[0:00] Good morning and Merry Christmas. I hope that you all have been enjoying this Advent season.! Considering our Savior's Advent, it's an honor to be filling the pulpit here this morning.
[0:16] ! I got to preach on the Advent theme of love last year. I'm really excited to be at it again. Today, as we consider the love of God in light of Jesus' Advent, we're going to be looking at 1 John 4, 1 John chapter 4.
[0:33] This text is probably the text that most densely uses the words God and love. This chapter uses love or beloved about 27 times.
[0:45] And the text we're going to be looking at, verses 7 through 11, uses love or beloved 13 times and God 9 times. So about 20% of the words here, the actual words in our text, are God or love.
[0:57] John, after all, is the disciple whom Jesus loved. And so it's only fitting he would reiterate his self-given title so many times. So I think this is a good place to observe and to contemplate the love of God.
[1:11] There's a lot to be said on this topic. But from our text this morning, we are going to be considering the contrast between the world's view of love and God's true agape love.
[1:23] And with that, let's read our text. 1 John chapter 4, verses 7 through 11. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God.
[1:38] And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
[1:49] 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.
[2:00] 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. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
[2:14] Let's pray. God, we thank you for your word this morning. We pray by the power of your spirit that you would enlighten us, reveal yourself to us, show us the weight and the glory of your love.
[2:30] And we pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. All right, so for context here, briefly, these verses are in the midst of God giving the audience a test to see if an individual is in Christ or not.
[2:48] And in fact, throughout the whole book, he is contrasting those who are in Christ from the world. In our text, he is doing that in the context of love. What does the believer look like in regard to love?
[3:01] And why is it not so for the world? Verses 7 and 8 come with presumptions that the audience is already aware of. The previous three chapters provide descriptions of who knows God and who is born again in contrast to those who do not truly know God, who have not been born again, and who does not love.
[3:24] So we're going to paint that picture really quickly from the previous chapters. In chapter 2, it says that those who know him keep his commandments. Those who say they know him but don't keep his commandments are liars.
[3:37] Those who confess Jesus is the Christ has the Father also. Those who deny Jesus is the Antichrist. In chapter 3, those who have the love of God are children of God.
[3:49] Those who do not know God are not children. Those who abide in him do not keep on sinning. Those who keep on sinning do not know him.
[4:00] No one born of God makes a practice of sinning. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God. Those who love have passed from death to life.
[4:11] The one that hates his brother is a murderer, and murders do not have eternal life. Those who confess Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. Those who do not are the spirit of the Antichrist.
[4:25] So there's some context for those who know and those who are born again. And the contrast is it's a stark dividing line. And when we come to this text, we're not here to determine how mature a believer is or how sanctified they are.
[4:38] It is to distinguish those who are from those who aren't. And so we come to our text in 1 John 4 where we distinguish those who love and those who don't. And back in chapter 2, John tells us that the world does indeed love, but is not the same kind of love addressed in chapter 4.
[4:58] In chapter 2, it says that if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. There's something different about the world's love and the believer's love.
[5:10] And a common thread throughout Scripture as we notice God's agape love is that it's wildly different than the world's understanding of love. And the premier indicator of this difference is that the world's love is a selfish love.
[5:24] Always looking to satisfy oneself and not to outwardly serve and care for another. And one of the most iconic influences regarding love that we have in our common day is Romeo and Juliet.
[5:40] O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Whether or not Shakespeare was a believer or if his work properly reflects some good gospel themes elsewhere is a discussion for another time.
[5:52] But in Romeo and Juliet, these two young lovers are so emphatically smitten with one another that if they can't have one another, what's the point in life itself?
[6:05] They discovered their love for one another only after one night of meeting each other. And then go on to commit suicide within the span of a week from then. Love at first sight.
[6:17] Is that what true love is? Are we so consumed with something or someone that if we don't have this self-satisfying relationship, we might as well kill ourselves? That's more a crazed idolatry of seeking the pleasures and benefits that someone can offer than it is a self-sacrificial pursuit of serving someone else.
[6:39] They were sacrificing themselves for the benefit of themselves, not each other. They wanted to save themselves from the pain of not having their heart's desire.
