Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] All right, let's take our Bibles, turn to Acts chapter eight once again.
[00:00:04] Thank you, brother Ari, chapter eight. And we are already familiar with this. I'll summarize it for those that maybe weren't here this morning.
[00:00:25] This morning we studied and looked at the narrative narrative of Philip going to Samaria and we saw the different aspects of this different region and the people that were there and what that meant for the expansion of the Gospel. And we also met an interesting person named Simon who was a sorcerer. He was involved in witchcraft and fortune telling and such and how he was affected by the Gospel and how he responded to the Gospel. So we saw that.
[00:01:03] What we want to look at tonight though, is one particular part of what Simon says to Peter.
[00:01:12] And so we'll drop down in Acts chapter eight to verse number 14.
[00:01:19] The Bible says now, when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John, who, when they were come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost.
[00:01:35] For as yet he was fallen upon none of them. Only they were baptized in the name of the Lord jesus then laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost.
[00:01:47] And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles'hands rather the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, saying, give me also this power that on whomsoever I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost.
[00:02:05] But Peter said unto him, thy money perish with thee because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.
[00:02:17] Interesting thought, interesting principle is what I want to look at tonight. Let's pray together.
[00:02:24] Father, first of all, thank you for loving us.
[00:02:27] Thank you for being faithful and good and kind to us and providing things for us when we are most unworthy, giving us the things we need in our physical life, but also the things we need spiritually. Lord, you have definitely not overlooked that.
[00:02:44] Thank you Lord, for those that are here tonight that have come to hear the word of God. And Lord, if there be one that has come just to come, not to hear the word of God, I pray Lord, that you would get the attention of that person or those people.
[00:02:59] And Lord, I pray that each one of us, Lord, would hear what Your word says on this matter and would hear it clearly.
[00:03:08] It would have a certain sound to our ears that we would understand it.
[00:03:14] Lord, you said that you know how to give good gifts to those that ask you, Lord. And we ask now that you would give your Spirit to guide and control the way the word of God is heard and the way it's also spoken.
[00:03:30] We pray that you would truly meet with us and help us as we look at your word tonight. In Jesus name, amen.
[00:03:39] So the principle I want to look at tonight is the principle that Peter mentions. Peter really keys in on something about Simon.
[00:03:48] And of course, we know we talked about Simon and his scheme having come from a place where his honor and fame and wealth came from fortune telling and now air, quote, believed in Christ and he has been baptized, but yet he's reverting back to the same, just a Christian version of the same thing. He wanted to use these gifts and these miraculous things that Philip had done and that Peter had done to continue to wow the people around him so that he could continue to make his money and keep his honor. And we saw how wicked that was.
[00:04:30] But what I want to show you is what Peter says to him in verse number 19 and 20, the Bible says he says to Peter, give me also this power that on whomsoever I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost.
[00:04:45] But Peter said unto him, thy money perish with thee. You know what I love about that? And I hinted that this morning. But what I love about that is you can see in that one statement how that you can see Peter's attitude toward money. As I said this morning, all of us have to have money to live.
[00:05:06] That's a given. But Peter's attitude toward money was so if I can say it so right, so pure money had listen, when you read this about Peter, money had no power over Peter's principles. It had no power at all over his faith. None whatsoever.
[00:05:30] He just unabashedly. I don't know how much Simon might have given him. They probably could have negotiated. And not that Peter had the power to give him this gift necessarily, but even if he had power, money is used often and has been used throughout history to provide different positions in the church. And it's always been an issue with money. That's always been a thing as long as people have loved money. Money has been used to do evil and use religion to do it.
[00:06:02] But I love the fact that Peter just utterly repudiated it. And I thought about that, Peter being an apostle, how that even in the requirements for a bishop, in one Timothy chapter three, the Bible actually says, not greedy, a filthy, lucrative so even a pastor, if money has any sway over him, he is unfit.
[00:06:24] That's a pretty high standard, especially when you see so many things related to money being peddled and I use that term on purpose, peddled in the name of Christianity.
