Advent - Love
Today, we will light the first three candles of Advent wreath, the candles of hope, peace, and joy. Now we light the 4th candle of the Advent, the candle of love. Jesus demonstrated true self giving love as the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. God sought after us in love by coming as a child in the manger. Let us be transformed by his love and seek to love our neighbor.
Elaine:In In the book of Deuteronomy, we find these words. Deuteronomy 1017 through 19. For the lord, your god, is god of gods and lord of lords. The great god, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow and loves the foreigner residing among you.
Elaine:Give them food and clothing, and you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. And from the gospel of John, we hear John 1334 through 35. A new command I give you, love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. Please join me in prayer.
Elaine:Teach us to love, oh lord. May we always remember to love those above all others to love you above all others. Help us to follow the Christ's footsteps, knowing your love and showing it in our lives as we prepare for our celebration of Jesus' birth. Also, fill our hearts with love for our neighbors that all may know your love and the one whom you have sent, your son, our savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Pastor Luke:Let's take a moment. Let's pause. Let's slow ourselves down. Pastor Cameron's gonna come up and give our a message, but let's pause and pray. Heavenly father, this morning, I ask that we might behold you more clearly.
Pastor Luke:That through the opening of your word, through the proclamation of your truth, that your holy spirit would reveal yourself in a greater depth and detail to us. That this morning we would hear your invitation of love. Lord, I ask that your holy spirit would be empowering pastor Cameron to speak with your power and your wisdom and your word and not his own. That this morning we would be sensitive to your holy spirit's leadings and promptings in our hearts and spirits that we might be receptive to the invitation that you are giving us. In Jesus name, we pray.
Pastor Luke:Amen.
Pastor Cameron:Amen. Good morning, Conduit. How are you? Good. It's good to see you.
Pastor Cameron:Yeah. I agree. I Bryce probably wins. He's got a Christmas tree on his sweater full of my face. And they I think I I saw some the only one that I think competes is I saw someone walking around with a Steelers jersey on, and, like, that's close second in the winner of the ugly Christmas sun.
Pastor Cameron:Yeah. Well, we're honored that you're here this morning. We've been praying for you, and, we're celebrating today, 3 of the Advent candles. The theme of love. As we've been celebrating the, all of the Advent themes this year, I've, been trying to, even myself, be intentional about the process of, preparing messages, but also preparing my own heart for, the Advent season and the Christmas season.
Pastor Cameron:Because when we talk about things like joy and hope and peace and, love, like we talked about today or we're gonna be talking about today, it becomes it it can be it can become easy to, pursue the pursue them as merely, like, intellectual pursuits. I mean, like, we wanna understand what it means to have joy. We talked about last week. Okay. Maybe understand the difference between what it means to be joyful and what it means to be happy.
Pastor Cameron:Understand that, what it means to have peace or understand what hope is or today even talk about what love is and and have those as just merely intellectual pursuits. We we get facts about them. We learn information about them. And pretty much all of us hold kind of supercomputers in our back pocket where you can look up, you have access to more information and more knowledge and more facts about pretty much anything in all of the world, at a at your fingertips than we ever have before in all of human history. We do not lack for want of information or facts.
Pastor Cameron:But we certainly lack for application of facts to our hearts in such a way that it transforms who we are and who we are becoming. We can have all of the information that we want about what it means, about what joy is in comparison to happiness. But we can still walk around with all of the information here, but the spirit of joy lacking in our hearts and still have no application to what it means to experience the joy that is found in Christ. The same thing with love. We may have the information, but until we have the transforming power of the holy spirit in our hearts, that's making us more loving people, then we are missing something in the connection that 18 inch road between our head and our hearts is the longest distance that any spiritual truth often has to travel.
Pastor Cameron:Going from fact to belief, belief that transforms who we are. That's been my prayer, in this season. And as I've been, praying personally and I've been praying in, with our staff, and I've been praying in, in some of our classes, and I've been praying here. And what I wanna lead us in as your pastor and as the leader here at Conduit is to pray prayers that, that step into a faithful position of believing that it is the work of the holy spirit that takes the things that we know and helps to root them in our hearts to the extent that it actually changes who we are. Because we try and we try and we try and we try based on what we know, and then we stand still wondering why we're living untransformed.
