4th Advent/Christmas Sunday Worship Service December 21, 2025

Prelude
Call to Worship Jeremiah 23:5
Lighting of the Advent Candle
Hymn JBC # 162 Angels, from the realms of glory
The Lord’s Prayer
Hymn JBC #263 Hover o’er me, Holy Spirit
Confession of Faith
Offering
Scripture 1 John 3:11~18
Prayer
Sermon “This is the message you heard from the beginning”
Prayer
Hymn JBC# 157 O come all ye faithful
Baptismal Ceremony
Doxology JBC # 679
Benediction
Postlude


We are now in the Advent season, which is the four-week period leading up to Christmas on December 25th.
Each of the four Sundays during Advent, we have lit a candle at the beginning of our worship service.
In Christian tradition, the flames of these four candles each symbolize hope, peace, joy, and love.
They are the virtues and gifts that Jesus Christ brought into this world, and through them it is allowed for us to live in this world.
Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent, and also the Christmas Sunday Worship Service. The candle lit at the beginning of today's worship service represents love.

Jesus Christ was born as a human being approximately 2025 years ago. He came to bring hope, peace, joy, and love into this world.
Jesus was born into this world with the mission to save all of us.
What did we need to be saved from? We needed to be saved from the sins we ourselves had committed.
Today's Bible passage contains frightening words like “hates a brother or sister” and “murderer.”
Some of you may be wondering, “Why must we hear such words during a festive occasion like Christmas?”
However, in order for us to truly understand Jesus' love and salvation, it is absolutely essential that we confront our sins head-on through the Bible.

To understand why Christmas is such a time of thanksgiving and joy, it is essential that we understand what it is we have been saved from.
Verse 15 of today's passage reads:
15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

“Anyone who hates their brother or sister is a murderer, and no murderer has eternal life residing in them.” These words are based on the teachings that John, who wrote this letter, heard directly from his teacher, Jesus.
Jesus said the following in Matthew 5:21-22:

21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’(*an Aramaic term of contempt) is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

Most of us probably think we're at least somewhat decent people, even if we don't consider ourselves perfectly righteous or good.
We think somewhere deep down in our hearts, “There are many people out there who are worse and more evil than I am, and I believe that compared to them, I am striving to live rightly.”
But Jesus' words are uncompromising: whoever is angry with their brother or sister will incur judgment, and whoever looks down on their brother or sister by calling them a “fool” will be thrown into the fire of hell.
That is God's standard of righteousness. No one can reach that standard through their own efforts or righteousness. We all must face judgment for our sins.
Today's passage talks about Cain murdering his younger brother Abel, which is recorded at the beginning of the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament.
Cain, whose deeds were evil, killed his brother Abel, whose deeds were righteous.

We think to ourselves, “I have nothing to do with such bad things,” but deep within our hearts, in our sinful nature, we are all Cain.
The wicked rebel against the righteous and try to destroy the righteous by force.
When I honestly confront myself about how incapable I am of truly loving others, how incapable I am of forgiving others, I am compelled to acknowledge that Jesus' words are indeed true.
Yet upon us, who are imperfect like this, a great and unimaginable ray of hope has been shed: For the One who perfectly embodies all these virtues and gifts—hope, peace, joy, and love—has appeared.
Yes, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, came into the world for us, to save us from sin and evil—that is, the Lord Jesus Christ was born.
That is the event of Christmas. Christmas is an event of grace so great, so profoundly significant for us, that our words cannot fully describe it.

Let's read verse 16 from today’s passage.
16 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 our brothers and sisters.

Here, one of the Lord Jesus' own disciples, John, says of Jesus' death on the cross, “The Lord laid down His life for us. By this we know what love is and what it means to love.”
John, along with the other disciples of Christ, were shown that they must continue to proclaim this truth: “We know love, because the Lord Jesus Christ laid down His life for us.”
Christians and Christian churches continue to carry on that spirit and spread the joyous news to the world that “Jesus Christ laid down His life for us, and through this we have come to know what love is.”
However, there is more to verse 16. Let me read all of verse 3:16 again.

16 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 our brothers and sisters.
　　And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
It is a frightening statement that we should lay down our lives for the sake of our brothers and sisters.
This certainly does not mean we should treat our own lives carelessly. Rather, it is precisely because our lives are precious and important that they possess value sufficient to save the lives of others.

And what is important is that those who have come to know true love through the Lord Jesus Christ should be transformed in their way of life to become such people.
The Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, died for me (for us), so that we may know true love.
If this is the case, then those who have come to know true love through Christ—Christians—must have their lives transformed by Christ's love.
If our way of life has not changed at all from before we believed in Christ, then we need to seriously ask ourselves whether or not we are truly living in the grace of Christ.

The teaching that “we too should lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” means we are transformed into a mindset and way of life that repents of self-centered living, recognizing that our lives are also for the sake of giving life to others, that our existence is for the benefit of others.
As the last verses of today's passage, 17-18, say, it means to unite our hearts with those close to us who are suffering, empathizing with the suffering of others, seeing their pain as our own, and taking some concrete action (even if it is small).
The Lord laid down His life for us. Through this, we came to know love. I came to know that I am loved, that I am precious. Therefore, I too love others. The Lord's love transforms us in this way.

The first verse of today's passage, verse 11, states as follows:
　　11 For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

This teaching, passed down by the Apostle John and the Christian church throughout the ages—to respect others, to live for their benefit and for their sake, and for us who do so to “love one another”—is the way of faith that believers in Christ have heard from the very beginning.
This important teaching remains unchanged, guiding us as the compass of our faith and providing us with strength.
As we approach Christmas, we are called to “love one another” based on Christ's love. We desire to hold this precious teaching (the Word) in our hearts and put it into practice as our own way of life.