[00:06:37] But I thought that was a blessing to me. Sometimes when you read between the lines a little bit, you can see the heart and the attitude and the motives of these men of God, these men and people of God in general when you pay attention to what you're reading.
[00:06:53] So he says peter brings up this principle. He says, thy money perish with thee because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.
[00:07:09] That the gift of God may be purchased with money. Now, I want to say this from the outset. There are many people in this world that believe this very thing.
[00:07:21] Now in the context, in the immediate context we're reading about, the gift being spoken of is the gift that at this time in history god had given to the apostles who were the twelve chosen, not representatives, but the twelve chosen ones that Christ hand picked personally to carry on his work and their ministry was only temporary. But in this period of time to demonstrate that what is happening here as is an actual work of God, the Lord gave them this gift that when these people believed and they had been baptized, they would pray for them and lay their hands on them and those people would receive the Spirit of God. Just like we think it's some big thing. But actually it's just exactly like the Spirit of God that you have the indwelling of the Spirit of God that's just like what you have and just like what you have and what I have, the Spirit of God in every child of God, this is what they received. It wasn't a special, out of the ordinary thing for any child of God. This is exactly it.
[00:08:23] But there are many people that think that the gift of God is something that can be purchased.
[00:08:31] There are many people that think this this is a common idea. And I'll explain with you what I mean, but think about what in the scripture are the gifts of God. There's one particular gift spoken of here, but there are other things that are referred to as gifts of God. In the scripture we'll look at three of them, but there's a mention of the spiritual gifts. How many of you have heard of spiritual gifts? The mention of spiritual gifts, the special abilities God gives to every child of God to enable him to serve the Lord and serve his church. There's spiritual gifts. One corinthians chapter 14 Then there is the Holy Spirit himself. That's what we read about here. The Spirit of God indwelling with the believer is a gift of God. You cannot purchase it. There's no amount of money that can purchase it. But then if you would look at a couple other places, three in fact. Look, since we're here, look at Romans chapter six mentions a gift that I want to look at and this gets more into line of the gift that I want to pay attention to. Romans, chapter six. The last verse says this for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The gift of God is eternal life. So this gift is the gift of eternal life. So I'll say it like this eternal life, everlasting life is a gift.
[00:10:11] It is a gift. Say more about that in just a minute. Keep going to the book of two, Corinthians, chapter 19, corinthians, chapter nine, verse also the last verse.
[00:10:35] Oh, I'm in first Corinthians, I was like, that's not right. All right, here we go. The last verse of second Corinthians, chapter nine also says this, thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. Anybody know what that gift is?
[00:10:54] Say again? It? Is it's Christ himself? Christ is the gift. When you read the context when you read the context about how that Christ gave himself for us, christ made himself poor for us. That's what this is talking about. Christ is the gift. All right, then we look at one other place in Ephesians, chapter two, ephesians, chapter two, verse number eight.
[00:11:27] Ephesians, chapter two, verse eight, says this for by grace are ye saved through faith. Now stop just a second. Now, in our previous verse, there's some things that are starting to repeat a little bit. The mention of grace is going to be repeated.
[00:11:50] The mention of Christ is going to be repeated. But just hang with me here a second. For by grace are ye saved through faith. And that not of yourselves. Now, a lot of people interpret this and they say, well the that is referring to faith, but it's not, it's not referring to faith, it's referring to salvation, which matches the word grace. Because grace is, if I can define, I know, God's riches at Christ's expense, people talk about that unmerited favor. But what grace is, how I define it is the kind disposition God has toward us.
[00:12:32] We call it favor, but it's kind disposition that God has for us, totally separate and independent from anything we do, whether good or bad. God is good and so he is inclined to us for good. Isn't that a blessing?
[00:12:50] Isn't that a blessing?
[00:12:54] For by grace are ye saved through faith. And that not of yourselves. In other words, nothing of yourselves. Here it is. It is referring to that it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
[00:13:14] That tells us that the gift mentioned here, it is the gift of God is that gift by grace that we receive, which is our salvation. So here's what we have, what we've seen so far. So in Peter talking to Simon, he's talking about the gift of the Spirit of God. Then there's also the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the abilities. But then there's also Jesus himself is a gift of God. He was given by God. Number two, the gift of eternal life in Romans, chapter six. And then you have the gift of salvation.
