Good morning and Merry Christmas.
I hope that you all have been enjoying this Advent season.
!
Considering our Savior's Advent, it's an honor to be filling the pulpit here this morning.
! I got to preach on the Advent theme of love last year.
I'm really excited to be at it again.
Today, as we consider the love of God in light of Jesus' Advent,
we're going to be looking at 1 John 4, 1 John chapter 4.
This text is probably the text that most densely uses the words God and love.
This chapter uses love or beloved about 27 times.
And the text we're going to be looking at, verses 7 through 11,
uses love or beloved 13 times and God 9 times.
So about 20% of the words here, the actual words in our text, are God or love.
John, after all, is the disciple whom Jesus loved.
And so it's only fitting he would reiterate his self-given title so many times.
So I think this is a good place to observe and to contemplate the love of God.
There's a lot to be said on this topic.
But from our text this morning, we are going to be considering
the contrast between the world's view of love and God's true agape love.
And with that, let's read our text.
1 John chapter 4, verses 7 through 11.
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.
Let's pray.
God, we thank you for your word this morning.
We pray by the power of your spirit that you would enlighten us,
reveal yourself to us, show us the weight and the glory of your love.
And we pray these things in Christ's name.
Amen.
All right, so for context here, briefly,
these verses are in the midst of God giving the audience a test to see
if an individual is in Christ or not.
And in fact, throughout the whole book,
he is contrasting those who are in Christ from the world.
In our text, he is doing that in the context of love.
What does the believer look like in regard to love?
And why is it not so for the world?
Verses 7 and 8 come with presumptions that the audience is already aware of.
The previous three chapters provide descriptions of who knows God
and who is born again in contrast to those who do not truly know God,
who have not been born again, and who does not love.
So we're going to paint that picture really quickly from the previous chapters.
In chapter 2, it says that those who know him keep his commandments.
Those who say they know him but don't keep his commandments are liars.
Those who confess Jesus is the Christ has the Father also.
Those who deny Jesus is the Antichrist.
In chapter 3, those who have the love of God are children of God.
Those who do not know God are not children.
Those who abide in him do not keep on sinning.
Those who keep on sinning do not know him.
No one born of God makes a practice of sinning.
Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God.
Those who love have passed from death to life.
The one that hates his brother is a murderer, and murders do not have eternal life.
Those who confess Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.
Those who do not are the spirit of the Antichrist.
So there's some context for those who know and those who are born again.
And the contrast is it's a stark dividing line.
And when we come to this text, we're not here to determine how mature a believer is or how sanctified they are.
It is to distinguish those who are from those who aren't.
And so we come to our text in 1 John 4 where we distinguish those who love and those who don't.
And back in chapter 2, John tells us that the world does indeed love, but is not the same kind of love addressed in chapter 4.
In chapter 2, it says that if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
There's something different about the world's love and the believer's love.
And a common thread throughout Scripture as we notice God's agape love is that it's wildly different than the world's understanding of love.
And the premier indicator of this difference is that the world's love is a selfish love.
Always looking to satisfy oneself and not to outwardly serve and care for another.
And one of the most iconic influences regarding love that we have in our common day is Romeo and Juliet.
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Whether or not Shakespeare was a believer or if his work properly reflects some good gospel themes elsewhere is a discussion for another time.
But in Romeo and Juliet, these two young lovers are so emphatically smitten with one another that if they can't have one another, what's the point in life itself?
They discovered their love for one another only after one night of meeting each other.
And then go on to commit suicide within the span of a week from then.
Love at first sight.
Is that what true love is?
Are we so consumed with something or someone that if we don't have this self-satisfying relationship, we might as well kill ourselves?
That's more a crazed idolatry of seeking the pleasures and benefits that someone can offer than it is a self-sacrificial pursuit of serving someone else.
They were sacrificing themselves for the benefit of themselves, not each other.
They wanted to save themselves from the pain of not having their heart's desire.
They didn't even truly know each other yet.
Not enough, at least, to consider the weight of marriage.
And so, what is the world preaching about love?
It's sentimentalism.
I'm sure you've heard the statement, live and let love.
They say love is love.
Whatever you find desirable and infatuated with, that is good and that is love because it pleases you.
Love is based off how something makes you feel.
If you enjoy it, that's love.
If you don't, avoid it.
1 John 2 says this,
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father but is from the world.
The world is passing away and also its lusts.
Another word for the way the world views love may be lust.
They have an ungodly love, a love for the world and self, self-seeking satisfaction.
Love and let love.
