We tend to take Christmas for granted. Those of us who have grown up in the church, we know the Christmas story from the Bible almost by heart. We can cite the passages from Luke about Jesus being born and laid in a manger. We know how the angels appeared to the shepherds while they were “keeping watch over their flock by night and made the announcement of the birth of Christ.
We know about the wise men seeking Him who was born King of the Jews from the book of Matthew. We know these stories and they have become romanticized. We quickly forget the whys and wherefores of all this happening. This sermon series will look at various aspects of the miracles associated with Christmas and today we will consider the biggest miracle of all, the gospel, the good news about salvation, the good news about Jesus Christ.
Our focal passage is a very familiar set of verses from the Gospel of John. I have preached from these verses before and most certainly, I will preach from these verse again.
John 3:14–18
Today, as we consider the Good News, the Gospel, we must remember there is no good news about salvation unless we have an understanding about the bad news. The bad news is quite simply, we all stand guilty before God. That is our nature:
Romans 3:10–12 as it is written, “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; 11 THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; 12 ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.”
(Paul quotes from Psalms 14 and 53) Paul concludes by saying that:
Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
We all have sinned, we have missed the mark, we all have offended an holy God. But right from the beginning, human kind has rebelled against a Holy God. Let’s go back to creation for a moment. Of everything God created, man and woman were the only creation that was made in His image:
Genesis 1:27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
And God blessed them and gave them dominion over all the earth. And God called this his last and final creation, on his final day of creation, "very good."
Genesis 1:31 God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good.
But what happen? Did God create a flaw in us? No He did not. God gave us the ability to choose. He gave us a free will. And we know the story, we know what happened. The fall of man. Man did not use his free will, his choices wisely. God had only one command in the Garden and both Adam and Eve disobeyed. The penalty for disobeying the command of God was death. And so it is to this day.
And that sin nature has been part of us ever since.
There was a point that God was sorry He made man:
Genesis 6:5–6 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
Then God sent the flood, destroyed the entire earth but Noah and his family, 8 people. But the world-wide cataclysmic event of the flood failed to change man. At the end of the flood we see the same old man:
Genesis 8:21 The LORD smelled the soothing aroma; and the LORD said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.
As we have read through the Bible this year, I started growing weary of page after page in Kings and Chronicles, through Jeremiah and Ezekiel, all that doom and gloom warnings from God to His people. Many people see God of the OT as a God of wrath. What I see is a God of unbelievable patience. But many will say that people are basically good, but that is not what the Scripture tells us.
Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?
When we look at all the bad in the world and we see man in continued rebellion against God, we wonder at the audacity of people to say to God I can get to heaven on my own terms.
There are those who criticize Christianity for saying there is only one way to heaven. But when we consider the inherited sin nature of man, quoting the late R.C. Sproul we can say:
The question is not, “Why is there only one way?” but “Why is there even one way?” [1]
Why did God give us any way to salvation at all? God would be fully just in condemning the entire human race. Let me let you in on a fact. In hell, there is no such thing as an innocent person. Every last one of us is guilty. And we do not have a good grasp on just what hell or eternal punishment is. Condemnation to hell is not annihilation, but a place of consciousness, where the Bible uses descriptive terms as in outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.
Herein is a problem with our modern culture: There is no fear of hell because there is no knowledge of hell. The Scriptures speak more of hell than of heaven. So without a knowledge of hell, why seek a salvation from hell? and this is the bad news. "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." We all deserve condemnation. We all deserve an eternity in hell, eternal separation from our Creator, separation from God. That is the bad news.
But here is the miracle, the miracle of the gospel.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
This is perhaps the most well-known and memorized verse in the Bible. Not to burst anyone’s bubble, but for verses 16 through 21, these words were probably not spoken by Jesus, but a commentary by John. In the ancient Greek, they did not have quote marks like we do today. But that doesn’t lessen the impact of these verses for it all was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It is truth whether Jesus spoke it or John wrote it.
