"Believe" John 3:16-18 Sunday Morning Worship Service

One verse for our last lockdown morning.

John 3, verse 16.

John 3:16

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

Whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Well, I don't know for certain.

This, as far as I can remember, is the first Bible verse I read.

I did not grow up in a home where we read the Bible.

We had a Bible.

I didn't know we had a Bible, but we did have one.

And let me tell you how I discovered the Bible in our house.

I was watching a soccer game on TV when I was 14 years old, 1990.

It was the United States against Austria in Italy in the World Cup.

And the US was getting thumped, as was our custom that year in the World Cup, and every World Cup just about.

And the stadium was relatively empty compared to the other games.

I would have expected more Austrians to come down to Italy, but both teams were eliminated, and the stadium was, as I said, pretty empty.

But in the corner, the far side corner from the cameras, there was a man.

I now know his name, Roland Stewart, but there was a man in the stadium holding up a sign that said John 3.16.

John 3.16.

And whenever there was a corner kick on that far side, much more when the Austrians were attacking that end than when the Americans were on that end, he would hold up the sign as the camera went in to follow the corner kick.

And I was very confused.

I didn't know that it was a Bible verse.

I didn't know what the verse said.

I thought that it was some kind of like calling a play, like some kind of, you know, like in football, the quarterback calls a play.

I thought maybe that's what they were doing.

It was a, you know, run John 3.16, go on a corner kick.

But then it didn't make sense when it happened in the second half, also.

And so after the game, I asked my dad, what is John 3.16 doing at a soccer game?

And he said he was pretty sure it was a Bible verse.

And he went and found the Bible in our house, and the two of us went to look up the passage.

And I remember it being somewhat difficult to find John 3.16, because the first thing that one discovers doing this is that 316 is not a page number in the Bible.

I know this now, I've been to seminary, but then this was a new discovery.

A new discovery to me.

The second thing I discovered is that there are a lot of Johns.

This was an old Catholic Bible, and it had several Johns in it.

It had the apocalypse according to St.

John and first, second, and third epistle of St.

John and the Gospel of St.

John.

And which one could it possibly be?

Turns out John 3.16 and 1 John 3.16 both say about the same thing.

So that distinction didn't really matter that much.

But eventually I settled on John 3.16, and I remember reading it, my dining room table, out loud to my dad, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

And I just looked at it for a second, and I looked at my dad and I asked him a very important question.

What does this have to do with soccer?

And he said, I don't, I don't know.

And that was that.

I put it away and went on my life, not really thinking about John 3.16, until many years later when I finally came to faith in Jesus Christ.

At that moment, I was living for soccer, not the Lord, and so it was pressing to me.

The Bible had significances in as much as it related to soccer.

I didn't realize when I read it that that was the most memorized, the most quoted, most translated, and most published verse in the Bible, which would make it, perhaps, the most translated and published piece of writing in the world.

I didn't realize what I was reading.

Now, Roland Stewart, if you're familiar at all with him, traveled around the world for about 15 years holding up the sign at all manner of sporting events until he finally went to prison where he remains to this day, serving three life sentences.

So there's that.

The reason this verse is so powerful, though, is not because Roland Stewart held it up at many sporting events.

This verse is so powerful because it is indeed the gospel in a nutshell.

It is the theme of the Bible in a sentence.

There is not a wasted word or wasted preposition in here.

In fact, the English translations of this add more words to it than are even in the Greek.

This little nutshell of a verse contains the theme of the Bible, from the opening words of the Bible to the closing words of the Bible.

The Bible begins with the declaration there is one God and it ends with the promise that God will bring priests to the world through Jesus Christ.

That's contained in this verse.

This verse has the riches of heaven in it and the torments of hell in it.

It has the benevolence of God and it has the radical nature of sin and the necessity of salvation.

It's all wrapped up here in this verse.

This verse strikes the cord that it is a narrow path to heaven.

It is a narrow way to heaven.

And there are very few who find it, Jesus says.

The way to destruction is wide, and most of the world is on it.

That is described in this verse.

The only way to be reconciled to God because of our sin is through Jesus Christ.

He is the door to heaven.

He's not only the door to heaven.

He is himself the door.

You want to go to heaven, you must go through him.

He is the shepherd of the sheep.

He is the judge of the living and the dead.

He is the one that defines what righteousness is.

He explains what love is, and he invites people to be reconciled, forgiven of their sins, and restored to a right relationship with God.

I mean, that is the theme of the Bible, and it is contained in John 3.16.

Even the broader theme of the Bible, that God is going to allow sin to enter the world through Adam and Eve's disobedience, and a promise that the Savior will come to the world to put an end to the reign of sin and death, that sin brings death, but God brings a promise that his promise will crush the head, the promised savior will crush the head of the serpent, the serpent of sin, the serpent of death, the serpent who is the devil.

Although the devil will strike out at the Savior and will pierce his foot, will pierce his heel, will give him really a lethal wound with his venom, the Savior will resurrect and bring the gospel to the world.

In the meantime, the nations will go their own way.

They will rise up in revolt against God, sin and death will spread, the nations will separate, and God gives his promise to one particular nation, the nation Israel.

That God will guard them and isolate them and make them a people distinct from the world, and then send his gospel to the world through those people for the world.

That's contained in this verse.

And to let that hit you in this verse, John 3.16 is in a context here.

And the context is the conversation with Nicodemus.

We have looked at that verse before.

It is just about my favorite passage to preach in the Bible, John 3, verses 1 through 15.

John 3:1–15

I've mentioned it several times.

We've studied it before in depth here.

It's this passage where Nicodemus comes to Jesus.

Nicodemus the Pharisee comes to Jesus at night, which makes John 3 the Nicod Night chapter.