[6:51] They didn't even truly know each other yet. Not enough, at least, to consider the weight of marriage. And so, what is the world preaching about love? It's sentimentalism.
[7:01] I'm sure you've heard the statement, live and let love. They say love is love. Whatever you find desirable and infatuated with, that is good and that is love because it pleases you.
[7:15] Love is based off how something makes you feel. If you enjoy it, that's love. If you don't, avoid it. 1 John 2 says this, For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father but is from the world.
[7:34] The world is passing away and also its lusts. Another word for the way the world views love may be lust.
[7:45] They have an ungodly love, a love for the world and self, self-seeking satisfaction. Love and let love. And if someone tries to disrupt relentless lust, they say you're hating people because you aren't letting them express their true selves.
[8:02] That is a contradiction, by the way. The world commands the Christian to stop expressing ourselves because true love allows the expression of oneself.
[8:12] It's a little fallacious. So why don't we get that same offer of love? Sometimes the world, they are not actively hating someone and wishing ill upon another, but they also aren't purely seeking their good.
[8:26] There's a common grace where we may see the world sacrificing themselves for another. I think deep down there's still some sort of selfish motivation. As the text says, all that is in the world is not from the Father.
[8:40] If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. They may be in it for their own glory of their sacrifice. It may be for some future benefit they seek in response from their sacrifice.
[8:51] But I don't believe it can be the same unique agape love that the Bible speaks of later in our text because chapter 4, verse 7 says, Love is from God, not the unregenerate world where Satan and sin abound.
[9:07] So because love emanates from God, God himself has to be the source of love. Verse 8 says it clearly, God is love.
[9:19] God is not just loving, but he indeed is love. And that is not all that he is, but it certainly is not less. That is why those who don't know God also don't love.
[9:31] Any love that we might impart to someone else isn't truly from us, at least not our natural selves. It flows from the Spirit of God at work in us.
[9:42] So God is the fountainhead of true agape love, and his love never ceases. This is not a temporary condition of his character. Instead, it is an incessant condition of who he is.
[9:56] He is not just the light that shines from the sun. He is the sun. He embodies love all the time in every action. And some might say, what about God's justice or his discipline?
[10:12] Are they always loving? If he is sovereign, is it loving that he allows bad things to happen? Yes, to all of it. He disciplines his children to reveal himself to us.
[10:26] Knowing God is the sweetest gift we could ever fathom. It comes with trials, but it draws us deeper into the pleasures of God. Isn't it good that sin hurts and that rest in Christ is sweet?
[10:42] Godly discipline is loving. What about his justice? Psalm 11.5 says, The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.
[10:56] He's a just God. And we don't want an unjust God, do we? Sin is lawlessness. There would only be immediate, unruly disaster without a just God who has revealed his law to his creation.
[11:13] Many people are hypocrites when it comes to condemning God of being just. And by the way, this is another worldly contradiction.
[11:24] We all, at times, advocate for justice. And the world will sometimes condemn God's justice. We all watch the movie of the bad guy, and we can't wait to see justice paid.
[11:38] We watch the court trials of various criminals and eagerly await to hear how bad the sentencing is. We all, at times, even unleash our own wrath against our neighbor when we've been offended.
[11:51] But God sends the rain and sun on both the just and the unjust. While he hates wickedness, he still shows love to all that he has made. The wicked curse God, and yet God is benevolent. He prays for his persecutors.
[12:03] He is patient with them, but will ultimately serve them their due justice. God's love is actually magnified by the reality that he is just. Because we rightly deserve condemnation, and it has to be paid.
[12:18] And Christ paid it on the believer's behalf. Well, what about the bad things that happen in the world? These are a consequence of sin in the world. People are depraved.
[12:32] And we may intend to do things for evil, but God is so loving that he can use even the vilest things the world has to offer for his glory and the good of his people. The ground is cursed and natural disasters happen.
[12:46] And if it feels unfair that God would allow this to happen to us, remember that mankind sent Christ to the tree. Who are we to think that we deserve him to preserve us from any of the bad consequences of sin?
[13:02] And do we praise him by his grace when he does preserve us? So yes, God is love, and that never ceases. Even if we don't fully understand all that he is doing through discipline and serving justice, we're allowing bad things to conspire.
