God So Loved

Let's dive into John 3.16, shall we?

How many of you know John 3.16?

Right?

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last X amount of years, you are familiar with John 3.16.

Uh, it's probably the most loved, the most uh uh communicated, recited verse in all of Scripture.

And here's what I want to caution us about this morning.

I don't want us to come to this verse with too much familiarity.

And I also don't want us to come to the text with an emotive disposition that would cause us to miss the core truth, I believe John is actually trying to communicate as he's writing this passage.

As we've gone through the Gospel of John over the last several weeks, one thing we keep iterating over and over again is that John was extremely intentional in what he was writing in this gospel account, so with the end goal that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, right?

That's the end goal of this.

And so John is as particular, as intentional here in John 3:16 through 21 to communicate truth to that end.

John 3:16–21

And so we have to try to work to submit ourselves to this.

We have to try to unpack it and see it as it clearly is, that we might rightfully understand it and it become an integral part of our faith in the way that we relate to and understand God.

Okay?

So here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna dive slowly in, we're gonna unpack it, and we're gonna work through it kind of word by word in some sense to be able to help us understand it better.

But as we start, here's what I want us to think through first.

As we come to the beginning of John 3.16, I want us to see our terrifying reality.

Our terrifying reality.

It's easy to read, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

But there's three words in there that should terrify us because it speaks to our reality should not perish.

You see, this is what John's trying to communicate.

We are perishing.

It is only through Christ that we might escape or avoid this perishing reality.

You see, those three words communicate the terrifying reality of God's justice executed in man.

Through Jesus.

What John's trying to help us understand is that we are being saved from something.

What we're being saved from is the wrath of God.

You see, John is going to continue.

We're going to get there in the next few weeks after we get through this male and female sermon series, but in John 3, 36, he states this.

He says, Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.

Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

There's something critical to understand there.

The present reality of wrath and its remaining presence in our life if we're disobedient through unbelief in Jesus.

You see, we're being saved from something.

What are we being saved from?

The wrath of God, which is on us because of our disbelief, our unbelief, better stated.

If we look in that passage in John 3.36, there's a harmony that we can't just skip over or bypass.

And the harmony lays in between faith and obedience.

Read that passage again.

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.

Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

There is a harmony between faith and obedience.

In fact, the very first act of obedience toward Christ is faith in his gospel.

That's our first act of obedience toward Christ.

Many of us think that when we come to Jesus, we got to kind of clean ourselves up.

That the first act of obedience would be to stop some of these sexual immorality acts that we're living out, or to try to get rid of some of these addictions that we have or bounded by, or to put to death some of these idols in our life.

No, the first act of obedience that we have toward Jesus is faith in his gospel.

To obey Jesus is to believe in him.

There is a call to all of mankind.

And it's given to us actually by Jesus.

If we look at what is the what is the primary message of Jesus, we can probably see it summarized so succinctly in Mark chapter 1, verses 14 through 15.

Mark 1:14–15

We read this.

Now after John was arrested, meaning John the Baptist, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe in the gospel.

What is Jesus saying?

Jesus is saying that an obedient faith receives eternal life.

An obedient faith receives eternal life.

A disobedient unbelief solidifies our state of death.

You see, we are already dead.

We are already perishing.

We are already under the wrath of God.

Disobedient unbelief solidifies such a state.

If we look at back at John 3.36, what does he communicate there at the end?

That if you do not obey, whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life.

That means there's not going to be some type of transformation that happens.

You're not going to be pulled out of darkness and into the light.

You will not be brought from death to life.

You are already in a state of death, and that disobedient unbelief remains on us.

It keeps us there.

And what is the effect if we do not obey through faith in Jesus?

The wrath of God remains on him, John says.

God's wrath is his holy justice, his righteous anger, his just punishment, his fierce vengeance.

Remains, John says, currently present, though it's not fully realized on the person who is in disobedient unbelief.

We are not experiencing God's wrath fully realized in us.

There is a coming judgment where all of those who are found in disobedient unbelief will experience that wrath fully.

What does that look like?

The first thing I want us to understand is that it is conscience.

It is conscious.

It is something that we're aware of.

It is literally and physically in our bodies, and we are conscious of this wrath.

John 5, 28 through 29 says this do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out.

Those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

Here's what we realize is that when Christ returns, all those who have died will be physically and literally resurrected.

Their bodies will be resurrected, and those who are in Christ are resurrected unto life, and those who are not in Christ are resurrected unto judgment.

And that judgment is the wrath of God fully realized in their physical, resurrected, conscious bodies.

