A Gift From the Heart

Well, it’s that time of year when we buy gifts for our families and loved ones. I dare say some of you are probably all over this. Probably with gifts wrapped and already under the tree. I suspect some of you have probably at least started thinking about it, and are on your way. But I’m sure there is at least some here this morning who haven’t started and probably won’t for a few more weeks. After all, it’s still 18 days to Christmas - we don’t want to rush these things.

Of course part of the problem we all face is that some people are just really hard to buy for. What do you get for that person who already has the things they need and even want.

Now this morning, the kids have done a wonderful job, and in their play, we’ve been pushed think - what can we give Jesus?

Their play ended us with the last verse of the Christmas Carol - In The Bleak Mid Winter.

(I’m kind of glad they used that song because it’s such a beautiful carol, but we don’t tend to sing it because, well, we’re in the middle of summer, not winter)

The last verse asks the question ‘What can I give him?’

It the concludes with the very last line - “Yet what I can I give Him - Give my heart”

Now they are beautiful words - but what does that even mean?

You know, words can be cheap. It’s easy to rattle off words like this - we’re usually pretty good as Christians at doing it. But if we really mean it when we say I’ll give my heart to Jesus, what does it mean

Well this morning, I’m going to keep things relatively short, but it is this question that I want to think about.

John the Baptist

Now, I’m actually not going to use a passage that typically we might associate with Christmas.

Instead, I want to briefly consider another passage where we see people preparing themselves for Jesus - but not Jesus as a baby, but for Jesus just before he starts his earthly ministry.

Now interestingly, of the four gospels which record the ministry of Jesus, only two of them include the account of the birth of Jesus.

But the passage I’ll consider today is in all four, at least in one form or another.

I’m talking about the John the Baptist.

You see, in some ways, John the Baptist is the wild crazy guy. He has clothes made of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist.

His diet consists of locusts and wild honey.

But there was something about him that drew people to him.

He possessed something that made people flock to him.

Now it wasn’t just that he looked weird. Certainly there are many eccentric types with weird dress and diets - but they don’t normally attract a following.

But John the Baptist was different. You see, what really drew people was that he had God’s anointing and he was preparing the people for something special.

Preparing the path

And so John carried out the role that was prophesied some 700 odd years earlier of the one that would prepare the path for the Lord.

Now let’s just think about that image for a moment.

Let’s just imagine for a moment the Queen of England is visiting.

She will likely have a procession down the street. But she won’t just go down the road with all the other traffic like you or me. No, the police will clear the roads. Put barricades up. And the streets will be lined with people waving to the Queen.

Well, it’s not too hard to imagine this for the Queen - but what about for Jesus?

Interestingly, there was at least one occasion when a similar procession took place for Jesus. It was on the Sunday before his death and resurrection. On the day we call Palm Sunday.

But while we will one day line the streets (so to speak) when Jesus physically comes again - in the meantime, there is another sense in which we can “make straight paths for Him”, and as we understand that, I also believe we’ll begin to understand what it means to give our hearts to Jesus.

Clearing a way to the heart

You see, there is a sense in which we have to make the path to our hearts clear. Jesus wants to come in - but unfortunately we have way too much baggage.

Now this is where it could get discouraging if we didn’t fully understand what Jesus has offered us.

When we look deep within ourselves we realise that we haven’t been the people God wants us to be. We’ve got angry with others. We look at what others have with envy. We greedily take more and more.

The problem is - this rubbish in our heart is not the path that will work.

Christ is holy. Holiness is not compatible with sin.

Now straight away we have a problem. You see, sin is not something we can easily brush away.

Now for all you kids out there I don’t know what your room looks like. Just maybe, from time-to-time, perhaps your room gets a little untidy.

Well I tell my kids that they need to make sure there is a clear path from there bed to the door so that if they need to go to the toilet in the middle of the night they won’t trip over everything.

Well, while it’s best they completely tidy their room, we sometimes allow them to just clear a path by moving the toys to one side.

Well, I think that we sometimes think that we can do something similar for the sin in our heart.

We somehow seem to think that we can just push things to one side and that will be enough.

But here is the problem. It is not enough, because when you push it to one side, it’s still there.

So what can we do?

Well, John the Baptist actually has the answer.

And this needs to be the key first step when we want to give our heart to Jesus.

In fact it can be summarised with one word - and it’s the first word he is quoted as saying in Matthew’s gospel. Repent!

Repent

So what does it mean to repent?

Well the word actually literally means to change your mind. It carries the idea that you turn from your desire for sin and instead seek to live a holy life.

Repentance is the preparation we need to make our hearts ready for Jesus.

Without repentance our hearts become too hardened.

Without repentance, we are effectively saying, Jesus we don’t want you in our hearts.

Now, it’s important to recognise that it isn’t the repentance that actually changes our behaviour - that is what happens through the transformation of the Holy Spirit in our lives - but it is repentance that prepares the way for that.

What this means

So what does this mean?

Well, it means we need to acknowledge the bad things in our life. We need to recognise when we’re not acting as we should to others. We have thoughts we shouldn’t have.

Once we recognise this, we need to then be prepared to say - this is not right. We want to change.

Tell God that we are sorry.

When we spend time praying with God, it is always good to take part of that time to say sorry.

We often get our kids to follow the simple TSP or teaspoon prayer. That is, thank you, sorry, please.

And so, built into this is repentance.

This simple model is something good for all of us. We all need to build in repentance to our prayer time.

Giving our heart

As we come to Christmas - and as we acknowledge Jesus in the centre of it all - we recognise that we need to prepare ourselves.

We sing that we will give him our hearts.

But to do that, it needs to start with repentance. Because without repentance, we aren’t giving him our heart, rather we are holding it tight thinking that we know best.

Conclusion

Christmas is a great time for giving. Each of us will spend at least some time buying gifts for others.

But the most important thing is what we give to Jesus. Of course, there is not really anything we can give except our heart - and what Jesus really wants is a heart ready for him.

And so, as we come into this time of the year, I want you to consider the way in which you can prepare yourself by repenting.