Gift giving is on our minds as we start getting ready for Christmas, but the ultimate Gift is the one that the bible calls "indescribable."

Why call it Black Friday? It started out with a negative meaning -- the frenzied stampede of shoppers in search of a sale – the violence that breaks out, the increase in traffic accidents. But now it has a more positive meaning – at least for retailers.
(swell)
Black Friday -- the biggest shopping day of the year. It was first called black in Philadelphia because shoppers came out in such hoards and were so driven to find bargains that fights broke out. But for retailers “black” has a good connotation – it means they’re turning a profit – the spike in buying moves their bottom line into the black. This year for some retailers it’s black for another reason. They opened their doors earlier than ever this morning. Target, Walmart – for the first time ever they opened at the stroke of midnight.

Maybe you were standing outside in the dark early this morning waiting for the doors to open. Or maybe you’re like me and this is the last day of the year you’d choose to shop. Maybe you’ve become an Internet shopper to avoid even going into a store. Or maybe you’ve lost your job and there’s not going to be any shopping for you this year.


Whoever we are, we live in a retail-driven world, a world driven by wants. We so easily get sucked into those wants but as believers we’re not meant to live like that. In Matthew 6:32 Jesus described the unbelieving world as “running after all these things.” He tells us not to get caught up in the frenzy because our father knows what we need. And our Father has given us the gift of all gifts. We’re meant to start off every day – even Black Friday -- satisfied with the goodness we already have in Jesus. We’re called to live our lives every day, full of the fullness of what we have in Jesus – he IS the gift of all gifts.
So let’s soak up the joy of the story – the great story that’s all about Jesus – the Christmas story – the birth of Messiah with Keith and Kristen Getty.
(interview with Keith Getty about “Suddenly a Baby Cries” and then the song)
That baby’s first cry was the signal that all has been forever changed. Suddenly a baby cried out in the night and the sky was filled with angels, announcing good news of great joy. The great gift of God had at last been given.
On Black Friday when the crush to buy gifts is at its height we need to take in the real gift, the true gift, the gift the apostle Paul called indescribable. 2 Corinthians 9:15, “Thank God for his indescribable gift.”
This is Eliza Joy Getty’s first Christmas. She’s not quite old enough to take in the magic. But soon she’ll experience just how wonderful Christmas can be for a dearly loved child like she is.
Keith said they dedicated a reel to C. S. Lewis – we just heard it – they’ve named it the Narnian Reel. If you’ve read the Narnia tales you can’t help but catch a little bit of the childlike wonder of Christmas. Mr.Tumnus the fawn tells little Lucy that the white witch had made it always winter in Narnia – always winter but never Christmas. Never Christmas – what a dreary world. But then Aslan arrives and everything changes. One of the first signs the witch’s power is broken is when Saint Nicholas come riding up with a sleigh full of gifts.
If you had a happy childhood you know what Lewis was getting at. I know not every has had a happy childhood. But if you did then you know your world changes as a child around the middle of December and everything takes on a glow of wonder. I remember my mother putting . . . . The tree at our house had bubble lights . . . There was all kinds of food preparation happening in the kitchen and wonderful smells– turkey and dressing and my mother’s special Parker house rolls. And under the tree gifts began to appear, each one was this unknown but wonderful possibility.
What makes Christmas so wonderful as a young child is that it all just happens. You don’t have to do it – someone else does it. Your world loses its ordinariness and takes on a glow of wonder and you don’t have to do anything. Someone else cuts down the tree and lugs it in and puts it in the stand and strings the light – you just get to put on a few ornaments. Someone else bakes and decorates and shops and wraps. You just get to eat and open.
Christmas is never quite the same once you grow up because you’re the “someone”. You create the wonder. Someone else is the child and you make it happen for them.
But the real Christmas, the real reason for the season is still full of wonder no matter how old you get – because you’re not the “someone”. God is the Someone. He made the ordinariness of the world begin to glow with wonder on the night he gave us his Son. He broke the curse so he could fill our lives with joy – so we could have something incredibly good to celebrate. He wrapped all the gifts; he set the table. All we have to do is open and eat – like children at Christmas – no matter how old we get. God has done it all and we can just take it in.
So let’s take it in --- We have Jesus. The Joy of all the world. He’s ours and we’re his. And along with Him, God has given us everything good there is to give.
Romans 8:32 “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
He’s prepared a table before us full of gifts of love and grace. Paul was sitting in prison when he wrote the letter to the Ephesian churches, and he was so overcome by the gifts of God that he starts out with one long 11-verse sentence – he just piles up the gifts in front of us. The English puts in periods but in the Greek its one long sentence. Paul doesn’t even pause to take a breath:
Ephesians 1:3-14 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In lovehe predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will — to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment — to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession — to the praise of his glory.”
God is the subject of practically every verb in those verses. He’s blessed us in the heavenlies with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Every blessing – he hasn’t held back anything.
Don’t think of those blessing as somehow unreal just because we can’t see them with our physical eyes. The “heavenlies” is the unseen realm of spiritual reality and what happens there is ultimate – it’s the real deal. Everything else will pass away. Paul says to fix our eyes on what is unseen not on what is seen because the seen things are temporary but the unseen things are eternal. We experience them now by the power of the Spirit. Someday we’ll feast our eyes on the blessings God has give us. Just like children at Christmas, there are yet to be opened gifts under the tree. He has a future planned for us that we can’t even imagine. He’s done it all – we just get to open them up and be blessed by them and by the love that bought them for us.

It’s black Friday. The biggest shopping day of the year. But there was another Friday. The Friday Jesus was given up by the Father for you and me, when Jesus gave himself up for you and for me. The grace that’s been poured out on us was paid for by his terrible sacrifice. We don’t call it black Friday even though deep darkness came in the middle of the day while Jesus was on the cross. We don’t call it Black Friday even though it was a day of unimaginable suffering and shame for the Son of God -- the day of his death. We call it Good Friday. Good Friday! Because it was good of us. it was the day of our redemption. If that Friday had never happened there’d be no hope for us at all. But because it happened, “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.”
This Christmas may we remember that God has lavished his riches on us. May we open the gifts he’s given us with great joy.
I know the Gettys are having a renewed joy in Jesus this year because of the gift of their little baby girl – Eliza Joy. Let’s close by hearing Kristen tell about it.

(interview with Kristen