The key to grasping a deeper joy, a fuller assurance, and a greater confidence and peace as a Christian, is the realization of salvation by grace. Grace is what makes the gospel good news. Grace is what makes salvation an experience of being loved. When we grasp the incredible free grace of God poured out on us in Jesus,  joy and peace will follow. 

The doctrine of justification hasn’t ended the Devil’s war against the peace and freedom of the believer. The Devil can’t stop you from being justified – but he can work mightily to keep you from enjoying it! He will strive to get you to believe that faith in Christ is not sufficient for your justification – you need to perform. 

As we will see in our text, God isn’t interested in a “cleaned up version” of our sinful self. He insists that we come before him as we really are. He doesn’t want us to try and make ourselves worthy of grace. Because, as Paul will point out – then salvation is no longer of grace. God wants us to come as we are. 

Those who believe that there is something they can do to merit the grace and favor of God are alienated from Him. Boasting and salvation are like oil and water – they don’t mix. Those who wish to boast before God cannot be saved.

The Christmas story thoroughly upends our sentimentalized versions of the event. Our Hallmark version of the nativity scene involves a sweet young couple in a cozy little shed with happily observant livestock standing by. The real thing was a lot messier, harder, and vastly more disruptive than we tend to imagine. 

The miracle of God Himself becoming man in the womb of the virgin Mary is the miracle that makes the Christian faith true. 

Do you believe in the story of Christmas? Do you really believe it – in a way that transforms the way that you think and feel and live? Luke’s main goal for us is that we would see the sovereign power of God at work for our salvation and that we would believe it! 

There is a gloriously rich and transforming experience of love and grace that is ours through believing: through our grasping, by faith, the facts of our glorious salvation. We are going to look at the word which is at the very center of the gospel – “justification”. 

Why does Paul use such big, weighty words in these few verses? Because the gospel is vast and deep and heavy with glory.  We are going to focus on the gospel word: propitiation.

In these verses we have the truth which empowers and underlies all true Christian faith and practice. This is the gospel in its most basic, essential form. This is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe.