As you consider the greatest gift ever given, let us read from Matthew chapter 2, starting in verse 1. Let us hear the word of the living God. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him when Herod the king heard this he was troubled and Jerusalem with him and when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born so they said to him in Bethlehem in the land of Judah for thus it is written by the prophet that you Bethlehem in the land of Judah are not the least amongst the rulers of Judah for out of you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel then Herod when he had secretly called the wise men determined from them what time the star appeared and he sent them to Bethlehem and said go and search carefully for the young child and when you have found him bring back word to me that I may come and worshipped him also. When they heard the king they departed and behold the star which had been seen in the east went before them till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. When they had come into the house they saw the young child with Mary his mother and fell down and worshipped him. And when they had opened their treasures they presented gifts to him, gold, frankincense and myrrh. This is the Word of God. Christmas is the season for giving. So why do we give and receive gifts on Christmas Day? After all, it's not our birthday. And why do some people exchange their gifts on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day? Well, a Biblical day begins at sunset. And yet, since we've had all of our clocks able to operate atomic clocks. We can go from midnight to midnight, but in the biblical days they couldn't calculate time with prayer. A day was calculated as the sun set and a new day began. So God's day, the biblical day, began in darkness and ended in light. Man's day begins in darkness and ends in darkness. There's something symbolic there. So Christmas Day, the 25th of December, biblically begins on Christmas Eve as the sun sets on the 24th. That is the beginning of Christmas Day. Which is why many families, especially in the Germanic and Nordic countries, they celebrate Christmas primarily on Christmas Eve as the sun sets. That is the beginning of their wish. In the English tradition it tends to be more on Christmas morning. We sang in this one him born this happy morning, well of course that's not accurate because he was born at night. But as the scripture says in Isaiah 9, the people walking in darkness have seen a great light. In Northern Hemisphere, Christmas falls amongst the darkest time of the year, when the days are the shortest and the nights are the longest. And the conception of Christ was calculated to have begun The Feast of Annunciation Church determined was the 25th of March. And 25th of March, which in Northern Hemisphere is the first day of Spring, became the most obvious time, when you think about it, here's the beginning of new life, coming out of winter, and the light. And so now the days start to get longer, now the flowers start to come out. So Northern Hemisphere is much more clear and much more of a sharp contrast than this year. Now we give gifts at Christmas time in honour of the greatest gifts ever given. For God so loved the world that he gave us only the God and Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Freely we have received, freely, freely given. To whom much has been given, much is required. We're not blessed for selfish reasons, we're not to be buckets, we're to be hosepipes, channels. We're to be those who receive God's blessings and pass them on to others. Yet there are many people in our society who have not grasped this basic fact. And I've had people, total strangers, come out to me at the petrol station. Where's my Christmas? What do you mean where's your Christmas? I don't even know where you live. No. What Christmas do you have to give me? Give me my Christmas. Give me, give me, give me. And so many people think Christmas is getting. But that's not the spirit of Christmas. The spirit of Christmas is giving. And we need to remind these people whose birthday we celebrate. It's not your birthday. To walk up to strangers and expect them to give you is not the spirit of Christmas. To walk up to strangers and give them something, now that's the spirit of Christmas. To be generous to strangers, to go out of our way to care for especially the people who are shut in, people in old age homes, people in hospitals, this is a good time to visit the prisoners, this is a great time to do ministry, because we're celebrating the greatest gift ever given. The very first Christmas gifts ever given were given by these wise men from the East, if you read them, the Magi. They travelled great distances over inhospitable terrain. They crossed deserts. They came a phenomenal distance. When there were no proper roads, when there were barely any bridges, when there was virtually no hospitality industries along the side, they came a long distance, a great sacrifice. You can imagine the burning heat, the searing cold, They came a phenomenal distance in order to worship the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the High Priest of All Pride. You can see this because of the extraordinary gifts they bought. They bought gold, frankincense and myrrh. Gold for the King of Kings. Frankincense for the High Priest over all priests. Myrrh for the sacrifice that would end the need for any other blood sacrifices. These men from the East were wise. They recognized when the Messiah would be born, and they discovered where he would be born, and as they came from Babylon and Persia, where Daniel had served, so exemplary, they were no doubt aware of the prophecies made by Daniel. Daniel even specified the time when the Messiah would come. And the gifts these wise men brought showed that they understood something of who he was. They recognised this was not merely an heir to the throne, a prince being born. Where is he who is being born king? Nobody is ever born a king. You might be born a prince, but Jesus