So the foot first thing we need to realize about God's wrath is that it is conscious.

The second thing is that it is eternal.

Revelation 14, 10 through 11 says, He also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever.

The smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever.

And when the scriptures speak about a smoke going up before the Lord, it's typically in a in a something that brings him glory.

When we look at the incense of the fire at the altar, it would go up before the Lord.

Bring him glory.

This is still the justice of God bringing glory to the name of God and the smoke of their torment going up forever and ever.

So God's wrath is conscious, God's wrath is eternal, God's wrath is torment.

When we look throughout the ministry of Jesus, who was preached on hell more than anyone else in all of Scripture, we see him use language to describe what this wrath would look like.

He uses words like utter darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth, unquenchable fire, language of prison.

The rich man of the parable that Jesus teaches about Lazarus and this rich man.

He describes it as torment so in Luke 16, verse 28.

Luke 16:28

For I have five brothers, he says, so that he may warn them.

Speaking of Lazarus, to go back from the dead to warn his brothers.

Why?

Lest they also come into this place of torment.

Torments described or defined as an excruciating condition of punishment inflicted on someone as vengeance for wrongdoing.

So God's wrath remains on us if we're in disobedient unbelief.

Though it may not be fully realized now, in the coming of Christ, in the final judgment, for those who are found in disobedient unbelief, the wrath of God will be fully realized.

And what does it look like?

It looks like conscious, eternal torment.

Why are we at risk, though, of perishing?

And why is God's wrath on us?

Because as John 3 17 states, we stand condemned.

This is why.

We stand condemned.

Verse 17 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.

As we come into 17 and 18, it's easy to read through that fast and come away with this false understanding that the total scope of the work of Christ is that he would never condemn.

That he's here just to be kind and nice and loving, and he's here to save us.

And Jesus isn't someone who would condemn, Jesus isn't someone who would judge.

But that's not what 17 and 18 is communicating.

What John is saying is the reason he was sent.

Why was he sent in the singular aspect of his scope of work?

He was sent not to condemn, but to save us.

And that's said not because Jesus doesn't condemn, but because we were already condemned.

Jesus didn't have to come to condemn us.

We were already condemned.

So Jesus' sentences, the purpose of his mission and being sent was to save us.

Condemned means that we are sentenced to death.

This is how the Bible communicates the state of our souls in their original nature.

Jesus actually does condemn.

When we understand a total scope of the work of Christ, to condemn and to judge is an integral part of that.

Because he has all authority to do so.

We see in John 5.22, for the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to who?

To the Son.

If the purpose of Jesus' sentness in his first coming was to not to condemn, but to save, the purpose of Jesus' sentness in his second coming is to fulfill and fully execute his judgment and condemnation.

You see, Jesus is coming back again.

And this time he will not be sent to save, but he will be sent to execute in final and full authority his judgment.

For those who were obedient in belief unto life, and those who are disobedient in unbelief unto perishing.

We see this in Matthew 25, 31 through 33.

Jesus tries to paint a portrait of the scope of his coming again, of what it will uh acquire and the effects of it.

He says this when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.

That's the throne of judgment.

Before him will what?

Be gathered all the nations, and he's gonna do what?

He's gonna fully express the exclusivity of God's love.

That's the first thing he's gonna do when he comes back.

Because he's gonna do this.

He's gonna separate the sheep from the goats.

And what's he saying?

These are mine whom I love, these are not mine whose wrath, my wrath and judgment is upon them.

And he will place the sheep on his right.

What is that?

The right is the side of blessing and favor.

And the goats he's gonna put on his left.

Judgment, wrath.

You see, it's by believing in Jesus that we escape this condemnation.

Verse 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned.

Both the word believes and condemned are present tense.

These are things that we're called to do now.

There is a call, like we said before, that Jesus has made to all mankind.

And I don't care what theological position you come from, whether you're Calvinist or Minion, whether you believe people have a free will or they don't, that doesn't matter.

In this moment in time, there is a true and faithful call to every beating heart to repent and believe in the gospel of Jesus.

And that's what we're called to call mankind into.

That by faith they might be reconciled to their Maker through the finished work of Christ.

Because whoever believes in him now, in this present moment, shall escape the sentence of death of which they find themselves under.

You see, if we remain in unbelief, our state doesn't change, it continues.

Verse 18 continues, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

You see, in remaining condemned, our future realized is experience the judgment and punishment of God.

And what's our judgment?

We see this in 19 through 21.

Our judgment.

We've been sentenced to death.

We stand condemned.

Why?

Because a holy judge has found us guilty.

