Gifts: Who's on Your List?
Tom Shrader reflects on the pressures and motivations behind Christmas gift-giving, then shifts to examine the spiritual gifts believers have received from God. He outlines four key gifts: Jesus Himself, eternal life, the Holy Spirit, and contentment, encouraging believers to respond with gratitude and generosity.
“You are a sinner who has absolutely thumbed your nose at God, and in spite of that, God has saved you.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Christmas (2015)
Recorded: December 17, 2015
Duration: 38 min
Themes: gratitude, generosity, contentment, gifts, christmas, giving, thanksgiving, grace, holiday stress, family expectations, gift giving pressure, parent, spouse, feeling obligated, new believer, struggling financially
Scripture: John 4:7-14, Romans 6:23, Acts 2:37-38, Ecclesiastes 3:12-13, 2 Corinthians 9:15, Mark 12:41-44, Genesis 34:11-24, 1 Corinthians 16:1-4, Philippians 3:20, 2 Corinthians 4:16, 1 Thessalonians 4, Ephesians 1, 2 Corinthians 1, Romans 12:1-2, Matthew 10:8
Theological Themes: eternal life, holy spirit, spiritual gifts, sanctification, salvation, grace theology, pneumatology, soteriology
Full Transcript
We're going to talk about gift-giving today. We're going to look at this idea of gifts. We're going to call it, "Who's on Your List?"
This is one of my least favorite things. Thanksgiving's my favorite holiday because it's got all of the stuff of Christmas without any of the gift stuff. To me, the gift stuff brings such pressure to it. It's not even gift-giving. It's gift-trading. Because you really are... I mean, I want to get you a gift, but it has to be in proportion to what you're going to give me.
So I'm not about to spend $50 on you if you're going to spend $25 on me. But I don't want to be the other way around. If you're going to spend $50, then I don't want to come in $25. I look bad. So we get into this goofy, silly thing.
My daughter Sarah did a great thing this year. She just took the initiative and sent out an email to all of our family. She said, "Here are the rules for gifts this year. No gift, adult to adult. And no more than $20 a kid. And then we need to figure out if we want to draw a kid or not. Get back to me right away." Sarah's perfect for this stuff. So I love that.
Why We Give Gifts
As you get to gifts this time of year, here's what I'm going to talk about. I want to talk real quickly here why we give gifts. And then I want to talk about what gift have you received? We think about giving this time of year, received. And then talk about how you respond.
Here's some of the reasons we might give gifts. I made a list that's got a half a dozen or so.
**To obligate a person.** I'm going to give you a gift with the idea that you are now obligated to respond to me. We see that a lot at business. In the old days back home, I used to call on one of my accounts. I'm selling paper products and chemicals and stuff. But I call on this Alcoa plant. This thing is literally, I have no idea how many square feet this thing is. It's a mile long, this plant. It's huge.
Well, their loading dock at Christmas looked like a Best Buy. And it was all the buyers and all the department heads and all of the people like us bringing them things. We would bring them things, gifts, and we'd ship it to them. And then we'd say, "Listen, this is not anything to do with business. You're just a good guy and I want to get you something." Now, what I observed was once they left, though they might've continued to be a good guy, I ceased to feel compelled to buy them anything anymore. So you might give somebody something to obligate them back.
**You might get somebody something in a sense of a peace offering.** Maybe you've had a problem with them all year long and this is your way of initiating a response. You get them something and maybe that'll appease them a bit.
**It may be a responsibility.** In other words, it's a duty. Here's somebody you feel you're obligated to give a gift to.
**It may be to acknowledge an event.** So this is a particularly different time at our house. Two son-in-laws who were both born same day, same year. So that's November 22nd. And then Brayden's birthday is November 25th. And then mine's November 28th. So you can see who the tail of this thing is going to be when you're all done.
