Well, good morning. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving.

I don’t know, I feel like there’s some kind of hangover there. You just feel kind of tired the next couple of days. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, eaten so much.

But it’s good to be with you this morning. We’re going to be in 1 John 4.

If you turn there with me in your Bibles, 1 John 4, verses 7-12.

And John writes this, he says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. And anyone who does not love does not know God. Because God is love.

In this, the love of God was made manifest among us. 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. Beloved, let us love one another. You’ve probably heard the name Dietrich Bonhoeffer before. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian who spoke out against Nazi Germany, against Hitler and what he was doing. And he was in prison, linked to an assassination plot. So he was in prison for a while and he wrote this in one of his letters. Life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent. One waits, hopes, and does this or that. But the door is shut and can be opened only from the outside. And as we come into what’s called and has been called for centuries Advent season, I think that’s a good parallel for what it means for us to be in this world, a fallen, broken world. We’re very much so in a prison cell and there’s nothing we can do about it unless someone opens the door and comes in to help us, help us in our plight. Advent, most people say Advent. They don’t know what it means. Advent means, Advent’s Latin for the coming. It means the coming of Christ. So Jesus did come. So it’s kind of those themes we celebrate year round, but we really love at Christmas time, love, joy, peace, hope, and those things that we see. But do we really cherish them the way that we should? Do we love God’s Christmas love? Admittedly, we’re doing the Advent in reverse because I was thinking about the fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience. So we’re doing it backwards. It’s supposed to be. Peace, hope, joy, love. So it’s all the same though, right? It’s all there. So Christmas love. I want to talk about God’s Christmas kind of love for us. In verse 7, John says, 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. So I think the whole of the Christian gospel, the gospel could be found in John’s one word, beloved. In that one word, beloved. Of all the things he could have addressed these Christians as, he could have said church, churches, brothers, sisters, fellow workers. He could have said a lot of things, but he doesn’t. You have siblings, possibly, probably. You have fellow members in organizations or clubs you’re a part of. It doesn’t mean you want to call them beloved. Beloved is a very intimate term. It’s a quite sacred term. And John uses it because they are that to John. And the reason why you and I could say one another, that’s not someone else I must be in church with. That is someone I must call a brother or sister. It’s because God has first loved us that way. It’s because God has loved us and called us his beloved. That same kind of love. It was in us, which we love one another. So you’ve got to go chronologically in order. God loves us, so we love one another. Same love. Same intense, genuine love. It overflows into a love that only family has.

And John says it must be so. And here’s why it must be so. If we have been born of God, we’ll love like God. That’s why. You remember Nicodemus. Earlier in John’s Gospel, he comes to Jesus, you know, sneaking around at night. And, you know, he says, Jesus, we know your teacher come from God. And Jesus really cuts him off and says, you need to be born again. And Nicodemus says, like, get in my mother’s belly. You know, and Jesus says, no, you need to be born of the water and of spirit. And it’s the exact same spiritual birth that John was talking about in his Gospel. He’s talking about here in his letter. It’s that same spiritual rebirth coming into the kingdom. That we talk about in Matthew’s Gospel so much. So John draws this very obvious connection I think we lose. If you’re a part of a family, you act like that family. If you are in your family, you carry your family’s name. You know your family’s values, virtues. Your parents raised you in certain mannerisms, certain principles, a certain way of life. Why is it? Because you know your family. You know your parents. Now you know who the president is. You know things about history. You know curb workers. You know neighbors. But the word know here that John’s using, it means to experience. It’s the same word Jesus uses when he says, this is eternal life, to know or experience the Father and the Son. So you have knowingly experienced your wife or your parents or your children in an intimate way that you have in other people. So John says, John says it must be so if you are truly in God’s family, you’ve been born of God, you’ve experienced God, which means what? You can love like God because you have that family trait in common because you’ve been spiritually rebirthed. On the flip side, John says, here’s how I know you’re not in the family.

You don’t love like somebody who’s a part of God’s family. You weren’t born of God because if you knew God, you would love like God, which means you’ve never really experienced Christmas.

