THE GIVING HEART OF GOD 2

Grace Emmanuel Church

Pastor Sam Chess

A husband and wife were struggling in their marriage. When Christmas arrived the husband opened the wife’s gift and was stunned to find she had bought him a burial plot. He said little about the gift, choosing to ignore the “dig” in hopes that things would improve.

The next Christmas came and his wife didn’t get him anything. This was more than he could handle, so he told her that he was quite hurt that she didn’t care enough to buy him anything.

Her response…. “Why should I? You didn’t use the gift I bought you last year.”

We’ve been investigating this whole “spirit of giving” thing and pointing to the Bible truth that the spirit of giving, in us, comes from the source of all giving…God Himself. I’ve been trying to show you the last two Wednesday evenings…and last Sunday… that God has gone to great effort to reveal himself from the earliest stages of the Bible as our generous, benevolent, giving Heavenly Father.

I even went as far last week as to paint a picture of a taking, greedy, demanding god and pointing to the fact that that is a picture of pagan, false god…not the God of the Bible.

God’s first actions were to create a beautiful garden and surrounding world, give Adam and Eve the very breath of life and then lavish on them every conceivable good things mankind would need for his/her enjoyment.

It wasn’t God who introduced the concept of “sucking all the air” out of enjoying life. It was the evil one… and the sin he introduced… that robbed God’s children of all the gifts God had generously poured out into their lives.

And that is still true.. the world around us is full of evil… but don’t imagine that to be coming from your loving Heavenly Father. If your view of God is of a oppressing, demanding, sometimes mean, Creator who places impossible demands on your life… and then hangs over the banister of heaven, with gleaming eyes, waiting for you to mess up…

……. that is a radically different picture of what these pages and pages of Scripture we have been looking at on Wednesday evening say about your Heavenly Father.

After mankind willfully, knowingly sinned, rejecting the love and generosity of their Heavenly Father, Scripture paints a portrait of a God lovingly pursuing his children. Insistent only on one thing; to break them loose from the power of satan and sin and bring them back into loving relationship with himself.

You can’t read all of these Scriptures and come up with a stingy, uncaring, God. But even more importantly than that…if you know where to look you can see woven into all of God’s gifts and promises that there is something more on the way… all of God’s generosity is not an end in itself…it is leading up to something bigger…much bigger…

Let me show you:

When God is calling Abraham and loading him down with the four promises of blessings:

Genesis 12: 1 The LORD had said to Abram….. 2 "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (NLT)

That last statement is the odd one. When God came to Abe and promised to make a nation out of him… that would be scary to a childless man…but understandable. God promised to make his name great, he could live with that knowledge… When God said he would bless everyone who blesses him and curse everyone who curses him, he was delighted that God would be so personally involved in his daily life..

But God promised that everyone on earth would be blessed through him… That's raised-eyebrow time. No one man…especially a tent-living nomad who's wealth is counted in number of animals and who's fame extends only as far as one can walk in a few days time….can possibly be the source of blessing to everyone on the face of the whole earth…

Unless…. Out of that nation would come a descendant that would do something that would benefit the whole world…… but how could that be? Whatever the contribution that his descendant would make it couldn't possibly touch everybody in the world…could it? Everybody, would have to include all the people on the earth…all the people who would ever be born….and it would even have to include all the people who had ever lived…. before Abraham.

How could one descendant affect every human being on the face of the earth? The only universal problem everyone faced was their sinfulness. It would be impossible for one descendant of Abraham to fix everyone's sinfulness….? The fact that he was a son of Abraham would have to mean he would be sinful too.

The only person in the universe who wasn't sinful was God himself . The only way any single human could fix everyone's sin problem would be if in some miraculous way God, himself, would become a human! I wonder if that thought ever flitted through Abraham's mind. What if…what if…God was planning to do such a thing and would show up in human form as one of his descendants.

The whole incarnation, God in human flesh, is hard for us, looking back, to get our minds around. Imagine how hard it was for the Patriarch looking forward… And yet they did! There is evidence that several of the Patriarchs saw something coming in the future that would supernaturally connect God to man's sin problem.

Genesis 49:10 The scepter will not depart from Judah (Abe's grandson), nor the ruler’s staff from his descendants,  until the coming of the one to whom it belongs, the one whom all nations will honor. (NLT)

 Numbers 24:15 This is the message Balaam delivered:    “… the message of the man whose eyes see clearly, 16 the message of one who hears the words of God, who has knowledge from the Most High, who sees a vision from the Almighty, who bows down with eyes wide open: 17 I see him, but not here and now. I perceive him, but far in the distant future. A star will rise from Jacob; a scepter will emerge from Israel. (NLT)

They knew something…somebody was on the way…

Jeremiah 23:5-6 "The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness. (NIV)

Isaiah 7:14 All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! A virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’). (NIV)

I hope everyone in this room understands, to one degree or another the potency of the phrase "God with us". That is exactly what happened… there was no way for mankind to fix his own sin problem. After Adam and Eve's rebellion against God…every human being ever born was born with a sin nature. The evil one's temptations overpowered the redemptive pull of God. All mankind was in this fallen state. The situation was hopeless.

