Christmas is Love

Well, as we prepare for Christmas, I thought it would be helpful to think of Christmas from three interlocking perspectives.

Christmas is love, Christmas is joy, and Christmas is peace. Do you think of these three subjects, love, joy, and peace? Have you experienced much love in your life? Do you think of love, do you think of those who love you?

Think of those that you love? What's been your experience of love? The love of the home that you grew up in. Your love if you're married, love if you're single, love perhaps if you're widowed or separated. What's been your experience of love?

Wouldn't it be interesting if we had the time for each person to come up here and share something of that? What about joy? In the political arena in a world with COVID, not much joy is there?

You put on the news and there's very little joy. What's been your experience of joy? Are you a joyful person? Are you someone as people come into your presence? Are you someone who communicates joy?

Or are you a kind of gloomy person, lugubrious, sad, solemn? What about peace? What's been your experience of peace? Are you a person of peace? Last night as you laid your head on the pillow, did you do that with peace? Something really gnawing at you? Something disruptive? Peace in your home?

What kind of home do you have? Is there peace there? What about at work? Your relationships with your colleagues?

What about here? Is there peace, harmony, well-being at Calvary Church? Christmas speaks to all of these things, don't they? These emotions and these truths, love and joy and peace. Well, today our focus is love. Christmas is about love, love in action, love personified.

Christmas is about the love of God. And I want to think of it very simply today, I trust not simplistically but simply, because this is a very, very important subject. I want us to think, first of all, of the reality of the love of God. Secondly, of the proof of the love of God. And third, your response, my response. The reality of the love of God, the proof of the love of God, and your response to the love of God.

Because there must be a response. And I wonder if all of you have responded to the love of God. So we're going to think, first of all, think with me of the reality of the love of God. But before thinking of the love of God, let's think a little bit of the reality of love. You say, well, we can't really think about the love of God without, we can't really think about love without thinking of the love of God.

That's true. But let's think, first of all, of human love, of our experience of love. Love is the crying need of the human heart, isn't it? Love.

A world without love is unimaginable, isn't it? Think of the love between husband and wife. The love between parents and child. The love between brothers and sisters. The love between friends and friends.

The love here at Calvary Church as we interact. Love. Love is the most exhilarating of experiences, isn't it? Love, I think, gives meaning and significance to life. It would be intolerable, wouldn't it, to live in a world without love. And yet the reality is, some people never really experience love. While love is the most exhilarating of experiences, giving significance and meaning to life, when something goes wrong with that love, it's one of the most painful experiences, isn't it?

And some of you know exactly what I'm speaking about. Love is wonderful, but sometimes human love breaks down. Something goes wrong. I stand here as a minister of the gospel with a young couple who make vows, till death they do part. And they express their love for each other. And when I meet with them, I say, you're going to love this person for the rest of your life. Absolutely, there is no possibility of my love coming to end. I love this person so much.

And they make vows before God, standing right here under the cross. And then, a few years later, sometimes even months later, but usually some years later, something terribly goes wrong. And where there was once love, there's pain, there's accusations, there's recriminations, and love seems to have disappeared. The reality of human love, we use this word love in different ways, don't we? People say, I love you, but I'm not in love with that person. We also use, in a way, love in a way we shouldn't use it.

Some people talk about loving. Perhaps a man says, I love this woman, but he doesn't love her, he uses her. He may say he loves this woman, but when you examine it, his love is all take, take, take, take. His love is self-centered.

He uses people for his own satisfaction. He's pretty himself at the center of his life, and although with his lips he may say to this woman, I love you, the reality is he doesn't know about love at all. It's not love. We call that lust, and lust is demanding. Lust thinks of self. Lust puts me first, and yet many people say that's love. It's not love at all.

It's take, take, take. Then perhaps the most familiar form of love, I think that most of us will have experienced, is the love, thank you dear, I love you, and my wife is coming up and giving me a tissue, thank you. Just the thought of her makes me cry, you know. I'm really very sentimental and good thing I love you. Thank you. Now where was I?

I think that's the first time she's come up, and I thought she was going to take over, but she probably could do much better than I do. Certainly when it comes to love. However, I'm going to deal with some theological issues there, propitiation, so you may have struggled a little there, but we'll go on.

Where was I? Yes, love. Love between two people. It is not just take, surely, it's give and take. You love that person and they love you back.

That's wonderful. The love of a child for a parent. Love for husband and wife. Love for two friends. And that kind of relationship is not just take, take, take.

No, it's give and take. We love that person, they love us. They do things for us and we do things for them.