Let’s break this verse down for our better understanding of just what is being said here. “For God so loved the world” does not mean that God so loved the world so very much, which He does, but rather how does God love the world, his creation, and more specifically, how does God love mankind, who was made in His image. The “how” here is important to note. God, not us, is the initiator in salvation. We had no ability to go to God because of our sin nature, so God came to us.
“that He gave His only begotten Son.” God provided the only way of salvation, the giving of His “one and only Son” (HCSB). Jesus said there is no other way to the Father but by Him (John 14:6). Peter proclaimed to the Sanhedrin that there is “no other name given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
“that whoever believes in Him” Whoever means anyone, who believes that Christ died for our sin, and was raised from the dead. Belief here means so much more than a book knowledge of the facts. It means such a belief that our lives or changed by these facts and so ordered that all our eternal hope is based on this.
“shall not perish” does not mean annihilation, but escape from eternal destruction and punishment.
“but have eternal life” with Jesus. Jesus said he is “the life” not “a life" (John 14:6). In John 17:3 Jesus defined eternal life as knowing Him.
John 3:17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
Jesus’ first advent, His coming by humble means, born as a poor baby and laid in a manger, His purpose was not to judge or condemn (most other translations), but rather to bring the means of salvation to the world.
John 3:18 He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
By a saving belief in Jesus, we passed up judgment, we no longer stand condemned for our sins. That is the good news of the gospel. That is the miracle of the Gospel!
But for those who reject the gospel, they reject Jesus, they stand condemn even now. And when that day comes when they stand before the Great White Throne as described in Revelation 20:11-15, they are not there to plead their case, but to hear sentence being passed and to be casted into the lake of fire.
So you see, it is all about Jesus. So how do we come to Him? How do we believe? Let’s return to the first 2 of our focal verses.
John 3:14–15 As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; 15 so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.
Jesus must be lifted up. Jesus here draws on the Old Testament story of Moses and the people of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness. Moses lifting the serpent in the wilderness is not a well know story. You can read about it in Numbers 21:4-9, but let me summarize.
What happened was the people complained against Moses and against God. So God sent fiery serpents and the serpents bit many of the people and many died. The people realized they had sinned, so they pleaded with Moses to intercede for them with God. God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it up on a pole for all to see. All the people needed to do was look at the serpent on top of pole and they lived.
I wonder if any of them that was bitten said, “This is silly. How can looking at a bronze snake on a pole save you?” and refused to look?
All that people need to do is believe on Jesus. Not a mere belief about Jesus, but trust in Him as Lord and Savior, confessing our sins. Jesus said even the “Son of Man” (Jesus favorite expression for Himself) said He must “be lifted up.” However, the very words “lifted up” in Jesus' day and time meant something different. Jesus used that term “lifted up” several times.
John 12:32 And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.”
To be lifted up did not mean to put on a pedestal for all to admire and worship. Quite the opposite. To be "lifted up" in Jesus' day meant to be lifted up in execution, to be lifted up on a cross to die a painful, torturous death. You see the whole purpose of Jesus coming was to die on a Roman cross. To be the Suffering Servant as prophesied by Isaiah.
2 Corinthians 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Jesus was lifted up to be sin for us, taking our penalty of death upon Himself. In turn, we receive His righteousness.
The gospel is not a new plan of salvation; it is the fulfillment of God’s plan of salvation that was begun in Israel, was completed in Jesus Christ, and is made known by the church.[2]
The miracle of the gospel? We stand condemned but God so loved the world that He sent Jesus to die in our place. Jesus came the first time to save. Jesus is coming back, and when he does, He is coming as Judge.
The gospel is a lot to rejoice over this Christmas season. But the end of the age is upon us. When Jesus comes again, the Scriptures are quite clear. Jesus will take to His home all that belong to Him and He will judge the rest.
The question this morning is: “Do you know Jesus personally, as Lord and Savior?” To know him now is to pass from death to life. We can possess that life eternal now. That is the good news of the gospel. Jesus paid it all, all to Him we owe.
[1] R. C. Sproul, John, St. Andrew’s Expositional Commentary (Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2009), 45.
[2] Ronald F. Youngblood, F. F. Bruce, and R. K. Harrison, Thomas Nelson Publishers, eds., Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1995).
