Sermon Brief: It’s a Good Time for Receiving

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Christmas Sermon Series: Good Times
Based on John 1:11-13

ONE GREAT TRUTH: Receiving is more humbling than giving, which is perhaps why so many have never received the free and wonderful gift of eternal life.

As I started preparing this sermon, I realized that I had preached a message two years ago with almost the same title from the same passage. Almost unconsciously, I was preparing to preach almost the same points. The only problem is I’m preaching to the same church! Though they might not all have memorized the message that day, it still gave me an opportunity to spring into kind of a continuation as opposed to a rerun. The outline that day, straight out of John chapter 1 was:

• We need to receive the life His offers.
• We need to receive the light He gives.
• We need to receive the God He reveals.

With this current sermon, I want to go in a different direction. I want to trace a single and very important word through the New Testament… the word lambano (to receive or to take – an active word, not a passive one). John said, “as many as received Him (took, laid hold of), to them gave He power to become the sons of God.”

WHEN WE RECEIVE JESUS…

We receive an adoption certificate into the family of God.

We get to be sons and daughters – fellow citizens and family members, and joint heirs! The Bible is like an adoption certificate – it’s truth is all the assurance we need to remind us that we’re in the family of God. If you’ve placed your faith in Christ alone, you’re saved!

We receive the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

In John 20, Jesus, in the upper room, breathed on the disciples and commanded them to “receive” or to “take” the Holy Spirit. I believe that His command was looking forward to the day of Pentecost when they would receive the Holy Spirit as the indwelling agent of God in their lives. Today, we all receive Him the moment we are saved.

We receive spiritual gifts with which to serve others.

I’m a cessationist, so I believe some gifts have ceased. Though I’m not apt to argue long with well-studied continuationists, I do take great issue with some of the modern “manifestations” of gifts that were intended for ministry, not for pleasure or show. God gives us abilities through the Holy Spirit we didn’t have when we were born. We have a spiritual gift (or two or three) at our disposal – we received them when we trusted Jesus.

We receive the gift of eternal life.

We cannot begin to calculate the full value of this particular gift. It cannot be qantified. But when we receive Jesus, we receive the gift of eternal life instantly and permanently. “The wages of sin is death” (that’s what we deserve), “but the gift of God is eternal life!” (that’s a free gift).

Any time we add anything to faith and offer it to God, we’re pulling out our checkbook to pay for something God intended to be a free gift – it’s insulting to the sacrifice He made for us of His very own Son. Come trusting Him by faith and be saved forever, freely!