December 23, 2010

Because of all the special services that will take place on December 24th, it's likely that the Scripture that we are going to consider here won't be heard in many, or even any of your churches. Nevertheless, this Lesson happens to serve as our Epistle Lesson for Christmas Eve.

"For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good." (Titus 2:11-14) (NIV 2010)

Maybe it's just the practicality in me, but the first thing that I do after I crack open and identify a Christmas gift that I am receiving, is to try and determine how I am going to use it, or what I am going to do with it. As mentioned a few devotions ago, just because it's cliche' doesn't make it in any less true - the greatest (Christmas) gift this world has ever seen is the gift God gave us - His Son Jesus Christ. "The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23) This Christmas, as we crack open God's Word and identify and ponder the Good Message of the Christmas story - that God loved us enough to give us what was most precious to Him - His Son, let's ask ourselves, now what? Let's determine how we are going to respond to receiving the greatest gift and what we are going to do with the greatest gift.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8) We have been purified and and redeemed and consequently by grace, and through faith, we have been given the gift of salvation. Now that we have our ticket to Salvation punched, we should be good to live and to do and to follow the world in doing what pleases ourselves - right? After all, after we sin, can't we just whip out our "salvation gift card" and use it to pay for those sins? As though we are going to somehow make God greater - as though the more we give in to worldly passions and ungodly living, the more merciful God will be and the more His grace will increase. "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! (Romans 6:1-2, 15) God didn't give us the blood of His Son to purify us, so that we can be free to dirty things up to whatever degree we please. No, God gave us the gift of Jesus, "to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good."

When we begin to identify and realize the magnitude of the gift that we have been given - when we begin to fully contemplate the fact that God gave us this gift, we will begin to realize that God did everything He did, as Luther put it in his explanation to the Second Article, "that I should be his own, and live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness." God gave us the gift so that we can be set apart as His own children - living lives in the world, but not being of the world. Our natural response to this gift will be to "just say no" to sin and to be "eager to do what is good." When we crack open the gift of God's Son, we will naturally want to find a way to say thanks. When we live "self controlled, upright and godly lives," in accordance with God's commands, we are expressing thanks, "This is love for God to obey His commands," (I John 5:3) and we can say thanks for the greatest gift ever, by living our life for Him - as He wants us to live.


And I have brought to thee down from my home above,
Salvation full and free, my pardon and my love.
Great gifts I brought for thee; come bring thy gifts to me.

Oh, let thy life be spent, thy years for me be giv'n,
as I for thee was sent to bear thee home to heav'n.
I gave my life for thee; come, give thy life to me. (CW 454: 5,6)


Our first natural response to receiving the Good News and the greatest gift, is to live as redeemed and purified people of God. What are we going to do with the gift? We are naturally going to be eager to do what is good. This message is made abundantly clear in this Epistle Lesson from Titus. But there's another response that's a little more hidden, but no less important. "For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people." The gift isn't offered to just a few select people - it's offered to all. "God our Savior, wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth," (I Timothy 2:4) or think of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) This gift is for all, but it only can be received through faith. "Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ." (Romans 10:17) The world needs the word of Christ. The world needs to hear the message. We have the message. Let's tell the world the message! In our society the idea of "re-gifting" carries with it a negative connotation. You re-gift when you receive something that you don't know what to do with - so you give it to someone else. We have received the gift of eternal life from our God and naturally we will want to re-gift it, but not because we have no use for it ourselves, rather because it's use in our lives is a necessity and we know that it's use in the lives of others is necessary for their salvation too. There's plenty of God's gift to go around - there's enough gift for all men in the whole world - let's get re-gifting. "But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!" (Romans 5:15) One of our natural responses to the gift of God - the Savior born in Bethlehem - is to re-gift the gift. To spread the Good News. To share the fact that God has offered salvation to all people.

We have received the greatest gift ever. This Christmas as we once again consider the fact that the gift of salvation in Christ Jesus our Lord is God's gift to us, we should consider how we will respond to receiving the gift. The gift of becoming one of God's redeemed and purified people, motivates us and causes us to naturally respond by being eager to do what is good. The gift also motivates us and causes us to naturally respond by not keeping quiet about the gift we have received. The gift that we have received can also be received by all people. Let's share and re-gift the Good News - the greatest Christmas gift ever - to all people starting with the "all people" that God has placed in our lives. These responses will please God and are our small way of simply saying thanks to God for the greatest gift ever - the gift of Jesus. "Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!" (2 Corinthians 9:15)