Four Gifts (Elder Cindi Morrison, 12/17/22)

It's Christmas.

It's Christmas.

When is Christmas?

What do the kids focus on?

What's under the tree, right?

And some adults kind of focus on that too,

except that adults sometimes are more focused on

what they're going to get people than what they're getting.

Sometimes we forget to focus on the greatest gift that was ever given.

You know, I had somebody this morning say,

four gifts? I'm really curious about what the fourth gift is.

Because they automatically think of gold,

frankincense, and myrrh, right?

Well, today we're going to focus on

four gifts that were given to us.

Okay?

On four gifts that the Father has given us.

Now, there's all kinds of gifts that can be given.

The ones I really dislike

are the ones that people give me because they feel like they're obligated to give me something.

It's like, thank you.

You know, don't give me something

because you feel like you're obligated to give me something.

Give me something because you want to.

Something that you've thought about that you think might please me.

Don't give me a basket of fruit.

Really, you know? So there's all kinds of gifts

that are given. This morning we're going to focus on

gifts that are from the Father's heart.

We read it in our scripture reading this morning.

And, Grace, I'm glad you read it in a different version

because you kind of said something new.

And that was really great.

The gifts from the Father's heart,

the ones that come from His heart to us.

Let's go back to our scripture again.

It's 1 Corinthians 1.30.

Of Him, the Father, we are in Christ.

His desire

is for us to be in Christ, to be all that we can be.

To be His sons and His daughters,

to be subjects of His royal kingdom.

His desire is for us, not against us.

His gifts are given to us

and they come from the Father's heart.

This business of being in Christ

is not our work, by the way.

It is the work of the Father Himself.

Of God we are in Christ.

The heart of the Father places us in Christ.

He, through the Spirit, inspires us, takes possession of us,

loves us, and places us in Christ.

The only condition to that gift

is our belief

and our acceptance of that gift.

We still have to do our part, of course.

Right? Prayer, faith, obedience.

Letting Him do His work in Him.

Sometimes I think the biggest and the hardest

word in the English language is let.

Our part is to let Him

do His work in us.

So often, our human

nature rises up against the let.

Somehow we want to do it our own way.

Our job is to let Him do His work.

But of God we are

in Christ Jesus. It is His heart,

it is His desire that we be in Christ.

To accomplish this, God sent us

some gifts. Now, there are many,

many, many, many gifts in the Bible

that come from the Father. But this text

contains four gifts. And that's what

we're going to focus on this morning.

He sent Jesus to be wisdom for us.

Is that an amazing gift or not?

He sent Him

to be His righteousness for us.

That's gift number two. Gift number three,

He sent Him to be His sanctification for us.

And gift number four, He sent Him to be

redemption for us.

Those are four pretty amazing gifts.

Jesus became for us

wisdom from God. That's the first gift.

What man lost

in the Garden of Eden is restored to us

in Christ. In Him are hidden all the

treasures of wisdom and knowledge. If we

are in Christ where the Father has placed us,

if we abide in Him, all the treasures of His

wisdom are available to us. I don't know about you,

but that's a pretty big gift. The gift of

wisdom. And this is a really good thing since

I freely admit I don't have any wisdom of my own.

How about you? Do you have any wisdom of your own?

I sure don't. I don't have wisdom of my own.

But all the treasures of His

wisdom are available to me.

So if I lack wisdom, what do I need to do?

Ask for it. And He'll

give it to me. Can't tell you how many

times I've failed to do that.

Ask Julie, she could probably give you some examples.

I know my girls probably didn't think I was very

wise when they were teenagers. You know, oh mom,

what does she know anyway? She's old fashioned. She just, yeah,

she's not with it. Yeah, well, now she's got

teenagers of her own.

But just think, the wisdom from God

He sent His son

as a helpless baby in a manger, totally

dependent on His earthly parents and His heavenly Father.

God sent wisdom as a baby.

Do you get that?

I'm not sure I do. He sent His

wisdom in the form of a baby. And so

just as He was totally dependent upon Him for life,

He was totally dependent on His earthly parents

and on His heavenly Father.

