All I Want For Christmas is Grace

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of Him and cried, saying, "This is He of whom I said, 'He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.'" And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:14-17)

All our restless wanting points to one true need: the grace found only in Christ.

From a Hierarchy of Needs to a Hierarchy of Wants

In 1943 an experimental behavioral psychologist named Abraham Maslow published a paper in the Psychological Review entitled "A Theory of Human Motivation." That paper became the foundational framework for much of the sociological research in the West over the last 75 years, and it laid out what we now call Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's central not only in psychological circles but in business and commercial circles, because commerce is focused on what motivates people to buy.

Maslow's hierarchy is usually pictured as a pyramid with five layers. The bottom layer deals with basic human needs, and the levels build upward. Maslow argued that for a human being to experience their fullest potential, these needs must be met. The lower layers deal with psychological needs, safety needs, the need to belong, and the need for esteem.

Living in the affluent United States in 2018, most of those needs are largely met. When Maslow wrote in 1943, our culture had not yet experienced the rapid upward increase in wealth it has since. So sitting here today, most of our basic human needs are taken care of. When the hierarchy of needs is satisfied, you move from a hierarchy of needs to a hierarchy of wants—and that is what we live in today.

When Wants Begin to Feel Like Needs

The problem is that when you shift from a hierarchy of needs to a hierarchy of wants, our wants begin to feel like needs. Sociologists and psychologists call these "felt needs." A need is something you must have to survive and thrive; a want is the icing on the cake. But we have shifted in a big way to thinking our wants are our needs.

The catalog of our felt needs is an ever-perpetuating list of insatiable desires, and our commercial culture is more than happy to keep producing products to satisfy them. We think we'll find satisfaction in those things, but we know better. The reason "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" is still a hit decades after it came out is because it accords with something we innately understand. So does "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." We try to satisfy wants we've mistaken for needs, and we are never satisfied. We find ourselves always wanting—and very restless. Christmas is the playground, even the battleground, for this whole discussion.

Maslow's Discovery and Augustine's Confession

What's fascinating is that Maslow continued his research for another 35 years. Nearing the end of his life, he realized his five needs didn't go far enough. He concluded there needed to be a top on the pyramid—something beyond the material, in an area he called transcendence. He began to understand that man has spiritual needs, and that if you do not meet that spiritual need, you will never realize your fullest potential. If all our socio-psychological needs are met, we are still restless because there is something deeper.

That reminds me of something a theologian wrote over 1,600 years ago. In his Confessions, Augustine wrote: "You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You." More than sixteen centuries earlier, Augustine reached the conclusion Maslow came to in 1967. We are more than material beings.

This matters because a growing segment of the population in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe believes we are totally and completely material—these are the materialists, usually atheistic. If we were only material, then material things would satisfy us. Yet we live in a society with more material wealth than any society at any time in history, and we are still not satisfied. Why? Because at our core we are spiritual beings, and there are spiritual desires that must be met.

Christmas and Restless Hearts

We are now officially in the Christmas shopping season, which began about six o'clock on Thursday night and is already a commercial success. Online Black Friday sales were up 23.6 percent over last year, which was itself a record—$6.22 billion in a 24-hour period. They are already projecting the largest Black Friday weekend ever. All of it is geared at wants we've been told are needs, with the promise that this thing will satisfy you.

But we know it's not true, because by December 26th the things we bought will already be obsolete as new products come out. Immediately we're looking past what we wanted to the next thing. We can't get no satisfaction. We live in a society of restless hearts because there is something more than material that we deeply desire and need.

So over the next five Sundays leading up to Christmas, I want to talk about some of these needs—needs we may not even acknowledge—drawn from Scripture. All of these transcendent values are found only in God through Christ. If we don't find God in Christ Jesus, we will remain restless, because God created us for Himself.

