The Love of the Father

Introduction

Meaning of Christmas

We have talked about The Real Meaning of Christmas not being about the giving of gifts or the commercial aspect of getting in the black. Rather Christmas is about God.

Pastor Ron went through the Birth of the Savior Matthew 1:18-25, looking at the Angel informing Joseph about the child that his betrothed wife Mary would bear, by way of the Holy Spirit. This Son born and Child given would ‘save his people from their sins’. Joseph was obedient to this message and took Mary as his wife.

Pastor Barry went through the Worship of the Savior Luke 2:8-20, looking at the report given to the Shepherds concerning the birth of the Savior, Messiah and Lord. The praise of the Angels, the investigating of the shepherd, their witness/testimony about the Savior and the storing up of these things within Mary.

We are talking about the Love of God today 1 John 4:7-12, as much as we think of gift giving, think of time off from work, think of a time to recharge, think of time with family, the real Meaning of Christmas is about Love , more expressly the love of the Father, referred to as God in the passage we are looking at today.

John’s Epistles

We are coming from John’s first epistle today. There were three epistles that John wrote and the first one (first John) was written between AD 85 and 95 to the Churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Laodicea, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis and Philadelphia. Those Churches addressed in Revelation 2-3.

This epistle is more like a pastoral letter that was meant to be circulated among the churches. So the audience that were dealing with some emerging heresies (proto gnosticism) would hear a word from God concerning the authentic and the handled Jesus (that which we have seen, heard and handled 1 John 1:1)

Purpose of the Letter

I like John because he provides the purpose for the letter that he has written. He does the same thing with his Gospel as well.

We can find the purpose for the letter in Chapter 5 of this epistle.

1 John 5:13 ESV

13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

John is writing to believers about their assurance of being in Christ, or as John puts their remaining or abiding in Christ and in the Father. He writes a number of things concerning the proof that you are in right standing. He covers things like being in the light, or lying and as we will look at today love.

John provides a proof of love for believers and their abiding in God. We also get a glimpse into the love of God and how this first Advent is related to that love.

1 John 4:7–12 ESV

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 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. 10 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. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

The Impact

1 John 4:7–8 ESV

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Love

We are told by John that we are to love one another. This is a subjunctive verb in the Greek, which implies there is another way to go and that a choice of sorts needs to be made. So John is exhorting his audience to love one another. Then he gives reasons for this love to be shown.

First let’s look at a biblical definition for love.

Love - Noun

ἀγάπη - (agápē) - the quality of warm regard for and interest in another, esteem, affection, regard, love (BDAG)

Love - Verb

ἀγαπάω - (agapaō) - to have a warm regard for and interest in another, cherish, have affection for, love

This love is not self-centered rather the consideration of someone else. Esteeming them, centering on them, letting their needs be a prime consideration to you.

Identify in Love

For the one who does love there is an identity associated with it.

The first part of that identity is that you have been born of God. That God is your father. Much like the explanation between Jesus and Nicodemus, this is not a natural birth, rather a birth on a spiritual level that is done by God.

John 1:12–13 ESV

12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

God has birthed them, God has caused them to be regenerated. These are folks that are no longer spiritually dead. The loving of one another identifies them as being born again. Love accompanied by belief is a tell-tell sign of being adopted by God.

This person also knows God. This is not just knowing of God, but that are in the process of learning about God and growing in that knowledge of Him. We are not stagnate in our knowledge of God regardless of our age in Christ. We are always learning and knowing God more and more. deadThis is associated with those who believe. We do not graduate from this.

John provides us with the negative of this to help solidify his point. No love, you do not know God, Show love, you are born of God and Know God.

God’s Nature is Love

Then he makes this statement that God is love. This accompanied with ‘love is from God’ in v7, show that love springs from God, God oozes love so to speak and that God at his nature is Love.

This is not the first time that John has used terms like this to articulate God’s nature.

1 John 1:5 ESV

5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

John shows God’s nature as that of light, which speaks to His holiness and His righteousness.

John 4:24 ESV

24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

John notes that God is Spirit, as Jesus told that woman at the well. Speaking to God’s metaphysical nature. So we also see that God is Love, his very nature is love.

What does that mean, thought.

Tim Keller introduced to me this term in his book The Reason for God.

Perichoresis

Peri = Around

Chroein = Make Room For, To Give Way

From this we get the sense of a dance, where each of the dance gives room to the other, allowing them to be the center of their orbit.

This is how we can view love in the Godhead, when we say God in his nature is love, we are saying that love is eternal and has always been demonstrated in the God head, prior to any creation.

When we say this we are saying there is a sort of dance that is happening in the Godhead, where each member orbits around the other, where there is no self serving within the Godhead, but each member of the God head glorifies the other. The Father glorifies the Son and the Son glorifies the Father and the Spirit glorifies the Son and from the origin of love we all know love. Where this dance is what is expected from love, where I am not the center expecting everything to orbit around me, rather I am willing to give selflessly to another as they are glorified by me.

This is not saying that the Love of God trumps all of His perfections, for Holiness and Immutability and Eternity and Infinity are also characteristics of God and describe His nature to some extent. This does say that Love is sourced in God, who was before the beginning, who is eternal and we get to play in that eternal arena to a small extent.

The Manifesting

1 John 4:9–10 ESV

9 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. 10 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.

John goes on to tell more about the love of God. Love is abstract it is the quality or act of esteeming someone. What John is going to tell us about the love of God is that it results in action, and action that results in the invitation of fallen people participate in through His Son.

God’s Love Manifest

What does it mean to manifest. This means to disclose, to who, to make known, to actualize.