And John goes on in 19 through 21 to communicate our judgment.

He says this.

And this is the judgment.

This is the why we find ourselves in such a position of perishing.

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

This is the judgment upon us.

We loved the darkness rather than the light.

Why did we love the darkness?

Many of you might be afraid of the dark, right?

You're actually not afraid of the dark.

You're afraid of not being alone in the dark.

That's why you run into a room and you turn the lights on real quick.

Because you want to make sure nothing's in there with you, right?

What does that light do?

It exposes that room.

It causes us to be able to see what's really there.

We love the darkness because we are terrified of being exposed.

We're terrified that people will see us as we truly are, that our evil works will be threatened to be seen by all.

We are scared.

So what do we do?

We dive deeper into the darkness that we so love.

To remain under its concealing cover.

Verse 20 for everyone who does wicked things hates the light, does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

You see, this is our great fear.

You and I are terrified of being exposed.

Why do you think our relationships stay so shallow?

Why do you think there's trouble inside of our mission groups to be vulnerable and open with one another?

Because you and I are terrified that if people were able to know what we think, if they were able to see what we feel, if they were able to get inside of our hearts and minds, they would reject us, they would hate us, they would demonize us, they'd want nothing to do with us.

We don't open up because we're afraid what's on the other side of it.

We're terrified of light.

We're terrified of vulnerability.

Why?

We're terrified of being exposed for who we really are.

And what does that cause us to do?

Fear causes us to hate.

How many of you like hate clowns?

I don't know why.

They're just they're dumb.

But you're probably afraid of them.

I don't know if your grandma has some weird figurine on a top shelf that just eyes followed you when you walked around the house and you just scared, right?

You're scared of that thing, so then you hate that thing.

We do that with like spiders and snakes and all these different things.

We hate what we fear.

So it makes sense we would hate Jesus because his light scares us.

And what are we gonna do in the face of fear?

We're gonna do one of two things.

We're either gonna run from it and flight, or we're gonna come aggressively against it and fight.

One author, uh Dan Aldrin, he wrote the book, The Cry of the Soul.

He said, All of our darkness, all of our dark emotions and behaviors are a response to Eden.

We are either running away from God because of the way that we were casted out of it, or we're fighting our way back into it because he owes it to us.

You see, we act that same way with God.

Some of you run from God like crazy.

You don't want to be exposed, and so you run deeper into the darkness where you've convinced yourself that it's safe there.

You're convinced that you can remain concealed, that no one knows you.

And you've probably even been in relate.

How many of you have had relationships where sin entered in?

And then what happened?

That reclusiveness started to take place.

Right?

Where they started to recluse themselves from you.

They started to pull back into darkness, they started to hide, they wouldn't come out to events anymore, they wouldn't come out to hang at your usual spot anymore, they wouldn't answer your text messages anymore, phone calls anymore.

What is that?

We're running into the darkness because we're terrified of what's being exposed on the other side of that.

And we do the same thing with God.

We think that we can run from him.

We can think we can run from his light and that we're safer here in the darkness.

And so, in fear and in flight, we try to run from him.

But at the end of time, what's gonna happen?

His light is inescapable.

You can't run from that forever.

And so, what's God inviting you into?

He's inviting you into something extremely dangerous, but extremely good to step into the light so that you might be known for once.

Known by him.

But our other response is to fight against it.

What do we want to do?

When we hate something, we want to extinguish it.

That's why we stomp on spiders when they're in our living rooms.

If we can extinguish the threat, we can be safe.

What is culture trying to do right now?

Culture is fighting with everything they have in them.

To extinguish the light.

They hate.

They hate the thought of the light exposing them.

And what do they do?

They're trying with everything they have to extinguish it.

But it's not just culture.

Some of us do the exact same thing.

Some of you are sitting in this room and you are mad at God.

And you think you have every reason to be mad at him.

You think you have every reason to hate him or to push back against him because of things that you've experienced in your life.

Whether it be loss or trauma or pain or sorrow, whatever it might be, you're fighting against God, trying to extinguish the light.

And you are just punching at the wind.

You can't do it.

And it's exhausting.

You know it is.

Jesus inviting us into his rest is inviting us into his light.

It's inviting us into being exposed so that we can actually be known.

If we can run away from, or if we can extinguish the light, well then our fears might be dispelled.

We might be able to remain under the darkness that we love.

Verse 21, but whoever does what is true, what does he do?

He comes to the light.

Why?

So that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

Man, look at what look how John so masterfully takes it out of our hands, the ones who love the darkness, and puts it into its proper place, into the hands of God for his glory.

