An Advent of Love

Advent 2022 • Sermon • Submitted a year ago

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I borrowed heavily from Matt Chandler’s sermon, “Advent of Love”, dated 12/12/21

John 3:16-17 “16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Thinking About Nicodemus

Has anyone watched “The Chosen”? I love their portrayal of Nicodemus.

He’s a genuine man with his struggles and questions. There’s a lot we don’t know about him, but there are a few things that we do know

Ruler of the Jews

This is a bit of an understatement

The Romans are in power. The Romans are a nation that worship many gods. They are pantheistic.

And when it comes to most of the nations that they conquered, the same was true. example, the Greeks also had many gods

This was not true for the Jews. The Jews were monotheistic. They only had one God

And this made the Romans a little bit nervous and uncertain about what to do with these strange Jews.

Their thought was, if you are going to worship one god, why not worship the emperor?

Nevertheless, they decided to let the Jews take care of their own religious affairs and worship the way that they wanted to worship

So, for political affairs, they put in place a system of puppet kings like Herod who would bow to Roman authority

But for religious affairs, they created this ruling council called the Sanhedrin

And in order to be on this counsel, you had to be one of the brightest religious scholars in all of Palestine.

In fact, I have heard that a member of the Sanhedrin even had to have entire Torah memorized.

That is, the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

A number of days ago, Heidi went around delivering the goodies that our primary Sunday School kids bought with their money from learning verses.

We are extremely proud of them for the effort that they put in to that.

Do you think that perhaps we should assign the Pentateuch as their next project

But Nicodemus, was a member of the ruling council, extremely learned, an expert in the law

You have questions about that OT law? The sacrifices? Ask Nicodemus. He knows!

Nicodemus was curious and courageous

We know enough on this side of history to know that to be a Jewish religious leader and curious (in a good way) about Jesus, was to break ranks with with status quo

The religious leaders did not like Jesus. They felt threatened by His teaching, by His popularity, everthing about Jesus was threatening to them

And to go and actually engage Him in a conversation and ask Him questions was just not done

And that is why Nicodemus comes to Jesus under the cover of darkness

He is not willing to tow the party line, but he’s not foolish either. He sneaks out under the cover of darkness

And he asks:

Jesus, Rabbi..I’m curious about who you are. Can you explain to me what is going on here? You must be sent from God because of all the signs and wonders that you are doing

And Jesus responds to Him, “Nicodemus, you aren’t seeing things right. You don’t have the right eye sight”.

“Unless you are born again, you will never see the kingdom of God”.

Now, I want us to pay attention to this. Who is Jesus talking to again?

And how is Nicodemus used to living? How is he used to making his way through life?

It’s by doing. It’s by being the most moral, most upright, most law-abiding man that he can possibly be.

And my guess is that he’s doing it all with the best intentions. After all, the Jews were waiting for the coming of the Messiah. God had commanded them to follow the law and love Him and live “moral” lives.

And now Jesus is saying to this expert, this teacher of the law,

“Nicodemus, the Kingdom of God has arrived. And you can’t look at the kingdom of God like that!”

You can’t moralize you way into the Kingdom of God. You can’t “law abide” your way into the Kingdom of God!

What Jesus is doing to Nicodemus, and what He needs to do to us, is to strip us of the belief that we can save ourselves with religious living or moral betterment.

You can’t think, “Man, if I go here, but don’t go there. If I touch that, but don’t touch that. If I live like this, but don’t live like that, then salvation is mine! I’ve attained God’s favor!

And what Jesus is saying to Nicodemus and would say to us is ‘You can’t look at the Kingdom of God like that. You will never see the Kingdom of God like that!”

What is needed, instead, is a new birth

It’s a heart that has been recreated! It’s a new pair of eye glasses.

And this can be so hard for us to get, can’t it?

Especially when we live in a world that is so broken.

We are living in a turbulent time. Political and social unrest. Confusion

The more aware that we are of how broken our world is and how broken we are, the more that we try to fix it by simply working harder!

Could this be what Jesus was addressing in Matt. 24:12 “12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.”

Why will the love of many grow cold as time goes on?

Because lawlessness will increase.

What do we do when lawlessness increases?

Well, one response maybe would be that we try harder to become more law abiding?

The more we see things going to pot around us, the harder we try to live “right”.

Try to attain the moral high ground

and in doing so, our love for the law increases. And our love for Jesus sadly decreases.

Was this the problem of the church at Ephesus in Revelation? They had left their first love.

Maybe they were seeing lawlessness increasing and they were trying harder than ever to be “good”. And their love for Jesus had grown cold.

Folks, I would say that this is happening in spades here in the United States.

In my class at Pathway we have been talking about MTD: Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.