It's true.

And Nicodemus comes and he wants to know what must a person do to be saved?

That's his question.

And by the way, when Nicodemus says, What must a man do to be saved?

He's talking not generically about people.

He's talking specifically about the religious leaders of Israel.

What must they do to be saved?

Because it's pretty clear by this point in Jesus' ministry, he does not think the Pharisees are on their way to heaven.

He's rebuked them, he's flipped over the tables in the temple already, he's driven them out with whips.

This is not exactly very subtle here.

He's told them that they've turned his father's house into a den of thieves, as he literally drove them out of the temple.

The whole Jewish mindset and worldview was that God had a favor for Israel.

He had set his affection on Israel and particularly the religious leaders of Israel, and they were on their way to heaven.

And so if Jesus is saying the Pharisees can't be saved, then there are some problems here.

And so Nicodemus wants to know what a good, self-righteous, rule-keeping Pharisee like himself must do to go to heaven.

And of course, that is the question of every rule-keeping, rule-following, line-toting, self-righteous person in world history.

And they're not confined to Israel.

They want to know, isn't that the question people ask?

What must I do?

Tell me something to do to go to heaven.

And that question is the question of every human heart, or at least it should be.

It should burden you.

What are God's requirements for heaven?

It should burden you when you die, when you close your eyes in final sleep, where will they open?

Will they open in eternal judgment because of your sin?

Or will they open in eternal rest and worship because of your salvation?

That should be the burden on every human heart.

Now many people just don't think about it.

Many people just say, I can't know what's going to happen when I die, so I won't think about it.

What good comes with thinking about death?

Only more deaths, and so I won't do it.

I just check out.

And that person is self-deceived.

That person may think they're doing something rational by not thinking about death, but the truth is they're closing their minds to the most significant question a human can ask.

What will happen to me when I die?

And it is ingrained in people because of sin, it is ingrained in people to want to do something in order to have eternal life.

I want to do something.

Because otherwise it's not fair, right?

Otherwise it's not fair.

If some people go to heaven who didn't do good things for heaven, then it's not fair.

If some people go to hell that did good things in their life, then that's not fair.

Shouldn't it be fair?

Shouldn't there be some sense of justice involved?

If there's some people that are better than others, shouldn't the better people go to heaven and just tell me what to do to be better?

I mean, that is the essence of self-idolatry.

Because do you understand what's behind that?

That if there's a list of things to do, I have the power and capacity in me to do them, which makes me a good person.

You therefore become the arbiter of what is good.

Basically, what you do defines good.

Now that kind of attitude, the attitude of tell me a rule and I'll follow it.

Give me a goal and I'll achieve it.

That kind of attitude might make you a good athlete, it might make you a good soldier, but it absolutely cripples you in your approach to God.

Cripples you.

Because you cannot approach God with this attitude of tell me the training regimen and I can accomplish it.

I will get up early and I will stay up late.

Tell me what you want me to do and I will do it.

Because that is the attitude that shows you're so self-deceived about your own capacity.

You are a sinner.

Your heart loves to rebel against God.

And so if your starting point is God tell me what to do and I'll do it, you're not even aware of who you are.

It's like a fish telling me, show me how to drive a car and I'll drive.

The fish has some problems.

The cars don't work underwater to start with.

They don't have opposable thumbs would be a second point.

They can't reach the pedals would be a third point.

They can't pass the driver license exam.

I mean, there's lots of reasons fish can't drive.

The human being that says, tell me what to do and I'll do it, is in the same proverbial boat.

Because the starting point with every person's relationship with God has to be, I can't do what you want me to do.

That's the starting point.

Nobody can be in a right relationship with God if they don't get to that point.

And that's why John 3.16 is so critical that it comes after John 3.1 through 15, where Nicodemus says, Tell me what to do and I'll do it.

And Jesus says, the one thing you need, you can't bring.

You need to be born again, Nicodemus, and you can't do it to yourself.

You didn't make yourself born the first time, you can't make yourself be born the second time.

Nicodemus's jaw drops open, Jesus rebukes him.

How dare you call yourself the teacher of Israel and you don't know this?

That's the context of this.

Nicodemus wants to know what a self-righteous Jew must do to be saved, and Jesus' response is that God loves the whole world.

You want to rule on what to do to be saved?

The Bible gives them to you.

You want to rule on what to do to be saved?

Be perfect.

Love your neighbor like yourself.

And be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.

And if your response to that is, okay, I can do that.

Tell me who my neighbor is, tell me what love is, and I'll do it.

You're blind.

You're blind.

Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.

Okay.

Keep the Ten Commandments and you'll go to heaven, kind of answer.

Okay.

What are they again?

You're too late, my friend.

You're too late.

Be the best person ever, and you can go to heaven.

And by the way, Jesus already did that, and there are no points for second place.

And so the Jesus nick at night exchange ends back where the Bible begins with John 3, 16.

Let me put the verse on the screen for you.

And what we're gonna do this morning is an outline.

We're gonna walk ourselves through every phrase of this verse.

Every phrase of this verse, I want you to have a full understanding of what is contained in this precious, precious verse.

This verse begins with the description of the greatest being.

The greatest being.

For God is how this verse begins.

This verse begins with where the Bible begins.

In the beginning, God, this is where the Bible begins.

There was nothing, and then God made all things.

There is only one God.

The Bible makes that clear.

Malachi 2, verse 10.

Malachi 2:10

Has not the one God created us?

Malachi asks.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

In the beginning was the word.

The word was with God, and the word was God.

This is where all theology begins, all anthropology, the study of people begins with this: that people are creatures.

We are created.

We are not the creator.

We are sinful.

The creator is pure and holy.