Pastor Cameron:I believe the very non complex, very easy, but not simple or I should say simple, but not easy answer to that question is that there is a that there is a invitation to the Holy Spirit of God that we must regularly make in our relationship with him that asks him to change who we are inside. That we must we must actually pursue a heart that says, lord, I want to love you more, and I want to love others more deeply. Because, you know, like, if we're gonna talk about our our theme for this morning, love. Right? I I I Lord, I wanna love you more, and I wanna love those around me more deeply.
Pastor Cameron:Now it is as simple as beginning to make that a regular part of our prayer life and meaning it. It's not necessarily easy because when we pray prayers that God wants to answer, like, Lord, help me to love the people around me, we're gonna realize how much we don't like the people around us. Because because people are difficult. Right? Like, I know I am a hard person to love.
Pastor Cameron:I know I do things. I say things. I act in certain ways. I carry myself in certain ways that I can be difficult to love. Right?
Pastor Cameron:And and we're all difficult to love in our own little individual ways. And so if we we all know that we're all difficult to love, but we're all praying that we would that we would ex that we would be more loving to those around us, we're gonna be forced. If we take it see if we take the transformation of the spirit in our lives seriously, we're gonna be forced to begin to deal with some of the ways in which we have become difficult to like and difficult to love. But love is, I I don't say this tongue in cheek. I say it completely seriously.
Pastor Cameron:Love is pretty much the most it is not pretty much. It is the most central thing of our Christian faith. It is the it is it is the center of, our faith. In fact, there is a couple instances in the gospels where some of the religious leaders, in Jesus' time asked him, hey. What is the most important commandment?
Pastor Cameron:In all of the commandments, all of the laws, all of the rules, what's the most important one? I think Matthew and Mark, the there's an instance where a Pharisee or a Sadducee says, hey, Jesus, what's the most important commandment in all of the law and the prophets? And he says, to love the lord god with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. This sums up all of the law and the prophets. For Jesus, that was the answer to the central question of what's the most important important spiritual principle.
Pastor Cameron:In the gospel of Luke, it's stated a little bit differently. Someone comes to him and says, hey, teacher. What must I do to inherit eternal life? Seems like a pretty important question. Both of those.
Pastor Cameron:Right? What's the most important commandment in all of the law and the prophets? Jesus answers, love the lord your god with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Same type of situation, someone asks us, what must I do to to inherit eternal life? Jesus has the same answer.
Pastor Cameron:So in probably what could could could be considered some pretty significantly important questions posed to Jesus himself, he comes back with the same same answer. The central thing, the foundational thing, the most important thing is love of God and love of others. These are connected. They cannot be separated from one another. And so in our life together as a community of faith, as followers of Jesus Christ, in our lives, individual lives as followers of Jesus, it begs the question, are we praying that the spirit of God would transform us internally so that we develop in our we develop a desire and a growth in our love for the Lord?
Pastor Cameron:And at the same time, parallel to that, we're developing a desire and a growth in our love for one another. So would that be our prayer? If nothing else this morning, heavenly father, that you would help us to grow, not just in our knowledge of what it means to love, Lord, but in our the actual practice of our love of you and our love of one another. In Jesus name, amen. Now don't disappoint me with the answer to this question.
Pastor Cameron:K? Don't disappoint me here. And I want you to think about it. I just want you to just like the reflex. Whatever your reflexive or your, like, instinctual response to the question is when I say, what is love?
Pastor Cameron:Yes. You did a little bit better than first service, not much, though. Because I know 98% of you, when I said, what is love, you were like, internally, right? You were here, but you were like you're like, this is not a church answer, so I can't actually, like, say it, but you, like, you saw Will Ferrell right here. This answer.
Pastor Cameron:Right? Right? Okay. It's okay. It's okay that that's the answer.
Pastor Cameron:Right? That's the that's the reflexive or responsive answer. It does tell us something. Right? When I say what is love, and we're like no more.
Pastor Cameron:Right? Yeah. Oh, I've been what is love? Baby, don't hurt me. Right?
Pastor Cameron:This is an important question. The question itself is important Because who gets to define what love is? Who gets to define it? That's a it's an that can be an important question. If we on if we can be in agreement that love is central to what it means to follow Jesus, according to Jesus himself, that love is central to the spirit filled life.
