God's Lavish Gift

1 John 3:1 ESV

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

Would you agree this morning that stress not sanity is dominating most American’s at this time of year? Why are most people stressed? What is causing such anxiety?

According to Prevention Magazine it is predominately gifts. In their article “11 Things that American’s Dread about Christmas” four were related to gifts. Of those surveyed; 68% said crowds and standing in long lines, 37% said getting into debt, 28% said gift shopping, and 19% said disappointing gifts.

Attempting to purchase a gift that is wanted and appreciated for many, if not most, is Christmas greatest stress. A wanted or appreciated gift is defined as a gift that is used, not returned, or re-gifted. Those looking for such a gift feel as though their endeavour rivals that of finding Bigfoot or a Unicorn.

Gift cards, once regarded as the Zoloft of gift giving, have fallen prey to Christmas anxiety. They have fallen prey in two ways, volume and desire.

Volume: Gift card displays have increased from a 1 x 1 wire rack to gigantic 4 x 4 floor displays with gifts cards numbering in the hundreds.

Desire: It could be argued that desire for gift cards are waning. In 2019 $3 billion in gift cards were unspent.

Our once go to Christmas gift giving stress reliever has succumb to Christmas anxiety.

Let’s be honest this morning and step into the light of our reality. Christmas is not about family. It’s not about eating. It’s not about being merry.

It’s about gifts and not just any gift but the right gift and not just the right gift but the perfect gift. Not only the perfect gift but the perfect amount.

Many relate well to the CBS character Sheldon Cooper who is petrified of gift giving. His anxiety is rooted in what he calls reciprocity, a mutual or even exchange of property. In a Christmas episode Sheldon prepares himself for Penny’s, his across the hall neighbor, annual Christmas gift.

He is taken to a local mall by his work colleague to purchase Penny’s gift. Being unsure of Penny’s expenditure on his gift Sheldon buys several varieties of Christmas gift baskets.

He tells his roommate Leonard that after opening Penny’s present he will pretend as though he is in gastro distress and excuse himself to the bathroom. While in the bathroom he will assess the value of Penny’s gift through an internet search. Once a value has been assessed he will then give her a gift of reciprocity.

Sheldon is confident that his strategy is full proof until he opens Penny’s gift. At first Sheldon is confused by his gift, a napkin. Penny tells Sheldon to turn the napkin over and to his shock there is a signature his childhood hero, Leonard Nimoy.

Sheldon is stunned by Penny’s gift and leaves the room only to return with his arms full of every variety of gift that he purchased. Penny’s responds by asking Sheldon; “what did you do”. He responds in a voice of desperation saying; “it’s not enough is it”.

We can all relate in some degree to Sheldon’s plight. And no matter how hard we try Christmas at its core is about gift giving.

We can deny the importance of gift giving. We can abstain from giving gifts as a way of protesting the commercialization of Christmas.

However, our protest and abstention will not change a truth that is 2,000 years old. Christmas, at its heart, is about gift giving.

Scripture teaches us that Christmas is all about “the gift” and not just any gift but the perfect gift. You will not find such a gift under a beautifully decorated tree but in a well worn and used feed trough.

This gift will not be wrapped in ornate packing with hand tied ribbons but in swaddling clothes wrapped by the hands of a virgin mother. The gift we will open this morning is perfect because it is given to us by one who knows our hearts deepest desires.

This gift is perfect because it doesn’t demand reciprocity but only to be received.

As a matter of fact any attempt to repay the giver of this gift proves that the receiver does not understand its magnitude. This gift of love is foreign, it’s other-wordly, it’s nonhuman.

Previous to this love incarnating itself there existed only tainted versions of its existence. Stories of old portrayed short vignettes of what was promised but no story possessed the perpetual virtue.

The first Christmas morning a gift was available to any who would receive it. Love wrapped itself in flesh and manifested itself among the religious and reprobates.

God incarnated himself so that man might possess a visible definition of a word yet not created. Love no longer spoke of itself from bushes, winds, clouds, or prophets. The Word became flesh so that men could see, touch, feel, and know the Word.

This gift was given to style us into children of God.

From our Heavenly Father’s heart flows a constant stream of giving. Giving is not what he does but who he is his nature.

Christmas was planned before creation to give us an inexpressible gift of love when we were our naughtiest. Furthermore, there is no requirement of good behavior or great works in order to receive it.

We don’t have to put money in a Christmas fund in order to purchase it. It’s free! But free does not mean cheap. It cost the giver His life and it requires the same of the receiver.

The giver paid for this gift by giving His life and it must be recieved by giving up one’s life. It is the great gift exchange; you trade your infinite debt for His infinite wealth.

You cannot behold this gift of love but without the aid of the Holy Spirit. Without his aid it is beyond belief.

