When I talked about never receiving an earthly gift that was truly indescribable, I remembered a picture from Christmas 1978 when I got a Stretch Monster. It came to me as I was talking, so it's not included in the manuscript. Here's an old commercial for Stretch Monster .
I haven't seen this picture in over 20 years, but I remember this. This week I asked my mom about this picture. She looked through boxes of pictures and found it. She lives in Indiana, so she took a picture of the picture with her phone and texted it to me. This is as excited as I ever remember getting, and it's why I included it in my message on Sunday! Notice the awesome Green Machine in the back. Here's a commercial for the Green Machine . Oh how great were the toys in the 70's!
AN INDESCRIBABLE GIFT
2 Corinthians 9:15
2 Corinthians 9:15 Thanks be to God for his
indescribable gift! (NIV)
Thank God for this gift too wonderful for words! (NLT)
Don’t these
words sound PERFECTLY CHRISTMAS-Y? It
might surprise you to find that 2 Corinthians 9 is about an offering Paul had
been collecting during his third missionary journey for the Jerusalem
Christians. The Corinthians had promised
to contribute, but they’d failed to follow through. Paul was encouraging them to make good on
their promise, and he closed his plea by reminding them about GOD’S GIFT TO US, which should’ve been
very motivating!
Have
you ever received a gift that was too great for words? The greatest and most expensive gift I ever GAVE was an engagement ring to
Kelley. It was one of the best moments
of my life. But it wasn’t INDESCRIBABLE! We described it to everybody! We put it on Facebook!
I
got over all the gifts I ever received, no matter how great they were. I no longer feel the same about the bicycles,
video games, guns, baseball gloves, clothing, shoes, tools, TV, golf clubs . .
. . But anyone who TRULY UNDERSTANDS what
God has done for us CAN NEVER GET OVER
IT. Yes, we can put some words
around the significance of the Cross, what Jesus means to us, and what He’s
done for us, BUT OUR WORDS ARE LIMITED
BY OUR EARTHLY PERSPECTIVE! We don’t
REALLY understand what we’ve been
given, and we won’t until we see Jesus in heaven.
Four Reasons God’s gift is INDESCRIBABLE:
1. GOD’S GIFT IS PERSONAL
Don’t you love those Christmas cards you receive
from the car dealership, your dentist, and your insurance agent? It’s great that they think of their customers
at Christmas, but do those card make it to your fridge? The fridge space is VALUABLE; it’s reserved for people you love, the cards with
personal notes and pictures!
Have you ever received an unexpected gift that
was JUST WHAT YOU WOULD’VE ASKED FOR? Somebody
has to KNOW YOU to give you a gift
like that. They don’t have to give you an
Outback Gift Card, AS GREAT AS THOSE
ARE!
When we went to Wears Valley Ranch to
hand-deliver Christmas presents to 26 children, it was a PERSONAL experience. We already
knew most of the kids and WVR staff, and they were excited to see us. We played KICKBALL! And then we gave every kid a personal card
with $100 inside. As they opened their
cards in unison, there was a delayed reaction, and then laughter, smiles,
tears, and exclamations like, “I’ve never even SEEN a $100 bill!” We’d never met one 13-year old boy
who hadn’t been at the Ranch very long.
He hugged me so hard it hurt and said, “I just met you but I love
you! Thank you!”
Mailing the cards would’ve been cheaper. We wouldn’t have had to miss school/work and
it wouldn’t have changed the monetary value of our gift, but it would’ve changed
the PERSONAL VALUE. Long after all that
money is spent, the memory of that day will remain for all of us.
Try to consider just how PERSONAL God’s gift is. He
gave up His DIVINE Son so that we SINFUL HUMANS could become HIS
CHILDREN. It was PERSONAL for God all the way around!
Galatians 4:4-7 But when the right time
came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. 5 God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to
the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. 6 And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son
into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” 7 Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his
heir.
2. GOD’S GIFT IS USEFUL
One Christmas a lady made a short and simple wish
list and stuck it to the fridge. All it
said was, “I want something that will make me look slim and beautiful.” On Christmas morning,
she couldn’t wait to see what her husband picked out, hoping it was just the
right size, color, and fit. But the box
was really big and when she opened it she found an exercise bike.
