The wonder of his peace, of hope, of faith, all lead to this moment as we talk about the wonder of his love.

Did you know that God loves you?
“God is love” would most likely be the most common understanding of the Christian belief system among our secular culture. We even hear this notion that God is love be used as a justification to do whatever you want, to have unlimited freedom in what you do, say, or how you act.

But God’s love is not about you getting to do whatever you want. There is a purpose behind his love, and there is a goal. That goal is restoration. More than anything, God simply wants broken and sinful humanity restored to himself. Some may accomplish that task with aggression or power or authority. God chose love.

The truth is, God DOES love you, and he DOES want restoration to happen between you and him, and this is a huge part of the awe of God’s love for us.

What an incredible thing to grasp - that God loves us.

So as we finish this series and the year, I pray God would open your heart to the wonder of his love for you. I am sure you know God loves you, but let’s dive deeper into the wonder of his love for us. I want to share three things about God’s love that will hopefully help you embrace him more than ever this holiday season.

1. God’s love is for you, but it’s not about you
What do I mean with this?

Look, the entire Bible is just one huge note that says, “I Love You.” This is obviously true in verses like John 3:16
For God, so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that who ever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

and Romans 5:8
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

but also verses like 2 Corinthians 1:20
For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.

and Psalm 56:9
This I know, that God is for me.

My point is that for some reason we will never fully comprehend on this side of Heaven, the God of the Universe chose to pour out his love upon humanity, even to the point of choosing to die for us just so he could be with us.

I don’t know about you, but to me, a huge part of the Wonder of His Love is found in the unimaginable truth that God simply wants me.

He promises things like:
1 John 3:1
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

Ephesians 2:4-5
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ

Matthew 10:29-30
29 Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. 30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

If any of you ever figure out why on Earth God would love us like he does, let me know.

I cannot fathom why he loves us, but it isn’t my job to know why. My job is to simply receive and reciprocate.

This is why while God’s love is for us, it is not about us. God loving you isn’t true or false based on whether you think he is real, or telling the truth. It isn’t about you.

God’s love isn’t about what you’ve done. Remember, while you were sinners he showed his love by dying. It isn’t about what you can bring to his table.

Isaiah 64:6
We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags.

It isn’t about what you can do for him or his Kingdom. Remember it is God that has the plan for your life

You can’t earn it. You can’t buy it. You can’t trade for it. Because, I’ll say it again - God’s love is FOR you, not ABOUT you. All you can do with God’s love is receive it and reciprocate it.

How are you at receiving God’s love?
Isaiah 54:10
For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

Chesed is the word rendered “steadfast love.” It is a multifaceted word that encompasses God’s love, kindness, mercy, and loyalty.

How does God want you to respond to that love?
John 3:16
For God, so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that who ever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

God’s love is for you, but not about you.

2. God’s love draws you, but never drags you.
I know this might be an odd way to say it, but God’s love has this inherent thing in it that makes you want to be better, but it won’t force you to be better.

As a married man, I have certain boundaries I cannot cross. I am supposed to treat my wife with love and kindness, to love her like Christ loves the church, but the most obvious boundary, even with secular relationships, is that I don’t cheat. I don’t. But why? It isn’t because there’s a rule that says don’t cheat. (Literally one of the 10 Commandments). It is because I love my wife. My love for her let’s me choose to do the right thing, but love won’t drag me into the right thing. The moment I cheat is the moment I let sin drag me away from where love is trying to draw me.

Sin wants to drag me into brokenness. Love wants to draw me into wholeness.

There’s something in our culture right now that preaches love is all about feeling good and letting people do whatever makes them feel good. To challenge them on something that is sinful in their lives is not seen as love. People see that as being judgmental. Granted, how you say it matters. But real love is not avoiding tough conversations. Real love is having them and then being willing to walk with the person back to wholeness.

THAT is what God’s love is trying to do with you. Proof:
We all love John 3:16, but do you know John 3:17?
John 3:17
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Remember Romans 2:4
God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.

