The Gift of Christmas Pt. 1 - Pastor Greg Addison - December 14, 2025

Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.

You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.

Thank you for listening.

I want you to turn with me your Bibles to Luke chapter 2.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

In just a moment, we're going to talk about the gift of Christmas.

But I want to take just a moment and have a special word of prayer.

We have some young folks who've been attending our church, and they are in the YWAM missionary training program.

And this will be their last Sunday with us.

They've been attending a lot of Sundays with us while they've been here, and they're about to head off to their first assignment.

And so if you will, uh why don't y'all just wave?

I don't make any sense.

Wave it right there and tell them how much we love them, church family.

Great young folks called to missions, excited about what God is doing in their lives and about to head off.

So let's take a moment and pray for them if you'll if you'll join me.

Lord, we thank you for this group of young adults that you have called to missions.

Just as I got to sit down and hear each of their testimonies about how they were called to missions and felt that prompting and how they landed here in this training program.

Lord, I just thank you for what you're doing in their lives.

I thank you for their responsiveness to you and stepping out in faith to answer that call.

And so as they go out in just a short uh time to go uh uh to share the gospel, to go into a different culture, to go into a different language group, different people group, uh, go into places that are different than the places that they are from, all because they love you and because they love the gospel and they know it is the good news of salvation.

Lord, I pray that you will keep them safe.

I pray that you will bless them in their mission, give them great fruit to their work.

I pray that their time with their families before they get out of town, will uh get out of the country, will be a blessing and wonderful, and I pray you will send them out excited, strong, full of Jesus to go share the good news of salvation in his name.

Father, we pray this for them in Jesus' name and all God's people said.

Alright, let's uh we're gonna talk about Christmas here the next couple of weeks for obvious reasons because it's Christmas.

Uh, and we'll be going through a series here in December, the gifts of Christmas, the gift of Christmas, and that gift is Jesus and salvation through his name.

But every gift has to have a giver.

You know, there are certain elements to a gift.

There is the giver, there's the gift itself, someone paid the price for that gift, and then there is the person that receives that gift.

And so we're going to start this week with the giver and look at the gift from a heart of love.

So here's what the Bible tells us.

I'll just remind you of the Christmas event that happened in Luke chapter 2, and we'll just do a portion of it beginning in verse 4.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

And Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and the family line of David.

As you know, if you've reading the whole thing, they had declared a census and a tax, and everyone had to go to the city of their heritage and birth to be counted in the census.

And so that's what it's saying.

He is going back to the city of Bethlehem.

Why Bethlehem?

Because God had uh promised and prophesied that Bethlehem would be the place of the birth of the Messiah.

And while I'm there, just for a moment, I want to remind you again, man, we're excited about uh in January when we start the journey of studying Scripture uh in a chronological fashion.

And one of the things that really comes alive is as you run into Old Testament prophecies and you see the context in which they're made and fulfilled, like this one, it really deepens our understanding of Scripture.

So I just wanted to stop and give you that moment, get you excited about January the first.

We'll continue with the story.

To be registered along with Mary, who was engaged to him and was pregnant.

While they were there, the time came for her to give birth.

Then she gave birth to her firstborn son, and she wrapped him snugly in cloth.

You've heard it in, you know, King James Version, swaddling clothes, but she's wrapped him tightly, the way babies we still do that today.

Uh, and she wrapped him snugly in cloth and laid him in a feeding trough, because there was no room for them at the lodging place.

In that same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock.

Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

But the angel said to them, Don't be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

Today, a Savior who is the Messiah the Lord was born, and if you're just track with me here, right here, for you.

We're going to talk about the giver of a gift, but the angels are celebrating here that Jesus was born for them, for you in the city of David.

This will be a sign for you.

You will find the babe wrapped snugly in cloth and lying in a feeding trough.

Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly hosts with the angel praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people he favors.

And so there you have just the nutshell of that event of Jesus' birth, but you have celebrated the angels making it clear that Jesus was given for them.

He was born for them as the gift of God.

Now, here's the big truth for today that I want us to really think about this overarching truth that God gave us salvation.

He is the giver of salvation.

And it is incredible how often Scripture talks about salvation as a gift and as the gift of God.

John 3 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

In Romans chapter 5, the Bible says this God's love has been poured out in our hearts.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

Poured out in our hearts.

He is the God of love who gives.

Now here's kind of I want to connect this dot for us.

There are certain truths about givers.

If you think about what it means to be a giver, the character of a giver, I think it will help us attach to an even greater way an understanding of how much God loves us.

Now you think about when you give a gift to someone.