You can see a babe lying in a manager but not believe He is the propitiation for your sins. You can repeat the sounding joy without joy resounding in your heart because of this great gift.

You can behold the face of God in Christ and feel nothing but sentimentality. You can stare at this perfect gift and with great ease miss it surpassing worth.

However, when with spiritual eyes you see this love it will arrest your soul. When this lavish love is experienced lovers of self become lovers of God. As Belle’s love for The Beast transformed him even more so will this love style us into children of God.

Today’s text John commands us with deep emotion to “see” or “behold”. This command is to all Christians because we are easily distracted. We all possess spiritual ADD.

We are commanded to behold because we become what we behold.

What are we called to behold or see? Love. John uses this word love 38 times in his 21 chapter Gospel and 44 times in his short 5 chapter Epistle. Love is the theme of John’s writings but it was not always the theme of his life.

Scripture records that John along with his James asked Christ if they could call down fire on the Samaritans that had rejected Christ.

Luke 9:54 ESV

And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”

What changed John? What transformed him from a capricious disciple into a man who wrote the following

1 John 3:11–18 ESV

For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Walking with Christ transformed John. Watching Christ’s love in action transformed him into a lover of people. I believe that nothing changed John more than the cross.

Remember, he is the only disciple to stand at the foot of the cross. In verse 16 John says; “by this we know love, that he laid down his life for us”.

I believe the image of Christ on the cross had so emblazoned itself in John’s mind that he lived the first word of verse 1 perpetually. John finishes verse 16 by saying the result of this knowledge causes us to lay down our lives for the brother.

There’s an interesting historian named Eusebius who was from the third century AD. He was one of the first church historians of the Christian church.

He preserves a story about John’s ministry in the last years of his life that’s very intriguing. It’s not in the Bible. It’s in this particular history, and I have used it before. It sets things up well for understanding him.

According to Eusebius, John, as an old man, had won a young man to Christ and was discipling him. As he was about to go on a trip, he said to the bishop of the town, “Please take care of that young man. When I get back I’ll take up the discipling again. Just take care of him.”

Then he went on his trip. He came back and said to the bishop, “Where’s that young man I left in your care?” The bishop said, “Alas, he’s dead.” John says, “What do you mean?”

According to Eusebius, the bishop said, “Well, he’s dead to God.” In other words, he’d fallen back in with old friends, and he’d gone back into a life of crime, and now he lived as a leader of a band of robbers up in the mountains where no one could go, because if anybody would try to get near the hideout they were killed.

According to Eusebius, at that point John ripped his cloak in an expression of grief, and he said, “Get me a horse.” So this old man gets on this horse and rides up into the mountains where it’s death to go.

When he gets up there, of course the robbers who keep watch come out and grab him. He says, “That’s okay. I wanted to be captured. Take me to the leaders. Take me before your judgment seat.”

So they bring this old man to the leaders, and one of the leaders, of course, is this young man who immediately recognizes him, and this is what Eusebius says.

The young man, though armed, began to run away. He took off. This old man John runs after him, and he cries out, “Why flee from me? I’m an old, unarmed man. Don’t you see there’s still hope of life for you?

I’ll gladly suffer death for you as the Lord suffered death for us. I’ll give my own life in exchange for yours. Stop! Listen. Trust me.” Eusebius says, “Hearing these words, the man stopped. He hurled away his weapons and, trembling, began to weep bitterly.” He came back.

What does John want us to see? “what kind of love the Father has given to us”. This phrase “what kind of” is one word in Greek and there is no precise parallel in English. Its an idiom.

It would be like translating “it’s raining cats and dogs” in Mandarin Chinese. In Greek it meant “from what country”. It was meant to express “not from here”, foreign, other-worldly. This word is fitting in this context because it provides depth to a word that has fallen into shallow waters.

John is bursting with emotion. He is an old man who has never been able to delete Calvary from his mind. Christ on the cross had infected him like a virus. It had taken control of him. It compelled him into a life that resembled His Savior.

He was under its influence. This love, which John has not ceased from beholding, had now besieged every part of his being. Staring at the Calvary had not left him cold but had served to compel him into a love which was styling him into a child of God.

Love in Greek has many expressions such; as the love between friends, the love of knowledge, the love of the brothers, but this particular word was invented because of Christ love and that of his followers.

Agape means unconditional love, preferential love that is chosen and acted out by the will. It is not love based on the goodness of the one being loved, or upon natural affinity or emotion. Rather this is benevolent love that always seeks the good of the beloved.

This word was created to define an action that was foreign to the entire world. It wasn’t until Christ Advent that this type of love had ever been beheld. This is why some translation say, “what manner” or “how great”.

