The Gifts of Christmas

Category: Special Seasons
Key Passage: Matthew 2:1-12
Date: January 3, 2023

Wise men, these magi, they traveled around 1,000 miles. It took them a long time to get there. Jesus was a touch older. He wasn’t a newborn when the wise men made it there, but they brought gifts. I am not going to have you turn. I am sure the men will probably have a turn there, so I will not have you turn there, but they brought these gifts.

They presented them to him. In our world, in our day and time, we give so much honor and applause to people who really have not done that much for humanity. Sports players—and I love sports—but they have not really done for humanity. They have made millions of dollars. Same thing with actors and singers for the vast majority. They have not given to humanity; they have taken. I am not saying it is bad, but I am just saying that is reality. But we think they are everything.

Yet Jesus came. He left heaven and came to a sin-cursed world. He had made it perfect in the first place, so we messed it up with sin. Yet he came to this sin-cursed world and lived on this earth for 33 years. He went through every problem you can dream of. I was talking to my family. We were just sitting around before we opened gifts, talking about Jesus.

I think Jesus had major family problems: his half brothers, half sister. Once Jesus was 12, as far as you on earth, Joseph is never mentioned, his stepfather. I think there were some issues between him and his mom, to be honest with you. Just every problem in the world, Jesus went through it. Sometimes you ever feel like a cloud is following you and it is raining on you? Jesus had that continually, if you will. Yet he never sinned.

He went to the old rugged cross and he shed his blood for you so you can have a home in heaven. If anyone is worthy of us presenting our gifts to, if anyone is, it is Jesus. He is our Creator. He is our Savior. He is our Sustainer. Every good gift you ever have or ever will have came by the way of Jesus. Because we are all sinners, there is no mercy. We deserve justice. So all our gifts, really, we ought to give them to Jesus.

These men are going to come; they are going to talk about these gifts that they gave to Jesus. Brother Josh Smith, he is first on the docket. He is ready to go. He is going to talk about gold. I am looking forward to that. Then Brother Bill is going to talk about frankincense. I have studied and I forget a lot. I am looking forward to learning, you know. I think it is his first time as far as preaching, and so I am excited about that. Then Brother Patrick—Patrick, Patrick—works at a youth center. He is going to talk about myrrh and the significance there, all three of these gifts. Once Brother Josh comes up and he finishes, then Brother Bill just comes around all up, and then I will come to the end.

I appreciate these men, and I love the hunger of some of our people just to be used by God. It is wonderful. Praise the Lord forward. I am so thankful for men and ladies like that in our church. They are going to come preach for us. Let us give them a warm Rutherford County Baptist welcome as they come. Would you please?

If you could all, please turn your Bible to Matthew 2. I am going to start reading Matthew 2:1. Once you have found it, if you can please stand with me in reverence to the word.

Matthew 2, chapter 1. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born the King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

If you could jump down to verse 11, actually verse 10. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and fell down and worshipped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.

When the pastor asked me to come speak on Christmas night—so I am a little nervous. It is not Christmas night anymore. He said we are going to be talking about the gifts that Jesus received. I was like, oh, I do not know where to go with that. I do not know much about them. Then he said, well, I will give you the gift of gold. I was like, all right, that is an easy one. We all know about gold. We all know that gold has been given to kings and to people for ages. We know that gold was given to the children of Israel when they escaped Egypt. We know it was used in the Ark of the Covenant. We know that it was used in the temple that Solomon built for the Lord.

It says that David gave him 100,000 talents of gold. One hundred thousand talents. What is a talent? I did not know. So I looked it up. One talent weighs—excuse me—is approximately 75 pounds. One talent is approximately 75 pounds. When you do all the math, that is about 7.5 million pounds of gold. Imagine opening that up Christmas morning, I tell you. That translates out to about 3,400 tons of gold. For fun reference, Fort Knox has approximately 4,500 tons of gold. So 3,400 tons of gold were used in the temple.

Gold is a timeless gift. It has been given to kings and loved ones for many years. The pastor always tells us you should look up a word when is the first time it was used in the Bible. It is actually used in Genesis 2:11. So the second book, second chapter of the Bible, first book. The name of the first is Pishon, and that is which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. There is bdellium and the onyx stone. He is talking about the rivers, the four rivers that were split off from Eden. And the first thing he mentions is gold. So God knew gold was going to be valuable to us for ages.