φανερόω - (phaneroō) - disclose, show, make known

This love was shown to us in His action

Sent Only Son

God sent His one and only Son, The word sent is associated with an apostle. This is the sense of the sending of one who has a special purpose to handle for the one who sent them. So the Father Sent the Son for a specific purpose.

The who is the one and only Son. This Son is unique as He is 1) a member of the Godhead, 2) the Son of God and 3) the only one who could accomplish the objective that was put before Him. This Son is also unique on that He is the only Son of God. There are not 10 sons to choose from for God, there was only one and that is who He sent. This points to what God is willing to give in His love.

This Son was sent into the world. The Son was in heaven, a place where He was worshipped, a place where He was intimately in the dance, a place where as Philippians says equality with God was not something to be grasped. The Son is God in the realm of God with all that came with it as II Corinthians says He was rich.

He was sent into a world that had exchanged to the glory of God for images. Coming to a place that He created but would not honor Him. A place that would not receive Him well, a place that was not like heaven where he came from.

John 16:28 ESV

28 I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”

John 17:5 ESV

5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

Life Through Him

The Son was sent for the purpose of life. The purpose of bringing dead people to life. Taking those who were under the wrath of a holy God and regenerating them such that they would have new life in Him.

John notes that ‘we’ may live through Him, the we is any believer who has been transferred from darkness to light. None of us were exempt from that.

Genesis 2:16–17 ESV

16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

We were dead, born dead as Ephesians 2 says and in desperate need of someone to work on our behalf. You see there was nothing that we could do about our state. Our death was the result of sin against God, sin that God would not overlook. Sin that could be overcome by love, but ignored because of love. We were in desperate need of a Savior, Lord and Messiah, so that we might have life.

Love is

John goes on to give another illustration of love, this time not saying ‘the love of God is’, but rather that ‘love is’.

This love is not anything that we as those who were incapable of loving God could put forth. Love is not based on the person receiving. In this case love was not based on us, it was the action that God was taking toward us. The action to redeem us. The action to address our sins. This is aligns with our definition of love, which is to have regard for someone, the quality of regarding some. God regarded us and addressed our sin debt. Not by ignoring the sin, a righteous and just God could not do that. Because of our sin we were ready for wrath and rightfully so, God was within His right to punish us for out sins. The full wrath of God was waiting for us.

Romans 1:18 ESV

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

Romans 3:23 ESV

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Ephesians 2:1–3 ESV

1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Instead the Son was the propitiation for our sins. The Son Appeased God taking away the deserved wrath from those who believe. It is almost like a sponge and the Son incarnate soaked up all the wrath that God had ready for the unrighteous and those who fall short and those who were dead, taking it all so that those who believe would have none left to take.

This is not the skirting of wrath, but the taking on of wrath within the Godhead for the sake of those being shown the love of God.

This is Christmas, this is the first Advent, this is the virgin birth, this is the Son Given and the Child Born, this is the wise men this is the shepherds. Christmas is love. Christmas is the love of God to a people who do nor love Him and in spite of them sending His one and only Son for sinners that they may not have to face the wrath of a just and righteous God who addresses sin against Him.

This is our invitation to the dance, we as believers are invited into the dance that has been going on for an eternity. We get to dance and make Jesus the center that we orbit around.

The Invitation

1 John 4:11–12 ESV

11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

Invited to Love One Another

John indicated the result that he expects to his hearers of the epistle. The result of this manifest Love of God is that they should, they ought to be those who love, as should we. How do you experience a love like that, as someone who is born again, and not move to love one another. How can you ignore an action on your behalf, showing the love of the Father and not want to show that love.

This love of one another is what should be done, this is an imperative. We see this throughout Scripture, when we consider one another statements:

“Love one another with brotherly affection…” (Romans 12:10)

“…Outdo one another in showing honor. (Romans 12:10)

“Live in harmony with one another…” (Romans 12:16)

“…Have the same care for one another.” (I Corinthians 12:25)

“…But through love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13)

“Bear one another's burdens,…” (Galatians 6:2)

tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32)

“Do not lie to one another..." (Colossians 3:2)

"...how to stir up one another to love and good works" (Hebrews 10:24)

"Do not speak evil against one another, brothers." (James 4:11) . We should not

God Abides in Us

Remember the purpose of John’s epistle, it is to assure believers that have eternal life. To provide some checks for believers to gauge their temperature of there relation go God. The word abide is like marinating, as long as the chicken of steak is marinating it is abiding, the juices soak in, the flavors and acidity of the broth or the mixture set into the meat and break down the tough parts of the meat and the more the meat sits the more flavor and tender it gets.

Well that is like us family we abide in God, we remain in his sphere and we take on more and more of Him, walking as we are supposed to walk (worthy of the calling), walking circumspectly, considering Godly things, displaying the fruit of the Spirit, being sanctified, following the Spirit rather than the flesh. So was we remain, God remains in us. So as we love, we are showing that God abides in us and that we abide in Jesus, which serves as proof that we have eternal life.

The Love Circuit Completed

John goes onto to give one more statement that solidifies our invitation into the eternal love dance. The word perfected, is speaking to an end. The completed purpose and although we have never seen God, We could not see God and live in our current bodies, God is seen in our love that is shown to one another.

When we show love to one another the circuit is completed. The love that we have had manifested to us, shown in action through the Son, we show to one another, and we are in the dance. The eternal dance that we have been invited to we are participating in and God is glorified in that.

Conclusion

Christmas is About the love of God

The First Advent was an Act of Love

We are invited to the Dance