So Loved

The sermon text this morning comes from John's Gospel, the fourth, excuse me, the third chapter, chapter 3, verses 16 to 21.

This is a text that I try to preach from at least every other year, if not every year.

Such a glorious promise, such a great text.

Hear it once again, perhaps with fresh ears and hearts.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Whoever believes in him is not condemned.

But whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

And this is the judgment.

The light has come into the world, and the people love the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil.

For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

This is the reading of God's precious word.

Would you please pray with me?

Father, we thank you that you so love this world, that you gave us your son and you gave us your word.

You gave us the inscripturated word of God.

How else would we know?

Thank you for giving us the word and the son.

But we also want to thank you for giving us your spirit so that we might understand and believe and live accordingly.

So, Spirit, we pray, come and do your work.

In the name of Christ we ask this.

Amen.

The story goes, as reported by D.L.

Moody, the famous preacher and evangelist downtown Chicago decades ago.

He'd been to England early in his ministry where he met a young English preacher named Henry Morehouse.

Morehouse and Moody got to know each other briefly, and Morehouse said, you know, I'm thinking about coming to America.

And Moody, without really thinking, do you ever say things you don't really think about?

First, he said, Well, if you ever get to Chicago, come to my church and I'll let you preach.

Then he thought afterward, where I have no idea what kind of preacher he is.

So one day, months later, Morehouse came to America, New York City, and telegrammed Moody, just arrived in New York, will be in Chicago on Sunday.

Well, it so happens in God's timing that Moody was going to be out of town for a week, so the pulpit was open anyway.

He told his wife, I'll let him preach once.

You listen carefully, and if you think he does all right, he can preach again that week.

Otherwise, I'll have my associates preach.

Moody returned, asked his wife, how did he do?

Well, you need to go hear him.

Well, no, how did he do?

Well, he's actually a better preacher than you.

And they believe him.

Afterward, when Moody heard for himself Henry Morehouse preach about the love of God, Moody said that it was on that night that for the first time in his life he believed that he began to understand the greatness of God's love.

And that's what we're looking at this morning.

The father's desire, the father's gift, and the father's invitation.

The father's desire to share his heart with sinners like us.

Aren't you glad that when you come into this sanctuary, one thing the ushers don't hand out to you is a checklist, a scorecard to rate your sin.

Now that could be interesting.

I suppose in many churches throughout America, many people would have a hard time anything as they define sin.

Other people might be tempted to not come in to the sanctuary.

Because if they stood out there in the Northex and they just started checking, and their conscience was alive, and they were really honest, they might check off so many boxes that maybe they might not come in.

And what a pity that would be.

We are all sinners, but there are many people in this world who don't consider themselves sinners, and there's many more people in this world who don't consider their sin to be such a problem that it warrants any action by the Father.

The Father's desire, the Bible says that God is love.

He delights in sharing his love with his own son.

We looked at that last summer.

Last summer, if you were here, and if you weren't here, you can go back and listen to it online if you care to, but we had a series on the Trinity.

And we talked about the relationship and the harmony, the perfect harmony between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

They've never been out of accord.

They understand each other completely, they get each other a hundred percent.

And they just adore each other.

Remember that?

The father sent his son into this world to make himself known.

Do you think that the father would have sent his son into this world to face what he would end up facing if there was any other way for the father to make his heart known?

No, not a chance.

He was not content simply to download information about himself.

And that's where sometimes we struggle.

Well, wait a minute, was the cross really necessary?

Could he not have, I mean, he means these are his letters, right?

These are good letters.

Wouldn't it be enough if he just gave us the letters?

And we read the letters and we thought, okay, this is good.

I'm finding hope, I'm finding help.

No, it wasn't enough.

It just wasn't enough.

So he sent his son.

His love for the world, as Michael Reeves says, is the overflow of his almighty love for his own son.

Hear that.

His love for the world is the overflow of his almighty love for his own son.

He doesn't love you any more than he loves his own son.

But hear this.

He doesn't love you any less than he loves his own son.

Did you know that?

I'm serious.

You've heard it.

Do you know that?

His love for you, sinner, in Christ, is no less than his love for his own son.

It's the overflow.

That's why.

Sometimes I just want to go nuts.

You know, if I if I just can go weeks or months without being stirred in my heart.

How can I handle this fragile, precious, treasure gift and be so nonchalant about it?

Do you struggle with that?

I can just like, yeah, yeah, that's great that God loves me.

Are the lights on?

Jonathan Edwards said, This God's very self is found in giving, not taking.

