The point I am making is that Christmas represents giving that is infinite, and so beyond our mind to grasp that all we do is not comprehend it and understand it, but respond to it with joy, thanksgiving and praise. In other words, Christmas is God's giving to us on the highest level where the only appropriate response is to give back to Him on our highest level. The story of the wise men illustrates this theme of Christmas, which is man's giving to God for His gift to them. Giving, keep in mind, is love in action. Every act of love is some form of giving. Without giving there is no love. Christmas is born in God's love, for He so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son. But love received responds with giving too, so we want to look on this Christmas Eve at man's giving in response to God's giving.

1. CHRISTMAS GIVI

2. G based on Matthew 2:1-12
By Glenn Pease
Christmas is the celebration of giving because God on that first Christmas gave to all mankind
the greatest gift possible, which was a Savior. Without a Savior all the other gifts of life are
merely temporary. The only way man could get in on God's eternal blessings is to have a Savior
who could solve the sin problem once and for all, and deliver man from death.
Christmas is the greatest celebration of the year because the message of Christmas is so all
encompassing. It covers all the good news, because a gift of Jesus as Savior includes the salvation
He brought in His life, and by His teaching and healing. His salvation on the cross, and in His
resurrection, and His final stage of salvation at His Second Coming to receive His own into the
Father's house forever are all included in His being our Savior. All other events in the life of
Jesus are focused on a specialized aspect of salvation, but Christmas is so broad it covers all that
can be said about salvation.
God gave us a Savior that first Christmas night, and Jesus gave us Himself in a way that is
beyond our comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the cross either, and how the Son of God
could permit evil men to crucify Him. To submit to death, which is man's greatest enemy, is to
give the highest value we know, which is life. But have you ever considered what Jesus gave up to
be born as a baby? On the cross He gave up His human life in time, but on Christmas Jesus gave
up His divine life at the right hand of God His Father. He gave up power and glory and wealth
that would make all the royalty of history combined look like paupers in comparison. The
human life Jesus gave on the cross was perfect and spotless, but it was only a 33 year old life. The
life Jesus gave up to come into history as a child was eternal, and a life equal to that of God the
Father.
The point I am making is that Christmas represents giving that is infinite, and so beyond our
mind to grasp that all we do is not comprehend it and understand it, but respond to it with joy,
thanksgiving and praise. In other words, Christmas is God's giving to us on the highest level
where the only appropriate response is to give back to Him on our highest level. The story of the
wise men illustrates this theme of Christmas, which is man's giving to God for His gift to them.
Giving, keep in mind, is love in action. Every act of love is some form of giving. Without giving
there is no love. Christmas is born in God's love, for He so loved the world He gave His only
begotten Son. But love received responds with giving too, so we want to look on this Christmas
Eve at man's giving in response to God's giving.
We turn to Matt. 2:1-12 where we see the gifts of the wise men.
I. THE GIFT OF THEIR PERSO

3. S.
We all know well of the gold, frankincense and myrrh, but we seldom consider the other gifts
they gave, which in reality were far more costly, for they gave themselves. They gave an
enormous amount of their time to travel to Israel to find the new born King. It appears they only
stayed one day and left the next to head back because they were warned in a dream not to go
back to Herod.
The fact that Herod ordered all boys in Bethlehem 2 years old and under to be killed because of
what he learned from the magi assumes that they made a long journey,and were not just across

