Christmas Message 2009
Tom Shrader examines the spiritual significance of Christmas gift-giving by exploring seven human reasons for giving gifts before focusing on five gifts believers have already received from God: an intimate relationship with God, eternal life, the Holy Spirit's presence, spiritual gifts for service, and contentment. Drawing from John 4, Romans 6, Acts 2, and Ecclesiastes 3, he challenges Christians to respond to God's generosity with heartfelt gratitude and sacrificial giving to those in need.
“You have everything you need in Christ.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Christmas (2009)
Recorded: December 10, 2009
Duration: 43 min
Themes: giving, gratitude, generosity, christmas, contentment, service, relationships, sacrifice, struggling with materialism, seeking purpose, new believer, parent, young adult, church member, feeling overwhelmed, mentor
Scripture: John 4:7-14, Romans 6:23, Acts 2:37-39, Ecclesiastes 3:12-13, 1 Corinthians 16, James 1, John 10:10, Philippians 4:11, Hebrews 13:5, 1 Timothy 6
Theological Themes: spiritual gifts, charismatic gifts, eternal life, salvation, holy spirit, pneumatology, stewardship, sanctification
Full Transcript
We started something last year at church, and when I say started, we became part of a group of literally thousands of churches advocating something we've called the Advent Conspiracy. The idea is to take Christmas and maybe just tilt it back a little bit toward something a little more substantial, maybe a little less pressure than all of the gifts and all the stuff that goes with it. We had more people last year say to us when Christmas was over, "That's the best Christmas we've had in a long, long, long time."
The theory was really simple. You can join this, you can create your own new tradition pretty easily. Here's what we did. We said, if we normally spend this much money on gifts for one another, we're going to spend this much. And even those, we're going to be creative. So instead of giving a guy a pass to go hit some balls and have a lunch, you go with him. So much more relational stuff, use our head.
Now the difference, we're going to take and redirect outside of ourselves. So we did it as a church. We encouraged everybody for about a month to do it as families, accumulate your money, bring it to us. Now that's not the end of the sentence—bring it to us because we then want to model for you what we're telling you to do. So we designated Christmas Eve service, every penny that came in, not one dime was taken out of it, all of it went to Morocco.
Our Focus on Morocco and the Broadway Corridor
What we've done as a church is say the world's a big place and Morocco's our focus. You could argue it could be anywhere. But we found ourselves getting a little bit of money here and a little bit of money there, and we weren't having any impact or we didn't feel this focus as impact. We now have two families who are living in Morocco, another family ready to go to Morocco, another single ready to go. I mean, we're really having an impact.
This year, we've adopted an area and it's not just for the year—we're pretty fully committed. We spent two years planning this, but there's an area north of us called the Broadway Corridor that's one of the most highly needy, dangerous areas in Maricopa. So what we're doing this year is say, bring all your money in. Last year was $118,000—that's a lot of money for us. And it was also at a time when we needed the money. So that made it really, really cool. And just every dime went there.
So we're doing that this year. Well, I'm not pitching here to you the Broadway Corridor. You want to help with that? That's perfect. I don't care. But something like that. Get that concept in mind. And I will tell you this, the younger generation really gets that. They really do. They really pitch in and really drive that. So we try to do that refocus.
My Struggle with Christmas
What I want to do is—I came to, I think, a conclusion the other day, because I've struggled with this now for quite a while. I think I've discovered that I like the Christmas season. I just don't like Christmas. I got in the car today, and the first song I heard was Amy Grant singing "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." I love that. I heard Andy Williams last night, "Silver Bells." I love the music, and I love all those different things. But there's something about that Christmas, and I always get tight on the gift part of it. Now, that's my problem. That doesn't need to be your problem. Hopefully, I can make it your problem by the end of the day.
That's my problem. I acknowledge that. So what I want to do is kind of a hybrid of some things we've done here over the year, and kind of condense it down into 45 minutes, around the idea of gift and gift-giving, and maybe something you hadn't thought about, but gift-receiving as well.
