Love At A Cost

Love At A Cost By Rev. Res Spears During the past few weeks of Advent, we have examined how the faithfulness of God brought us His Son, Jesus Christ. We've seen how His Son is the hope of mankind. And we've seen how those who have followed Jesus in faith can have inexpressible joy in the knowledge that His sacrifice on the cross for our sins means that the debt we owe to the perfectly righteous and holy Father has been paid in full. Today, we will talk about putting feet to that faith. Today, we will talk about the love that we should manifest as a result of that joy. But first, I want to tell you a story. The year was 1964. The Beatles' album, "Introducing the Beatles," had been released in the U.S. that January, and the Fab Four had locked down the top five positions on the Billboard chart of the Top 40 singles in America. Elizabeth Taylor had married Richard Burton. For the first time. The first Ford Mustang had been released. My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins were two of the most popular movies in the land. And early on the morning of Oct. 16, in a little house in South Norfolk, a woman woke her husband to tell him that she was having contractions. Fifteen hours later, at Maryview Hospital, a child was born to Roy and Lynn Spears, and their world would never be the same. Each year around dinnertime on my birthday, my mother says something like, "Well, about this time I was deep into your labor." Last night I asked her about that day. It was messy. There was blood. My father wasn't allowed to be in the room with her. And she was anesthetized for the end of it, so there's no solid chain of custody to prove that I was the one who came out of her. Fortunately, I have always looked just like my Dad, so there really was never any question. I got to thinking about all of this, because I wonder whether Mary told her son, Jesus, about her labor on His birthdays. "This is how much I love you, Son," she might have said. "We didn't have a room in Bethlehem, so we were down there where they kept the animals at night. It was late, and I was exhausted from my long labor. I was trying not to puke from the stench of the animals. It was messy. There was blood. And Joseph was such a wreck that I almost wished he'd been outside." "And then You were there. And everything changed." In his Gospel account of the birth of Jesus, Luke writes about the delivery and about Jesus being wrapped in cloths and laid in a manger. He writes about the shepherds visiting and then going to tell the good news of the Savior who had been born in Bethlehem. And then he writes that "Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart." I think this is a picture of a young mother's love for her newborn son. She did not want to forget this miraculous event, so she treasured these memories. This is a great love that many of you ladies here have experienced firsthand. But our Scripture passage today tells us that "God is love," and so this particular birth narrative is absolutely suffused with love. There was the love of a mother for her newborn Son. There was the love of her husband for the child whom he would raise as his own. But even more importantly, there was the love of the Father in heaven, who had sent Jesus to be born of this virgin. Love has always defined the relationship among the three Persons of the Holy Trinity. In fact, Jesus would speak of this love in His High Priestly Prayer at the Last Supper, where He prayed for unity and love among His disciples. John 17:23 NASB95 23 I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. John 17:24 NASB95 24 "Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. The heavenly Father and His Son have eternally existed in a state of love toward one another and the Holy Spirit, and creation itself is an overflow of that love. This is an important thing for us to understand: We are here today - the sun, the moon, the stars and galaxies and all of nature and all of us exist - because of the great bond of self-giving love among the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. That's what makes this next part so incredible. God loved the world He created through Jesus so much that He sent His only begotten Son to be incarnated in human flesh, even as He knew that Jesus would have to suffer and die within that flesh to accomplish salvation for the very people He had created. And Jesus loved His Father so much that He set aside His glory and form to be made into the likeness of men, so much that He was obedient to His Father to the point of death, even death on a cross. But Christ's love was not just for His Father. In fact, He told His disciples during that same night that His impending sacrifice was evidence of the greatest love of all. John 15:13-14 NASB95 13 "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. 