Forget Finding Jesus
among our Unwrapped gifts.
And Romans 6- 23 says For the wages of sin are death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In the movie finding Nemo we witness an incredible animated movie about a lost fish lured away to the dangerous mysteries of the open sea. He failed to see that the coral reef that he lived on was a gift and much was still to be learned there. Many people are losing Jesus because they have failed to unwrap all the gifts that God has given them and are lured away. Or sometimes like an overwhelmed child at a birthday party they tear off the paper glance at the gift and move on to the next glittery parcel.
Romans 6- 23 says For the wages of sin are death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The gifts won’t go away for as we read in romans 11 verse 29 King James Bible For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
This morning I would like to encourage you to find Jesus again as you unwrap the gifts that he has given to you.
On a certain day in the twentieth century a man landed on the moon – He put his feet into the lunar dust and declared that it was a giant step for mankind. Plans are afoot to put a colony into space somewhere and that too would be a giant step for mankind.
Joshua one day in a century long before Jesus put his foot onto the dry riverbed of the river Jordan. As Joshua unwrapped the promises of God in the coming conquest season the gift that was bestowed on the people of Israel emerged and it became the greatest nation on earth bar none as long as they remained faithful to God.
As the red sea had parted for Moses – so the Jordan had parted for Joshua and a nation followed him into the land that God had promised much earlier to Abraham and his descendants.
This was the moment when promises were realised and when dreams began to become reality.
Did you ever look at the bottom of the Christmas tree as a child and look at the wrapping paper around the gifts and wonder what was in it for you? Did you ever on your birthday open up the presents and realise that your wildest dreams were surpassed? Did you ever, as the paper was rolled up and the presents were all out for everyone to see suddenly discover one more present and realise when you opened it that it was the best present of all?
As a Christian God has promised you great things and one of the things I would like to encourage you is that he has many great unwrapped gifts for you. When you unwrap these gifts you find Jesus who often gets lost in the polluted oceans of this world
Recently I received a facebook message from a friend in response to a post I had put on earlier.
Here is what my friend said. Hey John. I'm puffing the end of a cigar (and always uncertain why anyone would do such a thing) with a coffee at midnight on the terrace of a rather grand house in the south western Spanish highlands. I'm disproportionately blessed to be here with a group of 8 extraordinary writers none of whom follow Christ but all of whom have tremendous hearts. And all the while I have been here (4 days) in my heart I hear the song from 40 years ago singing "it's no longer I that liveth but Christ that liveth in me. HE LIVES, HE LIVES, JESUS IS ALIVE IN ME." And I recognize how poorly I have represented him through my life. This place is full of the way of the world and religion and superstition and new age offerings charming people away from him. And I realize that I must do much more to represent him to those who are lost.
And I recall you and your stoic passion for Christ and your bad taste in clothing and it helps me to press on.
Unwrapped presents.
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
Matthew chapter 7 verse 11
Romans chapter 11 verse 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
Do you remember what you got last birthday?
Many of us won’t
If you do remember – are you still using it?
Do you remember what God gave you when you were saved?
Many of us don’t but my guess is that many of us neglect the most important gifts that God has given us to unwrap and use and my feeling is if we remind ourselves of the most important gifts we have received and begin to dust them off and rediscover them our lives would go a lot better.
The first gift I would like to remind you of this morning is the gift of Grace. Grace is a beautiful gift. Wouldn’t Allepo look a lot better with a layer of Grace instead of a layer of revenge and hatred?
1/ We need to open the gift of grace
The bible points out that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.
And Romans 6- 23 says For the wages of sin are death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God’s grace is an incredible gift. Recently someone I know was involved in a situation where a Christian had fallen into incredible sin. This sin had ruined his life and he faced the future without his family . Life without Christ can look pretty lonely in an empty room.
But as my friend began to minister into the situation the gift of grace came into the room. What had looked like hopelessness and despair just a few minutes earlier suddenly turned into daylight as God’s love flooded in. God’s incredible gift of grace transformed a whole families life and the man rang his friend in tears of gratitude because God’s grace had transformed his life.
Grace is wonderful – it is what Newton calls amazing grace and it is one of the great gifts of God.
It is neglected in relation to ourselves – Many people can not forgive themselves for their sins so they drift away from God into an abyss of selfpity and despair when all they need to do is avail themselves of the means of grace.
1 John 1 verse 9 says if we confess our sins He (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to deliver us from all unrighteousness.
Many times in my own life I have found myself condemning myself instead of immediately applying the gift of grace as God has taught us too. But it is a gift that we need to apply to others and it is here where most christians find a challenge.
Jesus told a story of the unforgiving servant Matthew chapter 18 verse 21 Then Peter came up and said to him
The key here is that God has given us a gift of forgiveness but we fail to use it because of the injustice’s done to us. We are right. The problem is big. The injustices are real. However the gift of grace is bigger than the problem.
You might think, in relation to this problem, well I am so hurt someone ought to die for that. Well someone has! His name is Jesus and his grace is sufficient for the situation.
When we apply this gift to our situation then we are a whole lot of steps closer to finding jesus.
The second gift that christians can develop further and use more, is the gift of the Holy spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 4 we read Now there are varieties of gifts but the same spirit, and there are varieties of service, but the same lord; and there are varieties of activities but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is give the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the gift of the Spirit the utterance of wisdom and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
Ever get a 1000 piece finding Nemo jigsaw puzzle and get to the end and find there were five pieces missing.