And if someone tries to disrupt relentless lust, they say you're hating people because you aren't letting them express their true selves.
That is a contradiction, by the way.
The world commands the Christian to stop expressing ourselves because true love allows the expression of oneself.
It's a little fallacious.
So why don't we get that same offer of love?
Sometimes the world, they are not actively hating someone and wishing ill upon another, but they also aren't purely seeking their good.
There's a common grace where we may see the world sacrificing themselves for another.
I think deep down there's still some sort of selfish motivation.
As the text says, all that is in the world is not from the Father.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
They may be in it for their own glory of their sacrifice.
It may be for some future benefit they seek in response from their sacrifice.
But I don't believe it can be the same unique agape love that the Bible speaks of later in our text because chapter 4, verse 7 says,
Love is from God, not the unregenerate world where Satan and sin abound.
So because love emanates from God, God himself has to be the source of love.
Verse 8 says it clearly, God is love.
God is not just loving, but he indeed is love.
And that is not all that he is, but it certainly is not less.
That is why those who don't know God also don't love.
Any love that we might impart to someone else isn't truly from us, at least not our natural selves.
It flows from the Spirit of God at work in us.
So God is the fountainhead of true agape love, and his love never ceases.
This is not a temporary condition of his character.
Instead, it is an incessant condition of who he is.
He is not just the light that shines from the sun.
He is the sun.
He embodies love all the time in every action.
And some might say, what about God's justice or his discipline?
Are they always loving?
If he is sovereign, is it loving that he allows bad things to happen?
Yes, to all of it.
He disciplines his children to reveal himself to us.
Knowing God is the sweetest gift we could ever fathom.
It comes with trials, but it draws us deeper into the pleasures of God.
Isn't it good that sin hurts and that rest in Christ is sweet?
Godly discipline is loving.
What about his justice?
Psalm 11.5 says,
The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.
He's a just God.
And we don't want an unjust God, do we?
Sin is lawlessness.
There would only be immediate, unruly disaster without a just God who has revealed his law to his creation.
Many people are hypocrites when it comes to condemning God of being just.
And by the way, this is another worldly contradiction.
We all, at times, advocate for justice.
And the world will sometimes condemn God's justice.
We all watch the movie of the bad guy, and we can't wait to see justice paid.
We watch the court trials of various criminals and eagerly await to hear how bad the sentencing is.
We all, at times, even unleash our own wrath against our neighbor when we've been offended.
But God sends the rain and sun on both the just and the unjust.
While he hates wickedness, he still shows love to all that he has made.
The wicked curse God, and yet God is benevolent.
He prays for his persecutors.
He is patient with them, but will ultimately serve them their due justice.
God's love is actually magnified by the reality that he is just.
Because we rightly deserve condemnation, and it has to be paid.
And Christ paid it on the believer's behalf.
Well, what about the bad things that happen in the world?
These are a consequence of sin in the world.
People are depraved.
And we may intend to do things for evil,
but God is so loving that he can use even the vilest things the world has to offer
for his glory and the good of his people.
The ground is cursed and natural disasters happen.
And if it feels unfair that God would allow this to happen to us,
remember that mankind sent Christ to the tree.
Who are we to think that we deserve him to preserve us from any of the bad consequences of sin?
And do we praise him by his grace when he does preserve us?
So yes, God is love, and that never ceases.
Even if we don't fully understand all that he is doing through discipline and serving justice,
we're allowing bad things to conspire.
God is love.
So we've talked a lot about love so far, but what is agape love?
In verses 7 through 8, we see who actually has love, where it comes from,
but it doesn't quite tell us what love is.
The modern world seems to think that love equals lust,
so we're not going to find out what agape love is from the world or even ourselves.
In order to understand love, we first need to understand more about God himself and the world he has created.
As verse 7 says, whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
We need to know God to know love.
And this text gives us the implicit details to answer these questions,
and it is more explicit the more we read our Bibles.
So here are two big distinctives about God's love that we see in our text.
Number one, it is both inward and outward.
It's both inward and outward.
And number two, it is vast beyond measure.
So to start, I think there are two main elements of true, godly, agape love.
There is the inward and outward reality to it.
So first with the inward, we could call it affection or compassion.
It's a benevolent sentiment or empathy that God has for people.
At the beginning of verse 10 here, we have a definition being posed.
In this is love.
Well, what is it?
Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us.
Love's affections are a one-way ticket in heart.
You don't have love for someone with anticipation or on the agreement that they will return some benefit to you.
It is an inward compassion and affection for another just because.
