Evidences of Divine Love

Well, let me invite you to turn in your Bibles, this morning to John chapter 3. John chapter 3, we are going to be looking at John 3:16 this morning. how many of you have heard of John 3:16? Raise your hand.

OK, most of you. John 3:16 is, I think, by anyone's account, is one of the most famous verses, if not the most famous verse in the Bible. It is at the very least, the most memorized verse in the Bible, right? How many of you have John 3:16 memorized?

OK. one writer has said all great men have their favorite texts of scripture. John 3:16 is everyone's text. You hear this verse quoted, perhaps more than any other.

You see the reference perhaps more than any other. Just this week, I was watching the debate with Ken Ham and Bill Nye the Science Guy. And during Ken Ham's presentation at one point, he quoted from John 3:16. On Friday, I attended an internment or gravesite service for our brother Chuck Stevekin, and Alvin Davis, one of our elders, officiated that.

that service and shared some beautiful comments at the beginning of that service. And amongst the things that he shared was John 3:16. It's just where the heart of Christians go. You see this reference, everywhere, even if not the whole verse.

I recently drove across country with One of my sons, and there were 2 or 3 times across country where on a billboard we saw the reference John 3:16 and on one occasion the entire verse written out. You see this reference in a number of places. You used to see it on Tim Tebow's Eye Black. and here's a wedding photo of, a lady who put it on her dress.

So just an idea for you gals. And here's another place where it showed up. This is a fan running onto a baseball field in order to get the message out. We're not really recommending that as a method of evangelism.

But people do what they do. you see this reference on, t-shirts, Christian t-shirts. you see it showing up on tattoos. Again, I'm not recommending anything here, just stating observations.

you see this reference on iPhone covers. and goodness, you even find John 3:16 on the bottom of in and out cups. By the way, this sermon is brought to you by NOTW. And In N-Out.

So get your cell phone cover and a burger from In N-Out. I got paid big money for that, so I actually had a dream years ago. I didn't share this in the first service. In my dream, I was preaching, and we used to live next to a Toyota dealership called Hammer Toyota.

And And in my dream state I was dreaming that I was preaching, and I said, and now my first point, which is brought to you by Hammer Toyota. That's neither here nor there, but that actually happened. But what, John 3:16 gets, it garners all of this attention because there's good reason for it. John 3:16 is the most beautiful, succinct, quintessential expression of gospel truth that we find probably anywhere on the pages of Scripture.

William Barclay says herein. For every simple heart is the very essence. Of the gospel, Martin Luther calls John 3:16 the miniature gospel. He also says that this verse flows like milk and honey, and its words are able to make the sad happy and the dead alive if only the heart believes them firmly.

The thought occurred to me this past week that In my 22 years of serving as a pastor here at Cornerstone, I've preached well over 1000 sermons. I've never once preached a sermon on the text of John 3:16. That thought was immediately followed by another thought, and that is, over the last 22 years, just about every Sunday, I have preached. On the truth of John 3:16, every exposition of any verse in the Bible is an exposition of some facet of John 3:16 or of something that is true because John 3:16 is true.

John 3:16 is the volcanic magma that the rest of Scripture is merely an explosion of. John 3:16 is not simply one verse in the Bible. It is the white hot core of the Bible. It is the gospel in its most succinct, most beautiful, and most eloquent expression.

Back in the latter half of the 1800s, there was a preacher named Henry Morehouse from Dublin, Ireland who had come over to the United States and he made his way to Chicago and he got permission to speak to a particular congregation on a Thursday night. And the leadership of that church was basically, they basically thought, let's see how he preaches, and if he does a good job, we'll invite him back. Well, he preached that Thursday evening, and his text was John 3:16. And he just unfolded the glories of the gospel found in that verse.

He did such a great job that they asked him to come back the following night and preach. So everyone assembled, and Henry Morehouse got up to preach and he said, My text for tonight's sermon is John 3:16. And he preached an entirely different sermon. From John 3:16 than he had preached the evening before.

He came back the next night, and his text was John 3:16. Get this guys, he preached seven evenings in a row, seven different sermons, and all of them were from the text of John 3:16. That's how much just just looking at it from every angle and drawing out its beauty and its truth. During his seventh sermon on this passage, he said these words, If I could borrow Jacob's ladder and climb up into heaven, And ask Gabriel, who stands in the presence of the Almighty, to tell me how much love the Father has for the world.

