This Christmas Season: Discovering the True Meaning of Gifts in Faith

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast,

where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

In this podcast series, we're going to be looking into biblical

words that have great significance to our faith.

The name of this series is called the Word of the Week, where

once a week we will dive deeper into these words that we are

familiar with in scripture.

So come along with me.

Let's study the Word of the week.

Pastor Josh here.

The word of the week is gift.

Actually, we're going to say that this is the word of the month.

For the next few weeks, we're going to be looking at the word gift

and how we can see in Scripture what it means to, number

one, receive a gift of God, but also to be able to understand

how we can give good gifts as God has given us gifts in our life.

And so we can see the word gift of throughout the Scriptures

and the passage of scripture that comes to mind when it comes

to the gift is Ephesians, chapter 2, verses 8 and 9.

Ephesians 2:8

It says, for by grace are ye saved through faith.

So the Bible says that we are given grace.

And that word grace just means given something that we don't deserve,

the gift of grace.

So it says, for by grace, that's God's grace, are ye saved?

So we're saved through the gift of grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And it says that it's through faith.

And so the reason why we can receive this gift is our faith.

So we believe in the truth of God's word when it comes to the gospel,

the truth of Jesus Christ, and when we believe, we receive that

gift.

So for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

Meaning we didn't earn this.

Because you don't earn a gift.

It says it is not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

So the Bible tells us here that the most important gift that

we can receive is the gift of grace, the gift of salvation.

And so certainly we could have people come into our church and we

could say, hey, everyone, as you leave today, there's a gift waiting

for you in the lobby.

Now, that gift is offered to all of the people in our service,

but it would be those that would go and receive that gift that

would be the beneficiaries of that gift in their life.

And so it's the same thing with the gift of grace.

God is extending that gift of grace to those that need it.

But yet it's through our faith that we are able to receive that

gift.

So the greatest gift of God is given to us through the gospel message,

the truth of the gospel.

There's another passage of Scripture that mentions that word

gift.

It's in Romans, chapter six.

Romans, chapter six starts with the whole passage of Scripture

dealing with God's grace and how we can understand that gift of

grace.

And then we get to the very last verse.

There it says, for the wages of sin.

So we see a gift is something that we don't earn with our own works.

A gift is given to us, even though we might not even deserve

that.

That's grace.

So he says, the wages.

So what?

What do we deserve?

What's the payment that we actually deserve?

Well, for all of us, that sin, which, you know, newsflash, that's

all of us, right?

The Bible says for all of sin, they come short of the glory of God.

So it says, for the wages of sin is death.

The payment for sin.

The wages of sin is death, separation from God, spiritual death.

And we know that the Bible says that in and of ourselves, we

cannot earn salvation.

We cannot earn the gift of grace.

It says, but.

And this is the second part of this verse, but the gift of God is

eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And so it's essentially reiterating what's mentioned there

in Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

We can't earn our salvation.

We cannot pay for it.

We cannot get that gift in our own strength.

All we can do is come to, as it says here, through Jesus Christ,

our Lord in faith.

And what do we receive?

Well, it's the gift of God.

Eternal life, salvation.

And so as we get into this Christmas season, as we come into

the month of December, we're thinking about this phrase, gift

of God.

Now, the greatest gift of God is the gift of salvation.

But we also know that as Christians, we are given gifts, spiritual

gifts.

And we are called to use those spiritual gifts to encourage those

that are in our fellowship at the church, to edify, to build up

other believers.

We're called to use our spiritual gifts to encourage Christians

and to evangelize the lost, to lead people to Christ.

So we are not given the gift to hoard to ourselves and to keep

for our own pleasure, though there is benefit, benefits to having

the gift of God's grace in our life, certainly eternal life and

the blessings that come with that.

But we are also called to turn around and give that back to other

people, though we can't offer the gift itself, we can bring people

to the truth of God and we can explain to them what has been gifted

to us.

And so therefore, we can use the gift of grace in our life as

an opportunity to treat people with the love of God, to serve people

as God has served us.

And we know that through these passages of Scripture in the New

Testament, that as the church, we are called to serve others.

We are called to love others.

We are called to demonstrate all those things that God has given

to us, to other people around us.

And so, really, I want you to think about those two verses, Ephesians,

Ephesians 2:8

chapter 2, verse 8.

For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

It is a gift of God, your salvation.

