Deuteronomy 7:6-9
1 John 4:8-11

12/15/24

What did the birth of Christ have to do with love?

Two thousand years ago, something was on its way that would personify love in a way no one had never seen. God is the same as he’s always been and is unchanging; this isn’t a new kind of love. But on that first Christmas it was expressed in a way never seen in the course of human history.

Deut 7

6 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 
•       The Israelites were God’s chosen people. 
•       Parental love makes you feel special, treasured

7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 
God’s love rescues and redeems.
God’s love is not because of anything you’ve ever done. We did nothing to earn it or to keep it. In fact, it is in the face of our own opposition and hatred.

9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.
•       What is being declared about God is central to who He is. First and foremost, YHWH is God. In the same sentence He is defined by how he keeps his promises and extends to us his steadfast love.
•       The Hebrew word there is a very common one in the Old Testament. HESED. It is very often translated ‘steadfast love’ or ‘lovingkindness’. 
•       It is used all over the place, hundreds of times through scripture.
o       Isaiah 54:10 “For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.”
o       In Ruth 3 Boaz describes Ruth’s dedication to her mother-in-law as ‘hesed’.
o       1 Sam 20:14, David asks Jonathan to show him the ‘hesed’ of the LORD.
•       It describes the Godly ability to show love and mercy over and over and over again, even in the face of complete opposition and resistance and ignorance. God’s love is a never giving up, always chasing you down type of love.
•       That’s where this passage leaves us today, with the truth that God’s love was always going to chase us down. We could not follow the law; we could not love him first. And so that love, the hesed of the LORD YHWH did something no one had ever seen in the course of human history. Because of the great love that he had for us…

Ultimately the hesed of the LORD culminates in the revelation of the gospel.

1 John 4

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. 
•       The central characteristic of God: his mercy, his devotion and his great love is what incarnated Jesus Christ into the world. It was the hesed of YHWH that brought Jesus to take on human flesh and live as a man.
•       God had made a promise to redeem his people, and this never-stopping, always chasing after you love is what sent Jesus in to the world; so that we might live.
•       “Born that man no more may die”
•       He had been promising salvation since the introduction of sin in to our world. 

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. 
•       The hesed of the LORD God is uninitiated. We did not love him, and yet he still sent his son to die and take the punishment of our sins. He came to be the last sacrifice we would ever need for our sins.
•       Love came to take the punishment of 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 closest I’m going to get to application is this verse right here. What does this mean for us? To love one another because God loved us. Yeesh! We have an example of what love looks like and scripture tells us we are to be full of it! Overflowing with that love!

Takeaways
Model love after the steadfast love of God.
•       This is hard. I encourage you to take every opportunity you can to learn more about the love God has for you, celebrate it this Christmas wherever you might be. 

Philippians 2

2 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.