LOVE HAS COME DOWN
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We have come to the last in our Advent Series…Advent ends tomorrow night, and I hope you will join us for our Candlelight worship at 8pm. It will be a family friendly service and children of all ages are welcome.
This morning we are looking at LOVE, its a word we use a lot in our culture:
I LOVE this song
I LOVE coffee
I LOVE gymnastics
I LOVE you
In English we use the word to express several different things. In Classical Greek there are several words for love, and I’m going to break it down to four basic ones:
Erao, eros
Phileo, Philia - We also get Philadelphia and Philanthropia
Stergo, storge
Agapazo, agapao
So though we see six different words in the Classical greek we really see four basic roots that speak much of the intent of the love.
In our passage this morning Agape is the one that is used.
If you have your Bibles with you, turn to 1 John 4:7, we’re going to read through verse 21.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 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. 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. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because 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. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
AMEN!
There is a lot in this passage, so I’d like to spend the next couple of hours unpacking that for us…but of course we don’t have time for that here this morning. So let’s just focus on some highlights.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
Love one another, for love is from God.
In this Advent season, we wait in expectation for Jesus’ return, because Jesus came to this earth - that’s what we’ll be celebrating in a couple of days, and Jesus will return, that too is what we celebrate and await during this season. There is the expectation of Jesus return, and will we be ready?
Love is from God - Jesus is God’s love sent down to us.
When we love - as Jesus loved, giving up everything for us, we emulate Jesus and exemplify being born of God and knowing God.
Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
In his Commentary on 1 John, Gary Burge wrote:
The NIV Application Commentary: Letters of John The Origin of Christian Love (4:7–10)
When verse 8 says “God is love” (cf. v. 16), it is important to note what John is not saying. He is not saying that “God is loving” (though this is true). Nor is he saying that one of God’s activities is “to love” us (though this is true as well). John is saying that God is love, that “all of his activity is loving.”5 Love is the essence of his being. But the reverse is not the case. We cannot say, in other words, that “love is God,” as if any display of affection suddenly qualifies as divine.
All of God’s activity is loving - Love is the essence of his being.
That’s not true with us, even at our most generous we can be selfish.
Compare to Paul’s “love chapter” 1 Corinthians 13.
The comparison is powerful.
The command for us to love is evident, and many people will read 1 Corinthians 13 that way, but as we compare it to our text here we recognize that God is love.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
What are our motives for love?
We can do all the loving things, but if we don’t have Christ it’s like a noisy gong or clanging cymbal, an empty faith, it’s nothing.
Let’s read on in John’s letter:
Read 1 John 4:9-12
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.
It is through Christ that we live. God first loved us.
Paul wrote something similar to the Romans:
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
We had done nothing to earn God’s love - and God loved us.
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.
Wow - propitiation, now there’s a word to throw around at your next Christmas gathering.
What does THAT mean?
The biblical meaning is in general “to appease the wrath of God by prayer or sacrifice when a sin or offense has been committed against Him.” The word occurs several times in the NT, and means to remove an obstacle on man’s part to his relationship with God. So What John is saying here is that Jesus death is effective in restoring the relationship between God and humankind, a relationship that had been damaged by sin.
One could read this then as God love us and sent his Son to remove sin which was blocking our relationship with God.
Let me continue here a bit and summarize:
Read 1 John 4:11-16
And then we get tot his verse:
By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
I especially want to emphasize that second verse there, v. 18.
By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
There is NO fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.
The opposite of love is not hate, it is fear.
FEAR creates distance.
FEAR has to do with punishment.
FEAR says, I’m going to get hurt.
FEAR is why so many people don’t want to talk about Jesus.
FEAR is the reason why so many in our world are afraid to consider Jesus as their Savior.
FEAR IS A LIAR!
FEAR IS A LIAR!
FEAR of not being good enough
FEAR of what we’ve done in the past being discovered
FEAR of who we are - we see the ugliness in sin in our selves
FEAR of failing
FEAR of
LOVE CAME DOWN!
LOVE CAME DOWN!
Verse reminders:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
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.
As Christians we need to be reminded and to remind:
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
“Judge not, that you be not judged.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
Love Came down! God so loved the world - the cosmos, all that was created!
God so loves you, and me, the beggar and the street, the executive in the office, the worker in the factory, a person in the nursing home, the child at school…God loves us all -
And we as Christians need to remember to live in that love! WE are loved - live like it!
We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
And he ends with this wonderful exhortation:
And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
As you go out today, and throughout this week, shine the light of God through your love for others.
Be people of immense gratitude for the simplest of gifts.
Be generous in your praise.
Be a listener, and let people share their stories.
Remember God’s love is perfected in us.
No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
You are loved - love others.
Let’s pray.