[13:16] God is love. So we've talked a lot about love so far, but what is agape love? In verses 7 through 8, we see who actually has love, where it comes from, but it doesn't quite tell us what love is.
[13:32] The modern world seems to think that love equals lust, so we're not going to find out what agape love is from the world or even ourselves. In order to understand love, we first need to understand more about God himself and the world he has created.
[13:50] As verse 7 says, whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. We need to know God to know love. And this text gives us the implicit details to answer these questions, and it is more explicit the more we read our Bibles.
[14:04] So here are two big distinctives about God's love that we see in our text. Number one, it is both inward and outward. It's both inward and outward.
[14:16] And number two, it is vast beyond measure. So to start, I think there are two main elements of true, godly, agape love.
[14:28] There is the inward and outward reality to it. So first with the inward, we could call it affection or compassion. It's a benevolent sentiment or empathy that God has for people.
[14:43] At the beginning of verse 10 here, we have a definition being posed. In this is love. Well, what is it? Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us.
[14:56] Love's affections are a one-way ticket in heart. You don't have love for someone with anticipation or on the agreement that they will return some benefit to you. It is an inward compassion and affection for another just because.
[15:12] We obviously had nothing to give in return to him if he came to propitiate for our sins. So God has this love harbored inside of himself, not on the basis of what we can do for him.
[15:23] It's because he loves and he himself is love. I'm going to take us through a couple of passages throughout scripture. You can stay in 1 John to kind of capture God embodying this inward compassion.
[15:36] In Matthew 9, 36, when Jesus was going about healing people and proclaiming the gospel, it says, Then what?
[16:01] Then Jesus wept. And so the Jews were saying, See how he loved him. They recognized Jesus' love through his compassion. To God's covenant people in Isaiah 43, God declares, Because you are precious in my eyes, and honor rules in exchange for your life.
[16:20] Psalm 145, The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The Lord is good to all. He is compassion on all that he has made. In Deuteronomy 7, and again in 1 Peter 2, 9, God says that his covenant people are a treasured possession.
[16:37] And then further in Deuteronomy 7, it says, For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession.
[16:47] Out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth, it was not because you were more in number than any other person that the Lord set his love on you and chose you. For you were the fewest of all peoples.
[16:59] But it is because the Lord loves you. Even when being put to death, Jesus prayed for his persecutors that they may be forgiven, for they know not what they do.
[17:12] Psalm 103, As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame. He remembers that we are of dust. And these are just a few places that we see the Lord having the inward sentiment that is benevolent towards someone outward.
[17:31] But it's all throughout Scripture. And then there's this second component. It's this outward manifestation. An outward display of the love inside.
[17:42] Beginning of our text, verse 9, it says, In this, the love of God, the inward love of God, was made manifest outward, was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world.
[17:57] God's love is never passive. It never stands by the wayside. And if we don't necessarily perceive God acting, he is actively withholding an outward sign in love.
[18:09] We are to blame if we read the Bible and fail to see this outward love. For starters, he created mankind. He gives mankind an opportunity to know his majestic glory.
[18:21] And when mankind turned its back on God and everyone was doing only evil continually, God preserved Noah and his family and thereby preserving all of us, everyone beyond Noah's day, that we could have an opportunity to know the majestic glory of God.
[18:35] When the Israelites were enslaved, he miraculously fed them and freed them from bondage in Egypt. And he kept them alive until they reached a land flowing with milk and honey. And then when they got to that land, God offered them rest on all of their borders from their enemies.
[18:50] When David was being hunted down, God preserved his life. God acquired a big fish to bring a reluctant preacher to the Ninevites. And in Jesus' ministry, Christ heals the sick, he raises the dead, he feeds the hungry, he casts out the demons.
[19:06] And in 1 John 4, his love was made manifest by sending his son into the world to be the propitiation for our sins. God shows his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
[19:21] He shows it. God's love is never passive. He does not just say he loves, he shows it. Agape love is always active. So in the world, you may only see one of these two components at work.
[19:33] It could be that inward compassion or it could be an outward action. You can have a warm affection on the inside for someone but not have agape love if it is never actually manifested.
[19:48] Conversely, you can do a lot of things to serve other people and not be in it to sincerely serve those people. In the first case, in the first case, affection without manifestation, you have that person who wants to admire someone and delight themselves in the beauty of another person.