The Point of Christmas
The whole point of Christmas, if we look at it in our calendars, followers of Christ, is that we want to acknowledge and examine how God accomplished what we couldn't accomplish. We are separated from sin. I've been talking about that a lot lately. And there's nothing we can do about it. So I did a message at church a couple of weeks ago called "What's the Matter with People?" Somebody said, "You should have done 'What's Right with People.'" But "What's the Matter with People?" When we were all done with it, we said sin. And if you were newer to the church or the concept, there's a really heavy sense.
Because I tried to paint a picture, and obviously I have the Holy Spirit paint the picture, that I've sinned. Everybody gets it. If you're here for the very first time, or you've been here a billion times, it doesn't matter. You know something is wrong with you. Something is wrong with the world. You know something is wrong with you. It's not quite right. Well, God tells us what it is. It's called sin. And the remedy for that is Jesus. There's nothing you can do about it.
Our flinch is to fix it. I was with a group of guys two or three weeks ago, and this guy is just sharing some stuff. Well, everybody tried to fix the guy. And I said, "He didn't ask you to fix him. He's just trying to say what's wrong." Our flinch is to fix it. When we understand that we've sinned, our flinch is to fix it, and that's called religion. That's me trying to do something. But what Christmas is about is the fact that Jesus came, and died, and did for us what we couldn't do for ourselves.
Seven Reasons to Give Gifts
So there's a couple of things, and I want to focus on the gift part of it. I made a list of seven reasons to give gifts. And the list could be longer, significantly longer than this. But I gave some of what—and this may be more of a reflection on me than on you—but I gave seven reasons I give gifts.
One is duty. I'm required to. You gave something to me, and I feel—this is theoretical—you give something to
I feel obligated to give something to you. But somebody gives you something, and you're not necessarily moved out of anything, but just this is a duty.
The second reason I came up with is to appease an enemy. You got somebody that's aggravated at you. I originally wrote, maybe win them over, or satisfy them. And then I amended that to say, make them less mad, because you rarely win those people over. I mean, there are certain people. It's the way it is. But you know there's a friction there, and perhaps a Johnny Walker Red will solve it. If not, it'll at least make it go away for a while. Or introduce a whole new set of problems.
Manipulative Reasons for Giving
Number three, to obligate the recipient. So it's kind of the reverse of the first two. I'm going to give to you, so that you'll be giving to me. There's a classic scene in the Godfather that says, maybe someday you can do a favor for me. No, I'm not going to do it for you. But somewhere along the way, I may need you to kill a senator or something.
The fourth thing, to influence a future decision. It doesn't happen like it used to. But in the old days, back in Davenport, I used to call on Alcoa. The Alcoa plant, it's almost impossible for you to comprehend this, was a mile, mile and a half long. Very deep. This thing was huge. This was a gigantic plant.
But if you went to the loading dock around this time of the year, it looked like a Best Buy. There were refrigerators. Guys were sending these to vendors, to the procurement guys. So I would come in with a big basket of stuff, and I'd say, this is for you, ma'am. I want you to understand something. I am not looking here for anything in reciprocation. I'm giving you this because you are a good man. You are a good woman. This is for you. Now I noticed that once they moved out of that position, apparently they ceased to be a good person, because I didn't feel obligated to get them whatever it was anymore.
Better Motivations for Giving
I gave two others. To honor a person. So I always had this idea, and kind of vintage me, I have a lot of ideas, and I just poop out on them. That sounds like a lot of work. But I had an idea to establish at one point the Larry Wright Memorial Award. I thought it would be really a cool kind of recognition of Larry's life, and a way to recognize somebody, male or female, who'd made a contribution outside the realm of church, but in the community, taking the gospel to the community. So to receive that would be to honor, just like somebody's going to get the Heisman. I don't know who. I'm starting to develop an affinity for one of the guys, but I don't know who's going to get it. But it's an award. It's recognition.
Here's the seventh reason: to mark an event, a birthday, a wedding, graduation. So on February 3rd at 7:30, however far away that is, Sarah's going to have the next baby, a girl. She's going to have the baby that morning, 7:30. Well then that becomes now, that February 3rd becomes the day for the rest of her life.