Christ is the only one born a king. He is the pre-emptimate Christ. He is the Word of God. He is the Creator. Without him nothing was made that was made. And so they recognised gold was the most appropriate gift to give a king over all kings. And they brought frankincense, which is symbolic of prayers and worship. As frankincense was burned on incense altars before the holy place, so by presenting frankincense directly after the Messiah would be the High Priest over all other priests. And they brought myrrh, which is an ointment used for burial. Jesus Christ was coming as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. So at Christmas we should remember the crib. We've got this manger scene set up here reminding us of the wood. The wood of the crib. But we need to remember the wood of the crib should remind us of the wood of the cross. Because He came to die. He came to live the perfect life, to die the sacrificial death that we deserve. He lived the life we should have lived and He died the death that we deserve to die. He even endured the torments of hell for a time so that we would not have to. And the wood of the cross should remind us of why the Lord came. But the wise men looked way past the wood of the cross and they looked to the gold of the crown. The crib, the cross, the crown. Many people see Jesus as a baby in a manger. Baby Jesus, we speak of. But he's not a baby in the manger anymore. He was at the time. The Catholics remember Jesus as the sacrifice on the cross. They have their crucifixes, and there is Jesus on the cross. But we Protestants have an empty cross. There's Jesus no longer on the cross. He's risen, triumphant over death, hell and the grave. We've got to go beyond the popular culture of, oh, sweet, cute, the baby in the manger, past the cross, the crucifix we should say of the Catholics. And we need to look to the goal of the crown of the coming King of Kings and Lord of Lords who will return in triumph to judge the living and the dead. The Creator will return not as the Lamb of God. The first time He came as the Lamb, the second time He will come as the Lion of Judah to conquer, to judge. And so Just like the crib reminds us of the incarnation, God with us, Immanuel, God has come down and he has become one of us. To walk our streets, to talk in the language we could understand, to heal the sick, to even raise the dead, to give us an entry of his power and his majesty. But we look past the crib of the Incarnation, past the cross of the Redeemer, to the crown reminding us He is the Sovereign Lord, the God of Gods, the Light of Light. He is going to come back and He will judge the sins of the world and He will conquer all His enemies. He will judge those who have not bowed to Him and He will reward those who are faithful to Him. The question is not will you bow to Christ, but when will you bow to Christ? Will you bow to Christ today in the Day of Grace when the door is wide open to Heaven? Or will you bow to Christ on the Day of Judgement? When the Day of Grace is over, when the door to Heaven is firmly closed, when the opportunity of forgiveness is over. But bow we will. We will either bow today in the Day of Grace before the Lamb of God or we will bow on the Day of Judgement before the King of Kings, the Eternal Judge. But everyone will bow. Now, as you remember whose birthday this is at Christmas, we should ask what gift will you bring to the one whose birthday we are celebrating? What gift can you give to the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Redeemer, the Creator? What gift should be appropriate? Remember, Andrew brought a little boy to Jesus. Bringing people to Christ is a gift. And the little boy brought Jesus his lunch. Just five loaves and two fish. But Jesus can do a lot with a little. And he fed thousands of people from his handful of food. Our Lord Jesus pointed out the widow who gave just a mite. Just two little coins, the smallest coins you could give. Now others might have looked and said that's just very small. But Jesus looked and knowing what she had. She had put in all that she had. She couldn't give any more. And so Jesus pointed out and commended the sacrifice. Mary came and gave to the Lord the gift of expensive perfume. She poured perfume over him, anointed it. She wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. And the Lord commended and said, what she has done will be repeated wherever the gospel is proclaimed. Zacchaeus was a tax collector, not a respected man in his community, very unpopular. But he hosted Jesus in his home and he honoured the Lord by doing restitution and by giving of his ill-gotten wealth to the poor. What can we give the Lord? Jesus said, if you love me you will keep my commandments. What can we give the Lord of Lords and Kings? We can give Him our attention. We can pay attention when He speaks. He speaks through His Word. He whispers in creation. He speaks clearly in the Bible. We should study His Word. He has written the Bible to us. We should meditate on His Law. We should get to know the Word of God and that way we will get to know the God of the Word. Scripture before supper. Bible before breakfast. Psalms before lunch. integrate the scripture into your daily routine. If you read one chapter of the Bible a day, you will get through the whole Bible in four years. This is 1,187 chapters in the Bible. So that'll take you four years to get through the whole Bible if you do one chapter a day. But a chapter to read doesn't take that long. The Bible chapters are very short. Not even five minutes. If you read four chapters a day, You would get through the whole Bible in one year. One present we could give is saying, I'm going to study the Lord's Word from Genesis to Revelation in this next year, and that's just four chapters a day, that's barely 20 minutes a day, just reading. I'm not talking about studying now, but just reading it, straight as it is. That would be a gift. