As we approach Easter Sunday, I want to invite you to discover what we Christians have to shout about.
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It's been said that John 3:16 is the Gospel in a nutshell. Gospel means “Good News,” and what we are told here is good news worth shouting about. The message of John 3:16 is all about how God loves us. And it‘s a love worth shouting about. Why? Because it is . . .
1. A universal love - "the world"
We're all the objects of God's love. When Jesus said "world" He meant people wherever they are, whoever they are, and however they are.
“There is nothing we can do to make God love us more. There is nothing we can do to make God love us less.” - Phillip Yancey
Yet, though God loves us as we are, He loves us too much to leave us as we are. What does God want to change about man's circumstance?
1. Our isolation. Because we are sinners by nature and sinners by choice; we are kept from a personal love relationship with God.
Because of our sin, we are . . .
A. Presently isolated from God and His love.
"For we all have become like one who is [ceremonially] unclean [like a leper], and all our deeds of righteousness are like filthy rags." - Isaiah 64:6a (Amplified)
Leprosy or Hansen’s Disease is in infection that damages the nerve endings in extremities. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t cause fingers and toes to fall off. Instead, the nerve endings are damaged and the extremities become numb. Therefore, because a leper can’t feel his fingers, feet, and toes, when he stubs his toe or bashes his foot or hurts his hand it can be cut or hurt and get infected and gangrenous and have to be amputated. The social effects of leprosy have been terrible. Because skin sores cause deformity and
damaged extremities are infectious; leprosy was thought to be highly contagious. So lepers were isolated from society - cut off from all contact, love and acceptance.
Like the leper, because of sin, we are presently isolated from a holy God, who loves us; and if we die in that condition, then we will be . . .
B. Permanently isolated from God and His love.
"We all wither and decay like a leaf, and our wickedness [our sin, our injustice, our wrongdoing], like the wind, takes us away [carrying us far from God’s favor, toward destruction]." - Isaiah 64:6b (Amplified)
If something isn't done to deal with the sin that prevents us from being able to have a personal love relationship with a holy God, then what awaits us in hell is an eternity of isolation from God and His love.
"Hell will be agonizingly dull, small, and insignificant, without company, purpose, or accomplishment. Hell will have “no community, no camaraderie, no friendship. Misery loves company, but there will be nothing to love in Hell." - Randy Alcorn, Heaven
2. Our imperfection.
"For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard." - Romans 3:23 (NLT)
"You see it everywhere you look - the unjust 'normals' of earthly life. Damp, dirty blankets trail out from under cardboard boxes beneath a city bridge. Retirement savings plummet in value just as their account holders need to tap into them. Punk burglars break into a person's house, and all the police can do is file a meaningless report. It stinks. It's bad. It's not right. It's broken. And in homes and hospitals every day of the week, at courthouses and gravesides everywhere in the world, people of all spiritual makes and models suffer from it - from a world that toils along in hopeless disrepair." - Ed Stetzer
2. A sacrificial love - "he gave his one and only Son"
A holy God's justice required a penalty be paid for sin; yet a merciful God's love called for sin to be forgiven so we might have a love
relationship with Him. This was done when Jesus sacrificed Himself in payment for our sin. Jesus was uniquely qualified to do so because:
A. He was fully God. So His payment for our sin was of infinite value. His sacrifice fully satisfied the requirements of an infinitely holy God.
B. He was fully man. And being sinless, both by nature nor by choice, His sacrifice for sin was therefore acceptable for the entire human race.
Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection provided for man's two problems:
1) He took our isolation on Himself at the cross.
"At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, 'Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?' which means 'My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?'" - Matthew 27:45-46 (NLT)
"Jesus was crying out in anguish because of the separation He experienced from His heavenly Father for the first and only time in all of eternity. It's the only time we have record that Jesus did not address God as Father. Because the Son had taken sin upon Himself, the Father turned His back. Christ did not in any sense or degree cease to exist as God or as a member of the Trinity. He did not cease to be the Son, any more than a child who sins severely against his human father ceases to be his child. But Jesus did for a while cease to know the intimacy of fellowship with His heavenly Father, just as a disobedient child ceases for a while to have intimate, normal, loving fellowship with his human father." - John MacArthur
"God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God." - 2 Corinthians 5:21 (The Message)
2) He overcame our imperfection through His resurrection.
A term used of Jesus in the New Testament is "firstborn." It often refers to His resurrection and how it guarantees God will one day make all things new. For example, His resurrection guarantees . . .
A) That all believers will be made new like Him -
"For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters." - Romans 8:29 (NLT)
B) That all creation will be made new like Him -
"The Son is . . . the firstborn over all creation." - Colossians 1:15 (NIV)
3. An available love - whoever believes in him
A love relationship is available to anyone who believes in Christ. But what does it mean to believe? Does it mean mentally accepting certain things to be true? Yes, but it's more. If our belief is going to save, to make a difference, it must also be an act of the will. I must choose to trust in Christ, the one and only Son, as my one and only Savior.
I can believe a chair can hold my weight, but my belief doesn't make a difference until I choose to sit down. Now, when I do sit down in the chair, what keeps me from falling to the ground? The strength of my belief? No, the strength of the chair! But I do not benefit from the strength of the chair until I sit down. Likewise, when I choose to trust in Christ as my one and only Savior, I am saved, not by the strength of my belief in Him, but by the strength of the One in whom I believe. But I am not saved until I trust Him!
4. A transformational love - shall not perish but have eternal life
The emphasis is not just on length of life, but on depth of life. Eternal life isn't something I'll experience one day; it's mine to experience today - note: has eternal life. What is eternal life?
"Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." - John 17:3 (NIV)
Conclusion: Because of God's love, a salvation has been provided through Christ whereby I can have a personal love relationship with
God that will forever transform my life! And this is the message we Christian's have to exclaim to the whole world!
"The gospel isn't just a mechanism for getting people saved. It's the announcement of a love that's changed the world, a love that takes the people who find themselves loved like this and sends them to live and work in a totally new way. The energy to get up and go on as a Christian, as one who works for the gospel, comes not from a cold sense of duty, not from a fear of being punished if you don’t do your bit, but from the warm-hearted response of love to the love which has reached out, reached down, and reached you.” - N.T. Wright
