"The First Christmas Gift "

Hi there, this is Lon Solomon and I'd like to welcome you to our program today. You know it's a tremendous honor that God has given us to be on stations all around the nation bringing the truth of God's word as it is uncompromising and straightforward. And I'm so glad you've tuned in to listen and be part of that. Thanks again for your support and your generosity that keeps us on the radio and now let's get to the word of God. USA Today did a survey recently asking Americans when they finish their Christmas shopping.

I thought you might be interested in the results and even if you aren't, here they are anyway. 30% of Americans say that they finish their Christmas shopping at least two weeks prior to December 25th. Then 37% more Americans say they finish somewhere in between December 12th and December 23rd.

And then there's the rest of us. 28% of whom don't finish our Christmas shopping until December 24th and finally there is the last 5% who said that they finish their shopping on Christmas day. And I thought where?

At 7-11? Where do you shop on Christmas day? Well you know it's wonderful to receive gifts at Christmas and give gifts at Christmas and today I want to talk to you about the very first Christmas gift ever given. About the original Christmas gift and we learn about this Christmas gift in one of the most famous verses in the Bible. In fact it's a verse from the Bible that you'll see hanging in the end zone of just about every NFL stadium. And here's what the verse says. It says, for God so loved the world that he gave his one of a kind son so that whoever believes in him, the son, shall not perish but shall have eternal life. Now this verse is the closest thing I know to an executive summary of the Bible and it explains for us the very first Christmas gift ever given. God's original Christmas gift and there are four great truths in this verse about that Christmas gift that I want us to focus on today. So here we go, truth number one.

For God so loved the world. My wife Brenda and I have been married 30 years this past year and you know when we first got married I had to learn a whole new way of communicating. A whole new language if you would. Now that new language is all based around the question, how do you feel about and then Brenda fills in the blank. Now anything can go in that blank.

Anything. But it always starts with the very same beginning, how do you feel about this, that or the other thing. Now this was a language I did not know how to speak when I got married.

In fact it's a language I'm still not real good at 30 years later. But let's turn that around and ask that very same question of God. God, how do you feel about the human race? How do you feel about people and the world down here if we were to ask God that question, what do you think God would say? Well there's a lot of people in our world who frankly would be surprised if God had anything to say in response to that question. So many people in our world have the idea that if God exists at all, He sits up there in heaven indifferent to our struggles, insulated from our pain, disconnected from our everyday life. For so many people in our world as far as they're concerned, when it comes to how God feels about the world, well in their opinion God's transmission is simply in neutral.

But friends that is not at all the picture that the Bible gives us. The Bible declares that God is not in neutral when it comes to how He feels about the world. God loves the world. The Bible tells us God is not in neutral when it comes to how He feels about you and me. God loves you and me. And God is not in neutral when it comes to how He feels about your neighbors, your co-workers, your relatives and your friends. God loves them all.

God loves the world. Perhaps I'm going to date myself with this, but one of my favorite TV shows of all time was named Kojak. It starred Telly Savalas as a tough New York City cop who always walked around with a tootsie roll pop wedged between his jaw and his gum, his teeth. And his favorite line everywhere he went was this, some of you will remember it.

You remember? Who loves you baby? Is what he would always say. And you know friends the truth is as you and I face the challenges of everyday life every moment of every day Almighty God is asking you and me a question. His question is who loves you baby?

And the answer is always the same. He does. God loves us. That's truth number one. In fact God loves us so much that God did something about it.

And that leads us to truth number two. For God so loved the world that He gave His one of a kind son. God loved you and me so much that He sent the best gift anybody could ever give another person, the very first Christmas gift, the original Christmas gift to a manger in Bethlehem, his one of a kind son Jesus Christ. The English phrase one of a kind is merely the translation of a single word in Greek, monogenes, which means literally unique or the only one of its type. And why does the Bible call Jesus Christ a unique being? Why does the Bible call him the only being of his kind? Well the apostle Paul answers that question in Colossians chapter one. There he gives us six characteristics that make Jesus Christ a unique being in the universe.

Let me tell you what they are. In Colossians 1 15 number one Jesus is the explainer of God to man. Verse 15 says he, Jesus Christ, is the visible image of the invisible God. You see you and I may not be able to see God. We may not be able to see God's heart with our naked eyes, but by observing Jesus we can know what God is like.