[20:09] You might think they're really talented or beautiful or they just have a way with words that stirs you. You consume all that they are to feed your own interested, fleshly appetite and never actually commit to outwardly serving that person with intentional loving actions.
[20:25] That's a selfish consumption of someone else's character. I might say, I love my co-worker. He's a hard worker, doesn't complain, makes the stress of work less daunting but am I willing to wake up early on a Saturday morning to help him move into his new house?
[20:42] Do I have affection but not manifestation? JR, you're welcome. I work with JR and I just committed to helping him move. In the second case, manifestation without affection might look like legalistic, mechanical box checking.
[21:01] The Boy Scout helps the elderly cross the street to get a badge. You know, give me the checklist of stuff to do so I can just knock it out and show you I love you. Acts of service can be heartless and just simply like systematic out of requirement or obligation, personal gain or even fear.
[21:19] So true love not only serves but it's paired with a true desire to care for the one you are serving, not just to get your brownie points. If the Boy Scout truly had loved that elderly lady, he would have done it without the incentive of personal gain.
[21:36] As 1 Corinthians says, and we even read that this morning, if I give all my possessions, if I do all this stuff, if I give all my possessions to feed the poor and I surrender my body to be burned, if I do all this outward stuff and do not have love, it profits me nothing.
[21:55] So furthermore, manifested agape love also seeks to fill tangible, practical needs someone has. You can turn with me really quickly to 1 John 3.
[22:07] It's just one chapter back. 1 John 3, 16-18. By this we know love that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
[22:22] But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
[22:37] So, love manifested fills real, practical needs. And this brings us to our second distinctive about God's love is that it is vast beyond measure.
[22:50] He doesn't just provide food when we are hungry. He also fills an eternally greater need than that. And what is our greatest need? We need to be reconciled to God.
[23:02] And the barrier here is that in order to be reconciled, we need to have our transgressions pardoned. There needs to be a propitiation for our sins.
[23:13] And that's exact, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. It's a big word. A propitiation is like a sacrificial offering to pardon iniquity, to pardon sin and transgression, to make things right and reconciled.
[23:35] For example, once upon a time in a town named Whoville, there was a Who that committed a serious crime.
[23:47] The Grinch, after recognizing his wrongdoing, wanted to make things right. He wanted to propitiate for his transgressions. There's only one problem. He could only offer what he had stolen.
[23:59] And like the Grinch, we don't have anything that we can offer to God to propitiate for ourselves. And we certainly can't provide the kind of propitiation required that would exonerate us from transgressing the all-powerful creator of the universe.
[24:15] What do we have that he doesn't? How can we, the creature, appease the creator who gave us all things, who has given a gift to God that he might be repaid?
[24:26] He is a holy God, and transgressing him comes with a holy consequence. We did not love God, but he loved us by providing for us this propitiation. He sent his only son to die and suffer the wrath of God so that we might live and be reconciled to him, adopted into his holy family.
[24:47] That gift of grace is profound. So let's consider a little more deeply just how sacrificial that is. A little rule about agape love is that it is magnified by the greatness of the sacrifice in proportion to the obligation to make that sacrifice.
[25:10] It's magnified by the greatness of the sacrifice in proportion to the obligation to make that sacrifice. It would be shallow or less loving to give a cheap, last-minute Amazon delivery as a Christmas gift.
[25:24] For most, that is, it's not much of a sacrifice. In addition, it's easy to give a Christmas gift to a loved one. Even the tax collectors do this. Well, how much more is the love that would give an excellent, practical, needed gift that you had to spend a lot of time and resources and energy on to someone who hated you?
[25:45] You don't do that because you're selfish. You would only do that because you have been shown an immense amount of love and it is that love that abides in you. And God sent his only son to die for you and me when all we brought to him was rebellion.
[26:03] We hated God and we loved ourselves. We were his enemies, yet he sent his son into the world that we might live through him. How great was that sacrifice?
[26:14] It's incomprehensible. When we see children dying at moments in Scripture, how does a parent respond? We've got three examples of this throughout.
[26:28] I'm going to go through in the New Testament. Feel free to say in 1 John. I'll read these. In John 4, 46-49, it says, So he, this is Jesus, came again to Cana in Galilee where he had made the water wine and at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill.
