BJ talks about what makes a gift good, and why Jesus is the best gift.
Transcription (automatically-transcribed)
Yeah. Praise Jesus. Amen. You can grab a seat. You can grab a seat as you do.
I wonder if you can help satisfy a little bit of curiosity I have by show of hands. Please be honest. Please be Truthful. We're in Church. Who still has Christmas shopping left to do on Christmas Eve?
I see one go. Bless you, brother God speed. You got a couple of hours after the service, but you can do it. I've been there before. I've been in his shoes.
Whether you've done all your shopping already or not, I wonder if you've ever thought about what goes into making any Christmas gift. A great Christmas gift. Can I suggest you there are at least three things that make any Christmas gift a great one. A great Christmas gift is a thoughtful gift. You consider what the person enjoys or what they need.
You don't go and buy the world's most Premier, upper echelon, highest tiered toaster oven for a person who has told you a million times that they actually hate toast. Not a thoughtful gift. A great Christmas gift is a thoughtful gift that takes the other person into consideration. A great Christmas gift is also a valuable gift. I'm not just talking about the number on the price tag.
When you think of value, think of the time, energy, or the sacrifice that goes into the giving of the gift. If a young child gave their friend a gift that costs them only $10, you'd be tempted to think that that's not a very valuable gift. But you might change your mind if you found out that it took that child over two years to save up that $10, and that's the only $10. That's all the money that this child has to their name. And they spent it all to buy a gift for their friend that would make it an extremely valuable gift.
A great Christmas gift is a valuable gift. Thirdly, a great Christmas gift is a beneficial gift. Does the gift help the person that you're giving it to in a practical way? Or does it bring any sense of joy and pleasure to their life? Here's the kicker.
Do they end up using the gift that you give to them? Or does it end up collecting dust now? Because I love you. A warning to all the grandmas out there and here with us tonight, I speak on behalf of young children everywhere. Please, no more socks or homemade sweaters for Christmas until you reach around my age.
Then you cherish new socks once a year, but not until you're 40. A great Christmas gift is a beneficial gift to the one who receives it. Now, when you put all three of these things together into one gift, you have the recipe for a great Christmas gift is the gift. Thoughtful is the gift. Valuable?
Is the gift beneficial? When you think about what makes a great Christmas gift, you need to know that this is exactly the kind of gift that God gave to the world back on the very first Christmas Day. This is the kind of gift that God gave us when Jesus Christ was born, nine months after the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, letting her know of God's plan to have her give birth to the Savior of the world through the power of the Holy Spirit, even though she was a Virgin.
And after both her and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem so that they could be registered for the census, Mary gave birth to the Christ. The baby was wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed in a manger because there was no room for them in the Inn.
Still your mind with me and picture baby Jesus laying there, the Creator of heaven and Earth, humbling himself by becoming like one of us there. Laying in the manger was God's Christmas gift to the world. In Jesus, we've been given the greatest Christmas gift of all time. Because in Jesus we have all three things that make for a great Christmas gift. You see, Jesus is a thoughtful gift to the one who receives him.
See, Jesus wasn't born on this Earth just so that he could grow up, get a nine to five work until retirement age and then wait to die. He didn't come from the experience of what so many people in our world today boil this life down to. Jesus was born with a purpose. Jesus came for you so that you could have him so that you could enjoy him. And so that you could have your deepest needs met in Him.
You were on God's mind when he sent his Son into our would he? Jesus is a thoughtful gift to the one who receives him. Not only that, Jesus is a valuable gift to the one who receives him. To what price tag could you put on this gift? There's none.
We're talking about the life of the Son of God because it's a gift. It's free for you and me to receive. But make no mistake about it. This gift cost Jesus everything he had. You see, Jesus had to grow up and resist every single temptation that came his way.
See, Jesus was rejected by the very people that he came to save. He was betrayed by one of his very closest friends. He was abandoned by all his friends. When he was arrested, he was illegally condemned to death. He was mocked and spit upon.
He was beaten and tortured, and he took upon himself the sins of the entire world, including all of yours and all of mine. He was crucified and he died. Please remember that Jesus didn't have to go through any of this. He could have stayed in heaven, but he didn't stay in heaven. He was born into this world on Christmas Day so that he could grow up and pay the price that he did for you and for me, so that we could have him.
