Advent 2023: Love
Advent Doxology
Call to worship:
pastor andrew loginow
Deuteronomy 6.4-9
song:
Hark the herald
Reading:
pastor bobby owens
Matthew 1.18-25
Historical reading:
pastor michael champoux
Apostles' Creed
song:
Sing we the song of Emmanuel
christmas offering
Confession & pardon:
pastor brett eckel
Doxology
song:
O come all ye faithful
Sermon:
dr. alex loginow
Advent 2023: Love
Introduction
Some people like theatre and some people don’t. Bethany and I like theatre; we like plays, musicals, off-Broadway shows. A few weeks ago we saw Frozen at the Detroit Opera House. The play is based on the Disney animated film, which is originally based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen.
Sitting in the pit enjoying the show I couldn’t help but think about today. I couldn’t help thinking about Christmas Eve and the advent theme of love. That’s because the major theme of Frozen, which is also the major theme of Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen is love. A constant refrain in Frozen is that true love will melt a frozen heart.
It wasn’t merely the snowy setting that led my mind to advent and Christmas Eve, but the concept of love melting a frozen heart. This story resonates with so many people because it is our story. Just like Elsa cursed Arendelle turning summer into winter, Adam’s fall cursed the world and froze our hearts in sin. From the farthest reaches of the cosmos to the depths of the human heart the white witch of sin and death has invaded God’s creation and because of sin it can feel like it is always winter and never Christmas.
But therein lies the good news. Christmas has come! Aslan is on the move and rom the far reaches of the cosmos to the depths of our frozen hearts he’s come to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found! That’s what we’ve been anticipating all advent – when true love became flesh and dwelt among us to melt our frozen hearts (John 1.14). And that is the theme of this 4th Sunday of Advent; that is the theme of Christmas Eve – the love of God.
Here in 1st John 4.7-12 the Apostle whom Jesus loved explains to us the true meaning of the love of Advent – the love of Christmas. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, St. John reveals to us (1) the identity of love; (2) the manifestation of love; and (3) the economy of love.
The Identity of Love
First let’s think about the identity of love. What is love? My neighbor across the street proudly displays a lawn sign that reads, “Love is love.” What does that mean? Is love an emotional feeling? A sexual feeling?
John Mayer sang Love is a Verb (and actually dc Talk sang it 1st). Is love a verb? At its core is love action? Or is love an idea? A feeling? A commitment? Does love have an intrinsic quality or identity?
Holy Scripture gives us the answer. Love is an intrinsic and eternal reality because love is from God, who is the one true intrinsic, eternal, self-existing being. In fact, in verse 8 the Bible says, God is love. ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν – God is love.
Grammatically speaking θεὸς (God) is the subject of that phrase. ἀγάπη (love) is the predicate nominative and ἐστίν (is), that’s the copulative verb. As the copulative verb, ἐστίν (is) functions as an equals sign – God equals love. God is love.
The identity of love, the intrinsic, eternal meaning of love is God himself. What does that mean? How is God love? God is love both in his identity and in his vocation. God is love in both who he is and by what he does.
Love is the identity of God; love is who God is. Scripture reveals and church history has ecumenically testified that God exists in Trinity. Orthodox Christianity confesses and does not deny that there is 1 God in 3 persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That God is love refers, at least in part, to the eternal relationship and dynamic that has existed between the 3 persons of the Godhead for all eternity. C.S. Lewis has a great section in Mere Christianity where he discusses the eternal dance of the Holy Trinity; you should read it if you never have. The Father, Son, and Spirit have eternally loved each other, communicated with each other, served each other; God is love.
Not only is love the identity of God, but love is also the vocation of God. Love is what God does. Because God intrinsically and eternally is love that means everything God does is loving. God cannot do anything that is unloving because he would cease to be God if he did because God is love.
God’s work of creating was loving. God’s work of redemption is loving. God’s providence is loving. God’s discipline is loving. Even God’s wrath against the reprobate is loving because it satisfies his justice and glorifies him. Everything God does is loving because God is love.