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. So obey is better than sacrifice, the Lord says. We should determine to obey God. It's no good saying we love the Lord and singing about our love if we are not willing to obey what he commands. What the Lord wants more than anything is his disciples to take him and his word seriously. Do the restitution needed like Zacchaeus. Bring other people to him like Andrew did. Give of what we can, like the widow's might. We should all be able to give him something, even if it's just five loaves and two fish. What is in your hand? Moses had a scalp. God used that stuff to deliver his children as well. Determine to obey God. Dedicate your life to obeying the cultural mandate. The first command God gave mankind in Genesis chapter 1 verse 28 was to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth, to substitute, to care for his creation. He gave Adam and Eve the responsibility to care for his creation. The animals he's made, the God he's made, the trees, the plants, the fruits, all the fields, everything that he's given, caring for the environment, adopting animals, cultivating gardens, is part of the cultural mandate. We should recognise that all animals belong to God. We should treat animals with the care and diligence of those who have given accounts of actions to the Creator. We should be kind to God's animals. A good man is conscious of animals, the wicked are cruel to theirs. So one way we can show our love to God, one gift we can give to God, is to appreciate what He's given us and surround us with. So many magnificent animals, such magnificent gardens. We live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world. Table mountains, Newlands forest, the oceans around us. We've got everything from the penguins, the seals, the whales, the dolphins. Magnificent wildlife all around. We should be concerned. to improve the creation God has given us. Animals we are responsible for should have access to fresh clean water, good healthy food. We shouldn't waste food, we should think about pets, think of the wild birds, think of other animals who can benefit. Littering isn't showing respect for God's creation, just like littering on a person's property or polluting somebody's property is actually a crime or vandalism. But what do we call it when we damage God's wildlife, His beautiful earth that He's made, when we just litter in the world? So we should recycle, we should be thoughtful and considerate, we should be appreciative of what God has given us in nature. And we should obey the Great Commission. The Great Commission should be our supreme ambition, to make disciples of all nations, to teach obedience to all things that the Lord has commanded. So, what can we give the Lord? On His birthday we can introduce other people to Christ. We can witness them. We can be alert to evangelistic opportunities that the Lord puts across the path. Often the Lord brings an opportunity where we can be a good Samaritan. We can intervene. We can help someone else. We can be an answer to someone else's prayer. The hands and feet of the Lord. We can give the Lord our love, our devotion, our worship, our adoration. We can give Him our heart and our hands, our head. our feet, our tongues, give Him what He has given us, our time, our talents, our treasures. These have been entrusted to us to be good stewards of them, so we can give them back to the Lord. We need to use our initiative and our energy to advance the Kingdom of God. That is a gift to God when He sees our obedience and our zeal and our enthusiasm for Him, our faithfulness, being wholehearted and persevering to the end. Does the Lord Jesus have everything of you that there is to have? At one point, somebody asked General Booth of the Salvation Army what it was that was the secret of his success, how the Salvation Army had been just so spectacularly successful working in some of the most difficult areas in England. He said, God had all of me that there was to have. He didn't hold out. What have you given God? Have you made promises that you've gone back on? Have you made commitments that you haven't honoured? Jesus said, leave your gifts at the altar. Don't come and worship me until you've made right with your brother. So one thing we can do to honour the Lord is to leave our gifts at the altar and go and be reconciled to that brother or sister that we are estranged from, to make that phone call, to write that letter, to do what's got to be done from our side at least to make right with that person who has problems with us, to ask for forgiveness or to forgive, to do restitution. These would be acceptable offerings and presents to offer our Lord and Saviour on Christmas. What do you think all those innkeepers in Bethlehem are thinking right now? They miss the opportunity of their lifetime. Here the King of Kings was coming to town. The Holy Family. The Lord of Life was being born in Bethlehem and they didn't have a room at their inn for Mary and Joseph. and for their son to be born there. They couldn't accommodate the Creator, the Eternal Judge for whom they must stand on their judgment. What do you think the innkeepers of Bethlehem are thinking right now? They must have regretted the last 2,000 years and they will regret for all eternity. They missed the opportunity of their lifetime. Where was the Mayor of Bethlehem? Where was the High Priest? Only about 8 miles to Jerusalem. from Bethlehem. Where was the High Priest? Where were the priests? Of the thousands of priests in Israel, we don't read of one of them coming to worship the Lord when he was born. Oh, wise men from the East travelled thousands of kilometres, but the priests couldn't travel eight miles from Jerusalem to come and recognise the Messiah born. Where was King Herod? And he must regret It's extraordinary to think that all the elders and leading citizens of Bethlehem, they missed it. Just the shepherds made it. And wise men from these. At his birth there was no room for Jesus at the inn. Any of the inns or homes of Bethlehem. Today there's no room for him at the UN. And there's not much space for Jesus in most of the