You see, Jesus is a valuable gift to the one who receives him. So, he's a thoughtful gift. He's a valuable gift. And thirdly, Jesus is a beneficial gift to the one who receives Him. What benefit do you and I receive when we receive the gift of Jesus into our life?
I don't have the time to tell you all of the wonderful benefits but let me share a few of them with you. You get forgiveness of all your sins. This is what he paid for when he died on the cross. Everything we've ever done wrong, completely removed from our record, not a speck of it left. He came to give us eternal life.
Our sins kept us out of heaven. But he took our sins away. Now we can go to heaven when we die. All because of Jesus. He gave us peace.
Our world needs peace now, today, more than it ever has. We are riddled with anxiety, worry, fear... COVID doesn't help. The role of government doesn't help. Everywhere you turn and everywhere you look, people are lacking peace and in desperate need of it.
And guess what? This is what Jesus came to give you and me. In Him. He came to give us peace and not just a magical peace. And he just touches you and you're just calm, and you have no more anxiety.
The greatest piece of all is that he gave us peace with God. See, because of our sin. Before he dealt with it, we were enemies of God. We were hostile towards Him. But when Jesus came to remove our sin from Him, we can now enter into a relationship with God to be friends with them.
Now I have peace with God. And if God is for me, who can stand against me, if God is for me or if God is for you, it doesn't happen. What happens in our world today? He is able to make you stand. You can have peace in the middle of the storm.
If you have the Prince of peace on your side and the last benefit I want to tell you about, that Jesus gives us is that he gives us God. Sure. He gives us forgiveness of sins, which is amazing. He gives us heaven, which is amazing. He gives us peace, which is amazing.
But above all that he gives us Him. After Jesus rose from the dead and went back to heaven. He didn't leave us alone down here. But he sent us the presence of the Holy Spirit. And anyone who receives Christ into their life by faith receives God into their life.
And you have God with you in your heart. Wherever you go, your friend of His, he's with you. And he is for you all because of Jesus. All because of Jesus. You talk about a beneficial gift.
The gift of Jesus gives us everything we need and everything we could possibly want. Because Jesus was given to us on that very first Christmas Day. He's a thoughtful gift. He's a valuable gift. And he is a beneficial gift.
He's the greatest possible gift anyone could ever receive. Now, in closing, I want to say this. If you've already received God's gift of Christ into your life, think I encourage you over the next day, over Christmas Day at some time, just for a moment during the business of the day, just stop steal your mind. Think about who Christ is and what he's done for you and simply tell him thank you. Tell him thank you.
That's all I want to encourage you. If you've already received the gift of Jesus, do that sometime sometime tomorrow. And if you haven't received God's Christmas gift to you because you haven't received Jesus in your life yet, can I invite you to receive Him right now? I don't know why you wouldn't receive him in light of what we just heard in this short devotion tonight. So I'm going to pray for those of us right now and you bow your heads and close your eyes.
I'm going to pray for those of us who have received Christ. I'm going to pray with you if you want to receive Him into your life for the very first time right now. So close your eyes and bow your heads with me. Jesus, we worship you this season is all about you, Jesus. You are the reason for this season.
You were born into this life so that you would he the world. And I know Lord, that there are so many here who already know you. They already have their life filled with your peace and your love. And I thank you for that. And I pray that you'd let all of us just be reminded of that tomorrow.
Fill our hearts again, afresh with your presence and with your peace. But, Lord, we want to pray right now. I want to pray with and for any individual that's here with us tonight. Anyone who has come into this place not having a relationship with you yet. And in this short message that they've heard, Lord, I pray that you've stirred their heart and their affection towards you stirred their desire, that they would want to have you God in their life.
Would you right now, Lord, just open the eyes of their heart and just show them their life what it is apart from you. Lead them, Lord, right now to turn away from everything in their life that's not pleasing to you and simply turn to you and say, Jesus, I believe you came on Christmas. I believe you lived a perfect life. I believe you died on a cross and I believe you rose again. Jesus, would you forgive me of my sins and give me the gift of eternal life?
And then, Lord, I give you my whole life to follow you. Lord, if anyone has prayed that prayer in their heart for the first time, just fill them with the joy of your presence and let them know that they're now a son or a daughter of the most High King. We praise you, Jesus. We bless your name and we pray these things in your name. Amen.