Merry Christmas. It’s good to see you all. It’s nice to have you with us today.

So this morning we’ll keep working through our Advent series here in December leading up to Christmas. And if you would, with me, turn your Bibles to Romans chapter 5.

Romans chapter 5.

It’s up here if you don’t have your Bible. One verse for you this morning. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Let me read it again. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. A few weeks ago, I’m sure all of you saw the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. At least heard about it. Heard what was going on and what not. I work at a desk and had the opportunity to at least listen to probably 90% of it. And I did catch myself watching and observing some just facial expressions and apparent emotion and things like that. And so I felt like I was part of the jury. I was all into it. And I was watching the different facts come out. And I was trying to process it all and make a non-biased determination on what I thought was going on. Was he guilty or not on the charges that were brought against him? And this thing went on for 14 days or so. And I found myself on the weekends just kind of like with a bit of anxiety about me. Like, man, this thing’s got to keep moving. Because I was just watching this man who is the defendant who is being charged with murder and some other things. Five different counts. And I’m just watching him. And you can just tell there’s a weight about him, right? He’s facing life. He’s looking at something very serious. And he is dependent on this jury to either acquit or find him guilty. And so it was very powerful if you saw when the verdict was read. This jury deliberated for days. And I know this is a polarizing case. And so… I’m trying to just stay on the facts here. But just watching this man. When the court clerk read off the verdicts on these five charges, it was moving to me. It was powerful. He stood up. And in the presence of this jury who had just come up with this verdict, he faces them. And the clerk reads off what they found. The jury finds on count number one, we find the defendant. To be not guilty. And the camera’s on Kyle. And that first one, you know, you can see him kind of blink. As if like, oh wow, that’s in my favor, you know. Kind of… But we the jury, on count number two, we find the defendant not guilty. Count number three, we find the defendant not guilty. And as they keep reading through these counts, the verdicts on these counts, you can see, like, he’s beginning to be overwhelmed with the reality of what’s going on. And he gets to number five, and they say, on count number five, we the jury find the defendant to be not guilty. And he just falls out onto the desk. And he realizes, I’m a free man. I am innocent. I am innocent. We find ourselves… We find ourselves in a similar situation to Kyle.

Except, one day we will stand before a holy tribunal. We will be in a heavenly courtroom with a verdict to be read.

We will not be judged by humans making up a jury. And that’s a wonderful thing. I think we have a wonderful… I think we have a wonderful way of serving justice. Attempting to obtain justice as best we can as fallen humans, right? But we won’t be judged by humans according to human standards and human law. We will be judged by the holy God.

In which mountains melt like wax in his presence. By the power of his word, he spoke galaxies into existence.

Angels serve him and do his bidding. As the song says, there is none like you. There’s no one like you, Lord.

So I think it’s healthy for us to consider ourselves sort of in a mock trial right now. Place yourself… And I’ve used this illustration before, and I hope it’s not worn out on you, but I find myself using it in my own mind, in my own conscience often. And I think it’s healthy. You have to know what the verdict is. What it’s going to be. Place yourself in the courtroom of God. And know it is he who is judging you.

Place yourself… What does your conscience tell you? Are you free? Can you, with Kyle Rittenhouse, fall out on the table and be overjoyed because you’ve been considered innocent, not guilty?

Ask yourself now, ask yourself, when you go home this afternoon, think about it. Meditate on it. What is my standing? In the presence of a righteous judge.

Where do I measure up against the standard of the Holy One?

Because if you don’t measure up, the verdict will be guilty and the penalty is death.

See, in our system, the earthly system, we gather, we gather these facts and we gather these evidences and we present them and we seek to prove ourselves innocent based on our actions. This man was deemed innocent even though he killed two men. It was in self-defense. He was justified in doing so. According to the law, it excused him because it found no wrong in him.

But God, God not only judges actions, we could maybe attempt to bring in our rap sheet and present it before God. That would be a foolish thing to do. We could present it before God and say, well, see, I did this, I didn’t do that, and I did this. Let’s say, let’s say that all of the things that you actually did outwardly with your hands measured up, hypothetically. No one has ever done it. Let’s say hypothetically. God looks at the heart. God weighs the heart. He weighs your spirit and He measures it. So good luck proving that your heart was right in everything that you did right. Jesus beat the Pharisees over and over again for this. They were doing seemingly the right things, but their heart was wicked and rotten. They were doing it for themselves, and so we as fallen humans in Adam can do no good. We don’t have it in us. Everything that we say and that we do and that we think is tarnished by sin. By nature, we are corrupt. By nature, we are enemies. So how dare us walk into the courtroom of God and try to present ourselves as innocent?

How then will you stand? How will you be justified? Chase, this is Christmas. You’re supposed to be preaching happy things. I’m getting there. This is the Christmas story. This is the Christmas story.

