Love Shows Up

Before we get started I just want to say myself how thankful I am to everyone who gave toward the Big Give.

To give $12,000 is just incredible

Today we are continuing our Advent series.

Each week we’ve been having a child come up and read a scripture based on the theme for the week.

Week 1 we talked about Hope

Last week we talked about Peace

This week we are going to talk about Love

We have Emily Rees who is going to come up and read 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Light the candle together.

Pray

The title of my message today is “Love Shows Up”

We just got done with a series where we talked a lot about love

We talked about how people will know we are Jesus’ disciples by how we love one another

Today I want to focus on how God loves us

We hear the word LOVE a lot

We tell people all the time that we love them

Young people that have been in a relationship for a week will brag about how they LOVE their boyfriend/girlfriend

Most of the time they don’t love them, they just lust them.

We all have a desire to be loved

People will change who they are and how they dress to be loved by someone.

People will stay in an unhealthy relationship because even though it’s not healthy, at least they have moments where they feel loved.

When I think of love I think of VALUE

Love and Value go hand and hand

When I say we all desire to be loved, I could say we all desire to be valued

If you love something you will value it

If you value something you take care of it

Maybe you value your car?

Maybe you value shoes?

Hopefully you value your kids!

But so many people are living in depression or discouragement because they don’t feel valued or loved.

So what we do when we don’t feel loved is we turn to different things that we think will fill that hole.

Whether it’s alcohol or drugs

Maybe it’s buying all the latest and greatest gadgets so you feel cool or special because you have something that other people don’t

A lot of times it’s going from relationship to relationship.

I’ve seen so many people, especially young people, who are in a relationship and then it ends, and within a week they are in another relationship.

Many times these are people who don’t understand their value and the only way they can feel loved is by being in a relationship because that means at least someone cares about them.

And in most of these relationships they will say they LOVE the person they are with.

But then two weeks later it’s over

You see we’ve turned love into a feeling.

When we say “I love you”, what we’re saying is, “I like you a lot until I don’t”

I like you and I’ll be with you until that feeling goes away.

Love is not just a feeling, it’s an action

It’s a choice

Look at 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 4”Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. “

When I read that I don’t see anything that is an emotional feeling.

I see a lot of things that I have to CHOOSE to do if I love someone.

I choose to be patient with someone

I choose to be kind, to not be jealous or boastful

I choose to not be rude and or to not demand my own way.

Love never gives up! I choose whether I give up on someone or not.

Love is an action

And anyone here who doesn’t feel loved, you clearly don’t understand what Jesus did for you.

Philippians 2:6-8 Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. 7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, 8 he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

Sometimes we don’t understand what exactly Jesus did by coming to this earth.

It says he was FULLY God

But He didn’t cling to that

He actually gave up His divine privileges.

Think about that for a minute

Jesus was IN HEAVEN

He’s where we all are striving to be someday

It’s perfect up there

And yet He humbled himself enough to leave all that and come down to earth as a baby.

He didn’t HAVE to do that but He did because He LOVES you!

Look at what He was born into.

Luke 2:6-7 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

Some versions say an “inn” so people think they were trying to check in to a hotel but that word inn actually is better translated “room” or “guest room”.

So they probably went to someones house and asked if they had an extra room which they didn’t

So they go to the back to pretty much a barn or some say a cave.

I love how our pictures of Jesus’ birth make it look so clean and peaceful.

They put him in a manger which is a cute word for a feeding trough

This is where they put the animals food.

And I’m sure it wasn’t this clean pottery barn looking thing

I wonder if during this time when Jesus is a baby if He still had full knowledge of who He was and what was going on around Him.

Like a “Look Who’s Talking” type thing.

Because can you imagine Jesus coming into this world and sitting wrapped in clothes laying in a food trough in a barn and saying, “What did I agree to?”

Because it wasn’t pretty

But He came because He knew YOU were worth it.

I guarantee Jesus didn’t necessarily FEEL like doing this

Because He knew what He was coming down here for

He had a mission

He knew His life on earth was going to lead Him to a cross dying a criminals death.

But you know what He did, He SHOWED UP

Because that’s what love does, LOVE SHOWS UP!

And Jesus showed up in the form of a baby

And He came so that you know how much He loves you.

That no matter what you’ve done or mistakes you’ve made, He came to tell you He loves you.

Because love isn’t just telling someone you love them.

Love shows up

If you want your spouse to know you love them, SHOW UP

If you want your kids to know you love them, SHOW UP

Go to their games

Go to their school programs

A couple Fridays ago my daughter Penelope’s 1st grade class led the school Praise Gathering

It’s only 20-30 minutes and it’s pretty much just them on stage singing worship songs and doing a couple little things along with it.

She didn’t have a solo or do anything special but she was on stage.

She wanted me to go

So I went

Not for me

Not because I thought it was going to be super entertaining

I went because I want my daughter to know I love her

That I value her and what she does

So what do I do to show her that?

I show up!

I shared a few weeks ago about my parents and how I never questioned how much they loved me because they SHOWED me by how they lived.

They showed me by showing up.

Jesus showed up in a manger.

Jesus showed up by going to the cross

And He’s showing up to you even today

When we read a verse that jumps off the page and speaks to us, that’s Jesus showing up and saying I see you!

When someone blesses you with something that you desperately need, that’s Jesus showing up

When you come to a service like this and are reminded about how much God loves you, that’s Jesus showing up.

Some of you have a hard time accepting God’s love because you haven’t experienced real love here on earth.

Maybe you didn’t have a loving father or mother

Maybe you’ve never been in a relationship where the person treated you the way you should be treated

You don’t know what real love looks like

Let me show you

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

This is the most popular scripture in the Bible

And because of that I think sometimes we forget the significants of what that means

God LOVED you so much that He GAVE His son.

As a father I can’t imagine giving up my child to go through what Jesus did.

I always tell people if you were the ONLY person on earth, God would’ve done the same thing.

Paul said it this way...

Romans 5:8 “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”

We did NOTHING to deserve what Jesus did for us.

But He did anyway

That’s LOVE

He showed up even when He didn’t have to.

And some of you need to accept that love and let God do a work in your heart.

Altar Call

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