The last time it is mentioned is Revelation 21:21. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. God understood the significance of gold to us. God understood that we were going to use gold for all time as a method of preciousness. It is mentioned 417 times throughout the entire Bible—more than any other metal, more than any other stone, more than anything else that we hold precious. Gold is mentioned throughout the Bible. To me, that says something. Gold is important, not just to us, but God knew that gold was going to be important, so he talked about gold. He knew it was going to be a gift given to a Son. He knew that it was going to be exceedingly valuable.

The other thing that I thought about, and this was just kind of a side note, was what I read earlier in verse 2 of Matthew 2, saying, “Where is he that was born King of the Jews?” He was not born Prince of the Jews. He was not born one day to be king. He was not selected by committee. He was not voted into the office. He was born the King of the Jews. I do not know any other time in history that someone was born as a king, worthy of worship, worthy of kingly gifts, worthy of love.

We know that it took approximately two years, the pastor told us, for the wise men to come. We know that he was a small child, and these men left—well, I do not know what that was—left Egypt, or left the east, traveled to come worship the King of the Jews. They brought their gifts. They had struck out on faith. They struck out not knowing what they were going to find. They went to the logical place: Jerusalem. That is where all kings should go, right? He was not there. He was in Bethlehem. They went on; they worshipped him.

But then I thought, you and I one day will also come before the King. You and I one day will one day bring our gifts, our lives, to the King. How can we compare gold to us? Gold is an inanimate object. What comparison could we as humans have to gold? I thought about that, I prayed about that, read some of the Bible, read some other stuff, and said, you know what? There is a lot—there is a lot of comparisons we can make between us and gold.

First one is gold cannot be made by man. Gold was created by God. It has been here since the beginning. We read that in Genesis 2. Gold has always been—man can create fake gold. They can kind of change lead. We all know about that throughout the ages. But gold itself is only created by God. Just like us. We are created by God. We are created in His image. We were made perfect by Him. We did fall. But man, we try to replicate what God has done. And guess what? We mess it up every time. It is fake. It is not real. It looks good on the outside, but on the inside, we are just messed up. Man cannot create gold.

Second, man cannot make pure gold. The purest that man can make is 99.9% pure. 99.999%. After all the different methods, all the different putting it through acid and heat and everything else, we are not pure. Only Jesus’ blood, only His shedding of His blood for our sins, will make us pure when we get to heaven. Only that is the only way we can do it. We may try, but we will fail every single time. You can live, you can try to live well, you can do good deeds, you can do all the self-help and acts of kindness you want. It is Christmas. We see everyone out there with their bells and the little red kettles. We see people saying, give your time, give this. And that is all great, but it is not going to open the doors of heaven for you. You are not going to be able to stride down those streets of gold unless you accept that gift that He died for your sins.

Next thing, it is purified in heat. It goes through sometimes furnaces that are over 1,000 degrees. One thousand degrees. That is awfully hot. I know it is cold out there, 1,000 degrees might sound kind of good this morning, but it is not. It is really hot, all right? We, too, go through trials to be purified. We too go through so many different things throughout the day, throughout our lives, to try to get through to the other side. You stop and think and go, well, if I am going through a trial and we are struggling and you are like, I just do not know what to do, and it is hot, and you are like these fires, these trials—what do I do? You have two choices. First choice: You can do what man does and mess it all up. You say, eh, I will figure it out. I will try on my own. I will just—I will complain and I will worry and I will stress.

Or, and this is what it has taken me 40-something years to figure out, you can be like three little Hebrew boys that were put into a furnace. And they said, God, you are going to help me through this. God, you are there. I cannot do it on my own. Jesus came into that furnace with them, and He helped them through. He made them stronger. He purified them. He took them to the next level. As it says in 1 Corinthians 10:13, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” Sometimes that escape is not easy to see, but if you pray, Jesus will show you that escape. He will be in that furnace. He will walk through that trial with you, and He will help you get to the other side.

I think of the story that many of us sometimes hear of the man that falls in the pit. He is down there and he is calling out, “Help, help, help!” And everyone is walking by and just going on, and then his friend jumps into the pit with him. He goes, “Why did you do that? Now we are both stuck in the pit.” And the guy goes, “Yeah, but I have been here before. I know how to get to the other side.” Jesus knows how to get to the other side for us.

