His Gift to You
December 24th, 1997His Gift to You
Romans 6:23
12/24/97
James 1:17 says,”Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights. ” (NKJV)Our God is a giver, is He not?What a Giver! He gives lots of gifts. He gives quality gifts - they are good and they are perfect. He gives gifts that are priceless. He gives gifts that last. And He is always giving. But there is one Gift that Paul called “the gift of God”. There are lots of gifts that I am so thankful for, but then there is “THE GIFT”. Tonight may you marvel at this gift, praise and thank God for it, and see afresh how wonderful it is. If you do not possess this gift, my prayer for you is that you would not leave here without it. Chapter six of Romans is a chapter of contrasts. Here are some of them:Death vs. life, slavery vs. freedom, unrighteousness vs. righteousness, law vs. grace. Verse 23 is the conclusion of an argument which the apostle Paul was making in this chapter to refute a certain false accusation that some were making about him. Paul preached grace - free, sovereign grace. Grace was the topic of every message he ever gave. He taught that salvation could not be earned by the keeping of the law but was a free gift of God. This made certain people upset. They didn’t like this message of free salvation. I can guess why they didn’t like it.
Think back to when you were a student, taking exams. For some of you, that was last week. I know, you would like to forget about school right now! But just imagine that you had studied real hard - hours and hours, for an exam that you knew was going to be a killer. You get to class, nervous, and tired from staying up half the night for the past week. The exam is handed out. You take the test in hand, and then you start trying to answer questions. The test is so hard your brain hurts. Half the test is essay and the other half is even harder. But because you paid the price studying all week, you manage to squeeze out some pretty decent answers. You finish with a few minutes to spare. The majority of the class is still writing when the teacher asks for the test. Several of your classmates told you before the test that they hardly studied at all. You know they were destroyed by that test. But you feel pretty good about it. The rest of the class is just about in tears.
When you get back to class after Christmas break, the teacher says that the tests have been graded. You feel pretty certain that you aced it. The teacher says that he has a special announcement to make. Most of the test scores were so bad that he decided to throw them all out and give everyone an A on the exam, just for showing up to take it. He says that is his Christmas gift to the class. 99% of the class burst forth into ecstatic cheering. But inside you are feeling dumfounded. You cannot believe that your teacher would do that! Those guys didn’t deserve As! You studied hard and you probably earned an A. It seems unbelievably unfair. Your teacher has just rewarded slackness and ignorance. After a few minutes you are more than a little upset - you are steaming mad. How dare that teacher do that! After sleeping on it, you decide that you will take your complaint to the principal the next morning.
That is probably a little like what the apostle Paul’s accuser’s felt like. They were religious people who tried hard to obey God and keep His commandments. Here comes this teacher named Paul who is telling everybody that it doesn’t matter how badly they have failed in life, that they can now get into heaven for free! It’s this thing called grace, Paul says, so that where your sin abounded, grace abounded even more and no matter how much you have sinned, grace has got it covered. The self-righteous people were mad. “How dare this guy try to give away to sinners what we have worked so hard for! “They started saying, “Well, if that is what Paul is teaching, I guess we all ought to sin as much as possible since where sin abounded grace abounded more. The more you sin, the more the grace!”
Of course this was a mockery of what Paul was teaching and totally erroneous. Paul argued masterfully to refute their folly in Romans chapter 6. As I said, verse 23 is his conclusion to this argument to disprove those who were accusing Paul of giving people a license to sin. The basic argument of chapter 6 is that a Christian is someone that used to be a slave of sin, but has now been set free from sin’s penalty and power, to be a servant of God. How can a person who has been set free from sin keep living in it?How can a person who is under the control of God’s grace be dominated by sin any longer?There are only two types of life - one lived in slavery to sin and the other lived in slavery to God. And there are only two ultimate results from living under these two masters:If sin is your master, your wages are death. If God is your master, you are given the free gift of eternal life.
There are only two types of people in this world:either you are a believer in Christ or an unbeliever; Either Christ is your Lord or Sin is your master; You either have your house built on the sand or on the rock;You are either on the broad way or the narrow way;You either serve God or Mammon - you cannot serve two masters! In this world people are divided up into different races, cultures, and nationalities. But the only division the Bible makes separates people into one of two categories:either a person is saved or lost, going to heaven or to hell, living for Christ or themselves, serving sin or serving God. There is no in-between - no gray area. It is all black or white. Either you are born again or you are still dead in sin. The difference between the two sides is like light vs. darkness or life vs. death.
