How to Prepare for Christmas
Isa. 40:3, various Scripture
An elderly widow decided it was too much trouble to get all of her kids and grandkids Christmas presents, so she decided to send them a check with a card. A few days after she mailed all the cards, she discovered she forgot to include the checks in the cards. Imagine all those kids opening a card from grandma with a note inside that says, “Buy your own presents.”
It pays sometimes to take a little more time to be prepared. Especially at Christmas. In fact, I want to announce: It is time to prepare for Christmas.
Time to trim the tree, check the lights and hang the wreath. Time dig out the decorations to put in the house and on the lawn. Time to bake the cookies, make the fudge, hang the stockings and fill them up. Time to write the letter to St. Nicholas, shop for gifts, wrap the presents, attach the tags and put on the bows. Time to address the cards, send the cards, receive the cards from people you haven’t heard from all year. Time to make plans for the out of town trip, time to welcome the kids and their families back home. Time to practice the songs, practice the play, prepare the lessons and the sermons. It’s time to get ready for Christmas.
As of today, you have 28 days to prepare for Christmas Day, 2007. It’s not time to panic yet, but it is time to start making preparations. But I wonder: with all the preparation going on, will you take time to prepare your heart for Christmas this year? So often Christmas becomes a bother instead of a blessing, full of headaches instead of a hallelujahs- all because we fail to heed the words spoken by the prophet in
Isaiah 40:3 …prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.
Those words were fulfilled in the ministry of John the Baptist, and they’re not talking a construction project, but a preparation of the heart to welcome the Lord Jesus. This morning I want to apply this call to our need to prepare our hearts for Christmas This morning I want to offer you 3 ways you can prepare your heart for Christmas. We’ll begin in Luke 18:15-17.
I. BECOME A CHILD AGAIN. (Luke 18:15-17)
After some last-minute Christmas shopping with her grandchildren, grandma was rushing them into the car when four-year-old Jason said, "Grandma, Susie has something in her pocket." He reached in and pulled out a new red barrette. She took Susie back to the store to put the item back where she had found it. Later at the checkout, the clerk asked, "Have you kids been good so Santa will come?" "I’ve been very good," replied Jason, "but my sister just robbed a store."
Christmas is for kids. I often people say it and I wonder what they mean.
Do they mean they’ve gotten too old to enjoy celebrating the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ?
I sometimes detect a little sadness, a little disappointment, maybe a little longing for the days when they enjoyed Christmas as a child? Yet Jesus seems to think even grown ups need to become like children. He once told a man named Nicodemus the only way to see God’s kingdom is to be born again. Nick had a hard time with that. How can you start all over again—like a newborn baby? That’s impossible!
Jesus says something similar here when his disciples this Jesus is too busy and important to take time for children. Jesus tells them, Guys, you don’t realize how important these kids are. Children are your model for how to enter and how to live in God’s Kingdom. Unless you become a child again, there is no way you will ever get to heaven! What did Jesus mean?
First of all, let me tell you what He does not mean. He does not mean there’s anything wrong with growing up. There is a big difference between being child-like and being childish.
Children aren’t always little angels, and Jesus is not discouraging you from maturing with age. In fact, that’s a problem with many adults: they haven’t grown up. They haven’t outgrown temper tantrums, or selfishness, or unforgiveness.
But despite all of the negative things you lay aside as you grow up, there are some things you need to hold on to, no matter how old you get. Let me give you two that can help you prepare your heart for Christmas:
Dependence. Children need somebody to take care of them. They do some things for themselves, but they depend on adults to do many things they can’t. And you know, most kids don’t mind this arrangement. If you have good parents, you probably don’t mind not worrying about food, or clothes, or how you’re going to get to school. You trust your parents to take care of you. Children are a model for our trust of our Heavenly Father:
Matthew 7:9-11 9Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!
Jesus tells us that we should become like children who depend on their Father. Not to depend on Him to do what they can, but to depend on Him to do what they cannot. Becoming a child is simply learning to depend on God.
Wonder. Children see the world differently. They are amazed at simple things—a caterpillar spinning a cocoon, a falling star, a waterfall cascading off the side of a mountain. They see beauty in things grown-ups take for granted. They hear the story of David and Goliath, Daniel in the Lions’ Den, Jesus walking on water, and they’re amazed. Tell it again, Daddy!
