Seriously, who doesn’t love free stuff?
Recently, my friends and I had the privilege of visiting Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC) in Washington, D.C. We had a great evening visiting and gleaning wisdom from the elders of their church. CHBC is also the headquarters for an organization known as 9Marks, an organization that publishes resources to help equip and build healthy churches. Most of their books are on my Amazon wish list, but since buying them all would cost a pretty penny, I was waiting until later to buy them.
While we were visiting with the elders, they were telling us about some of the work they do in 9Marks. As we were talking with them, they invited us up to the 9Marks office to see where all of their work was done. When we got to the office they shocked us all with a gracious gift – they offered us any number of their books that we wanted to take – for free!
Free!
It was such an unexpected and gracious gift, I could barely contain my excitement.
Now, free stuff on its own is great, but free stuff that we wouldn’t be able to afford on our own is even better. A free meal from McDonald’s is a nice gift, but if someone bought you a steak dinner out of the blue – how much more shocked and grateful would you be?
I must’ve taken 15 or 16 books, all of which I was planning to buy at some point but didn’t currently have money to afford. Being at the church was a gift enough, but a stack of nice books that I couldn’t afford was amazing.
As Christians, we know all about getting extravagant gifts for free. The Bible is clear that apart from the mercy and grace of God, we are destitute broken, and alone. Our good works – works that we often think are worth something – are described as either filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6) or (literally) poop (Philippians 3:8). Our violation of God’s law has left us in an eternal debt that we are unable to repay. Even on our best day, we are entirely unable to achieve or pay for a right standing with God.
And yet, God is merciful and gracious towards us in astounding ways. The Apostle Paul explains to us the free gift that we have in Christ:
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:15-17)
We were dead in our trespasses before receiving the free gift of God, but because of Christ’s death and resurrection we have been given grace in abundance (verse 17). We are justified, that is, declared to be in right standing with God. Elsewhere, the Apostle Paul says that the gifts and riches of God’s grace are lavished upon us (Ephesians 1:7-8). We can’t even come close to affording this gift on our own, not even close! When we confess our only hope in Christ the King, we are not given a door-prize of a free gift. No, we are given far more than we could ever imagine or hope for, a gift that keeps on giving; now and into all eternity.