24-0317a Transcript

Preacher: Jim Lokenbauer

(1:55) Well, good morning again. This morning I’ll be bringing you the message, and (2:02) over the last year and a half, two years, I’ve been bringing you lessons from the Bible dealing with (2:11) the various, in God’s words, faces of God, his various ways that he appeared to man, (2:21) and his various names that he’s known by. And as you can guess, this morning we’re going to (2:28) be talking about the Father of Lights, who gives good gifts.

I thank the men for reading the verses (2:36) they did, and each of those from Matthew 7 and James chapter 1, it talks about the Heavenly Father (2:46) being a giver of good gifts. So I’m hopeful my lesson this morning will give us a deeper (2:54) appreciation for the love that God the Father has for us. And with the material we’ll cover, (3:01) I hope it’ll also stimulate us to live better lives that glorify our Lord.

(3:08) Good lives are the fruit, the evidence of a true believing heart. A fruitful life is the result of (3:16) the persistent use of the good and perfect gifts that God the Father blesses us with. (3:24) I’m going to read James 1 again.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down (3:32) from the Father of Lights. So everything that we get in this life that’s good, (3:40) God has arranged it. He made it possible for us to receive, so we should always be praising his name.

(3:49) This morning won’t be an exhaustive look at each of the gifts. It’ll cover a lot of the gifts, (3:58) but not all of them, and not even in great detail. But I just want to point out, (4:05) just like the song goes, count your many blessings.

It’s the same way as saying, (4:12) count the many gifts our Heavenly Father of Light gives us. So the most obvious good and perfect (4:20) gift that the Father of Lights gave us was, first of all, his Son. The prophet Isaiah told us how (4:28) the Messiah’s first coming was going to happen.

And in Isaiah 7, 14, he prophesies, (4:35) therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will be with child, (4:41) and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. So there’s another prophecy that (4:53) Isaiah gave, and it was just a couple chapters later.

In Isaiah 9, 6 through 7, he says, (5:00) for unto us, a child is born to us, a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. (5:09) He will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and his reign (5:21) on David’s throne will be established and reign forever, holding it up with his justice and (5:28) righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of Yahweh Almighty will accomplish this.

(5:38) And if you remember from past lessons, Yahweh is the most holy name that God revealed for us to (5:46) know. Moses, he revealed that name as he appeared as the angel of the Lord in the burning bush, (5:55) where he said, I am that I am. That’s Yahweh.

The Messiah was to have a miraculous human birth, (6:06) but a normal childhood experience. The fulfillment of these prophecies are recorded for us by Matthew (6:14) and Luke. Matthew, one of Jesus' disciples, writes in Matthew 1, 18 through 25, he says, (6:23) this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.

His mother Mary was pledged to be married to (6:31) Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. (6:38) Because Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man and did not want to expose her (6:43) to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, (6:51) an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream

and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid (6:57) to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

(7:05) She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, (7:11) because he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had (7:19) said through the prophet. The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, (7:24) and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us.

When Joseph woke up, he did what the (7:33) angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife, and he had no union with her (7:39) until she gave birth to a son, and he gave him the name Jesus. So this child had a miraculous birth, (7:50) being born of a virgin. And he had the most humble of circumstances of his birth, (7:58) born in a manger, basically a feeding trough in a barn.

(8:04) But he had the most grand reception that any human has ever had. He had an angelic chorus (8:12) announcing his birth to the lowly shepherds out in the field, and they came and glorified (8:21) at his birth. But more about this gift of Jesus later.

Let’s look at some of the other gifts. (8:31) The first gift I want us to look at is when Jesus had a conversation (8:37) early on in his ministry with a Samaritan woman in John chapter 4. Verse 10 tells us, (8:44) Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, (8:50) give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. The gift our (9:00) Heavenly Father gives us are the very words that Jesus spoke.

The living waters, like the rock in (9:11) the desert that followed Israel when they were wandering in the desert, provided life-giving (9:18) water. And that’s exactly what the gift of Jesus' words does for us. They bring us life, eternal (9:28) life.

