Love Does That
John 3:16
Introduction: Christmas is a magical time. And Christmas is a busy time. I know that and I promise that the length of my sermonette will reflect that knowledge.
In thinking about this sermonette I wondered what I should emphasize. Should I concentrate on the shepherds the angels, the wise men, the manger, the star, the mother, the father, or the baby. It goes without saying that we will concentrate on the Baby, but I know you are here because this is a very special time for you. There is something very holy about a Christmas eve service. I did not want it to be long or heavy, but I wanted it to be worth the trip. I think God gave me just the right thought… Love Does That!
What is love? How can we recognize it. How do we spot the imitations?
I’m going to teach a very simple truth and then illustrate it.
The point is this. LOVE GIVES!!!!
What is love? Love is giving of your self.
Jesus put it this way, “Greater love has no man that he lay down his life for a friend.”
Love sees a need and meets it… a crack and fixes it… a problem and is moved to care for it.
Our text says, For God so loved the world, He gave His Only Begotten Son…
I want us to focus on just the first eight words… “For God so loved the world, He gave...”
How did He show His love? HE GAVE
How did we recognize his love? BY THE GIFT
A woman was washing dishes one night and as she looked at the plate she asked herself, “How many times have I washed this plate?” And she put the plate down, went to her room, packed a small bag, and left the house. That night she called home to check on the kids and said she loved them all but she just could not come home, she could never go back to that life. It was too constraining and she felt she would just die if she came back. She would call once or twice a week. Her family would tell her how much they loved her and ask her to return. She just said, “I can’t.” After a month, the husband hired a P.I. to find his wife. In a few weeks he located her in a town not too far away. She was living in a run down apartment in a bad part of town. One evening the husband left the kids with a sitter and went to the town, to the bad part of town, and to the run down apartment. As he knocked on the door his hands shook with fear. He was not sure he wanted to see her this way. He was not sure how she would react to him. As she opened the door, the husband could see the squalid condition of the apartment. His eyes filled with tears. His wife was shocked… and embarrassed. Haltingly he said, “Honey, I love you and I want you to come home to me and the kids.” She burst into tears and fell in his arms. On their ride home he asked her why she would come home with him now but not all the times he and the kids had asked her to. Her answer was, “Before I left, the love had gone out of our marriage. “I love you” was just words. But it became real today, when you came to me.”
That is what love is and that is what love does… LOVE GIVES.
Love does that.
So when God looked down from heaven and saw the squalid conditions in which we were living…the spiritual darkness, moral filth and sinful disobedience of society… what did He do?
His heart was broken…. Like the husbands.
And he wanted more than anything to deliver his loved one from that horrid place.
SO HE GAVE… OF HIMSELF… God came to earth, in the form of a baby, and climbed out of that stinking manger, up on that painful, despised cross… AND DIED!
Greater love hath no man than this that he lay down his life for a friend.
HE GAVE THE ULTIMATE GIFT… HIMSELF!!!
Now listen, tonight or tomorrow morning you are going to stand by a pile of gifts that belongs to a person you love. And you are going to look at that stack and then think how much you love them. And the stack will probably seem far too small… INSUFFICIENT… and you will be overcome with the guilt pains that you should have done more.
Have you ever been there?
Sure you have… because we know there is a correlation between loving and giving.
((For too many though… it is guilt… for a whole year of not giving… and they want to make it up at Christmas… with a stack of stuff.))
I’m just making the point there is a direct, one-to-one relationship between loving and giving.
Let me ask you a couple of questions…
1. Is Jesus’ name on your gift list? Did you even think of Him?
2. What did you give Him this year?
Not at Christmas… but all year long… what have you given Him this year?
When you look at the stack of what you gave him this year… attendance, tithes, service, obedience, worship… Does it make you feel guilty?
Does the stack seem pathetically small?
Do you wish you had done more?
