Life That Lasts Forever

Life that Lasts Forever

John 3:1-18

Sermon by Rick Crandall

Grayson Baptist Church - Oct. 28, 2012

*Think about the value of time.

-Someone once wrote:

-To realize the value of one month ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.

-To realize the value of one hour, ask the sweethearts who are waiting to meet.

-To realize the value of one minute, ask the person who just missed their plane.

-To realize the value of one second, ask the person who barely avoided the wreck. (1)

*If one second can have that much value, how much must eternal life be worth? -- And God wants to give us the life that lasts forever. Think about God’s gift of eternal life. He talks about “eternal” or “everlasting” life at least 36 times in the New Testament.

*We see eternal life in Scriptures like John 10:27-28, where Jesus said:

27. “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.

28. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.”

*Another example is 1 John 5:13, where John spoke to Christians and said:

-“These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.”

*God wants you to have the life that lasts forever, and He wants you to know that you have it. Christians, God wants you to know for sure that you have eternal life. As Charles Ryrie says: “If we could lose eternal life, then it has the wrong name. Eternal life is eternal.” (2)

*God wants you to be sure of your salvation. But do you know that you have eternal life? Let’s look into God’s Word and be sure.

*Here’s what you need to know:

1. First: Eternal life is our most pressing need.

*Getting eternal life is the ultimate priority of life. Life in this world is very short. What good would it do for me to live 100 years, if that’s all there were to it, or if after that, I would spend eternity suffering in hell?

*Please don’t kid yourself with the notion that you will simply fade away into oblivion when you die. There are only 2 possibilities:

-It’s either Heaven or Hell.

-Eternal life or eternal death with eternal suffering, separated from God.

*Eternal life is our most pressing need. That’s why Jesus got right to the point with Nicodemus in vs. 2-3. Nicodemus said,

2. . . “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”

3. Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

*Then in vs. 17&18, Jesus said:

17. . . “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

18. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

*Eternal life is everyone’s most urgent need.

*Have you ever been up close when someone was about to drown, -- or thought they were anyway. I have a couple of times. The first time was in Daytona Beach. We lived there for two years when I was a kid, and most of that time we lived a block away from the ocean.

*I was in the 5th grade and my brother Jon was in the 3rd grade. We went by ourselves down to the beach or over to the river all the time. (You have to understand that this was in the early 1960’s, and parents didn’t watch over their children like we do today.

*Today we will barely let our children out of our sight, but back in 1961, it was: -“We’re going to the beach, Mom.” And she would say, “O.K. -- Be back for supper.”

*One day Jon and I went to the beach. He really didn’t know how to swim yet. But we liked to go out as deep as we could without going over our heads. We were up to our chins, when all of a sudden Jon stepped in a hole. It was a big hole where the sand had been washed away, way over his head.

*By the grace of God, I was only about 10 or 15 feet away, and I got over to him as fast as I could. But I can still remember the desperate panic on his face.