What To Do With A Gift

What Do You Do With a Gift?

I would like us to repeat our key verse for today found in Romans 6:23: The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.

I suppose all of us at one time or another have received a gift. We get gifts for our birthday, gifts for Christmas, gifts for anniversaries, gifts for other special occasions. We all have received gifts from time to time. But today we want to talk about a gift described in this verse. From a Christian and Biblical viewpoint, everybody has been offered a gift. This gift has been offered to us from God. The question becomes what are we going to do with the gift God offers us? What is this gift? The gift is eternal life which we will discuss in detail this morning. God has a gift for everyone. What are we going to do with the gift? The first thing we have to look at is why God offers us this gift. Many times when we give a gift to a person we consider whether the person needs that gift. We wouldn’t give a set of golf clubs to a person who doesn’t play golf. We wouldn’t give a book to a person who hardly ever reads a book. We wouldn’t give a hat to a person who never wears a hat. No matter what the occasion is, we try to match the gift with the needs, desires, and interests of the person receiving the gift. At Christmas time or on a person’s birthday we ponder over what to give Aunt Jane or Uncle Joe. What would they like? What do they need? That’s why many people just give money or a gift card because they can’t be sure of what kind of gift a person would need or appreciate. But it is also a challenge and sometimes a pleasure to try and match a gift with a person. But God offers this gift to us because he knows we need it. Why do we need it? The first part of the verse says that the wages of sin is death. We need life because all of us are destined to die. Why? Because we are sinners. What is sin? We have a tendency to think of sin in particular actions or attitudes. Sin is lying, stealing, killing, cheating, and similar actions not to do. We think of these sins as sins. We don’t want to break any one of the 10 commandments because we will be guilty of sin. But the Bible says that we are all guilty of sin. We have all sinned and come short of what God would have us to be. No matter how good you are or think you are, God says it is not good enough. No matter how many good deeds you do, God says it is not enough. No matter how much you help the poor and the needy, it is not good enough. No matter how much you love your friends or your enemies, God says it is not good enough. We have all fallen short to God’s standards. We see basically what sin is by looking at the story of Adam and Eve in the garden. The story illustrates what sin is. God told the man not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and if he did he would die. But the serpent tempted Eve by telling her she would not surely die by eating the fruit, and if she did she would become as wise as God, knowing good from evil. So the first couple disobeyed God because they wanted to know as much as God. They wanted to be like God. They refused to acknowledge God’s rule over them. That’s what sin basically is. Sin wants to live independently of God. Sin is the desire to be the ruler and master of our own lives. Sin is the refusal to let God be the ruler and master of our lives. And God told Adam that if he disobeyed him he would surely die. He would return to dust because he came from dust. According to the story, God drove them out of the garden. Sin causes separation from God. There is something in each of us that wants to rebel against God. We do not want God to rule over us. We want to do what we want to do. Even a little baby wants what he wants. All he is concerned about is meeting his own needs. He does not want anyone to deprive him of what he wants and needs. Our desire to do our own thing results in actions which we recognize as sins. Lying, stealing, sexual immorality are sinful acts stemming from our desire to rebel and disobey God. We don’t want God to rule over us. We want to make it on our own. We want to lift ourselves up by own boot straps. Now because we have this rebellious nature, God says that our sin has earned us death. God told man in the garden if he disobeyed him, he would surely die. There is some of Adam in each one of us. We are sinners. Because we are sinners we have earned the wages of death. Our sin brings death upon us. The Bible says that everyone that sins shall die. The word wages refers to the rations that a soldier in those days received for their pay. What we receive from sin is death. The first couple didn”t die right away. Adam lived 930 years, but he died, just as God said he would. We have inherited the sin nature from Adam. Sin is in our DNA. We are all sinners. Whether or not we believe in Adam and Eve literally, we know that sin is real. We know that we are sinners. We feel it in our bones. There is something in us that makes us do something we instinctively know is wrong. We may try to kid ourselves, but we know we are sinners. Sin is an universal plague of all humankind. All religions believe that there is something wrong with us and we have to do something to please God or to bring ourselves closer to God. Even the atheist or agnostic wants to become a better person. Even they realize there is something wrong with them that needs improvement. They don’t call it sin, but they know there is something in their lives that needs improvement. So you know what? Sin is like a disease that we have inherited. And you know that the result of sin is death. I don’t care whether you live 80, 90, 100 years, you are going to have to leave here. Because we are sinners we are destined to die. We are destined to be separated from these bodies. 