Beforehand: Be sure to check out Pastor Ben’s message online if you were not able to catch it on Sunday morning.

Below is the outline of Pastor Ben's message.

The Deep Six Study follows.

The Perfect Gift - “How God Gives”

1 – Why Persistence Pays? – Luke 11:5-10, 1 John 5:14

2 – God Never Gives the Wrong Gift – Luke 11:11-12

3 – God is not a Grinch or a Grump – Luke 1:8

Deep Six Study

Introduction

“Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name, ‘Immanuel,’ which translated means, ‘God with us.’” (Matthew 1:23) The fullness of what God gave us when He gave us His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is more far reaching and complete than we are able to grasp at any one moment. We have various insights here and there while experiencing various impacts of this perfect gift here and there, but there is always so much more to comprehend and experience. Probably there is no better, more succinct, or more comprehensive expression concerning that which God was doing than ‘God with us.’ Somehow, God was not with His people as fully and completely prior to giving of His Son, as He was afterwards. Phillips Brooks in the fourth verse of ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem,” penned the words, ‘O holy Child of Bethlehem descend to us we pray; cast out our sin, and enter in; be born in us today.’ We have captured for us here the difference. For those who have received the Father’s gift, His Son the Lord Jesus Christ, God now dwells within their hearts. God is now with us in the closest and most intimate way possible here on earth and He is always ready to pour into our lives all of Himself and His resources for our good and for His kingdom and glory. This is the focus of this week’s Deep Six Study

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Part 1 - Corresponds to the first point of the message

Luke 11:5-10 – “Then, teaching them more about prayer, he used this story: Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him, ‘A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.’ And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed. I can’t help you.’ But I tell you this—though he won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence. And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

1 John 5:14 – “And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him.”

James 5:16-18 – “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit.”

Hebrews 6:9-12 – “But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way. For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Matthew 6:33 – “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Comment – While God’s presence within us is real, continual, and forever, our experiencing Him as an indwelling presence and resource for our living of life here on earth is often far from being full and complete. Devotion and diligence at being in His presence are vital. It has been said that we must seek the giver more so than the gift. While this is true, it seems helpful to think of it a bit differently. God is the gift and as we let Him give Himself to us more fully in our actual experience, He will wonderfully bestow all that is needed for every aspect of life here on earth. As we diligently seek God’s presence day in and day out, we grow more and more in our desire to know God and to be with Him and we become less oriented to what we want Him to do for us or provide for us. When we come to God full of our ourselves and our personal desires, there is little room for God to operate within us. When we come to God empty of self-will and our wish list; when we are there for Him and not ourselves, seeking to bow before Him in worship and surrender as ones who exist for Him and not as ones who want Him to exist for us; we are then ministering to God and empty of self and He is free to be God to us and unleash the fullness of Himself and His infinite resources into our lives for our good and for His Kingdom.

Question # 1 – What has your journey been like in regard to learning to seek the giver more than the gift ?

Question # 2 – What is one experience in persistence at seeking God with a request that finally resulted in the answer you were seeking?

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Part 2 - Corresponds to the second point of the message

Luke 11:11-12 - “You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not.”

Acts 17:24-28A – “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist.”

Luke 12:22-24, 29-32 – “And He said to His disciples, ‘For this reason I say to you, do not worry about your life, as to what you will eat; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap; they have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them; how much more valuable you are than the birds!’ …. ‘And do not seek what you will eat and what you will drink, and do not keep worrying. For all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek; but your Father knows that you need these things. But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.’”

Comment – Someone has likened our lives to a tapestry with our only being able to see the back side of it while we are here. To us it looks like a tangled mess of threads that don’t seem to be making any evident contribution to anything like a work of art. There are threads that are dark and not so beautiful that we cannot understand why they are included and how they will ever be of any value. But someday we will see the other side of the tapestry and we will see how all the threads were necessary and meaningful to the work of art God will have made of our lives by then. Since in that day we will be able to see clearly that God made no mistakes with our lives, we can trust Him now with full confidence that He never brings anything to our lives that isn’t just right.

Question # 3 – Can you think of something God allowed in your life that is still hard for you to accept as being good and right?

Question # 4 – What are some good things that have come about in your life as the result of a difficult experience God allowed you to have?

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Part 3 – Corresponds to the third point of the message

Luke 11:8 - “But I tell you this—though he won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence.”

Luke 11:13 – “So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”

Hebrews 6:13-19A – “For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, ‘I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you.’ And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast.”

Luke 12:6-7 – “Are not five sparrows sold for two cents? Yet not one of them is forgotten before God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.”

Comment – God‘s love for us is unconditional and so very full and complete. He longs for and waits for us to surrender to that love. We get caught up in our needs and wants and we readily deceive ourselves into thinking that we know what is best for us. How easy it is for us to slip into a pattern of coming to God in prayer merely seeking what we want from him so that our purposes and desires are fulfilled. It comes down to whether we are going to view God properly as the Sovereign Lord of the universe who is at the same time our “Immanuel.” Only when we do will we trust Him and surrender to Him fully and completely. He is not stingy, reluctant, or contrary. He knows what is best for us and we never have to worry that His plan for us and His provision for us will be anything but the very best for us in the long run.

Question # 5 – Are there ways that you are afraid of God and the things He might allow in your life?

Question # 6 – How are you doing in your journey of learning to trust God as a loving Heavenly Father Who makes no mistakes and only allows into your life that which is best for you and His Kingdom purposes?

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Conclusion

The Apostle Peter captures all that we have been saying in this week’s Deep Six Study in 2 Peter 1:3-4, where he says, “Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him (knowing Him in our actual experience) who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.” May we partake more than ever of the wonderful gift God is to us as we give ourselves to Him in submission and trust this Christmas.

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Related Scripture: Psalm 33:1-22, Psalm 34:1-22

Under “comments” in the Deep Six section of the church website post your thoughts, applications, and questions on these Scriptures or on anything else from this week’s Deep Six Study.