Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. This is Jim Van Gelderen, and I am podcasting from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. And it’s been a few podcasts since I have had the privilege of spending a few moments with you, and I appreciate so much your listening here today. Of course, the Christmas season is upon us.

I don’t know about you, but I love Christmas. And since a little kid, I have loved Christmas. The lights, the music, the whole atmosphere. And of course, as a kid particularly, I loved gift-giving.

I suppose that one of my earliest memories of Christmas, or one that perhaps stands out, I don’t know if I’d call it earliest, but certainly a significant one, probably third grade. And I remember one morning I got up, Christmas morning, got up at four in the morning because I couldn’t sleep anymore. I was so excited about what might be under that tree. And I think eventually I woke a brother up, maybe a sister up, and we kind of bided our time till maybe seven o’clock.

I don’t know. And finally rallied our parents for the opportunity to go down and open those gifts. really my parents many times would have several gifts unwrapped and we’d run down the stairs and there they would be. And I remember, of course, I was up for those three, four hours. I can’t remember exactly when we went down those stairs, but we, of course, were given the signal and down the stairs we raced.

And by that time, my head was pounding. I had a terrible headache. I can be prone to headaches. I think I took one look at my gifts, went back up the stairs, took a couple aspirin, and went to sleep.

I think I learned the hard way that sometimes you can be counterproductive in your anticipation for those gifts. Of course, as a kid, that’s what you think about Christmas. A lot of it is, what are you going to get? And obviously, we realize there’s always that possibility as time goes on to develop a covetous spirit.

And of course, the Word of God addresses that. But a gift in and of itself is really a wonderful thing. And I want to talk about that because we have a God who is a gift-giving God. And I think many times we forget about that.

But here at Christmas time, we know that the greatest gift was the gift of salvation. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift, Paul wrote. I think about that. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.

We all know we’d be headed to hell. We’d be hopeless. We’d have no even thought of what would happen when we die. We’d have no hope of anything but judgment.

And so it’s thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. But you know, the gift of salvation is, of course, the greatest gift. But our gift-giving God continues to give. And if I could put it this way, his very first gift is just that.

It’s the first I’m talking about in your Christian life. When you accept a gift of eternal life, God has gifts for you every, every day. I remember several years ago, I was in North Charleston, South Carolina, and we were having our very first War of Special Forces. It was our pilot.

And there was a young man who came over from a rough section of town. In fact, he walked over. We have three rally nights, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. And he walked over all three nights.

He had gotten saved on Wednesday night. And there on Friday night, I remember we were having a testimony time around the campfire. And this young man stood to his feet. I will never forget what he said.

He said, I got saved on Wednesday night. He said, and if you’re not saved, you need to get saved. Because getting saved is like having Christmas every day. And do you know, my friend, that’s exactly what the Christian life ought to be, Christmas every day.

You might say, well, you know, I’m glad I’m saved, but my Christian life’s not like Christmas every day. Well, let me just simply say that it really is. The problem is you’re not opening the gifts. You say, what are you talking about?

Well, God is a good gift-giving God. His greatest gift, of course, was the gift of salvation. But every day, He gives us everything we need and more to enable us to live the Christian life. And there’s so many good things that He gives us. here’s James 1 17 every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the father of lights with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning we have a God who is a God who loves to give no good thing the Bible says in the book of Psalms 84 no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly and so God is a God who wants to give us good things now let me just simply say that, of course, the gift of eternal life is called that.

It’s called the gift of God is eternal life there in the book of Ephesians chapter number two. And God tells us, it’s not of works lest any man should boast. So when it comes to God giving a gift, it’s very important for you to understand something. And that is you can’t earn a gift.

You can’t work for a gift. You can’t buy a gift. The only thing you can do with a gift is you got to take it. You receive it.

You make it yours because it’s been given to you. Now that tells us something about God. one thing you need to learn about bible christianity is bible christianity is not meritorious now what i mean by meritorious is you can’t earn it you can’t earn salvation if you’re out here listening and you’re trying to be good enough to get to heaven or trying to do something to get to heaven you’re lost you need to look to jesus to give you what you could never in of yourselves do or earn and that is sins forgiven eternal life it’s a gift it’s a gift from god and we receive it by faith? Could we say by depending on Jesus, by expecting Jesus to do what he said he’d do? Now, it’s important to understand that when you get saved, the Christian life is a life of God bestowing his grace upon us.

