Advent; God Is Love ~ 20231224 ~ Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org
23/12/24 God Is Love; Audio available at: http://www.ephraimbible.org/Sermons/20231224_advent-love.mp3
Advent
Today is Christmas Eve, and the fourth Sunday of Advent, celebrating the coming of Jesus. Each Sunday we light a candle to heighten anticipation, to fix our eyes on Jesus. The first candle symbolizes hope; hope in the darkness. Hope in my darkness. Jesus came into the world as light, and we loved darkness rather than light because our deeds were evil (Jn.3:19).
The second candle symbolizes peace, shalom, well-being, wholeness, completeness. Jesus is the only way for us sinners, with our fractured relationships, to have real peace, peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom.5:1). Jesus brings peace to my chaos.
The third candle symbolizes joy. Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Jesus brings a kind of joy that the world cannot produce and does not understand (Jn.16:20-22). Jesus, who changed water to wine, takes our sorrows and transforms them into indestructible joy.
The fourth candle symbolizes love. That’s what we are going to look at this morning.
What Is Love?
Love. What is love? Love is fruit that the Spirit produces (Gal.5:22-23), along with joy and peace and patience (which is a kind of hope). Love is that without which all eloquence, all wisdom, all knowledge, all power, all self-sacrificial giving, is nothing (1Cor.13:1-3). Love abides, along with faith and hope, but the greatest of these is love (1Cor.13:13). But what is love?
1 Corinthians 13 describes love as the still more excellent way.
1 Corinthians 13:14 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. …
This helps us understand what love does and does not look like, but it doesn’t define what love is.
God the Source of Love (1 John 4:7-8)
For that we will turn to First John. 1 John 4 nails down what love is.
1 John 4:7 Beloved, …
John calls us ‘beloved’; those who are loved, He stirs us, who have been loved, up to love one another.
1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, ...
He bases our love on God who is the source of love. Love is from God. Love originates in God.
1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
Love, the real kind of love, is produced in the one who knows God, because he has been born of God. Jesus talks in John 3 of being born again, born from above, born of the Spirit. Jesus tells Nicodemus ‘you must be born again’ (Jn.3:3-7). The world loves, but not the way Jesus loves. That kind of love is a fruit of knowing God, being born of God. It is fruit that the Holy Spirit of God produces when he lives in a person. The one who truly loves has been born of God.
And knows God. Notice, this doesn’t say ‘he knows about God’. God is personal. God can be known. I know things about Abraham Lincoln, but I’ve never met him, never had a conversation with him, never spent time with him. And he doesn’t know me. Knowing God points to relationship, friendship, intimacy.
God Is Love (1 John 4:8, 16)
1 John 4:8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Being in relationship with God produces genuine love in us, because God is love. We become like those we spend most time with.
God is love. Notice, it does not say ‘God is loving’. That would be true, but that is a different thing from saying ‘God is love’. Saying someone is loving describes their actions, personality, characteristics. They are loving; they do loving things.
Saying God is love says that, but so much more. It says that in his essence, in his very being, he is love. If you could take a picture of the invisible God, if you looked up love in the dictionary, you would find that picture. God is love. God defines love. God is the originator of love. He is the source of all love. Love is from God, because God is love.
This does not say ‘God became love’; it says ‘God is love’. He always was and always will be love. Love necessitates an object, someone to love. This passage addresses us as ‘beloved’; we are loved by God. But saying ‘God is love’ goes back before us, to who God is, in and of himself.
How could God be love before he created, if there existed nothing outiside of himself to love? This only makes any sense in light of the biblical understanding of the being of God as eternally existing in more than one person. There is only one God; God is one in being, in essence; but God eternally exists in three persons in relationship with one another.
When we read the New Testament, we see God in relationship. Jesus sought time alone to converse with his Father (Mt.14:23). The Father spoke his approval over his Son (Mt.3:17; 17:5). In John 5, Jesus said that he works alongside his Father, he does what he sees the Father doing, and the Father loves his Son and shows him what he is doing (Jn.5:18-20). Jesus sought to glorify his Father, and the Father glorified his Son (Jn.17:1,4-5). John 17 records for us one of Jesus’ prayers to his Father. The deepest agony of the cross was Jesus’ experience of being forsaken by his Father (Mt.27:46).
Jesus also spoke of the Holy Spirit as ‘the Helper, whom the Father will send in my name’ and ‘whom I will send to you from the Father’, who ‘will bear witness about me’ (Jn.14:26; 15:26). We read of the Father sending his only Son, and the Father and the Son sending the Spirit.
John began his gospel account this way:
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God.
The Word who existed eternally with God, who was himself God; he existed in relationship with God. He was with him. John 1:14 leaps forward to a point in history when;
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Jesus, who is himself God, who eternally existed with, in relationship with his Father, became flesh, became human, and came to live with us. This is Christmas.
John 1:18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.
