Great job, you guys. Yes. Do anyone else’s cheeks hurt from smiling so much at the cuteness of these children? I was backstage with them before the service, and I asked them the question, what is love, as we're starting the Christmas of love, and one of the boys, he got his thinking face out, and he said, Love, that's a hard question. One of the girls chimed in immediately, love is a feeling that you feel for someone you feel for. That's what she said. I want to talk about what love is, and so I want to invite all of you to open your Bible to 1 John, chapter 4, verses 7 to 12. If you do not have a Bible, in your bulletin, we printed the verses there on a handout so you could read them along with us. 1 John 4:7-12. Please follow along as I read these verses. I want to welcome all of the friends and family members and grandparents who are here. Can we give them a round of applause and welcome them right now? Thank you for joining us with these precious children, but we really want to see what these verses say about love. Love in our world is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Many people will profess their love. But how many people do you know that really put their love into action? How many people do you know that really love all the way to the end? And if you're looking for what love is, 1 John 4:7-12 are the verses that will define it for us. So, out of respect for God's Word, I'm going to ask if we would all stand for the public reading of Scripture, and I would ask you to give this your full and undivided attention as I read 1 John 4:7-12.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 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. 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. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
That's the reading of God's Word. Please go ahead, grab your seat. You can use that handout in your bulletin to take notes if you want. This is the beginning of a three-part series on the “Christmas of Love” as we go through 1 John, chapter 4. And I love reading Johannine literature is what the scholars would call it in the books of the Bible, written by the disciple John. Maybe you know the story of John. He had a brother named James. They were known as the Sons of Thunder. But as he matured, he became known as The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved. And so, he loves to write about love.
If you flip over one page to 1 John 5:13, he tells you why he wrote 1 John, this letter. In fact, in all of his writings, John always has a clear statement that tells you what he was thinking when he wrote it, which I find to be very helpful. And here he says, In 1 John 5:13, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” He wants you to be sure. He wants you to be convinced and persuaded that you really do know God, that you have a relationship with him. And that's what Jesus said. Eternal life is in John 17, verse 3. “This is eternal life that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.” So, what John does is he says, there's light and there's darkness, and if you're in the light, as God is in the light, then you can know you have eternal life. But if you're in the darkness, then you know you don't have eternal life. And so, he begins to use antithesis and says, you're either this or you're that.
Go back to chapter 2, and this is where he uses loving one another, loving your brothers and sisters in Christ. He uses this as an evidence of those who have eternal life, and if you don't love your brothers and sisters in Christ, that should show you don't have eternal life. Here in 1 John 2:7, he says, “Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard.” The old commandment is the word that you have heard; at the same time, it's a new commandment. See, the old commandment, according to Leviticus 19:18, was to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus made it a new commandment because he now gave us an example to “love one another as I have loved you.” And so, he says in verse 9, “Whoever says that he is in the light and hates his brother is still in the darkness.” Do you have hate in your heart for your brother or sister? You're one another in the faith? Well, if you have hate for someone in your heart, well, that shows you that's not in the light with God, that would come from the darkness. So, he says, your evidence of your eternal life is your love for one another. This is how you could know that you have eternal life.
Go over to chapter 3, where he uses the original brothers Cain and Abel, and how Cain murdered his brother. See, that's an example of hatred. And in John's mind, there' are only two options. There's either hate or there's love. There's nothing in between. There's no middle ground. It's not like you kind of just feel ambivalent about somebody. No, you're either loving them or you are not loving them. You're rejecting them. You are hating them. And he makes that clear, and then he says this in verse 16, 1 John 3:16, “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” If anyone has this 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. Hey, this is what love is. Love is Jesus laying down his life. Love is Jesus humbling himself to be born as a baby. Love is Jesus being obedient to the point of death on a cross. And so, you can't just say you love people. Well, what do you do to love them, and if you see one of your brothers and sisters in Christ in need, and you have the means to meet their need, and you don't want to meet their need, how can you say that's God's love when he came to meet our need? So, John has already been building this theme that love for your fellow Christians, that is an evidence that you have eternal life, so that you could know those of you who believe that you could know you have eternal life.
But now, if you go to chapter 4, verse 7, now he dives into this theme to its full extent, and in encouraging us to love one another, he gives us one of the greatest passages on love that you could ever possibly consider. And I don't know what your definition of love would be, but he says, “Here, Beloved, let us love one another.” So, you can see, this is the third time he's brought up this theme, that we should love one another in this short letter. And he says, look at this, “Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is” what everybody? That quote, “God is Love” has to be one of the most used and abused quotes ever from the Bible, because what we do is we have our definition of love, and we think this is what love is, and then we read that definition on to God. What this is saying is that you should get your definition of love from God, and if you really know how to love other people, it's because you're born of God, and you know God. And if you don't know how to love other people, it's because God hasn't taught you, because you don't really know his love, because God is love.