Why does God bring you into the light?

So that all the world might witness your behavior, your life, your decisions, your actions, and glorify his name as a testimony to his greatness.

This is why the new birth is so important.

Because in our nature we don't want to come to the light.

It's only in the new birth that we are able and willing to bring ourselves into the light.

Why?

So that all may see his works have been carried out in God.

So when we first approach John 3.16, we are looking at the fullness of our terrifying reality, that we are threatened to perish.

But if we stop there, we'd miss all that John is trying to communicate to us.

He's not just trying to express our terrifying reality.

John is trying to express to us God's terrifying love.

God's terrifying love.

How many of you are parents in this room?

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

You have hands and you raise them when I ask questions.

No.

Uh just joking.

Um I'll tell you what, I love my babies.

I love my babies to death.

And it's in the ooey-goooey way, right?

Of like cuddling with them and kissing them and telling them I love them.

But there's a terrifying aspect of my love too, where I will take the life of another person to protect them.

I have guns in my home to protect my children.

I don't really care where your stance is on that.

I do, and I'll keep them.

Uh I have taken several martial arts classes to be able to protect my children.

Don't let this body deceive you.

I will take your life in an instant.

I have put cameras and locks on my home to be able to protect my babies.

I have no problem taking the life of someone else to protect my children.

That's a terrifying reality of love.

It's a love so deep and passionate and zealous.

And we can understand that.

If you're a parent and you can't grasp that, come talk to me in the lobby afterward.

We'll work on that.

But I would imagine by nature, we can grasp that kind of love.

But not God.

We cannot grasp the terrifying love of God who would kill his own son to save you.

That's an unfathomable love.

That's a terrifying love beyond our comprehension.

You see, we tend to think of God as being radically other in his omniscience, his all-knowing reality, or his omnipotence, his all-powerful state, or in his omnipresence, his eternal presence everywhere.

God is not radically other in those things alone.

I would say indeed he is most radically other in his love for his people.

And it's a love that should scare us.

God's love should be terrifying to us because it's so alien and unknown.

And how dare we assume that we could ever self-define the love of God when we can't even fathom something, something so intense, something so radical, something so relentless, something so terrifying.

We try to do this, don't we?

We we try to define what God's love is, how it should look, how it should work itself out, according to our own standards, according to our own definitions, according to our own experiences.

How dare we?

The clay cannot speak to the potter.

What is our obligation?

Our obligation is to submit ourselves to how God has revealed his love to us in his word.

You see, God defines for us what his love looks like.

We don't get the freedom to define his love for him.

And it's because we are so fundamental fundamentally inadequate to do it.

Let's dive into 3.16.

For God so loved.

The first word I want us to look at is so.

For God so loved the world.

Here's what I want us to understand.

This is communicating means, not measure.

It's communicating means, not measure.

I understand when we we tend to put like a Western emphasis on for God so loved the world, right?

Like I love you so much.

We communicate measure when we read that.

We're not reading it faithfully to the Greek.

The Greek word there is hutos.

That might not mean anything to you.

That's fine.

I'm gonna help it, hopefully, it means something to you here in a minute.

What that is doing is it's communicating a means.

Hutos means in this way or in this manner.

We saw it in John 3.15 just last week, when Christ said, as the serpent was lifted up on the staff, so in this way, in this manner, must the Son of Man be lifted up also.

That same Greek word hutos was in 315 as it is here in 316.

John is not trying to communicate measure how much does God love us.

John is trying to communicate the means in which he expresses his love to us.

So the correct way to read this is for God in this way loves us.

He sent his son for us.

So the first thing we have to do is try to take the romanticism out of that to some nature, the Western romanticism out of it, by not allowing it to communicate measure, but to communicate manner or means.

You see, I believe, I want to submit to you this morning, it's more faithful to read world as badness rather than bigness.

Badness rather than bigness.

That word cosmos can communicate world as in bigness, as in all that has been created.

But John, in his authorial intent, almost always uses the world to communicate badness.

It's the same word, but it's the way that John is using it.

Let me try to help us understand this.

See, John mostly reserves the word world to communicate an existence that is contrary to God's holiness, righteousness, and life.

We see this in one way in John 12, 46.

Jesus says, I have come into the world as light, so that ever believes in me may not remain in darkness.

World and darkness are harmonious with one another, right?

They're inseparable from one another.

What does Jesus do?

He comes into the darkness of the world to be the light.

John 17, 6.

Jesus says, I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.

Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

So what Jesus is seeing himself as rescuing and redeeming people out of something.

Out of what?

Not the bigness of creation, but the badness of mankind.