100 years from now all of us are just going to be some lumps of dust in the earth. How many here know that they are going to die, to be separated from these bodies? And we even know that we feel separated from God. We know we are not all we are supposed to be. But there is some good news. God knew we had a need. God knew we were destined to die. God knew we needed just the opposite of death. What is the opposite of death? Life. So God offers us a gift that we need. All of us need life because we are destined to die. All of us need the gift God has for us. The verse says that the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. There is a flip side to the coin of death. Death doesn’t have to be the final word. The first part of the verse is all bad news. The wages of sin is death. Death—separated from God. Death—separated from each other. That’s why there is so much hostility between people all over the world. We are separated from each other. That’s why there are so many wars. That’s why there is so much terrorism, so much hatred among people. Sin causes separation, not only from God, but from each other. We need the gift God has for us. God offers us the gift of eternal life. What are we going to do with the gift God offers us? That is the question every person needs to answer for him or herself. We can’t worry about what somebody else is going to do with the gift. What are you doing to do with the gift? We know that most people will never decide what to do with the gift. That is why the world continues to be the dangerous and terrible place it is. What are you going to do with the gift God has for you? So for the rest of the sermon we are going to talk about the gift God has for us. We have seen that we all need it. But what are we going to do with it? The first thing we do is to receive it. We must receive the gift of God. A gift does you no good unless you receive it. If I have a gift for you but you never receive it, it does you no good. No matter how much you believe that you need or want the gift, you will never have it until you receive it. God has a gift for everyone. John 3:16 says that God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosever believes in him shall have eternal life. God offers his gift to everyone. But it stands to reason that a gift must be received. Some believe that everybody has the gift whether they receive it or not. Some people are Universalists who say that everybody is going to be saved and everybody is going to have that life whether they receive it or not. It’s for everybody whether they receive it or not. But I differ with them on this. No matter how much I want to believe that everyone eventually will have the gift of God, I believe that it must be received. It stands to reason that a gift must be received. Then the question arises how do we receive it? The gift is free. Some Bibles translate this verse by saying the free gift from God. Some gifts are not free. If I give a gift to a person if they recite a Bible verse, that gift is not free. It is not free because the person had to do something to receive it. But God offers us a free gift with no strings attached. Now there are some who would argue that it is not a free gift because you have to do something to get it. You have to consciously or intentionally receive it. God gives us a free gift as a gracious act on his part. But the Bible seems to teach that the act of faith we need to receive that gift also comes from God. So not only is the gift free, but the action necessary to receive the gift is also free. But his opens up a can of worms. How many can see that if the faith or the will or action to receive the gift comes from God, what about those to whom God does not give the faith or the will to receive the gift? Are they denied the gift just because God doesn’t choose to give them the faith or the power or the will to reach out and take the gift? I have wondered about this. What if God only choses some to receive the gift? He offers it to all, but only those whom he chooses will have the faith or the ability to receive the gift. Does this mean that God chooses some to receive the gift of life and others must remain in death? This is something that has been argued down through the centuries. Now let me tell you something about me. You have to understand something about me. I don’t have all the answers. I’m not one of those preachers who know everything. Some preachers would have you believe that that they know as much as God. But nobody knows the mind of God. If we knew everything about the ways of God, we would be gods ourselves. We have to let God be God. There are some things we will never know about God. Don’t let any preacher tell you that he knows all the answers. If you come across a preacher who never says I don’t know, you had better watch him. Harold Camping, the radio preacher who predicted that he knew the world would end on May 21, made a fool of himself. When we go out on a limb and pretend to know as much as God does we end up with egg on our faces. I don’t know whether God chooses some to receive the gift and others to remain in sin and death. But I do know that God issues an invitation for all to come and receive his gift. The gift is offered to everyone. Some will receive it and some will not. But each of us can decide for ourselves whether we will receive the gift. How then do we receive the gift? The King James Bible in our pew says the gift is through Jesus Christ. But more modern translations say the gift is in Jesus Christ. We must receive Christ in order to receive the gift of eternal life. When you receive a gift for Christmas many times the gift will be wrapped in a box. We must receive the box in order to get the gift inside. Eternal life is in Jesus Christ because he is the only one who rose from the dead. He is the only one who conquered death and the grave. Why would I want to get life from Mohammed who is somewhere dead in a grave? Why would I seek life in someone dead like Confucius or Buddha or whoever? I can only get life from someone who is alive. He demonstrated he is life when he got up from the grave on Easter Sunday morning. You ask me why I receive the gift of eternal life. It is because Jesus lives. He lives. He lives for evermore. He died once but he lives for evermore. Paul when he wrote this verse was addressing folks in the church. He is assuming that his readers had received eternal life through Christ. The verse is usually used with people who are assumed not to be Christians, whom we believe