THE GIFT OF GIVING
CHRISTMAS SERVICE
DR. JIM DIXON
1 JOHN 4
DECEMBER 23, 1984
In the spring of 1978, Barb and I visited the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the city of Aman, the royal city of King Hussain. The city didn’t seem very royal, but the exception of a few palatial residences built by Rich Arab oil barons. The city was impoverished. We were there with 105 people from Faith Presbyterian Church in Aurora. We couldn’t fit them all into the same hotel, and so we split them into three groups. Barb and I went with 35 people to the Shepherd Hotel in Aman there in the hotel lobby. The desk clerk gave us the room keys for the people and we distributed them. Then the desk clerk said, “Mr. Dixon, here’s your special key.” At first, we didn’t know what he meant until we went upstairs and saw the double doors and we realized that they’d given us a hotel suite complete with a sitting room and a television set—unusual in the kingdom of Jordan—a canopy bed, a great window view with a view of the city, a deluxe bathroom by the standards of that nation.
I remember that evening we had some friends into the sitting room and we watched Hawaii 5-0 dubbed in Arabic, but we weren’t in the kingdom of Jordan to watch TV and we weren’t there to visit the city of Aman. We were there to see the city of Petra, the ancient biblical city of Sela, a city built 2,000 years ago by the Nebateans, a city carved magnificently in stone, a hidden city, a city that had been abandoned 1,200 years after Christ, a city unknown to the western world until the year 1821. The city of Petra lies 170 miles south of the city of Aman.
The next morning we got into our buses and we began our journey south, and it was only then as we traveled through the country of Jordan that Barb and I realized how special our hotel suite had been. Most of the people in the kingdom of Jordan are very, very poor. In fact, 10% of the population still lives in tents, Bedouins living semi-nomadic lives, even those who have homes live in dilapidated shacks with no plumbing. The lack of sanitation is unbelievable. Very little food. When we were halfway to Petra, our buses stopped that we might use the conveniences. These were bathroom facilities for men and women that consisted of no more than holes in the ground. You could hardly approach the holes, the stench was so bad. Yet, those were special facilities. The citizens of the kingdom of Jordan could not use them. They were built for visitors from the Western world.
It is hard for most of us to comprehend the poverty that is in the world today. This Christmas time, most of us have plenty of food on our tables. We have beautifully decorated trees. We have good gifts to share, but around the world there are people who are living in the very midst of poverty. In Beverly Hills, California, there’s a special school for the children of movie stars and for the children of Hollywood directors and producers. The third-grade class at this school was asked to write an essay on poverty, and one girl began her essay in this way. She said “There once was a very poor little girl. Her mother was very poor, her father was very poor, her brother was very poor. Her governance was very poor. Her butler was very poor. Her chauffeur was very poor. In fact, everyone in the entire mansion was very, very poor.” Now, as hard as it was for that little girl to imagine how normal people live in this country, it is even more difficult for us to imagine how people live throughout the world.
There are 750 million people who live in India, one out of every six people on the face of this earth, and hundreds of thousands of them do not even have a home. They live on the streets of the major cities such as Bombay, Calcutta, and New Delhi. They live on the sidewalks. They die on the sidewalks. They are rolled into the gutters. They’re picked up by trucks, and they’re taken to mass burial sites. Some people live in small inner-city apartments, five and six families jammed into a single room with no windows. Again, the lack of sanitation beyond belief, no plumbing. As recently as the 1950s, the average person in India had a lifespan of only 32 years. It’s a little better today, but even today, more than 70% of the population is not able to write, not even able to write their own name. The average person in India consumes a diet that consists of simply grain, ground in the meal and mixed with water.
A people in poverty. They’re only one impoverished nation in the impoverished continent of Asia. There is also China. 1 billion people live in China. One out of every four and a half people on the face of this earth live in China, not as impoverished as India, but by western standards, impoverished still, and they live in the midst of communist oppression. There are a billion additional people who live on that impoverished continent in nations such as Cambodia and Vietnam. It is an impoverished continent, and yet three fifths of the world’s population lives on that continent. Any one of us here today could have been born there, where most people are. Or we could have been born in Africa where 498 million people live. Some of them in poverty, such as in Ethiopia. We could have been born in South America where 242 million people live, some of them with no food to eat. They live in the midst of social, political and economic upheaval. We could have been born in Mexico where 74 million people live, 18 million people jammed into Mexico City, a city which has no place to dispose of its refuge. We could have been born in Central America where 24 million people live, many of them in poverty. We could have been born in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic where 270 million people live under in the midst of an atheistic society. We could have been born in Eastern Europe in the midst of Soviet oppression. It’s a very privileged few who get to live in the United States of America or in Canada or in Western Europe.
