The Gift of God // The Gift of Grace // Romans 5:12-21 // Pastor Josh Evans

Amen.

Amen. Man, what tremendous music and what a great, great song. And thank you, Yvette, and I certainly appreciate that.

And what great music all today. Just such a good, good day. Well, listen, Merry Christmas. All right, there you go.

All right, let's try that again. Merry Christmas. Hey, it is so good to see you here on Christmas Eve. And what a great crowd here on Christmas Eve. We're thankful that that you are here. And where are the kids at?

Can you guys wave at me? All the kids and everything, everywhere. So it's so good to see them. Like Pastor David said, this is a family service.

So these are always a little bit more fun, a little bit more energetic, a little bit more entertaining. And it is good to have the kids here. But also, one thing we think about when we do family services like this, it's good to have the kids in the room. But one thing that we forget that at this time, there's a few volunteers who are very rarely in Big Church, because they're always out and about. And I know Grady and Shirley are here, and they don't even know how to function right now.

So if Shirley is walking around, kind of telling all you guys to sit down and stuff like that, just understand she's in her element. And so it is good to see them here today. Well, listen, our family Christmas service this past week was a hit. It was awesome. We had great attendance, a lot of guests from the community, which we get super excited about. And so a lot of families showed up for that.

And it was a lot of fun, a lot of work, and a lot of different things went involved in that. And I do want to say thank you to everyone that served Wednesday night for that. But it is Christmastime. And so I know there's a lot of different traditions that you have in your household. One tradition that we have, this is actually not I don't like this tradition. It's my in-laws tradition, but they love to around Christmastime, they play games. How many of you are like game people when you get together with your family or whatever? This is just not my thing. I'd much rather be sitting in the couch watching football and talking and stuff. I hate having to do games, and especially the games that kind of make you look kind of dumb, you know what I'm saying? And I hate games like that, that challenge. I'm like, hey, I'm on vacation.

I don't want to challenge my mind and stuff like that. But I figure just in light of that that we could do a little Christmas trivia to kind of kick off the message here today. So there's 10 questions and you're going to see them up on the screen one at a time. Let's see how well you do. You can shout these out if you want.

You can kind of keep them to yourself, but we'll see how you do with these questions. All these are about Christmas movies, different things. And so songs, whatever. And so here we go.

You're ready for this? All right. In the song Frosty the Snowman, what was it that made Frosty dance around? His hat. Very good. Let's see if that's right.

Yes, the old silk hat. Very good. How many of you knew that? All right, raise your hand. OK, you're one for one.

How many of you missed it? You're 0 for one, right? OK, a few of you. All right. Next question. We got one of Santa's reindeer shares a name with what famous symbol on Valentine's Day?

And the answer is Cupid. Very good. How many of you are still two for two? All right.

Few of you out there. And what is the name of Rudolph's girlfriend in the special Rudolph the red nosed reindeer? All right, you guys got it. Here we go. Here's the reveal. All right.

How many of you knew that? OK, man, you guys are you guys are good. You guys should come spend Christmas with my in-laws. You would fit in well. You could take my place.

And so and but I next question, if the children are on the naughty list, what ends up in their stocking? All right. So, Cameron, that's probably what you're going to wake up to tomorrow, buddy. So just kidding. All right. So here we go. Next one.

What is the name of the Grinch's loyal dog? All right. Let's see. Yes, Max. Very good. Is this question six? Is that right? I don't remember.

How many of you have got all of them right so far? OK, man, you guys are good, but the hands are getting less. Here we go. What is George promised to give Mary at the beginning of It's a Wonderful Life? Let's see it.

The moon. Very good. Wow.

Did you know that, Asa? Really? Wow. That's amazing.

And it's a wonderful life. All right. Next one. Let's go in Home Alone.

This is my personal favorite in Home Alone. Where does Kevin's family go on vacation? Wow. You guys are coming in hot on that one. Very good. Correct. Paris.

All right. The next one on here in the movie Elf. Another personal favorite buddy has to travel through which forest to get to New York City? Let's see what the answer is.

The candy cane forest. Very good. How many more we got? I think there's two more. All right.

