“The Gift that Keeps On Giving”
John 6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
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I. The Activity of the Spirit – “All that the Father giveth…”
a. The latitude – “…all…”
The word “whosoever” appears 110 times in the NT and is God’s way of declaring the His invitation to us is “open ended” and all inclusive!
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Acts 2:21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Acts 10:43 To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.
Romans 10:11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
Romans 10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
b. The love – “…the Father…”
Romans 2:4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?
c. The leading
John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him…
II. The Approachability of the Savior – “…him that cometh…”
BAPTIZING A DRUNK
A man was stumbling through the woods, totally drunk, when he came upon a preacher baptizing people in the river. He proceeded to walk into the water and bumped into the preacher. The preacher turned around and, though almost overcome by the smell of alcohol, asked the drunk, "Are you ready to find Jesus?" The Drunk answered, "Yes, I am." So the preacher grabbed the drunk and dunked him in the water. Then he pulled him up and asked him, "Brother have you found Jesus?" The drunk replied, "No, I haven’t found Jesus." The preacher, shocked at the answer, dunked him into the water again, for a little longer. Then again, he pulled him out and asked, "Have you found Jesus my brother?" The drunk again answered, "No, I haven’t found Jesus." By this time the preacher was at his wits end so he submerged the
drunk once more, and held him down for about 30 seconds until he began kicking his arms and legs, whereupon he pulled him up. The preacher again asked the drunk, "For the love of God have you found Jesus?"
The drunk wiped his eyes and caught his breath and finally said to the preacher, "Are you sure this is where he fell in?"
Let me assure you that there is a better way to find Jesus. He is accessible and approachable to all who will come to Him in faith. Nothing illustrates this better than the woman caught in the “act of adultery” in:
John 8:3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
Two things stand out in this narrative. First, there is:
a. No condemnation – “…neither do I condemn thee…”
One of the reasons that sinners do not come to Christ is the “prickly” nature of the followers of Christ. Most Christians have more “spines” than a porcupine! We are judgmental and quick to condemn the behavior of others which more often than not can be found in our own lives. Paul addressed this issue in:
Romans 2:1 Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.
WESLEY AND CRITICISM
ILL - John Wesley was a great English preacher of the 1700’s. He was considered a rather spiffy dresser. One Sunday morning he wore a bow tie that had long ribbons that hung downward. After the sermon was over a lady walked up to him and said, "Brother Wesley, are you open to some criticism?" He said, "I guess so. What would you like to criticize?" She said, "The ribbons on your tie are entirely too long and inappropriate for a man of God." And she took out her scissors and cut them off. A hush fell over the people standing there as Wesley calmly asked, "Now may I borrow the scissors for a moment?" As she handed them to him, he said, "Ma’am, are you open to some criticism?" She answered, "Well, I suppose I am." He said, "All right then, please stick out your tongue."
(From a sermon by Stephen Sheane, "A New Year, A New You")
ILL - When commerce had been reestablished with the converted cannibalistic people of the Fiji Islands, a merchant who was an atheist landed on the islands to do business. He was talking to the Fiji chief and noticed a Bible and some other religious paraphernalia around the chief’s house. He chided the chief for listening to the foolishness of the Christian missionaries. The chief replied, "Do you see that large white stone over there? That is the stone where just a few years ago we used to smash the heads of our victims to get at their brains. Do you see that large oven over there? That is the oven where just a few short years ago we used to bake the bodies of our victims before we feasted upon them. Had we not listened to what you call the nonsense of the Christian missionaries, I assure you that your head would already be smashed on that rock and your body would be baking in that oven!" There is no record of that merchant’s response to that explanation, but the account wonderfully reminds us that Christ meant it when He said that He would not turn anyone away even cannibals!
(Story taken from "Revolution in World Missions" by K. P. Yohannan.)
b. No compromise – “…go and sin no more.”
One of the problems in the church world today is that many have been led to believe that to reach “seekers” you have to make them “comfortable” and design church plants and church programs to put them at ease. The trouble is this often leads to compromise because if you really preach the whole Gospel under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, sinners will be “ill at ease but this is not what Jesus did. Some has said, “that God gave us the Gospel to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable!” The One who would give His life as a sacrifice for sin would not compromise with sin.
Romans 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Romans 6:15 What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.