God loves His children with a love that is impossible to articulate in any human language and that is utterly foreign to our normal human understanding and experience.

Our love for each other is framed with a language that we use to describe the feeling we have for pizza, pets, places, and the list goes on. This love is so out of this world that Paul has to pray an out of this world prayer for the Ephesian believers.

Ephesians 3:14–21 ESV

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

This love is of such a quality that we must pray for divine assistance in understanding and applying. Never forget this truth; when something foreign enters your body, such as disease, an effect takes place.

The word “given” speaks to love’s quality and quantity. It is difficult for us to comprehend these two descriptive words in partnership.

We are constantly bombarded with a choice of one or the other. Anything that possess great quality is scarce. While much of what we find in great quantity lacks quality.

John uses the word “given” to call our attention to the quality and quantity in“what kind of love”. He wants us to look hard at that which we have never seen because it possess a perfect quality and a perpetual quantity.

John wants us to behold the quality and quantity of this love for our transformation and its transference.

First let me call your attention to the quality of the Father’s.

His love is perfect.

Romans 5:7–10 ESV

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

His love is not based on a person’s quality. He loves in spite of a person’s quality.

Remember Jesus does not accept me Just as I am. He loves me despite how I am.

Jesus demonstrates this throughout his ministry. He calls Matthew a tax-collector. No one was of a lesser quality than Matthew.

This calling of Matthew was not a one time act of kindness but was a repeated action of Christ. He calls another tax-collector in Luke 19 named Zacchaeus. Matthew records these words for us this morning

Matthew 9:11 ESV

And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

Jesus does not love us based on our quality but based on his quality. He is not checking His list twice to see who has been naughty or nice. He is love is based on His own untainted volitional choice.

Nothing about you can make God not love you and nothing you can do make Him love you. His love is perfect. It cannot be persuaded, manipulated, or purchased. It is pure, perfect, and pristine.

People are amazed at the quality of a person who lays down their life for another. We make movies to celebrate the quality of such love.

In the movie, Hacksaw Ridge, Private Desmond Doss, who is a contentious objector, enlist in the Army as a field medic but refuses to carry a weapon. Doss stated; “i figure while others are taking life i will be saving lives”. This belief was rooted in his Christian faith.

Doss was assigned to the 96th Division. His division saw action in Okinawa at the battle of Hacksaw Ridge. During this battle Doss risked his life while saving 75 wounded men.

What is most interesting about Doss’s story is that while he lowered 75 American soldiers to safety he also lower two enemy soldiers in hopes that they would receive medical care.

This act of love astounded his fellow soldiers. It is amazing when one lays down their life for their comrades but it is befuddling, it is other worldly, when when one lays down their life for their enemy.

Only Christ’s love can compel a person to such action. Furthermore, he not only exhibits this love towards believers but imparts this love to them.

This divine love is infused into His followers, so that it is their own, and becomes in them the source of divine life.

It is this demonstration of love that gives them confidence of their title “children of God”.

John not only wants us to see the perfect quality of the Father’s love but its perpetual quantity.

The word “given” is in the perfect tense. This teaches us that is it permanent or perpetual. What he has given us will never run out. It doesn’t possess an expiration date. It will not fade or corrode. It doesn’t diminish in value. It cannot be stolen. It is so permanent that nothing can part us from its grip.

This love is not fueled by us reciprocation. It is based on his volition not our virtue.

This love is demonstrated in the Old Testament story of Hosea. Hosea is commanded by the Lord to marry a harlot. While married his wife returns to her harlotry. She has taken his name but yet there remains her old nature.

Yet the Lord commands his prophet to buy her back at great cost. Why? Do you not find the Lord’s actions mysterious. A man of God attached to a harlot! What about God attached to tax-collectors and sinners.

If you do not see mystery in God’s love for you will not marvel at who He is or what He has bestowed. The profundity of God’s love leads to praise.

God has given us his name and by beholding His great love we will be styled into Children of God, and so we are!

Consider for a moment what it cost Christ to purchase your soul. This should give you confidence that he will never discard that which cost him everything.

And this should compel us to live in such as way that this love is transferred by those who experience our lives.

The child in the Christmas crib beckons us to “behold what foreign kind of love the Father has bestowed upon us”.

The cry from the Christmas crib reminds us that God came down to us. Immanuel! God with us! John reminds us in this letter that love always makes the first move.

1 John 4:10 ESV

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Christmas reminds us that God is the greatest lover and this is expressed in his lavish gift of Christ. Christian will you dare to pray Paul’s prayer so that you might experience a time of refreshing from the Lord as you behold this manner of love?

Will you by faith in the Christ that forgives our sin and transforms us by his love? Will you embrace the love that you have desired and dreamed of your entire life? Its here. Will you take hold of it by faith?