On a birthday, who usually receives the gifts? We’d all answer the person whose birthday it is, of course. This past week we celebrated the birthday of the Lord Jesus. However, instead of receiving gifts, Jesus, Himself was the gift that God the Father gave mankind to redeem us from sin. The Lord God also gave us some other gifts, which goes along with the gift of His Son, which the Apostle Paul talks about in our Scripture for today. Let’s look into God’s Word.
As we begin our Scripture passage, Paul speaks of three qualities of God that He shows or pours out upon us, and that is His kindness, His love, and His mercy. First let’s look at kindness. When someone shows kindness, they are generally selfless, compassionate, and merciful. We think of someone showing gentleness to us or others, and they are considerate of the other person and their feelings. They don’t act mean or hard-hearted to others. Kindness is the patient love of God that would allow Him to humble Himself and leave heaven to meet us where we are.
The second quality we read about in our passage is that of love. When someone loves another, they go out of their way to do things for that person. They are completely unselfish, and again, think only of doing acts of charity and other things for their loved ones. God also has deep love for us, a love that seeks only our good, and He is willing to act upon that to bring about what is good for us. It is a love that is self-sacrificing, which we see in His sending His Son to die in our place.
The third quality that Paul speaks of, one that God has given to us, is that of mercy. Mercy is when God withholds the punishment that we deserve from us. When God shows mercy, He shows compassion and forgiveness when it would be within His right to bring just punishment. We show mercy to others when we forgive, instead of giving the other person what they really deserve. God shows us His mercy when He forgives us our infinite amount of sins for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, instead of immediately casting us into hell.
When we have a gift for someone, the only sensible thing is to give them that gift. It does no good to just tell them about it, but never give it. So how did God show His kindness, love, and mercy to us? He sent His Son, Jesus Christ to earth to die on the cross to redeem lost humanity. Jesus is kindness and love incarnate, appearing in human form.
When sin entered the world, mankind fell under the just sentence of death and hell. That is what we justly deserved. However, God showed His love, His mercy, and His kindness towards us by sending His Son to pay that price for us. So many people, though, try to appease God by trying to earn their way to heaven by doing good works, or by offering their own type of sacrifice. That is a futile effort, though, as it is impossible for man to perform works of righteousness to save himself. A thousand lifetimes wouldn’t even begin to be long enough in order to do enough good works to atone for our sins.
We can only be justified by God’s grace, and not by any works which we have done (Ephesians 2:8-9). There is nothing we could say or do that would motivate God to save us. He offers us salvation completely because of His grace, which was displayed on the Cross (Romans 11:6). Because of God’s deep love for us, we are the recipients of His mercy. No one can claim that their righteous works earned a place for them in heaven. We are saved through the mercy of Christ alone. God loved us so much that He made a way for us to be in relationship with Him, both now and forever.
As we see, on His birthday, on Christmas, instead of receiving gifts, God gave us a gift - a gift of kindness, love, and mercy. A gift of His own dear Son to bring us salvation. Have you received that gift? No amount of works can ever pay the price for our salvation, as it is a gift. Accept His free gift today, so that you can be justified by His grace, and become a child and an heir of God.
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