This nation is perhaps the most privileged of the earth, and yet even in this country, only 5% of the population makes an income of $35,000 a year or more. Many of us, perhaps most of us, are in that 5%. We are the privileged of the privileged on this earth. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself how God views this little corner of our world? What He thinks of us, what He expects of us as Christians living in the midst of an affluent society? We should understand that when the Bible speaks of the rich of this world, the Bible is speaking of us. For by global standards, we are all very, very rich.
Now, God does not want us to feel guilty. We did not choose the time or the place of our birth. We should understand that the Bible nowhere condemns affluence and nowhere condemns material blessings. Indeed, the patriarchs, including Abraham himself, were blessed materially beyond measure. This has been true of many of the saints in every generation. But God does have a very special message for us, and this is the one teaching I feel led to share this Christmas Sunday. This one teaching, this one message is this: we have been blessed in order that we might be a blessing. Above all else, we have been called to give as Jesus Christ gave Himself as a gift for us. So we who love Him, we who belong to Him, we who have received Him as Lord and Savior are called in His name to give ourselves and for His sake to other people.
That means that we need to be rich in good deeds. It means that we need to be liberal and generous towards the needs of mankind. The Apostle Paul says, “As for the rich of this world, charge them not to be haughty nor to set their hopes on uncertain riches, but on God, who richly furnishes us with all things to enjoy. Let them do good and be rich in good deeds, liberal and generous, thus taking hold of the life which is life indeed.” Above all else, as Christians, we are called to be a giving people that we might give ourselves even as He has given Himself for us.
In Brooklyn, New York, 10 years ago, eight days before Christmas, Mr. And Mrs. George Thomas were taking a walk with their five-year-old boy. Suddenly their little boy ran on ahead down the street up to a plump old man with a big white beard and a smile on his face. The little boy ran up to him and said “Santa, I just got to have a teddy bear for Christmas.” Now, it’s not unusual for children to ask for gifts from Santa Claus. But there was only one problem, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas knew that plump old man, and he was not Santa Claus. He was the Jewish rabbi of Brooklyn, a man named Polanski. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas were Christians. They were Presbyterians. They were just sure that this Jewish rabbi wanted to have nothing to do with Christmas, not even with Santa Claus. With a red face, and in the midst of much embarrassment, they went up to him and they apologized for their son. They took their little boy by the arm and they let him home. Eight days later, it was Christmas morning and the Thomas’s were opening their presents around the tree. There was a knock at the door and it was the Jewish rabbi, white beard and all, holding a little teddy bear in his hands. He told Mr. and Mrs. Thomas that he just didn’t want the little boy to go disappointed at Christmas. He came into the house and he knelt before that little five year old and he handed him the teddy bear. He said, “Merry Christmas.”
That Jewish rabbi was not a Christian. He did not believe in Jesus Christ. Yet you see, in that moment, he exemplified something of the spirit of Christ because the spirit of Christ is the spirit of giving. As Christians, above all other people in the world, we should be known as a people who give. It was not convenient for that Jewish rabbi to go to a department store and buy a teddy bear. It was not convenient for him to look up the address of the Thomas’s and their house. It was not convenient for him to take Christmas morning and walk to their house or to confront the embarrassed parents. But you see, giving is not meant to be convenient and it is at its best when it is sacrificial.
We only understand what it means to give sacrificially when we look at the one who was born in Bethlehem. When we look at our Lord Jesus Christ, the greatest gift this world has ever received, we can’t understand the sacrifice that His gift involved unless we understand who He is. The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. He shared glory and deity with His father before these worlds were ever made, before the foundation of the earth. The Bible tells us that He is Lord of Lords and He is King of Kings. He is destined to rule the heavens above and the earth beneath. The Bible tells us that He is enthroned in glory. He is worshiped and served by the angelic hosts, numbering myriads of myriads of ten thousands time ten thousand. He is the Lord of glory. He is “Gibor El.” He is the mighty God.
