Have you ever wondered why Christmas is all about giving?
Well, I imagine most of us have a feel for this. It’s because Jesus was all about loving and giving.
But there’s a little bit more to it than that. And my goal this evening is that you don’t miss what Jesus intended Christmas to be about for you.
So as we begin our meditation on what Christmas is all about, I’m going to ask everyone here to answer this question for yourself. This will help you determine if you both know what Christmas all is really about and if you have applied what Christmas is all about to your own life.
The question is this: If you were to die tonight and meet God at heaven’s gate, and He were to ask you why He should let you in, what would you say? Now this is very important. I really want you to think about it. And just in case you missed it, the question is, if you were to die tonight, and meet God at heaven’s gate, and he were to ask you why He should let you into His heaven, what would you say? Do you have any idea? What’s the first thing that comes to mind.
Now remember your answer because we’ll be referring to it again in a few minutes.
This evening I want to talk about one-on-one conversations Jesus had with two very different people in back-to-back chapters of the Gospel of John. These two people were as different as night and day. One was a man, the other was a woman. One was a great success and highly respected by other people. The other was a great failure in the things that mattered to her and was an outcast among outcasts. They had this in common. They were both religious and they both likely thought that the way to heaven depended on either keeping the Law or doing good works.
The first person was a man named Nicodemus. We find his story in John chapter 3. Now Nicodemus was a religious and political leader among the Jews in Jerusalem. Jesus called him “the teacher of Israel.” He was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, the equivalent of today’s Jewish Knesset, or the Senate in our country, which ruled Israel under the authority of the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate. So it seemed like he had everything going for him. And he was in Jerusalem when Jesus got there for the Passover Feast early in his ministry. And Jesus did what He did everywhere He went. He did miracles, he delivered people from evil spirits and he miraculously healed absolutely everyone who came to him.
Well, Nicodemus was impressed. Nicodemus, despite all of his human accomplishments, was insecure about his relationship with God. He wasn’t absolutely sure he had one. He wasn’t absolutely sure he was gong to heaven when he died. And from all the miracles Jesus was doing, it was clear to him that Jesus did have a connection with God that he might not have. So he decided to go see Jesus by night to get an answer to his question: How can I know that I’m headed to heaven, that I’m gong to enter the Kingdom of God.
So Nicodemus came to Jesus saying that he knew Jesus was from God because no one could do all these miracles unless God was with him. And then Jesus answered Nicodemus’ question before he could ask it. He told him his insecurity about whether he was going to heaven was well founded. He told him, “Truly, Truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.”
Well, Nicodemus was completely flabbergasted by the answer. He thought Jesus might be talking about a second physical birth. He literally didn’t know how he was going to be able to fit into his mother’s womb again.
So Jesus clarified. And essentially what He said was that He was talking not about a physical birth, but a spiritual birth—that what Nicodemus lacked in terms of getting to heaven was that not been born of God’s Spirit, He had not been born from above, that he had not received the new spiritual life that he needed that represented the eternal life he would in heaven. He indicated that this new spiritual life would come by means of the Holy Spirit when Nicodemus was born again.
Well, all this came as a great surprise to Nicodemus. He was so surprised, he kept asking, “How can these things be?” And eventually, after a lot of explaining, Jesus explained how Nicodemus or any of us could be born again. And the explanation came in one of the most well-known and beloved verses in all of the Bible, John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him should no perish but have everlasting life.”
Now this was also surprising to Nicodemus and I suspect it may be surprising to many of you. It’s because it indicates that eternal life, or heaven, is not something you work for or deserve. It indicates eternal life is a gift, yes as in a free gift. Did you notice that little word “gave” as in “For God so loved the world that He gave?” What did He give? He gave His Son, Jesus Christ. In what sense did He give His Son Jesus. Well, that’s what’s explained in the rest of the Gospel of John, and the rest of the New Testament. He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to live a perfect life and then to die on the cross in our place to pay the penalty for our sins. “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this, in that while we were yet sinner, Christ died for us.” Christ died instead of us. Christ took hell for us on the cross so we wouldn’t have to take hell for eternity. He paid the price, and now He offers forgiveness and eternal life as a gift.
How do we receive that gift? Again, John 3:16 tells us. It’s through belief, faith, trust or dependence on what Jesus did for us, rather than what we can do for ourselves. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Did you notice that little word, “believes?” Jesus didn’t say, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whosever is a good person, does his best, keeps the 10 commandments and never does anything really bad should not perish, but have eternal life. He clearly said going to heaven depended on believing, trusting in Him and what He did for your rather than what you can do for yourself to get to heaven.
This was shocking news to Nicodemus. But it changed his life. He ended being only one of two members of the 70-member Sanhedrin to believe in Jesus. We later finding him defending Jesus as the Sanhedrin considered condemning, and he shows up at Jesus’ tomb to help the other believing member of the Sanhedrin, Joseph of Arimathea, prepare Jesus’ body for burial.
Then we come to the other person, the person at the other end of the religious, social and political spectrum in Israel. In John 4, Jesus is sitting alone by a well in Samaria while his disciples went to buy lunch in the city. A Samaritan woman approaches with an empty bucket to draw some water from the well. Now Jews had nothing to do with Samaritans. Samaritans were actually Gentiles who adopted Jewish customs and perverted the Jewish religion. So the woman, seeing Jesus was a Jew and a man was completely caught off guard when Jesus spoke to her. He asked her for a drink. So Jesus asked her effectively why in the world are you even talking to me, since I’m a Samaritan woman.