I mean, let's be honest.

We're oftentimes more takers than givers, aren't we?

We've got some, sometimes we have some noble days.

Sometimes we have some days where I think I've been giving, giving, giving.

But we're takers too much of the time.

But not God.

He is the definition of giver.

So he sent his son.

Jesus, the night before he died, prayed in the room with the disciples.

He prayed this at John chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

Father, I thank you that you have loved them even as you have loved me.

Now that may be news to you.

That when you come to Jesus Christ and you see Jesus Christ as your only hope for heaven, and you come to Jesus Christ and you see that Jesus Christ is the only sacrifice that could atone for your sin.

When you see that and you come to believe and understand that because Christ is your substitute, the Father's love is no less for you than for his own son.

He died instead of, he died in place of.

The Father's desire.

Secondly, the Father's gift.

Well, what was that gift?

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

God's not just a talker, he's a giver.

He gave.

Don't ever take it down.

For God so loved Pittsburgh.

I know that's some of that's hard for some of you guys.

I get that.

For God so loved Pittsburgh.

I love that.

Maybe we need a sign for God so loved Washington, D.C.

God so loved Alexandria.

He gave his one and only son.

Gave past tense, historic event.

I mean, it's in history.

Whether you lived at that time and you were a Roman or you were a Jew or you were a Gentile, if you lived in that time, you most likely believed that God gave a son.

His name was Jesus.

You may not have believed it, you may not have believed the message, but there's this is a historical reality.

Jesus left heaven.

He came to earth and he lived a perfect life.

He never sinned.

Although he was tempted in every way.

He never messed up.

He never said to the father, no.

Think about that.

He never said to the father, no.

Not gonna do it that way.

Don't like it.

I'm gonna do it my way.

The father so loved the world, and it's a world of sinners.

It's not the world that you would wish it to be.

It's not the perfect world.

We've all contributed to the mess, haven't we?

Our father Adam started it, but we've all contributed to the mess.

We've all made it worse.

I'm not saying that we haven't made it better in some ways.

We should be making it better, but in some ways we've all made it worse.

With our words, our thoughts, our actions, as well as the stuff that we haven't done or said that we should have said and done.

The Father sent his son because he so loved the world.

The greatest gift is his son.

The greatest gift is not the most glorious sunset you've ever seen.

We love glorious sunsets, don't we?

The greatest gift is not a beautiful full moon that Sharon and I were just staring at forever at Lake George the other night.

That's not the greatest gift.

The greatest gift is not Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Everest, the Grand Canyon.

I mean, those are wonderful expressions of God's greatness.

But they're not the greatest gift.

So don't get lost in creation.

The greatest gift.

He so loved this world of sinners that he gave his son.

That whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

And I know for many people today in our city, in our world, they say, that's the part I don't like.

I'm okay with God's a big-hearted, loving God.

I got that.

I like that.

What I don't get, what I really struggle with, is that next phrase.

That whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

I don't like that.

I don't like that.

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already.

Because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

I don't like that.

And so what do we hear as a constant refrain in our culture?

That is so narrow-minded.

That's why I don't like Christianity.

That's why I struggle.

That's why I just can't really get on board.

That's the part that trips me up.

It's just so exclusivistic.

So how do we respond to that?

Well, first of all, we lovingly, right?

We better winsomely.

This is not a book to beat people over the head with.

This is a book that was given to us to shape our hearts to become more loving and patient and kind and tender and yes, humble.

So that when we have conversations, whether they're with people who are skeptics or with if they're people that are Christians, because we can be pretty critical with them too, this is a book that was given to us, and the Son was given to us, so that we might be learning how to become more like our Savior.

And so, yes, when we respond to skeptics, we don't browbeat them, we don't condemn them, we listen.

And we talk and we pray.

And we say things like, you know what, I get, I understand why that could really be so problematic.

Because the message that we're hearing today is anyone can come any way, right?

Anyone can come to God any way they choose.

And that seems so open-minded, inclusive.

So what do we say?

We say, actually, that's not.

That's not so open-minded.

Actually, that really dumbs down God's character shamefully.

What that really says is if God says it really doesn't matter how you come, how you find peace, how you find the next life, or peace in the next life, however you choose to define it, it really doesn't matter how you do that.

As long as you get there, all roads lead to heaven.

Well, actually, they don't.

Jesus Himself said, no one comes to the Father but by me.

You can't just cross that out.

You can't just make that go away because if you don't like that.

No one comes to the Father but by me.

Is that exclusive?

