God's Love Gift (Advent Season)

John 3:16, Romans 5:8

It's been rightly said, if you ever receive a homemade gift for Christmas or your Birthday, you can know, someone cares about you. No one invests time in making a gift for someone they do not care about. On this Christmas Eve Sunday, our advent topic is love. God gave us a homemade gift, the birth, life, death, and resurrection of His son Jesus Christ!

Love is a simple little word, often used, often misused. In ancient Greek culture, they had different words for love, depending on what you meant by it. For example, “eros” from which we get the word erotic. You can guess what sort of “love” that referred to. It has the word “phileo” which is a platonic, friendly love. It has the word “agape” which is sometimes called a Godly love, but that's not entirely accurate. Agape is not emotion based, it's love by choice. In that respect, it is in fact Godly love because God chose to love us. Not because of merit on our part, but because of who He is.

I get quite irritated when I here preachers really lambaste people and make them sound worthless. In fact, our Sunday School book actually says that that God loved us and we were worthless. That's not true. No one loves something worthless. Think of all your possessions. Sometimes you throw stuff away when it is broken or worn out but you save things that have value. We had value to God. He elected to send His son to save us. We have worth because God values us, we are not worthless. I think it's not only wrong to say it, it's sinful. It's insulting God's creation. But, pastor, doesn't the Bible say of humans, “I am a worm and not a man.” David said that about himself, God didn't say it. It doesn't mean David was right. The Bible records people saying a lot of things, doesn't mean the people were correct in what they said. David was focusing on his sin and overcome with guilt and proclaimed “I am a worm and not a man.” It was said in frustration and lament. It never says God agreed with David's assessment. We're not worms and we're not worthless. Jesus wouldn't have died for us if we had no worth or value to God. We are valuable because He made us, we are His workmanship (Ephesians 2:10). And God so love us, He sent His son that whoever believes has eternal life.

We often devalue the word “love” when we use it for so many things ranging from: spouse, children, to a favorite food or beverage. Do we really feel about a food the same way we do about our spouse? Hopefully not. I hope you like your spouse more than pizza. LOL :) Love is the ultimate expression of human feeling toward something. Love was GOD'S motivation redeeming us. God saw man's need for a savior from the beginning of the world, in fact, even before the beginning of the world. Ephesians 1:4 states,

"He has chosen us in Him (Christ) before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love"

Love is important to God, for He does not merely love, He IS love. It was LOVE that motivated God to choose those whom He knew would believe the gospel before the world was even created!!! Love is the hallmark of a follower of Christ, at least, it is supposed to be. Jesus commanded His followers,

John 15:10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love

A quick aside, Jesus is not referring to the OT law in the word “commandments” but to His commands He gave to His disciples. He said, in essence, do what I've taught you and abide in me.

John 15:12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

John 15:17 These things I command you, that you love one another.

Christmas is not just a reminder of how much God has loved us, but of how much we are to love one another and to love those who do not know Christ as their savior. Love is so important, but to appreciate what this means, we have to understand “love” as God defines it. God's definition is different than say, “Hollywood's.” So what does God say about love? The most obvious definition is in Paul's letter to the Corinthians:

“ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” I Corinthians 13:4-6