The meaning of Christmas #2: God dearly (x3) loves us

ATTN: I want you to reach back into your past and think about when you felt the most loved. When did you feel most loved? Was it when you were growing up, what your mom or dad did for you? Was it when you received something you really wanted for Christmas? Was it when you were in a relationship?

        When I felt most loved, ironically, was also when I was most rebellious. My family came to the States when I was 14 from South Korea. I realized recently that my parents were my age now when they decided to leave everything behind and start fresh in a new country. We didn’t have to come. It’s just that they thought that my brother and I would have a better life here in the states. So they gave up their career in Korea as a pharmacist and a nurse to come here and after not finding work for years, opened up a shoe repair shop. Now, I resented being here. Teens, imagine if your parents suddenly announced to you that you are going to move to Japan and live there for good. You are going to college in Japan, and take their entrance exam in Japanese in just 4 years from now! You are going to leave behind all your friends and never see them again! How would you feel? But what choice did I have? Although I resented it, I knew that they were making sacrifices. And they did that because they really loved us. They were giving up their lives so that our lives could be better. So when kids would make fun of me at school, asking me if I learned Kung Fu with Bruce Lee, or I would have to say for the umteenth time, “Sorry. No English,” and feeling so embarrassed, I would look at my parents who were struggling to make ends meet just to give us a better chance at life. I never told that to my parents then but inside I knew the sacrifices they were making. That’s when I felt most loved by my parents.

        Now, I’m sure you’ve had similar experiences where someone made a sacrifice for you or you did for someone you love. We intuitively know the degree to which we feel loved is proportional to the sacrifice that was made for us. And we recognize this as something noble. The whole world does. Think of the two highest grossing movies ever. Avatar at #1. It’s about guy who abandons his own human race to join the Na’vi race. He made a huge sacrifice in doing so. #2 Titanic, which by the was directed by the same guy, is also about a guy who gave his life to save his girl, and the girl who gave up her social status to follower her true love. There is that element of self-sacrificial love .. That’s what stirs our emotions and leaves us inspired. Although to be honest, I hated both movies.  

        But the principle still stands. And that is why Christmas is the greatest display of love from God to us. God gave us the greatest gift in His Son, and it took great sacrifice on the Father’s and the Son’s part.

        John 3:16-17 (The Message)

16 “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.”

        It says, God loved the world. The world as in the world that God created and its inhabitants –which would be us. He loved us so much so He sacrificed something or someone so precious! He didn’t just say he loved us. Talk is cheap. But He demonstrated His love for us in action through the gift that is His Son!  

ILL:When I proposed to Janet, I gave her a tiny little clear stone that cost me a fortune, but seeing her reaction then and many years to come was absolutely worth it. But I will be honest: I did think about what I could buy for myself in place of buying that stone. Could’ve bought me a nice TV set, sound system, AND a laptop all for the money I paid for that tiny shiny object, but I gave it to her instead to show her my love for her. But of course that was just symbolic. Really, what I gave her was myself in marriage. Everything that was mine is now hers – my money, my car, my house, my time, my future, etc. It took sacrifice. No. it’s not, “Oh, I can’t believe I’m losing so much to have you,” but rather, “I gladly sacrifice these things for you because you are worth it.”         

So, on Christmas day 2000 years ago, God demonstrated how much we matter to him by giving to us his most prized possession – his Son. That is what Christmas is about. To say a little more about the nature of God’s love, I read these words years ago from

I read these words years ago from Philip Yancey’s book, what’s so amazing about grace? 1. There is nothing we can do to make God love us more. Why? Because God already loves maximally. How so? He gave us His most prized possession in His son. If we were to ever ask God, “God, give me more love, show me greater grace! God must answered, “I cannot, for I already gave you my best in my Son!” We are already maximally loved by the love Himself. 2. There is nothing we can do to make God love us less. Our sins and rebellion will certainly grieve Him, displease Him, but will not make Him love us less. Jesus said to the rebellious Jews, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” It was His love for them that made Him grieve and lament. If He didn’t love, He wouldn’t care.

If God is displeased with us it’s because we are hurting ourselves with our sin. If I get mad at my children for misbehaving because of where it may lead them. It’s my love for them that motivates it. I don’t get mad at someone else’s kids misbehaving, for I do not care, unless of course it’s one of yours because I care about you.

But would you imprint this in your mind right now? There is nothing God can do to make Him love you more for He maximally loves you. And there is nothing you can do to make God love you less for He is love Himself and cannot do otherwise. However, there is something we can do to please God more and less, for there is a purpose to God’s love. His love’s purpose is our maximal happiness and joy. How do we get that? When we are conform to His Son.

 

22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Eph 4:22)

 

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. (romans 8:29)

 

Christianity is not about simply being saved and going to heaven. If so, God should’ve taken us right when we became Christians. No. Christianity is about becoming like Jesus. It’s conforming to the image of the Son, for whom and through whom all glorious things were created, including coffee, chocolate, romance, music, dance, and yes, teens even BTS!

 

CONC: Here’s an old story that I remember. A boy was quite a good craftsman. He spent all day carving a wooden boat, decorating it with sail and rudder. Next morning, he took it to the town creek and set it on water to see it sail down. He followed it for a while but the water got more rapid and he lost the sight of it. Later that day, he was walking the street and in a widow of a shop, he saw the boat that he lost that morning for $5. He went in and told the shop owner that that is his boat that he carved that morning and then lost. But the shop owner said that if he wants it, he has to pay for it. The boy went home, broke his piggy bank, gathered $5 and paid the shop owner for his boat. Then, as he was coming home with the boat in his arms, he said, “little boat, you are twice mine. I have made you and I have bought you.”

You are twice God’s if you are a Christian. He has made you and bought you. Our worth is not in our abilities, our looks, our earning potentials, or our moral superiority. Our worth squarely lies in the fact that we are made in the image of God and that we were redeemed by Him. He made you and bought you.