I'm from Omaha. Graduated from Holy Name in 1965. Spent 27 years in the Navy, came to Christ at age 32. After seminary, I served as solo pastor of Hillside Bible Chapel in Farmington Hills, Michigan for 4 years and then 25 years as senior pastor of Country Bible Church in Blair, Nebraska. I retired on my 70th Birthday on January 15, 2017.
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This is a seven sermon series on Grace.
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1) Reclaim Me – Salvaged by Grace
2) Reinforce Me – Sustained by Grace
3) Refine Me – Purged by Grace
4) Renew Me – Redesigned by Grace
5) Remake Me – Refreshed by Grace
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Richard Hatch was the winner of the first Survivor game show. I never liked the guy very much and after he won he started doing the talk show circuit. He was on all the big ones: letterman, Leno, etc. He was arrogant and obnoxious! (I guess it takes one to know one!) The most memorable thing about him is what he said that always makes me think about the Christmas tradition of giving. He said “selfishness is a virtue.” He said, “For example, if you give somebody a gift, it’s because 
you want that good feeling that comes to you from the act of making someone you care about happy.”
Well, that’s the truth in many ways. I remember shopping as a little boy for my mother and father and wanting to get them something that they would like. Dad always got excited over the handkerchiefs and the socks. Mom loved the cheap perfume. Well, they sure acted like it. It was interesting that as I look back I realize that there sure wasn’t much for them to get excited about at Christmas time, but they sure did act like it. I didn’t fully understand it until I had my own kids and got the joy of giving to them and acting like the pencil drawing of a tree was the greatest gift I could have ever received. It really does feel good to give to those we love! We truly do have a selfish motive in our giving. We love to make those we love happy and we usually go to some expense to make that happen.
But what if the one you loved most was what you had to give away! Do you see any selfish motives in that? God so loved the world that He gave his “only begotten son.” Jesus is often referred as God’s “beloved son.” Jesus is the one God loved above all others and it was this that God gave up. Instead of pleasing the one he loved He gave Him up for us! And He gave him up for us when we were His enemies. In doing this He “demonstrates His Own love for us in that: that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Someone once said that the only purely motivated give of love was the one God gave us in the person of His only son. When we look at all the presents under our trees this year, let’s remember the greatest present of all.
Chuck
“God so loved that He gave….” John 3:16
Every year when I sit down to prepare the sermons for the Christmas season, I think “this year we’re going to focus on the TRUE meaning of Christmas.” I wonder if people get tired of hearing me say that year after year. I don’t think I’ll say it this year. But the sentiment isn’t lost because I do have trouble getting my mind around the depth of the true meaning of Christmas and I’m not sure I’ll ever fully comprehend it: God becoming a man, born in a manger, with the sole purpose 
of dying at the hands of those He created to pay the penalty for his sins. This is just a little too profound for me to grasp. That’s why it’s great to visit this truth often.
I don’t think it’s possible to get the real meaning of Christmas at Christmas time. Christmas comes at the wrong time of the year. I mean all the activities of Christmas takes my focus off of the true meaning of Christmas. All of my family Christmas pictures growing up were about the toys and trees. I got my first bicycle at Christmas. I loved that bicycle! (I had training wheels on it for 3 years!) We buy presents for everyone in our family. We send cards and or letters to those far away. I don’t get the “tree” idea. Where does the pine tree show up in the Christmas story? I like the idea of lights because Jesus is the “light of the world” and that’s a great symbol. But we take what’s inside, lights, and put them on the outside. Then take what’s outside, trees, and put them on the inside. What’s that all about? We give and receive presents which is important because it’s the real meaning of Christmas, giving to others because God so loved that He gave His only son.
The main problem I have with Christmas is that I’m always too busy with the Christmas season to really enjoy Christmas. We have two Christmas Eve services every year which are the highlight of our season’s holiday. Since Christmas is on Sunday this year and we’ll have two services Saturday night, we’ll only have an 11am service on Christmas day. That should make things a little easier. So my vow this year is no matter how much activity we have at church or with the family and no matter how much energy I put into trees, lights, shopping, food and other holiday activity, I’m not going to let any of that block my view of the true meaning of Christmas: God have us Himself so that we might have eternal life!
Chuck
“And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger…” Luke 2:7
I’ve always argued that the commandments of God are not given to us in order to keep us from the enjoyable things in life. On the contrary, they are given 
to us so that we’ll live the best possible lives in this fallen world. God always has our best interests foremost in mind when he allows suffering and when he commands obedience. He’s not, like some think, the kind of God who wants to keep good things from us. Eve fell for that Satan’s ploy! He only wants our best in every situation and circumstance. The scriptures make ingratitude a sin and it commands us to be thankful. He commands us to be thankful because that’s the best thing for us.
