Deo Gloria
December 24, 2019
Message for Christmas Eve
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: John 3:16
Theme: God So Loved the World!
What’s the best Christmas gift you ever received? Hum, that might be difficult to answer. Most of us have received so many presents over the years. Was it the ring you got from your boyfriend? Was it the new cell phone your parents gave you? Was it a stuffed, plush, huggable Olaf or an elegant Elsa doll? Was it a snowmobile or a maybe your very first sled? Hum, the best Christmas gift ever? Actually, if we stop and think about it for a moment, that question really isn’t so hard to answer. No matter how many Christmases we may have celebrated or how many presents we may have opened, there’s one gift that stands out above all the others, one that’s always the same and always the best. John describes that gift for us this way in the third chapter of his Gospel: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Notice the tag on God’s Christmas gift. “To the world,” it reads. Odd, isn’t it, that God should give a gift to the world? We give gifts to our family members and our friends and maybe to our neighbors next door. But how many of us give gifts to our enemies? You know, that kid at school who’s such a jerk, the one who’s always picking on others and getting in trouble. How many of you got a Christmas gift for him this year? Or that person at work, you know, the loud mouth, the one who is so full of himself, the guy who’s always right even when he’s wrong. How many of you got a Christmas gift for him this year? God did. God sent a gift for a world full of people like that, a world full of sinners, people who annoy him and irritate him and offend him with their sins, people who hate him and despise him and rebel against him in their hearts. That world did not deserve anything from God for Christmas, not a glass of eggnog, not a plate of Christmas cookies, not a lump of coal, nothing. On second thought, maybe they did deserve a lump of coal, a whole truck load of coal to stoke the fires of hell even hotter, because that’s what they really deserve on account of their sins. And yet, to a world of such people who have wronged him and ignored him and dishonored him over and over again God gave a very special Christmas gift. He gave his Son to be their Savior.
Why would he do that? Because that’s who he is. He is a God of love. When the Bible talks about God’s love, it doesn’t mean a warm, sentimental kind of feeling, the kind we might have toward our family and our friends at Christmastime. No, when the Bible talks about God’s love, it means a selfless love, a giving love, a love that puts others first, a love that is willing to do for others and give to others even though they don’t deserve it. The word we often use to describe this kind of love is grace, undeserved love. It’s the love that gives a $20 gift card to a homeless person even though he doesn’t deserve it. It’s the love that makes a plate of Christmas cookies for the other coworkers at the office including Mr. Big Mouth, even though he doesn’t deserve it. It’s the love that would move a child to give up her plush, cuddly Olaf doll and give it to a child in the cancer ward at Children’s Hospital. The Bible describes this amazing love of God this way: “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins”(1 John 4:9+10). This is who God is, a God of grace, a God of love. And because he is such a loving and gracious God, he gave an incredible gift, a gift like none other, his own Son to be our Savior.
Take another look at the tag on God’s Christmas gift. Notice what else it says. “Whoever—that whoever believes in him….” In other words picture a blank there, a blank where you can put your name and where I can put mine. Tonight people all around the world are celebrating the birth of Jesus. Tonight people all around the world are kneeling before the babe of Bethlehem and worshipping him as their Savior. But that doesn’t do me any good if he’s only the Savior of the Andersons or the Wilsons or the Schmidts. The wonderful thing about this gift is that’s it’s not intended for only one person or only one family. It’s intended for everyone, including me. Jesus is my Savior. He is the Christmas gift God sent for me and for all.
Next let’s take a closer look at the gift itself. Often times the Christmas gifts we receive turn out to be rather impractical. They end up in a box in our closet or on a table in our rummage sale. After all, what’s a father supposed to do with all the ties he received for Christmas over the years? Or how many bottles of perfume can a mother actually use? Or how often haven’t you told a person who just handed you a present, “You shouldn’t have,” when what you really meant was “No, really, you shouldn’t have,” and “I sure hope you included the gift receipt, because I’m going to have to take it back.”
How different it is with the gift that God gives us! What could be more practical, more useful? Unlike that new sweater we received, God’s gift doesn’t get put away in a closet or tucked away in a drawer when spring rolls around. Unlike that new monster truck or that new Barbie Doll, God’s gift doesn’t get used for a month or two and then end up at the bottom of the toy box. We need the Savior God sent every day to assure us of his love. We need the Savior God sent every day to assure us of our forgiveness. We need the Savior God sent every day to assure us that he has conquered sin and conquered death for us, and because of what he has done, we shall not perish but have eternal life.
Think back to the Christmas gifts you received last year or the year before that or the year before that. How many do you still have? How many do you still use? Christmas gifts have a way of wearing out, don’t they? They break. They get a hole in the knee or a tear in the sleeve. Or maybe we just get tired of them. Sooner or later they find their way to the garbage can or to the box marked “rummage sale.”
But not God’s Christmas gift. Look at how long it has lasted. Mary had it. The shepherds had it. Our parents and grandparents had it, and so do we. Our children have it. Our grandchildren and great grandchildren will have it—at least we hope they will. Here is a gift that is permanent, a gift that will last to the end of time. And we pray a gift that will last for us till the end of our days. We want God’s Christmas gift to remain our most precious possession until he takes us from this life to himself in heaven.
If you’re like me, you probably can’t remember even half the gifts you’ve received over the years for Christmas, but that’s OK. In the end it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that we remember the personal, practical and permanent gift that God gave us for Christmas, the gift of his Son, the gift of a Savior, because God so loved the world. Amen.