So, the love that we're talking about here is divine. And if you're taking notes, let's get that down for point number one: “Love is divine.” We're talking about something that is not of us. This love is divine. It's not mine. Love doesn't just naturally come from my own heart. I need love that comes from God. Okay? So, we're not talking about our natural love that we have for our family members. For example, I'm sure there are a lot of parents and grandparents here that your heart is full as you look at these precious children, some of them were really going for it here tonight, and really going for it in that production, and your heart just soars because you love your kids. So, what I'm not talking about the natural way that I love people, because I think they also like me. I'm not talking about the natural familial love. We use the word love very easily these days, right? I mean, we've all heard the kid on the playground that after you said, I love this, they said, well, if you love it, why don't you marry it, right? I mean the idea of like, you're just using love in a casual sense, and they're taking it all the way to the lifelong commitment, right? So, the word love, it's all around us, but who is really having a clear idea of what it actually means? In fact, who's even willing to say that we can't know what love is in and of ourselves. God is love. And if we're going to learn how to love other people, we're going to have to be born of God. We're going to have to know God. We're going to have to learn it from him. He's going to have to teach us, because I don't just have love for myself.
Now, the idea that God is love, there's a lot we could say about that. In fact, if we're going to get to that again, if you go down to verse 16, it says, “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love.” So, if you come back to this church again next Saturday night, we'll do a whole sermon on who God is and how God is love, and how we can come to know God's love and to believe God's love. We have some people at our church, they have a hard time believing God really loves them. We're going to try to solve that once and for all next week. But here in these two verses, 1, John, 4:7-8, we want to see that we don't naturally have love, that love is of God. Love is divine in its origin, okay? And so, if we say God is love, like this is how cheaply this gets brought down. Like God is love, I love In-N-Out Burger, therefore, like God is In-N-Out Burger, that's kind of the logic of the of the world these days. This is what I think love is. So now I'm going to read what I think love is on to God, if that's how you've learned love. 1 John 4:7-8 is saying, Do you even know what love is? Because you don't figure out love. God is love, and then he reveals it to you. So, we have to make sure we're learning this the right way. Whatever I thought was love just naturally growing up. Well, that might be a natural human love, but it's not this divine love. In fact, God defines this love that John is writing about. And so, there's only one source; this kind of love is very exclusive. There's only one place that you can really learn how to love your brothers and sisters, and it's from your Father in heaven, who is love. And so, you have to get it from him. That's what he's saying here. I mean, he's saying, look at how clear he is. He says it both ways, a positive way and a negative way. In verse 7, he says, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”
Now if you don't love, it's because you don't know God. And see, this is a big contradiction, a big hypocrisy, among many people who say, Oh, I'm a Christian. I believe in God, I believe the Bible. Well, they say that they do that, but then they don't really know how to love other people. And it's saying here those who really know God, he gives you a love that you then pass on. He teaches you a love that you put into practice. You have to get it from him. Now look at verses 9 and 10. Now it's going to give us a definition. Okay, we see that it's divine in origin. But look at the definition, “in this the love of God was made manifest among us.” So, let's start now nailing down what is the love of God. Well, here's how it was made manifest. It was shown. It was made known to us that God sent his only Son into the world, and this seems really like a big deal, that he sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. Sounds like we need his Son to have life. In fact, here's the title of our sermon tonight: “This is love.” Verse 10, let me give you a definition. This is love, not that we've loved God, it didn't start with our heart, no, but that he loved us. This is love. God loved us how he sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Okay?
So, point number two, if you want to take notes, let's get it down like this: “Love is defined by God sending Jesus.” Love is defined by God sending Jesus. And I don't know if you just want to have a wrapping paper Christmas where you go through the motions. It is officially twelve days to Christmas from today, if that's a news flash for you, okay, this is the 12th day of Christmas, okay? And true love is that God sent Jesus for you, that's what Christmas is if you really want to open it up and think about it. Christmas is the gift of love that the Father sent his Son. Do you see how that's different than our natural love? Because as a father, I love my son. I love my son so much. I was very thankful when God blessed me with another son, and in fact, God blessed me with a daughter as well. And all of my kids, they've been through this kids choir, and they're older than the kids choir and now. And so, I love my kids. See, this is the different kind of love than the natural love that I have as a dad for my kids. This is the kind of love where a father would send his Son. Who does that? What kind of love is that that a father sends his son? Some of you know this about me. I had like, an emotional breakdown when I sent my son to college. Right? It was, like a year and a half ago, I woke up that day and I was like, I'm barely going to keep it together today, right? Does anybody know what I'm talking about? When you sent your kid out? It's like, we've been going eighteen years for this. This is the climax, a tear-filled goodbye. There are some memories that I have with my son, my first born child. There was one day I can remember him in his little jammies in his little bed, and I came into his room and he had some kind of infection, and half of his face was just swelling up. And I remember seeing my son like that, hey, daddy, he says. And I had to, like, go out of the room and hide my tears from my son, find my wife like, what happened to our kids face? One of the things I hear from a lot of parents is they would rather go through pain than watch their kids go through pain. And I'm like, man, oh no. I remember another time when we moved to Huntington Beach, and my son was playing Little League, playing baseball here, and he was on the team, and they were hitting pop flies to the outfield, and one of the coaches accidentally, instead of hitting it to the kid who was waiting for the pop fly, he hit it into the line of kids who were just standing around for their turn. And he started shouting, look out. And my son looks up, and the baseball smacks him right in the mouth. And I get this like, oh no, something happened. And I race home, and I run in, and I see my son, and his face is just swollen and contorted. And I remember, like, wow, I've never seen anything like that. See, this is a different kind of love, where a father would send his son into harm's way. Send His Son into humility. I mean, he was born on a mission to die, and the father so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. I've known that line for my entire life. It's never meant as much as it has the last year and a half because it feels natural to love my son. It feels natural to want him to be safe. It feels natural to want him to be with me and to talk to him and to see how he's doing. It does not feel natural to send him away, and that's what God did for us. He sent His Son.