It’s simply this idea that, “yeah, there’s a God up there, but all He really wants from me is to be happy and feel good about myself, so as long as I pray occasionally, go to church every once in a while, treat my neighbor right, don’t have too many bad habits,

Then he can’t help but be pleased with me and let me into heaven.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. It is everywhere and it is infesting our churches.

Do you see the problem? It’s the thinking that I can be responsible for my own salvation. The harder I work, the more I do, the more He will be pleased with me

And when this even starts to creep into our thinking, then watch out. Our love for Him has started to cool off.

And it’s into this way of thinking and acting that Jesus drops this “bombshell” if you will

Let me ask you something

Do you know what makes the Christian relgion (belief system unique)

It’s that at the very apex of our faith, there is a Triune God who is LOVE. Whose very identity is love

Where love defines the way that Triune God exists and works. The three parts of the godhead have infinite love for one another.

The Father loves the Son

the Father loves the Spirit

The Son loves the Father

The Son loves the Spirit

the Spirit loves the Father and the Son

Such immense love that it overflows and out of that love God spoke this world into existence.

And is love continues to flood this world with beauty.

I love Indian food. Do you know why Indian food tastes so good?

Because of God’s love. Couldn’t he have just made food to be “functional” like dog food?

Sure! But because of His love, He made spices for our food that are full of flavor.

God does loving things, yes.

But far more importantly, HE is love! And all the ways in which He acts flow out of His love!

God loved this world so much, that HE gave. We didn’t force Him but He gave

Turn to 1 John 4

1 John 4:7-11 “7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Let’s just pause right there.

As His people, We are to love one another! We know that, right?

Why? Why should we love one another? Because God said so?

No!

We love one another Because Love comes from God. And if we have been born of God, and we say that we know God, then we love like He loves

Do we love because the other person deserves to be loved?

Do we love because others are worthy to be loved?

Absolutely not!

You don’t have to look very far before you find someone that you disagree with, sometimes on some very serious issues.

And we all know people who we struggle to love. I do, anyway

And even worse, there are many days when I don’t feel worthy of love. Because I know me.

I know what I’ve done in the past.

There are those things that I just wish I could take back and do over the right way. Or things that I wish I could just forget altogether.

I’m amazed that my wife loves me because after 21 years of marriage, she knows me pretty well too! She knows the kind of person that I am, and can be at times.

But do you know, that is not why we love. We don’t love because someone deserves to be loved or is worthy in some way to be loved

We love, because God is love. Infinite, never ending, immense Covenant love.

And we have been born of this very same God!

We have received a new birth!

Just like my kids picked up some of my physical characteristics that I picked up from my father

So, we, because we have received a new birth, love the way that our Father loves

This is a characteristic, in fact, the defining, most important characteristic of those who have been born of God.

It’s that we love the way our father loves

For us, who have been born of God, hate is not an option, not even toward our enemies.

We do not have the option of speaking mockingly or derisively toward people of other races or religions or cultures.

Why? Because we have been born of God. And God is love!

John goes on

And listen to this. Even if you have heard this so many times before, hear it with new ears!

How do we know for sure that God loves us?

Because If I’m honest, and you are honest, we have doubted this at times

God, I’m not very lovable. How do I know that you love me?

9 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. 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. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

How was the love of God made manifest?

How IS the love of God obvious and clear to us?

Is it when we feel God’s love? Is that when it is obvious?

Is it when we crank up our worship music a little louder?

Is it when things “just work out” in our day that the love of God is obvious?

No!

Here is the answer, loud and clear

“God sent His Son into the world”

Why?

“So, that we might live”

Not only that, but He did it while we were still enemies of God!

This is what verse 10 says.

we didn’t love God

We hadn’t done anything to earn His affection or favor

In fact, we needed a propitiation.

That word means that God’s wrath toward our sin needed to be appeased.

His righteousness demanded a solution or a verdict for our sin, and Jesus, God’s Son, was that propitiation.

That’s how we know that God loves us.

It’s because He sent His Son into the world in order that we might not suffer condemnation, John 3:17, but that we might live through Him.

This is what we are celebrating in Advent and Christmas.

It is God’s love made obvious and clear to us.

This is what Jesus was trying to communicate to Nicodemus

The message is so simple, yet so profound. God loves us and sent His son so that we might live and not suffer condemnation

And in turn, we love Him.

We don’t try to do more for Him in return.

We simply love Him.

We ask Him to help us grasp more fully the immensity of His love for us

And out of that love, we LIVE for Him.

2 Corinthians 5:14-15 “14 For the love of Christ controls (compels) us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”

But how we so often get it turned around.

But this Advent season I pray that this message will get ahold of our hearts in a new way.

Because folks everywhere need this message. And perhaps religious folks like us need it more than anyone.

God loved you and me, the whole world so much that He gave His son that we might live and not suffer punishment.

An Advent of Love

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