And I said to Susan, "How are we going to... oh my gosh, what, we'll be going to parties. How are we going to do this?" And let's just say it's the boys and I, me, we're old enough, we can handle it. Let's just have one party for him. And let's just not get me anything. Let's just not get a bunch of stuff for each other. But let's do that. So it may be it's a celebration time. Although I tend to be a wet blanket, you pick up on that.
**It may be that you're in the office, your responsibility is to gather the money together to buy a gift for the boss** who has everything. And if you really want to get him something significant, nobody's about to kick in enough to make that happen. But you feel like you have to do it. By the way, that's okay. There's something I think really appropriate about just honoring a person for where they are.
Giving to Influence Decisions
**One might be to influence a decision.** I have some references for all of these, but this is a wonderful story. There is a place called Shechem, and in Genesis chapter 34, a guy called Shechem has defiled a gal by the name of Dinah.
So Genesis 34:11, "Then Shechem said to Dinah's fathers and brothers..." Now, let me stop. If you're going to defile somebody, don't pick somebody with brothers. "Let me find favor in your eyes and I will give you whatever you ask. Make the price for the bride and the gift that I'm to bring to you as great as you like, and I'll pay whatever you ask, only give me the girl as my wife." So that's the scene. He's in love with her, but he has violated her, and her father and her brothers are not about to overlook this.
Here's the next verse: "Because this sister Dinah had been defiled, Jacob's sons replied deceitfully as they spoke to Shechem and his father." So here's what they said. They said, "All right, we understand you want to marry her, but to do that, here's the price we'd like. We would like you and your guys to become Jews." And he said, "Okay." And they said, "Well, there's a little more to this than that because there's this ritual that you got to go through." And he said, "What is the ritual?" And he explained it and he said, "It's going to be a tough sale on the guys, but we'll do it."
He does it, they go through this. And then the Bible says in Genesis 34:24, three days later when the men were in pain, so they've now been weakened, then they come in and kill them all. So it's a great story. Bible just comes to life when you get to stuff like that. So you may give a gift, that's what he's given, thinking I'll get a favorable opinion.
One of the reasons that you give gifts is because somebody needs it to alleviate a hardship. You see it throughout scripture, in 1 Corinthians 16, verse one through four, Paul's coming to the church at Corinth and he's telling them, "Hey guys, you need to take a collection here. You need to get your money together here." The reason is we've got a real need in Jerusalem and we're going to take the resources from here, we're going to send it to Jerusalem because there's a need.
They were telling me the other day, one of the things that we started doing at church—we have a huge problem at church, and I'll bet your church is the same way. We have a ton of incredible stuff going on, but we don't know how to communicate it to the body to energize them, to encourage them, not to manipulate them, just to encourage them.
There's a lady that somebody in our church kind of hooked up with. As I got to know her, she had nowhere to live. I mean, she literally I think was living just kind of on a street. So one family took her in and got her all settled. Then another guy started evaluating some of her skills and hooked her up with a job, but she needed a car. So somebody else gave her a car. The other day, just a check showed up for 500 bucks for clothes and stuff to get squared away. The scale has gone from homeless to self-supporting.
Putting Need into Perspective
Now, ideally, that's the way this ought to happen. But the number is getting so big that it gets more and more difficult. We're trying something this year. We just decided yesterday. We're going to take starting right after Thanksgiving and do Advent for four weeks, which is nothing novel. But we're going to drive all of that towards saying, "You know what, God just naturally helped us trigger this out this year. Let's not spend a bunch of money on Christmas."
We spend on average about $450 billion a year on Christmas. Get these numbers. We spend $450 billion a year on Christmas. For $10 billion, we could provide clean water for most of the world, which is a huge issue.
What we're going to do is try to get our people to say, "Okay, we understand you have to buy gifts. We got that. Well, let's cut that down. Let's take the difference." Christmas Eve, let's bring all the money in here. Not a penny stays with us, and all of it goes. We've hooked up to Morocco. That's our world emphasis, is providing clean water in Morocco. We got some wells that need to be done. That kind of process, because there are people that have real need. So that's why you give gifts.