Christ's Advent: The Arrival of What We Need

The first of these needs is found in John 1:14-17, and it speaks about the very thing we celebrate at Christmas: the incarnation, or what we might call Advent. Christ's Advent is the arrival of that which we deeply need and ultimately desire. Advent and incarnation are words we rarely hear outside a church context. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us"—that is incarnation; that is Advent.

The Old Testament prophets looked forward to this coming. Isaiah wrote 2,700 years ago, in words found on many Christmas cards: "Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and you shall call His name Immanuel"—which means God with us.

Who is this Word? John tells us at the very beginning: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." The Word is not a thing but a person. This One who exists before creation and is active in creation came to earth two thousand years ago in the man Jesus Christ, and in Him we come into contact with the fullness of grace and truth. Jesus is full of that which we deeply need and ultimately desire.

What Grace Is and Why We Need It

I want to zero in on one aspect of His nature: He is full of grace. Without receiving the fullness of grace in Jesus Christ, we will never experience satisfaction or reach our fullest, eternal potential. So what exactly is grace, and why do we need it?

Grace is the merciful kindness of God given to us in spite of our sin, as a result of what Jesus did on the cross. It is given without our merit—we don't deserve it. In fact, Scripture says we deserve the opposite: judgment, because of our fallenness and sin. Yet in grace we receive God's merciful kindness in spite of who we are. As John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." And Paul writes in Romans 5:8, "He demonstrates His love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." That is grace.

Why do we need it? John gives the answer in verse 17: "The law was given through Moses." In Romans 3:19 Paul writes, "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin."

God revealed His law through Moses 3,400 years ago. The wrong way to read the law is to think that if I do everything it prescribes, I'll be right with God. But that is not why the law was given. The law shows you how pitifully guilty you are. It readies us for something far more valuable than itself. The law is holy, just, and good—but it cannot save you and me.

No Greater Gift Than Grace

The law prepares us for this, in Romans 3:21: "But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe... for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." There is no greater gift than the grace given to us in Christ. In the law we find we are desperately lost, but the law prepares us for a righteousness that is by grace through faith, not by keeping the law.

Jesus Gives Grace by Giving Himself

How did Jesus bring this grace? John 1:15 says, "John bore witness of Him and cried, saying, 'This is He of whom I said, He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.'" The Gospel of John, written by the disciple John, speaks here of another John—John the Baptist. John the Baptist proclaimed the Word, saying this is the One who came after me but is preferred before me.

In John 1:29 we read, "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, 'Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!'" John came preaching repentance and baptizing in water. Why? He tells us: "That He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water." God the Father had told John, "Upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit." And John testified, "This is the Son of God."

Picture it: John the Baptist, dressed in camel's hair with a leather belt, eating locusts and wild honey, out in the wilderness baptizing people as the Spirit watched for the One. People came; he baptized them—next, next, next—until Jesus showed up. He baptized Him, and the Spirit descended upon Him like a dove and remained. "That's the One. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." From that point, John the Baptist's job was done. As he later said, "He must increase, but I must decrease." Jesus gives grace by giving Himself to take away sin.

To a Jewish hearer two thousand years ago, "the Lamb of God" carried enormous weight. In Jewish theology, the only way sinful, broken, fallen people could approach a perfectly holy God was to deal with their sin through sacrifice—specifically the sacrifice of a lamb. But the problem, as the whole Old Testament showed, is that those sacrifices offered year by year could not take away sin. They covered it for a time, but we sin again, requiring another sacrifice, and another. The historian Josephus records that on a single day of Passover in Jerusalem they offered two hundred thousand sheep. They did this every year for 1,400 years, and still it could not take away sin. The law of sacrifice was preparing people for the coming of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world—the perfect, spotless Lamb.

Grace Freely Given to Those Who Trust

Who receives this gift of grace? John 1:16 says, "And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace." Does that mean every human being at all times receives the fullness of grace? Some think so, but that is not what John says. Back in verse 11: "He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God."