It's Christmas time, you're walking through the stores, or you're scrolling on Amazon, or whatever it is that you do, and you're thinking about this person, and you're seeing these gifts, and you have some people, you already found their gift.

You spotted it and you knew right away, man, that's awesome.

So-and-so's going to love that, and you're excited about giving it.

And then you have other people that are hard to give in your life.

It's difficult, and you're always trying to figure out what it is that you're trying to give them, but you love them and you want to do this to impact them.

And when you attach yourself with that thought process, you realize that you are giving a gift because you care about someone.

You're giving a gift because you love them.

You're considering them, your thoughts are on them.

And now we spent our weekend with our grandson.

Somebody coming in church today said, Hey bomber.

And that's the greatest name in the world.

I love being bomber, and so we got a chance to be with Killian this weekend.

And it's pretty amazing.

Pretty much everything in every store now, I think about how much it would bless Killian, my grandson.

I mean, he needs everything, doesn't he?

Don't your grandkids need everything?

Killian needs everything.

And everything I see, I know how to be a blessing to him.

Why?

Because we love him, right?

He's we love him.

And then you think the giver initiates the gift.

I mean, that's what you're doing.

You're the one giving the gift, you're the driving force behind that gift.

You want to initiate that and give it to them.

You you can't wait to give it to them.

You're excited to watch their faces when they open it and all of that.

As you give a gift, it's a thoughtful gift.

Now, one of the dumbest things in the world, I've always thought it was dumb, you go in some retail store and they have some pre-packaged like razor thing or wallet or some kind of a deal, and they're trying to make it easy for you to give a gift.

Well, that's just the lamest thing in the world, right?

Like, who's gonna give one of those?

That says, I don't care about you and I didn't think about you, this was easy.

That's what that says, right?

A real gift, you're thinking about what that person needs, what they want, how much they're gonna love it.

You think about every year, there's always a couple of gifts that you give that you just know connect with the person that you're giving it to, right?

I mean, you know they're all good and you spend time on them all, but man, you just know this this one's gonna blow this person away.

This is gonna be so excited.

This is gonna be the greatest thing in the world.

We found a gift for Killian this weekend.

I'm telling you, y'all just better get ready.

Every illustration is gonna be about me being a granddad today, right?

So we found this gift, it's gonna be awesome.

I can't wait.

All of Christmas is gonna pale in comparison to when he opens this gift.

His parents are gonna hate it and he's gonna love it.

And the grandparents are saying amen right now, right?

And you just know you have this consideration for that person and what they need and what'll bless them and what they want, and you just can't wait to meet that in their lives as a giver.

And then you pay the cost of the gift.

It's not a gift if they got to pay for it or earn it, right?

It is a gift when you give it to them.

And you're already probably beginning to connect the dots between our experience as a giver or our gratefulness when somebody gave us a gift that reflected those things about how they cared for us and initiated for us.

And you're connecting the dots between that and God when he gives us Jesus as our Savior.

And those character traits are reflected in him.

And as we think about the character of a giver, it deepens our love and appreciation for who God is and what he's done for us.

It deepens our understanding, for God so loved the world, that's why he gave Jesus for us.

We think about he initiated the gift.

1 John chapter 4 says this, not that we loved him, but he first loved us and gave Jesus to be the payment for our sins.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

God initiated that gift.

You think about the profound truth of what it means.

That God himself envisioned and authored salvation for us and began it before we even understood what was happening.

It's incredible to know the truth that God initiated that gift.

His consideration of us and what we needed, and to provide exactly what we needed out of his love for us.

And that Jesus paid the price for our sins fully and completely.

Jesus paid it all and all to him I owe.

Well, here's what I did this week.

I spent a little bit of time with Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Now, all throughout Scripture, you have all these things are reflected all throughout Scripture, but I just spent a little time brewing Romans 8.

And what I'd encourage you to do that, if you're visiting with us, when I say the word brew, that's a method that we've sort of learned as a church that helps us know how to meditate on a scripture.

So really what I'm just saying is spend a little time with Romans 8 this week, but do it in light of the character of a giver.

Think about what it means that God gave us Jesus to pay the price for our sins.

That he gave us his son.

And as you read through the book of Romans, but especially in chapter 8, you see all of those character traits reflected here in Romans chapter 8, as one of the many places in Scripture that you see these character traits provided.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 6 says this.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

It's another gift verse.

Romans chapter 6 says, For the wages of sin is death.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

In other words, all of us have sinned, and our sin must be punished, and the punishment of sin is not just physical death, it is that's why we all die, but it's also spiritual death.