I have so many opinions, but I hated doing weddings, and it's not a big wedding, until I did my daughter's wedding, and then I really saw how important it could be. I hate this idea of like a surprise party, that just sounds terrible to me, until a couple weeks ago the girls had a surprise party for me, and they were very nervous about it, and they were really worried. I think I've told them at least five times since then, girls, that was the coolest thing for me. It was just that you would do it, and then people would be there on a Saturday night, because I hate to go out. So for me, going to one of those on the other end would be just awful, and to see people, it was really special.
A Powerful Biblical Reason
So those are some reasons that you give gifts. There are other reasons. I came up with a big reason here, and then this will spin us, and we could go endlessly. I did this yesterday. I said, let's brainstorm some other reasons, and people came up with a whole bunch of other reasons. Because you love somebody, or you care for somebody, or whatever those would be. I tend to not think that way, but yes, those would be reasons.
But here's a powerful reason that Paul gives us in 1 Corinthians 16. Paul's saying, "Now about the collection for God's people, do what I told the churches at Galatia to do. On the first day of the week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with His income, saving it up, so when I arrive, no collection will have to be taken." Here's what He's saying. You can give, and this is a wonderful reason to give, because there's somebody who's experiencing hardship.
The Reality of Need Around Us
I hesitate to use this as an illustration, because it's so volatile anymore, but I have had a series of very long discussions on immigration lately, and they're very polarizing. I'm just the, you know, let's just talk about this. So I have the, I mean, you know it, you can categorize them pretty quickly. You know, what part of illegal don't you understand? You know that whole thing.
My point is, I now have five miles from me a whole group of people who have almost nothing to eat. Now I think the problem is relatively easy to understand. You have three entities that contributed to it. Business contributed to it. Government contributed to it. They created this situation. Obviously people coming across the border created it.
But I was talking to a guy the other day, and he said, we're spending thousands and thousands of dollars with compliance. And I said, well just hire Caucasians that can speak English. And he said, well we can't find those. I said, well let me tell you something. There's nobody coming up here to get a food package from us. They're coming up here to get work from you. Now it's very complicated. I've got that. But it's interesting as I've talked to people, all the arguments...
They give me are political, sociological. And I get it. I'm one of those animals. But is there any theological implication to the fact that you have these people here who don't have anything to eat, or minimal? Does the Bible speak to that at all?
Now of course, you got very quiet there because it's a really tough issue, isn't it? But I think the Bible does speak to it a little bit. James is trying to make this point about our faith has to be demonstrated in a difference in the way we live. And he says, "What good is it if somebody says faith but they don't have any works? If a brother or sister is without food or in need of daily food and clothing, and one of you says go in peace, be warm and be filled, and yet you do not give them what is necessary for the body, what use is that?"
Right before this, James is having this discussion on religion. He said, "Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is to visit the orphans and the widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world." Now I think he means the orphans and the widows literally, but there's also a principle there of the needy.
The Needy Around Us
You have people around you who are really hurting, and it doesn't have to just be an immigration issue. You have people in your church who have been out of work for 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12 months. You have people who right now are having real serious problems. You've got people who never dreamed that they'd be coming to the church looking for a food basket who need it. I think you have a responsibility there.
Now that is a very difficult thing, because how much is it okay for me to say, "Yeah, I've done that," and it becomes more of a salve to my conscience than me really reaching out and doing something? I don't believe that the best of my knowledge I can remember, I've ever given at least anything significantly sacrificially. I've given out of my excess. I've never given something other than—I can think of like one instance—where I gave and it impacted what I was going to do with my lifestyle.
But I don't think you need to wrestle with that. I'm not giving you an answer, and just the wrestle may be the exercise. But you have people around you, we're talking about giving, you have people around you who are really needy. And now, more than ever, it's so easy to find these people. People all the time are saying, "Gee, I can't find any family or any entity or anybody." They're all around you. And there's so many ways now to do it and circumvent an organization. And I don't mean to kill an organization, but to spare a 15% or 20% or 30% administration fee.