Exodus cards around today either. They're really trying hard to ignore the reason for the season. even to the point of putting an X to Christ's name and calling it X-mas, or happy holidays and festival season, or anything but to acknowledge the name of Christ. Even in much of the music, even some Christmas music, doesn't seem to have space for Jesus. Even nativity scenes like this are discouraged in public places in many parts of the world. In some places in America and Europe they actually have legal groups that tried to bring court cases to prevent Christians from having public displays of nativity scenes. He came unto his own and his own received him not. We should ask ourselves also what it is that we are giving our lives in exchange for. Have you noticed all these big impressive Christmas trees in the shopping centres. Many shopping centres have colossal Christmas trees which must have been erected with planes. Phenomenal. Amazing. Impressive. Cavendish Square is one of the biggest ones I've seen. But, when you see those beautiful, shimmering, lovely packaged boxes underneath, and I remember reading my children, really small, each one of them have asked at times, what's in those boxes? And the answer's nothing. absolutely nothing. Those empties that come, go and pick one them up. They're totally empty. Maybe they're shoeboxes, but they've got these beautiful wrappings around, lovely ribbons, and they just shimmer and glisten, and they're shiny, and they're bright, and they look so attractive. But those boxes under those Christmas trees in the shopping centres are absolutely empty. And that's, in fact, symbolic of what the world offers. The world promises so much. It looks so good. It's so attractive. But when you come to open the boxes that the world is asking us to exchange our life for, you find they're absolutely empty. The devil offers you everything you could possibly desire. If you will just buy this product, if you will just buy this service, you are promised all the fun, fame, fortune that you could ever ask for. Power. Popularity. prestige, possessions, it's all offered to you if you will just do this or that. And it looks great, but in the end it turns out like these Chinese toys that break within the day. They don't even survive sunset. Many of these things are so badly made They fall apart in your hands. A lot of what the world offers that looks so good turns to gravel in our mouth like ash. It looks so promising and so disappointing. It's so frustrating and often comes with a hook in the base and the devil reels one in. For those people who pursue materialism they'll find it's like a merry-go-round. It goes absolutely nowhere. Or it's like a dead-end street of cul-de-sac. Or it's like a maze, it just gets you lost. It promises so much at the beginning and it delivers nothing but misery at the end. And so we need to look at these empty boxes that the world is offering and recognise that's actually, it's not just under the Christmas trees which all show a no substance. That's the way it is in most of life. If you will have this illicit relationship, if you will just take enough of this substance or drugs or drink, if you will just come to this or that, and they promise a fulfillment, meaning, but in fact what does it deliver? Frustration, disappointment, bondage, and all the rest. So we should not waste our life on the empty boxes of the world. It's like a time-wasting treadmill, following trends and passions and fads, which are ultimately very frustrating, they don't go anywhere. Don't settle for less than God's best. He has got something very best and He gives the very best to those who make a choice to Him. You will seek me and you will find me when you search me with all your heart. So what are you searching for in life? Westminster Confession says the chief end of man is to worship God and to enjoy Him forever. That is the chief end of man. Christmas should remind us of the danger of missing out on what is most important. All those people in Bethlehem that first Christmas seemed oblivious to the most important event that had ever occurred in the history of mankind since creation. God had come into their midst and they missed it. The king missed it. The mayor missed it. The high priest missed it. All the priests missed it. All the leading citizens of Bethlehem and Jerusalem missed it. It was for some foreigners in the east. and some humble shepherds on the hillside. They recognised the time of the visitation. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. Jesus is the reason for the season. Wise people seek Christ. We should give Christ our time, our talents and our treasures. Our hands, our feet, our lips, our heart and our life. We should give Him our worship and our obedience, our sacrifice, our attention and our adoration, and to obey His brethren's sacrifice. We need to do that restitution. He reconciles our family and friends to be generous, to be grateful, to recognize the many opportunities that God gives us around us, to reach out to others and share with them the gospel. Give God the very best you have. Don't waste your life on the time-wasting, empty boxes of the world. Don't settle for less than God's best. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness. And all these things will be adorned to you. Let's pray. Lord God, we thank you for this Christmas Day. We thank you Lord for all that it stands for. We pray Lord God that you would find room in our hearts for you. We do not want to be like those people in Bethlehem who missed out on your best. Help us, Lord God, to recognise the time of your visitation, to hear your still small voice, to respond to your commands of scripture, to be faithful to the cultural mandates, to be faithful to the Great Commission. We ask, Lord God, that we would be those who wouldn't just love you with our lips, but with our lives, not only in what we say, but by what we do. Make us, we pray, Lord God, faithful witnesses, effective servants for you. We pray this in Jesus' precious and holy name. Amen.