1 Corinthians 6:15 Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.
III. The Assurance to Sinners - “…I will in no wise cast out…”
One of the most powerful emotions that any of us face is the fear of rejection. The potential for rejection is all around us. You might dread going to a job interview because you have been turned down before, or perhaps as a young person you were hesitant to date because of this insecurity, or as a children growing up you sought affection and love but were rejected by a parent who was cold and indifferent, or you pursued a career in sales but could not handle the negative reactions of potential customers, or you tried to be a witness for Christ but just couldn’t handle the rejection of those you tried to speak with, or perhaps you tried the Christian life before and felt that God let you down, or you fell back into sin, you had a bad experience and you don’t think God will give you a second chance. We long for acceptance and fear rejection! My friend, there is something you ought to know;
a. The empathy of the Savior
Jesus experienced rejection in a way that enables Him to empathize with all men, rich and poor, black or white, male or female, young or old. He was rejected by family, friends, his own nation, his disciples and ultimately His Father as He was dying on the cross as he cried, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me…”
Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief…
b. The experience of the saints
Make no mistake, if you follow Jesus, you will experience rejection. Hebrews 12:1 describes “…a great cloud of witnesses…” who are looking from the grandstand of heaven. The word for witnesses is the same word we have for “martyrs.” Heaven is filled with those who have been rejected by this world. Jesus said:
Luke 6:22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.
23 Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.
c. The encouragement to the seeker
Deuteronomy 4:29 But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
Jeremiah 29:13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
Let me quote from John Bunyan’s own words to illustrate the certainty of this promise;
“Oh! The comfort that I had from this word: “…in no wise!” If ever Satan and I did strive for any word of God in my life, it was for this good word of Christ: he at one end and I at the other. Oh! What work we made! It was for this in John, I say that we did tug and strive; he pulled and I pulled; but God be praised, I overcame him; I got sweetness from it! He passed at a bound from the Mists of the Valley to the Sunlight of the Summit. He had left the shadowland of “perhaps” for the luxurious sunshine of a glowing certainty. With joy, he says, I told my wife: Oh, now I know, I know, I know! Christ was a precious Christ to my soul that night; I could scarce lie in my bed for joy and grace and triumph!”
He's calling on you:
Jeremiah 33:3 Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.
$3.00 WORTH OF GOD, PLEASE
ILL - Tim Hansel in his book "When I Relax I feel Guilty," writes some insights of what most people want from God. "I would like to buy $3.00 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of Him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3.00 worth of God, please." If we would be totally honest, the idea of transformation really scares us. That is because we know that such a radical change would be quite uncomfortable. We realize that with transformation comes a major overhaul of our lives and priorities.
(From a sermon by Scott Chambers, The Mission if You Accept it: Transformation, 2/15/2011)
Charles Colson told the following story in an address at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi:
ILL- I love the illustration about a man named Jack Eckerd. A few years ago I was on the Bill Buckley television program, talking about restitution (one of my favorite subjects) and criminal justice. Bill Buckley agreed with me. A few days later I got a call from Jack Eckerd, a businessman from Florida, the founder of the Eckerd Drug chain, the second largest drug chain in America. He saw me on television and asked me to come to Florida. He agreed Florida had a criminal justice crisis, would I come down and do something about it? And we did. We got the attorney general of the state, the president of the senate; we got on Jack Eckerd’s Lear jet; we went around the State of Florida advocating criminal justice reforms, and everywhere we would go Jack Eckerd would introduce me to the crowds and say, "This is Chuck Colson, my friend; I met him on Bill Buckley’s television program. He’s born again, I’m not. I wish I were." And then he’d sit down. We’d get on the airplane and I’d tell him about Jesus. We’d get off at the next stop, he’d repeat it, we’d do the same thing again, and I’d talk to him about Jesus. When we left I gave him some of R. C. Sproul’s books and I gave him C. S. Lewis’s “Mere Christianity,” which had such an impact on me. I sent him my books. About a year went by and I kept pestering Jack Eckerd. And eventually one day he read some things including the story of Watergate and the Resurrection out of my book, Loving God, and decided that Jesus was, in fact, resurrected from the dead. He called me up to tell me he believed that, and I asked him some other things. When he got through telling