“Treasuring God’s Sacrifice”
John 3:1-21
Sometimes getting fresh air into our home or office is pretty simple. All we need to do is open the window. Nicodemus and Jesus were working on a project; it was called eternal life. As John describes their encounter he teaches us that BELIEF IN GOD’S SACRIFICIAL LOVE OPENS THE WINDOW TO ETERNAL LIFE. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
It begins with the REALITY OF GOD’S LOVE. How would you describe God in one word? Powerful? Wise? Omnipresent? Omniscient? Omnipotent? Faithful? All of these are correct and are important attributes of God. But the basis upon which all of these other attributes operate is love. THE ESSENCE OF GOD IS LOVE. “For God so loved...” Theologian Karl Barth was once asked what, out of all his theology, was the most important thing to know. He responded, “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.”
And this love is not an ordinary love - it is beyond all human comprehension; it is unfamiliar and foreign to us. It’s outside of our human experience. The Bible tells us God’s love is unfailing, that while his punishments go to the third and fourth generations his love goes to thousands of generations, and that God is abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. It reminds me of Thomas Edison. Six months after the death of his wife he began looking for a new mate. Although portrayed as a man of solitude, Edison actually had a fine research team that did great work for him. Since their methodology was so effective he decided to use similar strategy and organization to find his new wife. So he had a group of friends in Boston organize the search. They held dinner parties at which Edison could meet many eligible women. But this highly organized, rational approach came to a crashing halt when Edison fell head-over-heels for an eighteen year old girl from Ohio. She was everything he wasn’t – religious, cultured and beautiful. Plus she was young enough to be his daughter. Edison was smitten. Until Mina Miller agreed to marriage he played the lovesick fool with outrageous behavior more typical of a teenager. He could not concentrate on his research and wiled away his time writing love notes to this eighteen year old. Finally she consented. And it was truly an act of love on her part. She was never bothered by his poor hearing or even his chronic halitosis. She repeatedly brushed the dandruff off his coat. She loved him for who he was. We mortals do strange things when in love. And so does God. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). The essence of God is love.
And THE EXTENT OF GOD’S LOVE IS THE WORLD. “For God so loved the world...” God loved that which he created, which is reasonable enough. But He loved that which He created even though it was diametrically opposed to him. How much love do you have for people who have rejected and opposed you, who hate you? Let’s get inside God’s heart. (Isaiah 1:2-6, 18): “Listen, O heavens! Pay attention, earth! This is what the LORD says: “The children I raised and cared for have rebelled against me. Even an ox knows its owner, and a donkey recognizes its master’s care—but Israel doesn’t know its master. My people don’t recognize my care for them.” Oh, what a sinful nation they are—loaded down with a burden of guilt. They are evil people, corrupt children who have rejected the LORD. They have despised the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him. Why do you continue to invite punishment? Must you rebel forever? Your head is injured, and your heart is sick. You are battered from head to foot—covered with bruises, welts, and infected wounds—without any soothing ointments or bandages.
This is an indictment against the world, against us! Yet we are loved. “Come now, let’s settle this,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.” To know we’re loved when we’re good is one thing, but when we’ve been bad? As children, it was nice to be loved when we picked up our clothes and cleaned our rooms, but wasn’t it even better to be loved even when were standing in the corner or in some other way being punished? To be loved when we’ve blown it is overwhelming. It’s the father of the prodigal son greeting the rebellious, wasteful son with an embrace, a kiss, and a banquet! I will never forget the time I did a funeral for the father of one our church members. The father did not attend our church and I had never met him but I agreed to do the funeral. To make a long story short, somehow the wrong first name was put into my notes and as I was delivering the meditation I began using the wrong name! Never have I felt so horrible, so humiliated, so embarrassed! I had royally blown it! Big time! In a colossal way! I wanted to crawl into a hole, be covered up, and never appear again! But you know what? The son, daughter-in-law, and wife barely batted an eyelash. They reached out to me, forgave me, accepted me, and to this day still love me. I began to sense what the young prodigal must have experienced from his father’s kiss. I gained a new appreciation of the extent of God’s love. With Paul I pray that “…you, being rooted and established in love, may have power ...to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge ...” My you be filled this morning with the reality of God’s love.