Is that narrow-minded?

Is that bigoted?

No.

It's the most gracious, kind, loving truth we could possibly know.

If what God says about my sinful condition is true, if what God says about my sinful heart is accurate, I need a savior, I need a remedy, I need an outside rescue.

I know it can't come from me.

It's not exclusivistic, it's not narrow-minded because what God is saying, there is a way.

And I take your sin so seriously because of my own character, who I am.

I can't, I can't cuddle up with sin.

I can't pretend that it doesn't exist.

Then I'm not a real God.

I'm not the real God.

I have to take your sin seriously.

But I take your sin so seriously, and I take my love for you so seriously that I have provided the remedy.

And the remedy is but one.

I had to part with my son.

I had to tell my son, leave heaven and go to earth and come and live a perfect life and die the perfect death.

And trust me and never turn back from me.

Never say to me, No, Father, I'm not going to do it that way.

Every step of the way I need you to obey me.

Every step of the way I need you to carry out the mission.

And the son said, Yes.

The Father's gift is his son.

The way of the world's thinking today dumbs down God's character, and it also dumbs down God's love.

Think about it.

What would his love be if it was so cavalier, if it was so not special?

If God really stepped back and said, look, it really doesn't matter.

I made the world, I created the world, I created you.

You come any way you want to come, and that's okay.

How in the world do you make sense of the coming of Jesus?

How in the world do you make sense of the death of Jesus?

How in the world do you make sense of the great rupture between the Father and the Son when the Son came in to this world?

You can't.

Which, by the way, is why so many people today take it so lightly.

His love for you is costly, and that's why we sing.

About his love.

And that's why we talk about his love.

And that's why I ask God to forgive me.

I do.

I ask God to forgive me on the days when it doesn't melt my heart.

I don't want to cheapen his love.

I don't want to cheapen his grace.

Lastly, the Father's invitation.

Come to him through his son.

But come.

Don't spend the rest of your life armchair quarterbacking.

Don't spend the rest of your life considering it.

Come.

Whoever believes.

I'm pretty sure that includes you.

Whoever.

Charles Spurgeon said about this: none of us ever had such a son to give.

Our sons are the sons of men.

His was the son of God.

The Father gave his other self.

Listen to this.

This is classic Spurgeon.

The Father gave his other self, one with himself.

When the great God gave his son, he gave God himself.

He's not saying that there's no distinction between the father and the son.

Don't hear that.

For Jesus is not in his eternal nature less than God.

When God gave God for us, he gave himself.

What more could he give?

God gave his all.

Judge you fathers how you love your own sons.

Would you, could you give them to die for your enemy?

We were in a covenant fellowship group four months, five months ago.

We're talking about God's love.

And one of the men in our group stopped and paused.

He looked around the room.

He scanned the room.

He said, you know, I really do love you people, but I wouldn't give my son to die for you.

And there was really pretty good silence in that room.

I would judge 30 seconds of silence.

It just struck like a thunderbolt in me.

I think in the room.

I love you people.

But he said, I might give myself up for you.

I might die for you.

But I couldn't give you my son to die for you.

Those were honest words.

For God so loved this world of sinners that he gave his son.

The Father gave the Son.

The Son gave his life.

And Jesus gives his spirit.

He gives his spirit because the Spirit is the one who gives you faith to believe.

So that you can believe, so that you can trust, so that you can surrender to his love.

So that you can cave.

It's a day to cave.

What's stopping you?

Spurgeon again.

God did not so love the world that any man who does not believe in Christ shall be saved.

Neither did God give his son that any man shall be saved who refuses to believe in him.

While every unbeliever is excluded, because there is only Jesus, every believer is included.

Believe.

Whoever makes a grand sweep, it encircles all degrees of faith.

I love that.

It encircles, it encompasses all degrees of faith.

He's certainly not saying get your life together, get your act together, clean your life up, and then come.

Who could come?

We can't do that.

He's saying, come as you are.

But come.

You say, my faith, my faith feels weak.

This promise, as Spurgeon said, encompasses all degrees of faith.

It's not the amount of your faith, it's the object of your faith.

You look to Jesus Christ as your Savior.

And you come with whatever measure of faith you find within today.

Somebody else might say, well, how do I know I'm going to make it to the end?

Because I'm pretty fickle.

I could just see myself going off.

Spurgeon.

He that believes is a member of Christ.

Will Christ lose his members?

How should Christ be perfect if he lost even his little finger?

Are Christ's members to rot off or to be cut off?

Impossible.

