The Greatest Gift | For God So Loved | Pastor Scott Williams

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Join us for #dcnsunday as Pastor Scott leads us in Week 3 of our Sermon Series "3:16."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
I often feel so unworthy to be standing before such
a holy God. We've been singing about God's holiness this morning,
and and I just find it amazing that He has
chosen me to be able to be a part of
anything that he has going on in life. And so

(00:22):
I'm grateful for the moment that I have this morning.
Now that's kind of a lot right on thrown at
you this morning. I'm sorry, but I've got a message
this morning that is filled get ready for the ride.
I have so many verses this morning, I said, give
me the clicker, which is scary for all of us,

(00:43):
because you guys know, every time I have this in
my hand, I mess it up. And so this morning
I want to get into this message. And it's the
message we've been in the series of three sixteen based
on the verse John three. And my part today is
he gave the Greatest gift. That's the title, the Greatest Gift,

(01:07):
and in the verse you all know it for God
so loved the world that he gave his only son
that whoever believes in him should not perish but have
eternal life. And I get the privilege to talk about
he gave his only son, and I thought. When I
first got that, I was like, Okay, that's a lot,

(01:29):
but I really wanted to have the rest of it.
Why and you know, why do you do this? And
all this other stuff? But I said, you know, what
could I get out of this little bit right here?
And the more I dug, the more the verses kept
flying and flying and flying. And Dawn always yells at
me that I always read the verses too fast and
I go too fast through them that she can't write
them down. So I'm going to do my best to

(01:51):
try to get it. So if you're taking notes some
of you, I know you're using that in our Sunday
school classes and you're studying it. So I'm going to
do my best. So I'm going to start with the
first part of this is it says he there's a
lot to that doesn't sound like it, but there's a
lot to that. Who is he? Who is this he

(02:17):
that gave this gift? Who is this he that gave
his son? And I started out and I said, well,
there's a lot about who this he is. This is God,
and God is someone that I can't even begin to comprehend.
And I always go back to the very beginning it quit,

(02:47):
We got one in it quit right off the bed.
Who is he? There, it goes, In the beginning, God
created the heavens in the earth from the very beginning.
Who is this? He? This? He is the creator in

(03:10):
the beginning. He always was and always will be. He
is the God of the past. He is the God
of now. He is the God of the future. Scripture
tells us that all of creation will cry out to him. Holy, Holy, Holy,
is the Lord God Almadi. Who was and who is

(03:32):
and who is to come? That is the he in
this story. He the God of everything. He is the
one who decided for some reason to give a gift.
For some reason, he chose to spend some time with us.
For some reason, he decided to create us. And we

(03:54):
have reasons that we can read as we open our
scriptures of why he did that. But the reality is,
I don't understand why. I can't grasp why God, who
has everything, is everything, can be anything and all that goes. Yeah,
let's make people because there are lots of fun and

(04:15):
they don't give me any problems, right, So I can't
grasp that. But then I but I, but I realized
that for some reason, that God that incredible. God said,
I'm going to give them a gift. And so what

(04:36):
does this God look like? And when we Pastor Lisa
talked about God being this triune God, this this God
of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
and she talked about who this God is. And I
can't even begin to understand this, this this understanding that
the God is somehow all one and three all at

(04:59):
the same time. And it's and it's this thing that
I just can't grab a hold of. But I'm extremely
thankful for that. I have God the Father, who is
the creator, and then I have God the Son, who
is the Savior. And then I have God the Holy Spirit,
who is the comforter who can fill us. And so

(05:19):
I read in the next verse here, in the next
verse here, oh hey, now they're going, oh my goodness,
this is why I don't get the clicker and John.
It says, in the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God. He

(05:41):
was God in the beginning. So who is the gift giver? God?
But who is the gift giver? The Son? The Father
and the Son are the gift giver. So it's it's God.
Was there at the or Jesus was there at the
beginning with God the fun and so when the gift

(06:02):
is given, it it's not just like hey, God says, hey,
here's the son. It's the son also saying here I am.
So I come to the next question that that I
had to grapple with is who is what is this
he doing? And why is he doing it? Why? Why

