Flora First Christian Church - Flora, IN

December 23, 2007

The following message was presented as a sermon in monologue. Pastor Sam was dressed as U.S. postal worker. The introduction to this sermon (pages 1-3) was adapted from the copyrighted monologue “Attempted to Deliver” by Lawrence and Andrea Enscoe. “Attempted to Deliver” is from a set of monologues “Pew Prompters,” 1991, Lillenas Publishing Company.

Luke 2: 8-14 & Philippians 4: 4-7

We Double our Volume—Like Restaurant Tables

We try to be as careful as we can, but seriously mail is up 50 percent at Christmas, 50 percent! That’s like . . . well, if you wait tables at a restaurant and had 9 tables in your section and now you’ve got 18! And every single person at every single table wants a separate check. You can get a little bushed by the` end of the day, as you can probably imagine.

What Are You Doing Here?

Oh, Merry Christmas! What are all of you doing here anyway? You should be standing in line at the post office? Just kidding. You look like a pretty smart group. I know you’ve all been smart and mailed your gifts out WEEKS ago.

About This Room

Hey, look at this place. Here is something most of you have probably never seen before. This room is what you might call the “underbelly” of the postal business. This . . . is the Dead-end Room. Hum . . . sounds like a Stephen King novel, doesn’t it? The Dead End Room!

Dead End Room—A Sad Place

It’s not THAT scary, but . . . . it is a sad place. All these packages here? They’re Christmas gifts. But they’re now dead-end packages. For some reason or another, every package you see here is undeliverable. Tripped up in transit. Marooned in motion. You might say—all addressed up and no place to go. See, if you look closely, the story of what Christmas is really all about can be found in this room. I’ll show you.

First Package: Wrong Address—Mailer Then Gets Right One

Look at this one here. Here’s a package that won’t be here long. The person sending this Christmas gift had the wrong address: pure and simple. No such person at that address, so we just shoot it back to the sender. They check their records or call the person and get the right address. Happy ending and Merry Christmas.

Second Package: Receiver Gift Moved—No Forwarding Address

Okay, this gift tried to get through. It really did! Right address and right name. So, what do you think went wrong? No one by that name lives there anymore. That’s right. They moved and left no forwarding address. They didn’t bother to tell anyone where they were moving, and so they lost out on . . . (shakes the package) . . . you wanna take a guess what it is? (Drops Gift) It’s a fruit cake, definitely. Or one of those door stomps shaped like a squirrel. It’s one of the two. You get to know these things.

Can’t Keep Track of Everyone

The thing is we can’t keep track of everybody who moves. There’s only one person that can do that. And don’t say the IRS. See, the bottom line is, you’ve got to want to be found.

If the gift goes out, and you’re inside hiding, it’s going to have to go back to the sender. I hope you’re beginning to catch the spiritual shadings of what I’m talking about here.

The Yellow Tag—Come Pick It Up

You ever come home and see one of those yellow tags on your door that says, “We’ll try again?” You know . . . the ones where you go out for two minutes and come back and there it is. “Hey, I just went to take the garbage out!” Anyway, that’s what happened to this gift. We make a couple of trips out, the person’s never there, but they call and say, “Hold it for me.” But they forget about it. I guess they get all sidetracked with all the other stuff at Christmas, and they never get down to the P.O. to pick up their gift, so . . . it goes back to the sender.

Sad When People Turn Down A Gift

Now, what happened to this gift really makes me sad. The sender took time to pick out the gift, spent their hard earned money, wrapped it, put it in a mailer, brought it to us, we delivered it and then . . . it was denied. For some reason they just didn’t want it. They didn’t even take the time to unwrap it. Now it has to go back. I see it all the time here. Sad, isn’t it?

Receiver Never Knows What He/She Could Have Had

That person never knew what he could have had. What if this was the gift to end all Christmas gifts, huh?
Tell me, if you sent someone a gift like this, and it came back stamped with a box checked that said “denied—return to sender,” how would you feel? I can tell you, it would hurt me big time.

Hurts God When We Turn Him Down

Isn’t that what we do when we deny God giving us his original Christmas gift? Isn’t that what we do when we just flat out and tell God, “I don’t care what you have to give me, I’m too busy.” Isn’t that what we do when we say, “Go away, I don’t believe in you. Some say, “I don’t get the whole Christmas thing and I don’t care if anyone does.”