All Gabriel could say would be, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. That whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. That'd be the best that Gabriel could do. This man Henry Morehouse preached seven sermons in a row over the course of 7 days from John 3:16.

1 of the individuals in attendance during the final 5 of those seven sermons was a man named Dwight L. Moody, who founded Moody College, founded the YMCA. Moody was at a point in his life in ministry where God was using him, but he was dissatisfied. with his life, his walk with the Lord, and the depth of his preaching ministry.

But as he sat through the final five sermons of Henry Morehouse on John 3:16, Moody later shared that that was a turning point for his life. John 3:16 became the engine that drove Moody deeper into the heart of God and deeper into a more impactful and spiritual ministry of preaching the gospel to the lost. DL Moody, some have suggested, reached perhaps as many as a million souls for Christ. And he would tell you what drove me.

Was the love of God as expounded in John 3:16. As we think about ourselves as a church, we're talking about moving down the road a mile and a half to the Barnes Technology Center. We're going to have a larger facility to be able to show the hospitality of Christ to a greater number of people. But what, facilities don't mean anything unless we are a congregation of people who are seized by the truths of John 3:16.

Where it has shaped us and taken us deeper into the heart of God, and deeper into more earnest ministry of sharing the love of God with the lost. We can say it this way, the ministry of Cornerstone. will likely only go as deep as is our appreciation of the heart of God expressed in John 3:16. If you want to, if you want to measure how deep our impact is going to be for eternity upon this community, just mark the level of our appreciation of the truths that are declared in John 3:16, and you'll know.

You'll be able to know by that how far reaching and how deep our impact will be upon the people of this community. As we look at this verse this morning, I just want to ask you, do we embrace John 3:16. Do we believe, do we really believe that God loves the world? Do we believe that it was God's love for the world that drove him to give of his very best, giving his Son, Over in death for the sins of the world.

Do we believe, do we really believe that there is a perishing that awaits those who do not believe in Jesus? Do we really believe that? Do we believe that there is such a thing as eternal life that is available to people who believe in Jesus available today? This very moment to those who believe in Jesus, and will be theirs through all of eternity.

Do the truths of John 3:16 grip us? Are they the engine that drives us deeper into the heart of God, and deeper into more earnest ministry to those who do not yet know Jesus? But we're going to be pondering this verse today with the time that we have and in order to appreciate What is said in John 3:16, we do well to appreciate the fact that Jesus did not speak the words of this verse, just in a vacuum. He didn't just declare this verse, and it's just hanging suspended in midair attached to nothing.

No, this verse and the contents of John 3:16, come attached to something else. In fact, John 3:16 is merely an elaboration, an appendage of something else that Jesus has just said. John 3:16. What, how does it begin?

With what word? 4, that's the Greek word gar, that means sense or even because. Jesus in John 3:16 says, since God so loved the world, And that begs the question, why does he say sense? What is he explaining?

It tells us that this verse comes attached to what Jesus has just said in the preceding verses. And what is Jesus just said? We'll look at John 3:14 and 15, where Jesus says to Nicodemus and to all of us, he says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so, the Son of Man must be lifted up. And we saw two weeks ago, this means the Son of Man must be lifted up in death.

So Moses lifted up a serpent. The children of Israel rebelled against God. God sent snakes, poisonous snakes, as judgment upon them for their sins against God. The children of Israel repented.

They came to Moses, said, Intercede with God on our behalf. This is all in Numbers 21. Moses intercedes to God on behalf of the children of Israel. God said, Here's what's going to happen.

I'm not going to remove the snakes, but I want you, Moses, to fashion a bronze serpent. I want you to put it on a stand. or on a pole, and then I want you to position it in a place where the people of Israel can see it. And from now on, whenever anyone is bitten by one of these deadly snakes, if they come and simply look at the serpent that is on this pole, they will live.

They will not die. And Jesus is saying as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so that people could look to it and live, even so, what he's saying is, I, the Son of Man, must be lifted up and compare that with what he says in Chapter 12, clearly, he's talking about being lifted up in death, so that anyone who believes in me will have eternal life. In a nutshell, Jesus, here's what he's saying in verses 14 and 15, I must die. I must die.

