We all know what it is like to have that one person on our Christmas shopping list who is difficult to buy a gift for. Whether they have everything, could buy anything they wanted, want to make you guess what they would like to have, or are so content that they genuinely want nothing. Yes, I am sure that we all have wrestled with what to buy and give to the one who seems to have everything, but have we wrestled with the question, “What do we give to the One Who is Everything?”
A couple of Sundays ago, I challenged myself and Cornerstone to contemplate what it means for Jesus to be Messiah after listening to Jesus Messiah by Chris Tomlin. Since I’ve spent a lot of time in Romans this year, I contemplated who this Messiah who laid in a manger thousands of years ago, whose birth we celebrate this time of year, was through Paul’s letter to the churches in Rome. Here is a brief list of what the book of Romans tell us about the person and the work of the Messiah.
In Romans the Messiah…
- Was the One promised to come long ago by God’s prophets and Scriptures (1:2)
- Is a descendant of King David (1:3)
- Is The Son of God (1:4)
- Is the one who was raised from the dead by the Holy Spirit – He is the resurrected One (1:4)
- Is Jesus (Yahweh Saves), the Savior of all people (the flagrant immoral, the religious, the moral) (1:4) for all people have sinned and fall sort of God’s holy standard (3:23).
- Is the Chosen or Anointed One; God’s chosen Savior (1:5)
- Is the One, who through faith in, God uses to make us right with Him (1:16-17)
- Is the One who was handed over to die because of our sins and raised back to life to justify us (4:25)
- Is our peacemaker, He puts us at peace with God (5:1)
- Is the One who came at just the right time to die for us sinners, when we were helpless (5:6)
- Is the One whose blood makes us right with God and saves us from God’s condemnation (5:9; 8:1)
- Is the One who restores our friendship with God (5:10-11)
- Is the second Adam through whose obedience we receive the gift of God’s grace, the forgiveness of sins, victory over sin and death, and new life because of our new relationship with God (5:12-19)
- Is the One that we have been baptized into, united with and therefore are able to experience all spiritual blessings and empowered to live this new life received for the honor of His name (6:1-4)
- Is the One who frees us from the power of the law (6:20)
- Is the One through whose body God declared sin’s reign over us finished; He is God in the flesh (8:3-4)
- Is God’s heir, He will inherit the kingdom forever (8:17)
- Is the One through whose sacrifice and creative power will free and restore all creation, quieting creation’s groans persistent since the fall (8:18-25)
- Is the One the Father chose for us to become like, therefore securing our salvation in Him (8:29-31)
- Is our defense, He died for us, was raised to life for us, and sits at the right hand of the Father, pleading for us – He is our intercessor, our advocate (8:31)
- Is God’s love revealed, He is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham for it is through Him that all peoples on earth will be blessed (8:39)
- Is the One who will never let anyone who trusts in Him be disgraced; He is a stumbling block for those who think they can be made right with God another way besides Him (9:33)
- Is the One that makes us right with God when we believe in Him (10:4)
- Is the One whose name alone has the power to save (10:13)
- Is the Savior of all Israel, who will return, and upon His return God’s people will mourn and repent (11:26); Zechariah 12:10-13:1)
What do we give the One who Christmas is all about?
We could list so many more things Jesus is and has done that provide a fuller picture of what Him being the Messiah, the Christ, means, for the Scriptures point to Him (Luke 24:44: John 5:39). Again, we have all been stumped on what to get a certain one or few on our Christmas list but have we pondered what to give the One whom Christmas is all about?
I went with our youth group to a local corn maze in October, and on our way back, one of our youth volunteers asked the youth what they were getting Jesus for Christmas because, after all, it was His birthday. The bus grew quiet momentarily, and I even grew quiet in my spirit as I contemplated his question. Soon, the sounds of quiet chatter between students were heard again, which led to laughter, the sound and glow coming from videos being watched on devices, and conversations being held at a higher decibel level. But while the bus returned to the same controlled chaos it found itself in before the question was posed to those of us riding on the bus, it was a question that would stick with me throughout preparing for, experiencing, and wrapping up (pun intended) the Christmas season.
What do we get Jesus? What do we give the Messiah, the One who owns everything, needs nothing, and is everything or should be everything to us as His followers? Are attending church, reading the Bible, praying, singing at church, serving others, memorizing Scripture, giving money to our church, helping those in need, or even telling others about Him acceptable gifts to give Jesus? The answer for whether or not these actions being appropriate gives foe Jesus the Messiah is dependent on how we do these things mentioned. You see, we can be at church but not apply what we learn while we are at church or live opposite of how we act on Sunday the rest of the week. When we go to church but neglect what we hear from God’s Word while with His people and live oppositely of how we act on Sunday the rest of the week, this gift of gathering with God’s people is empty at best. We can worship God with our words through song but even this praise from our lips is meaningless if we habitually verbally abuse our spouse or children. As we will see in Matthew 2:5-6 that the religious leaders knew the Word of God well but didn’t travel the short distance to Bethlehem to see if the Messiah had finally arrived with the Magi.