It is being separated from God for eternity, is being separated from Him because of our sin and at holiness he can't be in our presence.

So the Bible says, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

It's another one of those gifts.

So in Romans, you get that picture and that understanding of the gift of salvation.

But I want you to think through with me just those simple character traits of a giver and think about them specifically in terms of who God is.

So here's what the Bible says.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that means that what he did for us is an act of love and it's a personal act to connect with us.

He is saving us and created the means of salvation so he can remove the sin barrier between us and him, and we can re-enter into a relationship with him.

We can walk with him as our heavenly Father here on this earth, and then when our bodies die, we'll spend an eternity with him in heaven.

The Bible says in Romans chapter, I mean in Revelation chapter 21, that Jesus made his home or tabernacle with us in eternity.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

He lives with us.

It is a relationship.

Listen to what the Bible says in Romans chapter 8, beginning in verse 14.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons, and you can put daughters in there as well, as sons and daughters of God.

Literally, when you are saved, when you give your life to Christ, when you trust Him to pay the price for your sin, you enter into a relationship with the Lord, and He becomes your heavenly Father.

It is a relationship that, and He has couched it in a way that we can understand it as humans.

Listen to how the Bible describes it.

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.

In other words, God didn't save us to like order us around and make us be his slaves or his servants or whatever kind of a deal.

That's not the motivation that God has.

It is to enter into a relationship with us.

You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry ab a father.

You are literally adopted as a child of God.

You become his and he becomes your father.

And under Jewish law, you could never disinherit an adopted child.

You could disinherit your biological children, but you can never disinherit an adopted child.

It's a way to affirm that and make sure that that was a love and a relationship.

And in fact, he says it is such a real parenting relationship.

You have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba Father.

And that is one of the intimate, personal ways that a child would call out to his father.

Now, again, I warned you I was going to be granddad in this sermon.

On Friday, we got a chance to keep our grandson while Mavery and Corey, our daughter and son-in-law, went to a wedding.

And so we got there early enough that we got to pick him up from daycare, right?

So what happens is Janet goes in and I'm moving all the luggage around, getting the car seat ready.

So Janet goes in to get him.

She comes out and I'm standing there on the sidewalk, right outside their church where he goes to daycare, and Janet comes out.

She's got Kelly in her arms, and they turn around and he spots me, and then he says, Bummer, bummer.

And Janet says, Do you want to walk to him?

And so she puts him down and he comes running up to me with his arms open.

Bummer, bummer.

I gotta go, y'all.

I'm going to see my.

Thank you for how you love us.

You adopt us as your children.

You make us yours forever, never to be disinherited.

It is a personal relationship that God saved us to.

And this passage of scripture makes that so incredible.

When God gave us Jesus as our Savior, it is because He loves you.

Listen to how it's described here.

The nature of this love, here's what he says in verse 35.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

He asks a rhetorical question and he sets it up here.

The love of God, who can separate you from that?

And then he answers that rhetorical question in verse 38.

For I am sure, I am convinced, Paul is saying.

He's saying, Beyond the shadow of a doubt, I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other thing in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.

That's the nature of the relationship that he has with you.

If you're saved, that's who your heavenly Father is, and that's how much he loves us.

That literally nothing can take away your relationship with him.

That's how much he loves us.

Everything in the gift of salvation is about how much he loves us.

If you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, I have prayed so hard that you would understand from these scriptures how much God loves you.

I don't possess the capability of explaining it in an adequate way.

But this is the living, powerful word of God.

And he speaks this so you would understand how much he loves you.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

God also initiates this relationship.

So he initiates that relationship.

You don't wake up one day and realize, boy, you know, I'm just, this is kind of a problem.

I can't wipe this sin off.

I need to go find a savior.

That's not how that happens.

The Holy Spirit draws you and speaks to you and convicts you of your sin and tells you that you need to be saved.

He reaches into your life, whether it's in a service or a person that is brought into your life and speaks to you, or you are reading, find yourself reading Scripture and it calls to you and He helps you understand that you need to be saved.

But even before you understood you needed to be saved, and God initiated that conversation in your life.

From the very beginning of recorded human history, God initiated the plan of salvation.

From the Garden of Eden, God promised He would bring away to save us.

And He has initiated all of that.

He has brought it all about.

And when we give our lives to Christ, it is because the Holy Spirit of God has convicted us of our sin and spoken to us about our need and has communicated us supernaturally how much God loved us, that Jesus paid the price for our sins on the cross.

And he calls out to us to trust him.

And so he initiates the conversation that in which results in your salvation.

But listen, that's not when God stops initiating life.

