Come Home to God’s Love

Intro

In our series coming home for Christmas. So far We have compared what the end result is in going out into the world and looking for hope, peace, joy. and what the end result is in coming home to the hope, peace, and joy found in God. Today we wrap all this up by looking at what it means for us and what it can look like in our hearts, our families and our church if we come home to God’s love.

If we misunderstand any of these four hope, peace, joy, or love. It has dire consequences in every area of our lives but the last one love. If we misunderstand God’s love how we are to receive it, how we are to emulate it. the consequences are catastrophic. Lets look at God’s word together and make sure we go into Christmas on Thursday full a proper understanding of the great love that God has given us.

John 3:14–17 CSB

“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

The most famous verse in the Bible. The one us Tennessee fans had to watch Tim Tebow score 7 total touchdowns and rack up four wins against us with it written on his face, which made us feel like if we got too mad about it we were sinning. John 3:16

It’s so famous because it sums up the Gospel so simply. it sums up the how and the why of our salvation.

How can we be saved? we believe and trust in Jesus. Why did God choose to save us. Because of his love

1. God’s Love is the Motivation

God has so many incredible qualities. and none override the other. God is full of Grace, mercy, justice, holiness, Righteousness, truth, wrath. but it wasn’t God’s judgement that motivated him to send Jesus. It wasn’t his wrath. It was His love toward us that motivated Jesus to be sent as a baby on Christmas. to become fully God and fully man. To live and experience everything we experience. To be tempted in the same ways we are tempted but overcome it. and then to choose to give up his life on the cross so that we would not perish but have everlasting life.

Every step Jesus took from his first steps that he took in a rented house in Bethlehem to the steps he took walking to the cross. Every one was motivated by love for you.

We are all searching to be loved. You can search for that love in lots of places. and people choose to express love in lots of ways. but even the most healthy and good person to person relationship cannot completely fill the need for love that you have.

Because in our human condition we cannot be motivated by love all the time. I look at my relationships with Alysa and our girls where it should be the easiest and i am motivated by love most of the time but selfishness still creeps in. and then when it comes to the rest of my family I feel like im motivated by love a good bit of the time but more selfishness is there in my motivations. I look at my relationships in this great church family and I strive to be motivated by love in my interactions with everyone. But the more im stretched and less I know you the harder and harder it gets to keep my own selfishness at bay.

I can’t keep my motives 100% pure 100% of the time with 100% of people and im sure you cant either.

But there is one who can. from the moment he took the time to carefully knit you together in your mothers womb. every step he has taken with you. every yes hes given you, every no he’s given you. every time you’ve felt him there, and even when you havent. every single step is motivated by love. because he is the ultimate source of love.

Rest in that this morning. come home to that this morning. That he is able to have 100% pure motives 100% of the time when it comes to you because his love for you is 100% pure.

If we are called to follow Jesus. That means we need to not only strive to follow in his footsteps but also take on the motive that he had when he took those steps. To do that we need to understand fullness of the love that motivated God to send Jesus and Jesus to say yes.

1 Corinthians 13:1–3 CSB

If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Here Paul is showing the importance of love. but he’s talking about a very specific kind of love. We just have one word for love. If I say I love Alysa or I love Star Wars. It’s the same word but its obvious from context that one type of love is way different from the others. The Greeks had multiple words for love to get around this problem. I guess they were smarter than us.

the word that Paul uses is agape. It is the highest, most selfless, and sacrifical type of love. It was so special that before the New Testament was written in wasn’t in common use because no one modeled that type of love. Until Jesus.

God’s love trancends all human ideas or expressions of love. It is a love for the utterly unworhty, a love which flows from a God who is love. It is a love lavished on others without a though of whether they are worthy to recieve it or not. it flows from the nature of the lover no the merit of the beloved.

This is the love that God shows toward us and it is the love that in these verse he calls to control our actions.

2. God’s Love is the Model.

You can’t follow Jesus without being motivated by what motivated Jesus. You have model your love after the love of Jesus, or you have missed it.

I could stand up here and deliver the best sermon you have ever heard. but if I don’t give it out of love for you. I haven’t really followed Jesus. Ashley could give lauren Daigel a run for her money and sing the best she ever has but if she doesn’t lead you in worship because she loves you and wants you experience what is like to be in the presence of God she’s not following Jesus.

If you were faithful to tithe this morning but you did it because you would be worried about what people would think if you didn’t instead of having love for God, this church, and the community. Than you arent following Jesus.

God cannot use a loveless Christian for his glory. If we don’t have love we don’t have anything because we don’t have Jesus.

Paul is telling us that if there’s no love there is nothing of any real value in my ministry. He’s saying I can be sucessful I can get results, be admired, appreciated and applauded, but as far as God and etrnity is concerned if I have no love I have nothing.