I am the Son of Man, and I must die. In order that believers in me will have eternal life. I'm going to die, and I must die, so that anyone who believes in me will be able to live forever. That's what Jesus has said in verses 14 and 15.

And in making the statement, we're used to this. So we probably don't hear this and say, what? Why? but I want you to imagine hearing this for the first time.

Imagine you're Nicodemus, and you've known that the Messiah is coming, and there are indications in the Old Testament that the Messiah would come and die, but everyone was conveniently ignoring that and focusing on the Messiah coming and ruling and conquering and destroying his enemies. And so they missed that in the Old Testament. And yet here is Jesus basically saying, I am the Son of Man. And I'm going to die, I must die, I must be lifted up in death, in order that anyone who believes in me can live forever.

Nicodemus's response and our response, if we were hearing this for the first time and knew nothing else, would be why Jesus, why must you die? Why are you doing this, Jesus? Why are you here? And why are you talking right now about the fact that you, the Son of Man must die?

And Jesus says, let me answer that question. And I'll answer it by pulling back the curtain and telling you about God. And that's what John 3:16 is. Jesus pulls back the curtain and reveals a God who loves us.

And he makes some statements to us about this God and the love that he shows to us. John 3:16 is the love of God laid bare. The love of God laid bare. Let me explain this to you why it is that I must die, Jesus says, and I'll point you to my Father, and his love for the world.

So as we look at John 3:16, this is how we'll frame look at this passage in this verse, we observe 4 evidences of God's love for the world, or four expressions of God's love for the world. You can look at John 3:16 and know that God loves the world because you see at least 4 evidences here. And the first of these evidences is that we know God loves the world because He tells us. That he loves us.

He tells us. That he loves the world. That's how we know. God didn't just perform actions, and he left it to us to interpret it rightly.

No, Jesus says, I am wanting to let here that God loves the world. This is why I must die. In fact, we can actually translate the passage this way. He says in verse 14, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

in order that those who believe in Him will have eternal life. And then you could put a comma, because God so loved the world. That statement, because God so loved the world is not just attached to what follows, but it's an explanation for what he has just said. He's explaining why he must die the death that he's going to die, and that is because God so loved the world.

This is the degree to which God has loved the world. And this is also the manner in which God has chosen to show His love to the world. Jesus Tells us God loves you. God loves the world.

And I want you to let that sink in. I want you to ponder the authority of the one who makes this announcement. Nowadays, any, most people that believe in a God are quick to say, oh, God loves everybody, right? But who are they?

And what authority do they possess? I can stand up here and say God loves everybody. God loves the world, but who am I? And what authority do I possess that would make you say, Wow, Milton said God loves the world, so I believe he loves the world.

What is my authority and your authority and anyone else's authority compared to Jesus, who came from heaven? He's like, I've been with the Father from all of eternity past, and the beginning was the Word. And the Word was literally facing toward God. And the Word was God.

And he became flesh and dwelt among us. So Jesus is like, I came from heaven, I have come from the Father. I have been with the Father from all of eternity past. I've been facing towards him in relationship with Him.

I am God. And I am telling you, Jesus says, that God so loved the world. Guys, you can take that to the bank. This is the one who speaks with authority, who is making this announcement to us that God loves the world.

We know that he loves us. Why? Because he tells us here. There's no other statement like this in Scripture that is this broad.

In the Declaration, God loved the world. There's nothing else quite like it anywhere in Scripture. You do find in Scripture God saying that He loved certain things. In Malachi 1, he says, I love Jacob.

So he loved Jacob. In Malachi 1, God says to the people of Israel, this is how the book of Malachi basically begins, I have loved you, he says to the people of Israel, declares the Lord. So God loved the nation of Israel. We know in the gospel accounts, twice, God spoke from heaven, regarding Jesus and said, basically, I love my son, this is my beloved Son, this is the Son whom I love.

So we know God the Father loved his son. But here, Jesus is telling us God loved the world. He loved the world. We know he loves the world.

Because he says so. He said, well, what is meant by the word world? clearly, Jesus is saying God loves more than a person. He loves more than a nation.

Jesus does not say for God so loved good people. For God so loved those who keep the law. For God so loved those whose good works outweigh their bad. No, God so loved the world.

What does he mean by world? Let's give it this definition. This word speaks of fallen mankind internationally. It's the full scope of the human race globally speaking, fallen mankind internationally, of every ethnicity, background, language, social standing, economic status, religious background, upbringing, personal history, and on and on the list can go.

