Your Un-Opened Gift
(John 1:43-51 and Romans 6:23-24)
A chauffeur had driven the chemistry professor to dozens of speaking engagements. He’d heard the same canned speech scores of times.
He said on the way to another engagement, "Professor, I believe I could give your speech myself; I’ve heard it so often." The professor said, "I’ll bet you $50 you can’t." "You’re on," said the chauffeur.
He stopped the car and the two exchanged attire. They came to the banquet. the chauffeur dressed in a tuxedo, sat at the head of the table and was introduced. he stood up and gave the speech verbatim.
There was a standing ovation when he was finished.
The emcee got up and said, "You know, we are so fortunate to have such a fine resource with us tonight, and since we have a little extra time, let’s have some questions and answers. The first question was asked and the chauffeur stood there dumbfounded, clearing his throat in nervousness. Finally he said, "That’s just about the dumbest question I ever heard. In fact it is so dumb I bet even my chauffeur could answer that question."
How many times have you heard the Christmas story? I’m sure many could come up here today, and tell the story.
You have rubbed up against the truth long enough, heard enough sermons prayed enough prayers, just enough rubbing to get a callous on your heart so the real truth cannot penetrate deep into your daily life.
The Christmas story is so familiar to some.
Mary’s unexpected pregnancy. Joseph’s perplexity. Visits by angels. Caesar’s tax. The trip to Bethlehem. Born in a stable.
We’ve heard it many times. Most of you can even answer the tough questions like , "Did the wise men really see Jesus in the manger? Did the star really appear over the stable? and just how many wise man were there? And that’s good. There is tremendous value in knowing the facts.
C.S. Lewis said, "we don’t need to be told new ideas so much as we need to be reminded of old truths.
But today I want to come to the Christmas story with fresh minds.
To see a surprising element to the true gift of Christmas
As a matter of fact, probably nothing that the average Jewish person thought would happen, actually did. There were many surprises in the Christmas story.
One reason we need to look at the story fresh is because familiarity often breeds contempt...
Now I’m not saying that we have contempt for Christ, but rather that we have heard the story so much, that we tend to think that it really no longer has anything to offer us.
We think we see the whole picture clearly, but many times we don’t..
Just like the little girl who came home from Sunday school triumphantly waving a paper. "Mommy!., my teacher says I drew the most unusual Christmas picture she has ever seen!"
The mother took the picture from her little girls hands -- she studied it for a moment and she too concluded that this was the most peculiar picture of Christmas she had ever seen.
"This is wonderfully drawn, but why do you have all of the people riding in the back of an airplane?" The mother gently asked.
"It’s the flight to Egypt," the little girl said, with a hint of disappointment because the picture’s meaning was not immediately obvious.
"Oh" the mother said cautiously "Well, who, is the mean-looking man at the front?" "That’s Pontius the Pilot," the girl said now visually impatient.
"I see"
And here you have Mary and Joseph and the baby" the mother volunteered. And studying the picture silently for a moment, she summoned the courage to ask, "But who is the fat man sitting behind Mary?"
The little girl sighed. "Can’t you tell? That’s Round John Virgin!"
That’s a cute story -- but the reason I tell it is because sometimes we are like that little girl...
We think we see things so clearly, we think we know all that there is to know about the Christmas story, gleaned all there is to glean, but perhaps we don’t see it as clearly as we think.
So today let’s look at this great moment in history again, because friends in this timeless message of Our Saviors Birth, God has laid out many surprises and He has laid out many gifts under our Christmas tree
But as we hear this story we often, assume we know what the gift of Christmas is.. yet we neglect to open it. Often we slide it beneath the tree of our busy lives and say. When we get old.. when we have time I will open the gift of God…
Or maybe it is not that we do not want to have the gift now. It is just that we do not expect it to be as great as they say it is. “ Life more abundantly, “please”, we say “we have more life than we can handle now...
Or maybe it is because we have had some sort gift from God in the past.. It is true sometimes God wraps His some of his camoulfaged in the paper of our pain and laces them with the ribbons of regret…
So we reject those kind of gifts, we want life to be smooth sailing, no bumps. No bruises.
But the main gift.. that one true gift… the gift that descended the stars and wrapped itself in flesh , I think sometimes we are notr impressed by the package
I mean really look how God wrapped the gift of Christmas.. Looka t the paer he picked out
Suppose God gave us the job of selecting the parents for the Messiah -- if we are honest we would have to admit that we would not have chosen Mary and Joseph in a million years.
A teen-age girl, engaged to a blue collar worker. We would of wrapped him in a wealthy experienced family right.
The wise men did not recognize the wrapping paper either
Remember when the wise men came to Jerusalem searching for the Messiah? Where did they go? They went immediately to the palace and the said, "WHERE IS HE WHO IS BORN A KING?"