What is the name of the head elf in the movie The Santa Claus? Bernard. All right. Very good.

And then the next one. Hi, Abby. This one's for you. This is her favorite Christmas movie. Miracle on 34th Street is based on what real department store? Very good.

Macy's. Did any of you get 10 out of 10? All right.

There's a few of you. I don't know if I believe you, but it is Christmas. If you got 10, if you got 10 out of 10, we might have an extra candy cane for you.

I don't know at the end of the service. And but listen, well, well done. And I know there's a lot of Christmas traditions. I figured we would include a little game here to start. But how many of you have to do some Christmas shopping today? Be honest before everybody in here.

Yes, very good. And don't be ashamed. It's OK. Just own it at this point.

And good luck while you get out and about. Well, listen, it is Christmas Eve and we are finishing up a series here today. So if you've kind of slipped in, maybe you're with family or if you're a kid in the room, you haven't been here the last couple of Sundays, obviously. But we are finishing a series entitled The Gift of God. Can we say that together? The gift of God, all the kids, just the kids can say it with me. The gift of God.

And we are finishing this. It's been three weeks, a series on the gifts that have been given to us through God's son, Jesus. And over the next couple of days, really the next 24 hours, we are going to many of you are going to be given gifts. You're going to be passing out gifts and and things like that. And you're going to be passing out gifts, receiving gifts and all that kind of stuff.

Some of you are still purchasing gifts and and things like that. And so we figured this would be a series that we could look at together on on gifts. And so real quick, by way of introduction, here's what I'd love for you to do. I want you real quick to look to your neighbor. OK, for any of you introverts, you're probably never coming back to our church after this moment.

OK, but I want you to look to them and I want you to real quickly, I'll give you just about 25 seconds. Tell the person next to you what your favorite Christmas gift that you've ever been given. And real quick, let me say this. I know many of you are going to be real spiritual and say Jesus. OK, that's true. And I hope that's all of us. And so we'll talk about that here in a moment. But beyond that, tell your neighbor right now about 20, 25 seconds.

What was your favorite Christmas gift you've ever been given? All right. All right. Let's. Hey, Shirley, if you could help me wrangle them in.

Shirley James. I'm just kidding. So this is why when you have kids in the room, I don't need to ask questions very often. But listen, I tell you, if this was me and I had nobody next to me up here, so I couldn't really talk to anybody.

So it's kind of awkward just watching you. But for me, I remember specifically I've used this in sermon illustrations as a kid. I vividly remember the most excited I've ever gotten about a Christmas gift was when I got a regular Nintendo when I was a kid, which was amazing. And sometimes what you receive as gifts as a kid are much different than kind of what you receive as an as an adult.

Right. Many of you adults, you remember kind of those transition years where it was all fun and you look forward to it as a kid. And you got all the good gifts and all the fun video games and toys and everything. And then before too long, you were starting to get like undershirts. Right.

And you're kind of like, you know, it runs out and things like that. But as an adult, I have received my this seriously, probably my favorite gift. OK. And I'm dead serious. It is my favorite gift. And so I wanted to bring those today here.

These are my two favorite. I got these at separate times. But my mom, she got me these two things. And seriously, like Christmas morning as adults, our favorite things are to really give gifts to our families. I mean, you kind of as a kid, you're dying to get gifts and you're excited about gifts was an adult.

It's a little bit different. And you begin to get excited about giving gifts way more than probably receiving like you were as a kid. But as an adult, I received separate different occasions. My mom got me these little cubes.

They sit in my office. And I've never had a Christmas gift that made me like tear up until I got these. And what these are is my mom got them for me is the first one that I got was a cube with all the different pictures of when my daughter got baptized and which was like the most special thing ever. And and so I got that. And then a couple of years later, my son got baptized. And so she made me the exact same thing. And it's got the date on here of when, you know, I got the opportunity to baptize my kids. So many of you kind of said some things that I wasn't trying to do that as like a juke to you to make you feel less spiritual than me. OK, I promise you. And but I will say this when I think about Christmas as an adult.