David Jeremiah tells this story: A man who was on the verge of a nervous breakdown was counseled to practice the therapy of thanksgiving. He was told to make a list of all the people who had ever helped him in his life. Then he was to sit down and write a letter of thanks to a person who had especially blessed his life in the past. This man thought through his life and remembered a school teacher he’d had when he was growing up. She was a very old lady now. He wrote her a letter expressing his appreciation for all she’d meant to his life during his days of schooling. Several days went by and he got a letter back from her. She wrote, “Dear Willie, as I recall all the children I have taught over the years, you are the only one who ever took time to write and thank me for what I did as a teacher. You’ve made me so happy. I’ve read your letter through tears. I keep it by my bedside and read it every night. I shall cherish it until the day I die.” This man was so thrilled by the reply that he wrote more letters. At last he’d written 500 letters to the people he felt grateful to. You know what happened? The man got better.
Louis Smedes wrote when he woke up after a near death experience: I was flying outside of myself. High. Held in weightless lightness as if my earthly existence needed no ground to rest in but was hung in space with only love to keep it aloft. I was so grateful. It was then that I learned that gratitude is the best feeling I would ever feel in all of my life. It was the ultimate joy of living. It was better than winning the lottery. Better and deeper than any other feeling. It is, perhaps, the genesis of all other really good feelings in the human repertoire. I am sure that nothing in life can ever match the feeling of being fully, totally, completely grateful.
Chuck
“Give thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.” Colossians 1:12
The primary function of the Spirit of God in the world today is to convict us of our sin and of our need for a savior and to convince us of the infallibility and 
authority of God’s Word. The truths of scripture have many different titles. It’s called the Word of God, the Truth, the Holy Writings, the Scriptures, God’s Word, and at times the Word of Christ. When the Spirit fills our lives and we let the Word of God live in us, the natural result is thanksgiving! Paul exhorted the believers everywhere to Surrender to the Spirit of God and submit to God’s Word and let the results fill our lives. The result of living such a life is always a life of peace with God as well as a thankful heart. He wrote in Colossians 3:15-16, “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.”
The Apostle Paul is the hero of thanksgiving. He writes about it in Colossians and in Ephesians but really focuses on it in the book of Romans. Many times I’ve heard people tell me that it’s really easy for me to say we should all be thankful, but I don’t know what’s going on in their lives right now and if I did I would say such cliché’s to them. My first reaction is a personal one and I’ve learned never to voice it. I think “do you think my life is all perfect and that I don’t have any problems or that I haven’t suffered any loss of any kind?” I don’t say that, but I usually think it. I like to quote Paul’s comment to the Corinthians that there is no trial or temptation that is not common to man. We want to say “poor me,” and we sing the old spiritual “nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.” The truth is we all know trouble and suffering and loss.
No one knew it better than the first century believers in Rome. Nero was great and setting them on fire to light the walk in his garden. He was great at sending them to the coliseums to be attacked and eaten by wild dogs and lions for the entertainment of his constituents. He was great at many other creative ways of torture and execution as well. But Paul tells the Romans the truth about their situation that transcends all the sufferings of life. He writes, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, For your sake we are being killed all the daylong; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” If this word dwells in us, we can’t help but be thankful no matter what’s going on in our lives.”
Chuck
“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18
When Paul writes to the Ephesians he says, “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:18-21).
Most of us are familiar with the fruits of the spirit given to us clearly in Galatians 5. They are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control. These nine are famous because they’re listed as such in this passage. But this list is not exhaustive. It’s more exemplary. There are other “fruits of the spirit.” One important one is “thankfulness” as we learn in the Ephesians passage. When the Spirit of God controls our lives we are grateful, thankful people.
It is only through the Spirits presence that we can be thankful people at all times. It’s only through the power of the Spirit that Job said “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed is the name of the Lord.” It’s only through God’s Spirit that he said “naked came I into the world and naked from it I will go.” And only the Holy Spirit could have inspired his words, “although He slay me, yet will I put my faith in Him.” An unknown author wrote this poem:
O Thou whose bounty fills my cup, With every blessing meet!
I give Thee thanks for every drop—The bitter and the sweet.
I praise Thee for the desert road, And for the riverside;
For all Thy goodness hath bestowed, And all Thy grace denied.
I thank Thee for both smile and frown, And for the gain and loss;
I praise Thee for the future crown And for the present cross.
I thank Thee for both wings of love Which stirred my worldly nest;
And for the stormy clouds which drove Me, trembling, to Thy breast.
I bless Thee for the glad increase, And for the waning joy;
And for this strange, this settled peace Which nothing can destroy.
Chuck
“Be filled with the Spirit… giving thanks always for everything.” Ephesians 5:20