How Much Does The Gift Cost?
Matthew 1:18 - 20 Luke 4:16-29, Mark 3:21, Matthew 1:24 - 25, Matthew 2:13-15,
Luke 2:43-46, Luke 22:44, Matthew 28:19, Mark 16:15, Luke, Acts 1:8, Acts 2:32,
December 15, 2003
I. A lot of the time when we think about Christmas we think about the benefits, but very rarely do we think about the cost.
A. Bring teenagers forward. I think that it is a good idea to show a picture if you want someone to get a real idea of what you are talking about. Right now you are looking at a picture of what Joseph and Mary might have looked like.
B. It is pretty much accepted by most people who study such things that Mary was around Thirteen or Fourteen years old when she became the mother of the savior of the world.
C. It was a pretty common practice for girls in that time to be married around the age of 12 or 13. Lest any of you teenagers get any ideas the culture of that time was very different than ours is today, and just because Mary did it doesn’t mean that it is a good idea for you.
D. Most girls were married to men who were older than they were, because to be married a man had to be established in a trade, that enabled him be able to support a family, before the parents would consent to the marriage.
II. What do you think the costs of being Jesus’ mother were to Mary?
A. Well, first off it could have cost her husband, because Mary and Joseph were engaged, at the time that the Holy Spirit came upon her and she became pregnant with Jesus.
B. It was a hard thing for Joseph to accept. And can you blame him? How would react if the girl that you were engaged to came to you and told you that she was pregnant with the son of God, and you knew that there was no way that the child could be yours?
(Mat 1:18 - 20 NIV) This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
C. If Joseph had not listened to God it could have cost Mary her husband, and I am sure that it did cost her the anxiety of wondering what Joseph was going to do, and what he was thinking about her.
D. It could have also cost her life. It was the custom in that day if a young girl had sex before marriage that she was to be burned to death or stoned to death.
1. The reason that Joseph was going to break his marriage commitment to Mary privately was, if he had made it a public divorce the result would have been that Mary would have been killed.
2. And don’t for one minute think that Mary was not thinking about that when the Angel told her that she was going to become pregnant with the Son of God.
E. If Joseph had divorced her even privately, it would have been possible that she would have been killed when it was determined that she was pregnant, and even if she had not been killed it would be very likely that there would not have been another man that would have married her.
1. She could have been shunned by her family, and there was only one job usually available to a girl who no one would marry, and that was a prostitute.
2. Also the greatest shame for a Jewish girl or woman was not to be able to bare children for a husband. So Mary had a lot at stake.
F. What do you think it cost Mary to watch as her son was ridiculed by the people who called themselves her friends?
1. It was the very people of the community Mary lived in that first apposed Jesus.
(Luke 4:16 NIV) He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read.
2. When we drop down a few verses we see how the people reacted to Him.
(Luke 4:29 NIV) They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff.
3. What do you think it was like for Mary to watch the people that she had lived with most of her life treat her son that way.
G. And what did it cost her to see members of His own family believing him to be insane and trying to have him put away?
(Mark 3:21 NIV) When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind."
H. Also, what do you think it cost Mary to have to watch her Son be crucified?
1. Try to put yourself in her shoes for a minute and imagine what it must have been like to watch your son being whipped, beaten, nailed to a Cross, and then standing and watching him struggle until he was too weak to keep himself from suffocating.
2. What would the cost be to a mother to have to watch as her son was done the way Jesus was done?
3. Do you think that pictures flashed through her mind of when he was a baby and she held him or when she watched him learn to walk, and talk?
4. Do you think she thought about the times that she had watched him play as a child?
5. How much do you think our salvation cost Mary?
III. And what do you think it cost Joseph to be Jesus’ stepfather?
A. By the way stepfathers do you realize that you are in the same category as the man who raised the Son of God?
B. What do you think he felt when he learned he had reason to believe that the girl he was to marry had been unfaithful to Him?
C. What was it like for him to have to postpone his honeymoon for nine months?
(Mat 1:24 - 25 NIV) When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
D. What did it cost Joseph to have to give up his business, and his family, and move to a country where he knew no one for years?
(Mat 2:13-15 NIV) When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him." So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."
E. How do you think it would feel to have and Angel tell you that someone was trying to kill the Son of God, and you were responsible for taking him to a safe place?
F. What was it like to feel the burden of being responsible for raising the Son of God?
G. How many times do you think he sat a worried about whether he was doing the job right?
H. And, what thoughts do you think went through his mind when he thought he had lost the Son of God for three days?
(Luke 2:43-46 NIV) After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.