Are we supposed to do the things I mentioned in the preceding paragraph? The answer is undoubtedly yes for the Bible teaches us to do all these things as a follower of Christ. However, we can do these outward religious acts for Jesus while being inwardly rebellious to Jesus. The Bible shows us that God is always concerned more with how we offer our acts worship rather than the gifts of worship themselves (Micah 6:6-8). We do not carryout spiritual disciplines to earn favor with God but because we have already experienced God’s favor in Jesus, our Messiah. In a very familiar passage to many which details the magi’s gifts to young Jesus we see what we can give to the One Who is everything.
We can know what to give Jesus for Christmas.
Read Matthew 2:1-12
You can use some of the additional resources at the end of this article for deeper study on this passage if you’d like but for the sake of this post’s purpose let me draw your attention to 2:10-11 following the magi’s encounter with Herod.
After this interview the wise men went their way. And the star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem. It went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were filled with joy! 11 They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Notice how the magi respond to the star leading them to the house where the Messiah and His parents are staying. Filled with joy, they entered the house and fell prostrate and worshipped the child. Only after their hearts were in the right relationship with the Messiah did they honor the young Christ with outward acts of gift-giving. The magi’s gifts were acceptable not only because they were appropriate for the person and the work of the Messiah (gold – recognized Him as king; frankincense – reflects His deity and royalty; myrrh – symbolic of His sacrificial death) but because their hearts were right first through faith in God’s Messiah (2:11). Their gifts were acceptable because their hearts had been made acceptable through belief in God’s Savior. As God continued to reveal the Messiah to be His anointed Savior for all people through Matthew’s pen, He taught us that the one acceptable thing that we can give to the One who is everything is all of ourselves. To have a heart that loves Him supremely, from which all our actions flow, becoming pleasing and acceptable gifts of worship.
The following song, Manger Throne sung by Phil Wickham, put over the video surrounding Jesus’s birth, effectively summarizes why Jesus, the Messiah, is or should be our everything. The video also challenges us to respond by giving Him the only gift Jesus, the Christ wants from us.
Will you give your heart, all yourself to Jesus?
The song challenges us to respond to our majestic Messiah by giving our lives, our praise, everything we own to the King on a manger throne. After everything that Paul has taught about the person and work of Jesus Christ in chapters 1-11, he begins chapter 12 with the only acceptable response as God’s people to His chosen Messiah.
Romans 12:1
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.
Paul will spend the remainder of his epistle to the Romans unpacking what this one verse looks like in the Christian’s life, but in short because of all He has done for us, the only appropriate response is to give all of ourselves to Him. This is one of the many lessons the magi teach us. Have you, like the magi, believed in Jesus as the Christ, as Your King and thus Savior? If you have placed your faith in Christ, He has your heart, but is your whole heart given to Him? The Christmas season is an opportune time to reflect and prayerfully ask ourselves if our whole heart is His. One way to know if our heart is loving Him supremely is whether or not we are obeying His commands and are quick to repent and attempt to restore damaged relationships with others when we disobey. Take a moment now and ask the Holy Spirit to point out anything in your life that is displeasing to Him, agree with Him about those things, ask for forgiveness, and for Him to put those things to death in your heart so that your whole heart is for Him, resulting in your outward acts of worship being pleasing to Him. I will also add that our Messiah desires to minister to us where we are but He can only effectively minister to us when He has our hearts fully (2:12; a thought elaborated more on in the sermon found below).
Finally, you may have yet to trust in this babe who came from heaven and was born in a lowly manger 2,000 years ago. Would you do so now? As a kid, I was part of a Christmas program that ended with the scene of a beggar approaching the manger scene. The play also wrestled with what to give Jesus for His birthday. After slowly approaching the babe in the manger, the beggar searched his pockets for something to give him. Finding nothing on him or with him that he felt worthy to give the young king, he was about to walk away in defeat when, all of a sudden, an idea came to him. He slowly reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a piece of paper that unfolded into a heart. The man then slowly and humbly placed his heart at the base of the manger in humble and repentant worship. His heart, himself was the only thing that the man could give but it was the only thing our Lord requires. No matter who you are, Jesus, God’s chosen Savior of the World stands ready to receive it when you are ready to give it to Him. Will you give Jesus your heart today? If you are unsure about how to give Jesus your heart today, watch the video below and respond!
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