You see, God’s love draws you to wholeness, but it won’t drag you. And the same goes for how we deal with sinful issues in people here. We are not going to judge and beat you over the head with the word, but if we come to you with kindness and respect and bring something to you that we see in you, it is important that you see that as love, not hate.

Do you see discipline and correction as love?
Think of it like this:

God’s love is not the guardrail. God’s Law is the guardrail. Remember the context: love draws, not drags.

God’s love is going to encourage obedience, but it wont’t force obedience.
John 14:15
If you love me, keep my commandments.

BUT God does show his love by allowing the law to be a guardrail.

Paul explains this in Romans 7:7
…if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

God’s love isn’t the guardrail, but the law is, and the beauty of the law is that God is showing us his love by using the law as a guardrail to draw us into wholeness and away from the brokenness of sin.

No one likes being told they are doing something wrong because it doesn’t feel good. But when you look at the Law in the right lens, that it is God’s love to help us, not his anger to hurt us. That means we can see the law as love, not as judgment.

2 Peter 3:9
God is not slow in his promises, but is patient, not wanting anyone to be destroyed, but for all to repent.

This is God’s heart. We broke it. God loved us enough to fix it. But he also won’t force it.

God will not drag you kicking and screaming into Heaven, but if you will do what Psalm 34:8 says and taste and see that the Lord is good, you won’t have to be dragged. You will be drawn to wholeness, drawn to Jesus.

Speaking of Jesus…

3. God’s love is not just theoretical, it is tangible.
God didn’t just talk a big talk. He put his money where his mouth his mouth was.

Isaiah 9:2, 6-7
2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. 6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Zeal of the Lord. Zeal here means intense fervor of his divine love and covenantal faithfulness. Translation: God’s love for you took on human form in the person of Jesus Christ for the purpose of restoring humanity to himself.

What we are celebrating at Christmas is God’s love becoming a human for the purpose of dying on a cross to satisfy the penalty for our sin, and if we simply believe in him and confess Jesus as Lord, we can be more than saved, but reconciled to God.

I don’t know a better way to summarize this point than to let Paul relay the same message he wrote to the Church at Colossae in Colossians 1:9-23
9 …we do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, by the way. And now, Paul tells how God’s love became tangible.

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.

And now, how that love reconciles us:

19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, 20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. 21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight— 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.

Let me give you the crux of Christmas and the simple Gospel:

Before he ever said, “Let there be light,” God the Father loved Jesus the Son so much that creation burst forth for the simple reason that God wanted more sons and daughters to love.

And that in that perfect creation, mankind rejected God’s miraculous love, dragging humanity into a spiral of death and destruction, separated from God.

Yet, God in his love, sent Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son who has always been and always will be from Heaven to Earth to give his life as a ransom for us, satisfying the debt of our sin, reconciling us to God the Father.

This reconciliation happens not as a result of our good works and righteousness, but in spite of our works and unrighteousness, and if we simply confess Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead, not only are we saved to spend eternity in Heaven reconciled to God, but that we can even now have the relationship with God he desired for us all along.

This IS the Gospel and there is only one response:
You either receive Jesus Christ as Lord, or your reject him.
You either receive his love, or you reject his love.

I’ve heard the Gospel message so many times in my life.
I’ve preached it just as many.

One thing I’ve come to know deep in my soul is that the Gospel message is not just for lost people who need to come to Jesus, but that it is for all of us, constantly, daily, moment by moment.

I need Jesus not just because I need his salvation from sin, but because my heart was made to love and be loved by him, and I will never feel complete until I bask in the wonder of his love.

I am asking you a simple question today. We’ve heard how his love is for us, how his love draws us, but now, how his love becomes tangible in our lives.

How are you going to respond to his love for you?

You have two choices: receive it or reject it.

If you are choosing to reject it, I pray you get a revelation of who Jesus is. “Jesus, if you are real and you really love me, show me today.”

But if you are choosing to receive his love, whether it is the first time or not, you only need to do what the bible tells us to do in Romans 10:9-10

“Jesus I confess with my mouth that you are Lord and I believe with my heart that you died and rose again. Forgive me of my sin and save me, Lord.”

Now just take a moment and receive his love for you.

Let’s pray.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message?

How does he want you to respond?