(06:22):
is God doing this? Why has he chosen to give
this gift? And last week we talked Alisa Pastor Lisa
spoke about the love. The rest of the verse talks
about for the love of God that he had for us,
but it's also for restoring relationships. For again goes back

(06:49):
to what I said a minute ago. For some reason,
God wants to have a relationship between him and us.
He wants he wants to be in a place that
that we have communication with him and communion with him,
that that we are we have this relationship with him,
that he loves us and we love him back, that

(07:12):
he he serves us and we serve him back. And
for some reason he does that, and and all that
fell apart, and I've jumped to Genesis. Jump back to
Genesis here three oh wait a minute, I jumped. I
don't even know where this came from. Oh that's the

(07:33):
last part. See this is where the clicker go is.
Was he doing? And why? Oh my goodness, I'm just
the worst Genesis three ten And he said, I heard
the sound of you in the garden, and I was
afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself. See
we go back to the garden. We you know, God

(07:53):
did all this creation. He put us together, and he said,
all this is good, and then he created mankind. He says,
this is very good. He put us all together, and
he says, oh, this is perfect. Life is great. Everything's great,
and it's wonderful, and it's good. It's very good. And
then mankind. Because God loves us so much, he said,

(08:13):
you know what, I don't want a bunch of robots
to follow me. I want people to have free will.
I want them to choose to follow me and love
me and have a relationship with me. And so I
give them this free will. And for some reason we'd
messed it up. We said I want more, I want

(08:34):
I want power, I want to be like God. And
it says that that they they mess it up. And
this is what it says that when God enters into
the garden, he starts walking amongst them, and he's calling
out to mankind, and he says, where are you? And
they say, I heard the sound of you in the garden,
and I was afraid. And then I was naked and

(08:57):
I hid myself. At the beginning, we began to hie
from God. We began to hide from God. And that's
not a relationship. I mean, I remember doing that from
my mom at times, and that was ugly. It got
worse right when I was in trouble and I hid

(09:18):
from my mom. She'd go, I'm not even Mama. I'm
not gonna go over this again. That's not in my notes,
but I remember it right. And then in Genesis, it
says he drove the man and the at the and
the east of the garden of Eden, he placed a

(09:39):
cherubim and flaming sword that turned away every turned, every
way to guard the way to the Tree of life.
The sin entered the world, and God could not have
them always accessing this eternal life of the tree that
he had placed there. And he said, not only have

(10:00):
we've broken relationship in our being together, but you cannot
stay here and so he kicked them out of the garden,
and the relationship further broke down. However, and Second Corinthians,

(10:20):
we read this, and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says
the Lord Almighty. See, he draws us back in. It
wasn't always like get out now. Sadly, I've been in
the youth ministry a long time, and over the years
I watched where parents literally did something along this line

(10:44):
and says, as soon as you get to this age,
you're out of the house. I don't care what it is.
As soon as you're eighteen, you're out. You're on your own.
I don't care if you're still in high school or not,
but you're out of the house. Go make it on
your own. God didn't do that to us. He didn't

(11:06):
abandon us. He didn't just say get out and good luck,
good riddance. No, we see the rest of this. This
is where the gift comes in, and we'll talk about
that throughout the next couple weeks. But the gift comes
in and God says, I am still searching for you.

(11:26):
I'm still wanting relationship with you. I'm still wanting to
draw you into me, and I still want to call
you my sons and daughters. I want you to be
with me. Yes, our relationship has been strained. Yes, our
relationship is different than what it was. But I want
this relationship and I'm seeking you. I've already mentioned this.