From the time He was born in that manger

until He died on the cross,

He was dependent upon them for help and for

wisdom.

Back to wisdom. Jesus is our wisdom. We as a

people, me in particular, seek knowledge.

I'm always delighted when I come upon a new idea

or something I didn't know before.

A new bit of information.

I thrive on that.

Just little tidbits. I'm going, yes!

But wisdom is different

than knowledge.

Knowledge is about facts. It's about information.

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge.

It's the ability not only to believe

what is right, but to act upon it.

Jesus is our wisdom. He came from the Father

to reveal the Father and to teach us who He is,

to teach us how to live.

How to live is living how Jesus lived.

So how do we get it?

Well, somebody already said, you lack wisdom, what do you do?

You ask for it. James says, if any man

lacks wisdom, let him ask of the Father and He will give it to you

how? Liberally!

He'll give it to you in abundance.

So ask.

Another way we access this wisdom

is by abiding in Him.

The Father placed us in Christ

but we have to choose to stay there. I don't know about you,

sometimes, mmm, that can be a bit

difficult. We have to choose to stay there.

How do we access it? By reading

the Word. By studying

the Word. By spending time in meditation

and conversation

with our Heavenly Father.

And by living in obedience to what we find there,

if you don't live in obedience

to the wisdom you find in the Bible, are you very wise?

No. But remember,

wisdom is not just head knowledge, it's knowledge that's

acted upon in accordance with the treasury of

His wisdom that is in Christ. His life

shows us what wisdom looks like.

He was made the wisdom of God for us. If we

abide in Him, all the treasures of wisdom

are available to us.

If we abide in Him and we ask for it,

the gift is ours.

Okay, can you unwrap that gift?

Can you take off the wrapping paper and is that how

you access that gift? No. None of these

gifts are things that you're going to find under the Christmas tree.

They don't come in boxes, they don't come in gift bags,

and they don't come wrapped. But they are

given with the utmost

love and care.

Gift number two. Jesus became for

us righteousness. He became

righteousness for us because we have none of our own.

He came to bring righteousness and as

a work of righteousness, peace, peace to the soul,

in restoring righteousness to us.

He gives us rest, quietness, and

assurance. He became for us righteousness

and He gives us

His righteousness.

From the manger to the cross, Jesus lived a life of righteousness.

The life He lived was a righteous life.

On the cross, He died the death of a righteous

life and paid the penalty for all of mankind's

sin. While we can be eternally

grateful for the life that He lived and the death that He died on our

behalf, it goes beyond

that. He offers

not only to give us His life in exchange for our sinful life,

He offers to give us His very

own life.

This is the most amazing gift of all.

It's the best Christmas gift anyone could receive.

Jesus said, I will give

you my righteousness.

Can you unwrap it?

Does it have ribbons on it? Is it

in a gift bag? No. It's a gift

from the Father's heart. The question

becomes, if it's offered and freely given,

how do I get it? How do I receive it?

Again, the secret is found in abiding

in living and dwelling in Christ.

Our text said, of Him you are in Christ.

The Father places us there, but we need to

choose to remain there, to live in that place and allow

or to let Him to do His work in us. Sounds easy, right?

Ah, it does. It sounds easy.

Is it?

Not always. Not always.

It seems our fallen human nature is ever ready

to take charge and to take control.

And it's only continually abiding

that success is to be found. I had a friend once

who described it like this, when we're born again,

when we give ourselves to Christ, we are given a new nature.

I'm sure grateful for that. There'd be no hope otherwise.

It's given to us this new nature.

He gives us His righteousness, but our

old nature is still camping out. Anybody

found that? That your old nature is still camping out?

And he said, it's kind of like being in a room with a rattle snake.

Now, I

have no real love for snakes of any kind, but I especially

am not fond of rattle snakes.

I've run into a few, okay?

I'm not fond of those critters. I don't like coral

snakes and I don't like copperheads and I don't like watermockensens and other things

that bite. In fact, I'm not fond of snakes, period.