It’s not possible for us to comprehend what it meant for Him to leave heaven’s glory and to come to earth. It’s not possible for us to comprehend what it meant for Him to be born in Bethlehem, what it meant for Him to come into our world and to take our humanity upon himself, to take our flesh upon Himself. He was the Creator becoming one of the creation, the greatest sacrificial gift of all. But you see, the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ loves us. He has compassion on us. Before He came into this world, he said to His father, “A body Thou has prepared for Me. Lo, I come to do Thy will. And He was made flesh and dwelt among us.” Having come into our world as a gift, He then poured out His life for us. He poured out His healing power on the blind and the sick and the lame and the deaf and the dumb and even the dead. He poured out His heart and His mind upon 12 men that they might be His disciples, that they might go forth as light in the midst of the darkness, that they might build His church with the promise that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. He poured out his blood unto death on Calvary’s cross, that He might take the sin of the world upon Himself that He might offer us forgiveness, salvation, resurrection, and eternal life. He is, you see the gift, the great gift of God.
He experienced hunger and thirst, sorrow and rejection. The Bible says “He came into the world and the world was made by Him and the world knew Him not.” He reached out in love to publicans and sinners and wine bibbers and drunkards. There is no one in this world that Jesus Christ does not love. There is no need in this world for which He does not have compassion. In the final week of his life, before He went to the cross, He who is Lord of Lords, He who is the Son of God, girded Himself with a towel and He knelt and He actually began to wash His disciples feet. He said to them, “I have given you an example that you should follow in my steps.” The gift of God. He calls all of us who believe in His name to give our lives as a gift to others.
The Apostle Paul says, “Have his mind in you, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Who though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be clutched, but He emptied Himself, taking on the form of a servant and being born in the likeness of man. Being found in human form, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even unto death on a cross.” Why did he do it? Because He loves us. He gave His life as a gift. He calls us to give our lives to others.
George Mason was a Christian businessman. He owned his own business. He was a bachelor and he was lonely. He gave all of his thought, his energy and his time to his business. He had very little time for other people. A few years ago, on Christmas Eve, all of his employees had left, he went into his vault to get some extra money. Suddenly, the newly oiled hinges brought the great door shut to a close behind it and he could hear, in panic, the automatic lock click. Suddenly, he was enveloped in darkness. At first, he began to panic for his life. Was there enough air to breathe? But then he remembered the air vent at the top of the vault. He reached up and he opened it. Then he began to wonder how long he’d be in that vault. Surely somebody would think of him, somebody would come for him at least in the morning. But then he realized that the next day was Christmas day. Nobody would be at work. Well, he thought, somebody will think of me. Somebody will come for me. But nobody did. For 36 hours, he was left alone with his thoughts.
A day after Christmas, when the employees came to work, one of them went and opened the vault, but didn’t look inside. George Mason just snuck out of the vault and made his way home. Nobody noticed him. He went home and he dressed. He cleaned up. He came back to work. Nobody asked him how he was. Nobody asked him where he had been. Nobody asked him how his Christmas was. He spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in that vault, but nobody cared. But he didn’t wallow in self-pity because those 36 hours in that vault had changed his life. He’d received a message from God. He knew that nobody loved him because he had loved nobody. Nobody cared for him because he had cared for nobody. Nobody gave to him because he had given to nobody. So today in that vault, George Mason has a sign. He has a poster hanging in the back of the vault and the poster simply says “To love people, to care for people, to give to people: that is the secret of happiness.”
Now, the Bible says that the secret of happiness is to give your life to Jesus Christ and receive Him as Lord and Savior. But the Bible also tells us that the fullness of joy that Christ has to give will not be ours unless we learn now to give ourselves to others. “More blessed to give than it is to receive.” The Bible says “Give and it shall be given to you. In full measure, pressed down, shaken together, overflowing, it shall be set in your lap.”
This last Tuesday, Bob and I and some friends from the church decided to go and buy some groceries and some toys and to give them to some three poor families here in town. We got the names of the three families from Lynn Johnson at the church. We went to a grocery store in North Denver and we bought the food and we bought the toys. We went to the first address. We couldn’t find it. It was just a vacant field. So we went to the second address. We came up to this little tiny house that was all run down. The wall was crumbling outside. Inside, the dry wall was not even painted and there was holes in it, Crayola markings all over the wall. The furniture had the springs and the stuffing coming out. There were six children in this little family. They were poor. We gave them a Christmas turkey and some food and some toys. They were grateful. We prayed together. I think they were Christians. As we left, the mother said, “God bless you, God bless you, God bless you.”
