Matchless Love
John 3:16
Community Bible Experience
April 6, 2014
Morning Service
A grandfather found his grandson, jumping up and down in his playpen, crying at the top of his voice. When Johnnie saw his grandfather, he reached up his little chubby hands and said, “Out, Gramp, out.”
It was only natural for Grandfather to reach down to lift the little fellow out of his predicament; but as he did, the mother of the child stepped up and said, “No, Johnnie, you are being punished, so you must stay in.”
The grandfather was at a loss to know what to do. The child’s tears and chubby hands reached deep into his heart, but the mother’s firmness in correcting her son for misbehavior must not be lightly taken. Here was a problem of love versus law, but love found a way. The grandfather could not take the youngster out of the playpen, so he crawled in with him.
God had set the Law for humanity to return to Him but in the process humanity failed miserably. The Law became a reminder that we had sinned and were separated from God. Instead of removing the Law, God stepped into the playpen of creation in the person of Jesus and revealed His love for us. Jesus came to earth as a man to live out a human life and to die a human death. Jesus came into the world to bridge the gap between God’s love and God’s Law, between heaven and humanity.
The ultimate expression of God’s love is found in the gospel of John.
The Expression 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. John 3:16
God’s love is selfless
The words here were extremely radical when John writes them. The Jewish perception was that God loved them and would pass judgment on the rest of the world. The thinking was that God loved only the people of Israel. The reality that God loves the whole world would have been completely foreign to Israel. Jesus immediately begins to run counter culture with the Jewish people from the beginning of His ministry. The purpose of Jesus was to show the love of God to the entire world.
There is no selfish motive in the working of God’s love. God does nothing out of self-interest. Everything that God does flows out of His divine love for us. Every part of God’s character is an expression of His love. The reality may sound a bit cliché but God is love. We see in Jesus the perfect embodiment of that love.
The motive of Christ moves out of His love
The mission of Christ is focused on His love
The ministry of Christ is an outcome of His love
The mandate of Christ is to love one another
Think about the time that Jesus spent here on earth and everything that He did focused on one solitary purpose to show the love of God to lost and dying people. Every miracle was an act of love for others. Every moment of teaching was an act of love for others. Every confrontation was an act of love. The whole focus of Christ’s time on earth was centered on love and showing that love to humanity.
There can be no mistake; the heart of Jesus was on us. He is the example of the very nature of divine love. The term that John uses here for love is agape. It is the highest form of love in existence. Greek culture believed that such love was not within the capability of human beings. Agape was viewed as having a divine source and that it was beyond the scope of human perception. God’s love is so amazing, so divine and so different from anything else on earth that even the greatest of Greek words for love could not scratch the surface of describing it.
This is the nature of the love that Jesus shows the world. It is this love that intercepted lives and changed their destiny. The love that Jesus makes known is one of choice or of the personal will. Jesus makes the conscious decision to love all people, all across the world, the same. He loves all of us with a love that we cannot ever comprehend. Jesus chooses to love us even when we disobey, even when we rebel, even when we reject and even when we are unlovable.
We fail to understand this love in so many ways. If the church would just embrace this love and put it into practice, it would solve the vast majority of our problems. Most problems in the church take place when people lose sight of the love of Christ. Problems arise when people forget that love is the glue that holds the church together. The moment that we try to operate the church outside of the margins of Christ’s love, things begin to fall apart. The same is true of our lives as individual Christians because when we forget Christ’s love, we lose our ability to genuinely follow Him.
When we forget Christ’s love…
* The church becomes about us and what we desire
* Our differences become major obstacles to overcome
* Our anger over disagreements festers and grows
* Our comfort matters more than lost people
* Our focus loses sight that we were once lost as well
God’s love is sacrificial
The love of Christ flows out of a sense of sacrifice. From the time of Adam’s fall in the garden, God was preparing for the ultimate sacrifice for the redemption of humanity. God was going to stop at nothing to buy back His creation from the power of sin and death. God was going to give His one and only Son as a sacrifice to defeat Satan and overcome the corruption caused by sin. Sacrificial love reaches out to meet the needs of others. The very definition of what Jesus did on the cross was sacrifice. Jesus gave Himself in an act of love that might never be returned but that is the nature if sacrifice.
Jesus paid the penalty and the price for sin through His sacrifice. When we were helpless and without hope: Jesus gave Himself as a ransom for sin. We have been bought back from the power of sin and death by the sacrificial love of Jesus.
Notice that John communicates the reality that Jesus is God’s one and only Son. These words place a unique value on the person and position of Jesus. The price for our rescue from death was high. God loves us so much that He willingly gave up what was most dear to Him. The cost of salvation was total and complete. God offers freely the gift of salvation to all. The high cost of our free gift meant everything to God – How much more does He love us?
God’s love is salvation driven
What drives the love of God and the love of Jesus? Only one thing drives God’s love, salvation. John makes it evident that the primary focus of God’s love is to provide a way for humanity to be saved. The goal of Jesus was to offer the pathway to eternity. The offer of salvation flows out of an expression of divine love. It is an offer poured out in Christ’s blood on the cross. It is an offer to find life. It is an offer that demands a choice.
A question that many people raise: how can a loving God send people to Hell? It does seem to be counter to God’s love that people would be separated from Him for eternity. God’s desire is that none would perish and that all would find eternal life. Everything comes down to a matter of choice. We choose to either accept the offer of salvation or we choose to reject the offer.
The choice to believe or reject is ours and ours alone. Belief is more than just intellectual knowledge or mental acknowledgement. Belief is trusting in Christ and relying on His power to bring change. Christ died so that no one needs to perish. He gave His life so we could experience eternity.
We were dead in our sins. Our death was going to be both physical and spiritual. Our life had come to a dead end with no hope of escape. Through the cross, Jesus gives us an escape route from the dead end of sin and death. He gives us hope that he conquered death. Jesus loves us so much that He did whatever it took to rescue us from the payout of sin.
Our focus on love
"Do not waste your time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less." CS Lewis
If this is how much Jesus loves us, why can’t we seem to love each other? We are not living out of the love of Christ when we refuse to love others, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ. In fact, not loving our brothers and sisters in Christ is inexcusable.
We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death 1 John 3:14
There is no way that we can say that the love of Christ is within us and not love those within the family of God. John makes is crystal clear that if we do not love others we are really not living the life that Christ died to give us. Anyone who does not love remains in death. These are bold words and words that we cannot gloss over. The love of Christ should so change us that we willingly love others within the church.
Understand that choosing to be unloving is to walk in a spirit of death. Just because you are breathing doesn’t mean that you are really living. If you don’t love others, you’re already dead. Some of you sitting in these pews need a serious resuscitation with the love of Christ.