Two Groups of People
I want to acknowledge that there are two groups of people in the room. Now, at our church, we do communion every week. For some of you who are in, let's say a non-Catholic environment, that would be very normal, but a non-Catholic environment, that's pretty unusual. The reason we do it is we kind of look at scripture, and it seems like they do it.
At communion every week, whoever's leading says essentially the same thing, that in the room right now are two types of people. Those that know Jesus Christ in a personal, intimate way. It would be biblical Christians, not just in name. If you're a biblical Christian, you join us. We don't care if you go to church here or not, that's not the issue. But if you are not, we don't say it to make you feel odd or uncomfortable. Couldn't care less, because we're glad you're here. But for you to take communion wouldn't make any sense. It'd be hypocritical. Paul tells us that as we eat and drink, we proclaim Jesus Christ. We proclaim the gospel. It would be silly for you to proclaim the gospel if you don't believe it. So pass the elements by.
I want to apply the same thing here. I'm not saying to you, get out of the room. Here's what I'm saying. There are some of you that know Jesus Christ. You would acknowledge that. You would be Christian as I believe the Bible would define. There are some of you that are not.
For those of you who are followers of Christ, what I want to do is give you four gifts that you've already received. If you're not a follower of Christ, I want you to hear what is available to you, what's missing in your life, encourage you to respond because those gifts are here if you will just come and accept them, come in repentance and faith.
The Gift of Jesus Himself
The first one is the gift of Jesus Himself. John chapter four, the story of the woman of the well. Jesus is there, His boys are gone. John chapter four, verse four, and He's gone through Samaria, and He came to the town of Samaria called Sychar near the plot of ground that Jacob had given his son. Jacob's well is there. Verse seven, when a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, John four, seven, "Will you give me a drink?" His disciples had gone into town to buy food.
The Samaritan woman said to her, "You are a Jew, I'm a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? For Jews do not associate with Samaritans."
Let me stop there. You hear all this stuff about Christianity, biblical Christianity, maybe even Christ Himself. Somehow that there is this idea of Him being a suppressor that somehow Christians are trying to put people down or restrict them. That Jesus Paul's a chauvinist. Exactly the opposite is true. Jesus is the great liberator.
Her response is, "Wait a minute, you're a Jew and I'm a Samaritan and a woman. And yet you're talking to me." That blows their mind. That just shatters the paradigm because the Jews didn't talk to the Samaritans and they would never acknowledge a woman. Jesus isn't distracted by that. Why? Because the need that we have, He's going to deal with a fundamental need is not based on gender or based on our nationality. It's based on the human condition. We all have the same needs.
Jesus said, "If you knew..."
Look at it there in verse 10, the gift of God, Jesus speaking of Himself, who it is who asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given it to you. Sir, the woman said, you have nothing to draw the water with so the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us this well?
And Jesus answered, everyone who drinks this water will thirst again. Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Now here's what's happening. She's thinking water, physical, He's speaking spiritual. She's saying, how are you going to get me water? You don't even have a bucket.
And Jesus is saying, that's not what I'm talking about. You're missing the gift of God here, it's me. I'm going to satisfy a need that you have that's way deeper than this physical thirst. You have something inside of you that's missing, something inside of you that's deficient. You have this craving that cannot be satisfied with a person, place, or thing, but only with me, the gift of God.
Jesus Is Not Just a Philosopher
In the year 2000, in the Iowa presidential debate, the Republican presidential debate, I can't remember who was handling it or where the question came from, but the question was this. Who is the philosopher that's influenced you most in your life and might influence you if you became president of the United States? So Steve Forbes said John Locke. Alan Keyes said the founding fathers. And I can remember, I don't remember all the other answers, but there were like eight of them there and President Bush was sitting over here and they came to him and he said, Jesus Christ is the philosopher that's affected me most. How's that, governor? Well, when you ask Him into a heart, He changes your life.
