God's Gift of Everything

God’s Gift of Everything

—Romans 8:31–39

Andrew Fountain – Dec 27, 2020

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Goal:

To successfully unwrap the gift!

Outline

God’s gift to us of Jesus
The Logic of Rom 8:32
But what about when it doesn’t seem like that?
Receiving this gift

Romans 8:31–39

Many years ago I received a gift card for Christmas
- $100 Mastercard! —never seen a gift credit card before
- Slightly apprehensive as to whether it would work, but it did
Got me thinking—what if someone gave me a gift card and said “there is no limit”
- What would you buy with it?
- I think at first you would be tentative, because you wouldn’t be sure it would work
  - maybe buy some small things
- Then maybe a car, a house (if you can buy that on a credit card?)

1. God’s gift to us of Jesus

But actually, Jesus gift was something more than that

Identity Theft

What if they took your identity but put money into your account?
- Paid off your credit card debt
- Paid large amounts of cash into your bank accounts
- All your bills were paid
But Jesus did more than that
Get volunteer to pretend to go to sleep at the front
Imagine he put you to sleep for a long time
- And while you were asleep, somehow he entered your body
- then he went to the bank in your body, paid all your debts and gave you a massive positive balance
- and took it to the gym and worked it out till you were in perfect condition
  - and by means of medications and treatment got rid of all sicknesses or physical problems
- then went to the police station, got fingerprinted as you and managed to persuade them to totally wipe your record
- then in your body, did an amazing act of heroism that got you internationally recognized and showered with gifts and honours
and then you woke up...
This is the idea of Romans 8:34
- In several other places we are told that we died together with him, and were raised with him
You see what Jesus did, he did carrying your identity
- When he died that agonizing death on the cross, your identity really was there
But we don’t appreciate what Jesus did unless we understand our predicament
- The Bible says “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23
- The illustration just now would only be complete if .... was a wanted man, a fugitive from justice
  - He had been awarded the death penalty for horrible crimes
- We are all guilty of the crime of living self-centred lives
  - We have made an idol of our own satisfaction and comfort and lived for ourselves and not for God who made us
- We have proudly tried to be independent of him, even when he has lovingly reached out to us
As a result, there is a punishment due to each one of us
- If you were to throw a shoe at me, it would not be very significant
  - But an Iraqi discovered that if you throw one at the president of the United States, it can get you into a lot of trouble
- If you were to threaten me with a knife, it would be more serious
  - But to threaten the prime minister with a knife would get you locked away for many years, I can promise you
- But what if the person you committed the offence against was infinitely important, God himself
  - Then the crime is that much more serious
  - And som is the punishment
But Jesus took that punishment on himself
- and because he is God, he was able to suffer the eternal punishment of millions of people in just a few hours
The fact that Jesus was raised from the dead meant he was successful Romans 8:34
- Now he is at the place of power, the place of judgement
- If the judge is the person who is your closest friend, what have you to fear?
But the same logic says that if you have not accepted this gift, you have everything to fear
- So don’t waste a moment in coming to him in prayer and simply asking for this gift

2. The Logic of Rom 8:32

Logic: 3 parts to a syllogism

Cats have four legs
My friend has a cat
Therefore my friend’s cat has four legs

Another syllogism

Canadians play the best hockey
The Maple Leafs are all Canadian
Therefore the Maple Leafs always win the Stanley cup

A third syllogism

Human beings (apart from Jesus) are imperfect and flawed
The Queen is a human being
The Queen is imperfect and flawed

Wonderful logic

Father God has given the gift of Jesus Christ for us, to suffer and die and pay for our sins
Nothing is more precious to the Father than Jesus
There is no other gift that God would not give us

Romans 8:31

“What then shall we say about these things?
If God is for us, who can be against us?”

“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all”
implied that his own Son is the most precious gift he could give
“how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things?”

Imagine you were invited to visit a very wealthy person
- They payed for the flight
- A limo was waiting for you
- They took you out for a $1000 meal
- Let you sleep in a huge guest-suite in their home
- Then the next morning at breakfast you wanted some juice from their fridge
- and you offered to pay for it
  - What would he say?
So if God has given you Jesus, will he withhold anything from you?

3. But what about when it doesn’t seem like that?

The hard drive died on my computer
- prayed and prayed
  - it didn’t come back to life
- I ran some recovery programs to copy data off to another drive and to start with they seemed to be working
  - I prayed some more
    - The drive died completely!
- I investigated what I had managed to recover
  - Discovered that virtually all of what I needed had been copied off before the drive died
- Was able to get the computer working again and found that the bad drive was under warranty with free replacement.
  - Praised God
- As I was sorting out my computer parts, I found an identical drive to the one that had died...

Logic

I am a child of the King
All his resources are available to me
So nothing bad will ever happen

Two Errors

None of heaven now	Some of heaven	All of heaven now
Don’t expect healing till heaven	God loves to heal, so pray for it	Healing is your right! You’ll always be healed if you have faith
All blessings are “spiritual”	Pray for material blessings	You have a right to the wealth of heaven now!

Outline

God’s gift to us of Jesus
The Logic of Rom 8:32
But what about when it doesn’t seem like that?
Receiving this gift