Title: Grasping the Benefits of Having the Son
Introduction: I want to read to you from Scripture about what the Ultimate Father did. "For God so loved the world, He gave His one and only Son, that whoever, believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)
Proposition: I would propose to you that those who receive the Father's gift, receives all the Father has. The Bible gives us this wonderful truth, "What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, 'Abba, Father.' So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir." (Galatians 4:1-7)
Transitional Sentence: You and I are sons through faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of our lives. The benefits of being a son of God are many. Listen carefully to these seven.
While people were living for themselves, not knowing or loving Christ, He died for their redemption. He gave His life, so we may know the Father, know Him and walk in step with the Holy Spirit.
That kind of love must be treasured; someone may have given his life for a friend, co-worker, or partner in service of our country. Christ died for those who despised Him
It must be remembered, when we accepted Christ as our personal Savior and Lord, we were not only adopted into the Father¡¯s family as sons and daughters, we were drafted in the war for the souls of mankind. (Matthew 28:18-20) It must also be noted that Jesus' death for all of mankind was a demonstration of His love for us, not a response of our love for Him.
"During World War II, an enemy submarine approached a fleet of ships in the North Atlantic. The captain of one vessel spotted the white mark of a torpedo coming directly at his ship. His transport was loaded with literally hundreds and hundreds of young soldiers on the way to the European front. He realized they would not have time to maneuver to avoid the torpedo. He grabbed the loud-speaker and cried out, 'Boys, this it!'
Nearby though, a little escorting destroyer also observed the torpedo. The captain ordered, 'Full speed ahead!' His ship steamed into the path of the torpedo. The destroyer was blown up; it sank very quickly. Every man on board died. The captain of the troop transport ship sadly said, 'The skipper of that destroyer was our friend.' (AMG Bible Illustrations)
With the sins of the world are on its way to destroy all of mankind, Jesus, sacrificed His life on the cross so we may receive eternal life. He is the Friend who gave His life for us.
2.) The benefit of Grace. Titus 2:11 says, ¡°For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people." This grace from God is offered to all of mankind. When Christ enters a man by the Holy Spirit, he is under a special grace that sustains the soul in time of need. (2 Corinthians 12:9) It provides strength. (1 Corinthians 15:10; 2 Timothy 2:1) It produces thanksgiving and glory to God. (2 Corinthians 4:15) It affects our conversations. (Colossians 4:6) And it enables believers to live holy and godly lives. (2 Corinthians 1:12)
Annie Johnson Flint, quoted in John R. Rice's, Poems That Preach says it beautifully, "He giveth more grace when burdens grow greater, He sendth more strength when the labors increase. To added afflictions, He addeth His mercy, to multiplied trials, His multiplied peace. When we have exhausted our store of endurance, when our strength has failed when the day is half done. When we reach the end of our hoarded resources, our Father's full giving is only begun. His love has no limit, His grace has no measure. His power no boundary known to men. For out of His infinite riches in Jesus. He giveth and giveth and giveth again."
(The Tales of the Tardy Oxcart, Swindoll)
3.) The benefit of mercy. Titus 3:5 says, ¡°Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, Whom He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior.¡± "Mercy" (eleon) means "to feel compassion, pity, and show kindness." It draws oneself to want to care for someone who cannot help themselves. It enables one to see a need and meet the need. God not only beheld our need for salvation, He enables us to receive His salvation found in Christ. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God not only sees our need for righteous living, He also enables to live a righteous life. Upon our repentance, we receive His mercy freely at no cost to us. (The Preacher's Outline & Sermon Bible)
In Reader's Digest, Jim Williams of Butte, Montana, writes, "I was driving too fast one night when I saw the flashing lights of a police car in my rearview mirror. As I pulled over and rolled down the window of my station wagon, I tried to dream up an excuse for my speeding. But when the patrolman reached the car, he said nothing. Instead, he merely shinned the flashlight in my face, then upon my seven-months-pregnant wife, then on our snoozing 18-month-old in his car seat, then our three other children, who were also asleep, and lastly on the two dogs in the very back of the car. Returning the beam back to my face, he then uttered the only words of the encounter. 'Son,' he said, 'you can't afford a ticket. Slow it down.'"
Sometimes, mercy triumphs over the law. According to the law of God, we all deserve God's judgment. However, in Christ Jesus we receive mercy and we are prompted by the Holy Spirit to live a life pleasing to God.
4.) We have the benefit of the Holy Spirit. 1 John 4:13 says, "This how we know that we live in Him and He in us: He has given us His Spirit." With a continuous and ongoing awareness, there is an intimate communion with God by His Holy Spirit. Romans 8:16 says, "The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God." Romans 6:11 gives us this promise, "And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because His Spirit who lives in you."