And in John 6, 68, Simon Peter answered Jesus, Lord, to whom would we go? You have (9:39) the words of eternal life. So Jesus' words are a gift. And when we believe them, (9:48) those words lead to another gift that the Father blesses us with when we act on those words.

(9:56) In Acts 2, 38, Peter again says to the Jews this time, repent and be baptized every one of you in (10:04) the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift (10:11) of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is our gift as well. The Father gives us his spirit, (10:19) our seal for redemption, and a seal that says that we are his children to dwell in us to help (10:28) us to become like his Son, to conform and turn into the very image of his Son.

And isn’t that (10:36) what Christian means? A little Christ? Or to turn into, be like the image of his Son, (10:45) so that we can be his holy offspring. And the next gift the Father gives us, (10:52) it’s from a rather lengthy reading in Romans, but it’s necessary for clarity (10:57) and context because this next gift is something very important for us to remember (11:04) and to understand. Paul revealed in Romans 5, 15 through 21, while discussing (11:12) a particular hard teaching, types and anti-types, he was talking about (11:18) Adam, the firstborn with Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son, and he’s comparing these two.

(11:28) And in verse 21 he says, but the free gift is not like the offense. For if by one man’s offense, (11:36) Adam’s, many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus (11:45) Christ, abounded to many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned, (11:54) for the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation.

But the free gift (12:02) which came from many offenses resulted in justification. For if by the one man’s offense, (12:10) death reigned through the one, but much more those who receive abundance of grace (12:17) and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ. (12:25) Therefore, as through one man’s offense, judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, (12:33) even so through one man’s righteous act, the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification (12:43) of life.

For as by one man’s disobedience, many were made sinners, so also by one man’s obedience, (12:54) many will be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, (13:02) but where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. For if by the trespass of the one, (13:10) death reigned through the one, so much more will those who receive the abundance of grace (13:16) and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ.

(13:25) To a spiritually discerned person, or even to a new Christian, this is hard to follow (13:32) and understand what Paul’s trying to say. What exactly is the gift he’s speaking about? (13:39) And Paul was a man of great intelligence, and the people of his day recognized that. (13:46) When Paul was defending himself in King Agrippus' court in Acts 26.4, the Roman procurator, (13:57) Festus, said with a loud voice, Paul, you are crazy! Your great learning has driven you insane! (14:06) But Paul wasn’t crazy.

He had godly wisdom and was a very learned man. He was taught at the feet (14:14) of one of Israel’s premier teachers, a man named Gamaliel. Even for us trying to follow Paul’s line (14:23) of thought at times can be quite a challenge, and that made Peter record in Peter chapter 3 (14:31) of his second letter, bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother (14:37) Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.

He writes the same way in all his letters. (14:45) Speaking of these matters, his letters contain some things that are hard to understand, (14:52) which evil and perverse people distort as they do the other scriptures to their own destruction. (15:00) So we see that those hard-to-understand things is this matter of what Paul’s talking about in chapter (15:10) 5, the discussion of righteousness, grace, and justification.

It’s sometimes hard to keep all (15:18) those ducks in a row, but grace, justification, and righteousness are teachings for mature Christians. (15:27) It’s not spiritual milk like new Christians need. So part of Paul’s style of teaching (15:37) was in rounds or in parentheticals.

He would be discussing one topic and then switch to another (15:45) topic and then perhaps even on to another topic before circling back and then finishing his (15:52) various incompleted lines of thought. He eventually got there. I’m going to lift a couple (15:59) of verses out of this text and put them together and it will become a little bit clearer of what (16:05) Paul was talking about.

There are also a few translations I feel do a better job at getting (16:12) what Paul was saying across in these verses on this gift of God. The ESV and the ISV do a really (16:23) good job, and I feel the Lexham English Bible also makes that clear. When you use a lot of (16:30) different Bibles in your studies, different translations, sometimes things become much (16:39) clearer by the language they use to describe the Greek text.

