Introduction:
Matthew 2:11: On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.
Wise men still give Jesus gifts today.
Thesis: Romans 12:1 shows us the kind of gifts Jesus wants.
For instances:
Gifts that are surrendered
Given by choice. “offer”- NIV; “present”- KJV; “Give”- New Living Translation. Voluntarily/ not by force.
Given with cheer. 2 Corinthians 9:7: Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
At first I saw God as my observer, my judge, keeping track of the things that I did wrong so as to know whether I merited heaven or hell when I die. He was out there sort of like a president. I recognized His picture when I saw it, but I really didn’t know Him.
But later on when I met Christ it seemed as though life was like a bike ride. But it was a tandem bike, and I noticed Christ was in the back helping me pedal. I don’t know just when it was that He suggested that we change places, but life has never been the same since. When I had control I knew the way. It was rather boring, but it was predictable. It was the shortest distance between two points. But when He took the lead, He knew delightful long cuts, up mountains and through rocky places at break neck speeds. It was all that I could do to hang on. And even though it looked like madness, He said, "Pedal."
I worried and was anxious, and I asked, "Where are you taking me?" He laughed and didn’t answer. That’s when I learned that I was going to have to trust Him. I forgot my boring life in every adventure. And when I said, "I’m scared," He leaned back and just touched my hand.
He took me to people with gifts that I needed, gifts of healing, acceptance, and joy. He gave me gifts to take on my journey, and off we were again. He would say, "Give the gifts away. They are extra baggage, too much weight." So I did to people we met and I found that in giving I received and the journey continued and our burden was light.
I did not trust Him at first, to take control of my life. I thought He would wreck it. But He knows bike secrets. He knows how to make those sharp corners, and how to jump to clear high rocks, and do things I could have never done if I were in control. And I am learning to be quiet and pedal in the strangest places. I am beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze on my face with my delightful companion, Jesus Christ. And when I am not sure I can do it any more He smiles and says, "Just Pedal!"
Gifts that are sacrificial
Costly- our lives. “Living sacrifice”
Jews killed an animal, Lord wants a living sacrifice.
Sometimes people offer dead sacrifices. Only do things out of a sense of duty, no passion in their offering, “let’s just get this done so we can move onto something else.” We should be excited about our service to the Lord. John 10:10: I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
A clean gift, “holy”
Holy- without spot or blemish
Not a 2nd rate offering. the Levites when they gave offerings to the Lord in Number 18:29: You must present as the LORD’s portion the best and holiest part of everything given to you.’
3. We have communion and then offering. Why? We are then aware that when God gives, God gives everything...broken body, shed blood. God is a generous, abundant giver, and it is that giving that we are called to emulate as we try to become more like Jesus. We remember how God gave, and then we give. This pleases God and it also pleases us. God loves a cheerful giver.
Gifts that are satisfying “pleasing to God”- NIV “well pleasing to God”- Amplified
To please him is our highest responsibility.
2 Timothy 2:4: No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs—he wants to please his commanding officer.
John Kenneth Gailbraith, in his autobiography, A Life In Our Times, illustrates the devotion of Emily Gloria Wilson, his family’s housekeeper. It had been a wearying day, and I asked Emily to hold all telephone calls while I had a nap. Shortly thereafter the phone rang. Lyndon Johnson was calling from the White House. "Get me Ken Gailbraith. This is Lyndon Johnson." She replied, "He’s sleeping, Mr. President. He said not to disturb him." "Well, wake him up. I want to talk to him." "No, Mr. President, I can’t do that. I work for him, not you." When Galbraith called the President later, he could scarcely believe what the President said: "Tell that woman I want her here in the White House!"
To please him is our highest reward.
Colossians 3:23-24: Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
Several years ago in Chicago, Joseph Kratzle, a service elevator operator in an apartment house, recovered two checks for $114,000 that had been lost by the tenant in the apartment house where he worked. His reward was a fifteen cent tip and a solicitous offer to put iodine on the cuts on his hands that he received while searching through fourteen trash bags and garbage cans. The job took three hours, he said. Mr. Kratzle accepted the fifteen cents. But declined the offer of first aid. He administered his own treatment when he returned to the basement from the tenant’s apartment. The checks were in envelopes, that had been placed by error with a bundle of letters to be discarded. It was not Mr. Kratzle’s first experience at finding valuables. Years before, when he had been employed as a window cleaner, he was working in the Federal Reserve Bank, and found a package on the floor. It contained $83,000 in cash. That adventure was more profitable. The president of the bank gave Mr. Kratzle twenty-five dollars. Thankfully God is not that stingy.
But even if we don’t get many rewards, just to have God in our lives should be enough. Psalm 142:5: I cry to you, O LORD; I say, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.” Sometimes God leads us through a dry land, through a desert in our lives, bereft of many of the fruits we expect, in order to teach us that he is our portion. “Is God enough?”
Gifts that are sensible- “your spiritual act of worship”- NIV “your reasonable service” KJV; “rational, intelligent service” Amplified
Because of God’s great compassion- “in view of God’s mercy”.
Titus 3:5: he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. Not getting what we deserve.
Jesus told the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee. The tax collector prayed in Luke 18:13: ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ William Shakespeare said, “We do pray for mercy; And that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy.”
Because of our great constraint or compulsion- KJV. 2 Corinthians 5:14-15: For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
In 1858 Frances Ridley Havergal visited Germany with her father who was getting treatment for his bad eyes. While in a preacher’s home, she saw a picture of the crucifixion on the wall, with the words under it: “I did this for thee. What hast thou done for me?” Quickly she took a piece of paper and wrote a poem based on this; but she was not satisfied with it, so she threw the paper into the fireplace. Amazingly, the paper came out unharmed! A while later her father read it and encouraged her to publish it; and we sing it today to a tune composed by Philip Bliss. “I gave My life for thee, My precious blood I shed, that thou might’st ransomed be, and quickened from the dead. I gave, I gave, my life for thee, what hast thou given for me?
Conclusion and invitation:
The wise men’s gifts were a nice gesture, but our Lord owns everything. Psalm 50:9-10: I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.
What the Lord wants is not gold, incense, and myrrh, what he really wants is us. Exodus 34:14: Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
From different translations- “I urge you” “I beseech you”- “I plead with you” “I beg you”
David Crowder Band- He is jealous for me, Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree, Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy. When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory, And I realize just how beautiful You are, And how great Your affections are for me. And oh, how He loves us so Oh how He loves us, How He loves us so
C. S. Lewis: Christ says “Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit."