And Jesus’ reply was absolutely startling. In John 4:10 he said, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is who asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” And very shortly He clarifies this by adding that this living water would well up within her and result in eternal life.
Now did you notice that little word gift? Yes, Jesus says this living water that would well up in her and give her eternal life was a gift. As in “free gift” Something you can’t work for, earn or deserve again. Jesus is very consistent in His message. Eternal life is absolutely a free gift. No one can earn or deserve it by living a good life. We can’t be good enough for God. As James 2:10 says later in the New Testament, “If you keep the whole law and stumble in one point, you become guilty of all.” And who’s perfect, except Jesus? We have all sinned. We have all blown it somehow, someway. That’s why eternal life has got to be gift. We all fail to earn it. None of us deserve it. And that’s the whole reason Jesus came—to give us eternal life. To give it to those of us who up until thought we were good enough, as well as to those of us who are pretty sure we haven’t been good enough, like this Samaritan woman.
Well, like Nicodemus, this Samaritan had some questions. Finally, she decides she wants some of this living water. So she asks Jesus for it. And then Jesus gave her a very revealing instruction. He said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” At this point I imagine that the woman averted her eyes, looked down, and confessed, “I have no husband.” Jesus had just touched upon the most painful reality in her life, she had been a complete failure with regard to marriage. And Jesus told her he already knew all about it. He replied, “You have said truly that you have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the man you are living with now is not your husband.”
At this point, the woman realizes she’s talking to a prophet. He has just summed up her life in one sentence. So she tries to get him to clear up some of the theological disputes between Samaritans and Jews, He responds with divine wisdom, and then she says, “When Messiah comes, He will reveal all things to us.” And it’s at that point that Jesus drops the bomb: “I, who speak to you, am He.”
Whoa! Everything He has told her so far, she knows is absolutely true. This must be true as well. And at this point, she leaves her empty water bucket behind, signifying her old empty way of life, and goes into town to tell everybody about this man Jesus. “Come meet a man who told me everything I ever did. This is not the Messiah, is He?” In other words, her life was changed. She had been born again, and she would never be the same.
All because she realized that this gift of eternal life was even for her as well if she would believe. Didn’t matter how many husbands she had had, how many boy friends she had lived with, how many sins she committed. It didn’t depend on what she did, whether she had deserved or earned heaven. It depended only on Jesus, who would eventually die for her sins and for the sins of the world.
The point: No matter who you are, or who you have been, no matter how good you’ve been or how bad you’ve been, heaven is not something you can earn or deserve. It is a free gift, available to any and all sinners, that’s all of us, who will believe in, trust in, depend on Jesus as the one who has paid for their salvation, and now offers it free of charge.
This is the consistent testimony of Jesus and the New Testament. Romans 6:23 puts it this way, “For the wages of sin is death.” What you will get for what you do, what you deserve, is not heaven, but spiritual death, judgment. But the verse goes on to say, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. I want to say, the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Ephesians 2:8-9. The Apostle Paul speaking to believers says, “For by grace (undeserved favor0 you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, not as a result of works, that no one should boast (brag0.
So tonight I want you to recall how you answered that question I gave you earlier. If you were to die tonight and meet God at heaven’s gate, and He were to ask you why He should let you in, what would you say?” If you answered because I’m a good person, because I haven’t done anything really bad, because I’ve done my best, or if it had anything to do with what you’ve done to deserve heaven, well then you need to think again. You thought heaven was something you could earn or deserve, but it’s not. According to Jesus, time and time again, for those who think they’re good and for those who know they’re not, it’s a free gift. It comes by faith. It comes by dependence or reliance on Jesus and what He did to pay for your sins. It does not depend on what you can do for yourself. It is only a gift, and it can only be received by faith, by believing on or depending on Jesus.
So why is Christmas all about giving, . . . and receiving? It’s because heaven, or eternal life is a free gift, paid for and dispense only by Jesus Christ. And it can only be received by faith in Jesus.
So the real question this morning is now this: Have you received the real gift of Christmas. Have you received the gift of eternal life that comes through putting your faith in Jesus, and Jesus alone?
There’s no better time than now to receive this gift. Don’t leave here without it. Don’t harden your heart. Walk in the light while you have the light. And if you truly believe, if you truly begin to depend on Jesus, it will change your life, just like it changes the lives of two very different people, Nicodemus and the Woman at the Well. You’ll begin to follow Jesus.
Let’s pray. I’m going to pray a prayer. This prayer will not save you. But if you pray it with the faith that Jesus talked about here, that faith in Jesus will save you.
“father, I thank you that you sent Jesus to pay the penalty for my sins. I now understand that I can’t earn or deserve heaven because of my sins. I now realize that Jesus paid for all those sins of mine when He died on the cross, and that He proved it by being raised from the dead. I now receive the free gift of eternal life that some through depending on and believing in Him. Now make me a follow of Jesus. Make me the kind of person you want me to be. In Jesus Name. Amen.