The Gifts You've Already Received
So, there's a time of year to give, there's some reasons we give, and not of places we give, but reasons. I want to ask this question, and I think it's a good question: What are the gifts that you have already received?
Now, that might be odd, because today is the, what, 10th? And so you're saying, "Christmas is 15 days away, I haven't gotten any gifts yet." Okay, well, I'm not talking about those gifts. I want to give you five gifts that you've already received if you're a follower of Christ.
So if you want to follow along, you're welcome to John, the Gospel of John, John chapter 4. As you turn there, it's very important to make this distinction. Our church, and I know not every church does this, but our church, every Sunday, we take communion. It's a really important time for us, and oftentimes when I talk about it with other church people, they feel like we're saying, "Oh, if you don't do this, there's something wrong." That's not it at all.
Our Approach to Communion and Giving
We're just saying, we look at our time, we really have a short amount of time for a service. And as we look at that, we've got an hour and a half. Now that may sound—I get to be sitting there for a long time. But if you're trying to get it all together, we don't. So we early on saw time as a premium, and we had to make a decision because we valued communion. And we said, "We can't take communion in a collection." So we took communion, and then we put boxes by the door and trust that people will give.
Now, giving is also a part of sacrifice. So it does fit in there. But we made that decision. That's not a judgment. That's just what we've done.
Essentially every week at communion, here's what we say. We say that in the world, there's two kinds of people. Those who know Christ in a personal way. They've come to Him in repentance and faith. They've acknowledged that He's the way, the truth, the life. No one gets to the Father but through Him. They got that. That's one group of people.
Two Groups of People
And then there's another group of people, and that's everybody else. That's everyone else of all different types of religion, but functionally it's the same. You have biblical Christianity that says it's all by grace. And then everyone else says, "Jesus did something, and you do something." Or you just do something, or you quit doing that. You just get sober or celibate, and you'll be fine. Well the sobriety and the celibacy, all they do is expose the problem you have, which is your heart.
So I'm talking to a guy the other day, and he's just laying out some problems that he's having in his life. Some problems he's having in relationships. They're all heart problems. He does these things, but they're all heart problems. The problem is his heart.
So you have two groups of people. Those that know Christ, and those that don't. If you're one of those who would say, "I know Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior," let me lay out four gifts or so, five maybe, that you've already received.
The First Gift: Living Water
The first one there is in John chapter 4. In John chapter 4, Jesus comes in contact with a woman, the story therefore known as the woman at the well. The disciples are gone. Jesus is sitting by the well, and a Samaritan woman comes. John 4:7 says, "Give me a drink." Therefore, the Samaritan woman—so Jesus has said give me a drink. The Samaritan woman said to Him, "How is it that you being a Jew ask me for a drink since I'm a Samaritan woman?" For the
Jews have no dealing with the Samaritans. There's a couple of things there. She's stunned by this. One, rarely would a man talk to a woman in public. Secondly, there's an ethnic barrier that's gigantic. The Jews and the Samaritans had nothing to do with each other.
So when somebody comes along and says, "Boy, those Christians, they're chauvinistic, they're isolationists," no, Jesus was the great liberator. Jesus is the one who came along and broke down these ethnic barriers. Jesus is reaching right across. I guarantee you the Jews are lighting Him up for this. He's reaching out to these people.
Jesus said in verse 10, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." And she said, "Sir, I have nothing to draw with, and the well is very deep. You don't have a bucket. How are You going to give me water?" So often when Jesus is speaking, He's using that physical truth to demonstrate a spiritual truth. So she's thinking water, H2O, He's thinking there's something deeper.
"You're not greater than our father Jacob, are you, who gave us this well? He drank of it, and his sons and his cattle." And Jesus answered and said, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. Whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never thirst. You drink this physical water, you're going to be back here in a short period of time. I'm going to give you a water where you'll never be thirsty again." And of course, she then says, "Well, give me this water," and He said, "It's Me." You and I, who are followers of Christ, have an intimate relationship with the creator God of the universe. That is a very powerful thought.