So as a kid, it was a Nintendo as an adult. This is the thing that I get more excited about and that I remember receiving on Christmas day and get excited about that as much as anything else I have been given. But this series is all about the gift of Jesus and what we have, the gifts that we have through his son. And the first week of the series, we looked at the gift of the Holy Spirit from Acts chapter two.

Week number two, that was last week. We looked at the gift of eternal life from Romans chapter six. And then today we're going to be in Romans chapter number five. And we are going to see the gift of of grace, the gift of of grace here in verse number 12.

We all know this. We use this first often when we share the gospel with people. And we mentioned the Romans road and things like that. We mentioned Romans 512. And it says wherefore.

Now, anytime you see the word wherefore, you need to ask, hey, why is it there and what's it referring to? So what Paul, who's writing this letter to the church at Rome, he's writing this letter and he's saying that wherefore because of everything before before this. In other words, everything that I just talked to you in the first 11 verses of this chapter connects to what I am about to about to tell you. So wherefore and you say, what was he talking about the first 11 verses?

The first 11 verses of Romans chapter five are all about joy and having joy in the midst of persecution or joy in the midst of suffering in the midst of difficulty and how we can have joy. And then he goes on and says wherefore because of that as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin. So death passed upon all men for that all have have sinned. Now, verse number 12 has three stages. And we know this and and so stage number one that we see here is that sin entered the world because of Adam. Sin entered the world because of because of Adam. Stage number two, death entered the world because of sin.

Stage number three, death spread to the whole world because we all have have sinned. And so when we think of sin, we we know that sin is something that has passed upon everybody, right? Can everybody kind of nod your head that you're with me on that? If you don't believe me, then if you're not, I mean every parent in here should believe me, right? Right, because you know how kids are. I've never met like a, you know, my kids. I have a 12 year old and I have a nine year old and and so my kids when they were little when they were little like, you know, two years old. I've never met like a two year old who who just wants to put other people before themselves.

Right, right. I've never never had that happen. Like I mean when my kids were little learning to talk. I never remember them when they were like three years old coming and saying, hey mom, dad, I know you guys have had a really long day and I just want to make your life easier tonight.

And so you guys go take a nap and we're going to be good and we're going to make dinner and everything's going to be good. We've never had that happen. Why? Normally is because they they're thinking about themselves.

Why? Because of sin. Because of Romans chapter 5. That's what Paul's saying is he's saying listen, even on your very very best day. We're still sinners. Even on our very best day.

We're still fleshly even when you try to your very hardest. You still fall short and death is still the end result of your your life. And so the Apostle Paul is kind of painting this this picture. In fact Romans chapter 5 without going into a lot of detail is really his theme is he's comparing the very first Adam which was why sin came into the world, right and he's comparing it with what the scripture calls a second Adam, which is the coming of of Jesus why we celebrate Christmas was Jesus Jesus coming and he's comparing those two here in Romans chapter 5, but but he has this predicament. He says the first Adam brought sin and death right and then he goes on in verse number 15 and he starts using the word gift throughout this whole passage.

In fact, you can see it six different times from verse 15 to verse 21. Let's read it together, but not as verse 15 but not as the offense. So also is the free gift for if through the offense of one many be dead much more the grace of God and the gift by grace which is by one man Jesus Christ have bounded unto many verse 16 and not as it was by one that sinned so is the gift for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification for if by one man's offense death reign by one much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life for as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners. So by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous moreover the law entered, but that the offense might abound but where sin abounded grace did much more abound that is sin has rained unto death even so might grace rain through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our our Lord.

And so here we see the gift six different times Paul. He says that yes Adam brought sin into the law entire lives. That's every single one of us because of his sin death. And that's his eternal separation from God. It doesn't just mean physical death.

It means spiritual death. You are completely dead because of the sin that you were born into that's everybody in this room, you know kids. That's your parents.

That's the people sitting next to you. That's me the pastor up here today. Listen every single one of us were born into the same with the same problem. And that was a sin problem that we could not solve on our own.

And so Paul is saying that that's the problem. But the solution to the problem is the free gift of grace that is freely offered to you and to me very quickly here today. I want to talk about the gift of grace. And so week number one, we saw the gift of the Holy Spirit week number two the gift of eternal life here. We see the free gift of of grace and you say what does that mean for us very quickly here today? Number one the gift of grace overcomes your sin.

