Advent Brings: Love

I thought it was fitting today to place the celebration of the Lord’s Supper right in the center of the service, because as we examine the theme of Advent bringing love today, there is not greater examination of love, God’s faithful, covenant, steadfast love, than in the remembrance of the offering of Jesus Christ on the Cross.

Last week, Fred Thompson gave us some great reminders about hope from Psalm 23.

Psalm 23:4 ESV

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

I didn’t tell Fred ahead of time about our themes of Hope, Love, Joy, Peace. But the Holr Spirit knows how to speak even when we don’t plan it that way.

There is great hope in these words. Even walking in death’s shade, there is hope. Even walking in great distress, there is hope. Even walking in great uncertainty, there is hope.

This Wednesday, a number of us gathered up at Frank and Nancy’s home for the first of three Advent Bible readings. After we read the account of Zechariah and Elizabeth, the theme of hope could not escape my mind the rest of the week.

There is immense hope displayed both personally, and also nationally in that story.

There is immense national hope, because some of the last words in the Old Testament talk about a curse that will only be broken at the time when Elijah the prophet comes back. Well, what was the promise to Zechariah? That his son would come in the spirit and power of Elijah. The promise and birth of John the Baptist was the first real turn of the gears of God’s redemptive work in 400 years. There had been 400 years of prophetic silence. 400 years of waiting, but in those years there was hope for many. Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous people, trusting the Lord, serving the Lord, waiting on the Lord. And God came through.

But there was also immense personal hope. When Zechariah was in the temple, administering the offering of incense before the morning’s burnt offering, the Angel Gabriel appeared to him and said “your prayers have been answered.” What prayers? Well, perhaps prayers for the Messiah, but also prayers for a son. They were in there older years, and they were barren. And in a time where barrenness was seen with an amount of reproach, perhaps the hope of that changing had dwindled. Yet, God came through in a miraculous way, and began the work of ushering in His Kingdom and new creation, as John the Baptist would prepare the way of the Lord.

So there is great hope, but this is not a sermon on hope - that was a bonus.

If you remember last week, Fred said that Psalm 23 was probably most well known Bible Passage around the world, and I think he’s right. But he also mentioned another verse that is probably the most well known single verse in all the Bible, do you remember what that was?

Yes, John 3:16

John 3:16 (ESV)

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

That great, simple, yet profound truth. That verse displays the heart of our Gospel Message, the message that there is truly Love in God, and that love was a primary cause of him sending Jesus Christ, His sinless son, so save whoever would believe in Him.

That really is the Advent, that really is the crux of the issue. And it is wrapped up in love, isn’t it? It is not that love is the greatest of the themes of Jesus’ coming, there are none of God’s attributes that are greater or lesser really, God is who He is in perfect harmony. But as we examine love today, know that it is great, it is certainly not the least.

The Christian church goes through ebbs and flows and movements and changes where sometimes it feels as if God’s love is overemphasized to the detriment of all His other characteristics, but sometimes it seems as though we would like to avoid talking too much of God’s love, or else people might get the idea that there is no need of forgiveness or repentance.

“How few of the saints are acquainted in their experience with this privilege of holding direct communion with the Father in love! With what anxious, doubtful thoughts they look on him! What fears and questions they have about his goodwill and kindness! At the best, many think there is no sweetness at all in him towards us, except that which is purchased at a high price by the blood of Jesus. People are afraid to have good thoughts of God. They think it is presumptuous to view God as good, gracious, tender, and kind, loving.”

May that not be true of us today! May we experience something of fellowship with God in His love today. Today, let us marvel in God’s love for just a few minutes. We have already marvelled and reveled in it in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. So I don’t intend to blather on too long this morning,

“False Information”

but I do want to focus on 1 John 4:7-12 together and observe the main focus of that passage. And I think together we will see this.

The Entirety of Christ’s Advent was the greatest manifestation of God’s love, and our love continues to manifest God’s love.

1. The Big Idea: God is Love

This is that famous passage in which we read the great and telling words, that God is love. There is no greater degree to which you can display something than for it to be said that you are something.

To “be” something like this is to personify it, to show it perfectly, to exhibit it always, to never diminish or tarnish or blur the meaning of the thing. Of course, only God can “be” something perfectly like this, and it is a wonderful thought to think that God “is” love.

But before the passage says that God “is” love, it first says that “love is from God.” Notice that in verse 7. That is important, because it is one thing for God to be love, but God could be love without ever there having been humans, or an earth, or creation at all. God dwells in perfect love in His own being. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all exhibit and experience this perfect love in unity in a way that is mysterious and unimageineable, and if it was just the Godhead and nobody else, it would still be a tremendous existence of love.