The Second Gift: Eternal Life
Here's the second gift you've received. If you want to turn, you can go to Romans chapter 6. I'm in the process right now of doing a whole series on this verse. Romans chapter 6, verse 23: "For the wages of sin is death." So maybe you're one of these guys and you say, "You know what, I've got to deal with God. You don't bother me, I don't bother You. All I want is, God, I don't want anything. No favors from You. Give me what I deserve."
Well here's what He says: the wages of sin is death. Now death means separation. So ultimately it means physical separation, body and spirit. But it means here there's a separation. There's something missing in your life.
Now I hesitate to even say this next name because I feel so strongly that this thing is being abused. But if I were to look at the situation with Tiger, I think I talked about it in here last week. I personally don't think you have any right to know anything. He's not an elected official, he's not your boss, he's a golfer. The only reason you want to know is you're curious, you want to find a way to rip him down to make you feel better. You have no reason to know, it's none of your business. He ran into a fire hydrant, that's what he did. He's got other issues to be sure.
The Reality of Human Need
Every day, apparently, I've done really well at staying in a Tiger-free zone in my life. I don't hear a lot of stuff. Somebody will throw something at me. But one of the great lessons in this, and I think I talked about this in here last week, is that it just demonstrates how needy we are.
I would look humanly and say Tiger has everything. He's got this big house, if he wants a plane, he's got a plane. He's going to be the first athlete, at least was on track to, I assume he still will, first athlete to make a billion dollars. He's got these little kids. He's got a beautiful wife. I said to somebody, "I've got a beautiful wife," and he said, "Maybe she's an airhead." And I said, "I'm not asking her to split the atom. I don't care. I've got enough smart people in my life. I don't need another one."
I mean, humanly, you've got to look at it and go, "This guy's got it all." And yet, there's something in it. There's a little crack that we never thought we'd see in Tiger. That's not to put Tiger down. That's to say this: Tiger is human. That's what it means to be human. To be human is to be needy.
Some of you have never thought about this before, and I know that because I hadn't thought about it until last week, when somebody gave me something to think about. I need God. This is a great thought. Not because of sin. I was created to need God. Adam and Eve needed God in the garden before they sinned. They needed Him for life. They needed Him for relationship. They needed Him to sustain them. When they sinned, it only magnified the need I have and confused it, camouflaged what the real need was. But I need God, desperately.
The Free Gift of God
But I come into the world a child of disobedience, a child of rebellion. "The wages of sin is death," here you go, "but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus." Here's the second gift. You've received eternal life.
And here's something about eternal life. Eternal life obviously has this long scope to it. So, heaven. I believe with all my heart, every time I do a funeral, and I'm not making this up, I'm jealous of the guy that's in the casket. Every time. Just did a funeral, looked at him, said, "Hey buddy, I'd trade you places and throw in a player to be named later. I mean, I'd trade you right now. Whatever you want to do, man, I'm ready for it."
No, I can't do that. God's got His timing and He'll take me somewhere along the way, sooner rather than later. But that's eternal life. But this is a real important aspect of this. In John chapter 10, verse 10, Jesus says, "I have come that they might have life."
verse for the ministry, and have it abundantly. There's something about knowing Jesus that makes this life sweeter, that you can have relationships that you couldn't have otherwise. That you're not worried. Now, it's not to say, by the way, if you don't have enough food to eat and you don't have a job, there's worry there, I get it. But even in the midst of that, there's a peace that somehow transcends all understanding.
I did a men's conference, not the Scottsdale men's conference, but one before that. The guy was all mad at me for not talking about marriage, family, kids. I said, "Man, that's not my specialty, but here's what I noticed. I'm a better husband to Susan when I'm in a better relationship with Christ. She just benefits from that. I'm a better grandfather to my grandson and granddaughters when I'm in right relationship with Christ." Jesus makes this life richer.
The Pursuit of Earthly Things
Many of you have been down that track, and I have too, saying, "Boy, this is life. If I can just do this." That's why I think this Christmas music is so powerful. When I hear "There's no place like home for the holidays," I want to pour a bourbon and pass out in the corner. I mean, that's what I do. It makes me cry. I'm a mess. Well, the music is so powerfully attached to those moments.
