The Best Gift

After visual illustration by Adam

That’s not just a story

That’s us.

The Bible calls it sin.

And sin works just like that oil

Hebrews 12:1 Teaches us that that sin so easily trips us up

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.”

It stains

It spreads

And the harder we try to fix it on our own…the worse it gets

At the end of 7th grade I found out that I failed my science class

Back then they mailed home report cards

I devised a plan to make sure my parents never found out

I waited every day for the mail to run

When it arrived, I folded in 1000 times to make a small cube

I stuffed it into a empty aluminum can, crushed it and recycled the can

That report card was gone

But the fear of my parents finding out

The guilt I felt from lying

Lingered

We try:

I’ll just be better

I’ll fix my habits

I’ll clean up my life

But if we’re honest…

We don’t just mess up once

We carry it

We spread it

We bring it into everything

And deep down, we know:

I can’t fix this

TRUTH

But then the father walks in

And notice what he doesn’t do

He doesn’t yell

He doesn’t shame

He doesn’t say, “Figure it out.”

He brings a better way

That’s Easter

Because God saw our mess… and didn’t leave us in it.

Instead, He gave us a gift

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Jesus didn’t come to make bad people try harder

He came to do what we could never do

He lived the life we couldn’t live

He took the penalty we deserved

He made a way to be clean

Not by effort…but by grace. (effort < grace)

Response

That oil?

There was nothing that kid could do to fix it

He needed something stronger than himself

He needed help from the father

And the same is true for us

You can try harder

You can cover it up

You can pretend it’s not that bad

But you can’t clean sin with effort

You need a Savior

That’s why Jesus is the best gift…

because He does for us what we could never do for ourselves.

Ephesians 2:8–10 “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

APPLICATION

Here’s the question:

What are you doing with the gift?

Because a gift isn’t experienced until it’s received

Some of you have been trying to clean your life up for years

And today, God is saying:

Stop trying to fix ___________ and let Me make you new.

INVITATION

If that’s you…Today isn’t about trying harder

It’s about surrender

It’s about saying:

God, I can’t fix this… but I believe You can

And in that moment…

Everything changes.

Not because you cleaned yourself up…

But because Jesus already made a way

This Easter, don’t just admire the gift

Receive it

Because Jesus isn’t just a good gift…

He’s the best gift you’ll ever be given