God loves. The world. He loves all of fallen humankind. And if you're here this morning and you're a human, God loves you.

God loves you. Even if you turn and reject him. We learn in the Gospels when Jesus spoke to the rich young ruler, that rich young ruler rejected Jesus and walked away from him, but the text tells us Jesus loved him. Jerusalem rejected Jesus, and yet he wept.

Over Jerusalem in his triumphal entry. There is a real biblical sense Christ is declaring this. God loved the cosmos. He loved fallen mankind internationally.

God loves those who are righteous and those who are wicked. If you're here this morning and you're like, Man, Pastor, you don't know the stuff that I've done, the thoughts that I think, the tendencies that I have, you don't know my sin history. Listen. God loves you.

God loves the world. This is an amazing thing. He loves the world that he created. He loves the world that he commanded in the garden.

Enjoy the provision that I've made for you in the Garden of Eden, but don't eat of this one tree. Adam and Eve rejected God's command, and they partook of the forbidden fruit. They rebelled, and so we all rebelled in Adam. And the human race throughout human history has been characterized by this ongoing ever deepening cycle of rebellion.

God loves this world He created the world He commanded, the world that has rebelled, the world that now. actually stands rightly and justly under his condemnation. Jesus is going to go further into talking about this in the coming verses. God, even though the world was under his just condemnation, God loved the world.

He so loved the world. There was nothing in fallen humankind that would provoke this love. There was nothing lovable or lovely. As God looked over the human race, Psalm 14 says, verse 2 and following, the Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand and who seek after God.

They've all turned aside, together they become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one. God looks down upon this mess of the human race in bondage and sin, and in rebellion against him. And guess what?

He loves the world. He loves you. And he loves me. Why?

Is it because there was something lovely in us? No, here's why, because God is love, and that love must express itself. His love for the world says everything about him. And very little or nothing about us.

This love that God has for the world is the birthing place of the gospel. It is inside of this love that the events of the gospel began to emerge and unfold, and right off the bat in John 3:16, we were looking for evidence of God's disposition towards us. Does God love us? And the first evidence that he does is, well, he actually tells us that he does.

And I know that Some of you that have known the Lord for a long time, you're like, what, I know that. I know that that's an elementary truth of the gospel, Milton. You don't really need to belabor that with me. I know that.

but please don't do that. when your spouse comes to you and says, I love you, honey, do you say, I know that? You've told me that every morning for the last 20 years. I'm getting tired of it.

I already know that. Do you think I don't know it? Why do you keep repeating that? None of us respond that way, do we?

No, we enjoy hearing that. And so just imagine, this is the God of the universe. This is the God who created all things that exist. This is a God who is so immense that he measured the entire universe with merely the span of his hand.

The God of the universe who created everything and all of the stars of unimaginable immensity and power. He loves you. Let yourself hear that as if you have never heard it before. As Charles Spurgeon says, yes, this is one of the ABC's of the gospel.

But hear it again, let it into your heart, and let it make you feel young again. God loves me. He loves me and he's saying that here. I am Among fallen mankind, God loves the world.

God loves me, and he's telling me that he loves me here. That's the first evidence. it's one thing to be loved, it's another thing to be told by somebody that they love you. That means a lot to us and to be told that by God is just staggering.

This, this month actually is the 33 year anniversary of the beginning of mine and my wife's relationship. We dated 7 years before we were married and it was almost exactly 33 years ago that she Asked me out on our first date. Seriously. Which was a Valentine's turnabout banquet where the girl asked the guy, so, I was smitten by her starting my freshman year of high school, and I, I never dreamed that she would ever be interested in me, and she wasn't, but But then, my junior year of high school, right around this time of the year, I started hearing second and thirdhand that she was interested and it was like a dream that I, that I dreamed, but it's like this would never come true, but I enjoyed dreaming it.

It's like this actually is coming true and she is interested in me and then she actually came up to me and asked me out on this date. And it brought life to my pathetic existence up to that point. but at the, near the beginning of our relationship, we, we had a phone conversation, and we talked for about 45 minutes. And after that phone conversation, she wrote me a note.

This was about 33 years ago. And somehow she got it to me. I don't know if she passed it to me at church or if she mailed it. I, I don't remember.

but I actually still have the note with me. Just see the yellowed. But Here's what stood out. When I read this note for the first time, the thing that captured my attention more than any other was how she signed it.

