One Blessing after another
John 1:14-18.
Intro:
Can you imagine going on vacation in the middle of the winter and your sitting on the beach somewhere warm, relaxing enjoying the sun, and suddenly out of nowhere a massive tidal wave comes crashing down on top of you and everyone else on the beach.A giant wal of water crashes down on top of all the buildings . Everything is destroyed everyone is pulled into the water and drowned. It sounds like a scene form a movie doesn’t it? But that’s what happened last Sunday in Southeast Asia can you imagine over 80,000 people were killed by a giant wave.. Here in Canada us we think that 9-11 was a big deal. And it was. But this saw more people killed than 9-11.
A massive earthquake happened in the middle of the Indian ocean sending a wave of water 500 miles an hour toward the shore, as it traveled it grew bigger
And bigger and bigger, there was no warning system, and many were killed. So how was your Christmas weekend compared to that?
When you here of things like that it makes you realize that maybe things are not all that bad in your life. Sure, you have your own set of problems. Maybe you didn’t like the weather,Or things have been rough on the job, or maybe tough at home, But compared to the destruction in South east Asia, Things here in Prescott Ontario are pretty good.
I’m sure you have all heard the saying, Count your blessings, we even have a hymn in the hymnbook called count your blessings.
And when bad things like disasters and hurricanes happen to other people, it reminds us to count our blessings. As Christians we have a lot of blessings to count!! We are going to be looking at John 1:16 in our message tonight. What a great verse!! Do you know that you and every other Christian in the world can say that God has given me one blessings after another.
Imagine that, one blessing after another.
We asre on our way out of 2004, and will be starting 2005, very shortly. Are you glad that 2004 is almost over? What a year 2004 has been according to the Bible in 2004 God has given you one blessing after another!!
( remember more in 2004) wow one blessing after another. Tonight lets think about what God and the Holy Spirit is telling us here. You see there is more to counting blessings that just shrugging your shoulders and saying, boy I’m glad I’m not in India right now, or Thiland right now. There is more to counting your blessings than that. Lets look what the Word says:
1. John writes that our blessings come from the fullness of His grace.
In our country Canada and in the USA we know what it’s like to experience “fullness” we eat too much especially this time of the year. When was the last time you had that “fu;;” feeling you had one more plate of food than you should have had,and nowe you feel to full. God says that He is full of Grace. God is like a giant warehouse of gracious blessings, and that warehouse never runs out. Everyday the angels pull up there trucks and load up God’s blessings and then they take those blessings down into your world and give them to you. And then they go up to heaven again, and the whole thing starts all over. And the blessings never run out. That’s the fullenss of His grace.
ILL: I raed a story the other day how a man walked inmto a homeless shelter and started giving away 100>$ bills. He gave away a total of 35,000 dollars. Apparently he had been homeless at 1 time in his life, and now he just wanted to give away some joy during the Christmas season. Nobody there deserved that Money. That man just wanted to give it away. In a way that’s how God shows about himself in the Bible. He is overflowing with a desire to give you blessings. And these are grace blessings, undeserved blessings,. You and I are the people living in the homeless shelter as it were, and God is giving us one blessing after another. that’s the fullness of God’s Grace.
Let me ask you this, During the Christmas season does everyone get everything they want? NO in fact there are some people who walk away from Christmas empty handed because things just didn’t work out for them as they would have liked. TV Makes it look like everyone lives happily ever after Christmastime. But in the real world, there are a lot of people who get absolutely Nothing.
But that’s not what happens when God blesses His people. No one is left out. According to the Bible there is no such thing as a Christian who has not been thoroughly blessed by God And you can find that in OUR TEXT TONIGHT JOHN 1:16... FROM THE fulness OF His Grace we have ALL received one blessing after another All of us receive a ton of blessings from God, no one is exempt ( left out).
a few months ago all we heard about was the flu vaccine. In some places
We heard that you could not get the flu vaccine. Some people could not get it there was a big shortage of it. And then if you don’t get that vaccine your in big trouble. Maybe if you stand in line you’ll get lucky and get the vaccine. But not everyone can get it.
God doesn’t hand out His blessings in that way. Everyone gets blessed. And every Christian gets a death vaccine. Do you know what that means? Instead of us being punished for our sins, Christ is punished instead. As your substitute. In your place instead of you.
