The Gift that Keeps on Giving

The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Who here knows who Clark W. Griswold is? He’s the classic father figure played by Chevy Chase in the National Lampoon’s Vacation movies. In the Christmas version, Clark is incredibly disappointed when, instead of the large holiday bonus he was expecting, he receives a subscription to the "Jelly of the Month Club." His hillbilly relative famously responds, “Clark, that’s the gift that keeps on giving the whole year.”

Today, we aren’t talking about a disappointing jar of jelly. Instead, we are looking at a gift from God that truly, genuinely keeps on giving.

The Meaning of Justification

Before the Apostle Paul ever visited the Christians in Rome, he wrote a letter to them, roughly twenty-four years after Jesus’s crucifixion. He writes, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 1:1).

Paul starts this section with the word therefore because he is drawing a massive conclusion to everything he just argued in Romans 1–4. In those opening chapters, Paul establishes a few foundational realities:

• All people are sinners (no big shocker there).

• No one is justified by works (try as we might).

• Justification comes solely through faith.

• Abraham (whom we read about way back in Genesis) was justified by faith long before the Law was ever laid out through Moses.

Now, Paul moves into the incredible blessings that result from that justification. This is the gift that keeps on giving.

Paul states, “Since we have been justified by faith,” certain blessings now exist for us. Justified simply means we’ve been acquitted—declared righteous and given a right standing with God. Imagine you’re standing in court, God is the judge, and all the charges against you have been fully dealt with. This didn’t happen because you finally cleaned up your act, it's not because of your gradual self-improvement, and it’s not because God just decided to ignore justice. It happened because Jesus already took the penalty in your place.

By faith, you are united to Christ, so what is his now counts for you. God satisfies his justice in Christ and then declares you “righteous in him.”

That means this “peace with God” is not just a nice, warm feeling inside. It’s an actual, legal change in your status. It is true whether or not your emotions have caught up with it yet. The war is over. God is no longer against you in judgment. You’ve been reconciled to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Does that sound like a gift or what?!

Before Jesus—or without him—it’s like standing in front of a judge with no lawyer, no shield, and the judge handling your case happens to be the very victim of your crime. Do you believe in Jesus? Then this peace is already yours.

A Hope That Won't Disappoint

Paul continues, “Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand” (Rom 5:2a).

What’s the greatest gift you’ve ever been given? Many parents will say it was the day their children were born. And what happened when your child was born? You rejoiced. We’ve been given an unbelievable gift through Jesus, so Paul says, “and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Rom 5:2b).

Now, this biblical "hope" isn’t the kind of wishful thinking a dad has at the prospect of getting a new lawnmower for Father’s Day. This isn’t a fingers-crossed guess. This is a confident expectation, grounded entirely in what God has already done for us in Christ. Believers anticipate sharing in God’s future glory. That’s the rock-solid hope we have in Jesus.

But what about my achy, breaky back? What about loss? What about all the hardships we experience in everyday life?

Let's be honest: life on earth is hard, which can make rejoicing feel nearly impossible. Paul acknowledges this by saying, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings” (Rom 5:3a).

If you are going through the ringer and suffering today, my heart truly goes out to you. When someone is in the deep pits of suffering, I suggest that isn’t the strategic time to walk up and tell them to cheer up and rejoice. When Paul writes this, he isn’t saying suffering is pleasant—because it’s absolutely not. And he isn’t saying suffering itself is inherently good. We live in a broken, fallen world where sin, sickness, and spiritual evil are entirely real.

But God is still in control over all of it. He is not the author of evil, but he can take the suffering that hits us in this world and weave it into his good purposes for us. God never wastes your pain. And for that reason, we can rejoice in suffering, “knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Rom 5:3b–4).

Think of all the hardships you’ve experienced in your life. I know you have suffered, because in one way or another, we all have. Yet, here you are. You’ve made it to this point. You have endured.

Now, growth doesn’t just happen automatically. Pain by itself can easily make us bitter, hard, and closed off. But in the hands of God, by the work of the Holy Spirit, suffering becomes something he uses to deepen you instead of destroying you. Are you the exact same person you were before those trials? Of course not. By God’s grace, you’ve grown. That’s the tested character and the deep hope God has been forming inside you.

I mentioned gifts and Father’s Day earlier. Have you ever been deeply disappointed by a gift? When I was a teenager living at home, I desperately wanted a plain jean jacket. Every birthday and Christmas, I’d ask for one. And for a few of those holidays, I would get a jean jacket... sort of. It always had a little denim in it, but it would have an attached sweatshirt hood, or be mixed with some other material. It was never just the tried-and-true, popular, plain old jean jacket. It wasn’t until about ten years ago that I finally went out and bought the right one for myself!

But this promise of the future, of eternity—this 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” (Rom 5:5).

This hope will never embarrass us in the end. You will never stand before God into eternity and think, “Man, I trusted Christ and it just wasn’t worth it.” You won’t find out that you backed the wrong Savior. Because the same God who promises you future glory has already poured his love into your heart by the Holy Spirit as a down payment. It is a direct delivery from God to you. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

Powerless but Rescued

Now, I get it. Especially for us out here in the Midwest, we like to pull up our bootstraps and just "git-er-done." And we often do! We excel at that when it comes to yard work, housework, farming, ranching, or even enduring the local community block party.

But as tough and self-reliant as we might be, when it comes to our standing before God, we are completely helpless to rescue ourselves. We can’t fix our own hearts. We can’t pay off our own sin. Spiritually speaking, we aren’t just struggling—we are entirely powerless. That is the reality of the human condition.

But here is the good stuff: even the faith to trust Jesus is itself a gift of God’s grace working in our hearts. Paul writes, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom 5:6).

We were "weak"—powerless to help ourselves. Yet, on behalf of us “ungodly” folks (not the deserving, the righteous, or the morally successful, but you and me who fall short), Jesus died. That is good news. It is absolutely amazing news.

And it didn't happen by accident. It wasn't by human scheduling, but according to God’s precise timing: “at the right time.” The greatest suffering in human history—Jesus on the cross—was not random or out of control. It was the centerpiece of God’s plan of rescue. If God could take that horrible, unjust suffering and turn it into salvation for the entire world, then you can be absolutely sure he hasn’t lost track of you in your suffering either. God is fully able to work even your trials for good.

There are certain people that others might be willing to die for. Good people. Heroic people. People they love deeply. Soldiers die for their country. As Paul notes, “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die” (Rom 5:7). If I see a young child out in the street about to be hit by a car, I’m jumping in front of that car without a second thought because I see a child in danger.

But God did something radically different: “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).

You and me, we may be considered by some to be good people, and I hope they’d be right. But each of us, in our heart of hearts, knows our own faults. We know the errors we’ve made along the way. We thought about something we shouldn't have. We did something wrong. We didn’t think about something we should have, or we omitted something good we were supposed to do.

And what did God do in response? Christ did not wait for humanity to improve before coming to save us. If that were the case, the wait would still be going on today! Instead, he died while people remained sinners. Thank you, God. Thank you for the grace that you demonstrate—a love we haven’t earned and could never buy. Christ died for us.

Conclusion

So now, as believers, we have hope. We have solid hope in Jesus Christ for our sinful selves. That means our daily life is never without hope, and life itself has ultimate meaning.

Your future is entirely secure. And since your eternity is secured by his grace, you can experience a deep, abiding joy right now, even in the dead center of hard things. You can recognize and enjoy the blessings you have in front of you today. You can truly enjoy this incredible gift we call life.

Jesus Christ is the gift that keeps on giving.