(11:49):
But who else is giving the gift? Here? Jesus. It
wasn't just God saying here, have the kid. But Jesus
was a willing participant. God the Son had to make
a decision. He had to make a decision that he
was going to be part of this. In Philippians we

(12:12):
read who, though he was in the form of God,
did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.
But he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant,
being born in the likeness of men and being found
in human form. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to

(12:32):
the point of death, even death on a cross. God
the Son was with God, he was in heaven. He
didn't have any issues, he had no problems, He was
all powerful. He had all this going on, and all
of a sudden he goes well. In order to save

(12:55):
the people. In order to be even relationship with our
people need to humble myself, become a helpless child born
in poor circumstance, be raised with these people, go through
the struggles that they go through in life, and on

(13:19):
top of all that, I'm going to lay myself down
and die for them. But not only just die as
in like normal causes, but I'm going to go through
the torture of a cross and everything that goes before it.
And I'm going to go through all that for them
because I want to offer them a gift. John, I

(13:46):
am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his
life for the sheep. I don't understand shepherds. I don't
understand shepherds. I've never been a shepherd except for the
title of pastor. That's what that means. And you guys
know I'm not that great at it. I love you,

(14:11):
but I just don't get it all the time, right,
I don't understand where where we read of David and
it's like, yeah, when the bear came to get the sheep,
I killed a bear. I'd be like, see, you have
to just don't come over here. It's like that old joke, right,

(14:33):
I don't have to be faster than the bear, just
gotta be faster than the person with me. Right is
that a whole joke? Right? I don't understand shepherds, but
I understand the concept because I would do the same
for my family. I would do the same for you.
So I have to put it in my terms. I

(14:55):
am the good I am the good person, and I
would lay down my life for you. I do that
for my family. I do it for you. If I would,
I would probably be the one. I'd say, okay, trip me,
I'll fall down the bear can get me. Or I'd
be dragging you really fast. One of the two. Right,

(15:17):
Jesus is the good shepherd, and it says I am
the shepherd, and I will lay down my life for you.
Jesus didn't say and God will take my life from me.
He says, I will lay it down for you. And
again in John it says for this reason, the Father
loves me because I lay down my life that I

(15:39):
may take it up again. No one takes it from me,
but I lay it down of my own accord. Jesus
is the one who says, I am offering the gift.
I will lay myself down for you. It's the gift.
God is not forcing me to do this God is
not going to take my life. God the Father is

(16:00):
not going to do that. I will lay down my
life for you. So we've talked about the gift. We've
gone around the gift. So what is the gift? Why
this gift? It's the Son God, The Son is the gift.
It's Jesus. And our world doesn't understand Jesus. I don't

(16:24):
understand Jesus, and our world doesn't understand Jesus. But when
who is this person? Who is Jesus? And there have
been volumes and volumes and volumes and volumes of theologians
who have tried to explain who this Jesus is, and
I'm not one of those authors. We have our Bible

(16:45):
that tells us who Jesus is, and we can read
through that. But then, and there's so much more to
it than that. But we start out with I and
the Father are m one, Jesus and God. And we've
already talked about this. They're part of this trinity. They
are one. And what we're saying is this thing that

(17:06):
Jesus has says, I am God and I am going
to die for you, and I need you to carry
the weight of that. I wan't need you to feel
the weight of that. I need you to understand the
depth of that that the God of creation says I
will die for you. That's heavy. If you think of

(17:33):
all the Greek gods that we read about when we
were younger, you read about all the stories. Did they
do that they didn't say I will die for you?
Who they say would die sacrifice to me? You will
die for me, I will kill you. If you read
through all of the other gods that we've read about

(17:55):
over the years, that they were the ones who were like,
I'm here, you're the peasants. You serve me. You will
die for me, you will sacrifice for me, and I
will at best, I will you know, give you some
favor if I feel like it. Our God says, I

(18:16):
will give everything to you, give me everything of you. Right,
And it's a different call. It's it's totally different. We
also read here in Luke Oh present wrong buttons again.
He will be great. This is when Jesus. This is

(18:36):
when Jesus is being born. He will be great and
called the son of the Most High. The Lord God
will give him the throne of his father David. He
will be the son of the Most High. He will
be the son of God. He will be a king,
but not like the king when when when scripture was read,

(18:59):
they would think he's gonna be a king like David,
and he's gonna have this big palace, and he's going
to go and do all these great things and with
a big military and take and bring back Israel to
who they were and all the prominence, and you know,
Jerusalem and so forth and so on. We're gonna get
rid of the Romans. And that's not what he did.

