The Greatest Gifts Part 3

Christmas Gifts

This morning, I am going to speak the third and last message of our Christmas series, entitled, “The greatest Christmas Gifts”

And I’ve been talking about the great gifts that God gave us through the greatest gift ever - that being the birth of His son in the flesh.

What we celebrated this past week, and continue to celebrate every day.

Drone not opened for three christmas’ now because it was the last gift my father gave to me.

We have those special gifts, don’t we.

Maybe, we lock them in a safe. Maybe they hang on the wall or on a mantle somewhere

Maybe nobody else ever sees them. No matter what they are dear to your hearts.

Because of the situation in which they were given, the person who gave them or some other great memory that is tied to them.

I believe that these gifts that God gave us should be the same way - very near and dear to our hearts.

We said that Jesus came to give us peace.

Peace in this chaotic world

Peace from this chaotic world

That we receive peace when we receive him as our savior - and heals us from what really ails us

That we receive peace when we allow him to be King in our lives - As he rules in our hearts, our hearts and lives line up with what he created us for and to do.

That this peace will bring peace between us and God

and then between us and man

That we would have as the angels had prophecied - Good will toward each other.

But we closed with the thought that we have to seek this king

The shepherds had to go look for the child that was spoken of, and when they did, things in them had changed

Why? Because they searched for and found, in the midst of a chaotic world, the promised prince of peace.

Last week it was the gift of healing.

and we didn’t focus on the miracle of healing, but the healing that takes place in every day life

How he gives us the ability to cope in the day to day junk that comes against us.

Malachi prophecied that the Sun would rise with healing in his wings.

We talked about the accidents of life.

The attacks in life

The struggles of life

Paul talks about being shipwrecked and beaten and stoned and left for dead. Going hungry and cold and not having enough in life

But he starts it all off by saying that in those struggles of life he has experienced the great comfort of Jesus thorugh the power of the Holy Spirit and that gives him the endurance to go on.

And that was our main point of the message

In the middle of your tribulation, God will comfort you

In your sufferings, God’s comfort will be there

In all the things that you will never be able to understand, God gives his wisdom and grace.

And then the icing on the cake is that he gives us the ability to take those things and share them with others.

And the point that I loved was that God has given you a ________(name, or human)_______ costume to go out and use to comfort others. So use it.

I want to go back to again today and look at 3 verses

Luke 2:10–12 NKJV

Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”

Luke 2

Joy to the World, The Lord has come

I know that this message will be a little somber today, but I think that it’s important that it is spoken. Because this is one area that I see in the church that is needful and proper.

I want to talk about grief. Because the opposite of Joy is grief.

And one of the great pains of Christmas is grief.

First you need to remember that we were created to be eternal beings. In fact, we are all eternal beings. It’s just that because of the fall, we don’t always realize it, and this temporal time that we are given on earth is seen as life.

As long as we live on this side of eternity, and focus the importance of life on these earthly years, we will all come to know grief as a reality. That’s why I shared about my father’s gift to me. - I’m sure some of that feeling of not opening that gift and using it is grief.

Grief brings along with it, pain and loss.

But Joy to the World the Lord has come.

God knew that we would have grief, but he planned for us to handle it differently.

I have been with many individuals and families going through grief.

I have gone through grief myself and with my own family

And what I have experienced in these situations is that we go about it the wrong way.

We try to deal with it silently:

I’ve heard people try to deny their losses

I’ve watched people try to delay their pain

And basically our way of dealing with grief silently is to keep ourselves busy, or to distract ourselves. And that may seem like it’s working, but if we never deal with our grief, we never get through our grief.

God’s plan for our grief is that we bring it to him.

That in our prayers and our conversations with God, we run to him and talk to him about it.

He wants us to acknowledge the reality of our pain. To stop acting like we are okay and making it. When deep down inside, we are hurting so badly.

He wants us to talk to him about it. I tell people, especially when they are mad at God.

Tell him that. He’s bigger than you think, he knows it, so tell him.

Let him know how much you are hurting. Let him know how much you feel the loss

And then let him speak back to you. God speaks to his people today.