We are in time.

We had a beginning.

God does not.

God is outside of time.

He is before time.

He is over time.

He rules all of time.

God has a different relationship to time than we do.

He has a different relationship to matter than we do.

We are matter.

We have mass.

God does not.

He made all things.

1 Corinthians 8, verse 6.

1 Corinthians 8:6

There is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him.

All things come from Him and they point to Him.

They are for Him.

They reveal Him and they glorify Him.

This is the nature of all things in the world.

All things in the world were made by God to reveal God's own glory.

God defines all things, He gives all things their significance.

And God is a holy God.

That is the universal testimony of Scripture.

He's undefiled.

There's no sin in him.

He is too holy to entertain evil with his eyes, meaning that he can't allow evil in his presence.

He can't allow evil to make a presentation in his presence.

He won't tolerate evil in heaven.

He can't allow sinners in heaven because he's too holy to allow that.

So he is undefiled.

God is the only being not affected by the fall.

The fall brings all of creation into captivity.

A third of the angels rebel against God.

But God remains pure and holy, undefiled.

This is the angel's response in Isaiah chapter 6, verse 3.

Isaiah 6:3

The angels in the book of Isaiah are declaring, Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh of hosts.

The whole earth is filled with his glory.

The angels are struck by the holiness of God.

People are struck by the holiness of God.

Isaiah, when he saw God revealed in the temple, grabbed a coal to scar his own tongue.

Manoah, Samson's father, when he saw the angel of the Lord, pled for death.

Daniel fell down in a trance as though dead.

Elijah hid in a cave.

Moses covered his ears and begged that God speak no more words to him, because there is no one like God.

He is holy in every way.

With eyes too pure to entertain evil.

He's a judge so righteous you won't stand a chance in his courtroom.

He won't stand a chance.

He won't pardon the guilty.

He will condemn them because he is the pure and holy God.

He is the one God that made all things.

That's the greatest being.

This verse goes on from the greatest being to describe the greatest affection for God so loved.

For God so loved.

And this is a, as we talked about last week, this is a it's a noun, it's a participle.

It's it's this idea that God there is love in the heart of God, in the being of God, and that love comes out of God in a particular way.

It is the overflow, and it's translated into English as so loved.

God loved the world, some translations do it, render it this way.

God loved the world in this way.

It's this idea that God has love in his being and it comes out of him.

It is the greatest affection.

The Bible makes this clear that God is light and he is life, but he is also love.

You never want to pit any of God's attributes against each other, as if which of God's attributes is more significant or which, because they're undivided.

Do you understand this?

When you're dealing with God, he is undivided.

The nature of God is undivided.

It doesn't have parts to it.

You can't take righteousness and holiness and love and mercy and grace and mix it together and get and get God.

God's not made up of different ingredients, he just is all of these things in perfect unity.

Nevertheless, the Bible does call out particular components of his being, particular elements.

Understand what I'm saying, that God is not made up of components.

He's one being with an undivided essence.

Yet the Bible still refers to him in particular ways, like he is light.

We've talked about this last few weeks, that he reveals himself.

That's Psalm 36, verse 9.

Psalms 36:9

You can't have any knowledge except if God gives it to you.

That's what it means, that he is light.

He is life.

You can't have any life unless God gives it to you.

All life comes from him.

He's the fountain of life.

And he is also in the same way he is light, in the same way he is life, he is also love.

And that's why it's fitting to recognize for a moment the superiority of love, as Paul does in 1 Corinthians 13.

It doesn't say when John's writing that God is light and he is life and he's also grace.

Or he is light and he is life and he's also justice.

Because John's highlighting kind of the fountain nature of God.

He is light and he reveals.

He is life and he gives life to others.

And he is also love, and he's from him is coming love that defines everything else.

He is love.

He does not act towards his creation like a despot.

He doesn't act towards his creation like a dictator.

He does not rule over the universe with an iron fist with some kind of dogmatic principles.

Rather, he rules over the universe with a heart of love.

You can't understand his attributes unless you see them as coming from a loving God.

This is why the atheistic mindset is so uncapable of discerning what the gospel is.

Because the atheistic mindset starts with, why is God sovereign?

Doesn't that make him some kind of military-style dictator?

Because you can tell they're taking a world that doesn't have love, it's not marked by love, and applying principles from the world to God.

They say things like, if I was God, I wouldn't do things that way.

And the what's behind that kind of objection is that you're not love.

Of course, if you were God, you would do things differently because you don't love like God loves.

If God was as rude as you and as selfish as you, then yes, he would probably rule more like you.

But he's not those things.

He is love, and he is sovereign over the universe as a reflection of his love.

The universe was made to display his love.

It was made to display his salvation.

It was it will display his wrath in hell in the future, it will display his holiness in his wrath, as it will display all of his perfections, of course, but it was made as an act of his love.

He made the universe primarily to display his glories and particularly to display his love.

I've said the sentence.

Last two weeks.

I'll repeat it again this morning.

It is no sign of a fountain's weakness that it is prone to overflow its banks.

That God is a generous, benevolent God who is giving to the world, and he's giving to the world not because he needs back from the world, he's giving to the world because it is in his philanthropy, it's in his generosity to want to give good things.

And there's nothing better than himself.

There is nothing better than his love, which is himself.

He is a God of love.

Understand, if you object to the way that God made the world, you're objecting to his love.

God is a God of love.

And is there anything else you would rather he be than a God of love?

You see in this verse the greatest being, God, the greatest affection, the way that he loved.

And now you see something surprising.

You see, not the greatest recipients, but you see really the worst recipients.

That God loved the world.

This concept for world, much has been written on this word for worlds here.

It speaks of the globe, the sphere, the people that are on the sphere.

