"God Is Love” Series

John 3:16 is, perhaps, the most familiar verse in the Bible. Many people, here in the U.S., at least, if they cannot quote the verse, are at least familiar with the reference, if only because they have seen it displayed so often in the end zone of football stadiums.

Yet, I am afraid that maybe we’ve allowed familiarity to lead us to take for granted the wonderful truths contained in this verse, one of the greatest being that of God’s love.

“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” - 1 John 4:8 (ESV)

God is love. Therefore, it is His nature to love. And the greatest expression of God’s love is seen in the cross.

Speaking of his prayers for them, Paul told the Ephesian believers:

“And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.” - Ephesians 3:18 (NLT)

Here in John 3:16, we have described these four aspects of God’s love.

How wide is God’s love? As wide as the world.

How long is God’s love? He gave His one and only Son.

How high is God’s love? Whoever believes in Him has eternal life.

How deep is God’s love? It extends to everyone who is perishing.

Let’s look at what this verse says about the greatest love ever shown. Notice what we learn in this verse about . . .

1. The One Who loves us - “God”

God loves you and me! What a thought! The wonder of this statement becomes even greater, when I realize . . .

A. The Glory of the God who loves you and me.

God’s “glory” is how we describe the sum of all of his attributes. His grace, truth, goodness, mercy, justice, knowledge, power, eternality - all that He is. Therefore, the glory of God is intrinsic, that is, it is as essential to God as light is to the sun, as blue is to the sky, as wet is to water.

You don’t make the sun light; it is light. You don’t make the sky blue; it is blue. You don’t make water wet; it is wet. In all of these cases, the attribute is intrinsic to the object.

By contrast, man’s glory is granted to him. If a king takes off his robes and crowns and we give him only rags to wear and leave him on the streets for a few weeks, when put next to a beggar you’ll never know which is which. Because there’s no intrinsic glory. Th only glory a king has is when you give him a crown and a robe and sit him on his throne. He has no intrinsic glory.

That’s the point. The only glory that men have is granted to them. The glory that is God’s is His in his essence. You can’t de-glory God because glory is his nature. You can’t touch his glory. It can’t be taken away. It cannot be added to. It’s His being.

And this God whose glory is unlike anything else in the entire universe, has seen fit, because of His love for you and me, to reveal Himself to us in the person of His Son - Jesus Christ!

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” - John 1:14 (CSB)

B. The Grace of the God who loves you and me.

In showing His love for you and me, this glorious God has revealed Himself to us, in the gracious attempt to relate to us! And again, just as God reveals Himself through Jesus, He relates to us through Jesus.

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” - 2 Corinthians 8:9 (NIV)

You see, Jesus Christ was God come to earth in human form, to do for you and me what we couldn’t do for ourselves - deliver us from the burden of sin so that we might know the blessing of salvation!

Some years ago, I remember reading the inspiring story of Deputy Sheriff Lloyd Prescott, who was teaching a class for police officers at the Salt Lake City, Utah Public Library. After dismissing his class and then stepping into the hallway, he noticed an armed man herding 18 hostages into a room. Officer Prescott was in his street clothes, not his uniform. With quick thinking, he joined them and became the 19th hostage.

Once inside the room, the gunman announced that he was going to kill every hostage one by one until his demands were met. He then announced the order in which he was going to kill them. That’s when Officer Prescott identified himself as a police officer. A scuffle followed, and the perpetrator was fatally shot by the officer and the hostages were set free.