Advent Love: The Heartbeat of God

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Love has been so watered down that it is basically a null value. A meaningless expression.

I’m not talking about someone saying “I love tacos,” or “I love my new car.” I’m talking about how we use it as a term of endearment.

It can be seen especially in the younger generations today. How many times do we see someone have casual relations with another and say I love you. Only to turn around and have a casual relationship with another person.

We tend to associate love with a spike in dopamine. We get a feel good moment and all of a sudden we’re in love.

It’s a self-seeking love. A love focused on self instead of the one we are claiming to love.

We do this in all kinds of relationships. We have friends whom we love simply because we get satisfaction from being around them.

Do you know anyone who uses their relationship with another person most specifically for their own personal gain?

We warn our children about those people in their lives. Love has become a superficial emotion. A dopamine high so to speak. And completely self-serving.

The problem is we have forgotten what love truly is. We have forgotten love’s Origin.

We’re going to be in 1 John 4:7-21 today. As we finish the advent season with the advent of love, I want to bring us back to what we already have and for what we are patiently awaiting.

We’re going to be looking at three aspects of love:

Love’s Divine Origin

Love Transforms Us

Love’s Witness in Us

In our self-serving love we demonstrate that we don’t know love at all. We demonstrate that we don’t know Love’s Divine Origin.

Love’s Divine Origin

Let’s look at 1 Jn 4:7-10

1 John 4:7–10 NKJV

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

“Love is of God.” That is a possessive sentence. It declares the Divine origin of love is God.

How many non-profits are there that are “helping” the poor and needy throughout the world?

Now ask yourself, how many of those have some form of corruption?

How many use less than 70% of the money received to actually help people?

They claim to love those they are “helping” but they are lining their own pockets and getting rich off the donations we send to “help” the needy.

They do not know love nor do they know love’s divine origin. Because true love, born of God, is a self-sacrificing love.

The undeniable truth in that is the manifestation of God’s love in His Son sent into the world. Through Christ’s atoning sacrifice we have life in Him.

If we live in Him we know love and we know God. But we sure can stifle that love can’t we?

I know there are far too many times when I’ll say something to someone and realize it wasn’t very loving. My dear wife is the recipient of those comments more than I care to admit.

She’s a safe place to speak my mind and sometimes what comes out is very fleshly and not in the Spirit. I’ll look at her and say, “that wasn’t very loving was it, I’m really sorry.”

Most of the time she is gracious and loving in return. Once in a while she will respond with a snarky attitude in return.

Fair enough I deserved it for sure.

But is that really how we are supposed to act in love?

Is that how we are to respond to God’s love?

That’s not what John tells us in verses 11-16.

Love transforms Us

1 John 4:11–16 NKJV

11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

If we remain in God and He remains in us we should have the same desiring love for others that He has for the world.

But we tend to be not so loving.

We say things like:

“If you don’t believe in Jesus you’re going to hell.”

“You know a true Christian doesn’t act like that!”

“You can’t wear that to church!”

We even condemn groups of people.

“LGBTQ people are an abomination to God.”

“Women who have an abortion are evil and are going to hell.”

“You voted for Biden? You’re going to hell.”

Or “You voted for Trump? You know you just voted for the anti-Christ.”

We even make jokes like:

God had to build a wall in heaven so the Baptists wouldn’t know anyone else made it.

“If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” The Greek word translated “ought” here means: to be obligatory in view of some moral or legal requirement.

The CSB translates it as “must” which reflects the seriousness of the obligated moral and/or legal requirement much better.

It’s not a suggestion.

I remember a time when my son was about to do something really stupid and go against an unwritten rule. I looked at him and said “I would suggest that you don’t do that.”

Even though I truly meant you better not do that. Even though it was a command not a suggestion.

And even though my son knew exactly what I meant, he did it anyway. Oh, there were consequences. Life transforming consequences.

John is saying this is a command by God. Jesus made this clear as well when He told His disciples in Jn 13:34

John 13:34 NKJV

34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

John says in verse 12 that if we love one another then God is in us and His love is perfected in us.

How is His love perfected in us? By way of the Spirit. That is Him in us.

Love is perfected in us as the Holy Spirit, in us, transforms us.

If we seek God in our heart the Spirit transforms our character to be more like God’s character.

In that transformation we come to know the love God has for His creation. We come to know that God is love.

If we remain in love we remain in God. And He remains in us. God’s love perfected in us is witness to the world.

Look at verses 17-21

Love’s Witness in Us

1 John 4:17–21 NKJV

17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 19 We love Him because He first loved us. 20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21 And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.

Love is perfected in us by our faith in His promises. It is demonstrated when our character becomes more and more like His character.

God is love! Why is it so hard for people to figure out what God’s character might be like?

Could it be a lack of faith?

Could it be lack of transformation?

Think about it.

How successful is the “witness” of a Christian who tells others about Jesus Christ, but whose love for others isn’t any different from the rest of the world?

John gives a stark warning to those people.

1 John 4:20 NKJV

20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?

It’s no wonder Christmas season has lost its purpose. It’s no wonder people say happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas.

I will never judge another persons salvation. That’s for God to judge. But I might question it.

Without transformation love doesn’t grow. Without love there’s no fruit and no witness.

We must have transformation and take on more and more of the character of God.

As we take on God’s character and become more loving we truly become a witness to the world. It’s in that witness that we see our communities changed.

When we love the world we show them the hope that we are patiently awaiting during the advent season.

We celebrate Christmas in remembrance of Jesus Christ’s birth. On this last day of Advent as we remember how Israel waited for the Messiah to arrive.

And as we also look forward to and patiently await His return. Let us remember the love God poured out on His creation.

A love so perfect and pure that He sent His only Son into His creation. Sent Him to die on a cross as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

He defeated death and rose again. He ascended to heaven sitting at the right hand of God. Where He also patiently waits for the Father to tell Him to go get the bride He loves.

I know for many Christmas is crazy. It’s busy and stressful. And we are going to see relatives that get on our nerves. And be around them for too long.

May the Advent of Love remind us to let God’s love shine as we await His glorious love.