There were moments, you would admit, maybe either when you said you wanted to get it but didn't quite get there, or you said, "Boy, if I just get that." You have some of those going in your life right now. If I can just get that, and then you fill in the blank. Or I'll be happy when, and you fill in the blank. I could not live without, and then you fill in the blank. If it's anything other than Jesus, your heart is creating an idol.
So we got this thing with Brayden now, because He just turned four, and He's really a wonderful guy. I really love being with Him. Easy to be with. Does what you tell Him to do. He's perfect. So we were there the other day, and He said, "Popeye, I need a cookie." I said, "No, you need Jesus. You want a cookie." "Well, give me the cookie." You can see what He's saying. "Give me the cookie." Yes, yes, yes.
So then He came over and He said, "Popeye, I need a chip." We were having Mexican food. "I need a chip." I said, "No, you need Jesus. You want a chip." And then He wanted, I can't remember, "Popeye, I need water." I said, "No, you need Jesus. You want water." Well, pretty soon He got the rhythm. And this is really interesting. He would start saying, "I want that chip. I want that water." And what came out, He doesn't get it, but what came out of it to me is He's a little wanting machine. And He is representative of you.
I want that new driver. I probably need the new driver if I really think it through. That was a bad example. But I want that. I just had this discussion on a car the other day, and I said, "I really would like to have that new car. And right now I'm in a position where I can afford it, and they're good deals. But the problem is, if I drive a new car, people are going to look at it and say, 'How can He buy a new car in the midst of this economic condition, and what kind of life is He living?'" And I said, "You know what? That's perfect. That's totally fair. I got it." So I didn't get a new car. Brayden gave me one of His little cars, and He said, "Here, Papa, you can have this car. Good luck. You can have a Hummer." I said, "I don't know."
But you see that? All those wants that you have are totally human, absolutely human. But if those become bigger and bigger and bigger, what happens is they replace the relationship with Christ, and they become idols in your life. You have everything you need in Christ.
The Gift of God's Presence
Here's the third thing. You've received. It's Acts chapter 2, verse 37. You've received the gift of God or the presence of God in your life. Acts 2, verse 37: "When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart." This is Peter. He delivers this incredible sermon. "And they were saying to Peter and to the disciples, 'What should we do?' Peter replied and said, 'Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin. And you will,'" here it is now, Acts chapter 2, verse 38 or 39, "'you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'"
We don't just believe that there's this God who's a distant God, but that God, through the Spirit, actually indwells His people. That I'm in a relationship with God that is unbreakable, that it's totally sustainable because He sustains it, I don't. He is the one who saved me. I am saved by grace through faith. He did the work. And He enters into my life and He is what the Bible calls the seal or the guarantee of this relationship. So that my relationship with God is absolutely unbreakable. He originated it, He sustains it. It's not that God exists, it's that He indwells you in the person of the Holy Spirit.
The Gift Versus the Gifts
You've received, and let's just deal with this because there's a technicality here, but it's kind of a big one. You've received the gift, singular, of the Holy Spirit, but there also exists, and they're listed in two or three places in Scripture, the gifts, plural, of the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit Himself indwelling you. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are, and here's the definition I used, "a special enablement to perform a function in the body of Christ with ease and efficiency."
So it's when you're in, it's as though you're operating in the zone. I don't like baseball, I sleep fine, thank you. But I'm watching the Major League Baseball channel a lot because I know all the players. I watched the other day the 1956 World Series, and I watched like nine innings of this thing. I watched Sandy Koufax pitch a perfect game the other night. I mean I love this stuff. But when Sandy Koufax is pitching this game, He is just, He is so in the zone. I mean it's just everything He does. And you've been like that. I've had that experience on the golf course, like a moment
The Experience of Operating in Your Gifts
Where I was when I was playing, it was like an out-of-body experience. Everything was right there, and you were in the zone. Everything moved together. You'll see an athlete where all of a sudden, on a certain day it just comes together.