We put them before ourselves and they put us before themselves. But, have you had the experience where that love has come to an end? Think of it with friends. There are people that you've been very close to. You may have been married to them. People in your own family.

Certainly friends that one time you loved them and that love was never returned. It's very difficult, isn't it, to keep loving someone who doesn't love you in return. You give, give, give and they take, take, take. And after a while, it becomes obvious that they don't love you at all. They may say they do, but their actions are clear. They don't love you, they may love someone else, they may love themselves and you feel, wait a minute, there's something wrong here. And if that continues, I would suggest that your, quote, love for them comes to an end. They have not acted in a way you think appropriate. You wake up one day and you say, it's always me that makes the call. I'm the one that's always doing things.

I'm the one that's taking action and they give nothing in return. So, there is love which is take, take, take. There's love which is give and take, but there's another love. A love that we all crave. A love which is very, very rare in human relationships, although people say it, we call it unconditional love. This love gives and gives and gives and gives and continues to give even when it's not returned. Even when it's rejected.

Even when the other, excuse me, even when the other person doesn't respond in the way that we expect. This of course is the love of God. God's love, the reality of love is that God continues to love us. And Pastor Hathaway put up that magnificent verse that God shows His love toward us in that while we were yet, wonderful people who worshiped Him and praised Him every day and prayed five times a day know, that God commends His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Let's read, open your Bibles. Some of you just got new Bibles and you're anxious to use them. And I know at least a couple of people here who just got a Bible and this is the first time they're opening their Bible in the sanctuary.

I encourage you to come with your Bible. 1 John chapter 4, it's at the end of the Bible. We heard the magnificent verses from John 1 at the beginning of the service read by Pastor Hathaway, in the beginning was the word magnificent.

Didn't you love to hear the word of God this morning? John writes in one way simply, his Greek is very easy to understand, but he also writes very profoundly. We heard this profound prologue from John 1. Here's another magnificent passage of Scripture. 1 John 4 and we're going to read from verse 7. I want you to get these words.

I want them to penetrate your heart to encourage you. Listen to John. John is called the disciple of love. He knows about love.

Was John to put his head on the bosom of Jesus? So John in a sense is an expert of love, an expert in love. And he knows about the love of Jesus.

And so he writes. 1 John 4 verse 7, 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. Think of that statement, God is love.

He's going to repeat it in verse 16. 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.

Now look at verse 10. In this is love, not that we 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.

No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us because He's given us of His Spirit and we have seen and testified that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world.

Can you write more beautiful words than that? This is the disciple of love writing about love. And John traces the flood of the love of God to its fountain. And so he says here in verse 8, God is love.

Look at verse 19. We love because He, God, first loved us. A very important verse. We love because He first loved us. So John is saying so brilliantly, and in a sense so simply but so profoundly, that love begins with God. It doesn't begin with your feelings, that love, this unconditional love, this beautiful, pure love begins with God. Love is from God. Love is sourced in God.

And then John says God is love. Not just that God is loving, that's a true statement, but it's deeper than that. The very being of God is love. Love is the self-communication of God. What's your view of God? I speak to people, their view of God is often very sentimental or on the other hand, their view of God is a kind of a judge, a cosmic killjoy.

Someone to be feared in the sense of being afraid, and certainly God is to be feared, but not to be afraid of God. Because God is love. It's true He's holy, it's true He's righteous, it's true that He's truth, but John is focusing on this, that we focus this Christmas that God is love. And John says, it's not that you one morning woke up and said I'm going to start loving God. It's rather that God first loved you. We love because He first loved us.

I want you to think about that. I want this to grip your heart, whoever you are. This Christmas, God's love comes to you, you. Whoever you are sitting there, whoever you are listening on live stream, God's love comes to you.

God's love in a sense embraces you. That this God is not a God who's far away. We are beautifully sung the words, oh man will come, Emmanuel.

Israel crying for the Messiah. But the Messiah has come, and He's come to us. God is not a remote God. God is a personal God, and a God who has revealed Himself, and God is love. He not only loves Americans, please remember, Americans.

I'm an American. God loves Africans. God loves Bolivians. God loves Liberians. God loves Chinese. God loves Australians. God loves Germans. And God loves you. You're here for the very first time. I want to tell you that God loves you. You've been sitting on these pews for many, many years. I want to remind you that God loves you.

I've been thinking about this. I was overwhelmed by the thought that this great eternal God, who's so big He is immeasurable, that this God would love John Monroe. Some of you sitting there find it hard to love me. I understand that.

Right? That's why I'm glad my wife still loves me. But think of this, that God loves you. The Bible says that God so loved the world. And that God's love comes right down to you. I want you to understand that you are a greatly loved person. I don't know your experience of human love.

