The Father’s Gift

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

• The Season of Giving
• The Gospel of John, and John 3:16
• Encountering the Person of Jesus
• The Value of the Soul

The Season of Giving

So the theme of the play is really giving, is it? Pay it forward, giving to people, giving to neighbors, giving to friends. And so this is the season of giving, right? So we talked very briefly about God giving us the gift of his son. You know, I was thinking about if someone came to our country at Christmas time, say a Martian.

I don’t think there’s really Martians, but you never know. And he asked, why do you give gifts at this time of year? This is an interesting tradition you have. We don’t do this on our planet. I mean, we do these things. I mean, I remember. Growing up, you know, we’d give gifts and I never really thought about it. I just liked getting the gifts. I wanted gifts. Right? Why do we do this? ? Well, as Christians, the, the, uh, there’s a tradition of a guy named Saint Nicholas. Ever heard of him? He was actually a real person. He was a bishop in the church in in the fourth century, and there’s various legends, stories about him giving gifts to poor children. You reached out to the poor in his community, and there’s a story that one day he went to this home, and he threw a gift in through the window, because he wanted it to be anonymous, and it just happened to land in someone’s sock. So we get the stocking tradition, right? And you have all these stories. But Nicholas was a real person. And so he set an example of charity to those in need and this became a tradition of giving. There’s also the story in scripture. Now Nicholas is in the scripture by the way, of the Magi, you heard of the Magi? Called the Three Wise Men. Or as the hymn has it, We Three Kings, although they were probably not kings, They were probably cabinet members. Seriously, they were like, they assisted kings and princes and gave them counsel.

The Gospel of John, and John 3:16

So the kings come to Jesus, they find Jesus, the baby Jesus, and it says they gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And so we have this giving theme seen in the Magi giving to the child Christ, the Christ child these gifts. and so we have that giving tradition. But of course the ultimate giver and the real reason we give gifts is because we are emulating or imitating God Himself. Because at Christmas what we’re celebrating is really not us giving, although we do that and as Christians we should excel at giving to others. Amen? We should excel at that. But we are really emulating what God has given to us in Jesus Christ. What did God give us? Well, according to scripture, I know some of you do not believe in scripture, but I wanna share with you, this is really interesting. As I speak, you’ll probably see it go. That can be like, you know, one of those, it’ll be like a timekeeping machine. Then I’ll know when to quit when I can’t see it anymore. So, the scripture tells us that God gave us his son. I’m gonna read a few scriptures. Isaiah chapter nine, which is an Old Testament text, which speaks of birth of Messiah. It says here in Isaiah 9 verse 6 it says, For unto us a child is born, but unto us a son is given. And the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called wonderful, consular, mighty God, everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. Of the increase of the government and peace, there will be no end. upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. And then in the New Testament, the giving theme is very prominent, of God, God giving his son. And one of the most well-known scriptures, perhaps of the entire Bible is in the Gospel of John chapter 3. Now before I read it, I want to ask you, if you have ever read the Gospel of John, raise your hand. Now we’ve been giving out these little Gospel of John’s. Does anybody have one? Do you have one? We’ve been giving these out. This is just for you with a little ribbon, Christmas theme, right? This is a copy of the Gospel of John with an invitation to our Christmas Eve service in it. And I hope you’ve been giving these out to family and friends. I’ve given out about 60, 60 total.

Once we give our neighbors, it’ll be a 60 total. So me and Mike and Jess are all kind of competing. But Mike was asking people before he handed it to them, have you read the Gospel of John? And he said the other day, out of 21, only, where’s Mike? Yeah, give us the update on the numbers. 28 out of 30, said they had never read the Gospel of John. Now that’s astounding to me. If you would ask people a generation ago, it probably would have been much different. And so if you are here today and have never read the Gospel of John, I would encourage you, challenge you to read the Gospel of John. You can read this thing and I don’t know, it doesn’t take long. Just read it. And this gospel perhaps more than any other talks about the person of Jesus Christ, who he was, what he said, why he came. And in this gospel, in verse 16, Jesus is talking and he said this, he said, for God so loved the world that he gave, he gave, his only begotten son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. Now you know, if you’re not a Christian here today, let me just say this. When I was born, I didn’t have a beard and a Bible. Now the reason I say that is because when I talk to people, it’s so funny how they make assumptions about your story. You know what I mean? Well, you must have been raised in a Christian home. That’s all you know. Or, you know, they make assumptions about who you are. And the fact of the matter is, I remember when I read this verse the first time. I was an adult. And I remember being struck with the thought that God would actually love me. Now, if you’re a Christian here, you’re like, Oh yeah, God loves me. Because We have heard it so much that it’s like, eh, it loses its effect on us. You know what I mean? We just take it for granted. But there’s a whole world out there that doesn’t know this. And I was in that world, I was part of that world. And when I thought of God at all, I thought God was just the opposite of love. If there was a God, He was not good. And that’s why I was really an agnostic slash theist kind of person. I mean, look at the world. Look at the suffering, look at the pain. God’s good, God’s love. And I remember reading this passage and being struck with the thought, Could this be true that God could actually love the world, which included me? And as I began to read the Gospels, and starting with the Gospel of John, I was transfixed with this person of Jesus.