So in Romans 15 it says, (16:47) "…​but the gift is not like the trespass, for if by the trespass of the one many died, (16:53) by much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, (17:00) multiply to the many." Paul tells us in this verse that God gives us, comes to us by his grace. (17:11) So his grace gives us this one particular special gift. He said when there is a quote by a brother (17:24) in the brotherhood, Burt Thompson, that describes grace this way, and this fellow’s name is Burt (17:32) Thompson.

I don’t even know if he’s still around anymore, but he said about grace, (17:38) "…​when justice is meted out, we receive what we deserve. When mercy is extended, (17:45) we do not receive what we deserve. When grace is bestowed, we receive what we do not deserve." (17:55) And that’s a good description of grace.

Grace is a gift itself. It’s God bestowing upon us (18:03) something we didn’t earn, something not owed to us. It’s by his love, unconditional love, (18:10) that he gives us this gift.

All we have to do is believe and accept the gift. Paul tells us (18:19) in this verse, the gift of God he gives us comes by his grace. So God is giving us this gift that (18:29) we don’t deserve.

Also from the Lexham Bible, the next verse, in verse 16, "…​and the gift is not (18:37) as though through the one who sinned, Adam, for on one hand judgment from the one sin led to (18:45) condemnation, but the gift from many trespasses led to justification." And this is important. (18:54) The gift that God gives us is also our justification. What’s justification? What (19:03) exactly is that? Well, justification is our defense, our vindication, our sufficient reason (19:12) to say we’re innocent in the eyes of the law.

On the day we die, Satan will say, (19:19) oh you child of man, you are guilty of many sins. Let me name them all as we stand before the Lord. (19:29) Being Adam’s children and being like him, we are sinners, like begetting life.

(19:38) And that’s one of the things that Paul points out in that discussion between Adam and Christ. (19:47) So we have no defense against Satan’s accusations. We’re not right in the eyes of the law, and our (19:55) souls are covered as with filthy garments, just like what the prophet Zechariah describes and (20:03) reveals to us in the third chapter of his book.

He told of a scene in heaven where Joshua, (20:11) Israel’s high priest, was standing before the angel of the Lord. And that, of course, we know (20:19) is Christ, the second person of the Godhead. And Satan, his accuser, was right next to Joshua.

(20:26) And Joshua was in filthy garments. It said in the Hebrew word for filthy is the word so, T-S-O. (20:41) And that means to be covered, and forgive me for this, this is God’s word, not mine, (20:47) to be covered in human excrement.

That’s how filthy Joshua, the high priest of Israel at time, (20:56) appeared before God. And Satan was there to accuse him, and Joshua had no excuse for the sin he and (21:06) Israel had apostatized into. So the idea is he was steeped in the worst sins imaginable.

(21:17) But the angel of the Lord interceded on his behalf and forgave Joshua of his sins, and ordered that (21:24) he receive new clothes. And he silenced Satan from even opening his mouth to bring an accusation (21:35) against him. The angel of the Lord, who is the pre-incarnate Messiah, the Christ, Jesus, (21:44) forgave his sins.

He graciously gifted his righteousness to Joshua. And that’s what (21:54) Jesus Christ does for us today. We are gifted by God’s grace, the righteousness of Christ.

(22:06) Christ was right in the eyes of the law. He lived a perfect, sinless life. (22:13) That’s why death couldn’t keep him in the grave.

God found him innocent and commanded he be raised (22:21) on that third day, alive, innocent, our Savior. And now his righteousness, that act of atonement, (22:32) dying on the cross in each of our places, when we believe that he’s the Son of God and that he (22:41) died to take away our sins, and we do what he says, that gift of righteousness is applied to us. (22:50) We become righteous, not by anything we’ve done.

It’s God’s grace bestowed on us. You now have (22:58) my son’s righteousness. So all I see when I see you, my child, is my son’s righteousness and his (23:06) blood on you.

