The Love of Christmas
Pastor Tan Thai · Dec 24, 2019
This Christmas sermon explores three characteristics of God's love revealed through the birth of His Son: humility, forgiveness, and sacrifice. The pastor reminds the congregation that true love does not originate from a pure human heart, but from God who is the source of all love.
The sermon opens by observing that love is the most universal theme in literature, music, and film. The pastor uses the familiar Vietnamese saying 'a thatched hut, two golden hearts' to point out that no human heart is truly as pure as gold — the human heart is full of selfishness, greed, and sin, as the prophet Jeremiah warned (Jeremiah 17:9).
The first section presents the humility of God's love through Christmas. Jesus Christ was not born in a place of power or luxury, but in a dark and foul-smelling stable. His birth was not announced to intellectuals or the powerful, but to lowly shepherds at the bottom of society. The pastor emphasizes that God's love comes to those with humble hearts who acknowledge their sin — like the tax collector in Luke 18:13 who dared not lift his eyes to heaven but beat his chest confessing he was a sinner.
The second section presents Christmas love as forgiving love. Jesus Christ was born specifically to die on the cross in order to forgive human sin. The pastor cites Christ's teaching to Peter about forgiving seventy times seven (Matthew 18:21-22) and the story of the disciples who abandoned Christ but were forgiven and restored. Because all people are sinful and every relationship requires forgiveness, God's love becomes the foundation for believers to forgive one another.
The third section presents Christmas love as sacrificial love. The all-powerful God, Creator of the universe, willingly humbled Himself to be born as a man in order to die for human sin — even knowing beforehand that people would reject Him (John 1:10-11). The pastor highlights the sacrifices of Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and the wise men from the East as examples of those who gave sacrificially for the Lord.
The sermon concludes with an exhortation from Colossians 3:12-14, calling the congregation to clothe themselves with kindness, humility, patience, and forgiveness — because the Lord has first forgiven them. Christmas love is not a transactional love of give-and-take, but a love that willingly accepts loss and sacrifice for those it cherishes.