But how does God show his great love? John shares with us the RENDERING OF GOD’S LOVE. True love acts; love is an action verb; it does something. It’s Mary being so overwhelmed by Jesus that she took a flask of expensive oil and poured it over him. She gave the most expensive, precious offering she had. So with God – He loves us PROACTIVELY. “For God so loved the world that he gave...” God gave. Love, you see, is always concerned with the beloved, not with itself; with what it can give, not with what it can get - with what it can give, not with what it might lose. Love proactively works for the good of others.
There's a true story told about a revival that was held in a small town. The crowd had dispersed, and a woman came down front and asked to speak with the preacher. She cried uncontrollably as she explained to the minister that she wanted to become a Christian, but she felt she had sinned too much for God to ever forgive her and accept her as His own. Searching for a way to help her with her grief, the preacher asked "Is there a verse from Scripture that you know?" She responded that, yes she did remember one: "For God so loved the world that He gave us His only 'forgotten' Son." The preacher was a little shocked as her misstatement of that verse, but then he realized God had given him a perfect opportunity to reach her. He asked "Do you know why God 'forgot' His son? He forgot His son... so He could remember you." (1) That’s proactive love, always concerned with the beloved, with what it can give, not with what it can get - with what it can give, not with what it might lose. “For God so loved the world that he gave...”
And what God gave was costly. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son...” God rendered His love SACRIFICIALLY. God did not send angels - not Gabriel or Michael - nor seraphs, but his one and only Son! God gave the most precious gift He had - his only Son! His one and only Son! Remember when God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his only son? Just as Abraham was about to lower the knife to offer his son, God provided a Lamb as the sacrifice. God could appreciate and understand Abraham’s heart - because years later God would offer his one and only Son – to die. There was no replacement for Him. He was the sacrificial lamb. God’s love is sacrificial.
If there’s any doubt about this great sacrificial love, John records the RESULTS OF GOD’S LOVE: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” BELIEVERS RECEIVE LIFE. “Whoever.” The poorest of the poor and the wealthiest of the wealthy; the strongest sinner and the saintliest saint; the weakest and the most powerful; the least esteemed and the most popular; the youngest and the oldest; the ugliest and the prettiest; the sickest and the healthiest. WHOEVER! AND THAT MEANS ME! And that means you! Whoever! No matter what! No matter what you’ve thought, said, done or not done. Whoever!
“Whoever believes…” Not whoever does enough work, or is worthy, or knows the right answers - but whoever believes. In John 6 Jesus says, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” WE MUST BELIEVE. This was the need of Nicodemus. He was struggling with what to do with Jesus, how to respond to what Jesus said. And Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be born from above if he was ever to understand. And being born from above was not in his control but the Holy Spirit’s! And he had no control over the Holy Spirit, who is like wind, blowing when and where it will. Can you imagine the frustration of Nicodemus? Although it appeared he had it
all - wealth, station, status - he knew something was missing in his life. He knew there had to be more. And Jesus said there was, indeed, more - but we as humans have no control over it! At the most decisive point in our lives, we have no control! Remember, Nicodemus was no fool; he was not a blatantly sinful person. He was a devoted, respected, religious person. But his accomplishments were not enough. His religious life was not enough. He needed to believe. And so must we.
Pastor Bryan Chapell tells this story that happened in his hometown (2): Two brothers were playing on the sandbanks by the river. They ran up a large mound of sand. Unfortunately, the mound was not solid, and their weight caused them to sink in quickly. When the boys did not return home for dinner, the family and neighbors organized a search. They found the younger brother unconscious, with his head and shoulders sticking out above the sand. When they cleared the sand to his waist, he awakened. The searchers asked, "Where is your brother?" The child replied, "I’m standing on his shoulders." With the sacrifice of his own life, the older brother lifted the younger to safety. The tangible and sacrificial love of the older brother literally served as a foundation for the younger brother’s life. Through the sacrifice of His own life on the cross, Jesus lifted us up from the tomb of death and the punishment of sin to give us life. It’s a sacrificial love. We must believe.
