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The Gift of the One and Only
John 3:16-17
The Gift of Christmas
December 24, 2002
Has anybody been shopping lately? Oh, I guess with Christmas, most have been to a store in the last month. It’s amazing—aisle after aisle of STUFF to buy, and lots of it. And in the Belden Village area, there is street after street of stores from which to buy all this STUFF. And within 20 miles of here, there are more and more shopping areas just like this from which to buy!
How many stores do you think exist in Stark and Summit Counties? And they keep building them! And they all sell pretty much the same stuff—you can go to Target and Best Buy and Wal Mart and Kohls and Penny’s and Dillards…and buy pretty much the same mass-produced stuff.
Amazing.
And then there are some specialty shops—places where you can buy truly unique, hand-crafted gifts. But most of the time, these gifts are still mass-produced by hand. Even when you buy a painting, you are buying a mass-produced reproduction. Thomas Kinkade paintings have that number written on them, indicating that the painting you have bought is number 197 of 750 produced.
But then there are those who are so wealthy that they can actually afford to buy one-of-a-kind items for people. They can buy original artwork, or rare jewels, or ancient artifacts. These items are one-and-only items, and thus are extremely expensive.
Imagine that someone loves you so much that they gave you a one-of-a-kind item. You would hold it gently in your hand, you would treat it like nothing else you own. You would place it in a prominent place for display, for everyone to see. You would tell people about the generosity and love of the one who gave you this gift. And when people would question the motivation of your benefactor, you would let them know that they are wrong about his heart, and that he is wonderful and giving—simply because he is loving.
Our series has been called “The Gift of Christmas,” and here on Christmas Eve, we will look at what, or rather
who, the Gift of Christmas is.
John’s chapter 3, verses 16 and 17 tell us.
“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.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
Like that one-of-a-kind precious Christmas Gift that you cannot buy at Target or any other chain store, God offers the one-of-a-kind gift of his Son. That was the first and the ultimate Christmas Gift.
1. The Gift of Christmas shows that God loves you so much that they gave you a one-of-a-kind gift.
“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)
Those first four words need to be repeated. “For God so loved.”
The only motivation here is love.
We sometimes think that God must hate us for all our sins. But that is not what the Bible teaches!
“God so loved the world.” Not “God so hated the world.”
We have a poor understanding of the Trinity. Remember John 1? Jesus was not only with God in the beginning, he is and has always been God! That is what John 3:16 is saying. The work of Christ
is the work of God! It is God saving the world! It is God placing himself into the condition of humanity in order to bring about His loving purpose of redeeming people back to himself.
In other words, God loves you. And he shows it by giving— “God so loved the world that he
gave his one and only Son.”
There can be no doubt that God loves you because he has given the one-of-a-kind gift of Jesus Christ to the world. The Greek word translated in the New International Version “one and only” is
monogenes. It means, literally, “of a single kind.”
The King James mistranslated it as “only begotten,” which gets this traditional translation from Jerome’s Latin Vulgate more than from the original Greek language. But Jesus is the “one and only” not because he was born from God, but because he is God.
Since Jesus is the monogenes, he can say, “I and the Father are one” in John 10:30.
Since Jesus is the monogenes, John can write “We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
(John 1:14).
Jesus is unique over all creation because he stands over creation as God the creator himself! Jesus is unique because only Jesus has in himself the fullness of God’s glory, the fullness of God’s grace, the fullness of God’s truth.
And this “one and only” gift shows the love of God! As John would later write in his first letter,
“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:10).
God’s one-and-only gift is that of himself, dying on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins. The image of the manger of Christ should be seen alongside the image of the cross of Christ. For the gift is not just that Jesus arrived on earth, but for what reason he arrived on earth…and that was to die as an atoning sacrifice, to take the penalty for our sins upon himself as God.
NOW THAT IS A UNIQUE GIFT, for NOBODY BUT GOD can die to ATONE FOR MY SIN!
And if I believe this, I am given the great gift of eternal life.
“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)
2. Since The Gift of Christmas is a one-of-a-kind gift, we treat it as precious.
This is a one and only gift! If I receive a precious, one-of-a-kind gift, I treat it differently than a gift that anybody could pick up at Wal Mart.
a. We treat this gift like nothing else we have.
Some see Christians as weird since they are so passionate about this Jesus thing. But when we think about the Gift of Christmas, the one-and-only gift of Jesus, of course we would treat this gift like nothing else we have.
The word is “cherish.” We cherish the gift of Jesus. He is the greatest gift we have ever received. He is our greatest possession. Our relationship with Jesus is more important to us than anything else.
b. We place this gift in a prominent place for display, for everyone to see.
When we have a precious one-of-a-kind collector’s item like an original painting or sculpture, we place it on display for all our friends to see and enjoy as well.
So it is with Jesus. We put Jesus on display in our loving actions and words:
--In our seeking to serve others with the love of Christ.
--And in our seeking to help others hear the real meaning of Christmas so that they too can have the one-of-a-kind gift in their lives as well.
Some will call us too zealous, some will label us Jesus Freaks. Some will persecute us for our excitement and consistency in displaying the gift of Jesus for all to see. But when you receive such a precious gift, you place it in a prominent place—squarely in the middle of your life—and you allow everyone to see it!
c. We tell people about the generosity and love of the One who gave us this gift.
When people come over and see the one-and-only gift on display, they may ask, “Where did you get such a wonderful thing?” It is at that point that we do not point at ourselves as if we were somehow worthy of such a great gift, but rather point at the giver and his outrageous generosity.
You would even say, “You know, I did everything in my power to show Him hatred and scorn. I treated him poorly, turning my back on him time and time again. But you know what, He gave me this gift anyway! Isn’t that incredible?”
“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John
4:10).
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
(Romans 5:8)
d. And when people question the motivation of our benefactor, we gently let them know that they are wrong about His heart, and that He is wonderful and giving—simply because He is loving.
That is the message of John 3:16 and 17.
“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.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
Look there in verse 17 and realize that God is out to save the world with his love, not condemn the world with his wrath. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
This may be something new to you. Your assumption may be that God sent Christ to tell everybody that they are sinners and to condemn us to Hell for our sin. That is not the portrait of God painted by the Bible. God sent his Son Jesus Christ into a world already condemned in order to save the world through him.
This is an act of mercy, not an act of accusation.
This is an act of love, not an act of wrath.
This Christmas, we need to hear that we are loved.
God so loves you…
That he gave the greatest gift: His one and only Son…
So that, if you were to believe and trust your heart to this lover…
So that you would have eternal life with him forever.
This Christmas, God offers the one-and-only gift of Himself in His Son, Jesus Christ.
This Christmas, when you open all the gifts under your tree, do not forget to open the first and ultimate gift of Christmas, Jesus Christ.
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