4. the river. These men made a radical commitment of their time to come and worship the King.
This very costly gift no doubt affected their lives and families in a way we will will not know
about until we get the full story in eternity. The point is, they did not just give of their
possessions, which is often the easiest form of giving. The really hard giving is the giving of
yourself. This is always, to some degree, sacrificial giving. Things and money may cost you little
to give, but when you give yourself it cost you the time you could have been doing something else
beneficial to yourself. It is a sacrifice of self for the sake of another.
This is what God's Christmas gift was all about. God did not just give us a pile of gold, or
possessions, or power, or any other resource. God gave us Himself in Jesus. That is the highest
level of giving, and the wise men responded in kind.
Christmas is a time for giving,
The wise men brought their best,
But Christ showed the gift of self
Will out-give all the rest.
There are many times when giving money is all we can do to help people feel loved in this world,
but we need to be aware it is not the best. Robert Rockwell tells of how he wrote a check each
year for his Kiwanis Club project for parent-less boys. He was delighted to help these
unfortunate boys, but one year he was asked to go to the banquet and be a companion to one of
the boys. It was a 40 mile drive after a hard days work, and he did not feel happy about it at all.
But when he saw how happy it made 8 year old Jimmy to have a man care enough to be with
him, his spirit changed. Jimmy begged him to come back the next month, and he promised he
would, for he learned that though it was much harder, and far more costly, it was also far more
meaningful and rewarding to give yourself. Parents need to learn that giving themselves to their
children can be far more precious than things they buy. Giving them of your time is costly, but it
conveys love as nothing you buy ever can.
The gold, incense, and myrrh were valued gifts, but lets face it, these may have even been
supplied by their government as gifts of good will. The real gifts of the wise men were the gifts of
themselves. They could have hired servants to carry those gifts with a message, but they chose to
go themselves. God too had sent many messages to his people by means of messengers, such as
the prophets, but Christmas is special because this is when God sent himself. It is the highest gift
anyone can give, the gift of self.
John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem that conveys the idea of giving of self all the time.
Somehow, not only for Christmas,
But all the long year through,
The joy that you give to others
Is the joy that comes back to you;
And the more you spend in blessing
The poor and lonely and sad,
The more of your heart's possessing
Returns to make you glad.
God's Christmas gift of himself in Jesus illustrates the higher level of giving that we see all
through the life of Jesus. He was the Son of God, and he could have chosen to be anything in life

5. he wanted. He could have been a famous orator, an actor, a hero in battle, a senator, or leader in
government. He could have been a famous singer or artist, but he chose to be a servant. He could
have traveled the ancient world and seen the marvels of His age, but He did no such thing. He
just gave His life to minister to the needs of people in His tiny land, and then laid down His life
for all mankind. His life is a great paradox, for in one sense He did nothing great, yet His is the
greatest life ever lived because He did the greatest thing of all-He gave Himself. George Peck
summed up his life this way
He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman.
He grew up in another obscure village,
where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty.
Then for three years he was an itinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book.
He never held an office.
He never had a family or owned a home.
He never lived in a big city.
He never traveled 200 miles from the place where he was born.
He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness.
He had no credentials but himself.
While he was still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him.
His friends deserted him. He was turned over to his enemies,
and went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.
While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his garments,
the only property he had on earth.
When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave,
through the pity of a friend.

6. ineteen centuries have come and gone,
and today his is the central figure for much of the human race.
All the armies that ever marched,
All the navies that ever sailed,
All the parliaments that ever sat,
All the kings that ever reigned,
put together have not affected the life of man upon this earth
as much as this
One Solitary Life.
II. THE GIFT OF THEIR PATIE

7. CE A

8. D PERSISTE

9. CE.
They could have given up anywhere along the way and cut this whole section out of the
Christmas story. There was nothing about their role in God's plan that was easy. They could
have easily complained, and asked, why is this new born King so far away? If God wants us to
worship Him, why did He not have Him born in our country? Why did God not keep the star
shining for us? It forces us to seek human help, and go through all this red tape. All this could be

10. eliminated if God would have given us more light. We give our all, and still we have to overcome
obstacles. God does not make it easy following His will. It calls for persistence and patience. He
did not just drop His Son on their laps, but made it hard for them to get to Him. It is always an
uphill climb to get God's best. He gives Himself, to be sure, but only to those who will endure
and press on when the way to His best is not straight and smooth.
Christmas is the time for patience,
When we try anew to mold
Our lives in the image of Him
Whose birthday we uphold.
It is not only wise men, but wise women who need patience and persistence in getting God's best.
Taylor Caldwell, one of Americas best loved novelist tells of her hardest yet most joyous
Christmas. She was in her 20's and recently divorced, and had a daughter living with her. She
was on the street car going to the employment office, for she had no job. By her seat was a
beautiful silk umbrella with a silver handle inlaid with gold. It was lovely, and a name was
engraved on the handle. She looked up the name in the phone book and called. She discovered
the owner was a teacher, and that this umbrella had great sentimental value. It had been stolen
from her locker more than a year before. She was absolutely delighted to get it back.
That was a mere incident in Taylor's life, and she went on struggling to find a job. As Christmas
approached, it looked bleak. She prayed constantly, but no job was available, and her resources
were almost gone. She felt God had abandoned her, and she felt so bad she could not afford to
give her daughter anything significant. She felt brokenhearted as they opened three cans for
Christmas Eve dinner, knowing all they had for Christmas day was hamburgers.
The door bell rang, and Peggy ran to get it. A delivery man had packages for them. She felt it
had to be a mistake, but her name was on them. The woman who had gotten back her umbrella
was so grateful that she sent these presents, and in another envelope was a job offer with the
government to begin two days after Christmas. It was the most joyful moment of her life. Just
minutes before she was in despair. She realized God's providence in her life-He was there all the
time. It called for patience and persistence, but the bottom line was that she was singing His
praises and worshiping her King after a long hard journey.
The joy of Christmas is so often at the end of a long hard journey. Jesus had to journey from
heaven to earth, and none of us can know the hardness of this journey. We can never know the
burden of Mary and Joseph as they journeyed 80 miles from