Now, I know what he's trying to say. This is going to sound really nitpicky and I don't mean to be nitpicky, but Jesus is not a philosopher. A philosopher is one who's seeking the truth. Jesus isn't seeking the truth, He is the truth. Now, I'm not nitpicking the argument and I know what he's saying and I'm fine with that, but Jesus is not just like John Locke or the founding father. Jesus isn't a philosopher. Jesus is the one who came so that you and I might have life and have it abundantly.
Meeting People in Their Need
This Samaritan woman has this huge need. She's been promiscuous, she has sin, she's hurting, she understands something is wrong. My suspicion would be if you swung by and saw her with a bunch of people, she might have been really the belle of the ball and it might have been something you couldn't detect, but Jesus knew there was something missing there.
We spent an hour the other day in a pastoral staff meeting listening to the results of a study that had been done. The latest study among 200 churches, 57,000 people, breaking them into four categories. Those who were kind of trying to figure out who Jesus was, those who have kind of figured out who He is, those that were beginning to kind of grow close to Him, and those that, they used the term Christ-centered. And then there was a whole bunch of data that comes out of it.
The question was, in terms of spiritual growth, what's kind of been the key catalyst in that? In all four categories, the number one answer was, I was experiencing emotional pain due to life circumstance. That's just so often the way we grow. That's this woman's need. She understands she's deficient.
A Natural Time for Spiritual Conversations
Why do I say that? Those of you who know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, as you begin to process this in your life, you understand that one of the key components in all of this is God and sinner reconciled. And then God giving you a ministry of reconciliation.
I say this by way of encouragement. This is a natural time of the year where if you want, if you'd take the time, if you'd make the effort, there are people all around who are ready to have a spiritual conversation with you. It just happens. And what are you going to do for Christmas? Almost everybody's miserable with it. They just are. My daughter, Sarah, loves it. She would put Christmas stuff up at Labor Day if she could. But there are not a ton of people like that. And all of a sudden, you add to it the emotional pain of what's going on just in the economy in general, and then probably in a lot of life specifically, this is a wonderful time for you to kind of intervene and say, you know what? There's something missing, isn't there? Yeah, there really is. Do you get this? I really don't. And then you talk about the gift of God which is found in Christ Jesus. It's just a great time.
The Privilege of Sharing Jesus
For those of us who are followers of Christ, and then if you do this, I'm not an evangelist stuff, well, you may not have this gift of evangelism. You may not be Billy Graham, but you have the responsibility, and let me say it differently, because I don't even like that. Not responsibility, you have the privilege. It's not that you have to share Jesus. It's that you get to share Jesus. It's not that you have to come to a study. It's that you get to come to a study. Now, that's the gift of God that we find in Christ Jesus.
The Gift of Eternal Life
If I understand that, so those of you that if you were at our church, you'd say, yeah, I'm taking communion. Let me give you three other things, though there's more. With that, you receive the gift of eternal life. Romans chapter six, verse 23. For the wage of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, so that you will hear Christians say, do you have eternal life? And again, words we use, we understand them, but the answer to that should be yes from everybody. You get this? Everybody has eternal life, but eternal life has two components to it, quantity and quality. Everybody's going to live forever. Some are going to live forever in hell. Some in heaven.
The wage of sin is death, and the Bible tells us all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The wage of sin is death. If you say, listen, God, here's my deal with you. I'm not looking for any favors from you. I just want what I deserve.
I just want what I've earned. Well, the wage is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. You have eternal life, and eternal life—this is so important—doesn't just start when you die. It begins today.
One of the things I like about this time of year is the music. I like all sorts of the music. I like Vince Vance and the Valiants and all that Christmas stuff. I remember last year being at a red light, and one of the stations had just played an ad. They had just had a Smith Barney ad, a Budweiser ad, and a Lexus ad, which is good. Lease a Lexus, get drunk and drive—there's a message.
They had these ads, and then they play this song with an incredible line. I'm thinking, only this time of year: "God and sinner reconciled." It's amazing, because there are these people that have no concept what they're saying, and that's all right, because God uses them to deliver that message. I can be reconciled to the creator God of the universe through His son Jesus Christ, and at that moment, there's a transformation that takes place.