So John spells out for us here what’s so great about God’s love and why it is so if you and I have really experienced God’s love, it’s not possible that we would be the same way. It’s why it’s always possible for John to kind of have a dead giveaway about whether or not we’ve truly loved God and we’re in, Christ. He characterizes the wonderfulness of God’s love that leaves an indelible mark on us if we’ve experienced. Here’s the first thing I want us to see about God’s love then. God’s Christmas love is life-giving love. God’s love is life-giving love.

Verse 9, he says, 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.

John more famously has said it in John 3.16, right? You don’t even need to see that. You just know it. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes wouldn’t, what? Perish, but have eternal life. God sent Jesus because He loves us. You know, you see those little ceramic sets people have out of the shepherds and, you know, the wise men around. Or my dad has these big ugly ones, I think, in his front yard. They’re all, you know, they’re faded. They’ve got light bulbs inside of them. But what we see that this time of year is that God sent Jesus. Heaven broke into earth. Light broke into darkness. And I would hope that you and I who’ve been in Matthew’s Gospel for two years have a keen sense of how different this Jesus is, right? Jesus is indefatigable in the way that He does ministry. And He preaches demons out. And He heals people. And He preaches with authority. And He raises people from the dead. No one and nothing is like this Jesus. Come. But see, I think this is where a lot of us, we stop right there. And that’s good enough of a Christmas for me is to kind of appreciate that story. But the story doesn’t really help me because it’s still external to me. Like, why is it valuable for God to show me that He’s so much greater than the darkness of the world? It doesn’t really help me. It’s still outside of me. But see, the beauty of the Gospel and the beauty of Christmas love is that Christ came so that it could be internalized. It could be a very personal love. God doesn’t want us to adore Him from afar. He doesn’t want us to see Him in the ceramic set alone. God doesn’t want us to perish. He loves us that much. What do you and I deserve to do? Perish. What have your sins merited? What is the wage of that? To perish? To die?

But God loves us so that He’s given us not a second chance, because you know what a second chance would get you? Nothing. You’d make the same mess you’ve made right now because you’re the same person. What you and I need is a brand new, completely different life. So what did Jesus do? He came and yeah, He died and He carried our sin, but that same Jesus that satisfied the law, and the wrath of God, He was resurrected a new, brand new life. A life that sin, a life that death has no claim on. How could it? Didn’t Jesus fulfill the requirements of the law? Didn’t He satisfy the wrath of God? He did. So by the power of God, when Jesus came up out of the grave, He’s a life that sin and darkness and death can’t touch. So how could it be that just somehow, if you and I could be identified with that life, if somehow it could be said, you and I are put inside of, His life, then it would be said that death and sin and darkness have no claim on us. That’s the beauty of it. God says, here’s this free gift. Receive it by faith and you can die with Jesus on that cross and you will be considered in one with Christ. You know that old hymn, one with Himself, I cannot die. My sinless soul is counted free for God, the just is satisfied. Look on. Jesus and pardon me. Friends, because Jesus came and He lived and He died and He was resurrected to what the Apostle Paul calls the indestructible life, when we place faith in Jesus, we are in Him. Jesus is our pathway into the family. We are spiritually reborn in Jesus and being reborn in Jesus, we’re given all the rights and all the inheritance of the family. That’s the beauty. That’s the beauty of God’s Christmas love as He pulls us in in Christ and He calls us His own. See, I will sing about from age to age to age Jesus who came as a babe, but we’re going to sing about the Jesus who grew up and died like a man for our sins. It’s kind of difficult really to preach Christmas sermons because they always have to end up being Easter sermons. What’s a Christmas sermon without Easter? I mean, they go together. So when I see Jesus, the helpless baby, I have to immediately go in my mind, to Jesus bloody on the cross.