(19:22):
He came in and he died for each of us,
and he came in as a servant to serve us,
to love us. We again reading Luke, the Angel answered
when he was talking to Mary, the Holy Spirit will
come upon you, and the power of the Most High
will overshadow you. So the holy One to be born

(19:45):
will be called what the Son of God? Are you
getting the understanding of this gift? It is the greatest gift.
This is a big gift. Now I'm gonna jump something here.
Anybody ever know that's a dumb start. Anybody done white

(20:07):
elephant gifts, We've all done those right For one I
made one for somebody one time I took an extension cord,
and I cut it to this length, and then I
put a plug at this end, and I said, here,
here's an extension cord. It was like a four to

(20:27):
six inch extension cord. And at the person it got it,
they were like, oh, this is great. I can use
it for a lamp I have at all. It doesn't
quite get where I wanted to go. I was like, okay,
but we have some dumb gifts, right, that was a

(20:48):
dumb gift. I don't even I'm not even an electrician.
I hope their house didn't burn down. But this gift
that we've given, that we've been given is amazing. He
is the Christ, He's the Messiah, He's the anointed one.

(21:14):
He is the savior of the world. He is God
the Son. Here we have in John. Jesus is with
a woman at a well, and he's with what would
have been considered an outcast. And he says. The woman
said to him, I know that Messiah is coming. He

(21:36):
was called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us
all things. And Jesus said to her, I who speak
to you, am he I am the Christ, I am
the Messiah, I am the Savior of the world. I
am the Anointed One, and I am here with you today.

(21:57):
Do you grasp that? Do you see see what he's
talking what we're talking about here. Jesus goes on to say,
I am the Bread of God who comes down from
heaven and gives life to the world. Like he's referring
to the manna that Moses and the Israelites got when
they they left Egypt. And they were like, I'm starving

(22:20):
to death. Why did you bring us out here into
desert just to starve to death? I Oh help us, God,
Why Moses? Why blah blah blah, And he gives them
this bread of life that all they have to do
is get up in the morning, pick it off the
ground and eat it was available in abundance. And Jesus says, oh,

(22:42):
that's nothing. If you think you had a good thing
with that, if you think your ancestors had a good
time with that, check this out. If you will take
me in, I will give you not only life for today,
not only life for tomorrow, but I will give you
this eternal life that goes on and on and on

(23:03):
and on, and you will have spiritual life that this
physical body will die, it will break down, it will
fall apart. But I tell you that the moment that
this body breaks down and I take my last breath,
that because I have the bread of life in me,
and I eat upon that bread, that I will be
heading into the next breath, into that eternal life. And

(23:27):
that is who this gift is that we have today.
He not only says that he's the gift, but Jesus
said to them, I am the bread of life. Who
Ever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes
in me shall never thirst. The Israelites again and they're like, oh, well,
it's me. You've taken us out to the desert. There's

(23:48):
no water. Duh, it's a desert. Why'd you go in
the first place. But they follow, didn't They because God
had been leading them. And they first reason they forgot
that God was the provider of all. And they say,
they start complaining in Moses, he got in trouble for this.

(24:08):
God says, speak to the rock, and Moses like these
crazy people, And he hits the rock and water gushes
forth and they drink all. And but Jesus says, I
am the living water. Jesus says, if you knew the
gift of God, and who it is is saying to you,
give me a drink. You would have asked him and
he would have given you living water. You would never

(24:32):
thirst again spiritually, you would never thirst again for that
longing in your heart, that whole that we're born with
in our lives that just is longing for something else.
We try to fill it with all kinds of things.
We try to fill it with with money, We try
to fill it with with pleasures and sex and and

(24:53):
all these other things that are out there that draws
us in, and we try to fill it, and we
try to fill it with the relationships of other people,
people and all this stuff out there. And Jesus says,
don't waste your time on that. You're always going to
be hungry for more. You're always going to be thirsty
for more. But what you're longing for is a spiritual thing.