But he said it's like being in a room with a rattle snake.

And

God gives you a new nature. And there's a hole

in the floor and He stuffs that rattle snake down through the hole

and you put your foot on top of it.

As long as your foot is over the hole,

the rattle snake is contained.

But the minute you take your foot off the hole, guess what happens?

It pops back up again.

And that is kind of like our human nature. It's a rattle snake and it likes to pop up.

The only

way that rattle snake stays under control

is by continually abiding in Christ.

It's a gift that the Father gives us.

I am so grateful for that. And I am so grateful

that when my human nature pops up, He can stuff that rattle snake

back down the hole. Okay?

Sometimes it seems impossible.

But let's look at a couple of, couple three Bible

texts that kind of say the same thing. Romans 5

and 19. For by one man's

disobedience many were made sinners. So also

by one man's obedience

many were made righteous.

So it's because of what Jesus did that He

makes us righteous. I'm glad to be counted

righteous because of what Jesus did. If I had to be counted righteous

because of what I do, I'm in really big trouble.

Okay? 2 Corinthians 5 21.

For He made him who knew no sin for us, knew no sin to be sinned

for us, that we might become the righteousness of God

in Him. That one is a real

wow. We might become the righteousness

of who? Of God

in Jesus.

I'm not sure I have my brain totally wrapped around that one.

But it's pretty much of a wow.

To become is to cause to be.

He wants to cause us to be righteous.

There's many, many more.

Still, righteousness is a gift.

It's a gift that Jesus gave us.

It's a gift from the Father through Jesus.

Gift number 3. Jesus

became for us sanctification.

He calls us all saints. Ones who are called

to be pure, morally blameless, sanctified ones,

ones who are purified by, here's a nice word for you,

expiation.

You heard that word before? Do you ever look it up?

It's a Bible word. I didn't create it.

We are purified by expiation.

We are made pure by the act

of another. That's what expiation means.

By the act of

another, by Jesus, we're freed from the guilt of sin.

That has to do with justification and being given

righteousness. Because of who he is and what he did

for us, he calls us saints.

Hmm.

Alright, saints. How are you doing this morning?

He calls you a saint. Ones who are

morally pure and blameless.

We are made pure by his life and his

death on the cross. Because he lived a sanctified life

that was morally pure and blameless,

he is free to give it to us.

Is that a gift or what? Gift number 3.

Sanctification is something he gives

us. Now again, the question becomes how do we

access that gift? Is it under the tree? Do we unwrap it?

Does it have ribbons? Is it in a gift bag?

It's a gift,

but we have to receive it and live it.

Jesus has made the gift available.

He lived it. He became sanctification for us.

We are like the man in the Bible

who asked, what must I do to be saved?

Ask, what must I do to receive this gift?

It's not a tangible gift that we can take and unwrap

and enjoy like we would any other gift.

Now, we have gift givers

in our family. Julie, the daughter that you know,

has this unique ability

to find something I would really like.

She just does that.

She finds something I would really like, and I can be sure

I'm going to like it when I unwrap her gift because she has that unique ability to

select a gift. Laura, my other daughter,

figures for the most part, I don't need more stuff.

But she has a unique ability

to select a gift for me

that pleases me,

but her Christmas gifts are

something to do with her. It's a shared

experience, okay?

I can't unwrap it, I can't put it on the mantle, I can't hang it on the wall,

but it's a shared

experience. One year, it was a trip to a glass

blowing shop where she paid the price and we both made

a hand blown Christmas ornament.

Yeah, I ended up with a Christmas ornament that's

really special, right? But it was the

shared experience. Another year,

it was a shared bird watching trip that she paid for.

We went to see the Sandhill Cranes

up on the river on a boat, on a boating,

on a birding tour. It was a shared experience.

And one year for my birthday,

it was a tubing trip down the Okohi River.

Okay?

Her gifts were a shared experience. The gift of

sanctification is somewhat like that.

It's a gift of a shared

experience

in which the price has already been paid.

