Advent: The Gift of Love
I John 4:9-11
Introduction:
Christmas is only a week away! So far, our Advent series has considered
the traditional themes of Hope, Peace, and Joy. The messianic hope of
the Jews was realized as Jesus, the promised Messiah, was born. His first
coming also reinforces our hope in the promise of His return. He came to
offer us reconciliation, peace with God. As we entrust ourselves to Him,
we experience the peace of God in our hearts. The Good News of His birth
is cause for rejoicing, joy that goes beyond the circumstances of
the moment. Now this week, we consider the “Gift of Love.” Do you
love Christmas? Some might agree and say, “Yes, especially the parties and
presents!” That is not what I have in mind with the sermon title. Love for our
families is certainly something we should cherish, but even that is not the
most fundamental connection between love and Christmas. Christmas is a
revelation of God’s love for us, and a motivation to love
Him in return. Alexander Maclaren said, “Love is the only fire hot enough to
melt the iron obstinacy of a creature’s heart.”
Have you heard people ask, “Why do you people have to ruin Christmas by making
it religious?” That kind of thinking is what is behind the “Happy Holidays”
greetings that have displaced Christmas for so many. Of course, we are not
making it religious, other than affirming that we are celebrating the
historical fact of the Incarnation of Christ, and celebrating what
that means to us. Today we’ll consider Christmas as the Gift of Love. It is not
primarily about our love for God (though that should
be our response), but rather God’s revelation of His love
for us in sending the Son.
The Scriptures have much to say about the
revelation of love in the Incarnation. Luke and Matthew are the two gospels
that give us the most detail about the birth of Jesus. John’s Gospel starts in
eternity past but explicitly emphasizes the revelation of God’s love in the
incarnation. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God… and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” (1:1,14). Love
was when GOD became a man! It’s John that tells us so clearly why He
came, “For God so loved the world that He gave his only
begotten Son...” (3:16). I decided today to start with John, but rather
than the gospel, his first epistle. I counted some 46 times in five chapters
that John uses some form of the word “love” in his first letter. A
favorite verse of mine is one at the center of today’s passage: I John 4:9. We
memorized it as a family doing our devotional advent readings together through
the years. The NIV translation says: “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.”
I’ll paraphrase that for…
The BIG Idea: “Christmas” is
how God showed His love among us: He sent His Son to give us life! May that
move us to love Him, and to love one another. We’ll consider four points…
1) God revealed His love to us (9a);
2) God revealed His love to us by sending
His Son (9b);
3) God revealed His love for us by sending
His Son to die for us (9c-10);
4) Since God so loved us, we should love
one another (11).
I.
God has revealed his love to us: “In this the love of God
was made manifest among us…” (v.9a). THIS is
how God showed His love… The omnipotent Creator of the Universe, the One who is
all powerful, all knowing, so Holy that He is of purer eyes than to look upon
iniquity, revealed Himself to fallen humans. He not only declared His
love, He showed it. He is a loving God. Just before our passage, in I
John 4:7,8, we read…
“Beloved,
let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of
God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not
know God, for God is love.”
Not
only is love, in its purest sense, an intrinsic aspect of the nature of God,
v.9 tells that God “…made manifest…” or revealed His
love. He showed us His love. He chose to reveal His love to humans by giving
His Word, and ultimately by giving His Son.
Karl
Barth, an influential German theologian, said that the most profound
theological truth he learned in a lifetime of study was this, “Jesus loves
me this I know, for the Bible tells me so…” God loves us, and God revealed
that love so that we could see it and understand it. God involved
himself in our story – in fact, history really is His Story. This is
counter the view of “deism” that pictures the universe as a giant machine that
God set in motion, but a system in which He does not involve himself today.
The truth is that God has revealed himself to us in history, and
through His Word. He spoke through the prophets, and in fulness of time, He
sent the Son, born of a woman.
I
John 4:9 is telling us that Christmas manifests or “shows” the
love of God (cf. I Pet 1:20). The previous verse says “God is love.”
What does that mean? We know what it looks like. It looks like a
manger, a baby wrapped in rags, no room, no comforts, “nowhere to lay his
head.” Ultimately, it looks like a cross on a hill, nail pierced hands, a
crown of thorns, a pierced side. “In this the
love of God was made manifest among us…” The God who is, has spoken in His
Son (Heb 1:1-2). He could have sent a letter (and He did), He could have come
for a visit and taught us the truth (and He did). He spoke to us and lived for
a while among us. But he went even further, He did the unimaginable. He
came to give His life, so we could have life. As a gift, received through
faith, through trusting Him, entrusting ourself to Him, taking Him at His word.