We’re still in the mock trial, thank God, because you still have time, right? Today is the day. Consider it now. We’re in the mock trial. What is your plea? What evidence will you present to God to be considered righteous, to be considered innocent and blameless, and to have part in Him and in His kingdom? What are you going to present to Him?

On what basis are you going to be considered justified?

Justified. Justify. To make right, to restore, to pardon, to accept, and to bring back into relationship and fellowship, to make it right. How will you be made right with God? Are you sinless? No. And neither am I. And so we’re in this long line of souls that are going to be judged. By a perfect standard. What are you going to say when you get there? And it’s asked of you. What is your plea? What are you going to say?

How will you be made right?

How will you measure up? You best not bring your rap sheet in there.

You best not bring what you did at the soup kitchen last month. You best not bring the record sheet of your tithing from last year. You best not bring your prayer journal. You best not bring all the times you read the Scripture and how many times you read through the Bible.

You best not bring your works because they are tarnished.

And faulty, unfit, stinky,

abominable, like filthy rags.

Leave them things outside. So then, what is going to be your plea?

It’s Jesus.

Paul says, having been justified, how? By your works? No. By faith. Having been justified by faith. Now, faith, you’re not justified because you have faith.

Faith, there’s a saying, it’s not your faith, it’s the object of your faith. And I think that does a pretty good job of getting to it. But the faith is simply a vessel, it’s a vehicle, it’s a conduit that allows you to reach out and obtain something. It’s the fiber going to your modem. It’s your house. The fiber itself is not anything except for some material. There has to be something coming through that. There’s information flowing into your house, into your modem. Your bank account is nothing if it doesn’t have something in it. It’s a bank account, great, good for you. But you’ve got to have something in it for it to be worth something. So your faith. Your faith simply reaches out and obtains something. So by faith, what are you obtaining in order to be justified before God? Paul, just before this, he uses Abraham as an example of how we are justified. He contrasts justification by works and justification by faith. And he uses Abraham to paint the picture of justification by faith. And the story is that Abraham was called from Ur of the Chaldeans by God and he was given a promise. We talked about this morning, God’s promises. God gave him a word. I’m going to bless you and multiply you. You’re going to be the father of many nations. From you is going to come the seed that blesses all nations. And this is Paul’s argument. And this is what the scripture says. This is what Moses wrote in Genesis. Abraham believed God. And it was counted to him as righteousness.

So what is the faith, the believing? It’s not simply a believing in God. It’s not believing that God exists. It has to be more specific than that. It’s believing God. Abraham believed God. He put it like this. He believed what he said. He believed that God was both able and willing to do what he said. He believed in the character and the nature of the God who spoke the word to him. So again, it’s not the faith or the believing that justifies you. It’s who and what the who said that you are believing that justifies you. The scripture is filled with promises from God. I found myself like, well, what is the one promise that the promise that was given to Abraham is used, but the scripture is filled with promises of what God has said he is going to do. Again, our memory verse from last month, Numbers 23. Has he said it? Will he not do it? God, on his merit, on his nature, is surely going to do what he has promised to do. And so that’s what I believe. Because God has said it. God has said he’s going to do it. I believe he’s going to do it. And so my faith simply holds on and grabs on to what God has said he’s going to do. Again, my faith is not some work of righteousness in me. It’s simply grabbing something that I need to be considered righteous. It was Ambrose who said it like this. And I had never heard this, and I just thought it was wonderful. He talked about this. He said that Jacob, even in deceiving his father, Jacob went into the presence of his father clothed in something and smelling like something that was not himself. Yes, he was deceiving him. But he went in dressed as Esau. And he smelled like Esau. And his father was… He wasn’t pleased with it. He accepted him because he was clothed in the person of Esau. And so our faith, it reaches out and it grabs the person of Christ and it clothes us with him. And so we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Nothing of our own. No work of our own. No fitment of our own. No worth of our own. But by faith, I believe the promise of God that all His promises are yes and amen in Jesus Christ. He is the fullness of the promises of God. He is the sum of them. He is the personification of them. And because He has offered Him to me, and He said, if you believe in My Son, you will be saved. That’s a promise. If you will reach out and take My Son by faith, you will be saved. You will be considered. You will be considered righteous. You will be justified. And so how is it that we are justified? I walk into the courtroom of God clothed in the sweet aroma of Jesus Christ and I’m considered righteous. And I can stand before Him. And I’m brought back into fellowship with Him. And I can receive all of His benefits and all of His love and all of His comfort. But,