What should you give Him anyway. (((Boy, you talk about a hard person to buy for)))
I could preach a sermon about how you should give Him FATIHFULNESS
Or I could make you feel guilty if you did not give him your talents
I could even take this opportunity to nail you for not giving your resources.
I just want to make this one small, BUT IMPORTANT point…
What God wants for Christmas (it is His birthday) is YOU!!! Your heart.
He has all the stuff he can use ((Like most fathers with ties and golf mugs))
What better gift to bring to Christ than a yielding of our total selves to His will. Unless He is Lord of all, He is not Lord at all.
Give Him your love, give Him your desires and give Him your hopes and your dreams.
Love does that!
I just want to end with one more story. A true story.
In 1994, two Americans answered an invitation from the Russian Department of Education to teach morals and ethics (based on Biblical principles) in the public schools. They were invited to teach at prisons, businesses, the fire and police departments and a large orphanage. About 100 boys and girls who had been abandoned, abused, and left in the care of a government-run program were in the orphanage. They relate the following story in their own words:
It was nearing the holiday season, 1994, time for our orphans to hear, for the first time, the traditional story of Christmas. We told them about Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem. Finding no room in the inn, the couple went to a stable, where the baby Jesus was born and placed in a manger.
Throughout the story, the children and orphanage staff sat in amazement as they listened. Some sat on the edges of their stools, trying to grasp every word. Completing the story, we gave the children three small pieces of cardboard to make a crude manger. Each child was given a small paper square, cut from yellow napkins I had brought with me. No colored paper was available in the city.
Following instructions, the children tore the paper into strips and carefully, laid the strips in the manger for straw. Small squares of flannel, cut from a worn-out nightgown an American lady was throwing away as she left Russia, were used for the baby’s blanket. A doll-like baby was cut from tan felt we had brought from the United States.
The orphans were busy assembling their manger as I walked among them to see if they needed any help. All went well until I got to one table where little Misha sat. He looked to be about 6 years old and had finished his project. As I looked at the little boy’s manger, I was startled to see not one, but two babies in the manger. Quickly, I called for the translator to ask the lad why there were two babies in the manger. Crossing his arms in front of him and looking at this completed manger scene, the child began to repeat the story very seriously.
For such a young boy, who had only heard the Christmas story once, he related the happenings accurately-until he came to the part where Mary put the baby Jesus in the manger. Then Misha started to ad-lib. He made up his own ending to the story as he said, "And when Maria laid the baby in the manger, Jesus looked at me and asked me if I had a place to stay.
I told him I have no mamma and I have no papa, so I don’t have any place to stay. Then Jesus told me I could stay with him. But I told him I couldn’t, because I didn’t have a gift to give him like everybody else did. But I wanted to stay with Jesus so much, so I thought about what I had that maybe I could use for a gift. I thought maybe if I kept him warm, that would be a good gift.
So I asked Jesus, "If I keep you warm, will that be a good enough gift?" And Jesus told me, "If you keep me warm, that will be the best gift anybody ever gave me." So I got into the manger, and then Jesus looked at me and he told me I could stay with him---for always.”
As little Misha finished his story, his eyes brimmed full of tears that splashed down his little cheeks. Putting his hand over his face, his head dropped to the table and his shoulders shook as he sobbed and sobbed. The little orphan had found someone who would never abandon nor abuse him, someone who would stay with him-FOR ALWAYS.
Misha knew his parents did not love him because they gave him nothing, not even a name.
Misha knew that he loved Jesus… and he knew that meant he had to give Jesus something.
With no money, no possessions, no talents and no future… Misha gave all he had, He gave himself… to keep the baby warm.
Love does that!
Listen… the stores are about closed. It is too late to go get more. What you have is what they will get.
And with Jesus. It’s too late to change what you gave this year. You can’t go back and change time or history.
But it is not too late to make it right.
What is love? Love is giving of yourself
What does love do? It gives.
Do you love Jesus?
What have you given?
What will you give?