Jesus is our sure inheritance because we are in Him. So save yourself, if you would. Save yourself from the pettiness of the holidays. Chad, are you saying it’s wrong to spend inordinate amounts of money on other people and they spend inordinate amounts of money on me? Probably. I mean, I’m not saying buying gifts is wrong. I’m not saying Christmas trees are wrong. I’m saying this. I think there’s a real problem for us in the church when we get just as excited about the secular version of Christmas and the gospel and Jesus. It’s like this little forced add-on. Like, all right, let’s read the gospel story before we rip into presents so we all don’t feel guilty about it. If we’re being honest. So I wonder if we can reawake the wonder and the joy of what it means to be loved because God has given us life in Jesus. So it’s not being a joy kill. I’m trying to… Wake us up to the greater joy that’s found in the life of Christ alone.

Secondly, I want to say to you this. If that’s true, Jesus is our gift and in Jesus’ eternal life, Christmas is the best end to year 2020. Is it not? Because it’s a reminder, this is not the end. And whatever life you can have here, good or bad, 2020, really bad, my life’s not here. My life is hidden with Christ and God. And I’ve got a greater, greater joy in the heavenly places. So Christmas should be especially a wonderful reminder for us as Christians about who we are and what our life is really about and who is watching over us and guiding us and keeping us. And it’s God and His Son, Jesus.

The second thing I want you to see in verse 10, God’s love is costly love. God’s love is costly love.

And this is love, not that we have loved, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

And if you go back up in verse 9, I want you to see the small word that John sneaks in there. He says, only Son. And so it really means one and only. One and only. It’s one thing that God has given sinners who deserve eternal death, eternal life. But John helps us see, and wants us to grab the truth and the fact that it costs God something. It costs the Father dearly. You ever hear about like billionaire philanthropists and they give millions and millions of dollars to this cause and it’s like, wow. But it doesn’t really cost them, does it? You don’t read a follow-up article so they had to sell their yacht and they had to sell their $5 million home and move into a $500,000 home because it doesn’t ultimately cost them something. I’m not saying it’s not good. I’m just saying it costs them personally. It’s very different when we talk about the Gospel. It costs the Father. What the Father paid was not a son. I mean, that would be costly.

But very clearly, John says, the Father gave up His one and only Son. Nine times the New Testament uses that word. Four times John uses it to remind us of the preciousness of the Son to the Father. The older rendering of that, like a King James Bible, would be begotten. His only begotten Son. And so what that means is not that there was this point in time where the Father begat Jesus and Jesus was created. Jesus is eternally begotten of the Father.

So think about what that means. That means in eternity past forever, the Father perfectly loved and had fellowship with the Son and the Son perfectly loved and had fellowship with the Father. Jesus has always, always been the exact imprint of His nature, we’re told. Jesus has always been the radiance of the glory of God. So the Father and the Son have always had perfect love and fellowship together. And I think about that because I’m a father. I have three kids. But I lived a pretty happy life before I had three kids. My life wasn’t a miserable wreck before kids. I wouldn’t want to lose my kids now. But when I think about the Father, the Father did never, there was never a period in His life where He didn’t have Christ.

When He sent Jesus, He sent His one and only Son to die on a cross.

What’s a silent night in a manger 33 years later would be a savage killing of God’s one and only Son.

The very ones that Christ came to save are the very ones who would brutally crucify Him.

And so John tells us the next best thing we need to know. What’s the next best thing I need to hear after hearing God sent, not just a Son, but His one and only precious, perfect, holy Son to die? It’s this. You didn’t have anything to do with that. He says, not that you have loved God. Don’t for a second think you contributed to it. Don’t even actually think that you were neutral towards it. You and I, from the moment of birth until God calls us by grace to saving faith, you and I war against God’s love. We do it through our daily pursuit of sin. So God sent His one and only pure and perfect Son to save, people who rage and rail against His love. That’s the Gospel. That’s the Gospel. And that’s why it’s so unspeakable. And that’s why Christians should be so much more excited about what Christmas really is. Jesus was given, John says, as a propitiation.