Finally—now I am going probably a little quick—finally, gold can be reshaped and reused. Fifty percent of all gold that is used today is for jewelry. When the craftsmen want something different, it was recycled and made new. How it started out is not how it might end up. Just like gold, we are reshaped by those trials. We are reshaped by that heat, those—those things that we go through, and they shape us. They shape us either as what man wants us to be—not very pretty on the inside, maybe nice on the outside, but not very pretty on the inside—or we can be reshaped into what God wants us to be.

I think of me personally, I have gone through many different things, and honestly for a long time, I did not do it right. I did not surrender and say, God, what do you want me to be? How do you want me to go through this conflict? How do you want me to get through to the other side? How can you guide me? And I know that I am not the same man that started coming here a little over three years ago. I know through different things I have changed. I know that God has worked on my heart, and I am what I am now. I am standing here on Christmas morning, trying my best to get out a message.

Romans 12, verses 1 and 2: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service: And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Much like we learned in Brother Dumpford’s class at the Institute, it all starts with the new heart, having a heart for the Lord, being willing to be transformed and used in the way He wants you to be used.

Proverbs 3:5 and 6: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” Ask yourself in everything you do, what would Jesus do? This could be your first step to letting Him craft you into something beautiful and using all your gifts to honor Him and live the life He wants you to live.

In conclusion, when we stop and think and realize one day we will be presenting ourselves to the King, it can be a humbling thought. 2 Corinthians 5:10: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.”

Those magi struck out into the unknown, not sure what they would find. They had the prophecies handed down from Daniel through the years, and they trusted them to seek out the King of the Jews. They did not know where they would find Him, but they knew they had to. They sought Him only to worship and give gifts to Him and honor Him.

One day, we will be presenting ourselves to Jesus. Everyone in this room will be presenting themselves to Jesus. Will we be able to present ourselves like pure gold, purified by His blood, surviving the trials of life with His help, always glorifying Him, and crafted as His final masterpiece for our life? Or will we still be a lump, not formed, not tested, not purified, made of lead to look pretty to the world, but not being what we would have been, destined only for the lake of fire for eternity? This is what my thoughts, my studying into gold led me to. And I had no idea that gold was mentioned so much in the Bible, but I would implore you today: be gold. Let the Lord work on your lives. Let the Lord guide you. Let the Lord stand by you in trials so that you can be formed into what He wants you to be at the end—a beautiful masterpiece, ready to worship Him forever.

If you would turn in your Bibles with me to John, John chapter 19: Myrrh. When the pastor asked me to do a message and a lesson on myrrh, I had already studied it out some because we had gone through the gifts of the wise men with the teenagers the past few weeks, and so I kind of knew where I wanted to go a little bit already. But then the pastor also gave us a book by John R. Rice about the different gifts of Christmas. And I am like, you know what? I am going to read that. I am going to see, you know, maybe I missed something or whatever. And God really showed me just how important myrrh was.

As the other gifts we have already mentioned—gold representing Christ as King and frankincense representing Christ’s purity and Christ’s deity—myrrh represents Christ’s death. We are going to read in John chapter 19. We are going to start in verse number 38. John 19:38. To set a little bit of a backstory, this is the crucifixion. Up to this point, Jesus has gone through the majority of the crucifixion, and at this point, Christ has died on the cross.

Verse number 38: “And after this Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave: and he came therefore, and took the body of Jesus.” And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.

Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There they laid Jesus therefore because of the Jews’ preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand. It goes on to talk about the resurrection of Christ. But the myrrh—you see, when the wise men brought these gifts to Jesus, they were showing His kinghood. They were showing His deity, but they were also showing His death.

Something that I never really thought about before was there were kings born before. Like Brother Josh said, there really was not anybody born as a king at birth, but there were kings born before. David was born. There were all these other kings born. You see, there were a lot of other kings born, and at the same time, deity—God had come down to be with man before. In the Old Testament, He came down and dwelt in the tabernacle, as it was already said. God also came down to Mount Sinai. God came down, and that was a time of trembling. That was a time of fear. God gave a lot of “thou shalt nots.” God at that time delivered condemnation. He delivered, “You must follow this law.”

But see, Jesus came down differently when he came down as deity. But one of the biggest things that I really saw when I was studying this out is Jesus did not just come down as King. Jesus did not only—and I do not say “only” to be irreverent—but Jesus did not only come down as God. God had come down before. But Jesus came as Savior. Jesus came to die. The choir sung it beautifully this morning, born to die.

You see, the myrrh that was brought to Jesus represented His death, His eventual burial, as we just read, and His resurrection. Had Jesus not come to die, we very well would not be here this morning. If Jesus did not come as Savior, as well as King and God, there would be no Christmas to celebrate.

