The Gifts of God

“The Gifts of God:” by Romans

Before I begin each Discussion, I link to the following video, which I regard as the Theme Song of the 4Gospels Network Chat Room: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iyMjeVoP8s

For everyone who celebrates Christmas, we think of it as the giving and receiving of gifts. Houses,  churches, schools. businesses and stores are gaily decorated in the celebration of Christmas. The Federal Government has, for decades, been at the forefront of enforcing the “separation of Church and State.” Yet, the day on which Christ's birth is celebrated is a Federal Holiday, and all Federal employees get the day off with pay! This is known as the Season of Giving.  Gifts are given and received by millions of people, even those who neither worship nor even believe in God or Christ, or His Holy Bible. For them, their gift giving has nothing to do with the birth of the Savior. It is merely a cultural tradition that they have accepted, and partake in. Churches, including Westover Baptist Church, remind all of us that “Jesus is the reason for the Season,” or the reason for the decorating and gift-giving.

I would like to talk about gift-giving tonight from a very different perspective:

The title of tonight's Bible Study is, “The Gifts of God.” I did a review, and I am sure that, as thorough as I tried to make it, there have many things that I have missed. The list that I do have is one that had a powerful impact on me because it caused me to see all the incredible things in one place that God has done for His Creation in general, and His people in particular.

I would like to review my list of God's Gifts with you but I am going to begin with an unexpected quotation: Abraham Lincoln said of the Bible: “In regards to this great Book, I have but to say it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this Book. But for it, we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are found portrayed in it.”

The Bible is just One of many, many Gifts God has given us.

We read in James 1:17: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights....”

From the very beginning, Genesis tells us God's love of gift-giving was already evident when He created the Heavens and the Earth:

The earth is in, what astronomers refer to as the “Goldilocks Zone:” We're not too deep inside the Milky Way where radiation levels are lethal. We're not too close to, or too far from the sun. Everything is just right. Mankind was given a home on a planet that is a part of a solar system that also sustains life. Our sun gives us light and heat. The regularity of sunrise and the phases of the moon allow us organize our days months, seasons and years. The moon also regulates the tides. Without the moon, earth would be uninhabitable. Much farther away in our Solar System, and not fully appreciated until recently, the massive planet Jupiter is another Gift of God. Jupiter is so large, that all the other planets, including Saturn and its rings, can fit inside this planet. It is a Gift because it is so massive, and its gravitational pull is so intense, it acts as a giant celestial vacuum cleaner drawing toward itself, and away from the earth, boulders, meteors, asteroids, and other interplanetary debris hurtling through space that could otherwise hit the earth and cause great climactic damage at the very least, and the potential for significant loss of life.  

But in the past few years, astronomers and astrophysicists have come to realize that the Universe itself is full of God's Gifts. Scientists have identified no less than 40 extremely fine-tuned Life Support Systems that are active in the Universe without which life on earth could not survive. In his book, “The Case For A Creator.” Lee Strobel interviewed Physicist and Mathematician Robin Collins who said, “When scientists talk about the fine-tuning of the universe, they're generally referring to the extraordinary balancing of the fundamental laws and parameters of physics and the initial conditions of the universe. Our minds can't comprehend the precision of some of them. The result is a universe that has just the right conditions to sustain life... Over the past thirty years or so, scientists have discovered that just about everything about the basic structure of the universe is balanced on a razor's edge for life to exist. The coincidences are far too fantastic to attribute to mere chance or to claim that it needs no explanation.”

The plants and vegetation on the earth not also provide food for us, but they also give us the air we breath by “exhaling” oxygen. Trees do the same,  but also provide various kinds of food, as well as providing the wood that many people still burn for heat in the winter. Wood is also used to build shelter from the cold and the elements, and is indispensable in the manufacture of many kinds of furniture, tools and musical instruments.

But let's zoom in and take a closer look at vegetables, herbs and fruit: We read God's words to Adam in Genesis 1:29: “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”

The vegetation on earth, itself, besides being a gift, comes with a gift of its own: seeds! Every apple, for example, has enough seeds in it to produce a four or five more apple trees! Not four or five apples but apple trees! Over the course of the growing life, five trees grown from the seeds of just one apple hold the potential for tens of thousands of apples, each one with four or five seeds of their own. Did you ever cut open a red or green pepper? It looks like there are hundreds of seeds in a pepper! If vegetables and fruit did not have seeds, Adam and Eve and their children would have eaten and completely depleted the entire supply of food that was there to eat. And that would have been it. The seeds from the plants and vegetables and fruit we eat are Gifts from God to keep us both alive and healthy as we plant them for the next harvest.

When God said that it was not good for the man He created to be alone, He gave him a wife. And then God gave both Adam and Eve access to every tree in the Garden of Eden... with one exception.  You know how that story ended. They disobeyed God and here we all are. But God was not done giving. Not by a long shot.

