Lent: God So Loved You

Well, you may be seated.

I'm the key preaching from the stools.

I'm still recovering from my foot surgery, so I'm also not strutting when you see me.

I don't strut anymore.

I'm too old for that.

I'm limping, which is what older people do.

So that's what's going on.

But we're jumping into the season of Lent.

Lent is the season leading up, the 40 days leading up to Easter.

We're a little late to the party.

We are finishing up Hebrews, but now we are moving into Lent.

The series of passages that we're going to use come from this historic church teaching plan called the Lectionary.

So that's what we'll be doing as we work our way toward Easter.

Our text this morning is John chapter 3, verses 14 through 21.

John 3:14–21

It jumps right into a conversation that Jesus is having with Nicodemus.

Now, Nicodemus is this guy incredibly well educated, probably well off.

He's a ruler in the Sanhedrin, so he's a religious guy, and he holds some power, he holds some prestige, he lives by the religious law, that old covenant.

Do enough, obey, and then you'll be accepted by God.

That's his life, and that's the system that he upholds.

So he would have been praying his prayers.

I mean, he wasn't going to miss a prayer.

He wouldn't have missed a church service.

He's not playing golf on a Sunday morning.

It's too risky for him and his relationship with God.

He would have ran the finance committee.

He would have been the president of the PTA and the president of the Qantas Club.

I mean, this guy would have been obeying as much as possible because that's what his relationship with God was dependent upon was more and more, better and better obedience.

But, but something must have been off.

Something was off.

His way of life was no longer working for him.

He was probably learning what so many of us are learning, and that's that a performance-oriented life eventually brings you to the end of yourself.

So Nicodemus seeks out Jesus.

He does it in the dark, which is interesting.

Probably because he was a ruler of this religious system, and so he probably had some fear, right?

Like friends would find him or family could find him out.

He might lose that lucrative, powerful position.

But he was curious enough to find this Jesus.

And Jesus tells him this story from Numbers chapter 21.

Numbers 21 · chapter mention

It's a really strange story when you read it.

And the story is about the children of God sinned.

And so God sent a plague to them of venomous snakes.

And these snakes bite them and they're dying.

Now, this is a very strange story, like I said, but the story's teaching us something.

And in a sense, the venom represents sin.

Just like the venom is eating up their bodies, sin eats up our souls.

And so Moses was told by God, tell the people to look upon a bronze image.

Moses, go get a bronze image, like a little statue of the serpent, put it up on a pole, and then tell the people to look upon the pole.

And if they look upon the pole, all they have to do is look.

They don't have to get there, they don't have to touch it.

Just if they look upon it, they'll be healed.

Right?

So not more rules, not more obedience, not get yourself together, and then you'll be okay and whole and made whole and healed.

No, no, no.

It was just look.

And the great lesson we get that Jesus is telling Nicodemus, think about it, a performance-oriented person of do more, get yourself together, get there, touch the statue, touch the statue.

He's saying, No, no, no, all you have to do is look.

Just look upon it.

Trusting is to look upon.

Psychologist Carl Jung is known for coining the phrase first half of life and second half of life.

So from a psychological standpoint, he's talking about what worked at one point in your life no longer works later on.

Here's a great quote about this.

One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life's morning.

For what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening become a lie.

So what he's saying in the world of psychology, which is so true about us, is what got you through childhood to survive, to cope, and even early adulthood?

To cope, to deal with those wounds, to earn a sense of identity or absolution or acceptance.

What worked, it comes to an end.

And then you need a second half of life.

Now, Jung talked about that from a psychological standpoint.

Jesus is talking to Nicodemus about this because Jesus is talking about what it means to have a resurrected life.

To die to the urge to self-justify, to die into Christ as to have life, for him to be your self-justification, for him to be your justification.

Franciscan friar, Christian minister Richard Rohr, he turns this idea toward the Christian.

He says this the unitive encounter with a power, capital P, with a power greater than you, resituates the self inside of a safe universe where you don't need to be special, rich, or famous to feel alive.

Those questions are resolved once and for all.

The hall of mirrors that most people live in becomes unhelpful and even bothersome.

Now, aliveness comes from the inside out.

This is what we mean when we say God saves you.

Now that's a little poetic.

Roar loves to use poetic language, confuse you just a little bit and get you to work a little bit.

What he's talking about is salvation is from God to us, put in us, Christ Himself, and comes from the inside of us out.

So what forms us as a person and as a follower of Jesus, secure identity, worthy, accepted, forgiven, loved, all of that is not what we produce.

It's not that hall of mirrors, but it's the gift of God Himself.

It's the gift of Jesus.

So like I said in the welcome, it was a year ago today, right?

That all of this happened.

A year ago yesterday was like when the governor spoke and everything changed in our society and your world.

You missed out on some stuff.

We lost a lot of stuff.

I went in that day on March 13th.

I walked into the barber shop in one world, and the governor was speaking while I was getting my hair cut.

I came out of the barber shop to a different world on the drive home.

We had an elder phone call about what we were gonna do, and we immediately decided we would cancel in-person church, and we thought that was pretty sure just gonna be two to three weeks.

You know, we were pretty confident about that because we do so much.

And we missed a lot, right?

Like our church changed and work changed and family and friends and our lives changed.

And so much of what we relied on for peace and stability and joy, it was it was stripped away.

We we we lost we lost some.

But one thing never left, right?

And maybe you can take yourself back to like March and April, when like we really, really were stripped away of a lot of stuff.

The thing that never left is that God always meets us right where we are.

You didn't have to show up into a sanctuary for that to happen.

Wasn't that good news?

Wasn't that good news that our church didn't stop because we couldn't get in a room together?

It it it didn't matter.

That your faith didn't stop because you couldn't show up to a certain place.

No, because God meets you right where you are.

That's true in terms of location, and that's true in terms of wherever you are on the spectrum of the amount of faith you have or the amount of good deeds you have.

God meets us where we are, not where we should be.

And that's how we come into the resurrected life, because we're dying to self-justification as to die into Christ.

Now hear the passage John 3, 16 and 17.

Maybe you've heard it before.

I don't maybe, I don't know, maybe.

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.

So point number one is this your life story is enveloped into the redemptive story of God for you.

I mean, can you imagine Nicodemus hearing this sort of one-way love?

I mean, a guy that's been enveloped into a religious system of get better and be better and do more, and then perhaps, perhaps maybe God accepts you, and then this is sung over him by Jesus.

No, no, no, God so loved you that he's providing a way for you.

I mean, this would have been like hearing Whitney sing for the first time, right?

You know what I'm talking about?

Like the first time you heard her sing, I will always love you.

I mean, I know it's been a while, bodyguard, I know it's been a while, but go lock yourself in a room and listen to that song, right?

Like the purity and the power of that voice, right?

I mean, that's that's what we have in this verse.

And I know you've heard, just like we've heard that song a million times, we've heard this verse a million times, but if we just pay attention to it, it is it has the purity and the power.

There's a new song out.

Have y'all heard the song Driver's License?

You won't admit it unless you're 12 or 13, but the rest of you've probably heard it.

Trust me, we know it in our family really well.

We're listening to it a lot.

Uh, a family of three girls.

Here's the deal with the song Driver's License.

I mean, can we admit it if you know it?

Okay.

Is anybody just killing it?

Is anybody just killing it?

We are, just my family.

Okay, I'll fill you in.

I'll fill you in on this.

So, Driver's License is a song that came out in January, early January, by Olivia Rodrigo.

Okay?

She's on the TV show High School Musical, The Musical, the series.

That's the title, the TV show.

Maybe you're watching, maybe you're not, I'm not sure.

Um so the song is about her breakup with this other actor in the show, Josh Bassett.

And the song is about her getting her driver's license, driving up in the suburbs, drives by her house.

It's a little needy.

I mean, let's it's a little needy, but and it's dramatic.