That’s the Big Idea: Christmas is how God showed His love
among us: He sent His Son to rescue us, to give us life. It should motivate us
to show our love for him and for one another.
II.
God revealed his love to us by sending His Son into this sin cursed world “…God
sent his only Son into the world…” (9b). God sent his
Son into this fallen world.
This is
what “manifested” [revealed, showed forth…] God’s love. We talk a lot
about the humility of the incarnation, but think about it. All things were made
by Him and for Him, and by Him all things are held together. This God
chose to be born to a poor, young Jewish woman, into a working-class family, knowing
that His love would lead to Calvary. Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden
into this fallen world because of sin. Jesus came, without sin, to undo the
fall, to take the fall for us.
Think back to Abraham and Isaac in
Genesis 22. Abraham obeyed God, and raised the knife to slay his son, his
beloved son, the son of his old age, the son of promise. God intervened,
sending an angel who said, “Now I know you fear God…” His action
showed his heart. He was willing to give his son. God gave
His Son. Love is not just a feeling, it is something that is inevitably active
and visible. Jesus said more than once, “love one another.” You might
think, “I love everyone, I just want nothing to do with most of them!” Really? If
faith without works is dead being by itself, love without works is not biblical
love. God showed us his love. He concerned himself with us.
He sent His Son into this sin-cursed world for our good, to do for us what we
couldn’t do for ourselves.
God visited
us. Remember in Matthew’s account Joseph was reminded of the words of Isaiah, “You
shall call his name Emmanuel.” Which means, “God with us.” Paul said
in Philippians 2:6-7, “Though he existed in the form of God, he did not
regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking
the form of a servant, and being made in the likeness of man.” He came for
our good, to reconcile us to God.
That is the story of Christmas, “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us…”
His life, and His death, revealed God’s love and accomplished salvation for all
who would believe. That’s the Big Idea: Christmas is
how God showed His love among us: He sent His Son to give us life. That
should move us to love Him and to love one another.
III.
God revealed His love to humans by sending His Son into this sin cursed world
to die so that we could have life: “…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.”
Look at that: God loved us so much,
that he sent His Son to die for us so that we could live—“…that we
might live through Him…” THAT is what love looks like. John is
talking about eternal life, life with meaning, the abundant life of blessing
and purpose for which we were created. God the Son came not just for a visit, but
knowing what would happen. He came to die for us. This is the profound
truth expressed in John 3:16, "For God so loved
the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him
should not perish but have everlasting life.” Romans 5:8 makes
it clear that God’s love is not earned or deserved: “But God
demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.” Not because we were good, He first loved us! Most
importantly, a life in relationship with our Creator. We can experience
that by grace through faith, because of what Jesus did for us. We read,
"The
thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I
have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. 11 "I
am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” (Jn
10:10-11),
Jesus is talking about more than his desire that we have biological life,
that our heart keeps beating our brain waves functioning normally. He is
talking about more than the idea that we’ll live a long time, or even forever.
He is referring to a quality of life that goes beyond the
momentary flicker of this world. He is talking about the abundant life of
blessing, life with meaning in fellowship with our Creator. He is talking
about the life that we were created to enjoy. Jesus came, and showed God’s love, by laying
down his life so that we could have that kind of life. We can hardly
understand what it cost. He did it for us. The love parents have for their
children can be a picture of God's love. They will sacrifice and pour out their
lives to give their kids a better life. But even the sacrificial love of a
parent falls short of God’s love for us. Our heavenly Father loves us perfectly.
He spared not the Son, but delivered Him up for us all. Jesus knew the
cost when in the counsel of the Godhead—Father, Son, and Spirit—God’s
redemption plan was formed in eternity
past. He knew exactly what he was doing when he left the Father’s side and took
a human nature to be born of Mary. He knew where this plan would take Him. He
loved us that much. This is how God showed His love among us…
God “sent” His Son. The word “sent” in verses 9 and 10 is the verb
that is related to the word “apostle,” one who is sent on a mission. The Father
sent the Son on a mission, to be a sacrifice for sinners. The word “propitiation”
is related to the word translated “mercy seat” in the Greek translation
of the OT (the Septuagint [LXX]) and in Hebrews 9:5 (cf. Rom 3:25), “Above
it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat…” [hilasterion].