(25:13):
And I am that water. I am that bread, and
I will fill you and you will never thirst again.
You will never be so thirsty again that you're just
panting and going, oh, I need more, I need Jesus
promises us that we will have it all. I don't

(25:33):
have to long spiritually, I don't have to be at
this place in my life. I don't have to be
this place where I'm always wanting more, more and more.
How come I can't feel it? So why does this
all have to be done well? The sins of the world.

(25:57):
We read about it in Genesis. Mankind messes up, but
then we have this sin that we're born with. Now
I carry this sin in my life that is constantly
pulling me down, trying to pull me down. I've been

(26:18):
told this story and it's an example of it. I'm
born with this thing called original sin because Adam and
Eve decided to mess up. I'm born with and I'm
born with this selfishness in me. It goes to the
story of the little child. The mom has cookies and
a cookie jar on the counter and the little child

(26:38):
and she goes, do not get a cookie? You stay
away from those. She walks out of the room starts
eating a cookie. Did you eat a cookie? Nope? Who
taught the child to lie? Self preservation taught that child

(26:59):
to lie. Inborn sin taught that lyle that child to lie.
Were born with it. We're always trying to do what
is best for me. That is who we are, that's
inborn sin, that is what we are original sin that
we're born with. But the truth is we've sinned by action. Indeed,
I have chosen to sin many many times in my life,

(27:22):
just like many of you, just like you in the room.
And so we have in Leviticus, we have all these
offerings of bulls and rams and pigeons and goats and whatever,
just over and over and over. It's like, Hey, if
you've sinned, or maybe for your unintentional sins or whatever,
you gotta go sacrifice this, and you gotta spread blood

(27:42):
on this altar, and you gotta burn this one completely.
You gotta do this, you gotta do that. And we
had all these offerings and it was just all covering
over our sins. But it says in Hebrews the fact
the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood,
and without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness
of sins. We understand that that's what they were doing

(28:03):
in Leviticus. They had to cover for the sins. However,
we also read for it is impossible for the blood
of bulls and goats to take away the sins. What
kind of dilemma are we in all these sacrifices? Well,
why do we do him because they covered the sins,
whereas Jesus comes and he takes away the sins. Because

(28:26):
John says, here and well, continue with Hebrews. And every
priest stands daily's service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which
can never take away sins. But then we read John.
John the Baptist is out and he's been preaching about Jesus,
and he says, the next day he saw Jesus coming
toward him and said, behold the what the lamb of

(28:51):
God who takes away the sin of the world. He
was the sacrificial lamb to be taking away the sins
of the world. That's what we needed. That's the gift
that we received. He is the savior of the world.
They said. He They said to the woman, it is

(29:12):
no longer because of what these are, the people, the
women at the well. Right, he's been doing the living
water thing and all that with her. And then she
went back and told the town. She went and said, hey,
come and hear about this guy who told me everything
about my life. And then he's all these people started
getting saved. He stayed, Jesus stayed, and he started talking

(29:33):
to him. He said, they said to the woman. It's
no longer because of what you said that we believe,
for we have heard ourselves and we know that this
is indeed who the savior of the world. Jesus is
the savior of the world. All right, So now we're

(29:55):
getting down to the nuts and bolts of all this.
So what's the purpose of this gift? What? What value
doesn't have for us? And I start with John again.
The Father loves the son and has given all things
into his hand. This gift is a gift from God.

(30:18):
It's a purpose. It's been given to us, and all
things have been given into Jesus' hands. God, the Father
loves the son and has given him all authority. I
try to take authority. Sometimes it doesn't go well in
our house. I know who really is the boss, and

(30:42):
I pick on her, But I do don't you don't
you try to take authority. Sometimes I even try to
tell God what to do. Sometimes that's a mistake. I
try to tell God, well, God, I don't want to
do that, and I just I can't picture of God going.
So isn't that what you did with your kids? Why

(31:05):
do you want me to do it? Why? Cause I
said so? You know, I always hated that response for
my mom. I hated it. I'm bringing Connor into this
because they're Pastor's kids. We got to the point with Connor.