And then, there's a very specific reason that is given here, why God sent his Son. Maybe you might think, Well, that's nice. I get the idea of a father who has one and only son, and he sends that son away. That sounds like our sacrifice. Okay, I get the idea that that's real love. But do you see how much you needed him to send Jesus? It's not just a nice thought. No, look what it says in verse 9, at the end of it, it says, “so that we might live through him.” That's the positive way to say it. And then in verse 10, he says that, no, it's not about our love for God. It's that God loved us, and he sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. So, we need to add something to point number two, because we need to say that love is defined by God sending Jesus for our sins. There is, if you study it, and if you read the verses about it, there is a specific purpose for which God sends his Son. And the message is not just that God loves you. It has a wonderful plan for your life. The message is not just that Jesus was born to save us. The message includes the reason that Jesus came to save us is that we have sinned, we have fallen short of God's glory. We have missed the mark. God set a standard of his righteousness, and we have not lived up to God's standard. And so, a lot of people, they say, why can't you just talk about the love of God? Why do you preach about sin? Because of the best passages in the Bible on the love of God, they always talk about sin. Sin is the reason God sent his one and only Son. Sin is, see, it's not just that he loved people who were kind of good people. It's not just that he loved people because he knew they would be the Christian kind of person. No, “This is what love is that while we were still sinners, Christ came to die for us.” That's Romans, chapter 5, verse 8, which is another one of the great verses in the Bible, one of the great passages that you could go to to study the love of God. And what does it get? Very specific to say that God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners. He's not sending his Son because he thinks we're kind of earning it. He's not sending his Son because he thinks we're good people. He's not sending his Son because we already like him. He's sending his Son because we desperately needed to, because we're hopeless and lost. Without Jesus coming to save us, we're in the dark. We're blind. That's why He sent him, because we have sin.
See, God's not loving people who are liking him already. He's loving people who are against him, people who are in open rebellion, people who have taken the gift of life and are thinking they can live it however they want, and God, even when people are treating him like that and denying his glory, God says, no, I'm going to send my Son to seek and save the lost, the perishing, the sinners. So, this word here in verse 10, where it says “the propitiation.” That might not be a normal vocabulary word that we use these days, but this is really important for us to understand what it means in 1 John 4:10 where Jesus is the propitiation for your sins. The Bible is claiming that God is saying that we have all sinned before him. He's perfect in holiness on his throne in heaven; we are fallen here on Earth. We have fallen short of his glory. And so, good news of great joy is, here comes Jesus to be the propitiation.
Now, we need to know what that means. Go back to 1 John, chapter 2, verse 2, because he already used this word earlier in the letter. And John, he's giving you here in the early part of John, two sides, there's the light, and God is in the light. God is love and God is light. Those are two things John teaches us. And then there's darkness. And what John says is, many people will claim to be in the light, but the practice of their life is actually in the darkness. And so, John says, if they claim to be in the light but they walk in darkness, then that claim is a lie, because they do not practice the truth. And so, what John encourages everybody to do is don't fake it. Don't try to put on a show. Don't try to act on the outside like everything's fine. No, if you confess your sins, if you're honest about what's going on in your life, if you agree with God that you have sinned, then he is faithful and just to forgive you of your sins, and he will cleanse you from all of your unrighteousness. So don't act like you don't have sin, admit it, agree with God, confess it, then you can be forgiven for it. And so, then he says in 1 John, chapter 2, verse 1, “My little children, I'm writing these things to you.” See, this is what I love about John. He tells us why he's doing what he's doing. “I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate.” We have a defender with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for who, everybody? The whole world.
