For All the Whosoevers
Good morning! Please open your Bibles to John chapter 3. Trivia question: How many verses are there in the Bible? No googling. Just guess. [play high low]
Ok. There are 31,102 verses in the Bible. And if those 31,102 verses, there’s no argument that John 3:16 is the most well-known. Many of you can probably quote it from memory from the King James Version. Say it with me:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
I don’t think there is another verse of Scripture that is so much a part of the pop-culture mainstream than John 3:16. Think about it.
It’s on the bottom of every paper cup from in and out burger.
And on the bottom of every shopping bag from the clothing store Forever 21.
In the 80’s and 90’s a guy named Rollen Stewart became famous for wearing a rainbow wig and holding up a sign saying “John 3:16” at sporting events. That guy was not only featured on the Simpsons, but was also parodied by Christopher Walken in a Saturday Night Live skit.
Is there any other Bible verse that has been on the Simpsons and Saturday Night Live?
Well, Rollen Stewart inspired the wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin to sell Austin 3:16 shirts.
In 2009 the Florida Gators won the national championship. Quarterback Tim Tebow wrote “John 3:16” on his eye black, and the next day over 90 million people Googled the verse to see what it said.
So this morning, I want to talk about John 3:16. And let me just say for the record that you’re going to be tempted to tune this sermon out. John 3:16 is so familiar to you that you’re going to think, “Oh, this sermon isn’t really for me. I’ve been a Christian ever since Vacation Bible School. This is really just for lost people.
Let me urge you to stay dialed in this morning for two reasons. Number 1, the gospel should never get old to you. We all need to preach the gospel to ourselves and be reminded of its power. And number two, we all need to share the gospel with others. So this morning is both a reminder and a training opportunity. And if that’s not enough to convince you to stay engaged, then let me urge you not to be a distraction to someone else, because there might be some in here that are hearing the gospel for the first time.
Let me pray for us and then we’ll get going.
[pray]
Background— nicodemus.
verse 2: This is kind of a polite exchange of pleasantries. Nic is like “I’ve heard so much about you. Your reputation precedes you.” And maybe he’s expecting the same thing. “I’ve heard of you, too, Nicodemus. Your knowledge of the Torah is impressive. You’re a member of the Sanhedrin (which was like the Jewish Supreme Court). It’s an honor to meet you” You know, the kind of things you say when you’re meeting a business contact or networking.
But Jesus cuts right to the chase. No time for chitchat.He responds in verse 3:
John 3:3 ESV
3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
It’s worth pointing out that the Greek word translated “again” here can also be translated “from above.” So Jesus was being intentionally ambiguous. He could just as easily been saying “you must be born from above” as “you must be born again.”
But Nicodemus is a logical, rational, literal kind of guy, and as far as he is concerned, there’s only one way to be born. Look at John 3:4
John 3:4 ESV
4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
Nic is like, “You know, the last I checked the womb only has an off-ramp. You’re born once, you die once. You don’t get frequent flier points on the birth canal.”
Being born again sounds impossible, but it also sounds really tempting. Who wouldn’t love to have a fresh start or a second chance at life? You have to admit the idea of getting a do-over on life sounds really tempting. From golf to the ACT, even to marriage for some people to taking the ACT, we like the idea of mulligans. We like pencils with erasers. What if you could?
Look at verses 5-6. According to Jesus, not only can you be born again, you must be born again. He isn’t talking about a physical rebirth— being born of water. To enter the kingdom of God, you can’t just be born of the flesh. You have to be born of the Spirit.
In verse seven, Jesus says, “Nicodemus, don’t be so amazed (ESV, “Do not marvel”) when I say you must be born again. This is the Holy Spirit we are talking about. You can’t put limits on what the Holy Spirit can do in a person’s life. He’s going to do whatever He wants to do— move where He wants to move and save who He wants to save. So it doesn’t matter who you are or where you are or what you have done, you can experience new life in Christ.
So maybe you are asking the same question Nicodemus asks in verse 9: How can this be? Maybe you’re saying, pastor, you don’t know what I’ve been through. You don’t know what I’ve done in my past. And even if I believed God could save me, I don’t know what to do to be saved.
For all of us, let’s say John 3:16 out loud again. It will be on the screen if you need a refresher.
[read, pray]
This morning we’re going to look at four truths. And the first is
1. God defines and initiates love.
Look at the first four words: For God so loved.
It doesn’t say, for we so loved God that we accepted Him. And praise God that it doesn’t! Because nothing good ever happens when human beings define love. We tend define love as transactional: I’ll love you if you do something for me. If you love me back. If you have what I want. The human heart is resistant to giving of itself without getting something in return.
In the late 1800’s, a man named George Matheson learned this firsthand. As a teenager he began to lose his sight, and by the time he graduated from college in 1861 and began his seminary studies, he was completely blind. It was at this point that his fiancee returned his engagement ring with this note:
“I cannot see my way clear to go through life bound by the chains of marriage to a blind man.”
