God's Giving of His Son Provides the Necessary Reminder: Man is First a Receiver, Then Second a Giver
In re-reading a part of his book, The Lord's Service, PCA pastor Jeff Meyers tells of the first-priority for man to remain a dependent receiver.
Pastor Meyers writes about public worship, “We have been told by well-meaning teachers, even otherwise Reformed theologians, that it is downright wrong to come to church in order to get something...Most of [the authors and teachers] define worship as what the people of God do, the work they perform on the Lord's Day, specifically the adoration, praise, and honor that they ascribe to God. This notion must not be permitted to go unchallenged. It is only half of the truth, and the second half at that. First, and above all, we are called together in order to get, to receive. This is crucial. The Lord gives; we receive.”
Meyers keeps our theology straight on this. He notes that there's a Pelagian camel's nose getting under the tent if we thoughtlessly affirm that man is first to give to God. Does man have strength to do this? Does he have ability to offer something to God? We're to keep the focus on God: He gives.
Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 4:7, “What do you have that you did not receive?”
To elaborate, I found this quote at Michael Gorman's blog. It's from the Methodist Will Willimon. It's excellent application:
“I suggest that we are better givers than getters, not because we are generous people but because we are proud, arrogant people. The Christmas story—the one according to Luke not Dickens—is not about how blessed it is to be givers but about how essential it is to see ourselves as receivers.
We prefer to think of ourselves as givers—powerful, competent, self-sufficient, capable people whose goodness motivates us to employ some of our power, competence and gifts to benefit the less fortunate. Which is a direct contradiction of the biblical account of the first Christmas. There we are portrayed not as the givers we wish we were but as the receivers we are. Luke and Matthew go to great lengths to demonstrate that we—with our power, generosity, competence and capabilities—had little to do with God’s work in Jesus. God wanted to do something for us so strange, so utterly beyond the bounds of human imagination, so foreign to human projection, that God had to resort to angels, pregnant virgins, and stars in the sky to get it done. We didn’t think of it, understand it or approve it. All we could do, at Bethlehem, was to receive it….
The first word of the church, a people born out of so odd a nativity, is that we are receivers before we are givers. Discipleship teaches us the art of seeing our lives as gifts. That’s tough, because I would rather see myself as a giver. I want power—to stand on my own, take charge, set things to rights, perhaps to help those who have nothing. I don’t like picturing myself as dependent, needy, empty-handed….
It’s tough to be on the receiving end of love, God’s or anybody else’s. It requires that we see our lives not as our possessions, but as gifts. Nothing is more repugnant to capable, reasonable people than grace, wrote John Wesley a long time ago….
This is often the way God loves us [referring to God's promise to King Ahaz of a baby, not a bigger army---Isaiah 7]: with gifts we thought we didn’t need, which transform us into people we don’t necessarily want to be. With our advanced degrees, armies, government programs, material comforts and self-fulfillment techniques, we assume that religion is about giving a little of our power in order to confirm to ourselves that we are indeed as self-sufficient as we claim.
Then this stranger comes to us, blesses us with a gift, and calls us to see ourselves as we are—empty-handed recipients of a gracious God who, rather than leave us to our own devices, gave us a baby.”
G. Mark Sumpter
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