She said, love you. Donna And I'm not, I'm not kidding. When I saw the words love you, I was like, I spent probably hours just staring at those two words. And I'm like, she loves me.

And then I thought, oh, maybe she just signs all of her letters that way. and she says that to everybody, and I'm no one special, but maybe she is saying that she loves me here and that I am special. And so I could have forgotten about everything else. Those words love you, just rocked my world, that I was being told by her that she loved me.

Now, neither of us had a clue what love was at that point. But I didn't know that then. So it was really cool to be To be told that. But for her to love me, and then for her to say that to me.

Just meant everything to me, and that's part of why I've kept this letter over the last 33 years. John 3:16. is a letter that's worth keeping. It's a verse worth memorizing and posting in some visible place because it is the love of God laid bare, the heart of God laid bare, where God is saying to us, I love, I love the world, and there is nothing that the world has done.

That mitigates my love to the least degree. There's nothing you have done that mitigates my love to the least degree. In fact, God says so much more than just love you. He's saying, I so love the world to such a glorious and infinite degree.

That I have actually not just said it, but I have done something, and that leads to the second evidence of God's love found in John 3:16, and that is that He gave His only begotten Son. For us, says for God so loved the world that He gave. God doesn't just speak His love, but he actually acts and he gives, and he gives us a gift, a gift to the world, and of all gifts, he gives to us His Son, who is described as his only begotten Son. and just so we understand why he doesn't just say, God gave His Son, but he says his only begotten Son, understand that in Scripture, like in Job, the angels of God are referred to as sons of, of God.

in Acts 17, the apostle Paul speaks of all human beings as the offspring of God who have been generated from God, literally, and believers in Jesus, according to John 1:12 are described as sons or children of God. And yet, What Jesus is saying, by way of describing himself is this, he's saying, I'm not just a Son of God, I am the Son of God, and not just that, I'm the only begotten. Some translators translate this, the one and only, the unique one. So there are various categories.

Of sonship, if you want to put it that way, Jesus is the only one of his kind. He is the ultimate Son who has been with the Father from all of eternity past, and of his like, there is no other. He is the unique Son, the one and only Son. There is no one else in his category of preciousness and value to the Father.

There is no one else who has the relationship that he has with the Father. He is the unique, one and only, only begotten Son of God. And John 3:16 is telling us that God has given him. He's given his only begotten Son.

In the Old Testament, you open to the Book of Genesis, and you find that God is giving the man, he's giving the man all throughout the Old Testament, He gives to mankind a garden called Eden full of lush provision. And what does man do? Man rebels in that, that garden. God in the Old Testament gives to the children of Israel, Moses to lead them, and they complain and they ultimately reject Him in a variety of ways.

God gives to them the gift of His law, and they disobey His law. They break and violate. His law in horrible ways. God gives to his people a land to dwell in which to enjoy God and a relationship with him and to honor and glorify Him as they live their lives from day to day.

And what do they do in the land? They stain the land. With their rebellion and sin, God sends them prophet after prophet after prophet to as a gift to speak his truth to them, to call them back, and they kill many of the prophets and they disregard, they disobey, they don't give heed to the prophets that God sends to them. And God had every reason to say, I've given them this and this and this and this and this and look at what mankind has done to what I have given him.

But God so loved the world that after giving all of those things and those things being rejected, and disrespected, God says, I know what I'll give. I'll give I'll give My one and only. Son, I'll give My one and only son. And this giving that is being spoken of here is not just a giving, sending him into the world.

Keep in mind, Jesus is answering the question, why must you die, Jesus? Why must you die? And Jesus says, let me tell you why I must die, because God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. What he's saying is, the reason I must die is because I'm the one the Father has given to hang upon the pole for all to look to and be saved and have eternal life.

That's why I must die. See, God told Moses, fashion a serpent. Moses took some bronze and fashioned a serpent, and he put that on a pole for everyone to look at. God could have said, I want to bring salvation to mankind, so I'm going to have someone in Israel fashion a bronze image of a human and put that on a pole, and anyone who looks can live and be saved.

But he didn't do that. He said, I know what I'm going to give. I'm going to give my son. My one and only, and he's the one who will hang upon that tree.