God didn’t give us something ORNAMENTAL to sit on a shelf.
He didn’t give us something only to be used for SPECIAL OCCASIONS like Christmas and Easter. He didn’t give us something for EMERGENCIES only, hoping we’d never
even have to use it (like a handgun or flood insurance).
You know how it feels when you find something
that used to be important to you, and you didn’t even know you’d lost it? Like, you discover a pair of boots in the
back of the closet, and think, “Man, I forgot I even had these! They sure would’ve come in handy last year in
that snow storm!” We’ll KNOW that we TRULY have a relationship with Jesus when we stop having that kind
of experience with Jesus.
If Jesus doesn’t affect every day of our lives,
we obviously aren’t very close to Him at all.
GOD’S GIFT IS PRACTICAL! Salvation COMPLETELY CHANGES who we are, how we operate, who we serve, and
where we’re going. If Jesus isn’t DOMINATING your life, are you really
comfortable claiming to know and love Him?
3. GOD’S GIFT IS ETERNAL
Do you still have your favorite presents from
childhood? Do you even REMEMBER them? Eventually, even our most favorite gifts get
forgotten, replaced, outgrown, worn out, used up, lost, outdated, or
broken. But God’s gift is permanent. Salvation NEVER ENDS.
Is it possible for Christians to move away from Jesus? Absolutely. Every time we sin, we have to turn away from
God to do it. But do our sins SEPARATE us from
God? ABSOLUTELY NOT! When we sin, we break
FELLOWSHIP with God, but not our RELATIONSIP with Him. NOTHING
CAN SEPARATE US FROM GOD’S LOVE!
Romans 8:39a And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate
us from God’s love.
Hebrews 7:25 Therefore
he is able, once and forever, to save those
who come to God through him. He lives forever to intercede with God on their
behalf.
Hebrews 10:10 For God’s
will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ,
once for all time.
But what about all those people who claim to be
Christians but live any old way they want?
Does THAT prove that we can LOSE our salvation?
No. That
proves that, JUST LIKE JESUS WARNED,
many people who claim to be Christians AREN’T. The Bible doesn’t teach that believers can
move away from Jesus for such an extended period of time that they no longer
think about Him or experience conviction.
If that describes you, here’s your safest bet: surrender to Jesus. If you did something in the past that you
were able to STOP, it sounds like
what happened was a work of YOU and
not a work of GOD.
God’s gift of salvation begins when we SURRENDER to Him, and lasts ETERNALLY.
4. GOD’S
GIFT IS COSTLY
I heard about a grandmother who didn’t know what
to give her three grandchildren for Christmas.
She decided to send them each a card and a $50 check, and she wrote in
each card, “Buy your own gift!” A few days later she found three $50 checks
under the newspaper on her kitchen table.
Her grandchildren were shocked when they received empty cards that said,
“BUY YOUR OWN
GIFT!”
If a gift doesn’t cost the giver anything, doesn’t it diminish the gift? The cost doesn’t have
to be MONEY. A perfect gift can be purchased with time, energy, talent, creativity, thought, etc. For a gift to be MEANINGFUL, we just need to know that the giver was INVESTED. If Kelley gave me a bag of dirt for Christmas, it wouldn’t mean a thing to me. But if she said she broke into Sanford Stadium and dug that bag of dirt from the end zone, it’d be the best gift ever!
There’s never been a more costly gift than Jesus,
and there’s never been a more invested giver than God.
John 3:16 “For God loved the world so much that he gave
his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but
have eternal life.”
Isaiah 53:5 But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed
for our sins. He was beaten so we could
be whole. He was whipped so we could be
healed.
This Christmas, let’s not lose sight of these
facts. And even as we celebrate the BIRTH of our Savior, let’s keep in mind
that His birth was just the beginning of His earthly mission: it ENDED with the Cross.
God
always knew what creating mankind would COST
Him. And He created us anyway.
2 Corinthians 9:15 Thanks be to God for his
indescribable gift! (NIV)
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