Thank Goodness For Those Who Got it—Shepherds

Thank GOODNESS, there were those that first Christmas who “got it.” You do know who I’m talking about don’t you? The shepherds! They were the first to receive God’s Christmas gift. They were just doing their jobs minding their own business in the middle of the night, and Ka-Pow, the night sky lit up and the shepherds are standing face to face with an angel who told them: Settle down, don’t be scared, God’s got a gift for you, and it will bring you joy that you can’t begin to grasp. It’s a newborn baby, and you will find Him in a stable in Bethlehem. Then a whole angel army backed up the one angel and sang, “Glory to God in the highest heavens and on Earth peace among all men and women on whom His favor rest.”
Good thing for us that those shepherds didn’t care what other people thought, cause they high-tailed it over to Bethlehem received God’s gift for them selves. And when they left there to get back to work, they told EVERYBODY what they had seen.

They Weren’t Afraid to Spread the News of God’s Peace

They weren’t afraid to receive God’s gift of Christmas and to spread the news around. If you go back to the angel’s heavenly song, the real gift sent to us that first Christmas was God’s peace.

What Is Peace?

If someone were to ask you “What is Peace,” how would you answer them? I CAN tell you that PEACE is something that everyone wants, but most of us don’t have a clear understanding of what it is or how to get it.
I once saw in a dictionary that PEACE means: 1) calm, 2) tranquility; 3) an absence of conflict, 4) the ending of a disorder and war. ISN’T THAT WHAT WE ALL WANT?

Peace Doesn’t Come By Getting Rid of Problems

I’ve learned the hard way that God’s gift of peace doesn’t come by somehow miraculously getting rid of all our problems. We all have problems if we work with human beings.
Peace actually comes from the addition of something. The Bible term for peace is this word “Shalom” which comes from a Hebrew word meaning to be COMPLETE, WHOLE OR SOUND.

Having Peace is to be Healthy

Having peace means is to be healthy or well with oneself. It isn’t just about physical health. It is as much about being well emotionally, socially and spiritually.

Peace Is About Relationships

This is where “peace on earth among men and women with whom God is well pleased” comes in. Who is it that God is pleased with? Those who have a personal relationship with God?

People Look Everywhere For Peace

People try to find peace in all sorts of places don’t they, but people never find peace that lasts. We can try to think about things other than the problems. We can get drugged up or drunk so we can forget our problems for a little while, we can take trips just to escape our problems, or spend lots of money to divert our focus. None of these achieves lasting peace, it is only a little time until a new wave of problems comes crashing over you.

There’s A Lot of Noise With My Job

There’s a lot of noise with my job. There’s always loud machinery running, and people shouting orders like many jobs, there’s always human drama that workers bring with them. If I don’t come to work with the peace knowing that I am, a child of God, and that God has His hand upon me to lead me, then there’s no way I can do my job with peace or go home with that peace. That peace doesn’t pass on to my family either.

Peace Comes With Acceptance

THE GIFT OF GOD’S PEACE IS THE PEACE OF ACCEPTANCE. This comes from Jesus being born in us, living in us, and directing our lives.

Three Things Christ Did That Leads to Peace

In a nutshell Christ came to give us 1) the gift that forgives us of our past separation from God—another way of saying “sins.” He removes the guilt. 2) God gave us a Savior to GIVE US A Spirit-Controlled life. Even though we can’t see Him, God’s Spirit is there to direct us and keep us in balance. 3) Christ is the gift that gives us security in eternity. In other words He is the gift that leads to eternal life—a relationship with God that starts on earth, and never ends in heaven.

Nothing Can Separate Me From God

Like most people, it took me years of making mistakes to finally get what this peace is all about. What it’s all about is found in the Bible in a book called Romans where it says: “Neither death, nor life, neither angels or demons, neither things in the present or things to come will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Focus Must Be on Christ

THE REAL PEACE THAT CHRIST GIVES US IS FOUND IN THAT PROMISE THAT “GOD IS WITH US.” When God is with us, we find peace regardless of what life throws at us. That’s why we must put our focus on Christ.

Shepherds Focused

The shepherds would have missed the gift of peace if they had focused more on the sheep or themselves than on God.
You and I miss out on God’s gift of peace when we focus on ourselves, and on the “things” we want out of life.

Conclusion:
What We Do With The Tag

We can say we want and forget to receive it—like one of these yellow tags. We can accept it and put it aside. We can turn God down altogether, or we can say . . . God has a plan and knows what I need - I want it, and I’ll take it! When we receive God’s gift, God is then saying to us, “Merry Christmas . . . forever!”