Though Abraham's wife was barren, God promised to raise up a people for Himself through him. But this was to be a great multitude, and they would need somewhere to live. So we read God's words to Abraham of another Gift in Genesis 17:8: “I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. We know it as the Land of Promise, Israel.

But there were people already living in the land of Canaan: After miraculously freeing the Hebrew slaves from centuries of bondage in Egypt, we see God giving to His people, again. Exodus 33:1: “And the LORD said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I sware unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I give it: And I will send an angel before thee; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite: Unto a land flowing with milk and honey:”

There was a Promised Land to be given to God's people. But people living together in the same land need to have a set of laws to live by, or there would be pandemonium. So, We read in Exodus 24:12: “And the LORD said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them.”

After repeated disobedience and murmuring against God and Moses, God chose to deny access to everyone above the age of 20 who came out of Egypt, except for Joshua and Caleb. Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. Those years of wandering are summed up in this account found beginning in Nehemiah 9:13, as God showered Gift after Gift to His people: “Thou camest down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments: And madest known unto them thy holy sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant: And gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and promisedst them that they should go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give them. But they and our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to thy commandments, And refused to obey, neither were mindful of thy wonders that thou didst among them; but hardened their necks, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage: but thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and forsookest them not. Yea, when they had made them a molten calf, and said, This is thy God that brought thee up out of Egypt, and had wrought great provocations; Yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day, to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to shew them light, and the way wherein they should go.”

The Word that came to Israel through the prophets was more than just a set of Laws. Notice this summary of God's Laws as another Gift from God, found in Psalms 119:97: “O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me.  I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word. I have not departed from thy judgments: for thou hast taught me. How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”

The Word of God is an undeniable Gift of God. But there is a related Gift that applies to God's Word, and that is its enduring availability. Unlike any other book on earth, the Bible is a book, written by 40 authors over the course of 1,500 years, and, miraculously, is still readily available to us, in spite of all of the efforts to suppress it, defame it, discredit it and destroy it. In fact, it is more available now, and in more forms than ever in history. Jesus said in Mark 13:31: “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.” The thriving and enduring availability of the Word of God is another Gift.

Throughout their history as a Nation, God sent them Judges to throw off the oppression of their enemies, and Prophets to call them back to true worship when they fell into rebellion and idolatry.
This happened repeatedly but Israel was incapable of fulfilling their part in the Covenant to obey the Laws that God had given them. In spite of all of the gifts that God gave His people, His rescue of them from slavery, manna and water in the wilderness, a land flowing with milk and honey, His Laws and statutes and Divine protection from enemies, judges and prophets to bring them back when they sinned... they continued to disobey the Covenant, and to pursue and worship other gods.

That we is why we read in Hebrews 8:7: “For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:” Jesus told the Pharisees in Matthew 21:43: “Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”

Which brings us to the next of God's Gifts... His most incredible Gift.

When Abraham took Isaac to sacrifice, we read beginning in Genesis 22:7: “And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering... “

Let's notice more closely what this verse says, “My son, God will provide Himself a lamb...” Not “God will provide [i]for[/i] Himself...

No...

It says that God will provide [u]Himself[/u] a lamb...”And that is exactly what happened! Jesus was God in the flesh. John 1:29 tells us, “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” This was in fulfillment of a prophecy spoken by  John the Baptist's father Zacharias in In Luke 1:76, “And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins...”

In verse 79, Zacharias foretold that the Messiah would “... give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Far and above Jesus being the reason for the gift-giving Season, Jesus, Himself, is the Gift of the Season. He is the most precious Gift of many many, gifts from God to mankind.

In perhaps the most familiar prophecy of the birth of the Messiah, we read in Isaiah 9:6: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:”

A son is given!  John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son... ”!

God gave as a Gift to all of mankind the most priceless Gift of all: His Son!

But how could we know when He arrived? Isaiah 7:14 gives us that answer: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Many have claimed to be Jesus, or the Messiah for the past 2,000. But only one baby in history was able to fulfill the sign that was given by the Lord, and was born to a virgin. God gave us a unique sign that could not be counterfeited or duplicated so we might recognize when His incredible Gift arrives. And when He does arrives, God's giving of Gifts not only continues, it increases!

In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus promises in Matthew 7:7: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:” A few verses later He adds, Matthew 7:11: “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”

When He sent His disciples out to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom He said in Luke 10:19: “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

Jesus reached out to all who heard His voice, offering gifts that only God could give:

We read in Matthew 11:28: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

John 14:27  Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.”

In the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before His crucifixion prayed in John 17:8: “For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.”

John 4:14: “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”

Romans 6:23 tells us “... the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Jesus promised yet another Gift in John 14:16: “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;”

Jesus came to lay down His Life for the remission of sins.

Matthew 20:28: “Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

John 6:51: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

Luke 22:19: “And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.”

Mark 14:24: “And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.”