He is the way that your sin can have propitiation. So, here's God, here's you, and if you sin, well, that could be scary to think. Well, I'm a sinner in the hands of an angry God at my sin. But no, I don't have to be afraid in this case, because Jesus Christ, the righteous, is advocating for me. He's standing in my defense. Why? Because Jesus is the propitiation. So, these are the only two verses where this exact word for propitiation is used in the entire Scripture, and to really understand what it means, this idea of a propitiation, you have to go all the way back to Leviticus, chapter 16. So, I want to encourage everybody. I don't know when the last time you darkened the door of Leviticus, but if you could turn to Leviticus chapter 16 with me, there's a reason we have chapters about sacrifices and priests in the book of Leviticus and all of that groundwork. There are chapters about bringing a lamb or a goat and putting your hand on the lamb or goat and you kill the animal, and it's like that animal is dying as a sacrifice because of your sin. And then the priest takes the blood of the animal, and he takes it to the altar so that that animal is a sacrifice, so that you can be cleansed and forgiven for your sin. But see, there's something bigger than that that Leviticus is building up to. Maybe you've heard of Yom Kippur. Okay, so that idea of Kippur is the idea of the propitiation, the atonement. And you can look at the atonement from two different perspectives. One is you can look at the sacrifice, and then the other is you can look at the mercy seat, or the place where the sacrifice is put. And so, on this Day of Atonement, this one day of the year that Israel celebrated, it was their holiday. It was their holy day. And this was a big deal because the high priest was going to get in all of his linen attire. He was going to wash himself. He was going to make sure he was clean. He was going to wear exactly what he was told. And then the high priest on this day, the day of atonement, he was going to go into the tabernacle, this tent where God dwelt with his people, and he wasn't just going to go into the holy part of the tabernacle. No, he was going to go behind the veil into the Holy of Holies. Only one man did it, the high priest, and he only did it on one day of the year. And the reason was that there needed to be a propitiation for the sins of the people of Israel. And so, before he would go in there, there would be two goats. One goat would be the goat that would be killed on behalf of the sins of the people and the blood of that goat he would take into the Holy of Holies. The other goat would be the… Have you ever heard this phrase before? The scapegoat. And that goat would be set free to run wild in the wilderness, which would give the impression that their sins had been confessed, had been owned up to, had been acknowledged before God. And then, as the goat took off running, it's like your sins are now removed from you. And so, the high priest, man, if you ever read Leviticus 16, in fact, let's read it right now. It says in verse one, “Yahweh, the Lord, spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron.” So, if you don't know about Nadab and Abihu, they offered strange fire. They were like, hey, let's do some hey. We’ve got some idea for some incense. Let's offer some incense before the Lord and fire consumed them, and they died.
So, there were like careful instructions of how you dare approach a holy God. And so, if you read through this chapter, you'll see the word “atonement,” and you'll see the words “mercy seat,” and those are the two sides of propitiation. There has to be a sacrifice, and then there's a place where you put the sacrifice. And so, when that moment comes, and he has to do a lot of sacrifices to make sure that he's clean and his house is clean, and that everything's clean there in the tabernacle. So, there's like sacrifices building up to this big moment where he goes into the Holy of Holies, and it says that he has to light incense as he goes in there, so that there would be a cloud of smoke, because if he just walked right in there, he would die. So, there is a way that you're supposed to light the incense when you go in there, and then you take the blood of this goat, and you put it on the mercy seat. And so, here's the animal that was sacrificed. And here's the place that represents the very presence, the holiness of God. The mercy seat, if you know, is the top of the Ark of the Covenant with the cherubim there on either side. And so, the mercy seat is representing God on his throne in heaven and all of his splendor. And so, here's the blood of the sacrifice, and here's the mercy seat. And then he comes out, and everybody's relieved to see him coming out of the Holy of Holies. And he comes out, and he puts his hand on the other goat, the goat that's still alive. Jump down to verse 30 of Leviticus 16, and it summarizes all those instructions that I summarized for you there. But now we're getting to the end. And it says, “For on this day, shall atonement,” and this idea of atonement is where this idea of propitiation comes from. On this day, it says, “shall atonement be made for you,” and here's what we're offering to cleanse you. “You shall be clean before the Lord from all your sins.” What an amazing offer here that the reason we're doing all of this is so that you could be clean from what? All your sins. Right?
