PROSPER SPIRIT SOUL AND BODY
Gifts Of God (Not Gifts of the Spirit)By Sven Grahn
In Acts 2, we read the account of the Day of Pentecost
when all the apostles received the gift of the Holy Spirit, and in v 38 Peter is
saying
‘Repent and be baptised, and you
will be forgiven your sins and receive the Holy Spirit - you, your children and
future generations’.
I am not going to speak on the specific gifts of the
Holy Spirit, but digress to the Gifts of God.
"Every good gift and every perfect
gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights,
with whom is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning" (James 1:17).
Let us start by considering what constitutes a gift.
It is something given to you,
without condition, as opposed to something that you have earned.
How we respond to the giving of that gift is also
something worth considering and there are two factors which are largely at work
here
Firstly, who gives us the gift, and secondly is that gift of any
practical use to us?
Let’s expand on this by using a hypothetical example.
Imagine the caring husband who is buying his wife a birthday present.
He spends
the usual long time thinking about the gift, considering all the usual ideas
like chocolates, flowers, jewellery,
but eventually finds something and he buys
it. On her birthday, she unwraps it and from amongst the of wrapping paper
emerges a garden spade!
Yes, a spade! A rather strange gift to give you might
think – and you’d problibly be right, but what I did not mention,
is that the
wife is a very keen gardener and the handle of her current spade is just about
ready to snap off.
What seems to others, to be a poorly thought out gift
turns out to be a well thought out gift that she values greatly.
So you see,
the gift doesn’t have to be expensive or have a worldly appeal, but only has to
be of value to the receiver,
and
some of that value may come because of who it is giving the gift, in
this case, the loving husband.
Some gifts, while expensive and from someone we love, can be poorly thought out, and
for example if my wife were to give me a
hair straightner for my birthday – well, being bald, I’m sorry
to say, I don’t think it would hold much value for me!
So, the question is – do we really need the gift we are being given, and how much do we value
the person giving the gift?
What we are going to do now is unwrap some of the
gifts that God gives us and I’d like you to hold these questions in your head
as we look at them
1) Do we need it?
2)
Do we value the giver?
Let us start in the book of Ecclesiastes and chapter
3. This is a rather unusual gift, not one that you would immediately
connect to
being a gift of God, but one that is available to all mankind, is
the gift of God.
V12+13
I know that there is nothing better for
them, than to rejoice, and to do good so long as they live.
And also that every
man should eat and drink, and enjoy good in all his labour, is the gift of God.
What’s this gift about? v12 – says that it is to
rejoice, to do good in life, v13 – to eat, drink and enjoy the fruits of your
labour.
It’s all about finding satisfaction in our life, being happy with what
we’ve got and what we do.
It’s the simple things in life like being able to eat
and drink, being able to share that with our friends and enjoy the work we do.
Ecclesiastes is telling us that all this is a gift of God!
When we look around us today and see so many unhappy
people in the world, they haven’t got enough money, they want more,
they want
bigger and better things; they are unhappy with the way life is treating them
and they are the ones
who are missing out on this gift of God – the gift of
enjoying the fruits of our labour.
The challenge is to recognise that it is
a gift – but how often do we look upon it as a gift?
We
must be happy with what we have rather than acting as the rest of the world
does in looking for bigger and better things.
Let us move on to our next gift. John 4.
Jesus is travelling through Samaria and meets up with
the woman at the well.
He sat down on the well and this woman comes and Jesus
asks her for a drink.
Here we have Jesus talking about the gift of God, but
what is this gift he is talking about?
In answer Jesus said,
v12 If you had
knowledge of the gift God and who it is who says to you, Give me water, you
would make your prayer to him,
and he would give you living water.
V13+14 Jesus
said to her, Everyone who takes this water will be in need of it again:
But whoever takes the water I give him will
never be in need of drink again;
for the water I give him will become in him a
fountain of eternal life.
It doesn’t seem to be that he is referring to himself
for he says
‘If you had knowledge of the gift of God, and who it is that is saying this
to you’ –
He is speaking
about two things which are separate - and goes on to say that He would have
given her living water had He been asked.