But we’re too old for all that. We don’t take time to see, we don’t take time to wonder.
We’re like Moses, walking past the burning bush, but instead of stopping, we hurry on and miss the living God, waiting to dazzle us with His glory. That’s why Christmas is just another day —we don’t really take time to look at the Baby in the Manger, to think about Who He is, and Why He came. We’ve stopped wondering, and started wandering. Jesus calls us to become children again—to look at the world around us, to look deep into the Word He gave us, and let Him amaze you, let Him astound you, let Him dazzle you with His greatness and goodness.
Let me challenge you to prepare your heart this Christmas by becoming a child again. No, don’t regress back to childish ways. But what if you practiced depending on God a little more instead of worrying and fretting about everything? What if you took time to stop and look around at the wonder of God’s world, the wonders of God’s Word, the wonders of not just what God did back then, but what God is doing right now, even right now in your life? Becoming a child again is a great way to prepare your heart to celebrate the birthday of the Lord Jesus!
II. REDISCOVER THE BLESSING OF GIVING. (Acts 20:35)
Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents.—Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
That’s what’s wrong with Christmas some Grinches gripe, everybody thinks Christmas is all about giving and receiving presents. That’s not what wrong with Christmas—in fact, I say Mrs. Alcott is right: Christmas really isn’t Christmas without giving and receiving presents. But here’s the key: if you want to prepare your heart for Christmas, you’ve got to rediscover the blessing of giving.
In Acts 20:35, the apostle Paul is saying his last goodbye to some dear friends from the church of Ephesus. He wants to leave them with words to help them stay faithful to God, to help them enjoy the blessings of God. Amidst everything else he says, he quotes the words of Jesus Himself- words that are found nowhere in any of the four Gospels. We don’t know if Jesus spoke these words directly to Paul, or he heard them from another disciple. But they do sound like something He would say.
Luke 6:38 Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom…”
The idea is the same: giving brings more blessing to the giver than the receiver. The trouble is, we’re not so sure about that, are we?
Our culture is a lot more into getting than giving. Kids make a list of what they want to get for Christmas—not what they want to give. We walk into Wal-Mart, spend thousands of dollars on presents for ourselves and our family, and throw the change into the Salvation Army bucket.
We don’t mind buying presents for people—but they better buy me a present, too. And if I spend $20 on their present, I better not unwrap something from the Dollar Tree. (We don’t give gifts—we exchange gifts.) You mean to tell me that church is taking up another offering?
Isn’t that how we think? Be honest—don’t most of us feel just the opposite of Jesus’ words—it’s more blessed to receive than to give?
Not I’m not telling you it’s wrong to get presents, or exchange Christmas gifts. I like getting presents as much as the next person. What I am telling you—what Jesus and Paul are telling us—is that the pleasure of receiving a gift cannot compare to the pleasure of giving a gift.
Think about it: how many times do you unwrap a gift, get all excited, and two months later have to strain to recall what you got for Christmas. Children wait all that time to open the toy they cannot live without, and a week later, the dog chews it up and it’s headed for the dumpster. Yes, that diamond necklace your husband got you will probably stay around your neck as long as you live, but sooner or later it will lose just a little of its sparkle in your eyes.
Let me tell you a joy that will never fade away:
When you give a toy to a child who has no parents—when you bring food to somebody or give money to feed somebody who would otherwise go hungry—when you share what you have with the person everybody else forgets about---when you give of your time to visit a shut-in who is drowning in loneliness—when you send a card or a package to a soldier overseas who is spending another night to keep you safe here at home—when you do without something you want to give to someone else what they need---that is a blessing beyond any gift you could ever receive for yourself.
An American Christian man was living in one of the strictly Moslem countries of the Middle East. He realized it was Christmas Day and there was no church to attend. The man wanted to do something to celebrate Christmas, but what could he do? He decided to buy some candy and give it to the children on the streets. What a perfect way to celebrate the birth of Christ--giving to others.
John 3:16 says For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son…
When you give, you are doing what God did at Christmas-giving. Let me challenge you to prepare your heart for Christmas this year by rediscovering the blessing of giving. Enjoy the presents you get, but never forget that the real joy comes from a giving heart.
