LeRoy Dec 19/21

Living in Love

It’s hard to believe, but we are already at the fourth Sunday of Advent. This morning, We’re going to look at God’s love and what it means to live in love. Simple Love The great theologian of the last century, Karl Barth, wrote a 10 volume theological work titled "Ethics." When traveling and lecturing throughout the United States at all the important universities and theological schools, it is reported that one young man asked him, "Dr. Barth, you have written multiple volumes on theology. But, if you had to boil down all your theological knowledge into just a sentence or two, what would you say is the essence of your theological understanding?" Dr. Barth didn’t hesitate. He replied, "It is really quite simple. 'Jesus loves me, this I know - for the Bible tells me so.'" (Devon Huss, SC) Let’s read,

1 John 4:7–10 NIV Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God’s love... How do we even begin to describe the love that God has for us? How can we even begin to fathom what that love looks like?

John 3:16 NIV 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.

1 John 3:1–3 NIV See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

Living in Love...

1 John 4:11–16 NIV

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

The word love, can mean so many things in the English language. I love pizza! I love my family! I love my wife, and yet when we look at what it means to love in the Koine Greek, in this passage it refers to God’s love. The Bible Knowledge Commentary 5:22–23 Such self-sacrificing love that sent Christ to die for sinners is the kind of love that believers who are Spirit-controlled manifest. People that haven’t come to faith yet, cannot express Agape love until the Holy Spirit comes to live in them. I’m not saying that you cannot love unless you are a Christian. What I am saying is that you cannot love with God’s love that sent Jesus to the cross unless you believe that Jesus died on the cross for you. God must live in us for us to live in Agape love. We are told that God is love, but love is not God. Why do we love? We love because He loved us. 1 John 3:16 NIV This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. Christ in us...

1 John 4:15 NIV If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.

We call this coming to faith. If you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in you. God begins to change us when He pours His love into our hearts. Not your heart that beats 75 times per minute but your spirit. As we live in His love, that love starts to come out. 1 John 4:16 NIV And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 1 Corinthians 13:1–8 NIV If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

I want to invite you to ask God, what living in His agape love means for you. How can we love each other more deeply? How can we be looking out for each other?

Matthew 22:39 (NIV) ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Let’s ask God to give us opportunity to show love to everyone we meet. Let’s look for practical ways that we can show love. This Christmas season, let’s give the gift of love. What is God speaking to you right here, right now? Can we do it or do we need to start planning for it? Let’s be asking God for open doors? Let’s pray!