As a follower of Christ, you have these gifts of the Holy Spirit, and you have one, maybe two of them. You can take a class on it. I'm sure they have classes all over, and you can read about it, and that's fine. But I can tell you what it's going to feel like. When you're doing this, you feel like you were created for this. This is your moment. This is your thing.
Finding Your True Giftedness
Sometimes somebody will come up and say, "I think you need to do this," and it'll be some service task. Sometimes out of guilt, I'll do it. But I hate every minute of it. I'll struggle with it. It's not my deal. That doesn't mean I'm too good for that. It just means that's not my deal.
Somehow we say giftedness is related to tasks, so they'll say, "Yeah, he's not the kind of guy that would go and clean a restroom. Probably not his giftedness." "You're not the kind of guy that could teach a class. You'd get up and go, and that's the end of the deal." I'm not putting that down. I'm just saying that's not your giftedness. Don't be putting down everybody else's giftedness.
You've got a special enablement to perform a function within the body of Christ. Now this is really key: the body is designed in such a way that we all need to use them for us to function together. So it is important that somebody teaches. It is important that there's people in child care. Those things are all important, and you have those areas of giftedness, and you need to use them. God's given you that. You need to steward that.
The Good Exhaustion of Using Your Gifts
Something that when you do, you feel it. Even after you do this for a long time, like I teach four times on Sunday, and honestly, I used to teach seven. Seven was hard. But when I'm done, I'll get home about eight, and I'm really tired. I think as I get older, it gets harder. I use this phrase, but it's a good tired. I'm not exhausted from having to create. I'm exhausted from the labor of it, the work of it. But I'm ready to go again. You've got that, and you need to use that.
The Gift of Contentment
Here's a gift you don't think of often. We're going to go to the Old Testament. To the book of Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiastes chapter three. Ecclesiastes chapter three begins with this: "There's a time for everything," and then you know it. A time to give birth, a time to die. For a long time, you thought the Byrds wrote that.
We were flying back Tuesday from Memphis. Oh my goodness, the longest flight. I said to the flight attendant, "We've got to be in Maui by now." It was such a long flight. So there's nobody on the plane, it was perfect, unless you're a stockholder in Southwest, it wasn't so good for you. But I'm sitting with my buddy, and we started talking about music. We were going through all of these artists, and we were going down, these things you wouldn't think of that we both liked. But we got to the Byrds and the Yardbirds, and we started thinking about this very song. Well, they just took scripture, and they just turned it into a song, "There's a time for everything." A time for everything under the sun.
When Solomon's done with that point, he says in Ecclesiastes 3:12, "I know there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one's life. Moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor"—there's the phrase—"it is a gift of God."
Learning Contentment as a Discipline
It's the gift to find satisfaction in the world. It's a gift to be content. Paul says in Philippians 4:11, "I have learned, whatever circumstance I'm in, I have learned to be content." Now that tells me that it's not a natural behavior. I'm not naturally content. And Paul said, "I've learned this." Hebrews 13:5, "Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have."
Now that is not an excuse to be apathetic. That's not an excuse for you to kind of half-heartedly give effort. I understand there's a strain there. As followers of Christ, you should be the best employees. You should work very hard. But your identity is not found in your endeavor. Your identity is found in your Master. That's a really tough deal to kind of sort all of that through.
Balancing Excellence and Identity
You should be the one that's working hard. You should be the one that's the model citizen. But it also means you're not going to sacrifice the other things in your life for that. It's so important.
Winning a championship is important, but it's not really significant. Being the salesperson of the year is important, but it's not really significant. In fact, it's good if you have the ability to be the best at something, to be the best at it. And there's a cost associated with it. And you have to determine how much of that you're going to pay.
I know people that go hours and hours and hit balls. You're Ben Hogan. You're going to hit balls and hit balls and hit balls. If you're hitting balls and you get to be a good golfer, what does it gain a man? What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, loses his soul, his family, his thing? Now you have to balance that out. Some people do it differently than others. You have to figure that out. But there's contentment. Be content with what you have.