People that are fallen in sin, people that believed the lie of the devil and not the true and holy words of God, people that were knit in their mother's womb in iniquity, that have come into this world rebelling against God, that have come into this world in a sense hardwired because of sin to hate God.

That's who God sets his affections on.

It does not say that God loved the two-thirds of the angels that didn't rebel.

It doesn't say that God so loved creation.

Although creation groans under the weight of sin, God does not redeem the world for the sake of creation.

It doesn't say that God loves the animals in the world that will also die because of sin.

Animals weren't made originally to eat and propagate, eat each other and to propagate death and to die so quickly and suddenly and violently.

That's not how they were made.

God doesn't have mercy on them, so he sends Jesus to redeem them, or even to redeem us so that we can lift the curse of creation from animals and the earth which groans, the sun that doesn't willingly light our sinful paths.

That's not what motivates God to save.

It's not his love for the sun or his love for the stars or his love for the earth or the love for the animals or even the love for the angels.

It's his love for people.

People who sin.

People who are dismissive of Christ.

What's also shocking here, especially to Nicodemus, if you remember the context of this conversation here, is that he uses the phrase for the world.

God loves the world.

That would be jarring to Nicodemus.

God did not choose to set his affections primarily on Israel, which is what Nicodemus would have been raised believing, what the Jews sincerely thought, that God was showing his favor to Israel, because after all, God gave them the patriarchs, God gave them the law, God gave them the promised land, God gave them the priests and the priesthood and the temple and the tabernacle.

They had all of that.

So certainly God had a special plan for them.

They didn't realize that that plan was for God to keep them separate, to produce the Messiah and then to bring the good news to the world.

They didn't grasp that.

This is why they expected the Messiah to come and overthrow Rome and bring his kingdom right then and there, because of how much God loves Israel.

But Jesus goes straight to God, so loved the world.

And he says, I'm baptizing so that the Savior would be seen in Israel.

John's saying he was doing his baptisms to put the Savior on display for the Israelites.

Of course, the Israelites rejected him, remember, and John knew this.

The Pharisees came out to the water to watch John baptize, and John yells at them, Who told you, you brood of vipers, to flee from the wrath that was to come?

Nathaniel sees Jesus in John chapter 1 and calls him the king of Israel.

John 1 · chapter mention

The crowd in John chapter 12 is chanting Hosanna, the king of Israel.

John 12 · chapter mention

I mean, they knew that the Messiah was from God for Israel, but they didn't know he was from God for Israel to the world.

Nicodemus is even rebuked earlier in John chapter 3, verse 10.

John 3:10

When Nicodemus cannot believe what Jesus is saying, He cannot believe that Jesus is saying that what it takes to get to heaven is nothing you can do.

It's as if he hasn't read Hebrews 11, which granted was not written at this point.

But it's as if he hadn't read.

He didn't know the story that Moses was chosen not because of anything Moses did, but because of faith.

That Abraham was chosen, not because he was stronger and mightier, but because of faith.

That Rahab was chosen, period.

It's a long list of people who were chosen and given faith.

That's the bottom line.

Nicodemus was shocked at that.

And so remember Jesus' response, John 3, verse 10.

John 3:10

You call yourself the teacher of Israel and you don't know this?

You call yourself an Israelite and you don't know that God has a love set on the nations of the world.

And so Jesus comes not as a savior of the Jews, he comes as a savior of the world.

The Jewish system is inherently confronted by John 3.16.

Their Savior.

The Savior that was born to a person with a perfect Jewish resume.

The long line, the long lineage that both Matthew and Luke begin their gospels with, a long line that details the perfect Jewish lineage of their Savior, and he comes as an expression of love on the world.

This is why when you come to faith in God through Jesus Christ, there are no Jews or Greeks or Scythians or barbarians.

There are only redeemed sinners.

There ought not be American Christians and El Salvadorian Christians and Nicaraguan Christians.

There are only Christians because we're united in Christ.

Jesus makes this point early, later on in the gospel, when he says he has sheep in other flocks, not just here in Israel.

He tells the disciples, I have sheep in other pens, I'm going to go get them too.

And they will hear my voice.

You better believe it.

They will hear my voice and they will come to me, and then we will have one flock, he says.

All of our sheep will be together in one pen.

Right now there's fences.

Right now there's division.

Right now there's language differences.

You can't speak the languages of the other nations, but in Christ you are united.

That's the power of the gift of tongues given in the early church.

That it breaks down those fences.

Even the Jewish pilgrims in Acts 2 that were from all these different nations hear the gospel in their own language, they're united with one spirit and they become one church.

The startling thing when you get to the book of Revelation is that when you get to the book of Revelation, there is people, there are redeemed sinners from every tribe, every nation, every language group, every culture, every ethnicity.

I mean, that stands out in Revelation.

It's the tree at the end of the book of Revelation, just a little throwaway line, but it's there just to jar you with that again.

The tree at the end of the book of Revelation is given for the healing of the what?

The nations.

Because God made the world unified.

God made one continent, one place, all the animals, Adam and Eve, together in one landmass.

They sinned.

There was division, there was death.

God destroyed the earth.

The earth is populated.

They still sin.

They build the Tower of Babel.

God confuses the language.

The days of Pelag come and the continents drift.

The continents shift.

The nations are divided.

The languages mark division, cultures mark division.

There becomes division in the earth.

There becomes hostility in the earth.

There becomes bloodshed and murder in the earth as nation rises up against nation.

And God redeems all of that in the book of Revelation by sending Christ to be the Savior of the world who will bring healing to the nations.

The tree of life stands as a testimony of God's global love.

