The Presence of God’s Love
John 3: 16
Christmas for most people has come to be equated with the giving and receiving of presents, families gathering to share tokens of their love. During December there will be holiday get-togethers where small gifts are exchanged and bonus checks given out. For the merchandisers the symbol of Christmas is not a star, a manger, or even a tree, it is a cash register ringing another sell. Within reason there is nothing wrong with the giving of gifts at Christmas for the Bible declares the Ultimate Gift to be the reason for our celebration. Our text highlights this gift as the incarnation, The Presence of God’s Love.
Christmas is all about God’s awesome love. Deuteronomy 7:7 tells us that God did not love us because we were something special. He loved you because He decided to love you. Your worthiness had nothing to do with it. Jeremiah 31:3 says it in this way, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” His is an everlasting, unending love with no beginning and no stopping place. God had no beginning so His love had no beginning. All earthly love had a beginning but God’s love reaches back to before the world was formed as well as forward to when all the mountains are ground into dust. God’s love is unlimited, unbounded and undeniable.
The topic of God’s love is truly an overwhelming subject to attempt to explain in only one message. There is so much that the Bible has to say about the love of God that I doubt anyone has ever come close to fully comprehending it. So I will simply begin by saying something that Theologian A.W. Tozer once said, “I can no more do justice to this awesome and wonder-filled topic than a child can grasp a star. Still, by reaching toward the star the child may call attention to it and even indicate the direction one must look to see it. And so, I stretch my heart toward the high, shining love of God so that we may be encouraged to look up and have hope.”
Many have considered John 3:16 the “Greatest Text in the Bible.” Others have said that it is the perfect synopsis of the gospel. If every other passage in the Bible were suddenly to disappear, John 3:16 would carry enough of the simple gospel truth to save the whole world. It is without a doubt one of the clearest and richest statements in God’s Word concerning the way of salvation. This one verse describes for us
I. The Majesty of God’s Love. I use that word to describe this verse because it conjures for me the image of the Rocky Mountains or the Alps of Switzerland. The picture of the earth from the orbiting space shuttle would also capture the same majesty for me. These few words form a
A. Definitive Declaration for a world hungry for a loving affirmation of their intrinsic worth. The magnitude of these 22 words is not in their size or complexity, but the message they present to a world where love is so hard to find. “For God so loved...” With just two letters John establishes how large His love is for us. The word so is a small but powerful word. We use that little word when we have difficulty detailing just how big something is. We tell our spouse, “I love you so much.” and what we mean is “I can’t find all the words necessary to describe how much, but if it were any greater I think my heart would just burst.” A mother tells her son “I am so proud of you.” She doesn’t have to explain the magnitude of her pride for it is all laid out in those two letters.
This verse describes the unlimited love of the most high God that has been lavished upon this lowdown world. It defines the boundaries of the unimpeachable love of the trustworthy God that is bestowed upon an unworthy world. It directs the holy love of the Most Holy God to be poured out upon the totally unholy world. It determines that the perfect love of the Pure and Righteous God is to be extended to an imperfect world. It decides that the pardoning love of a Merciful God will be offered to a condemned world. It dictates that the reclaiming love of the God of reconciliation is to be given to a degenerate world. It declares that the gracious love of the God of grace is directed to a world in disgrace.
The magnitude of God’s love is even more perplexing because the objects of that love are His greatest enemies. It is not difficult to love little babies or small children. Loving that person who is kind to you and courts your friendship is no problem at all. But to love someone who ill-treats you, attempts to ruin you, or stab you in the back - that’s another story altogether. The Bible declares that every human being ever born came into this world as an enemy of God. We lined up on the opposite side, for we chose to sin. Sin makes us anything but lovely. Our sin makes us totally unattractive, vile, repulsive, and unlovely. The Bible declares that God looked down from heaven to see if there were any that deserved to be saved and declared, “There is none righteous. No not one.” Romans 5:8 declares, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Yet in spite of our meanness, our sinfulness, our spiritual ugliness, God loves us. When I think of how God loves us despite our repulsive ways I want to sing out with the hymn writer: “I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene, And wonder how He could love me, a sinner, condemned, unclean.” It was a pre-
B. Determined Death Consider with me what that love compelled our Lord to do. Love brought Him from His home in heaven to live as a human being. Love caused Him to strip Himself of all His glory and take on the weaknesses of the flesh. Love laid Him in Bethlehem’s manger, led Him through this weary world for 33 years. Love took Him to Gethsemene where He sweated great drops of blood in His agony just thinking of the cross. Love accepted 39 cruel lashes across His back and then stood Him before His accusers without uttering a word. Love hung Him upon the cross, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. It was love that sealed the tomb upon His lifeless body.