11. azareth to Bethlehem. It was not
an easy one, but called for persistence. The wise men likewise had to be persistent in their long
journey. The point is, there is much in life that is handed to us on a platter, for it is pure grace.
But there is also much that comes as a reward for persistence in pursuing the call of God.
Following His star when the way is hard and long is one of our gifts to Jesus that He greatly
treasures. May God motivate us to be wise men and women, and give Him a life persistent in
patiently plotting toward the goal of giving Him our best.
III.THE GIFT OF THEIR POSSESSIO

12. S.

13. ancy S. Taylor began her sermon on the wise men with this story: “One evening just before
Christmas a friend of mine was called by his three young children to watch a Christmas play they
had created. My friend entered the living room and surveyed the scene. Jesus was being played

14. by a doll wrapped in a blanket. His oldest son was obviously Joseph wearing a bathrobe and
holding a broom handle as his staff. His middle child was playing Mary. Her head was draped
with a sheet and she looked intently toward the doll. His youngest child wore an aluminum foil
crown and carried a box of gifts. The child felt it was necessary to explain herself and her
mission. "I'm all three wise men,” she said proudly, “I bring precious gifts: gold, circumstance
and mud!” She down scaled the gifts considerably, but she makes a point, and that is that they
brought very earthly gifts.
God sent His Son into a physical world in a physical body, and He was going to need physical
resources to survive. So, though the gold, frankincense and myrrh were not their only gifts, and
probably not even the most costly, they were precious, and they provided for Jesus, Joseph and
Mary in Egypt until they could return to Israel.
There is no need to try to be super spiritual about everything, and pretend the physical is not
important. If it wasn't, God could have just sent the angels with a vision, or the star to hang
forever in the sky as a spiritual witness, and forget the incarnation. His gift was physical because
God made the physical, and it was the physical people who needed saving. The gold,
frankincense and myrrh are a vital part of the story, for they focus on the reality of the
incarnation and the earthly. We are dealing with real life here, and life as we live it everyday. It
is a life where we all need physical resources to make it. God became physical that we might see
His compassion and love. The Old Testament told us that God loves us, but Christmas is God
showing us by the greatest physical evidence. The babe of Bethlehem makes us able to look at
God as a loving heavenly Father. He gave us a physical image of Himself in Jesus who is the
express image of the Father. It was physical gift of His greatest possession, and in such a form as
to eliminate all fears, for it was a baby, and we can all appreciate a baby without fear.
There is no escape from the reality of the preciousness of the physical to God. That is why this
physical gift of the wise men is also precious. We need the physical for pleasure and security as
well as for necessities. Jesus in human flesh needed physical gifts for His survival and for His
pleasure and ministry. All His life Jesus depended on others. In His three years of ministry the
gifts of possessions were crucial for all He did for man. The disciples shared their wealth, as did
the many women who followed Him. From His birth to His death Jesus needed gifts. Even after
His death He needed the gift of a tomb to house His body until the resurrection. The giving of
God's people all through history has been a vital part of God's plan to take the good news of His
love, and His gift of a Savior into all the world. God, the supreme giver, has given us the privilege
of being partners with Him in giving the message of Christmas to a lost world.
We are not mere passive receivers of His gift, but active givers through whom God continues to
give His best to all who need a Savior, and that means all. Christmas is a time for giving. We
respond to giving by giving, and God is the greatest giver, and our response is to be giving Him
our persons, our persistence and our possessions.
Christmas is for giving
And for showing that we care,
For honoring the Christ Child
With the loving gifts we share.
The wise men gave of riches;
The shepherds, faith and love.

15. Each gift, in its own measure,
Was smiled on from above.
Let every gift be treasured;

16. ot always size or price
Determines the extent of love
And willing sacrifice
Handsome gifts with festive trim
Bring smiles of sweet content,
But modest gifts of humble means
are ofttimes heaven sent.
Whether it be large or small,
Each gift will share in part
The message of true Christmas joy
If given from the heart!
(Written by Iris W. Bray)