Encountering the Person of Jesus

Not with Christianity, not with church-ianity. As a matter of fact, church-ianity I was exposed to as a child, religion I was exposed to. But I was never really exposed to the person of Jesus Christ. It’s odd, but it’s true. many people, even Christians, talk about Christianity as if we’re selling people a religion. We are not selling a religion here. We’re not selling a Judeo-Christian tradition here. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about the person of Jesus Christ. And when you read the Gospel and the Gospels, basically the closest thing we have to a biography of the person of Jesus. And my story is that I was rejecting a Jesus I didn’t know anything about. The most reliable records we have are the Gospels. historically accurate records we have are the Gospels. And yet those are the very documents I had never read, but I just assumed that Jesus wasn’t who he said he was, et cetera, et cetera. I had all these assumptions about who Jesus was. And I had never read.

And so I was rejecting in a way the figment of my own imagination. I created this idea of what Jesus must be like and what Jesus must be about, and then I said, I don’t want that, without ever taking the time, and when I took the time to read the Gospels, I was enamored with this guy. I mean, this guy was amazing. I mean, even if he wasn’t the Son of God, which I believe he was, because he said he was, he did amazing things. I mean, his compassion for the poor, his courage. One of the things struggling with Jesus is, I mean, some of these religious leaders were out to kill him, okay? Do you know what I mean by kill? Kill. Not whisper about him at the water cooler at work. And yet he stood right up to them and confronted them to their face. I mean, this guy was courageous. I’m like, this is a man’s man. I mean there was so much about his character that struck me.

But then and the more I read the more I realized, you know, as C.S. Lewis said, you know, either this guy is who he said he was, or he’s absolutely crazy.

The Value of the Soul

I mean, that’s the truth. He’s either the son of God, because he claimed that, or he’s a madman. And you can’t read the text and walk away thinking he’s a madman. Now you can say, all the Christians you know are like madmen. That’s true. but not Jesus. Jesus said God gave his son, talking about himself, that if we believe in him we would not perish but have everlasting life. Now I don’t know about you, those of you that really know on a personal level, I love you, but I’m gonna be honest with you, I won’t sacrifice one of my children for you. I just won’t do it. Sorry. I love you, but not that much. And I read a story of a starving family in Germany years ago. And they were at the point of having a conversation. The parents were talking, the only option we have is to sell one of our children. Or we’re going to starve to death. And so they discussed it as parents, and they didn’t want to give the firstborn away because it was the firstborn. And of course, they didn’t want to give the youngest away because it’s the youngest. And so they decided instead of giving one of their children away, it’d be better that they all starved together, and that’s what they did. Their love for their children was so great, they couldn’t bear the thought to give their child up into slavery. And yet God gave his child up unto death and a horrendous death, the death of the cross. You know, when you think about the cross, the thing that strikes me about the cross isn’t the suffering of it, the physical suffering. What strikes me about it is the shame because it was the death of a criminal, the public ridicule, Jesus being spat upon and beaten and mocked and ridiculed. And when he’s literally hanging there, bleeding to death, people standing there laughing at him. I mean, that kind of scorn and contempt, amazing to endure that. But he endured that, the scripture says, for us. God gave his son, Jesus, that if we believe in him, we would have everlasting life. That we would not perish. And he goes on and he says, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. You know, one of the things that struck me in the teaching of Jesus when I was a young believer, younger, meaning younger in my faith, as well a little bit younger chronologically, was where Jesus talks about the value of the soul. and he said, what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

And I remember reading that. This is before I was a Christian. I thought, that is a heavy question.

What is important when you get down to it? You know, when you strip everything away, And you know what’s important to all of us? Our family, pretty much. The family is more important to you than your church, your work, your friends. But there’s something even more important than family. And that’s your own soul. What do we do with our soul? We have to remember at this time of year what’s really important. You know, it’s easy to get drawn into all the, what’s called the consumerism of Christmas, the gifts and all this. And I like getting gifts, hint hint. I love getting gifts. I love presents. I like all that. I like giving gifts. But what’s really important, you know? It’s like kids, little kids, sometimes will get a gift, and they’ll go, that’s cool, and then they play with the paper. And I feel like sometimes we do that. We forget what’s really, really important. I heard a story of a woman, and I’m going to close with this. She actually had been in the Army, and she was at the National Prayer Breakfast where President Obama spoke, and they were honoring vets there. And she was asked to speak. And so she shared briefly, and when she walked into the podium, you could see that she had lost her arm. And she told the story of mortar fire and how she had been injured and how her arm had been torn off. And then how she was rushed to triage and she was in triage and they were trying to basically, they were trying to save her life, right? Her life. And she was crying and weeping and basically howling. And the medical team said, are you in that much pain? Because she was just carrying on. Often when people are wounded like that, they don’t feel any pain because they’re in shock. She said, no, no. I lost my wedding ring.

She didn’t care about her arm. She didn’t even care about her hand. She cared about her wedding ring that was on that hand. You see, she understood what was really important because that ring was the symbol of the most sacred, valuable relationship in her life. You see, true Christianity isn’t about Christianity. It isn’t about churchianity, it’s about you having a relationship with God.

It’s about your soul coming to know the one who created that soul.

That’s the most important thing. Jesus’ death simply removed the moral obstacle on God’s part to receiving you into a personal relationship with Him. He’s removed the obstacle. There is no reason that any of us cannot have a personal relationship with God now because of what Christ did in removing our sin. That’s the most important thing, amen.

Because when you come into a relationship with Him, then your soul is saved, then your soul will be with Him forever in Heaven. Let’s pray. Lord, I thank you for the wonderful service today. We thank you for the children, the hard work of the directors. We thank you for all of those that are here today that dealt with the cold. We ask Lord that this Christmas, we would all remember what’s really important. And that’s having a relationship with you. We thank you, God, for giving your son, that through his life and death, we might have that relationship with you. You are the one that has given us the greatest gift of all in giving us your son. And we pray these things in your name, amen.