The Word

Luke Kirkendall

The Cost of the Gift • Sermon • Submitted 6 years ago

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The Giver

I have two gifts I’d like to show you this morning.

The first is a very special gift.

I keep this on a shelf in my office.

When kids come into my office, they like to see my Star Wars stuff.

And one of the things I like to show it to kids when they come in, is an original painting of R2D2.

This is an original painting of R2D2.

It was painted by Amanda and given to me on my 21st birthday.

6 months after she gave it to me, we’d got married.

I like this picture.

I like it because it’s Star Wars.

I like it because it’s R2D2.

I like it because it’s painted by Amanda.

I like it because it’s painted by Amanda and she took the time to make something that she knew I would like.

Contrast that gift to another gift I recently received.

There’s a new grocery store that opened up off of Rancho California, it’s called Alde.

Amanda and I went there the first week they opened, and they really went all out for us.

They gave us … this bag.

Back in the day who would care?

Back in the day I got a bag every time I bought something from a store.

But now that there is this law that you have to bring your own bags, or the store has to charge you, a bag is extra special.

Though I don’t know how they can give me a bag, I thought that’s what the whole law was about, that they couldn’t give me bags anymore.

Any way, they gave me a bag.

It’s something we all used to get for free.

But now I’d have to pay 10 cents for it.

So it’s a gift.

And I’m grateful.

If I compare these two gifts there are some similarities.

They are both small.

They’re not very expensive.

You’re not going to break the bank buying a canvas of this size.

And you’re definitely not going to go into debt with this plastic bag.

But what sets them apart?

Clearly, Amanda went to a lot more effort to paint this picture than Alde did with giving me a plastic bag.

But what sets them apart is the giver.

Suppose Alde gave me an R2D2 picture instead of a plastic bag.

I’d still like Amanda’s more.

Why?

Because of the one who gave it to me.

Amanda gave it to me, she’s my wife.

I love her more than a grocery store.

And because I love her, her gift means much more to me.

The effort that she went into to paint the picture.

The time that she took.

It all adds up.

And I appreciate the gift so much more.

I proudly display it in my office for everyone to see when they come in.

This Alde bag … it’s tucked away next to our trash can at home.

Today we are starting a new series in preparation for Christmas.

I’ve titled it, The Cost of the Gift.

We are in the Christmas season.

We celebrate the incarnation, the advent, the birth of Jesus.

We celebrate by giving gifts to one another.

, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

We are joyful, so we give gifts.

There is peace between man and God, so we celebrate.

As we give gifts, we frequently remind ourselves of the reason for the season.

We don’t want forget the ultimate gift, Jesus Christ.

We celebrate the ultimate gift, forgiveness of sins.

Yet, on some level, it’s an effort.

It’s an effort to remember the reason for the season.

We set up nativities, we read the Christmas story, we go to great pains to try and make the season special.

As Christians, it’s hard not to get caught up in the commercial aspect to Christmas.

And we aren’t the only ones, the world around us tries to not get commercial about it as well.

The world’s noble celebration at Christmas is to celebrate family and friends.

Yet, even that isn’t what the season is about.

It’s about the birth of Jesus.

As Christians we make it a point to try and get the world around us to celebrate Christmas rightly.

We expect them, in their unconverted state to remember the reason for the season to celebrate the birth of Christ.

And when they don’t celebrate it rightly, we get very angry.

Starbucks changes their cups to the color red, without the words Merry Christmas on it, and all we see is red.

We call for boycotts of a nonChristian, liberal company acting like a nonChristian liberal company.

Unfortunately, if someone doesn’t know the Giver, they’ll never appreciate the gift.

If we don’t know the Giver, then the gift will be nothing more than a plastic bag from Alde.

But if we know the giver, then everything changes.

I look at Amanda’s picture:

I see the attention to detail.

I see the shading.

I see the work that she put into it, and I treasure it.

As we look at salvation, and as we look at Christmas, we have to do the same thing I do to Amanda’s picture.

We have to look at Who the Giver is.

We have to know Who the Giver is.

Then we can see what the Giver did to give His gift.

What sacrifices did He give up?

How was He humbled?

What was His labor like?

And then we’ll appreciate it.

Until we know the Giver, we’ll never understand the gift and what Christ went through to give it.

So before we look at the gift in our Christmas season, we are going to look at the Giver.

People have a problem,

We will be in a familiar passage, one that you probably have memorized already.

Please open your Bibles to , and follow along as I read it.

Read .

It’s a small verse.

But it’s packed with truth to help us know the Giver.

