Give More, Expect Less

Review: This Christmas

Introduction -

Did anybody make a Christmas list this year? One of the fun things as a kid is making your Christmas list. It’s different now, though. Karly and I were talking last year about how it’s different now because the kids don’t get catalogs from like Target or Best Buy or Eastbay. Did anybody else get the Eastbay catalog? It was mostly baseball stuff but had awesome shoes in there. And we would get those and we’d go through them and we’d circle everything we wanted. I would hate to know what the total cost would be of all the circled items. We must not have been the only ones who were remembering this experience because this year, we got a physical catalog in the mail from Amazon. I have to admit something. As soon as I got it, I threw it in trash before anyone else could see it. I wasn’t prepared to handle the Christmas lists tripling in size.

I can remember as a kid, every year for a while, being disappointed that I didn’t get something on my list. The list, for me at least, created an expectation in my mind and my heart about what I was going to receive for Christmas. As adults, our lists have changed. Maybe you don’t want new basketball shoes or the new Pokemon game or a pony, but you do want a raise…or at least for your boss to get off your back. I have a toddlers, so I want 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Karly wants me to pick up the pile of clothes and hats in our room. We all want things, and sometimes, when we fixate on them, like we did with our Christmas lists, those wants can turn into expectations. And as we approach Christmas this year, it’s easy to fall into that habit.

So we want to make a declaration today: This Christmas, I will give more and expect less.

Repeat together.

So, we’re going to look at the story of the wise men in Matthew chapter 2.

Matthew 2:1–16 NLT

Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the reign of King Herod. About that time some wise men from eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him.” King Herod was deeply disturbed when he heard this, as was everyone in Jerusalem. He called a meeting of the leading priests and teachers of religious law and asked, “Where is the Messiah supposed to be born?” “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they said, “for this is what the prophet wrote: ‘And you, O Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are not least among the ruling cities of Judah, for a ruler will come from you who will be the shepherd for my people Israel.’ ” Then Herod called for a private meeting with the wise men, and he learned from them the time when the star first appeared. Then he told them, “Go to Bethlehem and search carefully for the child. And when you find him, come back and tell me so that I can go and worship him, too!” After this interview the wise men went their way. And the star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem. It went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were filled with joy! They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. When it was time to leave, they returned to their own country by another route, for God had warned them in a dream not to return to Herod. After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “I called my Son out of Egypt.” Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance.

Okay, let’s get this out of the way so we’re all the same page—you may have noticed that, according to this passage, the implication is that the wise men were not there on the night of Jesus’ birth, which means all of our nativity scenes are wrong. The star appeared the night of his birth and by the time they got there, he was almost two. But it’s okay, Christmas claims the wise men and they were in the nativity in spirit, so you can keep them!

So, as we look at this story, we’re going to think about what it means to give more and expect less.

In this story, we have two main groups of characters: we have the wise men from the east and we have Herod. And Matthew, I think wants us to see their two responses to the arrival of the baby Jesus.

On the one hand, you have the wise men, who are not Jewish. They do not, at least primarily, worship the God of Israel. They travel from a faraway land to worship the newborn king of the Jews. When they find him, they are filled with joy, they worship Jesus, and they give him gifts.

On the other hand, Herod, the current king of the Jews, the current leader of God’s chosen people, is not aware of the birth of Jesus, is not interested in taking a short walk to Bethlehem to see him and, in fact, wants this baby to die in order to protect his own interest.

We see, I think the two sides of our message today. The wise men were there to give: to give worship and to give their time and to give their gifts. Herod, on the other hand, was only interested in what he could get, or maybe more accurately, in keeping the life he had always expected to have.

Let go of your expectations

So, here’s what I want to encourage you with this Christmas season: Don’t be like Herod. And what that looks like is letting go of our expectations.

This Christmas, we want to give more and I think that starts by expecting less.

Herod, in this passage, is extremely wicked. Like extremely wicked. He’s self-interested and deceptive and violent. In fact, we see this ironic thing that Herod does to the children of Bethlehem exactly what Pharaoh did to the Hebrew babies when they were enslaved in Egypt, so that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus have to escape back to Egypt to be safe.

What prompted Herod to do this?

He was trying to hold onto something. He had grown to expect the ease, the comfort, the power of his position, and he was threatened by the possibility of this “newborn king of the Jews” taking that away from him. He had this vision of his life as something he wanted, something he deserved, something that was rightfully his and he would do ANYTHING to make sure he got it.

So, Herod is this pretty extreme example of what extreme selfish expectation looks like when it is combined with power. But, if we take a moment to examine ourselves, I think that everyone, from the greatest to the least has things that we expect or feel that we deserve, things that we might make some unsavory choices to get or to keep.

Some of this is normal, like we have a general societal contract to be kind to one another, so I expect to be treated with kindness as I interact with strangers throughout the day.

But then, typically for those closest to us, we have these additional unspoken expectations: like (can I be real?) sometimes I expect my family to see that I’m tired, that I’ve had a long day, and to stop me while I’m doing the dishes or cleaning up the toys and say, why don’t you go watch a movie; I got this.