If you're a believer in Jesus Christ and you have everlasting life,

if you have put your faith in him, you have the gift of grace.

You have been gifted something that cannot be bought you, you have

been gifted something that cannot be earned.

You are a beneficiary of the love of God.

And so therefore, it's not your good works, it's God's good

work that you are trusting in for salvation.

So you have that gift if you are a believer in Jesus Christ.

And in contrast to that gift, what do we earn?

Well, Romans, chapter 6, verse 23.

Romans 6:23

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life

through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

So I wanted to, as we get started in this month of looking

at that Word gift, I wanted us to start thinking about the framework

or the context in which we have received this gift and how we

share the truth of this gift to other people.

So God gives us in eternal life, God gives us with salvation,

but God gives us with a lot of other things in our life.

So God has come to give us life and life more abundantly.

Sometimes the perception is that, well, you know, God saved me,

but now my life is miserable in him.

And that's not the case.

That's actually the opposite.

The Bible says that after we're saved, though it doesn't mean

that we're going to live perfect lives or lives that are completely

smooth with no issues.

But we are gifted things in our life.

James Chapter 1, verse 17 says, Every good gift, there's our

James 1:17

Word again.

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.

So the Bible tells us that every good thing that we have in

our life, starting with salvation and following in every

other area of our life, anything that we can point to and

say, that's a good gift, that's a good thing in my life, that

comes from God.

And so that brings us back to what we looked at last week.

Thankfulness, right?

If I look at my life in the framework of my own works, I deserve

what the wages of sin is, death.

I deserve nothing.

That's a hard thing to say in our society today because our society

teaches you deserve everything, get what you can.

And so biblically speaking, what do we deserve in our own works,

in our own character, in our own flesh?

This is hard to take in, but biblically speaking, we deserve nothing.

So when we receive the gift of grace, when we receive these blessings

from God, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.

It's from God.

So we give him thankfulness, we give him praise, we give him service,

we give him love.

Why?

Because he first loved us.

And so to think about it from that perspective is I don't deserve

this.

I have received this wonderful, amazing gift and now I

need to live that way.

I need to live with that expectation of the goodness of God.

I need to live with that attitude of gratitude.

I need to live with the joy of being a gift receiver.

Yes, but also a gift giver.

We even know in the New Testament it says it's better to

give than receive, right?

So we have received a gift.

Now what do we do with that gift?

We don't keep it to ourselves.

We tell other people about that gift.

And so that's what we're going to be talking about here this month.

For the next few weeks through the month of December, we're going

to look at the elements of God's gift to us, God's gift through

us, and how we can share the love and the forgiveness of the Gospel

to those around us here in this season and really year round.

So hope that you can join me in this series here in the month

of December.

We've got this week and then we have next week, the next week.

And then Christmas will be our last message here for the gift.

So we actually have 1, 2, 3, 4 different gift word of the weeks

that you can follow along with us this month.

And I hope that you can.

I hope that this can be a wonderful season of Thanksgiving,

a wonderful season of understanding the gift of God and

just a time in which we can really focus on the greatest gift.

And we know that God loved us so much that he gave his only begotten

son.

That's John 3:16.

John 3:16

It's the gift is Jesus.

The gift is his sacrifice for us.

And so he did that out of his love.

We give gifts to people because we love them.

We give things to people because they mean something to us.

And so God loved us so much that he gave his only begotten Son.

And those who believe in him will not perish.

But what will they have?

They'll have everlasting life, which ties right into what Romans

Romans 6:23

chapter 6, verse 23 said.

The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So come along with us as we look at the greatest gift ever given.

And that is the gospel, the truth of Jesus Christ.

Well, we look forward to hearing from you.

We look forward to coming back to you next week with another Word

of the Week looking at this term gift.

And I pray that God can clearly demonstrate to you and you

can receive that gift of grace as a believer here today.

So hope that you join us for this month.

God bless you.

Have a wonderful week.

We will talk to you soon.

Hey, I really appreciate that you listened to the Word of the Week

podcast.

If you have any questions about the podcast or about our church,

Middletown Baptist Church, you can find more information about us

on Facebook or YouTube.

Or you can find the podcast on NBCPodcast.org you can contact me

directly at Josh [email protected].

stay tuned for future Word of the Week episodes where we dive deeper

into words that impact our life according to scripture.

Thank you so much.

God Bless.

We'll talk to you soon.