Don't get this idea that somehow you get saved and then you're bouncing around and all of a sudden something happens and you go, Oh, rats, I didn't know about that.

God, did you know about this?

And he goes, Man, Greg, I didn't know anything about that.

We better sit here and talk about that.

That is not how life works.

Here's what the Bible says again in chapter 8, verse 14.

We read this just a second ago.

Those who are led by the Spirit of God are called sons of God.

Led by the Spirit of God.

What happens is you give your life to Christ, and now you're in relationship, and everything he is working for your good.

The Bible says in this very chapter, all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose.

And so God is orchestrating and developing and using and dealing with all those things.

He was there before it went wrong.

He was there before it went right.

He was there before the decision was placed in front of you.

He was there before any of that happened.

And you get up in the morning and you have your relationship time with the Lord, and you're brewing a scripture verse and you're spending time with him, you are connecting your relationship so when you run into that brick wall, you can hear his voice and him lead you through that.

He prepares you.

In your time with the Word of God.

So he knows I'm going to run into that today.

And so he's going to say, Listen, I'm going to get Greg ready.

That's going to freak him out.

I know and I love him.

And so here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to give him this verse and I'm going to draw extra close to him.

So when he hits that, he's ready.

And he's prepared and he knows to turn to me and he knows how it's going to work.

And the Bible says we are led by the Spirit of God.

That's the Holy Spirit and his indwelling presence in us.

And all things work together for good.

God has designed how he's going to use all those things to work and to draw us closer to him and shape us to be more like Jesus and how he's going to carry us through all those things.

And when they happen, he leads us in those moments.

He is always initiating the relationship in our lives.

Man, we get tempted and we try to walk away.

We get in trouble and we get in a struggle.

God is initiating all of those things in our lives because He loves us.

He initiated this relationship with us in Jesus so that we could follow his leading in our lives.

This verse, there's another verse in this chapter that says, listen, when we don't know how to pray, like we ought to know how to pray, we find ourselves in this spot and we don't know how to pray, the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness and connects us to the heart and the mind of the Father.

He is always active and at work, initiating in your life.

And that is how much he loved you.

That is the salvation relationship that he created.

Our consideration for us.

Think about how much he has considered for us.

Again, you think about that gift that you've given, and man, you know you've nailed it with that person, and they're going to love it.

It means that you know them and you know what's going on in their life and you know how it works, and you know what they need, or you know what they want, or you just know this is gonna bless them, and it's a reflection of that relationship, and you work that gift to meet that in their lives.

That's the gift of salvation that God gives.

Listen to what the Bible says here.

Um again, he says in verses uh uh verse 28 is that famous verse that we uh quoted just a second ago about all things work together for good.

But listen to what he says now in verse 31.

What shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us?

He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will God not also with Jesus graciously give us all things?

He has thought about who we are and what we need, and he has created every blessing, every promise, every strength, every touch in our lives that we need from him.

He has created all of that and he has prepared it to give to us.

And the Bible says he's not holding anything back.

If he has already given us Jesus, then why is he going to hold back the other stuff?

He's gonna make sure that the reason that he gave Jesus and the relationship with Jesus is so that he could bless us in his grace with everything that he has promised and created for us.

The Bible says in the book of Ephesians, chapter one, he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places.

And he says, listen, he's not going to hold back any of that.

He is constantly thinking about you in your life.

He is constantly thinking about what you need, what will encourage you, what will bless you, what will strengthen you, what will guide you, what do you need?

And all of the resources of heaven he will not hold back.

He gave us Jesus and salvation in his name so that he can give us everything that he can conceive of as a heavenly father.

Man, Greg, you sound like one of those guys on television who are like promising whatever.

Listen, first of all, I am on television.

Hi to our folks that watch us.

We love y'all watching us each week.

But here's the deal: this is not some random promise and you get rich or whatever.

This is so much deeper and so much richer than that.

Because we need so much more than that in life.

This is God saying that Jesus died for us to bring us into relationship so he could bless us with everything as a loving heavenly father, as Abba Father, in that illustration, he can bless us with everything that a father would conceive of to give to his children.

It's just profound when you think about the love of God.

And then finally, he paid the cost.

He paid the cost for our salvation.

I want you to think about what it means that Jesus stepped out of heaven and died for us on the cross.

Jacob talked a little bit about that before we sang, O holy night.

You think about Jesus came knowing that he would go to the cross.

Jesus came knowing and understanding.

And as he became an adult, and as he unpacked all those things, as he spent a lifetime studying scripture, you've got to think about Jesus understood what was happening.