Now, I mean, it's so obvious, especially this week of all weeks, it's so obvious this the inherent sin of racism and how racism has been a stain in our country since the very beginning of our country, not just our country, but particularly our country.

The United States does not have a corner on racism, believe me.

There's lots of countries in the world to this very day that segregate their population.

Thinking of places like Bhutan, where Indians, in you know, Indians with ethnicity don't have any of the rights the Bhutanese have.

There's all kinds of countries in the world that are like that.

But the U.S.

certainly has a particular corner on it by the trafficking in human flesh and all the racism that stains our culture.

And one of the worst marks of Christianity in our country is how many times believers have used Christianity to try to prop up the racism in our country by like fake appeals to, you know, the Old Testament had slaves, and so it's totally biblical how we had slaves, which is said by somebody who hasn't read the Old Testament.

And you know that because the slave owners literally ripped the book of Exodus out of the Old Testament.

This is that's not a statement that comes from a position of biblical literacy.

Nevertheless, it is what has been all over our country since its founding, where Christians often excuse it and often, you know, say racism can be tolerated because there's other political issues that are more pressing.

There are other social issues that are more pressing than racism, so it can all be tolerated.

But I just I've said so many times, it was becoming a thing where I kept saying racism is a sin and using it as an example of the horrible sin in our culture that finally people said, you know, there's other sins in the world than racism.

It's like, yeah, but racism bothers me in a particular way, as I'm sure it does you as well.

But one of the many, many reasons racism can be so clearly displayed as sinful is John 3.16.

It's hard to call yourself a John 3.16 Christian.

And there was that phrase for a while, you know, I'm a red letter Christian, I'm a John 3.16 Christian.

And have even a category of racial distinctions in your mind.

For God set his affections on the world, not on an ethnic group, not in a racial group.

He set his affections on the world.

That's surprising for Nicodemus.

I mean, the Jews were an inherently racist system in his life.

You couldn't touch a non-Jew.

You couldn't eat a non-Jew's food.

You couldn't go into a non-Jew's house.

You want to talk about segregation laws.

You should look at the Roman Empire, the life of Christ, what it looked like during his lifetime.

They couldn't go into each other's houses.

And Jesus comes and says, God set his affection on the world.

And that again shouldn't be surprising because you go back, we are all one race.

We're all coming from Adam and Eve.

They're the father and mother of every living person.

We descend back to one couple.

The whole concept of race is a biological construct designed, it's a biological fiction designed to deprive people of rights.

Whole sermons could be preaching that, and I've preached them.

But particularly here, the concept of race is often used to downplay the power of God's love.

Yes, I know there are some who call themselves Christians who are racist, and that's a stain on the church, and they should be confronted by the very authority of the Word of God they supposedly believe.

But I just want you for a moment this morning to look at John 3.16 and see that in this, this most precious verse, there's a unity in the people of the world.

It's twofold.

It's a unity in that they're all sinful.

I mean, that's why they need God's love.

They're all sinful.

This is a humbling verse, isn't it?

Like if you're part of the world, you're a wicked sinner.

And you want to look at other races or ethnicities and say they're worse than than I am.

No, you're all in if you're in need of God's love, it's because you're a horribly depraved sinner.

So on one hand sense, John 3.16 should humble you.

On the other sense, it should encourage you that God sets his love on people from every tribe, every nation, every language group, and they will all be around the throne of heaven.

It's the worst recipients in the world, the worst recipients in the world.

Who would give?

Who would rest who would risk their life to wreck to rescue someone who's evil and wicked?

A human being might try to rescue someone who's a good person.

But who would do this for an evil, wicked person?

And that's then the love of God.

It comes to the worst recipients.

We see the greatest person, the greatest, the greatest being, the greatest affection, the worst recipients, and now we see the greatest action.

What does God do with his love to the world?

He gave.

This is 1 John 3, verse 16.

1 John 3:16

We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us.

God gave his son.

Now, this on the one hand should not surprise you.

What could God possibly do other than giving?

Like, is there any other option?

God can, whatever is gonna keep going there, is going to be God giving something because he possesses all things.

What do you have that you didn't receive?

Everything you have is a gift.

Everything.

Your life is a gift, your breath is a gift, your family is a gift, your country, no matter what country you're in, is a gift, your food is a gift.

Everything you have, your mind is a gift, your conscience is a gift.

The breath in your lungs is a gift, everything you have is a gift, and it is a gift from God.

And so, in a sense, it shouldn't be surprising.

God is a giver by nature.

In his own being, he gives.

My word for this is omnibenevolent.

I hope it's your word too.

God is omnibenevolent, he keeps on giving.

Now, note how this runs back into the quandary of works righteousness.

Nictidemus wants to know what must I give?

What must I do?

Well, how do you give to the fountain?

How do you give to the one who gives all things?

Do you get your water from the fountain and dump it back in to show how much you like it?

I mean, it's ridiculous.

You can't give anything to God.

Everything you have is a gift from Him.

This is why the works righteousness person can't comprehend the gospel because they want to be the one that does the giving.

But when it's about you and God, you don't do the giving.

You do the receiving.

You do the worshiping.

You do the responding to God who does the giving.

God is the greatest giver.

You want to be required to do something, and Christianity is probably not going to be your religion.

You want to earn something to have a right standing for God?

Well, there's other, you know, there's other religions that might give you something to do to earn a right relationship with God, but this is not that religion.

John 3.16 is all about God being the one who gives, gives, gives.

Now, particularly, and this goes to the object of the gift here, he gives the greatest gift here.

The greatest action, which is him giving, becomes the greatest gift.

I said God by nature is the giver.

What I mean by that is that God, even within the Trinity, is giving himself.

The word that's used here, it's in the ESB, it says God gave his only son.

It's monogenesis, is the Greek word.