So there were some who did not receive Him and others who did. And here is the awesome thing: all who received Him received the fullness of His grace and are declared children of God. How do we receive Him? Verse 12-13 says it is to "those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." God's grace is freely given to those who trust Jesus. We cannot realize our fullest, eternal potential apart from this grace, and we receive its fullness freely by trusting in Jesus.

Grace Upon Grace From an Infinite Source

How much of this grace do we receive? Verse 16: "And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace." Other translations help us. The New Living Translation says, "From His abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another." The English Standard Version says, "From His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace." The Christian Standard Bible says, "Indeed, we have all received grace upon grace from His fullness."

When we give gifts this season, we give from finite resources. None of us has infinite resources, and you'll discover just how finite they are when the credit card bill comes in January and you wonder what happened—stress that lasts the other eleven and a half months. But God gives from an infinite source of grace. It is never depleted, never tapped out. When you come to God for more grace, He never says, "I'm sorry, I gave the last of it away."

This is why Hebrews 4:16 says we should boldly come before the throne of grace to obtain mercy and grace in our time of need. And Jeremiah wrote in Lamentations 3, "Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness." The renewing resource of God's grace is poured out freely and abundantly upon those who believe. Without the fullness of His grace, we cannot realize our fullest, eternal potential, and we will remain completely unsatisfied.

Solomon's Experiment and the True Reason for the Season

Here's the challenge: many of you have received the abundance of God's grace, yet you still live restlessly, trying to find more satisfaction—because our flesh still thinks we'll find it in material things, even though that experiment has produced devastation every time. America has run this experiment for the better part of a century, chasing total satisfaction through endless material wealth, and it isn't working.

Three thousand years ago, a man named Solomon ran his own experiment to figure this out. His research paper is called Ecclesiastes. He set out to see whether pleasure, power, and wealth could satisfy him, and his conclusion was: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity"—emptiness, emptiness, all is emptiness; soap bubbles, all is soap bubbles. We work hard to grasp at the wind and remain unsatisfied. His concluding advice was to remember your Creator in the days of your youth, because we need something more than material things—something transcendent, found only in God, accessed through the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

Christmas, cluttered as it is with many trappings, reveals this grace in the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ. That grace is only available in Jesus. Many of these other things God has given us freely to enjoy, but they will leave you dry. What you truly desire is found solely in the grace of God.

And that message is not for you alone. It's for the people we work with, live next door to, and are related to. This holiday season is a great opportunity, as we gather with co-workers and family, to share this truth—because everyone understands the things of this world leave us unsatisfied. We will be restless until we find our rest and satisfaction in God. So with all the distractions between now and December 25th, let us not miss it. As clichéd as it sounds, Jesus really is the reason for the season. What we truly need and desperately desire is the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus, I thank You that You came to this world to bring the fullness of grace to us who are in such desperate need of it, and that You don't hold back. As many as receive You by trusting in You, You give the fullness of Your grace—not just one time, but every time we come before You. We need it more today than we did yesterday, and more than we did five years ago, and we'll need it more tomorrow. Yet Your mercy and grace are new every morning; they are a renewable resource.

So God, work in us who know this truth, that we would rest in Your grace and no longer be restless—resting in the finished work You accomplished on the cross to deal with all our failings and shortcomings. And may we not only rest in Your grace but share it with others, for freely we have received, and freely we ought to give. Work in us, Your church, this holiday season to share the goodness of Your grace.

And to anyone here who has not yet received this grace by trusting in Jesus: He came to His own, and they did not receive Him, but to as many as received Him, trusting in His name, He gave the right to be called children of God. If you want to receive that grace and the forgiveness Jesus offers—the greatest gift ever given—pray this simple prayer of trust with me: Dear Jesus, I need Your grace. I know I can't fix myself by keeping rules; I've tried. I pray that You would come into my life, pour out Your grace upon me, forgive me of my sins, and help me to follow You by faith. In Jesus' name, Amen.