Charles Swindoll wrote:"A number of miles from the Los Angeles basin, there is a river. The river has been damned up by man, and through the genius and innovation of engineers, they have put together a dam that has, in its process of working, housed electricity--hundreds of thousands of volts that are fed into the Los Angeles basin. If you were to go to the various transmission plants along the way, you would read signs marked with, 'Danger, High Voltage.' 'No trespassing, Danger.' Hundreds of thousands of volts are available in energy for your home, but who needs a hundred thousand volts, unless he wants to burn up his home? To keep a home from burning down, engineers have built transformers into the system - not transmitters, but transformers. The transformers does nothing more than break down into meaningful units, just the right amount of electricity you need.
I have in my home, for example, another transformer. One Christmas I gave myself an HO gauge train. There is a tiny unit called a transformer on the train set, and it breaks down the 110 volts from the wall to even less. Why, if you plugged into a straight 110 outlet, that train would go pzzzttt! for one second and then burn up. The transformer for the train breaks the electricity down for the small train engine to run just right, so the train just putt, putt at just the right speed.
When the Holy Spirit, the transformer, comes, He will take the majestic truths of God and will dispense it just the way you need it, give it to you with handles that you can take and use. It is the Spirit's delight to take the full truth of God and make one thing meaningful to that woman, something altogether different to that man, and something different again to that fellow down there. That's the work of the Spirit, and He never makes a mistake. He gives you just what you can handle." (The Tale of the Tardy Oxcart, Swindoll)
Christians can depend on the Holy Spirit to equip and empower them with just what they need in their service to the Lord.
5.) We have the benefit of forgiveness. 1 John 1:9 says, ¡°If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.¡±
When a person acknowledges his sin and in repentance confesses those sins before the Lord, his sins are forgiven. By virtue of the cleansing effect of Jesus' atoning death the repentant sinner is fit for fellowship with God the Father, Jesus His Son and enabled to walk in step with the Holy Spirit. (The New American Commentary)
John instructs Christians on what to do when sin overcomes them and the benefits of confession to the Lord.
It begins with confession: "confess" (is homologe¨ - ὁ¦Ì¦Ï¦Ë¦Ï¦Ã¦Å¦Ø) means to agree with another or rather to agree with God as to all the implication of the sin committed by the child of God. This includes the hatred of that sin, the Christians sense of guilt because of it and his heart desire to put that sin out of his life. (Wuest's Word Study in the Greek New Testament; Word Studies in the New Testament) The Christian who is forgiven of a confess sin has the spirit and heart of King David who wrote, "My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise." (Psalm 51:17)
Walter B. Knight wrote about "A man who was deeply convicted of sin and about his need for the Savior. Restlessly, he wondered one night along a country road, seeking relief for his misery. When he became tired, he sat down by some hedges. After sitting for a while, on the other side of the hedge he heard two girls in conversation. One girl had heard a sermon about forgiveness, she said it brought her so much comfort. The sermon brought out a statement that has been spoken by most of us, 'You made your bed, now lie in it.' (Knight's Treasury of 2,000 Illustrations)
The Bible records the words of the Greatest Teacher of all time, 'Your sins are forgiven... I want you to know that Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins." (Mark 2:10) I like the words written by Micah, "You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea." (Micah 7:19)
God does not hold our sins against us once we have called upon Christ for forgiveness in repentance.
6.) We have the benefit of riches. Paul said in Philippians 4:19, ¡°My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in Glory.¡±
I would like to share with you the faithfulness of the Lord in proving Himself as being Jehovah-Jire, "Jire" (yir˒eh) is a wonderful revelation of God¡¯s character meaning, ¡°The Lord will provide¡ to see or to provide or to foresee as a prophet, God always provides, adequate when the time comes.¡± (Nathan Stone) ¡°It means ¡®the Lord will see to it¡¯ literally¡ ¡®the Lord will provide.¡¯¡± (Thru the Bible) Often the meaning of this name is expressed in the well-known word, ¡°providence.¡± Providence means "to provide, that the hand of God is in human events." (Thru the Bible) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia says providence involves foresight; ¡°Applied to God, providence obviously includes the Divine foreseeing, but God in foreseeing has an even fuller and broader reference in view of the Divine overruling. Providence, then, is the preservation, superintendence, and teleological direction of all things by God. It is the Divine governance whereby all possible events are woven into a coherent pattern and all possible developments are shaped to accomplish the divinely instituted goal. Regarding individuals, ¡the whole sweep of history stands under the providential ordering of God, so the individual life within history¡ [may be] called to faith, built up in discipleship and service¡¡±
"My wonderful God given wife, Pennie Rae Laughlin had cleaned houses for several years. We live in a small town where it would be difficult to run a house cleaning business (having people work for her). Ever since Pennie and I met, we discussed the need for her to begin to look for other work, possibly an office job.
In December of 2012 Pennie's wrists begin to really ache after a long day of house cleaning. In January of 2013 she was diagnosed with carpel tunnel syndrome in both wrists, a potentially crippling condition that could keep her from obtaining an office job that would require large amount of typing.
