Advent: Hope / Peace / Joy / LOVE
Today, tomorrow this whole season is about love. It’s why God was incarnated. Today is about real love, the fullness of love. NOT what passes for love [affection]. To understand love you have to start with GOD…At God’s essential core He IS love. The Trinity is the perfect expression of love for others [prefect relational community].
God defines LOVE by who HE is & what HE has done! The final Word on love would come at the cross…But it BEGINS with the Birth of Jesus The Christ! The Advent of the Messiah, the coming of The God Man, Jesus of Nazareth…
He came to demonstrate and define The Fullness of Love. God made it personal: He came HIMSELF, incarnated as one of us…He came to complete the story of our redemption. What we call ‘The Bible’. This Christmas let us joyfully receive the gift of LOVE as explained in God’s Word.
Let us learn and apply it with all of our heart, souls, mind and strength!
1st John 4:7-21 NASB 1995
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
- The love John has for his audience comes from intimate knowledge of Christ
- God’s essence is love. The Triune Godhead defines love!
- KNOW GOD, KNOW LOVE…
- Humans cannot truly love without God empowering it [just affection]
9 By this, the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
- The ultimate expression of God’s love for His people was the sending of Jesus
- God defines love as sacrifice for others / Doing for us what we could not do!
- ‘Live through Him’ = eternal life with God we have by giving our life to Christ
- ‘In This IS Love’ WE don’t make it happen… He loved & loves us {ponder}
- ‘This Love’ is God condescending to be one of us, becoming the payment for our sin
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.
- Our love for each other flows from God’s love for us [responsibility & privilege]
- As we cannot see the wind, we can’t see God…We can see His effect: LOVE
- God coming to us… as one of us… is the perfect expression of what love is
- That God would live in us so that we could love like Him… HIS love perfected!
13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us.
- He says: Here is how we know this love, how we have this love in us: HIS Spirit
- Only through Biblical Salvation does God give His chosen people His Spirit
- The Biblical Gospel results in Biblical Confession and indwelling Holy Spirit
- Faith in Christ as God & Savior leads us to believe and begin to live by love
God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
- Love is the heart of God’s being!
- Its the defining aspect of His character, from love flow all the other ways of God
- God’s Love is born in us by the Holy Spirit [Eternal Security]
- That confidence is lived out through sacrificial love that overcomes fear
- If you know that you are ‘Heaven Bound’… you don’t fear death
- If you know there will be NO punishment for your sin, you live by love, not fear
19 We love, because He first loved us. 20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.
- The initiator of all love, of all redeemed relationship… is God Himself!
- True love of God cannot coexist with hatred of members of of Christ’s body
- It is commanded of Christ’s followers that we are to love our Christian family
- If we truly share the love we also share in the abolition of hate in Christ’s Body
BIBLICAL TRUTH
The fullness of love is only found in knowing God [Knowing who Christ is] & being born of God [Indwelt with God’s Spirit]. The Biblical definition of a Christ Follower.
BIBLICAL TRUTH
As Christ’s followers we are hardwired to the definitive source of perfect love; unconditional, self-sacrificial and pure.
BIBLICAL TRUTH
As Christ’s followers, God’s love in us is proven by the gift of His Spirit, which enables us to fully trust Him for today & eternity.
BIBLICAL TRUTH
As Christ’s followers we do not fear judgement for our sin from God because we have experienced the full extent of His Love demonstrated in Christ’s coming to us.
BIBLICAL TRUTH
As Christ’s followers, God’s love in us is not compatible with hatred for other Biblical followers of Christ.
APPLICATION ACTIONS:
Get involved in more intentional scripture study to increase your faith in Christ.
Don’t settle for any other definition of love other than God’s definition of love [Christ].
Ask God to give you assurance of Eternity with HIM by His Spirit so you can live uncontrolled by fear.
Eradicate any place for hate you might have in your life for other Biblical Christians.