The Manifestation of Love
Everything God does is loving and the epitome of God’s loving vocation, the most loving thing God does, the climax of God’s love is that he sent his Son. That’s what the pericope reveals to us in verses 9-10. Verse 8 reveals the identity of love and verses 9-10 reveal the manifestation of love. And the beloved Apostle preaches the good news of God’s love with two emphases – one in verse 9 and the other in verse 10. In verse 9 St. John emphasizes that God sent his Son so that we might live and in verse 10 the emphasis is that God sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
John introduces both ideas with similar vocabulary. In verse 9 John writes, in this (ἐν τούτῳ) the love of God was made manifest among us. And then in verse 10 he recapitulates writing, in this (ἐν τούτῳ) is love…The first emphasis in verse 9 is that 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.
This is good news because if it weren’t for the love of God we would eternally die. You see in the beginning our holy creator God gave Adam, the first man, his law. God told Adam that if he ate of the fruit of the tree Adam would surely die (Gen 2.17). Of course Adam rebelled against God and fell in sin and death spread to all men because all sinned (Rom 5.12). Because of Adam’s original sin and our inherited sin we all justly deserve eternal conscious punishment in hell. Apart from God’s love we die physically and spiritually (Eph 2.1).
But because he loves us God sent his Son. Verse 9 says God sent his only Son, echoing maybe the most famous verse in Scripture – John 3.16. Some versions may read, “only begotten son.” But that’s a little misleading especially since John says in this text that if we love it proves that we’re begotten of God too.
Jesus is not God’s only begotten son in a metaphysical sense, but Jesus is God’s only son in a covenantal sense. The word only (μονογενῆ) means unique, special, one-of-a-kind. The same word is used in Hebrews 11 to describe Isaac’s relationship t Abraham. Isaac was not Abraham’s only son but Isaac was the promised son; the son of the covenant. Jesus is the unique, special, one-of-a-kind Son of God because of who he is and what he does.
He is the eternal 2nd person of the Holy Trinity sent to be conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. The Son of God became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1.14). It is because of the incarnation of the Son of God, because of his life that we can live. In his incarnation the Son of God took on true humanity. He was conceived, he experienced gestation, he was born, he grew in wisdom and stature; he lived without sin securing active righteousness on our behalf before God.
Not only did he live but also after he died he lived again. He is risen indeed! The resurrected Christ is the 1st born of the new creation. His resurrection guarantees our resurrection. Because Jesus lives, we might live through him.
Then in verse 10 John adds a slightly different emphasis saying, 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. John humbles us here and reminds us that we did not love God 1st but God loved us 1st. We did not choose God in our free will but God chose us in his sovereign will. The Reformed tradition has long correctly emphasized that God is the initiator in salvation; regeneration precedes faith. God’s love is initiatory; our love is reactionary.
In his love God sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Propitiation is the Greek word ἱλασμός, which means, “the means by which sins are forgiven.” In the LXX ἱλασμός is used to translate the Hebrew words for atonement and forgiveness. Jesus is the means by which sins are forgiven; Jesus is atonement, forgiveness, propitiation.
It is through Jesus’ life that we can live but it is through his death that our sins are forgiven. When Christ died on the cross he offered his sinless life to God the Father as our penal substitutionary atonement. Jesus was our substitute – he died in our place – to pay our penalty and make atonement or grant forgiveness for our sins. Jesus exhausted the entirety of God’s wrath against the sins of the elect.
And now the most important question I can ask you is if your faith is in Jesus. How do you know if you have faith? The 1st element of faith is knowledge. If you have been listening you have all the knowledge you need: God is holy, you are a sinner, Jesus lived, died, and resurrected in your place.
The 2nd element of faith is assent. You must assent to the validity of the gospel. You can’t just know the gospel. You must also acknowledge that the story is true.