Pastor Cameron:That love of God and love of others is central to who we are as followers of Jesus Christ, then we better have some understanding of what it means to love or what love is. I did a little bit of research this past week about, like, what would be considered this generation, the generation that we're living in, what would be, like, their number one movie, like, romance, love story, like, just warms their little hearts about what love is. And, do you have any idea, like, what the kind of, like, winner of that poll was if you were to pick the movie for, like, the current generation or, like, maybe my generation. Right? Like, late 90 late nineties into the into 2000.
Pastor Cameron:What is it? The Notebook. Okay. Thank you. Oh, The Notebook.
Pastor Cameron:Right. Right. Okay. So so this is a movie. Right?
Pastor Cameron:Listen. This is a movie that has defined a generation's understanding about what love is. Romance. K? Pursuit.
Pastor Cameron:Overcoming obstacles and relationships and love. And, and and and pretty much most people agree. And I am here to tell you that that movie is absolute garbage. Garbage. Put my email up on the screen and whatever.
Pastor Cameron:Send it to me. I'll get I'll get to it after Christmas. Right? Go ahead. Alright.
Pastor Cameron:But listen. Okay? Here you have a short summer fling, 2 high schoolers, teenagers presumably, whatever. Right? They go about in their merry way.
Pastor Cameron:She goes on to, get engaged to a man who is, by all accounts, perfect in every way. Right? He's a war hero. He is successful. He's respectful.
Pastor Cameron:He's good looking. He loves and honors her. There is, like, no other, like, it's it's really clear. Great great man. She gets in she gets engaged to be married to him.
Pastor Cameron:She says yes. Alright? And then all it takes is some scraggly bearded dude to remodel a house and take her on a rowboat ride in the rain. And all of the commitments right? All of the commitment, all of the promises, all of the integrity about the relationship that she had with her fiance was gone out the window because romance is riding in the rain with someone.
Pastor Cameron:That's what love is all about. That may not be a very generous reading of the movie. However, I stand by it. The the just the the I I stand by the overall principle is that our society, our world has very often a pretty twisted understanding of what it means to love. Has a pretty twisted understanding or warped understanding of what it means to or what or what love is in general.
Pastor Cameron:We have to answer the question, who gets to define love? Where does love come from? And what is love in its most foundational I don't wanna say basic, but it's most most foundational rooted sense. Or we get to we get deceived into believing and adopting false forms of love that remove our heart from the centrality of where love comes from, which is in the character and the nature of God himself. Now there are many places that we could go in scripture to talk about answer the question, what is love?
Pastor Cameron:Probably one that we're all thinking about is, like, 1st Corinthians 13. Right? Here at weddings, love is patient, kind. It does not envy. It does not boast.
Pastor Cameron:It does not it's not rude or self seeking or arrogant. Right? It keeps no records of wrong. You know, we've heard that, we've heard that a lot. In there's an, a small epistle in the end of our new testament written by John, presumably a disciple of presumably John, the disciple of Jesus, 1 in his inner circle, and he tells us he has a couple chapters in here that go on to describe the nature of love that is found and rooted in God.
Pastor Cameron:It's where we wanna start this morning and spend the majority of our time. So if you have your Bibles, open to 1st John chapter 4. I'm gonna start at verse 7. You should have it up on the screen behind me too. Try to get over your disgust about my notebook comments long enough to hear the word of the Lord this morning.
Pastor Cameron:K? First John chapter 4 starting at verse 7. I'm gonna read through verse 10, then we're gonna come back and talk about those. Dear friends, let us love one another for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
Pastor Cameron:Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. If we go back to the beginning of that section that we just read in verse 7.
Pastor Cameron:We say John says, dear friends, let us love one another for love comes from God. Whatever it is that we believe about love or whatever opinions we develop about love, one thing is for certain, is that love any any opinion that we develop, any belief that we have should start in our understanding of what God believes about love, how God has expressed love, how God has made and demonstrated his love to be known in the world. Whatever we believe about love needs to we need to first learn from God. Now this is true in all forms of love. K?
Pastor Cameron:Because we can all agree that there are different forms of love, different expressions of love. Right? I love my wife. I love you. I love chicken wings.
Pastor Cameron:I love the Buffalo Bills. Right? Right? We there there are different forms of there are different forms of love. Right?