But that's the storyline of the song because Josh Bassett broke up with her, and now she's writing this and she's trying to kind of get through it.

Now, you think, how ridiculous.

Maybe you hadn't even heard of the song.

Well, the rest of the world has heard of the song.

It it hit number one on the billboard, number one on the billboard, the most dominant number one in the billboard in all of history.

Rodrigo's the youngest artist to ever debut as number one.

It was already certified double platinum.

Rolling Stone, unless you thought it was just a joke, Rolling Stone said it's probably gonna win Song of the Year.

It was number one in the U.S., and in case you just think it's a United States, like pre-teen thing going on, it was number one in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Malaysia, Portugal, Singapore, Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and England.

Okay?

That's what this song is going on, and it's in my house a lot.

Here's the power of the song that I've figured out as I've been being taught about this song from my children.

Olivia was with Josh Bassett.

Okay.

Josh Bassett breaks up with Olivia, and then he goes and starts dating Sabrina Carpenter from Boy Meets Girl.

Okay?

Now, Sabrina writes a song back against Olivia and releases that song.

That song's not nearly as good, let's be honest.

Okay?

Here's my point.

There's a lot to the story.

It goes further.

It's a song that welcomes you into a story.

Right?

Like, and that's why it's just it's cotton, it's just like fire, because it's a it's just a song.

But it's a song that welcomes you into a larger story that you can't quite figure out and you're not quite sure.

Is it just a bunch of teenagers and like publicity guys in a room, like creating this world for us to kind of want to pay attention to to listen to the song?

Or is this really happening?

You don't know, that's part of the story too, right?

It's a song that's welcome you into a story.

That's what John 3.16 is, okay?

If I can attempt to even make a link here, is it's a song, but it's welcoming you into a bigger story.

And the bigger story is what we've been talking about.

The book of Hebrews we just came out of, is the kind of like the technical outworking of the old covenant, new covenant connection.

This song in John 3.16, this lyric is a part of this huge story of the Bible, this meta-narrative gospel that we were created worthy in the beginning in Genesis 1, and yet we are fallen, and we're sinners in need of God's grace in Jesus, and we have a hope of heaven.

This four-part meta-narrative gospel story.

So it's one verse, but the reason why it keeps showing up at every baseball game and billboards all over is because it's one, it's the song that welcomes us into the larger story.

Point number two is this we hold belief as a directional trust into Christ Himself, right?

I mean, the verse is like in him, in him, through him.

So we don't believe in a system, right?

Like we don't believe in a theological system, that's not where we place our trust.

We don't believe in a church, we don't place our trust in a church.

No, the word here, belief, is trust, and it's a trusting into.

Verse 16 says, whoever believes in him.

So it could say this.

It could be worded this way in English, entrusting oneself into him.

So this is about the object and the resting place of our trust.

It's not as much about our trust.

That's an important distinction.

It's about our trust, but only to get us into the object of our trust.

Here's how A.W.

Pink, the theologian, writes about this phrase in trusting oneself into him.

He does not define the method, talking about Jesus here in this passage.

He does not define the method or the manner of coming, and even if the poor sinner comes groping, stumbling, falling, yet if only he will come, there is a warm welcome for him.

So it is in our text.

It is whosoever believeth.

Nothing is said about the strength or the intelligence of the belief, for it is not the character or degree of faith that saves, but Christ Himself.

Faith is simply the eye of the soul that looks off unto Lord Jesus.

Do not rest then on your faith, but on the Savior Himself.

You see what Pete did?

He tied it back into that Numbers 21, right?

Like trust is to look upon.

It's the eye of the soul to look upon, to entrust oneself into Christ.

That's good news for any of us that feel like your faith is like, oh, really great.

And then, like, eh, not sure, really great, not sure, really great, not sure.

Like, isn't that securing?

To know it is about Jesus' movement in love toward you.

Verse 18, whoever believes in him is not condemned.

Wow, amazing.

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

Point number three is this deep everlasting life.

So we could say eternal life there and here.

