God's Unspeakable Gift

God’s Unspeakable Gift

II Corinthians 9:15

It’s Christmas: that the time of year when we hustle about looking for the perfect Christmas gift for those we love. But let me ask you, "Have you ever received an indescribable gift?" The world lavishes the market place with some of the most unbelievable gifts during the Christmas season. Things like a $249,990 private dinner for 10 by four world-renowned chefs, a specially commissioned Rolls-Royce Dawn Drophead Coupés in Saint-Tropez Orange for only $445,750. Then there’s a $1.6 million private New Year's Eve party for 300 on the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel, 150 feet from the Times Square ball. Unbelievable, but Nieman Marcus is quite adept at providing a full description of everyone of their fantasy gifts. But far from fantasy, there is one gift that cannot be purchased with money, that words can never describe its depth and richness. Paul tells us it is God’s unspeakable gift.

I. God’s gift was and is a supreme act of love that surpasses understanding.

A. God gave His gift out of His great love

1. John 3:16 ““For God so loved the world, that He gave His [a]only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

2. There is nothing that man could ever do to deserve the love of God. While man was made in the image of God, through his voluntary disobedience man became alienated from and hostile to God and His law. In his sin and sinfulness, men stand in opposition to God

3. 1 John 4:9-10 “By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

B. We do not deserve this great love.

1. Nothing but God's own sovereign good pleasure compels Him to love sinners. Nothing but His own sovereign will governs His love. That has to be true, since there is certainly nothing in any sinner worthy of even the smallest degree of divine love. – John MacArthur

2. We are, because of our inherent sin nature, incapable of appeasing God’s wrath. Ephesians 2:3 establishes this, saying that we are all “by nature children of wrath.”

3. Ephesians 3:1-3 reveals three important truths about man:

a) that without a Savior all people are dead in sin and incapable of any spiritual good; and

b) that without a Savior all people are captured and blinded by an evil, supernatural person named Satan; and

c) that without a Savior all people are under the wrath of God and sentenced to eternal torment in hell. – John Piper, Why We Need a Savior

C. The only way to comprehend God’s great love for sinful man is to see it as it is expressed in God’s mercy and grace.

1. The word 'grace' (CHEN in Hebrew, CHARIS in Greek), as it is used in the scriptures, literally means 'favor', to bend or stoop in kindness to another as a superior to an inferior. When applied to God, it is the benevolent action of Him stooping down to us in His kindness to reach us in our need, and convey upon us a benefit. His grace has been termed 'unmerited favor' but it is more than an attitude of favor or mercy. His mercy is an expression of His compassion toward us, but His grace is an extension of benevolence translated into action that releases His enabling power into our lives. It is goodness toward those who have no claim on, nor reason to expect, divine favor. – Wikipedia, grace defined

2. Simply stated grace is receiving that which we do not deserve while mercy is not getting that which we deserve. In Habakkuk 3:2, the prophet asks the Lord to "in wrath remember mercy." Although God's judgment was called for, Habakkuk asked for God to have compassion and not pour out the full wrath that was deserved. Grace, on the other hand, is God extending favor toward us that we do not deserve. Both Ephesians 2:5 and 2:8 state it is "by grace you have been saved." God's salvation comes from His grace.

3. However, the gift of God’s mercy and grace did not come cheap. The God’s gift cost more than any present laid under the Christmas tree and cost more than all the riches of this world.

4. Peter wrote of the costliness of this gift saying, “you were not [a]redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.” 1 Peter 1:18-19