God’s Easter Gift
Romans 5:12-21
(The message was preceeded by "Amazing Grace/Your Grace Is Enough.")
What does Easter mean to you?
(Illus: I have a friend who was not raised in a Christian home. He had a hard time figuring out why they celebrated the holiday.)
For the Apostle Paul, Easter celebrates a gift--God’s gift--a special, life-transforming gift we call grace. Eight times in our text today, Paul used the words "grace" or "gift." (They are similar in meaning.
(Read the text. I read it from "The Message," because it is rather to follow verbally.)
WHAT KIND OF GIFT DOES GOD GIVE US ON EASTER?
1. God’s gift is one we desperately need.
Some people may not know how much this need God’s gift.
Imagine if you lived in a polluted and isolated place somewhere in the third world. They air you breathe is heavy with pollution; you breathe it because you have no other option. The water you drink is brown and full of contaminants; you drink it because it is necessary for survival. You are often sick, and always tired and lethargic. Your children are slow to learn, and die young. There are ancient stories of air that is clear and pure, and water so pure it is colorless--stories of healthy people, bright and energetic children, long life. But this is all you know: colored water, pertetually dirty air, life (and death) as you know it.
But then someone comes to help. They drill a deeper well, close down the smelting plant, clean up the land. You take your first deep drink of clean, pure water. You begin to breathe clean air. Your family is healthy, bright, full of energy. Only after you receive the gift do you know how much you needed it.
Paul begins with an ancient story: Adam and Eve in paradise, and everything RIGHT. They are right with God: They talk with him face to face, soaking in his love and trust. They are right with each other: They have an easy, loving, trusting relationship, totally open and affirming. They are right with their world; Even the animals come to them without fear or danger. They are right at the core of their being: no sickness, no selfishness, no death.
Then they sinned. They rebelled against God, they allowed the pollution of evil to gain a foothold in Paradise. No longer were they right with God: They hid in fear and shame. No longer were they right with each other: They were ashamed of their bodies, and blaming each other for their sin. No longer were they right with the world: There were weeds, toil, killing even of humans. No longer were they right at the core of their being: There was sickness, pain, even death.
Why tell such a story, especially on Easter? Because it is our story--a story of how life ought to be, if we were right with God. It’s a story of how sin and death have polluted every part of us and our world.
The theological words are "original sin." Simple put, each person is born into sin. Sin is in our environment. We can see it in every nation of the world, every social problem, even people and places near us. We can find it in every family. We can even find it in ourselves. (If you don’t believe it, ask your wife or husband!)
What if God came into our world to make it better> What if he gave us a taste of life as it should be? What if he would offer us a way to get right with him (the Source of life)again? What if he would make it possible for us to rise above the evil and death of the world? What if, when death came to us, we could come alive perfectly right and go to a place that is perfectly right--forever?
That would be an amazing gift--an amazing grace! That would be the gift of Jesus Christ. For Jesus (in his life on earth)showed us what life could be if it was right. Jesus gave us a way to get right with God and right with life..eternal life.
(Read verses 15-17 in "The Message".) God’s gift replaces death with life.
2. God’s gift is a personal gift of God himself. (Recite John 3:16) Why did God have to give his own Son? Out of the fullness of the Trinity, the Son came to earth, to suffer and die! Why?
(Illus: For years, scientists have been searching for an AIDS antibody. If they could find one person who contracted HIV and defeated it, perhaps they could take the antibody, or replicate the DNA and place it in the bodies of those with the virus, to defeat its power.)
Jesus did something like that. (Read Heb. 2:14-15.) Since evil had infected the entire human race, the only way to destroy its power was to enter humanity and experience evil’s worst and finally defeat it.
That’s what Jesus, the Son of God, did. He took the worst evil could dish out: rejection, betrayal, brutal suffering, and death. Even deeper, he took ukpon himself the sin and evil of all humanity (mine too!)--evil that separated us from the pure, holy, righteous God who canned be tolerant of sin or evil. He revealed a way to pass on his "spiritual DNA" to those who accept him.
God’s personal (and costly) gift to us is that we can be right with God. (Read verses 18-19; I used the NCV--you need something simple that preserves the phrase "one man obeyed God, and many will be made right.") When we are right with God, we begin to get right with us, right with other people, right with the world. If we get right with God, when we die we can have a place in the perfect Paradise of God. That’s God’s personal gift to us--his amazing grace.
3. God’s gift can be a powerful reality in people’s lives. Sin and evil are powerful realities. But Jesus put a new reality into the lives of his followers: (Read vss. 15-17 in NIV; emphasize "how much more...") It is a reality that awaits followers of Christ when they die. (Read 1 Cor 15:20-22) It’s a reality that can begin to take hold in our lives now.
Illus: Robert Schuller tells of a time early in his ministy when he was experiencing great opposition. He was unable to sleep, panic-stricken, and the thought came to him, "Schuller, you’re cracking up." He desperately prayed, "Jesus Christ, are you dead or alive? I’ve been preaching it every Easter. But are you a myth? Are you a legend? Or are you really alive? Do you care?" Then he says that he felt a finger go through his skull deep into his brain--pressure, but no pain. The finger went deep and slowly withdrew, taking with it all anxiety, all depression, and all fear of failure. Peace flowed from the top of his head over his body. Jesus had touched him and made him alive. He then fell into the deepest sleep and awoke the next morning, walked out to go to his office, and stopped in his tracks, startled by the beautiful roses. He turned quickly to his wife, and said, "Honey, the roses are blooming." She said, "Oh, Bob, they’ve been blooming for three months." (Source:
Schuller’s message, "Alive Now," date unknown)
Through Christ, we can be right with God...right with ourselves...right with the world. Life (the life of eternity) takes hold in us. "Amazing love, amazing grace...how sweet the sound"
What does Easter mean to you? Easter celebrates God’s gift of his Son--to make us right with God, and alive forever. Aldl we have to do is receive his gift. You can do that today:
Recognize your need, and despise the sin and death in your life.
Accept Jesus as God’s way of overcoming the power of evil and making you right with him.
Open yourslef up to the life of Jesus taking over your life, where otherwise there would be sin and evil.
How do you receive God’s gift? In faith, you reach out and take it. In faith, you reach out to God in prayer...accept his life-changing gift, for now, and for eternity.