to have, faith is to believe that God is both able and willing to do what He has promised. Faith is something that is sure. It’s an assurance of things that you can’t necessarily see. But it makes them no less real. It makes them no less a reality. If God has said it, that He will do it, it is just as good as a present reality. Because God cannot lie. God is true. And never changes. And if He has said it, He will do it. And so that is what your faith is in. The goodness, the gratuitous offering of God. God has said, even though you don’t deserve it, even though you didn’t work for it and merit it, I’m going to give you this. Namely, my son. Believe and you will be saved. Have faith. Have faith and you will be justified. Doubt is just the opposite. It’s, I don’t know, not even a direct rejection, but not quite sure. I don’t quite know if God is able to do this. I don’t quite know. I believe God is certainly able to do anything because He’s God, but would He be willing to do it for me? That’s the beauty of the gospel. That God justifies the ungodly. God does not justify you because you somehow came to a point where you were not quite so ungodly or that you were somewhat deserving of it. He justifies the ungodly.

It is simply… I was thinking about this. When you go to a restaurant, sort of a side note, when you go to a restaurant and you eat your meal, you get your bill, and then… you go to, you know, pay and give them your debit card and whatnot, what’s at the bottom? Gratuity. How often…

I bet you’ve never not done this. How often do you say, you know what, I don’t care how they served, this is what I’m giving because it’s gratuity. I know I, well, that was a pretty good server. They did a pretty good job. That’s not gratuity. That’s not gratuity. Those are wages. That person earned what you’re about to give them because they did a good job. God is gratuitous. You did not earn what He is offering you. You didn’t get paid some wages and then God’s like, you know what? He did a really good job. I think I’m going to throw this on the top of it. No, that server was awful. My chicken was raw. He brought my dessert first. He brought my dessert first. And then my meal. And then my glass of water. I couldn’t hardly eat because my mouth was so dry. He left me there for 45 minutes before He ever came and took my order. It took me two and a half hours to get my food and they never checked on me. So I’m not going to give me… Those are wages. The next time you go out to eat, try, try to put yourself in the mindset of God’s gratuity and tip the person based on gratuity, not merit. And maybe it’ll be just, just a fun exercise to train your mind how God blesses us in Christ gratuitously. Gratuitously. God had no obligation to promise, much less fulfill His promise of anything to any of us. None. That’s why it’s called gratuity. It’s undeserved, unmerited. Whatever happened is just not even considered. God did it out of the freeness of His will. The goodness of His character, His love is the foundation of it.

So then, will you believe that God is that good? How often do you read through the Scripture and you find a section where there’s this awful, dreadful curse on somebody who’s going to do this or not do this? If you do this, you’re cut off. If you don’t do this, you have no part in my kingdom. You take those pretty serious, right? I do. I was reading through Charles Spurgeon. He has a book. It’s called God’s Promises. It’s all about God’s promises, obviously. And he draws out this point that how often do we look at those curses and those consequences of not doing the right thing or doing the wrong thing? And we take them so serious. And we know them to be so true. We’ve experienced God’s punishment and discipline in our lives. But then, we get to the section about His goodness and His goodness. And He just promises. I see it, and I guess it’s true, but you don’t latch on to it like you do the other stuff.

It was convicting to me how often I just blow past those things. And he was just making the point that make it a good exercise in your study and in your Christian life to when you find God saying that He’s going to do something, hold Him to it. Hold on. Hold on to it. Rest on it. Lay on it. Jacob was given the land. He said, the land that you’re lying on, I’m going to give it to you. He wasn’t doing anything. He was just laying down, resting. Rest on the promises of God.

Because it has nothing to do with your faithfulness. It has nothing to do with your ability, how strong your faith is. It’s not a matter. measure of how much or how little faith you have, do you or do you not believe that God is true to His Word?

If you can do that this morning, if you can reach out and grab on to the promises of God in the face of Jesus specifically, if you can do that, just believe Him. Just believe. That’s it. The more I study this, the simpler I think the Gospel got. Believe.

There’s nothing else. Just believe that God is true, that God is able, and that He is even willing. It doesn’t make sense to my mind because I know I’m unworthy. It doesn’t make sense to me why He would be willing. I just have to believe that He is loving like He says He is. And He is. He is merciful, abundantly gracious like He says He is. Just believe it. And you will be considered justified. Wow. And look what He says, since we have been justified. If you have faith, if you have faith this morning, if you believe truly in your heart the Gospel, you already have been made right with God. Your sins have been made right with God. Your sins have already been done away with. Your sins have been pardoned. You can, with 150,000% confidence, know that when you walk into that courtroom and God brings you to account of your life, that you will leave out of there skipping like a calf with joy because you’ve been considered righteous in Christ by faith. You have no reason to doubt this morning. God has given you no confidence. He’s given you every cause to do that. He’s given you every cause to what? Be at peace. If you have been justified through faith, you are at peace with God. There is no more animosity. There’s no more friction. Be sure of this, that before faith, you are a child of wrath. As Pastor Charles, as Pastor Chad’s song says, the wrath of God. Yeah.

