Should Christian Parents Buy Lots of Gifts for their Children at Christmas?
Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greear
J.D. Greear
4.9 • 624 Ratings
🗓️ 26 December 2022
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Show Notes:
Christmas is about gifts, mostly the extravagant gift of Jesus.
Jesus calls us to follow him--how did he leverage his resources. Certainly, it’s wise to understand the times we are in, that we are in the richest country in the world, and that comes with responsibility.
1 Corinthians 10:31, "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (ESV).
Our gift giving should glorify the gospel
It’s lavish generosity: your gift ought to make me thank God for his generosity. When I see it cost you and you care about me.
How we do it in our house:
Something you want, need, wear, read
Biggest gift at Christmas goes to Jesus!
John Piper: Why do we give Christmas gifts?
Gift giving is biblical
God’s gifts to us:
God gives us His Son (John 3:16)
2 Corinthians 9:15, “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” The very essence of Christmas includes a divine overflow of generosity, kindness, grace, giving–doing for us, giving to us, what we could never do for ourselves or get on our own.
Our gifts to God:
We have a responsibility to give to Christ.
It’s dangerous in one sense to speak of giving to Christ because our giving to Christ dare not be seen as a paying him back, as if the transaction were done because he needs to get our services.
Our giving to Christ is an overflow of affection and thankfulness for our forgiveness.
Part of worship is finding ways to show how much we admire and reverence and trust and value Jesus.
Our gifts to others:
The giving of God to us and our joyful readiness to show affection in giving to him overflow in our giving to others.
Hebrews 13:16, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”
2 Corinthians 8:2, “In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed.”
The giving of God to us and our joyful readiness to show affection in giving to him overflow in our giving to others.
Hebrews 13:16, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”
2 Corinthians 8:2, “In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed.”
Our gift giving should lead others to:
Rejoice in God as the great and first giver of the greatest gift.
Seek the mindset that offers back to Christ the gift of trust, hope, admiration, joy, and affection.
Seek the mindset that overflows with joy in giving to others.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everyone, welcome to Ask Me Anything. |
| 0:21.0 | I'm Matt Love. |
| 0:22.0 | I'm here with Pastor J.D. Greer, and I know for many of you, you are just getting done |
| 0:27.4 | over the last couple of days, opening gifts, and you're spending time with family. |
| 0:31.4 | And I bet for some of you, as the wrapping paper piled up and as you were trying to gather |
| 0:36.5 | up all the bows that you wanted to save for next year, you might have had the thought, how much is too much? |
| 0:43.9 | So it might be a little late for this year, but for those of you that are thinking in the New Year of how you want to wrestle with a question like this, we want to ask, how much is too much? |
| 0:52.7 | And Pastor JD, the question maybe more directly is, |
| 0:55.6 | should parents buy their kids lots and lots of Christmas gifts? What do you think? Oh, I feel like |
| 1:00.7 | you're setting me up, Matt, to be the bad guy for somebody. We talk about this a lot around |
| 1:05.8 | the Greer House because, yes, we live in a very affluent nation. |
| 1:13.9 | And like most parents, we're worried about our kids becoming materialistic. |
| 1:17.6 | And there's a few things that I try to balance. |
| 1:23.0 | I feel like most decisions, it's several different value points that you're trying to balance at the same time. |
| 1:26.5 | And this one, you know, let's just acknowledge Christmas is about gifts. |
| 1:28.2 | It's about extravagant gifts. |
| 1:35.3 | Nobody has ever given anybody a more expensive and extravagant gift than God gave to us at Christmas when he gave us his son. |
| 1:47.1 | And the gospel is that when you and I had not been nice, but had been very naughty, had sinned and separated ourselves from God that the king of heaven who had everything emptied himself essentially gave all that away and came down and became a man to live the life that we should |
| 1:53.3 | have lived and then die the death that we've been condemned to die. It's the riches of Christ |
| 1:57.9 | that were emptied out and given to us. Heaven never had a more valuable gift than the offering of Jesus. |
| 2:03.7 | So much so that the Apostle Paul would say to people when he was talking about them giving, |
| 2:09.1 | he said, hey, remember the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, for your sake, |
... |
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