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
II. God’s gift called for a sacrifice that defies our imagination.
A. The Humbled Deity – To accomplish this the Creator must become as one His creation.
1. “For our sakes He so humbled and emptied in taking flesh and emptied Himself as to become therein a servant in the eyes of the world, of no esteem, nor account, and a true and real servant to the Father; for their sakes He humbled Himself and became obedient.” - John Owen, Of Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
2. John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...”
3. It was necessary, in order to cleanse men from sin, and restore them their broken relationship with Him, for God Himself to become a man. Only a man – a perfect, sinless, divine, man – could die in the sinner’s place. It was therefore necessary for the Lord Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity to add sinless humanity to His undiminished deity, thereby qualifying him to die in man’s place, bearing the guilt and punishment of his sin. As such, He became the “last Adam,” who provided the answer for Adam’s sin and its consequences. – adapted from Bible.org, Personal Implications of the Incarnation
4. Philippians 2:5-8 “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
5. 2 Corinthians 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
B. The Vicarious Sacrifice – It was on the cross of Calvary that the Second Person of the Godhead paid the price and would Himself appease God’s wrath.
1. Realize, there is NOTHING that we can do to turn aside God’s wrath. It is God alone Who was able to provide the means for His wrath to be appeased. Propitiation is the biblical term for the turning away of wrath.
2. The Apostle John writes in 1 John 4:10, "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
3. Isaiah 53 gives us a brief glimpse of the agony and ignominy that Christ suffered on the cross as God’s gift for our salvation.
4. Isaiah 53:3 “He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief... v. 4 He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted... v. 5 He was wounded for our transgressions... v.6 The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. v. 10 It pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin,”
5. “Every time we look at the cross Christ seems to be saying to us, ‘I am here because of you. It is your sin I am bearing, your curse I am suffering, your debt I am paying, your death I am dying.’ Nothing in history or the universe cuts us down in size like the cross. All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousness, until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross, that we shrink to our true size” (John Stott).
6. It was on the cross that Titus 2:11 was fulfilled, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men.”
III. God’s gift results in a peace that is beyond all understanding.
A. In their proclamation of Christ’s birth to the shepherds the angels declared, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased!” It is only through the reception of God’s gift by faith we realize the peace of which the angels spoke.
B. Philippians 4:7 Tells us that through Christ there is a peace which surpasses or transcends the reach of man's ability to comprehend. It is interesting that the Greek word used for peace, in this verse, comes from a root word rendered the binding or joining together of what is broken or divided. It means to set at one again, It begins with peace with God.
C. Peace with God
1. God was pleased to reconcile on earth and in heaven back to himself through Christ. This was accomplished by making peace through Christ's blood sacrificed on the cross. Before God saves us, we are ''at war'' with the Sovereign of the Universe and there is no peace only enmity. When we are justified by faith and reconciled to the Creator by the blood of Christ, we are made positionally at peace with God and are "set at one again" so to speak like Adam and Eve were in Eden before sin entered the world. - adapted
2. Colossians 1:19-20 “...It was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross...”
3. Colossians 2:13-14 “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”
4. Romans 5:1 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”
D. Peace with the Men
1. Romans 12:18 exhorts us, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with all men.”
2. Christ came to bring peace, not only between God and people, but also among people. Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose from the grave to restore peace to a broken world that is riddled with conflict.
3. Ephesians 2:14-16 “For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups (Jew and Gentile) into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.”
4. Jesus brings peace between human beings. His life, death, and resurrection abolished every self-righteous reason for separation and alienation. Paul instructs us in Philippians to be of one mind and spirit. As recipients of God’s gift, we are one body, having the same Lord, the same Savior, the same hope, and the same calling in the gospel. We are to walk together in peace.
E. Peace within Oneself
1. John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.”
2. The peace provided by knowing and trusting Christ is not on the absence of trouble. Is a peace that enables believers to remain calm even when things press in from every side. It enables them to be at rest and sing in the middle of suffering and pain. Someone has said, "God doesn't always still the storm, but He can calm the sailor." -- Unknown
3. Those who trust Christ rest in the fact that they are redeemed, they have had their sins forgiven, and they never have to face anything alone because of God’s abiding presence.
4. One of the best photographs by Jean Guichard is of an octagonal French lighthouse located off the coast of Brittany in the Celtic Sea which appears about to be engulfed by a huge wave breaking across the light house. The waters are nearly as high as the lighthouse itself. At the base of the tower is the lighthouse keeper. He is standing just outside the door at the base, with his back to his lighthouse and the wave. He is seen standing there with his hands in his pockets, seemingly perfectly calm, as if he has no fear whatsoever. When the storms of life assail we can rest assured Christ be standing beside us.
5. Isaiah 26:3 “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”
Disclaimer: Source material for this sermon has been gleaned from many different sources. I have attempted to acknowledge these sources whenever possible. Please feel free to use this message as God's Holy Spirit directs your heart.