It means only begotten.

Mono means one.

The genesis part of that is the word we get genetics from.

It's the idea of begetting someone.

It's one begetting, one genetic.

God is giving.

And you can translate this in some places, only son, but some places the Bible uses this word, it's not the only son, because it's used, for example, of Isaac, and Isaac had a brother, Ishmael.

Um, so it doesn't quite mean only son in that sense, like we mean, you know, parents with one son.

It means a uniquely begetted son, a uniquely brought into existence son.

Now, when you talk about Jesus Christ being the only begotten son, this goes all the way back to Nicene Christianity, the Nicene Creed.

It says we believe in one God, our Heavenly Father, and in Jesus Christ's only begotten Son.

That Jesus Christ has a unique identity as the Son of God.

He's eternally the Son.

The Father has always communicated all of his attributes, all of the very essence and being of God is given to the Son without beginning.

And so the Son is eternally God.

He's eternally identical to the Father in every way, shape, or form, except that the Father is the giver and the Son is the image.

That's a very essential part to Trinitarian Christianity.

That God is the Father, the Son is the Son, because the Father gives himself to the Son.

The Father gives life to the Son, Jesus says.

Again, without beginning, there's never a time when the Son didn't exist, or there would be a time when the Father wasn't a Father.

He's an eternal father, Jesus is an eternal son.

But that might seem like abstract Trinitarian thought, but do you understand it's John 3.16 Christianity?

Now the ESV gets rid of the word begotten, and they give you a note.

Why?

They say because Christians don't understand what the word begotten means anymore.

So my solution to that is not to remove the word begotten from the translation, but to teach you what the word means.

Amen, right?

Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, which means God has uniquely given him life.

What makes the life Jesus has different than the life we have?

Because it happens in eternity past.

It has no beginning.

He is the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Trinity.

He is indeed the only begotten Son.

So that's amazing in and of itself.

But then you want to go from that to that's who he gave.

And it blows your mind to think about the perfections of Jesus Christ.

So the Father has all of these perfections in his holiness, in his essence, in his very being, and he communicates, he gives them to his son in every way.

So the son is identical, the exact image of the Father.

And then the Father sends that person to the earth to die, a horrible death.

That person to robe himself in human flesh.

That person to take on a human nature.

God doesn't send an angel to the world to die for sinners.

He doesn't send a prophet to the world, contrary to Islam.

He doesn't send a series of messages written in the stars or whatever.

What he sends is his son.

I mean, you think of the parable of the wicked tenants, where the landowner had a field and he rented it out to tenants, and the tenants wouldn't pay the landowner his due, and so he sends messengers and prophets and messengers who speak for the prophets, and they get beaten up and some of them killed, and finally the landowner sends his son.

And you're reading that and you think, don't send your son, they'll kill him.

And they do.

And that's what the Father does.

He sends his only son, knowing that he will be killed, knowing that he will die.

Of course, that was the plan.

This is the covenant of redemption.

It's the plan of salvation from before time began.

This was the design of the Trinity.

They did not come up with this at the moment of the fall.

Do you understand that?

That sinned enter the world, and they're like, okay, one of us has got to go.

Which one?

That's not how redemption happened.

It was not a response to the fall.

It was a plan in the mind of the Trinity before time began.

And here you see it entering the world.

That God gave his only begotten Son.

Gave him to what?

To die.

John, 1 John 3.16.

This is love that God sent his son to lay down his life for us.

He dies on the cross bearing our sin.

Your sin goes to him.

It's not just that he came and that he would die.

He's the God of life.

You know he's going to resurrect.

The worst part of it is he comes, he's rejected by the people that he was sent to, and then he's given their sin and he dies on the cross in their place.

That's John 3.16.

He gave his only son.

This leads to the greatest invitation.

That whoever believes in him, that whoever believes in him.

Again, we're back to the staggering requirements here.

This is what blew Nicodemus' mind.

He wants something to do, and Jesus says, You have to be born again.

And Nicodemus says, I have no idea what you're talking about.

And Jesus says, John 3.16.

You have to believe in him.

That's what you have to do.

The only thing you have to do is nothing but believe.

He doesn't tell Nicodemus you have to do this.

He doesn't say you have to work for this, you have to earn this.

There's not the sacraments, there's not the pillars, there's not the steps, there's he doesn't give you a list of character qualities you have to have to go to heaven.

He doesn't give you a list of political positions you must maintain.

He doesn't give you a list of social activism.

He doesn't give you a list of anything.

He says you just believe.

It ends with believe.

It starts with the believe, it ends with the believe.

It's not believe plus something.

John 3.16 is not you have to believe in the only begotten Son of God and run a marathon.

Praise God, right?

It's not that you have to believe in Jesus Christ and manage your money well.

It's not that you have to believe in Jesus Christ and be a good person.

It's not that you have to believe in Jesus Christ and do anything.

It's that you just believe.

Now, this creates a fascinating problem in the Gospel of John.

Because there are several people in the Gospel of John who say they believe in Jesus, and Jesus lets you know they're not going to heaven when they die.

For example, Nicodemus at the start of this encounter, John chapter 2, Jesus flips over the tables in the synagogue.

John 2 · chapter mention

The Pharisees gather around him.

Jesus does all kinds of signs and wonders.

The end of John chapter 2, many people believed in him on that day.

John 2 · chapter mention

They believed in him, but Jesus says, I don't trust myself with any of you because I know your hearts.

I know it's not, we would say it this way, I know it's not saving faith that you have.

It's believing in him, which is actually a totally different Greek word for end than you find in John 3.16.

It's saying, I believe that he's the Messiah.

I believe that he's sent from God.