We can know what his heart is like. To put it another way, Jesus Christ is God's portrait painted on human canvas so we as people can understand what God is really like. Number two, Jesus Christ second of all is the creator of the universe and everything in it. Colossians 1 goes on to say, verse 16, by him all things were created, things in heaven and things on earth, visible and invisible, all things were created by him.

The Bible teaches without apology that this universe and everything in it came into being by the creative power of Jesus Christ. Number three, he is unique because third he is the owner of the universe. Verse 16 continues, all things were created by him, Jesus, and for him. What this verse is telling us is that Jesus owns the universe and the reason he owns it is because he made it.

Number four, fourth thing that makes him unique is that not only did he make the universe and not only does he own the universe, but fourth he sustains the universe that he made. Verse 17 says, in him, in Christ, all things hold together. All things stick together.

He is the one that keeps this world from flying apart and he does that every second of every day of every year of every century. You know, when I was in college a number of years ago at the University of North Carolina down in Chapel Hill, I was a chemistry major in undergraduate school and I discovered something very interesting as a chemistry major. I discovered that according to all the laws of chemistry and physics, the atom, the nucleus of the atom, should not stick together.

It ought to fly apart in every direction. And back when I was in college, if you had asked a professor of chemistry in my department, why does the nucleus of the atom stick together the way it does, they would have said to you, I don't know. Well now, since then we've discovered quarks. Quarks are subatomic particles that hold the nucleus of the atom together.

But in an article in the Denver Post about quarks, scientists admitted that they have no idea now what holds quarks together. Well I do. And you do too. It's because the Bible says, in him, all quarks hold together.

That's why. That's what the Bible says. And this is what makes him such a unique being. Number five, Jesus Christ is unique because he is God himself wrapped in human flesh. Colossians 1 continues, verse 19, for in him, that is Christ, all the fullness of God dwelled. Chapter two, for in him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.

Folks, I don't know how you can say it any clearer than that. Jesus Christ was a one of a kind being because he was Jehovah God himself wrapped in human flesh. And finally, number six, what makes him unique? Number six, he is the peacemaker between God and mankind. Colossians 1 20, through him, Christ. God was pleased to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.

And you know, this is really the reason Jesus came to the manger 2,000 years ago. He came, verse 20 says, to reconcile us to God. He came, verse 20 says, to make peace between us and a holy God. And he did this, verse 20 says, through his blood shed on the cross. Listen, it was not the teachings of Jesus or the example of Jesus or the miracles of Jesus or the healings of Jesus or the moral philosophies of Jesus that made peace between us and God. It was his death on the cross shedding his blood to pay for our sin.

That's what did it. And we've got to understand that the only location in the world where God offers peace, the only location in the world where God offers reconciliation, the only location in the world where God offers forgiveness to flawed and sinless human beings like you and me, is in Jesus Christ. That's why 1 Timothy 2 says, For there is one God and one mediator, one peacemaker between God and mankind, and that is Jesus Christ.

So let's summarize. Why does the Bible call Jesus a unique being, a one of a kind being? Well, number one, because he's God's perfect portrait to mankind. Number two, he's the creator of the universe. Number three, he's the owner of the universe. Number four, he's the sustainer of the universe. Number five, he is Jehovah God himself wrapped in human flesh. And number six, he is the one and only peacemaker between the holy God of the universe and sinful mankind.

Friend, there never has been and there never will be another being in the universe like Jesus Christ. And God loves you and me so much that he gave us this unique person as a gift at the very first Christmas. Now you say, well, Lon, that's wonderful, but what are we supposed to do with this gift?

Ah, well, that leads us to truth number three. For God so loved the world that he gave his one of a kind son, watch, here's truth three, that whoever believes in him, what does God want us to do with this gift? He wants us to believe in it. You know, back in February, I'm sure you're aware, The Passion by Mel Gibson came out. The Passion was the hottest movie to come out, the hottest Bible movie to come out anyway since 1956 when our good friend Charlton Heston schwacked Yul Brynner in the Ten Commandments. And USA Today wrote an interesting article marveling at why a culture such as ours, a postmodern secular culture, would have reacted so enthusiastically to a Bible movie like The Passion. And in that article, here's what one supposed expert said, and I quote, he said, it's emblematic of our society. We want so much to believe, but we can't figure out what to believe in in America.

Well, you know what? I'm here to tell you that God doesn't want us in that dilemma. He doesn't want us in that quagmire, so he tells us in the Bible exactly what we're supposed to believe in. He tells us we're to believe in Jesus Christ. Now, what exactly does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ? Well, the word that's translated believe here in Greek is the word pistuo.

