This week, Pastor Jonny brought us a Boxing Day message from his house. We hope you have had a lovely Christmas Day this weekend.
But what’s the point of doing Christmas Day? The point of doing anything is the product at the end.
For example, we do sport to stay physically active and make friends.
We do exams so that we can learn, grow, test and measure our abilities.
So why do we do Christmas Day? Well we have amazing memories, great food, great gifts given and received. We see our family members’ faces as they have a time of happiness and joy.
So what was the point of the first Christmas? Why did the angels come? Why did the shepherds leave their flocks? Why did the wise men bring gifts? The purpose of it all was to demonstrate the love of God.
Jesus came as a baby that first Christmas, and He grew up to be our Saviour. He lived a perfect sinless life and died a sinners death, so that we could be forgiven for our sins instead of being punished for them. None of us can keep the perfect law of God, so Jesus came and did it in our place.
16“For this is how God loved the world: He gaveg his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
18“There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. 19And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. 20All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. 21But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.h”
(John 3:16-21)
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been journeying through Advent. We’ve been challenged about peace, where we looked at how peace is not found in the absence of problems, but in the presence of God.
We looked at joy, and found that it’s not found in happiness, but in hope.
This week, our key point is this:
Love is not found in creation, love is found in Jesus.
What does this mean?
Love is not found in relationships with people, love is found in relationship with God.
Love is not found in possessions, love is found in the provider of all the things we possess.
Love is not found in justice, love is found in the freedom that God brings through His justice.
Love is not found in gifts we receive, love is found in the giver of the gifts.
Love is not found in the created realm, love is found in the creator.
For couples who get into relationships, love comes at different times. Usually one person says they love the other person first. The Bible is clear that God said “I love you” first to us. God first loved us before we loved Him, and the Bible being God’s Word, 100% truth, gives us the confidence to say that. God loved His creation from the start. All He created in Genesis He described as “good”, with His special creation, man, was described as “very good”.
God sent His son Jesus into this world with the purposes of creating a relationship between Him and us. He paid the penalty that we could never pay ourselves. He made the way to God that we could never make for ourselves. We can never do enough good works to come into peaceful right relationship with God. Only the blood of Jesus can cancel out our sins so that we can be declared innocent and be granted eternal life in Heaven with Him.
At Christmas, we celebrate the baby coming; the baby who would grow into the man who would die for us:
8But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
(Romans 5:8)
9God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
(1 John 4:9-10)
Before coming to Christ, we all have a gap in our life that can only be fulfilled by God. We are all in a moral mess, unable to live up to the standards of our own moral compass, let alone the perfect sinless standards of God’s law.
We weren’t created to do life without God. Instead we were created to live a life of worship and relationship with our Creator. When we come to Christ, He radically transforms us through the power of His Holy Spirit and we begin an eternal journey of abundant life.
This abundance gives us the ability to bless others. In the abundance of God’s mercy poured out to us, we can be merciful to others. In the abundance of God’s love for us, we can love others. In the abundance of God’s forgiveness, we can forgive others.
When we receive a gift, we then let other people know. It’s the same with our salvation. When we receive God’s love, we can’t help but express it to others. God wrapped His gift up in flesh as a baby, who would grow up to be our Saviour and die on a cross where we receive being bought at a price, we receive forgiveness, grace and mercy.
If you haven’t received Jesus, we would urge you to believe Him to be who He says He is. You will be transformed and you will overflow in love.
In life, we often feel so worn out because we still try and show love and grace because we don’t have an overflow in our own life. As God pours into us, we can pour into others. To receive this overflow, you can only find it in Jesus.
Love is not found in creation, love is found in Jesus.
If you want love, you need to find Jesus. Watch the video of our service below and consider praying with Jonny at the end for the first time and stepping into a life of abundance with Jesus.