[00:13:50] The gift of salvation. We'll see there are more gifts, but we'll wait on those for just a minute. So what is the thing we're looking at? He says Simon wants to purchase a gift of God with money.
[00:14:09] So what is the merchandise? The merchandise is the gift of God. Simon wants to give his money to get this gift of God.
[00:14:18] Now, here's the thing. Here's. The connection I want to make is how we go about getting the gift of God as it relates to salvation is important.
[00:14:30] In other words, how you actually receive and get and obtain salvation or eternal life or everlasting life or righteousness or a right relationship to God, however you want to state it. How do you get Jesus? Because Jesus is the gift, right? How do you get christ? How do you get salvation? How do you get eternal life? That's what the three gifts we talked about, right? How do you obtain them? Simon wanted to obtain the gift of God with money. He wanted to buy it.
[00:15:03] So that's the merchandise we're looking at. That's what we're looking at.
[00:15:09] And just like this gift, all the gifts of God fall under this principle, which is they are given by God without money.
[00:15:19] Now, let's look at the currency for a minute. Now, in this case, the currency he wanted to use was actual money, silver and gold.
[00:15:28] But, oh, how many currencies there are that people want to use as legal tender to buy the gifts of God?
[00:15:39] How many currencies there are that people want to use to buy eternal life, to buy salvation, to buy Jesus? There are many currencies.
[00:15:52] It's not just one or two people use money.
[00:15:57] You think about this offering box down here. We put our money in the offering box because we want to show our love to God, not desire to forward the work of the Lord. That's why we give offerings. We give offerings as a thank you to God. We are not buying salvation because, as Peter said, you cannot purchase the gift of God.
[00:16:22] So if the currency is money, money cannot be used to get the gift of God.
[00:16:29] And just as a note, what does it mean to purchase? Purchase just to make it clear, to purchase something means to acquire it by exchange or to obtain it by money or by some other means. That's what it means to purchase something. In other words, it's a transaction.
[00:16:49] It's a transaction. You give me this, I'll give you that. It's barter. It's trade. In this case. But in this case, we're talking about money for a service or a good or something like that.
[00:17:01] Many people think their money can be used to help them obtain salvation. They're trying to buy eternal life with their money.
[00:17:09] All right, I'm going to explain this more in just a minute, but just try to follow me. For some people, it's not money. For some people, they are trying to buy eternal life by taking communion. They think if they take communion, they'll get eternal life. They're buying it. It's a transaction not unlike a financial transaction. For some people, it's not communion. It's being baptized. Well, if I get baptized, God gives me eternal life. If I get baptized, God give me salvation. To others, it's acts of charity, helping out the poor.
[00:17:46] They put it in their checkbook. Well, I gave this and I gave that, and I hope this person now I help that person, surely that's going to help me get eternal life.
[00:17:56] But you can't buy the gift of God with money to other people. It's religious works.
[00:18:03] It's confirmation. Perhaps for many, many people, they're trying to buy eternal life. They're trying to buy salvation by being a part of or attending a church. But you can't buy eternal life by being a part of a church.
[00:18:25] And for others, there are some people that they really, really have seen their life as a wreck and going in the wrong direction, and they really have a change. Maybe they go to AA or something like that, and they have a change in their life and they really have a new start. And they live differently than they lived before. They were committing adultery, and now they're not going to commit adultery anymore. They were beating their kids. Now they're going to love their listen, you can't buy eternal life with the thing, the good things that you do or changing your life. That doesn't buy eternal life. Why not? Because eternal life is not a good to be sold, not by money. Whether the currency is money or whether the currency is good works or church attendance or church membership or baptism or communion or confirmation or whatever, just the currency is different. It's no different than what Simon said. It's just the currency is a little bit different. Just like in America. We use us. Dollars. In Cambodia, they use Real, and in Thailand, they use bot. And in China they use Yen Yuan. I think it's called Yujun.
[00:19:26] It's just a different currency. But here's what I want you to understand about this.
[00:19:32] It's a transaction. Here's what I'm trying to explain.