He's the one who will hang upon that pole. He's the one who, in being lifted up in death, the world may look to and see and believe and live forever. Jesus says, I'm the one that God has given. To be On that pole.

To bring salvation. To those who believe This is an incredible demonstration of the love of God for us that leads to a third evidence of God's love for us, and that is He purposed that all His believing ones would not perish. We know that God loves us because He and the councils of eternity past decreed He purposed that that That among all of his believing ones, not a one of them. would perish.

It says, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish. That word perish means to be ruined, to be destroyed, not in the sense of ceasing to exist, but in eternal destruction, an eternal ruin. What this implies is that there is a perishing. There is a perishing that people need to be delivered from, and God so loved the world that He gave His Son so that people who believe in Jesus can be delivered from that perishing that they would otherwise.

be subject to. What is the perishing? One writer says it this way, it is the divine condemnation, complete and everlasting. So that one is banished from the presence of the God of love, and dwells forever in the presence of the God of wrath, a condition which in principle begins here and now.

But does not reach its full and terrible culmination for both soul and body until the day of the great consummation. So people the world over are already under the condemnation and judgment of God, they are already perishing. They're already in the lobby of hell. As it were.

And what awaits all those who are not saved through Jesus is eternal ruin. Eternal perishing, unless God intervenes through His Son, Jesus. Let's just make a quick note of a fact here. Everyone knows that John 3:16 is a verse all about the love of God.

And yet, interestingly enough, something is said about perishing here. So it's not incompatible to speak about a God of love and also the perishing of sinners. There are churches nowadays, they are a dime a dozen, and there are preachers nowadays, they're a dime a dozen who they want everyone to understand the love of God, so much so that they're like, I don't ever want to talk about damnation and hell and sin. And their motive is, I want people to understand the love of God.

But what they don't realize is that when you take away justice, and God's wrath, and the reality of hell, and you won't speak about such things, and you won't speak about sin that damns people to hell, you have just rendered shallow your ability to truly comprehend the love of God. We know that God is a God of love because we see the lengths that he went to and the gift that he gave so that we might be saved. We also know that God is a God of love, because we see the magnitude of the awfulness of what he saved us from.

And if we remove hell, the reality of hell, from our consciousness, then we have thereby rendered ourselves unable to even appreciate the magnitude of the love of God.

We've impoverished our ability to understand His love, His grace, and His mercy. Even those of us that have been saved, do we, do we savor this reality that we have been saved by God through Christ from this perishing? Do, do, do we realize that if God could somehow remove the scales from our eyes and give us a five second glimpse of hell, Or the lake of fire, we would turn back to God and say, Lord, you love me. That hell is awful, and that's what I deserve, and you saved me from that.

You say, Well, I believe that. I know that. Do you? Then why do you ever complain?

About your circumstances. If you truly knew the hell that you deserved, you would compare your circumstances at all times. To that hell you would see your circumstances against the backdrop of the hell, the perishing that you deserve. And you would be so grateful to God that you're not there.

You would realize, man, I deserve the wrath of God and for God, to give to me an empty cup, they're half full, half empty glass people. Well, if you're really a gospel centered Christian, here's the way you would think, Man, if God gave me an empty cup, I'd spend all eternity praising Him. I deserve a full cup, roiling, boiling with the wrath of God. If He handed me an empty cup with no blessings in it, but hell was not in it, I would be so thankful to God.

If God put even a single drop of blessing in that otherwise empty cup, I would explode in praise to God, that God has in fact given me a full cup of his blessings. On every level, is infinite cause for ongoing rejoicing. So we, we can understand the love of God better when we keep in our consciousness, the reality, the sobering reality of judgment and of hell. Don't let that escape from your, your thinking, your perspective, and your ministry to, to others.

Notice though, the literal language of the text here, it says for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son literally in order that all the believing in Him ones will not perish. In order that all the believing in him ones will not perish. in other words, there are two categories of people on the planet. There are those who believe in Jesus, and there are those who don't.

And we're being told God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, in order that those who are in the category of believing in Jesus, that not one of them will perish. But we'll have eternal life. I want you to ponder this this week. What this indicates.

is that if God did not send His Son Jesus, if Jesus did not die on the cross, then people who are in the category of believers in Him, they would perish. Do you get that? If Jesus did not die, Then there would be millions of people who have believed in him, who would still die in their sins and perish forever. If Jesus did not die on the cross, hell would be populated not just by nonbelievers.