We obviously had nothing to give in return to him if he came to propitiate for our sins.
So God has this love harbored inside of himself, not on the basis of what we can do for him.
It's because he loves and he himself is love.
I'm going to take us through a couple of passages throughout scripture.
You can stay in 1 John to kind of capture God embodying this inward compassion.
In Matthew 9, 36, when Jesus was going about healing people and proclaiming the gospel,
it says,
Then what?
Then Jesus wept.
And so the Jews were saying,
See how he loved him.
They recognized Jesus' love through his compassion.
To God's covenant people in Isaiah 43,
God declares,
Because you are precious in my eyes,
and honor rules in exchange for your life.
Psalm 145,
The Lord is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.
The Lord is good to all.
He is compassion on all that he has made.
In Deuteronomy 7,
and again in 1 Peter 2, 9,
God says that his covenant people are a treasured possession.
And then further in Deuteronomy 7,
it says,
For you are a people holy to the Lord your God.
The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession.
Out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth,
it was not because you were more in number than any other person
that the Lord set his love on you and chose you.
For you were the fewest of all peoples.
But it is because the Lord loves you.
Even when being put to death,
Jesus prayed for his persecutors that they may be forgiven,
for they know not what they do.
Psalm 103,
As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
For he knows our frame.
He remembers that we are of dust.
And these are just a few places that we see the Lord having the inward sentiment
that is benevolent towards someone outward.
But it's all throughout Scripture.
And then there's this second component.
It's this outward manifestation.
An outward display of the love inside.
Beginning of our text, verse 9, it says,
In this, the love of God, the inward love of God,
was made manifest outward,
was made manifest among us,
that God sent his only Son into the world.
God's love is never passive.
It never stands by the wayside.
And if we don't necessarily perceive God acting,
he is actively withholding an outward sign in love.
We are to blame if we read the Bible
and fail to see this outward love.
For starters, he created mankind.
He gives mankind an opportunity to know his majestic glory.
And when mankind turned its back on God
and everyone was doing only evil continually,
God preserved Noah and his family
and thereby preserving all of us,
everyone beyond Noah's day,
that we could have an opportunity to know the majestic glory of God.
When the Israelites were enslaved,
he miraculously fed them
and freed them from bondage in Egypt.
And he kept them alive
until they reached a land flowing with milk and honey.
And then when they got to that land,
God offered them rest on all of their borders from their enemies.
When David was being hunted down,
God preserved his life.
God acquired a big fish
to bring a reluctant preacher to the Ninevites.
And in Jesus' ministry,
Christ heals the sick,
he raises the dead,
he feeds the hungry,
he casts out the demons.
And in 1 John 4,
his love was made manifest
by sending his son into the world
to be the propitiation for our sins.
God shows his love for us
that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.
He shows it.
God's love is never passive.
He does not just say he loves,
he shows it.
Agape love is always active.
So in the world,
you may only see one of these two components at work.
It could be that inward compassion
or it could be an outward action.
You can have a warm affection on the inside for someone
but not have agape love
if it is never actually manifested.
Conversely,
you can do a lot of things to serve other people
and not be in it
to sincerely serve those people.
In the first case,
in the first case,
affection without manifestation,
you have that person
who wants to admire someone
and delight themselves
in the beauty of another person.
You might think they're really talented
or beautiful
or they just have a way with words
that stirs you.
You consume all that they are
to feed your own interested,
fleshly appetite
and never actually commit
to outwardly serving that person
with intentional loving actions.
That's a selfish consumption
of someone else's character.
I might say,
I love my co-worker.
He's a hard worker,
doesn't complain,
makes the stress of work less daunting
but am I willing to wake up early
on a Saturday morning
to help him move into his new house?
Do I have affection
but not manifestation?
JR, you're welcome.
I work with JR
and I just committed to helping him move.
In the second case,
manifestation without affection
might look like legalistic,
mechanical box checking.
The Boy Scout helps the elderly
cross the street to get a badge.
You know,
give me the checklist of stuff to do
so I can just knock it out
and show you I love you.
Acts of service can be heartless
and just simply like systematic
out of requirement or obligation,
personal gain or even fear.
So true love not only serves
but it's paired with a true desire
to care for the one you are serving,
not just to get your brownie points.
If the Boy Scout truly had loved
that elderly lady,
he would have done it
without the incentive of personal gain.
As 1 Corinthians says,
and we even read that this morning,
if I give all my possessions,
if I do all this stuff,
if I give all my possessions
to feed the poor
and I surrender my body
to be burned,
if I do all this outward stuff
and do not have love,
it profits me nothing.