The gift here isn’t Jesus Himself,
but the living water, or rather the words spoken by Jesus, which is the Word of
God.
So, now if the
gift of God is the Word that He was speaking.
How often do we think of the Words
of Jesus as a gift from God and as a gift that we really need?
Do we value this Gift or do we just leave it on our
bookshelf gathering dust?
What did the woman do?
v15 – She perceived that the gift being offered was of
great value, although her understanding of it was not complete as she did not
realise
quite what water Jesus was talking about. Do we understand the true
value of this gift being offered to us?
Here is another gift that God has provided for us. Its
called Grace
A wonderful gift indeed – the gift of grace. (2Co
9:6-15)
But this I say, He that sows sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he
that sows bountifully shall reap also bountifully.
Let each man do
according as he hath purposed in his heart: not grudgingly, or of necessity:
for God loves a cheerful giver.
And God is able to make all grace abound unto you; that you, having
always all sufficiency in everything, may abound unto every good work: as it is
written,
He has scattered abroad, he has given to the poor; His righteousness
abides for ever. And he that supplies seed to the sower
and bread for food,
shall supply and multiply your seed for sowing, and increase the fruits of your
righteousness: being enriched in everything unto all liberality,
which works
through our thanksgiving to God. For the ministration of this service not only
fills up the measure of the wants of the saints,
but abounds also through many
thanksgivings unto God; seeing that through the proving of you by this ministration they glorify God
for the obedience
of your confession unto the gospel of Christ, and for the liberality of your contribution unto them and unto
all; while they themselves also,
with supplication on your behalf, long after
you by reason of the exceeding grace
of God in you. Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift.
Grace is that
gift, and it’s because of the Grace in you, that you are able to give.
These gifts are really starting to pile up now –
grace, the word of God, fruits of our labour and here is another one in Romans 5: 17.
For if, by
the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one; much more shall they
that receive the abundance of grace and of the
gift of righteousness reign in
life through the one, even
Jesus Christ
The one gift we have already looked at, and that’s “grace”,
but here also another called, the gift of “righteousness”.
What’s this one
about then, this gift of righteousness? It’s the being able to declare us
righteous even though we have sinned,
so what we have here is the gift of
forgiveness. And how did that gift come about? – v18,
So then as through one trespass the judgment came unto
all men to condemnation;
even so through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life
This gift came to us through the actions of one man,
the one we remember this morning. Forgiveness is closely related to grace,
but
through the death of Jesus we have another gift we can add to our list. Do we
see a need for this gift in our lives, do we value it,
do we value what had to
happen before this gift became available to us – which was God sacrificing his
only begotten son upon the cross.
Our challenge is to see the need for this
gift in our lives.
V21: that, as
sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Here
we see grace linked with eternal life and if we
move into the next chapter we see another verse concerning eternal life.
For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of
God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
What we have here is that grace, forgiveness of sins
and another gift, eternal life all closely linked together.
Another gift
which we do not realise is a gift in 2Cor. 1:8-10
For we would not have you ignorant, brethren,
concerning our affliction which befell us
in Asia, that we were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power, insomuch that
we despaired even of life: , we
ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not
trust in ourselves, but in God who raised the dead: who delivered us out of so great a death, and will deliver: on whom we
have set our hope that he will also still deliver us;
This is not the sort of gift that we perhaps think
about, but still a gift of God nonetheless. We
have it appears, Paul and Timothy, going through
a tough time in Asia believing
that their life was in danger, there was a terrible threat to their lives, but
they believed through
God’s grace they would be delivered from that danger.
What is this gift that Paul is referring to?
It is in the context of prayer as brethren and sisters
had been praying for Paul and Timothy to be delivered from the danger
they
faced and those prayers had been answered – the gift here is the gift of prayer being answered. Not so
much the prayers of Paul and Timothy,
but the prayers of other brethren and
sisters made for them – and those prayers were answered. Paul says ‘That’s a gift of God!’
Sometimes we don’t always think of prayer like that,
we don’t always think that when we offer a prayer for someone else,
that the
answer for that person is a gift from God. Paul acknowledges this gift saying
it was their prayers that allowed his work to continue.