The mercy seat was the place of “atonement.” The Son was sent as
a “propitiation,” as an “atoning sacrifice.” The exact word translated
atonement here in I John 4:10 occurs only one other time in the NT, also in 1
John, in I John 2:2, “He is the propitiation for our sins…” In the LXX,
such as in Ezekiel 44:27, it is used to describe the “sin offering.” John is
saying that God showed His love by sending His Son to be the one and only sin
offering for us, the perfect sacrifice which all other sacrifices prefigured
and anticipated. The babe in the manger was the Lamb of God who would take away
the sin of the world. The Big Idea: Christmas is how God
showed His love among us: He sent His Son to give us life. It should motivate
us to love Him and to love one another.
IV. God
chose to love us, we should choose to love one another: “Beloved, if God so
loved us, we also ought to love one another…” (v.11).
Alexander MacLaren said, “Love is the only fire hot enough to melt the iron
obstinacy of a creature’s will.” God not only told us
what to do, He showed us how to live. As we celebrate the
demonstration of God’s Love in the Gift of Christmas, will you allow His
Spirit, to melt your heart with the truth of His amazing grace? “Behold what
manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should be called the
children of God — and such we are!” (I John 3:1).
Jesus came,
knowing what would happen, knowing what it would cost. Because He so loved
us, we should love one another. God showed us His love.
Love shows itself in actions. That starts in your oikos, that
small group of people that see you all the time, the people God has
strategically placed on the “front burner” of your life. Do our actions
show love? John said “If God so loved us, we ought to love one another.”
In the early church Christians were marked by their love for one
another, practical love that could be seen. An unbelieving second century Greek
writer Lucian said,
“It is incredible to see the
fervor with which the people of that religion help each other in their wants.
They spare nothing. Their first legislator [Jesus] put it into their heads that
they are brethren.”
The
church father Tertullian said the same thing from the perspective of a
believer,
“It is our care for the
helpless, our practice of lovingkindness, that brands us in the eyes of many of
our opponents. ‘Look!’ that say. ‘How they love one another! Look how they are
prepared to die for one another!’”
That means reaching out to one another and being involved in
each other’s lives. That means putting the needs of others before our own. In
the context of the church, it means living like the family we are:
forgiving, helping, encouraging, building up one another, sometimes confronting
one another, rejoicing with those who rejoice, weeping with those who weep.
As we
interact with the world, it means showing Christ’s love by being
intentional about developing relationships with those in our sphere of influence,
at work, at the gym, in school, with our neighbors. It means loving them enough
that we are willing to risk rejection, but because we know eternity is at stake,
we seek opportunities to speak the truth, and to tell them about the hope we
have found in Jesus.
What is God saying to me in this passage? Christmas is
how God showed us His love: He sent His Son to give us life. Does
that stir a response in you and me? It should!
What would God have me to do in response to this passage? Have you made an effort to keep the love of God
demonstrated in the incarnation at the forefront of your Advent celebration?
It’s not too late! It is not about our traditions, it’s all about Jesus.
1) God showed us
His love. He reached out, and got involved in our story
by bringing us into His story, even though it cost Him so much.
Think of the love that took! Do we love Him in return? Christmas should move us
to worship, thanksgiving, love for Him!
2) Do we love one
another? It’s not just what say we have in our hearts. It
means having the mind of Christ, being willing to “look out not only for our
own personal interests, but also for the interest of others.” Consider how
you can show the love of God to people around you. Some reach out to those who
are shut-in, singing and visiting and bringing some cheer. Many others
have helped with gifts to some with needs. Some will make visits and invite
folks over and bake cookies for neighbors.
3) Do we love our
neighbor? Befriend them, show kindness. Perhaps the greatest act of love is
to pray sincerely for those in your sphere of influence, and to look for every
opportunity to point them to Jesus. Let’s live out 1 Peter
3:15-16 “…always being prepared to make a defense to anyone
who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; 16 yet
do it with gentleness and respect…” That is love!
*Christmas is how God showed us His love: He sent His Son, He
gave His only begotten Son, so that we could have life, true life, abundant
life. That is love! Amen.
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