Here's what you have to understand about the free gift that is freely offered to every single one of you. The gift of grace overcomes your sin. Here's what I want you to know this Christmas when we think about Jesus coming and we celebrate that and and we gather with our family and friends and many of you.

I hope sometime tomorrow will will maybe read the Christmas story together as as families and and you'll reflect upon what Jesus coming to be born. It's exactly what Yvette sang about here this morning that he came to be born to die. So that through his death you could be saved. And here's what I want you to understand grace the gift of grace it overcomes your sin. So before before Jesus, here's what what Paul's saying is that you were in Adam right? We were unified the word the word one is used about 12 different times in those passages that we just read and what he's saying is that before Jesus we were one with the first Adam. We were unified with Adam in that we are sinners and Adam sinned and that sin is what unified us. And what he's saying is that if we receive the free gift of grace that is freely offered to every single one of us.

We no longer in Adam. We are now in in Christ and the good news about that gift is that when you are in Christ, the grace that is offered to you and to me overcomes all of your your sin. You see that's the reason Jesus came that's why we celebrate Christmas.

It's because you could not save yourself. You could not you could not have victory over sin in and of yourself. You had to have someone come and live a perfect life and to conquer sin and to conquer your life.

You see when Jesus came and he died for you it shattered the penalty of death that Adam brought into the world. So the gift of grace that overcomes your sin, but number two the gift of grace justifies you verse number 16 and not as it was by one that sin so is the gift for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses under justification now the word justification. I know it's not a word that we use a lot, but it's a legal term meaning to declare you righteous. It's kind of a courtroom type scene that you've seen it before and what when you receive the free gift of grace that is freely offered to you. It's as if you're in a courtroom and and all the charges against you are red and and guess what you're guilty and I'm guilty every single one of us as the charges are red.

It's like yes. Josh is guilty your name guilty right? And when you accept the free gift of salvation this free gift of grace that is freely offered to you and to me here's what happens is that that moment when you accept him into your life and you receive the free gift at that moment you go from guilty to free. That's the that's when you see the word justification.

That's what that means you go from guilty to now your it's as if you're innocent. Now in Adam we're not but in Jesus we are and here's why is because when we get to heaven and I don't know what that's going to be like exactly but when we get to heaven and all of us are going to stand before God listen every single person in this place is going to stand before God and I don't know exactly how all of that's going to go down. I know there's much speculation about that, but I'll tell you this is when we stand before God. There's nothing in you worthy to vouch or to argue for because there's no good in you. The only thing and the only reason why you can stand before God fully accepted is not because of you. It's because of the righteousness of Jesus and the grace of God that you've received and that is a free gift to every single one of you see the gift of grace. It overcomes and over and it shatters your sin. The gift of grace it justifies you it frees you. But then number three in verse 17, we see that the gift of grace gives you new life.

You see the first Adam he says brought death, but he says in verse 17 Jesus brings brings life verse number 17 for if by one man's offense death reign by one much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one listen in Jesus. We have new life. You see we have had new life. You are a new creation.

You are a new person. It's not just eternal life. Although that's something that's glorious and I'm looking forward to it.

But that's not just it. We have new life right now. You need for a child of God for someone that received the free gift of grace. Let me remind you that it's not something that you get to just look forward to that's a part of it. It's something that you can live in right now every single day. If you know Jesus you have new life. That's why he's saying that you can be joyful regardless of what's happening in your life. Why because you've received the gift of of grace that's coming into your life. So listen this gift that's offered to it overcomes your sin declares you righteous before God. It gives you new life, but in verse number 17, there's a word that that is so so important.

He says this therefore as by or verse 17 for if by one man's offense death reign by one much more they which what's the next word receive let's all say that word together receive. Listen, this is a gift and here's the thing. It's a gift for everyone and I know many of you. You've kind of been stressed out about making sure that everybody, you know that you have to get gifts for are kind of accounted for right. You've kind of checked your list to make sure I got a gift for them got to give.

I've been busy doing that for the last several actually. I'm like most times how many of you have to buy for just your spouse? Any of you?