III. TURN THE LIGHTS ON (Phil. 2:14-15)
I like lights. Lots of lights. Lots of lights of different colors. Lots of lights of different colors that blink, shimmer, do the wave—whatever else you can get them to do. I especially like Christmas lights. When I was a boy, my family used to go riding and admire the lights other people put up in their yard. I never got tired of Christmas lights. I still enjoy just sitting in the living room and watching them. I know, I know- Bro. Mike, you need to get a life!
The Lord Jesus called Himself the Light of the World. But he also calls His people the light of the world, and Paul echoes that same idea. He pictures the world without Christ in deep darkness, and children of God as lights in that darkness. He wants us to live differently. When everybody else is griping and fussing, we practice being content, thankful, and loving. If the people we work with live selfishly, carelessly, without thinking about the Lord, we ought to live right (blameless...harmless…without fault…). We should be shining!
Matthew 5:16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
Perhaps at no other time in the year besides Christmas do Christians have a chance to shine in the darkness more clearly and beautifully.
There are people where you go to school, where you work, where you live who don’t really understand what Christmas is all about. They may connect Christmas with Jesus’ birth, but they really don’t connect what happened then to what’s happening now, or what’s happening in their lives. Jesus’ birth has little or nothing to do with how they live, or how they die.
Christmas is your time to shine. By “shine” I don’t mean it’s your time to show off how good you think you are, or how bad you think they are. It’s not a time to get self-righteous.
On the other hand, it is a time to show people the Baby born in Bethlehem came to change our lives. He came to give us peace with God, and peace with one another. He came to give us purpose in life, and hope after death. Your job as a light for the world is to show them why He came, and to lead them to the Light of the World that can light up their darkness.
That won’t happen by accident. You’ve got to prepare yourself to shine for Jesus. You’ve got to pray, and ask Him for opportunities to share His love with others. You’ve got to take time to think about how you will tell them when they ask what makes your life so different.
1 Peter 3:15 But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have…
Let me challenge you this Christmas to shine bright and beautiful as a Light for the Lord. There are folks living in darkness who need somebody to shine the light of the Gospel of God’s love into their lives. You could be that light, if you will prepare your heart.
A true story: Two weeks before Christmas a nine-year-old girl was walking with her friend down the street, sliding on the ice. The two of them were talking about what they hoped to get for Christmas. They stopped to talk to an old man named Harry, who was on his knees pulling weeds from around a large oak tree. He wore a frayed, woolen jacket and a pair of worn garden gloves. His fingers were sticking out the ends, blue from the cold.
As Harry responded to the girls, he told them he was getting the yard in shape as a Christmas present to his mother, who had passed away several years before.
His eyes brimmed with tears as he patted the old oak. "My mother was all I had. She loved her yard and her trees, so I do this for her at Christmas." His words touched the girls and soon they were down on their hands and knees helping him to weed around the trees. It took the three of them the rest of the day to complete the task. when they finished, Harry pressed a quarter into each of their hands. "I wish I could pay you more, but it’s all I’ve got right now," he said.
The girls had often passed that way before and as they walked on they remembered that the house was shabby, with no wreath, no Christmas tree or other decorations to add cheeriness. Just the lonely figure of Harry sitting by his curtainless window. The quarter seemed to burn a hole of guilt in the one little girl’s mind as they returned to their homes. The next day she called her friend and they agreed to put their quarters in a jar marked "Harry’s Christmas Present" and then they began to seek out small jobs to earn more. Every nickel, dime, and quarter they earned went into the jar.
Two days before Christmas, they had enough to buy new gloves and a Christmas card. Christmas Eve found them on Harry’s doorstep singing carols. When he opened the door, they presented him with the gloves wrapped in pretty paper, the card and a pumpkin pie still warm from the oven. With trembling hands, he tore the paper from the gloves, and then to their astonishment, he held them to his face and wept.
This year you can survive the Christmas season, gripe and complain about the bother, yawn when you hear the Christmas story, and be glad when the whole thing is over.
Or you can prepare for Christmas the way the girls in this story did—by becoming a child again, by rediscovering the blessing of giving, by shining like lights in a dark world. How is Jesus calling you to prepare your heart this morning?