[00:19:36] When we use a currency to attempt to buy something that is a gift, and some people might be like, well, confirmation, but people really are trusting that, and they think they literally and consciously think that. They said it to me, and I know people that believe it.
[00:19:57] When there is a transaction like this, it's like this.
[00:20:03] If the guy does A and by doing A, he expects B in return, that's a transaction, right?
[00:20:14] I go to Walmart, or better yet, let's go somewhere else. I go to Harris Teeter.
[00:20:21] Anywhere is better than to better. Let's do. Help Abby out. Chickfila. All right. Plug for Chickfila. I go to Chickfila and I hand them a $20 bill.
[00:20:36] And my expectation is when I hand them the currency, that in return for that, they are going to give me a Chickfila sandwich.
[00:20:45] Yeah, that's about, what is it, $20, maybe a few waffle fries. But the point is, what I'm trying to say is this is transactional event. My expectation is I do and in return I get it. That is what is happening here. But that is exactly the way people think of eternal life. It's a transaction. I do or give God this and I have made the payment and God is going to return the product.
[00:21:18] But here's what I want to tell you.
[00:21:24] I want to tell you that God has not offered wares for sale.
[00:21:33] That God does not run a store.
[00:21:37] That's not the way he works.
[00:21:40] His gifts are not for sale. There is no for sale sign.
[00:21:45] He does not operate a store by which he sells his gifts by any currency whatsoever.
[00:21:56] See, God gives gifts and you think about what he's saying. Thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased. That's a contradiction in terms. The very definition of gift means it can't be purchased. But that's exactly what he is doing.
[00:22:17] Now let's look at a couple of other aspects of this.
[00:22:31] When we think about spiritual things, we think about eternal life, we think about salvation. I just want to say it the right way, the way it rings in your ears. Eternal life, salvation, whether we're saved, whether we're going to heaven, however you want to put it, whether we're forgiven of our sin, whether we have righteousness, all of those things are biblical ways to describe this. But here's the thing in regards to those things, that thing eternal life.
[00:22:56] If we think that by doing but by this transactional event whereby we give God whatever those things that we count as the currency, we give it to Him and in return he gives us eternal life, doesn't that make it really easy?
[00:23:15] You see, God has a gift. And you know what? If God had a product, if God had some sort of wear that he was peddling or selling for people's good works and good deeds and being good boys and girls, if God had a product that he was selling then it might be just like that. But he's not in the business of selling products. He is in the business of giving gifts.
[00:23:44] And that means if you want the gift just like with a product you buy or you purchase a product but he's not in the product business but with a gift you don't buy gifts. You receive gifts. That's different. But if you want to receive a gift, you know what, you have to receive it on the terms of the person that gave it. Now, Paul's here. Now, if we get this idea that somehow God has a gift he wants to give us. But what he's told us is you got to get baptized and you got to change all of your life and stop all your sinning. And you have to give money to the offering plate and you got to become a member of the church. It's no longer a gift that's the price. That's a currency.
[00:24:23] But God has gifts. Okay. So if he has gifts, all that's required is to receive it. But there is god does say there is a way to receive his gifts. Now, the gifts are free.
[00:24:39] This gift of eternal life is free. We'll see this in just a minute. It's free. There is no currency. There is no amount of money that can pay for it. It is free to us. Do we understand what this word means?
[00:24:52] Free?
[00:24:54] Free. Well, you don't believe people ought to do good works.
[00:24:59] It's free.
[00:25:03] See, the problem is, if you think by doing good works, god is going to in return, give you eternal life, he's going to give you salvation, he's going to save you in return. That's a transaction. You're buying it. But it's a gift, and it's free.
[00:25:23] Has nothing to do with good works.