Rightly, his song says this.

The wrath of God sat heavy on my head.

But what? But the blood of Jesus. Yeah. The wrath of God certainly sits heavy on all those who would seek to be justified by anything other than faith in the Son of God. It’s heavy. It is a disposition of anger and wrath. It is a bent. It is a… It’s not just, yeah, I’m pretty upset about that, but tomorrow will be good. It is a fixed, firm opposition to you. God is opposed to you. In Isaiah, he says that because of our sin, we are separated from him. He can have no part with you. God cannot mingle with wickedness. He is opposed to you without faith. But since you have been justified already, you can have peace with God. You can sit in that courtroom this morning and not have an inkling of worry about you. Faith should do that. Faith should not be something… that, well, I think I’m going to be okay. That’s not faith.

Faith is a concrete sureness. You can have that. You can have that this morning. That’s what Christ purchased for you.

Peace with God. Tranquility. I can rest easy. I can go home this afternoon. I can go to bed at noon on the Lord’s day and sit in my recliner and not worry about having to make up for all the wrong things I’ve done because I am at peace with God. I can approach the throne of God with boldness. With boldness? What business do you have being bold before God? The business of being clothed with Christ.

Because what Christ did, Christ fully satisfied. Satisfied the wrath that was on you. Christ fully purchased your privilege of coming into His Father’s throne room, His Father’s lazy boy, and sitting at His feet and being a son or a daughter. No longer an enemy. Christ came. He was born of a virgin. Christmas. Christmas is all about peace coming to you. He did away with the enmity. He resolved all of the conflict because He is the only one fit to accomplish that. Jesus, if by faith you will reach out and take hold of what Jesus is offering you, if you will, like Jacob, clothe yourself in a foreign righteousness, if you will have an aroma that you could not have on your own, the sweet smell of Christ, you can be at peace today. You can be at peace with God. And you can be at peace with those around you. Within the walls of the church, there’s a calm because we have been reconciled to God. Why should we not be reconciled to one another? It’s both vertical and lateral. I think the main thrust of this is vertical. That’s the main issue here. To be made right with God. But it also has implications for the body. The word peace, in the Greek Septuagint, the Old Testament Greek translation, the same word that’s used for peace here is shalom. And it’s the highest peace. It’s the broadest and the deepest meaning of peace. I think there are several words used for peace. But this is the most comprehensive, this is the most comprehensive one. This is the deepest one. This is ultimate peace. That is what Jesus has done for you. By His birth, by His life, by His death on the cross. He was raised for your justification. And He’s presenting Himself right now.

Father, the promises are true in me. The promises are true. He has faith in your promises, Lord. They’re true in me. He’s presenting Himself on your behalf. What a wonderful thing. See the love of God in the face of Jesus.

Calvin said this. He said that peace, first and foremost, should be sought in the agonies of Christ. You can find peace nowhere. But in the sacrifice of Christ. There is nothing else that is sufficient to cleanse you and to restore you into a position to be at peace with the Holy God. There is nothing else. Peace must be sought in the agonies of Christ. See what He offered up for you.

And Isaiah says that the chastisement, the chastisement of God was upon Him for our peace. And I think that’s what Calvin was getting at. So this Christmas, today, tomorrow, next year, next Christmas, as long as Christ would tarry or as long as you keep breathing, be at peace. Because that’s what God has done for you in His Son Jesus. Be at peace. Be at peace. Be at peace. I love you all and I hope that I’ve tried to make it as simple as possible. And I think it is that simple. It’s just whether you will believe it or not. Do you believe that God would really excuse you and pardon you and bring you in to His fellowship and His love? His fatherly love? And not only do that, but to God, give you all things in Christ. We’re co-heirs with Christ. Everything that Jesus is, He gives to you. And everything that He has, He shares with you. Wow! All because you now have peace with God. Have peace. Believe. Believe the Gospel and have peace with God. Amen. Lord, Lord, You are holy and wonderful. And Your Word is true.

Lord, I ask that

as He says in the Gospel according to John, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief, Lord. I pray that like Abraham, we would grow strong in our faith, Lord. Though we already have been justified, that we would continue to grasp onto Your promises and that we would continue to hold on to them and that we would grow in faith and just assurance that You are true and You never change and You never fail. And if You’ve said it, You’ll do it. And Lord Jesus, we look back to the promise. We look forward to the promise that You’re coming back to gather us and to finally make us like You are, Lord. We just look forward to that day and we long for it. But, but as we are still here, Lord, we will just believe and hold on to Your promises. I pray that You would bless us with peace this Christmas, Lord. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.