Advent Love

1 John 4:7-12

Advent love gives us what we have always longed for.

The hero always comes to himself in our stories but it is not himself he is meant for…

Watching a new “Christmas” movie with the family instigated some thinking about the mixed messages we hear and see this time of year. Marketers, entertainers, and influencers all grapple with sentiment, scratching the surface of human longing and need but always seem to be off the mark by a bit.

We all want the same things.

Humans have a deep-seated longing for identity, worth, and impact, stemming from a fundamental need to understand our place in the world and feel connected to something larger than ourselves. This desire is rooted in our social nature and the inherent drive to belong and make a difference… Or so says the Psychologists.

“Identity: Understanding who we are, our unique characteristics, values, and beliefs, is crucial for self-awareness and self-esteem. It allows us to define ourselves, navigate the world, and form meaningful connections with others.”

“Worth: The need to feel valued and appreciated is a universal human experience. A sense of worth stems from being recognized for our contributions, skills, and qualities, fostering self-confidence and emotional well-being.”

“Impact: The desire to leave a lasting mark, to contribute to something bigger than ourselves, is a powerful motivator. It drives us to seek purpose, make a difference, and leave a legacy.”

It’s the current running through everything, and it's not randomly derived, nor even socially constructed but part of the design. Downloaded by our Creator.

And all of this longing is answered by love.

The movies almost get it right. In ours, the rough-around-the-edges guy has to come to terms with his identity as someone on the naughty list, but realizes his life isn’t one to throw away, and he can make a difference.

Hallmark movies often get a lot closer… Big ups to the Bernals for making it 8 minutes into a Lifetime movie last week!

Main character wrestling with questions of identity, worth, and impact.

Who am I? Does my job define me? Childhood? My family? Geography?

What’s my value? Money, wealth? Beauty, intelligence? Proximity to the throne of an unknown kingdom!

Can I have an impact? Where am I needed? Can I make a difference? Who is my “Tiny Tim” that I can rescue? What village or sorry bachelor can I rehabilitate?

And resolution always comes with love.

But all Hollywood, or AI generated scripts can produce is romantic love, fickle love that might change when the next tree farmer comes to town.

It’s all hinting at our need, longing for a greater love. Advent love.

Advent love gives us what we have always longed for.

“Love is both a term that is freely and sparingly used in our society. We talk about loving chocolate cake, loving our favorite sports team, loving a certain genre of music, or even loving certain seasons of the year. In this sense, the term love is tossed around freely like any other word. It is simply a way to note that something is higher up on our like scale than something else, a term of contrast to things we do not like as much. However, there are times where the word carries a significant amount of weight and is approached with caution as to not dispense it at the wrong time or in the wrong setting. Using the term “I love you” in dating usually takes time to say to ensure the words are not premature, since they represent a major state in a relationship. This kind of love is on a higher plane than our love for our favorite sports team. Love is now moving in the direction of not being a contrast to things you like less, but a connection that moves to action and personal sacrifice…

While love is used at varying levels of significance in our daily parlance, there is a love that was shown to us — that is on the highest plane. There are no human metaphors to capture the greatness of all that was involved in this act of love. This love is the highest form of love. This love is not an emotion that ebbs and flows with the waves of changing appetites. This love is incomparable. In this season of Advent, we celebrate a love that we can never fathom or repay. We celebrate the love of God in sending his Son.” Ryan Hutchinson

We go to John, the Apostle of love, on the fourth Sunday of Advent marking the love of God in the first arrival of Jesus, and the love that sustains us as we wait for his return.

This is an exhortation to the church to love one another. John has called them to have right doctrine, thoughts of God, get the facts of Jesus right, so you won’t fall for false prophets. Then walk it out. Live the gospel. Receive the gift so that you become a gift to others.

An appropriate text for us because love is defined.

In fact we get a clue that love is the defining reality of all God does.

1 John 4:7–8 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. [8] Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (ESV)

God is love, but love is not God. Love doesn’t define God. God defines love. God cannot fall in love; he is love. God cannot fall in love for the same reason water can’t get wet: it is wet. God is love-in-eternal-action.