[00:25:28] But see, what God does require for eternal life and for salvation, like I said, it would be so easy if we just had to do ABC. That's the price. That's the cost. That's what's on the sticker with the little sunshine, low price. You just do ABC, baptism, confirmation, whatever sacraments, whatever you want to plug in there, give money, give a certain amount, say a certain number of prayers or whatever. If you do those things, you'll get eternal life. If that was the case, then you could just go around what God requires. You could just buy it. In other words, just like we do on Amazon. You don't have to talk to anybody, have to meet nobody. All you gotta do is just add to Cart, buy. Now you're done. It's great. I love it. I'm serious, I love it. I don't have to talk to anybody. I don't have to look at anybody. I don't have to discuss with anybody. It's great. But you can't do that with God, because for salvation, for eternal life, in order to receive this gift, not by receive, we have to face God with our sin. We have to come to Him visa vis, face to face. We have to come to Him as we are. God doesn't allow buying through the catalog. We have to come to Him. Just like I said this morning, we have to come to Him.
[00:27:01] God requires that our sin be addressed because it is our sin. That is the problem.
[00:27:11] That's the whole point of the Gospel, the whole point of Jesus coming into the world, being the gift of God. The whole point of his dying on the cross for sinners, in the place of sinners, paying the price for sinners, was because we were guilty of crimes against God and we had transgressed his law. We were guilty. That is the whole problem. That is the whole problem is our sin.
[00:27:39] It would be so nice if we could just give him our credit card number and we have to deal with that. But no, God requires us to come to him.
[00:27:51] As an example, imagine I'm the owner of a store and I'm holding a giveaway and I'm giving away iPhones. I know some of you would be like, man, but I have an iPhone, and everybody that's in the know has iPhone. Anyway, say I'm an owner of a store and I'm holding a giveaway for iPhones. And here's my rule. Everybody that shows up gets an iPhone.
[00:28:17] If you show up, you get an iPhone. You walk out the door, you walk in the door, you say hello to me, you walk out the door with a new iPhone. Sounds like a good deal. Sweet, right? Sweet. Josh is like sweet because he has one on order that he paid dearly for it, but this is free.
[00:28:36] And then there's a guy say, there's a guy that calls me up, and he says, hey, look, I heard about your giveaway.
[00:28:47] I want to get one of your iPhones. I say, hey, great, come into the store. You walk in, you say hello, you walk out with an iPhone. He says, Well, I can't do that, but here's what I'm willing to do. If you can mail it to me, I'll pay you for it. You're giving away iPhones, but if you mail it to me, I will actually pay you money for it.
[00:29:07] And I say, if you come, it's free.
[00:29:15] If you come, it's free. But it is not for purchase.
[00:29:21] Listen, all day long I can give away iPhones to as many as will as will come, right? All day long. But they have to show up in person.
[00:29:30] But I'm not mailing it to anybody. Even if they give me money, it's not for sale.
[00:29:40] Either he goes, either the guy comes in person and looks at me in the eyeballs, or he doesn't get an iPhone.
[00:29:50] But even now, here's the catcher. Now, in this example, even if he comes to me, is the iPhone still free?
[00:30:05] If he comes to me, if he comes to my store, is the iPhone still free?
[00:30:12] Well, yeah, to him. I mean, y'all are so think so deeply.
[00:30:21] Even if he comes to me, the iPhone is still free. It didn't cease being free. I'm not going to wait till he gets there and then charge him for it. It's free. If he comes, it's free.
[00:30:34] And so it is with salvation.
[00:30:37] Here's the thing.
[00:30:39] If eternal life was a matter of just doing A, B or C, it'd be easy. It'd be like a transactional purchase. You wouldn't have to talk to anybody. You just click Amazon. You just do the three things. You do the seven things. You say the 20 prayers or whatever.
[00:30:51] Bada bing, bada boom, you've got eternal life, you're going to heaven. If that was all it was, well, wouldn't that be simple? But you bought it. But see, God offers it to you for nothing, for free. But you have to come to him on his terms. You have to go into the store and you have to look at Him in the face and he's got to see you as you are. You got to come to Him with all your sin, with all your dirt, with all your history, with all your past, with your wickedness, with your thoughts, all of which he sees and knows all the motives you have to come to Him naked, destitute, dirty, defiled, depraved sinner. You have to come to Him as you are, and he has to see you. See, the Lord wants to deal with our sin. That's why he requires us to come to Him. And here's the thing.
[00:31:44] If salvation is free, if it's free, then why do so few people receive it?
