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A Season Of
Wonder
Open Your Heart’s Door To God’s Love For You
Revelation 3:20; John 3:16-17
Introduction: Love That Keeps On Giving
It’s
Christmas Eve—the most wonderful night of the year. On this night we celebrate,
like no other night of the year, the incredible gift of love God gave us—His
Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ. It’s hard in many ways to believe it’s already
Christmas Eve. Hopefully the intentional way many of us have been moving toward
Christmas this year has helped us to savor this season with new-found wonder
and amazing joy.
As
you gather together with family and friends there may be reasons for joy and
there may also be reasons for unavoidable pain. Those extremes remind us of
the very reason Jesus stepped into the world at our level. He came so we could
know that God knows and cares about the painful realities of our lives. For
some of you the pain may be especially intense this year. You are here tonight,
hoping against all hope, that God really does care and can help. I hope this
service of candles, carols, and scripture will be a sacred space in which
our loving, stable-born King will be pleased to enter and make His holy presence
known to you.
As you answer the knocks on your front door to greet
your guests this Christmas, I want to encourage you to listen for the one
knock you really don’t want to miss.
While there may be some family members who won’t be with you this year, there
is one guest who promises to show up every year. I'm referring to the Lord
Himself. Even though you can't see Him physically, He is there. He stands
at the door of your home on this, His birthday, hoping you'll invite Him in
to be part of your celebration. And He doesn't come empty-handed. He comes
with open arms and the assurance of the Father's everlasting love—not just
for tonight and tomorrow. His love, once cultivated in our hearts, grows and
grows. He comes with a love that keeps on giving.
Speaking
of love that keeps on giving, I recently read an article about a hunch-backed
Norwegian grandpa who arrived at the family Christmas celebration each year
laden with gifts and a kettle of lutefisk. Gunder Birkeland was a polio survivor
who had not been expected to live through childhood. Not only did he prove
his doctors wrong, he immigrated to America as a teenager. What's more, he
achieved financial success starting his own business. He was a model of perseverance
to his family.
Every
Christmas it was Mr. Birkeland's tradition to give a generous check to each
of his three children and nine grandchildren. It was also the time the mischievous
grandfather tried out his latest gadget or prank on some unsuspecting family
member. One Christmas, however, he was the one who was caught by surprise.
And what a surprise it was!
Attempting
to demonstrate gratitude for the endless expressions of his generosity, Mr.
Birkeland's son purchased a brand-spanking-new luxury car for his aging father
and hid it in the garage with a bright red bow wrapped around it. The expression
on Mr. Birkeland's wrinkled, mustached face was priceless as he pulled open
the garage door and saw the car. The author of the article went on to say,
"From that day on, every time the old man unlocked the door and sat down
behind the steering wheel of that new car, he was reminded of a family who
loved him so much that they gave him a gift beyond his wildest imagination.
It was a gift that kept on giving."
God Gives Us A Gift Beyond Our Wildest Imaginations
At Christmas we come to terms with the fact that in Jesus,
God the Father has given us what we never expected in our wildest imaginations.
It was a gift we never believed was even possible. The apostle Paul calls
it an indescribable gift. We don't deserve it. Never in a million years could
we have imagined such generosity. In Jesus, God has given us more than a Savior
(although that would have been enough). He has given us the gift of His abiding
presence. Because of His birth in a second-rate village in Palestine twenty
centuries ago, there is not a day that passes in our lives in which He is
not present. The door to eternity has been thrown wide open. We are no longer
separated from our Creator! And when you get right down to it that is why
a season of wonder is possible. Because Jesus entered our world, we are able
to enjoy a season of wonder as we open the door of our heart to God's love.
In C. S. Lewis's classic children's
fairytale, The Lion, the Witch, and
the Wardrobe, we are given a wonderful picture
of the loving God who came knocking at a stable in Bethlehem two millennia
ago. While on holiday, Lucy, Edmund, Peter, and Susan explore an old English
home in which they are guests. In the course of playing hide-and-seek, a rather
ordinary wardrobe, in which moth-balled coats are hung, becomes the entrance
to a curious kingdom. Through the open door to the wardrobe, the children
have immediate access to the Land of Narnia, where an evil queen has cast
a curse on a once beautiful kingdom. The children soon discover a frozen wasteland
where everything is monochromatic gray. Quite unlike the Creator's intended
purpose, Narnia is a land where it is always dead winter but never Christmas.
(Can you imagine anything worse for children? Always winter and never Christmas!)
But then something unexpected and magical
happens. It's a miracle. A lion by the name of Aslan enters the kingdom and
demonstrates his love for the land's inhabitants by offering his life for
them. The curse is removed. The queen is conquered. The spell is reversed.
It's Christmas again! And to add to the unexpected twist of fate, Aslan returns
to life.
Sound
like a familiar plot? In this timeless story, we are given a fanciful vocabulary
to describe what God has accomplished in sending His Son to us. Our world,
like that of the imaginary kingdom, is no longer a world in which it is always
winter but never Christmas. We live in a world that, because of Christmas,
anticipates an eternal springtime. Jesus has planted the seeds of hope! He
has unlocked the door forever.
