Like
many of you, I sometimes struggle with what to buy for people when it’s their
birthday or for Christmas. There’s a feeling of accomplishment when you think
of that perfect gift to give to somebody.
But isn’t it disheartening when you forget
to buy someone a Christmas gift? Or if
somebody buys you a gift and they give it to you like a couple of days before
Christmas and then you’re left with a dilemma.
“Would it be tacky if I buy this
person a gift? Obviously, they’re going
to know that any gift I give to them is only because they bought me a
gift.” And we wonder what we’re going to do in that
situation.
Gift giving isn’t always easy.
Someone in my family used to always get me
something religious for my birthday and at Christmas. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with
religious things.
And yet, how many praying hands book ends
does a pastor need? Or how many bible
verse wall plaques are one too many? I
think I have every Chuck Swindoll and Max Lucado book that’s ever been
published.
And then we have the problem of buying for
someone who seems to have everything.
These are the people who tell you, “Oh,
you don’t need to get me anything.” They
think they’re being modest and polite, but it really just makes it that much
more difficult for you as the gift buyer.
It would be so much easier if that person would just say something like,
“You know, I could use another set of
praying hands.”
What do you get for someone who seems to
have everything?
And what can you and I possibly give to
God? Have you ever thought of that? What appropriate gift can we give since God
is the creator of everything there is?
About 1,000 years before the birth of
Jesus Christ, King David had a tremendous desire to give God a gift. He was living during a period of Israel’s
history where things have really settled down and the nation of Israel was at
peace with her enemies.
David was aware of God’s goodness and
love. And he wanted to express his gratitude
to God for all of these blessings. And
one day, he thought to himself, “What
would be a nice gift for God? What does
God need?”
As he looked around at his
beautiful house of cedar, the thought came to him that the Lord should have a
nice house like this. And so David
consulted the prophet Nathan that he wanted to build the Lord a Temple.
Nathan likes the thought of this, and
tells King David, “That’s a wonderful
idea. I suggest you begin working on
getting that gift idea right away.” But
there ends up being one important snag in this whole new home for God
idea. The Lord tells David and Nathan, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Why would the Lord turn down such a nice
gift? If you know the rest of the story,
it ended up being David’s son, Solomon who built the Lord a Temple. But why didn’t the Lord want it to be David?
Our scripture reading from II Samuel tells
us why. It was because the Lord still
had another very important gift to give to David. Instead of a house for the Lord, the Lord
wanted to give David a house, not a house of cedar which he already had, but a
house or a kingdom that would last forever.
How’s that for trading places?
The gift giver, David, becomes the gift receiver!
And this gift of an everlasting kingdom
was not only to bless David and his family, but was also a gift for the whole
world, because it would be through Jesus Christ, a descendent of David that
God’s kingdom would be established forever, a kingdom of God’s love, grace, and
righteousness.
David’s desire to build the Lord a Temple
was well meaning and from the heart. But
it didn’t come close to the gift that the Lord wanted to give David. It can be a struggle to think of what gifts
we might give to God, the God of all creation.
Many of us put an offering in every Sunday
morning. Does God want our financial
gifts?
Or maybe we attend worship and serve in a
ministry through our church. Wouldn’t
these be considered our gifts to God?
Does God want us to offer our time and our physical presence as gifts?
Well yes, but…
I heard a Christian once say, “You know, my wife and I follow the biblical
principle of tithing our income and giving it to the church. Since we both make decent incomes, that check
to the church each week is a pretty big chunk of money. Ten percent of our income is bigger than our
car payments and we have nice cars.”
And then he went on to say, “But when I stop to think of who God is and
how Jesus Christ has changed my life, it makes my check to the church look so
puny in comparison.”
I think this person is on to
something. Our gifts to God and the
church are meant to be expressions of our gratitude for all that God has done. Our gifts to God and the church are never
meant to earn God’s favor or to pay back what God has done for us. We can never do that.
When we put our offering in the plate, I
often feel like the man who, in a hurry to go to the church picnic, quickly
grabbed a bologna sandwich and ran out the door. Each family was asked to bring their own food
to eat. The man with the bologna
sandwich sat next near a family who had this incredible spread of fried
chicken, potato salad, and apple pie.
And here, this man sat with this meager
bologna sandwich all by himself. The
family, noticing this man sitting by himself said, “Hey would it be ok if you share your sandwich with us and we’ll share
our food with you?” This man came
with a bologna sandwich, and received so much more.
On a beautiful fall day, just about the time
when the leaves were finally beginning to turn colors, I went for a run on the
bike path. It was a memorable autumn day
with blue skies and sun rays shining
through the leaves of the trees.
It was just one of those moments that I’m
sure you have experienced as well, where you just say to yourself, “God is so unmistakingly present in this
moment.” And as I was running, I
couldn’t help but to think of how God is so gracious to us.
What gift could I give to God in that
moment as I was taking in God’s beautiful creation? I smiled as I thought about the absurdity of
trying to write a personal check to the church as I was running, even though
it’s what I felt like doing in that moment to show my appreciation to God.
I even thought about the impossibility of
signing up to serve in a ministry area as I ran on the bike path, but I usually
don’t carry a church commitment form with me when I work-out. After I was done humoring myself, a more
serious thought came to me.
There was really only one thing that I
could realistically do as I ran through that splendid display of God’s
beauty. I whispered some psalms of
praise to this wonderful God who blesses us again and again and overwhelms us
with his grace even when all that we have is the sweat on our brow and our
running clothes.
Bob Buford, the author of a best-selling
book, Half Time, tells the story of receiving a phone call from his
brother, Jeff on the evening of January 1987.
His brother called him to let him know that Bob’s son, Ross, along with
two of Ross’s friends had attempted to swim the Rio Grande River.
“I think we have serious trouble,” Jeff told him in a voice that meant it. “Ross
is missing in the Rio Grande.” He
told him that the Texas Rangers were coordinating the search for Ross.
And so Bob flew down to the Rio Grande
Valley to join in the search, arriving by daybreak the next morning. Bob, a very wealthy man hired airplanes,
helicopters, boats, trackers with dogs, anything money could buy.
By three o’clock in the afternoon, Bob
looked into the eyes of one of the trackers and knew that he would never see
Ross again in his life. He remembers
walking along limestone bluff perhaps two hundred feet above the muddy and
treacherous river, as frightened as he has ever felt.
He thought to himself, “Here’s something you can’t dream your way
out of. Here’s something you can’t think
your way out of, buy your way out of, or work your way out of. This is,” he
thought, “something you can only trust
your way out of.”
And then he prayed, “Dear God, somehow, give me the ability to accept and absorb whatever
grace people might bring to me at this terrible time. Amen.”
As the search for Ross continued, God’s
grace surrounded Bob. The search team
ended up finding his son four months later about ten miles down-river.
As horrifying and sad as this experience
was, Bob also experienced the gift of God’s grace and in ways that he had never
experienced before. Close and silent
embraces from friends, letter and phone calls of concern and empathy, and gifts
of meals prepared and brought to his home were much-needed signs of God’s love.
In that moment when Bob was at a loss for
what to do, God’s gift of grace is what got him through that very tragic time in
his life. Even with all of his wealth
and fortune, that was nothing in comparison to the gift that God provided Bob
and his family in their darkest hour.
God offers us gifts that money can’t buy;
gifts of forgiveness, grace, guidance, comfort, love, beauty, and
salvation. Like David, we offer to build
God a house. We bring our offerings and
the best that we have, even if it’s only a bologna sandwich.
We bring it all to God. And he gives us so much more. David teaches us that you just can’t out-give
God.
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