Matt Chandler - The Advent of Love

If you have your Bibles, let’s go ahead and open those. If you have it on a device or whatever, go and grab that. I want you to see that I’ve got some things that are very Christmassy today but also very countercultural. So, I want you to see that I’m not making any of this up. This is week three of Advent, which in the Christian calendar means that this weekend we address love and look at the Advent of love or the coming of love. Now, that sounds pretty easy and fun, but love is pretty difficult in 2020 because I want to argue that the word has been emptied of any meaning. This past week, in every meeting but maybe two, I asked whoever I was with, «Hey, what do you love?» I got the same response every time I asked that question. They would respond with, «What do you mean?» So, I replied, «Well, what do you love?» People I met with this week said they love fajitas, their kids, their new car, the place they got out here, their job, right? What I’m trying to highlight is that if you ask a bunch of people what they love, the responses are varied. We don’t really have a working definition of love in our culture; it has become a junk drawer word that we just throw everything into. You know that one in your kitchen where you just put things you don’t know where to place? That’s what love is in our culture. Because of this, and because love is emptied of power, I think we as Christians have lost some of the awe, and we have lost some of the weight of worship that should be occurring in our hearts in light of the love of God. Here’s my outline for you: one, in the coming of Jesus, love has been made visible; two, love has been defined; and three, it is only in the coming of Jesus Christ that real love—true love, not thin, powerless, rootless love, but real love—actually expands across the globe. Okay, there’s my outline. With that said, let’s look back at the text. Let’s look at verse nine first. Here’s what it says: «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.» Now, a couple of things I want to highlight right out of the gate: the Bible here is saying that in the manifestation of love, love made visible occurred when Christ came in the flesh. Now, how can we say that? How can we say, «You want to know? You want to see love?» You don’t need to dial in to the latest romantic comedy; you only need to get the new Taylor Swift album, which is excellent! You need to listen to it. In the middle, when you look at the coming of Jesus, you’re like, «That’s love made manifest. That’s love made visible.» Well, the reason why John here is arguing that the sending of Jesus is love made visible is because of the triune nature of the creator God of the universe: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, three in one, delighting in one another, loving one another for all of eternity—never a beginning to the Godhead. In fact, everything that’s been created, everything that exists, every lovely, beautiful thing has flowed out of the love that God has within the Godhead: God the Father loving God the Son, God the Son loving God the Father, God the Holy Spirit loving the Son and the Father. C.S. Lewis called it «the dance.» The scandal of Advent, the scandal of Christmas, is that God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, co-eternal, has always been, will always be, and is the omnipotent active agent in all of creation. He condescends and puts on flesh, coming in the most vulnerable way, in a way no one saw coming. He didn’t go to a palace; he went to a manger. He didn’t go to Rome; he went to Bethlehem, which, as we’ve talked about before, is not even on the map. Are you tracking with me? It’s that town you would have driven past and thought, «Oh, there used to be something there.» So, the second person of the Trinity puts on flesh and dwells among us. Now, why does he come? Look at where it’s playing out: «In this, the love of God was made visible, manifest among us.» So, love isn’t being made visible somewhere out in the cosmos; it’s happening among us. God wanted us to see and understand divine love, and so he sends the Son so that you and I might have this crazy gift—that we might have life. Now, for 18 years, I’ve been chipping away at some of the same stuff, and I’m just so compelled that this is true. I want to remind you that outside of Jesus Christ you might exist, but you’re not going to live. Outside of Jesus Christ, you can experience all the blessings of common grace. Did you hear me? You do not need to love God. You can hate God and enjoy all the blessings of common grace. You can have a great meal, get a good night’s sleep, have good friendships, make love, and do all of that.