Every Christian can receive the Holy Spirit and the church moves forward as we express our God given gifts. One of the great sadnesses I feel in the church is people who are greatly gifted by God failing to express their gifts. Unwrapped and discarded the church limps along because the gifts that God has given individuals have been unexplored and only seldomly used.
Ever hear the saying: “ a wise man once said to me?”
Well what about the person with the gift of wisdom who keeps the gift to themselves and later on when the lack of their wisdom has meant that there has been a mess and they come along and said –“could have told you that would happen.”
We need to use the gifts of the spirit that we have. Don’t leave them unwrapped and if you can’t figure out your gift mix get a wise christian leader to pray for you.
When you begin to express the gifts of the Spirit you are more likely to find Jesus.
All of this might sound a bit negative but what whould it look like if you turned it on it’s head with an understanding that you can – apply God’s gifts to your situation.
The gifts of God won’t go away – You can do it!!!!
Thirdly
The gift of love the most neglected gift. But with the most potential!!!
Selfishness, lust and greed have often been wrapped up and given as a gift of love. Wrapped in the most expensive paper these gifts come attracting us to them – here is the answer to the problem. But it is a lie and a snare it really isn’t love at all. These days it is quite common to buy articles much cheaper from China and other Asian nations that are very cheaply and poorly made. Recently we bought on ebay some energy saver lightbulbs that were a fraction of the price paid in the stores. We delighted in the bargain until we plugged them into the socket. They simply didn’t work.
Love – True love – is very different to the kind of love we see in this world. Recently I met a man on the street who I had prayed for earlier. At that time he was committing adultery even though he was a Christian. He told me how I had told him it was wrong and that he should return to his wife and I prayed for him. He went onto say he had returned to his wife and, I guess she had forgiven him, and he told me how happy they were. He said – Your street ministry works – he said it over and over again. You see what he found with the girlfriend wasn’t love it just came with a fancy wrapping and with the wrong label. You won’t find Jesus like that.
In the movie finding Nemo – the runaway fish finds himself in a fish bowl in a Dentists room in Sydney doomed it seems to spend the rest of his life out of his natural environment an idle curiosity to the traumitised patients of the Dentist. – Miraculously Nemo finds himself escaping back into the harbour and makes his way back to his Father’s love. But many people find themselves lured away by the fancy wrappings of this world.
I want to conclude by adding a fourth gift that you might find a little strange.
My fourth gift the little gift is the gift of repentance and tears.
Such a gift is so easily missed or minimised it may escape our notice altogether
Towards the end of his life in china we read this story from the life of Johnathon Goforth.
Those were days of unprecedented spiritual awakening. As a result, he was deluged with invitations from all parts of China and found himself drawn into a new and far-reaching type of ministry. Rosalind and the five children sailed for Canada and he, a lonely man, separated from his family till his next furlough time, plunged into the greatest work of his life.
One day at the close of his message he said to the people, "You may pray." Immediately an elder of the church, with tears streaming down his cheeks, stood before the congregation and confessed the sins of theft, adultery and attempted murder. "I have disgraced the holy office," he cried. "I herewith resign my eldership." Other elders, then the deacons, arose one by one, confessed their sins and resigned. Then the native pastor stood up, made his confession and concluded, "I am not fit to be your pastor any longer. I, too, must resign." As the Christians confessed their sins and got right with God, large numbers of unbelievers came under deep conviction and were saved. Some of the missionaries were entirely out of sympathy with these revivals. One man said, "Don't expect any such praying and confessing of sins here as took place in Mukden and Liaoyang. We're hard-headed Presbyterians from the North of Ireland and the people take after us. Anyhow, we have respectable people here, not terrible sinners. Be prepared for a quiet Quakers' meeting at this place." But several days later the Pastor and many others sobbed out their confession, the whole congregation did the unheard of thing of getting down on their knees in prayer and there was a mighty turning to God in that place.
Many times there was so much praying and confessing, little or no time was left for the message; even so, the meetings often lasted for three or four or even six hours. At Kwangchow God's Spirit worked mightily; the church was cleansed and edified, one hundred fifty-four converts were baptized during the eight days' meeting and the number of Christians in this city increased in four years from 2,000 to 8,000. At Shangtehfu there was an intense desire on the part of missionaries and Chinese Christians alike for a blessing from Heaven. Long before daylight the pleadings of earnest hearts arose to the throne of grace. One missionary sobbed out his prayer, "Lord, I have come to the place where I would rather pray than eat." In this place five hundred people openly acknowledged Christ as Savior. In a mission school where at first there was much antagonism, scores of boys were brought under the conviction of the Spirit, confessed their sins, accepted Christ and brought a huge pile of pipes, cigarettes and tobacco to be destroyed, also stolen knives and other things to be returned to their rightful owners.
Dr. Walter Philips, who at first was prejudiced against the revival movement, wrote of the meetings at Chinchow,
Now I understood why the floor was so wet—it was wet with pools of tears. Above the sobbing of hundreds of kneeling penitents, an agonized voice was making pubic confession. Others followed. The sight of men forced to their feet and impelled to lay bare their hearts brought the smarting tears to one's own eyes. And then again would swell the wonderful deep organ tone of united prayers, while men and women, lost to their surroundings, wrestled for peace.
Dr. P. C. Leslie said, "It was touching to see the distress of these pillars of the church, weeping in the presence of men because they had been humbled in the presence of God." Like the disciples at Pentecost, they were filled with the divine fullness and anointed with the Spirit's power.
Weeping in the presence of men!
Humbled in the presence of God!
Filled with the divine fullness!
Anointed with the Spirit's power!