To help us believe Jesus referred to an incident from Israel’s history (verses 14-15). The Israelites, wandering in the desert, had sinned. So God sent a plague of poisonous snakes. To be bitten by one of the snakes meant death. So the people cried out to Moses who in turn cried out to God. God told Moses to craft a bronze snake and put it on a pole, and then raise the pole up. Anyone, everyone, who looked at the bronze serpent lifted up on that pole, would be healed! Then Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son...” To believe is to look at the risen up crucified Savior, to gaze on the risen-up Christ, to understand He’s risen up on that cross for you, risen up from the grave for you, risen up into glory for you. When Jesus was crucified all the poisons and venom of the world were drawn into him. Our sin was placed on him. The hope of healing comes through a risen-up cross and a risen-up Savior. That’s what it means to believe in Jesus Christ. When we, like the Israelites of old, look upon the cross we have placed ourselves in position to experience the blessing of eternal life. BELIEF IN GOD’S LOVE OPENS THE WINDOW TO ETERNAL LIFE.
Charles Spurgeon, an outstanding English preacher of the last century, first saw this possibility when a lay preacher of limited abilities repeated over and over again the verse, “Look unto me and be saved, all the ends of the earth.” He kept pleading, “Look! Look!” Spurgeon himself looked up, and began to live! It sounds absurd - but it’s true. Surely the bronze serpent sounded absurd to the Israelites - but it was true! Jesus said to Nicodemus, and to us, that looking to Christ on the cross is like opening windows. We still cannot control the wind, but we can be ready for it. WE MUST OPEN THE WINDOW. Millions today can testify that the window of the cross gave them their first glimpse of eternity. We still cannot control the Spirit, but we can be ready for Him.
Eternal life awaits you. You do not have to “perish.” You can avoid the agony of Hell, the hopelessness of an eternal night with no hope of day. Conjure up everything you can imagine of torture, agony, loss, disappointment, sorrow and you have a glimpse of what hell is like. Jesus drained it all. He broke it for you. Jesus offers eternal life - the healing of our wounds, the meeting of our needs, the security of our lives. He helps us be what we could not be by ourselves, be where we could not be by ourselves - in his presence eternally.
In the 1950’s Lauren Chapin played the role of Kathy on the television show “Father Knows Best.” She was the most innocent character on the most innocent TV show during that most innocent period in America. But when the show finished, everything finished. Lauren said, “I couldn’t get a job. I’d been typecast as Kathy Anderson. The more I didn’t work, the more my mother drank and the more belligerent I became. I started running away from home. I became an incorrigible child.” She said that drugs followed, along with casual lovers, Haight-Ashbury, fast company, eight miscarriages, welfare, declining health, a mental hospital, and even prison. Then, at a Pentecostal service, Lauren looked through the window and up at the cross – it occurred to her that God loved her in her own right, that she didn’t need to live up to the impossible fairy-tale example of Kathy Anderson anymore. She began to believe. She opened the window. The Holy Spirit filled her heart and she was born again. Laruen said, “All my life I’ve wanted to be loved. God’s love is the most complete love, and …that’s what I was looking for.” Several years later she even began The Lauren Chapin Ministries, and today she is an ordained minister at Immanuel Church of Vero Beach – all because she looked up through the window of the cross and saw the sacrificial love of God.
This morning I invite you to LOOK TO THE CROSS of Christ. It opens the window to eternal life. Believe God loves you. He sent his one and only Son to die for you. If you have already confessed your faith in Jesus Christ, let this reminder of God’s love be your reassurance. If you have begun to doubt your own salvation, if you’re not sure where you stand, look up and live. If you, like Nicodemus, know there must be something more to life but have not been able to find it, look up and live. If you are in need of love, look up and live. A certain atheistic barber was conversing with a minister as they rode through the slums of a large city. The barber said, “If there is a loving God, how can he permit all this poverty, suffering, and violence among these people? Why doesn’t he save them from all this?” Just then a disheveled man crossed the street. He was unshaven and filthy, with long scraggly hair hanging down his neck. The minister pointed to him and said, “You are a barber and claim to be a good one. So why do you allow that man to go unkempt and unshaven?” The barber stuttered, “Why, why…he never gave me a chance to fix him up.” “Exactly,” said the minister. “People are what they are because they reject God’s help.”
No matter where you are today, look to the cross. Gaze upon Jesus on the cross. Open the window and let Holy Spirit blow the breath of God’s life into you. Treasure God’s sacrifice. Open the window and live!
(1) (From a sermon by Jeff Strite, I Predict God Will Be With You This Year, 1/2/2011)
(2) From ‘PreachingToday.com
