INTRODUCTION
1. Please open your bible to John 3:16.
2. This verse is very appropriate for today, Valentine’s Day. Most everyone is making an effort to give different ones something special today.
(1) Valentine Cards with comments of love and appreciation are exchanged today!
(2) Flowers are given! Some gifts and a lot of high calorie candies are exchanged!
(3) Many will be taken out to restaurants or will be provided special meals today!
3. Let’s read John 3:16 and read the Valentine message that God sends to the world.
(1) This message tells us that God gives the greatest gift of all to the whole world!
(2) John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
4. Even though a great majority of people all over the United States are giving Valentine cards and candies and gifts and special meals, I don’t think we could find one person anywhere that would be willing to give up one of their children.
5. Question #1: Why would God show so much love for boys and girls and men and women?
6. Question #2: What are some of the details recorded in the bible that explain God actually accomplishing the giving the marvelous gift that He gave?
DISCUSSION
I. FIRST, GOD, HIMSELF IS LOVE! This answers the question of why God would show so much love for boy and girls and men and women!
1. Turn to 1 John 4:7-10. This is one, among many other passages that teach us that God’s very nature, his make-up, his personality, his character is the essence that the bible calls love.
2. Let’s read 1 John 4:7-10, “7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God [In other words God is the source and origin of biblical love];
(1) “and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” [Not just Valentine, mushy love will qualify one to be “born of God”. No, it is the John 14:15 love, where Jesus says, “If you love Me, keep My commandments”.”
(2) Verse 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love [God is the very essence and make up of what love is all about].
(3) Verse 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.[This verse tells us that the gift of God’s Son (Jesus) to us is the supreme example of what it means to really begin to understand what love is all about. We read of the sacrifice of God!]
(4) Verse 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” [This verse teaches that there is no way that we could have ever taught God what love is. This verse teaches that God teaches us the true meaning of love as we pay attention to God giving us His Son (Jesus).]
3. The word “love” that is used in John 3:16 and in 1 John chapter four is not the word that a lot of people are using today in connection with Valentine messages and wishes.
(1) Most of the time people use the English word love and are actually only referring to having a strong affection or having a friendship love or caring for or liking another person.
(2) They may even say they love to watch the Super Bowl. They love to eat blue bell ice cream. They love chips and dip.
(3) Those kinds of uses of the word “love” are using it in ways that could be replaced with the word “like”. Such as, instead of saying “I love to watch the Super Bowl” or “I love blue bell ice cream” they just as strongly say, “I like to watch the Super Bowl” or “I like blue bell ice cream”.
4. John 3:16 and 1 John 4:7-10 teach us that God did and does a lot more than just “like” the world and His strong “liking the world” is what motivated God to give us His son.
(1) No, the Greek word for “love” means a whole lot more than “like”.
(2) The Greek word for “love” means to seek the highest good and blessings for another whether one is deserving to receive the good or not.
5. Turn to Rom. 5:8. This passage teaches that man, as a sinner and in rebellion to God, is definitely not deserving of God’s love and yet God loved and gave His Son so that we might have an opportunity to receive forgiveness. Let’s read Rom. 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
II. SECOND, LET’S THROW THE SPOT LIGHT ON SOME OF THE DETAILS THAT TOOK PLACE IN GOD GIVING US THE “MARVELOUS” AND “LOVE MOTIVATED GIFT”, HIS SON (JESUS)! Turn to Matt. 27:22.
1. Some bible scholars believe the date was April 3, A.D. 33. Pilate, the Roman governor over Judea, had finished questioning Jesus concerning the accusations brought against Him by the leaders of the Jews.
(1) Pilate could find no reason to put Him to death. Yet he knew that if he didn’t give the people what they wanted, a riot was likely to break out in Jerusalem.
(2) Finally, he addressed the impatient mob waiting outside his palace. Matt. 27:22 reports, “22 Pilate said to them, “What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said to him, “Let Him be crucified!”
(3) Isaiah 53:3 says, “He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.”
2. The soldiers led Jesus away to be flogged. He was stripped of His clothes, tied to a post, and beaten by several soldiers with a whip. The whip was probably made of leather strips laced with pieces of bone or lead. Mark 15:15 & John 19:1.
