December 23, 2020
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When my friend Rich was about seven years old, his parents really splurged on his Christmas gift. They got him a big boy bike! What a moment that Christmas morning. Can you imagine? They'd been holding on to this, waiting to surprise him. They wheel it into the living room, and Rich says, "Thanks, but I don't want it." That's the truth. It really is. Can you imagine? That boy rejected the best gift his parents could give him. He's not alone.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Gift He Didn't Want."
Man, I can only imagine how his father felt about that bike that he had spent a good deal on, and his boy didn't want it. More importantly, can you imagine how God feels when we do that to Him? Because Christmas...that's when He gave the most expensive gift He could possibly give. In the words of the Bible, "He spared not His Son but delivered Him up for us all" (Romans 8:32). Jesus came that Christmas to end up dying alone on a cross to pay for every sin we've ever done; to take our hell so we could go to His heaven. That's the ultimate gift!
But see, that tells us how bad our sin is. We can't excuse sin as just like a few immoral failures. It's rebellion against God that could only be paid for by a death penalty. It's spiritual hijacking. And we've said, "God, you made the universe. You run the universe. I'll run me, thank you." How dare I defy the God of a hundred billion galaxies, who decides if I take my next breath. Yeah, that's how bad our sin is. If you don't know how bad it is, go to that cross and look at what it took to pay for it. There's only one way to pay for your sin. Either we pay the death penalty forever in a place away from God, or we accept the payment Jesus made. That's the gift He died to pay for.
Now, in our word for today from the Word of God, Romans 6:23, it says, "The gift of God is eternal life." Before that it says, "The wages of sin is death." That's what we deserve, the wages. But "the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Now, I'll tell you why it's a gift. It's because there's nothing you can do to earn heaven. You don't pay God for it. You don't begin to somehow acquire it by doing good works. When someone gives you a gift on Christmas, you don't do anything for it. Your only way of making it yours is to receive it and to take it for yourself. There's a really big lie out there. You see it across the world among religious people that, "I can be good enough somehow to make it to heaven." But if we could have been good enough, would God have sent His Son to pay this awful price if there was any other way? Obviously it had to be bought with the blood of the only perfect One there was - God's Son.
And that gift? That gift is being wheeled out in front of you this Christmas. The biggest mistake of your life would be to say "Thanks, God, but I don't want it." This Christmas, you've got to decide what you're going to do with the greatest gift of all. To reject that gift is to reject God's great sacrifice for you. It's to spurn this ultimate act of love from the God who made you, and to turn your back on the heaven you want to go to when you die.
Listen, do you want to take that gift for yourself? Would you tell Him that now? "Jesus, I'm Yours. I cannot any longer ignore, or postpone, or marginalize or reject this gift. I want the gift of eternal life You died to give me. Jesus, come into my life."
This Christmas season, what a wonderful time to receive God's greatest gift. You can go to our website and you can walk right through there how to begin this relationship with Jesus. I hope you will. I hope it will help. It's ANewStory.com.
It is so important that you take this gift, because I can tell you, the God who sent His Son here will never forget what you do with His Son.