Sermon Tone Analysis

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 which means it is used, not returned, or re-gifted is an endeavour equal to finding Bigfoot or a Unicorn.

Gift cards, once regarded as the Zoloft of gift giving, have fallen prey to Christmas anxiety.

Have you seen a gift card display lately?

Let’s be honest this morning.

Let’s step into the light and confess 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 colleagues 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 from a 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 had brought her.

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; the gift of love.

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

This gift can only be received due to its origin.

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.

Christmas brought a gift that had never been given.

Love wrapped itself in flesh so that man might possess a visible definition of a word yet not created.

This gift was a child wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manager.

This gift was given not to save us from suffering and loss but that we may become styled 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.

Let us pray and ask for our Father’s help.

For this reason we kneel before you Father asking that out of your glorious riches that you strengthen us with power through your Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith.

And we ask that you, through this message we would be rooted and established in love, grant us all the ability today to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, enable us to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Help us, your children, to believe that this love which you demonstrated is in us and was given to be manifested.

We ask this because you are able to do immeasurably more than we collectively ask or image.

Grant our request so that your glory would be seen in our generation.

Amen?

Today’s text John commands us with deep emotion to “see” or “behold”.

This command is to all Christians.

Why are we commanded to look?

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.

What changed John?

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

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.