3. The historian Josephus reports that a man named Jesus, son of Ananias, was brought before Albinus and “flayed to the bone with scourges.”
4. Eusebius writes that certain martyrs were “lacerated by scourges even to the innermost veins and arteries, so that the hidden inward parts of the body, both their bowels and their members, were exposed to view.”
(1) Are we beginning to get the message that God truly examples true biblical love?
(2) Do we understand that both the Father and the Son love each one of us?
5. After the scourging, the soldiers put a robe on Jesus. It could have been an old garment that had been discarded by one of the soldiers or some other person.
Matthew 27:28 says the robe was scarlet, but Mark 15:20 and John 19:2 call it “purple”—suggesting that it was probably badly faded.
It was probably the nearest thing to the royal color of purple the soldiers could find. Their aim was to make a complete mockery of His claim to be a king.
6. Of course, every king needs a crown, so the soldiers [Matt. 27:29] twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on Jesus’ head.
These thorns could have been up to several inches long. They possibly would have sunk into Jesus’ head, causing blood to gush out and distort His face.
7. Isaiah 52:14 prophesized that Jesus would be treated so badly that it would be hard to recognize Him, “Just as many were astonished at you, So His visage [or appearance] was marred more than any man, And His form more than the sons of men”.
8. According to Matt. 27:29 a staff was put in Jesus’ right hand to act as a scepter. Then the soldiers fell on their knees and paid mock homage to Him. They cried, “Hail, king of the Jews!”
9. According to Matt. 27:30, They spit on Him and took the staff and struck Him on the head again and again.
10. In Isaiah 50: 6 we read the prophecy that had it’s fulfillment in Christ, “I gave My back to those who struck Me, And My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.”
11. Are we beginning to understand that both the Father and the Son truly love us? Do we see that the Father sent the world more than a Valentine Card?
12. In all of this, Jesus remained silent. He was guilty of nothing. He was completely innocent and sinless, yet He never said a word to defend Himself. The few words, on the few occasions, were to keep from denying that He was God’s spiritual king. He did not speak any words to try and prove his innocence or stop his cruel treatment.
13. In Isaiah 53:7, Isaiah prophesized, “He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.”
(1) Others had declared His innocence, but Jesus never defended Himself.
(2) Judas cried, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood” (Matthew 27:4).
(3) In John 19:4 we read, “Pilate then went out again, and said to them, “Behold, I am bringing Him out to you, that you may know that I find no fault in Him.”
(4) The thief in Luke 23:41said, “And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.”
(5) The centurion exclaimed, “Truly this was the Son of God” (Matthew 27:54).
(6) But Jesus never said a word that related to him trying to prove His innocence or to lighten His suffering . He was beaten, mocked, and spit upon, yet He took it all … silently.
(7) In 1 Peter 2:23 we read, “who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously”.
III. THIRD, LET’S PUT THE SPOT LIGHT ON THE MARVELOUS GIFT THAT GOD GAVE, HIS SON AND HOW THAT HE VOLUNTARILY AND WILLINGLY MADE OUR RECEIVING HIM, AS A GIFT, POSSIBLE.
1. Turn to Hebrews 9:27. This passage teaches that for every person living, unless Christ returns first that death is an appointment that we must answer to. Let’s read Hebrews 9:27, “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment”.
2. Turn to John 10:17&18. This contains a statement made by Christ that teaches that His death was a voluntary choice. Let’s read John 10:17&18, “17 “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. 18 No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.”
(1) Christ died willing and voluntarily because He wanted to allow the Father’s gift to accomplish what the Father wanted it to accomplish – that being the shedding of the Son’s blood so the price of forgiveness could be paid.
(2) Surely, by now we understand that the Father’s Valentine gift was more than a box of sweet candy.
3. Turn to Philippians 2:8. This teaches that Christ died for mankind, not by some easy death, but rather He died on a cross. Let’s read Philippians 2:8, “And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”
4. Christ, like all crucifixion victims was forced to carry his own cross to the place of execution. However, after the near death scourging that Jesus had received, Jesus was in no condition to carry the heavy cross the complete distance.