That was a normal response/an obvious place to look -- after all, Royalty begets royalty, AND AN OBVIOUS PLACE TO LOOK FOR A KING IS IN A PALACE, RIGHT?.
The incarnation.. the baby Jesus is the irony of all times.
God became a man. Heaven opened herself and placed her most precious one in a human womb.
The omnipotent, in one instant, became flesh and blood. The one who was larger than the universe became a microscopic embryo.
And he who sustains the world with a word chose to be dependant upon the nourishment of a young girl.
Like Lucado says, “Majesty in the mundane. Holiness of God in the filth of sheep manure and sweat. These rags keeping him warm were the robes of eternity. His golden throne room had been abandoned in favor of a dirty sheep pen.”
It was not a fancy wrapping.
No tapestries covering the windows. No glittering crown. Cows munching, hooves crunching, a mother humming, a babe nursing.
The first gift of Christmas presented an incredible surprise. God selected 2 unlikely people, a teenage girl named Mary and a poor blue collar worker, named Joseph? Joseph was just a carpenter from the backwoods town with a bad reputation .
The timing of the God‘s package was un expected.
If we were in charge we would not have chosen the time of Caesar August. We might have chosen the time when David was King, a time when the Jews became the world’s super power.
They had momentum, wealth, influence and opportunity. Wouldn’t it seem natural, after David died, for the Messiah to be the successor?
Or Maybe we would have chosen the 20th century... With air travel and satellite communication in space and television...
It seems like it would have been the perfect time for Christ to come.... His message could almost instantaneously be seen around the world... His miracles captured by CNN.. He could even be interviewed by Barbara Walters... Have his picture on the cover of Time magazine....
If we asked a public relations expert they would say, that the 20th century would have been the perfect time for Christ to come... Mass communications, fast travel, and the world just crying out for true leadership.
But God came to dwell with men in first century Palestine. At the perfect time.
In Galatians 4:4 we read, "WHEN THE TIME HAD FULLY COME, GOD SENT HIS SON, BORN OF WOMEN, BORN UNDER THE LAW...."
If we take the time to think about and study it, we will see that God’s timing was perfect. God is control of history and he sees things that man cannot see. and God knew the exact moment that would bring about the greatest impact... first century Palestine... Let me give several reasons why this is so:
1) 300 years before Christ came, Alexander the Great when he conquered the world established the Greek language as the universal language...So when Jesus came into the world, it was one of the rare times in history when the people of the world could communicate with each other...There was a universal language.
2) After Alexander the great, Rome became the new world power...And Rome built roads...built garrisons...Rome kept a strong military presence throughout her empire, all of this made travel much easier and relatively safe... There was order in the world that had not been seen before.
3) After 400 years of silence from God... mankind found out that it could not make it without Him....this led to a wide spread expectancy of the coming of the Messiah.
4) And 4th, the Old Faiths had worn out... The Jews were convinced as they watched the corruption of their leaders and their own failure at keeping the law, that they needed a Savior and that the Law could not save them.. And the Gentiles likewise were becoming disillusioned with their many gods who offered them little help or assistance.
It wasn’t a time that we would have expected, or planned, but all of these events were perfectly synchronized by God.
The Bible says Jesus was crucified from the foundations of the world.. It wasn’t an accident... God picked out the perfect time in history. And God was right it was the perfect time... The Gospel message spread throughout the Roman Empire and the World like wild fire,
THE PLACE OF JESUS BIRTH WAS ALSO SURPRISING
Jesus was born in a small village town called Bethlehem... we probably would have chosen a powerful and influential city like: Jerusalem, Rome, Athens or Alexandria... Bethlehem was so small and insignificant that when Joshua (after conquering Canaan) allotted the towns to the various tribes it was not even mentioned... Micah proclaimed that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem...but a week before Christ’s birth, Mary was still in Nazareth... 80 miles away from Bethlehem... And in a day where they walked everywhere they went, that was a long way.
But God was in control and He took care of that. He did not forget where he put his wrapping paper, not did his roll run out.
Caesar Augustus order a census be taken, and this census required that Joseph be register in the city of his familie’s roots (David’s).... Bethlehem.
So Mary and Joseph at just the right time made the four day journey to Bethlehem...You ladies who’ve had children how would you like to take a four day trip on the back of a donkey about that time? (I bet it was a lot of fun)
A 4TH SURPRISE IS
THE SEEMINGLY UNEVENTFUL NATURE OF JESUS’ BIRTH
I mean, we are talking about God’s son being born to a virgin... Almighty God, coming down to earth and living with man... This is not something that happened everyday. This is big news.
