Intro.:

Today’s message is titled:

A Gift? For Me?

I heard a comedian talking about a Christmas present his parents bought for him one year.

It was a harmonica. He was quite dismayed.

“What possessed you to get me a harmonica?”

“Well,” came the response, “we know you travel a lot with your job.”

The comedian responded with: “I travel by jet, not by freight train.”

So his parents continue the festivities.

“Open this one next, it goes with the harmonica.”

He is totally, distraught now.

“What? The harmonica is the ANCHOR gift?”

It turned out to be an instruction book on... How to play the harmonica.

… “Anchor presents” are important to our message this morning.

When we look to the manger… we perceive the Christ Child as the quintessential gift.

And… He is. However, Jesus came to bring to us other gifts.

He’s the gift that keeps on giving.

As we look into the manger we find a host of other gifts.

Love

Joy

Peace

Hope

(You often hear these gifts talked about at Christmas in Christmas Cards and Songs. One year we even had them hanging from the ceiling and I preached about one of them each week before Christmas.)

Another gift we find in the manger is a:

Relationship with God

And THAT’S the big one, the one that all the others lead to.

But that’s not the one I want to focus on today.

Not the gift that comes after, but the gift that comes before.

The gift that makes all these other gifts possible...

The ANCHOR Gift.

What gift is that?

FORGIVENESS

Without the forgiveness of God for our sins, there ARE NO OTHER gifts.

Sin separates us from God.

It separates us from

His Love

His Joy

His Peace

His Hope

From… Him

The baby in the manger, died on a cross

to pay the penalty for our sins.

Because we take THIS gift (forgiveness)... we get all these others.

Forgiveness is a truly inexplicable gift.

You can’t FULLY explain it because you don’t ever find the end of how many are attached to it.

You might be thinking; “That sounds too good to be true.”

I do have to tell you that there IS ONE catch.

God doesn’t want you to keep it to yourself.

He wants you to give forgiveness to others just the way He gave it to you.

Often … that’s hard.

I get it.

I’ve been hurt too.

We get hurt through

pain of divorce

death of a loved one

friendships that dissolve with bitter words or maybe

you have a family member who is thrives on creating chaos

And it always seems the case that those who can hurt you the worst, are those you love the most.

The book of Genesis tells us a story about some intense pain.

Family pain.

Enter Joseph.

A young man with dreams… visions.

God has plans for him....

cocky

brothers threw him in a pit

sold him into slavery

It doesn’t get any better

Potipher’s wife

baker and cupbearer

Joseph could have become bitter. hateful.

But he didn’t.

What Joseph didn’t know… COULDN’T know was that God was positioning him to become second in command in Egypt.

“You may think your life is falling apart, it’s actually falling into place.”

However- the day came for him to meet his brothers.

“Please, come closer,” he said to them. So they came closer. And he said again, “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into slavery in Egypt.  But don’t be upset, and don’t be angry with yourselves for selling me to this place. It was God who sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives. Genesis 45:4-5 NLT

Joseph could contain his pain no longer. He poured out years of hurt, pain, regret, and loss.

Many here may have experienced pain like Joseph did.

Perhaps you have been hurt by a family member?

It is easy to slip into a cycle of tit-for-tat.

“Hurting people, hurt people.”

What do we do when we have been hurt/betrayed?

There are 3 Biblical choices we can make -not talking about feelings - talking about choices.

You are not going to get up one morning and suddenly feel like forgiving someone who has hurt you.

More than likely you will feel like hurting them back.

However - We have to train ourselves to stop being motivated by what our feelings tell us to do.

-We must learn to pattern our behavior after what God’s Word tells us to do.

As I said We are going to make three biblical choices-

1. Give the Gift of Prayer

Consider Jesus Christ as our example-

At His birth Herod sought Him to kill Him.

In His home town they tried to throw Him off a cliff.

He was rejected by people over and over again.

Out of the 12 He took to mentor, one betrayed Him with a kiss.

At His crucifixion, only one of the 12 showed up.

Pilate found Him innocent, but turned Him over to the crowds for crucifixion, he was beaten beyond recognition.

He did nothing wrong, yet look how He responded, as he was being nailed to the cross:

Luke 23:34 (ESV)

And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” ...

When you are hurt, what is YOUR go-to response?

Is it to pray for your attacker?

If so, what is your prayer? For God strike them with hemorrhoids.

What SHOULD we pray?

Pray for God to heal their hurt

Those who hurt others have probably been hurt themselves.

Pray for God to forgive them

Pray for them to turn to God for forgiveness.

Pray for God to bless them

Prayer may not change them-but it will change you.

First we choose to pray, second, even more difficult

2. Give the Gift of Forgiveness

Why is this important-

Matthew 6:14–15 ESV

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

The other person may not want your forgiveness.

The other person may not deserve your forgiveness.

But forgiveness releases… you.

As it has been said:

“Harboring un-forgiveness is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

Forgiveness- not an elective in Christianity.

In Matthew chapter 18 Peter comes to Jesus and asks:

how many times should I forgive my brother, 7 times?

Jesus says, 70 x 7.

You can almost hear the pride in Peter voice

“Yeah, I can be the bigger man.. I can go all the way up to 7!!

Jesus said, 70 x 7.

Jesus ISN’T telling you to pull out a counter, to start keeping track.

Jesus is saying: DON’T keep track! Keep on forgiving!

Ask yourself- is there someone you need to forgive?

Today we are going to make choices- we are going to choose to pray for them and then to forgive them.

How do we forgive?

If someone has hurt you, you probably do not have feelings of forgiveness towards them,

As I said before... It’s not a feeling. It’s a choice.

You decide to forgive. The feelings will follow.

The prayers you have been praying are already creating in you the “God-perspective” of forgiveness.

(That’s why the praying… comes first.)

How do you get to the place where you choose to forgive?

Focus on how much God has forgiven you.

You will see your stack of sins, and you will realize how much God has forgiven you.

Colossians 3:13 ESV

bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

How do you forgive... as God has forgiven you?

Just do what we have been saying.

spend time in prayer

make the conscience decision to forgive

The Holy Spirit will conform you to the image of Christ and His desire to forgive WILL become yours.

We choose to pray for people, forgive people, then

3. Give the Gift of Blessing

Bless

Speak well of

Invoke a blessing upon

Make happy and cause to prosper.

… bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Luke 6:28 NASB

It’s really difficult to have hard feelings against someone that you are praying for… forgiving… and pronouncing blessings on.

Conclusion

Genesis 45:14–15 ESV

Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, and Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them. After that his brothers talked with him.

Maybe… like Joseph... you will need a time to cry and release the pain.

But then… forgive

What was on the other side of forgiveness for Joseph?

It was the birthing of an entire nation.

Israel was born out of that moment of forgiveness.

AND

Out of Israel was born… forgiveness!

Luke 2:10–11 ESV

And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.