Love is in the House!

Focus: God defines love as sacrificing the self for the other.

Function: That the hearer would live it out a love that is not self-centered, but sacrificial as a reflection of Christ.

Malady: Love is often seen as a self-centered thing that is meant to bring personal pleasure.

Means: Jesus shows us what true love is as he lays down his life at the cross, the clearest picture of love that there is.

Introduction

Today, we are continuing in our Advent sermon series Christmas Lists, and if you are familiar with Advent at all, you’ll know that it is tradition to, each week, light another candle on the Advent wreath. We actually have been giving away little Advent wreath kits for families with devotionals attached. And this has been awesome for our family because my daughter Naomi loves blowing out candles. So each night we light the candle for the week and read the attached Scripture, but then the climax is when Naomi gets to blow out the candle. Now I think my kids have loved it a little too much because this is what our Advent wreath looks like now. It’s a bit decimated. But we’ve been making our way lighting the candles of all of these things that Jesus brings at His birth - hope, peace, joy, and now we get to love. At His birth, Jesus brings the fullness of love.

The Many Definitions of Love

But what does that actually mean? You see, I think with hope, peace, and even joy, we use those words and we all are at least thinking about a similar thing. But think about the word “love”? It can mean so many different things in our world today. My daughter loves blowing out candles. My son loves pulling the ornaments off of our Christmas tree. And I love my wife. When you get into a relationship, you are “falling in love.” We hear phrases like “Love is love” and “Love conquers all.” We have all of these different uses of the same word, and something that becomes clear is that “love” is something that is incredibly important to our world. In fact, love might be one of the highest values. I mean think about it, what is the standard by which our world judges whether something is right or wrong? Whether it is the loving thing to do, right? You shouldn’t do that because it is not loving. And here’s what is even more interesting. We even hear that very criticism launched straight at God. “I can’t believe in God because He allowed this to happen or He did this and a loving God would never do something like that.” But notice, even in that, there is a definition of love that a person has that God is being judged against. Your definition of love is critically important because it is going to be the lens by which you view every relationship in which love is meant to exist - your family, your friendships, boyfriends, girlfriends, marriages, all of it - but it will also affect how you view your relationship with God. At Jesus’ birth, He brings into the world true love, and today we are going to be in 1 John 4, which is really the perfect place to be. In this chapter alone, the word “love” is used 27 times. Chapter 4 gets at the heart of John’s letter and in this chapter we get a clear picture of what love is, where it comes from, how it different from the world’s view of love, what it is oriented towards, and the transformation it brings.

“Love” in 1 John 4

John starts in verse 7 by stating his goal for everything he is about to say.

1 John 4:7 (NLT)

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.

John’s goal is that these fellow believers would love one another, but he doesn’t let them each decide what they want love to mean. No, he spends the rest of his time driving into them what true love is, and he starts by saying something pretty countercultural.

God is the Source of Love

1 John 4:7–8 NLT

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

Two verses, but my goodness there is a lot in there. First, where does love come from? From my heart? From a relationship with someone else? No, from God. But he takes it a step further. Not only does love come from God, but he says God is love. Now think about how crazy that is. He doesn’t say God is really loving or that God is a great example of love. He says God is love. They are the same thing. Love is the very essence of who God is. And there are two main implications that come to mind for me from that reality. The first is this, if God is love, then our relationship with Him is the primary place we receive love from. You see, this is why problems arise when you look to any relationship in this world - spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend - for love above God. Two things happen. First, you are distancing yourself from the very source of love that you were created to endlessly receive from. But second, you are placing a flawed, broken human being in the place that was meant for God alone. Do you realize the incredible pressure that is put on your marriage when you are looking to your spouse to love you the way that only God Himself can love you? That is an unbearable burden placed upon the other person. Consider this: Are you married and living in bitterness towards each other? Are you dating and constantly filled with disappointment going from one relationship to another? Are you single and feeling hopeless about every finding the one? In every one of those scenarios, I want you to reflect on this question: Where is your ultimate source of love? Where are you looking to for ultimate love, affirmation, security? If your answer is anything other than God, then you are setting yourself up for continual disappointment. God is love, and therefore, your deep yearning for love will not be fulfilled by looking somewhere else.