(31:25):
He would ask us for something, can I go and
do this? And we would say, well, we'll think about it.
And we kind of got in this habit of doing
that with Connor, and just because we really didn't want
to make a decision and we kind of wanted to
blame it, you know, here down you take care of
this one or she would say I want him to
take care of it. So we'd say, we'll talk about it,
we'll think about it. He started asking this question, can

(31:48):
I do it? Yes or no? Smart kid. That's where
he got I don't remember what age it was, but
he was young. He just got tired of us passing
the buck. He knew one of us, he knew we
were in authority. Then we were passing the authority. He
wanted to know yes or no. The second verse here

(32:15):
Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water
will be thirsty again. Whoever drinks of this water that
I will give him will never be thirsty again. Now
I know I read that while ago the water that
I give him will become in him a spring of
water that leads welling up to what eternal life. Eternal life.

(32:40):
So this the purpose of the gift. The purpose isn't
Let's be real clear here, the purpose of this gift
is not to give me to live to one hundred
and twenty years old. It's not even to get me
through this life without pain. Sin came into the world.
And if you read Genesis, it's very clear we were

(33:02):
meant to be in a perfect world. Sin came in,
and pain came in, and brokenness came in. And all
the things that we're dealing with with our physical bodies,
all that came in. All the things that we deal
with with our relationships that are broken all came in.
Everything that the sicknesses that we deal with all came
in because of sin. So Jesus did not come back

(33:27):
to simply save my body. He came back to give
us eternal life. Pastor Tera spoke about Nicodemus. He says
he was asking, you know, what do I need to do?
And Nicodemus is right here, says Jesus reply, Verily, truly,

(33:50):
I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of
God again unless they are born again. And Nicodemus didn't
understand that we have to have this new birth, this
spiritual birth. I can't go back into the womb. I
understand exactly what Nicodamus was saying in that respect, but

(34:11):
he's saying, you've got to get out of this spiritual
place that you are in, and you have to die
to yourself. You have to die to where that sinful
nature is. You have to die to all of that,
and you have to say I am yours. I have
to be born again. I have to forget ask Christ
into my life. I need to ask for forgiveness in

(34:33):
my life. I need to step out of where I've
been and head to where He is and He will
meet us there and I have to start a spiritual
journey with him. That is the reason of the gift.
That is the purpose of this gift that has been given,
this precious gift. But nobody. Now, there's a lot of

(34:56):
people who don't want it. There's a lot of people
who don't recognize the value of the gift. They don't
understand what that is that they've been given. Now, we've
all been given gifts that I call trinkets. Every year
when I try to buy my mom something for Christmas,

(35:18):
I'm trying to get creative with it. Now. It always
used to be picture frames and something to set on
her table, and something to put over here, and something
to put over there, and something to put there. And
her house is filled with trinkets. It's filled with thousands
of little things that she can't ever get rid of

(35:40):
because they came from me. I say that she's been
kind of seems like they're starting to thin out a
little bit. Kind of hurts a little bit. But we
don't always understand the value of the gift, and sometimes
the gifts are given becaut of obligation. Sometimes gifts are

(36:03):
given that aren't a whole lot of thought put into
And sometimes we get a gift that is actually very precious,
but we treat it like trash. Somebody put a lot
of effort into it and we get it and we're like, oh,
that's nice, but they put their whole self into it,

(36:28):
and we don't appreciate it for what it is. We
read in Hebrews, if we deliver, you keep on sinning.
After we receive the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice
for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment,

(36:49):
a raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.
Sometimes I treat God like this, like the gift he
gave me. I treat Jesus like the gift he gave
me like it's worthless or doesn't have any real value.
And I don't consult him when I make my decisions.