And he uses that word world to communicate that.

Three verses later, he says a similar thing in John 17, 9.

I am praying for them.

I am not praying for the world.

So here's what we have to understand.

Let's pause for a moment.

What's Jesus talking about?

Jesus is talking about at the most basic level.

Jesus is talking about praying for his disciples.

We can understand it's the most rudimentary understanding of John 17 and the high priestly prayer.

Jesus is at minimum praying for his disciples.

What's he saying?

He's correlating people with people.

He's not correlating people with cosmos creation.

He's saying what?

I am praying for them, people.

I'm not praying for the world.

He's not, he's not just saying all of creation now.

He's talking about people that are in darkness, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

John 17, 9.

So Jesus uses the same language of people when he's communicating the disciples of whom God has given him.

He's praying for in John 17 at his most elementary level, and world who he has been brought out of, not praying for these people, right?

So we see a distinction between the two.

And then in verses 19 through 20 of John 3, the world is indistinguishable from the judgment.

In verses 19 through 20, we see that the light has come into the world.

Whoever does not, uh uh uh what was it?

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

This judgment that he's talking about is the world of which Jesus is being sent to to save.

You see, these verses are a working definition of the world, the material of mankind.

And I believe it's meaningful to read John 3.16 in this way.

God expresses his love for mankind, who are dead in the darkness of their sins by giving his only son to die for them.

Or maybe Paul does this better than me.

Romans 5.8.

But God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

How does God respond to the darkness and depravity of mankind?

He does so through terrifying love.

He gives us his only Son.

John the evangelist, writing his first epistle, says these words in this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.

In this is love.

Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

John uses the word propitiation to try to communicate the way in which God loves us through Jesus his son.

This word propitiation means wrath taker.

Wrath taker.

You see, the Father, who is full of righteous wrath against us, loved us and sent his son for us.

His son was the exact expression of his word and deed.

The son actually stood over against us in wrath.

What was he?

He was the light against our darkness, he was the truth against our lies, he was the righteousness against our wickedness.

Yet, obedient to his father's commission, he offers himself on the cross.

And he does this out of love both for God the Father, whom he obeys, and for us, whom he redeems.

And in this, God himself becomes both the means and the end of our propitiation.

What do I mean by that?

Jesus becomes the very sacrifice needed to appease God's wrath.

God provides the means for us through his son.

And it is the perfect sacrifice that appeases the very wrath of which is on us from a holy God.

This is the glory of the cross.

This is the glory of the cross that God provides the very means to accomplish such a glorious end, that his wrath is appeased through the perfect sacrifice of his son.

So what does mankind, what does the world do with such a priceless gift?

Left to ourselves, what do we do with such terrifying love?

We murder it because we hate it.

That's what the cross shows us.

In God's mercy, in God's generosity, in God's grace, we murder it because we hate it.

Jesus said this in John 15, 18.

If the world, mankind hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.

This is our judgment.

This is why we stand condemned, why the wrath of God is on us.

Because we hated the light and we loved the darkness.

But even still, in our sin, in our wickedness, God determines to express his love and show mercy to his people.

So if you want to understand John 316 in its fullest extent, I present this as our main idea this morning.

God saves us from himself through Jesus His Son.

God saves us from Himself through Jesus His Son.

I hope we can grasp the eternal depths of God's love for us in that reality.

That He loves us enough to give us His Son that we might be saved from Him.

We can't fathom such terrifying love.

You see, this is the fullness of the love of God put on display.

This is the height of all compassion and mercy and kindness.

John 3.16 is both utterly terrifying and gloriously beautiful news.

We deserve the fullness of God's wrath to remain on us for our darkness, for our evil deeds, but God sends his son to shine light into our darkness, to save us from the ferocious vengeance of his just punishment.

And how does he save us?

By pouring out all of the wrath we deserve on Jesus, his son.

We can't fathom such love.

You see, church, and as much as God is passionate about executing his justice through wrath-filled judgment, he is passionate about expressing his mercy through grace-filled love.

And this is the incredibly good news of the gospel.

Let's finish up 316 together.

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

That's the good news, isn't it?

That's our good news.

That if we respond in obedient faith in the only Son of God, we don't have to perish.

We don't have to stand condemned.

We don't have to experience the wrath of God.

We get to have the gift of eternal life.

You see, the call still remains for us.

The same call that Jesus made and the Spirit is making to all mankind.

The kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe in the gospel.

The message hasn't changed.

This is the faithful and true word.

This is the responsibility every man bears to obtain eternal life through obedient faith in the Son.

Let's pray.