Life Transformation Through Faith
So we talk about it this way: I have a transformed heart and an informed mind. Therefore, I live a radical life. Paul says in Philippians 3:20, "My citizenship is in heaven." In 2 Corinthians 4, verse 16, Paul's saying, "Listen, though the outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day, for momentary light affliction is producing in us an eternal way to glory beyond all comparison, because we don't look at the things that are seen, we look at the things that are unseen. The things that we see are temporal, the things that are unseen are eternal."
So in 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul's talking about the fact that Jesus is going to come again, we'll be captured, we'll be set up in the air, and when he's all done with this, he says, "Comfort one another with those words." You have the gift of eternal life, that even in this world—and is it difficult? You bet it is. But here's the words that we always use of encouragement: that no matter how bad it gets, it can only last a lifetime. And then we're done, and we're with Him.
I said it one day, and this guy made a plaque and gave it to me. But understand, you're going to be deader a lot longer than you're going to be alive. This is what Paul calls momentary light affliction. Not to minimize the pain—this is real pain and real hurt. This is the real world, I got it.
Facing Real-World Challenges
If you've got some physical disease and it's agonizing, I'm not minimizing that at all. If you're one of these people—and I'm just starting to meet a whole bunch of people whose business is heading south or who've lost their jobs—we at church, it's a prayer request that is flooding in. "I've been at this company for 22 years and just lost my job. With no prospect of another job." I'm not minimizing that.
I'm just saying, here's what I know about God: God uses moments like this. You have the gift of eternal life. Here's the second gift that you've received along with the gift of Jesus: it's the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The Gift of the Holy Spirit
When the people heard this in Acts 2:37, Peter's delivering this message. They're cut to the heart and they said to Peter and the other disciples, "Brothers, what do we do?" Peter replied and said, "Be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive"—here's the phrase—"the gift of the Holy Spirit."
The Holy Spirit comes into your life. This is not deism—our God is not a distant God. God is alive, manifest Himself in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit literally lives in His people, dwells in you, convicts you of your sins so there's something in you nagging at you.
So often, my answer has become when people ask for advice: go with your gut. When somebody comes and says, "I'm really trying to figure out if this is right or not," I almost always go, "Wait a minute, there's some reason you don't think it's right. Well, go with your gut, man." Now, can my feelings lie to me? Sure, but I'm talking about deep down inside. You know, you know when something's wrong. That's why you hide when you do it. That's why you don't tell your spouse. You know it's wrong. That's the Holy Spirit in your life.
The Spirit's Work in Conviction
It's good—if you could just sin and not feel that, that's pathological, that's a problem. But God's in you. One of the great indicators of where you are spiritually is how you handle sin in your life. Because if you're going to sin and sin and sin and sin, no big deal, then something's wrong. Now you've got cause for alarm.
The Holy Spirit comes in, and He takes up residence in your life. The term that's used in Ephesians 1 and 2 Corinthians 1 is He seals you for the day of redemption. He's the pledge. Cut me slack on this, but it literally means down payment. You're an escrow with a deal that can't blow. That's the problem with this illustration—every deal I've got in escrow is about to blow probably. I don't mean me personally now, I just mean in general. But this deal can't blow. The Holy Spirit is in your life. You have the gift of the Holy Spirit living in your life.
The Gift of Contentment
Let me give you one more, and then talk about how to respond. Ecclesiastes 3:12: "I know there's nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they're alive, that everyone may eat and drink and find satisfaction in his toil. This is the gift of God." Ecclesiastes 3:12 and 13.
To be able to find satisfaction in this life, to find this sense of contentment, to climb off of that treadmill, to be able to say, "You know what, enough is enough." I don't have to go to the next level. I'm no longer living for what people are going to think. All of a sudden, my life is driven by what will people think about me? Even as I listen to people who are in the midst of some real crisis in their life, one of the great things that their experience are: what are people going to think?
