The Unexpected Messiah: "Love"
John 15:12-13 –“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
I. God’s Love on Display.
1. God’s love has ACTION.
Luke 19:10 – “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Galatians 4:4-5 – “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”
John 3:34 – “For he whom God has sent utters the words of God…”
John 5:36-38 – “But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.”
John 6:29 – “Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.””
John 6:57 – “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.”
John 8:42 – “Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.”
John 17:3 – “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
John 20:21 – “Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.””
Romans 8:3 – “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,”
1 John 4:9 – “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.”
1 John 4:10 – “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
1 John 4:14 – “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.”
2. God’s Love Saves.
3. God’s Love is Truthful.
John 1:10-11 – “He [Jesus] was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.”
John 7:7 - “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.”
John 15:18 – “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.”
II. How to Show God’s Love through this Season.
1. Give like God.
2. Seek others.
Luke 19:10 – “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
3. Show what God has done in your life.
John 13:34-35 – “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
2 Corinthians 5:14-15 – “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”