Pastor Cameron:The love that I for instance, that I have for my wife, who is my spouse, is different than the love that I have for Eric, who is a dear friend. But at the foundation of both of those loves is that they both come or found find their foundation in who God is and how God has demonstrated his love for the world. The same way in which God has given of himself in sacrifice, in selflessness, in surrender, in humility, and in service is the same foundation that I build my life, my romantic love for my wife, my love for my for for my friend and my brother, Eric, or my love for you as the church that I serve. And as in much of what John says, and we'll long continue to look at, our love for God is connected for our love for one another. In verse 8 going on, we're in verse 7, he said and then in 1st John 48, whoever does not know whoever does not love does not know God because God is love.
Pastor Cameron:It's maybe one of those if you grew up in the church, this may be one of those first verses that a Sunday school teacher or a religious educator or VBS that you were able to memorize. It's a really short verse, 1st John 48. God is love. Now this is a really important verse. It's a short verse, obviously, but because it displays a major difference between the way in which we understand love as a culture, a notebook type of love, and the way in which love is described as not just something that God does or that we do, but central to who he is.
Pastor Cameron:It is a defining factor of his character. You and I, we do loving things. We express and demonstrate loving things. We are we are patient with people and kind. Right?
Pastor Cameron:We are not self seeking. We are not rude. We are not boastful. Right? We do loving things.
Pastor Cameron:But this is not the way that the scripture purely defines how love is part of God. It describes love as coming from the core of who god is. God is the source and the ground of love. Love cannot be truly and purely understood for others unless we understand that it comes from him and how that love is demonstrated out of him. God is god is love means that all of god's actions are loving even if we do not have understanding or vision or wisdom for how they may be good in our lives.
Pastor Cameron:We have faith to believe that because god is love, all things from him are loving. The next verse, verse 9, John begins to be a little bit more, say, detailed how he describes this love that comes from God. In verse 9, he says, this is how god has shown his love among us. He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. This is where it gets a little bit more interesting.
Pastor Cameron:Christmas, obviously, is a time where a lot of gifts are given. And in your, in your, gift buying experience, guys, it's time to start thinking about what you wanna get the people in your lives for Christmas. You don't have to do it yet. We got some time. Alright?
Pastor Cameron:But start thinking about it at least. Alright? Start thinking towards it. And how we think how do we think about gifts? Well, I don't know how.
Pastor Cameron:I think sometimes I think like, well, what should I get this person? What do they want? What do they need? What does this person want? What do they need?
Pastor Cameron:And what we get them usually communicates what we believe that they want or communicates what we believe they need. For instance, you get me a box of Rogaine for Christmas, a case of slim fast. Right? A book on how to preach a short sermon. Right?
Pastor Cameron:You're communicating what you believe I need. It's saying something even if it's not saying everything. It communicates what we need or maybe what we want. And, I think that God, in the giving of his son, this is how God demonstrates or showed his love among us, He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. That God understands in a more significant way than even we ever will or could.
Pastor Cameron:That our greatest need lie in our separation from him and our need for a savior. That god understands that our greatest need and even our greatest want that we subconsciously have but may not be able to articulate. That our greatest need is a knee is our need for the savior. But he goes further than that in verse 10 in the very verse in very next verse. He says, this is love, not that we loved God.
Pastor Cameron:Remember, because love doesn't start with us, because we we aren't we are not the definers of or the foundation of or the basis for which love is defined. Love is defined in who god is and what god does. John goes on to say in verse 10, this is love, not that we loved God, but that he has loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. That that God's gift of love demonstrated to us, given to us, is that out of his love, we would experience the presence of the savior, the life of the savior, the the future of the savior living in us, atoning sacrifice for our sins. Who who here who here would say that they like giving gifts?
Pastor Cameron:Enjoy it. I think most peep most people like giving gifts. I like giving gifts. I was reading this week, though, trying to get my head wrapped around this this verse here. First John 4 verse 10.
Pastor Cameron:This is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Because that does not seem to me to be a gift that there was a lot of joy in giving. It it seems to me that that would be would have been a painful experience. The sacrifice of a son.