You know exactly what it means, because in John chapter 3, one of those people, John 3, verse 1, one of the people who believed in Jesus, that Jesus said, You are not saved, one of those people is Nicodemus.

John 3 · chapter mention John 3:1

That's how John 3.1 begins.

One of those people who believe in Jesus, and you know what he believes because Nicodemus tells you what he believes.

He comes to Jesus and says, Good teacher, we know that you are a teacher sent from God.

You see this all through John's gospel.

There are people that believe that he can turn wine into water.

There's people who believe he can walk on water.

There's people who believe he can multiply the fish into a feast.

They believe that.

They believe he's the Messiah.

They believe he's the king of Israel.

The crowd is chanting Hosanna to the king of Israel.

They believe he is that person.

But that is not what John 3.16 is about.

The demons believe that kind of stuff.

It's wrong to focus on the word believe.

It's really this preposition is doing a lot of work here.

It's believe.

John 3.16 is translated in, but it's actually a different Greek word than the word that's usually used for in.

The normal Greek word for in is the Greek word en.

It's easy to remember.

This is a different word.

This is the Greek word ice, which means into.

And we it's not translated that way here because we don't really believe into something in the English language, but the Greek prepositions, they all work with motion.

So you believe.

Here's the best example, the best way to explain it.

You can believe in the elevator in the atrium.

There's the atrium over there, there's an elevator in it.

You can believe in that elevator.

You can believe that it's there and you can believe that it works.

It's got the Fairfax County certificate on the wall and everything.

I wrote it earlier this week, being particularly lazy.

You can believe in that elevator.

You can see it with your eyes and believe that you can get in it and go up and down.

You can believe in that.

But that's not believing into it.

You can believe in that elevator all you want.

It's not going to take you anywhere.

You want to go somewhere in that elevator?

You've got to actually get into it, my friends.

That's what this word in John 3.16 means.

It's one thing to believe in Jesus.

That's not saving faith.

The demons do that.

It's a totally different thing to believe into Jesus, to give your life to him, to leap all in.

Not to watch him flip over the tables of the temple and watch and do miracles and go, hmm, I deduce from the miracles that this guy is probably a teacher of God.

And I can guarantee that there are people watching right now that would be in that situation and say, I believe that Jesus is a good teacher.

I believe that the Bible is probably true.

I believe that the miracles happened.

I believe that Jesus did die on the cross and that he did rise again from the grave.

But you won't give Jesus your life.

That kind of belief that you believe all those things about him, but you don't believe into him is not saving faith.

It's not belief, it's not John 3.16 kind of faith.

It's you being the judge and looking at the available evidence and rendering your verdict, which is not salvation.

It's more self-deification.

The invitation is not for you to wrestle with the facts and decide that Jesus is who he said he is.

I mean, honestly, that part is the easy part.

The invitation, the great invitation, is for you to give him your life, for you to be converted, for you to turn from your sin and receive the person of Jesus Christ.

This is the great invitation.

Matthew 16, verse 24.

Matthew 16:24

If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.

That's not different than John 3.16.

There he says, it in terms of picking up your cross and following him.

Here he says, believing into him.

It's an Old Testament invitation.

Isaiah 55, verse 1.

Isaiah 55:1

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.

You have no money, come buy and eat.

Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost.

Come, eat, drink, live.

It's John 6.

You have to eat his flesh.

Notice this internalizing language.

You have to take him in.

You have to believe into him.

You are uniting yourself to him.

It doesn't cost you anything.

Even in Isaiah 55, you're buying milk and wine without money.

Meaning you're not doing anything to earn this.

You're not being good enough.

You're not fixing your life to come to Christ.

No, you come to Christ.

You're converted.

That's the great invitation.

And that gives way next to the greatest threat.

There are many people who believe superficially in Jesus Christ.

Or who reject Jesus Christ outright.

And what will happen to them?

Well, it says that whoever believes in him should not perish.

That's the greatest threat.

The greatest threat the human soul faces is eternal death.

What happens when you put your faith in Christ?

Well, the most shocking thing is what doesn't happen.

When you die, you don't go to hell.

This is why Jesus asked, what would it profit a man to gain a whole world and lose his soul?

What would a man give in exchange for his soul?

Hell is eternal, but it is also just.

One of the most infuriating questions that I hear from people is if God is so good and so loving, why doesn't He save everyone?

And the answer to that, I mean, there's a lot of mystery there, but the most basic answer is because a good God doesn't just pass over sin.

People deserve to go to hell because of their sin.

That has to be your starting point in wrestling with this fact that people actually deserve divine wrath because they actually love sin.

They deserve to face his wrath.

And that's why his wrath will be forever, because his glory is forever.

And as long as sin is an affront to his glory, hell must be infinite.

If it wasn't, then grace couldn't be infinite.

If hell wasn't eternal, then grace couldn't be eternal.

You magnify grace by hell being magnified in your own mind.

You have to appreciate the gravity of hell.

This wrapped right up into this verse.

The person who believes in Jesus Christ will not perish.

Perish is the phrase, it means your soul won't be lost to hell.

It doesn't mean annihilation, your soul won't be obliterated in hell, but perish is a great word for it.

It will be suffering forever in hell.

It will not be unjust, it will suffer in hell because of your sin.

One of your sins will be refusing to believe into Jesus Christ.

But there's a lot of other ones as well.

So the great threat is that you lose your soul.

This leads finally to the greatest reward.

But have eternal life.

Notice what this whole passage is about.

It's about gaining a quality of life.

Eternal life is eternal, is a descriptive word speaking of the quality of life that you have.

What you possess when you believe into Jesus Christ, what you possess is the person of Jesus Christ.

You believe into him, you are united with him, you have a union with him where you put your faith and your life in him, and he puts his life into you.