God Knocks At The Door Of Your Heart
The
last book of the Bible is the written record of a series of visions the apostle
John had before he died in exile on an island in the Mediterranean Sea. In
the third chapter of Revelation, John describes what he sees: Jesus is standing
at the door that separates Him from those He loves and who love Him. Jesus
says,
"Here
I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the
door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." (Revelation 3:20)
Do
you hear love, acceptance, and forgiveness in those words? The one who stands
at the door is the Christ of Christmas. He is the proof that there is nothing
you have ever done that can separate you from the Father's love. And He knocks
at your heart's door this Christmas to remind you that it's true.
A
Christian artist in Chicago by the name of Warner Sallman painted a famous
picture illustrating this verse from Revelation. In Sallman's painting, Jesus
patiently stands at the door, waiting to be let in. The artist intentionally
painted the door without an exterior handle. For Jesus to come in, the door
must be opened from the inside.
When
we open the door, Jesus walks in as He said he would. Can you picture this?
As He enters, He is speaking these familiar words:
"For
God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes
in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send his
Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." (John 3:16-17)
That
was probably the very first Bible verse you ever committed to memory. It has
to be the most familiar passage of Scripture. But did you know that those
are the words of Jesus? Hear them tonight as if for the very first time in
your life. Because Jesus has entered our world, we are
able to enjoy a season of wonder as we open the door of our heart to God's
love.
And
remember, His love is a gift that keeps on giving. Because God entered our
world through the life of a tiny baby, He is present with us for good. Not
just for the good He brings, having died for our sins, but for good. Christmas means, in Jesus, that God
and His love entered our world once and for all. Not only is the door always
unlocked, but Jesus is always there at the door. That's what He told His disciples:
"I will never leave you or forsake you!"
Hear it! Believe it! Jesus gave us His word. Christmas is a gift that
keeps on giving. You are invited to more than a season of wonder. You are
invited to a wonder-filled life.
One
of the most notable hymns written by Isaac Watts celebrates the theology of
Jesus at the door. But it has been robbed of its primary meaning. Have I piqued
your interest? Good! Let me explain. Joy to the World
is almost exclusively sung as a Christmas carol. But Isaac Watts did not write
it just for Christmastime. He meant to write a hymn to be sung year round.
Listen to these very telling words:
Joy to the world! the Lord is come: let earth receive
her King;
Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.
Joy to the world! the Savior reigns; let men their songs employ,
While field and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, repeat the sounding joy.
No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.
He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove
The glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love.
Those
lyrics eloquently proclaim the reality that Christmas makes possible the continual
reigning presence of Immanuel. The Lord is come. The Savior reigns. He rules
the world. The song says nothing of his humble birth! And to think, we have
limited ourselves to singing this powerful hymn only a couple of Sundays a
year.
The Lord has come, once and for all. That is the ultimate
meaning of Christmas. God's love
so vividly seen in the face of a tiny Jewish baby is not limited to a manger
of hay with shepherds and angels and Magi mounted on camels coming from the
East. God's love continued to be displayed in the life of the One of humble
birth who grew to manhood. That love was demonstrated through His actions
and attitudes, His teaching and miracles, His forgiveness and humility. It
continues to be displayed as He makes His presence known in our traditions
and celebrations this week.
Open The Door Of Your Heart
Like
the children stepping through the wardrobe door into Narnia, I want to invite
you to step into the love story of Christmas. Then it will hit you: The story is not over, because Jesus is still
alive and at work in the world He came to save. Jesus is no longer a Christmas
baby. He is Easter's hero, alive and engaged in His world! He is the One who
stands at the door of your heart tonight, tomorrow, and through the year to
come.
Tonight,
more than any other night of the year, Jesus says to us, "Here
I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the
door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." He waits
for you to open the door. As you put your hand to doorknob inviting Jesus
to enter into your life, He will flood your life with His presence, love and
forgiveness.
Conclusion: A One-Of-A-Kind Gift
On
this most wonderful night of the year, I close with this story that perfectly
illustrates the love of God poured out for us through the gift of His Son.
Many
ripples followed a heavy splash, and then the water was still. An American
businessman stood on the pier and looked intently into the water of the Indian
Ocean. He strained to see his friend from India diving into the deep in search
of pearls. Soon the old Indian pearl diver shot through the surface, grinning
widely.
"This
will be a good one," said Rambhau, prying open the oyster shell.
"Wow,"
the businessman said, "it's perfect!"
"There
are better pearls, much better," asserted Rambhau as his voice trailed
off.
One
afternoon not long afterward, the businessman heard a knock at his door. It
was Rambhau, asking him to come to his house. At home, the aging diver brought
out a small, heavy strongbox. "I have had this box for years," he
said. He removed a carefully wrapped package and folded back its layers. Uncovering
a brilliant pearl, he placed it in the hands of his American friend. It was
beautiful; a truly perfect specimen. Rambhau explained that the pearl had
once belonged to his son, who was the best pearl diver in India. He had always
dreamed of finding such a pearl. When he did, it cost his life. "All
these years I have kept this pearl, and now I want to give this pearl to you,
because you are my best friend."
The
businessman objected, offering to at least buy the pearl. The old Indian was
stunned. "You don't understand, my friend. My only son gave his life
to get this pearl. I cannot sell it. But I want to give it to you because
of my love for you."
How
like our heavenly Father, who gave a one-of-a-kind gift, His Son, because
of His love for us.
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