“What does it mean to say that “God is love”? It is helpful to consider this statement alongside the other statement of God’s basic character in 1:5: “God is light.” Neither statement intends to reduce God to an abstract idea or emotion. Rather, these statements refer to God’s action, the essential elements of his character that shape all that he does, and thus how we experience him. Thus, God is loving in all he does: “The love which he shows to men, and which Christians know and rejoice in, is a revelation of His own inner being.”

This is amazing news for sinful beings like us. It brings us to the glory and beauty of the gospel that an all holy God (1:5) would choose to love sinners and accomplish their salvation and sanctification.”

Zoom in to see how this love does that.

1 John 4:9–10 “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. [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.” (ESV)

Advent love is love that goes low, love that gives life, love that is willing to die.

Love that goes low

“In this the love of God was made manifest, that God sent his only Son into the world…”

Birthday stargazing. Magnitude of the universe. “According to current scientific understanding, the observable universe is approximately 93 billion light-years in diameter, meaning the furthest point we can see in any direction is about 46 billion light-years away from Earth; however, the actual size of the universe is unknown as it may be infinite or much larger than what we can observe.”

It is believed there are more than 2 Trillion galaxies in the observable universe. Of which, with the naked eye from the northern hemisphere you can see two.

With that as a frame of reference we can feel so small. I think that’s a good thing, it puts life and eternity into perspective.

When we look at the cute nativities around the house, or see the baby in the manger scene at the pageant, can we fully grasp what it means for him to be sent, for Jesus to come?

Our minds can’t contemplate eternity, no start, just existence, yet he was there.

This is how the disciple describes it.

John 1:1–5 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [2] He was in the beginning with God. [3] All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. [4] In him was life, and the life was the light of men. [5] The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (ESV)

John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (ESV)

All things made by him, in him was life. And he comes not with thunder and fire, but with birth pains and the cries of a newborn.

Angels declare it shepherds. Magi had to search for him.

Philippians 2:6–7 “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, [7] but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (ESV)

Out of his deep love for us, his longing to see us redeemed, rescued from sin and death, to reconcile us to himself; Jesus was willing to leave that which he knew for all of eternity, setting aside that glory for the world of humanity. To take on flesh and dwell among us.

What’s more, it says he was “found in human form” the word translated (schema) was used to describe a King who would exchange royal garments for beggars clothes.

Think of the humility that would be required for God to shed his magnificent glory and lower himself to become a member of his creation. Consider the greatness of God’s love that drove him to divest himself of his splendor, here’s the kicker, for you.

We might wrestle with the humility of being sent. Going this low. We might be prone to move on, don’t stay low too long. Because we might see ourselves down low with him.

After all, the mantra of the world is to find identity and worth in excelling, in elevating, in pulling yourself up from your bootstraps.

“Doesn’t the fact that God was once a babe challenge nearly everything we expect from him? We long for a God who kicks butt and takes names, a divine father who delivers justice to our enemies. We desire a creator who speaks and acts precisely as we wish. Yet, in the babe, we encounter none of that. Instead, we are given the vulnerable, the humble, the babbling, and the God who wakes in the middle of the night.

Christmas is a gift to us, grounding us and reminding us of our fragile, fleeting existence. Advent, like Jesus himself, is a challenge to our power—just as he was a threat to Herod’s. It calls us, once more, to come and lay down our greatest treasures before the child, leaving our delicate, tenuous authority at the door.” A.J. Swoboda

When we recognize our need we see what a gift this love is, a love that comes low, that comes for us as we are. A love that makes us his. Gives us identity.

1 John 3:1a “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” (ESV)

A love that says being sent, going low for you was worth it.

“In the ancient world outside Christianity, it was thought appropriate to love only those who were regarded as worthy of being loved. But God loves sinners who are unworthy of his love, and indeed subject to his wrath. He loved us and sent his Son to rescue us, not because we are lovable, but because he is love. So the greatness of his love is seen in the costliness of his self-sacrifice for the wholly undeserving (cf. Rom. 5:7–8). A clearer manifestation of God’s love could not be imagined.” John R. W. Stott

A love that gives us identity and makes us worthy by going low.

Love that gives life

“So that we might live through him.”

This is in a letter calling believers to life, reminding them that having been saved by Christ they are now free from slavery to sin and can live for something better than what came before.

I love that this is to the church. Because it reveals that I am not the only one that needs the reminder!