But hell would be populated by millions of people who put their full confidence and hope in Jesus. And Jesus says, and the Father says, I'm not going to let one of my believing ones perish, not a one of them. I'm going to go to the mat for them. I will do whatever it takes to make sure that not one of those who puts their confidence in my son will perish forever.

And if it obviously in God's eternal decrees, that means I will send my son to die, so that anyone who puts their confidence in my son will not die forever. Man, that ought to give us so much faith in God, who is willing to go to such lengths so that our faith in Jesus would not be disappointed. So that we would not perish. There's a final evidence of God's love for us, and that is that He purposed that all his believing ones would have eternal life.

He didn't just rescue us from perishing. But the text says, so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. This expression, eternal life speaks of life that is not only infinite and its quality, but infinite in its duration, and eternal life according to Jesus. is actually, it's a relational.

Idea. It's not just living forever. In isolation or aloneness, what fate would that be? I've made it possible so that you live forever and you're by yourself.

No, eternal life is living forever in relationship with God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Jesus in John 17 is speaking. To the Father in prayer, and he gives us an incredible definition of eternal life. He says, this is eternal life that they may relationally know you, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

The essence of eternal life is living forever in communion with, in relationship with God the Father and God the Son, and we can add God the Holy Spirit because we know in Romans 5 that the Spirit of God is always incessantly pouring out the love of God into our hearts. It is living for all of eternity in relationship with God. God so loved the world that he wanted to bring those who believe in His Son into relationship with Himself for all of eternity. God's like, I, I love you.

I have so much that I want to show you, and it will take eternity for me to show you all of that. the things that I have prepared for you, and I want to have a relationship with you for all of eternity. And I am willing to give my son to be lifted up in death upon the cross so that you can be rescued from perishing, and so that you can have this life of relationship. With me.

And with my son. If you're here today, it doesn't matter. Please notice that this text does not say God so loved. The world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever keeps the law will not perish, or whoever's works good works outweigh their bad will not perish.

Whoever is lovely, who has not messed up in the ways that maybe you have, so that they will not perish, no. God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believes Whoever believes in Jesus will not perish but have eternal life. This is available to you. There is nothing for you to do, but to turn from your sin and look to Jesus and live.

Just cry out to him. It's not about believing in yourself. The message of Christianity is not, hey, you got to believe in yourself. That's the road to damnation.

The message of Christianity is God the Father believed in his Son to bridge the chasm between God and man, and salvation comes to those who join the Father in trusting only his Son. To be the one who bridges that chasm. that's why salvation is by faith. God says you need salvation.

And I'm not God the Father says, I don't trust you to accomplish it. I don't trust you to accomplish one iota of it. God says, I'm going to entrust all of that to my son. And so here's what he did.

He died. He was raised. He's now at the right hand of God, and I will give salvation to anyone who agrees with me that my son. is 100% worthy of trust.

Will you join me in trusting my son to be the way, the truth and the life. It doesn't matter what you've done, the sins you've committed, Christian history is full of people who've done terrible things, but they believed in Jesus, and they were saved and their lives were transformed. And that can happen to you today, right where you're seated. Just believe in Jesus.

Believe in him. Let's pray together Lord, I trust that your Spirit is working in this room, in my own heart and in the hearts of everyone that's here. We so need a fresh working of your Spirit working through passages like this. Grace us, Lord, with the work of your Spirit in our hearts, in our midst.

Saved souls today. May people be born again today. In these moments as they respond in faith to Jesus. And believe in Him and be rescued from perishing and receive the gift of eternal life.

And if any in this room have any questions, Lord, just give them the courage to come and talk to us. We'd love, it would make my day to talk to them. And I know so many others would love to do that. This is serious.

There's nothing more important than this. For those of us who are believers, Lord, may we be driven by the fact that you love the world and may we love the world the way you love the world. Help us to be done with lesser things. And to be willing to give of our best and to give of our most precious.

So that people can be saved and hear the truth. May that be what we're all about. All about. Lord, you've given us so much and we now have a chance to give of our offerings to you.

Receive these funds that we give and this offering, Lord, do much with every penny that is given. For the glory of this one whom you have sent. For it is in his name, the name of Jesus, we pray, and all God's people said, Amen.