Jesus, God incarnate, God in flesh, eternally in relationship with his Father, puts the invisible God on display for us to see.
One God, existing eternally in the persons of Father, Son and Spirit, enjoying relationship with one another; God is love.
Enfolded in the Love of the Triune God (1 John 1)
John begins his short letter First John like he began his gospel. ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’
1 John 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—
The Word, the Word of Life, the Eternal Life that existed in the beginnning, the Life that was with the Father was made manifest to us. We are eye-witnesses. We heard, we have seen with our eyes, we examined the evidence, we touched with our hands, we testify and proclaim to you. Why?
1 John 1:3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
So that hearing their testimony we may believe. Believe on the testimony of eye-witnesses who examined the evidence. So that we can have fellowship with them, with the apostles, with every believer, fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. So that we could be included in, enveloped into this love of the triune God.
Gospel Love (1 John 4:9-10)
1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Now we get to the definition of love:
1 John 4:9 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.
This is Christmas; God sent his only Son into the world. This is how God made known his love. God is love, but God put his love on display by sending his only Son into the world.
But why? So that we might live through him. This says something about us. This tells us that we are dead and need to be made alive. We need to be born again. We are under the death sentence; the wages of sin is death, and we are dead in our trespasses and sins (Rom.6:23; Eph.2:1-3). God sent his only Son so that we might live through him. It is only by means of the Son whom the Father sent into the world that we can have life, be born again. How does this work? John explains;
1 John 4:10 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.
This is love; not our love for God, but God’s love for us. God’s love is displayed in Christmas, where God sent his only Son into the world that we might live through him. How do we live through him? How do we live if we are the walking dead? Propitiation. A wrath appeasing sacrifice. The wages of sin is death, and we are rebels against a gracious and kind God; we deserve to die, to be finally and forever separated from a good God (Is.59:2). Propitiation is the just and holy wrath of God against my sin being poured out on a substitute. In the Old Testament, a sinner would lay his hands on the head of an animal, and that animal would be butchered and burnt on the altar as a substitute, and it would go up as a pleasing aroma to the LORD (Lev.1:4-9). Hebrews tells us:
Hebrews 10:11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, ... 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
Jesus, my great High Priest, offered up himself. My sin was placed on Jesus on the cross, and the righeous wrath of the Father toward my sin was poured out in full on Jesus in my place. God sent his only Son to die so that we might live.
1 John 4:9 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. 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.
That is love. The one who did no wrong, who owed me nothing, willingly took my place, took my punishment, so that I could have life, enjoy relationship with the one I had wronged.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 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. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
Put God’s Love On Display (1 John 4:11-12)
So John exhorts us;
1 John 4:11 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.
Because we are beloved, so loved by God, this ought to stir us to love one another. This verse is startling. In John’s gospel, we already looked at John 1:18
John 1:18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.
No one has ever seen God. In John 1:18 it is Jesus, the only begotten God, who makes God known. But here in First John, it is our love for one another, created in us by God abiding in us, that brings God’s love to completion, to its perfect fulfillment. We are invited to put God’s love on display in this broken and hurting world!
God didn’t need us. The Father loved the Son and the Son loved his Father, but love naturally (or should I say supernaturally) spills over to include others.
God’s love for us is different; the Father deserves to be loved by his Son, the Son pleased his Father in everything, and merits his Father’s love. We don’t deserve God’s love. We did everything to earn his wrath, we deserve condemnation, but he loves his enemies (Rom.5:5-10). This is the kind of love he creates in us, because he comes to live in us.
1 John 4:12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
God’s love starts with abundance and spills out to meet desperate needs. God is love. God put his love on display by sending his only Son to be the propitiation for our sins. God puts his love in us by giving us his Spirit, coming to live inside us. We are called beloved, so we can love others. We love because he first loved us (1Jn.4:19).
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2023.12.24 Sermon Notes
Advent; God Is Love
Love is produced by the Holy Spirit
Galatians 5:22-23
Without love, I am nothing
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
Love abides
1 Corinthians 13:13
What love does and does not look like
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
1 John 4: Where love comes from
:7 We are loved
:7 Love originates in God
:7 Love results from being born of God (cf. John 3:3-7)
:8 Relationship with God produces love in us
:8, 16 God is love
God eternally in relationship; Father, Son, Spirit
Matthew 14:23, 3:17; 17:5; John 5:18-20; 17:1, 4-5;
Matthew 27:46; John 14:25; 15:26; 1:1-2, 14, 18
1 John 1:1-2, 14, 18; 1 John 1:1-4
1 John 4: Love defined
:9 God sent his Only Son
:9 So that we might live through him (Rom.6:23; Eph.2:1-3)
:10 propitiation [wrath-appeasing sacrifice]
for our sins (Isaiah 59:2; Leviticus 1:4-9; Hebrews 10:11-14)
:11 God’s love changes us (Romans 5:5-10)
:12-14 We are to put God’s love on display (John 1:18)
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Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org