How Does Jesus Love Us? Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: January 21, 2011

Date Preached: January 23, 2011

Where Preached: OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Series Title: Falling in Love With Jesus

Sermon Title: How Does Jesus Love Us?

Sermon Text: John 3:14-17 [ESV]

Introduction:

I love you! These are 3 words that we all long to hear. Can you remember when you first heard these words? I am sure that it was when you were a small child and your parents said them to you…over and over again. The next time you probably heard it was that puppy love you experienced in Jr. High or sometime around that for most of us, when the special someone we liked shared their feelings with us!

That 1st puppy love was all gushy and sweet, but many of us found it to be a fleeting feeling… an empty emotion that had no substance and after a short period of time it was GONE!

But the love you rec’d from your parents was much different because they showed it by taking care of you, feeding you, giving you a place to live, and providing for your basic needs, and YES they even disciplined you when you needed it… all because they loved you.

The sad part of this comparison is that so many of us find that 1st puppy love to be the more exciting event in our lives even though, it was not lasting. It was different, it was exciting, it was flashy, it was NEW, but it did not last. However, we find ourselves trying to relive it over and over again.

We find it more flashy and exciting than the love we rec’d from our parents mainly because our parents’ love was something reliable, something predictable, something that was stable and lasting. And as sad as it is to say, it bores most of us… it’s routine… it’s everyday… it becomes mundane to us, even though it is a very real, true, and faithful love!

This morning I want us to make a comparison of this sort, but from the spiritual realm. You see, many of us can remember when the world first told us that it loved us - that time when temptation came our way, when we saw something we wanted and reached out for it… when we took hold of it, it was exciting, it was flashy, it was new… but it did not take us long to see that it was not something that was going to last! But, so many of us keep trying to relive it, retrieve it and revive it.

The world told us it loved us by showing us what we wanted to see, by promising us what we wanted to hear, but ultimately by NOT meeting that promise. The love of the world is a fleeting thing that can never be trusted, but we find ourselves throwing our trust and affection that way and being hurt and beaten down because of it!

However, when we look at God, we see a much different picture. God has told us that He loved us… God has made it evident in His Word, but also in ways that we can hold onto… ways that are concrete and stable and do not fade away! God’s love does not tells us what we want to hear… but it provides for us what we NEED to know! God’s love not only tells us, but it shows us in the person of Jesus Christ!

This morning I want us to look at 4 verses from John 3 and I want us to look at just how God loves us…

14 …as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. 16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 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…

First – God’s Love Reaches FOR us – v.14

14 …as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,

In this verse Jesus is recounting the Israelites journey in the wilderness when they were disobedient and facing destruction…We can read about this story in Numbers 21:9… 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

The Israelites had been delivered from Egypt by God, but now they had begun to complain that God was mistreating them, and they were grumbling and complaining against God…They did not trust God, they wanted things their way and they began to speak out against Moses and against God.