You’re forgiven. You can go to heaven. And when Satan’s there to accuse us, (23:14) Christ will silence him just like he silenced him when Joshua was there in filthy clothes.

(23:22) We leave our filthy clothes in the baptismal waters. When we raise up new creatures, (23:31) we’re cleaned by the blood of Christ. We put on Christ.

We put on his righteousness. (23:39) So that’s the idea of being gifted with righteousness. That’s the idea Paul is (23:45) trying to drive across to his readers in Romans chapter 5. That, my dear brothers and sisters, (23:56) is God’s grace, the greatest gift we can have because of Jesus.

So let’s continue. (24:12) By our belief in Jesus, we received Christ’s righteousness. He never sinned.

He was righteous (24:19) in the eyes of the law. God found him innocent. So he rose by the power of the resurrection, (24:27) and we too can look forward to the day after we die to one day rise just like Christ.

(24:35) It’s a promise to us. So we can stand before Christ and before a silenced Satan who’s there to (24:45) try to accuse us of sin, but we’ll be forgiven. So having Christ’s righteousness and the forgiveness (24:58) of our sins, we receive another awesome gift from our Heavenly Father.

Romans 6.23 says, (25:09) for the wages of sin is death. We earn that. It’s us.

Where we go, we don’t want to be. (25:22) For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (25:32) God gives us the gift of eternal life.

At the end of this life, this life is a test, a proving (25:44) ground, a place of trial and error and persistence and perseverance when you believe you keep going. (25:53) Even though you fail, built into God’s grace is Jesus' continual shedding of blood cleansing us. (26:03) We just got to go to God in our bedroom, in our closet, and pray to him and say, (26:09) Lord, I blew it.

I did A, B, and C. Forgive me. Give me strength over this. Give me wisdom.

(26:16) Forgive me. And you have it. God’s grace forgives you.

Even though you’re a saved child (26:23) and you sinned again, you are forgiven. And so with that, we can continue all the way up until (26:36) God takes us from this life. We die.

We go to Abraham’s bosom and we’re waiting for that great (26:46) day when the trumpet blasts Christ’s second coming. We all rise up from the ground, (26:55) the resurrection of the living and the dead to be with Christ forever. That is an awesome gift, (27:05) eternal life.

So this life is just the start of things. Right now, we’re like being in the (27:13) womb of a woman, ready to give birth. We’re about to be born into a new world, (27:23) eternity.

So let’s recall the gift so far. (27:30) On what the world calls Christmas Day, the Christ child was born into the world by the (27:37) Virgin Mary. He is a gift by our Heavenly Father to the world.

The Father of Lights also gave us (27:46) our gift of his teachings, his word. The Father of Lights also gave us the bread of life, (27:58) which leads to eternal life. He gave us the gift of his Holy Spirit when we believe and obey.

(28:06) 2 Corinthians 1.22 says the Father has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit (28:13) in our hearts as a guarantee. The Father graciously gives us these gifts, our justification, (28:21) which is our defense, proving our innocence, that we put on the gift of Christ’s righteousness, (28:30) which we receive when we’re cleansed by his blood and enter into covenant with him. (28:35) And by having Christ’s righteousness, the Father sees his Son’s blood and his righteousness, (28:42) and he’s satisfied, as Isaiah 53 so vividly describes to us what his Son went through, (28:53) and he covers us because he’s satisfied that Christ paid the penalty for us by dying on (29:01) that cross.

And finally, we have the gift of eternal life that we receive by faith in Christ (29:08) Jesus. And this evening we’ll conclude the lesson by looking at a lot of other different gifts (29:15) that the Father of Lights blesses us with. So right now, if you have not put on Christ’s (29:23) righteousness, you have the opportunity.

We’ve got a nice warm baptistry back here. If you’d (29:30) like to be baptized into Christ and wear Christ, be a new creature, we’ll assist you in any way. (29:39) If you need prayers from the church, we’ll be glad to pray for you.

So whatever you need, (29:44) come as we stand and sing the invitation song. (29:49)