
BIG Idea: Jesus, the Messiah, is the ultimate expression of God’s love—promised from the beginning, fulfilled in His sacrifice, and shared through us.
Application: Receive God’s love through Jesus Christ and reflect it by loving others in tangible ways.
Luke 2:11 (NLT)
11 The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!
Messiah the ultimate deliverer – someone chosen by God to
God’s love is
1. Love
God’s love has never been
“Ah! What a mercy it is that it is not your hold of Christ that saves you, but His hold of you!” —Charles Spurgeon
Jeremiah 31:3 (NLT)
3 Long ago the Lord said to Israel: “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.”
John 3:16 (NLT)
16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”
2. Love
Jesus is love in
Isaiah 53:4-6 (NLT)
4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
5 But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all.
Romans 5:6-11 (NLT)
6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. 9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. 10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. 11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.
3. Love
God’s love in us
“Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.” —C.S. Lewis
Deuteronomy 6:5 (NLT)
5 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.
1 John 4:7-12 (NLT)
7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
9 God 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. 10 This 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.
11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.
Loving others is
Embody God’s love this week:
1. Start with
2. Engage in an act of
3. Speak life and encouragement. Use your words to reflect God’s love. Whether it’s a kind note, a text, or a conversation, let someone know they are seen, valued, and loved by God.
4.