me what he believed I said, "You’re born again!" He said, "No, I’m not, I haven’t felt anything." I said, "Yes, you are! Pray with me right now." After we prayed he said, "I am? Marvelous!" The first thing he did was to walk into one of his drugstores and walked down through the book shelves and he saw Playboy and Penthouse. And he’d seen it there many times before, but it never bothered him before. Now he saw them with new eyes. He’d become a Christian. He went back to his office. He called in his president. He said, "Take Playboy and Penthouse out of my stores. The president said, "You can’t mean that, Mr. Eckerd. We make three million dollars a year on those books." He said, "Take ’em out of my stores." And in 1,700 stores across America, by one man’s decision, those magazines and smut were removed from the shelves because a man had given his life to Christ. I called Jack Eckerd up. I said, "I want to use that story. Did you do that because of your commitment to Christ?" He said, "Why else would I give away three million dollars? The Lord wouldn’t let me off the hook." Isn’t that marvelous? God wouldn’t let me off the hook. I don’t know any theologian who’s better defined the Lordship of Christ than that. And what happened after that is a wonderful sequel and a wonderful demonstration of what happens in our culture today. We are caught up with this idea that we’ve got to have big political institutions and big structures and big movements and big organizations in order to change things in our society. And that’s an illusion and a fraud. Jack Eckerd wrote a letter to all the other drugstore operators, all the other chains, and he said, "I’ve taken it out of my store. Why don’t you take it out of yours?" Not a one answered him. Of course not--he’d put them under conviction. So he wrote them some more letters. But then Eckerd’s Drugs began to get floods of people coming in to buy things at Eckerd’s because they’d taken Playboy and Penthouse out. And so People’s removed the magazines from their shelves and then Dart Drug removed them from their shelves and then Revco removed them from their shelves. And over the period of twelve months while the pornography commission in Washington was debating over what to do about pornography, and while they’re trying to come up with some recommendations for the president about what to do which will result in laws which if Congress ever passes them will be sued by the ACLU and will be tied up in the courts for 10 years--meanwhile, across America, one by one, stores are removing them. And the 7-11 chairman, who sits on Jack Eckerd’s board, finally gave in two weeks ago and 5,000 7-11 stores removed it. And in a period of twelve months, 11,000 retail outlets in America removed Playboy and Penthouse, not because somebody passed a law, but because God wouldn’t let one of his men off the hook. That’s what brings change.
--James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. 1988) pp. 46-48. (Copied from Bible Illustrator)
This promise from the Lord is truly “The Gift that Keeps On Giving” He can and will receive all those who come to Him in faith whether it’s a John Bunyan, cannibals from the Fiji islands, a crooked politician named Charles Colson or a hard headed business man named Dave Eckard. Let me share one last illustration.
ILL - “One of the greatest evangelistic hymns of all time was written by a woman who knew well the release and peace that come from confessing one’s sins and failure to God. ‘Just As I Am,’ a hymn frequently sung at the close of evangelistic meetings, was written by Charlotte Elliott, who at one time had been very bitter with God about the circumstances in her life. Charlotte was an invalid from her youth and deeply resented the constraints her handicap placed on her activities. In an emotional outburst on one occasion, she expressed those feelings to Dr. Cesar Malan, a minister visiting her home. He listened and was touched by her distress, but he insisted that her problems should not divert her attention from what she most needed to hear. He challenged her to turn her life over to God, to come to Him just as she was, with all her bitterness and anger. She resented what seemed to be an almost callous attitude on his part, but God spoke to her through him, and she committed her life to the Lord. Each year on the anniversary of that decision, Dr. Malan wrote Charlotte a letter, encouraging her to continue to be strong in the faith. But even as a Christian she had doubts and struggles. One particularly sore point was her inability to effectively got out and serve the Lord. At times she almost resented her brother’s successful preaching and evangelistic ministry. She longed to be used of God herself, but she felt that her health and physical condition prevented it. Then in 1836, on the fourteenth anniversary of her conversion, while she was alone in the evening, the forty-seven-year-old Charlotte Elliott wrote her spiritual autobiography in verse. Here, in the prayer of confession, she poured out her feelings to God––feelings that countless individuals have identified with in the generations that followed. The third stanza, perhaps more than the others, described her pilgrimage: “Just as I am, tho tossed about––With many a conflict, many a doubt,––Fighting’s within and fears without,––O Lamb of God, I come! I come!”