We should never
underestimate the value of prayer and the gift that God gives us when answering
our prayers.
We find another gift in Philippians 1:29
Because to
you it has been granted on the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him,
but also to suffer in his behalf:
It’s fair to say that we would not really consider
this to be a gift of God, but I present it to you that it is indeed a gift. Nothing immediately suggests gift,
but the
idea of ‘given’ or in this version “granted” speaks to us of a gift, the gift
to be able to believe on Jesus Christ, but also the gift of suffering for his
sake.
How can that be a gift? Well, it can help us to appreciate a little of
what he went through to make all these other gifts available to us,
which are
all obtainable because of Christ’s suffering. But sometimes suffering in
Christ’s name is something that we need,
to help us realise the true value that
can be found in the gift of eternal life. If life was perfect would we still
feel a practical need for some of these gifts?
We’ve had a look at quite a few gifts this morning,
there are more we could have looked at but our pile is quite big enough – we
have the gift of finding contentment in what we have, the gift of God’s word,
the gift of grace, forgiveness of sins, eternal life, the gift of answers to
our prayers.
All these gifts and more God given to us. What do we have to do,
what are our responsibilities?
Deut 30, and in v19 we have the words of Moses spoken
to the people of Israel.
I call heaven and earth to witness against you this
day, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse:
therefore choose life,
that thou may live, you and your seed;
Life (one of the gifts) or death? Moses tells Israel to
choose life. So it is with us, we are called to choose life, but that’s exactly
what it is, a choice.
If we want eternal life we can have it, it’s our choice,
if we want the gift of forgiveness of sins, it’s ours if we choose.
Equally we
can simply reject them all, our choice. All these wonderful gifts can be ours,
but how we respond to them is important.
Do we cherish them, do we love them
and accept them into our lives with rejoicing, or do we accept them and then
push them to the back of the drawer, essentially forgotten, unvalued and
unused? It’s entirely our choice what we do with these gifts.
How does God view these gifts he has given?
For us, we have a choice whether to accept these gifts
or not, but God sees it in a totally different light. Let’s look at Rom.11:29
For the gifts and calling of God are without
repentance.
Without repentance, the NIV uses the word irrevocable
– this shows us where God stands, he will not withdraw his offer of gifts,
he
will not change his mind. When Jesus died, God gave us forgiveness of sins, he
will never take that away from us.
God has placed these gifts before us
and they will always be available to us, God will be faithful, he doesn’t
change – you see, it is for us to simply reach out and take what we want.
Now we turn our attention to the emblems of bread and
wine in communion, and think about the great gift that we have not
spoken so
much of yet- the gift of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Through the giving of
his life all these gifts are made available, irrevocable in the eyes of God.
So
it is now we can offer our sincere thanks to God for all the wonderful gifts he
offers and indeed also for the grace and love he
has shown us in giving us his
Son.
As God's servant,
how will you faithfully manage gifts that have been out into your care?
What will you do with your intellect,
your compassion, your hobby,
your popularity, your athletic
ability, your time, your money, and all the rest, knowing that
these all come from God -
and that we will give an accounting for our
management?
Hoarding such things for yourself or hiding them away where
no one might find them are options, to be sure.
Likewise, you could live
life without ever going to your safe to make a withdrawal,
wantonly and
wastefully frittering away the gifts without managing them at all, without
putting any thought into their best use.
It's no surprise that none of these
lifestyles could be called faithful management of God's gifts, but what does?
God has not merely given you these gifts to
manage in life, or even life itself.
God has given you something of
immense value, something which must never be taken lightly:
He has given
you new life. God forgives our faithless management for the
sake of His Son's suffering and death on our behalf.
And the Holy Spirit
opens your eyes to see that Jesus, our master, has not left his servants alone,
without direction or hope. Jesus sent the Spirit to give us his gifts,
to
deposit hope in us and to guide our lives. We are to allow His Spirit to
open the safe door that we have left shut.
He will unearth the treasure
that we have buried in the ground.
The Holy Spirit will then enable us to
faithfully manage God's gifts, neither hoarding them nor wasting them.
Choose to walk in
God’s richest blessings
Sven Grahn
www.svenwgrahn.com
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