Let him show you his comfort. My prayer for most people in these situations is God, just let them feel your huge arms around them in this time.

Turn with me over to

In , David is dedicating the temple to God. But he says some powerful things here about God’s ability to bring joy to our negative situations of life.

Psalm 30 NKJV

A Psalm. A Song At the Dedication of the House of David. I will extol You, O Lord, for You have lifted me up, And have not let my foes rejoice over me. O Lord my God, I cried out to You, And You healed me. O Lord, You brought my soul up from the grave; You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. Sing praise to the Lord, you saints of His, And give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name. For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning. Now in my prosperity I said, “I shall never be moved.” Lord, by Your favor You have made my mountain stand strong; You hid Your face, and I was troubled. I cried out to You, O Lord; And to the Lord I made supplication: “What profit is there in my blood, When I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise You? Will it declare Your truth? Hear, O Lord, and have mercy on me; Lord, be my helper!” You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, To the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.

Look at verse 5

Psalm 30:5 NKJV

For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.

The Morning is Coming

I think of the verse from last weeks message - The S-U-N shall rise with healing in his wings.

When you are grieving and weeping in sorrow, it is dark all around.

You can be in the middle of a party and not be able to see the happiness all around you

But this child that whose birth we celebrate will bring joy to your heart.

This SUN will arise and bring joy to your heart

You may not be able to laugh and enjoy life now, but God turns it around.

Give him your grief. Turn your sorrow over to him. Ask him to help and then trust that he will.

The angel tells the shepherds, I bring you tidings of great joy, For there is born to you today.

My brother and sister who is hurting, I bring you tidings of Great Joy because there is a savior who was born.

The sun has arisen

The morning is coming and the light that it will bring will shatter the darkness of your life.

Go down to verse 11

Psalm 30:11 NKJV

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness,

The Feet are Going to Move

I’m not a dancer, but I can’t always say that I don’t feel like it from time to time

Have you ever had a song get you a certain way that your feet start moving.

My feet don’t move on the dance floor, but they move under tables. They get to tapping sometimes.

This is what God wants to do in your life. He wants to put a spring in your step.

He wants to get your feet moving.

Remember dancing was very important to the Jewish people

It was part of their different celebrations and still is today

But how many know, there is simply no dancing, when especially inside, there is no reason to dance.

This child, this messiah, this bundle of Real Joy does something in our hearts.

Even in our deepest pain, Jesus touches us.

Jesus comforts us by reminding us that he has lived this life. He understands those times.

Think of Lazarus - Jesus wept

Think of Lazarus - Jesus was ridiculed.

He understands.

Jesus also comforts us by reminding us of what he has accomplished while he was on this earth.

He reunited us back to God

And he opened eternity back up for us.

Here’s what John says about that eternity in Revelations 21

Revelation 21:1–5 NKJV

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”

Revelation 21:

There is the Key - He makes all things new.

The morning is new. The night is gone and a new day with new possibility approaches

The dance is new. The song that you are dancing to is new.

No longer is it a song of mourning, but it is a new song of joy

No longer are they clothes of sackcloth you are wearing, a sign of loss and pain

But it is a smile of joy that God has put on your face, which is an outward expression of what he has accomplished on the inside.

Joy to the World the Lord has come

Let God touch your life today with his joy

Stop carrying it yourself and allow him to take it from you

Today we are standing at the threshold of a new year.

I know that there are some here who are glad 2018 is going

Allow him to give you his peace this

A new year is like a new day isn’t it. A new morning as we’ve already talked about

As we change the year, and the calendar, we hope for greater things.

For some 2019 could never be worse than 2018 was]

But no matter what for us all, none of us know what it holds. But we do know who holds it

Let’s let God give us these greattest gifts this new year. Let’s live in them

The gift of peace. The gift of healing. And the gift of Joy.

Let’s allow God to take our pain, our chaos and our grief and enable us to live life like He has intended our life to be.

Our theme for the New year is Living Expectantly. I pray that we would all trust God to enable us to do just that.

Let’s Pray!