The first thing we see is that Jesus is eternal.

The text begins by saying In the beginning was the Word.

Notice what it doesn’t say.

It doesn’t say in the beginning the Word was created.

No, it says that when the beginning happened, the Word was already there.

This beginning isn’t the beginning of the Word.

It’s as if the beginning started, and the Word was already there, saying, “What took you so long?”

This beginning isn’t the beginning of the Word.

So what beginning is this?

, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

The beginning that we are talking about is the beginning of Creation.

When we read , we never assume that it’s the beginning of God’s existence.

We know that God already existed.

Therefore that is the beginning of creation’s existence.

And the same thing with .

In the beginning was the Word.

This means that the Word we are talking about here, is not the created, He was here before creation.

Jesus didn’t begin in the manger, and Jesus didn’t begin with Mary, and Jesus didn’t begin with a message from Gabriel.

Jesus has no beginning.

He has always existed.

Which sets him apart from everything else.

Which means He alone is worthy of our attention and worthy of our affection.

The next thing we see is that Jesus existed with the Father.

We see this in the second phrase of the text, “and the Word was with God”.

Not only has Jesus always existed, but He’s always been in fellowship with God the Father.

There was never a time when they weren’t together.

But that’s actually not the big point here.

John’s gospel is showing that Jesus is divine and distinct from God the Father.

But there

It wasn’t God the Father who descended onto earth.

it wasn’t God the Father who was born of a virgin.

It wasn’t God the Father who died on the Cross.

That was Jesus Christ, the second member of the Trinity, God the Son.

Jesus has always existed with the Father.

But He didn’t exist as an angel and then received a great promotion.

He didn’t exist as a seraphim, like those in .

They were in the presence of God, but unable to look at Him.

He wasn’t a servant.

Or a dog who sat at the feet of God.

For eternity and eternity past, Jesus was

He was with God, and He was with God in glory.

In His high priestly prayer in , Jesus prayed, “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”

For eternity, and for eternity past, Jesus was with God, and in fellowship of God, and He was in glory with God.

So with the arrival of Jesus:

He’s not someone who just appeared on the scene out of nowhere.

He came from the throne room of God.

If I knew someone from Blythe … you wouldn’t care.

If I said, here’s Bob from Blythe, he works at a gas station there.

You’d say, “So what? He has no authority.”

But here is Jesus.

Eternal.

Never created.

He was with God.

Now we got something.

He’s not a nobody from nowhere.

He’s not from a gas station in Blythe.

He’s eternal.

He’s glorious.

He’s from the throne room of God.

In ancient days, God spoke through prophets.

He gave His words to men.

They would say, “Thus says the Lord.”

“I have a message from God.”

But then came the day, when Jesus came.

No longer was God sending people, no longer was he sending nobodys from Blythe, now Jesus would come Himself, straight from the throne room of God.

Here’s a message we should listen to, even more than the prophets.

Hebrews 1:1-2 says, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.”

Understand there’s a progression of thought here.

Some of you might say, that’s 2 more friends than you imagined I had before.

But pretend one of my friends worked for the IRS.

He worked in a cubicle all day.

He audited people and brought them great stress.

I probably wouldn’t introduce you to him as having worked for the IRS.

But, then suppose my other friend was an astronaut.

And for the last 2 years, he’d lived on the space station, circling the earth 30 times a day

He saw things that we can only see in pictures.

He lived in and experienced zero gravity.

If I knew him, and I introduced you to him, I’d make sure to tell you who he is and what he’s done.

Understand there’s a progression of thought here.

Not only is He eternal.

But He’s also glorious and worthy of praise.

You see this when Jesus appeared as the Angel of the Lord throughout the Old Testament.

Abraham worshipped Him.

Samson’s parents worshipped Him.

Joshua worshipped Him.

Samson’s parents worshipped Him.

Never were people forbid from worshipping the angel of the Lord.

So when Jesus came, He came with authority, sent by the Father.

Here is someone we are to pay attention to.

Someone that we are to be fixated on.

says, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”

Then Jesus is divine.

Jesus is eternal.

Jesus was with God the Father.

And now we see that Jesus is actually divine, He is deity.

This is John’s big goal for writing this gospel, so that you would know Who Jesus is, Who the Giver is.

and the Word was God.

And that is something that blows us away.

Islam thinks it’s blasphemous to say that God would be in the flesh.

Some of the ancient heresies thought it was blasphemous that the divine would be in sinful flesh.

Jesus wasn’t in sinful flesh, but He was in weak flesh.

And He is God.