Propitiation. It’s a big word. It simply means this. The Father handed over Jesus to be an atoning sacrifice. He handed over to us. He handed over Jesus to die in our place. In the Old Testament, Old Testament saints sinning and sinning again, how would God deal with them for their sin? He said, well, bring a perfect spotless lamb who didn’t do what you did, but let it bleed out in your place. And you say, well, that’s brutal. That’s brutal. But what does it do? It points to a far more brutal death of God’s Son bleeding and dying in your place and mine. Jesus incurred the wrath of God so that we wouldn’t have to. Jesus is one pure and perfect Holy Son.

And you think, well, if you’re the Father, I’m not the Father. I’m like, yeah, well, I’m not doing that. Because Jesus, He’s the best thing ever. And He’s not dying for my sins. Or for their sins. It’s not going to happen. It’s not going to happen.

That’s why the Gospel is just too radical to comprehend. When we slow down, and we pause life, and we stop thinking about all the things we think are so important, and we just dwell on God’s love for us, it’ll leave us floored, and it’ll leave us worshiping that God gave us the gift of life, and it cost Him everything. It cost Him everything. You know, when you go to sign up for Netflix or streaming service, it’s a what? It’s a free trial. Give your credit card first. Because it’s not really a free trial, is it? They’re hoping you forget or you’re too lazy to cancel it and so they can just start charging you. Nothing in life is free. But I think that’s the beauty of the Gospel is the Gospel is too good to be true, but it is. God’s love is too much to really be a real thing, but it’s a real thing. It’s a real thing.

If God paid such a high premium

for you, I want to remind us this morning, and I’ve been doing it lately, I want to remind us

that we should live free of shame and failure. I think we constantly live to please God. God, I can pay it back to You. I want to live to please You. Friends, there’s only one person that’s pleased the Father, and it’s His Son Jesus. It’s His Son Jesus. So the Christmas love of God, it’s a call to live in God’s grace. That God is not over you with a bat. I’m going to hit you in the head when you don’t do right. Man, when the Father looks at me, He sees His Son Jesus. That doesn’t mean I don’t correct, and it doesn’t mean I don’t repent, and it doesn’t mean that because God loves me, He’s not going to hit me sometimes when I need it, spank me when I do sin, but it’s because He loves me. But Christmas is a reminder that God loves us dearly. He loves us deeply. He loves us as sons and daughters because Jesus, His one and only Son, gave up His life for us.

So third thing, verse 11.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. So we’ve come full circle. You see how we went full circle? He’s back to His beloved.

And why does John say beloved? He says beloved not because he has a natural capacity to say beloved. Beloved, being an apostle, doesn’t make him able to love better. And you and I, we don’t have a natural capacity to love any better. We have a capacity for violence, and we have a capacity for divisiveness, and we have a capacity for revenge and tribalism. It’s in our worst, we’re reminded that God loves us, and if, John says, if God has so loved us, and it’s a big if. Your whole life hangs on the if.

If God… does not love us, well, I think John is a phony. I think the Christian faith is a joke. I think Christmas should be this big thing where you eat as much as you can, as much money as you can, and try to numb life for a little bit, and this is the dreariness of it. But John’s if is a confident if. It’s more like since. Since God has so loved us. Since God has so fully and completely loved you. Since the Father did send His Son, and did spill His blood for you. Since it cost the Father, and the Father so much. You know what? If you’ve truly experienced that, John’s saying, if you’ve experienced that, and you’ve back to known, you’ve experienced the family love of God, you will love like that. John says, that’s how I’ll know, that’s how you’ll know if you’re truly in God. You’ll imitate God. You’ll be like God. I think that’s a weird thing to say, is me being like God. In Ephesians chapter 5, Paul says it verbatim. In 5.2, he says what? Be imitators of God. Be imitators of God. You and I aren’t trying to ascend to Godhood status, but what you and I are doing, because Christ loved us so much, is we’re living in the new life that Jesus gives us, so that what our fallen, marred image that we lost in the garden, it’s restored. Jesus living and dying and coming to new life, and we place faith in Him, and I’m in Christ. The image of God that was marred and ruined, it’s restored, and it’s brought back. It’s brought back so that I look like again, and I love like God again, and I live with God’s people again the way that I’m supposed to live with God’s people again. John says, if then if. If you know God’s love, you will. You will love like that.

