God's Love - The Heart Of Christmas

God’s Love, the Heart of Christmas

1 John 4:7-11

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

NIV 4:9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

ESV 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.

Christmas has to do with giving – the Father gave his Son and the Son gave his life, both done out of love and because of love, for us that we might live through Him.

• Love is defined by the GIVING of the Father, the SACRIFICE of the Son and ultimately in the LIVES of the redeemed, the people who know Christ. Love marks our lives.

LOVE IS DEFINED BY THE GIVING OF THE FATHER

- God’s love was made manifest at Christmas.

His love was no longer a truth to be grasped but a Person to be known, not a concept or theory but a relationship.

• We can now see and experience God’s love because of Christmas; God sent His Son into our world, “being born in the likeness of men”. (Phil 2:7b)

• If we doubt that God loves us, then we are truly mistaken, because His love has already been made manifest at Christmas. God showed His love for us.

John wrote in John 3:16-17 16"For God so LOVED the world that HE GAVE his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

• It’s has already been demonstrated and proven. So question His love can only mean two things, our ignorance or our unbelief.

Jesus was sent, not just into our world, but to the cross. That was the reason He came, to seek and to save the world.

• This is the heart of God. His love for us is at the heart of Christmas. Jesus was sent because the Father loves us.

Most tend to see the Father as the “angry God” because of His judgment against sin.

• Without doubt, He is a holy and righteous, who is perfectly just and will judge sin.

• But to view Him only as the God of wrath is a twisted view of God. He is also our loving Father, who initiated and provided the means to our salvation!

It was as if John wanted to make sure we got this view of God correctly, he repeated it at every verse. Listen to his emphasis in 1 John 4:7-11.

7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

We were enemies of God, even if we did not know it. And God provided us a Saviour!

• His Son took the punishment that our sin deserved. His sacrifice appeased God and turned away the judgment that we would have received.

• Sin wasn’t overlooked. The judgement was laid upon Jesus and He took it.

Listen to what God said to prophet Isaiah - Isaiah 45:21 “Was it not I, the LORD? And there is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Saviour; there is none but me.”

• Israel experienced both the judgment of God and the saving grace of God.

• He is both the righteous God and a Saviour.

• At Christmas, God declares, “I am the righteous God who judges sin, and I am the Saviour who provides the sacrifice for the forgiveness of your sin.”

That’s God. 1 John 4:10 “This is love…” – the love of the Father.