Sermon Tone Analysis

Love In Swaddling Clothes

Welcome to the fourth Sunday of Advent.

What an amazing season it is as we journey together toward Christmas.

And so we use these weeks leading up to Christmas as a chance to look forward with great expectation to the coming of Christ as we embark on a journey of hope, love, joy, and peace.

So together we continue this journey to the manger, this journey of love.

The manger signals the brightest love,

Love wrapped in swaddling clothes,

the love that never gives up,

the love that conquered sin and death,

the love that surrounds us daily and fills us eternally.

Perfect love.

God’s love embodied.

As we conitune this journey to the manger, let me ask you to consider several questions:

How do you perceive God’s love for you?

Do you feel you need to earn it?

Do you wonder if God’s love is meant for you?

Do you see the overflow of God’s love in your own life toward others?

Let’s dive deep today into the love of God as we explore a love that caused Him to enter our world through His Son that first Christmas.

A love that was present from the creation of the world is enough for each and every one of us and is meant to overflow in our lives.

He Loved from the Start

We often talk about Christmas as the time “when love came down.”

We say God’s love entered the world as a baby.

And that is all true.

But we would be mistaken if we didn’t take a longer view, a view back in time to the beginning of the world.

The history of our world, the story of the Bible, is a love story from the first day of creation.

It is the story of God’s love for His people and His plan of redemption to bring us back into relationship with Him.

God is not some distant uncle who suddenly shows up with a gift nobody knows what to do with.

Nor is He a cold and miserly distant figure grudgingly offering us an occasional token.

Yes, love came crashing into that stable in Bethlehem.

But Jesus’s birth was the culmination of a long history of love.

And His love for us today, this Advent season, is not something new.

Psalm 139 tells all about how God knew us intimately before we were born.

And the apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians:  

In Love He Predestined Us For Adooption Through Jesus

God’s love does not depend on us.

It’s not something we have to earn or perform to maintain.

It starts with God, not us.

God is love.

It is His nature and character.

His love for us was there from the beginning of time and will continue throughout eternity.

(1 John 4:15b–19 )

God is love.

Jesus is the highest, fullest, and most complete demonstration of God.

And God is love.

Jesus is God demonstrating love, Jesus is God demonstrating His perfect love, Jesus is God demonstrating His perfect love towards humanity.

Jesus isn’t God’s foil against God’s own nature, as if God delights in wrath.

Jesus is God’s fulfillment of the redemption plan conceived in God’s love.

Jesus is God’s love wrapped in swaddling clothes so that we could be swaddled in righteouness.

Jesus isn’t God’s good side.

Jesus isn’t the cartoon angel on God’s shoulder convincing God to do something nice.

Jesus is God in the flesh.

Jesus is the revelation of God’s love.

Jesus is the good news of God toward all the people.

There is no fear in love.

- In Christ you do not have to fear punishment because the punishment that belonged to us Jesus took upon himself.

Willingly.

Out of love.

What causes us fear, Jesus looked at and for joy set before him, endured the cross.

Jesus didn’t fear the punishment.

Jesus didn’t fear the cross.

Love compelled him.

Love for the Father and love for us.

Jesus wasn’t afraid.

Jesus loved.

We love because He first loved us.

The only religion in the world that teaches us that God is love is Christianity.

Why?

Because we believe that God so loved the world that He sent Jesus.

Love is THE fundamental truth of Christianity.

Why do we long to be loved?

Because we were created in the image of God.

To know truth and to experience love.

Love has boundaries because love loves.

It protects.

It believes.

It seeks the best.

We love because God is love.

Why do we long for a loving God?

We long for a God who loves because that is how our first parents knew God.

Jesus is God loving us back to Eden.

It can be a mind-boggling concept to grasp.

But as we pursue the journey of love, let me encourage you to simply accept that God’s love for us exists beyond the constraints of time, space, and our limited understanding.

It’s a love worth focusing on, meditating on, and basking in during this season of preparation.

His Love Is Enough

But do you ever have a hard time loving God?

Do you ever have a hard time accepting His love for you?

Do you ever doubt that His love is enough to cover all the pain, hurt, selfishness, and evil of our world?

Or that His love is enough to cover the pain or hurt in your own heart?

If we’re honest, I think most all of us would have to answer yes to all those questions, and some of us more than others.

Despite what we may know in our heads or believe in our hearts, there is a daily struggle to live in the reality of God’s love for us.

It’s so different from our own ability to love.

It may be vastly different from the love—or lack of it—that you’ve experienced in your human relationships and life overall.

Let me remind you of some good news this morning—the best news.

God.

Loves.

You.

Not because of anything you’ve done or have to do.

Not for today but then He’s going to take it all back tomorrow.

Not like the father or mother or spouse or ex-spouse or friend or enemy who let you down or hurt you or abused you or twisted the concept or guise of love to inflict damage or pain or heartache that can seem so hard to heal from or let go of.

God loves you purely, perfectly, wholly, lavishly.