We’re here this morning to light the fourth Advent candle…the candle of love.
It seems all cultures, in all places, at all times have tried to define love…there’s poetry written about love…music been sung about love…movies made about love…there’s different ways of talking about and thinking about love.
There are countless attempts in every culture to define love…think about our culture…if you watch…listen…and study what we believe love is you’ll have a slanted interpretation of what love really is.
When studying the Bible, the Apostle Paul makes a point that love is not always what we think it is…our culture operates on a knowledge of what we think love is that is in contrast to God’s love.
God’s love was defined in the person of His Son Jesus…His arrival marked the joyous celebration of a long-held promise…it’s the ‘already but not yet’ part of the fulfillment of God’s love for those who love Him.
When the Old Testament saints waited expectantly for the coming of the Messiah that occurred when God came to earth in the form of a human on that first Christmas day…that is the already part.
The ‘not yet’ part is the time we’re living in now…we stand between the first and second advent…an equally important time when we are waiting expectantly on the second coming of the Lord…that’s the not yet part.
Over the past three weeks we have lit the Advent candles of hope…peace…and joy…but more significantly we have looked at the themes these candles represent not as the world sees hope…peace…and joy…but as part of God’s attributes.
This morning as we light the fourth candle it represents God’s love for humanity …as with the other three advent candle themes, love is easily misunderstood…we often think of love in purely sentimental terms.
Here’s the problem when talking about God’s love…it’s like worldly hope… peace…and joy…that has been blatantly misunderstood by people…because of our culture we have an understanding of hope…peace…and joy as something that is determined by what we do or how we feel.
With respect to ‘hope’ it’s generally thought of as a way of expressing wishful thinking…having a desire for a certain thing to happen but having no control over whether or not it will actually happen.
That’s not Biblical hope…Biblical hope is the confident expectation that something will happen.
With respect to peace…it’s not just the absence of conflict…Biblical peace is taking action to restore a broken situation…God coming to earth in the form of a human was to restore the broken fellowship between Himself and man.
Regarding happiness it tends to be externally based on things that are superficial …whereas Biblical joy is an inner sense of well-being despite the circumstances you’re experiencing.
As with the other three…we also have the misdirected idea about God’s love in two ways:
FIRST…Far too often preachers make God’s love too generous…John addressed this very issue in 1 John when writing to those who were making that mistake… believing “God is love” but not believing what the Bible teaches about the rest of God’s character.
When Christians speak of the love of God, we should not minimize the other characteristics of God…His holiness…mercy…justice and other divine attributes.
The belief that ‘God just loves everybody’ is a deception that is mistakenly believed as Scriptural with no thoughts to the idea that the way to heaven is narrow (Matt. 7:13-14) …so what’s that mean?
God offers salvation to everyone who asks…but it’s on His terms…and is restricted to only those who have a belief in Jesus. (John 14:6; Acts 4:12).
SECOND…there’s a difference between worldly love and Godly love… worldly love is based on feeling…how we feel about someone…Godly love is all about moral character—how we act and treat other human beings.
This is seen in how Jesus treated people…how He responded to people was not a reflection about how He felt about people because:
…even though Jesus loved people He wasn’t always nice to people.
…even though Jesus loved people He pushed people to reconsider what they believed about love (Mark 10:17-27).
…Sometimes He got people to admit their mistakes so they could see how much they needed God (John 4:1-42)
…Sometimes He was rude to people to reveal their hypocrisy (Matt. 13:13-29).
So how does the Bible define love (1 Corinthians 13:4-8):
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.8Love never fails.
Something that is comical about this verse is that people who have never darkened the door of a church for anything other than a wedding or a funeral are familiar with this verse.
Because of its immense popularity this verse is read at weddings without either the preacher or the people getting married obviously realizing that this verse has nothing to do with human love or affection for one another…it is taken out of context.
It has nothing to do with marriage…the idea presented in chapter 13 is a carryover from chapter 12 where Paul is describing the use of spiritual gifts.
He concludes his discussion in chapter 13 by saying without love…referring to Godly love which is how we act and treat others—without that…nothing else matters.
He is describing how useless, even destructive, spiritual gifts are when not applied from the standpoint of love…in fact…Paul goes on to express just how important Godly love is in our everyday Christian walk.
If I have faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing…if I give all my possessions to feed the poor but do not have love, it profits me nothing [1 Cor. 13:2].
So the idea that this verse is somehow related to a romantic setting is misplaced.
Peter…agreeing with Paul….includes a list of qualities that Christians should possess…traits that we should add to our character…that define us as Christians:
5 make every effort to add to your faith goodness…and to goodness, knowledge…6 and to knowledge self-control… and to self-control perseverance…and to perseverance godliness…7 and to godliness mutual affection…and to mutual affection, love. [2 Peter 1:5-7]
In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul lists both the positive and negative characteristics of love:
Negative Characteristics of Love
Love is not jealous (v. 4).
Love does not brag (v. 4).
Love is not arrogant (v. 4).
Love does not act unbecomingly (v. 5).
Love is not provoked (v. 5).
Love does not take into account a wrong suffered (v. 5).
Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness (v. 6).
Positive Characteristics of Love
Love is patient (v. 4).
Love is kind (v. 4).
Love rejoices with the truth (v. 6).
Love bears [covers] all things (v. 7).
Love believes all things (v. 7).
Love hopes all things (v. 9).
Love endures all things (v. 7).
Notice…everything that both Peter and Paul list has nothing to do with feeling… because love isn’t a feeling…it’s an action…it’s revealing the characteristics people need to shed from their lives but at the same time revealing what they may be lacking …what they’re not exhibiting…what needs to be added.
Just looking at that list…wonder how many of those we can identify as being in our lives this morning…either good or bad?
If you have those negative characteristics…get rid of them…if you don’t have the positive characteristics…acquire them…that’s why this verse has very little to do with people getting married.
What is particularly interesting about this verse is it’s not necessarily a description of what God’s love is and is not…it’s more than that.
This whole discourse is focusing on the idea that without Godly love nothing else in your life is relevant…everything in your personal life and in the life of the Church revolves around love…not feeling of love…but in actions…love is about how you behave and treat others.
In Corinthians Paul is addressing the selfish Christians in Corinth…the single greatest problem in the Corinthian church was their lack of Christian love…it was the lack of Christ-like love that was at the center of every one of their problems.
There are those who encourage you to ‘follow you heart’ but the key to finding God is not following your heart…but to follow Him and obey his teachings.
It’s like the people who believe that all you need to know for salvation is to claim John 3:16…everybody…that’s just the start…because love is action…not feelings …therefore Jesus said if you love me keep my commandments…that’s action.
Here’s salvation 101…the difference between those abiding in Christ and those not abiding in Christ is the difference between those who are saved and those who are the unsaved…has nothing to do with how you feel.
For those who have not been born of God…God’s love is illusive because they do not know God, therefore they cannot know the love of God.
Abiding in Christ is not just a superficial acquaintance…it’s the result of the Holy Spirit at work in the life of a Christian…The Holy Spirit provides assurance that the people of God belong to Jesus because love is the primary fruit of the Spirit.
The Bible affirms that God sending Jesus into the world was the act of perfect love (1 John 4:8-12)…then to illustrate the importance of love Jesus reduced the entire Torah down from 613 commands to just two: (Matthew 22:36-40).
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ …And a second is like it ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
Love is the greatest of all the virtues on the Advent wreath and encompasses Jesus’ entire purpose for being on earth (1 Corinthians 13:13).
“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35).