Okay, that's a few of you. My wife's been that person right? I saw a funny meme the other day on social media and it said that it said, hey, here's who my wife has to has to shop for and the list was like teachers, you know co-workers cousins brothers sisters all this stuff. And then it was like who my husband shops for wife.

That's it, you know, and so that's how I am and so but many of you, you know, you've kind of thought through. Okay. I have a gift for them. I have a gift for them. I have a gift for them and and we try to get you know gifts for lots of people around us. But here's what I'll real what we realize say we can't get a gift for every single person.

Can we right? It's just hard. It's like it's like where do you draw the line? It's like I can't really you know, none of us have the money to really get a gift for every single person in this room and every single person that you know and things like that.

So at some point you have to kind of narrow that down. Well, let me tell you this the gift of grace that is freely offered to us is this there's no limit it is offered to every single one of you. It's often offered to every single person in this in this room every single one of you. The gift is freely offered to you.

But here's the thing about the gift of grace. You have to what verse 17 says you have to receive it. You see the what you have to do is you have to believe and receive you have to believe and receive it's like an open invitation to every single one of us, but it's as if if I can put it in kind of terms that you understand. It's like we have to RSVP for it.

Right. It's an open invitation for every single one of us, but it's up to you to actually receive there has to have a moment in your life where you have stopped trusting in you stop trusting and and you're good thing stop trusting and and whatever it is that you've been trusting in and you have to start trusting in Jesus and him coming to be born so that he could die to eventually save your soul. That's the only thing that can save your life. That's the only thing that can overcome the sin of in your life.

That's the only thing that can move you from being guilty to accept it. That's the only thing that can move you from death. To life is the gift of Grace and it's freely offered to all of us in that good news. It's good news.

It's good news to every single person in here. Would you bow your heads with me? The gift of Grace the gift of Grace. Nobody's looking around and I just want you to respond in your own heart respond today. Have you X have you believed and received the gift that is freely offered you it's there.

It's for you. You say no, I'm deep in my sin. Hey, listen, the only thing that can overcome your sin is is Jesus. He's the only thing that can overcome your sin. The gift of Grace is the only thing that can overcome your sin. If you don't know him today, let me tell you this if you were to die and stand before God and the charges were read against you. You're guilty.

You're guilty. The only thing that can move you from being guilty to fully accepted and free. It's the gift. It's the gift of God. And then if you're in here and you say pastor, I don't I don't know Jesus or I don't I don't really that's not really for me.

Let me tell you this the scripture says Romans chapter 5. It says that right now you're dead. You're dead you say now I'm still breathing. Yeah, not physically dead. But but let me tell you this you're spiritually dead. You're spiritually dead. And the only thing that can move you from death to life. Is the gift of Grace the gift of Grace have you believed and received if you're in here today and you say pastor I know without a shadow of a doubt this Christmas season. We're celebrating I know today that I have believed and received and I have eternal life to look forward to if that's you. Would you slip up your hand as a testimony?

Yes, I see that hands going up everywhere. Amen. I see that and then if you're in here today and you say pastor I've never received it. I've never believed it. I've never received this free gift that is freely offered to me.

That's where I'm at here today. Would you slip up your hand anybody anywhere? I don't want to embarrass you. I don't want to come to you.

I don't want to call you out or anything like that. I just want to pray for you today that you would accept and receive the free gift that is freely offered to you. Father God, you've been so good to us. Lord, we are so thankful for your grace. God, we're so thankful for the gift of God. The gift of God that at this season we get to celebrate Jesus. Him coming to be born and the reason he had to come to be born was to live a perfect life and eventually die the death that all of us deserved. To eventually save us from the sin that we could never be saved from in and of ourself. God, we thank you so much for that. We praise you for that. I pray God that families in our church, families in our community that this Christmas season that all of us Father would look to you that Jesus would be the reason for the season that we wouldn't get so wrapped up in gifts. We wouldn't get so wrapped up in family. So wrapped up in lights. So wrapped up in all these things. But Father each and every one of us God we could be so in tune with Jesus because he is the reason for this Christmas season. God, we praise you for that and we thank you for it's in your name we pray and all God's people said Amen.