But I think where this gets really hard is where we expect things that we feel like we deserve or are entitled to.

You know how this works: if I go out to a restaurant and I’m paying for my food, I expect to be served in a reasonable amount of time and for there to be a certain quality to the food. I am a paying customer and if I don’t get what I expect you best believe I’m going to talk to your manager!

We did a white elephant gift exchange this weekend, maybe you’ve done one too, and I always tell people this one time right after we moved to Texas where I went to a white elephant exchange where we had different expectations of what that meant. I thought that meant something silly that you paid nothing or like max $5 for. Everyone else thought it meant like a good gift, like $30-50. And I only knew like 5 people at this place, I should say. The woman who opened my gift, said, “What even is this?” and was clearly upset. She, I’m sure had purchased a nice gift and felt that she did not get what she deserved in return.

So, we all have expectations, and our expectations often lead to negative feelings.

My dad used to say: “Frustration is the difference between expectation and reality.” He said it in the context of golf. Meaning: I expected to hit my drive in the fairway and I hit it in the rough, so I’m frustrated. (Although for me it was more like I expected to drive the green and I hit a duck hook into somebody’s pool, so I’m big mad.)

The higher our expectations the more frustrated we become when they’re not met.

We get angry with our family, with our co-workers, with our friends, and God most of all when we have an expectation and that expectation isn’t met. And that anger, that frustration, often leads us into hurt—hurting others and ultimately ourselves. It leads down the path of Herod, to harm others out of a sense of self-protection.

And I think part of the message of this story is man, don’t be like Herod. Don’t get so wrapped up in what you want for yourself that you miss out on what God is doing. In fact, what Herod didn’t realize is that the gift that Jesus was bringing far outweighed anything he was trying to hold onto.

So, this Christmas, let’s commit to letting go of our expectations. Or at least not letting them rule us. I think we’re naturally going to have some expectations, some desires, but we can be open-minded and open-handed to whatever else God and the people around us might have for us.

Give generously

So, we ought to let go of our expectations, and when we do, I think that gives us the freedom to be generous. We no longer have to hold onto things, but we can trust that no matter what happens, God will take care of us.

The wise men were not apparently worried about what they might get in return. They don’t seem upset that Jesus’ family is poor and have nothing to offer them back for their lavish gifts. They simply give their gifts, give their worship, and return home.

You may also know the story of St. Nicholas, or St. Nick, or Santa Claus, who really was a bishop in the early church. St. Nicholas was a wealthy man when he came to faith and, like many early Christians, he sold all his possessions and gave the money to the poor. The most famous story about St. Nick is that when he heard about a poor man who couldn’t afford the money for his daughter’s dowries, snuck out in the night and tossed a sack of gold coins through the window…or chimney, maybe. (The second most famous story about St. Nick is that he got into a literal fistfight with a heretic at the council of Nicaea, but that’s probably not true and a story for a different time.) The point is, that Christmas, whether is the biblical wise men or the historical traditions of Santa, is at its core about being generous. And we’ve certainly trended more toward materialism and piling on additional stuff, but the tradition of gift-giving is a reminder that we are called to be generous.

How can you be lavishly generous this Christmas?

I saw this commercial the other day where a a couple give each other gifts and he whistles and a puppy comes running up and then she whistles and this giant brand new truck comes bursting out of the snow. That’s not what I mean by lavishly generous. It’s not necessarily about the amount, but about the willingness to sacrifice and the compassion and care for others.

Once, in the gospels, Jesus and his disciples went to temple to do some people-watching and they watched as everyone placed their money in the offering. The rich came and tossed their big bags of money in so everyone could see. Then, a poor woman came and put in two small coins. Jesus said that she gave more than everyone else, because she gave ALL that she had.

In the same way, the woman that Elijah meets in the wilderness, who only has one meal left for her and her son is willing to give that last meal to Elijah. That is lavish generosity.

So, how can we be lavishly generous, not just this Christmas, but all the time? There is need all around us and we can be willing to sacrificially, humbly, let go of what we expect to receive from others and start to find creative ways to GIVE.

There are children this Christmas who have been separated from their families and, sure a gift would be nice, but what they need is a home. A person who knows their name and gives them a fist bump and makes them laugh.

There are people who might need help with housing—the money for a downpayment, maybe, but more than that someone who believes in them, who encourages them, who is on their team.

There are people who have experienced loss, who need us to give them our time and our presence and our encouragement. To be willing to drop what we’re doing to go be with them.

That is lavish generosity.

Jesus is a gift

The band can come.

And that lavish generosity is nowhere more evident than in Jesus.

2 Corinthians 8:9 NLT

You know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make you rich.

Jesus, the God who bankrolled the universe, whose riches are the cattle on a thousand hills and the beauty on a thousand planets, became poor for us. Ultimately, the gifts of the Wise Men—the gold, the frankincense, and the myrhh—were nothing compared to the gift of God.

John 3:16 says that God gave his one and only son.

Jesus is the best gift and God has given him to us with lavish generosity, sacrificing himself, his very life for us.

So, ought we not be generous in response?