There's an incredible story where Jesus is about 12 years old, and Mary and Joseph have taken him to the Passover.

And the Passover is an Old Testament picture of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God.

Jesus is 12 years old, he's learning the Word of God, he's understanding that he is the Son of God.

As a 12-year-old, he's unpacking all these things, and what is going to happen, and he's reading in Scripture, and he's watching the Lamb of God, and he's understanding the blood, and he's recognizing that I am the promised Lamb of God, and that's what happens to the Lamb of God.

That's going to happen to me.

And I've come to do that for all these people that I'm around.

You think about the love that he had to develop and enhance in his life as he grew to be an adult.

Friends would pick on him at school.

People in his dad's carpentry shop customers would come in mad because they didn't do it the way they thought they ought to do it, and they're mad, and they're trying to get to pay for it, and all this other stuff that goes on in life.

And Jesus is trying to work out.

They do that because they're sinners.

I came to pay the price for that.

When Jesus began his ministry as a 33-year-old man, or 30-year-old man, we estimate he's around 30.

He's going to John the Baptist's cousin to be baptized.

And what does John the Baptist say?

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

And Jesus begins his ministry knowing, well, I got three years.

And then I'm going to die on one of those crosses that I just passed on the highway getting here.

Jesus had studied Psalm 22, that is an incredibly medically accurate picture of what happens when someone dies on the cross, and yet it hadn't even been invented in that time.

But Jesus understood this is a hymn about the Lamb of God, and this is the description of what those guys are doing, and I've seen hundreds of those in my lifetime as my family traveled up and down the highway.

And God pointed out in the time of David what that would look like.

And I'm reading that knowing that's what it's going to feel like when I hang up there.

Jesus was so impacted by the significance of what was going to happen on the cross that the Bible says he went to a place called the Garden of Gethsemane the night that he was betrayed.

And he got on his knees before the Lord, and after seeing all of that sin around him and knowing he was taking that sin on the cross, after all the people who've misunderstood who he was, all the frustration of that, all the needs that he saw, all of that, all of his study and psalms and places like Isaiah that talked about he would be beaten beyond all recognition, that by his stripes we are healed, that he is the Lamb of God who shed his blood for us.

Jesus got on his knees before the Lord and he cried out, Heavenly Father, if there is another way.

Jesus knew what he was about to do.

And yet he said, Not my will, but yours.

And he recognized that's why he came, and he went to the cross, and he paid the price for the gift of salvation.

Just for us.

No one will ever love you as much as God the Father loves you.

And no one will ever give you a gift like the gift of Jesus and salvation through his name.

I want you to bow your heads as we close.

And if you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, I'm going to invite you to give your life to Jesus.

Come and be saved.

In a moment, I'm going to pray, and our people are going to stand and they're going to sing, Heart of Joy and Love.

Man, they're singing about this gift because they've received it and they know and understand all the things that the Bible says they've experienced it in their life.

And if you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, I'm going to invite you to come.

Our pastors will be here.

We've got deacons here to pray with you.

Listen, nobody's arm twisting you, but we want to be here to answer your questions, to serve you in any way we can.

We can go off out of the room and spend a little time in prayer.

If you want to set up a meeting and talk with someone in more detail, listen, we're here to take this journey with you, to answer your questions from Scripture on the promise of God that He'll save you if you'll give your life to Him.

Church family, brothers and sisters in Christ, I want to encourage you, man, I know we've already been saved, but as you go through the Christmas season, as you're wrapping those gifts, as you're thinking about those final gifts you've got to make, I'm going to ask the Lord to speak to you.

Every time you're confronted with a gift, you're making plans about what you're going to give, that you'll take a moment and you'll consider God as the giver of your salvation.

How much your heavenly Father loves you, and spend some time this Christmas season connecting with the gift from a heart of God that is motivated by love and let it draw you closer to Him.

Lord, we thank you for your word that teaches us so plainly that you so loved us, that you gave your Son Jesus.

That whoever believes in him will never perish but have everlasting life.

We worship you and thank you as the giver of salvation.

And I pray, Father, whether someone's listening online or by television or they're here in the room and they've never accepted Christ as your Savior, Lord, I can't explain it.

But I'm not here to explain it.

We're here to turn to your word.

And through the living, powerful word of God and the work of the Holy Spirit, speak to hearts.

Initiate that conversation as we looked at you as an initiator.

And I pray you'll speak to them and draw them to you and give them the freedom to respond.

It is in Jesus' name that we pray, and all God's people said.

We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.

Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.

Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.

Thank you for listening to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith First Baptist Church.