2019-12-15 Christmas Carols

<Title> God is more generous than Santa… <Title>

Christmas as an opportunity to be generous...

So how many of you will be giving someone a gift for Christmas? Who did you have in mind?

Hey that’s cool, do you think you will get one for me?

How many of you expect to be receiving a gift for Christmas? Who from?

How do you decide who gets a gift and who doesn’t?

Sometimes its hard… Generally in my family we just stick to immediate family, so brothers, sisters, parents…

So about Santa...

Who gets gifts from Santa? Who doesn’t?

Who gets gifts from Santa? Who doesn’t?

Who has been good? Who thinks their brother or sister has been bad...

Santa is super generous… Even just giving gifts to everyone who is nice, that’s a lot of people… The way we are talking about Santa here… Santa is more generous than me…

Tell me about the story

But here’s the thing… Can any of you tell me what we have been singing songs about tonight? Can any of you tell about the story that all these Christmas lights tell?

But

It’s about Jesus, the birth of Jesus…

If you have hung around church at Christmas time, you may have heard people say that the Jesus was the greatest gift of all… Jesus is God with us...

But here’s a question, this gift of Jesus… God with us… Who is it for?

God didn’t send Jesus as a reward his people being good… God didn’t send Jesus just for those people who are nice… But for those who are naughty too...The thing is that God didn’t send Jesus because his people had achieved a certain level of spirituality…

In Jesus, God gave the most precious gift of all to all humanity, those who are nice… Those who are naughty and even those who are really bad… God loved them all enough to give them the greatest gift of all...

Santa is more generous than me… God is even more generous than Santa...

How many of you have received a really expensive gift, perhaps something so expensive that you were actually embarrassed.... God’s gift of Jesus can be a bit like that… We can think we don’t deserve it… We might think there was a mistake… We might feel bad because we don’t have anything like it to offer in return… But God offers the gift none the less… We just need the humility to accept it…

This is why we get excited about the Christmas story… It reminds us God loves us, that God invites us into his family through the free gift of Jesus… No matter who we are… No matter what we have done… God’s love, forgiveness and grace is bigger...

The hope, the love, the forgiveness and Joy of Christmas is for you…

God’s Generosity can Inspire

More than this, God’s generosity can inspire us to be generous too...

The gift of Christmas isn’t just for those who have been good...

Sometimes, receiving love and generosity from someone makes us more likely to show that same kind of love and generosity to others...

What if the most generous thing we can do this year is to reflect something of God’s love to those in our neighborhood, at work, at home… To love someone like God does, even if they aren’t in our immediate family, even if they haven’t been nice, even if they have been mean… What does it look like to do that during the next week, even if only for one person… Even in a small way… Through those actions, people might just know something of God’s love for them...

Sure, God is happy when we show appreciate what we have been given and are generous to others...

Sure, God is happy when we show appreaciate what we have been given and are generous to others...

The hope, the love, the forgiveness and Joy of Christmas is for you… Even if you think you don’t deserve it...