[26:50] When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him. So this official from Capernaum went to Galilee which was somewhere between 12 and like 24 miles.
[27:05] It depends on the geography and where it was all going on. It was a long ways. It was a lot to commit to especially without a car. And so he asked him, the man, the official, asked Jesus to come down and heal his son for he was at the point of death.
[27:21] So he traveled this very long way to ask Jesus for help. And so Jesus said to him, Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe. The official said to him, Sir, come down before my child dies.
[27:36] In Mark 5, we have another. It says, Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly, saying, My little daughter is at the point of death.
[27:51] Come and lay your hands on her so that she might be made well and live. Luke 9, On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him.
[28:05] And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. I beg you.
[28:17] And behold, a spirit seizes him and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth and shatters him and will hardly leave him. And I begged your disciples to cast it out.
[28:29] But they could not. Which one of us wouldn't have that same urgency for our children? I've been in that situation a couple of times.
[28:42] One with my own daughter, Charlotte, who did die. And second with Waylon, a little man running around giving out free high fives nowadays. He had a stroke when he was two weeks old and he nearly died.
[28:57] It is tragic. You would do anything to see your child live the next day. And I want to encourage you guys now as we're together to be particularly considerate of how you might be serving and mourning and praying with the Truets as they're going through this.
[29:17] It's insufferable. And our sympathetic God knows the pain of child loss. Here's the profound reality of God's only begotten son.
[29:29] Being rich in mercy with which he loved us, he willingly sent his only son to suffer and die for a people that did not deserve it.
[29:40] That actually deserved it at least. He knew that, he knew all that was ahead of him. He took it on. He was born into a poor family in a manger, immediately hunted by Herod, living a life of persecution and dying a humiliating death.
[29:59] And more than that, consuming God's spiritual wrath on himself. He must have done that for someone who was really worthy and highly exalted.
[30:12] That's a big sacrifice. No. He did it for people who wished themselves to be God. He is the creator and keeper of all history. He knew your unloveliness, my unloveliness, and he knew the pain of suffering child loss and suffering death itself, but he did it anyways to save you so that you might live through him.
[30:35] And that is the epitome of selfless, compassionate, outward, manifested love that the world could never imagine. Remy and Juliet, they didn't have a tested love for one another because they didn't really truly know each other's shortcomings.
[30:52] God, however, knows every lie, every bout of anger, every discreet sin in your heart, every motive you've had, and yet he loved us and chose to be our propitiation.
[31:04] He didn't have rose-colored glasses. He knows all of you, and yet he paid to have you. And that is how vast beyond measure it is that Christ came to earth as a man, the creator and humility, becoming a creature and becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross, not for his own good, but for others.
[31:26] Sacrificing his son so that we could become sons and daughters. See what kind of love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God, and so we are.
[31:38] Christian, bathe yourselves in this glorious, mysterious truth that Christ saved a sinner like you and like me.
[31:53] He loved and showed his love to a stubborn and rebellious people, and praise God, he did. Rest in Christ's embrace. He loves you.
[32:05] Rejoice in God's manifested love. Non-Christian, repent and believe and receive the free gift of grace in Christ Jesus our Lord.
[32:17] It is the most critical thing you need to be kept from the torments of hell, but also to be fully satisfied in the love of God. This world is passing away along with its lusts.
[32:30] Drugs wear off, money can be lost. You won't always be young and agile and productive. These things will let you down, but Christ is eternal.
[32:41] He is never changing. He is an anchor for the soul. He offers a life of eternal joy. All the blessings of a child, an heir, and none of the punishments of a criminal in God's holy courts.
[32:59] And non-Christian, all of us here were where you are at one time. We were dead in our trespasses, and we were overwhelmed by the love of God. And none of us who know God and have been born of Him would trade that in even if we could.
[33:12] So come. Come and let us adore Him. Our text tells us, and really the rest of 1 John, that this kind of love, this kind of sacrificial agape love, is particularly commanded for those within the body of Christ.
[33:27] And verse 11 reads, Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. In chapter 3, John tells us that we should not be like Cain.