Sadly,

And it’s not just John who says this either.

says that Jesus was in the form of God.

says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”

says that Jesus “is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. ...”

When people think of Christianity, most people know that we believe that Jesus died for us.

Before I was a Christian, I would say Jesus died for my sins, but I didn’t know what that meant, nor did I know why He needed to die.

And when we think of Christmas we think of the start of Jesus’ mission to die for people.

But what people don’t consider enough is Who Jesus is.

He is God.

You know why people aren’t rocked by the Cross as much as they should?

You know why the birth of Jesus isn’t a more powerful thought?

You know why we have to really psyche ourselves up to celebrate Christmas rightly?

Because people don’t know who Jesus is.

That’s why we need

We need to be reminded that He is the top.

We need to be reminded that this creation … is His.

We need to be reminded that this creation belongs to Christ.

says He owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

says that He needs nothing.

He’s the eternal one.

By nature we are selfish people.

The reason why we respond to the Gospel the way I respond to a plastic bag from Alde, is because we don’t appreciate the Giver, the sacrifice He made, and our need for it.

We try and get the world to appreciate the gift, and they react as if we are cramping their style.

As if we are interrupting their celebration.

When in reality, if there is anyone who cramps anyone’s style, it’s us cramping God’s.

He existed before the beginning started.

For an eternity before we arrived, Jesus existed.

And Jesus existed in perfect fellowship with the Father

He wasn’t lonely.

He didn’t create us because He was lonely.

He didn’t have a man shaped hole in his heart.

He was with God.

In need of nothing.

says, “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”

And He wasn’t a lesser God.

He wasn’t an angel.

He was God and is God.

And if there is anything here, it’s here because He created it.

says, “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

says, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.”

All things were created by Jesus.

All things were created for Jesus.

Notice what it doesn’t say.

It doesn’t say all things were created for you.

Deep down though … we think it’s ours.

We think creation is ours.

We think that creation is for us.

We even think that we are greater than God.

When tragedy strikes, when there is disaster, who do we blame first?

God.

“Why would you let this happen to me?”

In these moments we are deeply grieved, but at the same time, those reactions, come from the heart and they reveal something true about us, something that we believe.

The disaster strikes us, like a doctors hammer on a knee.

And like when a doctor hits your knee causing your leg to kick in an involuntary reflex.

Tragedy strikes and our gut reflex, the kick of the leg, is pride and anger at God.

“How dare you do this to me God? … Did I just say that?”

Why do we say that? Because on some level deep down, we think we are greater than Him.

At Christmas time the cliché is to tell people to accept the gift.

And we tell people about little baby Jesus.

But we forget to talk about the One giving the gift.

I think one of the greatest dangers facing Christianity is false assurance.

People think they are going to heaven, because of easy believism.

They said a prayer.

They walked an aisle.

They said, I’ll take the gift.

But that gift is nothing more than a free bag from Alde to them?

It’s gets thrown in a pantry.

But they never met the Gift Giver.

Tucked away next to the trash can.

Never on display.

No change within us.

No repentance.

No fruit of conversion.

Why? Because they never met the Gift Giver.

Jesus said, “I’m the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”

This means you have people who think they are Christians, but they are outside Christ.

They claim belief, but it’s a belief that doesn’t save, because it’s not in submission to Christ.

Jesus says, “And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

Jesus says, “I will spit you out of my mouth.”

So what are we to do? See Christ, as the eternal Word, with the Father, and God.

When we start with Jesus as the eternal Word, who created for His own purpose, who owns all things:

It humbles us.

It brings us to a point where we see that we aren’t owed anything because we are reminded that He is God.

In fact the only thing we are owed, is His justice because we have sinned against Him.

When we come to this understanding, then becomes true.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; ...”

And we proudly, hold onto the gift, because of the one who gave it to us.

says, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

We must begin with God being supreme.

The preamble to the 10 Commandments says, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

As God gives the Law to Israel He reminds them who they are.

They are slaves.

They were slaves in another land, and God freed them.

So now He is their God.

As God introduces Himself to Israel, He establishes why they should fear Him:

Because He is God.

He owns them.

Then He gives them the Law, the 10 Commandments.

The consequence for breaking these laws, any of these laws, is death.

When we rightly view Who God is, then we can appreciate the gift.

Which is really what we are trying to to do isn’t it?

We don’t want to just go through motions.

May we elevate our eyes to God, and be mesmerized by His greatness.

May we see the glorious nature of Jesus.

He was in the beginning.

He was with God.

He was and is God.

Then when we see what He did to save us … we will appreciate His work in a whole new way.

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