What are people going to think? What are people going to think when I lose my job? What are people going to think when I can't make this payment anymore and I have to move into a different house? What are people going to think? Who cares? It doesn't matter what they think. Why are you driven by what they think? You have one thing you need to keep happy in your life, and that's God. Not out of obligation, but out of privilege.
Yet we're driven. There's a wonderful book called *When People are Big and God is Small*. When I'm driven by people—what would they think about me and what I look like and what I wear—I understand what you're going through. Don't take this and go, "Well, he just says forget people." No, I understand. You do care about people, but you can't be driven by their assessment of you and let that drive your life.
Can we be honest enough to say much of what we've done in the past—where we work, how we spend our money, what we wear, where we live—we're being driven by "what will people think about me"? Let me just take the whole emphasis off you. I'll put it this way: we are so human. This is just a human condition. We see it in the church.
The Performance Trap in Ministry
So if I go somewhere to speak, I'll go to a church and they'll say, "Our speaker today is Tom Schrader," and then they'll give all the details, "and he's part of this church," and then they'll always say this: "It's a church of 4,500 people." They always say that. You know why? Because at that point, you're supposed to go, "Ooh." If they said, "Our speaker today is Tom Schrader, and he's got a church of 200," they would think, "Well, why do we want to listen to this loser? They don't even want to hear him on Sunday. Why would we want to listen to this guy?" Somehow, if you have a big church, it equates to being a big, successful person.
Listen, successful in God's eyes is obediently following Him and using the gifts and talents He's given you to glorify Him. It doesn't matter if He gives you two people or 2,000 people or 200,000 people. Irrelevant. See how we bring that even into the church, even into spiritual things? We're always worried about people.
We love religion. We love rules and do's and don'ts, and we love to be able to check a list and say, "That's what it means to be a Christian." It's to be content with the person that God's made you to be.
God's Design for Your Life
We are all equal in terms of value before God. We are not identical. We just aren't. Nor do we come into the world with the same level of opportunity for success. This idea of "if you can believe it, you can do whatever you want"—I'll listen to motivational speakers say "you can be whatever you want"—that's a bunch of nonsense. You can't be. Michael Jordan and I did not have the same opportunity for success in the National Basketball Association. And that's okay.
It's not about being who they are; it's being who God made you. And then just being satisfied with it. But there's something so wonderful about being satisfied, content.
I don't know, Hayley might have been 10 or 11, and she was laying on the couch one day. I'm in my chair, we're watching TV, and I said, "Hayley, if you could be anybody in the world, who would you want to be?" She said, "Anybody?" I said, "Anybody." She said, "Dad, I want to be me. Look at this life. If I don't screw this up, I get to do whatever I want to do. My life is easy. I have food, I have a room. I want to be me."
Seeing Yourself Clearly
What a great answer. How many of you can say you want to be you? I wanted to do this one time, and I've never been able to do it, but I wanted to put together a whole series of videos of Michael Jordan missing a shot, of Tiger missing a three-foot putt. All these things—because they're all out there, you know that, right? But if all you saw was this video of Jordan missing a shot, traveling, Tiger hitting it out of bounds, missing a putt—if that's all you saw of them, you would think, "What a loser."
If all you do is look at yourself and see three-foot putts that are missed and traveling violations, if that's all you see in your life, you're missing who you are. Now, if I'm a follower of Christ, I've received the gift of the Holy Spirit. I have received the gift of Christ Himself. I have received eternal life and contentment.
Responding with Gratitude
How do you respond? Let me give two ways. Number one, with gratitude. Second Corinthians 9:15: "Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift." He's given me this gift. It's beyond description, beyond comprehension.
I'm telling you, if you want to really sit and think about this, consider this: You are a sinner who has absolutely thumbed your nose at God. You said, "Get out of here. I don't want anything to do with You." And in spite of that, God has saved you. God did not save you because of you—that's religion. Now you're thinking like religion again. That's all religion: "I'll do this, which obligates God to do that." No. This is about grace, unmerited favor. God saved you in spite of you.
