Speechless

Movie about 10 years ago called RADIO. About a man who learned that life is not about winning and power but true wealth and joy comes from goodness, forgiveness and love. A football coach takes a liking to a mentally handicapped young man and invites him to share in the practices and football games. Others are very uncomfortable because they are this feeble-minded outsider is so different. When they first meet Radio he cannot communicate, he just pushes a shopping cart around a small southern town every day. The football players taunt him and abuse him. Radio doesn’t get mad when others make fun of him, radio forgives their taunts and jokes at his expense, even when they make him to look like a threat he is friendly and caring of others. The coach gets furious. He stands in defense of Radio and says to an unofficial town meeting “It is not because he acts different that you want to get rid of Radio, but you are afraid of him because he acts the way you know you should act.” When the town and the school board questions the effort to teach Radio the coach responds “we are not teaching Radio, he is the one teaching us.”

Eventually we discover that the football coach helped Radio because he knows of another incident where he saw someone in need and did nothing.

! Corinthians 9:15

Today’s message forces us to ask ourselves the question, “How do I express my thankfulness for God’s indescribable gifts?”

Chapters 8-9 of 2 Corinthians Paul talks of our giving back to God out of an understanding of His grace. He tells how the Macedonian churches, even though they had faced severe tragedy, begged for the chance to give and share in the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ in other cities. Through these 2 chapters Paul explains that our giving will encourage others to give, that our unselfish giving will result in returned blessing, that our giving will meet the needs of others, and will unite God’s people with a common purpose and most importantly, glorify God. Listen as Paul explains

2 Corinthians 9:12-15 This is not a message on giving money to the church, nor is it a message on how to receive God’s blessings, but it is a message on how we ought to live richly and generously because of God’s indescribable gift. No matter how much you give back to God, you cannot out give Him.

What has He given us?

1. The indescribable gift of God’s Son

2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich. Jesus is the eternal God, creator of everything. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is powerful and can do anything He chooses yet He chose to step down from the throne of Heaven and be born in a feeding trough in a borrowed barn to engaged parents who were strangers in town. He stepped down from the worship of multitudes of angels to love the unlovable and instead of master he became a servant to the homeless and untouchables. He stepped down from the security of all eternity to face the one uncertainty of all life, death. He stepped down from Heaven as His home to be laid in a borrowed tomb. But though Christ stepped down from Heaven to die, death did not have the final say; Rom 6:8-11 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. ESV

Now death and sin are powerless,

1 Cor 15:55-58

O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?"

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. ESV

God’s indescribable gift of Himself, how do we say thanks for life?

2. The inexpressible gift of God’s grace

Titus 3:4-8

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 8 The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. ESV