(37:10):
I don't go to him when I decide to do something,
and I try to live my life based on what
I want, and I treat him as this outsider that
kind of is sitting there, that kind of the Santa
Claus type of guy, or a counselor that I just
kind of go to occasionally when I'm dealing with an
issue or if I'm stuck in a situations like, oh,

(37:30):
help me out, you know, the bargain guy. God, I'm
gonna spend more time with you if you can only
take care of this. And I treat God like he's
some trinket that I've put on a shelf that I
only pull out when I go, oh, that's cool, I
remember that. Yeah, let's put it back. Let's still get
a little dust off of it. I put it back.

(37:53):
God doesn't want us to treat the gift that way.
God wants us to take the gift and use the gift,
and live the gift, and apply the gift, because the
gift is life giving. The gift is something that I
can't leave on the outside. It's the gift that I
have to bring on the inside. I can't just say that,

(38:15):
you know, I'm gonna put my Bible on my shelf,
just like I'm putting Jesus on the shelf. I can't
just put them to the side and occasionally come and
open it up and open Jesus up into my life.
I have to eat the Bible. And what I mean
by that is I got to bring Jesus in. He says,
I am the bread of life. I am the living water.
I have to consume the bread of life. I have

(38:35):
to consume the living water. And when that comes within
my heart and within my soul and within my spirit,
and when I begin to live that life, that is
the life that the gift is worth what it's been given.
So we're trying to get to that place as we're
heading towards Eastern I want you to begin to grasp

(38:56):
what this gift is. Easter and Christmas they just kind
of roll around and it's like whoo whoo. When we
do these little things. I want you to grasp it.
I want you to hang on to it and understand
what it is. I want you to feel the weight
of the gift. I want you to consume the gift.

(39:20):
So here's the final questions. I always try to wrap
it up with something kind of challenge the section I
had as he gave his only son, God gave us
a gift. Jesus gave himself a gift of extreme love
to restore our relationship with our creator, to remove our sins,

(39:44):
not to just cover them up, to give us new life.
Have you accepted the gift? If I were to give
you a gift, you have to accept it. If I
were to hanging out here and say, Brian, take this

(40:04):
gift and you leave my arm hanging out here, it's
just gonna hang are I'm gonna drop it on the floor.
You have to reach out take it. God said, here's
the gift, reach out and take it. Have you accepted
the gift? If you've accepted the gift, what are you
doing with it? How are you treating it? Are you

(40:26):
living the life that God would want you to? Live.
Here's a question I've asked teenagers for many, many years
on a relation on a scale from one to ten,
ten being well, we'll start at one, one being I
don't know who God is and ten being man, Me
and Jesus were like this, where do you put yourself

(40:49):
on this scale? I don't know who God is, I
don't know who Jesus is, or where the best of
buds and I live my life completely. Are you a five?
Are you a two? Are you an eight? The question
that has to be answered is what's gonna get me
to the next level. You don't have to go from

(41:09):
zero to ten today, but you need to go to
zero to one today or five to six today. You
need to go to that next spot. And what's holding
you back from getting to that next spot? What are
you doing with the gift? What are you gonna do

(41:30):
with the gift? That's the question that you have to
deal with today. We all have to deal with today
as we head in the Eastern let's stand, we're gonna
sing and I can't imagine giving a message like this
with that kind of question at the end of what

(41:51):
are you doing with the gift without giving an opportunity
for all of us to just respond in some form.
So I'm going to pray. So I'm gonna have all
you bow your heads. I'm not even gonna ask you
to come the altar today. You can if you want.
If you have not received the gift, but want to

(42:13):
receive the grit gift, raise your hand right now. Okay,
we've got a hand up. You can put your hand
back down. If you've received the gift that has been
given to you, but maybe you haven't been treating it right,
but you want to raise your hand today. Nobody's looking around.
I don't know anybody looking around. Okay, I see that.

(42:38):
If you're on that scale and you're not a ten,
what is it gonna take for you to move to
the next step in your life? Have you identified it?
If you've identified that, raise your hand. Okay, see those hands.
See this isn't that hard. It's self examination. Today's a

(43:02):
day that you can do these things. Let's sing and
then I'm gonna pray after we're done.