JOHN 3:16
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD
INTOR:
A. This verse of scripture is the greatest verse in the entire Bible.
a. It is so because it tells of the GREATEST PERSON and the GREATEST THING.
b. The greatest person is God and the greatest thing is love.
c. Notice how the verse links the two together.
1. For GOD so LOVED
2. The word so is very important as it puts emphasis on both God and love.
3. It carries the thought of to the extent and degree of God’s love.
4. It tells us there is no way we can measure the extent and degree of God’s love
5. The song writer said, “If we with ink the ocean fill and were the sky a scroll to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky.”
6. I say God loved the world that is you and me to the extent and to the degree that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes on Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
d. I want to center our thought for a few minutes on the greatest thing in the world which is love.
B. Loved is defined as:
a. A strong affection, attachment and devotion to a person or persons.
b. A strong unusual passion and affection
c. It implies intense fondness and deep devotion to someone.
d. Really there is no way to define love as it is something that must be experienced to know what it is.
1. I’m sure you’ve heard or had someone ask, how do you know you’re in love.
2. The only way to answer a question like that is “you will know when you’re in love.
3. With that let me move on to the main body of the message the Lord gave me to share with you.
I. LOVE IS THE IS THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD FOR IT IS THE VERY NATURE AND ESSANCE OF GOD.
1. Without God there would be no love for God
A. I John 4:16 tells us GOD IS LOVE
a. Mankind is the creation of love.
b. God wanted someone He could share His love with so He created man.
c. God loves ever person on this planet earth even if they don’t love Him.
d. He loves the vilest of sinner as much as He loves the Holiest saint.
e. God’s love is not conditioned on who a person is, what they have done or anything as He is the very embodiment (that is the tangible or visible form of love).
B. The more of God one has the more they are able to love one another.
1. Like the old song Old Time Religion that says give me that old time religion it makes me love everybody and its good enough for me.
a. In John 13:34 Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to your, that you love one another even as I have loved you.”
b. This can only be done as the love of God is shed abroad in our heart.
c. Mark 12:30-31 we read where Jesus said, “And you shall love the lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ there is no other commandment greater than these.”
d. Now I repeat again this cannot be done alone we need the Holy Spirit dwelling in our heart to even begin to keep these commandments.
C. Let me pause here and share with you how Jesus tells us we can manifest the kind of love Jesus had in our lives. I John 4:9 John tells us how Jesus manifested His love to us toward us, that God sent His only begotten son that the world might live through Him.
1. So what are some ways God manifests His love to us?
a. Every promise God gives us is a manifestation of His love.
b. Every time God calls someone from sin or to do something for Him is a manifestation of His love.
1. Think of the time God called to Adam in the garden. (In the cool of the day)
2. Yes God knew where Adam and Eve were yet He called to them.
c. The seven letters to the seven churches of Asia is a great manifestation of God’s love.
1. It was love for His church that He created paid the price for and set in motion that caused Him to send these letters to these churches.
d. Every parable is a manifestation of God’s love, esp. the one on the prodigal.
c. I leave this thought with this how much love do you have in your heart?
d. Remember it depends on how much of God you want and have for you can have as much as you want.
II. LOVE PLANNED, PROVIDED AND PAID FOR OUR REDEMPTION FROM SIN.
A. When God planned the creation of man He knew man would rebel against Him yet His great loved so yearned and longed to share itself with someone He created man anyway.
a. God loves you regardless of who you are or what you have done.
b. There is nothing anyone can do to change that.
c. Yes one can sin against the Holy Ghost grieve Him from their heart so that He will never have anything to do with them leaving them with no hope of salvation, but God still loves that person or persons.
d. God and people can be hurt and grieved but love is still there.
III. LOVE SPANS THE OCEANS AND SEAS WITHOUT TRANSPORTATION
A. You and I need transportation to get to where we want to go but love moves through the atmosphere and reaches out and touches people’s lives.
1. We use cars train’s ships airplanes and our feet to get to where we need or want to be.
2. Yet love needs none of these as it moves through the atmosphere unhindered and unrestrained.
3. It has the power to enter man’s life without an advance notice.
a. It’s like the song Kirk Talley wrote some years back that tells of the presence of the Lord being here.
b. The song says in part: “He is here halleluiah, He is here holy, holy I will bless His holy name.
c. We can say the same thing about love for where love reins God is there also and where God is love is present as well..
IV. LOVE CROSSES NATIONAL BOUNDRIES WITHOUT A PASSPORT OR ANY KIND OF DOCUMENT OF IDENTY.
A. A few years Kay and was going to travel with my sister and her husband to Alaska.
a. In preparing to go she told me we would to have a passport to cross the Canadian line and then to get back in the United States.
b. That passport was a document of identity showing who we were and that we were a citizen of the United States.
c. But love doesn’t need any of those things it is able to go anywhere people live and enter their lives.
B. As it crosses the boundaries of other countries it never pays any attention to people’s race color culture or customs.
a. We sometimes get bogged down with such things because we either do not have the love of God abiding in our heart or we don’t have the amount we need to see all races and colors as human beings.
b. Love forgives any offense, or at least is in a forgiving mode even though forgiveness has not and may not ever be asked for.
c. Love begs forgiveness when it realizes it has hurt someone or been unkind.
V. LOVE STANDS STRONG WHEN ALL ELSE WEAKENS FALL APART AND COLLOPES.
A. Love stands true when all others turn and run.
B. Love gives of itself without expecting anything in return.
C. Love lifts, exhausts and sustains when all else wants to cast down a worthless and no good.
a. We all sometimes get tired in the battle but not of the battle and when we do love is there to encourage and lift us up.
b. Notice how Paul describes love in I Cor. 13:4-8
c. Notice the Holy Spirit through the pin of Paul tells that no matter what one has can do or has done all is in vain that is nothing without love.
d. Paul concludes his dissertation of love by saying LOVE IS THE GREATEST OF ALL.
e. We have a song we sometimes sing that says, “I was sinking in sin far from the peaceful shore Very deeply stained with sin sinking to rise no more but the master of the sea heard my despairing call from the waters lifted me now safe am I.
Love lifted me love lifted me when nothing else could help love lifted me.
There’s another song that says,
