The Generosity of God – The price He paid – 29th Sept 2013



The Generosity of God – The price He paid – 29th Sept 2013

Genesis 3: 8-11, 22-24; Hebrews 10: 11-25.

This morning is our third in a series of looking at the Generosity of God. A couple of weeks ago Peter introduced us to the overall theme with such thoughts as, if we know how to give good gifts how much more does God, that Jesus reflects God’s generosity and extravagance, that we shall not want (that is lack what we need), and that God wants each one of us to follow him; last week Sylvia spoke about abundance in everything and how the universe reflects the extravagance of God’s generosity; and today my subject is The Price He Paid, thinking about God generosity in his heart towards us and his relationship with us.

Our readings from Genesis and Hebrews set the scene this morning. Here we have a glimpse of something precious being lost and of how that something precious was restored through the sacrifice and self giving of God. I am not going to go through these readings themselves, there is masses in there we could chew over together, but with them as our starting point I just want to say a couple of things.

In Eden we have a picture of God and humanity walking together in harmony but that harmony and relationship has been altered by our acquisition of the knowledge of good and evil – as a result we chose to hide away. Humanity has left the intimate and generous presence of God’s garden where all was available to us. Imagine, they had heard the sound of God walking – they were that used to his presence and yet they sacrificed that.

However, in Jesus, God comes to walk with us again, where we are in the mess of human life, and we see in Jesus God’s generosity as He shared the blessings of heaven to the point of extravagance, He fed the hungry, healed the sick, raised the dead, turned water into wine, taught about God’s willingness to forgive, and that his abundant mercy and kindness takes the place of perceived anger and judgement.

We are told in chapter 3 of John’s Gospel,

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (v. 16,17).

God in Christ generously and extravagantly gives Himself sacrificially on the Cross so humanity could be restored to relationship with God and receive His generosity and extravagance in the intimacy of His presence and provision once again. (Let me repeat that)

At this point I want to take us to a poetic expression of what I have begun to clumsily say, that is the words of one of our Communion hymns by William Rees,

Here is love vast as the ocean,

Loving kindness as the flood,

When the Prince of life, our ransom

Shed for us his precious blood.

Who his love will not remember?

Who can cease to sing his praise?

He can never be forgotten

Throughout heaven’s eternal days.

On the Mount of Crucifixion

Fountains opened deep and wide;

Through the floodgates of God’s mercy

Flowed a vast and gracious tide.

Grace and love, like mighty rivers,

Poured incessant from above,

And heaven’s peace and perfect justice

Kissed a guilty world in love.

The opening line says “Here is love vast as the ocean” but it is the second verse that is particularly full of the language of extravagance and abundance: fountains deep and wide, floodgates of God’s mercy, a vast and gracious tide, mighty rivers of grace and love which are incessantly pouring – no stinting here from our generous God. In case you may think that this language only belongs to such hymns here are just 3 quotes from God’s Word:

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” 1 John 3:1 (NIV).

“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us.” Eph. 1:7-8a

“But God who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us...made us alive together with Christ...and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.” Eph. 2:4-7

Can we pause here just for a moment and talk about shopping. If you go into a shop and ask the cost of an item you may briefly weigh up whether it is worth it. There may be lots of considerations that lie behind your conclusion, such as the cost of the materials used, the cost to produce it and its importance to you, before you purchase. You may look at something for example made of a tiny bit of plastic and exclaim that the price being asked is extortionate!!!!! However you may need that bit of plastic where nothing else will do and opt to pay for it even so.

God looks at us, God looks at us and says the cost is worth it. He so wants us to have that intimate relationship with Him that He will pay anything and has done. God, the Son, emptied Himself and gave Himself (Phil 2) to restore us to that relationship and everything that comes with it. God’s generosity stretches far beyond merely things, life in all its fullness, forgiveness, cleansing, healing, wholeness, or as the author of The Shack puts it,

When God the Father was asked, “What exactly did Jesus accomplish by dying?” the Father replied, “Just the substance of everything that love purposed from before the foundations of Creation.” (The Shack by William P. Young).

What manner of love the Father has lavished upon us? And what is the response that He desires from us? His word tells us:

Jesus said we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul, all our strength - and you can’t have more than all!!! What have you got? What are you like? Love the Lord your God with all of that!!

The trouble is perhaps we haven’t grasped the lavishness, the richness, the abundance, the extravagance of God towards us, maybe the more we begin to comprehend it, the more we receive it and live in it and experience it, the more we will want to love the Lord our God with all that we are and with all that we have.

The end of our Communion song goes,

And heaven’s peace and perfect justice

Kissed a guilty world in love.

Rob Bell writes, “It’s one thing to stand there in a lab coat with a clipboard recording data about lips. It’s another thing to be kissed.” (From What we talk about when we talk about God).

We have been kissed, and God invites us to come and receive and to respond.

Rev Jan Copsey

Unless stated otherwise Bible quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version (Anglicised Edition), copyright 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The NIV passage is from the Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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