I can't begin to get my arms around eternal life. But I start to think about it and go, "Oh my goodness, there is this eternity out there where I'm either going to be with Jesus forever or apart from Him." And the only way I can be with Him is if He does something. How do you respond to that?
Teaching Gratitude
It's really interesting now because the kids are right at this stage where I gave Brayden something the other day. So I gave it to him. And then of course, Hayley is there. And Hayley would then say—what did she say? "What do you say? What do you say when somebody gives you something? Thank you." And I will be honest, it really doesn't mean much to me that somebody goes, "What do you say? Thank you." I get the sense it's not as sincere. But you have to teach him that.
He instinctively knows something's going on. He called the other night, and I don't know that he has definitions around it. I'd love to be able to get in his head to know what he means.
But he said, "Papa, yeah, what doing?" And I said, "Just watching TV and hanging around. What are you doing?" "No, I had the hummus. Hummus and cucumbers. Do you like those?" "Oh yeah, I like those. What'd you have for breakfast?" And he goes, "Blue yo," so that would be blueberry yogurt. Blue yo. And I said, "Okay, I'll talk to you later." "Papa, yeah, I love you."
Well, I don't know that he fully—it doesn't even matter, frankly, if he comprehends it at that point. I mean, it just worked for me. But even then, that's all ego.
The Natural Response of Gratitude
See, what do you say when somebody gives you something? It drives me crazy when I go through a line, or I check out, and I buy something, and I'll say to them, "Thank you." They just gave me 75 cents worth of eggs for 10 bucks, and I'm saying thank you. And they'll say back, "No problem." Really? Me coming in here and spending $10, and then giving you $2 on top of it is not a problem for you? Is that right? You want me to just do a direct deposit next time? Would that be work better? "No problem."
So they're going to say one of two things every time: "No problem," or "Have a good one." No, here's the deal. I give you the money, and then you say, "Thank you," because I'm doing you a favor.
When you begin to understand the gift that God's given you—just the thing—you don't even need to be manipulated or told. You begin to understand the gift itself, and you just instinctively ooze out, "Thank you." Now, what that is in our context is praise and worship. That's what that means.
Worship as a Way of Life
So when we do a disservice when we walk on campus and say, "Where's the worship center?" All of a sudden, we're thinking worship, music, song, piano, organ, drums, building. No, there's part of that. That's what we do on Sunday, but all of Sunday's worship. All of my life is worship. That's Romans 12, one and two: "Present your body, an act of worship. It's the only reasonable thing to do."
Just think about it truly, just purely intellectually. When I understand God and who He is and what He's done and all of that, the only reasonable thing to do is to present my body to Him, to not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of my mind. And now my life begins to change. So all my life is an act of worship.
Today, I was listening to a Christian radio station coming in and they were talking about just different things, and living intentionally was the thing. And this gal called in—little gal, she had the sweetest little voice. And of course, all my stereotypical things come on; she just sounds like this sweet little girl. And she said, "I am the kindest, sweetest person except when I drive. When I drive, I just—I don't know what happens. I just go crazy."
So they said, "What are you doing about it?" And she said, "Here's what I did." By the way, here's some great advice. This is great advice. She said, "I turn on your radio station." Now, you can turn on a radio station or a DVD. A CD is even better.
The Power of What We Feed Our Minds
I will tell you, it makes a ton of difference what you're listening to in the car when you're driving. So I've got this one CD that I have. In fact, it says on it, "Tom's Music." And it's just stuff. So it's old, it's my old stuff. So it's Steppenwolf and it's a lot of James Brown—ow!—and a lot of stuff. And when I drive, if I'm listening to this, I just find myself—I'm darting in and out and I'm home in like five minutes. It's unbelievable.
And then if I'm listening to talk radio, I'm getting irritated, I'm getting angry, I'm honking at people. "You idiot, you moron, you must be illegal." I mean, that's just how I think. So that for me is the fruit of that. But when I put on just simple—when I'm listening to music that the music and the lyrics are glorifying God—it just changes you. So you have to be in that environment.