Yet, there is more than just the Godhead, there is creation, and specifically, there are people, humans, who are made in God’s image. People, humans, who can know and experience something of God’s nature, and love is one of those things we can know and experience.

That is why “love is from God” is so critical to us, because that is where “God is love” comes into our experience. “God is love” doesn’t do us much good without “love is from God.” There is a transfer, a sharing, a display. Now, we see that in a big way a little bit later in the passage. But for now, think of those things together. Love as an attribute of God is seen and known by us because God is not just love, but love is from God.

Psalm 136:1 ESV

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.

Having come through Thanksgiving, perhaps that verse or others like it came across your thinking. We know that God is love, and because God never changes, that means His love is faithful and never changes either.

Deuteronomy 7:9 (ESV)

Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,

Now, we often think of God’s love being shown mostly in the New Testament, but think of this verse all the way back in the Pentateuch. God’s love is nothing new, his people have always been recipients of it. And in that verse, we see that it is faithful, and it is part of his promise.

So as we think of Advent, we don’t think of God’s love coming as something new, we simply think of it being displayed in a grand way. The love was always there, as God was always there, but in the Advent of Jesus Christ, perhaps the curtain was pulled back a bit more, the paper on the gift was torn away a bit to reveal the grandeur of it all, and that is the main portion of this passage today as well.

2. The Big Event: God’s Love on Display

Verses 9-10 really say it about as clearly as any passage in scripture.

John has started with the foundation that God is love, and love is from God.

Now he tells us where we primarily see that love that is “from God” coming to us.

1 John 4:9–10 (ESV)

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Verse 9 and 10 almost restate one another, just in a different way. We see that a lot in the writings of the Old testament, like the Psalms, where things are restated for emphasis and for learning. John really wants us to understand this.

What is the great manifestation of God’s love? What is love when we boil it right down? It is the sending of Jesus Christ to the world.

Romans 5:6–8 (ESV)

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Ephesians 2:4–5 (ESV)

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

Galatians 2:20 (ESV)

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

That last verse has always been a favorite of mine, and it really helps underline one of the big themes in this passage in 1 John. Because God’s love is said to do something, and what does it do?

Well, really two things.

First, it gives life. “so that we might live through Him.”

This is new-creation. This is old things passing away, all becoming new Like Paul spoke of.

John says it this way in His Gospel Record.

John 1:4 ESV

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

So this love of God, God’s love, that comes down to us, gives us life. Among other things, the promise of life was one of the things lost in the fall. Death had no rightful place in God’s creation, but by sin and curse it entered in. So it is only fitting, that in the new creation, one of the main benefits is life - eternal life.

But what else does God’s love coming to us do?

It also gives propitiation. Or satisfaction. John is coming back to this idea, as He already stated it earlier.

1 John 2:1–2 (ESV)

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

In the display of love at advent, the sending of God’s son in to the world, there was the giving of life, and that life had to do with the payment for our sins, the satisfaction of the wrath of God. God is not all love, there is also his perfect and holy wrath. But God is not all wrath, there is also in His character that faithful and benevolent love, the love that sends a way for the guilty to be made innocent, for the slave to become free, for the dead to be raised back to life.

Going back to Zechariah’s promised son, he would be prepare the way of the Lord, and this is what the Lord would do.

Luke 1:76–79 ESV

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

So God’s love does something, it gives light, life, and peace, through the forgiveness of sins. That just leaves us with the “so what?”

3. The Big Application: Let Us Love

Well, we cannot labor this point too much - and it is the application of this whole passage. Because God is love, because God sent his son, because God put his love on display, because his love gives us new life, because His love forgives us and cleanses us, because His love causes us to be born again, then let us love.

Let us love. We saw this in great detail just a few weeks ago, didn’t we?

Matthew 5:43–45 (ESV)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

We noted this when we studied that passage, but when we love, it makes us look like our Father, right? Well doesn’t John say the same thing here?

1 John 4:12 (ESV)

No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

Isn’t that amazing? Nobody has ever seen the full display of God’s glory and majesty on earth. Moses saw the afterglow in the cleft of the rock, Peter, James, and John saw fractional display in the transfiguration of Christ, but nobody has seen the whole thing. And most people don’t have any vision or knowledge of God at all. Yet, as we love, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. That is, God’s new-creation purpose comes to maturity in us and we display Him when we love.

Matthew 22:37–40 ESV

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

This application to love one another is really a bracket around this passage, because we read it first in verse 7.

1 John 4:7 ESV

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

Make that verse a meditation and a spurning on for Advent this week. Advent brings Jesus, and Advent brings love, because God is love, and Jesus is God, the son of God.

The Entirety of Christ’s Advent was the greatest manifestation of God’s love, and our love continues to manifest God’s love.