The way he does that is by sending his Holy Spirit.

This is what John 3, 1 through 15 is about.

His spirit comes into your life, it gives you spiritual life.

So he comes to you, you come to him, you are in each other.

This is communion with Christ.

You believe into him and he comes into you.

In the same way the Father has given all of his attributes, communicated all of his being and his attributes into his son.

The Father and the Son give all of those attributes and communicate all of them into the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is a spirit, and so he comes to you through your faith.

And so you now are participating in the attributes of God by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

You have the life of God in the person of Christ through the Spirit of Christ in your heart when you place your faith in him.

That's how eternal life is.

You enter into it.

It's the life of God in the soul of man.

So notice that the staggering thing about this verse, one of the many staggering things about this verse, is that it's not predominantly about getting people out of hell and into heaven.

It's predominantly about getting God from heaven into you, that you would have eternal life.

Which means when you put your faith in Christ, you are joined to eternal life at that moment.

And it will stay that way.

If you could lose your salvation, it wouldn't be eternal life.

If a person could follow Christ for a year and then unfollow Christ, it would be one year life.

If you could follow Christ for 20 years and then walk away from Christ and lose your salvation, it would be 20-year life.

But John 3.16 is not about 20-year life or one-year life.

It's about eternal life.

So what of people that believed and walked away?

Well, we would say they never believed into Jesus.

They hung around the outside, Hebrews 6 style, they watched him, they were splashed by the benefits of him, but they didn't drink from the well of him.

Those who are saved remain saved because salvation is forever.

And so my question for you this morning is what about you?

Have you been converted?

Have you placed your faith into Jesus Christ?

Have you looked at the holiness of God and the sinfulness of your own soul?

And have you recognized that if God sent you to hell, it would be just.

You would not be able to complain.

But instead of sending you to hell, he sent you himself through his son Jesus Christ.

It does not take a lot of faith to believe that part of it.

What takes a lot of faith is for you to give your life to him and say, I want to be converted.

I want to surrender myself to him.

I want to believe into Jesus Christ.

I want to believe that Jesus is not just the savior of the Jews, not just the savior of the world.

I want to believe that Jesus is my savior.

And so I put my faith in him.

I believe in him and I give him my life.

And so I want the life of God to come into me and I want my life to go to him.

I want this great exchange where he takes my sin and he gives me his holiness.

That's what it means to be converted, that I give him my life.

That tomorrow will not be the same as yesterday because today I've given my life to Christ.

That's what it means to be converted.

You're going one way and you confess that you're a sinner and you give your life to Christ.

Enough of just the watching live stream, church, and enough of just the looking at your Bible on your shelf, and enough of just thinking about Christians as good people and all that.

Enough of that.

Come out of the stands and onto the field and give your life to Christ.

That's what it means to be converted.

There's enough spectators of Christianity.

There's enough people that watch Christianity on the outside.

Hopefully you've watched it on the outside enough to know that you want in.

And there is no secret password, there is no secret knock.

There's just you giving your life to Christ.

I've been reading with my daughters the biography of Ann Judson.

And oh my, is all I have to say about that.

Oh my.

You need to read this book.

She came to faith after a several week process.

We just a few days ago read about her conversion process, and it's incredible.

She was such a busy person, a 16-year-old in Bradford, Massachusetts, such a busy person with so many social events from a somewhat wealthy family, and she lived for the parties she said.

Don't picture like high school parties today, picture like elegant gowns and jewels and pearls and whatnot, those kind of parties.

She lived for that.

And she felt convicted by a high school Bible teacher that she didn't know Jesus.

And so she decided to add Jesus to her already very busy life.

That did not work well for her.

She even read The Pilgrim's Progress and didn't get saved.

I did not think that was possible.

But she did it.

She added Jesus to her life and it didn't take.

And after several months of that, it drove her to her room where she began reading the Bible and really wrestling with what she found there.

She understood that she believed that Jesus was God.

She understood that she believed Jesus was crucified and resurrected, but she knew she wasn't saved.

She was mad at God for allowing sin into the world, mad at God for allowing hell into the world, mad at God for allowing whole nations of people to die without ever having heard of Jesus.

And she realized that she was angry at God and she felt that if I had been admitted to heaven that very night, I wouldn't have liked it because I hated God.

I'd be as miserable in heaven as I am now.

And so she began begging God to annihilate her soul.

But God didn't kill her.

Instead, he impressed upon her the horrors of hell, and thus she learned about the holiness of God.

And if God is holy, she realized me being angry at God is me being angry at his holiness.

She then contemplated the love of a holy God and was struck for the first time in her life by the beauty of Christ.

Seen as an expression of the holy love of God.

She wrote this in her diary.

I committed my soul into his hands, and for the first time I felt happy contemplating the character of Christ.

That's what it means to be converted.

Let me ask you have you been converted?

Have you given your life to Jesus Christ?

Lord, we're thankful that you are saving God, quick to give yourself.

You give yourself to yourself, you give yourself to the world.

You give yourself to those who place their faith into Jesus Christ.

Lord, I pray for anybody who's watching this that has never given you their life.

I pray that they would today.

I pray that they would surrender their life to you, that they would open their eyes from this prayer and declare that they indeed are now a Christian, having given their life to you.

We know only you can do this in the sinner's heart.

So we pray, Lord, that you would be at work even now.

We give you thanks for the beauty of Jesus Christ, and it's in his name we pray.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thank you for joining Emmanuel Bible Church today through this resource.

It's my prayer that if you live in the DC area, I'll be able to meet you on some Sunday at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church, you can go to IBC.church.

Or for information on the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource helps you seek God through Jesus Christ, serve the Lord with joy, and share him with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.