God's Agent: Emmanuel
Advent 2025 • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
Handout
Video: The Spirit of Giving
Children’s message:
What does Advent mean?
Whose Advent?
How many Advents?
1st Candle - Hope
2nd Candle - Peace
3rd Candle - Joy
4th Candle - Love
5th Candle - Christ Candle
What is Love?
But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.” And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife,
What does it say that Immanuel means?
God with us.
Literally, With us God.
Emmanuel is love revealed.
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.
Does anyone know the Greek word for God’s love?
Agape
What does agape/love mean?
Play: That’s what love is like. Kids repeat back: God is love.
That’s what love is like.
God freely chooses to be with you.
Demonstrate - choose a kid and have them sit on the front row.
Turn back to them and talk to the rest. Is that love?
Choose a kid have them sit on the front row and then sit by them and show interest in them.
That’s what love is like...God is love.
God chose us and proved it by coming down to be among us. Jesus
God wants what’s BEST for you.
Demonstrate - Ask them what is something they want for Christmas.
What if that’s not what’s best for them?
What if that would end up harming them?
Would it be loving to give it to them anyway?
What if you asked for “x”, but I knew that “y” would be better?
Love is giving what is best for you.
What if I’m what’s best for you?
What if I could ALL of your needs?
Would you want all of them, or me?
So it doesn’t matter what any of them could give you, if I could it to you better or more completely?
That’s what love is like...God is love.
God sent Jesus down to give us what He knew was best for us. Himself and Heaven.
God will do whatever it takes to make those 2 things happen. Sacrifice.
What if something comes between you and me? Love is going to destroy that barrier.
What if something not good for you starts to get your attention and your affection? Love is going to remove that distraction.
God values a relationship with us so much that He sacrificed Himself to destroy the barrier of sin that was keeping us apart.
Then, He opened our eyes so that we could see the things that are distracting us from finding our meaning, purpose, joy, and satisfaction in Him.
Then He calls us to come into a relationship with Him.
That’s what love is like...God is love.
What does agape/love ask for in return?
To enjoy the one who loves you, God.
Church
Reading the Bible to learn about Him
Talking to Him and singing songs about Him.
To share God’s love with others.
To tell everyone how wonderful He is and what He did to be with me.
To show what His love is like by loving others in the same way He loves me.
So what is love like? God is love.
Child lights candle
Light candles - One kid for each candle (4)
Love came down and was born as a babe in a manger with the whole purpose and intent to die on the cross and shed His blood as a symbol of His love in order to forgive and cover our sin.
Special Music: Two Wooden Beams
Read I John 4:7-19
Love’s Motivation (vs 7-8)
Love’s Motivation (vs 7-8)
Emmanuel is Love Revealed.
Agapao - verb
Willful Direction towards.
God set His mind towards us.
God doing what He knows is best for man and not necessarily what we desire.
God gives what we need, not what we want.
Setting one’s Affections On.
God set His affections on us.
Chosen - God knew us before and loved us in spite.
Made a plan from the beginning to provide a way for His beloved to come to Him.
Find one’s Joy In.
God knows that He is the only one that can truly bring mankind perfect satisfaction.
He desires us to find our hope, peace, and joy in Him and they will be everlasting.
Finding any of those things in anything else will be temporary and will leave us wanting for more.
The Law of diminishing returns.
The Law of delayed gratification.
Love's Mission (vs 9-17)
Love's Mission (vs 9-17)
Apostello
(Sent) Apostello - Key word.
Grammatical usage of apostello indicates John is thinking specifically of the Incarnation here. It is where we get our word for Apostle.
Apostello means sent forth on a specific mission bearing the full authority of the one backing that mission.
Love’s Mission is this: God wants us to be able to enjoy His presence forever. God with us and us with God.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them...
Love must have a beloved, for love by definition is an action of benevolence and good will directed toward someone else.
Hesed
The Complete Word Study Dictionary: Old Testament 2617. חֶסֶד ḥeseḏ
kindness, lovingkindness, mercy, goodness, faithfulness, love, acts of kindness. This aspect of God is one of several important features of His character: truth; faithfulness; mercy; steadfastness; justice; righteousness; goodness.
Love, by definition, is a desire to lavish all good, beautiful, and virtuous things upon a beloved.
Love, by definition, is giving freely, generously, and sacrificially for the beloved.
Love, by definition, is providing what is best for the beloved.
So love had to create a beloved in order to bestow His love upon.
The Trinity, in and of itself, was complete and had no need.
The Father loves the Son and the Son the Father
The Son loves the Spirit and the Spirit the Son.
The Spirit loves the Father and the Father the Spirit.
But the Trinity as a whole desired to bestow their collective love upon a beloved.
Thus the formation of a plan and the beginning of the mission:
The creation of mankind beginning with Adam and Eve.
Mankind is the beloved of God.
The desire of the Triune God to lavish His bountiful goodness upon His creation and for the creation to enjoy His presence.