Perhaps it's been rather difficult. Perhaps you came from a home where you didn't know much love. I meet many people, many men particularly, who have told me they grew up in a home and their father never once said to them, I love you. But their father never embraced them and said, I love you. And they go through life wondering, did my father really love me? Some of you grew up in homes where you were abused. And some of you entered marriages with great hope and expectation and you really loved that man. You really loved that woman.

But they betrayed you and they broke the vows of marriage and they abused you. And you may have gone through all kinds of difficult circumstances at a human level, but rejoice in this. There's something much more important than human love and that is this, that God loves you. You see, God's love, the Bible says, is great. Paul, as he writes about it in Ephesians 2, says that God is rich in mercy because He's loved us with a great love.

That word great sounds too insignificant, doesn't it? But how do you describe the love of God? God's love is so great that it cannot be measured. You can't put boundaries around the love of God. It is so high that it takes us to heaven, the love of God. That when I die, I'm not going to be separated from the love of God. In fact, I will enter into a new dimension of the love of God because this love does not let me go.

It's so high that it takes me to heaven. This love is so wide that it embraces every single one of you. No one is excluded from the love of God. God's love is so long that it is eternal.

It never runs out. There will never be a time in all of eternity, time in eternity when God will stop loving me. Human love, yes, it can come to an end. Human love can be very, very difficult and very, very painful, but this we know that when we receive this love, this love is eternal and this love is so deep, it's so deep that it reaches down to those who are at the very bottom, to those who are despairing, to those who are about to give up, to those who feel that life is so difficult, they want to end it.

I want to tell you, if you're listening and you're like that, I want to tell you that God loves you. We sometimes sing the love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell. It goes beyond the highest star. You've been looking at the stars. Juniper and Saturn are very close together if you look up in the sky.

We find it almost incredible to measure the distance to the stars. God's love is beyond the stars and it reaches to the lowest hell. Oh love of God, how rich and pure, how measureless and strong it shall forevermore endure the saints and angels song. That is the love of God is indescribable and we don't deserve it.

Isn't that true? Isn't it true that you do not deserve the love of God? You say, why is that? Because God has created you, but you've gone your own way. Instead of God being the very center of your life, you've pushed God to the margins of life. Perhaps you even deny the existence of God. Perhaps, largely, you take God for granted. You want God in an emergency.

Things go wrong in your life. You're dealing with a crisis and you call out to God, but otherwise you've lived your own life. And more than that, you have deliberately disobeyed the laws of God.

They're called commandments. You've gone your own way, all of us. The Bible says it's like sheep gone astray. We've turned to our own way. Often we've forgotten God.

Isn't that what we're doing as a nation? We've largely forgotten God. We pay lip service to Him, but we, in our laws and the way we do things, we've largely forgotten God. Wonderful thing is that God still loves you. You don't live up to your own standards, far less the standards of a holy God.

Yet, God loves you. And the message of Christmas is this, that that love has come down to us in Jesus Christ. O come, O come, Emmanuel.

What's Emmanuel? God with us. And God has come to us in Jesus Christ to reveal His love to us so that we really understand it, as we'll see in a minute. And that's the wonder of the Christian Gospel.

What does religion tell you in all of its forms? It's basically you do this, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and you'll get to heaven. That you build a kind of ladder and at the end of it you'll get to heaven if you're good enough.

And some people say, well Jesus came and He taught us some wonderful things and He set a wonderful example. The Christian Gospel is not that if you follow the standards of Jesus, you'll get to heaven. The Gospel is not that if you try to obey His teaching, you'll get to heaven.

That is works. That's what we do, to build a ladder to God. It's the very opposite of the Christian Gospel. The Christian Gospel is that you cannot, because of your own sinfulness, there is absolutely no way that you could ever reach heaven by yourself.

And so what's required? The Savior, heaven who comes to us and God has never stopped loving you. The reality of the love of God. But secondly, the proof of the love of God. You say, well this sounds very good, but how do I really know that God loves me? Let me read again verses 9 and 10 of our passage 1 John 4 verse 9, listen again, in this the love of God was made manifest among us. How has God made His love manifest among us? Answer, that God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. That is the only way I get eternal life is through Jesus Christ.

Not of my own doing, I am to believe in Him. Verse 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. So here is divine love. Here is, to use the expression, people love, unconditional love. God's love is a giving love. He gives and gives and gives and gives.

This is authentic love and it is demonstrated. Here is God's love in action. How do I know that God loves me? Answer, He gave His only Son as my Savior. This is the very heart then of the Gospel, that God gave His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, God incarnate to save us.