And so, earlier, there was the moment where he put his hand on the goat and he confessed the sins of the people. That's what he had done just a few verses before that. You can go back in verse 21 and you can see it here, “Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel and all their transgressions, all their sins. He shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness, and the goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness,” and as the goat takes off running in the wilderness and maybe never to be heard or seen again, that's the idea that your sin has been removed from you. But notice, there's this very important thing of acknowledgment, of confession, where he puts his hand on the goat and he confesses that these are the sins. These are the things we've done wrong. These are the ways we have fallen short. See, that's what I like to call the real Christmas list. The real Christmas list is not a list of things that you need, want or desire. The real Christmas list is the reason that Jesus came, the reason that God sent him. It's your sins. Have you ever made a Christmas list of your sins? Have you ever confessed and agreed, God, I have sinned against you. Here are the ways I've fallen short. Here are the ways I've mistreated these other people, the way I haven't loved other people. Here's the evil things that I know I harbor in my heart that I do or say or think about God. I want to confess these things to you. I want to ask that you would forgive me.
So, when it says that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins. Now, when we think of 1 John 2:2, where it's like, hey, if you do sin, Jesus the righteous, he's standing there. He's standing there as your advocate. And what is Jesus? Jesus is both the priest and he's both the sacrifice, right? He's the one now that offered his blood when he died on the cross, he offered his body. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Like all of this Day of Atonement is a picture of what Jesus is going to do when he dies on the cross. And so, Jesus, now he’s the propitiation. He's there in the holy presence of God, and he can say, by his blood, he's paid for all of your sin. The key is you have to confess that you have that sin. That's how you really see how God loved you, that he sent Jesus to pay for that. Have you ever really talked to someone who's in debt. Being in debt is one of the biggest burdens I see people carrying in this life. I mean, if you know somebody who's in debt, sometimes you'll see a smile on their face, sometimes you'll see them having a good time, but then just give it time, and this burden will just creep over them like a dark shadow. And when they are by themselves, when they are alone, they know they have this sense of impending doom that the bill collectors are going to be calling. They're going to lose their car. I talked to somebody who was in debt recently. I've talked to a few people who were in debt, and if you could offer them just a little bit of help, if you could offer them relief, I was able to say to one man recently, hey, you know what? We have the money right now to pay for your debt. Immediately, this man, he opened up like the floodgates started pouring out of his eyes. You could see his countenance be lifted up. You could see his posture become more like lifted up to the heavens, you could literally see like a burden being removed from this man. That's what a lot of people are doing with sin. They're trying to have a good time, but they're carrying around a heavy burden. And they know there's impending doom. They know there's going to be a collection, they know there's going to be an accounting, and they're trying to just put it off to the future, hoping that the bill collection will never come. No, the only people that ever get help with debt are the people who admit it to other people, and the only people who ever get help with their sin are the people who admit it before God. God sent his one and only Son to pay for the debt of your sin. And if you and your pride want to act like you don't have sin, then how will you really know the love of God? But if you will humble yourself and admit your sin to God, he's offering forgiveness. He's offering to remove it from you like the scapegoat. He's offering his own Son, Jesus, as the sacrifice, the propitiation, for your sin.
This is what God is doing at Christmas. He's putting an offer that is too good to refuse on the table. He's completely taking the initiative and giving you this offer. You don't deserve this offer. You haven't earned this offer. This isn't a year-end bonus. This is God saying, let me tell you how I am. Let me show you who I am. Let me give you my Son. Let my Son lay down his life, and let me give you an offer where he will pay for all of your sin, and I will give you complete forgiveness. I will wash your sin away. I will cleanse you completely. It will be as if you had not sinned.
Now go with me to Isaiah, chapter 1, where God says that very clearly. I want everybody to hear from God himself. Here in Isaiah, chapter 1, verse 18. I would love for everybody to write this verse down, because this is the proposal that God is making, and only God can offer this kind of a deal. It says, here in Isaiah, chapter 1, verse 18, I love how God talks to us. Here he says, “Come now.” He wants your attention and he wants it now, “Come now, says the Lord, let us reason together.” Okay, hey, I want to think this through with you. Here's God saying to you, hey, can we sit down? Can we get at the table, and can we think about this together? Can we think this through together? Come now, let us reason together, says Yahweh, says the Lord, here is what I am willing to propose to you, “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” What a beautiful picture for us in the wintertime. Not that we know anything about it here where we live, but scarlet to snow. How about this way to say it, though your sins are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. So, this isn't like God's going to clean you up a little bit. This isn't like God's going to give you a little bit of bleach to kind of get the stain out a little bit. No, snow and wool are naturally white. This is like God's going to wash you so that you have a new nature. God's going to wash you so that you have a new heart. God, he's going to take you from being dead in sin, and he is going to make you alive through the great love with which he loved us. God wants to make you new. Why? Why is God offering this? These people are complete religious hypocrites. They sing songs. They don't even mean it. They offer sacrifices. They're just going through the motions. They celebrate the Holy Days, but there's nothing holy about their celebration. Why in the world would God go to a bunch of hypocritical people and say to them, I'd like to offer you a deal, my son, my one and only Son, pays for all of your sin with his blood, and you get his righteousness for free. Why would God do that? Because that's who God is. God is love. That's who he is. He wants to offer you a deal that is too good to refuse, and yet so many people refuse this deal right here. So many people are carrying that stain around. They're carrying that crimson stain around, and God is offering them you could be white as snow, and they are so proud that they won't admit to God their sin. They won't confess their sin to God.