“I can’t see being married to a blind man.” Can you imagine being broken up with by a DAD JOKE?
Matheson never got over his heartbreak. Though he became a successful pastor, the hurt was always there. After performing his sisters’ wedding in 1882, he wrote this poem in his diary. The poem became one of history’s most beautiful hymns:
O love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
God’s love will not let you go! It isn’t transactional. It isn’t conditional. It doesn’t depend on anything you do. God defines love as self-giving, self-sacrificing, un-earned, steadfast, unchanging, overwhelming, never-ending, never failing. In fact, God defines love as Himself. 1 John 4:8: God is love.
And God initiates love. Skip down a few verses from 1 John 4:8 and you come to 1 John 4:19 : We love because he first loved us. And check this out: just as your first birth was the result of an act of love that you had nothing to do with, so is your second birth. You didn’t choose when you were born, where you were born, what kind of family you were born into. That was all at the initiative of your parents.
God initiates and defines love. And notice that when Jesus is teaching Nicodemus, he doesn’t say, “For God so loved His chosen people.” He didn’t say, “For God so loved Pharisees.” He didn’t say “For God so loved Nicodemus.” The Greek word for world is kosmos. It means all created things. The Universe. Everything that exists. So whatever God created, God loves. Whoever God made, God loves.
This doesn’t mean Jesus died for animals and that “All dogs go to Heaven.” But it does mean that all creation is eagerly waiting for our redemption. In Romans 8:20-23, Paul describes creation as being in bondage to corruption until our redemption. Think of it this way— because God loves everything he has made, he sent His only son to redeem fallen man in order that through our adoption as sons and daughters, creation itself will be redeemed.
So the first takeaway from John 3:16 is that God is the definer and the initiator of love.
2. God demonstrates love. God wasn’t just sitting up there in Heaven, looking down at us humans saying, “Oh, I just love them.”
Do you ever go to a pet store just to look at the puppies, or baby bunnies? Do you ever watch videos of kittens to see what cats look like before they become possessed by demons?
Right now I’m a little obsessed with baby otter videos on YouTube. I look at them and think, they are adorable! Look at them! I just love baby otters. But now ask me if I would want a baby otter in my house. And the answer is no. They need a lot of space. We would have to convert our pool and backyard to an outdoor habitat, complete with an aquarium, which we would then have to stock with fish and crawdads and mollusks. It would be a long term commitment, because otters can live to be 15-20 years old. They can’t be housebroken. And in Alabama, it is illegal to have one as a pet. So no matter how much I say I love baby otters, there is no way I would ever go through the cost, the hassle, the expense, of adopting one. So at the end of the day, I don’t really love baby otters. You see, for love to be love, it has to be expressed. It has to be demonstrated. And that’s exactly what John 3:16 says God did: For God so loved the world that He gave.
God doesn’t look at us the way we look at hamsters at PetSmart. We look through the glass and we say, “Awwww… that one is so cute? Look at that one on the exercise wheel! Look at that one hiding in his little shelter! There’s one at the water bottle. Look at her drinking. Oooh… that one looks kind of sick. If I was going to purchase a hamster, it sure wouldn’t be that one.
Instead, God looks at fallen, sinful, weak human beings, and He says, I’ll take them all. So He paid the price to purchase every single one of us. The pretty and the plain. Those who are working so hard but getting nowhere. Those who are afraid and timid, who build walls around themselves so no one can get to them. Those who can’t stop drinking. Even those who are sick and weak. God looks down at our little habitat and says, I want to bring all of them home with Me, and I am willing to pay the highest price for them.
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son.
Some translations say only son, or only begotten son. It’s the Greek word monogenous. It’s the opposite of homogenous, which means many of the same kind. monogenous means unique. One of a kind. One who is like no other. God didn’t have a whole bunch of begotten sons, and He just sent His least favorite to go and die for our sins. God gave His unique, no one like Him Son. In fact, because God has reveled Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to say God gave His Son is another way of saying God gave Himself.
Was it because we were worth it? Was it because we are good people? Strong people? godly people? righteous people? No. Romans 5:6-8 spells it out for us:
Romans 5:6–8 ESV
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
What an incredible invitation— to have our sins forgiven! For God to make His dwelling with us! To have His Holy Spirit dwell with us. And it is the most inclusive invitation ever, because it is extended to everybody. Whosoever believes.
I think if I had to pick a favorite word in John 3:16, it would be “whosoever.” For one thing, its just fun to say. Sounds a little like a sneeze. Or characters in a Dr Seuss story. Cindy Lou Whosoever.
And even though I typically study and preach out of other translations, if I could keep just one word from the KJV it would be “whosoever.” It’s just so distinct.