But obviously, something happened that put a barrier in the way of that love. The Fall / Sin.
We had fellowship with God and enjoyed His bounty before the fall.
And God Himself was among us and with us.
But, the fullness of His mission could not be understood without The Fall.
Because the greatest expression of love is to lay one’s life down for his friends.
“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
The Fall provided the opportunity for God to show us the fullest extent of His love.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Love’s Incarnation (vs 9)
Love’s Incarnation (vs 9)
Love Took On Human Flesh
The incarnation is a foreshadow of Love’s Mission
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God...And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The incarnation received a name and was fulfillment of OT prophecy.
Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”
The incarnation was pre-planned before time began.
Jesus’ coming was not plan B.
knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you
The timing of the incarnation wasn’t happenstance.
But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law,
The Importance of The Mission
The fact that there was a royal announcement shows the importance of the mission.
And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
The fact that the Father sent His Very Son and not a representative shows the seriousness of the mission.
In sending His Son, it’s like Him saying, “His coming is just like as if I was coming.”
Parables of the poor stewards.
Treat Him as if it was me.
The fact that the Son was willing to sacrifice everything to bring the mission to completion shows the priority of the mission.
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
The Son gave up His rights to glory, honor, and worship
The Son emptied Himself.
He just chose to humble Himself and pour Himself out into flesh and blood and bone.
And by nature of being emptied into a mortal and weak vessel, He limits Himself in strength, knowledge, and presence.
He didn’t cease being immortal, or all powerful, or all knowing, or everywhere present. He didn’t cease being God. But He purposely refrained from using it until He needed to.
Apostello is used 3x and implied once in this passage, and reiterates the importance of His Son’s mission of love.
The incarnation was God’s specific, special mission for His love to be made visible and receivable.
The incarnation was God’s specific, special mission for His love to be made visible and receivable.
Emmanuel’s Mission (vs 9-17)
Love Sent Emmanuel so that we might live through Him - vs. 9
to raise us up out of death and into life.
Love Sent Emmanuel to be the propitiation for our sins - vs 10
God’s wrath and punishment against sin had to be satisfied.
Love Sent Emmanuel to be the Savior of the World - vs 14
Jesus would be the substitute in our place
By taking our punishment, he saved us.
As Love is (sent), so also are we (sent) into this World - vs 17
So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”
Motivated To Love (vs 7, 11-12, 16-17, 19)
Motivated To Love (vs 7, 11-12, 16-17, 19)
The Missio Dei
The 4th point of the mission is the truth that God wants us to partner with Him in fulfilling His mission to His beloved.
We have a mission because Love had a mission.
We are joining God in His redemptive mission on earth.
1 John 4:17 “...because as He is, so also are we in this world.”
God’s own “self-sending” in Christ by the Spirit to redeem and transform creation.
We need to be attractional.
We want our church to attract people in so they can experience God here like we do.
We want people to come to church to worship God, grow in faith, and be discipled.
We want to people to enjoy coming here to develop community and have a safe place to gather and share.
The attractional church reaches out and invites people to come in and that is good.
But we also need to be missional.
Being missional means we should engage the world the same way Jesus did—by going out rather than just reaching out.
We are to bring love to the world.
We are to bring Emmanuel with us wherever we go and share Him with whomever we can.
There is a difference between being evangelistic and being missional.
Being evangelistic is sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with people.
Being missional means being the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people.
And in our being we are sharing.
We are God’s agents of Emmanuel.
1 John 4:11 “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
If God loved us in this way, we need to do the same for one another.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
But, we can only love because He first loved us.
1 John 4:19 “We love, because He first loved us.”
There is an implication here though.
We can’t love as we should if we haven’t embraced God’s love.
We can’t love as we should if we don’t continue to embrace God’s love (vs 16)
If you abide in love, you have first abided in God.
As you continue to abide in God, then you will be able to continue to abide in love.
Our first priority is to love God first.
Then and only then can you go and do the second: Love others as Christ has loved you.
As you abide in God’s love and as you go and love one another, God’s love is perfected in you. (vs 12, 16-17)
It’s like strength is the result of exercise.
As we exercise our love, God’s love is strengthened in us.
God’s love is like the weights.
The weights do no good sitting on the bar on the rack.
We have to engage with it pump some iron to get the result.
Conclusion / Review
God is love and love had a mission to create a beloved in order to show His love to them.
That love could only show the fullness of its love through sacrifice.
Sacrifice would become necessary because of the Fall of the beloved into sin and death.
That mission came to the fullness of reality through the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Love came down.
The sacrifice was made through the offering of love’s life blood to cover and forgive the sin of the beloved.
Love gave Himself up for His beloved as a demonstration and proof of His love.
Love restored the beloved to Himself and then passed on to them the mission to draw others to His love so that they might be able to experience His love and so, too, be forgiven and restored.
And thus we have become God’s agents of Emmanuel to the world.
Closing Song: His Name Is Wonderful