So furthermore,
manifested agape love
also seeks to fill
tangible, practical needs
someone has.
You can turn with me really quickly
to 1 John 3.
It's just one chapter back.
1 John 3, 16-18.
By this we know love
that he laid down his life for us
and we ought to lay down our lives
for the brothers.
But if anyone has the world's goods
and sees his brother in need
yet closes his heart against him,
how does God's love abide in him?
Little children,
let us not love in word or talk
but in deed and in truth.
So, love manifested
fills real, practical needs.
And this brings us
to our second distinctive
about God's love
is that it is vast beyond measure.
He doesn't just provide food
when we are hungry.
He also fills
an eternally greater need than that.
And what is our greatest need?
We need to be reconciled to God.
And the barrier here
is that in order to be reconciled,
we need to have our transgressions pardoned.
There needs to be a propitiation
for our sins.
And that's exact,
but that he loved us
and sent his son
to be the propitiation
for our sins.
It's a big word.
A propitiation
is like a sacrificial offering
to pardon iniquity,
to pardon sin and transgression,
to make things right
and reconciled.
For example,
once upon a time
in a town
named Whoville,
there was a Who
that committed a serious crime.
The Grinch,
after recognizing his wrongdoing,
wanted to make things right.
He wanted to propitiate
for his transgressions.
There's only one problem.
He could only offer
what he had stolen.
And like the Grinch,
we don't have anything
that we can offer to God
to propitiate for ourselves.
And we certainly can't provide
the kind of propitiation required
that would exonerate us
from transgressing
the all-powerful creator
of the universe.
What do we have
that he doesn't?
How can we,
the creature,
appease the creator
who gave us all things,
who has given a gift to God
that he might be repaid?
He is a holy God,
and transgressing him
comes with a holy consequence.
We did not love God,
but he loved us
by providing for us
this propitiation.
He sent his only son to die
and suffer the wrath of God
so that we might live
and be reconciled to him,
adopted into his holy family.
That gift of grace is profound.
So let's consider
a little more deeply
just how sacrificial that is.
A little rule about agape love
is that it is magnified
by the greatness of the sacrifice
in proportion to the obligation
to make that sacrifice.
It's magnified by the greatness
of the sacrifice
in proportion to the obligation
to make that sacrifice.
It would be shallow
or less loving
to give a cheap,
last-minute Amazon delivery
as a Christmas gift.
For most, that is,
it's not much of a sacrifice.
In addition,
it's easy to give a Christmas gift
to a loved one.
Even the tax collectors do this.
Well, how much more is the love
that would give an excellent,
practical, needed gift
that you had to spend
a lot of time
and resources
and energy on
to someone who hated you?
You don't do that
because you're selfish.
You would only do that
because you have been shown
an immense amount of love
and it is that love
that abides in you.
And God sent
his only son
to die
for you and me
when all we brought to him
was rebellion.
We hated God
and we loved ourselves.
We were his enemies,
yet he sent his son
into the world
that we might live through him.
How great was that sacrifice?
It's incomprehensible.
When we see children
dying at moments in Scripture,
how does a parent respond?
We've got three examples
of this throughout.
I'm going to go through
in the New Testament.
Feel free to say
in 1 John.
I'll read these.
In John 4, 46-49,
it says,
So he,
this is Jesus,
came again to Cana
in Galilee
where he had
made the water wine
and at Capernaum
there was an official
whose son was ill.
When this man heard
that Jesus had come
from Judea
to Galilee,
he went to him.
So this official
from Capernaum
went to Galilee
which was
somewhere between
12 and like
24 miles.
It depends on the geography
and where it was all going on.
It was a long ways.
It was a lot to commit to
especially without a car.
And so he asked him,
the man,
the official,
asked Jesus
to come down
and heal his son
for he was
at the point of death.
So he traveled
this very long way
to ask Jesus for help.
And so Jesus said to him,
Unless you see signs
and wonders,
you will not believe.
The official said to him,
Sir,
come down
before my child dies.
In Mark 5,
we have another.
It says,
Then came one of the rulers
of the synagogue,
Jairus by name,
and seeing him,
he fell at his feet
and implored him
earnestly,
saying,
My little daughter
is at the point of death.
Come and lay your hands
on her
so that she might be
made well
and live.
Luke 9,
On the next day,
when they had come down
from the mountain,
a great crowd met him.
