Reframing Christmas | Love All

I John 3:16-18

Loving All is the final element of Reframing Christmas. That is what Jesus did by His birth; he loved us all.  How does that play out in our homes and families this Christmas?  What does love really look like?

The love of God is not an emotional love but a love of purpose.  It loves to transform; not to condone.

I. Loving All Requires Receiving a Sacrifice.   

·  The sacrifice of the Father  John 3:16a "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son”

·  The sacrifice of the Son  1 John 3:16a “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us;” 

Jesus understands sacrifice in a way that we never will because we cannot love as purely as He loved.

II. Loving All Requires Being a Sacrifice. 1 John 3:16b and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 

·  Here is the Loving All – It is compassion and consideration displayed in our everyday relationships.

·  The heart of sacrificial conduct is Agape love. I Corinthians 13:4-7 

AGAPE LOVE CAN:

     “temper” your temper.  patient

     help you do hard things in a soft way.  kind 

     cause you to celebrate the success of others.  not jealous

     make you humble.  not brag

     make you gracious and polite.  not act unbecomingly

     make you a servant.  not seek its own

     make you calm and unflappable. not provoked  

     make you forgiving. not take into account a wrong suffered

     make you an encourager. not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth 

     make you a defender.  bears all things 

     make you faithful.  believes all things 

     make you optimistic.  hopes all things 

     make you persevere.  endures all things   

III. Loving All Requires Sharing Sacrificially. 

·      We need to be sacrificial with our currency.  But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?  1John 3:17

·      We need to be sacrificial in our conduct.  Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.  1John 3:18

IV. To Love sacrificially requires a New Nature  Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:7- 8