If you have faith in Christ, you are a partaker of Christ's life, and you cannot perish.

If men were trying to drown me, he said, they could not drown my foot as long as my head was above the water.

Isn't that great?

And as long as our head, Jesus, is above the water, up yonder in eternal sunshine, the least limb of his body can ever be cut off or lost.

Think about that.

You're his hand, you're his foot, you're connected, but he's your head.

And as long as the head is above the water, you'll not be lost.

You know, I've been waiting to preach this for three weeks.

I've been thinking about God's love.

I love to think about God's love.

What's the Spirit saying to you right now?

What is the Spirit calling you to do in response to God's love?

Come and be saved.

Come and be renewed.

Come and repent for making little of such a great love.

I don't know what the Spirit would say to you.

I close with just a quote in a story.

The quote is from one of my favorite Lutheran theologians, Gerhard Ford.

He says, preaching a description of God's love purely is deadly and usually counterproductive.

It's like yelling so loudly at your children to go to sleep that you keep them awake.

What parent hasn't done that?

That's like the law.

Are you still using the law like it's the gospel?

It's like yelling.

God doesn't just yell, he doesn't yell at us.

Go to sleep.

Do this.

This is what Ford said.

You have to learn to sing lullabies.

Isn't that what God does?

He sent us the law, he gave us the law, but then he gave us his son.

And his son is the one who sings the lullaby.

The Father sings over us the lullaby.

Let me suggest something this afternoon, if not today, this week.

Keep your bulletin this week, alright?

Don't trash it.

Keep your bulletin and go back and read what Katie read from Isaiah.

And ask yourself, could that be true of me?

What would my life look like if I really believe that?

Go back and read the text of the sermon.

Go back and sing the songs.

You have to learn to sing lullabies.

Let me tell you a story as we close.

True story.

As far as I know, I heard it from Steve Brown almost 30 years ago.

It's been a long time since anybody here has heard it.

The boy was 15, she was 16.

They met and fell in love and they married one year later.

Five years later, with three children, she stood at the kitchen and looked at all the dirty dishes and said, I'm out of here.

And she walked out of her husband's life and her family.

She called him that night, and by then her husband was furious.

Where are you?

She just said, Well, how are the children?

Well, I fed them and I put them to bed and I did everything that you should have done.

But you need to get home this minute.

And she hung up.

It was a week later when she called next and his anger had subsided.

She said, How are you?

He said, We're awful.

We're falling apart.

We're doing what we can, but we miss you.

Please come home.

And she hung up.

Over the next few weeks, the calls came intermittently, the same conversation.

She would always ask about the kids.

And he would say, by now, his heart melted, we love you.

We miss you so much.

Would you please come home?

And each time she would hang up.

And finally he got his savings out of the bank and hired a private investigator to find out where his wife was.

The trail was pretty clear, and the next day the detective reported back.

She was at a third-rate hotel in Des Moines, Iowa.

So he borrowed the money from his in-laws.

He got an airplane ticket and he flew to Des Moines.

He climbed to the second floor where the desk clerk told him where his wife had a room.

His speech was all prepared, but he forgot it as soon as she opened the door.

He just wept and said, I love you.

Come home.

And she fell apart and she fell into his arms and went home.

Later on, he asked her the question, Why wouldn't you come all those times that I called?

I told you that I loved you.

And she said, because it was all words.

And then you came.

You know he pursues you.

You know he came.

You know he didn't just send letters.

He came in the ultimate sense of coming.

And he died for you because he loved you.

And he delights in you.

And he wants you to fall into his arms again today.

And know his love in a new way.

Pray with me.

Father, we we come.

And we pray, would you give us faith?

Father, whether it's a first-time faith for some, oh God, may the angels rejoice in heaven for those who even this day come to Jesus for salvation.

Let them come.

Spirit of God, open eyes, open ears, warm, cold hearts, regenerate dead hearts, Spirit of God.

But we also pray that you would renew, that you would restore, that you would, that you would thaw the hearts of many of us who have come before, but the ice has a way of freezing over.

And sometimes we make so little of the Father's love and the Son's gift.

Forgive us.

Change us.

Open us up.

Give us new spiritual eyes to see a love so great that we might be changed by the gift, by the giver.

Let your love shake us, move us, save us, sanctify us.

Jesus, thank you that you didn't just sign the letters.

You came.

And because you came, this world is different.

And because you came one day, this world will be restored completely with the new heavens and the new earth.

And then we will surely know, in a way like never before, how true your word is and how great is your love.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.