It is also also one of Jesus’ favorite words. He said it to the woman at the well in John 4:13-14
John 4:13–14 ESV
14 but whosoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
He said it to Martha at the tomb of Lazarus:
John 11:26 ESV
26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
He said it to the crowd in what would be His last public sermon before He was crucified: John 12:46
John 12:46 ESV
46 I have come into the world as light, so that whosoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.
The Apostle John said it about Jesus in 1 John 5:1
1 John 5:1 ESV
1 Whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and whosoever loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.
I
s there any “who” that isn’t included in “whosoever?” Listen, I know “inclusion” is a politically charged word these days, but it is a gospel word. It means “included.” There is no evangelism without inclusion. If the gospel isn’t good news for everybody, then it’s not good news for anybody.
God’s love is for the entire world. Look at verse 17. John 3:17
John 3:17 ESV
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
This is remarkable not because the world is so big, but because the world is so bad.
Nobody earns it.
Nobody deserves it.
But everyone needs it.
And all the whosoevers have access to it.
John 3:16 is not about our loveliness but about God’s love. The text does not say God loves us (present tense) now that we have been made his children. It says God loved us (past tense) before we were saved.
But listen. Just because “whosoever” can, that doesn’t mean “whosoever” will. It is an inclusive invitation,
But it is an exclusive gospel.
In all the verses I just read, “whosoever” is paired with responding to Jesus, and Jesus alone.
Go back to the woman at the well: Whosoever drinks of the water that I give.
To the tomb of Lazarus: I am the resurrection and the life. Whosoever lives in me and believes in me shall never die. And Jesus even called for an invitation: Do you believe this?
Everyone who grew up in church can quote John 3:16. A lot of you can probably quote John 3:17: God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him.
But probably not many of us have John 3:18 memorized:
John 3:18–20 ESV
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
“Believed in the name of the only Son of God.” There is no other way to the Father. Jesus said in John 14:6
John 14:6 ESV
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
There is no other name by which we must be saved. Acts 4:12 says there is salvation in no one else.
Salvation through Jesus requires surrender to Jesus.
What does it mean to believe in Jesus? Well, its more than just mouthing the words “I believe in Jesus.” It’s more than intellectually accepting that Jesus was a real, historical person. James wrote that even the demons believe, and they tremble (James 2:19)
To believe in Jesus for salvation means you are putting your trust in Him and Him alone. You can talk all day long about how you believe a bridge across a canyon will support your weight, but until you walk across it, you don’t really believe it. And listen, because this is so important. There is a canyon. There is an abyss between you and God. It’s called sin. The moment human beings rebelled against God, the ground opened up between holy God and sinful man.
Jesus’ death on the cross bridged that abyss. Romans 6:23
Romans 6:23 ESV
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
[Explain the gospel]
I want to go back to something we talked about earlier. Remember Rollen Stewart, the Rainbow wig guy? Obviously, he knew John 3:16. And you would assume he believed it. But have you ever wondered what happened to him?
See, Rollen Stewart started off as a stoner. After his parents died and his marriage failed, he moved into the mountains of Spokane Washington and started a pot farm. After years of getting high and watching TV, he decided that the key to happiness and success was to be on TV. He moved to Hollywood and tried to become an actor. That went nowhere. No one would hire him to be on TV, so he forced himself on to TV by showing up at sporting events in his rainbow wig. But that wasn’t enough. He wanted to be famous.
One night, he was smoking weed in a hotel room, watching TV, when he had a religious experience. He was watching a program about the end times called “Today in Bible Prophecy,” and he believed God revealed to him that Jesus was coming back in 1992. Rollen found his purpose in life. Now, whenever he went to sporting events, he brought a poster that said John 3:16. And he figured if he ever got interviewed, he would say “Jesus is coming real soon and you gotta be saved, man.”
But it wasn’t working. He wasn’t being interviewed. In fact, TV producers told their cameramen they would lose their jobs if they showed him. His plan to be on TV was blowing up in his face.
So Rollen started blowing things up. Literally. He set off stink bombs at the Crystal Cathedral, the Christian Broadcasting Network, Christian bookstores, and the American Music Awards. In 1992 he was arrested after a standoff with the FBI. He had taken a maid hostage in a hotel room near LAX, and was threatening to shoot airplanes out of the sky unless people turned to Jesus. Stewart is currently serving three consecutive life sentences in prison on kidnapping and terrorism charges, He became eligible for parole in 2002, but it was denied.
Listen, you can believe in Jesus. You can say all the right things. You can even believe Jesus is coming back. But unless you make Jesus the Lord of your life, its all just words and a wig. It’s a t-shirt and a poster.
In Romans 10:9-10, Paul wrote,
Romans 10:9–10 ESV
9 if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
It isn’t just about the words you say. It’s about the decision you make in your heart.
Whosoever means you.
