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INTRODUCTION
2008 Christmas Series: Christmas Gifts. Last week 7 gifts we should give each other: help, love, no offense, forgiveness, thanks,
the word of God, blessing. Next week 7 gifts we should give to God. This week... TITLE.
Christmas is first about what God gives to us. We so easily turn it around and make it all about us. What is Christmas really all
about?
ILLUS: Classic TV: Charlie Brown’s Christmas
Today let us recall some of the great gifts God loves to give us. These are gifts for our taking. He offers them, we just need to
receive them by faith - open up our life and let His gifts overflow in us.
1. God loves to give us His Son John 3:16
- This the greatest gift of all by far.
- A gift wrapped in love, wrapped in a blanket, a gift filled with divinity and humanity. Galatians 4:4 But when the
fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman.
- Jesus is God in the flesh. Philippians 2:5-11
- God’s Son is our Savior. Not a philosopher or a politician, not a guru or a governor, nor a businessman or a
buddy. Matthew 1:21
- Rescued us from the kingdom of darkness Col. 1:13; rescued us from this evil world that can consume us
Galatians 1:4
- Have you received this greatest gift from God? How do you know if you have received it?
QUOTE: You made a life changing decision at one time in your life - prayed a simple sinner’s prayer, sins
forgiven, changed life. As a child, adult...
2. God loves to give us Life and Light John 1:4
- “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”
- Two great gifts that go hand in hand for believers are life and light. Life for eternal living that begins the moment
we are saved, and light to guide the way for us to walk obediently now and guide us to our heavenly home.
- Our world and false religions are about death, God is about life. Sin loves darkness, God people loves light of truth,
and the life Jesus gives.
- John 10:10 “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly”
QUOTE: Songs “Have yourself a merry little Christmas”...Christian version “as the Lord
allows” Secular version “if fates allow“ and “we’ll have to muddle through
somehow” Huh, that’s the best the world can offer!
- God’s gifts are so much better. Through His Son we have life and light.
- Have you received this great gift of life and light from God? How do you know if you have it? Do you know your meaning
and purpose in life? Know past sins are forgiven? Know future is in God’s hands?
ILLUS: Write out a personal mission statement - answer ways God can use you to make your life count for time and
eternity. More than doing a job...
3. God loves to give us Grace and Glory Psalm 84:11
- “For the LORD God is a sun and shield; The LORD gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from
those who walk uprightly.”
- Grace and glory go together like life and light.
- Grace - pardon from sin; Glory - sanctification in God’s presence
- Grace saves the soul now so we can enjoy glory in His Kingdom later
- Grace - God’s good will to us, and good work in us. We are adopted into God’s family, through Jesus become
a child of God.
- Glory - God’s honor given to us to live in His presence for eternity. We received the inheritance of a child of
God - the riches of heaven.
QUOTE: Spurgeon: “Both in due time, both as needed, both to the full, both with absolute certainty... Both as
a free gift of our salvation.” (Vol. II, 434)
- Have you received this great gift of grace and glory from God? How do you know if you have this gift? Can you count
your many blessings name them one...? Look where God is at work in your life? Doors opened?
4. God loves to give us Wisdom Proverbs 2:6
- “For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.”
- God’s wisdom is practical application of God’s knowledge. The Bible is the source of wisdom. Jesus is
wisdom personified. Read Proverbs often.
- Prayer to God provides wisdom James 1:5
ILLUS: Wisdom is not being a wise guy, we know plenty of those. Difference between wisdom and smooth talking.
Newsweek on Gay marriage - heresy. How foolish can the ungodly be? “There is a way that seems right to a
man but it’s end is the way of death” Prov. 14:12; 16:25 “Professing themselves to be wise, they
became fools” Rom. 1:22
- This gift is desperately needed in our world, we Christians who have this gift need to stand for righteousness and
truth. Salt and light.
- Have you received this great gift of wisdom from God? How do you know if you have gift? Can you discern right from
wrong with the Bible as your authority? Can you make those tough decisions wisely?
5. God loves to give us the Spirit of Life 2 Corinthians 3:6
- “who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter
kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
- The H.S. is given at salvation, His power is within you, do you allow Him to work, or do you quench the Spirit?
John 16:8-13
- Have you received this great gift of the Spirit from God? Have you used the power of the H.S.? How do you know His
power is working in you? Have you been convicted of your sin, does He comforts you, does He guides you? Does he give
you a peace that passes all understanding?
ILLUS: Mavis Henderson calmly trusting the Lord. Play directors calmly trusting God that everything will turn out
OK tonight...
6. God loves to give us Spiritual Gifts 1 Corinthians 12:4-7
- “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit...”
- The H.S. empowers us to serve the Lord. Each of us is unique in His body, with special abilities to help each other.
“for the common good”
- Gifts included (read list Speaking and Serving gifts).
ILLUS: Many of you have come forward to work in youth ministry, youth groups starting on January 4 Sunday nights at
6:00 p.m.
- Have you received this great gift of spiritual gifts from God? How do you know you have a gift or two? What are you
doing in the church that God is blessing? What are you doing to help other Christians? Witness the gospel to the lost
world?
7. God loves to give us Rest Isaiah 14:3
- “And it will be in the day when the LORD gives you rest from your pain and turmoil and harsh service in which
you have been enslaved.”
- This rest is not sleeping in someday. We live busy lives, and most of us complain about being tired. God can give us
some measure of rest, peace in the midst of the storms now - Matthew 11:28-30.
- Yet, this gift of rest really is yet to come for us in this room. That saints that have gone before have received this
gift of eternal rest, rest from the pain and turmoil and harsh service of living on earth.
- At times I am envious of those who we have bid farewell - till we meet again. We will arrive there in God’s
timing.
- 1 Corinthians 15:42: “So also in the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an
imperishable body” 49 “Just as we have born the image of the earthly, we will also bear the image of the
heavenly.” Phil 1:21 “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
QUOTE: “Beyond the sunset, O blissful morning, when with the Savior heaven is begun; Earth’s toiling
ended, O glorious dawning, Beyond the sunset, when day is done.”
“He the pearly gates will open, so that I may enter in; For He purchased my redemption, and forgave me all my
sin.”
CONCLUSION
7 Gifts that God loves to give us: His Son Jesus for our salvation, life and light, grace and glory, wisdom, the Holy Spirit,
Spiritual gifts, eternal rest.
ILLUS: Yesterday celebrated Trey’s 2nd birthday. He talks in sentences. He wsa given a lot of Thomas the train stuff.
He is having a hard time sharing - terrific twos? He received a toy vacuum that I had to fix the handle, he told me:
“Don’t break it Grandpa.”
We have broken a lot of things God has made, sin has broken our relationship with God, broken hearts, broken families and churches,
broken creation.
Christmas is God stepping into our world to fix what we have broken.
Anything broken in your life? Look at what God can give you.
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