Let’s look at the first master and the outcome of living under it:
I. THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH
Sin is a cruel master that pays wages of death, misery and woe. Every human being is born into this world with a sinful heart and nature. Before you could utter your first intelligible words, sin was your master. As you grow up, you begin to do the things that sin tells you to do. Sin is personified in this verse and is represented as either a general who pays wages to his soldiers or as a slave-owner who pays his slaves an allowance. In those times, soldiers were paid a daily ration - which might have been in money, meat or some other commodity. The Romans even paid a little pocket-money to their slaves and it was said that a good slave could earn enough in seven years to buy his freedom. As a slave to sin, a person earns wages. Those wages are something that are deserved and earned by the person serving sin. The wages of sin - the daily paycheck is death. Adam and Eve were warned by God in the garden that if they sinned by eating of the tree God said not to eat of, they would surely die. The moment they sinned, they died spiritually. They were separated from God and their sinless souls fell into ruin. Sin became their master that day, and started paying wages immediately. Sin pays wages all our life long, and then at the end of life there is one lump payment - eternal death in the lake of fire. Are you serving this master?Are you happy with your wages? But what about the other Master - God/Christ - Let’s look at the outcome of having Him as your Master:
II. THE GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD
God is quite a different Master than sin. Sin pays wages of death, but God pays no wages at all, for no man can put Him in their debt. The only way to get anything from God is as a gift. This gift cannot be bought or purchased with any amount of good deeds or religious practices. Human merit cannot gain this gift. The Greek word for gift in this verse is “CHARISMA” and it means “the gift of divine grace”. What is this gift?Life - eternal life - everlasting life. John 10:10 says, “The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come so that they might have life, and that they might have [it] more abundantly. ” (NKJV)Why would anyone choose sin and death over Christ and life?
It is a clear choice and yet people in our day are choosing death with knowledge of what they are getting into. The culture of death is more and more prevalent in this nation. Abortion, assisted suicide, the alternative youth culture with its black clothes and obsession with death and evil. Satan has truly blinded the minds of his slaves. Truly, even to desire eternal life is a gift from God. Eternal life is a gift. That means it can only be received. It cannot be earned by any merit on our part. It is free to all who will receive it. Even someone who has served sin notoriously for many years. Even someone like Ted Kaczinski, the alleged unibomber. Even someone like Timothy McVeigh, who killed all those people in the Oklahoma City bombing can have eternal life simply by asking for it.
Of course this is where many people get upset. How could God save such despicable persons, who have not done anything at all for God?It seems so unfair - like the teacher who gave everyone in the class an A. Oh that’s right! We left our student in the principal’s office. I wonder what happened?The principal listened to the student’s complaint and then decided to call the teacher to his office. When the teacher came, the student was angry and told the teacher that he didn’t want to be given an A, but wanted to take the grade he earned. The teacher happened to bring the test with him and said OK, and he handed the test to the student. To his utter astonishment, he failed it! The student thought he had an A and yet actually failed it. The teacher said that everyone had failed it and come short of the passing grade.
The Bible says, in Romans 3:23,”for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. ” (NKJV)Not one of us has made a passing grade. We all stand in need of grace. From Mother Teresa to Billy Graham to the Pope of Rome - all must receive salvation as a free gift from the hand of a gracious God. This gift is “IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD. “It is in Him and in Him alone.
What do you have to do to get this gift? Simply repent of your sins and receive it by faith. Since the gift is in Christ, you must have Christ to have the gift. 1 John 5:11&12 says, “And this is the record, that God has given to us everlasting life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. ” (NKJV)Have you received Christ as your Lord and Savior?Tonight God has a gift to offer to you - eternal life. This gift is wrapped up in Jesus Christ. It is covered with the blood He shed on the cross to make atonement for sins. It is full of His resurrection life. It is freely offered to you tonight. Take this gift - take Christ to be your Master right now. When Christ becomes your Master, sin is dethroned and your life will change. You won’t be able to go on living in sin, because you will be dead to sin and alive to God. You will want to do good works, because of your love for the One who has given you this most precious gift of eternal life.
Let us all thank God tonight for His awesome gift of salvation! The bread and the cup are emblems of this salvation O taste and see that the Lord is good!
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