Through the members of Samaritan Ministries, finances came through to help pay for carpel tunnel surgery. Surgery was performed in January 2013 and in middle March, Pennie was back to work. In April, Pennie walked into the office of Farm Bureau, through whom we have our house and car insurance policies. As soon as she walked in the door, they asked her if she was looking for a job.
Over the years we have spoken very little to anyone regarding Pennie's job searching. Neither of us had spoken to the employees connected with the insurance agency that had just asked her if she was looking for a job. She told them she was and after a background check, Pennie went to work for the insurance company in May. She has passed her test and she now has an office job typing.
The Lord had provided that job for Pennie, and through Samaritan Ministries, the needed funds were available to have the medical procedure that enabled Pennie to type as required at her new job. God had seen and provided for Pennie ahead of time to accomplish the next phase of her life on this earth, before she was offered an office job."
God is the Lord who sees and provides ahead of time.
7.) We have the benefit of eternal life through Jesus Christ. Romans 6:23 ¡°For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life.¡± Sin means death. Christ means eternal life. John 10:27-28 says, ¡°My sheep know my voice and I know them and they follow Me and I give unto them eternal life.¡± Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in Me will never die."
"In the chapel of St George, in West Minster Abbey, is a memorial of World War II. It consist of four bound volumes that contain the names of the 60,000 civilians who were killed in the city of London by enemy action. One volume lies open at a time on the shrine and a light shines down upon the typescript names that appear on that open page. Each day a page is turned. Thus will the names of those who were rich or poor, titled or of the common people, old or young, healthy or ill, sound body or crippled, famous or infamous, stand together to be revealed in the light for all to see as a page of the book is turned each day. It is known as the book of death. The Bible tells of a book of life. It is in Heaven. In that book, too, will be found the names of men and women from all classes and conditions on earth. All will be in the light, and all will be honored of God. For the Book of life will reveal, in that coming day, the names of those who through faith in God and His Christ have been regenerated from death to life in Jesus Christ" (In the Lamb's Book of Life; Knight's Master Book of Illustrations, Knight)
In Closing: Before you can enjoy all these benefits, you must have the Son.
Take my Son
"A wealthy man and his son loved to collect rare works of art. They had everything in their collection, from Picasso to Raphael. They would often sit together and admire the great works of art.
When the Vietnam conflict broke out, the son went to war. He was very courageous and died in battle while rescuing another soldier. The father was notified and grieved deeply for his only son.
About a month later, just before Christmas, there was a knock at the door. A young man stood at the door with a large package in his hands.
He said, 'Sir, you don't know me, but I am the soldier for whom your son gave his life. He saved many lives that day, and he was carrying me to safety when a bullet struck him in the heart and he died instantly. He often talked about you, and your love for art.' The young man held out a package saying, 'I know this isn't much. I'm not really a great artist, but I think your son would have wanted you to have this.'
The father opened the package. It was a portrait of his son, painted by the young man. He stared in awe at the way the soldier had captured the personality of his son in the painting. The father was so drawn to the eyes that his own eyes welled up with tears. He thanked the young man and offered to pay him for the picture. 'Oh, no sir, I could never repay what your son did for me. It's a gift.'
The father hung the portrait over his mantle. Every time visitors came to his home he took them to see the portrait of his son before he showed them any of the other great works he had collected.
The man died a few months later. There was to be a great auction of his paintings. Many influential people gathered, excited over seeing the great paintings and having an opportunity to purchase one for their collection.
On the platform sat the painting of the son. The auctioneer pounded his gavel. 'We will start the bidding with this picture of the son. Who will bid for this picture?'
There was silence. Then a voice in the back of the room shouted, 'We want to see the famous paintings. Skip this one.'
But the auctioneer persisted. 'Will somebody bid for this painting. Who will start the bidding? $100, $200?'
Another voice angrily, 'We didn't come to see this painting. We came to see the Van Gogh's, the Rembrandts. Get on with the real bids!'
But still the auctioneer continued. 'The son! The son! Who'll take the son?'
Finally, a voice came from the very back of the room. It was the longtime gardener of the man and his son. 'I'll give $10 for the painting.' Being a poor man, it was all he could afford.
'We have $10, who will bid $20?' 'Give it to him for $10. Let's see the masters' cried out another voice.
The crowd was becoming angry. They didn't want the picture of the son. They wanted the more worthy investments for their collections.
The auctioneer pounded the gavel. 'Going once, twice, SOLD for $10!'
A man sitting on the second row shouted, 'Now let's get on with the collection!'
The auctioneer laid down his gavel. 'I'm sorry, the auction is over.' 'What about the paintings?' The crowed shouted! 'I am sorry. When I was called to conduct this auction, I was told of a secret stipulation in the will. I was not allowed to reveal that stipulation until this time. Only the painting of the son would be auctioned. Whoever bought that painting would inherit the entire estate, including the paintings. The man who took the painting of the son gets everything!'"
Without the Son, one won't get the benefits. It is the Christians who takes the Son who receives everything. Let us Pray!