Deep everlasting life is the gift of the beloved identity where there is never condemnation.

Condemnation is this word crisis, which means judgment or damnation.

We know that word, right?

We know that.

And that's what it feels like.

Have you ever been under condemnation of a parent or a friend, a group of people?

Maybe yourself, write those messages of you're not enough.

You'll never get it together.

You'll never get there.

That's a crisis.

That's a crisis for your heart to feel that.

What the passage is saying is God's movement towards you and the gift of Jesus is that that crisis never exists in your relationship with God.

Like all of that sort of judgment of you not being enough, like that gap's been fully filled with the grace of God and Jesus.

So God's love stands against that crisis.

The Heavenly Father is never shaming, never condemning, and never belittling of any person.

He loves every person, even while the person, and this is where the text takes us, even while the person may not love him, and their life may create judgment upon themselves.

Verses 19 and 20.

And this is the judgment.

The light has come into the world, and 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.

Point number four is this not believing Christ is enough is the darkness.

The darkness in the condemnation is not believing Christ is enough.

So this passage is a dire warning.

Now, if we think about the direct context, he's speaking to Nicodemus, who's a religious man.

A lot of society would say, boy, that guy has his act together, right?

Like, but even that, that moralistic self-justification, that's darkness.

There's always going to be a hum of condemnation underneath that life, of trying to self-save by yourself.

But verse 20 goes further and speaking of wicked things.

So this extends past like the darkness of moralism, and it goes into truly the horror of human behavior, of hurting other people.

And the text says, people who pleasure in wicked and they hate the light, they will be judged.

And Jesus is urging people to turn from darkness, allowing the loving, welcoming light of God to expose them.

To be exposed, to let that the love of your wickedness to be exposed so that you might be redeemed.

Our final verse, verse 21.

Turns it back to good news.

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

So what we love to say around our church, we say it sort of on repeat, I didn't make it up, is that in the gospel, earning is over, even while in the gospel we still have effort.

Right?

If you get on a plane to go to Hawaii, your earning is over.

Like you're not flying yourself to Hawaii, even though while you're on the plane, you're still functional.

So our text says our works are carried out in God.

It's like we're on the plane being flown to Hawaii, even while inside the plane we're still alive and functioning.

Our works or any of our good works are inside of God Himself.

That He would create the motive for that, that He would create the fuel for that.

Here's how pastor and author Tim Keller words all of this when he preached on this passage.

But don't you see what it means to receive rights as children of God?

You're not on the spectrum.

You're off the spectrum.

Your identity is received, not achieved.

Your identity is rooted in God's love for you and the fact that God is now your father, not just your boss, not just your king.

He is that, but he's your father.

There's an unconditionality, as it were, to his regard for you.

And that is so different from any other kind of identity.

You've got a new identity, and it's remarkable.

It's nothing like anything you've ever had before.

You get your identity in Christ, and then you realize you've become who you are, who you really are, who you were made to be.

See, at first, at first you'll think you're secure in this world and with God because of what you do.

Because you're good at something.

Or you're trying to be, you're trying to be good at something.

The first half of life.

And then that'll run its course.

You'll get to the end of yourself.

And either you'll be in despair and condemned, or you will die to self.

You'll be buried in Christ and raised to live in the newness of his justification for you.

Where there's no condemnation because the conditionality has been removed.

And you're living in the unconditional love and justification of God for you in the work of Christ.

So there's no condemnation.

God so loved you.

And his love is not based on what you do, it's based on what Jesus has done for you.

So you are fully loved and fully forgiven and fully accepted.

You are whole even while you're being made whole.

You're healed even while you are still healing.

You have a secure, forever, imputed, righteous standing with God, a secure identity.

Salvation, a wholeness with God.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for the complete belovedness that we have in you.

The right standing and the right relationship that we have with you that can never be taken away from us.

Thank you for the unconditionality that that is, because it is not based in what we do, but it is based in entrusting ourselves to you for you so beloved us.

We pray this in the good and powerful and rescuing name of Jesus.

Amen.