The Gift of Generosity
So when you understand who He is, there's gratitude, and then here's the last thing: there's generosity. You become a giver.
There's a great scene in Mark 12. Let me tell you about Mark 12, 41 through 44. Jesus and the boys have a little downtime. So they go and watch people give, which is really interesting. And in that day, in that environment, you could tell not just that somebody gave, but you could tell how much they gave. And so one guy comes in and gives this great big gift. And then this lady comes in and gives two coins—less than a penny. And Jesus asked the question, "Who gave more?" And of course they said, "Well, the guy that—they're building, they named the building after." And He says, "No, no, no, it was the lady."
See, as you respond generously—Matthew 10:8, "Freely you've received, freely you give"—as you understand you're a steward, not an owner, as you ask yourself not "How much should I give?" but "How much of God's money should I keep?" As you begin to evaluate your time and say, "Okay, I can do this, or I can do that. Which glorifies God?" All of a sudden you begin to respond with your time, your energy, your effort, your money, your life, your resources in a generous fashion. You become a giver.
Don't think just money, though money's part of it. Time, energy, effort, money—you become a giver. And it becomes not an obligation to you; it becomes something you get to do. It's not something you have to do; it's something you get to do.
The Challenge of Sacrificial Giving
And what Jesus is making the point in Mark 12 is that almost all of us—my suspicion is it's going to be everybody in this room—we've never—rarely, yeah, I'm going to say never, but we'll back it off to rarely. Rarely do we give sacrificially; always out of excess. You tell me, when's the last time that because you gave somebody something you didn't get to eat? And me too, it kills me. I mean, I wrestle with it.
I'm talking to two guys last year, both are thinking of retirement. This one guy said to me, "If I can get to 250 grand, 300 grand, I can retire and be okay." And same conversation with a guy and he said, "I need to get to 3 million and I'll retire." Now it's interesting, the guy that said...
The Question We Must Answer
3 million is probably back to 300 by now and it's all worked out. But it doesn't matter. Ultimately, I can't imagine saying, "I'm gonna get to 250 and I'm gonna stop, and if I can just get 72% of my money, I can live." I don't know how you get there, but he got there. He answered that question.
You have to answer that question. These are nuts and bolts. How much is enough? It's like Christmas. I'm just spending all this money, and the hardest thing about Christmas isn't even buying the gift. It's trying to figure out what to buy because nobody needs anything.
So I'm giving them balloon rides and all sorts of stuff, goofy stuff, which are nice experiences, but who needs a balloon ride? We're making these things up because we already have all this stuff. I understand, you know what? Take them, here's my gift to you. I'll take you for a walk and buy you a burger at the end of it. That's a way better gift.
The True Value of Gift Giving
Here's the mindset for gift giving, especially if you're dealing with kids. It's far more important that if you're going to give them a pair of $200 shoes, it's far more important that you as a mom or dad are there to tie them than the shoe itself. Way more important. And don't let them manipulate you into all this stuff.
God's Greatest Gift Available to All
So there you go with gifts. Now, if you're here and you go, "Okay, I gotta tell you something. I didn't get that gift. I don't know Christ." It's available to me. All you have to do—this is so simple. This is why we love religion. What can I do? Christianity, nothing. Come in repentance and faith. Believe Jesus is who He said He was.
It can't be that simple. That's all it is. See, that's grace, man. Grace is just to accept a gift that's extended to you. And if your desire is to respond to that, you simply cry out from your heart, "God, I accept that. I believe Jesus is who He said He was." Bam. I believe I'm who He says I am. And I believe that He died in my place. And that's how I find eternal life.
Not through a church, not through services, not through serving in Sunday school, not through going to mass, not through singing in the choir, not through anything. None of those things are going to save me. I'm saved by a relationship with Christ and Christ alone.
Father, help us take these truths and apply them in our life. We pray that in Jesus' name. Amen. Have a great Thanksgiving.