I want to ask you, do you understand what love is? Because love is God sending his one and only Son for your sin. That's the definition of love. And the only way to know what love really is to agree with that Christmas story, to agree I am a sinner who needs a savior. Can I get an amen from anybody on that? I needed Jesus to come. This isn't like, oh, it's just my favorite time of the year. This isn't even like, oh, Jesus is the reason for the season. No, Jesus is the reason that I have any hope at all. Jesus is the reason I can actually live a life where I don't believe there's impending doom coming upon me. I am so glad that God taught me that I should be afraid of judgment for my sin, and I'm so glad that he then showed me his grace that Jesus already paid for my sin on the cross. In fact, go back to 1 John 4, because you'll see that's where we're going in this passage, that's what we're going to get to on Christmas Eve. The real issue is, what's going to happen when you stand before God in judgment and either you're going to pay for your sin or Jesus already did pay for your sin. And it says here in 1 John, chapter 4, this is what we're going to talk about on Christmas Eve, 1 John 4:17, “By this is love perfected with us.” This is love made complete, love brought to its fullness with us “so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us.”
See, when you understand that you're a sinner and that you deserve judgment before a holy God, and then you see God's love coming through, and it becomes very clear. There's Jesus being sent. There's the Son of God putting on flesh. There's what we call the incarnation. There's God becoming a man and look at him there, as the baby laid in the manger, the feeding trough for the animals. Look at the absolute humility of Jesus to become one of us, the eternal Son of God that created all things now becomes one of his creation, and he lives among us, but he doesn't quite live the same way as us. He goes through all the same things that we go through, yet he goes through them, and he obeys all of God's commands. He perfectly fulfills the law. He establishes a track record of righteousness. And then what does he do with his perfect, righteous life? He offers it as a sacrifice in your place to be the propitiation for your sins. And once you really know what Jesus did for you, once you confess and you admit your sin and you experience the cleansing the whitest snow, forgiveness of Jesus. Now, when the idea of seeing God comes, now, when the idea of standing before Jesus comes, now you don't need to be afraid, because you know love. You know what Jesus did, and his perfect love casts out your fear of judgment. So that's where we're going in this passage. But we have to start with the agreeing with the definition of verses 9 and 10. You cannot really live the way God intended for us to live. You cannot really know your sins are forgiven, that there's been an atoning sacrifice, that the blood has been brought to the holy place. You cannot know that unless you believe that God sent his one and only Son, Jesus, for your sins. That's what love is. That's the definition.
But then there's a response. Look at verse 11 of 1 John 4. So now it gets back to what he originally started with, beloved. If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. So, let's get back to what John's really trying to say. John's trying to say to you, this is how you can know. We have many people in this room here tonight. If I asked you, do you believe in Jesus, you would say, yes, I believe that the Christmas story is true. I believe that Jesus is God who put on flesh, that he died on the cross for our sins and he rose on the third day. Yes, I believe it. But let me ask you this, do you know that you have eternal life? Because that's why he wrote this. And it seems like the evidence that he hits the hardest and the most is you can really know that you know God's love when you give that love to other people. So, he just took us into the fact that love is divine, and he just defined for us what love is, God sending his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. But now he's getting back to his original thought, which is, and do you love your other brothers and sisters before your Father in heaven? Do you love the family of God? Now, it's good to love all people. It's good to love all mankind. And the offer of God's love Jesus is the propitiation, not only for our sins, but also for the whole world. So, the offer of love is available to all, but specifically John's intent is, can you love other Christians? That's how you can really know that you believe it. It's not just that you've heard the story, and you agree that it's true. No, you really know that you know what God's love is when you can love other people. Now let me just say that is very rare to find that many people would say they love other Christians. But do you realize over eleven years, how many people have left this one little church because somebody else sinned against them? Do you realize how many people there are at this church that regularly will complain about how other people treat them, because they have this thought that, hey, they're at church, so they're supposed to be perfect people. Well, if you've been at church your whole life, you know that's not how this church thing works, right? No, actually, how it works is, church is where the hypocrites hang out. The hypocrites, they don't hang out in the world, because then it would just be clear they're not about it at all. No, the hypocrites come to church. That's what they do. And the people who mean well, but aren't really sincere, they come to church. And even the people who are Christians, sometimes they don't do the right thing. So yeah, there's sin at church. And so, when there's sin at church, are you bouncing to the next church as if that church is going to not have sin? Or can you love somebody even if they sin against you? In fact, let me ask you a personal question. How far are you willing to go for somebody who sins against you? Would you give them $100 if they needed it? Would you walk with them an extra mile if they needed it? Would you give them your shirt if they asked for it, or your coat if they were cold? Would you give them food if they were hungry? Would you give them something to drink if they were thirsty? Hey, let me ask you this. If somebody sinned against you, would you give them your one and only son? Because that's what love is. And I don't see a lot of that at church. I hear a lot of people say, I'm so glad God did that for me, and then I hear a lot of people act like and why isn't everybody else doing that for me, too?