I. What did it cost Joseph to make our salivation possible?
IV. And, what did it cost Jesus to make our salivation possible?
A. What was it like to know that you were not like all the other kids?
B. What was it like to know that you were going to carry the sin of the whole world on you back?
C. What was it like to deal with the feelings associated with knowing that you were going to die the most cruel death known to mankind?
1. Well, there is a place in the bible that gives us a clue.
(Luke 22:44 NIV) And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
2. It was anguish. Doctors say that it is possible to be under so much stress that your blood vessels begin to weep into your sweat glands.
3. That’s what it was like.
D. What would it be like to be accused of something that you didn’t do and not be able to say one word to defend yourself.
E. What did it feel like to stand willingly and be mocked and hit in the face, and to allow yourself to be beaten with a whip to that tore the flesh off your back?
F. What would it be like to have spikes driven through your wrist joints, and feet?
G. Can you imagine how it would be to have to raise the weight of your body up on those spikes to be able to draw a breath?
H. What thoughts would go through you mind as you realized that you were getting to exhausted to raise yourself up, and that when you did you would suffocate?
I. What did it feel like to bare the punishment of every sin that would ever be committed in this world all at one time?
J. What did it cost Jesus to make our salvation possible?
V. And what did it cost God to make our salvation possible?
A. When I was thinking about how Mary must have felt when she sat watching Jesus being beaten, and nailed to a Cross, and struggling to breathe, the first thought that came to my mind was, I would not have been there to see it, because if that had been my son they would have done that to him after I was dead, because I would have been fighting like a tiger.
B. But how must it have been for God to watch that and know that he had the power to stop it?
C. How did God feel when He knew that his Son was suffering and know that he could only do something about it if he condemned the whole world eternal punishment? All I can say is you better be glad it was God and not me.
VI. You see when we think of Christmas we think about the benefits, but what about the ones that had to deal with the costs?
A. Do you realize that making salvation possible for you was the most costly thing that God ever did?
B. Have you stopped to think during this time of Christmas how much it cost to make your gift of salvation possible?
C. Has it crossed you mind how much God had to love you to do what he did to make it possible for you to be with Him?
D. Have you taken the time to stop and thank God for what Christmas really means?
E. Now, I want you to know that I am not trying to put you on a guilt trip, because that’s not my style and its not the reason that I have said all this.
F. But, in a world that is so much turning Christmas into a mad rush for materialism, we need to be reminded of what it is really about.
G. There’s a legend about the three Wise Men who followed the star to Bethlehem. It seems that one of them was a young man, and his youthful enthusiasm caused him to look for a King. He carried gold, a fitting gift for royalty.
1. Another was middle-aged, and to satisfy the deep questions that disturbed his aging mind, he longed to find God. His gift was frankincense with which to worship God whom he hoped to find.
2. The third was even older, with many a sin-stained year behind him; he longed to discover a Savior. Feeling that his Savior must be a sufferer, he took with him a gift of healing myrrh.
H. Christmas can mean different things to us depending on where we are in life, but we have to hold on to the truth which is Christmas is the time when God gave us the greatest gift that we have ever been given, and we can’t afford to lose sight of that for even a minute, especially at this time of year.
VII. There is another thing that this makes me wander about. We get so caught up at this time of year about what presents we are going to be given and what presents we need to give other people because they are giving something to us.
A. Why is it that we keep the greatest present that we could ever give someone from them, because we don’t share what Christmas really is with them?
B. If we are in the mood to give, and feel so obligated to give to others why don’t we take the time to make sure that they know about the greatest gift that they could ever have?
C. We talk a lot about needy families this time of year, but we focus on what they have to eat, and wear, and whether they have presents under a tree or not, and those are important things, but we by pass the fact that salvation is the greatest need that any person could ever have.
D. Doesn’t it make sense the presents that are under a tree won’t last, and most people will forget what they got for Christmas this year, before they get the ones next year, and the gift of the true meaning of Christmas is something that will last for eternity?
E. And, doesn’t seem like we are wasting something when it cost so many people, and God so much to make salvation possible, and then we don’t share it with the people that need it?
F. The bible says that we are the way that God has chosen to use to share His gift with people who don’t have it.
(Mat 28:19 NIV) Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
(Mark 16:15 NIV) He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.
(Luke 24:46 NIV) He told them, "This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.
(Acts 1:8 NIV) But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
(Acts 2:32 NIV) God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.
G. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that you should rush out and try to cram Jesus down the throats of all your friends, because that won’t work, and I don’t think that was ever what God had in mind.
H. But, don’t let the real gift of Christmas go unused. Make sure that you take the time to share the real gift of Christmas, and the greatest gift that has ever been given all through the year, but especially at this time of year.
I. And, since we are into giving, sharing God’s gift is really a gift that we can give back to God, who gave us a gift that cost Him so much.