Pistuo literally means to rely on, to cling to, to depend on. What the Bible is telling us is that in asking us to believe in Jesus, God is not asking us simply to accept the fact intellectually that Jesus lived, that he walked around, that he taught, that he gave some sermons, even that he died on the cross. That's not what God is asking. God is asking us to rely on, to cling to, to depend on Jesus Christ and what he did for us on the cross, shedding his blood as our payment for sin, to rely on that and cling to that as our only hope of eternal life and our only hope of getting into heaven. He's calling on us conversely to stop relying on our own good works, our own human effort, our own religious activity and instead to transfer our trust 100% from our activity and our good works onto the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross as our payment for sin. That is what it means to believe in Jesus Christ. And when we agree to do this, God has a marvelous promise that he gives us. He said, truth number four in this verse, for God so loved the world that he sent his one of a kind son that whoever believes in him, watch, here's the promise, shall not perish but shall have eternal life. Now I love the fact that in the Bible God lays our options out for us very clearly when it comes to eternity.

That's a good thing. And God tells us that when it comes to eternity, we have two options. Option number one, this verse says, is we can perish forever. And option number two is we can have eternal life.

Friends, that's it. Folks, there's nothing in between. Those are our two options. And it's the second option, eternal life, that God dramatically wants to give us, that he's dying to give us. That's why he sent Jesus Christ to this earth. That's why Jesus gave his life on the cross to make a way for you and me to have eternal life that doesn't cost us a thing that is so simple that even a child can do it. And when we do it, here's the promise of God, we will not perish. That's God's promise.

But we will have eternal life. And let me tell you the best thing about this deal. The best thing about it is notice to whom it's offered.

It is offered to whoever, that whoever would believe. Folks, it doesn't matter what you've done, how you've lived, what you've said or how rotten you've been. I mean, look at me. Thirty-five years ago as a senior in college, I had smoked dope, sold dope, smuggled dope in from Europe, dropped LSD so many times I forgot how many. I had lied, cheated, shoplifted, stolen money, drunk myself into a stupor more times than I can even remember. I'd slept with way too many women. One was too many and I'd slept with a lot more than that. And I'd even gotten my girlfriend pregnant and then forced her to have an abortion.

I did that. Hey listen, next to me, Howard Stern looks like a saint. You understand what I'm saying? And yet thirty-five years ago, God's offer here in John 3.16 applied to me. It was open to me and you know why? Because I fall in the category of whoever. And today, you know, and back then, you know what, I didn't have to clean up, I didn't have to dress up, I didn't have to wash up, I didn't have to straighten up and I didn't have to fix myself up. All I had to do was believe in Jesus Christ.

But today, let me just say that every one of you here is part of whoever. That same offer that was open to me is open to you. If you're living and breathing, that's your offer.

And friends, you don't have to clean up, dress up, wash up, straighten up or fix yourself up either. All you've got to do is do what I did thirty-five years ago. And that is transfer all of my trust onto Jesus Christ and off myself. And the deal happens.

The deal happens. When I was a child years ago, my dad had a weakness. His weakness was he would go out and buy stuff without telling my mom. Now you might not think that was a weakness, but my mom did.

And that was the important point. And he would come home having bought something and my mom would say to him, Why did you buy that? I don't understand. Why did you spend that money?

We don't really have that money to spend. And my dad had a favorite saying. I'll never forget it. He would stand there and look at my mom and he would always say, But how could I walk away from such a deal? Now I want to say to you, if you're here today and you've never asked Jesus Christ into your life to be your personal savior, my question to you is, how can you walk away from such a deal? I mean this deal offers you the greatest opportunity of your life. The opportunity to be forgiven for all your wrongdoings. The opportunity to be reconciled with the holy God of the universe. The opportunity for him to come in and make your life something that has richness and meaning and fulfillment.

The opportunity to escape eternal loss and instead to enjoy eternal life in heaven with God. What a deal. Why would anybody walk away from that deal? Well, I hope you're not going to walk away from it. Listen to the deal again.

For God so loved the world, you, me, that he gave his one of a kind son, so that anybody who would rely on that son and what he did on the cross for us, shall not perish but shall have eternal life. And I want to give you the opportunity right now before you leave today to grab this deal if you want it. So if you would bow your head with me please and close your eyes. And here's what we're going to do. If you're here today and you're ready to grab this deal, and I hope you are, then I'm going to pray a little prayer, one phrase at a time, out loud. You're going to pray it silently, right behind me, one phrase at a time.