1. FAITH. I imagine that every parent's nightmare on Christmas Eve is a certain box with those three scary words printed on top: Some Assembly Required.

Don Shelby tells the story about the father who had ordered a tree house for his children for Christmas one year. The time came to assemble the tree house. He laid out all the parts on the floor and began reading the instructions. To his dismay, he discovered that the instructions were for a tree house. However, the parts were for a sailboat! The next day he sent an angry letter to the company complaining about the mix-up. Back came this reply: "We are truly sorry for the error and the inconvenience. However, it might help to consider the possibility that somewhere there is a man out on a lake trying to sail your tree house."

The point is clear: To put something together, you have to have the right parts and the right instructions. This is where faith comes in. The only way you can put life together is through faith. Faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Faith, trusting Him for forgiveness, is what connects us to God and all the wonderful blessings He won for us through Jesus. Faith is what makes your life work. It is what reconnects you with a God who loves you. He did all the right things for you beginning on coming here that first Christmas. He lined everything up for you and did everything to make you his child. Now faith is the hand that receives those gifts of His!

Max Lucado, in his book, When God Whispers Your Name, puts it dramatically and graphically like this. He says, "Take a fish and place him on a beach. Watch his gills gasp and scales dry. Is he happy? No! How do you make him happy? Do you cover him with a mountain of cash? Do you get him a beach chair and sunglasses? Do you bring him a Playfish magazine and a martini? Do you wardrobe him in double-breasted fins and people-skinned shoes? Of course not! So, how do you make him happy? You put him back in his element. That's what you do. You put him back in the water. He will never be happy on the beach simply because he was not made for the beach."

Indeed so… and the same is true for you and me. We will never be happy living apart from the One who made us. Just like a fish was made to live in water, we were made to live in close fellowship with God and nothing can take the place of that.

Let me say a word to the parents and grandparents here. (Aunts and uncles and cousins may listen in, too.) You can give your children a polo shirt or a cashmere sweater, or Cole-Haan shoes or a Mercedes, or a ski trip to Colorado for Christmas if you want to… But let me tell you something, the best gift you can give them is Jesus Christ.

If you want to do something good for your children, if you want to give them the gift that keeps on giving, introduce them to Jesus Christ. Get them completely immersed in His Word. Show them how important your faith is to you. Give them the real gift of Christmas, the gift of the Christ Child. Help them discover the power of the Christian faith. Faith… it's one of the best things you can give them. It will make a difference in their eternal life.

2. HOPE. Some years ago, a military airplane crashed at Sonderstrom Air Force Base in Greenland. Twenty-two people were killed. The runway and the nearby fields were strewn with bodies. It was a tragic and horrible moment. There was only one chaplain on the base at the time… and the entire burden was laid on him to bring comfort and the Word of Christ to a shocked community staggered by the horrendous accident. But there was little time to mourn that day. The grisly task of gathering up and identifying the bodies needed to be done.

And so, the chaplain, along with a young lieutenant who had been assigned the duties of a mortuary officer and a group of volunteers went about the awful business of picking up the mutilated bodies and trying to identify the dead, so that their families and loved ones back home could be notified. It was a heart-breaking and exhausting task, but it had to be done. The people worked in shocked silence well into the night until they almost dropped from fatigue. When every last remnant of death had been picked up, they each went silently to their individual rooms.

That night, after midnight, there was a knock on the chaplain's door. Outside stood the young lieutenant, the Mortuary Officer. He said nothing. He just stood there and wept. After some moments, the young lieutenant spoke through his tears and he said to the chaplain, "As we were picking up the bodies today, I realized something. I realized that the only other people out there with us were the people who go to church here. I have always been an unbeliever, and I used to ridicule these same people who were out there with us. Yet they are the only persons who would, or perhaps could, do what we had to do today. It must have been their Christian spirit that could help them see beyond the horror… to the HOPE."

That tragic day turned around the life of that young lieutenant. As he had admitted, he had never been religious, had seldom gone to church except for weddings and funerals, but from that time on he was a new man. Christ was born in his heart. From that time forward, he took an active part in the Christian ministry of that base. Then he did an unheard thing - he extended his tour of duty in Greenland for an extra year. He was the first person in the history of that base to do that. He did it because he wanted to be able to tell others the story of how the power of the Christian HOPE had changed his life.

If you want to give your loved ones a great Christmas present this year, give them the gift of HOPE in Christ. On page after page of the New Testament we find it: the Good News that Jesus defeated our enemies, that you and I are forgiven, that God will win, that nothing can defeat Him; that we have every reason in the world to put our hope in Him, that nothing, not even death, can separate us from His watchful care and His love and His triumph. Once each year, Christmas comes along to renew our hope and to remind us that the darkness of this world cannot overcome the light of the world!

3. Finally the gift of LOVE. Back during World War II, four young American soldiers who had been on the front lines of battle for some time, were sent away from the fighting to a small French village for a little R & R. When they arrived safely in the village, they suddenly realized that it was Christmas Eve. They began to discuss how they would like to spend Christmas. One of the soldiers said, "You know, as we were coming into town earlier today, I noticed an orphanage on the outskirts of the village. Why don't we go there in the morning and take some Christmas joy to those children?" The others liked the idea and the more they talked about it, the more excited they became. So they went out and bought all kinds of toys and candy and clothing, food and books and games, and early the next morning, they showed up at the front door of the orphanage with wonderful Christmas presents for all the children.

The orphanage director was pleased and all the children were delighted as they opened their gifts. All the children that is, except for one little girl who stood quietly off to the side. She appeared to be 5 or 6 years old and her face looked so very sad. One of the soldiers noticed that she was not participating, and he asked the orphanage director about the little girl. "O, bless her heart," said the director, "We just got her last week. Both of her parents were killed in a car wreck. There was no one to take her in, so we brought her here."

The soldier went over to the little girl and gently he said to her, "It's Christmas morning and we have wonderful Christmas presents here… toys, clothes, candy, food, books, puzzles. Which would you like? What do you want most for Christmas?" And the little girl said, "I want somebody to hold me."

Maybe that is the best Christmas gift of all… someone to hold us. As somebody once put it, "Rich is not what you have. It's who you have beside you." Well, this sacred season comes along once each year to remind us that "Love Came Down At Christmas," that God is even now reaching out to us with open arms, and that He invites us to trust in His love and to pass it on to others. Do you want somebody to hold you? God did just that in the love He showed you in Jesus! When your life had separated you so far from Him, God held you tight as ever! His LOVE gave you a reason for FAITH and HOPE! Faith, hope, and love - they are not only the best Christmas gifts - they are the best things in life! They last forever! Amen.

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