Well, you don't know you're a Christian because you receive God's love. You know you're a Christian because you give God's love. That's what it is. You should love one another. How? The same way that he loved you, he didn't wait for you to get your act together before he sent his Son. He took the initiative. He, in fact, not only started it, he went all the way, he finished it. And so that's what it's saying here. Look at these verses, beloved. If God so loved us, what is the way that God loved us? Okay? While we were still sinners, he sent his Son Jesus to die for us. Okay? So, if God loved us like that, then we also ought to love one another. In fact, look at this. This is so powerful. Verse 12, “No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is matured in us.” His love is brought to the full in us. His love reaches the end. It is made complete in us when we love one another. Do you want to really celebrate Christmas? Celebrating Christmas is not just about you appreciating God's love for you. A genuine Christian celebration of Christmas will include you passing God's love on to other people, maybe even people who sinned against you, maybe even people who are hard to get along with, people like you how you were before God loved you. Now this is so powerful, because when it says no one has ever seen God, that's the same thing John wrote in John 1:18 where it was like no one has seen God except Jesus came and Jesus, he's the Word of God. He is the exact radiance of God's image. He came and he showed us who God is. Well, this now John's bringing out that phrase again, no one has seen God, but in this time, instead of saying that Jesus shows us who God is. He says, “If we love one another, we can see. People will see in us who God is.” What an amazing statement for John to make that people can't see God, because God is Spirit, and those who worship him, they worship him in spirit and in truth. And so, people can't see God, but if they see us love one another, then they will know. Look at what it says that “God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” The way that people are going to see God's love in Jesus this Christmas is when the people who profess that they know about that love actually put it into practice with one another.
So, I’ve got a question for you, my brother or sister, we come from the same Father's love. We have the same propitiation for our sins, if we're really going to celebrate Christmas as a church together in Huntington Beach in 2025 let me ask you a question. You’ve got 12 days to figure it out. How are you going to love somebody in a way that is worthy of God this Christmas? See, I grew up in the United States of America, and Christmas was a toy grab. You know what I'm saying? Did anybody else have generous grandparents growing up in the good old US of A? Any other awesome grandparents out there? I was somehow blessed by God's good Providence with two awesome sets of grandparents. I had not one, but two nice Christmases to go to. I remember the Fisher Price McDonald's. Am I speaking to anybody right now? I remember the LEGO pirate ship when that thing came out, man, that was peak living. You know what I mean? And I grew up so blessed, so had more than I needed as a kid, so many good memories that my family gave me. But then as I have kids, as they're growing up in my house, I'm like, is this really what we should be doing for Christmas is just all sitting around opening up gifts? Is this really the expression? And so, we started doing this, something at my with my family, we started doing this a few years ago, where we don't just stay home and open gifts on Christmas. We go to places like not stores. I mean, the only stores that are open on Christmas, you got to wonder, what's going on a little bit, right? You know, Jack in the Box, Del Taco. You know what I'm talking about? Like, no, we go to people's houses who don't expect us to show up. And we sing songs and we read scripture, and we think, who's had a hard year in 2025 and how can I give them something that would matter to them, who almost died this year, and I want to go tell them I'm glad you're here, who did die this year, and I want to go tell their loved ones that they're still loved. I don't just want to receive love. That's not what love is. I want to send. I want to sacrifice. I want to look at somebody, and it doesn't matter what they did to me. I want to treat them the way that God has treated me.
And could you do something like that for Christmas this year? If we could just love one another, people would be so blown away, and they would know that God is here among us. That's how they would see him if they really saw his people loving one another. Go to John 13. Let's remember what Jesus said on the night before he laid down his life for us. And John, remember, John is leaning up against Jesus at the Last Supper, right? And John, he introduces the Last Supper in chapter 13, verse 1, John writes this now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. See, I think a lot of people will say they love other people. And I think a lot of people even do some things to love other people, put some action into it. But who loves people to the end? I found that to be very rare. And John wants you to know that Jesus loved his people, and he loved them to the bloody end. And then he recounts all that Jesus taught as John was leaning up against him on the last night of his life, before he was that sacrifice, because before he was that lamb whose blood was shed on the cross, before the Father saw his Son Jesus beaten up bloodied, they pounded that crown of thorns into his head. What was it like for the father to see his son like that before that happened? Here's what Jesus said in John 13:34-35, “A new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” That “just as” phrase, wow. Jesus laid down his life.
