God is a giver.
• “For God so loved the world that He gives His only Son Jesus…”
GOD LOVES AND HE GAVE
God gives because He first loves. It is out of love for you that He gives.
• We can’t see love, but when God gives, we see it.
• You are loved, whether you know it or not. You are important to Him.
• Christmas reveals our value in the eyes of God.
God has given us in so many ways.
• Genesis 1 tells us God has given us a beautiful world.
• He made all things before He made man – He made the light, the water, the vegetation, and the animals.
• So that when man was created, he was placed in a world with everything he needs.
• God has given us air to breathe, the water to drink, animals and plants for food, and the fruits as dessert.
But it was not easy for God to give us Christmas.
• This world has turned against Him. We have sinned against God and rejected Him.
• It was not easy to love those who have turned their backs on you.
• It was not easy for Jesus. He would be despised, mocked and rejected.
• But He came. While we were yet sinners, Christ came and died for us.
God gave to the point where the need was met.
• What do we need? Not more wealth, more education, or more entertainment.
• The world needs a meaning and purpose to life, which is now destroyed by sin.
• We’ve sinned against God and fallen short of His glory and design.
• We need a Saviour, someone who would remove our sin and give us forgiveness.
And so God gave, to the point where our need can be met.
• Jesus was born to die for your sin and mine.
• The person who is mindful of your need is a person who loves you.
Do you know that you were on His mind when Christ was born?
• If you do not know Jesus today, God is still thinking about you.
• He is like the father of the prodigal son, still looking out for you.
• He wants to forgive you, and give you a meaningful life.
• You need to accept His love, and receive Christ as your Saviour today.
GOD GIVES AND HE SACRIFIED
God gave at a great sacrifice. That’s the price tag placed on your life!
How much are you worth? Look at Christmas.
• Jesus (the Bible says in Phil 2:6-7), “6Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
• That’s how much you’re worth to Him. He dropped His coat of divinity and took on human flesh to meet up with you.
• Don’t cheapen your life today! You are worth more than you can really understand.
• When we treasure our life, we are giving due honour to its Maker, our God.
Phil 2:8 went on to say: 8And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!”
• Jesus Christ who is God became a man, and not only a man but a servant, and not only a servant, but one who is willing to die for our sin, and not only to die but to die a most humiliating and painful death on the cross.
• That’s the extent God is willing to sacrifice in order to save us and give us a hope.
• It’s easy for God to give us things. But at Christmas, God gave to the point of sacrificing His one and only Son, “as the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
WALK IS PART OF GIFT
Gerald Horton Bath tells about a missionary in Africa who was teaching his students about gift giving at Christmas. On Christmas morning one of the Africans brought the missionary a seashell of great beauty.
When asked where he had discovered such an extraordinary shell, he said he had walked many miles to a certain bay, the only spot where such shells could be found. It took him half a day to walk there.
The teacher thanked him and said, “It was wonderful of you to travel so far to get this lovely gift for me.”
The African responded: “Long walk, part of gift.”
You don’t have to say much, we know it is love when there is a sacrifice like this.
• Look at Christmas, and know God’s love for you.
• It cost God something to love you.
This is our God. God gives lovingly, and God gives sacrificially.
GOD GIVES WILLINGLY
It was into a hostile atmosphere God sent His Son.
• He allowed the world to do with Him as they pleased.
• It is amazing to realize that God knew all that would happen and was still willing to place his Son at the mercy of man’s inhumanity.
• God realized there would be many people in every generation who would not believe or even care about Jesus, and yet he was still willing to send his Son.
• Saint Augustine puts it this way: “If you were the only one in the world who would receive His gift, He would still have come just for you.”
It was an act of mercy which no human mind will every fully understand.
• Someone paints it this way:
“Christ was born in a dirty manger, and ended up on a dirty wooden cross.
He was born in a borrowed stable, and was buried in a borrowed tomb.
He became a refugee in the midst of His own creation.”
God has chosen to bless us. He chose to do that because He loves you.
• If we are still lost in our sin today, it is not God’s choice, it is ours.
• “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)
• Don’t keep Him waiting. Accept His gift today and Christmas will never be the same again for you.
CONCLUSION
How do you response to such a God?
• And the Bible passage ends with this: “…since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:11)
• God still loves the world today. He is going to show it through you and me.
• We are called to love those whom God loves.
Be like Him. We give because we love. We give sacrificially and we give willingly.
Let us learn to give in love.
• There can be many reasons why people give, but let us give because we love.
• Jesus says in Matt 5:39-42 - Go the second mile for someone who asks us to go one mile? Give your cloak to the one who ask you for a tunic.
• Give a cup of water to your bro/sis in Christ and Jesus will remember you. (Matt 10:42).
Let us learn to make sacrifices, to give beyond what is convenient and comfortable.
• A missionary Charles Thomas Studd (1862-1931) once said: “If Jesus Christ is God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him.”
• We choose, in love, to sacrifice so that people will know Christ and be saved, those in need will be comforted and their lives changed by God.
• That choice is placed in our hands today.
OFFER YOUR LIFE TO HIM
In a large cathedral in Europe there was a very large, magnificent pipe organ. It was a Saturday afternoon, and the custodian was making one final check the organ loft high in the balcony at the back of the church.
He was startled to hear footsteps echoing up the stairway. He turned to see a man in slightly tattered travelling clothes coming toward him.
"Excuse me, sir," the stranger said, "I have come from quite a distance to see the great organ in this cathedral, and would you mind opening the console so that I might get a closer look at it?" The custodian at first refused, but the stranger seemed so eager and insistent that he finally gave in.
"May I sit on the bench?" That request of the stranger was met with absolute refusal by the cathedral custodian. "What if the organist came in and found you sitting there? I would probably lose my job!" But again the stranger was so persistent that the custodian gave in." But only for a moment," he added.
The custodian noticed that the stranger seemed to be very much at home on the organ bench, so he was not completely surprised when he was asked by the stranger to be allowed to play the organ. "NO! Definitely not!" said the custodian. "No one is allowed to play it except the cathedral organist."
The man’s face fell, and his deep disappointment was obvious. He reminded the custodian how far he had come, and assured him that no damage would be done.
Finally the custodian relented and told the stranger he could play the instrument, but only a few notes and then he would have to leave.
Overjoyed, the stranger pulled out some stops and began to play. Suddenly the cathedral was filled with the most beautiful music the custodian had ever heard in all his years in that place.
In what seemed all too short a time, the dowdy stranger stopped playing and slid off the organ bench and started down the stairway.
"Wait!" cried the custodian. "That was the most beautiful music I have ever heard in the cathedral. Who are you?"
The stranger turned for just a moment as he replied, "Mendelssohn." The man was none other than Felix Mendelssohn, one of the greatest organists and composers of the 19th century!
The custodian was alone now in that great stone edifice, the beautiful organ music still ringing in his ears. "Just think," he said softly, "I almost kept the master from playing his music in my cathedral!"
God has designed this wonderful life. He made it and designed it.
• Offer it to Him, and allow Him to play wonderful music through it.
• Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)
• Will you offer your life to Him today?
Dear friends, put your trust in Jesus Christ today.
• He is the only Saviour God has provided for us. Only Jesus died for your sin, no one else did.
• Acts 4:12 “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