The Challenge of Defining "Enough"
What does that mean? Paul says this in 1 Timothy 6, "If we have food and covering, with those we should be content." Now there's a problem there because he doesn't define what it means to be food. I see myself as a Ruth's Chris guy.
may see me as a Golden Corral guy and that's a problem. I want this kind of water or this kind of place or that kind of house. There's nothing wrong with houses and cars and all. There's nothing wrong with that. But you do have to ask some very sobering questions about them. Are they driving so much of what you do?
Nothing wrong with nice things. Nothing wrong with going to good places. Like I said, as soon as I get ready to leave, we're going over to Coronado. Couldn't go if somebody there didn't say, hey, I've got this place, I'm so happy to have this place. We'll use that place, be there three, four, five days, whatever it is. There's nothing wrong with having stuff. But He's saying it's not a matter of having what you want, it's wanting what you have.
Some of us, the majority of us, there are many more Golden Corral people than there are Ruth's Chris people. God made it that way. He just did. And to be satisfied with that and to not have any envy. To celebrate somebody else's success.
So you have to ask yourself, and I used the question before, if I'm using a sentence that says, I'll really be satisfied when or I'll really be satisfied if or I'll really be fulfilled when, then there's something in your heart that's creeping up there and it's taking the place of God and it's becoming an idol.
How Do You Respond?
I do all of that and probably the most important section we have two minutes for. When you realize you have these gifts we just talked about, how do you respond? The illustration is really simple. Braden and I are in the commons the other day and Kate, Kate's the really cool gal who runs the commons. And we're talking and I'm talking to Braden and I don't think he saw Kate come up and put something on the table. And I said, hey man, Kate put that down there. You need to say thank you. He said, oh, thank you, Kate.
If you come up and you give something to Braden, in all likelihood, I watched him tear through birthday gifts the other night. And it was amazing to me that even in the furor of that, he was able to stop and say thank you. When I'm with Haley last August and she's in the hospital and they're waking her up to take blood from her, when they were done, she said to her, thank you. I just think that's so sweet. And it's in there.
Well, if you're thanking somebody for a bag of chips, if you're thanking somebody for holding the door, so somebody today is going to come and they're going to hold the door and I hope you say thank you. To which I hope they say, you're welcome. But if you're thanking them for holding the door, how much more thankful should you be to the creator God of the universe who rescued you while you were absolutely lost?
You could not, here, I'm going to show you something. I could not do that if God didn't give me the power to do it. You could not take your next breath if God didn't give you the power to do it. You certainly could not spend eternity in heaven if God didn't do that for you. Do I have to stand there and say, what do you say? What do you say now? Thank you.
Ready to Worship
See, that's why I get a little lost in some of the worship wars that go on in churches. You ought to come to that church ready to worship. You ought to be so overwhelmed as you drive over that God created this. He gave somebody the ingenuity to build a car and gave you the resources to put gas in it. That alone ought to touch your heart as you begin to deal with Him.
So, stuff to think about as you head toward the holidays, and I'm cool with the gift stuff. I would just say, hey, maybe there's a way to ratchet that down and do something different, maybe a little bit better. I don't know. But for sure, for those of us who know Christ, it's to acknowledge these gifts I have and to say thank you, and to know that if it's been given freely to me, then I need to be generous and to give freely as well.
I'm going to start on January 6th. January 6th, we'll ask the question, which we've done for the last 15 years, we'll ask the question, in this case, what kind of year was 2009? January 7th, or maybe it's January 14th, we'll tell you how you can make 2010 the greatest year of your life.
So, I hope you have a great Christmas, lots of fun, lots of food, get a little exercise in there too, and just really enjoy it. So, let's pray to get you on your way.
Father, thank you that we can be here. Thank you for the fact that there are people who provide us a place to meet and who support and encourage what we do. God, we do that not out of guilt or duty, but out of a privilege You've given us and we give back to You. Father, we could never say thank You enough, but the ways we do are to worship You and glorify You in all we do. Father, we love You, worship You, praise You, we do all of this for Christ's sake and in His name, amen.