The Self-Centered Love of the World

But the second thing is this: If God is love—if that’s not just what He does but who He is—then He’s the one who holds the ultimate authority to define what love truly looks like. This is huge because every single one of us lives in a world that stresses the importance of love - how “all you need is love” - but when you take a step back and look at what our world often means by “love” you will find something that is incredibly self-centered. What do I mean by that? Our world defines love as being attracted to someone. You see something attractive in another, and as a result, you love them. “I love you. I want to be with you.” And I am not just talking attracted to them physically. You could be attracted to their success, their power, their intelligence. Something in them is attractive to you, and thus, you draw near. But why? A while back, I listened to a wonderful sermon by the late preacher Timothy Keller where he says, “All human beings are just a big bundle of needs. We need approval. We need power. We need comfort. We need control. We need all kinds of things, and when your human soul senses a person out there who has the ability to meet some of those needs, then you hungrily make a beeline for them, and you call that love.” You enter the relationship because they meet your needs. You stay in the relationship as long as they meet your needs. You leave the relationship as soon as they stop meeting your needs. You. You. You. Love in our world is primarily a means to get your needs met.

The Selfless Love of Christ

Now contrast that to the love that we see described in 1 John 4. Right after saying God is love, John describes exactly what he means by love.

1 John 4:9–10 NLT

God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

John is saying, “God is love, and you want to know what the fullest expression of that love is? It’s God humbling himself, being born in a manger, living a perfect life, and then taking your place as a sacrifice at the cross.” This where Jesus completely shatters our wordly definition of love, because in a world that says Love is drawing near to those who are attractive, Jesus says, “No I am going to draw near to you when there was nothing attractive about you.” In a world that says love is about getting your needs met, Jesus says, “No love is about me doing everything in my power to meet your needs.” In a world that says love is about being fulfilled, Jesus shows the fullest expression of the love of God as he empties Himself, dying a brutal and horrific death on the cross. That is love. That is real love. That is the love God has for you - a sacrificial, selfless, unending love. And amazing transformation happens when you receive that kind of love. John continues,

Our Selfless Love Towards Each Other

1 John 4:11–12 NLT

Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

Since we have received the fullness of the sacrificial, selfless love of God, we ought to love each other. Really interesting, that word “ought” in the Greek isn’t just a suggestion. It’s not like, “Well, if it’s convenient, try to love each other.” or “Love the people who are nice to you.” No, the word means “to have a deep obligation.” In fact, it is often used to refer to a debt that is owed. Having received the greatest love that one can imagine - the grace and forgiveness of Jesus, we now owe that same love to others in every circumstance. Because if we don’t, we are just like the unforgiving debtor who was forgiven a massive debt by his master, but then turned around withheld forgiveness from the small debt his servant owed him. You have not only liberated by the love of Jesus, but you have been liberated to love like Jesus in every one of your relationships.

And this gets incredibly practical. Is your marriage struggling? You have an opportunity to love. Has someone betrayed your trust? You have an opportunity to love. Is your friendship falling apart? You have an opportunity to love. Every conflict or strife in a relationship is not the absence of love, but an opportunity to love. I want close with this quote from David Guzik in his commentary on 1 John. He writes,

1 John 1 John 4:12

Some people think the greatest evidence of God’s presence or work is power. Some people think the greatest evidence of God’s presence or work is popularity. Some people think the greatest evidence of God’s presence or work is passionate feelings. But the greatest evidence of God’s presence and work is love. Where God is present and working, there will be love.

When you choose love when it is hard, when it is difficult, when it is the last thing you want to do. That is God’s presence at work in your life, because that is the Holy Spirit producing the very same love that we saw in Jesus into your relationships as well. Real love is not selfish. It’s selfless. Real love is not riding the highs. It is enduring the lows. Real love is unconditional. Never-ending. And greatest when you are at your worst. That is the love you have from Jesus. Now, let that love transform all of your other relationships as well. Let us pray.