And behold,
a man from the crowd
cried out,
Teacher,
I beg you
to look at my son,
for he is my only child.
I beg you.
And behold,
a spirit seizes him
and he suddenly cries out.
It convulses him
so that he foams at the mouth
and shatters him
and will hardly leave him.
And I begged your disciples
to cast it out.
But they could not.
Which one of us
wouldn't have
that same urgency
for our children?
I've been in that situation
a couple of times.
One with my own daughter,
Charlotte,
who did die.
And second with Waylon,
a little man running around
giving out free high fives
nowadays.
He had a stroke
when he was two weeks old
and he nearly died.
It is tragic.
You would do anything
to see your child
live the next day.
And I want to encourage
you guys now
as we're together
to be particularly considerate
of how you might be
serving and mourning
and praying
with the Truets
as they're going through this.
It's insufferable.
And our sympathetic God
knows the pain
of child loss.
Here's the profound reality
of God's only begotten son.
Being rich in mercy
with which he loved us,
he willingly
sent his only son
to suffer
and die
for a people
that did not deserve it.
That actually deserved it
at least.
He knew that,
he knew
all that was
ahead of him.
He took it on.
He was born into
a poor family
in a manger,
immediately hunted
by Herod,
living a life
of persecution
and dying
a humiliating death.
And more than that,
consuming God's
spiritual wrath
on himself.
He must have done that
for someone
who was really worthy
and highly exalted.
That's a big sacrifice.
No.
He did it for people
who wished themselves
to be God.
He is the creator
and keeper
of all history.
He knew
your unloveliness,
my unloveliness,
and he knew
the pain
of suffering child loss
and suffering death itself,
but he did it anyways
to save you
so that you might
live through him.
And that
is the epitome
of selfless,
compassionate,
outward,
manifested love
that the world
could never imagine.
Remy and Juliet,
they didn't have
a tested love
for one another
because they didn't
really truly know
each other's shortcomings.
God, however,
knows every lie,
every bout of anger,
every discreet sin
in your heart,
every motive you've had,
and yet he loved us
and chose to be
our propitiation.
He didn't have
rose-colored glasses.
He knows all of you,
and yet he paid
to have you.
And that is how vast
beyond measure
it is that Christ
came to earth
as a man,
the creator
and humility,
becoming a creature
and becoming obedient
to death,
even death on a cross,
not for his own good,
but for others.
Sacrificing his son
so that we could
become sons
and daughters.
See what kind of love
the Father has given us
that we should be called
children of God,
and so we are.
Christian,
bathe yourselves
in this glorious,
mysterious truth
that Christ
saved a sinner
like you
and like me.
He loved
and showed his love
to a stubborn
and rebellious people,
and praise God,
he did.
Rest
in Christ's embrace.
He loves you.
Rejoice
in God's manifested love.
Non-Christian,
repent
and believe
and receive
the free gift
of grace
in Christ Jesus
our Lord.
It is the most
critical thing
you need
to be kept
from the torments
of hell,
but also to be
fully satisfied
in the love of God.
This world
is passing away
along with its lusts.
Drugs wear off,
money can be lost.
You won't
always be
young
and agile
and productive.
These things
will let you down,
but Christ
is eternal.
He is never changing.
He is an anchor
for the soul.
He offers
a life
of eternal
joy.
All the blessings
of a child,
an heir,
and none
of the punishments
of a criminal
in God's holy courts.
And non-Christian,
all of us here
were where you are
at one time.
We were dead
in our trespasses,
and we were overwhelmed
by the love of God.
And none of us
who know God
and have been born
of Him
would trade that in
even if we could.
So come.
Come and let us
adore Him.
Our text tells us,
and really the rest
of 1 John,
that this kind of love,
this kind of sacrificial
agape love,
is particularly
commanded
for those within
the body of Christ.
And verse 11 reads,
Beloved,
if God so loved us,
we also ought
to love one another.
In chapter 3,
John tells us that
we should not
be like Cain.
He, Cain,
in selfish hatred,
laid down
his brother's life
for himself.
Conversely,
Christ laid down
his own life
for his brother's.
Beloved,
let us love
one another
like Christ.
Do you love
being a part
of Providence Baptist,
but you never
actually play
your part in it?
Are you exercising
the gifts God
has given you
to bless the church,
or are you keeping
them to yourself?
Do you appreciate
the kind of people
that are here,
but never put in
the spiritual sweat
to love
and serve
these people outwardly?
Are you the one
on Slack
always replying
on the prayer channel,
but never on
the help channel?
Maybe it's the opposite.