For God so loved the world, how do I know it? That He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting love, life. It's not just that God sent His Son. John says here, verse 10, He sent Him to be the propitiation for our sins. Now propitiation is a theological word, not going to take time to unpack all of it.

What's John saying? He sent His Son to be the sacrifice for our sins. The Gospel is that Christ died for our sins, for your sins. This is how He demonstrates His love for us. And He did this, to use John's expression to be the propitiation for our sins.

That is the judgment that I deserve because of my sin as I've gone astray, as I've disobeyed God, that God still loves me. He sends Jesus Christ in order to take away my sin. He's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of John Monroe. How does He take away the sin of John Monroe?

By going into my place. He's my substitute. He takes my sin. All of my sin is placed on Christ. And as I, He dies, He pays the price for my sin, He is buried and He rises again and He's alive. And the Gospel is that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's how you get right with God, not by becoming a member of Calvary Church, not by being baptized, not by taking communion, all of these things are good and have their place, but here is the heart of the Gospel.

Do you know Jesus Christ as your Savior? God shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. God in His great love for us then, He takes this action. Not that we're wonderful people, no. We're only wonderful because God loves us. God doesn't love us because we're wonderful. We are wonderful because God loves us. We didn't love God, no.

He, first He loved us and sent His Son into this world. And the cross is the greatest revelation of the love of God. And some churches they want to remove the cross.

They don't like the blood of Christ. We've got a cross on our ceiling. It's the very center of our faith. Not only is it the symbol of the Christian faith, it's at the very heart of the Christian faith. If you take away the cross, there is no Gospel, there is no salvation, because Jesus didn't just come into the world to live an example for us. He didn't just come into the world to give us teaching.

He came into the world, this is His mission, to be the propitiation for our sins, to be the substitute for our sins. You cannot fully understand the love of God apart from the cross of Christ. The reality of the love of God, the proof of the love of God, third, the response to the love of God. What's your response to this? I'm calling for every single one of us to make a response.

What is your response? First of all, the response of personally receiving God's love. God's love calls for a personal response from you and me.

God is a personal God, with whom you can have a love relationship. See, I want you today personally to experience the love of God. I want you to live in God's love. I want God's love to captivate you, to inspire you. I want God's love to guide you, to empower you. If you've ever fallen in love, you know what it is to be captivated by someone's love, to be inspired by it, to want to be with them. That's human love and it's a wonderful thing.

Ah, but there's something greater. It's to experience the love of God and to be captivated and controlled as it were by this magnificent truth that God loves me. And I have received the love of God as I receive Jesus Christ. So you have to understand that God loves you. You have to understand that you've sinned.

You have to understand that the only way to receive forgiveness of sins and to receive eternal life is through personally trusting in Jesus Christ. We die on the cross for your sins and who rose again. Chapter 3, verse 23, John says, and this is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as He commanded us.

This is the command. God is commanding you to believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ. I'm calling on every single one of you here today to put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ if you've never done that. This is the call of the Gospel. This is the command of God. Repent and believe in the Gospel. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. This is the first personal response then to the love of God. I have to ask you, have you done that? You say, well I've always believed in Jesus, you know, I believe in Christmas.

That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking have you, has there been a time when you got on your knees, whether actually or figuratively, before God and said come and save me. I'm receiving Christ as my Savior. That that love is not something abstract.

It's not just a concept. It's a love, Paul says, which is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit whom God has given us. Think of this, God's love, the source of love, being poured into my heart, being poured into your heart as you receive Christ. How do you receive the love of God?

You receive Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and I call on you to do that today. Here's the other response, the response of loving others. Verse 11, beloved if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. Has God loved us?

Yes. You say you're a follower of Jesus Christ, you've experienced the love of God. The question then is to love one another. Our love for God impacts our love for others. You see this is a love which not only saves our souls but transforms our lives, transforms our homes. Love in your home, love in our relationships, love in our churches. What kind of church is Calvary Church? I'd love to hear the answer. Is this a church where they love God and love one another?

That's it, isn't it? This love transforms our life and we are to be known, brothers and sisters, for our love. Listen to the teaching of Jesus as recorded again by John who obviously loves writing about love. The Gospel of John chapter 13 verse 34, John 13 verse 34, John says, quoting the words of Jesus, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another.

But it doesn't stop there. That you love one another just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Jesus say, I loved you.

This is the new commandment. Not just that you love one another. I want you to love in the way that I have loved you.

Think of that. That this is the outstanding characteristic of a follower of Christ. Are you loving others?

