December 6, 2023 – Advent Text: Galatians 5:22-23
Dear Friends in Christ,
Have you made your lists for your relatives? I still write mine on a piece of paper but then Toni has to transfer it to a spreadsheet or Google doc put together by a brother or a niece. Do you feel the way I do that it gets harder and harder to come up with things on your list? I already have clothes in four different closets at home, Spotify so no CD’s needed, and most of the sports equipment I need, though golf balls are always accepted. Cologne and Page-A-Day calendars are always winners, but I have to think outside the box. Ah, going to Germany next year so there are some ideas. Would like a lava lamp, always enjoyed those. Should I add bell bottom jeans, a headband, and doorway beads? Far out dude!
What goes on your list? What should be on our list? Our text for tonight is a good beginning. It is a list that tells of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Our theme this year for Advent is “Gifts”, and it has to start with a list. So, let’s do that . . .
“GIFT GIVING LISTS”
I don’t know if you have every broken down this list into the threes, but it fits quite nicely. The first three gifts on the list are love, joy, peace. These all come directly from God. He is love. God loved the world, understood all its depravity and purposed to remove it. He sent His Son Jesus to cleanse it.
With this love goes joy. “Joy to the world, the Savior comes, the Savior promised long.” Enduring joy should be bubbling up in our heart from all the grace of God in our possession. It is a joy undimmed by tribulation. This joy ever beams for the believer and merges into the joy of heaven.
Peace is the quietness of the soul, the opposite of dread and terror. The feeling of all who walk in the Spirit of God. We have peace between ourselves and God because of the gracious work of Christ.
The second trio is composed of gifts that appear in our contact with men and women.
Patience. A good word for this time of year. Children wait patiently for gifts. We wait patiently in lines. Headphones while waiting in lines do wonders. Take yourself away with Christmas songs, hymns or your favorite tunes until you hear, “Can I help the next in line!”
Our world can always use our kindness. In our being kind to one another it benefits our society.
Goodness is not our moral excellence, but as goodness doing good to others. Instead of a self-indulgent life how can we share goodness with those God has called into our sphere of influence?
Faithfulness could go with these last three in this sense. Can men and women trust us? Will we make a faithful commitment? Do others see you as someone they can count on? But because of its active nature in the original Greek language, it is better positioned to think of it as something God gives to us. We receive the faith which in turn leads to our faithfulness when it comes to God’s Word and his will.
Our gentleness helps when a calm voice is needed. Maybe that will be yours at your Christmas gathering. It comes through in how you speak to little ones and your spouse.
Self-control brings up the caboose in our list. This is one where I think most of us have one area where this is a struggle. We make a list in our head where self-control is always there, but then there’s that one thorn in flesh that gets us every time. “Lord, I want to do better.” May the Holy Spirit help us in that endeavor.
In my Christmas Eve gatherings with my extended family when I was a child the list of gift openers was really long. We opened one person at a time. Kids first by age, grandma, and then my aunts and uncles by age and finally my mom and dad. Doug Lueck might sit there for three hours or more to get to his gifts. Who was paying attention? Certainly not the kids or the uncles setting up the kid’s toys. For all of us gathered around the Christmas tree these gifts of the Spirit were on display. It was a spectacle of wrapping paper and my mom explaining every gift she got for somebody. But what joy it was. It is hard to replicate that memory.
We don’t have to. The Lord remembers us. We made his list before the creation of the world. We wait in patience for that ultimate gift home. The Lord has explained His saving act in the pages of Scripture. Naughty or nice, it doesn’t matter. Forgiven and redeemed through no merit of our own, that matters. Making the list? You are on it. Thanks be to God whose gift we possess.
Amen.