First Baptist Church Wiggins, FBC, 39577

I. Love was manifested at Christmas. V9

Christ’s coming into the world reveals that love is not some abstract principle. Love is a person.
- On the first Christmas day, this LOVE was made manifest among us.

Think about love differently:
- Love is who created the world and everything in it.
- Love is who created you and me
- Love is who called a nation to Himself.
- Love is who came and lived and died for all who would believe.
- Love is what we celebrate this season.

- Love is not common… Love is holy.
- Love is just.
- Love is loyal and true.
- Love is singular… Love is unified… there is no distortion no gray area.

There is no such thing as a love hate relationship.

If what we call love is not sanctified and in agreement with the person who IS love… then what we call love is not love.
- If it is not sanctified in Christ it is an abomination.

That first Christmas day, the person whose name is love was every ounce of goodness, and grace, and mercy, and justice, and glory, and magnificence, and wonder in all the universe.
- All coming together in one holy human being who was the one holy God.

Why did the love of God come to us? It came so that we might live through Him who is Love.
- We were dead, we couldn’t love. Love was a foreign concept.
When we were lost and under the condemnation of God… we didn’t know what (or better yet “who”) love was. We were incapable of love.

But then love came. Love awakened our hearts, and we were made to live… to live not just for a lifetime but for an eternity.

This is what we are celebrating today… the love that came into the world and was manifested in the person of Jesus Christ the savior.
- Love that awakened our hearts.
- Love that gave us life eternal.

II. Love was defined at Christmas. V10

Sinful people want to define love according to what we do as human beings.
- Love is not found in anything that we initiate or facilitate as human beings.
- Love is found in what God has done.

He sent his only son to be the propitiation for our sins.
- “propitiation” is the greek equivalent of the Hebrew word for atonement.
- Atonement means “cleasing."

He sent his only Son that we might be cleansed from our sin.
- This is Love.

Love is the selfless act of giving ones all for others… with no conditions… expecting nothing in return.

Love is humbling oneself to nothing, that the one who is nothing could be made something.

Love is taking the penalty that was earned by another.

True love is expressed in deeds, not just words.
- What we know of love, we know not because WE have loved… but because we have been loved.

III. Love was commissioned at Christmas. V11

If love has been manifested to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. And if we have experienced what it is to be loved by God, then it follows that we OUGHT to love others.
- We’ve no excuse not to love one another.

Love was made manifest among us that we might “live through Him.”
If we are living through Him, then we ought to live in love… because He is love.

This is why we give generously.
- The motive in buying your kid that hot Christmas gift should be the love that flows out of the love we have been shown.
- The motive for giving to Lottie Moon above and beyond your tithe ought to be to love others generously as we also have been loved.
- The motive for serving in Bethlehem ought to have been out of love for the people in our community.
- The motive for being kind to all ought to be to selflessly live out the love that was so selflessly expressed to us.

The greatest act of love that you can demonstrate is by seeing to it that a person hears about the love that God has for them.

Not the love that we demonstrate but the love that God demonstrated.
- The love that transformed our hearts, that broke us and raised us up again.
THAT “IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON.”

That is the reason for our happiness… our generosity… our kindness.

There was nothing good in us, but God demonstrated his goodness by showing us love, by manifesting it for us in the person of His son… whom He sent to be the propitiation for our sins.
- Now the same love that saved us, flows out of us.

love was manifested in the person of Jesus. The embodiment… the manifestation of all that is good and holy and just and righteous and beautiful and magnificent… has come to us.
- Love has come to us.

He has come, not that we might be condemned because we were already condemned. He has come that we might live abundantly and live eternally.

If we have been changed by this love, the question then becomes do you love others? You ought to!

Love not accompanied by action is not love.
Because of how he loved us we know that
- Love is active.
- Love gives.
- Love sacrifices.
- Love humbles.
- Love is unconditionally given.

As this candle burns, may the love that God showed us in sending His son Jesus to be the propitiation for our sins, burn brightly in our hearts. May it cast an illuminating glow on those whom we love with the love with which we also have been loved.