Pastor Cameron:Certainly, we see in the gospels that it was not an easy experience or situation for Jesus himself. He wept over it. He anguished over going to the cross. He he he did it in willful obedience to his father as the way in which it must happen, but it was not done as a matter of, like, happiness. There was pain involved in that.
Pastor Cameron:And this is what I kind of became to realize you think about this concept of giving gifts and the joy of giving it. And I realized this, I don't actually really like giving gifts. It's, honestly, it's pretty painful experience. You got you know that in order for me to give a gift that is, like, meaningful, I keep a note in my phone all year long. And anytime my wife says, oh, that's kinda nice, or, oh, I need one of these, I save it in a note in my phone because I know if I wait until Sunday, December 22nd to remember all of the things that she said she might want or need throughout the year, Ain't ain't no way, man.
Pastor Cameron:Ain't happening. No way. Right? Giving gifts requires a lot of intentionality, doesn't it? And then it requires effort to go out and get it and find it.
Pastor Cameron:And then it requires that you, like, pay for it. You spend money on it. Like and then you wrap it, and then you kinda kinda give it to them, and then there's kind of like this awkward, I don't know if they're gonna like it. They probably won't. There's like you're watching them open it.
Pastor Cameron:It's just not it. Right? It's just that's like like, hold on a second. Wait. No.
Pastor Cameron:I don't like giving gifts. I don't like it. But I love seeing the joy of someone who takes a gift that cost you a lot, and and experience it with joy and use it over and over and over again and look at it after the whole, like, dog and pony show of unwrapping it has gone past, they're still looking at it. They're still contemplating it. They're recognizing the intentionality that it took for you to remember it and to wrap it and to buy it and to get it give it to them.
Pastor Cameron:Most of us, if we were honest and we were thinking about it that way, we'd be like, oh, yeah. I actually don't like giving gifts either. I don't like spending my money. I don't like wrapping it. I don't go through the intentionality of it, all that.
Pastor Cameron:I don't like all that. But, man, do I love seeing people experience joy or happiness over the thing that I worked hard to provide. Alright. And I think that we come to the point of understanding God's love for us, given to us in Jesus Christ, to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins in the same way. There was not necessarily happiness in the giving or in the sacrifice, but Jesus set his face like flint towards the cross, scorning its shame, and went to it knowing that the sacrifice that it would require to finish the work would be would would be would be worth the joy of you and I being reconciled to the heart of the father.
Pastor Cameron:Right. And so the gift given to us in the son was not a gift that was given with a lot of I guess you just used the term, the word joy. But the joy was in our receiving of the gift that was offered to us in Jesus. The heart of God is filled with joy when the gift of his son, Jesus, is given and received that we might know the love of God. That in the receiving of Jesus Christ, we might know the fullness of the love of God.
Pastor Cameron:The prize was worth the pain. Now, this makes it possible for us to love one another. We we cannot love one another in the purity of a god centered love if we have not first received the love of god that has come from Jesus Christ because the love of god given to us in Jesus Christ is the purest form of demonstration of what it means to love. God went first in defining what love is. I'm going to give you my son as an atoning sacrifice for your sins.
Pastor Cameron:That is what love is. And that demonstration gives us the ability to love one another with the same type of spirit filled purity. Earlier in his epistle, John says this, 1st John chapter 3 verse 16. He says, this is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for others.
Pastor Cameron:It is impossible for us to know how to love one another outside of understanding God's love for us in Jesus Christ. Because, listen, almost all love love to our spouse, to our children, to our friends, to our coworkers, to the world. Right? Almost all love has some dimension of suffering and sacrifice, where it requires, just as in the example of God's sacrifice of his son and Jesus' sacrifice of himself, That my love of others, my love of my spouse, my kids, my family, my community, my coworkers, my friends, everything, requires that I willfully take a place of sacrifice, surrender, and humility that they might experience love. We suffer the loss of ownership of our lives, our plans, our hopes, our dreams, our time, our money so that we might serve others in a display of love akin to Jesus suffering to serve and love us.
Pastor Cameron:Being like, well, I don't really suffer to love my kids. That's easy. You of course, you suffer to love your kids. You ever lost a whole night of sleep because you were rocking your child who was sick and couldn't sleep? You gave up something there.