You see, up to that point in history, and ever since, there has never been another Savior born. There never will be another Savior born. You look at—Brother Bill mentioned them—some of the other people that other religions hold in high regard. Muhammad died. Muhammad was buried, and Muhammad is still buried. Buddha died, and Buddha was actually sent off in a funeral pyre, still dead. Joseph Smith died, still dead. If we did not serve a Savior, a risen Savior, there would be no reason for us to be here this morning.

You see, the myrrh represented a Savior. And really, I keep saying that because that is really what has stuck in my mind when studying this, when reading about it, is Jesus is our Savior. He is not just the reason for the season that we are in; He is the reason for every season of life. He is the reason for everything that we do.

Throughout all this study, throughout all this reading, I have come to realize that myself, and I think oftentimes Christians as a whole, we put a big emphasis on Jesus and on Jesus’ birth around Christmas, on Jesus’ death around Easter. But the rest of the year, we might share the gospel, but we do not emphasize it. The rest of the year, we might hand somebody a tract, but we do not share on social media about it. On Christmas, we will share this thing that says, “Jesus is the reason for the season.” On Easter, we will share a post that says, “He has risen,” and those are great to talk about at that time, but why do we not talk about that more?

You see, when Jesus came to die, He did not just come to die. He came to suffer. He came to not just die an average death; He came to die a brutal death. He came to hang on a cross, one of the most brutal ways that they had to kill somebody at the time. He came to suffer torments. He came, as it was read, to suffer through all of the temptation that we suffer through. He came to hang on that cross to atone for my sin, to atone for your sin. We could not atone for our own sin. There is not a thing that we could do to be good enough to atone for our own sin.

Christ set aside—the pastor said at the beginning—Christ set aside His throne in heaven temporarily to come down to this sin-ridden world. If you lived somewhere that was perfect, where everybody worshipped you—I mean, Jesus is God. He is God. He is worshipped in heaven. And He set all that aside to come down to not even be accepted among His own people. He set all that aside. Jesus could have chosen and did choose any family in history to be born into, any place in history to be born into. And Jesus was not born into a palace. Jesus was not born into anywhere with pomp and circumstance. No. Jesus was born in a manger in a stable because they could not even find a room. His birth reflected His death and humbleness and humility.

And I just cannot get over that. I cannot get over the fact that myrrh represents His death as Savior. He died for me. I do not deserve it. Nobody does. He died for me. He died for you. And we talk about it a lot at Easter. We talk about it a lot at Christmas, but I just—God has really gotten all over me that we just do not—I just do not reference it nearly enough throughout the rest of the year.

You see, Jesus came to die on that cross so that way we could forever live with Him. That is a lot of love. That is a lot of love. Think of how much love you have for somebody down here. Would you go through everything that Jesus went through for that person? Maybe we would say yes for certain people, but surely not for everybody in this room. We love each other as a church, but I am sure that not every single person in this room would say that I would be tortured and I would hang on a cross for them, but Jesus did it for the people that spit in His face. He died so we could live with Him forever.

He hung on that cross so we could live with Him forever. His birth pointed to His death when they gave Him the myrrh when He was just a few years old. If you remember anything from this, remember that. Remember that from His birth, it pointed to His death, and without His death, Jesus did not pay for our sin. His death and His shedding of blood is what paid for our sin. The Bible says without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.

Jesus had to die for us to be able to be saved. He could have lived a perfect life and had Jesus just gone back into heaven; our sin would not have been atoned for. Jesus could have come down and taken His position as King. Had He not died, our sin would not have been paid for. Myrrh: the death of Christ, pointing to the resurrection of Christ, because the resurrection is what makes Christ different. Like I said, all these other people have already died. They are buried. They are going to stay there. They are not going to come up. And even studying out Muhammad, they say that Muhammad is going to be raised up at the judgment day with everybody else. Well, that does not make Muhammad any more different than you or me. Sure, he is going to be raised, but so is everybody else. What makes that different? Oh, Jesus was raised from the dead three days after He died to pay for your sin and mine.

I just—I hope that going into 2023 and beyond, I can keep that in the forefront of my mind. I can make that a bigger part of my life going into the next year. If we can remember that, I think that we will share the gospel more. We will talk about the gospel more. We will share the good news more. And that is really what it is all about.

Original File: The Gifts of Christmas - Sunday AM 12252022

# The Gifts of Christmas

The Gifts of Christmas