And I think there comes the big reality check like, I can’t love that good. I’m really bad at it. So does that mean I’m not a Christian because I fail to love all the time? I fail to love all the time. I fail. to love my kids well. I fail to love my wife well. I’m not a perfect pastor. I know that’s hard. I’m not a perfect pastor. I’m not a perfect anything.

But friends, I’m not saved because I measure up to the status of Christ. You and I are saved because we are in Christ. And time and again when we fail, what do we do? We look to the manger where I see Jesus as a humble baby. And I look to the cross where I see Jesus dying for all my sins. And then I look to the empty grave where I see Jesus victorious. And then I look to the Spirit where I draw strength to keep loving and keep going knowing that in eternity you and I will be made to love perfect as we have been loved.

What’s the measuring stick for how much I should love and what it looks like for me to love? The cross. So anytime you find yourself in the situation and you wonder, should I love this person that way?

Well, look at the cross. What do you think? In other words, if you see how you can love someone, you must do it. What is best for them and then am I willing to pay the cost for it? We have 59 one another’s in the New Testament, right? Love one another. Pray for one another. Correct one another. Teach one another. Bear one another’s burdens. Admonish one another. Be patient with one another. Be knit together in love. Be unified. All these things, God said, hey, go and do this because in Jesus’ name, you have been loved perfectly. You have been loved perfectly.

You know, you go to a marriage or a wedding and two people are getting married and what’s a very popular Scripture you always hear? It’s 1 Corinthians 13, right? 1 Corinthians 13. Which doesn’t make any sense. You know why it doesn’t make any sense? Because Paul wrote that for a bunch of Christians who couldn’t get along in Corinth. It doesn’t have anything to do with marriage. I mean, I guess it applies. It has a bunch of people who aren’t loving the way they’re supposed to love one another. Look at 1 Corinthians 13. What does Paul say there?

Love is patient. Love is kind. It doesn’t envy. It doesn’t boast. It’s not arrogant.

It’s not rude. It doesn’t insist on its own way. That’s a hard one. It’s not irritable. That’s a hard one. It’s not angry. It’s not resentful. It doesn’t rejoice at wrongdoing. It rejoices with the truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and it endures all things. Friends, when you think you’ve loved well enough, we haven’t even begun to love with the love of Christ. Look to Jesus and see how you have been loved and then we can turn outward to one another in the church and we can love. Here’s the big scheme of it all. What did Jesus say in John 13, 3-4? A new commandment I give to you. This is for family members. Here’s the new commandment. That you love one another. And what happens when we love one another with the love of Christ? It says what? The world will know that you’re mine. So it’s not even just about you authenticating your own Christian faith and other people in the church. It’s a tool. It’s God’s means by which the whole world can say, hey, Christmas is great. Not because I get a bunch of stuff I don’t need or because there’s a Christmas tree or this or that or the other. I have seen in the love of Christ in the church that God’s love is a free gift and in it is real life and it’s a costly, precious love and I desire it. That’s the great end, friends, of Christmas for you and I. We experience God’s saving love so that in living in that love together, the world sees the light of Christ and many are saved.

So, Merry Christmas. God loves you a lot. Let’s pray together.

Father, we thank You for Your love. We thank You for Your grace.

Lord, I do pray that as we come into the Christmas season and…

Lord, we begin to think about all the things that, Lord, we do about parties and buying things and decorating things and we get so busy and frantic. Lord, I pray that we would be reminded that we are Your people. We are Your sons and we are Your daughters. And, Lord, Christmas for us is a special time to have our hearts and mind just reawakened to Your love, filled with joy, filled with life.

Father, Your Word says that we only love You because You have first loved us. So, we say thank You for Your love.

Help us love one another.

Lord, help us love those in our life who are difficult to love.

Help us be light where we live, where we work. Lord, the people we come in contact with, I pray, Lord, for us at Providence, Lord, Your love would just be bursting at the seams as we care for one another and as we look to Christ together.