Jesus was crucified, and was resurrected. He commissioned His Church to go out and preach the Gospel to the world. But the Gifts from God continued. His disciples were empowered with the promised Gift of the Holy Spirit to teach and preach with boldness.

The Church was established and gained members. As it did, God provided gifted teachers to lead His people. In Corinth, an “us and them” factionalism began to take hold. Various members of the Church in Corinth were aligning themselves with various leaders, Paul, Peter and Apollos. Paul asked the Corinthians, “Is Christ divided?” But I bring this up to highlight a particular Gift that Paul referred to, which God provides to all Churches. 1 Corinthians 3:5: “Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.”


So another Gift of God is the growth of a Church. Too often when we either attend, or become aware of a particular congregation that is growing in leaps and bounds, the minister is given the credit. Too often we credit the man in the pulpit, but such credit is misplaced. Jesus said in John 6:44: “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” The Father gives the increase to the Church by opening a person's eyes to their own sinful state, drawing that  person to repentance.

Repentance, itself, is yet another Gift of God. Notice: Peter recounted to Jewish Christians how it happened that there were now Gentile believers, and Gentile members of the Church. After telling them about the vision of the sheet that he saw three times, he said beginning in Acts 11:11: “And, behold, immediately there were three men already come unto the house where I was, sent from Caesarea unto me. And the Spirit bade me go with them, nothing doubting. Moreover these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered into the man's house: … And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning. Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God? When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.”

How, then, did the early Church understand how Gentiles had come to repentance? They were granted repentance. They were not born with it, they weren't driven to it following a bout of regret about sin, they didn't work it up within themselves. God granted it to them. We read in Ephesians 2:8: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:” But repentance unto salvation is also a Gift of God.

 
When the Church encountered resistance and persecution, His disciples and followers had this promise from Jesus found in Matthew 10:19: “But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.” Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would provide even the very words to be spoken in defense of their beliefs in Jesus as the Messiah, in Jesus being raised from the dead, and being the only Name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

The Gift of the Holy Spirit made Itself manifest with a variety of additional Gifts to different people: We read in 1 Corinthians 12:7: “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;
To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.”

God had given His Chosen People in the Old Testament both a Levitical Priesthood and a Civil Government to oversee the administration of His Laws and statutes. He did the same for His Church:
We read in Ephesians 4:11: “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:”

2 Peter 1:3: “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:”

Romans 8:32: “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?”

What makes God the greatest Giver of all time? He had everything at His disposal to give. And He gives all of it not only without hesitation, but with eager anticipation. Notice Jesus' words in Luke 12:32: “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

Just as I opened with an unexpected quotation, I would like to close, tonight, with a completely  unexpected Gift from the Father: We read in 2 Corinthians 9:6: “But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.”

Why does God love a willing and cheerful giver? He wants us to be like Him. He wants to to be selfless like His dear Son. He wants us to give without reservation, and without selfish, ulterior motives, or a  “What's in it for me?” attitude.  The Bible says that believers should not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. A married couple should be likeminded, and in harmony regarding the things of God. The Church is the betrothed bride of Christ. Christ is our future Bridegroom. One of the first gifts I mentioned this evening was in the Book of Genesis where God presented Eve to Adam in the Garden to be his wife. Well, I am going to close tonight with a Gift that God has given that I never heard or read anyone else name among the Gifts of God: The Father has given us to Christ as the bride of Jesus, Who is called the Last Adam in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 15:45).

In another part of His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus spoke of this Gift that He had received from the Father: Beginning in John 17:6: “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word...” (9) “I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.” So the Father gave Jesus the original disciples, but what about all the believers from the time of Christ down to us living today? Did the Father also give us to Jesus as a Gift? Notice beginning in verse 20: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which (i)shall(/i) believe on me through their word..." (emphasis mine).

Just as God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, you and I are another Gift from the Father, but this time to the Son. We read in John 6:44: “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.” Believers are drawn to Christ,  and belong to the Father, Who, in turn, gives us to His Son Whom He sent to died for us. There is an incredible, almost indescribable intimacy not only between the Father and Son, but between the Father and Son and all of those who belong to them that transcends the human condition: In that prayer before His crucifixion, Jesus elaborated on how He sees our relationship to God with words that leave one speechless: We read in John 17:21-26: “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

From the very beginning, God has given and given and given and given to His creation. I think it is fitting, not only at this Season of gift-giving, but perhaps on the 1st of each month, to set aside a special time alone with your Heavenly Father to acknowledge His Gifts, and thank Him for all all that He has given, for all that He has done, all that He is doing, for all that He is, and for all that He has planned for us into Eternity. He is worthy of Praise far beyond our ability to praise His greatness, His mercy, and Hid love for us. But, as His children, such praise is welcome, lovingly accepted and greatly cherished.

Do it before you go to bed, tonight.

This concludes this Evening's Discussion, “The Gifts of God:”
Originally delivered “live” by Romans on December 12th, 2013