Jesus brought the gift, he paid the price

already. His death on the cross bought my justification,

but it also bought my sanctification. With justification,

I'm declared righteous or right with God, at

peace with him. With sanctification, I am made

right, grown right, grown into his likeness.

It is a shared experience.

I don't know if you've ever thought about sanctification

being like that. Often time, sanctification is

presented as something we have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. It's something we have to

do. Woe unto us

if that's the way it is. This

is a shared experience with Jesus.

It's a living experience.

It's an experience that Jesus and I share together.

He purchased it, he bought it,

but we, he and I,

develop it and grow it together.

That's how sanctification works, by the way.

It's a shared gift. My part,

again, abide in him. Spend time with

him in study and conversation. Some people call

it prayer. And live in

his presence. Now, we got into that in Sabbath school

somewhat this morning, and I thought, Keelan did a really good

job with that. This

business of living in God's presence is to be ongoing.

It's not just a morning devotional or an evening

worship period. It's continuous.

The sanctification thing is a big deal.

It's ongoing.

Gift number four. Jesus became

for us redemption.

This is the summation of all his gifts.

He became redemption for us. We love to enjoy the

fact that we are redeemed. Redeemed from what,

by the way? It comes with part A and part B.

And that's something I kind of stumbled onto this week that I went,

oh, never quite saw it that way before.

Part A, okay? To be redeemed,

the meaning of the word, means to be

ransomed from something evil.

These people that kidnap children and demand a ransom,

when the ransom is paid and the child is returned, the child

has been redeemed. We won't say how often they kill the

child and take the money. But

when we are redeemed, the price is paid,

and we're taken from something evil.

Sin's penalty

is paid for.

We are ransomed from Satan's power.

He has no more power over us. We are redeemed from that.

We are redeemed from sin's hold

over us. As long as we don't let the rattlesnake out of the hole,

by the way. We are delivered from the

bondage of this world. He became

the ransom for us.

We are redeemed because he paid the price.

That's part A. Part B.

Our final redemption means

that we will be removed from this planet, from

sin's presence, and taken to another place.

Yay!

Have you noticed that

the world is going crazy lately? It's beyond

going crazy. You know, there will be

wars and rumors of wars. Well, sure enough, that's going on. There will be

earthquakes in diverse places. Sure enough, that's going on.

Hurricanes, tornadoes,

drought,

all kinds of things. I read one

yesterday in the news

that there is a fault in California. Now, we've heard

about these faults in California for years and years and years and years.

What this is saying is when this fault

goes, and it's not if it goes, it's when it goes, and it's not even the San Andreas

fault. It's another one. It runs

through San Francisco,

and they're predicting when that one goes, the

city goes. It will knock out

the infrastructure. It will knock out all electricity.

It will literally destroy the city.

Yeah, that kind of stuff's happening.

Okay? It's just I saw it in the news yesterday and I went, whoa,

there it is again.

Part B of this

is we get to get removed from this planet

from sin's presence and taken to another place.

We get to come back, but

God's going to fix it before we come back. But think about this

place a minute. There's no more sin. There's no more tears.

There's no more grief. It's a place without poverty.

It's a place without crime. It's a place of joy

and contentment. It's a place where people no longer

hurt each other. It's a place where a friend

is really a friend, not one who kind of

comes along behind and stabs you in the back.

And it's a place where we can literally walk with Jesus.

Our final redemption is heaven, a place where

we are physically delivered from this world.

That is the final gift. So, a summation

of the gifts. Wisdom.

His wisdom that he gives me, the knowledge

of who God is and what it means to me.

His righteousness. His righteousness that he

gives to me. His standing in heaven

he gives to me. Sanctification.

His sanctification that he gives to me.

It's his life that he shares with me.

Redemption. His deliverance

that he gives to me now from sin, power,

and penalty will be delivered fully

to me

in heaven when I am delivered from its presence. The secret

to all these gifts is found in abiding in him,

spending time in the Bible, and in conversation with him,

and living continually and

consciously in his presence.

Now there are many, many, many gifts

from the Father in the Bible.

But I think these four gifts

are the core of all of them.