[33:39] He, Cain, in selfish hatred, laid down his brother's life for himself. Conversely, Christ laid down his own life for his brother's.
[33:52] Beloved, let us love one another like Christ. Do you love being a part of Providence Baptist, but you never actually play your part in it?
[34:06] Are you exercising the gifts God has given you to bless the church, or are you keeping them to yourself? Do you appreciate the kind of people that are here, but never put in the spiritual sweat to love and serve these people outwardly?
[34:21] Are you the one on Slack always replying on the prayer channel, but never on the help channel? Maybe it's the opposite. Are you praying regularly for one another?
[34:33] Do you have a compassion for them that you rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep? Do you bear with the weaker brother? Are you patient with them? Christ was with you.
[34:45] Do you give each other the benefit of the doubt? And do you yourself receive admonishment and humility? Do you gather regularly?
[34:57] If you're a member, Hebrews 10 says that we can stir one another up to love by not neglecting to meet together. So do you come? Do you come to take the Lord's Supper and remember with your siblings what Christ has accomplished?
[35:11] Do you gather on the Lord's Day in the mornings to sing to and with one another and then sit underneath the preaching of God's Word together? Do you gather outside of Sundays?
[35:22] Do you lay down your life for these people? Because our God loved us and we have been born of Him then we will do this for the brothers.
[35:36] And hear me, I face these questions too and I myself need to grill in holiness to love you well. And I want to personally tell you all that I so often see this love amidst our body and I'm thankful to God for it.
[35:50] the ways that you have loved me and my family but also the ways you have loved one another. It's very, it stirs me. And I want to encourage you all to press into this love for God's glory for the good of others and more and more until the day draws near.
[36:08] This is the inevitable result of being born of God and personally experiencing His love. My own children have blue eyes and blonde hair because they are my children.
[36:18] They look like me. All the whos in Whoville are the same way. The siblings are nearly identical to each other and their parents they've all got the weird nose and the crazy hair.
[36:33] They're filled with joy and merriment but did you notice which one did not look like them and was affiliated with anger and selfishness who needed a new heart?
[36:43] The test of love will be true for the children of God. We will look like God by our love for one another because love is from God. Indeed God is love.
[36:57] Compassionate and active sacrificial and effective in His outward love. Now love is not to be confined to those within the body of Christ.
[37:09] Remember our text we have not loved God but God loved us. When we were dead in our trespasses outside the family of God He brought us in and adopted us and made us children.
[37:23] Our love also ought to extend to those outside the church in hopes to bring them in as brothers and sisters and perhaps by extending this love their heart may grow three sizes.
[37:37] To summarize those who have been regenerated by the love of God will overflow with the new love that God puts inside them. Those who have not confessed Christ as Lord and have not took hold of the love of God are still in their natural state of loving the things of the world and namely themselves.
[37:59] God's love is unique in its duality of inward and outward compassion. His love is proved, shown, and exemplified by Christ's atoning work for our sins and appeasing a just God so that we might truly live.
[38:18] The record of sin is washed away and the love of God now present all because Christ came to this earth as a baby endured temptation yet without sin he suffered the death that he did not deserve to die and he overcame the grave by the power of the spirit and has secured his children a seat in eternal glory.
[38:42] This is the significance of Christ's love in his first advent. Let's praise him continually until his second. I'm going to close with the reading of this hymn that perhaps we'll sing in a couple days.
[38:59] Oh holy night the stars are brightly shining it is the night of the dear Savior's birth long lay the world in sin and error pining till he appeared and the soul felt its worth a thrill of hope the weary world rejoices for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn fall on your knees oh hear the angel voices oh night divine oh night when Christ was born oh night divine oh night oh night divine led by the light of faith serenely beaming with glowing hearts by his cradle we stand so led by light of a star sweetly gleaming there came the wise men from orient land the king of kings lie thus in a lowly manger in all our trials born to be our friend he knows our need to our weakness he is no stranger behold your king before him lowly bend behold your king before him lowly bend truly he taught us to love one another his law is love and his gospel is peace chains shall he break for the slave is our brother and in his name all oppression shall cease sweet hymns of joy and grateful chorus raise we let all within us praise his holy name christ is the lord oh praise his name forever his power and glory evermore proclaim his power and glory evermore proclaim let's pray as