Sermon Tone Analysis

After returning home from a long tour, Bono, the lead singer for U2, returned to Dublin and attended a Christmas Eve service.

At some point in that service, Bono grasped the truth at the heart of the Christmas story: in Jesus, God became a human being.

With tears streaming down his face, Bono realized,

The idea that God, if there is a force of Love and Logic in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough.

That it would seek to explain itself by becoming a child born in poverty … and straw, a child, I just thought, "Wow!" Just the poetry … I saw the genius of picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this … Love needs to find a form, intimacy needs to be whispered … Love has to become an action or something concrete.

It would have to happen.

There must be an incarnation.

Love must be made flesh.

LOVE A feeling of deep affection.

A central theme in Scripture and Christian theology and ethics.

Defines our relationship with God and dictates how we should treat others.

Old Testament Love

General Terms of Love

The Lexham Bible Dictionary (General Terms)

The most frequent verb for “love” (אָהֵב, ahev) in the Old Testament occurs over 200 times in both its noun and verb forms.

It refers to the relationship between two people, either a parent and a child (Gen 22:2; 25:28; 37:3) or a husband and a wife (Gen 24:67; 29:18).

The Pentateuch also uses the word to describe the relationship between God and the people of Israel.

Deuteronomy 6:5 commands the people to “love (אָהֵב, ahev) the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut 6:5, compare Deut 10:12; 30:6).

The nation manifests their love for God by following the law (Deut 11:1, 13, 22; 19:9; 30:16, 20).

Loyal Love

The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Loyal Love (חֶסֶד, chesed))

The most frequent noun for “love” in the Old Testament, חֶסֶד (chesed) occurs over 250 times in the Hebrew Bible.

When loyal love is used it represents a type of fidelity or loyalty that leads to action.

Promises between two people display this relationship dynamic more closely.

For example David reminds Johnathan of a previous promise.

Loyal love can also refer to acts of mercy or good deeds.

The term also refers in reference to God and his “Loyal Love” that protects and sustains His people, at times offering protection from their enemies.

God’s loyal love also stands in contrast with His wrath.

“Chesed love is frequently tied to the Abrahamic covenant and the Davidic Covenant as long as they maintain a relationship with Him they will be blessed.

Concept of Love

The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Old Testament Concept of Love)

The Old Testament concept of love assumes that there is a relationship between two people or groups of people.

The Pentateuch describes God’s love for the nation of Israel through election (Deut 4:37; 10:15) and declares that the nation should respond with love (Deut 7:9, 13).

The context of Deut 7:13 suggests that God will bless the nation through this relationship, which is outlined later in the book (Deut 28:1–14)

The nation of Israel should respond to God’s faithfulness by following the law, which directs the community to love others.

Love in the New Testament

The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Love in the New Testament)

1. the ἀγαπάω (agapaō) word group

2. the φιλέω (phileō) word group

The New Testament terms agapao and Phileo are used synonymously.

For example, both word groups are used in theological and nontheological ways, and both are used in reference to positive objects (e.g., “Love your neighbor”) and negative objects (e.g., love of money or love of worldly things).

The exception is the noun in reference to a positive love a special kind of love that refers to:

God’s Love (Rom.

5:8) The Father’s love is a love in a sacrificial way for the world.

This also refers to the Fathers love for the Son accomplishing the Fathers purpose to redeem the world.

A person’s love for God (Rev.

2:4)

Love for one another (Rom 13:10) distinguishes those within the community of God from the world.

The key ethical component is that we love those inside of the body and outside the community with the same sacrificial love of Christ.

How Can We Be Sure of God’s Love?

BIG IDEA: To know God is to be Loved by God

Note: to be sure of the love of someones parents is almost always indispensable to the health and emotional development and well-being of the Child.

Does the child feel loved, protected, and cared for by the parents?

To determine the true love of a spouse or friend is closely interconnected to the a similar genuine care and concern for the fulfillment of the other.

God’s love brings an even richer understanding of the word LOVE.

His love is the major catalyst or component of our Hope, Peace, and Joy.

If someone performs an act of love for us there are basically three ways we measure the depth of that love?

1.

The Costliness of His Love

WE KNOW THE DEPTH OF LOVE FOR US BY WHAT IT COST

If he sacrifices his life for us, it assures us of deeper love than if he only sacrifices a few bruises.

Note: The Greater the sacrifice the deeper the love.

If it costs and afternoon of time and seat, it is one degree of love.

If it cost his life, it is another degree of love.

Cultural Context: The world we live in measures love in their level of commitment.

Where does Christ rate on that scale in your life today?

If you took a deep heart inventory how easy is it for you to commit to other things in your life and ignore your Savior and Lord?

Why do so many people fail to fully Experience the Love of God in their lives?

Is it because they don’t know how much God Loves them?

Do they fail to believe in God’s love?

I do not believe any of these are the case with most people.

I believe that we fail to daily experience the objective reality of Christ’s sacrifice for us.

* You do not get the costliness of His love by emptying your head.

Note: Some of us get stuck in the intellectual process of the sacrifice Christ made for us when he came down that first Christmas over 2,000 years ago.

Look at verse 8, do you notice anything unusual about the time of the verbs he used.

“Christ died for us.”

That is a past historical reality.

That is history, and it is fixed.

Now look at the beginning of verse 8 “but God shows or demonstrated his own love for us.”

He wrote that God shows his own love for us in the present tense.

This is an ongoing reality for you and me.

Yes, the sacrifice that Jesus made for us has factual, objective, content to show us, however, it does not end at the manger and the cross.

The experience that He demonstrated for us is a continuing reality of the glory and love of God past, present and future.

You do not get the costliness of His love for you by merely emptying your head of all the facts you have come to believe.

You experience the costliness of His love for you when you experience it on a daily basis in the way you order your life.

Costliness of Love

Chuck Colson told the story of a group of American prisoners of war during the Second World War, who were made to do hard labor in a prison camp.

Each had a shovel and would dig all day, then come in and give an account of his tool in the evening.

One evening 20 prisoners were lined up by the guard and the shovels were counted.

The guard counted nineteen shovels and turned in rage on the 20 prisoners demanding to know which one did not bring his shovel back.

No one responded.

The guard took out his gun and said that he would shoot five men if the guilty prisoner did not step forward.

After a moment of tense silence, a 19-year-old soldier—the age of my Ben—stepped forward with his head bowed down.

The guard grabbed him, took him to the side and shot him in the head, and turned to warn the others that they better be more careful than he was.

When he left, the men counted the shovels and there were 20.

The guard had miscounted.

And the boy had given his life for his friends.

Can you imagine the emotions that must have filled their hearts as they knelt down over his body?

In the five or ten seconds of silence, the boy had weighed his whole future in the balance—a future wife, an education, a new truck, children, a career, fishing with his dad—and he chose death so that others might live.

Jesus said in John 15:13, ""Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends."

To love is to choose suffering for the sake of another.

An Infinitely More Costly Love