The 3rd element of faith is trust. Have you transferred your trust into Christ alone? Are you betting heaven or hell on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus? Is Jesus your only hope in life and death?
If so, if you do have faith, it will be revealed by your repentance. To repent of your sin means to confess your sin and turn from your sin. It means to humble yourself, admit that you are a sinner, and turn from your sin to Jesus. It is not our repentance that saves us, it is our faith that saves us, which is a gift from God, but repentance is proof that we have faith.
Do you want to be loved? Do you want to feel safe and accepted, as you never have? Receive the greatest Christmas gift in history. Open your eyes to the love of God. Repent and believe the gospel.
The Economy of Love
Then what? How shall we live after we believe? We have seen (1) the identity of love – God himself, and we have seen (2) the manifestation of love – the good news of the life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, now the rest of the pericope reveals to us (3) the economy of love. In verses 7-8 and verses 11-12 John’s main point is that Christians ought to love one another.
In verse 7 John encourage us, beloved, let us love one another. Notice that the Apostle emphasizes love even in his address to the church, beloved. He does not call them “little children” as he does so often in this terse epistle, but they are his beloved. As he’s calling us to love, he’s reminding us that we are the ones who are loved. He echoes the adjective in verse 11.
Verse 7 is the call to action - let us love one another. This isn’t merely a suggestion, but a call to arms. We’ve got no choice but to love because love is from God. John says that when you love sacrificially it proves 2 realities. First, it proves that you have been born of God. In the 3rd chapter of John’s Gospel Jesus says that we must be born again. When we love others sacrificially we prove that we’ve experienced this new birth. Second, it proves that we are currently knowing God. That’s not that most grammatically polished way to translate verse 7, but it conveys John’s emphasis. “Know” is a present active indicative verb. He’s saying that love of neighbor is proof of a present, active love for God.
John contrasts it with the one who doesn’t love in verse 8. If you don’t love sacrificially, you don’t know God. John’s emphasis is that you don’t know God at all. A lack of love proves that you don’t know God because it’s antithetical to the nature of God – God is love.
In verse 11 John writes, Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. The ESV is actually a little soft on the translation. The Greek text better reads: Beloved, if God loved us in this way we also owe one another love. Christian love is our duty because of the gospel. We have been bought with a price. We are not our own. Jesus is ur Lord and his law is love.
In verse 12 then John shifts from God’s incarnational love, which we looked at earlier, the Christ event, John shifts from God’s incarnational love to our incarnational love. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. That language should sound familiar to you. There’s another place in John’s Gospel where he writes something similar. In John 1.18 the beloved Apostle wrote, no one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, [Jesus] has made him known. Jesus Christ revealed our invisible God to this world. Now here in verse 12, John says the same thing about us! No one has ever seen God, but when we love one another, he’s revealed.
How do we love one another? We worship with one another. We pray for one another. We serve one another. We hold one another accountable.
We disciple one another. We show hospitality to one another. We meet one another’s needs. We eat with one another. We laugh with one another. We cry with one another.
Do you love your brothers and sisters here at Christ Community Church? John says if you don’t, you might not be a Christian. Our love for each other is evangelistic; it reveals God to the world. God is love. God manifests his love by sending his Son to be the propitiation for our sins so that we might live. So, beloved, we must love one another.
Conclusion
Only true love can melt a frozen heart. That’s the constant refrain in Frozen. The interesting thing is the twist on what true love means. Throughout the story we’re led to believe it is a kiss from a prince that will thaw Anna’s frozen heart but it turns out it is Anna’s self-sacrifice for her sister, the same sister who froze her heart, that self-sacrifice is the true love that thaws her frozen heart.
That’s true isn’t it? The truest love in history is the self-sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ to thaw the frozen hearts of his own siblings who killed him. God is love. God’s love is made manifest through the life, death, and resurrection of his Son Jesus. Beloved let us love one another. This is the love of Advent. Merry Christmas.