2024d Advent -Love

Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Today is the fourth week of advent. In the first week we looked at hope. That as believers we have been given great promises in the scriptures and we believe in these because God is a faithful God and a trust worthy God. What he says will come to pass and we have the promise of eternal live through faith in Jesus as our Lord and savior. Without the birth of Jesus there would be no final hope for any one.
Then we looked at joy. That we have recieved the most valuable blessing that could ever be given. We have been adopted into the household of God. We have been cleansed of all wrong doing and we will stand blameless before God at the final judgement because of the perfect life that Jesus lived and that has been imputed to us. Without the birth of Jesus there is no ultimate everlasting, and enduring Joy.
Last week we looked at the peace of God. We look at three battles that people experience. We looked at the battle between men and God. All men who are enemies to God but he calls them back to himself though his will. To bring them to eternal peace with God.
The battle between men. The wars that rage due to our own desires and wants. When selfishness governs our lives unity is broken and disagreements and conflict arises. But God has given us everything we need to live at peace within the body of believers as we are united by work of God in our lives. So that we can be at peace with each other.
The third battle was the battle in our self. The battle between the desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit. That we can have peace within own minds and hearts as we pursue the things of God and follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the truth of the word.
Without the birth of Jesus there would be no reconciliation to God, no unity among men, no Holy Spirit dwelling in men and thus no peace.
Today we look a the fourth advent candle that symbolizes love. Love is such a complicated and miss understood word in our day today. It get thrown around causally and in reality its meaning is typically defined by individual minds and notions.
What is interesting is that love is about as universal topic as you can get. It doesn’t matter your age, the country you live in, whether you are religious or have lived in a remote part of the map and never stepped foot in a church. Love will be part of their lives and most believe they have a full understanding of it.
With so many different variations and understanding of it. Where do we turn to see love for what it really is and what it really means. Well we turn to God. And his word. The one who creates all is probably the one who we should look to as the one who defines all.
Turn with be to 1st John Chapter 4 today.
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. 16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. 17 In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.
God is Love
God is Love
John starts this exhortation to the church with.
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Love is a central part of our understanding of who God is and who we are as children of God. John goes so far to say that anyone who does not love, who is not characterized by love, that they do not know God. Why is that, it is because God is love.
God’s character and quality is one of love and every one who is being sanctified and maturing into the image of Jesus must be growing in the image of God’s love. Any thing called love that does not align with who God is cannot be love. Because God is not just a being that can love but who he is is the defining standard of what love must be.
The love that the church and his people should demonstrate is not something we create but from God himself.
The psalmist writes that love of God is priceless.
7 How priceless your faithful love is, God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
Paul writes that the God is the God of Love.
11 Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice. Become mature, be encouraged, be of the same mind, be at peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.
What a blessing it is to know that the most powerful thing that we can come into contact, be in relationship, or be at war with is one who loves people. The love that he has doesn’t diminish or fade over time. It is not predicated on you at all. That when you deserved to be loved the least he never faltered in his love for you.
We have a God who is abounding in love
15 But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth.
When we have come to understand that he loves us. And we see his faithfulness and endurance in continuing to love us even in our dark and sinful moments. When we know that we are still loved. Then we have much to be thankful for.
26 Give thanks to the God of heaven! His faithful love endures forever.
If God is love. If it is part of his nature then Jesus it the expression of that love.
3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
No one has seen God but those that saw Jesus saw the exact imprint, the exact impression. the exact expression of the God of Love.
How did Jesus revel God’s Love?
God’s Love Revealed
God’s Love Revealed
People really like to come to conclusions on how God loves people. There have been those that deny he is loving at all or even engaged in the lives of people. Other people will say that he loves you only when you are health or wealthy. That those things demonstrate that you are loved by God.
There are others that will turn towards people and will say that if you don’t agree with me then you are unloving. One of the charges against the church is that it is unloving because it does not openly accept every whim and fantasy that men and women create in their minds to deal with the world we live in.
But the bible tells us exactly what the love of God is and how it was revealed to mankind.
9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
The entire world was doomed to be spiritually condemned. There was no hope of salvation without the intervention of God. But because of God’s love Jesus was sent. God’s love was revealed or made manifest before the world. In his love he sent Jesus so that people who come to call on his name may be saved.
So that those that were dead, all unbelievers, might live through Jesus. That the son was sent to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Most Christians are familiar with John 3:16
16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
He was sent so that those that would believe in him would have life. For them to have life they must be dead. They need to be saved from the condemnation that they have earned from their own transgressions.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.
All of humanity is in a state of condemnation until they turn toward the Son who was sent. Until they believe in the name of Jesus. All who call on his name will be saved. They will be saved through the atonement of Jesus. Through the sacrifice that is put forth to appease the wrath of God and to put men into a state of good will towards God.
Without the Son there is no forgiveness of sin.
