Beloved: Sent

This Advent reflection centers on perhaps the most profound truth in all of Scripture: God is love. Drawing from 1 John 4, we're reminded that love isn't merely an attribute God possesses—it's His very essence and nature. The birth of Jesus represents a cosmic invasion of love into a world trapped in deception and fear. Without love, there is no joy, no hope, no peace. Love is the foundation upon which everything else stands. The message challenges us to wrestle with a troubling paradox: our culture obsesses over love yet remains tragically terrible at practicing it. Why? Because we face a spiritual enemy whose primary weapon is deception—twisting reality and distorting the truth that we are made from love, for love. The enemy operates as an accuser, wrapping us in webs of lies so we can't see what's real. Jesus came to unravel these lies, to destroy the works of the devil, and to restore us to the truth of who we are: beloved image-bearers of God. The sermon confronts us with an uncomfortable reality: claiming to love God while hating others makes us liars, aligning us with the father of lies rather than the Father of love. Christmas isn't just a warm, fuzzy celebration—it's a declaration of war against everything that opposes love, and an invitation to live in the reality for which we were created.