See if you're just loving somebody, and it feels like a natural thing, well, I love them because they love me. That's not how Jesus loved you. There's got to be a sending of humility. There's got to be a sacrifice of great cost. That's how Jesus loved us. He laid it down for us. So, he says, “just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another by this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.
Let's get that down for number three: “Love is demonstrated by his disciples.” Love is demonstrated by his disciples. This is how people are going to know who the real deal followers of Jesus are, how people will see the true believers. In fact, they won't even think that they're impressed with you. In fact, they won't even get caught up with your love. What they will actually see is God's love in you. They won't see God, but they will see him when we love one another if we love one another. See, I've grown up at a lot of Bible churches in my life. A lot of people who are like we preach the truth and they got good doctrine, and they're very proud of all that they know about God. But let me ask you, how much do you really know God, if you can't love your brother or sister? How much do you really know God? If you're going to say God is love, he sent his one and only Son to be the propitiation for my sins. If you know all that, but you can't pass it on to other people, see then, John's asking the question, do you really know God? Then, because those who know God, those who really have that eternal life where they have a relationship with him, you will see it in the way that they love other Christians, and Jesus says that everybody out there who's watching, they will know we are his disciples by the way we love one another.
So, I want everybody to think about what is love. And maybe there are some visitors here among us. Maybe there are some who you come here regularly, but you haven't really made your Christmas list. You haven't really confessed all of your sins and seen that Jesus, he paid for all those sins. That's why God sent him. That's why he died on the cross. He wants to remove the debt of your sin. Have you confessed your sins to God? We're going to give you a chance right now here to pray to God. And Ryan's going to come, he's going to sing a song, this song that Ryan is about to sing, he wrote for you here tonight. This is the first time we've ever done this song. And so, you could pray to God right now, and you could know that God put a deal on the table. Come now. Let us reason together, says the Lord, I see your sins are red like crimson. I see the scarlet. I will wash you as white as snow. If you've never responded to God's love for you, you need to confess your sins. And there will be a white tent out there in the courtyard. If you want to talk to someone about how to confess your sins, how to find that forgiveness in Jesus, there will be people out there ready to talk to you. I'll be here up front. I would love to talk to you, but I also want to talk to my brothers and sisters here at Compass HB, the family that God is adopting together here. What can you do this Christmas in the next 12 days, to love one another? How can you take all that God has done for you, and how can you pass it on to your brothers and sisters in Christ? Maybe even the brother or sister that sinned against you, maybe even the brother or sister, where it's feeling tense, or it's not going as well, or we're not as close as we used to be. How could you initiate love towards them, just like God sent his Son to be the propitiation for your sin? Let me pray for us right now.
Father in heaven, I thank you so much for the disciple that Jesus loved John, and how John wants us to know we know you. He wants us to have confidence. He wants your love to cast out all fear of judgment. But he doesn't give us some fake assurance. He really causes us to think, have we come to know that love is divine, that love comes from you, that you are love, and the definition of love is that you would send your one and only Son. God, I pray for all the parents that we could think about that for a second together, that we could pray about, that I think about every parent who's ever said goodbye to their kid as they were moving out or going off to school, and that's what you did to send your son. You did way more than that, because you were sending him and you knew he would die. You knew he would suffer and be mistreated, and you sent him out of your love, because he, in his righteousness, was going to be the propitiation for our sins. And you created these pictures of the sacrifices with the animals and the high priest going in there, and the blood on the mercy seat, and the scapegoat running into the wilderness. And all of that is just a setup for what your Son is going to do, because you love us, because Jesus came to pay the debt of our sin. God, I pray for the people in this room right now who know they have that sense of debt. They know they have that feeling of impending doom. I pray they wouldn't just leave here and act like it's not real, I pray that they would hear your deal, that you're willing to offer them. I pray that they would reason together with you right now, that you will take their crimson stain and you will give them a new heart, you will give them your spirit, and they will be as white as snow. What an amazing offer you give to sinners, to completely clean us, to forgive us for all of our sins. God, I pray that people won't pass up that offer here tonight, I pray they'll talk to somebody about it. I pray they'll talk to you right now. And I want to lift up my brothers and sisters that you've already saved, the people who already know your love, I pray that they wouldn't approach this Christmas like I already know about God's love. Know if we know about your love, then let us love one another, because love is of you, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. God, I think about how many people there are in the world right now that need to see you, but they can't see you, and the way they're going to see you is, if we love one another. Let there be an extravagant and sacrificial kind of love here at this church this Christmas, beyond anything we've seen so far. Let each one of us take this to heart. Let us consider our brothers and sisters and let us come to them with the same love that you sent to us and your Son, Jesus. So, Father, as we pray to you right now, please hear our prayers, and please don't let anybody just sit here. Let them talk to you now. Thank you for the offer that you have given us at Christmas of your one and only Son to pay for our sin. We pray this in his name. Amen.