[00:31:53] It's because of that reason.
[00:31:56] They do not want to deal with their sin, with God. It's just like Simon saying, peter, pray for me instead of praying to God himself about his own sin. They avoid God at all costs because they're ashamed.
[00:32:13] They don't want to walk in that store and let God see the way they are. In truth. Now, the reality is, God knows. But if you want eternal life, there is no way to receive it unless you come to God to get it.
[00:32:26] But when you come to God to get it, it's free.
[00:32:36] Imagine if eternal life was up for sale in Cambodia. They have a real hang up on this. Some people do because they say and they say, so if you do good, you get good. So in other words, if you want to in our terminology, you want to go to heaven, you just do a lot of good. The problem they have with that is who has the ability to do all the good?
[00:33:04] The holding, the festivals and paying for the ceremonies and having the monks come. And all that costs money. All the stuff that costs money. Who has the money to do that? Well, the wealthy people have money. So they say, well, they can twill and they can make merit, but I can't. I mean, I'm poor.
[00:33:21] But you see, Isaiah 55 one says this ho everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. He that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat yea. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. God offers it for free. And he says, Come and take it.
[00:33:43] You know what that does? It levels the playing field. The rich can take it just as well as the poor.
[00:33:51] Furthermore, in Acts chapter eight, we see that Peter says thy money perish with thee because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. It is offensive to God.
[00:34:07] Listen now, it is offensive to God for us to try and attempt to buy by our good works and religious deeds that which he gives freely.
[00:34:21] The gift of God cannot be purchased no matter how hard we try.
[00:34:29] It offends god. Because it. Ignores and makes light of the price Christ paid to give us that gift.
[00:34:41] That's what people that think, that their good works or religious works or whatever, that's the thing they don't understand.
[00:34:49] Just like Peter was offended in this attempt to purchase the gift of God, that's what they don't understand.
[00:34:56] They think they're helping God or something. God doesn't need our money and he doesn't need our good works or our righteousness. He doesn't need any of it. He needs nothing from us. That's why he gives it free. What does he need from us?
[00:35:13] But it is highly offensive to God, the one who has provided a free gift for us, to say, no thanks, I'll make my own way, I'll earn it. And God says, no, you won't.
[00:35:27] If you do not take it freely, you will not have it.
[00:35:35] One other thing it does. The fact that this is a gift that is given by God, which cannot be purchased. You know what it means? It means no one. There is no room at all for bragging or boasting about how righteous someone is, how righteous I am because of these good things I've done or how much money I've given to the church or oh, I'm a member of this church or that church, or I'm this moral and upright and I don't do this or I don't do that. It makes no difference at all. And there's no room for bragging and boasting. Romans, chapter three. Listen to this, verse 24 and verse 27 says this being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
[00:36:12] Where is boasting then? It is excluded by what law of works? Nay, but by the law of faith. In other words, if you take something for free, you have no room to brag about how righteous you are, because you're not.
[00:36:33] I want to look at Romans five.
[00:36:38] Let's go ahead and turn there. Before I get to the final thing I want to say.
[00:36:44] Verse twelve.
[00:36:49] Here's what I want you to understand.
[00:36:52] Go back to my cell phone example, okay? So we're back in my store. I'll call it Iadam.
[00:36:59] Okay. That's my store.
[00:37:02] I'm giving away free phones. All you have to do is show up. I'm not sending it and I'm not selling it. You have to show up in person. All right?
[00:37:15] It whoever comes has to meet my requirements to get the phone. But it's still free.
[00:37:22] But here's what I want to remind you of.
[00:37:25] The phone is free to the person inquiring to the man who walks in, the customer.
[00:37:32] But the phone is not actually free.
[00:37:37] iPhones are expensive.
[00:37:40] Josh knows that.
[00:37:44] The phone was indeed purchased, but just not by the man that came in the store.
[00:37:51] It was purchased by me, the owner, and it was purchased at a high price.
[00:37:59] I paid the price.
[00:38:02] There was a price that had to be paid.
[00:38:06] It's just that he didn't pay it, he got it for free.