(1) According to Matt. 27:32, the soldiers compelled Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross for Jesus, the later part of the way to where Jesus would be crucified.
(2) Even with Simon carrying His cross, Jesus apparently was too weak to walk unsupported.
1) In Mark 15:22 Mark writes, “they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha”.
2) The Greek word for the expression “brought” suggests He was actually borne along to that place—probably walking with much difficulty, needing constant support from the soldiers along the way.
5. “Golgotha” is an Aramaic word, meaning “a skull.”
(1) It is generally assumed that the cross of Jesus stood on a steep, rocky hill that had the appearance of a skull.
(2) There is a place just north of Jerusalem’s walls that fits that description, known as Gordon’s Calvary. In 1974 I saw that it still bears an eerie resemblance to a human skull.
6. People in general view the cross much differently than people of the first century did. Today a lot of people adorn cemeteries and churches buildings with crosses. Some people wear them around their necks.
(1) But in ancient times, crucifixion was synonymous with horror and shame. It was a death inflicted on slaves, bandits, prisoners of war, and revolutionaries.
(2) The cross was so offensive to the Romans that they refused to allow their own citizens to be crucified, no matter what they had done.
(3) Cicero (106-43 B.C.), the Roman orator, called crucifixion “a most cruel and disgusting punishment.”
1) He said, “It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in chains, it is an enormity to flog one, sheer murder to slay one, what, then, shall I say of crucifixion?
2) It is impossible to find the word for such an abomination.”
3) Cicero also said, “Let the very mention of the cross be far removed not only from a Roman citizen’s body, but from his mind, his eyes, his ears.”
7. Matt. 27:29 speaks of different ones walking past Jesus as he was being crucified. Those crucified were made a public spectacle, often being affixed to crosses in bizarre positions, and their bodies left to be devoured by vultures.
(1) For hours (if not days), the person would hang in the heat of the sun, stripped naked and struggling to breathe.
(2) In order to avoid asphyxiation [or the failure to breath], he had to push himself up with his legs and pull with his arms, triggering muscle spasms causing unimaginable pain.
(3) The end would come either through heart failure, brain damage caused by reduced oxygen supply, suffocation, or shock.
(4) Awful physical agony, length of torment, and public shame combined to make crucifixion a most terrible form of death.
9. The soldiers laid Jesus on the cross beams and tied Him down. Then they picked up the long iron spikes, raised their hammers, and began to pound.
(1) They drove the spikes through Jesus’ wrists, pinning His arms and legs to the cross. The cross was raised.
(2) With an awful thud, it settled in the ground. Every inch of Jesus’ body was filled with excruciating pain.
(3) Imagine the innocent, sinless Son of God nailed to a cross for you.
Conclusion
1. In Galatians 2:20b, the statement is made, “….the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me”.
(1) To make this more personal replace the word “me” with your own name.
(2) In other words say, “the Son of God, who loved “John David or Croix or Russell and gave Himself for Wanda, Imogene or Colene”.
2. During World War II’s Battle of Britain, the Royal Air Force’s courageous defense of the skies over Britain prevented Hitler’s plans for an invasion of the British Isles.
(1) Afterward, Prime Minister Winston Churchill said in the House of Commons, “Never in the history of mankind have so many owed so much to so few- [speaking of those of the British Isles owing a debt of gratitude to the Royal Air Force].”
(2) But when we think of the cross of Christ, and the person who died on it, what we say is: Never in the history of the universe has mankind owed so much to One – that One being Jesus, the Son of God!
3. Jesus’ plan of salvation is so simple and easy to obey and yet it offers so much.
(1) Jesus teaches the must of belief (John 8:24), the must of repentance (Luke 13:3), the must of confessing that He is the Son of God (Matt. 10:32&33), the must of baptism (Matt. 28:19) and the must of making the effort to faithfully obey all of what He teaches us (Matt. 28:20).
(2) If you are subject to the invitation, please come to the front as we stand and sing.
Acknowledgements for help with thoughts in the preparing of this sermon go to:
(1) please contact Jon R Mcleod through sermon central.
(2) Jim Sheerer’s New Testament Commentary Yeomen Press 110 Meadowdale Drive Chickasha, Oklahoma 73018
