The Advent of Love | Sunday, December 20, 2020

So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. (Luke 11:9)

The arrival of Jesus is the greatest expression of love the world has ever known—and the source of every hope, peace, and joy we long for.

The Loss That Sends Us Seeking

Some of you know in a very experiential way that the loss of hope, peace, joy, or love is what pushed you to seek and ultimately find Christ. Perhaps you are watching today still seeking, and the journey you're on began with the loss of one of those four things.

I want to encourage you with the words of Jesus recorded in Luke 11: "Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened."

The Advent of Love

The advent of Jesus is the advent of joy, hope, and peace—and at the very top of the stack, it is the coming of love. The arrival of Jesus 2,000 years ago is the greatest manifestation of love we could ever comprehend. At the core of the incarnation—that big theological word for God becoming a man—was and is love. "For God so loved the world that He gave His Son." Jesus came to this world because of love.

And not only did Jesus come because of love, He came for a very specific purpose motivated by love and meant to demonstrate God's love. He came to be the sacrificial Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. That is exactly how He was introduced. When John the Baptist was baptizing, and Jesus came to be baptized, John declared, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."

Tina Turner asked, "What's love got to do with it?" As it relates to the coming of Jesus, the Scripture's answer is: love has everything to do with it. Everything Jesus did and does is motivated by and a demonstration of a very special kind of love.

What Kind of Love?

When we talk about love, we use the word in both formal and casual ways. We may say we love Chick-fil-A, or we love our house, or we love our spouse. We all understand intuitively that loving a chicken sandwich is on a different level than loving your spouse—hopefully.

Science has demonstrated this too, breaking love into three categories, each with its own hormones. There is lust, revealed by the release of testosterone in men and estrogen in women. There is attraction, characterized by dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. And there is attachment, characterized by oxytocin and vasopressin. We can observe how each affects the brain and nervous system. Science sees different kinds of love because we experience different kinds of love.

The Scriptures acknowledge these category differences as well. The New Testament was originally written in Koine Greek, which has several different words translated "love" in English, each identifying a different kind. For a great resource on this, I highly recommend C.S. Lewis's book The Four Loves.

The Four Loves

Lewis writes about four Greek words: eros, storge, philea, and agape. Eros is an intense longing or lust—it's connected to our English word erotic. Storge is natural or instinctual affection—the love a mother has for the baby growing in her womb the moment she learns it is there. Philea is brotherly kindness or brotherly love—the city of Philadelphia gets its name from this word, the city of brotherly love.

And then there is agape, considered the highest form of love and the one most frequently used in the New Testament. The greatest description of this love is found in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians:

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud. It is not rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wrong. It does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up. It never loses faith. It is always hopeful, endures through every circumstance... but love will last forever. (1 Corinthians 13:4–8)

This is the highest form of love, and it is the very nature of God. In his first letter, the Apostle John tells us that "God is love"—and that word for love is agape.

Earthly Love and Eternal Love

All four expressions of love are important. In fact, I'm not sure there would be any continuation of human life on earth without eros, storge, and philea. But understand this: there would be no abundant or eternal life if it were not for God's agape love.

The advent happened because of God's love. Jesus coming to this world was motivated by and a demonstration of agape love. Earthly life depends upon earthly expressions of love; but eternal and heavenly life depends upon a heavenly agape love from God. There is no ultimate or abundant life without an abundant outpouring of God's ultimate love.

Christmas is the entry point of that love coming into this world. It is most clearly seen in and through Jesus—beginning with Christmas and culminating in Good Friday and Easter. As we read:

In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. 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.

Remembering His Love at the Table

With all this in mind, I want us to take time to remember, in a very material and tangible way, God's love—just as Jesus taught His first followers 2,000 years ago when He led them in the Lord's Supper, or communion.

It's been many weeks since we partook together, so this is a great time just before Christmas. I hope you have some bread and juice. If you don't have anything in your home, pick up the elements at the store this week and partake with your family some evening before Christmas. You can even watch the end of this service again on YouTube to lead through communion.

The Fruit of His Love

Before we partake, I want to highlight one more important point about this love God gives us through Jesus Christ. Over the last few weeks we have talked about joy, peace, and hope. These are all the results of God's love given to us in Jesus Christ.

We have sure and steadfast hope because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross when He laid His life down for our sins. Because of His justifying grace, we now have a steadfast hope in Him. We have increasing joy, unto abundance, forever, because "in His presence is fullness of joy, and at His right hand pleasures forevermore." And we have peace, a peace that surpasses understanding, guarding our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. All of these things are connected to love—and as 1 Corinthians 13 says, the greatest of these is love.

Love That Compels Us to Share

The love of Christ—manifested in the incarnation, demonstrated on the cross, given through the resurrection, and shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit—should be the very thing that compels us to share this great love with others. As 2 Corinthians 5:14 tells us, "the love of Christ compels us."

This is the great blessing and opportunity that Christmas affords. To do evangelism, to be an evangelist, is to share the love of God you have freely received and give it to other people. The gift of God's love in Christ is meant to be shared with all people.

Make the most of this opportunity over the next five days leading up to Christmas. What your friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors need more than anything is the joy, hope, and peace that God's love in Christ brings. As we look around our culture, it's clear that people are lacking joy, hope, and peace—and core to all of these is the love of God in Christ Jesus.

When Jesus came 2,000 years ago, that little baby born and laid in a manger came as an expression of God's love, motivated by God's love, to demonstrate God's love—so that you and I could have joy, peace, and hope in Christ. You may not be gathering with family the way you normally would this Christmas; perhaps you're doing a Zoom call. However you're doing Christmas this year, it is still a great opportunity to share the love of God. Since we have it abundantly in Christ, we should share it with others.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I pray that You would be working in my life and in the lives of my brothers and sisters, that You would enable us by Your grace to be bold by Your Holy Spirit to share the good news of Your love that brings joy and peace and hope to all people. Give us boldness to speak up and share this good news, because this is what people want and what they desperately need.

Would You cause Your church to shine brightly like a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden, that we would let our light so shine before men that they would see our good works and glorify You, our Father in heaven. Give my brothers and sisters opportunities over the next few days leading up to Christmas to share the good news of Your grace, love, peace, joy, and hope with their neighbors, coworkers, family members, and friends. Make Your love flow forth from our lives to other people. I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.