Advent Week 3: Intentional Love

Week one of Advent was all about intentional hope, then we talked about intentional joy last week, and for our third week of Advent together we’re going to look at Intentional love.

It would be easy to turn this into a message about good deeds, or random acts of kindness, but I really desire that the focus of this message takes us back to the Old Testament to examine God’s intentional love toward His people, Israel, and how the promises that were made regarding the Christ to come would culminate to the greatest act of intentional love this world has ever witnessed.

Let’s start with a definition of intentional love.

Intentional love according to Scripture is the laying aside your own interests, comforts, and good in order to purposely pursue bringing good to others.

Do you practice this kind of intentional love? This is a love that can be seen among husband and wife as spouses pursue each other’s good without expecting a return.

This is the love that parents are supposed to show to their children, as they give, even out of weakness and lack, draining themselves for the good and success of their children.

The best of friendships are where each friend is willing to give and serve, out of kindness, not only so that favors can be returned back.

All of this being a picture of Christ’s model for love that the apostle John described this way in John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

Scripture does a much better job describing intentional love than I ever could. Look at...

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

The entire reason for adding the word, “intentional”, to each of our Advent words, is because intentionality is the only way for us to understand them in a biblical way. Think about it...When the world is left to define love for us, what we get is subjective feelings and desires that are not submitted to any form of truth. But the Christian worldview demands that God is the originator of everything that we know and see, including love. It’s HIS idea, and we are the ones who must learn, and surrender, and change.

Let’s hover over this Corinthians passage for a moment.

Love is patient and kind.

In the absence of patience and kindness, what you may have thought was love is now the furthest thing from it.

Where there is boasting and jealousy in your relationships, you have now ceased loving.

When you push your way, or become irritable, and resent others…you turn your back on biblical love.

But intentional love looks at Scripture, repents of worldly thinking, and seeks the power of the Spirit in order to love like God loves.

Now let’s talk about His love for a moment. Where do we see God’s intentional love for us BEFORE Christ came into the world?

1. We see it in creation.

Now, when asked the question, why did God create? The best answer is, for His pleasure… It’s the best answer because it’s the biblical answer.

Revelation 4:11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God,

to receive glory and honor and power,

for you created all things,

and by your will they existed and were created.

Colossians 1:16  For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

The way this shows us his love is because by creating us for his glory and pleasure, we become beneficiaries of the greatest thing imaginable…loving and knowing and having a relationship with God…who IS love, and grace, and joy, and good, and peace, and wonder and majesty…

His will to create, was…well…HIS will to create, apart from any suggestion outside himself, but according to a love that is incomprehensible. His creation was an intentional act for our greatest good. Incredibly enough, even though the greatest reason for his creating us was for himself, it was also the most selfless act in the universe. Before creation God knew he would suffer at the hands of His creation, and by that suffering and sacrifice and loss, he would redeem his people back to himself. Intentional love.

Where else might we see God’s intentional love for us before Christ came into the world?

2. We see it in His pursuit of His people

Genesis 3:8-9 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool[c] of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

God could have left them there, in that place of sin and brokenness, to live forever in a state of decay and depravity, but God desired that Adam and Eve would be restored by faith…purchased back by a work of His grace and given eternal life. So, he didn’t leave them. He pursued them. Where are you, Adam? What have you done? This is love, church. That God pursues us for our good and does not leave us in our sin.

This theme continues through Scripture.

Exodus 3:7-9 Then the LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.

God saw, and He heard, and He went toward them in their state of slavery and oppression. Why did he do this? For their good!

To bring them to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey

God continues to show intentional love to Israel over and over again, even as they turn their back and rebel against his good for them.

Romans 10:20-21 Paul quotes Isaiah 65… “

Isaiah is so bold as to say, “I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.” But of Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”

This is God’s intentional love shown to those who do not deserve it.

Then we see this even more vividly in Hosea and Gomer

Hosea was a prophet during a time when Israel was split, and actively promoted the worship of other god’s. So, God called the prophet to marry a promiscuous woman named, Gomer, and to love her, despite her unfaithfulness. This would not be without anger against the sin, but Hosea would continue to love her despite it. God would ask Hosea to take her back even after unfaithfulness. To pursue her anyway.

Why? Because it was meant to be a picture of God’s dealing with His people, a picture of His intentional love for an undeserving people like us.

There are many other examples of God’s unchanging love for His people through the years as Israel awaited the Messiah. But one very clear picture of His intentional love, is in His giving.

3. We see it in His selfless and gracious giving

Gracious giving is to give, not what is deserved, but what is not deserved. I don’t know how Christmas goes in your home, but when we give gifts to each other it’s assumed that we’re not doing so while thinking in the back of our minds about all the wrongs that have been committed that year.

“Here’s a pair of socks, son, even though you don’t deserve it.”

NO, we give because we want to, and we love to. And it speaks of God’s image upon us that we love to give. But with God, it’s different. We are all sinners. And sinners don’t deserve any good. Sinning against God is a cosmic offence that is infinitely worse than a million wrongs done to another sinner.

So when we receive from God, it is shear grace. We get daily grace and mercy, because God is patient. But in his pursuit of His people, and because of His covenant with David, to have a throne forever and a people forever, he would give the greatest gift to the world…His own Son.

Let’s look at just a few familiar texts that show this kind of love.

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

This is the way God loved the world… And we know that this giving of His son speaks of the whole life and death of Jesus.

He gave him to the world at His birth. And He gave him up as the atoning sacrifice for His sinners.

Romans 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

See that? This is how he shows his love for us. Remember, the world doesn’t get to define love…God does…and according to God, his love is seen ultimately in the gift of Christ, given to us so that he might die for us, and to reconcile to himself all who believe and trust in him.

2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

See the intentional love, that self denial in order to bring us our greatest good, the righteousness of God?

I am so thankful that all of this is true about God…That because he is love, he created us for His glory and pleasure, and so that we might be the beneficiaries of His love.

And that because he is love, he pursues... relentlessly pursues his covenant people, his chosen people, in order to redeem us back from our pursuit of sin and death.

And that because he is love, he is a gracious giver of good and perfect gifts, the best of all being himself. In that giving of himself we see his own definition of love fulfilled from John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

This is truly what Christmas is about…God making himself the friend of sinners. God, making himself low, and humble, and accessible to weak and needy people like us.

WE are Gomer, and Jesus is our Hosea, the one who intentionally pursues, and loves, and forgives, and gives second chances to. We have been unfaithful, and WE were his enemies, but he makes us beautiful, and calls us his bride, and purchases our new, white, clean garments place of our filthy stained ones, and he does this all by his intentional love.

I’ll end with just one application for us to chew on in regards to our mission as the church, and it comes from the lips of our Lord…John 15:12“This is my commandment, that you love one another AS I HAVE LOVED YOU.”