have never accepted Christ. But you can’t assume anything. If you are sitting here today and are not 100% sure that you have received the gift of eternal life, you better make sure before you leave church today. The gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ. But don’t you see that there is more to a gift then just receiving it. We usually respond to a gift we receive. We usually say thank you for a gift we receive. How do we respond to the gift of life from God? God wants us to respond to the gift of life by growing to be more like Christ. We say thank you for a gift someone has given us by using it. My stepdaughter, Jan comes to our house about twice a month to do some cleaning for her mother and me. She had given me a gift of a shirt some time ago for Christmas or my birthday. But as she was doing the cleaning she noticed that her gift of the shirt was still in the box. I had never worn the shirt. I had never used the gift. When we fail to use a gift someone has given us it makes them feel that we do not appreciate the gift we have received. God has given us the gift of eternal life. But what have we done with it? How have we used it? The gift of eternal life is more than a ticket to heaven. If it were a ticket to heaven only God would have taken us to him with nothing to do while we are on earth. The old spiritual says, “I’ m on my way to heaven anyhow.” But what are we doing while we are on our way to heaven. Some people feel as if they have got it made when they receive Christ. They are worried about what will happen to them after death. They want to make sure that they will go to heaven and not to the other place. What we receive from sin is death. Death means separation from God and even separation from each other. God drove Adam and Eve out of the garden according to the story. He separated himself from them and eventually they all suffered physical death. And many times we have used this verse that way. A great preacher back in the 18th Century named Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon entitled, “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.” He described hell in such vivid terms that the worshippers were holding on to their seats as if to keep themselves from falling into hell. But the gift of eternal life is more than a ticket to heaven or a passport out of hell. It is a call to do something for God in the here and now. Some think once they have been saved they have it made. All they have to do is sit back and let God take care of them. They have received the gift of eternal life and now God is required to take care of them. That is true. But we have a job to do for God. We say thanks to God by developing a relationship with Jesus Christ. Receiving the gift of eternal life is more of a response to God’s love than a fear of his wrath. God desires us to become more and more like Jesus Christ. Paul wrote this particular passage because some people were saying that since they had received eternal life and had been saved from their sins by God’s grace, they could live anyway they wanted to. The greater they sinned the greater would be God’s grace in their lives. Paul is telling them you have been saved and given eternal life not to sin but to bear fruit by obedience to God which leads to holiness. We should no longer be slaves to sin but servants of God. We have to use the gift God has given us to overcome sin in our lives, to grow in the Christian faith, and to be transformed more and more to become like Jesus. We have been separated from sin and death so we can become more separated to Christ and bear fruit pleasing in his sight. God is not through with us yet. This growth in Christ will not just come automatically. We have to do our part. But God’s grace is available to aid us. To be like Christ is to draw closer to God through prayer, meditation, reading of Scripture. To be like Christ is to be loving and kind. To be like Christ is to care for the poor, the lonely, the hungry, the sick, the afflicted. To be like Christ means to love as he loved. To be like Christ is to be forgiving even as Jesus forgave those who crucified him on the cross. To be like Christ means to witness for him and go and make disciples for him as he has commanded us to do. To be like Christ is to gather together in worship in church when he promised to meet us here. To be conformed to the image of Christ is not an easy task. Salvation and eternal life is free but there is still the cost of discipleship. We do not go to heaven on flowery beds of ease. If Jesus bore his cross we have our crosses to bear. There is a cross for everyone and there is a cross for everyone and there is a cross for each of us. Living the eternal life is a continuous process. It does not happen overnight. A charge we have to keep. We have a God to glorify. We have a dying soul to save and fit it for the skies. God has a work for us to do while we are here. He is preparing us for eternity with him. The fact that you are still here indicates that God is not through with you yet. God has some more work for you to do. It’s not over until it is over. What are you to do with the gift God offers you? We receive it and respond to it by using it. But finally we enjoy its reward forever. Where are you going to spend eternity? That is the bottom line. Our lives on this earth are very brief. This long, but our life in eternity goes on for millions and millions of years forever. You are going to spend eternity somewhere. Are you going to spend it with God or separated from God. Separation from God means death. God wants us to enjoy life with him forever. With God the Bible says there are pleasures forever more. The bottom line is where are you going to spend eternity? With God or separated from him? It’s your choice. After we have worked down here for a little while God will call us home. Someday it will be over. I do not know how long ‘twill be nor what the future holds for me. But this I know if Jesus leads me I shall get home someday. And when I get there I want to hear him say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of the Lord. What are you going to do with your gift from God?