Are you praying
regularly for one another?
Do you have
a compassion for them
that you rejoice
with those who rejoice
and weep
with those who weep?
Do you bear
with the weaker brother?
Are you patient
with them?
Christ was with you.
Do you give
each other
the benefit
of the doubt?
And do you
yourself receive
admonishment
and humility?
Do you gather
regularly?
If you're a member,
Hebrews 10 says
that we can stir
one another up
to love
by not neglecting
to meet together.
So do you come?
Do you come
to take the Lord's Supper
and remember
with your siblings
what Christ
has accomplished?
Do you gather
on the Lord's Day
in the mornings
to sing to
and with
one another
and then sit underneath
the preaching
of God's Word together?
Do you gather
outside of Sundays?
Do you
lay down your life
for these people?
Because our God
loved us
and we
have been born
of Him
then we will do
this for
the brothers.
And hear me,
I face these
questions too
and I myself
need to grill
in holiness
to love
you well.
And I want to
personally tell you all
that I
so often see
this love
amidst our body
and I'm thankful
to God for it.
the ways that you
have loved me
and my family
but also the ways
you have loved
one another.
It's very,
it stirs me.
And I want to
encourage you all
to press into
this love
for God's glory
for the good
of others
and more
until the day
draws near.
This is the
inevitable result
of being born
of God
and personally
experiencing
His love.
My own children
have blue eyes
and blonde hair
because they are
my children.
They look like me.
All the whos
in Whoville
are the same way.
The siblings
are nearly identical
to each other
and their parents
they've all got
the weird nose
and the crazy hair.
They're filled
with joy
and merriment
but did you notice
which one
did not look like them
and was affiliated
with anger
and selfishness
who needed
a new heart?
The test of love
will be true
for the children
of God.
We will look
like God
by our love
for one another
because love
is from God.
Indeed
God is love.
Compassionate
and active
sacrificial
and effective
in His outward love.
Now love
is not to be confined
to those
within the body
of Christ.
Remember our text
we have not
loved God
but God
loved us.
When we were dead
in our trespasses
outside the family
of God
He brought us
in
and adopted us
and made us
children.
Our love
also ought to extend
to those
outside the church
in hopes
to bring them in
as brothers
and sisters
and perhaps
by extending
this love
their heart
may grow
three sizes.
To summarize
those who have
been regenerated
by the love
of God
will overflow
with the new love
that God
puts inside them.
Those who have
not confessed
Christ as Lord
and have not
took hold
of the love
of God
are still
in their natural
state
of loving
the things
of the world
and namely
themselves.
God's love
is unique
in its duality
of inward
and outward
compassion.
His love
is proved,
shown,
and exemplified
by Christ's
atoning
work for our
sins
and appeasing
a just
God
so that we
might truly
live.
The record
of sin
is washed
away
and the love
of God
now present
all because
Christ came
to this earth
as a baby
endured temptation
yet without sin
he suffered
the death
that he did
not deserve
to die
and he overcame
the grave
by the power
of the spirit
and has secured
his children
a seat
in eternal
glory.
This is the
significance
of Christ's
love
in his first
advent.
Let's praise
him
continually
until his
second.
I'm going
to close
with the
reading of
this hymn
that perhaps
we'll sing
in a couple
days.
Oh
holy night
the stars
are brightly
shining
it is the
night
of the
dear
Savior's
birth
long
lay
the
world
in
sin
and
error
pining
till he
appeared
and the
soul felt
its worth
a thrill
of hope
the weary
world
rejoices
for yonder
breaks a new
and glorious
morn
fall on your
knees
oh hear
the angel
voices
oh night
divine
oh night
when Christ
was born
oh night
divine
oh night
divine
led by the
light of
faith
serenely
beaming
with glowing
hearts
by his
cradle
we stand
so led
by light
of a star
sweetly gleaming
there came
the wise
men from
orient land
the king
of kings
lie thus
in a lowly
manger
in all
our trials
born to
be our
friend
he knows
our need
to our
weakness
he is no
stranger
behold your
king
before him
lowly
bend
behold your
king
before him
lowly
bend
truly
he taught
us
to love
one another
his law
is love
and his
gospel
is peace
chains
shall he
break
for the
slave
is our
brother
and in
his name
all oppression
shall cease
sweet hymns
of joy
and grateful
chorus
raise we
let all
within us
praise his
holy name
christ is
the lord
oh praise
his name
forever
his power
and glory
evermore
proclaim
his power
and glory
evermore
proclaim
let's pray
as