But you see, God had already blessed us because we had the joy that comes from giving. We went to the third house and it was a smaller house but not so run down. Again, we gave them food and toys and again, they were grateful. But we had some food and we had some toys left over because we’d missed the first house. So we decided just to drive around and find the poorest looking house we could and go up to the door. So we drove around in Buzz Hill’s suburban and we found this house that really looked poor. Bo Mitchell went up to the door, asked the mother of the three children if they’d like to have some food and toys for Christmas. She said “Yes.” She really didn’t seem too excited it. We came inside the living room, which was also a bedroom. She didn’t want us to go in the kitchen. She told us she had a refrigerator for the food, but she told us to set the food down the living room. We did that. As we left, we noticed that she had been watching tv. As we left, we looked back in the house and we noticed that she’d just gone and sat back down and started watching her program again. We don’t know whether she was grateful or excited. God only knows, but it didn’t matter. We had the joy that comes from giving. It’s more blessed to give than it is to receive.
We have a promise from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, that if we give, we will have joy. One day, it should be our desire that we might stand before the Lord and hear Him say, “I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and imprisoned, and you visited me.” Our calling as Christians is not simply to give ourselves to physical poverty and the physical needs of people, but to spiritual poverty too. We’re called to give the gospel, the good news of Christ to people. We’re called to give to people who are emotionally poor, people who are hurting. We’re called to befriend them. We’re called to give ourselves as a gift to our friends and to people at work. We’re called to give ourselves as a gift to our families, to our moms and dads, and to our children, to our brothers and sisters. We’re called to give ourselves as a gift to the church, to the great work of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. It’s promised that if we do that, we will enter into the joy of our master. It is promised that if we do that, we will have an impact on this world.
The world will never be a saint. The kingdom of Christ will grow in power and glory through people who love Christ and for His sake give themselves to others. Jesus Christ gave His life as a gift, and He had a greater impact on this world than anyone who ever lived. I love the description of the life of Christ given by George Clarke Peck. He describes Christ’s life in this way. He says, “He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village, a village of no reputation. For 30 years He worked in a carpenter shop. Then for three years, He was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held office. He never owned his own home. He never journeyed more than 200 miles from the place of His birth. He never did any of the things that generally accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself. Though He walked the land over curing the sick, giving sight to the blind, healing the lame, raising people from the dead, the top established religious leaders turned against him.
His friends ran away. They turned him over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was spat upon. He was flogged. He was ridiculed. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While dying, His executioners gambled for His robe, the only piece of property that was His on this earth. When dead, He was buried in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone. Today, He is the central figure in human history, the leader of the column of progress. It is safe to say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever ruled put together, have not influenced the life of man upon this earth as much as that one solitary life. Those words are true because Jesus Christ gave His life as a gift to the world.
One day He will come again. He will come in power, and great glory, and He will change the face of the earth. The Bible says the “deserts will bring forth bloom. The lion shall lie down with the lamb. He will turn our swords into plow shares and our spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war anymore. Death shall be no more. Neither will there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore. And the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the oceans cover the sea.”
But the greatest message at Christmas time is not a message concerning the impact of Christ upon our history. It’s not a message concerning the impact of Christ upon our future. The greatest message at Christmas time as a message concerning His desired impact upon our lives now. It has been said that Christmas isn’t Christmas until it happens in your heart. It’s not enough to acknowledge that Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago. It’s not enough to acknowledge that He is the Son of God. The Bible says we must allow Him to be born in us today. We must receive Him. We must invite Him in. We must receive Him as Lord and Savior of life. Then we must allow Him to live his life through us. If we do that, we’ll begin to give to others for His sake, even as He gave Himself for us.
The Apostle John says, “My little children, love one another, for love is of God. He who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God. For God is love. We love because He first loved us. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? My little children, let not your love be in word or in speech, but in deed and in truth.” He gave His life for us. He calls us for His sake to give our lives to others. Shall we pray?