Love Came Down
Notes
Transcript
INTRO
Our final theme as we approach Christmas day, and the most important, is love. In about two months, the world will be selling you all sorts of things to help you say “I love you” to the special someone in your life. But Christmas isn’t here yet. Love is the foundation of Christmas. The most popular verse in the bible, John 3:16, says,
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
This is a Christmas verse! God loved the world so much that he sent his Son into the world to redeem it. Love is a curious thing. Like joy, if it is rooted in a feeling, then it is fleeting. But because love is rooted in God himself, we experience love even in the absence of feeling.
The book of 1 John has love as a major theme. It speaks about God’s love for us, as demonstrated by sending his Son. It speaks to a call to love one another as a result of God’s love for us. I don’t know about your week, but I hope this week slows down a little so you can focus on the things and the people in your life that truly matter. As we step into Christmas this week, let us remind each other that to be Christian is to love one another. As we approach Christmas, let us remember the love of God and the call to love one another.
Love for one another flows from our love for God.
Love for one another flows from our love for God.
In chapter three, John had already called his audience to love one another. In chapter four, there is a movement from the source of love, the means by which we love, and the result that love establishes. In the first few verses, John reemphasizes that God is the source for love and that our love for one another flows from our love for God.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
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.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.
The bible teaches us that God is love. It is a central part of his character. He is not just loving, but he is love. Apart from God, there is no love. He defines it and we learn it from him. The world has all kinds of ideas about what love is and how we should love, but the greatest answer is looking to God himself, as he is the source of it all.
You and I are created in the image of God, and so we are designed to reflect his love to all of creation, including one another. The trouble is that our image bearing capacity has been damaged through the fall and our own sinfulness. The good news is that he sent his Son to model what divine love is all about. God is in the business of restoring our divine image bearing capacity, a job he will finish in each of us.
God sent his Son because he loves us. Love is just something we say, it is something we do. If all we ever do is talk about love, we never experience love. How do we experience the love of God? We experience the incarnation. Verse nine says that God’s love was manifested in us through the sending of his Son. So we experience the level of love God has for his creation by experiencing Christ himself.
God loves what he creates. But we as free agents have the opportunity to reciprocate through obedience. Our relationship with our Creator, the being we were designed to be in relationship with, was severed, and he loved us so much that he would step out of heaven and come after us! This is seen through the baby Jesus. Christmas is God’s love made manifest. The word manifest means to reveal or make clear. We experience the love of God through the action of sending Christ.
So as we experience Christ, the natural outflow of that relationship leads to a love for others. If you are going to love God, you must come to learn to love what God loves.
But it is not always easy.
Love grows as we abide in Christ.
Love grows as we abide in Christ.
God is the source of all love. Because God has loved me and sent his Son for me, I have a love for others because I love what God loves. It wasn’t always this way. I have two decades of experience in which my capacity to love has grown exponentially. A true biblical love for one another grows as you abide in Christ.
By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
The concept of abiding has come up for the third time in a row. It means to remain or stay firmly attached. In John 15, Jesus gives the illustration of a vine and branches. He is the vine and we are the branches. If we are cut off, we die. If we remain, we flourish. It is remaining that causes growth.
The center of the Christian faith is one’s desire or ability to cultivate a Christ-centered life. Imagine your life like a circle. There is a space in the center where you can put anything you want: work, family, self, possessions, pleasure, money, you name it. Whatever you place in the center is going to affect every other aspect of your life because it touches every aspect of your life. The Christian life submits that life can only make sense if you place Christ at the center of all of it. When Christ is at the center, our relationship with him will change our relationship to everything and everyone else our life touches. Suddenly, career aspirations have shifted. Suddenly, my relationship with my wife changes. My relationship with Christ and what he has called me to do affects what I will or will not say yes to when it comes to family events. Christ is the God of my finances, of how I pursue leisure, and how I relate to the church, not as an institution, but in how I love my fellow brothers and sisters.
The deeper this relationship grows, the more in harmony all the other relationships in your life will become. They won’t be perfect, but they will be in line with God’s grander vision for your life.
Abiding in Christ is what makes God’s love tangible in the church. We weren’t there when Christ was born. We weren’t there when he was crucified. We weren’t there when he rose from the dead. We weren’t there when he ascended. We experience Christ through the Holy Spirit in us, and it is the overflow of that relationship that our love for one another grows. Jesus said,
“By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
The more love we have for one another, the more Christ’s love becomes tangible not just for ourselves, but for the world around us. We ought to love one another in such a way that through it Jesus calls those on the outside in.
Here’s the question: What’s in the center?
Love anchors our hope.
Love anchors our hope.
Four weeks ago, we began with the theme of hope. Our hope is not wishful thinking, nor do we have a blind faith. Our faith is rooted in historical data, eyewitness testimony, and an empty tomb. But even with facts on our side, there is room for doubting. Sometimes we ask, “Does God really love me? Is he really going to forgive me of all I have done? Is my salvation really secure, or can I lose it? Have I already lost it?” Look what John says here:
By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
We love, because He first loved us.
If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.
We could spend another hour unpacking these verses, but remember that the flow of John’s argument is from the source of love, to the means by which we grow in love, to the result such love produces. Love is perfected with us so that in the day of judgment we have nothing to fear. If salvation did not begin with us, it does not end with us. If we have a genuine relationship with Christ, that relationship will continue. He is the author and finisher of our faith. Our day of judgment will not be to determine whether we get into his kingdom. If you are a follower of Jesus, you are already in! The day of judgment for you is going to be to determine what position you hold in that kingdom.
We should not fear because the unchanging love of God anchors our hope. He loved us enough to save us. He loves us enough to abide with us. He loves us enough to give us an eternal inheritance. The more we grow in love, the less we will fear.
As we encounter the word perfected, we need to think complete. We think of the word perfect as we attach it to God and think, “without error.” But completeness looks forward to being perfected, but you can experience completeness today.
How do you know if you are experiencing completeness in love? There’s a test. If you say you love God, but you hate that which God loves, then the love of God is not in him. If you love God, love what God loves. Love who God loves. This includes one another. Let’s make First Baptist Three Rivers the place where God’s love is tangible for everyone who comes through our door.
ACTION STEPS
First, remember to spend time loving each other this week. I know that sounds easy, and you can check the box now, but let me ask you one question. What is one intentional action you can take to make your love for another in this church tangible this week? Maybe it’s a phone call, a handwritten letter, a call, or something of that nature. What one thing can you do to show love this week?
Second, learn to love what and who Jesus loves. Everyone has people in their lives they dislike. Some of them are not Christians. Some of them are. But God loved the whole world that he gave his Son for the whole world. We learn to love what Jesus loves by spending time with him and placing him at the center of your life.
Thirdly, place Jesus at the center of your life. We are creatures whose rebellion is dying every day. We learn to submit our entire lives little by little to the authority of Jesus. As we do, he becomes the center, and we love what he loves.