Now, grace, the very essence of grace is that it’s a gift. That’s the whole idea of grace. You can’t earn it, can’t buy it, can’t work for it. You either take it by faith, and that’s how you get grace, for by grace you’re saved through faith.

That’s eternal life in whom we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand. That’s Romans 5.2. And so the way grace is opened, if we could say that, because God gives us the gift, it’s right there, is by expectation. That’s trust.

Just depending on Jesus saying, I believe it to be true. And God graces us every day. And there’s so many aspects I could literally take podcasts after podcast to kind of tell us what grace is. And perhaps I’ll do that at a time.

But right now, I want you to understand there’s a couple of things, perhaps applications that would help us. Number one, that is forgiveness of sins. Now, I’m not talking about salvation. I’m talking about restoration of fellowship with God.

If we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Friends, the moment you and I get honest with God and just get honest about, hey, I got angry. I got frustrated. I didn’t think, I thought in godly thoughts.

The moment we get honest with God, he forgives. When we agree with them. That’s the word to confess. In other words, we believe what he says to be true.

We expect God to do what he said he’d do. Just getting honest with God, he forgives. And sometimes people get into a whole mode of penance where they got to do this, and I got to feel bad, and I got to whip myself down in order to get forgiveness. Now, I realize we need to obviously be broken over our sin, but the brokenness doesn’t earn restoration of fellowship with God.

It doesn’t earn forgiveness. what gets you forgiveness is it’s a gift. God gives it to you because you simply trust him for it by getting honest with him about your failure and agreeing with him about what sin is, the sin is in your life, and about what his solution is, and by taking steps of faith, trusting him to deal with whatever it is, maybe just going to your friend or father or mother and saying, I was wrong, and doing it because you know that’s what God wants you to do, and it’s a faith step. It’s not something we’re not trying to earn forgiveness. It’s just believing God, trusting him.

And if we trust God, we’ll obviously obey. Faith without works is dead. I believe that’s encapsulated in the song, trust and obey. There’s no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.

And so it is with the Christian life. There’s so many aspects. You need God’s strength every day. You need his wisdom.

You need power and service. You know, it’s like this, friends. You don’t earn power with God. You don’t earn effectiveness in serving him.

You don’t earn that. No, it’s by faith. It’s God, I can’t do this at all. I need you.

I’m weak. And it’s expecting him to do what he said he’d do. I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. And that’s a wonderful truth.

Without him, we can do nothing. But with him, we can do all things. And it’s expecting that to be true, trusting him. My point, friend, is don’t get meritorious.

Anytime we’re trying to earn God’s favor, we’re off balance because favor or grace is not earned. It’s a gift. The very essence of it’s a gift. It’s taken by faith, by expectation, by trusting his word and taking that action step if need be.

And again, that action step is not earning. That action step is faith. It’s believing God enough to obey him, depending on his strength to enable you to do it and expecting him to grace you in that obedience. See, understand that.

And when you get a hold of that, you’re free. you’re at rest. You realize, hey, I can’t do anything to earn this. I’m just going to obey Jesus, trust him, obey, and expect him to intervene with whatever I need to accomplish his will in my life. And the Christian life becomes a delight.

It becomes a joy because we’re looking to the gift giver, the one who is the one who every good and gift and perfect gift comes from. That’s the one we’re rejoicing in. He is the great giver of Christmas, friends. And one of the reasons I believe gift giving is there, because it illustrates the great gift of salvation and the constant gifts he gives us every day in our Christian life.

Gives us what we need to live the Christian life and more. That’s what the Bible, I believe, means when it says my grace is sufficient for you. So I hope you’re encouraged in this. I hope you have a great Christmas, a Merry Christmas, and when you open those gifts, realize you’ve got a great God every day of your life who’s giving you enough grace, more than enough grace to live what he wants you to live, giving you wisdom, forgiveness, clearance with God.

And I hope, friends, you’ll be encouraged with the great God you have, who’s the great gift giver, and you’ll be rejoicing in him and learn to rest in him. And it certainly has been good to spend a few moments with you here in this Christmas season. May God bless you. And remember all you the Jenners out there that our battle cry is total dependence, total surrender to the great gift giver.

you