This is a love which is not just on our lips but comes from our heart as described in the first Corinthians 13. Love is patient. Love is kind. You're a kind person. Are you kind to your friends? Are you kind to your children? Men, are you kind to your wife? It's kind.

It's not jealous or arrogant. It's a love which is sacrificial. And so John says in verse 7 here, beloved, let us love one another.

Love one another. You know, during COVID, which has been a struggle for all of us, I've had the privilege of seeing many of you reach out in love. People have asked me, John, do you know of any family in need?

Is there any way I could help them? I've seen as our congregation have gone through difficulties these last months we've dealt with people who are terminally ill, people who have died, people who have struggled in their marriages, people who have lost their jobs, people who have been furloughed, people who are unemployed, and I've seen so many of you reach out in love. That's magnificent, isn't it? Not because it's a program, but because as a follower of Christ, God has put in your heart love and that love overflows to others. It's not just loving yourself. It's loving others. Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God. I want to speak to some of you, and you say you're a follower of Jesus Christ, and you say you love Jesus Christ.

What do you? Is it not the reality that your love for your Savior has become rather cold, distant? The Lord hasn't changed. He continues to love you. Great is His faithfulness, but you've moved away a little bit, haven't you? Some sin has come into your life, and there is a staleness, there's a coldness of your love for God. What's happened?

No, He continues to love you, but you've wondered. What's your response to the love of God today? Is there any bitterness in your heart?

What about the love in your relationship? You say, John, I've been really hurt by that person. I believe it. It's very painful, I know. Very difficult, isn't it? But you're to forgive, aren't you? Isn't that part of love? Have you forgiven that person? Have you reached out in love towards them? You try to reconcile, perhaps with your own son, your own daughter, your father, your brother or sister. You're distant from them, and difficulties have come in. Perhaps it's very, very complicated, it often is. But this love of God is supernatural.

Can you take the first move? Can you today in your heart first forgive that person? Can you today ask God through His Spirit to pour His love into your heart? Perhaps there's a staleness, there's an indifference in your love. Perhaps even in your marriage you become a bit harsh, you become a bit distant, you become a bit remote from your husband, your wife, your children, your relationship.

What has happened? You need to come to the cross. You need to think once again of God's great love for you. You are to love others with the love that God has for you. You are to forgive others even as God in Christ has forgiven you. And at the very center of it is the love of God. Christmas is love. The love of God for you and me. And with the coming of Jesus into the world, God gives us this wonderful gift. Promises that if you believe in Him, you'll have eternal life and you will never perish and this love will never, ever, ever end. We've had brothers and sisters at Calvary just in the last few months who have passed from time into eternity.

I and others of our pastors and elders and leaders and some of you have had the privilege of ministering to such people. How wonderful to know that this girl, this boy, this man, this woman, their trust is in Jesus Christ. And while they are separated, as it were, from us, they are never, ever separated from the love of God. And that whatever happens, whatever happens to me, I know this, that I am loved by God and He will hold me fast. And there is a love which will never, ever end. Nothing, says Paul, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. I'm going to give us an opportunity just as we close, each one of us, to make a response for some of you for the first time to open your hearts to Christ.

Would you do that? You know, in your home there may be a Christmas tree and there may be a present with your name on it. Someone who loves you has spent quite a bit of money and time and thought and purchased a present and put it under the tree and has got your name on it. That's an act of love. What have you to do?

You have to take that. You have to open it up and appropriate the gift, whatever it is. Perhaps someone gives you, gives you a watch and you open up and you, you thank them and you put the watch on. What's your response to the gift of Jesus Christ? Will you receive it? J.I. Packer says that to know God's love is indeed heaven on earth.

That's right. Because the love of God comes to us in Jesus Christ and we can experience this love right now. Acknowledge you can't save yourself. Acknowledge your sin and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Open your heart to the love of God. Receive Christ as your Savior.

Do it now. We're going to have a time of quietness and then I will pray and make your response to receive Christ. Ask God if you're a follower of Christ to revive that love in you.

Perhaps you need to forgive someone and to begin to love them instead of perpetuating indifference or even hate. Let's take a few moments, each of us, to make a response. Our loving Father, we're overwhelmed as we reflect on your love. You first loved us. For those who have never received Christ, may they come to the cross and ask Him to come and to save them. There's many here Father, their love has got a bit cold.

They've taken you for granted. Revive that love. Make our homes and our relationships Calvary Church.

Homes and relationships and a church of love. We thank you that you sent your Son to be the propitiation for our sins. What incredible love. And we know that this love will hold us fast. And all of the ups and downs in life, the joys and the disappointments, you will hold us fast. We thank you for that love from which nothing can separate us. In Christ's name. Amen.