[00:38:11] But for him to get it for free, I had to pay the price.
[00:38:21] Say God laid down a price for our salvation. Say God laid down a price for you and I that we must pay an equal, an equitable price to erase our sin. Say God did that.
[00:38:37] Here's the problem.
[00:38:39] There's not a living soul that would have enough money or any other kind of currency of good works to pay that price.
[00:38:48] Not a soul.
[00:38:51] Not a soul.
[00:38:52] It is not possible, god, knowing that, paid the price for us.
[00:39:01] Please listen to these verses carefully.
[00:39:05] Forasmuch as ye know that you were not redeemed, that means purchased.
[00:39:10] You were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but you were redeemed. I added that but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
[00:39:31] You see, he did pay the price.
[00:39:34] Acts 2028. Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the church of God, which he, God, hath purchased with his own blood.
[00:39:53] You see, there was a very indescribably high price that had to be paid in order for God to give us a free gift of eternal life and salvation.
[00:40:07] Jesus paid that price so that he could give it to us free.
[00:40:14] Christ made the purchase which he then in turn offers to us freely. Look at Romans five, verse twelve, wherefore, as by one man Adam sin entered into the world, and death by sin. And so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned for until the law sin was in the world. But sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
[00:40:58] But not as the offense, so also is the free gift. You see, that what's the four letter word before the word gift? What's it say?
[00:41:08] Free.
[00:41:12] For if through the offense of one that's Adam the first man, many be dead, and that's true Adam sinned and cast all of humanity into death.
[00:41:23] Much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. You see, that the gift by grace, it's not something that you have purchased, it's something God gave to you out of his kindness and disposition toward us. It's free.
[00:41:47] The gift by grace, which now notice this the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ. So Jesus is the channel by which the grace of God came to us. Jesus is the channel by which the gift arrived.
[00:42:06] God gave us this gift of salvation and eternal life wrapped in a package which is Jesus hath abounded unto many. Verse 16 and not as it was by one that sinned that's Adam, so is the gift. For the judgment was by one man, one to condemnation. But the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. Justification simply means when God names us righteous, even though we're not.
[00:42:43] In other words, God says, I'm giving you this iPhone as if you paid for it and you didn't pay anything.
[00:42:50] It's yours, free and clear.
[00:42:56] Verse 17 for if by one man's offense death reigned, by one much more, they which receive abundance of grace, there it is again. And of the gift, there that is again. The gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. Notice that that gift is righteousness.
[00:43:18] You see, when a person comes to Christ dirty, they don't come to Christ with all their good works stuffed in their pockets, put in their wallet. They don't come to Christ with their wallet bulging with all their good works and all their Hail Marys, and all their confirmations and all their baptisms and all their good works and all their kind deeds and all their charity that they've done to other people with their wallet full of that currency. No, when a person comes to God with their wallet and they show God their wallet, they go away empty.
[00:43:53] You see, people think that doing that is what makes them righteous. See, God, look at my righteousness.
[00:44:00] But God says the gift of righteousness, it's not in your wallet. It's something. You come to him dirty. You come to Him with an empty wallet. No righteousness. Romans chapter, chapter four says that God justifies the ungodly. You come to Him ungodly, you come to Him wicked, you come to Him dirty, and you say, god, my wallet's empty. He says, I got an iPhone for you.
[00:44:30] And he makes you righteous.
[00:44:34] He declares that you are righteous and you walk out of the store with an iPhone.
[00:44:42] Verse 18 therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift, there it is again. Came upon all men unto justification of life.
[00:45:02] How did the free gift come upon all men? You know what that is? That's Jesus dying in your place.
[00:45:10] Dying in my place. He is the gift providing the gift.
[00:45:26] So to finish, I just want to say this god doesn't operate a store.
[00:45:33] His gifts aren't for sale.
[00:45:36] They cannot be had unless we come to Him, as we are not hiding anything poor sinful, guilty.
[00:45:48] But when we come to Him, as he says, come unto me, he gives us the gift for free because the gift has already been purchased.
[00:46:01] He purchased it at a high price so that he could give it to us for free.
[00:46:07] Let's pray.
