Advent 2022 - Jesus as Savior - Love (1023)

Advent means “coming” or “arriving.” Each year we enter advent season and ask the Lord to prepare our hearts to celebrate the Christmas season by looking back at Jesus’ first coming. As we prepare our hearts to celebrate Jesus’ first coming, we look at different themes each week. These themes of hope, love, joy, and peace help us rightly focus during the busyness of the holiday season on the true reason for the Christmas season. 

There is a theological concept that theologians refer to as the Threefold Office of Christ. These parts of the office of Christ are linked to Jesus’ earthly ministry and are linked to His anointing as Christ. Christ means “anointed one” and all three of these offices included an anointing in the Old Testament. To anoint in the Old Testament was to usually take oil and pour or rub the oil on someone who was being instilled or confirmed in the offices of prophet, priest, or king. This marked a physical reality of something that was taking place spiritually.

A fourth role that Jesus fulfills that is in the Old Testament, but is not directly related to an Old Testament office that required anointing, is His role as Savior. 

So, over the next four weeks we will look at the following four roles of Christ and how they are linked to the four themes of Advent. 

The prophet was anointed to speak to the people on behalf of God. This brings us hope. 

The savior (or deliverer) was to save God’s people. This show us God’s love. 

The priest was to speak to God on behalf of the people. This brings us peace. 

The king was to lead God’s people to follow God. This brings us joy.

Let’s look today at Jesus as Savior and how this should show us God’s love. 

1 John - The Apostle John’s Letter to churches in around 93-96 AD

Summary of the letter: Light, Love, and Life

Setting - There were many false teachers during the time this letter was written and Christians regularly faced heavy persecution. 

Purpose of the Letter

1 John 5:13–15 (ESV): 13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. 14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. 

1 John 4:7–21 (ESV): 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 

13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. 

Romans 5:1–11 (ESV): Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. 

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. 

Ephesians 2:1–10 (ESV):  And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. 

Jesus is our Savior which displays God’s love to us. Here are four takeaways to dwell on.

• Don’t look to your circumstances to see God’s love, look to the cross.

• God’s love for you doesn’t exist because Jesus saved you, Jesus saved you because of God’s love for you. 

• Since God has loved you, your love for Him and others should grow. 

• God’s love for you should cast out fear about Judgement Day.

Topics for the Prayer Time

*Those who have yet to believe in Jesus

*The unreached peoples of the earth

*Missionaries around the world and for more to go

*The spiritual growth of other believers and churches

*That you would have more spiritual gifts

*That Christians would remain faithful under persecution

*Those who are sick

*Those who have lost loved ones

*Those traveling

*Our nation, leaders, military, and civil servants

*Pray for the health and salvation of the unborn babies in our church

*Pray against the evils of abortion and human trafficking

*Pray for the University of Florida international students 

*Pray God would bless our efforts to in evangelism and discipleship

*Pray God would bless our community

*Pray God would bless the churches of those visiting us