22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. 23 Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
If the Son was not sent. If Jesus did not become the perfect sacrifice to God, then there would be no forgiveness of sin, no reconciliation of men, no hope for redemption, no peace with God, and no great joy for anyone.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!
Have you ever wanted someone to prove their love? Paul says that this is how God proved his own love for us.
8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
What does the most clear picture of love look like? Well look no further then to the manger and the cross. The one who was willing to be born for you, who was willing to live for you, and who was willing to die for. To show the greatest action of love.
13 No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.
There is no greater love than this. The giving of everything for another. And we have recieved this love. It is not far away and unknown to us. We can proclaim in the words of Paul.
20 I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
What is love? It is Jesus. All definitions of love must first be grounded in the life of the son. And when we come to the place of redemption and we can say that it is Christ who lives in me because Jesus gave himself for me, then we are to live in this example and manifest the Love of God though our own lives.
God’s Love Proclaimed
God’s Love Proclaimed
John continued to encourage the church
11 Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. 16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
He turns to his fellow believers and says if this is how we are loved, we must, we must also love one another.
We were not in the field with the shepherds when the heavens opened up and declared that the son has come. We were not there in the manger, or with the wise men. We were not on on the hillside hearing Jesus teach or see him heal the sick and raise the dead. We were not there when he entered Jerusalem on the colt while the crowd shouted Hosanna. We were not there in the upper room around the table as he broke bread or in the garden when he was arrested. We did not watch him carry his cross or watch in disbelieve when he gave up his spirit and said it is finished. We did not sit in the room lost and confused when he appears and say peace be with you.
We did not experience the manifestation of God love during these moments in history. But his love has been passed down through the believers as they have manifested this love for over 2000 years. This love of the brethren shows that God remains in his people. And his love is made complete in the continuation of the love of God’s people. This has come to be, because God’s Spirit was given to his people.
We have come to know the love of God though the love of his church.
We may not have seen the son of God as he lived and testify what we saw that day but our testimony is not less impactfull or less true. We have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior. This is what we testify and proclaim.
14 For the love of Christ compels us, since we have reached this conclusion, that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised. 16 From now on, then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come! 18 Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. 19 That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.” 21 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
We have been given the ministry and the message of reconciliation. the testimony that God’s love has been revealed. That it can be experienced and that he loves you and he loves me. That he laid down his life for us.
We are his ambassadors.
God’s Love Removes Fear
God’s Love Removes Fear
17 In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love.
God’s love is made complete so that Christians may be confident on the day of judgement. Many do not like to speak of the day that each person will stand before the righteous and just God. Each person will stand in their own work and sins with no hope of pardon or they will stand without fear before the almighty judge.
God’s prefect love drives out fear as there are no uncertainties in it, no compromises, no unknowns.
Love is made complete so that there is no fear in judgement. We can have full confidence when we stand. From this time forward.
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Because of this we are free to love in this life those around us.
We Love Because God Loved
We Love Because God Loved
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.
John ends this section with a final exhortation to love each other. God’s sacrificial should be part of every part of our lives. Love is a characteristic and quality of believers.
As Jesus commanded his disciples
9 “As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 “I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. 12 “This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you.
We see that Jesus’s love is to be the example of how we love our spouses, or children, our parents, and all other people that are in our lives even our enemies. God’s children those that have called on the name of the son must put on love. Love must be an out poring of who we are. There is a reason it is the first descriptor of the fruit of the spirit.
Today we live in a world just like the one in Jesus’ day. A world that has polluted and corrupted and redefined love into the terms of self and self fulfillment. That the only way you can be loving is if you compromise and submit to my desires and wants. But love is sacrificial and unifying. It builds people together. It gets stronger not weaker. It is strong and secure not weak and passing. As his people we love because he has loved us. a people far from him that he reached out and called us back to him. We are to be a people of love.
14 Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.
Conclusion
Conclusion
In three days we will wake up and the day will will be filled with wonderful things. Will you take a moment each day this week and spend some time preparing to remember the Love of God? The Love that was demonstrated and proven through the life and death of Jesus. Will you take some time to read scripture on Sunday morning? Open the word, and open your hearts to testify i your home.
If you are here today and you are finding that you want to experience this love that we see in the bible and in our lives. That you have tried to live your life the best you can and you know it will never be enough. You know that you are a sinner in need of a savior and you want to be saved. I invite you to come and share that with me. I would love to talk with you after our service today or put your contact information on a card and put it in the box in the back. But do not leave here today without knowing that God loves you and died for you.
I would like to read Paul’s prayer to the church in Ephesus and have that be the beginning of our prayer today.
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. 16 I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, 19 and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us—21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Let us pray.
Let us pray.
Prayer
Communion
Warning
Children, Lost, Sin
19 And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 In the same way he also took the cup after supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.
27 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he gave it to them and said, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Prayer
Song
Closing
Blessing/Benediction
20 Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus—the great Shepherd of the sheep—through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21 equip you with everything good to do his will, working in us what is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.