THE GIFT OF LOVE

FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT - THE GIFT OF LOVE

CONNECT I have preached Christmas messages now for 45 years. This year I asked the Lord, “Help me approach this in a fresh way, a way that opens up the wonder of Christmas to those who have heard the story more than I have preached it!

TENSION Maybe Christmas has lost its wonder for you. The stress of the season has caused the meanings of Christmas to dim under the weight of all you feel you must do.

SOLUTION The truth is that the story never gets old. Christmas is a wonder to imagine year after year.  This year our Advent series is called “The Gifts of Christmas”; today is the 4th Sunday, the Love Sunday. We will explore the gift of love and let it fill our hearts again with the blessing of the coming of Jesus.

TEXT Everyone please turn to 1 John 4:10 (NIV) and put a finger or a marker there; I’ll get there is a bit!

INSTRUCTION

Advent means ‘arrival’ or ‘emergence’. Let’s see how the word ’love’ is used in its arrival or emergence in the Old and New Testaments.

One principle of understanding the Bible is called the ’Law of First Mention’. The first time something is mentioned, the way it is used determines the way it will be used in the rest of the Bible.

R.T. Kendall explained that the “law of first mention” is “a time-honored hermeneutical method” stating that “the way a word is first used in the Bible will be the way this word is largely understood thereafter.”

Similarly, popular pastor David Jeremiah stated the following about this principle, “Those who study the Bible in a serious way sometimes refer to the Law of First Mention. It’s not so much a law, really, as a common principle in the Scriptures. If you select an important biblical word—say, worship—you’ll find that its first biblical appearance sets the tone for all the richness of meaning that will emerge. Through the Word we go on to find many new understandings and many variations on the theme, but the first cut is the deepest; the First Mention gives us the essential picture.

In his commentary “The Genesis Record “, Henry Morris stopped just short of claiming that a word’s fundamental meaning is inexorably linked to its first mention. While discussing the Bible’s first use of the word love, found in Genesis 22:2, Morris stated the following, “We have frequently in these pages referred to the “principle of first mention,” pointing out that, when an important word or concept occurs for the first time in the Bible, usually in the Book of Genesis, the context in which it occurs sets the pattern for its primary usage and development all through the rest of Scripture. If this principle really means anything (and, in terms both of the doctrine of verbal inspiration and of numerous clear examples, it assuredly does), then it should certainly apply in a distinctive way to the word “love.”

Let’s see how the word ’love’ is used when it is first mentioned in the Old Testament…

Genesis 22:2 (NKJV) Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love,

Jack Hayford writes… Only son” translates the Hebrew word ’yachid’. Yachid describes Abraham’s unique miracle child, Isaac. Zechariah describes that the Messiah will one day become to Israel’s repentant, weeping citizens: a precious only son.

Zechariah 12:10 (NKJV) And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.

and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

Here the place where God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac is the same place where God sacrificed His own Son: the hills of Moriah in Jerusalem.

Equally noteworthy is that the phrase ‘His only begotten Son’ in John 3:16 in the Hebrew New Testament is: ‘His Son, His Yachid.’

Now let’s see the first mention in the New Testament. Let me talk about the NT timeline before we look at the verse.

The OT is recorded, for the most part, in chronological order. This is not true in the NT. The four gospels all record the life of Jesus but do so in their own unique way. They do not include the same stories and sometimes in different order. Because of this, the events are not in chronological order like the OT. You need what is called a ’Harmony of the Gospels’ that arranges the events of Jesus’ life in chronological order. If you look in a harmony you can determine the first mention of ’love’ in the NT.

John 3:16 (NKJV) For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

INSPIRATION Wow, you can’t escape the parallel. The sacrifice of Isaac is a picture of the sacrifice of Christ. Father Abraham offering up his ’only begotten son’, Isaac, is a picture of Father God offering up His ’only begotten Son’, Jesus.

There are also some important differences. God provided a lamb for Isaac; Jesus is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. To Abraham, God is revealed as ’Jehovah Jireh’, the God who supplies. To the world, God is revealed as the loving Father who has provided again!

I have finally gotten to our text! 1 John 4:10 (NIV) This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

This has always been and forever will be the message of Christmas. Love has come!

APPLICATION What do we learn from the ’law of first mention’ here?

Love is always a demonstration, doing something. It is not simply a feeling or an emotion.

Romans 5:8 (NKJV) But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

1 John 3:18 (NKJV) My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

1. Love is demonstrated by giving.

John 3:16 (NKJV) God so loved the world that He gave…

1 John 4:9 (NKJV) 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.

2. Love is demonstrated by sacrifice.

1 John 4:10 (NIV) This is love: …that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice…

3. Love is demonstrated by obedience.

1 John 2:5 (NKJV) But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.

4. Love is demonstrated by faith.

1 John 4:16 (NLT) We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love…

ACTION STEPS

Four simple questions: Who? What? Where? How?

1.  Who am I giving to?
2.  What am I sacrificing?
3.  Where am I being obedient?
4.  How am I showing faith?

This leaves two more questions: When and Why?