Pastor Cameron:Right? Have you ever have you ever, have you ever not done something on a Friday night that you really wanted to do and that was important to you because your spouse desired to go do this thing? And so you said, okay. What what's important
Elaine:to me
Pastor Cameron:now? It's not important anymore. Whatever is important to you, that's what we wanna do today. Have you ever have you ever latest, like, given of your hard earned time, resources, money, and an expression of love to another person, to another person's? So that so that they might know and experience your the love of God that lives in you for them.
Pastor Cameron:And every time we give up something that we truly want, that we truly desire my sleep is important. Right? But as an expression of love and a demonstration of love, my child is up sick all night long, I am so grateful for the opportunity to let my wife stay up with him. I said that because I was just feeling like this this analogy is not gonna work because it doesn't happen. Right?
Pastor Cameron:The reality remains. Right? That we we give we give up of ourselves as a demonstration of love for others because that is the ground and the root of the love that has come from God. We suffer in our flesh so that we might experience the joy of love that is rooted in God's spirit. And this is exactly what John in his epistle goes on to say is the heartbeat of love.
Pastor Cameron:In first John 318, he says, dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth. Don't tell me you love me. Show me. In John 3, 1st John 314, he continues to say, we know that we have passed from death to life because we love others. Anyone who does not love remains in death.
Pastor Cameron:That a that a key demonstration that we are living in a spirit of resurrection for the from for the spirit of God in us is that we are able to love one another. We know that we have passed from death to life if we love one another. Our capacity and desire to love in this way points to our resurrected life. 1st John 4, 11, and 12. Dear friends, since god has so loved us, we ought we also ought to love one another.
Pastor Cameron:No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is made complete in us. What is John saying here? John John John is saying, is that is that the seeing god for people? No one can see god. But if we love one another, god lives in us and his love he's made complete in us.
Pastor Cameron:That our love for others, our love for him is a demonstration to a world that has not seen the living God, that God is love, and that his love is made complete in us. John finishes his epistle here, and this is where we're gonna this is where we're gonna end, for this morning. We're gonna welcome our kids up front to sing us some songs to the glory of Jesus that they have been practicing for weeks weeks weeks. But he ends his epistle with these with some of these words in 1st John chapter 5 verses 11 and 12. He says, and this is the testimony God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his son.
Pastor Cameron:He who has the son has life. He who does not have the son of God does not have life. Brothers and sisters, I'm here to tell you this morning, right, that God is offering to each and every one of you. The gift of his son, Jesus, as an atoning sacrifice of your sin for your sin, that you may have life in him. The gift is open.
Pastor Cameron:It is in the open hands of God offered to you. Receive and open it. That in reception of the son by faith, your sins may be forgiven, and you may live in him and by him through faith. It is the gift of the son, Jesus Christ, that gives us life. Life now and in abundance, but life forever and into eternity.
Pastor Cameron:Praise be to God. For if we do not have the son, we do not have life. This is the testimony that John has given, that those who have the son have life. Those who do not have the son do not have life. Maybe the gift, the only gift that you need to talk about, that you need to hear about, that you need to receive this morning, this season, is the gift that God has offered to you in his son, Jesus Christ.
Pastor Cameron:To atone for and forgive your sins, to lit to have the son of God by his spirit live in you by faith, so that you may know the transforming power of the love of God that is in Jesus Christ. And that you might live in him and through him, both now and into eternity. This is the this is my prayer for the gift that you would receive this morning and in this season. So would you join me in prayer here as we, as we ask the Lord to make this gift, the gift of his son, readily available to us all. Heavenly father, we thank you, lord, that, we are not left to determine the, we're not left to determine the definition or understanding of love all on our own because, clearly, lord, we fall into traps of believing that love is about us, what we can receive, what is important to us.
Pastor Cameron:Lord, I thank you that you have revealed both in your character and in your son that love starts with you and is about you. That the basis of love is the giving of your son, Jesus, a sacrifice, Lord, that was not easy to make, but that produces joy and life for those that receive it. Lord, I pray that you would move upon this room and move upon the hearts of these people. That they would, Lord, with joy, receive the gift that cost you much. The gift of your son, that atones for their sins, that breathes life Lord, into the dead and dry bones of their body.
Pastor Cameron:Father I pray, in thankfulness for this gift. Lord, may you be glorified in all that is done in us and through us this Christmas season. In Jesus' name, amen.
