Preparing for Advent - Love
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The Greatest of these ...
The Greatest of these ...
Love is one of the main themes of Advent.
Love is one of the main themes of Advent.
Love comes from God.
Love comes from God.
God Himself is love.
Why did God send us a Savior? It was beacuse of Love! Everything that God does for us drips in LOVE! Jesus is God’s ambassador of that LOVE to us.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
The Greatest of These…
This is love…
This is love…
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
Love is one of the main themes of Advent.
That should be no big surprise since the Bible says that God Himself is love.
Why did God send us a Savior? Love!
John 3:16 – For God so loved the world….
Jesus is God’s expression of love to us! Jesus came as God in the flesh.
The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven.
So, if God is love, (and we know He is) and if Jesus is the exact representation of God to us, then we can safely say that Jesus is love.
This is Jesus…
This is Jesus…
If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever!
If you don’t have Jesus, you can’t really have genuine lasting love. And if you don’t have love, you certainly don’t have Jesus.
Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.
If you don’t have Jesus, you can’t really have genuine lasting love. And if you don’t have love, you certainly don’t have Jesus.
ILL. There is a story about a man named Doug Nichols. He went to India to be a missionary there, but while he was just starting to study the language he became infected with tuberculosis & had to be put in a sanitarium.
It was not a very good place to be. It was not very clean & conditions were difficult because there were so many sick people there. But Doug decided to do the best he could in that situation. So he took a bunch of Christian books & tracts & tried to witness to the other patients in the sanitarium.
But when he tried to pass out tracts, they were rejected. No one wanted them. He tried to hand out books, but no one would take them. He tried to witness, but he was handicapped because of his inability to communicate in their language, & he felt so discouraged.
Here he was. Because of his illness he would be there a long time. But it seemed like the work that he had been sent to do would not be done because no one would listen to him.
Because of his tuberculosis, every night at about 2 o’clock he would wake up with chronic coughing that wouldn’t quit. Then one night when he awoke he noticed across the aisle an old man trying to get out of bed. He said the man would roll himself up into a little ball & teeter back & forth trying to get up the momentum to get up & stand on his feet. But he just couldn’t do it. He was too weak.
Finally, after several attempts the old man laid back & wept. The next morning Doug understood why the man was weeping. He was trying to get up to go to the bathroom & didn’t have enough strength to do that. So his bed was a mess & there was a smell in the air.
The other patients made fun of the old man. The nurses came to clean up his bed & they weren’t kind to him, either. In fact, one of them even slapped him in the face. Doug said that the old man just laid there & cried.
Doug said, "That next night about 2 o’clock I started coughing again. I looked across the way & there was the old man trying to get out of bed once more. I really didn’t want to do it, but somehow I managed to get up & I walked across the aisle & I helped the old man stand up."
But he was too weak to walk, so Doug said, "I took him in my arms & carried him like a baby. He was so light that it wasn’t a difficult task. I took him into the bathroom, which was nothing more than a dirty hole in the floor, & I stood behind him & cradled him in my arms as he took care of himself."
"Then I carried him back to his bed & laid him down. As I turned to leave he reached up & grabbed my face & pulled me close & kissed me on the cheek & said what I think was `Thank you.’"
Doug said, "The next morning there were patients waiting when I awoke & they asked if they could read some of the books & tracts that I had brought. Others had questions about the God I worshiped & His only begotten Son who came into the world to die for their sins."
Doug Nichols says that in the next few weeks he gave out all the literature that he had brought, & many of the doctors & nurses & patients in that sanitarium came to know Jesus Christ as their Lord & Savior, too.
He said, "Now what did I do? I didn’t preach a sermon. I couldn’t even communicate in their language. I didn’t have a great lesson to teach them. I didn’t have wonderful things to offer. All I did was take an old man to the bathroom & anyone can do that."
[Borrowed from Melvin Newland, sermoncentral.com]
-So, if God is love, and if Jesus is the exact representation of God to us, then we can safely say that Jesus is love. Jesus is God. (In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.) As God the Son, He too can be described by the most powerful word in use today – love. So, let me read 1 Corinthians 13 again and wherever we see the word love or charity, let’s put the name of Jesus there. Follow along with me.
This is you…
This is you…
(Put your name in here and see yourself for who you are in Christ! You have been changed by the power of His love!)
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 4 Melissa is patient, Melissa is kind. Melissa does not envy, Melissa does not boast, Melissa is not proud. 5 Melissa is not rude, Melissa is not self-seeking, Melissa is not easily angered, Melissa keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Melissa does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 Melissa always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
-Remember who you are in Christ and what a difference His love has made and can make in your heart! We are able to love because He loved us first!
We love because he first loved us.
Someone has said, "People will not care how much you know, until they know how much you care." “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” All the words and all the good deeds in the world become meaningless without love.
-So we come to the question, “Have you received the kind of love that changes you? Have you received the kind of love that never gives up or runs out? Have you received the love that enables you to love God and others?” Remember, God is love! Jesus is God in the flesh. God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes on Him would not perish, but have eternal life. Have you received God’s greatest expression of love - Jesus?
He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.
That’s why He came! So you could be loved and so you could give love. God gifted you with relationship, giving and receiving love that will last forever! Love is the greatest!
Sing: If that isn’t love