14 "You are My friends if you do what I command you. Today, as we consider this week's Advent theme of "love," we'll be turning to what I consider one of the most beautiful passages in Scripture. It's found in 1 John, Chapter 4, and you can go ahead and begin turning there now. While you're doing that, though, I want to take you back to the beginning. When we're trying to understand a biblical concept, it's often helpful to go back to where we find it first in Scripture and to see if the context there reveals anything interesting to us. So where do you think the word "love" first appears in Scripture? OK, Genesis. That's right. Any guesses as to where in the Book of Genesis? Let me help you out. Genesis 22:1 NASB95 1 Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." Genesis 22:2 NASB95 2 He said, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you." I think this is amazing. Now, the suggestion here is not that there was no love in the world before Abraham loved his son, Isaac. Surely there was. Instead, the point is that, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the first time Moses mentions love is in this event that points to the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. We see here the love of a father for his son, and that points us to the love of The Father in heaven for his only and eternal Son. We see here the love of a son for his father, demonstrated in the son's obedience to the point of being willing to give himself as a sacrifice. That points us to the obedience of Jesus to His Father by GIVING Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind. And we see the love of God for His people. For Abraham, that meant that God put a ram in the thicket to be offered as a substitute for Isaac. In the case of Jesus Christ, He was OUR substitute, offering Himself on a cross to take the punishment that WE deserve for our sins. So when we think about love in a biblical sense, we should remember the context in which it first appears. Biblical love isn't about having a good feeling for someone else. Biblical love is about sacrifice. So with that in mind, let's take a look at this passage in 1 John, chapter 4. We'll start at verse 7 and read through the end of the chapter. READ 1 John 4:7-21 Now if we read this passage with our kind of modern understanding of love, then we'll conclude that we should basically have nice feelings toward one another, that we should probably BE nice to one another, and that our love for God is demonstrated by our being nice to one another. But let's take a look at this passage in light of what we've learned about the biblical concept of love from the story of Abraham and Isaac. First, as a sort of confirmation, let me direct your attention back to verse 21. 1 John 4:21 NASB95 21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. Now one of the things about the Apostle John is that he's very consistent. He wrote this letter to help its recipients have confidence in their fellowship with God in Christ and through the Holy Spirit and to give them ways they could gauge the reality and strength of that fellowship. But John makes his argument through many of the same themes that had played such a big part in his Gospel. Light and darkness. Love. Abiding. Being born or begotten of God. Life. Testifying. And the commandment here in verse 21. These are all themes we see over and over in John's Gospel, and here in this letter, they have the same meanings that they do in the Gospel. So, then we can understand the commandment that John refers to here as the one that Jesus gives in the Gospel of John as part of that Last-Supper teaching. John 13:34 NASB95 34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. You may recall that Jesus had already given this commandment when He was talking to the lawyer who wanted to know what was the greatest commandment. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind," Jesus replied. "This is the great and foremost commandment." But He didn't stop there. "The second is like it," He added. "Love your neighbor as yourself." So what was "new" about this commandment that Jesus gave His disciples at the Last Supper? What was new was the addition of those words, "even as I have loved you, you should also love one another." Well, how did Jesus love His disciples? Surely he had good feelings toward them. Surely he treated them well. Surely he was nice to them. But the real measure of His love for them - and for us - is that He gave His very life for them and for us. Once again, we see the Biblical ideal of love being a sacrificial thing. So in that context, we can now understand what John means when he writes in verse 19 of today's passage: 1 John 4:19 NASB95 19 We love, because He first loved us. The only way we can understand the sacrificial type of love to which we are called as followers of Jesus Christ is to look to the cross where His blood was spilled to cover our sins. We were made in the image of God, which means that we were made with the capacity to love as God loves. But from the moment that Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, that capacity was perverted. Instead of the self-giving love of God, we were now characterized by the inner-directed love of ourselves. Think about it: God confronted them for their disobedience, and everybody started pointing fingers at somebody else. Even before that confrontation, Adam and Eve had covered themselves and hid. They were already erecting barriers between themselves and between themselves and God. That's what our sin does to us. It separates us from God and from one another. It causes us to turn inward, and it perverts our capacity to love the way God made us to love. So Jesus came and showed us how it was supposed to be. Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the forbidden tree in an attempt to become like gods. But God Himself came in the Person of His Son, Jesus, to become a man. Adam and Eve covered themselves in an attempt to hide who they were. But God revealed Himself in the Person of His Son, Jesus. Adam and Eve brought death into the world through their disobedience. But Jesus brought life to the world through His obedience. As John puts it in verse 10: 1 John 4:10 NASB95 10 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. But here's the thing that we've been building to throughout this season of Advent. This kind of love demands a response. This faithful God loved us so much that He sent His very Son to make atonement for OUR sins (remember that He had none of His own). Because of the atonement that Jesus made for us on the cross and because of His resurrection and His return to heaven, we who have put our faith in Him have the unwavering hope - the confident knowledge - that we have been forgiven. We have the unwavering hope that we will likewise be raised. And we have the unwavering hope that we will have eternal life with Him and with the Father. And that kind of hope should make us want to release handfuls of balloons filled with the helium of joy. But that's not where the chain of Advent themes ends. Faithfulness, hope, joy and then LOVE. Filled with the joy of our salvation, how could we fail, then, to love one another? 1 John 4:11 NASB95 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. It seems that the early church understood this command far better than we do today. During the course of 15 years, beginning in A.D. 165, a plague now thought to have been smallpox became a pandemic in the Roman Empire. It is thought to have been introduced to Rome by soldiers returning from Syria. By the time the plague had run its course, 5 million people had died. A century later, the Plague of Cyprian spread from Africa throughout the known world. It was spread by physical contact with infected persons or with their clothing or other items they had used. Half of those who were exposed to it died. "During each pandemic, government officials and the wealthy fled the cities for the countryside to escape contact with those who were infected. The Christian community remained behind, transforming themselves into a great force of caretakers." (http://canyonwalkerconnections.com/early-christian-responses-epidemics-completely-unlike-1980s-response/) In an Easter Sunday address in A.D. 260, Bishop Dionysius of Corinth talked about the sacrificial love showed by those early Christians: "Most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves, and thinking only of one another. Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed this life serenely happy; for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting their pains." "Real love forgets self. Real love knows no danger. Real love doesn't count the cost." (http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/l/love_sacrificial.htm) Brothers and sisters, if you have followed Jesus Christ in faith, then He abides in you through the Holy Spirit. And if the Holy Spirit abides in you, then you should abide in love - real love, the sacrificial kind of love demonstrated for us by Jesus at the cross. This manger you see here today is a beautiful thing that puts us in mind of the beauty revealed in that manger of Bethlehem. But the true beauty is in the cross that stood behind that manger. The true beauty is in the love that held our Savior to the cross. The true beauty is in the blood - not the blood of His birth, but the blood that was shed when He died to save us from our sins. We sing of the hope that we find in Christmas, but the true hope is in the empty tomb after the crucifixion. Our true hope is found in the broken body, in the spilled blood and in the risen Christ who overcame sin and death so that we could have life. Today, as we prepare to celebrate the incarnation of God in human flesh, we will remember that it was the death of that flesh that purchased our salvation. Now, in a moment, Sue will begin playing a song, and as she does, I would like the deacons to join me here at the front. We're going to do communion a bit differently this week. Once they're up here, we'll start releasing you all by rows to come up and receive the elements - the bread and the cup. Now, remember that communion is reserved for those who have made a true confession of faith in Jesus. We proclaim His death and resurrection in this observance, and we renew our commitment to following Him - to keeping His commandments to love God and to love one another with a sacrificial love. And this communion table is open to all who have made that commitment by following Jesus in faith. After you've received the elements, please return to your seats and be in prayer. Ask God to reveal to you any unconfessed sin, any unforgiveness or bitterness that you continue to harbor. When everyone who is participating has received the elements, we will read a couple of Scriptures, pray, and then eat the bread and drink the cup. SCRIPTURE/PRAYER/EAT SCRIPTURE/PRAYER/DRINK As we prepare to celebrate Christmas, may we ever remember that the baby who lay in that manger in Bethlehem was the Bread of Life. May we ever remember that His blood would be shed for the sins of the world. May we ever remember that His love for us came at a cost that we could never imagine. May we ever remember that when He came, everything changed. And may we, along with Christians throughout the centuries hold on with joy to the unwavering hope that our faithful God will keep His promise to one day send Jesus to take us home. Maranatha! Lord, come! Page . Exported from Logos Bible Software, 12:39 AM December 22, 2019.