You can do so many things in your life that would be considered successful that will get you recognized, that build a good reputation but if love for God and love for people isn’t your motivation than you don’t really have anything.

We can’t claim to follow the God from whom all love flows and not love ourselves.

If being a Christian meant following a list of rules it wouldn’t matter if we had love or not we could just check off the list.

I went to church, I read my Bible today, I waved back at another driver with all five of my fingers. We just go check, check, check and we would be good.

But being a Christian isn’t about checking off a list. Its about Following Jesus. To follow him. we through the power of the spirit he gives us we emulate not only loving actions but the loving motivation behind it as well.

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 CSB

Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

These are verses we hear at every wedding. Every wedding I have done I have used these verses because they show the high bar of love that a husband and wife are called to love each other with. but even though it certainly applies to married people thats not who Paul is writing about he is actually talking about how we are to love all people, but especially other followers of Christ.

Paul uses verbs to describe the agape kind of love that we are called to live out. agape love is not warm fuzzy feeling type of love it is an action. A loving person will behave in a certain way, he or she will do or not do certain things because of the kind of person they are becoming, understanding and experincing the endless love of God impacts not just what we believe but what we do.

Think about it this way the love of God between God the father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit was so perfect and complete it overflowed. It overflowed into the action of creating us. and then after we chose to not love God his love overflowed even more into the action God the son choosing to die for us, so we can be bought back into perfect relationship with him forever. Since we have been recipient of that kind of love it should then fill our hearts and overflow into what warm and fuzzy feelings no action.

Look at these verses I challenge you to look at every descriptor of love and insert the best person you know into the place of love in these verses. I know a lot of incredible people. There is no one I know that demonstrates all these things perfectly. And I know if I put my name in there It would be a disaster. But there is one name that is worthy. Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind, Jesus does not envy, Jesus is not boastful, Jesus is not arrogant, Jesus is not rude, Jesus is not self seeking, Jesus is not irritable, Jesus keeps no record of wrongs, Jesus finds no joy in unrighteousness, Jesus rejoices with the truth. Jesus is the only one who can bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things, Jesus never ends.

That is is where we see the primary difference between the love of God and the love we can find in the world. I want to highlight one as our last point.

Love doesnt find joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth.

3. God’s Love Is the Means of Restoration

The love of the world. that nonagape love. has a community to celebrate everything that you know is sinful about yourself.

The love of the world says, “You don’t need to change—just be who you are.” It looks at our broken desires and calls them identity. It looks at our sin and calls it authenticity. It tells us the most loving thing we can do is affirm everything about ourselves and each other, even the parts that are destroying us. But that kind of love never actually heals anyone. It never restores. It never redeems. It just makes us comfortable staying stuck.

God’s love is different. God’s love looks at us exactly as we are and says, “I love you too much to leave you here.” God’s love doesn’t shame us, but it also doesn’t lie to us. It rejoices in the truth—even when the truth is hard—because truth is the only thing that can actually set us free.

The love of the world will affirm you straight into the grave. The love of God reveals to you the truth of how much you need him, and call you to repentance so you can be restored at home in the arms of your father.

If God knew what would restore you back to who you were created to be which he does, and instead of revealing it to you and drawing you to it. He instead cheered you on and said go live your truth. Would that be love?

It would be like my kids telling me they want to go play hopscotch on the interstate and instead of telling them the truth and stopping them I cheered them on as I watched them skip to certain death.

Jesus ate with sinners. But he didnt affirm sinners. he didnt celebrate their sin. he loved them. Loved them enought to tell them the truth. while being patient, kind, humble, and all the rest. That is the love that each of us need and each of us are called show.

True love never reinforces behavior that is harmful and contrary to God’s word. True love calls to repentence which leads to restoration.

It is because of the love of Jesus that we can be restored, and once we have received it, it should overflow from us so that others can experience the love of Jesus by which they can be restored.

Conclusion

This week as we head into Christmas week and are all stretched thin, and maybe we are put in rooms with family members we avoid the rest of the year for a reason, and it just feels like you don’t have any love to give. Its been spent up.

Remind yourself this morning that God’s is the source of true love. your feelings arent the source of love he is. and your feelings or actions dont determine if God loves you or not the cross does. the cross proves what John 3:16 says it is because God loved the world he sent Jesus. and his actions in your life today are still motivated by love.

The perfect love that he modeled. The love that we are not be able to perfectly get right but if we aren’t trying to follow his love than how can we be following him if he is love. Follow his love

I believe every single one of us is going to be in a stituation over this next week where we are going to have the choice to model God’s love or a counterfit love. And choosing God’s love will be hard. It may be one of the hardest things you ever do.

but the only type of love that restores broken relationships, that can restore prodigal kids and grandkids home to God, that can cause people to change from being dead to being alive is the love of that restores.

Come home to real love this morning so you can go and model the only love that will restore life to the ones you love most.