Yet, listen to how scripture describes this event, "THE TIME CAME FOR THE BABY TO BE BORN AND SHE GAVE BIRTH." That’s it, all so ordinary. The same wording could be used of any baby. Common paper.
No wonder we over look or are not impressed with hisa package.. look at the mail carrier God chose. SHEPHERDS!
Now, shepherds weren’t the most influential people of the day. As a matter of fact, they were among the lower class of the day. Many were migrants, who ate and slept with the animals, and no doubt smelled like them too. The sophisticated peopled, rolled there eyes and kept their distance whenever they came walking down the road.
If we were asked to send the angels somewhere to make this announcement to: we probably would have chosen someone like: AN ANCIENT UPS
the great theologians of the day, the Pharisees, to the Sanhedrin or maybe have the angels appear and make the announcement to the Emperor of Rome/King Herod -- and let them know that they better bow their knee because the
Whether you neglect to unwrap the true gift because of procrastination, sin, bad experiences, fear of disappointment or the familiar package just does not impress anymore… we need to realize…
We are not the only one that slide our father’s gift further behind the tree.
Nathaniel did not recognize, nor was he impressed with the package either.
Turn with me to John 1:43
Last Christmas Casey Helvey bought all three of our girls a gift. She packaged Tatum’s gift inside a wrapped Macaroni and Cheese box.
Her fingers raced with joy as she tore off the useless paper, Her eyes danced as she saw the Macaroni Box. She opened the box only to find a gorgeous little stuffed angel. She threw the angle to the side.
She sighed as she searched for the desired macaroni..
With tears of disappointment she asked where the macaroni and cheese went.
Are some of you like that?.. Afraid?.. to open the gift of God found in Jesus Christ?.. Thinking God will play some weird trick on your life?
I am not here today to tell you how to unwrap that gift I talk about that every Sunday the other 11 months of the year Infact that is next week’s message. I am here today to tell you will not be disappointed.
He is bigger than what you think..
He is not a baby in a manger that you can hush or sut a door on.. He is the hope beyond the grave. He is the answer to your riddles.
He is the exclamation mark at the end of you doubts.
He is your father.. And he only became a baby so you could hold him… he became a slaughtered lamb so he could hold you.
And he became the King of Eternity so you can trust him with all your fears.
The tomb next Easter maybe empty but his promise of eternal life is not.
Nathaniel’s’ question still lingers today. Is a poor Nazarene man worth considering?
The invitation of Philip is still open “ Come and See”
Come and see the rock that has withstood the winds of time.
Come and see the flame that critics and scoffs for
2,00 years have not extinguished.
Come and see the hospitals and or phages rising beside the crumbling walls of humanism and atheism.
Come and unwrap you gift!
Come and see the changed lives!
The alcoholic now dry, the sex–addict freed, the embittered now joyful,
The shamed now forgiven.
Come and see marriages rebuilt, orphans embraced, the imprisoned inspired.
Come into the corners of communism and find believers who have unwrapped the gift, and see them worship under the threat of death and persecution.
Come and see the pierced hand of God, like Kim said, wipe away a tear from the worried face.
Come and see the baby Tina sang, would heal the lame, make the dead walk, the blind to see and the deaf to hear.
Come and See the real nativity scene that saved the marriage in the drama skit today.
Come and See for yourself!
It was the Christmas of 1992.
I placed Tina’s gift in a refrigerator box. Every eye fixed on her knew what was inside the gift. The gift that would change the course and direction of her life!
She opened the large box only to find a smaller one waiting for her.
Inside that box was a stuffed white Teddy bear holding onto a scroll.
On the scroll was a poem written from me to her.
Also on the scroll tied with a ribbon was this ring?
It is a common gift. Several women get an engagement ring. But to each person that gets a ring it is the most impressionable gift they ever will receive.
It was so much the gift itself, especially not its size, nor the fancy wrapping job. It was what the gift requested.
That Tina would spent the rest of her life with me
God’s gift of eternal life is common. Offered to everyone. But to the one who unwraps it changes the rest of their lives.
God gift to us wrapped in Jesus Christ is full of life and hope . yet is is not so much the gift, it is the request behind the gift. Written on the scroll of history. Requesting that you spend the rest of your life with him.
Tina did not say I yes I’ll marry you later. Our life began together when she accepted.
God’s promise of eternal life, is not only when you die, it is now and forever.
An Old familiar package, but a fresh gift every time!
It is waiting for you today, won’t you come unwrap your gift?
TO THE READER: SO I CAN BETTER HELP YOU, IF THIS SERMON WAS NOT HELPFUL AND YOU CLICK "NO" BELOW, LET ME KNOW WHAT IT LACKED OR WHY IT DID NOT HELP. CONTACT ME AT NEWLIFE@NCKCN.COM ( I CAN TAKE CRITICISM :0 )
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