The only solution to mankind's sin problem was if someone who was not controlled by sin and satan could come to this earth and pay the penalty all humanity's sin, and then break loose the chains of all those who were in bondage to sin. (everyone)

You all know that is the Christmas story… God in the flesh…A little baby human with all of God incarnate in him…The culmination of what those Old Testament Patriarchs were getting glimpses of. The fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham that everyone in the world would be blessed through him.

What you may not be as familiar with is how God viewed.. in fact how he meticulously describes in the bible what he was in the process of doing. You remember all that "God is a giving, benevolent Heavenly Father" in the Old Testament? This is what that was leading up to. God established himself as a giver…so that when we grasped this event, into our minds would explode the truth of the true giving heart of our Heavenly Father.

Unfortunately our ability to grasp the meaning of words sometimes stop us from understanding the significance.

John explains it this way:

John 1:14-17  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth……

Let me explain some words here:

beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father ( has the meaning of an exact mirrored image. Baby Jesus was human…all human.. but he was also God…all of God was packed into that 22" of human flesh…at the same time all of God filled the rest of the universe. But that's not all….

John 1:14-17  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth……

Here's a new word to the Bible… in fact it becomes a new word for all of the Greek speaking world.

Charis- χαριτος - gift

In most places in the Bible charis is translated grace…and we've come to revere that word with all it's importance. We must not lose sight of the fact that the fundamental meaning of the word is gift…god's gift. With that in mind look back at John 1:

John 1:14-17  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth……

When Jesus arrives on this earth he is full of gift/grace. He is everything that God has been leading up to. All of God's generosity is wrapped up in this 22" of human flesh. This is God's way of pouring out his love on all humanity at the same time

John 1:14-17  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace/gift…16 And of His fullness (fullness of what?...gifts) we have all received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses, but God's grace and God's truth came through Jesus Christ. (NKJV)

Grace for grace - grace on top of grace -grace compounded daily- wave after wave of grace!

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. (NLT)

Titus 2:11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. (NIV)

Jesus is God's ultimate gift…. To the world…to you personally. He exploded him on to the scene amid angels singing "Glory to God in the highest" and then John says he follows that up with wave after wave of grace/gifts.

Romans 3:23-24 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (NIV)

Whatever you have done… whatever your sin.. it doesn't matter to God… Titus 2:11 … the grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people. You're part of the all people. You part of the "everyone" on the earth that Abraham's descendant would bless. He cares as much about you as he does any other human being on the planet. You must not view your God (as pagans do) as demanding and demeaning. That's not a picture of the God of the bible who spends 7000 years of written history preparing to bring his ultimate gift into you life followed by wave after wave of his grace/gifts. He is fully prepared to deal completely with your sin problem. He already paid your debt…

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NIV)

Romans 5:15-21  But there is a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ. 16 And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. 17 For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ. 18 Yes, Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. 19 Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous.  20 God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant. 21 So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (NLT)

Conclusion:

John Newton born in the seventeen hundreds His mother died at an early age, although not without first imprinting on his young mind many important lessons from the Bible. At the age of 11 after abandoning his education, Newton headed out to sea with his father. Here he was greatly influenced for the worse. Newton had a reputation for profanity, coarseness, that shocked other sailor. He was known as ‘The Great Blasphemer.’

He was pressed into service on a British Man of War. But he tired of the poor conditions and ran away - only to be captured, publicly flogged, and demoted. “Finally at his own request he was exchanged into service on a slave ship… by hook or by crook he obtained his own ship to pilot which he used in the slave trade.

On one of his trips, Newton’s ship was caught in a furious storm. As he was desperately trying to steer his ship through the storm, Old verses covered in cobwebs that he had learned from his mother began to come back to him. He was convinced that he had been far too wicked for God to even consider forgiving him. Yet in desperation Newton cried for God’s mercy, and he made through the storm. He started reading the Bible and realized that he had been greatly mistaken. God was not a mean, unforgiving God who is just waiting to throw people into hell’s fiery pits for their sins…. He was a compassionate God who waited for all to humble themselves so that He might forgive them. Nobody, not even the most wicked and hard hearted slave trader was beyond God’s forgiveness.

Newton’s life took a radical turn around. No longer was he known as the blasphemer that laughed at anything religious, he began to devour the Bible and live out his convictions with great earnestness. He, eventually, left the slave business He became a surveyor in England and at the same time became acquainted with people like George Whitfield, John Wesley, He became a preacher and began to write hymns for his services, the most famous, Amazing Grace, was a prayer of deep gratitude poured from his heart to God for having saved his life and his soul.

In his later years he preached to an audience that included William Wilberforce… Newton’s letters to Wilberforce helped him push the English Parliment to outlaw slavery.

Newton died at the age of eighty two, but before he died, wrote a short statement to some friends that could perhaps sum up his life. “’My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things: That I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.’”