Our text tells us that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. God gave Himself in the person of His Son to come into this sin-cursed world to be ill-treated, spat upon, cursed, and finally crucified. He substituted Himself as a sacrifice for our sins. He gave Himself as the payment for our sin debt. He offered His head for the crown of thorns that should have been on my head and yours. Isaiah declared, “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.... with His stripes we are healed.” (53:5) While you extend your hands to receive your gifts this Christmas remember that Jesus extended His hands and feet for the nails that should have gone into ours. He gave His life on the cross where we should have been punished for our sins. He literally suffered hell so that we would not have to taste of the fiery flames of eternal punishment. That brings us to
II. The Mission of God’s Love The Presence of God’s Love inspired the mission to
A. Secure Salvation for fallen humanity. We did not deserve it and in no way could ever earn it, but God loves us despite our failures. Grace is the unmerited favor of God. It is a gift that comes with no strings attached, given out of pure love and a positive desire for the very best to occur in our lives. That is the message God delivers in this verse concerning His Mission.
First of all we are guaranteed security in our eternal salvation. Those who believe will not perish. Mankind has all sorts of enemies in this world, but there is none more feared than death. However, the Christian need not be panicked by the final enemy because of this guarantee of eternal life. We may suffer an illness that results in the death of this body. We may be caught up in an accident that takes this life from us. We may die physically in any one of a thousand different ways. But the Christian guarantee overrides any and all fear of death. We have Jesus. This simple verse contains the Lord’s promise of full, free, and forever salvation to all who believe. It means that once a person has given his heart over to God, he will never face the ultimate penalty of sin, he will never have to fret over his eternal destination, for he will never cease to be a Christian. How can the words “should not perish, but have everlasting life” mean anything else? How can a person believe he can be saved today and lost tomorrow in the face of this passage? If one who believes in Jesus ever goes to hell then the foundations of this universe would crumble and all hope for the future would be destroyed for John 3:16 would then become a lie.
When we believe in Jesus who gave His life on the cross for our sins we are guaranteed Everlasting life. That is not just a length of time, but an enduring quality. It is God’s own life implanted in the heart of the believer. This new life comes into our hearts when we accept the Savior who loved us enough to die for us. Actually we don’t begin to live until we believe on Jesus and receive this everlasting life. A popular book a generation ago was entitled, Life Begins at Forty, where the author sought to prove that a person just enters the prime of life at forty years of age. The new saying is that 60 is the new 40. There may be a measure of truth in that, but according to the Bible life begins not at forty or even 60, but at Calvary. Life begins when you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ to save you from the penalty of your sins. From that time on you are living on eternal time. Nothing can bring an end to eternal life. This body will slowly grow old and feeble, but the spirit will live forever with the Lord.
B. Satisfactory Solution I don’t know about you, but I will be glad to turn the calendar to a new decade in a few weeks. An ongoing war on two fronts, the Great Recession draining our family resources, the growing immorality of our country, tragic accidents and gruesome killers all over the news. The numbers 9/11 have come to represent a decade of uncertainty and terror. Our text offers the numbers of hope 3:16. Of all the spiritual treasures in the Word of God no other verse sums up the premise and the promise of the Gospel—God loves. God gave. We believe. We live. The eighth chapter of Romans concludes with a series of threats to human well being. “If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?... Who shall separate us from the love of God? shall tribulation, or distress, persecution or famine, nakedness, or peril, or sword?... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord!”
When you know you’re going to have to live with some decision for the rest of your life, it’s tough to make it. Deciding where to go out for lunch is no big deal. You’ll have to live with the impact of that decision for only a short time. The decision about whom you’ll marry is a stressful thing. It’s hard. It ought to be, because that decision is going to affect you for the rest of your life.
As you consider Jesus this morning, understand this: the decisions we make regarding Him have an eternal bearing. That tension you feel when you think about accepting Jesus is a good thing. That nervous twitter in your stomach when you debate giving your life to Him is an indication of how important a decision it is. It’s no small decision, and you can’t treat it like it is.