We cherish the truth of this advent love.

John 3:16–17 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. [17] For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (ESV)

But we miss out if we think this life doesn’t begin until eternity. Those words come following Jesus telling Nicodemus, a religious leader, that you need to be born again to see the kingdom, to live now.

John 1:12–13 “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, [13] who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (ESV)

Eternal living begins when you believe in Jesus, he goes low so you might live through him. That your identity would match a way of life.

2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (ESV)

Romans 6:4 “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (ESV)

We’ve talked a lot about new life, putting on the new self, this year, studying Ephesians. Even in our “I am” series. Jesus contrasts himself and the thief.

John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (ESV)

Abundant life, not defined by the world’s standards. Not captive to the whims of self. Not subdued by idolatry of others.

But made children of God, given his Spirit, and his way. To live through him.

I was so challenged by a clip from Jackie Hill Perry this week, about the way we often come to Scripture with an orientation matching the age, selfishly looking for affirmation of self, as if we are the center of the universe and God was created for us. My blessing, my overcoming… The challenge is we were not made for ourselves, we were made for God and his glory.

“It is the identity that we ascribe to God out of doubt or faith in His Scriptures that will determine the identity we will give ourselves and ultimately the life that we inevitably live. If He is the Creator, then we are created. If He is Master, then we are servants. If He is love, then we are loved.” JHP

As his we live through him because he came in love.

Bonus, he gives us family to live it with. Beloved, brothers and sisters that you get to love.

A life given, not earned. “Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son.”

He accomplishes it by living for us, being obedient in our place.

Philippians 2:8 “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (ESV)

That’s the final bit isn’t it.

Love that is willing to die.

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.” (ESV)

Advent love comes to cover and deal with our disregard and rejection of God. The moments in the manger are heading to a cross.

To be an atoning sacrifice for us, to make us right with God, granting forgiveness of sin once and for all.

All an act of love.

John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (ESV)

This proves your worth, he was willing to die for you.

Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (ESV)

The way we preach it sometimes we can make it seem like Jesus resents the cross, that he is disappointed in you, that he is like the Father that couldn’t love you, like the boss who never saw your potential, like the unrequited love that ruined you for all others… We lay on the guilt and make you sulk to the altar.

Advent love invites you to run to Jesus with boundless joy and relief. Accepted, seen, known, approved, desired, claimed.

“This love we anticipate at Advent is not begrudging affection. It is a full-throated cry of love from God’s heart for his children. It is lavish love. It is over-abundant, extravagant love… We are brought in, not with apologies or cringing, but with joy and love.” John Tillman

Identity settled.

We realize our impact by loving like he does.

1 John 3:16 “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” (ESV)

1 John 4:11–12 “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. [12] No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” (ESV)

“If you want to know what God is like, you can look at what he has done for us and what we should do for one another. This invisible God actually lives in us. The love he has for us is made visible and complete as we love one another. This is the way the world sees God’s love, as it is expressed by him through our lives. Only as God’s love completes its purpose of reaching out to those he loves—the world (John 3:16)—is his love complete or fulfilled.” Walls and Anders

The kingdom seen in our love, Christmas explained in our love. Not easy, but worth it because Jesus said we are…

“The love of God is the answer to the quest for life’s supreme value and reality but also to life’s deepest meaning and purpose. Since God is love, we must love God and love whatever God loves. He is the divine conductor. If we follow his baton, the music of our life will be a symphony.”

“Here Is Love”:

Here is love, vast as the ocean,

Lovingkindness as the flood,

When the Prince of life, our ransom,

Shed for us His precious blood. . . .

On the mount of crucifixion

Fountains opened deep and wide;

Through the floodgates of God’s mercy

Flowed a vast and gracious tide.

Grace and love, like mighty rivers,

Poured incessant from above,

And heaven’s peace and perfect justice

Kissed a guilty world in love.

Advent love gives us what we have always longed for.

Receive this love - See Jesus, believe in him, have eternal life. In this is love, that he came to die that you might live.

Live this love - Live through him, turn from the old ways to his way and let love be perfected in us as you love one another. As you love the least, as you love like Jesus loved.

Identity, worth, impact. They are all yours in Jesus. The greatest love we could ever know.

Merry Christmas.