “Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”
John 4:10 – “Jesus answered and said to her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, Give Me a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
Revelation 21:6 – “And He said to me, ‘it is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts.”
Revelation 22:17 – “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come!” And let him who hears say, Come! And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.”
God’s Tree is a Gift of God
Scripture stresses that salvation is by grace through faith ALONE in the work of God in Christ ALONE, not by religious or moral works which men perform.
Ephesians 2:8,9 – “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
As a work of God’s grace salvation then is A FREE GIFT. The words grace and gift stand opposed to the concepts of merit and works as a means of receiving what is given. The Scriptures make this clear in bold statements and by the many references to salvation as a free gift from God without cost to us. God’s Christmas Tree, or Salvation in Christ is free, but it’s not cheap. It cost God the death of His very own Son, the Lord Jesus.
Grace is not grace and free is not free if I must pay some price. Free suggest something which we don’t and can’t purchase at all—it’s something we get as a GIFT!!!
God’s Tree is Acquired Through Faith
John 1:12 – “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.”
Having looked at the means for acquiring God’s tree with its imperishable gifts, we need now to look under the tree. No doubt we have all sat around the tree at home and opened our gifts. Often with great anticipation and joy in giving and receiving. Sometimes these gifts require reading the instructions and it takes time to learn how to use them, and our gifts from God fall into the same category.
How many have ever received a gift at Christmas they didn’t like? What did you do—smile and thank them and then when you get home you put it where it can’t be found on a shelf somewhere. These are gifts we don’’ need to put on a shelf.
If you are a Christian this morning then you need to be reminded of these gifts and you need to rejoice; you also need to use them.
If you are not a Christian I hope to make you jealous this morning so you will want to accept God’s tree and then open the gifts that are under it. You have to receive the tree in order to receive the gifts and the best thing about it all is that it is free.
The Gifts Under God’s Tree
Romans 5:1-11
The Gift of Justification (5:1)
It is a legal term which pictures the sinner before the bar of God to receive condemnation for the sins he/she has committed. But instead of being condemned he/she is judicially pronounced not guilty.
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. It is the pardon of God declaring us righteous when we believe in Him by faith.
If you are here this morning and the devil is trying to keep you behind the bars of condemnation you need to declare to him that you have opened the gift of justification and that you have been set free; that you are not guilty because of the price Jesus has paid for you.
We have a new standing with God; we have been declared righteous.
The Gift of Peace With God (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, and God’s perfect holiness; these barriers have all been removed by the person and work of Christ. When you open this up you can rest assured that God’s judgment will not fall on you.
You can go to bed at night with peace in your heart that if you should die in the night everything will be alright when you face the Lord.
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.”
The Gift of Access to God (5:2a)
The Greek word prosagoge means “access, approach,” or it could mean “introduction.” It was used of one who gives access or audience to a great king.
So, in another passage, the apostle Paul reminds us there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Ant the author of Hebrews 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.
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 Lord Jesus Christ.
This is why the Lord said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except by me” (John 14:6).
Unless you receive His Christmas tree you don’t have this access to God. It is a privilege reserved for those who are “in Christ”, those who have by faith received His tree.
The Gift of Hope of the Glory of God (5:2b)
We are not a people without hope. When the world is walking around as if there is no hope the Christian does not panic because our hope is in the Lord Jesus. What a gift when you consider the times we live in. A nation that has been attacked by terrorist and a nation that is in the midst of a war on terror—it could almost cause a person to lose hope but not for the Christian.
There is the expectation of one-day experiencing ultimate redemption, of being in God’s glorious kingdom in glorious resurrection bodies without the old sinful nature and without the attacks of Satan’s kingdom.
The Gift of Triumph in Tribulation and Trouble (5:3-4)
What a marvelous gift that we all need to unwrap and use, but Oh, how we put this one on the shelf or forget to open it. We walk around like we are defeated all of the time. As we anticipate living in the glorious presence of God, this gift reminds us that for the present time, we still live in a fallen world where we experience tribulation and trouble. But regardless, we can still know joyous triumphant victory through the Savior.
In this gift, the Apostle has in mind the capacity God gives us to rejoice in our sufferings through faith in the principles and promises of the Bible and through our walk with the Lord.
The world, and too many of us as believers, have a hard time joining these two words “affliction” and “joy.” Why? Well, the world cannot because they have no hope in the glory of God. And we fail as Christians to experience joy in the midst of tribulation because we so often fail to live in the light of that glory. We fail to live as sojourners and aliens in a foreign country who are on temporary assignment as representative of their king.
The Gift of the Love of God and the Holy Spirit (5:5)
1 John 4:9,10 – “9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 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.”
Grasping God’s love so that it gives assurance and removes fear and doubt or shame when we fail, and we all do, and so that it gives significance and meaning to life, is very much a work of the gift of the indwelling Spirit of God who assures our hearts of God’s endless and unconditional love so that we can grasp that we are thus accepted through the much more grace of God made available to us in the Beloved.
The Gift of Deliverance From Wrath (5:9)
Wrath here refers to the judgment of God that must be poured out on a Christ rejecting world. Notice carefully, the “much more” emphasis which follows the statement of verse 8, “that Christ died for us.” This verse, like many others, promises that those who have put their trust in Christ will not come into judgment or face God’s wrath because Jesus Christ, our Savior, took God’s judgment in our place.
The Gift of Salvation by His Life (verse 10)
In view of the context which follows in Romans, this includes not only deliverance from God’s wrath, but deliverance from the power of sin. It has to do with living abundantly and victoriously over life dominating patterns through the power of the risen Christ, through Christ’s life which dwells within us.
Our Greatest Need
If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator;
If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist;
If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist;
If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer;
But our greatest need was forgiveness, so God sent us a Savior.
“Exult” is a Greek word used three times in this passage, verse 2, “we exult in hope of the glory of God,” in verse 3, “we also exult in our tribulations,” and here “we exult in God.” Literally, it means, “to boast” and from this it came to mean “exult, rejoice triumphant,” but in the sense of joyous confidence.
Paul is writing about a boasting in the sense of a triumphant and confident rejoicing in God through the work of Christ as the verse makes clear. It is a rejoicing which expresses a bold confidence, one based not on our record or behavior, but on, please note, “the reconciliation” which verse 10 describes as accomplished by the death of God’s Son.
Because of God’s grace and gifts to us in His Son through the Tree, the Cross, we can boast in God, in the assurance of eternity, and of His constant love, not because of what or who we are in ourselves, but because of what we are in Christ by His grace.
When you unwrap these presents, you find them backed up by the faithfulness and guarantee of God Himself through the perfect and finished work of Christ. These gifts never break and never wear out. Indeed, they last for eternity and they do all that is promised and more.
The marvel of marvels is that these few gifts are only a very small part of the gifts under God’s Christmas tree.
